The 23rd annual Homegrown Music Festival is less than a month away. A 60-page Field Guide is off the presses and will be available at local bars, restaurants and other businesses over the course of the next few days.

Instead of the usual band profiles and festival logistics, this year’s Field Guide offers stories about the state of the music scene during the COVID-19 pandemic. This 2021 Homegrown will once again be an online event, and scheduling details remain a tad fuzzy. The festival runs May 2-9.

Homegrown has produced a Field Guide every year since the 2006 festival. Last year’s edition exists only in PDF format; live events were canceled the day before it would have been sent to the printer, therefore it contains nothing but visions of what might have been. Homegrown typically features live performances by nearly 200 musical acts, but during the pandemic the festival has not held in-person events.

The cover art on this year’s Field Guide is by Tom Moriarty. Grab one while you can; this year’s guide was printed in limited quantity — just 5,000 copies.