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This is no longer the most current edition. You'll want to go our MAY 1st EDITION for updated events. Though the FEATURE STORIES and on-demand music in this edition are still new to you if ya haven't read and / or listened to 'em.
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Thanks to Little Fish Theatre for letting us know. We, too, are proud to participate in the
San Pedro Waterfront Arts District's PAY IT FORWARD CAMPAIGN.
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Just because we published two massive, information-packed editions already this week, that doesn't mean we get to take the weekend off. There's just too much going on that needs reporting!
So.... here we are, afresh and again (well, the material is fresh, but it's been a week of long hours, so we aren't exactly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed)... But herewith is a new edition with lots of content for this weekend. It's culled, cropped, harvested, collected, scavenged, and (when all else failed, as "plumb tarred" as we are) it's even originally reported and written-up from our own calls and notes. Eventually, voila! a rich and tasty stew with fresh-picked ingredients from hither and yon; all kindsa goodies from all sortsa places; and with a major nod to our friends at the Americana Music Association for their contributions, in partic'lar.
Dig in!
And, oh, by the way... there's bunches you can hear, watch, read, peruse, laugh at, and interactively do, in all of our recent editions.
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Today is Saturday, April 25, 2020.
The world continues in quasi-quarantine (except for the maskless Trumpertarians trying to "liberate" the virus).
This poem soooo speaks to our time.
And April is National Poetry Month.
"A little Madness in the Spring"
by Emily Dickinson
A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown—
Who ponders this tremendous scene—
This whole Experiment of Green—
As if it were his own!
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“A little Madness in the Spring...” by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886). Public domain.
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THOUGHT FOR TODAY from one born on this date...
"The only thing better than singing is more singing."
~ Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996), America's First Lady of Song.
She was the most popular female jazz singer in the United States for more than half a century. In her lifetime, she won 13 Grammy awards and sold over 40 million albums.
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We turn to Garrison Keillor, who wrote this today about her:
It's the birthday of the "First Lady of Song," Ella Fitzgerald, born in Newport News, Virginia in 1917. She loved to sing and dance as a child and when she was 16 she entered a contest at the Apollo Theater. She had a dance routine worked out and walked on stage wearing ragged clothes and men's boots, but she froze up. Later she said, "I got out there and I saw all the people and I just lost my nerve. And the man said, 'well, you're out here, do something!' So I tried to sing." She won the contest and soon became a celebrity across all of New York. She joined Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington as the only performers who could draw audiences at the Apollo from south of 125th Street.
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Herein...
◇ MUSIC NEWS
◇ NEW RELEASE PREVIEWS
◇ ON-DEMAND PERFORMANCES
◇ MUSIC VIDEOS done live
◇ CHECKING-IN WITH ARTISTS
◇ TAKING CARE OF THOSE LOOKING OUT FOR US
◇ CYBER CONCERTS
◇ ONLINE EVENTS THIS WEEKEND
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COVID-19 Music Industry Updates
Spotify for Artists has launched its new feature "Artist Fundraising Pick," which enables artists to highlight a fundraising destination on their Spotify profile via Cash App, GoFundMe or PayPal links. Read more
The National Independent Venue Association has written an open letter to Congress asking for "targeted legislative and regulatory assistance" to help this critically important facet of the music community survive during these financially trying times. Read more
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In memoriam...
Two storied Southern California-based artists have left us, one claimed by COVID-19.
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TIM FLEMING
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Both these artists are missed, and will continue to be for a long, long time. When gigs resume, we expect we'll do double-takes, certain we saw them in the shadows behind the curtains, tuned, smiling, and waiting their call to take the stage.
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Somewhere out there... news from artists
Michaela Anne reports, "I lost my tour, my income and my friend to Coronavirus. I don't know what's next." She penned a powerful piece on her world being turned upside down in wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Read more
Jason Isbell says, "I had a bunch of tools and nothing to build. I'm really glad I have something to build now,” opening up about his sobriety journey, firing listeners up with his potent lyrics and, and talking why he intentionally chose the title "Reunions" for his latest record with the 400 Unit. Read more
Lukas Nelson gave us insight into the making of "Naked Garden," including how leaving in bits of conversations during the recordings brings listeners into the studio and what he and his bandmates are planning after the pandemic passes. Read more
Amanda Shires says, “I was thinking about how much of what we do as singers is community-based ... I felt like I needed that ... " sharing how her "I So Lounging" quarantine music series helped her find a sense of togetherness with her fellow touring musicians and husband Jason Isbell, while also raising tens of thousands of dollars for her bandmates and MusicCares' COVID-19 Relief Fund. Read more
(our thanks to the Americana Music Association.)
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Sayin' it in a song...
JEREMIE ALBINO pens an ode to adventurous freedom with "Klondike Man," a bluesy acoustic number topped with a harmonica solo. Listen here
JACKSON BROWNE raises awareness for plastic pollution with "Downhill from Everywhere," a slick roots-rock cut from his upcoming album (due out Oct 9). Listen here
STEVE EARLE & THE DUKES remember those who were lost in a coal mining tragedy on "It's About Blood," another gritty chapter from "Ghosts of West Virginia" (due out May 22). Listen here
NATHANIEL RATELIFF assembles an all-star ensemble for "Willie's Birthday Song," a celebratory salute to WILLIE NELSON's upcoming 87th birthday and the next installment in "The Marigold Singles" project. Listen here
THE DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS' MIKE COOLEY and PATTERSON HOOD are the latest guests on the "Broken Record" podcast, discussing the political tones of their latest record, "The Unraveling," and treating listeners to some stripped-down performances. Listen here
TRE BURT dropped by NPR Music's "World Cafe" to talk about his debut on the late John Prine's Oh Boy Records, "Caught It From the Rye," and to perform highlights like "Real You" and "What Good." Listen here
RECKLESS KELLY are trying to escape heartbreak throughout "Lonesome On My Own," another selection with radiant pedal steel from their upcoming double albums, "American Jackpot" and "American Girls" (both due out May 22). Listen here
JOHN PAUL WHITE teams-up with ROSANNE CASH for "We're All In This Together Now," a stirring benefit single for Music Health Alliance who are continuing to help the music community during the COVID-19 pandemic. Listen here
(our thanks to the Americana Music Association.)
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Musical watchables
Good stuff, on-demand...
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Listen-in to New Releases, just out, April 18-24
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Click for more new releases, across genres ...
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The Guide has kept you informed about how musicians can get help. Now it's time to help others who help ALL OF US.
TO: Congress
Tell Congress: Essential workers deserve essential protections
Reasons for signing
"Our ability to stay at home is literally built on the backs of essential workers. It is immoral to leave these workers unprotected."
"Essential workers need to be protected to do their job."
"you can't talk about 'getting American back to work' if you can't show that the millions of Americans who are already working can be protected."
SIGN THE PETITION
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Before you make Big Media or Big Pharma into heroes of the COVID crisis
by Larry Wines
Here at The Guide, we have explored with our readers why an ever-diminishing number of news sources erodes trust in the media. Today, just six giant, for-profit corporations control over 90% of the mass-information market, including the news media.
Those who have investigated this new phenomena -- and/or been insiders and gotten out of corporate media as a matter of conscience -- have had a tough time finding an audience for their revelations. Clearly, that's because Big Media enforces its hegemony to protect the profitability of the parent corporation and its interests and investments.
Look to Cenk Uygur, Amy Goodman, Thom Hartmann, the late Ed Schultz, Bill Maher, Chris Hedges, and Professors Richard Wolfe and Noam Chomsky, and socio-political satirist and media critic Lee Camp, who have all (lucidly) written plenty about it -- plenty that doesn't get them on book-tour segments on network morning shows or late shows or cable news.
Meanwhile, Big Oil, the Warconomy, Big Insurance, and Big Pharma buy what amounts to cheap cover in a protection racket of sponsorship of cable and network news. Hundreds of millions spent in advertising may influence viewers to a positive opinion, but that's almost irrelevant. The real benefit is avoiding media scrutiny and investigation.
Currently, Liberty Mutual, while distracting you with excruciatingly annoying "LiMu Emus" is profitably writing insurance policies for all the leaky tar-sands oil pipelines that deliver one of the most devastating generators of climate change. Without insurance, there are no more new pipeline projects to dangerously convey toxic goo through the watersheds of Native American lands -- where people from all over the world were portrayed as nutty malcontents when they joined Indians trying to keep the invasive, leaking pipelines out.
And look at the endless procession of commercials from Big Pharma. It's all ads for drugs nobody can afford, because millions must be recouped after advertising them (but only in the U.S. and New Zealand; EVERY other nation bans ads for prescription drugs). And the drugs themselves are so esoteric that the tiniest fraction of sick people could take them, anyway. What it is really about is avoiding news stories on the toxicity of what they make. And how it kills and debilitates some of those who take the stuff. And how doctors and hospitals are heavily bribed with expensive perqs to prescribe specific, heavily-advertised, high-profit drugs. And how the attendant horrors proliferate out of control. Like those undergone by animals used in testing. And by human populations in India and Pakistan where the stuff is made without inadequate regulations to protect the locals from toxic exposures.
While EVERY expert in epidemiology and vaccines tells anyone who will listen that a COVID-19 vaccine is probably a minimum of 18 months away, nobody is on-air on Big Pharma-sponsored Big Media, asking an existential question: whether the hypothetical vaccine will turn out to be proprietary to one drug maker, and what exorbitant extortion that giddy corporate-profit-taking maker will expect. Because dammit, it will be the next phase, and really the end-game in a life-or-death scenario: those rich enough can live, and those too poor will go untreated, left to the Russian roulette of contagion.
With that in mind, and Earth Day just past, we will invoke one of the Basic Laws of the Environment, put forth by the late Garret Hardin in the 1970s, and this one originally based on an observation by John Muir. It is simply this: "Everything is connected to everything else."
Accordingly, we offer the foregoing analysis and perspective to introduce a scathingly insightful (even "inciteful") piece from FAIR - Fairness and Acuracy in Reporting. It's an important and enlightening read, and it's next.
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Depending on where you are on the political spectrum, you almost assuredly ask, "How can ANYBODY believe FOX?!" Or, "How can ANYBODY believe MSNBC?!" The real question should be aimed at ALL of corporate media and the elitist and protectionist agenda that determines what we see.
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From
Corporate Media Deny Their Own Existence, Despite Driving Biden's Primary Victory
If someone were to tell you that major and influential business sectors like the fossil fuel and health insurance industries simply don’t exist, or imply that major corporations like ExxonMobil and Cigna don’t try to manipulate public opinion and advance a political agenda in order to protect and maximize their profits, you might find it hard to contain your laughter.
