The Half Moon Jug Band is a 21st century American folk band rooted in the Downeast humor and dry wit traditions of their home State O’ Maine. Upbeat and positive, the Half Moon Jug Band does whatever it takes to get audiences singing along and dancing in the aisles. They firmly believe that “Louie, Louie” is every bit as real a folk song as “She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain.”

 

This band thrives on interaction with audiences. It’s not just about standing on stage playing songs. It’s about singing, dancing and making people happy. Every performance is studded with jokes, stories and mandatory sing-alongs. Nobody gets out without singing — nobody!

 

​Before you ask: There’s no jug. It’s implied. Jug band music is the homemade music friends make sitting ’round the kitchen table. You won’t hear it on the radio, you won’t see it on cable TV and you can’t get it at Wal-Mart. Labels don’t apply here. If it sounds fun, if the audience claps in time, if it feels honest, then it’s jug band music.

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The Half Moon Jug Band started as a merry band of sidewalk subversives entertaining passersby and annoying shopkeepers on Exchange Street in Portland, Maine 25 years ago with banjos, guitars, kazoos and drums. Now, the band can be found on the road playing concerts and festivals all over the northeast, including New Year’s Portland, the Maine Festival, the Old Port Festival, the Prescott Park Folk Festival, the Oddfellow Theatre, Johnson Hall, Celebration Barn Theater, Stonington Opera House, Marsh River Theater, Denmark Arts Center, Mayo Street Arts, Hill Arts, the Winthrop Performing Arts Center, the Maine Lobster Festival, Burlington’s strange 3rd of July Fireworks extravaganza, the Fryeburg, Deerfield and Cornish Fairs, and many town concerts too numerous to enumerate.

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The Half Moon Jug Band has played many live appearances on television and radio including WCSH’s “207,” WGME’s “Daybreak,” WPFO’s “Good Day Maine,” WMPG’s “Local Motives” and WCTN’s “Shine” and Maine’s long-running late night talk show “The Night Show with Danny Cashman.”

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In 2023, the Half Moon Jug Band released its seventh album, “Four More Than You Asked For.” It joins the band’s other recordings: 2018’s “Half Live at the Half Moon,” 2015’s “Don’t Bore Us Get to the Chorus,” 2013’s “North Pond Hermit Sessions,” 2009’s “Get the Show on the Road,” 2005’s “Jug Band Army,” 2003’s “Christmas On Exchange Street” and 2001’s “Space Man in a Jug Band.”

 

All are now streaming on all major platforms.