LOCAL EVENTS
There is an upcoming music festival that’s not only free but open to any musician that wants to participate. Cookie Fest will occur at 6 p.m. on April 5 at Ragnar’s, located at 6900 Ranch Road 12. The theme is 90s grunge, if one feels so inclined to dress up (or down depending on one’s normal level of spiff). There will be a t-shirt giveaway and free gumbo, but most importantly, approximately 20 performers.
“If anybody really wants to play, they’re getting on,” said Cookie Lone Star, Cookie Fest creator. “I’m not saying no to anybody.” Lone Star is a musician who’s originally from California. He used to go by Cookie Cutter Killer when he performed there, but decided to hang up his hat on his music career. When moving to San Marcos, he noticed how welcoming the music scene was and decided to dip his toes back into the scene, only to find himself completely immersed in it with a new stage name — Cookie Lone Star.
“I just got big into the community like with a lot of the open mic circuits, and a year later, now I’m playing all the time and recording. I’m back in it. So I have a lot of love for that community, and I’ve made a lot of incredible friends,” Lone Star said. “The interactions are so different compared to where I’m from; No one from here really wants anything from you. People just actually talk to you and get to know you, and everybody’s really supportive.”
He wanted to give back to that community by giving them an opportunity to play and show San Marcos what they can do.
“If you can get a lot of people together, make it worthwhile for the artist, and then make it free but guarantee a crowd, that’s a really unique approach. So what I did is, I put together Cookie Fest, which is going to have at least 20 different artists playing in one place,” Lone Star said. “How we’re going to get people is every artist that’s playing has to bring up a few people to be able to get a placement. None of the artists know when they’re going on until the day of the show, like when they’re there. So everybody has to come at the same time.”
As for the music, there will be a little of something for every preference as the festival will have many of the artists from the Cigar Vault open mic scene, which is very diverse.
“What an eclectic crowd, what a dynamic crowd,” Lone Star said. “It’s older. It’s younger. It’s guys and girls. And even the music styles are all over the place. It’s wild.”
For the event, there were shirts made with a design by Lone Star’s friend Mantes, who does the artwork for all of his singles, and the design was inspired by the goat farm outside of Ragnar’s. The flyers and shirts are now adorned with a goat playing an electric guitar.
“They had all the artists pitch in just for the cost of our shirts, so we can kind of use it to promote,” Lone Star said. “I’ve been going around town like crazy promoting it, anything I can do, just getting on the radio tons, and just every time I’m playing a show, talking to people about it. And there’s a lot of little surprises at the event as well. It’s gonna be really cool.”
Lone Star will also be releasing one of his newly recorded songs on the day of the festival as well.
“I’m releasing a song that I’ve played around a lot. It’s a very controversial song. And I was afraid to put it up because it basically tells the story of the supposed Lady Bird Killer,” Lone Star said. “When you hear it’s like a good song [and uplifting sounding], but when you listen to the lyrics, it’s dark.”
Follow Lone Star on instagram for updates @ cookielonestar.