But looking at corporate media’s coverage of corporate media, one gets the sense that anyone who dares to suggest that media corporations like Comcast-owned MSNBC, AT&T-owned CNN or News Corp–owned Fox News have their own commercial interests—which incentivize them to push pro-corporate politics—are kooky “conspiracy theorists.”
That’s really strange. After all, there are plenty of reports from corporate media discussing how major oil and health insurance companies spend fortunes to propagandize Americans into believing that a single-payer healthcare system would be disastrous, or that the climate crisis really isn’t that serious, despite all evidence to the contrary (FAIR.org, 1/24/20, 1/31/20). There are whistleblowers like former Cigna PR executive Wendell Potter who revealed how he, along with other paid corporate propagandists, cultivated “contacts and relationships among journalists and other media gatekeepers,” and learned from the tobacco industry’s “groundbreaking work in stealth PR” in order to develop talking points and advance a political agenda to protect industry profits.
So why exactly should we trust for-profit media outlets to be impartial and have their news coverage untainted by their own business interests?
Throughout the 2020 election cycle, FAIR (7/17/19, 8/21/19, 1/30/20, 4/7/20) has documented how corporate media have been trying to play kingmaker by aggressively pushing centrist and right-wing Democratic presidential candidates like Joe Biden onto the electorate, while assailing progressives like Bernie Sanders as “unelectable.” Now that Sanders has dropped out of the race, it’s worth examining the role propagandistic and hostile media coverage played throughout the primary in determining the outcome.
Jeff Cohen (Common Dreams, 3/16/20): "The media barrage on electability has proved...persuasive to many Democrats—apparently convincing them that Biden can defeat Donald Trump while Sanders is a huge risk."
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Analyzing the paradoxical phenomenon of the sizable “Socialists for Biden” voting bloc, FAIR’s founder Jeff Cohen (Common Dreams, 3/16/20) noted that although continuous exit polls confirm that most voters agree with Sanders ideologically, many nevertheless voted for Biden, because they perceived him to be a more “electable” candidate against Donald Trump.
Although several people have debunked the myth of “low” youth voter turnout in this election cycle (FAIR.org, 2/26/20; Films for Action, 3/5/20; Atlantic, 3/17/20), it’s true that older voters turned out in massive numbers to support Biden. On Twitter (3/14/20), journalist Malaika Jabali attributed the “generational divide” in voting behavior to an “information divide,” and argued that many older voters don’t suffer from a lack of information, so much as too much information from different sources compared to younger voters.
That influential media outlets like CNN, MSNBC, NPR, the New York Times and Washington Post continue to exercise a formidable class-control function on behalf of their owners and advertisers seems to be borne out by data confirming Jabali’s analysis.
Pew Research (12/10/18) found that although social media has become a more popular source for news, television still retains supremacy, with 49% of US adults receiving news most often from TV. Whereas young adults aged 18 to 29 receive 36% of their news from social media and 16% from TV, older voters aged 50–64 receive 65% of their news from TV and only 14% from social media, and voters older than 65 receive a whopping 81% of their news from TV and a mere 8% from social media.
The age groups that got much of their news from television and print newspapers and little from social media were the best groups for Biden—and the worst groups for Sanders (Pew, 12/10/18).
Pew (9/26/19) also documented a striking partisan divide on Americans' trust in the media, with 69% of Democrats having a “great” or “fair” amount of trust in the media, compared to only 15% of Republicans.
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Other media studies of cable news like CNN and MSNBC confirmed their pivotal role as an anti-Sanders attack machine (FAIR.org, 1/30/20). According to the Norman Lear Center (5/19), self-identified liberals watch MSNBC at three times the rate of moderates and ten times the rate of conservative viewers. Branko Marcetic (In These Times, 11/13/19) documented that MSNBC’s August–September 2019 coverage of the Democratic primary not only emphasized electability over policy issues, but also talked about Biden three times as often as Sanders, who had fewer negative mentions (11%) compared to Sanders (21%). Another survey by In These Times (3/9/20) of CNN’s coverage of the 24 hours after Sanders and Biden’s massive wins in Nevada and South Carolina found that Sanders received three times more negative coverage than Biden, despite winning by similar margins.
Given Sanders’ massive advantages over Biden when it came to campaign staff and volunteers, organizational and online presence, ad buys as well as money in Super Tuesday states, it’s clear that the media blitz following Biden’s South Carolina win played a decisive role in propelling him to victory in states he didn’t even campaign in (New York Times, 2/26/20).
Yet, in what is truly a collective galaxy-brain level take, corporate media appeared to deny their own existence and how the profit motive compromised their coverage throughout the primary.
Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple (10/24/19) puts scare quotes around "corporate media"—like they're a figment of Bernie Sanders' imagination.
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Whenever corporate media discuss themselves, they frequently use scare quotes around the term “corporate media” (e.g., Washington Post, 10/24/19; Politico, 8/13/19), as if the term is referring to a nonexistent entity or a figment of their audience’s imagination. This is in stark contrast to their alarmist attitude towards foreign state media outlets like RT and Xinhua, which are frequently referred to as “propaganda” and “state media”—no quotation marks required (New York Times, 3/8/17, 2/18/20).
Yet when they weren’t suggesting they were imaginary, corporate media were also fully capable on occasion of discussing their enormous impact on the race. Vanity Fair’s “Joe Biden, Revenant, Was an Irresistible Media Story—and It Helped Win Him Super Tuesday” (3/5/20) described how Biden campaign aides were gloating to CNN about riding their “earned-media tsunami” to victory in Super Tuesday—referring to coverage that wasn’t paid for following Biden’s South Carolina win—and estimated to be worth at least $72 million during those crucial days.
Despite noting that Sanders actually had more free coverage ($156 million) during this time period from the same “‘corporate media’” which had “written him off” earlier, Vanity Fair argued that media narratives trump any other factor (including money), with Sanders’ narrative being largely negative in contrast to Biden’s:
In recent days Biden has basked in mostly positive coverage, with TV pundits citing his South Carolina victory in arriving at a consensus narrative: Biden, despite poor showings in all of the early-primary states, is the comeback candidate peaking at the perfect moment.... Following Biden’s Saturday blowout, the media narrative shifted from Sanders being the momentum candidate to questions about whether his campaign was constrained by a ceiling due to his poor South Carolina performance, particularly with black voters, the most consistent Democratic voting bloc.
Corporate media frequently noted how Sanders has been their most frequent critic when he was on the campaign trail, and even when they grudgingly admitted its validity at times, they treated Sanders’ media criticism as an ideological perspective on the media, rather an uncontroversial description. Politico (8/13/19) wrote that “Sanders has long accused the ‘corporate media’ of putting the interests of the elite above those of the majority of Americans.” Vanity Fair (2/18/20) wrote: “Sanders has long contended that the agenda of ‘corporate media’ doesn’t necessarily reflect the people’s needs, and his 2020 campaign has doubled as a rolling media criticism shop.”
The New York Times (3/5/20) also gaslit readers by attributing critique of the “‘corporate media,’” and MSNBC’s hosts for pushing an “‘establishment’” perspective, merely to Sanders and the “activist left,” as if their critique were only a sectarian complaint.
The Washington Post’s media critic Erik Wemple (10/24/19) mocked Sanders’ critique of the “‘corporate media,’” implying that Sanders hasn’t “done enough research” to “tease out tendencies,” despite writing that “attacking the ‘corporate media’ is good politics for Sanders, and his critiques sometimes land with heft and reason.” Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan (2/12/20) glancingly acknowledged media hostility towards Sanders when she observed that Sanders kept dissing “what he calls the corporate media,” and that his “ardent followers bond with him and with one another by despising the mainstream media, often enough with good reason”—yet she failed to explain this hostility in structural terms regarding media ownership and commercial interests. In the Post’s “Bernie Sanders’s Bogus Media Beef,” Aaron Blake (8/14/19) cited executive editor Marty Baron dismissing Sanders’ claims as a “conspiracy theory,” while the Post’s Paul Waldman (8/14/19) dismissed Sanders’ media criticism as “something in common with pretty much every candidate,” and breathtakingly asserted that “ideological bias is usually the least important.”
Waldman’s assessment isn’t shared by FAIR (Extra!, 10/89), or by Politico’s founding editor John Harris (11/7/19), who admitted that “the pervasive force shaping coverage of Washington and elections is what might be thought of as centrist bias, flowing from reporters and sources alike.”
Sanders' "ridiculous" claim, according to Chris Cillizza (CNN, 8/13/19), is that the owner of a media outlet has an impact on its viewpoint.
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Another approach to dismissing structural media criticism has been to portray Sanders and Trump’s media criticisms as equally wacky conspiracy theories (FAIR.org, 1/24/20). CNN’s Chris Cillizza (8/13/19) asserted that Sanders’ critique of the Jeff Bezos–owned Washington Post’s coverage is “absolutely no different than what Trump does.” Politico’s John Harris (2/13/20) bemoaned the “dilution of mainstream media’s institutional power” and pined for the days where editors at “major news institutions possessed enormous power” to “summon sustained national attention on subjects they deemed important” with their story selection and framing, while denouncing Sanders for following the “Trump precedent” in “taking flight from public accountability.”
When corporate media didn’t dismiss their bias against him, they sunnily described how Sanders didn’t seem to need fairer coverage from corporate media—and cable news in particular—because nonprofit media outlets, with considerably less resources and reach, are increasingly picking up the slack. Citing the “formidable” influence of “alternative media,” the Los Angeles Times (12/12/19) argued that “coverage in what Sanders likes to disparage as the ‘corporate media’ may matter less to him than to any of his rivals because of the benefit he derives from a surging alternative media ecosystem.” The New Republic (2/12/20, 2/28/20) acknowledged MSNBC’s hostile posture towards Sanders, yet also failed to explain that bias in terms of corporate interests, while arguing that Sanders’ campaign strategy of relying on an alternative media infrastructure to run “against the ‘corporate media’” and “withstand attacks from mainstream networks” has “worked wonders.”
Strikingly, in all these reports, corporate media either misrepresented Sanders’ proposed solutions to corporate media bias or omitted them altogether. Vermont journalist Paul Heintz (Washington Post, 2/26/19), for example, chided Sanders for not understanding what a “free press” does, and claimed that Sanders’ remedy for corporate media is merely “uncritical, stenographic coverage of his agenda.”
Bernie Sanders (CJR, 8/26/19): "One reason we do not have enough real journalism in America right now is because many outlets are being gutted by the same forces of greed that are pillaging our economy."
