For Immediate Release
Redwood Mountain Faire Distributes $4,000 to Local Charities
Thanks to you, the hundreds of volunteers, and the support of so many in our community, the 2011 Redwood Mountain Faire was a remarkable success in spite of record rains! The artists, crafters and other vendors were there with so many beautiful and interesting items. The music was absolutely fantastic, the food delicious and the local beers and wines delightful. Despite the torrential rains on Saturday, Sunday was a gorgeous day with over 2,000 people in attendance enjoying a day at the Faire.
Best of all, when we despaired of even covering the Faire’s expenses, enough people came to enjoy the Redwood Mountain Faire that expenses were covered and there was $4,000 to pass on to our wonderful non-profit Faire beneficiaries.
Redwood Mountain Faire Distributes $15,000 to Local Charities
Non-profit organizations throughout the San Lorenzo Valley are celebrating as they receive checks totaling $15,000 from The Redwood Mountain Faire, sponsored by The Valley Women’s Club (VWC). Faire Steering Committee Members and the VWC Board are delighted that the Faire, in spite of the Recession and the difficulties of keeping costs down, provided a wonderful spotlight on local arts and music, and could profit so many groups that are providing crucial services to the community.
Organizations benefitting from the proceeds of the June 5th Faire had provided volunteers for the dozens of tasks needed to put on the event. The many diverse organizations benefitting this year include the Santa Cruz Mountain Arts Center, Mountain Community Resources, Valley Churches United, Boy Scout and Girl Scout Troops, Glen Arbor Preschool, Camp Joy Gardens, SLV Community Band, SLV High Boosters, SLV High Football and Track Teams, South Street Centre, SLV Pop Warner, Cabrillo College Football Team and the SLV CERT Team. Many other organizations benefitted by having informational booths at the event.
The VWC did not keep its share of the proceeds, but decided to increase the funds distributed to the other nonprofits this first year back.
The Redwood Mountain Faire, returning to the SLV after 14 years, was a success in many ways. Almost 2,000 people were there enjoying music, admiring beautiful treasures, eating wonderful food, sipping special beverages, learning about nonprofits in our community, finding shade under huge oak trees, listening to the train, watching their children have a great time, and just enjoying the event and the generations of people it brought together.
About 350 volunteers from 15 local nonprofit organizations worked at the event, and others helped with some aspect of organizing the event. Volunteers totaled well over 1500 hours of help for the day of the Faire alone! (At Santa Cruz County’s “Living Wage” that is worth over $20,250 in donated labor!)
53 musicians, in 13 bands, plus their support teams, provided an astonishing quality and variety. People of all ages gathered in the sun or shade to dance and clap and shake heads and ogle at the talent on stage, with the amazing voices of Mary McCaslin on the Creekside Stage, and Matt Costa on the Meadow Stage topping off the day!
Local artists and artisans provided some beautiful, and aromatic, and decorative, and creative, and wonderful items to enjoy and treasure and take home.
Faire vendors bringing in foods and beverages (all those great microbreweries) had a level of quality and taste, not to mention variety, that pleased everyone who attended.
Our local government representatives, State Assembly Member, Bill Monning, and Supervisor Mark Stone, came on stage to honor the Faire and the Valley Women’s Club, with wonderful proclamations talking of accomplishments and benefits to the community.
Everyone who attended loved Georgianna Clark’s wonderful Roaring Camp, encompassing the Faire with the beauty of our Valley at its best, the unique and wonderful old West town, and the train blowing off steam and whistling loudly, often at just the right time in a song.
In 2011, a two-day Faire is planned for June 4th and 5th and the organizers are already hard at work to provide another magnificent event.
For Release :: June 2010
REDWOOD MOUNTAIN FAIRE’S CREEKSIDE STAGE FEATURES 6 BANDS; 7 ON THE MEADOW STAGE…PLUS ARTS/CRAFTS, CHILDREN’S ACTIVITIES, FOOD & MORE
When you review the line-up for the Meadow Stage at the Redwood Mountain Faire (www.redwoodmountainfaire.com), coming Saturday, June 5th to Roaring Camp in Felton, it’s an impressive and exciting range of high-quality performers, each more than worth the price of admission. Then, when you add the 6 bands playing on the more intimate Creekside Stage, you know you will be torn apart deciding which performers to watch.
