 ut
this year it’s different. “This
is the most political thing we’ve ever done,”
he added.
“There’s
a bold awareness after last time was so close. People
are starting to realize what they can do makes a difference,”
said Banjo-playing David.
Making
the biggest contribution to the night’s entertainment
was Mike Gomez, lead singer of Wormwood, who played
all three sets for all three bands. The full time musician
and painter regularly plays with five to seven bands.
His repertoire includes guitar, drums, upright bass,
piano, and the lap steel. Playing at a Concert for Kerry
wasn’t a hard sell. “I accepted with great
joy. I really wanted to do it,” Gomez said.
“The
Bush Administration, the current one, has made me much
more political than I used to be,” he says. “I
always vote, but the Neoconservative Blues was the first
protest song I wrote because I felt I had to.”
He said he wants to write more protest music.
Gomez
says he isn’t the only New York musician who has
been politicized by this administration. “I’ve
noticed people who actually play out on the street and
are out there are more active. There’s a little
uprising in it, there is something going on,”
he said.
While Bootleg Remedy tuned their banjos and guitars,
members of Sweet Jeebus watched and talked with friends.
Mark, Sweet Jeebus’ guitar player, said they’ve
done benefits for a recycling center, arts programs,
and a homeless shelter, but this was their first political
concert.
Friends
and fans
Many
of the audience members are friends of the musicians
or the organizers, or friends of their friends. For
much of the evening the door is manned by Nancy Meakem’s
childhood friend Dan Smalheiser.
“I’d
like to see Kerry elected. I feel like I’ve got
to do something, so why not sit here by the door for
an evening and hang out with friends?” he said.
“Nancy
is one of those people that when she sets her mind to
something, she’ll do it and do it better than
most people around,” he added, “She’s
great at getting people involved, and she knows a diverse
crowd of people. She’s always liked to do that.”
Guerney and Meakem want to spread that kind of can-do attitude, and have created kits so others can organize Concerts for Kerry in their neighborhoods. There are plans for fundraising concerts in Austin, New Orleans, and Los Angeles, and there have already been two in Philadelphia.
Michelle
Tsai, a reporter with Dow Jones, explained how this
community of people in their twenties and early thirties
gets organized for a night of activism. “I try
to tell a lot of friends to come,” she said, “I
couldn’t donate that much money myself.”
Her high school buddy Chaitanya Sareen was visiting
from Seattle and tagged along. He said the night was
a good deal: “Support Kerry, see an old friend
from high school.”
|
ashboards,
saws, and a fiddle accompanied lyrics about tax
cuts and the $87 billion spent on the war in Iraq. On
Sunday, April 18, the Knitting Factory got political and
went country.
