When does 97 percent pale as compared to an almost full 99 percent? We’ll deal with the rampantly seen 99.99 percent figure on virtually every bottle of water or whatever, at a later time. And what if the typically named for all kinds of things 10 percent, or even 15, is put to the test, as far as parts of the population, 85 or 90 percent unknown. Parts is parts?
When big events are the focus, it can be fickle, so don’t fixate on the number, when it comes to actually naming how many people were there. Especially when there is the sophomore jinx or boom, when the first year drew more than hundreds but maybe a thousand or two.

— Its Hudson Boosters Days again, from July 4-7, and the event founders continue their (could be seen as) longtime love/hate struggle with bringing in new blood or rerunning old tried and true bands. Which could be read as re-treads.
The Friday and Saturday headliners are the ones you usually see, Flashmob (with POP Syndrome opening), and Bigly (cool band). The festival could though, be in part the Days Of The New: Ragtown as Sunday night headliner (cooler band), 30 Minute Difference as the warm-up act on Saturday, Stephan Geisinger Band opening for Incognito on Thursday, and “stuck in the middle with you” on prime time Saturday afternoon, oops actually Sunday after church, worship director Sari Althoff and also Latria of St. Patrick. —

As the overall month comes to a close, bring in the recent Valleywide Pride Fest. (Long in coming, you these days need to specify which one.) Someone in the know downtown said that attendance was down just a bit, as she would normally be serving a certain crowd when the event wrapped up at 4 p.m. But the location had been shifted to Hudson High School, rather than the previous year’s Lakefront Park, as so much depends on the weather. Authorities who coordinated the shift say it’s likely to have been attended by 1000 to 1500 people. (Note, to Joe, be careful how many zeros you list, as they are not absolute. You can always beg off by saying you meant to hit a K as they are close to each other on the keyboard. Once, Twice Three Times A Lady, number-wise as far as distance between keys, if you take into account the angling that is basically a backslash. But now more on the zero to 100 barometer.)
Just how many people in the greater Hudson area of 50,000 and beyond are of an ilk – and here we get into a whole string of capital letters – where they would be interested in this end of the literal rainbow. The number in the population has been said to be 10 percent, now more likely 15 percent, and keeps going up, especially if you factor in the bi-curious crowd. So that’s a lot of people. A number to be reckoned with, and take note of all that you politicians.
More on that, but first I play more with the percentages. What are some others that hover around that-from-on-digit-to-two realm?
The same day as the Pride Fest, local version, there over in The Cities was Refugee Day. (Only a day? Really? We started having immigrants centuries ago.) With the local recognition, just in terms of numbers of people affected, both here and especially around the world, we now are really running up a tally. This blows that 15 percent figure out of the water.
Here are a few other such percentage instances. Over again, at Buffalo Wild Wings, I am waiting with bated breath for the finale of now, after-now-post-most-playoffs and the accompanying drink specials, how much of a dip there will be in beer sales. I suspect that here in Wisconsin it will not be a lot, but at BWWs elsewhere in the country it’s assuredly double digits. Triple in any places still holding to prohibition.
The COPA soccer cup currently on many sports channels is the next most popular of such since Copa Cavana, (is this Spanish or English spelling?) But now that the superstar from France broke his nose, not just nicked his lower femur, estimates are that viewership may be down a full 3 percent – wait a minute, that would be a typical if high number of goals scored, I meant to say 25.3 percent, a stat like all those in sports is very specific. And what effect will it have on online betting? None really, since the number of gambling addicts in our country, such as is its current nature, is said to be up 39 percent. They will find a handle.
The Boston Celtics celebrated their umpteenth NBA title with a parade through very high heat, although as a dissenting voice it was not unprecedented. Attendance was only down 8 percent when the temps were at 93 degrees, but rose to 17 percent once it reached 97. OK I’m kidding, as many brave Bostonians turned out and beat the heat.

But back to the Pride Fest. It was moved to higher ground, two miles eastward up multiple bluff lines, because of seemingly endless rain and its effect on flooding down by the river and its park, (more on this in a coming post.) But there may have been a potential upside, says this curmudgeon. The initial fest drew, also, lots of anti-gay protestors and if you want to find a method to the madness, consider that if you went out and bought an assault rifle, you could take out a lot more people in a position above the bluff looking down at the park, then at a tight-fit school. Although that hasn’t stopped riflemen from doing killer damage at such in the past.
So the number of attendees were actually larger and remarkable. But that sophomore jinx, seen by so many artists in music and elsewhere? Either you can find it tough to live up to the original, or if it comes to protests, they saw that they had made some traction, and came back louder and meaner.

