Music On The Mountain hitting the highway
Music down in the valleys is resonating for Music On The Mountain (MOM).
The annual MOM festival in Fort St. James is one of the region’s staple summer music events, and a tour is about to ply through the nearby communities from east to west. MOM On The Road starts in Jasper on Thursday (The Jasper Legion, 8 p.m.), Prince George on Friday (Fore Bistro, 9 p.m.), Smithers on Saturday (Bulkley Valley Brewery, 7 p.m.) and Fort St. James on Sunday (Pope Mountain Arts, 7 p.m.).
“The way the tour is working, is there are two standard acts: myself and BanjoMan. The two of us will perform at all the shows, but then we will have a couple of additional acts at each town along the way,” said Danny Bell, a longtime Prince George musician and music event organizer. He is a drummer and accordion player, as primary tools of his trade.
BanjoMan is Maxime Cossette, a rock ‘n’ roll banjo player from Bragg Creek, Alta., with a national reputation for working his bluegrass instrument like Hendrix worked a guitar.
“I’m really excited to team up with him, I hear really good things, and I love that we get to team up with other different acts along the way. We’ll get to meet a lot of new people. I’m interested to see what the audiences will be like. I’m just excited.”
In Jasper the other names on the marquee will be Saltwater Hank and Gui Benoit.
The additional acts in Smithers are DJ Avalanche and Theresa Mohr.
The Fort St. James support act is Sam Holden.
Here in Prince George, BanjoMan and Bell will be joined on stage by Flying Machine.
These shows will give a glimpse of the main event, the MOM Festival coming up Aug. 10-12. It is one of the premier ongoing folk music festivals in the region, alongside Hootstock (July 27-29) just east of 100 Mile House, ArtsWells (Aug. 3-6) at Wells-Barkerville, and the Robson Valley Music Festival (taking the year off).
“The lineup looks amazing this year at MOM,” Bell said. The list includes High Quadra Ramblers from Victoria, Wax Mannequin from Hamilton, Blackberry Wood from Vancouver, My Son the Hurricane out of Toronto, plus many more coming into the area from afar and a who’s who of the region’s very best music acts.
“It’s the first small music festival I ever went to and it definitely changed my life,” said Bell who was a member of beloved local folkrock band Black Spruce Bog at that time. “They were one of the first festivals and first places outside of Prince George that gave Black Spruce Bog a chance to play, and they helped get us into the region’s well connected music community. Lionel (Conant, MOM’s co-founder and artistic director) is also a really great concert promoter to work with, really supportive, and his wife Rose Marie is just terrific to the northern B.C. music scene. The first year I went was 2011 or ’12 and I haven’t missed one since.”
On this mini-tour Bell will be giving a sneak peek at his solo accordion music as he works on an album release later this summer. He hopes to have the debut of Danny Bell & His Disappointments ready for audiences in time for the MOM Festival.
For the full slate of 2018 performers and more info on attending the main Fort St. James event, look up the MOM Festival’s Facebook page or go to momfestival.com.