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In fact, Sanders’ op-ed in the Columbia Journalism Review (8/26/19) echoed many of FAIR’s criticisms of corporate media and proposed solutions:
Today, after decades of consolidation and deregulation, just a small handful of companies control almost everything you watch, read and download. Given that reality, we should not want even more of the free press to be put under the control of a handful of corporations and “benevolent” billionaires who can use their media empires to punish their critics and shield themselves from scrutiny....
In my administration, we are going to institute an immediate moratorium on approving mergers of major media corporations until we can better understand the true effect these transactions have on our democracy.... We must also explore new ways to empower media organizations to collectively bargain with these tech monopolies, and we should consider taxing targeted ads and using the revenue to fund nonprofit civic-minded media.
Setting aside the interlocking commercial interests mass media corporations share with other industries and advertisers funding their coverage (FAIR.org, 8/1/17), just as one can expect the healthcare and fossil fuel industries to launch propaganda campaigns to protect their profits (Intercept, 11/20/18; Guardian, 10/23/19), one can reliably predict these same media corporations to oppose any political agenda that harms their own profitability. Given Sanders’ opposition to future mergers and corporate consolidation of mass media giants, proposals to wield antitrust legislation against Google and Facebook, and levying new taxes to fund nonprofit media outlets, is it any surprise that for-profit news sources opposed his candidacy? (Politico, 8/28/19)
Perhaps future media criticism might sound less “conspiratorial” if we simply referred to outlets like MSNBC as “Comcast,” CNN as “AT&T” and the Washington Post as “Jeff Bezos” instead. When one understands corporate media as an industry in themselves, decisions to have a centrist bias to maximize profits by appealing to liberals and conservatives alike, or creating “information silos” to sell the news as a commodity to target demographics, make a lot more sense. And when we understand the news industry as a top-down institution, beholden to stockholders like all other corporations, we can stop blaming journalists for bad coverage, and start blaming executives like Les Moonves and Tony Maddox for doing things like gifting billions of dollars in free coverage for Trump (FAIR.org, 3/31/20, 4/13/20).
Then maybe claiming that corporate media outlets like MSNBC and CNN are hostile to left-wing political agendas will be considered just as obvious as saying that ExxonMobil and Cigna are opposed to climate action and universal healthcare.
Featured image [first one in the story]: New York Times (2/26/20) depiction of Joe Biden addressing reporters (photo: Brittainy Newman).
The foregoing is republished in full. Click to view the article on FAIR's website
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CYBER-LIVE, music and events direct to your glowing screen
Chronologically by day and start time, following...
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EIGHT DAYS OF JAZZ FEST -- a major FESTIVAL in virtual form, as an "all-time best" re-creation...
Apr 23-26 and Apr 30-May 3:
9 am-5 pm Pacific -- "JAZZ FESTING IN PLACE," a radio version of this year's cancelled
"New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival."
* The broadcast streams daily, the same hours as it would have from the actual festival site.
* TUNE-IN at: https://www.wwoz.org/
* Read the story in New Orleans' "OffBeat" at: http://www.offbeat.com/news/wwoz-to-broadcast-8-days-of-jazz-festing-in-place/
* Artists that will be featured during Jazz Festing in Place include New Orleans legends like Dr. John, Fats Domino, The Neville Brothers, Irma Thomas, The Meters, Allen Toussaint, Henry Butler, Marcia Ball, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Mardi Gras Indians, Trombone Shorty, Kermit Ruffins, John Boutte, The Radiators, Big Freedia, Ernie K-Doe, Ellis Marsalis, Danny Barker,Rebirth Brass Band, Bob French and the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band, and many others.
* In addition to the Jazz Fest broadcast, WWOZ will also air the rare “Fire Benefit” performance that took place in 1974 and features Professor Longhair, the Wild Magnolias, and Dr. John. Interviews and audio highlights will be included as part of the broadcast to maintain the feeling of the festival.
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Sat & Sun, Apr 25 & 26, CYBER FESTIVAL
Grand Park’s "Our L.A. Voices – a Spring Pop-up Arts+Culture Fest"
Grand Park’s annual weekend-long spring arts experience is going virtual.
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Cyber events running all-weekend-long are above... Saturday-only events are in this section...
Sat, April 25th performances
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Sat, Apr 25:
ALL DAY
WILLIE WATSON performs as "Pickathon Presents A Concert A Day"
* WATCH at: https://www.facebook.com/RecordingAcademy/videos/535531977161356/
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Sat, Apr 25:
ALL DAY
WILLIE WATSON performs as "Pickathon Presents A Concert A Day"
* WATCH at: https://www.facebook.com/RecordingAcademy/videos/535531977161356/
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Sat, Apr 25:
9 am Pacific --
The Beatles' "Yellow Submarine" on YouTube as a Sing-A-Long |
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The Beatles will release their animated film “Yellow Submarine” worldwide as a live Sing-A-Long, exclusively on YouTube as a one-time-only event on Saturday, April 25th at 9 am PST. This Sing-A-Long version includes song lyrics at the bottom of the screen for you to belt out your favorite tunes.
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* Tune-in:
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Sat, Apr 25:
10 am-1 pm Pacific --
Citizens' Climate Lobby celebrates a Virtual Earth Day with a talk by climate scientist Katherine Heyhoe, followed by actions you can take to help deal with climate change, including your choice of FOUR breakout sessions. This is a Zoom meeting. If you haven't done a Zoom session yet, here's a great chance to try it out with something that matters. Click here ahead of time to register and see what it's about.
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Sat, Apr 25, FESTIVAL:
10 am-noon Pacific --
"THIS MOMENT" ARTISTIC UPRISING
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11 am-4 pm Pacific --
J.P. HARRIS, DAVID SICKMEN (Hackensaw Boys), JAKE La BOTZ, JOE TROOP (Che Apalache), ALLISON de GROOT, & WESTERN CENTURIES, are all in the lineup of the "FREE DIRT RECORDS REVUE"
* WATCH at: https://www.facebook.com/FreeDirtRecords/
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Sat, Apr 25:
12:30 pm Pacific --
MICHAEL McDERMOTT plays "Chapter 3, The Alibi"
* WATCH at: https://www.stageit.com/michael_mcdermott/house_arrest_the_alibi_show/78571
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Sat, Apr 25, BENEFIT FESTIVAL:
1:30 pm-the rest of the day, Pacific --
"THE UNIVERSE IN VERSE" — an annual celebration of science through poetry, art, and live music, hosted by Maria Popova with astrophysicist Janna Levin — is ordinarily a ticketed charitable event, with all proceeds benefiting a chosen ecological or scientific-humanistic nonprofit each year.
* MUSICIANS PERFORMING include ROSANNE CASH, PATTI SMITH, & AMANDA PALMER.
* This unique year, it's a livestream offered for free. But producers and participating artists want you to know that "making the show exist, and beaming it to you, had significant costs, paid out of (shallow, personal, non-profit) pocket."
* TUNE-IN at Brain Pickings, at:
https://www.brainpickings.org/the-universe-in-verse/
* NOTE: For various artistic, legal, and technical reasons, the livestream will not be available in its entirety for later viewing — just as a physical gathering only exists for as long as we are gathered — but individual readings will be released incrementally on Brain Pickings. (Sign up for the newsletter to ensure you don’t miss them.)
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Sat, Apr 25, BENEFIT:
2 pm-6 pm Pacific --
"All Together Now Telethon" live on several websites from Los Angeles, CA, is an online concert event helping the City of Los Angeles during the coronavirus pandemic. "The concert is set to be a major and significant relief effort addressing the needs of all Angelenos as we collectively navigate these unprecedented and challenging times," says L.A. City Councilmember John Lee. The City, in partnership with Rock Cellar Productions and the Get Together Foundation, will present ALL TOGETHER NOW!
The online concert features an array of talented singers, songwriters, musicians, actors, authors, comedians, and celebrities of all sorts “coming together” to perform and send positive messages to the City of Angels and the world.
The growing list of artists participating in this event include Jeff Bridges, Smokey Robinson, Carole King, Rick Springfield, Mindi Abair, Paul Rodgers (Bad Company), Melissa Manchester, Mickey Thomas (Jefferson Starship), Mary Wilson (The Supremes), Micky Dolenz (The Monkees), Ellis Hall, Tim Allen, Bobcat Goldthwait, Mike Love (The Beach Boys), Lisa Loeb, Steve Lukather (Toto), Vonda Shepard, Peter Beckett (Player), Steve Ferrone (Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers), Alan Parsons Live Project, and Jesse Colin Young and dozens more. The list continues to grow and producers just added Sheila E this week.
☆ 100% of the proceeds go to the City of Los Angeles COVID 19 Fund and the links to donate will apoear during the show.
Feel free to copy and share this write-up -- globally -- as you see fit and remember to tune in.
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Sat, Apr 25:
4 pm Pacific --
P3 Theatre Company brings A (Quarantined) Lady, A One-Man (Virtual) Cabaret
P3 Theatre Company brings A (Quarantined) Lady, A One-Man (Virtual) Cabaret
Starring P3 Theatre Company Executive Director and Founder, Jon Peterson.
"Have you ever noticed that all the best show-stopping numbers are sung by the show’s leading ladies? In this cabaret extravaganza, Jon Peterson explores these smashing tunes through the eyes of a (quarantined) man. Move over, Patti. Have a seat, Bernadette. Pipe down, Ethel. This theatre is no lady!"
* TIX to watch on your screen, $20, here.
"Have you ever noticed that all the best show-stopping numbers are sung by the show’s leading ladies? In this cabaret extravaganza, Jon Peterson explores these smashing tunes through the eyes of a (quarantined) man. Move over, Patti. Have a seat, Bernadette. Pipe down, Ethel. This theatre is no lady!"
* TIX to watch on your screen, $20, here.
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Tough choices for 5 pm...
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5 pm Pacific --
"JORMA KAUKONEN’s Quarantine Concert #4"
* WATCH at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pImqCWpu_H
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5 pm Pacific --
Loudon Wainright III, longtime extraordinary songwriter and singer, does a live show, titled “Songs I Wish I’d Written” performing for the "Folk Music Society" in Berkeley, CA at the world famous Freight and Salvage, and you can watch it here.
* Loudon will be singing songs by Bob Dylan, Richard Thompson, Jesse Winchester, Merle Haggard, Tom Lehrer, Hank Williams, and maybe more, hopefully finding an excuse to slip-in one of his own.
* Scroll down that same page just a bit and you can hear other "virus era" shows from the past month, including one that features more "graduates of both the Berkeley and the Pasadena Folk Music Societys," Laurie Lewis, and Peter Rowan, plus an Alice Gerrard interview, and more.