The St. Croix River can be wide and even windy, with clouds sneaking up suddenly from their western perch just above the hilly bluffline on a boater, but I knew not: I’d never been sailing despite having lived in Hudson since 1989.
Then I got hooked up with a subtle sailor who was captain of his own ship, although a small one, half beached or should I say moored just off the dike road.
Hey Joe, let’s go for a ride you won’t forget.
I never knew there was so much to a sailing excursion. My main man was constantly adjusting the sails, towering well above me when doing so, about once a minute on average, to catch the wind right. His ropework was riveting and he seemed to have a version going here of duct tape meets Millennium Falcon. Safely, he assured me.

— The Number Nine is said to represent completeness. As in the CD by Ozzy Osbourne, called Patient No. 9. But all good things must come to conclusion, (and per a concerned friend who is not that astute about social media, rest assurred Ozzy is still alive and kicking, sorta, and can we say the same for Simon Cowell, whom he also said he’d seen, as far as demise?)
So for the ninth annual Alzheimer’s Fundraiser Ride, ending at the GasLite with live music, their was a last-minute change and the tunes were instead supplied by Steve Jacoby, a style-now-catching-on one-man rock band, not the originally slated Motley Crue tribute band Theater of Pain, so cry me a river … Although the hard rock/metal tribute act is an occasional regular, so they’ll likely be back, and catch them then, since they weren’t an actual show come middle of this month. Such things will be announced here.
But to make up that difference, this Saturday, June 22, its the SCVR Rally in the Valley that also features Rough House Rox (your sox off.) Camping is available, as always.
But hats off to The GasLite for putting it out there and saying in advance who will be playing, on places such as this website, and there are not many who will Lay It On The Line like that. And you just might hear that rock song on Saturday. And get ready for another combo motorcycle rally/rock ‘n’ roll show in mid-July. Check back here for details. —

I’d thought in my 16 years with the Hudson Star-Observer, we never covered much the boater culture, even though it was right there in front of us.
Well here we go, and I hope my boat-virgin dearth of knowledge doesn’t show through too much. Or lack of using the right lingo. And no sailor cussing, as this old cuss as my host is a religious man.
But that new wide-eyed look is the point of this post.
And bringing in songs, particularly the twisting-plot ocean journey and after that is The Rime (spelled right) Of The Ancient Mariner, and as you’ve seen I love the sea. But in this epic tale of transport, there are no sea monsters like the catfish at the bottom of the St. Croix, only a righteously vengeful albatross. Killer(s), as per the album.
At the start, there was the question of, once up and around on the Hudson dike … just how do you get on the boat. It was perched about 12 feet off the shoreline, and between was a series of foot-wide rocks at also, a steep angle. He was able to traverse them easily, because of practice I assume, but I was less so. Then making our way over to the boat … It required a very small “skiff,” twisting and turning from when he was steering and when I was left momentarily alone atop the deck. One last turn toward the river, and I somewhat stumbled on, carefully.
At first the boat looked sparse, not a lot up top, except for the immediate front bulkhead-type-thing onto which my host negotiated his footing with ease, although I’d thunk he’d be off-balance. But there was a much bigger compartment below deck, and this would end up being checked out later when a sprinkling of rain came, on the way back, all the way at the end of the trip when past the ritzy suburb of Afton, a place where most people have bigger boats. That’s about 10 miles one way.
But now then, for the here and now …
Some “rigging” done, then we were careening away from the rocky shoreline toward the center of this near lake. Then back in a half circle. Wind again effects?
I didn’t know which way we would go, but because of certain conditions we headed due east back in the direction of what across the ahead road is … a sewage treatment plant? Then we meandered in the clean water around the broad part of the river/lake.
I was surprised at how when the wind hits and is used right, and it seems like you are really getting going, the boat slants to the point where the lip, of its side edge, is almost the height of the top wave’s lapping. I was told not to fear, the chances of it swamping are about like if trekking through … a typical swamp. Still, you can feel the pull as the boat is bent at more than a 10 degree angle. Approaching 15 degrees when you are in the midst of the bigger sections of water. (I’ve often thought that the 20-or-so-degree-grade of a huge hill on a road seemed worse.)
He then described a tale more potentially fateful, a trek worthy of Columbus and maybe that Ancient Mariner who Had No Motor, down toward near the Bahamas. Then around Florida and up around the (Sweet) Carolinas. Looping on the way, the boat needed to hit the also sweet waters of Chicago and toward Alabama too; as everything is about using the breeze, for travel, at 45 degrees when “tacking,” and again that’s from me, a newbie, and might not be the right term? There’d been the mystifying and mysterious Greater All The Way Down The Mississippi Trek, to Southern then Eastward and North Loop around this eastern half (actually one-third?) of the U.S. And the Gulf of Mexico and then Atlantic.

