French Riviera Country Music Festival comin' up!

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

The 14th annual French Riviera Country Music Festival will take place at the beginning of August, with a mix of European and U.S. artists. Looks like it will be a blast!

Here's the program:

Vendredi 2 août 2013

The Mariotti Brothers (F)
Steff Nevers (No)

FLYNNVILLE TRAIN (USA)

Samedi 3 août 2013

The Ranch House Favourites (NL)
TWO TONS OF STEEL (USA)
Paul Mac Bonvin (CH)

I saw Steff Nevers at the Equiblues rodeo and country festival in St. Agreve, France last summer, and he was terrific.

Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

Italian cowboy exhibit at Western Folklife Center

Andrea "Drew" Mischianti on the fence, Western Games, 2005. Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

An exhibition of Italian "cowboy" life will open at the 29th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering at the Western Folklife Center in Elko, Nevada. The exhibition will then run from Feb. 1 to Sept. 9.

It was put together by Andrea "Drew" Mischianti and his wife, Natalia Estrada, and is based on photographs taken by Estrada. They document the "butteri," or Italian mounted shepherds/cowboys of Tuscany's Maremma region, but also the U.S. West-style round-ups and cowboy life lived in Italy by Mischianti, Estrada and other enthusiasts. (Call them "spaghetti cowboys"....)

Here's a video the couple put together about it:

I met Mischianti on several occasions, when he was working for a "ranch" near Lake Bracciano, west of Rome. He was a prime mover of the Western Games held there for several years -- rodeo and riding competitions, with lots of other attractions, stalls, Indian dancing and the like. I think I still have a text message saved on my cellphone when he invited me to come there to watch (or take part in) branding.

Disembodied Headdresses at the Western Games near Rome. Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

Mischianti has been very active in the Italian western, horse, riding and cowboy scene for many years and long wrote a column about the cowboy life for an Italian wild west magazine. He and Estrada run a "Ranch Academy" to teach and take part in "buckeroo" skills and lifestyle. They also take part in competitions and exhibitions of skills.

Yee-Hah! Berlin Country Music Messe next weekend!

I photograph the stands, at the 2010 messe. Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

The annual Country Music Messe (fan/trade fair) in Berlin takes place Feb. 1-3 -- and once again it will bring together scores of mainly European country music acts and thousands of fans, along with dozens of vendors of Wild West hats, duds, boots, gadgets, gee-gaws, housewares, decorative items, and more....in a raucous, real imaginary world that spans the borders between fandom and fantasy, dream and desire.

See the full program HERE.

As every year, there are four separate stages where acts seeking bookings and promo play simultaneously, while fans, festival organizers and booking agents traipse around the huge halls.

I haven't been able to get to the Messe for the past couple of years, alas, but I always find it great fun.

Here are some earlier posts from the blog where I talk about it.

And again, the iconic Don Jensen, performing his iconic song, Sauerkraut Cowboy, at the 2008 Messe:

Wild West Town in Poland

By Ruth Ellen Gruber


I just found out about a wild west theme park in Poland called Twin Pigs -- it seems to be some punning reference to "Twin Peaks" -- that opened last summer in the little Silesian town of Zory, near the Czech border and between Katowice and Wisla.

In the promotional video it still looks brand new!

It seems to have the usual "real imaginary" look of a wild west town, with rides, country music, rodeo, Tex Mex and other attractions.

Looks like Equiblues is on for this year

Philippe Lafont (left, in hat) during Equiblues 2012. Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

It looks like the annual Equiblues rodeo and country music festival in St. Agreve, France,  will take place again this year, despite financial problems that had threatened to close it.

A local news site, Ledauphine.com, reports that longtime Equiblues director Philippe Lafont says he will take the risk and organize the festival again this comingAugust.

In November, Lafont had announced he would cancel Equiblues in 2013 after the festival was assessed for non-payment of €61,000 of back taxes for 2009-2012, apparently regarding fees paid to foreign artists who appeared at the weeklong-event. He has been negotiating a payback schedule.

Local officials voiced support for keeping the event, which brings in considerable income for the little town. And a "save Equiblues" Facebook page got well over 500 likes.

Interview with me on Czech Radio

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Czech Radio’s English language service recently interview me, along with banjoist-multi-instrumentalist Lubos Malina, about the great “Czechgrass” band Druha Trava’s new double live CD.

You can access the interview by CLICKING HERE.

We talk about the new CD set — one CD was recorded during the annual summer festival in the beautiful town of Telc, and the other is a compilation of performances last year with guests Peter Rowan, Charlie McCoy and Katia Garcia.

We also spoke about my role in DT’s previous CD, Shuttle to Bethlehem, which mainly features my English language translations of DT singer-songwriter-frontman Robert Krestan’s songs. (I've written about that experience on this blog).

After the interview, Lubos and I stopped to visit the new museum devoted to pioneering Czech animator Karel Zeman, and then went on to a concert by Kris Kristofferson.

Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

Equiblues Festival in France to Close!

Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Bombshell news from the French country music/western front! After 17 years, it looks as if the great Equiblues rodeo and country music festival in St. Agreve, France, will close.

According to local media, Philippe Lafont, the president of the Equiblues Association, announced last week that he was throwing in the towel.

The reason seems to be financial, specifically a retroactive tax bill, writes the web site ledauphine.com.

It is an open secret that in early August, Philippe Lafont received a reassessment of tax services. The amount claimed for the years 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012: a little more than € 61 000. Too much for the association and for its president, for whom volunteering and passion have limits: "The tax audit is the trigger of my decision to take a break in 2013, because we simply do not have the means to continue with the amount payable."

Equiblues was one of the first European -- and the first French -- country western festivals I went to in 2004, when I first started following the scene. That first experience was tremendously eye-opening, a lot of fun, and introduced me to a lot of people and ideas -- and I was happy to be able to get back there this past August.

Didier Cere and the Bootleggers play Equiblues. Photo © Ruth Ellen Gruber

This year it seemed to me both "bigger" and "smaller". The Western market seems more crowded -- but less "western." More booths, but far fewer "western" booths -- and far far fewer western T-shirts, and much more generic kitsch and other "stuff." People didn't seem as "dressed up" western as before, either -- aside from ubiquitous hats and boots (including on my own feet).

Lafont's announcement came just a few months after Georges Carrier  announced that he was stepping down as the director of the great Country Rendez-vous festival at Craponne, not far from St. Agreve. (See my blog post on this.)  The two festivals were among the top country summer venues in France.

Georges has now started up a consulting agency that will serve as a middle man for bands and festivals.