Harry Duncan’s Roots and Rhythms Series returns to Amoeba SF Saturday Oct. 27 from 2-5 p.m. To hear a sample of the music Duncan spins, listen to In The Soul Kitchen with DJ Harry Duncan on KUSF In Exile Tuesdays from 7 to 9 p.m. Listen to past shows here.

This Saturday’s show will include a rare appearance by legendary poet and activist John Sinclair. Sinclair was once the manager of Detroit proto-punks MC5 and lead anti-racist and pro-marijuana efforts in the 1960s. He was imprisoned in 1969 for the possession of two joints of marijuana, which spawned the John Sinclair Freedom Rally in Ann Arbor, Mich. in 1971, which featured John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Allen Ginsberg, Abbie Hoffman and another of other luminaries from the time. He was soon after released, and the Michigan Supreme Court ruled the state’s marijuana law was unconstitutional. He was charged with two others in the 1972 Supreme Court case United States v. U.S. District Court, which upheld that warrantless domestic wiretaps were illegal.

Sinclair is now based in Amsterdam, where he continues to write and record poetry, which is often accompanied by blues, jazz and rock musicians. He hosts a radio show at RadioFreeAmsterdam.com where he plays jazz, blues, R&B and other music, and maintains a blog, Fattening Blogs For Snakes. I caught up with Sinclair over the phone as he was working on a documentary in Healdsburg, Calif.

This Saturday, July 28th, marks the one year anniversary of Harry Duncan's Roots & Rhythm DJ series at Amoeba San Francisco. Mr. Duncan has brought a lot of great guests to our stage over the past year, including Tower of Power's David Garibaldi (event photos) and The Meters' Ziggy Modeliste (event photos). To celebrate the momentous one-year anniversary, Amoeba and Roots & Rhythm welcome Chris Strachwitz of Arhoolie Records!

Established in 1960 by Strachwitz, Arhoolie has released a rich and eclectic mix of down home blues, folk, jazz, gospel,

Chris Strachwitz

zydeco, Tex-Mex, country, and cajun — the full panorama of American roots music. Through Arhoolie, Strachwitz has helped to introduce artists like bluesmen LIghtnin’ Hopkins, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Mance Lipscomb, zydeco king Clifton Chenier, Tex-Mex master accordion player Flaco Jimenez, Lydia Mendoza, as well as jazz man Sonny Simmons and folk singer Barbara Dane to wider audiences.

For more details on Saturday's Roots & Rhythm event, click HERE.

of local, community radio - that some new pointers on how to get KUSF back on the FM dial might arise. Or at the very least that there will be a show of solidarity towards the unfairly ousted KUSF programmers from their fellow left of the dial broadcasters of the NFCB whose tag is, "We are local. We are global. We are independent, connected, and engaged." 

Since KUSF was abruptly pulled off the FM dial on January 18th, when the University of San Francisco (USF) management secretly worked out a deal with Public Radio Capital (PRC) replacing 90.3FM with an out of town programmed classical station, the ripples have been felt across the country by other college & small non-commercial radio stations who, particularly in this time of federal & state funding cutbacks and universities clamoring for ways to generate money, wonder if they might be next to get the plug pulled on them. The move by USF was not an isolated one but rather part of an increasing trend by budget challenged colleges across the country. While tomorrow's panel will focus on the events that went down at KUSF and KTRU (another radio station that got kicked off the air) its message of what to do when your station faces the chopping block is as much, if not more so, directed at those college/student stations that are still on air but could soon face a similar fate.