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Sat, Apr 25, benefit:
5 pm Pacific --
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6 pm Pacific --
AOIFE O’DONOVAN presents "An Evening of Songs Performed at Home,"
featuring special performances by Eric and Colin Jacobsen
* WATCH at: https://found.ee/aoifeathome
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Sat, Apr 25:
8 pm Pacific --
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Sunday, April 26
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THOUGHT FOR TODAY from one born on this date...
"The possession of arbitrary power has always, the world over, tended irresistibly to destroy humane sensibility, magnanimity, and truth."
~ Frederick Law Olmsted (born April 26, 1822, died 1903). The father of American landscape architecture, he may have more to do with the way America looks than anyone else. Beginning in 1857 with the design of Central Park in New York City, he created designs for thousands of landscapes, including many of the world's most important parks.
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Remembering a birthday, today, April 26th
We turn to Garrison Keillor, who had this to say about our honoree:
Today is the birthday of the man who once wrote, “I feel I am strange to all but the birds of America”: ornithologist and artist John James Audubon (books by this author), born in Les Cayes in what is now Haiti (1785). Audubon grew up in France, and when he was 18 years old, his father managed to get him a false passport to escape the Napoleonic Wars, and he headed to America. Fascinated by all the new American birds he saw, he began to study them more closely. He found some Eastern Phoebes nesting in a cave. He had read that they returned to the same spot to nest every year, and he wanted to test that idea. For days, he sat in the cave with them and read a book, until they were used to him and let him approach. He tied string to their legs to identify them, and sure enough, the next year the same birds were back in the cave. It is the first known incident of banding birds.
Audubon fell in love with a woman named Lucy Bakewell. Her father objected to Audubon’s lack of career goals and insisted that he find a solid trade before marriage. So, he opened a general store in Kentucky on the Ohio River, and soon after, John and Lucy were married. Audubon was a terrible business owner, and eventually he realized that his best chance for success lay in his birds after all. Lucy took on the main breadwinner duties by teaching children in their home, while her husband traveled all over the continent collecting specimens for his masterpiece, Birds of America (1838). The book was two feet wide and three feet tall, with 435 life-sized hand-colored plates of birds. It was extraordinarily expensive to print, and was financed by advance orders as well as commissioned paintings, exhibitions, and any furs that Audubon was able to trap and sell on his excursions. But it was a success. One reviewer wrote: “All anxieties and fears which overshadowed his work in its beginning had passed away. The prophecies of kind but overprudent friends, who did not understand his self-sustaining energy, had proved untrue; the malicious hope of his enemies, for even the gentle lover of nature has enemies, had been disappointed; he had secured a commanding place in the respect and gratitude of men.”
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Sun, April 26th performances
Cyber events running all-weekend-long are two sections above... Sunday-only events are in this section...
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ALL DAY
THE LONE BELLOW performs on "Pickathon Presents A Concert A Day"
* WATCH at: https://www.facebook.com/RecordingAcademy/videos/271880033850243/
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Three online events, same musical duo
10:30 am; 1 pm; 4 pm, all Pacific --
EMMA'S REVOLUTION
* 10:30 am PACIFIC
Join us for the virtual service at Tahoma Unitarian Universalist Congregation. "Join Rev. Linda and Emma’s Revolution for a Sunday of singing and dancing spirits. Music can give voice to feelings that are hard to express otherwise. Let’s join together (virtually, of course) to reflect, sing, laugh, and dance."
Attend via Zoom or phone (dial 253-215-8782).
Join us for the virtual service at Tahoma Unitarian Universalist Congregation. "Join Rev. Linda and Emma’s Revolution for a Sunday of singing and dancing spirits. Music can give voice to feelings that are hard to express otherwise. Let’s join together (virtually, of course) to reflect, sing, laugh, and dance."
Attend via Zoom or phone (dial 253-215-8782).
* 1 pm PACIFIC: This week of the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day, they'll feature "Bound for Freedom" for their Sunday "Learn An Emma's Revolution", with a verse shouting out Greta Thunberg, Tokata Iron Eyes, and all youth climate activists. "Thanks to Ben Kramarz, who we met through Pete & Toshi Seeger's environmental project, the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, for requesting the new verse in connection with teaching the song in his music class." Join in on Zoom or watch on their Facebook page. "We'll post the session video to our YouTube channel, afterwards, too," they add. The Zoom invite is below and no reservations are required. Lyrics (and lyrics with chord) will be available for you to download, here, shortly.
* 4-5:30 pm Pacific --
"We are honored to be participating in A Call to Worship to #FreeThemAll! Organizer Lucy Duncan writes: 'We are coming together for our brothers, sisters, and kin behind walls in the midst of this COVID-19 pandemic. This interfaith worship welcomes all our voices in chorus with the words of invited speakers, calling out to all those in prisons, jails and detention centers. Let our spirits reach them, our unity protect them, and our work liberate them.'
* With Rev. Winnie Varghese, priest on the Strategic Clergy team at Trinity Church Wall Street, blogger for Patheos; author of Church Meets World; and editor of What We Shall Become.
Rabbi Brant Rosen, congregational rabbi for Tzedek Chicago, an anti-Zionist temple
Rev. Petero Sabune, Africa Partnership Officer for the Episcopal Church and pastor and former chaplain at Sing Sing Correctional Facility
Chaplin Rev. Edward Muller, founder of the Exodus Group in the 1970s, which offers opportunities for study and discussion to those serving lengthy sentences
Siwatu Salama-Ra, environmental and racial justice organizer from Detroit who was wrongfully incarcerated for self-defense when she was in her third trimester of pregnancy
Rev. Dr. Beth Johnson, Unitarian Universalist Minister
Steve Tamari, Palestinian Quaker
Music by Emma’s Revolution and Elena La Fulana
"We are honored to be participating in A Call to Worship to #FreeThemAll! Organizer Lucy Duncan writes: 'We are coming together for our brothers, sisters, and kin behind walls in the midst of this COVID-19 pandemic. This interfaith worship welcomes all our voices in chorus with the words of invited speakers, calling out to all those in prisons, jails and detention centers. Let our spirits reach them, our unity protect them, and our work liberate them.'
* With Rev. Winnie Varghese, priest on the Strategic Clergy team at Trinity Church Wall Street, blogger for Patheos; author of Church Meets World; and editor of What We Shall Become.
Rabbi Brant Rosen, congregational rabbi for Tzedek Chicago, an anti-Zionist temple
Rev. Petero Sabune, Africa Partnership Officer for the Episcopal Church and pastor and former chaplain at Sing Sing Correctional Facility
Chaplin Rev. Edward Muller, founder of the Exodus Group in the 1970s, which offers opportunities for study and discussion to those serving lengthy sentences
Siwatu Salama-Ra, environmental and racial justice organizer from Detroit who was wrongfully incarcerated for self-defense when she was in her third trimester of pregnancy
Rev. Dr. Beth Johnson, Unitarian Universalist Minister
Steve Tamari, Palestinian Quaker
Music by Emma’s Revolution and Elena La Fulana
* Zoom info:
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/727437517?pwd=QlNuV3prbVNWd2RqUGc4QkpBVE5wUT09
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/727437517?pwd=QlNuV3prbVNWd2RqUGc4QkpBVE5wUT09
Meeting ID: 727 437 517
Password: 877185
Password: 877185
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12:30 pm Pacific --
MARINA V does the Sunday edition of her three-shows-a-week cyber series.
Sundays at 12:30 pm US Pacific (8:30pm GMT+1)
Tuesdays at 7 pm US Pacific (Weds GMT+11 at 1pm)
Thursdays at 8:30 pm US Pacific (Fridays GMT+11 at 2:30pm)
On twitch.tv/MarinaVmusic
(Request a song at link/requestMVsong)
"These shows have been a HUGE steadying and uplifting force in my life (and a reason to dress up and put a little bit of makeup since the birth of Baby V last May) :) Definitely even more so these days."
"Would love to see you.
and.... the new album IN V MINOR is now streaming everywhere!"
It's also available for free (with donation optional) at https://www.marinav.com/v
~ Marina :) (and Nick, and Baby V)
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Sun, Apr 26:
2 pm-2:45 pm Pacific --
KEN O'MALLEY
www.facebook.com/kenomalleyirishmusic/live
Ken O'Malley Irish Music presents
LIVE ONLINE PERFORMANCE:
"SONGS AND STORIES OF IRISH EMIGRATION PART 2"
Ken will present another live performance from his home on Sunday, April 26 starting
at 2:PM PDT
(5:PM EDT and 10PM Ireland and UK)
He will be singing and playing Irish favorites including more songs and stories of Irish emigration.
Everyone is invited and the direct link is
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The show will last approximately 45 minutes (or a little more) and is free of charge.
For those who would be interested in contributing to a virtual tip jar, you can use Venmo: @kenomalley (4 digit code 1062) or PayPal: paypal.me/twlord
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2 pm Pacific -- (5 pm EDT, 9 pm GMT)
ANDY & RENEE return for another fun livestream concert on Youtube
* WATCH at: https://youtu.be/GOpefJCjrhE
* The co-leaders of the award-winning band HARD RAIN and performing hosts of the annual "DYLANFEST" always delight and excite.
* A portion of the proceeds from their cyber shows go to the Midnight Mission. Renee reports, "We’ve raised over $1500 for them so far with your help."
* TIP them by sending funds to PayPal (paypal.me/andyandrenee) or Venmo, (www.venmo.com/Renee-Safier).
You can also donate at: http://www.andyandrenee.com/store.php
* Catch-up on their livestream shows you may have missed -- here are the links:
• Wed, Apr 22:
https://youtu.be/uMzsJTL_anc
• Sun, Apr 19:
https://youtu.be/B8r8Kigw0tw
• Wed, Apr 15:
https://www.facebook.com/reneesafier/videos/10157452458799472/
* Brand new interview with Andy & Renee on "San Pedro: The Podcast," with Interviewer Mike Stark:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/SanPedroThePodcast?fbclid=IwAR29mlmL8HjuKpeN5_r-SgYvyFeI5JNAIpPZoQBGiLi_2wwRZ-zmbJqJDcs
* Check out the duo's own "Talkin' Bob Dylan" Podcasts. There are 21 Episodes with music and interesting discussion, all available at:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheDylanPodcast
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Sun, Apr 26:
5 pm Pacific --
RECKLESS KELLY presents "Music From The Mountains"
* WATCH at: https://www.facebook.com/recklesskelly96/
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Sundays, every week, on TV:
8 pm-9 pm Pacific --
"GRAND OLE OPRY" repeat of the previous night's live performance from the Opry stage in Nashville, performed without an audience for broadcast, via the "Circle TV" event network. Broadcast in L.A. on KDOC.
