Saturday Night in Crown Heights: The Hoover Dam Collective presents "Falalalaloft" at Mister Rogers

(Video courtesy Hoover Dam Collective)

Saturday Evening in Downtown Brooklyn: First Annual Downtown Brooklyn Hoedown at the Bond Street Garage

We spent a couple of hours early on this very rainy evening on the fifth level of the Bond Street parking garage between Livingston and Schermerhorn Streets, enjoying the first annual Downtown Brooklyn Hoedown.

Avoiding the weekend Lorimer Street L train shuttle bus mishigass, we took the fabulous G train to Hoyt-Schermerhorn and walked across to the garage, and then up the steps

to where we heard the sounds of a crowd and good bluegrass music. Originally scheduled as an outdoor event on the parking lot's top level, the thunderstorms moved it indoors one level below (though we did go up to the top to get the view).

This all-ages, outdoor event began at noon with pumpkin carving, apple bobbing, barbecue from The Good Fork (some carnivores told us the pulled pork was great). Then came "stars of the Brooklyn Bluegrass and Country scene" playing till midnight.

The Five Deadly Venoms, a great Brooklyn-based bluegrass band, were playing their tunes for most of the time we were at the Hoedown. They are Rick Snell, guitar; Elio Schiavo, mandolin; Rob Hecht, fiddle; James Kerr, dobro; and Jared Engel, double bass. The Verde Valley News said that their debut album "is full of delicately executed musicianship and beautifully written ballads, many of which feel destined to be standards."

You can hear The Five Deadly Venoms, finalists in the 2009 Telluride Bluegrass band contest, on this video as they play "Will the Roses Bloom":

Their set was terrific. For the last set, they were joined by a banjo player.

We also caught a little of Mimi LaValley and Friends, who were really good.

Mimi's music is funny ("All My Boyfriend's Ex-Wives Look Alike") and bright.

Downtown Brooklyn may not be the most down-home place in the USA, but we really enjoyed our time at the Hoedown.

There were a lot of little kids running around.

And of course, it's one week until Halloween so there were the jack-o'lanterns carved earlier in the day.

Hey, some audience members (including us) got to sit on bales of hay.

This was the schedule of music:
1pm - Open Bluegrass Jam with Michael Daves
3pm - The Cozy Shack Fiddle Extravaganza and Family Square Dance
5pm - All-Star BLUEGRASS with Melody Berger (whom we missed), The Five Deadly Venoms with Elio Schiavo, Mimi LaValley and friends
8pm - Dancing under the harvest moon with Brooklyn's best County Rock: Alex Battles, SAMMO, Jessica Rose and the Highlife.

We had to leave early for dinner in Brooklyn Heights but are certain the crowd at the Hoedown continued to have a lot of fun at this really nice autumn event.

Wednesday Night in Bed-Stuy: jessica Care moore's "God Is Not An American" at Von King Park

Tonight we had the privilege of seeing the CityParks Theater presentation of jessica Care Moore's "God Is Not An American" at the wonderful Von King Park in Bed-Stuy. It's a dynamic, resonant one-woman show featuring poetry, video, and live music to explore the concept of God, race, gender and other issues with heart, soul and grace.

We took the B43 bus at Graham Avenue and Metropolitan for a quick ride to Tompkins Avenue at Lafayette, where we got off just by the side of Von King Park where the amphitheater is. The last time we saw something there, it was a year ago this week when we were at the third annual Gender Equity Festival.

God Is Not An American is part of this year's CityParks theater programs. The CityParks Foundation also sponsored the free performance by Sugarhill Gang at Queenbridge Park that we went to last week.

CityPark sponsors lots of summer concerts, theater, and dance at not only Von King Park and Queensbridge Park but alo Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem, East River Park on the Lower East Side, Red Hook Park, Brower Park in Prospect Heights, Tappan Park and Mahoney Playground in Staten Island, Rochdale Park in Locust Manor, Springfield Park in Springfield Gardens, St. Mary's Park in the South Bronx, and Crotona Park (famously discussed in Odets' Waiting for Lefty), also in the Bronx. New Yorkers unfamiliar with these inner-city oases are missing a treat.