Hey, even locally, the water is often “confused,” and dazed with the brackishness coming and going and you can tell the differences in these sets of breaks from about 20 feet away. So the main sail is the one you need to adjust, obviously, when winding down from the wind. This was the most pronounced time that his lingo shown to be very ship-shape, more then mine.
He went on to verbalize many sailing terms befitting a bordering-on-chaotic guitar solo from a crazed pirate on the dock of the bay; I’ll just stay in my response to him with the safe word of “rigging.” Leave the expansion (redundancy?) to the several-minute solo in Stairway to Heaven, something I’d later find this captain was really after. Or Rime of the Ancient Mariner, weaving several difference segments into a 14-minute song, to also go long.
I thus sloppily mix into our conversation, inserting my own lingo in as story, the fore (the fort we passed at night?) and aft (often), starboard (that above-the-ocean star dogged moon from Iron Maiden?) and port(side-ways term that always is easy to insert), I think, then need to be port-mannered in my minding and when we get to that point, Afton-ishified(?) as dazed from the sun, I make-up words never before seen on the seas. So maybe just say right and left, front and back. As we were all the way south toward Afton, then made an easier turn back the other way than I expected, at a time when we needed to make haste and get back before nightfall, as some other sailors in other ships were already bunked in their beds.
Here, the end of the south-going half (if you discount slight and small deviations) of our journey.
So circle around, again, and in doing so watch the wake, and it was a good thing there was a big bay here. The new quiet was only disrupted by a certain Mr. Hubbard’s great big boat, almost a quarter cruise ship in size with its multiple decks, and my host noted that he knew the actively on-duty chef and his apps.
But still-life it has become, our newfound life. Now just enough wind to chug us along as storm clouds suddenly started to brew, taking the sky away from the hot sun, both fighting to claim the horizon.
Then the rains came, lightly. So I went into the below-deck space built for three down below, and he only ventured above when needing to (for wind’s sake?) It was time for these sailors, old and new, to talk.

This man and I have a love of lyrics, or at least what they (can) convey. And here we go again, spiritually based. And beyond.
He is a Jehovah’s Witness. I am not, although I appreciate some of their points. But meeting of minds? This is one reason we went on this (smaller) journey. And it worked. We discussed long on the way back, as the breezes now had blown out and blew only slightly. We were bringing many topics into our yarn. For my part, I thought I was only blowing smoke.
He went on in several stages about what will await us after this (earthly) death, and what it takes to (being subtle?) get where you want to go after the shift.
But my fave take on “salvation is his task” was this. I love the song Exciter by Judas Priest, with what I think is yet another messiah character. But if you are evil, he will also “burn you to a crisp.” So is this character that wholesome?
One phrase, though a mash-up, from the song is that depending on the life you live, your tongue may taste the wrath of his “thermal lance.” My new captain quickly responded, and elaborated, this term is a direct quote from The Bible, attributed to Jesus himself.
At least I myself find that interesting, even if trivial.
Just the waters themselves are more enduring.

Now more to hunting, not fishing.
Is this like having the attack to play guitar at speed-metal pace? With the advent of bumpstock, you’d better hope they all can shoot straight.