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5 pm Pacific --
RECKLESS KELLY presents "Music From The Mountains"
* WATCH at: https://www.facebook.com/recklesskelly96/
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Sundays, every week, on TV:
8 pm-9 pm Pacific --
"GRAND OLE OPRY" repeat of the previous night's live performance from the Opry stage in Nashville, performed without an audience for broadcast, via the "Circle TV" event network. Broadcast in L.A. on KDOC.
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Tuesday, April 28
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The Blue Angels will fly over NYC at noon to salute health care workers, first responders and other essential workers.
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THOUGHT FOR TODAY from one born on this date...
"People don't alter history any more than birds alter the sky, they just make brief patterns in it."
~ Terry Pratchett, novelist (born April 28, 1948, died 2015)
"People don't alter history any more than birds alter the sky, they just make brief patterns in it."
~ Terry Pratchett, novelist (born April 28, 1948, died 2015)
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Lockdown Lexicon
Inscrutababble: the chief characteristic of what the Covidiot-in-Chief says.
As for the convening of Covidiots, maskless beneath MAGA hats, demanding "liberation" of their libidos from sensible safety protocols? They constitute a Covfefe. (That word has needed a definition since the Orange Imbecile foisted it in a twitstorm.)
These were co-developed with Dale Wyant, whose "Dale-isms" have been legendary since cassette-tape antiquity.
Send your additions and we'll publish a catalogue.
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Today is "Workers Memorial Day"
Every year in America on April 28th, "Workers Memorial Day" brings us together to remember the ultimate sacrifices working people make to achieve the American dream. Every single one of the working people who die every day from injury or occupational disease is a constant reminder of the dangers we face at the workplace.
This year, the theme is support for all those who must work through the dangers of the pandemic to allow the rest of us to stay safe at home.
Putting food on the table or earning a paycheck should never cost anyone their life.
But worker safety is not a priority for this administration. These past three and a half years, we have seen how this administration suspended important rules and reduced funding for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Richard Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO, says, "Workers Memorial Day is personal for us. Too many of us know someone who sacrificed everything on the job. My father and grandfather both died from black lung disease. They spent their careers working in the same mine I did. It was dangerous, but they were driven by the idea of providing a better life for their family."
"And during this pandemic, working people are dying of preventable deaths. From nurses and doctors to transportation and grocery workers, we have seen how this virus is taking the lives of hardworking people," he continues. "But the administration is prioritizing corporate giveaways, instead of protecting these critical workers who are out there to ensure that our country continues to move forward."
"This Workers Memorial Day, we remember those who sacrificed their lives doing the job they loved. In the midst of this global pandemic, we are being seen," says Trumka.
He concludes, "But appreciation is nothing without action. Until every worker is guaranteed the protection we need and the peace of mind we deserve, our job will endure."
The number of officially reported US COVID-19 cases exceeded one million on Tuesday, after going past three million worldwide.
US deaths from COVID-19 stood at 57, 313 (since Feb 29th) as of 11:45 am Pacific on April 28th. In three months of pandemic, the number of dead Americans is rapidly overtaking the American death toll from two decades of the Vietnam War.
Tell Congress: Pass H.R. 6559 and Protect Front-Line Workers
Read and sign the petition here: https://actionnetwork.org/forms/osha-ets
÷=÷=÷
Added treat!
Added treat!
 |
| "Labor On" The Official Music Video, by Lissa Schneckenburger |
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Cyberian events Tuesday
Tue, Apr 28:
6 pm Pacific --
BOB MALONE, keyboard player for JOHN FOGERTY and accomplished solo & band composer-performer, plays "Malone at Home 5."
* "We're going to do another one... and by 'we' I mean me, the wife, and the cats" says Bob.
* His talented spouse is singer-songwriter-guitarist KAREN HART, so this is quite special.
* Many thanks to all of you who watched my StageIt show last Tuesday. The best part about that one was that my dad watched, and that he’s safe and sound and going strong at 85!
* Bob adds, "Feel free to send me your requests! I'll be dusting off some old ones, and debuting some new ones."
* "The price, as always, is 'pay what you want.'"
* Tickets are HERE.
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This webinar is listed for informational purposes, without endorsement.
Tue, Apr 28:
6 pm Pacific --
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Wednesday, April 29
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THOUGHT FOR TODAY from one born on this date...
"I don't need time. What I need is a deadline."
~ Duke Ellington, jazz pianist, composer, and conductor (born April 29, 1899, died 1974)
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"Missed it by THAT much..." ~ Maxwell Smart
Today's Close Encounter of the Asteroid Kind
Asteroid 1998 OR2 makes its closest approach to Earth today, April 29th. It's one of the 23,000 that have been discovered (mostly by NASA) that have elliptical or parabolic paths that come within or near Earth's orbit.
A half-hour show was done live by NASA on Monday, taking questions as well as demonstrating what the space agency uses to track things headed our way. It's a fun and informative watch on YouTube, at:
https://youtu.be/eiS8EPOL488
There's also an ongoing NASA website that tracks and reports all near-Earth objects (NEOs), including asteroids and comets that get close, at:
A half-hour show was done live by NASA on Monday, taking questions as well as demonstrating what the space agency uses to track things headed our way. It's a fun and informative watch on YouTube, at:
https://youtu.be/eiS8EPOL488
There's also an ongoing NASA website that tracks and reports all near-Earth objects (NEOs), including asteroids and comets that get close, at:
Leave-off the "/ca" for the larger site, and learn all about what they're tracking, how they determine where its going, and fast its going.
The "ca" at the end of the address doesn't mean California. It's the shorthand for "close approach."
When you explore the charts there, you need to know that "LD" refers to "Lunar Distances," each 240,000 miles. That's the yardstick for things that get close. They also use a term for things farther away but still within the solar system. That one is "AU," Astronomical Units, which uses the 93 million-mile distance of the Earth from the Sun as a measuring unit.
You can play with the table settings and options and see the strange orbits of asteroids and how and why things can eventually become pool shots with a planet.
But no need to add 1988 OR2 to today's worries. It'll silently wiz safely by.
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On this day...
"HAIR," the controversial musical that defined the hippie counter-culture and sexual revolution of the 1960s, opened today in 1968 at the Biltmore Theatre on Broadway, with folksinger BARRY McGUIRE in the lead role. Some of its songs became instant anthems of the anti-Vietnam War movement.
Model for our coming summer?
Today in 2015, a baseball game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Chicago White Sox set the all-time low attendance mark for Major League Baseball. Zero fans were in attendance for the game, as the stadium was officially closed to the public -- not due to a contagious virus, but due to the 2015 Baltimore protests.
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Dead today, in 2020...
Irrfan Khan, the Bollywood actor whose full name was Sahabzade Irfan Ali Khan (1967–2020), was known for his roles in "Slumdog Millionaire" (2008), the Hollywood films "The Amazing Spider-Man" (2012), "Life of Pi" (2012), "Jurassic World" (2015), and "Inferno" (2016), and many British, Hindi, and Asian film roles. Knowledge about the circumstances of his death and surrounding events may change rapidly as more facts come to light, and initial news reports may be unreliable, so we choose not to present those.
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On this day...
"HAIR," the controversial musical that defined the hippie counter-culture and sexual revolution of the 1960s, opened today in 1968 at the Biltmore Theatre on Broadway, with folksinger BARRY McGUIRE in the lead role. Some of its songs became instant anthems of the anti-Vietnam War movement.
Model for our coming summer?
Today in 2015, a baseball game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Chicago White Sox set the all-time low attendance mark for Major League Baseball. Zero fans were in attendance for the game, as the stadium was officially closed to the public -- not due to a contagious virus, but due to the 2015 Baltimore protests.
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Dead today, in 2020...
Irrfan Khan, the Bollywood actor whose full name was Sahabzade Irfan Ali Khan (1967–2020), was known for his roles in "Slumdog Millionaire" (2008), the Hollywood films "The Amazing Spider-Man" (2012), "Life of Pi" (2012), "Jurassic World" (2015), and "Inferno" (2016), and many British, Hindi, and Asian film roles. Knowledge about the circumstances of his death and surrounding events may change rapidly as more facts come to light, and initial news reports may be unreliable, so we choose not to present those.
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Profiling two famous musicians born on this date
It's the birthday of Edward Kennedy Ellington, better known as Duke Ellington, born in Washington, D.C., in 1899. He took piano lessons as a boy, but skipped more of these than he attended, and it wasn't until he started hanging around a poolroom and hearing ragtime and stride piano, played by the likes of Turner Layton and Eubie Blake, that his passion was kindled.
He once said, "I never had much interest in the piano until I realized that every time I played, a girl would appear on the piano bench to my left and another to my right."
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Zubin Mehta, Indian bassist and conductor
Willie Nelson, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, and actor
Carnie Wilson, American singer-songwriter
Tommy James, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Tommy James & the Shondells)
Mark Kendall, American guitarist and songwriter
Duane Allen, American country singer
Javier Colon, American singer-songwriter and musician
April Stevens, American pop singer
Alfred Hui, Hong Kong singer
Younha, South Korean singer-songwriter and record producer
Christian Tetzlaff, German violinist
Klaus Voormann, German artist, bass player, and producer
Catherine Lara, French singer-songwriter and violinist
Michelle Pfeiffer, American actress
Uma Thurman, American actress
Eve Plumb, American artist (painter) and actress famous (to her chagrin) for saying "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!"
Jerry Seinfeld, American comedian, actor, and producer
Daniel Day-Lewis, British-Irish actor
Kate Mulgrew, American actress
Nora Dunn, American actress and comedian
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In memoriam to these musicians and influential others born April 29th...
