Kidz Bop Kids
The KIDZ BOP Kids are the face and voice of KIDZ BOP, the #1 music brand for kids in the U.S. These talented young performers – Ashlynn, Bredia, Grant, Jayna, and Matt – sing on the best-selling KIDZ BOP albums, star in national KIDZ BOP TV commercials and music videos, and host KIDZ BOP Radio on SiriusXM Channel 77. In 2013, the franchise sold over 1 million albums, and they’re the Billboard “#1 Kids’ Artist” for the fourth consecutive year in 2014.
At the 2014 MCCU Twin Ports Bridge Festival, the KIDZ BOP Kids are taking the stage to perform kid-friendly versions of today’s biggest hits in this high-energy and interactive show. The “Dream Big, Sing Loud!” live show is the ultimate family concert experience that guarantees to get everyone singing and dancing along! www.kidzbop.com/tour
Red Mountain
(Photo courtesy Red Mountain, photographer unknown) Red Mountain is the brainchild of Anton Jimenez-Kloeckl. Since 2007, Red Mountain has been over-writing and under-performing honest music inspired by love, fear, birds, angst, and others. Their first album, Scowl Lightly, is one of the more creative endeavors by a local group, in our opinion. And if you really want our opinion, this group is also one of the most-likely-to-get-big-fast bands in our region, so catch them before they start touring the world! Super fun and like family friends, this 10-piece band is a perfect host for the festival finale. If you have never seen them spread out on a big stage, you better get ready to get moving.
www.chaperonerecords.com/artists/red-mountain
Clocks & Clouds
(Photo by Kristen Dyer) Clocks & Clouds is a trio from Minneapolis that has found delight in combining classical instrumentation with rock aesthetics. Applying their penchant for grand sounds, they have blown away audiences around the country. Along with their active recording and performance schedule, Clocks & Clouds devotes time to inspire students and teachers alike. Believing that music education is an important factor in a child’s development, they strive to help kids rock out whether they are playing a Beatles cover or a Beethoven symphony. www.ClocksAndCloudsMusic.com
That 1 Guy
That 1 Guy is a musician, performer, inventor, songwriter, magician… everywhere but not all at once. Imagine the brainchild of Dr. Seuss, Captain Beefheart, Frank Zappa, Stanley Kubrick and Rube Goldberg, and you begin to understand the spectacle of a That 1 Guy performance by Berkeley, CA-based, classically trained musician Mike Silverman. As inventor and player of The Magic Pipe, That 1 Guy’s show has to be seen to be believed, as he single-handedly (and foot-edly) plays his amazing instrument, made out of miked steel pipes with a single, thick bass string wired from top to bottom, not to mention an Appalachian handsaw, an electric cowboy boot and belching smoke. www.That1Guy.com
Southwire
Photo by Rich Narum
Southwire is an alchemical mixture that began as a collaboration between a folk singer and a hip hop group. Jerree Small’s hauntingly beautiful voice and piano contrast Crew Jones frontman Ben (Burly Burlesque) Larson’s sermons of righteous indignation. Pretty, deep, and weird melodies mutate into spoken word poems and firebrand preaching. Heaviness and swing are applied by the rhythm section with Matt Mobely on bass and Sean Elmquist on drums. Southwire has emerged as one of Duluth’s newer, most popular bands with play on the biggest independent and public radio stations in the state, including locally on KUMD. A creative act unlike any other band, Southwire is another perfect fit for this year’s eclectic lineup. www.Southwire.bandcamp.com
Actual Wolf
Photo by George Roedler
Actual Wolf is just one man with a guitar, a lot on his mind & nothing to lose. And in this case, with friends Big Country Martin and Russ Sackett, all staples in the local music scene. All outlaws in their own rights.
