The California western-swing and jazz band Cow Bop is leading its fourth musical tour of Route 66 in July, and other music acts are invited to participate in the fun.
The “Licks on Route 66 2013” tour starts July 19 in Chicago and will continue until it reaches the Pacific Ocean around July 30.
Cow Bop leader Bruce Forman is calling the tour a “linear festival.” According to the website:
The event will consist of concerts, performances in night clubs, bars, restaurants, roadhouses and impromptu on-street shows, with convergences of artists who are traveling the road and who live along its route. Fed by media outlets, social media and word of mouth, the event will celebrate the ingenuity, vigor and irrepressible nature of independent artists, and honor the people who continue to keep the road a vibrant linear community. […]
Other bands also join in, sharing a central social media site that all can post to via sharing. It will be up to each group to set their route, schedule, and mode of transport, and to find their own sponsors. This enable the event to grow in an organic fashion, will add an authenticity to each bands’ music and help energize the economy of the road. To support themselves, bands will book gigs, busk, sell CDs, set up virtual busking via the web. Bands will also build their fan base and get exposure to the other bands’ fan-bases through a shared social media site.
Forman also said the University of Southern California, where he is teaching, also is providing participants and assistance to the tour. So this should be quite a 2,200-mile party.