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Peace, Love & Chocolate - Feb 2013 Hello, all. Lots going on since we last wrote: The Peace Ball was fantastic! Read on for videos, stories and pho
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 Peace Ball 2013: Earl Gibson III/Getty Images North America |
Hello, all.
Lots going on since we last wrote:
The Peace Ball was fantastic! Read on for videos, stories and photos.
Having our gear bag stolen off our porch in the wee hours of Inauguration Day? Not so fantastic. Read on for the bummer details, the beautiful poem that lifted our spirits and the new song that Pat just wrote!
Being nominated for the 27th Annual Washington Area Music Awards? Back to fantastic. Read on and vote for us for Fan Favorite!
Going from 1 degree in Springfield MA to 59 degrees in Cambridge MA just 4 days later, "but don't worry about climate change, everything's fine"? Not so fantastic. Take action for the climate and against the Keystone XL Pipeline on Feb 17th in Washington DC.
A global day of dance revolution against violence against women? Fantastic! Join Eve Enslers' OneBillionRising on Feb 14th, wherever you are!
Feb 14th. Hmm, that reminds us of CHOCOLATE! You asked for it so we're offering a limited run of Pat's Homemade Organic Toffee for Valentine's Day. Read on and order by midnight, Monday Feb 4th.
And catch us coming right up:
Tonight 2/1 Littleton MA
Tomorrow Night 2/2 New York City
Fri 2/8 Takoma DC . . . and more! |
Limited Run of Pat's Homemade Toffee
Made with organic and fair-trade ingredients
Order by midnight Mon Feb 4th
Folks who have tasted Pat's Homemade Organic Fair-Trade Toffee have said, and we quote:
“You can just quit singing and start candy making!!!! OMG that candy is delicious. OK, I’m not going to be happy if you don’t sing but I think you have a future in candy making.” – Kathy
“You should tell Pat that maybe she should change careers…..the candy is really, really good.” -Jimmy
So we're offering a limited run for Valentine's Day! Order by midnight Monday Feb 4th and this delicious toffee will be sent in a gift box to you or your Valentine. Ingredients and more here. |
 This Fri Feb 1 @ 8pm Littleton MA! |
Upcoming Concerts
See our concert page for details on these & all of our shows.
Fri Feb 1 Swampscott MA: Presentation for high school students from the “A World of Difference”, anti-bias and diversity group. (Not open to the public, so come to our evening concert in Littleton.)
Fri Feb 1 Littleton MA: We’re excited to return for season 19 of the Firehouse Coffeehouse.
Sat Feb 2 New York NY: Our near-annual concert at the Peoples Voice Cafe in Nueva York. Percussionista extraordinaire, Robin Burdulis, joins us.
Fri Feb 8 Takoma DC: Our near-home concert at the Carroll Cafe. Look forward to seeing our friends and neighbors there!
Sat Feb 9 New Orleans LA: Returning to fabulous New Orleans for a Green Mardi Gras event. Stay tuned for details.
Sat Feb 16 Haverford PA: BMC '88 Alumna Sandy O is especially excited to head to Haverford College for a workshop and concert for the Tri-College community! (Not open to the public, so come to our March 9th concert in Media, PA.)
Sun-Wed Feb 17-20 Storm Lake IA: Our third year coming to Buena Vista University for an ACES Series performance on Sunday (open to the public) & classroom visits in a variety of disciplines.
Sat Feb 23 Toronto ON: International Folk Alliance Conference
Sun Feb 24 Toronto ON: Singing at the Sunday Service at First Unitarian Congregation. All are welcome.
Continued below . . . |
Two Ways to Take Action in February |
 OneBillionRising against violence against women on Feb 14th, everywhere! | |  "No Keystone XL!" Feb 17th, Washington DC |
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 http://www.wamadc.com/wama/fanform.htm |
We're Up for 2 Wammies!
Two WHATTIES?
We're nominated again for Best Folk - Contemporary Duo/Group for the Washington Area Music Awards and, this year, for Best Folk - Contemporary Recording, too. WAMA members will vote for those categories but we (and everyone nominated) are also up for the Fan Favorite Award, and everyone can vote!
You all pulled out the stops last year and we won Fan Favorite in 2012! Yeah, we don't love the word "fan", either. (Comes from "fanatic", after all.) We prefer "audience" or "community." But since there still is no Billboard Hot 100 Activist Songs chart or a Grammy category for Music for Social Change to aspire to or really almost any structure to recognize what we do, we'd love to be recognized in this forum.
So, vote for us for 2013 Fan Favorite . . . by high noon on Wednesday, Feb 13! |
 Vote for us for 2013 Fan Favorite WAMMIE! |
You don't have to be in the DC area and everyone can vote.
Be sure to enter our name with lower case, just like this: emma's revolution. WAMA says wrong spelling or capitalization could cost votes . . . and we don't want that to happen. |
 On FaceBook Jan 20: "Joe made it with the gear!" (Does Pat look stressed enough?!) |
Stolen Bag / Good Friends / Break the Spell
Why is Pat standing in front of a semi with our friend, musician and labor activist, Joe Uehlein? Let our FaceBook posts fill you in:
Jan 20th, Emma's Revolution FaceBook Page:
How 2 find Joe in huge parking lot? Park near huge truck & wait! Why? Bag w/equip lost at BWi (Very rare thing, even w/our sched!) Awesome singer/ songwriter friend Joe Uehlein lending us gear & meeting us enroute to Peace Ball. Thank you Joe!
So that all went really well and we had a blast at the Peace Ball (see below). Then . . .
