Gentle Jones: Most Anticipated Set of the DMF

By RYAN CORMIER
The News Journal

When it comes to live music in Delaware, it’s easy to throw up your hands and dismiss it all as a mixture of cover bands and amateurs.

But on any given weekend night, there is a Delaware band in a bar performing a set that just might surprise you.

This weekend, more than 30 of those bands will come together to strut their stuff at the eighth annual Delaware Music Festival in Dewey Beach, the biggest original music festival in the state for Delaware bands.

Four stages will be filled with a rotating roster of bands at The Rusty Rudder starting at 6 tonight and at 5 p.m. Saturday, allowing music fans to jump from act to act without any breaks in between.

The festival is one of several early signs of life in Dewey Beach as the summer season approaches. The Starboard, a popular beach bar, opened for business a few weeks ago, and several other Rudder-based music festivals – Dewey Beach Popfest, Chickfest and the High Tide Jamfest – will be held later this month and next month.

Admission is free for this weekend’s musical buffet, which includes the bluegrass of Chapel Street Junction, newly minted Northbeach DJ BIS, the reggae of Brixton Saint & The IRS and searing electric blues from beach favorites lower case blues.

For those music fans descending on the beach town, we scanned the list of acts performing at this year’s Delaware Music Festival and picked out five bands that shouldn’t be missed.

One of the most eagerly awaited sets of the festival will come from Delaware’s newest band – The Bullbuckers.

The nine-piece ska band, founded by Kevin Tarzanin after he left the Newark hip-hop/rock band Fat Daddy Has Been last year, will be giving its first-ever performance.

Tarzanin will perform some of his old Fat Daddy songs, along with some ska covers from popular Jamaican ska artists Derrick Morgan and Desmond Dekker.

The band is filled out by a four-piece horn section, Gentle Jones on vocals and MC duties, drummer Chris Devaney, guitarist Jesse Strange and keyboardist Allexandro Di Maio.

“This show is basically a launch to get our name out there,” Tarzanin says before warning, “Put your dancing shoes on!”

The band is currently scheduling concerts for the summer, including a return to Dewey Beach.