In Business: Deer Lake Charlie’s Holds Its Final JugBand Boogie of the Season

Originally started as a way for musicians to relax after a weekend of playing shows, Deer Lake Charlie’s – located in Effie in Itasca County – turned jug bands into a tradition called JugBand Boogie.

Last weekend was the final JugBand Boogie of the season. Hundreds from the community brought their lawn chairs, grabbed a drink from the bar, and enjoy each other’s company, and especially the music from whiskey jugs and other instruments at the iconic venue.

“Deer Lake Charlie’s was started back in 1941 by my uncle; he enlisted his father-in-law, my grandfather, to run the place,” explained Gail Blackmer, owner of Deer Lake Charlie’s. “We’ve developed a reputation for having some good times and having dances, having music, having bands. We had the jug band competition in Effie just down the road, and now we moved it out here to where there’s still a remaining place to have it.”

Each year the JugBand Boogie happens, more and more people join the festivities. It’s grown so much that they’ve moved the location from inside the bar due to overcrowding, to rigging a stage together on an old hay trailer for the bands to perform on.

“At the very end of the day, when it’s all said and done, you feel like you just gave birth, you know?” said JugBand Boogie host Aaron Lundholm with a laugh. “I mean, it’s ridiculous. It’s like, ‘Phew, my God, that was heavy.’ You know, there’s a lot of work but worth it, you know, totally.”

This is more than just a music event, but a competition for the bands involved. But as organizers and musicians say, maybe it’s not the most fair or serious of contests.

“The competition is pretty tough, and we have a panel of judges, we always have to watch out because judges can be bribed, you know,” joked Blackmer with a straight face. “A winner will be declared at the end of the day. They get the fish scaler and a plaque that they have to now engrave and return for the next year.”

“It’s totally loose, I mean, there’s rules that we try and follow, you know, like, you can’t practice, you can’t be like a real band,” added Lundholm. “Now, there’s been years where I’ve shown up here where it was just me and I just made my band on the spot. I just gathered some people up and said, ‘Let’s play some music.'”

The owners of the tavern say they’re thankful they can spare some time to enjoy the music themselves.

“It’s really a culmination of everything through the course of the year,” says SuZanne Risberg-Elliot, Deer Lake Charlie’s Partner. “All of our friends are here. The bands that we’ve had show up in another form to do the jug band. And so for us it’s a super satisfying day. We always enjoy it and we get more and more help every year to where [Blackmer] and I can actually step out and really enjoy it.”