Jan 23rd, Pat's FaceBook page:
Southwest found the bag that night and allegedly delivered it to our house at 6AM. The bag and all our gear was stolen sometime between 10:30 Sun night and 9AM Mon. Had a discouraging day trawling area pawn shops. The gear is replaceable but also lost several notebooks with unfinished and original copies of songs plus a travel kit with collection of 15 yrs of homeopathic remedies. A shitty end to an otherwise exhilarating weekend. Third time now in 27 yrs that my songwriting stuff's been stolen. Thankfully it wasn't an instrument. No one was hurt. Still had a great time @ the Peace Ball. Thank you Andy and Marjan. Alternately hurt and pissed off. Practicing letting go.
Whereupon she received 98 comments of support, ideas, consolation (we can't believe we had just taken all those "small" equipment items off our insurance, either--ouch!!). We are thankful to each of you who wrote! Dear singer/songwriter/song leader friend Aileen Vance put hers in verse, including these choice lines:
". . . Hoping for computers
Or jewels
Checks or expensive microphones
Anything he could cash in on
Not realizing the true value of his theft was in a worn notebook tucked into the side
Later that day
And all into the night
And all the next day and all the days that followed
Songs blew into open doorways
Serenaded workers on picket lines
Lovers by rivers
Eagles soaring the high drafts above the mountains
Women sewing 16 hour shifts in the factories . . ."
Read the rest of the poem here to find out where else the songs blew. |
Breaking the Spell
And, you know how we don't like to arrive at a demo or an event empty-handed? We'd rather come with just the right song, written just for that topic, action, person, etc.
So, yesterday afternoon, only a couple hours before we were to sing to open the “Ground the Drones, Shrink the Pentagon, Create Peace” presentation by extraordinary activist, Medea Benjamin, Pat broke the spell of the stolen songs by writing a powerful, new one: "Killing Game".
The audience and Medea were very moved. We'll record "Killing Game" soon and get it out to you! |
 Benefit Concert & Interfaith Celebration for Marriage Equality April 6th in Honolulu! |
Upcoming Concerts, cont'd
Sat Mar 9 Media PA: Returning to the wonderful Interweave Out Loud Concert Series at UUCDC in Delaware County!
Sat Mar 16 Chandler AZ: Concert at Valley Unitarian Universalist Congregation! Stay tuned for details.
Fri Mar 22 Solana Beach CA: Returning to the beautiful UU Fellowship of San Dieguito for a concert!
Sat Mar 23 Santa Barbara CA: And to the wonderful Trinity Backstage Coffeehouse, run by our friends and singer/songwriters, Doug Clegg & Kate Wallace!
Sun Mar 31 Honolulu HI: Singing at the Easter Sunday Service at First Unitarian Church. All are welcome.
Sat Apr 6 Honolulu HI: Join us for a Benefit Concert & Interfaith Celebration for Marriage Equality! Proceeds benefit Hawaii United for Marriage, "an unprecedented coalition of organizations, leaders, and passionate Hawaii residents who are committed to securing the freedom to marry in 2013.”
SAVE THE DATE!
Sat-Sun Apr 13-14 Spokane WA
Sat-Sun Apr 20-21 Kalamazoo MI
Fri-Sun Apr 26-28 Charlotte NC
Fri May 3 Lansing MI
Sat-Sun May 4-5 Grand Rapids MI
Fri May 10 Mount Rainier MD
Sat May 18 Haverhill MA
More . . . |
Peace Ball 2013
We were honored to perform at the second-ever Inaugural Peace Ball in Washington DC on January 20th (and to be the only performers who had also sung at the first one in 2009!).
The star-studded event was a New York Times "A-List" pick and featured a lineup of great activists, including Angela Davis, Sonia Sanchez, Ben Jealous, Amy Goodman, Medea Benjamin, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Mos Def, Ralph Nader, Dave Zirin and, of course, Peace Ball organizer, Andy Shallal. (Iraqi-born artist and entrepreneur, Andy also runs Busboys & Poets, the extraordinary network of progressive community gathering places in the DC area.) We met Melissa Harris Perry backstage and, out in the crowd, met up with The Nation Magazine's John Nichols, Progressive Democrats of America's Tim Carpenter and Democracy Now!'s Nermeen Shaikh. We had a blast performing with our fabulous band: LA keyboardist/ accordionisto, Gary Johnson (you've heard him on Revolutions Per Minute and Roots, Rock & Revolution) and DC drummer, Ken Quam (check him out on "Occupy the USA!" from RPM). And we loved hearing that Rita Dove was dancing to our music!
Yup, that Rita Dove. Poet Laureate of the United States. Hear Ms. Dove reading two of her poems at the Peace Ball. And check out renowned author, educator and political activist Angela Davis urging the 2500-person capacity crowd to continue pushing for social change:
"This time around we cannot subordinate our aspirations and our hopes to presidential agendas. Our passionate support for President Barack Obama ... should also be expressed in our determination to raise issues that have been largely ignored or not appropriately addressed by the administration."
Everyone was dressed to the nines--let's say the "99"s--and we think this was a ball Emma Goldman would have been proud to have been dancing at! |
 Peace Ball 2013: With Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! | | |
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And, if Angela Davis had known him, we think she might have quoted a few lines from our friend and activist/songwriter Jon Fromer's song, "Gonna Take Us All":
Gonna take us all to make a change
Take us all to win the peace
It's gonna take us all in the streets
Gonna take us all
Thanks, as always, for your support and your work in the world. We look forward to seeing you soon.
Peace,
Pat Humphries & Sandy O
emma's revolution
email: enews.ermusic@gmail.com
web: www.emmasrevolution.com |
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