The Legend of the Actual Wolf:
There are outlaws, and there are outlaws. Some practice the pose and cultivate the image, though seldom dirty their soft, bourgeois hands with anything actually outside the law. When they do, it is often despicable, irresponsible or just plain mundane. The Actual Wolf, however, is a real outlaw and has pled guilty to it. Between the bust and before the trial AW reco…rded a pair of EPs, each showing ‘another side of the Wolf’. The first is USA, an everyman’s acoustic album that channels both Woody and Zimmerman on a smuggler’s road trip on the cop-laden corridor of the I-80. The second—Lightning & the Wolf— conjures a 30-something’s symphony to Gawd, a rock EP at times so ethereal that it floats like smoke up into the aether, at others so earthy & grounded you can almost feel the parole. This is not music that pleads for forgiveness—the man has given his freedom as a sacrament at the altar of his beliefs. Rather, these are songs of redemption. Actual Wolf has paid a price, but like many deals with devils, seems to have come out the greater for it. www.ActualWolf.com
Brothers Burn Mountain
“The Brothers Burn Mountain are a duo of electric guitar and drums playing blues-infused music, like The Black Keys but different. Swirling harmonies are set atop fast rhythms, drums are synced up or pulled perfectly away from guitar riffs–it’s tight but not stiff, locked but not robotic. Seeing them play is definitely a hypnotic treat.” – Brad Nelson from The Duluth Brews Tribune, drummer of The Black-eyed Snakes and The Boomchucks.
“Even the word eclectic comes up short describing the brothers Dermody. That The Brothers Burn Mountain have energy is without debate. What [album] “When You Crave a Sweetness” brings to light is that they’re talented musicians whose palette of aural shades and hues is so varied that they really are unclassifiable.” – John Ziegler, The Duluth News Tribune
In a diary entry dated May 23, 1895, Joseph MacDiarmad, a farmer, wrote of two brothers who wandered on a hilly country road near his land in Monches, Wisconsin. One of the brothers carried a guitar in its black case hanging from his shoulder with a rope. The other carried a small tom drum hanging similarly from his shoulder. MacDiarmad wrote: “They call themselves The Brothers Burn Mountain, and seem to be unknown but to themselves, and I think they come from Wisconsin, but they have strange accents, almost Irish, almost Canadian, but mostly niether; and there’s something about them that makes them look like goodly thieves, that wherever they go and whatever they do, they claim their lives back as their own, and they put their bounty into their sounds….”
http://www.thebrothersburnmountain.com
The Gentlemen’s Anti-Temperance League
Photo courtesy the GATL, Beaner’s Central, photographer unknown
The Gentlemen’s Anti-Temperence League is a Minnesota quintet with family ties to long time organizers of the Lake Superior Harvest Festival. As a unique string band playing swing and gypsy jazz influenced pop songs, they also have ties to this year’s creative approach. www.facebook.com/thegatl
Wood Blind
Photo courtesy Steve Kuchera, Duluth News Tribune
Wood Blind features the combo of Duluth mainstay and guitarist Jason Wussow and Los Angeles studio/ touring bass player Veikko Lepisto. Wussow’s credits include the bands Flux Skapacitor, No Room to Pogo, Yeltzi, Fuzzy Ellis and ownership of all-ages music venue Beaner’s Central. Lepisto has worked with Mike Ness of Social Distortion, Royal Crown Revue and Bette Midler while on the West Coast. Teamed together they make acoustic ska à la 1960s’ Jamaica and 70s’ England. Their sets include traditional reggae, ska versions of classic rock and R&B hits, and original rocksteady numbers.
Charity Huot
Photo courtesy Charity Huot, photographer unknown
Charity Huot is a singer/songwriter from Duluth. Her songs are playful, soulful, powerful, and raw. She is a true artist and a unique musician who has an ability to deliver each song with passion and poise. Her soothing voice, melodic and rhythmic strumming and picking, and lyrical landscape mesmerizes her audience and allows the listeners to connect, relate, and enjoy a moment of music. www.charityhuot.com
Maddy Siiter
Photo courtesy Maddy Siiter, photographer unknown
Maddy Siiter is a singer/songwriter from Duluth. At age 15, she’s already written close to a hundred songs, and recorded some too (the video below is from over 2 years ago!). These aren’t just songs either. This is thoughtful songwriting you might find from artists who have been touring for years. An inspiration for all young musicians with big dreams. www.reverbnation.com/maddysiiter
The Just 4 The Fun Of It Dance is normally held a couple times a year to provide a fun event for adults with disabilities and mental illness. However, there is no “disability” that can get in the way of your fun at these dances, and there is no way to keep from smiling at the abundant joy in the park when we hosted one of these dance parties for the whole community at Bayfront.
Twin Ports Bridge Festival 
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