Montezuma Fire Machine
If you enjoy four days of camping, music and socializing at Bonnaroo, try it for the full month.
Every night, through June 26, bands will fill the summer air with live music at a place known as Hippie Hill.
And for $50, anyone is welcome to stay and camp for the entire month, or come and go as they please.
While the music and people found out at Hippie Hill are top-notch, this event is not just about having a good time. Hippie Hill’s mission is summed up in a simple three word slogan, “Helping Hungry Kids.”
Hippie and Mama Jeanie, the overseers of this secluded society, have made it their lives to welcome, feed and nurture some who may not otherwise have such.
At any given time, there may be up to 100 youth residing at the hill, located in the green foothills of Tennessee near the meeting point of Rutherford, Cannon and Coffee counties.
“We have kids come in every single day, and eat some food, and maybe just stay a few days,” Mama says.
Visitors and residents come from all over the world even; if they can get there, they will be fed.
Hippie Hill is certainly not a place to slack off or party all of the time; those who stay are expected to contribute, learn and grow.
“We teach the kids how to raise a garden,” Hippie says. “We teach them music, we teach them art—we all do art out here—we teach them how to sew. One of the main things we teach them is respect.”
Proceeds from this year’s Afteroo event, the eighth annual, will go towards the construction of a disc golf course on the hill, something fun and positive for everyone to enjoy outside.
And the music event is not just a concert for “people who are too poor to go to Bonnaroo,” but many of those coming out of the festival just a few miles down the road could just use an affordable place to set up camp.
“A lot of the kids coming out of Bonnaroo are traveling on the streets and have nowhere to go,” Hippie says. “They can come here.
“A lot of artists we don’t even know will come out and play.”
When talking with Hippie and Mama, the word “help” comes up a lot. They want to help someone find work, help someone get off drugs, help someone finish their education, help someone get the nourishment they need.
Here are the bands helping them throw a month-long festival, and more importantly, raise funds and awareness for the work going on at the hill.
Crunk Bones Jones
Thurs., June 2
Casey Arnold
9 p.m. Good Gravy
Fri., June 3
Cadillac Grainer Stringband
8 p.m. Montezuma Fire Machine
10 p.m. Dirty Cherry
Sat., June 4
7 p.m. Ryan Frizzel and the Buddy System
11 p.m. Thunderbear
2 a.m. DjPonder
Mon., June 6
Zach Harvey
Tues., June 7
Burton Knight
Wed., June 8
7 p.m. Bradley Groover & Friends
10 p.m. Jaik Willis
Fri., June 10
3 p.m. Cadillac Grainer Stringband
8 p.m. Whistle Pigs
Sat., June 11
Crunk Bones Jones
Sun., June 12
Terina Plyler
Mon., June 13 (HIPPIE’S BIRTHDAY!)
4 p.m. Bonus Plan
8 p.m. Sugar Lime Blue
12 a.m. Freedom Hill
Tues., June 14
Hula Muse
3 p.m. Hungry Goldfish
8 p.m. Dirty Cherry Band
12 a.m. Ryan Frizzel and the Buddy System
Wed., June 15
Hula Muse
3 p.m. Howling Brothers
8 p.m. Aaron Kamm and the One Drops
1 a.m. Machine Gun Moses
Machine Gun Moses
Thurs., June 16
Art of Belly Dancing
4 p.m. AFRO
8 p.m. Everyone’s Audience
12 a.m. Rootman J & the Zion Youth Crew
Fri., June 17 (2 NICE BIRTHDAY BASH!)
Art of Belly Dancing
8 p.m. Corbitt Brothers
12 a.m. Elephant Quiz
3 a.m. DJ Impulse Von Lickton Scratch
Sat., June 18
3 p.m. Dirty Cherry Band
6 p.m. Conrail Saints
10 p.m. Psychedelphia
1 a.m. New Old Cavalry
Sun., June 19
Bryan Jones
Tues., June 21
8 p.m. Hey OK Fantastic
Thurs, June 23
12 a.m. Bungalouski
Fri., June 24
6 p.m. Bungalouski
10 p.m. Bold as Love
2 a.m. Glowstik Willy
Sat., June 25
5 p.m. Green Relief
8 p.m. Fourth Avenue
12 a.m. Midnight Run
2 a.m. Bunglalouski
Sun., June 26
5 p.m. Loveless Root
8 p.m. Great Barrier Reefs
(More To Be Announced; Susceptible to Change)
Hippie Hill is located at 8627 Burks Hollow Road, Christiana, Tenn., 37037. From I-24, take exit 97; turn left and proceed 6 miles on Highway 64. Just after the Cannon Co. sign, turn left; look for the “Helping Hungry Kids” sign.
There will be bonfires every night; drum circles and acoustic jams (so bring your instruments); games, shade trees, yoga and meditation; and trade, hot food, handmade jewelry, fire spinning, belly dancing, hoping and positive vibrations. For more information, call (615) 796-3697.
June 23rd: Jahman Brahman
Comment June 21, 2011 @ 12:06 pm
This article is as deceptive as the name of the hillbilly camp it speaks of “Hippie Hill”.
Real hippies deserve to be forewarned there is nothing hippie about Hippie Hill. They are not vegitarians. They care nothing about pollution or enviormental practices. They are not kind to animals. The so called “kids” they “help” are mostly 30 something drunks who use the hill as a place to lose themselves in perpetual alcohol abuse. Hippie himself is a chronic drunk. He is not a hippie either he is an ex- con ex-biker thug who is extremely violent and has a dangerous temper. If he does not assault you personally he encourages others to.
