Monthly Archives: June 2012

Music listings – 6/4 through 6/10

1. Jimmy Cliff

Date: Tuesday, June 5, 2010
Time: 7:30pm
Venue: Prospect Park Bandshell (9th St. and Prospect Park West entrance)
Ticket: free, but $3 donation
Genre: reggae/pops

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of Jamaican independence, the 40th of the iconic film The Harder They Come, and 34 years of free shows at Celebrate Brooklyn!, reggae legend JIMMY CLIFF kicks off our season with a concert for the ages. Cliff’s musical legacy includes such classics as You Can Get It if You Really Want and Many Rivers to Cross, and his voice, true as ever, remains one of the wonders of popular music.

2. Martin Bisi with Emanuel And The Fear & Spaces 

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Recommended NY Music Festival: VISION FESTIVAL 17

Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi

The Vision Festival, which was initiated by dancer and choreographer Patricia Nicholson Parker in 1996, has established itself as one of the world’s top festival of experimental music, free jazz/avant-garde jazz, art, film and dance. It is run under the tutelage of Arts For Art, Inc. (AFA).

Inspired by the 1984 and ’88 Sound Unity Festivals, it was a direct out growth of the  Improvisers Collective 1994 and ’95. Every year this festival is held  in New York City  in June. Members of the board of directors include following people.

Every year the festival takes place in numerous New York venues. It usually consists of between thirty and sixty performances, spread out over a number of days. But this year the main venue is the Roulette in Brooklyn. During all the years the festival has encountered difficulty booking performance spaces, largely because of the Vision Festival’s rejection of commercial sponsors. Booking difficulties are often fixed by arts-foundation grants, however.

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Kickstarter, Pledgemusic…are fan-funding platforms the patrons of today’s music?

Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi

This is really unbelievable: former Dresden Doll’s Amanda Palmer just set a record for raising funds for recording, promotion, tour support, and an accompanying art book in Kickstarter. She asked her fans for $100.000 but achieved over a million dollars! Congrats! Wish I could do the same thing.

But to achieve this success  “You have to have fans before you can ask them to help you,” as Palmer herself has said. I heard from a friend, who knows her well, that Palmer is everyday in touch with her fans by twitting, facebooking, etc..  She has worked very hard to build up a devoted and engaged fan base which isn’t an easy thing to do. You have to love in what you’re doing and share it with your family, friends and fans. It means also that you have to believe in yourself and be very disciplined in your music life. I think Palmer’s success is certainly good news for independent musicians who play music for people and want to be a postive force in society.

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