Mafia Memorial Music Festival set to honor the dead; live in the cemetery!

Joshua Tree, California - For the last seven years a small cemetery in Joshua Tree, California has been playing host to a unique event that has been growing more and more popular every year. Joshua Tree Memorial Park, formally known as Mountain Valley Memorial Park, located in the eclectic and scenic village of Joshua Tree, has been hosting an annual Memorial Day Observance and Community BBQ on the cemetery grounds. The event commemorates Memorial Day by paying homage to our United States military in efforts to acknowledge their dedication, bravery and sacrifice during their service to our country. In the past, the hour long observance featured guest speakers, USMC Color Guard, placing of the wreaths ceremony, white dove release, advancing and retiring of the colors, invocations and free food and beverages to follow.

Having known Shawn Mafia for about four years I have shared a stage with him at events and booked him at many different venues. I can guarantee a special and unique performance that you will never forget for the rest of your lives. If you are in the mood for surreal experience or have a death fascination, this is your event, and without question Shawn Mafia and The Ten Cent Thrills are your band. I have his music in my MP3 player for my personal use and when I DJ a party or a show, I always find time to slip in a bit of a Shawn Mafia tune.

Since 2004, Singer/Songwriter/Performer Shawn Mafia and his backing ensemble The Ten Cent Thrills, have been performing live music for all those that attended the free community barbecue which followed the observance ceremony. Through the years people not only stuck around for the performance after the Memorial Day Observance, but started to come out exclusively for the musical part of the event itself! Drawn by the green grass and scenic setting of Joshua Tree Memorial Park (which is a perfect backdrop for any outdoor musical event) and perhaps by the “unusual” setting that listening to live music in a cemetery could evoke, it was only a matter of time before the cemetery owners would decide to take a chance on expanding the day into a bona fide music festival.

Newly crowned as the Mafia Memorial Day Music Festival, this year will feature a diverse line up of musical acts. Local rock noir icons Shawn Mafia & The Ten Cent Thrills will make their annual appearance and will be celebrating the release of their second full length compact disc entitled ‘Death In ‘D’ Major’. Others that will be featured for the first time on the cemetery lawn include blues harp legend John “Juke” Logan, Coachella Valley’s only surf rock/lounge/punk band Mighty Jack and Anaheim based indie singer/songwriter Ray De La Muerte.

Joshua Tree Memorial park will kick off their usual Memorial Day Observance festivities Monday, May 26^th, at 11:00 a.m. The live music festival will immediately follow at 12:00 p.m. and will continue on until 4:00 p.m. Event admission and parking is free. From 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. the cemetery will provide a community barbeque. Specified food and beverages will be free to all that attend during that time. Alternate vendors for food and beverage purchases, as well as a beer garden, will be available for the rest of the scheduled event time. Joshua Tree Memorial Park will also be raffling off prizes through out the course of the event; Raffle tickets available for purchase the day of the event only. A special booth will be set up to purchase all scheduled performers music and memorabilia! For more information on the Mafia Memorial Day Music Festival and to access specific scheduled times for any of the acts performing, please visit www.shawnmafia.com.

This entry was posted on May 5, 2008 at 6:45 pm and is filed under Food, Family Attractions, Commentary, Film, Music, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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