The Mammoth Festival of Beers & Bluesapalooza is a wonderfully produced and skillfully executed event that is a High Sierra, high wire act which seems to be a tremendous success. At 8,000 feet above sea level it is a festival with both altitude and attitude. The attitude is a good one, which is a good thing. Having thousands of folks hanging out together all day drinking high-octane brew in the high country on the face of it might seem like a bad idea. With nineteen years and a lot of sounds, as well as suds, under their belts the folks up in Mammoth seem to know how to pull this off.

What makes this work are a few things, not the least of which are the professionals at Harvest Moon Presents who are experienced event planners and producers. It doesn’t hurt to have a dependable staff of very capable and friendly volunteers as well as a reliable blues trolley to take people to and from the festival grounds and back to various locations around town.

Mammoth Lakes, California, is more famous for white powder and bears than it is for blues music and beers. In the winter time this, town turns into a ski village which has cultivated a mogul on mogul image with a “Vail West” kind of feel. As it turns out, it also cultivates some pretty good hops and barley as well. The Mammoth Brewing Company has for some time contributed mightily to the success of this event which celebrated its 19th anniversary this past weekend.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that this festival not only had micro brews it had micro blues as well. One rock band after another, posing as a blues band, played one long rock dirge after dirge, after dirge where the song became a secondary consideration to the solo. If one was new to this largely misunderstood genre of music they would come away with the impression that the electric guitar is the only instrument of value.

Shameless exhibitionist after shameless exhibitionist with one dweedly, dweedly, look at me, dweedly, dweedly long guitar solo turned this beautiful art form into a cacophonic battle field of bombastic noise. They believe they can snooker the audience into believing that virtuosity lies in speed and volume. It doesn’t; but for an audience that was raised on classic rock, this went down easy. The sheer lack of creativity was astounding. Throughout the weekend I heard more classic rock covers than blues standards. Then when you put a bottleneck slide into one of these wanker’s hands, Lord have mercy, things got even uglier, which on the face of it would seem impossible.

I must confess I knew what I was getting into and I wouldn’t have walked across the street let alone drive across the state to hear most of the acts on this bill. I have made it a point to spend as little time listening to bad music as possible. So what was this Blues Curmudgeon/Blues Nazi/Blues Traditionalist/Old Fashioned/Resistant to Change/Stick in the Mud doing in Mammoth Lakes, California, anyway?

That’s a good question which deserves a good answer and I am glad I have one, as my sanity has been called into question by being in the presence of this wank fest. I was helping a friend and fulfilling a childhood dream.  Is that good enough for you?  

Oh...it’s not? OK...Charlie Lange of Bluebeat Music needed some help. The traveling retail branch of his online record store had rented space at the festival. This is his 15^th year at the festival which makes him the oldest and longest running vendor in the illustrious history of this event. His gig is a two man job and he was one man shy. I answered the call of duty as Charlie is one of the last guys who has his finger in the dam and is holding back the impending flood that is the MP3/Walmarting of the world. Hey...Spotify this Mother F*cker.

Oh yeah, that childhood dream part. When I was kid I thought the coolest job in the world would be to work in a record store. Well at age 57, I can take this off my bucket list. It was in fact everything I hoped it would be. I loved interacting with the music fans, even if it was answering questions with a straight face like, ‘Which Ana Popovic Record is the best?’ I didn’t say what I was thinking which was, ‘How the f*ck would I know? I listen to blues music. How about the one where she is wearing the least amount of clothing? I’m sorry sir we sold out of the one where she is buck naked on the CD cover about a half hour ago.’ 

Charlie has about 14,000 titles of rare, out of print, hard to find old and new blues, vintage rock and roll, soul, gospel, swamp pop, jazz and r&b in his inventory. As many of these titles as he could fit into a Toyota Tundra traveled over the Tioga pass and showed up before the crowd was admitted and stampeded for a slice of land they could call their own. At this point, the festival looked like the Oklahoma land rush with lawn chairs.