The most famous CityPark events, of course, are Central Park's SummerStage.

We got to Von King Park early and were surprised to learn that the show went on during last night's rain, when we had figured it would have been canceled.

Ushers gave out programs for the event that included upcoming shows in CityParks Theater.

You can catch God Is Not An American one more time, next Tuesday at Marcus Garvey Park. Here's the preview of the first video shown in the performance, dealing with the statement in the title:


Here's some of Wikipedia's entry on Jessica:

Moore first won acclaim as the first poet to ever win the nationally televised Showtime at the Apollo competition 5 times in a row.

That same year, she would be filmed for the documentary SlamNation. The film followed her and the 1996 Nuyorican Poetry Slam Team (Saul Williams, Beau Sia and Mums da Schemer) as they competed at the 1996 National Poetry Slam. In the book Words In Your Face: A Guided Tour Through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam, author Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz wrote of Moore's time in the poetry slam, noting "Her razor-sharp verse confronted and addressed the difficulties of being a black woman and a black poet in a culture that seemed to support neither."

She has been referenced by rapper Talib Kweli and has appeared on rapper Nas's Nastradamus album. One of her most famous poems is "Until We Dance, For Joseph" dedicated to a family member who died of AIDS, which is frequently recited at AIDS Walks. She has performed and collaborated with literary, musical and other noted celebrities such as George Clinton, Antonio Hart, Nas, the late Ossie Davis, Mos Def, the late Gregory Hines, Judith Jamison, CeCe Winans, Anthony David, Roy Ayers, Gil Scott Herron, Sonia Sanchez, Steve Harvey, Cedric the Entertainer, Patrice Rushen, Talib Kweli, Ntozake Shange, Nikki Giovanni, The Last Poets and many more.

Her books include The Words Don't Fit My Mouth (1997) and The Alphabet Verses: The Ghetto (2003). Here's an interesting cover story on Jessica by Norene Cashen in Metro Times, the alt-weekly in her hometown of Detroit, a city which informs a lot of her art.

It combined Jessica's own slam poetry, riffs on everything from growing up in Detroit near Dearborn, traveling the world as a black woman, being a single mother to King (a name that apparently evoked curiosity in the Atlanta hospital where he was born), being a Scorpio who's always in love, being an American and a skeptical believer (?) as presented in the Christian Bible ("not enough women writers -- things were worse for us B.C., before computers; now at least we get some blog love").

The music, whether sung by vocalist Stefani Christiane (sp?) or played by the talented instrumentalists on drums, percussion (Penny), guitar, bass and trumpet (Jamal) in her onstage family, was pertinent and lively, and it provided a nice underlining of the thrust of Jessica's poetry and the videos. (Sorry we didn't get everyone's names).

Jessica is a wry observer of life, whether the vagaries of the public assistance system in welfare or of being on the same flight as Michael Vick on a plane out of Hartsfield/Jackson or crossing the Dearborn/Detroit line between the two cities and between Arab-American and African-American worlds, and her funny and mordant thoughts on all of this provided some of the highlights of the show.

God Is Not An American is jessica Care moore's show, but it was brilliantly directed by the well-known director/producer/choreographer/performer Aku Kadogo, head of Wayne State University's black theater program who' worked on everything from for colored girls who have considered suicide to Rent.

We're now going to find jessica Moore care's books and look forward to seeing the collected work we saw tonight in print. However, it can't beat seeing her in person. If you get the chance to see God Is Not An American, you're as lucky as we were tonight. (Okay, we hope this is some "blog love." If so, it's well-deserved.)

