You've gotta love New York City in the summer months (it's still summer -even if kids are back at school) when there is just so much great live music always happening outdoors in the city's many parks and open public spaces. And the best part is that it's usually free and always fun: like last weekend when Battles put on an incredible show at South Street Seaport in lower Manhattan or this weekend on Sunday (Sept. 9th) when legendary New York club DJ Danny Krivit spun dance music for skaters and regular dancers alike in Central Park near 72nd in front of the bandshell -  just as he did last year.

 Also on Sunday afternoon (9/9), at the exact same time, across the river in Brookyn's Prospect Park at the expansive park's Music Pagoda was the ever popular and hella fun 14th Annual Clubhouse Jamboree - the big  free house music (and food) party thrown by generous New York house music lover and all around cool guy Lil Ray who not only goes to the trouble and expense of getting permits and hauling in a large sound system, and lines up all the DJs for the long afternoon, but also feeds near all of the thousand or so revelers that converge in the middle of the Brooklyn Park to dance their asses off to throbbing club house music every year on the second weekend of each September for the past fourteen years.





At about 6:45PM, right after DJ Spinna (pictured top left) - the last DJ of the day -had just  finished his energetic set and immediately after Lil Ray (pictured left) had thanked the vocally grateful gathering for supporting house music and for showing up to his annual party I talked with the man for a moment. First I asked him why he has been throwing this big free party, at his expense, since 1994?  "To show love for house music," he answered with a wide smile.  "When I started the Clubhouse Jamboree it was a different time. There was no Internet to hear the music. Then there really was little or no house music to be heard outside the clubs. And I wanted to take the music outside....into the park, and here in Brooklyn," he said, adding that his goal from that first party was to represent a variety of sounds within house music. "I always wanted to give different DJs from different clubs a chance to do their thing."  So just how many people did he think he fed (and it was fully catered with full dinner plates of fish, rice, and vegtables etc) of the approximate thousand that showed up on Sunday? "Well I brought 700 forks," he laughed. "And all the food is gone." So was the drink which included water and cokes (which were care of Coca Cola but everything else was at the expense of this generous New Yorker.) Besides Spinna the DJs for the afternoon included Ian Rock, DJ Wil Milton (Gravity), Brian Coxx (Soulgasm), and the young DJ sibling duo The Martinez Brothers.                                                                                                                                                  

I almost forgot about this funny YouTube clip originally posted about nine months back, before I had started AMOEBLOGGING and which now seems even funnier. Its only about two minutes in length and worth watching:

If you are in the Bay Area at time of posting this AMOEBLOG (noon Saturday September 8th) there is still time to head out to enjoy most of today's big free event in San Francisco, the Michael Franti overseen 9th Annual 911 Power to the Peaceful Festival celebrating music and arts and taking place at Speedway Meadow til 5PM-ish today today Golden Gate Park. Scheduled to have started earlier this morning (9AM) the big festival which might draw up to 70,000 people will include free music (including Michael Franti and his band Spearhead, the Indigo Girls all on the main stage and DJ Spooky along with other spinmasters in the DJ tent), as well as an open-air art gallery, a healing arts tent, kid's zone, bike coalition, eco village,   environmental and political organizations disseminating information, and vendors selling food and drink.

Performers for the rest of the day include Quannum label hip-hoppers Lifsavas (who are scheduled to  perform until 1:20PM), DJ Spooky at 2PM spinning for an hour followed by Bassnectar in the DJ tent, the Indigo Girls on the main stage approx 3PM followed by Franti and Spearhead. 

Started in 1998, the free, outdoor 911 Power to the Peaceful Festival has been steadily growing. That first year, which took place in a neighborhood park,  drew an estimated 6,000 people but has grown to draw in excess of 60,000 people to Golden Gate Park's Speedway Meadow  where past performers  and spokes-persons have included KRS-One, Digital Underground, Woody Harrelson, Angela Davis, Blackalicious, The Coup, Saul WIlliams,  Alice Walker, and Talib Kweli.

Rap & Rock Stars More likely to die Prematurely

You ever notice how everytime you open a paper or read this 
AMOEBLOG that it seems that yet another famous celebrity you
grew up listening to has passed on? And how it seems like the
ratio of rockers or rappers compared to regular folk 
dropping off the face of the earth is much greater? Well it 
doesn't just appear that way. It is that way. According to a
newly published British based study, according to Reuters, 
rap and rock music stars - "already notorious for their 
so-called "crash and burn" lifestyles -really are more likely
than other (regular everyday) people to die before
reaching old age." 

All of this is proven by the study of more than a thousand mainly British and
American artists, spanning the time from Elvis Presley's era 
up until two years ago (the years 1956 to 2005) in which the
study found these musician stars were "two to three times more
likely to suffer a premature death than the general population."
 

The study's results showed that between 
1956 and  two years ago that there
were a hundred deaths among the 
1,064 musicians examined by researchers
at the Centre for Public Health at Liverpool
John Moores University.



                                                   

I found it surprising that, despite the $5 toll each car is charged to cross its span from Marin into San Francisco, that the Golden Gate Bridge is  still financially strapped and is currently facing a projected deficit of a whopping $80 million. But even  more surprising to me was the news, following an August 24th meeting,  that the operators of this national landmark (one of the top five attractions in the United States) are seriously considering getting corporate sponsorship to cover the historic bridge's overwhelming bills.   What this means is that like SBC Park or Pacific Bell Park or AT&T Park (or whatever name it happens to go by)  that likely soon the Bay's most famous attraction may be renamed something like the Verizon Span, or the  Google Gate Bridge, or perhaps something like "the Golden Gate Bridge brought to you by Pepsi."   Now according to the overseers of the bridge, who will meet again this month to make the final decision on the matter, they are assuring all concerned that they will not do anything "tacky"  like the aforementioned renaming in their handling of this proposed "corporate partnership."  But frankly  I have my doubts and I worry that this type of proposed sponsorship may set an unhealthy precedent with US national monuments and landmarks, and that soon Mount Rushmore, the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, and even the White House will be up for corporate partnership.      (If you have any funny or ironic ideas of what sponsors might be matched with what national landmarks please add them in the COMMENTS box below. And if you wish to voice your concerns about the proposal for the GG Bridge email districtsecretary@goldengate.org).

Anyways this whole idea of sponsorship or selling out or cashing in, depending on how you look at it, is really just part and parcel of these United States of Consumerism in which we dwell and where really nothing is sacred and everything is up for sale especially when it comes to ad space in exchange for dollars - be it on TV, radio, online, sides of buildings and buses, or on an individual's personal car or even on their face!