Raising the money for one of JP’s premier community events takes creativity. Flip through this gallery of posters for JP Music Festival fundraisers and read commentary from the organizers.
Justin McCarthy: Valentines’s Day was available at The Midway, so it became our anti-Valentine’s Day event. Nothing says romance like The Midway. Kellie Cardone: Musicians and bands and love songs…nothing but love songs.
Charlie McEnerney: People often talk about The Rat with very fond memories, so we invited musicians and bands to cover a song from any of the acts that played there.
Kellie Cardone: We brought together three acts from the first festival (Chris North, So Sol, and Riding Shotgun) to perform at our now-sponsor Tres Gatos. Margie Nicoll: Just an amazing line-up of some of our favorites and a great night of food and drink at Tres Gatos. Everyone had so much fun!
Shamus: I can’t remember who came up with this one. Me? Patricia? I remember meeting with Chris Lohring from Notch Brewing to create their Squirrel Brew that we could sell around JP to spread awareness and make money.
Ferris: In 2013 we worked with Portico for a special batch of Fuzzy Squirrel beer.
Shamus Moynihan: Kind of came out of Sunday dinners at Bethany’s I think. Charlie McEnerney: Lots of people made great chili and we had great music. The square dancing was a hoot, though getting people to square dance in the middle of the afternoon can be daunting…Justin McCarthy: I have no knowledge of this event.
Shamus Moynihan: Levon Helm died and we decided to usurp that for our own greedy purposes.
Justin McCarthy: An evening of cover songs from other favorite Boston bands. Everyone had plenty to choose from. Set list is on the Facebook event page. Charlie McEnerney: We thought it was a brilliant name. Then we discovered someone else before us thought it was a brilliant name. Thankfully, Allston is in another country so we won’t be sued.
Justin McCarthy: Rick Berlin came up with this one…it was more complicated at first, with original songs. Rick Berlin: Every night at the Brendan Behan, John Casey (or Adam Wells) plays drums on the bar and/or sings. I told John he should at least front a band once in his life. He laughed and then the Battle of the JP Bartenders (improved name was JP Bar Wars, from Justin) was born and almost over night 11 bars/restaurants jumped in. The point being that in JP and in the bars and restaurants, there is a lot of (maybe buzzed at the time) musical talent. We figured the friendly competition of all these venues would fill up the Midway pronto. Lo and behold it was a smash, sold out, and likely to become an annual fundraiser for us. Charlie McEnerney: The Fireside won, by the way, and they’ll be performing a set at the festival as their prize.
Shamus Moynihan: Randace Rauscher Moore and I were doing a lot of art shows for Centre/South Main Streets and First Thursdays so we took the idea from that and asked tons of local artists for donations. They are very generous to us every year! Justin McCarthy: Randace had been doing art auctions for charity for over 20 years. It’s a great idea and we weren’t ashamed to “borrow” it.
Running a free community event like the JP Music Festival is great fun — even behind the scenes.