Sunday Evening at BAM Afro-Punk Skate Park: Back at the Afro-Punk Festival w/ The Echo Jinx, The London Souls and Tamar-kali

We were lucky enough to catch another couple of hours of the Fifth Annual Afro-Punk Festival this evening and enjoyed more DIY fashion, BMX, URBANX Battle For The Streets - and today was the tribute to Spike Lee at BAM Cinematek, DJs and live music with The Echo Jinx and The London Souls and a stellar performance by the stunning
Tamar-kali.

After a late afternoon call that we were needed to represent Baby Boomers Born in Brownsville, we should have rushed right over to the BAM parking lot's Afro-Punk Skate Park. But hey, we're from the 'Ville - never ran, never will. Well, actually, we needed a nap. But we got there shortly after 6 p.m. with the newly extended G train.

Sunday's crowd was a bit larger than Saturday's. Again, it was a gorgeous day.

We made our way - gingerly - where the skateboarders were to the little stage where the announcers do their stuff. Nothing was going on at the main stage by Flatbush Avenue except setting up, and The Echo Jinx were performing on the smaller stage.

Guitarist Everton Armstrong and drummer Ivan Gonzalez have an interesting sound, an amalgam of semi-cartoonish pissed-off punk and arty experimentation with hints of Delta blues. We have no idea what we just said.

Anyway, we were impressed and took one of the drop cards at the end of the duo's spirited performance. Here's The Echo Jinx doing "Fast Sneakers":

We joined the growing crowd at the main stage where the MC introduced The London Souls by saying they reminded her of her days "with Janis and Jimi." (She also reminded the crowd to "keep it green and keep it clean.")

The Deli magazine said of them, "Few bands so young have any business brandishing the mighty musical chops that The London Souls do." The group, all from the city, consists of Tom Cumming (guitar, singer), Kiyoshi Matsuyama (bass, singer), Tash Neal (guitar, singer), and Chris St.Hillaire (drums, singer).

The crowd really loved them, and it's no wonder.

Here are The London Echoes performing "I Think I Like It" last fall at that wonderful venue, The Bowery Poetry Club:

After that, we watched the ups and downs and upside-downs of the bikers for a while.



There was growing excitement as Tamar-kali was introduced. If you've seen the Afro-Punk movie, you know her from there.

She's a truly extraordinary singer, with a powerful band to back her up. Her vocals are deep, raw and almost stentorian. Here she is performing the devastating "Warrior Bones" at last year's Afro-Punk Festival. The song begins with the stunning "I killed a man today. . ." and just never lets up.

Wow. We were really spellbound by her performance, which quickened our pulse to where we were ready for our Inderal.

If you can catch her in person someday, we think she's thrilling to watch as well as listen to. She has this thing where she looks skyward, her eyes seemingly calling down the wrath of God or Whoever. No surprise that she's a native of BK.

NPR said of Tamar-kali, "In her lyrics and her own personal style, she blends feminist politics and afrocentricity in a way that gives her hard rock sound a soulful edge." If you don't know Tamar-kali's work, what you don't know will hurt you.

At the end of her set, Tamar-kali asked the people seeing her for the first time to raise their hands. "Are you all right?" she asked us. "Do you feel violated?"

We were definitely all right. The only violation was that she had to get offstage.

Before we left, we watched more of the skaters and talked to a couple of them, who tried to explain the nature of various tricks and how good a sk8r like "Pretzel" is. He said something really profound: "You can't appreciate it like we do because you don't understand the skill it takes to make something so difficult look effortless."

We suspect that's true of the Afro-Punk Festival itself. The operation seems to go off perfectly, without a hitch, with great pleasure for every one of the attendees, but hours and hours of planning and just plain hard work must go into producing an amazing event like this every year. So we're very grateful for those who made the Afro-Punk Festival possible.

Saturday Afternoon in Fort Greene: The Fifth Annual Afro-Punk Festival at BAM Afro-Punk Skate Park

The annual Afro-Punk Festival here in Brooklyn is the center of the global Afro-punk community.

It's the definitive destination for audiences looking to experience true Afro-punk culture.