I am still trying to take stock of what The Supreme Court ruled on bumpstock.
For those of you out hunting, in a cave, the High Court just decided that a type of back housing for assault guns that can make them fire much more frequently is now legal again. The ban on them has been overturned.
The upshot is that while machine guns continue to be banned, this type of firearm apparatus can now again be bought, based on a suit filed by at least one person who had invested his hard earned pennies, or dollars, to buy them.
A bumpstock, as it is called, is reported to enable a rifle to fire up to 800 shots a minute. That’s a whole lotta bullets that have been given back, or forth. That dreaded machine gun fires at a rate of 950 a minute.
To this non-hunter, that does not seem that significantly different, percentagewise. Why does an average competent, sane person need to fire that fast? For what purpose? If you don’t let up on your staccato (word chosen carefully) right away, you are going to blow every last feather or piece of fur off of what you are shooting at. If you are so bad a shot you need that much quick firepower, better take up golf as a hobby. Even Tim Conway as non-nimble Dorf could shoot straighter and have better command of a weapon! Not to mention thinking between shots.
Of course, there is always an answer. The NRA types sayeth that this supercharged (my word) gun only fires only one bullet per squeeze on the trigger. So you’d have to have a super-athlete’s hands to gain the kind of advantage I’m talking about. You basically have to pull the trigger forward, then let it rest back, then pull forward again as quickly as someone like Eddie Van Halen would pick on a guitar string. And look where he has ended up! In the same status as those in the deadly Vegas shooting who’re among the unfortunate few to be in those added 150.
Rich Justice Clarence Thomas, in writing for the 6-3 conservative majority, said that this amping up of bullets-per-second does not upgrade to machine gun status, “anymore than a lightning-fast trigger finger does.” Hey, this coming from a man who is so adept that he allegedly can spot a genital hair or two from well across an office desk.
In a dissenting brief, it was written, by a woman, that if it quacks like a duck, it is likely … Charles Heston. OK, I took liberties there.
Yes, the poor (apparently not) man who lost out on his bumpstock gun investment is out some shells, or should I say sheckles, and laments it because the thrust of his deal was nixed after the fact. But the inventor himself made out like a bandit. So here is my solution.
Have the poor fellow who is the inventor fork over a couple of bucks per sale he made on this killer of a device, and turn it over to the investor, tit for tat and he’s equal. Yes, this is like a tax after the fact, but you could say that its much the same as having people who were erroneously sent too much on their social security checks pay it back — before these benefits are ended completely. You could in both cases argue that they should have known better, or at least that these were kinda ill-gotten gains. I don’t have the kind of up-front capital required to make or buy such an apparatus, so maybe they should thank their lucky stars for having such wealth to start with, or their chickens before they are shot at if not in the henhouse.
I of course, am being glib. But its about scratching up dough, in the best ways we can. So seriously folks, our country and indeed our world has some hard decisions coming up, and a lot of them come down to forking over the money, by those who have it, to fund things like having more feet on the floor, rather than more guns in the hand.

There is now new band music, finally, across the Hudson area and beyond, sweeping into brand new territories of ilk and making for a more comprehensive calendar. If at times, only a rehab of what they’ve featured before. Karaoke makes a comeback, but can be fickle, so you can fill the star gap.
I’ll only hit newer highlights, not what’s been written if only in partial form before, as our venues for musical stagings continue to adapt. Even when sung by amateurs, and forge on even if that’s now a reverb of open mic nights.
The Smilin’ Moose has jumped into the karaoke mix with every Thursday night activities, and if strutting past when downtown you can notice versions of early moderate-tone rock songs, beyond typical karaoke kitsch. Other Thursday evening fare, if a little earlier but with much the same tempo, found in cross-county Hammond at Schuggy’s, is an acoustic jam from 6-9 p.m. and featuring veterans of the scene Trandy Blue and Justin Barts as your man/woman mix-and-match-leaders.

— It had to come for me. Why not closer to Father’s Day … Someone finally referred to my bestest fave as wave NWOBHM, mostly, and indeed all Old School Heavy Metal, as “dad rock.” Like the later mentioned Motley Crue, which not long ago was termed “classic rock” in a song that flippantly analyzed.
And then I pour through, or down, what dad likes to drink. I gotta start with Happy Dad hard iced tea, in 12 packs, with two containers crossing out “dad” and putting “mom,” marital not sibling rivalry, and also a version loosely sponsored by Death Row Records. More dad rock? —

