Homegrown 2019 opened with a new location for the Children’s Showcase, the Lake Superior Zoo. The weather cooperated and the venue proved to be just spacious enough to accommodate a good-sized crowd of littles and their grownups without feeling packed.
Several of the acts were kids, or at least teens, themselves, including regular openers the World Beat Drummers, and the closing act, impressive young rockers Born Too Late, whose 12-year-old lead singer Rokkyn Kavajecz can belt out a Guns ‘n Roses cover with the best of them. (Hear for yourself when the band plays again on Friday at 7pm at Beaner’s Central.)
Kid favorite Dan the Monkey Man took it up a notch half way through his set, inviting Woodblind to the stage to form what they called “The Flying Wood Monkeys.” The kids cheerfully sang along to “Big Voice” and other favorites, with two 4-year-olds stealing the show with their own song, “ I love my Daddy.” Future Children’s Showcase performers, perhaps?
Although many of the evening festivities happened on the under-construction section of Superior Street, festival-goers didn’t seem to have any trouble navigating the maze of orange plastic fencing guiding pedestrians to venues like Blacklist Beer, which hosted the opening reception for the Homegrown Photo Show. The Owls Club Big Band lived up to their name, spilling off the small stage with several members seated on the floor, providing the soundtrack.
Over at Hoops in Canal Park, singer/songwriter Camille Marsten got some help from her Jacob Mahon and the Salty Dogs bandmates, performing as “Camille & Co.” They shared some unreleased tracks including “Duluth” and “To Hide Those Things.”
Afterwards, Mayor Emily Larson took the stage with Dave Hoops and festival founder Starfire (clad in a jumpsuit he made himself-we’ve been following along on Instagram), leading the crowd in a three-part chant of “Homegrown” “Music” “Festival” and reading the traditional Mayor’s Proclamation.
Meanwhile, at Teatro Zuccone, The Mad Violin Scientist turned out to be one regular-looking guy (Nick Hyde) in a cosmic cat t-shirt with a violin, laptop, and looping pedals, creating distinctly non-traditional sounds on his instrument, building improvisations with stuttery electro-beats and distorted, looped riffs. Just a few minutes into his set Hyde thanked the crowd and prepared to leave the stage, before being reminded by the enthusiastic audience that he had half an hour left in his set. He cheerfully continued, sharing covers like The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” that had the crowd cheering and clapping along.
Back at Hoops, sibling-led band Cyr played a set with a country/Americana feel, while over at Teatro Zuccone new band War Bonnet delivered a rock set heavily influenced by North American indigenous music. The group dedicated a song to missing and murdered indigenous women. At Blacklist, Sanz Trio played a bluesier set.
The traditional Homegrown-themed Pub Quiz returned to Carmody this year, with several teams vying for the top prize, an inflatable yellow smiley-face beach ball meant to serve as this year’s festival mascot. The ball made it as far as Pizza Luce where it was batted around by the crowd.
Pizza Luce’s evening lineup kicked off with an oom-pah as the lederhosen-clad Winzige Hosen took the stage for a rousing set featuring tuba, accordian, and covers including Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing,” Nathanial Rateliff and the Night Sweats’ “Son of a Bitch,” and Gogol Bordello’s “Start Wearing Purple.” One beaming audience member proclaimed “It’s my two favorite genres of music put together, ska and polka!” (We’d add punk to that list.) It was the rowdiest, most crowd-pleasing set of the night, but no worries, for those who stayed home to watch Game of Thrones, there’s another chance to catch the band at Thursday’s unofficial Homegrown event, SoupB4Supe at 2104 East Superior St.
Next up, rockers the Mallards made the most of their name, dressed as duck hunters in matching red-and-black checked flannel (although the lead singer pointed out that technically, a duck hunter would never wear flannel) and blaze orange hats, bringing an inflatable duck onstage to top off the effect. Drummer Ryan Nelson later reported on Instagram, “Someone fled with it. I hope it’s out all week,” while mysterious local Twitter account The Duluth Hipster posted “Well I guess we can add “woke up on a big inflatable duck floatie’ to the list of Homegrown WTFisms.” We’ll keep you posted on any further duck developments.
The eclectic musical nature of the evening continued as local folk faves Coyote played to a packed Blacklist while, down the street at Luce, Shinobe repped the 218 with a hip hop set, explaining their name as “Someone who works in the shadows.” Jrunk followed to close the evening with a punk set.
We saw a handful of fashionistas taking part in “sparkly pants Sunday” for the Homegrown daily fashion challenge; for those wanting to participate, tonight is “Mismatch Monday.” Tonight’s musical action moves to the Lincoln Park Craft District, with some new venues joining the Homegrown ranks. Chow Haul will be out at Caddy Shack if you need a quick refuel to get through the night. Downtown at Zinema 2, the first showing of the Homegrown Music Video Festival takes place at 6 followed by the first-ever Homegrown edition of Nerd Nite at 7.
And an early heads up, Tuesday morning Actual Wolf will continue his 10-noon series of performances at Duluth Coffee Company, performing Gillian Welch and David Rawlings tunes with Nyssa Krause of Superior Siren.
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This Homegrown Week on KUMD is made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