On Sunday afternoon a gentleman came by the booth and said, “I have been here for three days and I have heard only one blues band. He was right. The Cash Box Kings from Chicago flew into Reno and then drove down to the gig. They got that set out of the way early on Saturday morning. I guess it was decided you can’t have a blues band headline or come anywhere near that slot at a blues festival.

I have always contended that the best musicians are the best listeners. This assertion would seem obvious and really wouldn’t be worth mentioning if it wasn’t so dramatically re-enforced on Saturday evening. Of all the countless musicians who had played on the bill up to that point only one, one as in less than two, came by the booth to shop. Joe Nosek of The Cash Box Kings came by and purchased a big armful of music. I should also point out that my old buddy who works for Buddy, the great keyboard player in Mr. Guy’s band, Marty Sammon visited the booth on Sunday and got a boat load of music as well.

Some of the festival highlights came by way of the aforementioned Cash Box Kings, as well as the always exciting and entertaining Nikki Hill. Her brand of music is more akin to first generation rock and roll and 50’s r&b. Bolstered by the thrashing guitar of husband Matt Hill this band tore through some fun territory at break neck speed and put on a show with originals and covers augmenting the mostly up tempo numbers with some sultry ballads. Her act did have some scratching their heads while wondering if her brand of music should be taken seriously as there were no ten minute, self indulgent guitar solos.

Taj Mahal and his trio made a good accounting of themselves as always. His eclectic brand of music, which includes some blues, has an adult contemporary feel to it and is a favorite of the blues cruiser crowd which was well represented as usual.

Even Buddy Guy’s Las Vegas lounge style act sounded good after three bands on Sunday engaged in almost identical guitar histrionics. The thing that separated Guy from the pack is that he, more than any band on the bill, understands the lost art of stage craft. He has done the same frustrating show for thirty years now, so he is good at it. This stale act actually sounded fresh in contrast to the three bands that proceeded him. His “Grandpa Potty Mouth” routine and shrieking guitar was a hit with the audience.

However, the 2014 Mammoth Festival of Beers and Bluesapalooza appeared to be an overall commercial success. Jim Vanko of Harvest Moon Presents is a real pro who put on a well organized, well managed event that is just plain fun. Jim did a fine job as festival MC. He imparted timely information and gave dignified introductions of each performer without ever wearing out his welcome from behind the mic.

He even was able to keep a “good clock’ as his downbeat for each of the first two days was right on time. It should be noted that an intelligent and responsible decision was made to bump the start of the Sunday program up one hour as severe afternoon thunderstorms had been in the forecast. It did look and feel like that weather was eminent, but thankfully never took place.

Whoever was responsible for managing the stage did a commendable job despite some transportation problems that occurred Friday night. Kudos!  

Throughout the three day event it was truly inspiring to see so many young people turn their back on the music that was presented to them on the stage which is designed to appeal to the non-blues fan, aging, baby boomer, classic rock market. Fist pumping men with grey pony tails is not the future of this music. There were a lot of younger folks, who represent the more adventurous in the crowd, who made their way over to the Bluebeat Music booth. In many cases they understood that there has to be more to this music than the kind of pandering that went on onstage most of the weekend. There just has to be...and they are right, there is more. I hope to see you folks next year and find out if you have unraveled the mystery that lies at the heart of this wonderful music called the blues.

It was fun to catch up with so many people who still respect the music enough to buy CDs. I ran into some old friends and met some new ones as well. I plan on attending the 20^th anniversary of this festival in the hopes that a more balanced program will be booked. I understand that “rock music came from the blues man.” I also understand you un-frozen caveman, jag- off, that so did jazz, country, gospel, soul, r&b and rockabilly. Any of these other flavors of American music who have their roots in the blues could have been added to the buffet, but were not. Only rock, and for the most part the same type of rock with almost identical instrumentation and approach, was put on display this past weekend. If variety is the spice of life, and I believe it is, than different seasonings could have been added to this year’s festival line-up.

If you like washing down live music with micro brews in a spectacular mountain resort setting it doesn’t get any better than The Mammoth Festival of Beers and Bluesapalooza. Well for me anyway it might be a little better with a little more blues music or a lot better with a lot of blues music. Well that’s just me; what do I know?

- David Mac