DOWNTOWN / UNIVERSITY / 4TH AVE

Gabriel Naïm Amor’s “Moments Before”

December 4, 2017 | Jamie Manser

This nine-track album of instrumentals is gorgeous, sparse, reflective, quiet, understated, and deftly executed – with jazz, orchestral/classical, blues, and cinematic vibes. It gives room for the listener to fill in the stories from one’s own imaginative perspective, or simply the chance to just zone out and let the notes wash over you.

It’s easy to understand the fascinating mix of styles – which is sonically, uniquely Amor – on Moments Before when knowing about Amor’s musical background. He studied classical violin at a Paris conservatory for eight years, and as a teenager, he picked up guitar and played in rock and punk bands. Later, he went to a music school in Paris “run by the great American jazz musician Alan Silva,” the musician writes via email.

“That school was primarily focused on jazz, but it was really edgy, no purists there; that definitely had a strong influence on me. Then I worked with theater director and author Marc’O with the ensemble Generation Chaos where I developed extensive work on music improvisation and stage acting.”

Gabriel Naïm Amor says this album has its roots in a project he did with French avant-garde jazz guitarist Nöel Akchoté a few years ago. “He asked me to record guitar pieces very quickly and spontaneously. He completely covered them with noise, some kind of concept. I realized that I really liked these guitar tunes and they deserved an album. So, came the idea of making a guitar album and use all the beautiful instruments I own. I would have all the guitars in the studio and try them on different tunes and say, ‘Yes! This is the one for that song.’”

Amor – originally from Paris, France and a Tucsonan since 1997 – also explains that several of the compositions were written around the same time as the tunes on his 2016 album Western Suite and Siesta Songs. “I was working with (Calexico drummer) John Convertino, and some of the tracks just didn’t make sense on Western Suite, however John really liked them and wanted to drum on them. I realized that I needed more material and I had the direction laying in front of me, just needed to create the missing part, just like a puzzle. It is like curating a mess and finding out what was hiding through it.”

He shares collaboration credit with Thøger Lund, who played on all of tracks, “mostly on electric bass. He also helped a lot with ideas, suggestions with arrangements. John Convertino played the drums, it is so easy to record with him and he brings a lot, he totally felt and understood the breathing and space of that album. Tommy Larkins played on one track one day he was at the studio we shared for a while. Nick Coventry played a violin part on one track, I did all of the strings on the album and of course all the guitars. Jim Waters mixed the album to tape.”

Additionally, Amor offers text he wrote about the album:

“Moments Before, as it indicates, suggests the occurrence of an imminent change or event…small or big, dramatic or light, welcome or disorienting. In opposition to the flat line of death, the pulse of life is celebrated here by the dynamics, contrasts, accidents inherent to any living environment. Unlike a saturation of information often resulting in that monotonous ‘flat line,’ the use of silence and space is attempting to reveal and emphasize each event which hopefully will keep us engaged and interested as a listener.”

Gabriel Naïm Amor performs “Moments Before” at Exo Roast Co., 403 N. 6^th Ave., on Saturday, Dec. 16 at 8 p.m. Amy Rude and Heartbeast is also on the bill. See Facebook.com/ExoCoffee for show details or call (520) 777-4709. Visit NaimAmor.bandcamp.com to check out his discography.

Over email, he and I reflect on each of the album’s nine tracks.

Study for ES 125

ZM: It’s a brief, contemplative piece. What was your mind-space when composing this song and what kind of guitar are you playing?

GNA: The guitar is precisely an ES 125, which was made by Gibson, this one is from 1959. That tune was first an improvisation that replicated, rationalized, learned into a written form. I wanted to open the album with a solo guitar, give it the whole space because that’s what the album is about.

She Danced then She Flew Away

ZM: Feels reflective, and understated – especially with the interplay between the guitar and drums. The intersections of the instruments are deftly balanced.

GNA: I wanted to have a beautiful punctuated by a very strong sonic, dissonant part.

Waltz Escape

ZM: I love the pacing of the notes. Sparse, open, yet expressive – beautifully balanced. Interesting change/bridge around the two-minute mark. Tell me about that transition.

GNA: Here it’s the idea of have a two-songs-in-one type of composition, it’s kind of a classical approach yet not classical at all.

Somewhere Else

ZM: Darker, feels trepidatious at the beginning, definite tension – which mellows out around 1:50 mark. There’s a lighter touch, quieter, more like a lullaby. Ends sweetly.

