Peaches Christ presents a 40th Anniversary Concert Tribute to The Rocky Horror Show with special guest star Patricia Quinn (Magenta!) appearing (and performing!) live and in-person. You don't need to be a Rocky Horror fanatic to know that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of this legendary musical with one of its original superstars. Enjoy a night of hits from the original stage-show production, as well as an onstage interview with Peaches and Ms. Quinn, audience Q&A, and a post-show meet and greet with Magenta herself.

But that's not all! Peaches Christ would like, if she may, to take you on a strange journey where the X-Factor's Jason Brock is "Frankenfurter" and the Whoa Nellies' Leigh Crow is "Eddie." Joined by a cavalcade of San Francisco musical theatre superstars including Jef Valentine, Trixxie Carr, L Ron Hubby, Dulce De Leche, Manuel Caneri, Cousin Wonderlette, Michael Phillis, and many more - this is a fully realized concert experience and show that will have you all doing the Time Warp again. Peaches and company are not screening the classic cult film tonight, but are instead homaging and celebrating the original stage-show musical that the film was based on and paying tribute to our favorite songs and characters in a gigantic concert theatrical spectacular.

Get your tickets HERE!

La Santa Cecilia isn't a person — or she isn't a live person, rather. It’s a band fusing all sorts of worldly influences — cumbia, bossa nova and blues, to name a few — named after the patron saint of musicians. But you could’ve been fooled into thinking frontwoman Marisol Hernandez was a saint herself, given the way she commanded the stage at Amoeba Hollywood April 30.

Her booming voice soared over a bluesy opener, generating rapturous applause from the show’s sizable audience. The band then went into an upbeat song driven by Jose “Pepe” Carlos’ riveting accordion playing, with Carlos and bassist Alex Bendana backing up Hernandez with trade-off vocals. Hernandez seemed to get choked up as she thanked people for coming, later saying it was an honor to play in the store. As though driven to please those she had just thanked, she danced, jumped and sang her heart out through the band's next bilingual jam. The band paused for a break while medical personnel attended to a concert-goer in medical need (who was shortly doing fine, it was announced).

They came back and introduced legendary drummer Pete Thompson, who carried them through a spirited romp as the band worked to restore stability to the show, while Hernandez rapped and roared through another song complete with blazing guitar solo. She gushed about receiving an email from Elvis Costello saying he wanted not only to perform but write on the album as well, sending lyrics for the song “Losing Game,” from their just-released Treinta Dias. Though Costello wasn’t present, Hernandez made up for it by doubling her already formidable stage presence and voice through the song’s swinging New Orleans feel.

Pete Rock with DJ Premier, Flatbush Zombies, Ty Segall's new band Fuzz, Femi Kuti, and Ben Howard (video above) are among the many artists performing for free in the parks around New York City this summer. Yes, it's the beginning of May and that means that all the upcoming summer music concerts and other fun outdoor events for Summer 2013 in New York City are being announced around this time. So for this New York State of Mind Amoeblog I will preview and list many of these great NYC summer (mostly all outdoor) events, which are usually free and typically with artists that you'd happily fork over good money to see. That all follows below. But first a note on something happening this weekend that prequels an event in August.

La Santa Cecilia will be performing at Amoeba San Francisco on Thursday, May 5th in celebration of their latest release, Trienta Dias.

There are two videos that caught my interest of late, dealing with the subject of immigration. One is overt and the other, a bit subtle. The first is a video from La Santa Cecilia from their new album, Treinta Dias. The song "El Hielo" (ICE) The video shows the daily lives of various undocumented immigrants as they go on their daily routine of getting ready for work and school, living in the shadows in order not to be detected. The tension of the workers as they watch the news of  ICE raids and look at photos of loved ones left behind weigh heavy on their faces. It also shows an ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) officer also getting ready for work. It's not the usual face one puts on the Immigration officers, rather the new faces of first or second generation Mexican Americans who often work in deporting immigrants. The tension of the video comes to the climax at the end when the work place of several of the immigrants is raided by the ICE force, who look just like the immigrants themselves.
 

Our "What's In My Bag?" series won a Webby Award today for Best Online Film & Video: Variety Show! We were up against some brilliant, funny, and thought-provoking shows by SoulPancake (who won the People's Voice Award in our category), Conan O'Brien, MIT and Fandango. It's amazing that our little series - of which we are so incredibly proud, don't get me wrong - would be nominated with those folks, let alone honored by the Webby judges with the win.

If you're not familiar with the Webbys, it's an annual international award that's been dubbed "the Internet's highest honor" by the New York Times. Some of the other winners this year include The Onion which won its 18th and 19th Webby for Best Humor Website; The Creators Project which won a Webby (and a People's Voice Award) for Best Art; Pinterest which won a Webby (and a People's Voice Award) for Best Social Media; and Dumb Ways to Die which won for Best Viral Video. Additionally, the Webbys have named Amoeba faves Grimes the Artist of the Year and Frank Ocean as the Person of the Year. See all the winners here.