Telluride Bluegrass isn’t your typical music festival. It’s steeped in tradition and community in ways that very few others are. This sense of community permeates every aspect of the festival, from the musicians to the Planet Bluegrass team to the thousands of people that circle this weekend on their calendar every summer.
This year marked my 11th Telluride Bluegrass. For the past 7-8 years, I’ve been camping in Town Park, a community with a rich, vibrant tradition that goes back for several decades. This summer, I spoke with the camps that have shaped the Town Park experience. I met some amazing people and enjoyed hearing all of their stories. Below is an inside look at my Telluride Bluegrass family.
Telluride Tom
The Mayor of Town Park
There has been a “mayor” of the Town Park community since the mid 1990s, and his name is Telluride Tom. You can see him riding around camp in his golf cart and sporting a big Top Hat all weekend. This year was his 39th Telluride Bluegrass, and he’s a Town Park fixture.
Tom became the mayor when Boston Bob nominated him for the role several decades ago. His responsibilities involve making sure everyone in Town Park is happy and having a good time. He also climbs up on a ladder to give a toast marking the official start of the festival every summer during Rum Balls (more on that later).
The people of Town Park have become family to Tom over the years, and they’ve stepped up to show their appreciation for him on numerous occasions. One summer, Tom had fallen on tough times and couldn’t afford the festival. Ron, an old friend and long-time member of Camp Wander-In, started a campaign to raise donations for Tom’s ticket. The support was overwhelming, and Tom was able to perform his mayoral duties as usual.
That same year, Emmylou Harris presented Tom a plaque guaranteeing him a lifetime Telluride Bluegrass pass with Town Park camping. He’s the only person who’s ever received this honor.
ABGAT
The Pre-Land Rush Party
Every summer, there’s an event in Town Park called “Land Rush.” It occurs the Saturday before the festival, when everyone is allowed into Town Park to claim their camping spots. It can be an intense time as people jostle for positioning. However, the big camps always end up in the same location year after year. The Fishbone crew explained the secret behind this consistency, and it is largely due to ABGAT.
ABGAT (Advanced Bluegrass Assault Team) occurs the week before Land Rush. The “heads of state” (leaders of all the big camps) come down and camp together, making it easier to claim their camp’s spot as soon as Land Rush starts. It also gives the camp leaders a chance to hang out and catch up during some down time before the festival madness takes hold.
Camp Fishbone
Fishbone is one of the oldest camps in Town Park. They’ve been around since 1982. I spoke with Charlie Patton, Erin (“Ma”) and Sarah about their Town Park experience.
Mac, the patriarch and founder of their camp, was an avid fly fisherman. One summer, he met a group of kids who had caught some fish earlier in the day. Mac invited them over to camp so he could show them how to fillet the fish and put the bones up on a line. That moment led to the name of their camp.
Fishbone has a dedicated beer tent each summer. James, one of their camp members, runs a home brew shop in Colorado Springs, and he shares special batches with the Town Park community. Often, other camps will contribute their home brews to the beer tent as well, making it a truly communal scene.
The Mash Tent
The late-night Town Park picks are legendary, and the Mash Tent is a picking hotbed. Each summer, I play music there until 4 or 5 am (I’m the melodica player), and the jams are usually still raging on long after I go to sleep. That was certainly the case this summer.
I spoke with Kenby, Kirk Fonty, Jimmy, and Hoss about their Town Park experience.
The camp started around 1991 and in the early days, they just had tarps on the ground. Eventually, they graduated to an old army MASH tent, which is the origin of their camp name. The tent evolved over time and is now a much more streamlined structure containing a propane heater instead of the wood stove that initially kept everyone warm (wood stoves were banned in Town Park years ago).
Mash Tent has been a late-night music mecca since their early years, and they’ve seen the music scene grow tremendously over time. Once, some of the main stage musicians came to Town Park for a pick at the Mash Tent. Chris Thile, Drew Emmitt, Michael Kang, and Mike Marshall were among the players jamming alongside the Town Park regulars, giving everyone in attendance an unforgettable night.
Rum Balls
Since the early 90’s, the Mash Tent has hosted a Wednesday afternoon party called Rum Balls. Initially, they made a table out of a plywood board and sat behind it trying to convince passers-by to have a rum ball (a rum cocktail containing a melon ball). Those who declined were heckled. The Mash Tent crew even stole numbers from the baseball scoreboard and used them to rate the people walking by.
The party has evolved over time and no longer involves heckling or rating the attendees. However, it has grown into a massive gathering that signifies the official start of the festival for the Town Park community. About 10 years ago, Telluride Tom asked to make a speech at the party and ever since, he’s been a part of the Rum Balls tradition.
