At the start of the 2008 summer festival season, lets take a look back at one of the sleeper fests of ‘07:

In Chippewa legend, three bears fled a forest fire in Wisconsin by swimming across Lake Michigan. The three bears were a mother bear and her two cubs. The mother bear completed her swim and climbed a bluff on the Michigan shoreline to await her cubs. They never made it and she waited for them until her death. The Great Spirit created the Sleeping Bear Dunes where she lay in memory of her loyalty. Those dunes have since been covered over in grass, hence the name Dunegrass.

The Great Spirit also raised the Manitou Islands from the sand of the lake where the cubs rested. In the 1860s, settlers from the Manitou Islands arrived at what is now the town of Empire, which is the site of The Sleeping Beer Dunegrass & Blues Festival. In it’s fifteenth year, the festival has been taken in a new direction since Grassroots Productions took over the responsibility for the community’s annual showcase in 2005. The bluegrass identity of the event has been maintained while more rock has been infused to create a vibrant and healthy folk festival. (more…)

(New York, NY) - The four members of Phish accepted the Lifetime Achievement Award last night at the 7th Jammy Awards. Its the first time the band stood onstage together since their final concert at Coventry in 2004. The surprise reunion followed an emotional speech from longtime Phish photographer Danny Clinch.

Each member of Phish addressed the audience from the stage. Mike Gordon, Page McConnell and Jon Fishman delivered quick acceptance speeches, before handing over the microphone to Trey Anastasio, who thanked a number of key members in the Phish organization by name and described his former bandmates as “his oldest friends.” (more…)

The entire back end of the site has been rebuilt anew…how the hell we’re going to get the 4 years of articles back into it is a beast of another color though. So for now we’re as fresh as a newborn, and screaming just as loud.

We’ll have some new features and reviews up very soon and methinks you’re gonna be a bit surprised at what you see, hear and read. It may have been forced down our throats by mis-functioning technology, but welcome to KyndMusic 2.0.

“Ah, knocking on the doors of hope, everything’s gone up in smoke…” - Blood or Whiskey