Catching Full Moon Fever In The High Desert At First
Annual Joshua Tree Festival On Saturday
October 15, 2005

Scheduled for 4:00 pm - 2:00 am At The Joshua Tree Lake Campgrounds, The Event’s Two Stages Feature An Eclectic Mix Of Electronic Music, Psychedelic Rock and World Music From Well-Known Bands and Up and Coming Artists.

Headliners Include Audio-Visual Sensations Rabbit In The Moon and British Outfit Ozric Tentacles Making Their Only 2005 U.S. Appearance, Uberzone and Joshua Tree Residents Gram Rabbit.


Fall is here, High Desert festival season is in full swing, and it’s time to head out on the highway and get ready to party under the full moon and stars. Promising an exciting and eclectic array of music, food and fun on the full moon Saturday of October 15, 2005, the first annual Joshua Tree festival will gather some 5,000 folks from all around Southern California and beyond for the year’s most exciting musical event.

Held on the 40-acre Joshua Tree Lake Campgrounds with a lake and breathtaking mountain views, the intimate and comfortable festival will feature two stages (a main stage and a side stage) with a compelling mix of well-known and up and coming bands from the realms of electronic, psychedelic rock and world music. Mirroring the broad variety of music will be numerous food vendors offering everything from organic vegetarian selections to Mexican to barbecue. Add to this the comfort easy parking, clean restrooms, tents, tables and chairs—and a collective desire to commune with both fellow music fans and nature in a unique, otherworldly setting--and you have the makings of a compelling yearly tradition.

Joshua Tree promoter Tom Bunch, who has been involved in concert production for over two decades, sees the upcoming single day festival as the groundbreaking for an annual event that will eventually expand to a full three-day weekend. “My vision is to have a mix of psychedelic leaning rock bands, world music acts and electronic artists that I feel would fit well with the surreal backdrop of the high desert,” he says.

“Once I secured the venue and date,” Bunch adds, “I sent out invitations to a wide variety of established and independent groups that I felt had the right combination of power both spiritually and emotionally. The lineup we have includes those who naturally gravitated to the vibe of Joshua Tree, and despite the different styles of music, the threads that tie them together are talent, creativity and passion. The event works with the location inspiring the artists, which will connect deeply with the fans of both the music and of Joshua Tree. The draw of this event is being in Joshua Tree, on a full moon weekend, in the middle of the desert festival season with some of the greatest, most creative, interesting and established cult bands along with the coolest/hippest up and coming acts on the planet.”

Joshua Tree’s four top headliners are Rabbit In The Moon, Ozric Tentacles, Uberzone and Gram Rabbit; these ensembles perform on the main stage after an opening set by Girish. The Side Stage features an exciting lineup of compelling newer artists—African Showboyz, Sabrosa Purr, Innaway and West Indian Girl.

A vibrant electronic music collaboration between musical mastermind Confucius and visual performance artist Bunny, Rabbit In The Moon’s live experience has the power to evoke emotion at will with a mix of performance art, live video projections and original music. They are bringing two companies (VJ Tek, OVT Visuals) to Joshua Tree to provide the full scale audio-visual experience, which includes huge plasma television screens, an eye-popping light show, smoke and fire. Veterans on the pop music remix scene, the duo has worked with everyone from Goldie, Sarah McLachlan and Garbage to The Smashing Pumpkins, Stone Roses and Eric Clapton.

Making their only 2005 U.S. appearance at Joshua Tree—they tour here every few years, on average--the legendary four piece band Ozrick Tentacles are legends of the UK underground. One of the most influential bands to emerge from the UK festival scene, the Ozrics layer ambient and ethereal landscapes with freeform dub trips, incredible rave grooves and psychedelic progressive rock.

Uberzone is the brainchild of Southern California native Q (named after the "gizmo" -loving James Bond character). His early singles, "Botz" and "The Freaks", released on taste-maker indie dance label City of Angels, were critically acclaimed club tracks that established Q as one of the leading American producers of breakbeat music.

Radio and Records has said of Joshua Tree natives Gram Rabbit, “the oddball desert trio have enough charisma and eccentricities to keep the Kool Aid-sipping
masses enthralled…..One of the year's best debuts, Gram Rabbit may have very well cut a cult classic.” Which is perfectly appropriate, considering that the band’s debut is called Music To Start A Cult To.

With roots in jazz, world and sacred music, the well traveled, Los Angeles based Girish has performed with a wide variety of some of the greatest artists in world music, playing his unique palette of instruments—tablas, world percussion, guitar, harmonium and voice. The African Showboyz hail from Binaba, a tiny village in the northeast region of Ghana, West Africa; this tribal quintet is a unique blend and remarkable experience of African drum, dance, magic andadrenaline. L.A. based band Sabrosa Purr has been described as “Nirvana meets Sigar Ros meets Pink Floyd,” with one local review calling them an “excellent quasi-70’s blues rock thud with scratchy riffs and great amounts of rolling thunder.”

Born out of the kindling of numerous and varying influences, ranging from Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd to Tortoise and Air, Innaway’s ambient sound is delicately layered with guitar rock sensibilities, resulting in a vibe that is both eerily relaxed and starkly dynamic. L.A. based West Indian Girl—the duo of Robert James and Francis Ten—plays music blending the triumphant empathy of British rock and roll and the soul-seeking ethos of Sixties psychedelia and modern day jam bands; the two build opulent compositions that revolve around texture, mood and lyrical romanticism.

Joshua Tree Promoter Tom Bunch launched his career in the early 80s, promoting concerts for punk bands like Dead Kennedys and Black Flag, which led him to work with some of the hottest bands in rock—Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane’s Addiction, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Nirvana. As a manager in the 90s, he took two indie cult band darlings to mainstream success; The Butthole Surfers scored a gold album, The Toadies a platinum.

“I’ve always specialized in championing music that was slightly left or right of center, finding new and creative ways to reach a larger audience,” he says. “I’m doing something similar with Joshua Tree, taking critically acclaimed cult bands and exposing them through marketing, promotion and cross promotion to groups of fans of the other styles of music we’re presenting. It’s just my latest way of making a stew of interesting things that may at first seem unusual but ultimately makes perfect sense and benefits everyone involved. I’m sure everyone will feel the same way after experiencing Joshua Tree, the festival, the place and the state of mind.”

RECAP CONCERT DETAILS:

Joshua Tree Festival
www.joshuatree.cc
Joshua Tree Lake Campgrounds
2601 Sunfair Rd, Joshua Tree, CA 92252

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2005
4pm-2am

Presale Tickets: $40
Tickets available at Joshuatree.cc, groovetickets.com or call (877) 71-GROOVE.