www.coachellavalleyweekly.com
August 27 to September 2, 2020
2020 IDYLLWILD STRONG BENEFIT FESTIVAL
Coachella Valley Weekly (760) 501-6228
publisher@coachellavalleyweekly.com coachellavalleyweekly.com facebook.com/cvweekly twitter.com/cvweekly1 Publisher & Editor Tracy Dietlin Art Director Robert Chance Sales Team Kirby Club Crawler Nightlife Editor Phil Lacombe Head Music Writer Noe Gutierrez Head Feature Writer Crystal Harrell Feature Writers Lisa Morgan, Rich Henrich, Heidi Simmons, Tricia Witkower, Jason Hall, Esther Sanchez Writers/Contributors: Robin Simmons, Rick Riozza, Eleni P. Austin, Craig Michaels, Janet McAfee, Bronwyn Ison, Haddon Libby, Sam DiGiovanna, Dale Gribow, Denise Ortuno Neil, Rob Brezny, Dr. Peter Kadile, Dee Jae Cox, Angela Romeo, Aaron Ramson, Lynne Tucker, Aimee Mosco, Michelle Anne Rizzio, Ruth Hill, Madeline Zuckerman Photographers Robert Chance, Laura Hunt Little, Chris Miller, Iris Hall, Esther Sanchez Videographer Kurt Schawacker Website Editor Bobby Taffolla Distribution Phil Lacombe, William Westley
CONTENTS 3rd Annual Idyllwild Strong Benefit..... 3-5 Breaking The 4th Wall - Rita Gonzales..... 5 Back To School - Distance Learning....... 6 Consider This - The Motion...................... 7 Pet Place - Lisa & Teddy........................ 8-9 Travel Tips & Local Happening 4 U ......... 9 The Vino Voice ........................................ 11 Brewtality .............................................. 12 Screeners ............................................... 14 Haddon Libby ........................................ 15 Dale Gribow ........................................... 15 Safety Tips ............................................. 16 Free Will Astrology................................ 16 Cannabis Corner ..................................... 17
T
he Idyllwild Strong Benefit Festival, now in its third year, raises money for disaster relief in the sublime mountain oasis of Idyllwild, California. The town relies on regular tourism to survive, which has been severely impacted by catastrophic damage caused by the Cranston Fire in July 2018, massive flooding in February 2019 and now COVID-19 in 2020. The community continues to need our support. Local 501(c)(3) nonprofit Young Idyllwild, Inc. will once again use the healing power of music to present the 3rd Annual Idyllwild Strong Benefit Festival. This year the event will be simulcast live around the world and will feature both artists that have previously performed at the festival as well as performers who are involved for the first time. The organizers accepted video submissions from numerous artists around the world as well as gathered footage from past events, live performance videos and other digital content to feature during the day-long ‘telethon’ style event. The event begins at 12 p.m. on Saturday, August 29, 2020. Event hosts Brian ‘Puke’ Parnell, President of Young Idyllwild, Inc. and Nathan DeJarnette, Vice President, are unable to safely organize a live festival in town, so they are doing this online simulcast. They will be streaming it through multiple platforms and encouraging people to donate to the mountain community relief efforts throughout the broadcast. Coachella Valley Weekly spoke with Parnell and DeJarnette in anticipation of the 3rd Annual Idyllwild Strong Benefit Festival. CVW: Congratulations on staying the course. I know you would rather bring us a live event but it seems this is shaping up to be very unique. Walk us through what we can expect on Saturday. Parnell: “We’re doing this ‘telethon’ style, a more entertaining version of the Jerry Lewis telethon. Blending together some live footage that we’ve recorded over the last month or so and we’re intermixing that with video that has been submitted by bands that have played the festival before as well as some that haven’t plus splicing together music videos and stuff, it’s video content galore from all varieties. It doesn’t have to necessarily be bands that have played before but the majority are.”
CVW: The last two festivals had huge production value with several stages. Is there a sense of relief with going online this year? DeJarnette: “I wouldn’t necessarily call it relief, but more hours in the pre-stage to make sure everything is set and prepped and on cue. The day-of might be a little less stress than trying to manage twelve stages haha.” Parnell: “There’s people that haven’t been able to make it up here in previous years. They get to watch from anywhere in the world.” DeJarnette: “This also might give us the potential to expand our horizons, maybe we livestream a stage every year.” CVW: How is the community of Idyllwild holding up during the pandemic and coping with COVID-19? Parnell: “People don’t really seem to mind as long as everyone is social distancing and wearing masks. Where locals start to get irked is when driving through town for an errand and they see a crowd of halfmaskless people, it doesn’t bode very well for a lot of people in town. We’re also a microcosm of everywhere else. We have a contingency of people who don’t want to
BY NOE GUTIERREZ
wear a mask either. For the most part, it’s still been busy, there’s people coming up trying to escape.” CVW: Many restaurants in Idyllwild provided venues for live music. How are they doing? Parnell: “A lot of them have expanded, there’s new places thinking about opening up too. It’s not a dire situation as when the roads were washed out right after the Cranston Fire. It’s not nearly what it would be in a normal year but it’s not like that anywhere else either.” CVW: How can people donate to the cause? Parnell: “One way is through Facebook, it doesn’t charge anything for non-profits. Also you can go to youngidyllwild.org and idyllwildstrong.com to donate. Throughout the simulcast we’ll be making sure that links are available for people to donate. You can go to PayPal too and search for info@ youngidyllwild.org. CVW: Are there any performances we should be looking forward to watching? Parnell: “Nathan recorded some songs from a band called The Spaceman Trilogy. I produced their debut album and it was a lot of fun seeing them interpret those songs live after what we did in the recording, not that the recording was different than what they do live because they basically came into the studio and jammed, but it gave a whole new refresher on everything. I’m looking forward to seeing that in its entirety. Josh Heinz sent a bunch of stuff that I haven’t got to check out. I’ve been talking with John Garcia and he has some exclusive footage of John Garcia and The Band of Gold performing in Australia that he’s willing to debut through Idyllwild Strong. He needs to make sure the director’s okay with it and get that permission. That would be an awesome thing.” continue to page 5
3