The promotion of Afteroo is a disservice to community. There is no police oversite. Great you say you can smoke pot and drink all day. Yes you can smoke pot and buy it from aka Mama/Jeanie for the steep price of $120 per quarter ounce. However once on the hill you will find that come nightfall there are grave dangers lurking. The place is a haven for violent drunks and criminals. Fist fighting is common and people have been slashed with knives as well. It is not uncommon for people to be tied to trees, jumped by drunken mobs and robbed of everything or much worse. Hippie hill is an extremely dangerous place to visit and trust me when I say you do NOT want to live there.
We were conned to going to afteroo and as a result of being manipulated by Tom Maddox and his crew our lives were shattered. If you have kids or are a band or have some property or children that Tom Maddox believes he can profit from he will romance you and make endless promises in a bid to convinve you to move there. He will promise you a log cabin and a schoolhouse with hired teacher and everything imaginable but nothing will ever manifest except tradjedy. Instead you will be infested with parasites both human and nonhuman and every facet of your existence will be under the micro scope of the hyper control freak who runs the place. People there have nothing to do but gossip and stir up trouble against each other.
The only “work” provided is when the drunks are rounded up and dropped off on streetcorners in Murfreesboro and Manchester to “fly a sign” which is slang for begging and panhandling. Then Tom rounds up his crew and demands his cut. They want money plain and simple and they will sequeeze it out of you one way or another.
Hippie hill practices cultism and collects “dues” for a shadow organization of Toms fancy known as “HHK” which is a throwback from his biker gang days. This and rent must be paid or there is much harassment at the weekly mandatory “meetings” where Tom rants and raves all his psycho-babble about his control issues and dreams and projects that will most assuredly never ever happen.
Paying rent? Watch out! They do NOT give receipts. Why? Because that way if they decide to assault ou and chase you off the hill with kicks and punches and flying rocks then they can say you never paid any rent so you have no recourse to collect your belongings they just assumed. Your car will go straight to the crusher and the scrap metal price into Toms pocket. All your tools, music equipment and such will also be “donated” against your will. Heads up they are only nice and put on a front for the bands and short stay visitors. Move in and within a few months you will be searching for the 3am escape plan. Travel light if visiting like the clothes of your back, a xl can of army mace and will and testament. And wear some good running shoes.
The people living on hippie hill all have one thing in common. They are too poor to leave. They are slaves to thier master and know nowhere to go if they could leave. Hippie hill is not the kind peace loving place it is made out to be. Its a place of wretched filth and poverty where people go months without a shower and years without a dentist or a doctor. There is no electricity or running water. In the winter people freeze and in the summer they are eaten alive by ticks and scabies and lice and fleas. Look at all the starving dogs roaming in wild packs and tell me this is a place you want to stay. Run away!
There is a heavy steel gate with a padlock at the entrance to hippie hill. This is to keep police out in the event of a crime which is quite often. If you are assaulted or raped or robbed dont expect 911 to save you. If a crime against you occurs the first thing Tom Maddox does is calls T-Garden at the base of the hill and has him shut and padlock the gate then disappear back into his filthy trailer. The Rutheford County Police will NOT pass through the gate. They will call Tom Maddox on the telephone. Tow will lie and say he is out of town and has the only key and unable to open the gate. This happened to us. Its a good old boy network out in the bavkwood sticks so dont expect the cops to save you when the drunken hillbillies decide they want your girlfriend, your wife, your children, your car, your instruments, your tools or your life. You chose to go to lawless hill and you will get what you deserve. But when Tom Maddox gets hsi crew of misfits together and pays them each a bag of dope and a bottle of whiskey to lie thru their missing teeth and say you commited some henoius crime to have you arrested (so they can keep what they stole from you) you can bet your life the gate will fly open and the deputy will be there in seconds to take you away on the false allegations.
I wish it were not true. This is the kind of backwoods justice you see in bad movies and read about in unoriginal books. But in this case truth is stranger than fiction. So let me be the first victim of Hippie Hill who lived through a full blown hillbilly assault and whom is literate enough to tell the tale. What I tell you is true so help me God.
Please PLEASE take my word for it and do NOT go to Hippie Hill for ANY reason. And if you still want to go out of morbid curiosity or desperation for drugs and booze please do NOT take women or expecially children. Tom Maddox has a fetish for young women and he is obsessed with collecting children on the hill to legitimize his bogus “Helping Hungry Kids” charity racket.
When we lived on Hippie Hill and PULSE magazine came to take pictures Tom Maddox insisted we pose for pictures with our children. He said “That will really get them donations pouring in”.
PULSE magazine please wake up and realize you just another manipulated TOOL being used by a professional con-artist whom is certainly NOT a hippie. Would a REAL hippie call himself HIPPIE?
“Helping Hungry Kids” is not the name of a charity it is the name of a drug running ex-biker ex-con con-man crime organization that chose a pathetic sounding name to lure in gulliable suckers to give free food, resources and cash to a violent manipulating extortionist organization. I am not commiting slander I am choosing my word carefully to accurately descrive what I have seen and experienced on Hippie Hill with grave dilligence and accuracy that others might be spared the unbearable inconsolable torturous hells we have suffered because we were not warned to NEVER go to a place called Hippie Hill.If I can save even one person from the horrors that await them at least I can then say I have no suffered in vain but that I might warn others of the unspeakable dangers that lurk on Hippie Hill. Beware!
Comment July 31, 2012 @ 4:19 am