The highly anticipated return of Faire will provide a wide range of music styles on two stages, to appeal to all ages, along with juried fine arts and crafts, exciting children’s activities, excellent food and beverages (including local micro-brews), while it benefits a wide range of nonprofit and service organizations.
The big Meadow Stage features 7 bands: Matt Costa (Folk/Indie), Jaymes Reunion (Pop/Rock), Moonalice (Pop Rock/Roots Music), SNAIL (Rock), Sharon Allen & Friends (Blues), Brothers Comatose (Americana/Folk/Concrete ), and Take 1 (Reggae).
Matt Costa has performed at virtually every major Music Festival across the US, and draws on his experiences growing up in California for his stirring lyrics, and a strong musical background for his appealing melodies. While best known to 20 and 30-somethings, he’ll touch a strong chord in everyone!
Opening for Matt, Jaymes Reunion’s five musicians will catch the crowd with their moving songs and rhythms. Influenced by Paul McCartney’s ability to catch the listener emotionally with a remarkable blend of words and sound, Cameron Jaymes, piano and singer, has gathered a strong group of musicians with a similar gift. On guitar is Braydon Nelson; Eric Watson plays bass, and Jeremy Taylor and Jared Byers handle percussion. Jaymes Reunion features soaring, solid vocals backed by marching drums, pop-rock keyboards and strumming guitar. No standing still while they perform!
Moonalice finds its soul in a wonderful legend, where a sextet of nomads traveled the country bringing celebration and joy to the people. Each performer, including Jésus H. Moonalice (Barry Sless), Sir Sinjin Moonalice (Pete Sears), Blue Moonalice (Ann McNamee), White Cloud Moonalice (John Molo), Chubby Wombat Moonalice (Roger McNamee), and The Seventh . . . Yggdrassil Moonalice (Jack Casady), is extraordinarily skilled on several instruments. And everyone plays BASS. So you know you will be unable to hold still while captured with this local group’s amazing sound!
Anyone around in the late ‘60’s in Santa Cruz – or since – has probably heard SNAIL! Formed by Bob O’Neill, they were a “Cream-style power trio.” SNAIL played the club circuit in the San Francisco bay area and released two albums in the 1970’s and played their signature song, “The Joker,” on American Bandstand. In 2009, back rockin’ on the scene, Renaissance Records has rereleased the Snail/Flow albums together on CD, and SNAIL is again performing, with both old and new tunes, featuring Bob O’Neill and Ron Fillmore along with Guido Valverde. SNAIL is back and they are coming to The Faire!
Sharon Allen will be singin’ the Blues at the Faire! Sleepy John Sandidge says Sharon Allen “is way up high in the list of sweet voiced singers… (with) music that is beautiful and lasting.” Sharon's musical path started “amongst a family of fireside musicians. The calling was in her blood, and she found her way, dancing, singing, clogging and picking to California, where, for many years, she fronted a blues-rock band with then-husband Allen Frank and The Firebirds.” Working with B.B. King, Etta James, and Elvin Bishop “honed Sharon's musical chops,” and she has now come out with a solo album and is catching raves from everyone.
Take two brothers who’ve played music on guitar and banjo “since birth,” add two highschool friends who know the mandolin and bass, stir in travel and exploration, make a stop in San Francisco to come together to perform, and pick up a brilliant fiddler, and you’ve got the powerful talent of The Brothers Comatose. Ben and Alex Morrison, Joe Pacini and Gio Benedetti, and Philip Brezina have the “foot-stomping, shout-along,” dance-compelling Olde Tyme and Bluegrass music that will have the entire meadow of people sharing in the joy of real music played really well.
