Weekend of local rock volume 26
All right, the concert didn’t actually occur on a weekend, but who really likes working on Friday anyway?
After the apparent demise of Cowboyz Saloon in Ocean City, the (Save the…) Breast Fest had to reschedule and find a new venue. On Thursday night the event was held at the Purple Moose Saloon in Ocean City. Certainly no one was more pleased than event organizer and breast cancer survivor Michele Hogsett of the band Semiblind.
The (Save the…) Breast Fest was set to benefit the Delaware Breast Cancer Coalition, and they were ready with a number of items for sale to benefit the cause.
They also had a craftsperson there creating bracelets and lapel pins made for the event were there for the buying too.
All told, the proceeds for the event totaled almost $600, which is pretty respectable for a first-time effort. Much of it was raised through the raffling of chances to win some nice items and a 50/50 drawing netted over $200.
Passers-by on the boardwalk got the luxury of seeing the band schedule and check back for their favorites.
So you can now see in just what order the band pictures will occur. Mighty convenient, huh?
Actually, High Maintenance was solely represented by their lead singer and the guitarist she borrowed for the evening.
I didn’t take pictures of the DJs, but Skip Dixxon kept busy in more ways than filling in the time between bands. He’s also the drummer for Agent 99, the second band of the evening. Hint: you’ll see Skip and Kathy Denk, the guitarist stage right, again in this presentation.
Most of the bands were female-fronted, which would be natural for such an event. The lone exception was Woodstok Nation. But Judith Carter did sing lead on the Stevie Ray Vaughn song “Pride and Joy”, which was one of the few covers they did – as opposed to the other bands, they mainly did their own stuff.
Witches Brew set out to “take us on a trip…but we promise to bring you back.” By launching into the Jefferson Airplane classic ‘White Rabbit’ they weren’t kidding.
Michele was the hostess with the mostest, and Semiblind attracted a couple special guests on their songs.
After Semiblind wrapped up, Petting Hendrix came out with a similar hard-rock sound, but done with a somewhat different selection of songs. They leaned on more pop music but threw in two covers of Jimi Hendrix songs, “Fire” and “Purple Haze.” It’s a bit jarring when combined with songs like Nena’s “99 Red Balloons” but they made it work.
The final band of the evening was Chrome Donut, who wrapped up the show with a set based more out of the Top 40 from the 1970′s and early 1980′s. Some songs were done as three-part as the picture shows while a couple songs were just keyboard, drums, and vocals. It made for a more mellow wrapup to the festivities.
Michele hopes to make this an annual event, and perhaps it will do better if they can find a venue to play on their original intended date leading into Delmarva Bike Week. Given the growing number of female-fronted bands gaining prominence this could be a much larger show for the second annual effort next year. I look forward to it!
The art of politicizing
Op-ed number nine for Liberty Features Syndicate, this cleared back on September 23rd.
Long a subject of derision from conservatives, the National Endowment for the Arts ran into more trouble earlier this month when it was revealed NEA funding was granted to artists for creating works of art designed to promote President Obama and his domestic policy agenda. This was a clear case of the taxpayer-supported NEA stepping outside the ideals under which it was created.
While some form of federal funding for the arts has occurred practically since our nation’s founding, the National Endowment was created by an act of Congress and signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 as part of the Great Society. Instead of shilling for a particular candidate or issue, the endowment’s original charge was to “help create and sustain not only a climate encouraging freedom of thought, imagination, and inquiry, but also the material conditions facilitating the release of this creative talent.”
The NEA survived a funding cut in the mid-1990’s brought on by a controversy over NEA-funded artists Andres Serrano and Robert Mapplethorpe, among others, but the current allegations are much more severe because the funding supposedly went to art designed to fit a political agenda.
Obviously it’s nothing new that artistic works are created for the purpose of glorifying a person or an entity – one need only look at the Sistine Chapel or any of the numerous monuments around Washington, D.C. as examples of art intended to deify or pay tribute to a person or group. Indeed, most of the newer examples about Washington were paid for at least in part by taxpayer dollars.
Yet the idea of art sanctioned by a governing body leaves it too broadly open to interpretation as to what is reasonable or proper, particularly in this age of political correctness we live in. Further, one needs to wonder about the vanity of a leader who uses public funds to engage in political propaganda masquerading as artistic effort rather than allowing free expression and encouraging the improvement of public taste and culture.
Those who are not the prototypical starving artists should not be fed on the taxpayer’s dime, regardless of whether public tastes favor their works or not. Needless to say, what is considered beauty is in the eye of the beholder and one man’s masterpiece might get quizzical looks from someone else; in either case the decision should not come at the cost of a taxpayer-funded grant. Millions of people make the choice on their own to cultivate and promote culture through donations and their patronage of many worthwhile artistic events. It’s clear the public good is not well served by government picking and choosing winners in the artistic field, and using art to promote a self-serving political agenda reeks of the practices of the worst tyrants the world has known.
In a political climate as charged as ours coupled with a government set on bailing out its friends in the business world, this usage of the National Endowment for the Arts for crass political purposes places the onus on Congress to finish a job it half-heartedly started a decade ago. It’s long past time to save the American people over $150 million and withdraw federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. Simply convert the NEA into a completely private entity and let them compete in the free market just as millions of those who make their living in the artistic field manage to do every day.
Then if artists wish to promote a political agenda at least it won’t be paid for through funds confiscated from the American taxpayer.
Michael Swartz is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer.
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