GNA: Here I wanted to enjoy that contact of tension and release, I like laying down closing my eyes and listen to that track, kind of meditative.

Reverse Dawn Back Into The Night

ZM: I love the sense it gives of going backward. It’s like a reflection of life, looking back/traveling back. It conveys a wonderment of the natural world with shimmering sounds – dreamy and reflective. I love the interplay/call and response between the strings. The time from 3:06 to end feels like a culmination of experiences.

GNA: You are exactly right; this piece is kind of surreal to me. I originally composed it for a film by Ira Chute about some guys cutting trees in the woods. I re-worked it for the album and I was initially inspired by the score and the scene of the two little children in a boat on a river in the middle of the night from the great movie “The Night of The Hunter” with Robert Mitchum.

Back Porch Moment

ZM: I dig that you have a song with this title. I feel like Tucson is almost defined by its locals as a town that celebrates its back porches/outdoor chill spaces. Kicking back, and enjoying a libation with friends and talking about life, the world, being backyard philosophers. This song seems to encapsulate that sentiment.

GNA: That’s a perfect example of curation, the song handed me the title afterwards…that’s what is great with instrumentals!!

Just Before Revelation

ZM: Conveys feelings that vacillate between certainty and confusion.

GNA: Here again, the dynamic is emphasized by having two songs in one, like movements in classical music. It also has a strong reference to the blues but it’s not Blues, a bit like Gershwin used some blues and jazz harmonies in his Rhapsody maybe.

Ouled Kacem To Paris

ZM: Did you travel between Tunisia and Paris at one point? Opens with measured, dark, quiet. Please tell me about the background of this song and its title. It feels very cinematic. Is there a story behind it?

GNA: My father is from Tunisia, he moved to Paris alone in 1954, he was seventeen and wanted to be an artist. Ouled Kacem is the tiny village where he was born and that he left. That song has a slight Arabic feel but it also has a rockabilly electric guitar tone, that what I like the most about it, that collusion. Like my father I left my country, I thought there was an emotional feel to drive that tune.

Study for Telecaster

ZM: An ode to a guitar?

GNA: It’s the closing track and mirrors the opening one, the titles are similar, I used my beautiful 1954 Fender Telecaster.

Zocalo Magazine – December 2017

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Beautiful Souls Born Under Different Circumstances

November 1, 2017 | Jamie Manser

UA brings a documentary film, a one-women play and a series of workshops to Tucson for the Women’s Empowerment and Human Rights events this November.

“Most of society doesn’t even notice that the people who live in tents even exist. They too are beautiful souls born under different circumstances.” These are the quotes closing The Tent Village trailer, a film featuring footage shot by four young women in India who document the circumstances in which they were raised.

The film crew of “The Tent Village” documentary taking a break. The film is being screened at The Loft Cinema on Tuesday, Nov. 14 at 6 p.m. as part of the UA’s “Women’s Empowerment and Human Rights” series of events.
Photo courtesy Nilima Abrams

There’s beautiful footage of smiling children and families, juxtaposed by the staggering weight of issues faced in India’s marginalized communities. “Their lives are really hard,” shares one of the filmmakers in the trailer. “My mother got married when she was 13 or 14. My uncles just wanted us to work collecting recycled things.” Children drop out of school because the teachers beat them, families build tents supported by wire or wood frames in shanty towns.

“They accept that they are untouchable, low caste, and forget who they truly are.” It is an astute statement by one of the documentarians that raises so many issues regarding the subjugation of women, child abuse, alcohol abuse, socioeconomic oppression, searing societal judgement, and the how those damaging prejudices can stunt our ability to recognize and embrace our infinite capacity to seek and fulfill our dreams.

“That quote about accepting being low-caste epitomizes the cycle whereby they have been oppressed externally for so long, that they have sometimes internalized the negative attitudes and the cycle continues,” reflects Nilima Abrams – a documentary filmmaker who is also a social entrepreneur and lecturer at University of Vermont. Abrams worked with the film’s documentarians to create The Tent Village, a 30-minute film that is screening at The Loft Cinema on Nov. 14 at 6 p.m. as part of The Loft’s film festival and the UA’s Women’s Empowerment and Human Rights events.