An act a block or so south from The Moose on the Hudson scene, now finalized and done, has been performed by Dave Burkart at Bennett’s, often taking hard rock and such and making it understandably acoustic, but now moving to other local venues after a good run.
A couple of months beforehand, it was Ziggy’s Hudson, adding to its weekly mixture of pianos and solos and duos and more that is frequently altered and flipped around, with Wednesday night karoake that often featured bartender Megan and her beautifully done I’ve-been-a-country-women-wronged songs. Alas, a month ago, Ziggy’s changed gears again, as they also did last year for Wednesdays when shuttering — at least for now — Kyle Kohila’s one-man act. They’re going much more to rich-toned and deep-voiced country, and there’s always the upstairs on weekends for full-on bands.
But there still are long-running, continuing despite a switch in host and keeping with quality, karaoke gigs that prevail — also on Thursday nights — at the Wild Badger in New Richmond. It started with a Wedding Day DJ variety named All Occasions, then late in 2023 yielded the stage to DJ BDay. More on that later. And earlier, a few posts down, I introduced you to Skakin’ Dave across the street at Bobcat’s, three times a week.
Step it up once more, and its like being with a band, you have the open mic night at Bobtown in Roberts that shows styles of stuff beyond the folkish-ness that usually rules the day. Or night, or early evening. Its on Monday starting at 5 p.m., (for those nursing a weekend hangover and not wanting to need to close it down?)

Hop N Barrel has been rocking it for some time, also with early origins, starting with Friday nights from a booth-type corner-of-the-room tucked away beyond the rest of the tables in a main room adjoining the other big main room. Now they’ve added Saturday nights too for live music. “I don’t know just how long, its been a while now,” a bartender said about kickin’ it later into the weekend.
Over at the relatively new 501 Tavern, the bartender referenced being really tight with another in her trade, in it for the long haul at The Next Door tavern, where Fridays do not wait until typical happy hour time to bring the band. The first tender I just tendered, a somewhat-seasoned singer in her own right, has often made the early-weekend run from North Hudson to Houlton to grab the mic.
I also grabbed a business card, from Randy Burger who too was playing solo, as a street musician, up on the other end of Locust, perched on the sidewalk up against a building. He had more than one guitar to pick from, merging an electric sound with acoustic. He said he’d be back, at this spot, once in a while in summer.
Also now returning, is the spotty spate of spacings to house The Nova, currently positioned just inside the building that is Casanova Historic Liquors, not out on the patio out the back.
Tarnation Tavern in River Falls and The Empoureum in the town of Hudson are much alike, in that they bring a different set of bands then what you’d usually find, with the first doing their musical thing every weekend, usually at least once, and the second picking and choosing throughout the summer, then look out in fall. Johnnie’s on the same street, what in tarnation, also is upping the ante with their frequency of bands, and add to the list of such Tattersall distillery on the far south end.

Some other venues cater to combining with motorcycle runs when they give it a run with music, after the ride. Leading that batch is The GasLite in Ellsworth, when this time, its the early Saturday rally to support Alzheimer’s that finishes its riding around dusk with a show by Theater of Pain, bearing so many tribute-band similarities to Motley Crue (down to the masks) and the crew with their rock and look, and more. (Check out the Crue’s third studio album.)
On the way, check it out with your bike at another charitable-aiding rally that’s over at the American Legion Post in River Falls, with ending tunage by Whiskey Rock, and with a name like that you think of southern and classic and new and even outlaw country. However, the set list of this new band from Prescott shows a range of rock that is really broad, and even merges into hip-hop. The date of the run and concert is a Saturday TBA.

There, there, are Rayders everywhere, up the street, around the square. Bringing it back home, in the area and worldwide. California-side.
Even though the one-of-a-kind toppest model of the three sisters in the industry, Heidi Rayder — although at one point arguably the tops of the top supermodels in the world and hows that for life under the big top — has been well rooted in the antithesis of her hometown River Falls, then the California scene, for more than a decade or two. It 2001, she was fully “it.” The Times as in New York declared her so.
She as the older sister and the younger two still have sorta lookalikes around the area, despite the fact that you’d think such historic beauty would be hard to come by, or stumble onto, but you see such lookalikes or nearly so from NR to RF. But they have one look in common all about them, a sporty appeal like Heidi’s fave as in those Red Sox, not in this case five-inch heels, in both dress and appearance.