If you get to Town Park early in the week, you can come by for Monday Morning Melons. This is the time where the Mash Tent crew creates the rum ball mixture. Other camps frequently come by and contribute bottles of rum and melons. This may be hosted by the Mash Tent, but it is a true community event.
Camp Run a Muck
Run a Muck is one of the bigger camps, and they’ve been around for about 15 years. I spoke to Hooch and Sugar about their Town Park experience.
This was a bit of a heavy year for the Run a Muck crew. They lost one of their founders, Hippie Jerry, shortly before the festival. Jerry was passionate about cooking great food for the camp, and Run a Muck evolved around hosting food events. In many ways, he was the heart of Camp Run a Muck and a pillar of the Town Park community.
Run a Muck is also a vibrant part of the Town Park music scene, but they’ve chosen a different approach than other camps. Instead of hosting open picks where Town Park musicians gather to jam, they typically put on performances by established bands. Initially, Hippie Jerry reached out to bands in order to provide a great musical experience for the culinary events. Eventually, the concerts took on a life of their own. These parties are always open to the entire Town Park community, and bands often play to a packed house.
Some big bands have played the Run a Muck tent. Several years ago, Yonder Mountain String Band reached out to see if they could play a show here. Tim O’Brien has played a wedding reception at Run a Muck. This summer, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades came over to the tent after their main stage set and asked if they could do an impromptu show to honor Hippie Jerry.
Crunchy Frog Shots
You can’t visit Run a Muck without taking a Crunchy Frog shot. It’s the camp’s signature drink and has become famous throughout Town Park. The shot was originally introduced by Hooch, who first brought it to Telluride Bluegrass during the 25th anniversary year and served it as a welcome drink to friends in a shared condo.
When Hooch joined Run a Muck a few years later, he built a bar for the camp and brought the Crunchy Frog as his contribution. It was supposed to be a funny one-off drink, but it’s become an experience that all Town Park people seek out during the week.
Anahuacking:
A Late Night Town Park Tradition
Vince Herman of Leftover Salmon has been an integral part of the Town Park community for over 30 years. He first came to Telluride Bluegrass on his honeymoon in 1986 and has only missed about 3 or 4 years since then. In the early days, he parked cars backstage in order to come for free and stay in Town Park. Three decades later, he’s still creating amazing memories for hundreds of people in this community.
One of his lasting Town Park legacies is a tradition called Anahuacking. After Leftover Salmon’s set on Thursday, Vince sat down with me to talk about this iconic ritual.
Can you tell me how Anahuacking came about?
Vince: A friend of mine, Carol Hartness, was at the festival in 1988 or 1989. We thought she fell asleep a little early and we decided to wake her up. We did that by surrounding her tent and singing Christmas carols (since her name was Carol). She woke up and joined the party, so it provided some positive reinforcement there. This works!
We originally concentrated on waking people up as the focus of Anahuacking. Eventually we decided that rather than surrounding a sleeping person in the tent, we should surround a gentle folk music jam with 15 people, run in at the appointed time, all converge on the pick and sing an Austin Lounge Lizards song called “Anahuac” to ruin what they were doing, and then we’d run away. Then we’d run to a different part of the campground, do the same thing with even more people following us and run away. Then we’d go to the opposite side of the campground so that eventually there’s just chaos, and that is the nature of Anahuacking.
Was it an annual tradition right away or did it take time to catch on?
Vince: It started to build up steam slowly, very organically. It probably reached its apex – I didn’t do this, my evil twin Vic Hermane did – one year, we had about 100 people lined up on the back fence of the ballfield and at the appointed signal, we ran across the ballfield collapsing tents and yelling “Anahuac.”
When was this?
Vince: 2004, 2005, something like that.
Is it usually pretty spontaneous?
Vince: Oh yeah. Always. Of course, you’d be at a pick and it would come up very organically. It wasn’t like we set out to Anahuac. There would just come a time when it was inevitable. Gotta go mess up somebody else’s pick.
Camp Duk Tape
Camp Duk Tape is one of the larger camps. It’s a loose group of about 65-70 people that have all come together organically. Most of the core members met in Town Park throughout the years. Two of the camp’s main organizers, Bevin and Mark, actually met sleeping in line for tarp running. They shared their Town Park experience with me.
Duk Tape was originally two separate camps – Camp Duk Tape and Camp Totally Lit (they used a lot of solar lighting). As members of Camp Totally Lit began to dwindle, they decided to join forces with Duk Tape.