Last year 30,000 people attended, and this year even more will probably attend, if our too-short time at the festival this afternoon are any indication.

The 2009 festival, which was kicked off on June 27 and is still continuing for days (and nights) to come - we hope very much to get back - features 40 bands, 24 films, a visual art exhibit and a custom-built skate park at the BAM parking lot bounded by Flatbush and Lafayette Avenues and Ashland Place.

There you can check out pro riders and skaters from around the country, as we did late this afternoon on our way from one Independence Day destination to another.

We're really glad to have stopped by, even briefly, because we were so excited by last year's festival that we joined the Afro-Punk community and have been getting regular email updates to keep in touch.

As a news story at MTV late last year said, "Afro-Punk has gone from the name of a message board to a movement in less than five years — and the scene just keeps growing."

Summer's lease hath all too short a date, and we were just subletting at the skate park. Here are some pics we took today from our limited time at the festival.

The New York Times music review of last year's Afro-Punk Festival said

the skateboarders made the most noise. Mostly small and sinewy, of varying races, unhelmeted and riding uniformly weathered boards, they moved in a swarm around the skate park in the parking lot across the street from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, performing the occasional trick, but mostly scooting around aimlessly, grateful for a place to while away the evening.

American Fangs is a Houston-based pop-punk band making their first visit to New York. They keep getting lost in the subway, singer Gabriel “Gus” Cavazos said.

The other band members are guitarists Shelby Hohl and Kenyon Puntenny, bassist Kyle Shimek, and drummer Micah Miller.

American Fangs's songs are energetic and sweaty and fun.

We really like their song "Le Kick." Here's the vid:

Although there were no female sk8rs, a couple of girls were on bikes. It amazes us that given the spills we saw, nobody seemed seriously or even annoyingly hurt.

The Afro-Punk message boards have a lot of posts that give you insight into this - what do we call it: community? movement? You don't get much of the viewpoints expressed in the MSM unless maybe you think zines and blogs are mainstream.

The crowd was extraordinarily good-natured. The sun was beating down but not too oppressively. July 4 is actually an important date in New York African-American history: slavery was officially abolished in New York State on July 4, 1827.

Not long before that, one out of every three white families in Brooklyn had owned slaves. The freed slaves were warned not to celebrate on Independence Day 182 years ago, so they had a parade in lower Manhattan on July 5 instead.

That MTV report on Afro-Punk also said

The fundamental contradiction of black kids feeling left out of rock — which from its very beginning was based on black music — has played a large role in the creation of Afro-Punk. And while there have been many black artists who have been embraced by white rock fans, from Little Richard to Sly and the Family Stone to the Bad Brains, the Afro-Punk movement has found fans bonding and creating communities, organizing shows and shooting films in a whole new way.

We didn't understand a lot of terms the skateboarding announcer used, but it's always interesting to watch sk8rs. They were all boys, as far as we could see, ranging in age from about 12 to maybe 30.

Another reason why July 4 is important to Afro-punks could be that 99 years ago, on July 4, 1910, Jack Johnson - an Afro-punk in spirit, anyway - retained the heavyweight championship in Reno against "the Great White Hope," Jim Jeffries, by knocking him out.

Many African Americans were killed in the nationwide riots started by racists, and the government got back at Johnson by convicting him of a trumped-up violation of the Mann Act because he traveled interstate with his white lady friend.

Tell your member of Congress to support the resolution introduced by Senator John McCain and Long Island's lowlife Rep. Peter King calling for President Obama to pardon Jack Johnson and undo the injustice perpetrated by racism.

The street art (parking lot art?) was of high quality, but when we get too close, the fumes of the spray paint get to us.

Last year's Times review said the BMX bikers were "executing frightening tricks — an X-up here, a 360 tail-whip there."

As we headed toward the G train, we saw this young Afro-punk being interviewed on the steps of BAM.

We wish we could have stayed longer at the Afro-Punk Festival today. But we still have time to catch more of it.