There’s nothing like a reggae sound to get people moving, and Take 1, featuring San Lorenzo Valley natives, Yeshe Jackson, John Golling, Brian Valdevia and Santa Cruz’s Marcus Thayer, has the muscle to open the Faire with excitement and great sound. Yeshe is well known for his limber lead guitar and John for a steady, powerful base. Marcus’ percussion provides as much melody as rhythm, and Brian’s strong saxophone winds it all up together into breathtaking high notes. They are praised for their “calm confidence and true passion … (with) super danceable old school roots reggae, combined with upbeat ska.
Featured on the Creekside Stage is singer Mary McCaslin, who was a major draw many times at the original Faire. McCaslin brings a special touch to traditional folk songs and has led the way to today’s “new folk” singer-songwriters with her distinctive voice and her skill on guitar or banjo. Her performance is studded with ballads from the old west or songs with her own moving lyrics. McCaslin has a distinctive vocal style creating poignant renditions of pop standards and rock classics, from "Ghost Riders In The Sky,” or the Beatles' "Things We Said Today,” to the Supremes' "My World Is Empty.” Her own songs, "Prairie In The Sky." “Circle Of Friends,” or "Down The Road” are her own, and their lyrics ring true.
Jay Lingo’s voice has the quality of Johnny Cash, with a special feel of its own. His songs, like “She Won’t Have Me,” or “Little Devil,” have the classic themes of country-western, but are unique whether fast-paced and energetic or sorrowful sad. Along with vocals, Jay plays rhythm guitar, and his band, featuring Jeff Cruse, lead guitar, Charlie Wallace on lap steel, pedal steel, lead guitar and dobro, Jerry Bradley handles Bass guitar and vocals, with Jim Norris on drums, trash can lids, pots and pans and egg beaters, is tight and creative. With our without cowboy boots, listeners will not want to be sitting down while Lingo plays.
Patti Maxine is a Lap steel virtuoso and is renowned as one of the hardest working musicians in Santa Cruz, California. “A session player in constant demand, Patti plays most nights of the week. A musical Swiss army knife, Patti handles a wide variety of styles with ease, sliding gracefully from Hawaiian to swing, from R&B and rock, from blues to jazz and back again.” And she’ll be on the Creekside Stage with some special guest musicians, to bring her remarkable talent to a bit of rock ‘n roll, Western, Blues, R&B, Swing and Jazz. -- with steel.
And then there’s Harmony Grits, who have played the acoustic music circuit for 20 years. Known for their traditional bluegrass instrumentation within a freeform musical style, they show a deep respect for hard core bluegrass, and include elements of blues, folk, rock, and more. All five members, Mike McKinley, an itinerant bluegrass mandolin player from Michigan, Jim Lewin (guitar), Jeff Baldwin (dobro) and Doug Marcus (bass), sing and write songs, and any fundamental Grit-esque experience would include their great originals, many well-chosen old chestnuts, and epic instrumental jams.
Michael Gaither is a singer/songwriter, whose music is described as, "warm, often hilarious Americana folk tinged with the occasional country beat.” Gaither favors songs with stories and tales of day-to-day life: Big cars. Bad drivers. A baby's first steps. Dogs and horses, with a definite sense of humor. Gaither has been a journalist, teacher, even a joke writer for Jay Leno, so his performance mixing folk, Americana, and even a little gospel to tell funny and poignant stories of everyday life, will be a highlight of the Faire.
You’ll want to arrive early to the Faire (the gates open at 10:30) to be sure to catch Taylor Rae, whose whole, sweet voice is the perfect compliment to her lyrics. Love songs that grab the heart, and an optimism that shines through the painful parts of life bring an honesty to her lyrics, a bit like Cat Stevens. She’ll be bringing a few friends on stage with her, so there will surely be some pleasant surprises in her performance. We’re hoping she’ll play “Stay Away,” “Let’s Go,” and “Company” from her new CD.
For information about the Faire, including no-fee ticket sales, go to www.redwoodmountainfaire.com. Tickets are also available at Scarborough Lumber/Hardware in Boulder Creek, Ben Lomond and Scotts Valley (Kings Village Store) and at Liberty Bank in Felton. The Faire is a benefit for many nonprofit organizations serving our community, presented by The Valley Women’s Club (www.vwcweb.org). Or call 831/338-6570.
