Cabin Concerts
Bring a Slice of Americana to the Turkey River
By Brian Gibbs
from Issue #1 of Ocooch Mountain Echo
It all started in the summer of 2020, with a half a dozen doughnuts and folk legend Charlie Parr. We were about four months into the COVID-19 pandemic and I spent those months watching all the music festivals I planned to attend that summer slowly get cancelled. Desperately craving both live music and gathering with my community, I reached out to my friend Gary and suggested we line up some live music at his cabin.
Gary’s tranquil property, surrounded on both sides by the river, had long been adored by family and friends alike. Charlie’s gig was a trial run for hosting live music at the cabin. It was a bare bones set up with only natural lighting, no amplification and a few dozen people in lawn chairs but the evening was magical. The only thing sweeter than the pastries was the sound of Charlie picking on his resonator guitar and his voice quivering among the river bluffs.
On a long cold January night several months later, the vision of creating an outdoor summer cabin concert series of americana/folk music was created over some craft beers with Gary. The reasoning was threefold: to create a safe space for musicians to share their music during a pandemic, to build community in a rural region of Iowa and to give us something to look forward to during an uncertain time.
Having never booked more than a single act, the thought of booking a whole summer was a bit daunting. However, after confirming the first few bands, I quickly found myself inspired and had a lineup of 10 concerts booked, including a two-day Campout at the Cabin weekend. All of the planning for the concerts was grassroots; I launched a private Facebook group to announce the shows, worked closely with my wife to develop a lineup poster, t-shirts and stickers, and recruited friends to make homemade food and drinks for the bands. However, the biggest piece of the puzzle was how to safely get dozens of people down to the remote cabin.
Getting There
There’s no physical address to the cabin; only a white sign that says No Trespassing Level C Road Limited Maintenance. If it wasn’t for an old, galvanized steel corn wagon outfitted with a tarp canopy, padded boat cushion seats and a sign that says “Cabin Concert Shuttle,” visitors may have never known they arrived at their destination.
A hilly ridgetop gravel road above the Turkey River takes visitors through a mature forest. Visitors arriving for the first time may have been alarmed at the sight of the sign that says “Bridge Out” as the tractor wagon tips over the first steep hill. At the bottom of this hill, the forest opens up into a large tallgrass prairie, with a patch of white pine trees in the middle. Looking ahead folks can see the 200 foot tree-lined limestone bluffs of the Turkey River. One more steep drop and a large weeping willow tree signals the beginning of the grass parking lot and the end of cell phone service.
A scattering of balsam fir, tamarack and white pine trees provides a Northwoods backdrop for Gary’s off grid cabin that he built with the help of a few family members. A large, roofed porch held together with a few gnarly red cedar posts makes an excellent hangout spot. The cabin features a wood stove, catwalk and sleeping accommodations for up to seven. Outside, a rustic outhouse contains a smattering of whimsical signs inside that have been gathered from across the country. A neon green “pottytime, excellent” sign also provides guidance to a more sophisticated lighted porta potty.
Just past the cabin is a large grassy area that Gary transformed into the main concert grounds. He converted a cedar structure that was originally constructed to be what Gary called his “hammock shack” into a stage to host the bands. It slowly evolved over the summer to include a hodgepodge collection of nature signs and river memorabilia. The stage faces the river and the limestone bluff on its opposite bank serves as a natural amphitheater. A walk down the grassy knoll puts visitors on a sandbar where a gentle riffle wraps around the beach and creates a tranquil ambiance heard during the acoustic shows. As part of the concert décor before each show, Gary rows a rowboat to the middle of the river, anchors it and sets up a spotlight to reflect off a towering white pine tree. Numerous trees are also wrapped with lights and some of them have tiny dots reflecting in their canopies. Gary says the setup was inspired by attending shows at the late-night stage of the Blue Ox Music Festival.
Cabin concert goers have the option of primitive camping along the river or can opt for a more remote experience further in the woods. Folks that stick around through the night are often greeted with some campfire jams and sing-a-longs as well as some spectacular star gazing. In the mornings, community breakfast is cooked over the fire and stories of the show are shared over steaming mugs of coffee.
The Shows
By the time Memorial Day weekend rolled around I was nervous as a cat to host Minneapolis band Good Morning Bedlam as the first act. A late afternoon text from them saying they broke down on the side of the road by Rochester did nothing to quell my anxiety. Thankfully, the band was able to get their van fixed and the folks down at the cabin just spent a little more time soaking in the scenery as they waited for the trio of musicians to arrive. Within ten minutes of arriving at the cabin, the band was down on the stage and entertained the crowd all night long with their furious folk tunes.
The ante was upped for the second show with well-known Iowa musician William Elliot Whitmore in town. Will has been a longtime favorite of my music community. I’d seen him perform at several venues over the past decade and was thrilled to have him perform at the cabin. With his first steps on the cabin porch, Will said he felt right at home and was excited to play his first live in-person show in a year and a half. Based on the contract, I thought Will would end the show after a ninety-minute set, but he just kept on strumming his banjo, kicking his kick drum and telling the audience how thankful and excited he was to play in front of people. Two and a half hours later, Will ended the show with the ballad There Is Hope For You.
Midway through the cabin concert series, I found myself once again hosting Charlie Parr at the cabin. Prior to the show, we discussed live music and the direction it was going during the pandemic. Charlie remarked how rare it was to play an acoustic show anymore and spoke on the importance of having a special listening space like the one at the cabin. When I asked him what he enjoyed about playing down at the cabin, he mentioned he hoped somebody was able to come to a new quiet place and have an intimate connection with music in nature and through that connection they could find more peace in their daily life. Charlie played an indelible show that night and on his way out, I gave him a thermos of black coffee and of course, a half dozen doughnuts.
The summer concert series culminated in a two-day Campout at the Cabin weekend with Wisconsin Area Music Industry’s award-winning bluegrass/americana act, Them Coulee Boys. Folks traveled from as far away as Montana and Michigan to attend this rocking show. Them Coulee Boys were able to enjoy their time at the cabin too by taking a dip in the river, doing some front porch sitting and riding Gary’s mini-bike around. The next day brought the hard driving string band Dig Deep down from Stevens Point. Overnight, recent rainfalls brought the river up, but it didn’t matter as the only thing more ripping than the river was the jams coming from Dig Deep.
One of the biggest challenges of the summer was dealing with the aftermath of the flooded river following our Campout at the Cabin weekend. Gary spent several days moving river debris and filling in scour holes from the high water. He was able to patch up the stage area, but we were certain it would not work to have our last two fall concerts on the same stage where the bands had played.
The cabin series wrapped up in October with music from the Dead Horses and The Lowest Pair. Shows were moved from the hammock shack stage to the water’s edge where a giant white sand beach was deposited by the recent flood. Folks that camped out for the fall shows were able to go on a short river float that started upriver at the historic Motor Mill and ended down at the cabin sandbar. With the leaves changing colors, it was a fitting way to end the Cabin Concerts for the year.
Looking back on the season of cabin concerts, I can still feel the magic of hummingbirds buzzing around the stage during Humbird’s poignant ballad On The Day We Are Together Again. I remember Sarah Vos, of Dead Horses, commenting it was like a little Red Rocks. I relive the happiness of watching a gleeful Joseph Huber and his band mates step out of their kayaks in the middle of a sandbar during a pre-concert float.
During the dark, cold nights of winter, I plan to get back to booking bands again. Our first season down at Gary’s cabin showed me something I already knew, music is a magical medicine that lights up the night and heals us all.