As with many of the other large camps, you can often find late night picks raging on at Duk Tape. This year, Scott Vestal (banjo player for the Sam Bush Band) came to Duk Tape and jammed at the pick after his Saturday main stage set. It was his first Town Park experience, and he spent the whole night playing music in the camp.
Each year, Duk Tape hosts a crawfish boil during Land Rush. The event is open to everyone in Town Park, and it has become a great kickoff to members of the community who are there for the pre-festival.
Camp Crossroads
Crossroads has been coming to Town Park for 21 years. I spoke with Jeff and Nikki about their experience.
The camp has evolved over time. The Crossroads crew regularly befriends people who set up a tent nearby and in many instances, these people become members of the camp. Jeff has also talked to many people who show up late on Wednesday with no place to camp and invited them to set up with Crossroads.
Tropical Tuesday
The Tropical Tuesday party at Crossroads is one of the biggest pre-festival events in Town Park. The party started small, but has grown over the years. If you bring your own cup, you can drink tropical punch poured out of a kitchen sink all night long. Bands have been performing at the Tropical Tuesday party since the early days, but this was the first year they had a sound system to accompany the lasers being shot into the trees.
The Town Park community is very special for Jeff and Nikki. They met at a Tropical Tuesday party, and he proposed to her at the Bear Creek Waterfall.
Camp Wander-In
Camp Wander-In has been a huge part of the Town Park community for decades. I spoke with Jerry, Kenny, Caroline and Jack about their experience.
Most of the people in Camp Wander-In met each other in Town Park over the years, eventually piecing together their camp. Often, this is the only time of the year they see each other, but they feel like a big family. We all have a biological family, and the Camp Wander-In folks consider each other to be their “logical family.”
Goddess Walk
Every year on the Sunday before the festival starts, a Goddess Walk is held in Town Park. It’s the major event of the day, and Camp Wander-In has always been a driving force behind this party.
The Goddess Walk is a New Orleans style costume parade. People from every camp goddess themselves up and march around Town Park. Those who aren’t participating in the walk typically shower the goddesses with gifts.
Camp Tiki Bar
Camp Tiki Bar is my Town Park neighbor. They’ve been a camp for about 15 years. I spoke to Duane and Gary about their experience.
The tiki theme was officially adopted in their third year. That same year, the Mash Tent had a rare absence from the festival and asked if Camp Tiki Bar could host Rum Balls. That officially initiated them into the Town Park family, and they’ve been a big part of the community ever since.
Camp Tiki Bar hosts a variety of music events. One of their long-time camp members, Pete Kartsounes, would frequently perform a Neil Young set and a Grateful Dead set during the pre-festival portion of the week. They’ve also hosted performances by many of the band contest bands.
A big tradition at Camp Tiki Bar is the “toe job.” During musical performances, listeners sit on a carpet by the Tiki tent and get their toenails painted. They also were one of the first camps to provide treats for the Goddess Walk. Generally, alcohol was the most common gift offering. The Tiki crew felt these people would benefit from some food too and started creating phallic-related, funny snacks for all the participants.
Maple Alley
My other Town Park neighbor is Maple Alley. They are a small camp, but have been a strong presence throughout the community for over 20 years. I spoke to Al and Jerri about their experience.
Al produces over 1,300 gallons of maple syrup each year, and he finances his Telluride Bluegrass trip by selling syrup along the drive out from Wisconsin. He also brings 8-10 cases to give away in Town Park every summer. Many of the performers on the main stage, including Sam Bush, Bela Fleck and John Hartford, have sampled his syrup.
For Al and Jerri, Town Park is their family, community and home. They’ve made lots of friends over their years at the festival, and they always try to welcome new people into the fold. They certainly made my friends and me feel at home during our first few years in Town Park.
Camp Wild Card
Nestled in between Maple Alley and Camp Tiki Bar is a small group called Camp Wild Card. We’ve only been around for 6-7 years, making us a relatively new part of the Town Park community.
We were essentially a group of people mashed together in search of a camp to call our own. Some of us were friends prior to coming to Telluride Bluegrass, and others loosely knew each other through mutual friends. We came together one summer, had a blast, and have been a camp ever since. Our second year in existence, someone created a Facebook group message to plan our camp and named the page “Camp Wild Card.” The name stuck, and that’s what we’ve been called ever since.
Camp Wild Card is relatively fluid each year. There is a core group of about 8 of us who come every summer, and we always have a handful of friends that push our numbers to about 15 people. If you haven’t been over to our camp, please come say “hi” next summer. Hopefully, we are slowly on our way to joining the next generation of people that will continue making the Town Park community special for years to come.
+ There are no comments
Add yours