Rod McKuen, American singer-songwriter and poet (1933-2015)
Otis Rush, American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist (1935-2018)
Toots Thielemans, Belgian guitarist and harmonica player (1922-2016)
Peter Sculthorpe, Australian composer and conductor (1929-2014)
Harold Shapero, American composer (1920-2013)
Celeste Holm, American actress and singer (1917-2012)
Carl Gardner, American singer (1928-2011)
Hugh Hopper, English bass guitarist (1945-2009)
Joy Clements, American soprano and actress (1932-2005)
Lonnie Donegan, Scottish-English singer-songwriter and guitarist (1931-2002)
Duke Ellington, American pianist, composer, and bandleader (1899-1974)
Tammi Terrell, American soul singer-songwriter (1945-1970)
Malcolm Sargent, English organist, composer, and conductor (1895-1967)
Thomas Beecham, English conductor (1879-1961)
William Randolph Hearst, American publisher and politician, founded the Hearst Corporation, builder of Hearst Castle, inspiration for the fictional "Citizen Kane" (1863-1951)
Joachim Andersen, Danish flautist, composer, conductor, and co-founder of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (1847-1907)
Carl Millöcker, Austrian composer and conductor (1842-1899)
Sadok Barącz, Galician historian, folklorist, archivist, religious leader (1814-1892)
Esaias Reusner, German lute player and composer (1636-1679)
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Wednesday music
Wed, Apr 29, on tv:
2 pm-4:10 pm Pacific
WILLIE NELSON day (for his birthday) on AXS TV, includes an hour of Willie and MERLE HAGGARD
Wed, Apr 29, on tv:
5 pm-6 pm Pacific, repeats 8:05 pm-9:05 pm Pacific --
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WILLIE NELSON day (for his birthday) on AXS TV, includes an hour of Willie and MERLE HAGGARD
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5 pm-6 pm Pacific, repeats 8:05 pm-9:05 pm Pacific --
What was the secret recipe to writing "Hotel California"? Find out on "The Big Interview" with Dan Rather TONIGHT on AXS TV. |
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Thursday, April 30th
...the last day of the month that Trump said would "see the virus just go away."
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THOUGHT FOR TODAY from one born on this date...
"I learn that ten percent of all the world's species are parasitic insects. It is hard to believe. What if you were an inventor, and you made ten percent of your inventions in such a way that they could only work by harnessing, disfiguring, or totally destroying the other ninety percent?"
~ Annie Dillard, author (born April 30, 1945)
(with thanks to A.Word.A.Day)
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On this day...
Two publishing milestones with profound cultural resonance
Anne Frank's diary (books by this author) was first published in English on this date in 1952. What's now known as Diary of a Young Girl was first published in Dutch in 1947, under the title The Secret Annex (Het Achterhuis in Dutch). Frank died of typhus as an innocent child prisoner of the Nazi empire in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp about two weeks before the camps were liberated in 1945.
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"I learn that ten percent of all the world's species are parasitic insects. It is hard to believe. What if you were an inventor, and you made ten percent of your inventions in such a way that they could only work by harnessing, disfiguring, or totally destroying the other ninety percent?"
~ Annie Dillard, author (born April 30, 1945)
(with thanks to A.Word.A.Day)
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On this day...
Two publishing milestones with profound cultural resonance
Anne Frank's diary (books by this author) was first published in English on this date in 1952. What's now known as Diary of a Young Girl was first published in Dutch in 1947, under the title The Secret Annex (Het Achterhuis in Dutch). Frank died of typhus as an innocent child prisoner of the Nazi empire in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp about two weeks before the camps were liberated in 1945.
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Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities (books by this author) was first published in serial form on this date in 1859. It appeared in the first issue of a new weekly journal, All the Year Round, which Dickens founded himself.
A Tale of Two Cities was on the front page of the first issue, and thanks to Dickens' popularity, it sold 125,000 copies.
A Tale of Two Cities begins, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way ..."
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Our thanks to Garrison Keillor for noting the anniversaries of both those events. And if Dickens' opening paragraph from 161 years ago does not resonate in our time, then we should all just give up and surrender to disposable pop pablum.
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We'll get to it and through to share what's in it, the best we can. So check back to see how all that is going...
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Not music but cool...
Thu, Apr 30:
4 pm-5 pm Pacific --
"SAVING LIFE ON EARTH: GRIZZLY BEARS & WOLVERINES" is the latest in a series of webinars presented by the Arizona-based "Center for Biological Diversity."
* Few animals embody wildness like grizzly bears and wolverines. They're fierce, mysterious — and in trouble.
Join in for this "Saving Life on Earth" discussion about their work to defend two of our most iconic carnivores: grizzly bears and wolverines. The presentation will include Center Senior Attorney Andrea Zaccardi and Endangered Species Program Director Noah Greenwald.
* The hour-long webinar is free, but you need to sign up.
* Tierra Curry, the Center's Senior Scientist, says, "We're excited to bring these weekly Saving Life on Earth webinars to wherever you are. Just because we're almost all homebound doesn't mean that we can't dive into our passion for saving wildlife. Each week the Center will convene a small team of experts to discuss some of the more important topics of our times. This week's conversation will dive into the biology and significance of grizzly bears and wolverines and how you can join our campaigns to ensure they have the long-term protection they need to survive."
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Thu, Apr 30:
5 pm Pacific --
MURIEL ANDERSON'S Free All-Request Live-Streaming Concert
* Live from Muriel's home with beautiful images on a big screen behind her. Register HERE now to watch LIVE and you will also receive a link to watch it later. Donations are welcome. More information and updates at:
https://murielanderson.com/now/
5 pm Pacific --
MURIEL ANDERSON'S Free All-Request Live-Streaming Concert
* Live from Muriel's home with beautiful images on a big screen behind her. Register HERE now to watch LIVE and you will also receive a link to watch it later. Donations are welcome. More information and updates at:
https://murielanderson.com/now/
Thu night / Fri early morning:
2 am-4 am Pacific --
"PYJAMA JAM" live from Australia.
* On Facebook Live at: https://m.facebook.com/events/2127505594062628/
* Presented by "Happy Mag," the Aussie music e-zine.
* Join in at 6 pm AEST for a special edition of "Pyjama Jam: Under the Covers." Each artist will perform one cover of their choosing plus a few originals... READ MORE if your device is infested with Facebook, HERE.
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Streaming LIVE THEATRE, FREE, April 29-May 3
Live from New York, nightly through Sunday
Richard Nelson’s new play, “What Do We Need to Talk About?” is being performed online, but live, restoring some of theater’s ephemerality. The production brings the return of the Apples, a theatre family.
Read the New York Times Theatre Section story:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/25/theater/richard-nelson-apple-play-zoom-coronavirus.htm
Watch the video promo:
https://youtu.be/R76oRm76mMM
TIX (free) at:
https://publictheater.org/news-items/buckets/conversations/what-do-we-need-to-talk-about/
Read the New York Times Theatre Section story:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/25/theater/richard-nelson-apple-play-zoom-coronavirus.htm
Watch the video promo:
https://youtu.be/R76oRm76mMM
TIX (free) at:
https://publictheater.org/news-items/buckets/conversations/what-do-we-need-to-talk-about/
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| The Apples in a scene from “Regular Singing” (2013). Sara Krulwich/The New York Times. |
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WWOZ 90.7 FM in New Orleans is planning to stream Jazz Festing In Place: An On-Air Festival, running 11 a.m.–7 p.m. on April 23–26 and April 30–May 3.
The dates coincide with the postponed New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. And while the archival streaming music includes a few acts that were slated to…
More, from New Orleans "OffBeat" magazine »
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More ahead... (we're adding more here, until a new edition)
Thanks to New Orleans-based "OffBeat" magazine, we have included many more live online streaming performances that come to us from the Big Easy.
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Friday, May 1st
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"Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for."
~ Joseph Addison, writer (born May 1, 1672, died 1719)
(our thanks to A.Word.A.Day)
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SPECIAL TODAY... SUPPORT ARTISTS ON BANDCAMP
For all the artists who use it for music distribution, Bandcamp will forgo its share of sales for a 24-hour period that runs from Midnight last night to 11:59 pm Pacific time TONIGHT. The initiative will also repeat on June 5 and July 3, and will last the same hours (always Pacific time) on those days.
Artist DEBRA COWAN, who told us about it, has several fine and fun CDs of sea chanteys / maritime music. She says, "Another reason I love Bandcamp is that I am able to post individual tracks and make them available for free or with a pay-what-you can model. Take a look at what I've got over there. perhaps there is something you haven't heard yet!" Her Digital Downloads - Bandcamp page is: https://debracowan.bandcamp.com/
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| Friday, May 1 | Samantha Fish | Blues/ Rock/ Soul from New Orleans | 10 am PDT |
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Fri, May 1:
11 am Pacific --
EMMA'S REVOLUTION offers Songwriting for Everyone!
Ever wondered what your own songs would sound like? Ready to take your songwriting to a deeper level? Explore the craft of songwriting with warm-up and creativity exercises that will cultivate a playful relationship with words and melody and help you be open to your songs. "We guarantee you'll surprise yourself!" say the presenters. Email Sandy to reserve your spot
Ever wondered what your own songs would sound like? Ready to take your songwriting to a deeper level? Explore the craft of songwriting with warm-up and creativity exercises that will cultivate a playful relationship with words and melody and help you be open to your songs. "We guarantee you'll surprise yourself!" say the presenters. Email Sandy to reserve your spot
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11 am Pacific --
MAY DAY ACTIVISM IN THE HERE AND NOW...
"Support essential workers from home" says Emma Einhorn of MoveOn Civic Action. She writes:
[This] is May Day, which is an internationally recognized day of action meant to show solidarity among working people and marginalized communities across the globe. For millions of people, this means another month of struggling to pay rent, utilities, and expenses, and millions of essential workers continue to risk their lives to provide us with vital services. Republicans in Congress continue to prioritize aid to corporations, so we need to build pressure for them to provide real relief now.
Essential workers are enabling us to shelter in place by putting food on shelves, transporting health workers, ensuring we have clean water, working across our health care system to protect our health and safety, and caring for the elderly and critically ill. And yet, this administration feels more compelled to bail out cruise lines, airlines, and big businesses than the overworked and underpaid workers keeping millions of Americans afloat.
Essential workers must be given the compensation and job protections to reflect the importance of their work. We need an Essential Workers Bill of Rights as part of the next relief package passed by Congress.
This Friday, can we count on you to show solidarity with essential workers by spreading the word and demanding your elected officials pass an Essential Worker Bill of Rights? Here are a few ways you can get involved:
- Make a sign or poster and hang it outside your window. Let your neighbors know what an Essential Workers Bill of Rights means to you, and share it on social media with the hashtag #ProtectEssentialWorkers and #PeoplesBailout.
- Share a picture or video of you and your family talking about what you want to see from an Essential Workers Bill of Rights. Don't forget to include the hashtags #ProtectEssentialWorkers and #PeoplesBailout, and demand action by tagging your representative (you can look them up here) and President Trump.
- Boycott big businesses that are refusing to support workers, like Amazon, Target, and Whole Foods. Consider finding ways to support small businesses instead.