— A friend from River Falls said his kids knew, as in going to school, with not just Heidi but all three Rayder sisters. He said this as a combo of, to his children, go get ’em boys and they’re just the Rayder girls next-door. It could be summed up, this message of his, in this song by the late Tom Petty, “she grew up tall and she grew up right, with those Indiana boys on those Indiana nights.” —

This series started back at the ol’ Village Inn in northernly North Hudson when I saw three women who could have been that whole family trio prancing in and going to the nearest bar-rail. Not four or two. Five would be contrived.
But there would be single coulda been Rayders aplenty encountered in not just singles bars across the land, since just before the pandemic.
For those of you living in a cave, and not The Cave Inn in nearby Roberts close to River Falls, Heidi especially rose to stardom in the early 2000s, drawing accolades for a few years as a top supermodel, and at the time George Bush came to power was arguably the leading lady in her field, in the world, period. Holding court more than once in venues such as Victoria’s Secret and the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. Her sisters soon followed suit in modeling, to a somewhat lesser degree.
The latest sighting of someone who looked like a twin — or quadruplate — at Dick’s Bar in Hudson, was still this spring and marked by someone sporting a short skirt and tennies, the latter of which would have fit in perfectly at Heidi’s old haunt Emma’s in River Falls. But that’s nowadays skirting the issue. And then a siting just the other day, much the same in attire, save what’s on the feet and lower legs.
The winter before the last one, there was a hot woman who held Heidi-like looks dining with a guy friend in New Richmond — those who resemble her get around — and true to form she was eating very healthy, ordering a salad in a place where it’s mostly bar food. Lite beer too. But Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, again fitting except for the food, has not been seen, although he has been a beau of Heidi’s.
Prior to that, there were several other examples that were much akin.
However, how many other celebs look like you, yes you. I enter in Taylor. As in Swift. You too can be a Swiftie. Or Swifty. Why?
My niece, while we were all on holiday and all at the table, was said to be someone to behold like Taylor, so here we go yet again. Add those (runway revered) ruby red lips, as you could say runs through the family, her patients told this PA, and you might as well be being treated by Dr. Swift. Surge in urgent care? It became moreso when she got just the right bang-crop.
Likewise was a librarian friend, I noted to her, and she wasn’t in disagreement. The height if anything, was even a bit more.
Why so many and skinny akin? Tall? Well that’s not unusual. Long bold hair? More too. Want to be dating celeb Kelse? Who wouldn’t. Be tight with a tight end. Hit the runway rather than get hit in the running game.
But it has been said, too, people want to look like her. But maybe they just do? Everyone has a doppleganger. Or another duo.
Being bleach blonde is not difficult. But is OK, regardless.
And also marketable, as well.

Summer is now here, basically if not yet officially, and the fests follow.
You would have to wait until June 13, the nearest date if going strictly by definition, to celebrate in partial form Juneteenth. But the party drink of the summer, Juneshine, recently (in May already?), hit the shelves with two new flavors, and that makes eight actually, when you consider that these are multi-flavored multi-packs.
But the usual summer festivals in western Wisconsin skip the weekend after Memorial Day, then hit home starting with Pea Soup Days in Somerset and Windmill Days in Baldwin and also Good Neighbor Days in Roberts, for about four days each around the first full weekend in June. The various fests will then continue into September, making for well over a dozen in total. But moving forward, most of the action except for a lone Heartland Happening is not geographically dead-center. So a couple of paragraphs down is some circular reasoning. Since the main freeway through the middle does not necessarily make for fest fodder.

— Since I started down the rabbit-hole, here are the bands at those introductory fests I tabbed, one true to form the other steering away from the Same Old, Same Old Glory. Although it is All That, even if a Bad Habit.
Pea Soup Days has on Friday night the Bad Habits Brass band, and with a name like that you know what you’ll be getting, but with a twist, and some added funk thrown in. On Saturday night, it’s All That, which makes the interesting marketing choice of saying their ’90s and 2000’s music is nostalgic. I guess you don’t have to be from the ’70s to be About That.
Windmill Days brings to fore classic stuff that’s full boar that way, with the Stone Daisy Band (country on Friday), and Good For Gary (pop and rock on Saturday.) —

