Jackie's 5th Amendment (photo via Here's Park Slope)

That East Williamsburg petition has started a trend:

WE PETITION THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION TO:
Allow the bar Jackie's 5th Amendment to secede from the neighborhood of Park Slope in Brooklyn, NY.

Due to the changing nature of the neighborhood and the fact that we are beginning to take offense when potential customers come into the bar, look around them with disdain, and leave, immediately, we the people of Jackie's 5th Amendment at 404 5th Avenue request the permission of the United States Government to peacefully secede from Park Slope and become our own neighborhood, to be tentatively known as "Brooklyn".

They only need 24,972 more signatures. Not too bad.

DNA Info points out:

Jackie's is one of the few remaining dive bars in the neighborhood, and drinkers who wander in looking for high-priced artisanal cocktails poured by "mixologists" will be disappointed. The bar's specialty is a $10 ice-filled bucket of six "ponies," or 7-ounce domestic beers.

"The neighborhood is changing," [bartender Rebecca McCarthy who started the petition] said. "People walk in and they're like, 'Oh no, not this.' We don't even have vermouth. We couldn't make martinis if we tried."

They should get in touch with the Old Carriage Inn on 7th and make it a movement!

For further reading, check out an interview with Linda the bartender at Here's Park Slope.

Pussy Riot

After Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot were jailed for a performance this past February where they called on the Virgin Mary to "throw Putin out" and were charged with "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred or hostility," the band went on trial on Monday (7/30). Reuters reports:

Maria Alyokhina, 24, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 29, were brought to Moscow's Khamovniki court for Russia's highest-profile trial since another opponent of Putin, former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was convicted of embezzlement in 2010 in the same courtroom.

Supporters chanted "Girls, we're with you!" and "Victory!" as the women, each handcuffed by the wrist to a female officer, were escorted from a police van into the courthouse.

The group's members have consistently maintained that their protest was political and that they meant no harm to Christians.

...

"Our performance contained no aggression towards the public - only a desperate desire to change the situation in Russia for the better," she said. "We are not enemies of Christianity. The opinion of Orthodox believers is important to us and we want all of them to be on our side - on the side of anti-authoritarian civil activists."

Alyokhina's statement said: "I thought the church loved all its children, but it seems the church loves only those children who love Putin."

The article also mentions that the band's defense lawyer, Nikolai Polozov, said, "The court is being very one-sided, slanted towards the prosecution, which of course in our view is motivated exclusively by political bias in this case."

Many benefits for Pussy Riot have gone on in NYC, and Change.org is now hosting a petition at their site. The petition states, "We support the right of artist to write and sing songs of protest and dissent" and "We demand the relase immedately of the PUSSY RIOT 3." Show your support.

Video of Pussy Riot's punk prayer below...

Continue reading "Pussy Riot members on trial; sign the petition"

by Andrew Frisicano

As announced a few months ago, the four-night Undead Jazz Fest kicks off tonight (6/23) with music at Le Poisson Rouge, Sullivan Hall and Kenny's Castaways. The format is similar to that of the Winter Jazz fest (and the inaugural Undead fest last year): one ticket that covers entry to a handful of neighboring venues. This year, each night offers something a little different.

Thursday night the venues are in Greenwich Village and music include Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog, Dave King Trucking Company, Gerald Clayton and Alan Licht & Brian Chase. Friday night features a "round robin of improvised duets" at the Bell House. Scheduled participants for that are: "David Torn, Elliot Sharp, Jim Black, Erik Friedlander, Dean Bowman, Chris Lightcap, Brian Chase (Yeah Yeah Yeahs!), David King (Bad Plus!), Darius Jones, Chris Speed, Jamie Saft, Chris Dingman, Eivind Opsvik, Charlie Burnham, Marco Cappelli and Kirk Knuffke."

Saturday the music will be in the Gowanus/Park Slope area (at Littlefield and unconventional spots Homage Skateboard Training Facility and Cross Fit) where you'll be able to see Elliott Sharp (playing Thelonious Monk), David S. Ware, the Darius Jones Trio and more, all on the same Degraw Street block.

Sunday, the music (a super-varied lineup that includes The Claudia Quintet, Peter Brotzmann's FULL BLAST, Bobby Previte Quartet, Erik Friedlander and UB313 with Sun Ra Arkestra's Marshall Allen) is in Williamsburg, split between four stages at three venues: Public Assembly, Cubana Social and the Cameo.

Tickets for all days are still available, including four-day and two-day tix.

There are copies of the Undead Jazz Fest Review floating around town that come with an excellent sampler CD, which you can stream below.

We should note that last week, the New York Times published news about an online petition asking for an increase in musician pay for the Undead and Winter Jazz Fests. Initially, it was unclear whether that situation would affect this year's festival (some of the signees are scheduled to perform), but the organizers of the petition have since clarified some points, mainly that they support this year's fest and that they didn't mean for the press to find out about what they thought was a private email, but that they're hoping to negotiate for a pay raise at future fests. Some more info on that is below, if you're interested...

Now that that's out of the way... the fest recently put together a trailer containing one second of music from each artist on the bill. That and the full schedule are below...

Continue reading "Undead Jazz Fest begins (full schedule, an event trailer & a small controversy included)"

To Whom it May Concern

A petition was put together recently in order to persuade Canadian super group Swan Lake into touring. Most of you have posted on your sites about their forthcoming second record, Enemy Mine, which is due out March 24th on Jagjaguwar. In regards to touring, Jagjaguwar posted that "Swan Lake does not currently have any tour plans but is easily swayed by gold doubloons and/or enthusiastic mobs". Upon reading this, we the fans have come together to prove to the band that they definitely need to tour to support their new record.

We are urging all of you to help us in our quest. If you would post a link to this petition along with any upcoming posts about Swan Lake, we'd greatly appreciate it. Once we hit our target goal of 1000 signatures, we'll send the petition to Swan Lake's booking agent at Billions who will present the petition to the band. After being overwhelmed by the shear number of signatures, we're sure the band will want to hit the road.

http://www.petitiononline.com/swanlake/petition.html

Thanks for all your help.

Maria Carullo
http://wolfparade.nonstuff.com