We're working alongside other partners, including People's Bailout, People's Action, the Indigenous Environmental Network, the Center for Popular Democracy, and the Hip Hop Caucus to flood social media with messages demanding immediate relief now. And be sure to check out the MoveOn Facebook Live page on Friday at 2 p.m. ET/11 a.m. PT for a livestream rally to get you in the May Day spirit!
Thanks for all you do.
–Emma, Justin, Arvin, Emily, and the rest of the team
Want to support our work? The MoveOn community will work every moment, day by day and year by year, to resist Trump's agenda, contain the damage, defeat hate with love, and begin the process of swinging the nation's pendulum back toward sanity, decency, and the kind of future that we must never give up on. And to do it we need your support, now more than ever. Will you stand with MoveOn?
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2 pm Pacific --
MUCKENTHALER CULTURAL CENTER Artist in Residence KATHARINE ZAUN conducts her second FREE online Haiku class.
* You can join the class with this link:
https://themuck.org/programing/haiku-workshop-adults
* Her first session not only drew raves from those who attended, it was recognized by the Orange County Museum of Art.
* And if you want to kill some time between now and her Haiku class, here is a website where some guy boiled each Shakespeare play down to a single Haiku: https://www.shakespearegeek.com/2013/01/the-complete-works-of-william.html
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| Friday, May 1 | David Doucet | Folk/ Cajun/ Americana from New Orleans | 3 pm PDT |
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| Friday, May 1 | Matt Lemmler | Jazz from New Orleans | 4:30 pm PDT |
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5-6 pm Pacific --
Annual "ASHOKAN WORKSHOP" event (see 1st listing on Saturday for registration info to watch this).
* This hour is the WELCOME SESSION
JAY UNGAR & MOLLY MASON play your favorite Scottish tunes - you can play along at home. Tech support available to help you get your Zoom video and audio working nicely.
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| Friday, May 1 | Big Freedia’s Friday Night Shakedown | Bounce from New Orleans | 6 pm PDT |
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| Friday, May 1 | Jason Marsalis | Jazz from New Orleans | 6 pm PDT |
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| Friday, May 1 | Tiffany Pollock & Co. | Jazz from New Orleans | 6 pm PDT | YouTube |
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| Friday, May 1 | Amy Trail’s “Stuck-Home Syndrome”: A Piano Bar Experience | Piano bar-style requests from New Orleans | 7 pm PDT |
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Saturday, May 2nd
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Fri & Sat, May 1 & 2:
Annual "ASHOKAN WORKSHOP" CYBER STRING FLING EDITION, with ALISDAIR FRASER & NATALIE HAAS, and MANY other trad string music masters, who would have been teaching this week at the music camp at Ashokan Center in Olivebridge, NY.
* This is an online "Scottish fiddle & cello workshop experience" with your hosts Alasdair & Natalie plus EMERALD RAE, DONAL SHEETS, and special guests JAY UNGAR & MOLLY MASON.
* Alisdair says "We're taking it on-line! Or just come and hang out.
* So we invite you, instrument (or dram!) in hand, to join us. Hope to see you there.
* Here's a wee video explaining the idea...
* We miss gathering with kindred spirits! It's been almost seven weeks since we played a concert together and we're as keen as ever to share the tunes and the arrangements and the sheer joy of making music together."
* You CAN just tune-in and hang out! ♥️GIVE WHAT YOU CAN ♥️to support Ashokan and these amazing instructors. They suggest $50 PER HOUSEHOLD to register but are truly grateful for ANY AMOUNT.
* FULL SCHEDULE WITH LINKS will be emailed to you w/ registration.
* PARTICIPATE OR JUST WATCH one or more of the live workshops, jams, concerts, and chats.
* REGISTER & FULL SCHEDULE at: https://ashokancenter.org/cyber-string-fling/
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Our listings contain the specific "Ashoken" events "translated" to Pacific time in the Fri & Sat listings, but YOU NEED TO REGISTER to watch any of them.
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Sat, May 2:
7 am-8:15 am Pacific --
Annual "ASHOKAN WORKSHOP" event (see 1st listing on Saturday for registration info to watch this).
ALASDAIR FRASER takes you into the MacNittyGritty of creating your own Scottish sound and informing your tunes with energy and life. "We'll also learn a couple of tunes!"
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Sat, May 2:
8:30 am-9:45 am Pacific --
Annual "ASHOKAN WORKSHOP" event (see 1st listing on Saturday for registration info to watch this).
NATALIE HAAS says "All instruments welcome - we will explore accompaniment and arrangement ideas for the two tunes that you learned with Alasdair" in the session just before this.
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10 am Pacific --
Last weekend's Band Together Benefit online music festival featuring PJ Morton, Tank and the Bangas, Jon Cleary, Stanton Moore, Ivan Neville and more does a rebroadcast. Tune in here.
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| Sat, May 2 | Jon Cleary's Worldwide 1/2 hour piano lesson, “One Finger at a Time” | New Orleans piano from New Orleans | 10 am PDT |
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10:30 am-noon Pacific --
Annual "ASHOKAN WORKSHOP" event (see 1st listing on Saturday for registration info to watch this).
"MY LIFE IN MUSIC, DISCUSSION & Q&A" is "a relaxed and interactive chat with the teachers. Learn about their lives past and present and ask your own question!"
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Sat, May 2:
12:15 pm-1:30 Pacific --
Annual "ASHOKAN WORKSHOP" event (see 1st listing on Saturday for registration info to watch this).
EMERALD RAE says "Get moving while you play! Learn how to reduce pain and express yourself with stretching, posture work, foot tapping and stage craft."
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Sat, May 2:
1 pm-3 pm Pacific --
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| Sat, May 2 | Real Rob’s Swanky Live Interactive Cocktail Hour from the 9th Ward Salon | Jazz/ Blues/ Banter from New Orleans | 1 pm-2 pm PDT |
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| Sat, May 2 | Funk Dat Brass Band | Brass Band/ Funk from New Orleans | 1 pm PDT |
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1:45 pm-3 pm Pacific --
Annual "ASHOKAN WORKSHOP" event (see 1st listing on Saturday for registration info to watch this).
DONAL SHEETS says "Delve into the basics of backup! All Instruments welcome, learn about adding interesting counter parts, chords and rythms to tunes."
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| Sat, May 2 | Anaïs St. John and Harry Mayronne | Jazz/ Variety from New Orleans | 2 pm PDT |
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4 pm-5:30 pm Pacific --
Annual "ASHOKAN WORKSHOP" event (see 1st listing on Saturday for registration info to watch this).
CLOSING CONCERT & JAM. Enjoy a tune or two from each of the staff live from their living rooms followed by a play-along jam session.
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| Sat, May 2 | Matt Lemmler | Jazz from New Orleans | 4:30 pm PDT |
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| Sat, May 2 | Kermit Ruffins | Jazz from New Orleans | 5 pm PDT |
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Sat, May 2:
5:30 pm Pacific --
PETER HIMMELMAN live from NYC
* He says, "I'm trying out my new sound system tonight. Wish me luck!"
* "See you soon on my Facebook homepage."
https://m.facebook.com/phimmelman
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Sat, May 2:
6:30 pm Pacific --
"GLOBAL UNITY FEST" brings a concert by the duo,
HEART MEDICINE MUSIC, with ANNMARIE SOUL.
* Billed as "a powerful & and prayerful" experience to the comfort of your own home. All are welcome.
* Click to join at: https://nyla.naamyoga.com/p/illuminateheartmedicinemusic
* HEART MEDICINE is the singing duo of ANNMARIE SOUL and KAREN SEVA, blending original songs, mantra and native tribal chants. Together their voices blend in harmonic frequencies creating angelic overtones inviting the listener into a deep musical meditation journey.
* Their music is a combination of sacred songs and melodies inspired by nature and spirit, interwoven with healing mantras celebrating many traditions. Both celestial and earthly, each song is a gift from the muse of spirit, channeled and lovingly crafted - opening a doorway to the unseen, requesting our presence in a dance with the divine, inviting us into love, and calling our hearts home.
* This concert is brought to you as part of the "Global Unity Fest" - a festival uniting artists the world over to uplift and inspire.
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Sunday, May 3rd
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| Sun, May 3 Time tba | Duane Bartels Band | Americana/ Blues/ Funk from New Orleans |
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| Sun, May 3 | Haruka Kikuchi and Z2 duo | Traditional Jazz from New Orleans | 10 am PDT |
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Sun, May 3:
Noon Pacific --
BUDDY MONDLOCK plays a facebook live concert at:
Noon Pacific --
BUDDY MONDLOCK plays a facebook live concert at:
* Buddy tells us, "I've been spending a fair bit of time at my dining room table, looking out the window there. Just outside is a bird feeder with a little yellow top on it.
"Sometimes a squirrel on it too! But after I chase him off (he's kind of a hoarder) I've been seeing lots of other wondrous creatures. We take them for granted sometimes but birds still seem to me like little miracles with feathers.
"My favorite is the Carolina Wren. Deep russet brown and carmel colored with a jaunty tail and a white eyebrow, small but always curious (and unintimidated - I saw one chasing a Blue Jay the other day), he sings like Caruso lighting up the back of the hall.
"He's full of personality but they all are, really. A female Grosbeak showed up the other day being followed around by three males. She got there first and repelled all comers, dandies though they may be with their rose red hearts on their chests. 'I'll deal with you later boys, but right now I'm eating!' It's kind of amazing to me, the things you notice when you have time to just look for awhile.
"I'm not exactly Caruso (or even a Carolina Wren) but I'll be appearing in a window near you on Sunday. A digital window, that is.
"Normally on the first Sunday in May, I'd be up in Chicago celebrating the birthday of my friend Ethel. She's turning 103 this time!
"So I'll be singing a few in her honor including a Tom Dundee song (we both miss him a lot) and 'The Kid.' She gave me a gentle scolding after a show one time when I left it out of the set. 'Always play the hit, kid.' You got it, Ethel!
"So open up a window for me Sunday, I'm gonna sing for you!"
