In the green, green PDX scene, City Repair was subject to one of the most epic Bassnectar sets I, personally, have ever encountered. And hotdamn did they deserve it! After putting on Portland’s stellar Earth Day Celebration yet again, they are gearing up for a 10 day Village Building Convergence to provide education in permaculture and green building, as well as common ground on which to build community relationships.
Everyone is invited to build, listen, learn, and laugh while collaborating to transform communal spaces.
We say onto thee, oh ye listeners of Bassnectar, bring tha ruckus! Stomp these Portland blocks and leave your mark on your community. We promise you a star on HollyWOMP Bvld.
Seattle- Umojafest Peace Center
In the entranceway to Seattle’s Showbox at the Market, we united with a gaggle of guys and gals driven and dedicated to bringing Seattle the message of the Umojafest Peace Center: Seattle needs real help with violence, and the community is offering it up on a shiny, progressive, silver platter. With a cherry on top! Razpy, Geneiva, and Angel took to the stage opening for Gift of Gab and Bassnectar, and offered us a vision of how Seattle’s youth should be.
The current goal of these young people is a Peace Center, named after a festival that has been happening in the area for over 30 years. They want to transform neighborhoods by teaching audio production, organic gardening, marketing, event production, political advocacy, (we could visually claw your eyes out with this list…) The Umojafest Peace Center, despite battles with the city, lacks in funding, and countless other setbacks, effortlessly teems with lively people driven to make the center fully operational in Summer ‘09. In the face of adversity, they have banded together like the cables connecting Lorin’s laptops and used their difficulties as inspiration to work harder, to write, to dance, to sing, to rap. Umojafest is not only an entity of its own; it is lusciously hopeful tangle of several pillar organizations that have been active and effective for years. These groups work together to create a web of support and, as Monica Mathews, an at-risk youth mentor, says: “ I went there wondering ‘what kind of place is this?’ and found that everything they stood for is already what I wanted to do.”
Bassnectar Labs came unprepared to find an organization so thoroughly doing exactly what we admire most in activism- taking a love (music) and making it do work for you (social change) while having the most excellent time imaginable. Now let me tell you that we gave these kids a hearty womping that night (my earplugs were almost insufficient 70 feet from the stage) but this group deserves much more than the bass.
They want to host more events at the outdoor stage they are creating, they need help with outreach, marketing, graphic design, gardeners, audiophiles, funding, you name it. Here, there is a niche for everyone, even if you do not live in Seattle.
This, mis amigos, is the level where we build a bassquake that will shake down everything extraneous. Those who are taking shelter beware: you will be SQUASHEDDD.
So get out, get active, and stay tuned for when we bring you San Franzzzzzwomparooo!
