Your Friends At Mariposa
By John Swartz
Every year the Mariposa Folk Festival has 100 or more musicians performing for you. This year quite a few of them are your neighbours.
Cole Mendez is a founding member of The Free Label and the band’s been at it since 2017.
“In 2019 we won the showcase and then we also played – it was either 22 or 2023,” Cole said.
The band has performed in cities all across Canada and in United States.
‘We’ve been all over the place this year. We’re on the road as much as possible,” Cole said. “After Mariposa we’re playing the FEQ festival in Quebec City, we’re in Wisconsin the week after that, we’ve got shows all over North America. We were just in New Hampshire last weekend.”
Cole will soon be 28-years-old and with this band he’s already seen a lot of this world, including Europe.
“Yeah, we did the summer before last. We played in Germany, the Netherlands, the U.K. – we went to my dad’s old hometown just outside Manchester. It’s amazing the music has been able to take us pretty much around the world. I never would have thought, growing up in Orillia I would have travelled so much, and it’s all because of music.”
Cole was the bands keyboardist, he still is, but he now has help since Jacob Thompson (also from Orillia) joined the band.
“The guitar player, the bass player, the singer (Malik Mungo, Mathew Fantini, Josh Tsakas) and me have been in the band since the beginning. About two, almost three years ago now, we added Jacob Thompson and my friend Jason Martin, my friend from university as our drummer.”
“Jacob studied under Blair Bailey with me.” Me and him actually played at the Mariposa Folk Festival in 2017 with Beth McKean for one of her dance workshops. Beth, she’s the one who made our bell bottom jeans for us for our last show. We’re working with her on a number of items just for Mariposa and a whole new merch line. We’ve been working with Beth a lot.”
Listening to a live performance called Live at Dandurand, you are hit with a funky tune called Chuckii’s Jam starting the video. At is reminiscent of Tower of Power because of the tight horn hits, which in this case have been transferred to the keyboards.
“Chuckii Booker was a big influence on us and he was influenced by James Brown and there’s a whole tradition of people recreating that sound. There’s elements of a bunch of different James Brown songs, different horn shots, bass lines and fills and we mashed that all together to create our homage to that kind of music,” Cole said.
Of course, that’s it, James Brown. Tower of Power did their own tribute called Diggin’ on James Brown, and both tunes have the same sensibility. Listening to other songs from their latest album, Songs for Sienna, reveals the use of many new keyboard sounds. Cole must spend a lot of time programming his synthesizer to find unique sounds.
“It’s been years of getting to know this one main keyboard I use. We call our sound Disco/R&B. We’re trying to get all the dance rhythms and sexiness of Disco while still having the complex melodic and harmonic aspect of R&B music. That’s the fusion we are going for. That’s why it’s called The Free Label, right; you can’t put a label on it, it’s just freedom to do whatever you can do.”
Cole has been relaxing for a few days in Washago, but the band is back in gear starting Friday.
“The guys are very excited. They love being up here, they love Orillia, and especially that festival was so good to us over the last couple of years, really one of the first festivals that took a chance on us and put us in a good spot.”
The Free Label will be closing out the Pub Stage Saturday evening at 10:50 p.m. there are also doing a workshop Sunday at 4 p.m. on the Brownfield stage.
There are other friends playing the festival who call this place home. One is one of Cole’s music teachers, Lance Anderson. He’s bringing his Gospel and Blues format to Mariposa for an 11 a.m. set on the Pub Stage. You’ll see it was some familiar faces (Selena Evangeline, Matt Weidinger, Thomas Nelson and Gary Craig) from the annual February Blues extravaganza.
Nate Mills is returning to the Mariposa Folk Festival with his band Run With The Kittens to the pub stage Friday at 11 p.m. The band might as well not leave Tudhope Park because they have a workshop at 11 a.m., conveniently also at the pub stage (with The Boo Radley Project). Nate also does a solo show for kids as his alter ego Dr. Bonkers at the Sunshine Folkplay Stage on Saturday at 2 p.m. and again on Sunday same time and place. Some of you might recall how Nate kept us all semi-sane during the pandemic with his wacky Facebook videos. Expect more of the same for his kids programs.
Jeff Monague, Heather McIntyre and Michael Martyn performed together as
Red N Blue on the Village Stage Saturday and Sunday at 1:40 p.m.
Michael is also performing with the High Steppin’ Strutters both Saturday and Sunday at 6 p.m. the others in the band are Steve Porter, Scott Thomas and Vince Therrien. This performance is a sing-along and all you have to know are Gord’s tunes.
Ronnie Douglas holds down the 4 p.m. slots on the Village Stage Saturday and Sunday. Fun fact, Ronnie played the first notes of music in Tudhope Park at the 2000 Mariposa Folk Festival. He’s performing solo this time.
Nixon Boyd is playing the pub stage at 6:55 p.m. Friday and he’s doing a workshop Saturday at 1:40 p.m., also in the pub stage.
There are also some musicians and bands playing this year’s festival who performed in town or at the festival enough times they should have honorary citizenship. Sarah Fazackerley, who played the festival under her own name and at the Brownstone is back, but this time as the lead singer for My Son the Hurricane. The band is doing a workshop at the Bohemian Embassy Stage Saturday at 3:45 p.m. and they’ll be doing up pub stage gig Sunday at 9:40 p.m.
Other familiar names and faces playing this year are Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, Cuff the Duke, Julian Taylor, and Serena Ryder. Main Stage, sorry, Lightfoot Stage headliners are The Sheepdogs Friday night, Iron & Wine Saturday night, and the Melbourne Ska Orchestra on Sunday.
On the non-music side of festival offerings Juliana Hawke is doing a printmaking workshop on Saturday and Sunday at 2:15 p.m. Rebecca Bolden is doing to a yoga workshops, one for kids Saturday at 10 a.m. At the Lakeside Wellness stage, and then one for the creakier set Sunday at 11 a.m., same location. Steve Caston is at the village Stage Saturday and Sunday at 11 a.m. Anne Walker, plays the same stage and days at 1 p.m. Former festival artistic director Mike Hill recounts some history of the festival at 3 p.m. on the Village Stage. Gillian Lowery, Marg Gurr and Gaia Orion all do art making workshops at the Interactive Tent on Saturday nd Sunday.
There are still some tickets left and you can get them online.
(Photos by Swartz – SUNonline/Orillia and Images Supplied) Main: The Free Label plays Mariposa this weekend.
CORRECTION: Jake Martin should have been Jason Martin, and information about Red N Blue was wrong.
