One of the interesting twists to this year's 10,000 Lakes Festival is the inclusion of two new bands with some screeching metal influences. One is Dub Trio out of Brooklyn, bringing hip-hop and hard core with a peaceful message, and the other is The Hue, out of Chicago.

Musical siblings, the Wood Brothers, will be returning to the 10,000 Lakes Festival this year, touting their latest CD, Loaded.  Two years ago, in 90+ heat, festival fans packed the Barn Stage to see this  mix of southern backroads and big city boulevards.

Whenever any loosely-based bluegrassy band comes to Chicago, Cornmeal is always called upon to make the touring band feel welcome, usually by whipping up the audience into a frenzy before they take the stage. They've shared a bill with Yonder Mountain String Band, Blueground Undergrass, and the wildly innovative and popular band, Railroad Earth.

One of the most unusual acts at this year's 10,000 Lakes Festival is Minneapolis artist, Heatbox.   Aaron Heaton, performing as Heatbox for the past five years, has created a one-man show that has to be seen to be believed. He's not a comedian, and he's not a singer or a rapper, though there is some of that in his show.  He definitely is not a musician, and he's the first to admit that.

This summer, The Waybacks are making a very special effort to bring their eclectic music to this year's 10,000 Lakes Festival in Detroit Lakes, MN next week. "We had the whole trip planned," James Nash, guitarist and lead singer for the band, explained, "and we got the 10KLF offer. We really wanted to do it so we just squeezed it in. We're playing in Nashville and then we're zooming up to Minnesota. We're flying from there over to the Northeast to finish up our trip.

Next week, Mickey Hart will make an historic appearance at the 10,000 Lakes Festival. This will be the first year that two founding members of the Grateful Dead will be on the same bill, though they will play on different days.

The drum-driven world pop band New Primitives will again open this year's 10,000 Lakes Festival. This six-piece band from Minneapolis will play at 6:30 on the Field Stage. Though Gold Standard will start pumping out their horn-driven rock at the Barn Stage at 6 pm while Comosapiens warms up the Outstage Saloon, nobody can really start the party quite like the New Primitives can and set a tone for the entire festival.

There's nobody who can speak about the land as a Southerner can. Though I'm not from the swamps or pine forests of Florida, but the isolated hollers of the foothills of the Smokey Mountains, I know exactly what JJ Grey means when he says, "After being away on the road for weeks at a time, there is no way to describe the joy it brings me when I catch my first homeward glimpse of them [the pines of his homeland]."

It's a curiosity that Railroad Earth named their latest album, Amen Corner.  A lot of people relate that name to holes 11-13 in a full round of golf.