Managing the musical landscape of the Driftless Region
by Luke Taylor
July 25, 2017
If you're a music fan and you find yourself walking along East Third Street in Winona, Minn., there's a shop that may pique your curiosity with vintage vinyl, instruments, clothing — and even the word "Curiosity" right in the window.
But the Ocooch Mountain Music Curiosity Shop is just one part of a multifaceted business dedicated to music in southeastern Minnesota and environs. "There's definitely the shop," explains Ocooch Mountain Music co-owner Parker Forsell, "but there's also booking for individual bands, and then we also book for Ed's No Name Bar in Winona, The Root Note in LaCross (Wis.), and then various people will reach out to me and I'll book one-off events."
Among the events Forsell and his business partner, Pete Engen, book bands for are the Mid West Music Fest (of which Forsell is actually the Festival Director), Boats and Bluegrass, and the Great River Shakespeare Festival. In addition to booking bands, Forsell and Ocooch manage a small stable of artists — including Farewell Milwaukee and Them Coulee Boys — as well as recording music and creating music videos, and their most recent foray, a music zine called Ocooch Mountain Music Review.
Forsell and Engen launched Ocooch Mountain Music in 2013, but the idea for the name goes back much further. "I came upon that name back in the late '90s," Forsell explains. "The Native Americans had called the hills here — that are known as the Driftless now — they called them Ocooch mountains. That always resonated with me. Not quite knowing when it was going to hatch, I always thought that I wanted to use that name in some way."
The impetus for using the name in commerce came in late 2012, when Forsell's friend, Mike Munson, wanted to do music full-time and asked Forsell for help booking shows. Although Forsell had worked in land stewardship and agriculture, he's always maintained a strong interest in the music business. Booking shows for Munson was the needed nudge to help Ocooch Mountain Music become a limited liability company in 2013. "That started to waterfall into other things in terms of meeting other musicians and being asked by Mid West Music Fest to come in and help them turn their festival into more of a business and see where we could go," Forsell says. "Pete and I re-engaged around that time as well … at that point, we decided to fully join forces."
Situated along the Mississippi River and nestled at the base of scenic bluffs, Winona has a population of about 28,000. It's the home to two universities and a technical college, the aforementioned Mid West Music Fest and the Minnesota Beethoven Festival, as well as the Great River Shakespeare Festival and the Minnesota Marine Art Museum. "Winona has a really lively arts scene for how small the town is," Forsell says. "There's a handful of us that are helping direct these efforts, and there's also a strong volunteer community here."
Eileen Moeller concurs. Moeller is the marketing and sales manager for the Great River Shakespeare Festival in Winona. "All of the arts organizations [in Winona] work very well together and complement one another," she says, "and I think when one of us flourishes, we all flourish."
Part of the Great River Shakespeare Festival is a series called Concerts on the Green, for which Ocooch Mountain Music has been booking bands and solo artists for the past two seasons. "The concerts were started by one of the founders of the festival in an effort to make sure that our festival is really holistic and that it appeals to a wide array of audience members and community members," Moeller explains. "Parker has just brought some really wonderful bands and solo artists to the green, and we usually get somewhere between 200 and 300 people out on the green every weekend."
Performers at this year's Concerts on the Green include Rachel Hanson, Them Coulee Boys, the McNasty Brass Band, Mike Munson, The Gentlemen's Anti-Temperance League and Ilika Ward & the Moonlight Riders. The 2016 lineup included Reina del Cid, Jillian Rae, Corpse Reviver, Farewell Milwaukee as well as perennial Winona favorite Mike Munson. "The Concerts on the Green are funded by SEMAC, with is the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council," Moeller says, noting that SEMAC is funded by the Minnesota Legacy Amendment's Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. "That way, the concerts are free, and we're able to bring in these really top-shelf acts."
Not that funding comes easily. Like many in the arts field, Ocooch Mountain Music often faces the challenge of limited budgets and other resources, but Forsell and Engen have relied on their creativity to overcome those limitations. "What I feel like I've been able to do is bring a band, say from Minneapolis, down here and give two or even three shows," Forsell says. "It makes it more worth their while to drive down here if they can play LaCrosse and Winona, or they can play the Shakespeare Festival and then later in the night play Ed's."
Another ambitious thing Ocooch has done is to create a touring bus that has a stage mounted on the roof. Engen has many connections in the construction industry, and he was able to outfit a former school bus with cooking and sleeping amenities, as well as the rooftop stage, making pop-up shows easier to execute. Farewell Milwaukee used the bus to help promote their most recent album, FM, even performing a set of songs outside the MPR building in October 2016. "We're all about getting to know people who listen to our music and spreading the love," Farewell Milwaukee frontman Ben Lubeck said at the time. "This is perfect for us."
Other challenges Forsell and Engen face are the ones endemic to the music industry; specifically, the many draws on potential audiences' attention and the decrease in CD sales. "It's unfortunate for bands and for us in terms of putting out CDs," Forsell says. "People aren't consuming music as much that way anymore.
"I'm somewhat hopeful about vinyl," Forsell continues. "Our vinyl sales are great at the store … It's a tricky thing for bands and a tricky thing for us to think about putting out discs in some way. I'm not sure where that's all going."
Forsell also sees hope in his recently launched zine, the Ocooch Mountain Music Review, drawing inspiration from David Sax's book, The Revenge of Analog. "I look at the computer screen so much during the day, I'd rather pick up someone's little zine and look at it and read something in print," Forsell says. "That's more unique to me than some other thing that's out there on the internet."
Through its partnerships with musicians, with businesses and arts organizations in Winona, and with its blossoming ventures into recording with LaCrosse producer Brett Huus, Forsell remains cautiously optimistic and hopeful about Ocooch's place in the music industry.
"The challenge for us is being so small, we don't really have financial backing other than our own," Forsell says. "We just tiptoe along, hopefully continuing to do creative things that get people interested in checking us out."
Resources
Great River Shakespeare Festival