Going the other direction on Interstate 94 will take you to Minneapolis-St. Paul, but … To move quite a bit north, the Osceola Rhubarb Fest is also the weekend of June 8, and a friend swore up and down that over in the Twin Cities, he would certainly be at the Amigo the Devil concert a week earlier. Bluegrass, and there are local fests for that too, thus gets even harsher in a deviously diabolical way.
However, where found in the round about Wisconsin, the usual festival bill includes more mainstream live music, typically country or classic rock on a Friday and Saturday night just for starters, a parade through the town that is hosting, concession food and drink, assorted carnival games and other activities, crafts and curiousities and maybe baked goods for purchase, 5-K runs and often a truck pull or demolition derby.
Selected ones — usually those large in scope or with something out of the ordinary to offer — will be promoted in-depth later on this website, (for example, axe throwing of a significant distance will get you farther than auctions), and here’s a list of the biggest of the rest. (They’re presented just for fun, as that’s what we’re after here, not necessarily in a chronological order but in a roughly circular geographic around-the-two-counties fashion by each month, taking into account those of you driving from The Cities.) Hey there are 17 fests to choose from, and those are just the major ones, and almost that many weekends with some events throwing in a Thursday as well, so giving all the dates would be cumbersome. But hey, here goes a summary:
For June jaunts, you veer south to the Roots and Bluegrass Music Festival in River Falls and east to Ellsworth Cheese Curd Days;
Then jumping into July, and more homage, Hudson Booster Days, River Falls Days, Elmwood UFO Days, Plum City Summer Fest, St. Croix County Fair in Glenwood City and Fun Fest in New Richmond;
Availing you in August, El Paso Days near River Falls, Pierce County Fair in Ellsworth, Hammond Heartland Days, Star Prairie Ox Cart Days with help from New Richmond, and Pepper Fest in North Hudson, to complete a circle.
Highlighting September is again going south to Prescott Daze. And go even farther south, there is more to be had for fests, mostly along the river.
There are also smaller gatherings in all kinds of little bergs. Groupings of garage sales, chicken feeds, many fireworks-based blasts, art fairs, car shows, corn fests, and even a Yellowstone Trail Hertitage Day and Jazz Summit to wrap it up.
Oh yeah, farmer’s markets and concerts in the park(s) are ongoing.
So see you around St. Croix and Pierce counties. At least until the leaves change.

They promised to be sunshine on a cloudy day, but when the rains came on Friday night, the last one in May, the band had to postpone their show until the next night, the opening one in June. So to go Sippin’ On Sunflowers, and see them at the Freighthouse, maybe while munching on sunflower seeds, you would have to — like us — double back on the eve of The First, the time when the band was rescheduled, after Slip Slidin’ Away.
We were attending because a friend of my friend — who also saw another of her friends right upon walking in the door to get out of the downpour — knows one of the players, from River Falls. So our trek was made through the towns and byways to get you from there to Stillwater, a ride that even features some small fields of, you guessed it, sunflowers popping up here and there. Thus going on back, was needed, so buck up buttercup or you might be let down.
Also, if you are one of the usual suspects, you could be affiliated with any number of bands by that name across the country. Or you could be in the crew of veteran rockers that will play The GasLite in Ellsworth on Saturday night, June 1. As displayed on their logo, they feature three guitarists (including bass) as everyone in the band plays an instrument, no lonesome lead singer, and are known to bring surprise guests to the stage, which is a gas. You may have caught them here also in spring, 2023, as they are indeed The Usual Suspects, from beyond the metro in Minnesota, but don’t show up in these parts all that often.
But back at the Freighthouse, I came in with low expectations since I had heard from a couple of people seen in downtown Hudson that their Stillwater had gotten rowdy at certain spots, and when considering where the news was conveyed, that’s saying something. But the stay of myself and my date was very pleasant, even if the main patio was being basically washed away from music. The street and its adjoining parking lots, absent one of the closeby spaces we took, were very much full, but inside the Freighthouse there were about four small groups of people hanging around, taking up all the corners of their tables.
We saw another couple from the Little Canada area right off, but even while engaging in a bit of conversation before taking the table next to them, the server was very attentive. She was helpful about menu choices, but wasn’t aware of live music being on tap, since this was the first weekend following the Memorial Day shiftover.
We just stuck with the basic chips and sauce, passing on the loaded nachos since my date wanted to be slim on guacamole touching corn. I was surprised to see a variety of choices of NA beer, and took the Bud Zero for a fivespot. The bean dip she ate was plentiful, and the salsa even moreso, said not to be too hot and turning out to be just right for my tastes, that can handle any level of heat. The chips were of average freshness, though some small in size, but that was more like simply the difference between a teaspoon and tablespoon. Even though we did not add an entree, there was a bit of all three components leftover. (We opted to leave early and try back the following night.)
When paying, the server did not produce paper receipts, with all those usual multiples that again are the usual suspects, rather showing me the prices on her electronic tablet. I guess that’s one of the newer, new things these days.