Abrams met the four women – Aliveli, Saritha, Maheswari, Ganga – when they were teenagers in 2009 and taught them basic filmmaking. It took seven years, from initial shooting to film editing, to complete The Tent Village – which also includes the stories of the young filmmakers.

“While they wanted to help viewers overcome the stigmas that people from certain areas face, I think they also (understandably) feared those stigmas on themselves; or just didn’t really see the point to sharing their own stories and were initially shy to do so,” Abrams explains via email. “So, we worked together to integrate their stories in such a way as to (hopefully) break down stigma/stereotype by proudly including themselves as guides and proof of human potential regardless of gender/class/caste background. Once they saw themselves as the leaders that they are, I think they became more confident to share their stories. So, I filmed them reflecting on their footage, but all of the shots at the ‘tent village’ they did on their own, when I wasn’t even in India.”

Two of the filmmakers, Aliveli and Saritha, will be at the Nov. 14 screening.

***

A play with similar themes, Honour: Confessions of a Mumbai Courtesan, by UA alum Dipti Mehta, shows at the Temple of Music and Art on Nov. 17 at 7 p.m. as part of the Women’s Empowerment and Human Rights week of events. Mehta, a cancer researcher who holds a Ph.D. in molecular and cellular biology, is the playwright and performer in the one-woman production she created “to raise awareness and break down the social stigma that exists around sex workers.”

Dipti Mehta in her one-woman play “Honour: Confessions of a Mumbai Courtesan,” being performed at the Temple of Music and Art on Friday, Nov. 17 at 7 p.m. as part of the UA’s “Women’s Empowerment and Human Rights” series of events.
Photo by Kyle Rosenberg

On her website, Mehta explains the questions she had as a child from catching glimpses of the red-light district in South Mumbai, India, as the bus she rode on passed by brothels. As she grew up, Mehta became aware of what was happening in those neighborhoods and started delving deeper into questions of social stratification, stigma, child abuse, sexual abuse, and oppression.

“I am still asking questions to the society,” she writes via email. “I still don’t understand why a woman’s honour has to do with her virginity or her sexuality. And why men are not being brought to the same standards as women even though they are equally to be blamed. I am still asking why respect has to do with what you do for a living and what you wear and where you live? I am still asking, when a 6-year-old is raped, how is it that it was her fault? How can a man say, ‘It was her fault that I raped her’? I still don’t understand how our society breeds a father who rapes his 6-year-old daughter and then sells her to other men.”

In India’s South Mumbai red-light districts, women and children are forced into this corner of society either by trafficking, being sold by their own families, or through destitution. Once in, it is hard for the women to get out of that life because of social attitudes. “Once they have been broken into (which means they have been raped),” Mehta shares, “they don’t have an alternative. Their families won’t take them back because of the social stigma or they would not go back because of the shame.”

Through Honour, Mehta hopes to humanize people living and working in the red-light districts. “The play touches upon a lot of themes, but most important of it all is that we are trying to connect hearts. Through the show, I want people to fall in love with people – not with what they do and where they live. I want them to experience hopes and dreams of a young girl and find that they are no different than a girl born elsewhere, and that the only difference is the playing field is not equal. While a girl born in a normal family has the opportunities and support to make her dreams come true, a girl in the red-light district does not.”

***

It took a dedicated committee to bring together the Women’s Empowerment and Human Rights events, but a lot of the heavy lifting can be attributed to UA Professor William Simmons and Tucson philanthropist Neelam Sethi.

UA Human Right Professor and activist William Simmons
Photo from UA

Throughout his academic career, UA Professor William Simmons has worked on human rights issues – from sex workers’ rights to projects in such places as The Gambia, Niger, Nigeria, China, Mexico, and the U.S. Simmons was the founding director of the Masters’ program in Social Justice and Human Rights at ASU, spearheaded the launch of GlobalHumanRightsDirect.com, and – as he shared via email – Simmons and his colleagues “have recently created a fully online graduate programs in human rights practice at the UA that we hope will attract students and instructors from around the globe.”

The week of events is connected to the launch of the human rights practice graduate programs, and they plan to continue to host events, such as online webinars, film showings, and public talks. More information on the program is at HumanRightsPractice.arizona.edu.