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| Sun, May 3 | ART of the DUO 504 featuring Evan Christopher & David Torkanowsky | Jazz Variety from New Orleans | Noon PDT |
| Sun, May 3 | Marty Christian | Acoustic Blues from New Orleans | 1 pm PDT |
| Sun, May 3 | Matt Lemmler | Jazz from New Orleans | 4:30 pm PDT |
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| Sun, May 3 | Burris | Roots Rock from New Orleans | 5 pm PDT |
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| Sun, May 3 | Bon Bon Vivant | "Indie-Gypsy" from New Orleans | 5 pm PDT |
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| Sun, May 3 | Kermit Ruffins | Jazz from New Orleans | 5 pm PDT |
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Monday, May 4th
| Mon, May 4 | 504Life: a PPE benefit with Juvenile, Jon Batiste, Big Freedia, Rebirth, Louis Michot, Trumpet Mafia, Ani DiFranco, Wendell Pierce, and more | multi-genre | 3:04 pm-8:08 pm PDT | YouTube |
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Tuesday, May 5th
| Tue, May 5 | Matt Lemmler | Jazz from New Orleans | 4:30 pm PDT |
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| Tue, May 5 | Casey Saba | Rock (’60s through ’90s) from New Orleans | 5 pm- 7 pm PDT |
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| Tue, May 5 | Alex McMurray’s Faraway Lounge | Roots Rock from New Orleans | 6 pm PDT |
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| Tue, May 5 | Jon Cleary’s Quarantini Happy Hour | New Orleans piano from New Orleans | 6 pm PDT |
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Thanks for joining us here at the Acoustic Americana Music Guide!
CHECK BACK HERE for more events, added until a new edition takes over... the basic url always takes you to our latest word.
With a few fine exceptions... most artists are not giving much notice (hint-hint, swift kick in the ass!) before they suddenly decide to do a cyber show. We have been keeping up the best we can...
"One does what one can." ~ The phrase everybody hears from our editor.
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We have lots of MUSIC NEWS
features in the works, and they'll
be along as we get them dressed,
shoes tied, cowlicks combed down,
bowties cranked straight,
and strings tuned.
Find a comfortable spot by the
wood stove -- you'll prob'ly need to
grab the cards for solitaire, since you
can't have somebody over for a round
of checkers. But we'll be along...
directly, from a safe social distance.
Direct from Cyberia.
features in the works, and they'll
be along as we get them dressed,
shoes tied, cowlicks combed down,
bowties cranked straight,
and strings tuned.
Find a comfortable spot by the
wood stove -- you'll prob'ly need to
grab the cards for solitaire, since you
can't have somebody over for a round
of checkers. But we'll be along...
directly, from a safe social distance.
Direct from Cyberia.
_________________________________________________
On to the necessary boilerplate...
Boilerplate? What "boilerplate"? Where's the main pressure gauge? And the firebox? How do you add water so it won't blow-up?
Who came up with that goofy term for the basic essential informational stuff? ...obviously some dumbass...
Alright already, it's right down there...
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LEGALESE, CONTACTING US, 'N SUCH...
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Direct to the Guide's current editions /
MOBILE-DEVICE-FRIENDLY
editions load quickly at
Or at
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CONTACT US -- Post Comments / Send Questions / say Howdy at:
Tiedtothetracks (at) Hotmail (dot) com
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OR USE THE COMMENTS FUNCTION on the Blogspot site.
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Entire contents copyright © 2020,
Lawrence Wines & Tied to the Tracks.
All rights reserved.
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♪ The ACOUSTIC AMERICANA MUSIC GUIDE endeavors to bring you NEWS – and views of interest to artists everywhere – more specifically to musicians and the creative community and music makers -- and fans of acoustic and Folk-Americana music. That includes both traditional and innovative forms. From the deepest roots to today’s acoustic renaissance, that’s our beat. We provide a wealth of resources, including a HUGE catalog of acoustic-friendly venues (now undergoing a major update), and inside info on FESTIVALS and select performances in Southern California in venues from the monumentally large to the intimately small and cozy. We cover workshops, conferences, and other events for artists and folks in the music industry, and all kinds o’ things in the world of acoustic and Americana and accessible classical music. From washtub bass to musical spoons to oboe to viola to banjo to squeezebox, from Djangostyle to new-fangled-old-time string band music, from sweet Cajun fiddle to bluegrass and pre-bluegrass Appalachian mountain music to all the swamp water roots of the blues and the bright lights of where the music is headed now.
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The Acoustic Americana Music Guide. Thanks for sittin' a spell. The cyber porch'll be here anytime you come back from the road.
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We'll be back again soon with music news and more "News of the Non-Trumpcentric Universe." (c)
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Til we catch ya again on the flip side
in this new decade...
in this new decade...
as Buford the Wonder Dog looks on
and in our best Kathy Baker
"Hee Haw" voice: "THAT's all!"
"Hee Haw" voice: "THAT's all!"
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Here's a reprint of important info from one of our February editions:
COVID-19 Coronavirus PRACTICAL PRECAUTIONS
(good for avoiding the "regular" flu & colds, too)
• Coronavirus lives on inorganic surfaces anywhere from two hours to NINE DAYS; it all seems dependent on temperature, unless it is killed by disinfectant. When tests revealed that, even health care workers were surprised. It brings more emphasis to many of the following points.
• Get the flu vaccine -- ordinary flu will likely mimic Coronavirus, so avoid being ostracized and quarantined.
• Wash your hands, a lot: scrub for 20 seconds and wash them often.
• Stop shaking hands. Don't do "fist bumps" because that's still hand-to-hand contact. And don't become a mad elbow-bumper, because of the next point.
• Cough into the inside of your elbow, ANY TIME you cough.
• Stop shaking hands. Don't do "fist bumps" because that's still hand-to-hand contact. And don't become a mad elbow-bumper, because of the next point.
• Cough into the inside of your elbow, ANY TIME you cough.
• Keep your hands away from your face -- touching your nostrils, eyes, or mouth brings-in every germ your hands picked-up.
• Get a little bottle of hand sanitizer on a miniature carabiner. Clip it to your belt loop or purse strap and use it frequently. (Be sure you snap the lid shut, or it'll drain all over your clothes.) You can refill it from the pump bottle by the sink.
• Make your own hand sanitizer if the stores are out. Formula, from a doctor who makes it with her kids: two parts isopropyl alcohol (drugstore alcohol, at least 70% alcohol), one part aloe vera gel, a dash of any essential oil. Works just ss well as store bought stuff.
• Make your own hand sanitizer if the stores are out. Formula, from a doctor who makes it with her kids: two parts isopropyl alcohol (drugstore alcohol, at least 70% alcohol), one part aloe vera gel, a dash of any essential oil. Works just ss well as store bought stuff.
• Stay home if you're sick -- even if you don't get paid, DON'T be the "Typhoid Mary" that brings a pandemic of this or ANYTHING contagious. If you're "taking one for the team," make it the big team -- ALL of us.
• Don't be a transporter. Immediately remove shoes inside your front door and change clothes when you get home. Don't plunk-down on the couch until you shed what you were wearing at work or in the store or on the bus or in the coffee bar. Stop tracking everything from the sidewalk onto your kitchen and bathroom floors and your rug.
• Be mindful of your car. Everything you touch, everywhere, is on your steering wheel. Everywhere you sit is on your car seat. Keep 'em disinfected -- Clorox wipe the wheel, Lysol spray the seats, often.
• Don't be a transporter. Immediately remove shoes inside your front door and change clothes when you get home. Don't plunk-down on the couch until you shed what you were wearing at work or in the store or on the bus or in the coffee bar. Stop tracking everything from the sidewalk onto your kitchen and bathroom floors and your rug.
• Be mindful of your car. Everything you touch, everywhere, is on your steering wheel. Everywhere you sit is on your car seat. Keep 'em disinfected -- Clorox wipe the wheel, Lysol spray the seats, often.
• Everything you wear goes in the hamper. No multi-day wearings between washings.
• Keep track of where Coronavirus and other flus are headed, the latest ways to avoid contagion, and what symptoms go with what disease, by putting the CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL in your favorites: www.cdc.gov
• Call your doctor or public health officials if you become symptomatic, and DON'T "just go" to the doctor or urgent care or ER; everybody else in the waiting room does not have what you have, and vice-versa.
• Don't buy-up all tbe masks that medical responders need. Nearly all the masks in the stores are Dust Masks, made to keep carpenters and other tradesmen from inhaling sawdust. Expecting those to protect you from tiny viruses is like trying to filter water with a tennis racket. Plus, wearing masks everywhere is not a good idea -- without training and lots of practice, you'll contaminate the thing and then breathe a stewpot of microorganisms up-close and personal.
• Get proper nutrition and plenty of sleep to support your immune system. THAT is THE best way to stay healthy.
• REALLY IMPORTANT: Think about what you routinely ignore:
~ your phone or tablet, which you constantly handle while you're touching everything else in the big, wide world, then keep handling when you're eating (keep your devices disinfected).
~ the Kleenex or cloth hankie you pull out of your pocket -- this time your nose or eye gets the side your dirty finger got last time (yeah, duh!)
~ door handles & knobs, especially "pull-to-exit" on the restroom door, and all door handles you grab or push.
~ gas pump handles -- whatever was deposited on them is now on your steering wheel, and marinading on your hands as you snack while driving.
~ gas pump handles -- whatever was deposited on them is now on your steering wheel, and marinading on your hands as you snack while driving.
~ restaurant menus, salt and pepper shakers, ketchup and mustard and hot sauce bottles that every unwashed hand touches. Same goes for bins of packaged condiments at fast foodies or convenience store / gas stations (Use 'em, then use your hand sanitizer.)
~ lunch buffet serving spoons, spatulas, tongs that every unwashed hand uses in the food bins (your freshly-washed hands just got contaminated). And if sneeze guard glass panes aren't at the right height or aren't clean, demand a refund and leave.
~ coins in change and money, in general -- coins and folding money are germ transit systems. (Back to your little bottle of hand sanitizer.)
~ airline & train tray tables -- who knows when they were last cleaned and to what extent? When we saw a baby being changed on one... (bring a little plastic box of Clorox wipes when you travel).
~ bring your own food on the airplane -- you're probably doing that, anyway, since they stopped feeding you back when they started charging for carry-on luggage and made you ride with your knees in your armpits. Flight attendants have tested positive -- their hands pour drinks, dispense snacks, and pick-up everybody's garbage.
~ airline & train tray tables -- who knows when they were last cleaned and to what extent? When we saw a baby being changed on one... (bring a little plastic box of Clorox wipes when you travel).
~ bring your own food on the airplane -- you're probably doing that, anyway, since they stopped feeding you back when they started charging for carry-on luggage and made you ride with your knees in your armpits. Flight attendants have tested positive -- their hands pour drinks, dispense snacks, and pick-up everybody's garbage.
~ remember to think and act consciously. There is an acute need to be mindful of others, so neither be paranoid reactive nor obliviously ignorant. There was great advice in the old cop show at the end of every briefing: "Be careful out there."
Read AND SHARE The Guide's complete feature story on the COVID-19 Coronavirus in the edition at: https://acousticamericana.blogspot.com/2020/02/leap-day-weekend-leaping-into.html
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