Tucson philanthropist Neelam Sethi.
Photo courtesy Neelam Sethi

On Neelam Sethi, UA Professor of Medicine Dr. Esther Sternberg – who is also part of the event committee (along with The Loft Cinema’s Executive Director Peggy Johnston and Tucson philanthropist Betty Anne Sarver) – wrote via email: “Neelam has worked tirelessly behind the scenes from the inception of the idea for linking the Honour play and The Tent Village documentary under the Women’s Empowerment Week umbrella. With her deep experience staging many wildly successful events for philanthropic causes, including the Heart and Stroke Ball, Bollywood at the Fox, Tu Nudito fundraisers and others, Neelam is as skilled as any major media producer in pulling it off.”

Sternberg, who is also UA’s Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine Research Director and the Director of UA Institute on Place and Wellbeing, additionally shared that what drives Sethi “more than anything is her passion for the causes she supports, and for spreading the word about Indian culture even in the face of sometimes difficult issues that might be part of it. The opportunity to help correct such issues through awareness is part of her driving force, which inspires all others involved in the staging of the events. Through all this Neelam is the essence of an empowering woman!”

The Women’s Empowerment and Human Rights events happen from Nov. 14-17. More information on the events, the film and the play are online at https://sbs.arizona.edu/news/events-supporting-womens-empowerment-and-human-rights.

Ritual, Scent & Healing

October 5, 2017 | Jamie Manser

Perfume is the smell of creation, a sign dramatically delivered to our senses of the Earth’s regenerative powers – a message of hope and a message of pleasure. – Claude LeFever in Tom Robbins’s “Jitterbug Perfume”

Kate Becker, therapeutic perfumer, at her downtown boutique Ritual by Kate’s Magik.
Photo by Julius Schlosburg

The aromatic bodywork offered at Ritual by Kate’s Magik, 215 N. Court Ave., is a luxuriant, transportive, deeply relaxing and meditative experience. It starts with a consultation, a conversation over cool water or warm tea to discuss what ails you physically, emotionally and spiritually. The client is an active participant in this process; it is important to mentally set your intention for receiving and gaining healing work from the therapist.

“How do you want to feel when you leave today?” asks Nicole Mendoza, a Reiki practitioner at Ritual. I tell her about the migraine that split my head open 48 hours earlier and left my body and mind feeling railroaded. I hope this treatment puts me back together enough so I can get some writing projects done, including this article. As with the full-body massages offered, the Reiki bodywork sessions are rooted in the healing powers of laying-on-hands energy, essential oils, and aromatherapy. The therapist selects several oils, which are blended on-site by Kate’s Magik proprietor, therapeutic perfumer, and Reiki Master Teacher Kate Becker. The oil selections are carefully presented to the client’s nostrils, one by one, inhale deeply and let your brain’s olfactory cortex decide.

On this day, my olfactory cortex choses scent number two – which turns out to be Kate’s Magik Creativity & Performance anointing oil. I laugh, as an image of Toucan Sam flashes in my Gen X head – “Follow your nose! It always knows!” It seems to be true. At a previous therapeutic massage treatment, when I was searching for support in creating a healthier lifestyle, I was drawn to the scent of the Isis & Rebirth oil that is meant to, as the Kate’s Magik literature states, “release the old and support new beginnings.” I was sold – hook, line and sinker – on the oils, the treatments, on the power of aromatherapy, and sought to learn scientifically why.

In the 2009 National Geographic book “Brain: The Complete Mind,” the sense of smell is described as a “direct sense” that circumvents the route our other senses take to the brain. “Smell, the most ancient of senses, takes a more direct path. Taste, touch, hearing, and a portion of vision send their electrochemical signals to the brain via the brain stem, which then relays them to the thalamus and on up to the cerebral cortex. Sensation of smell goes straight into the amygdala and olfactory cortex, both parts of the limbic system, without stopping at the thalamus along the way.”¹

Most humans are deeply touched by scent, and this is because smell is hardwired “to the brain’s emotional centers,” according to the aforementioned Nat Geo book. It goes on to explain that, when you smell something, “the sensation rushes, practically unfiltered, into the frontal lobes. As the amygdala directly influences the sympathetic branch of the nervous system as well as the nurturing bonds of family, smells can trigger a rise in heartbeat and blood pressure or bring on a feeling of calm and well-being. The latter forms the basis of aromatherapy.”

***

In 2002, Becker alighted in Tucson. She had traveled the world, was born in San Francisco, grew up both in Bern (her mother is Swiss) and New York City (her father a New Yorker), lived in Central America for a time, then settled back in New York City for 10 years. It was in New York where Becker studied with renowned jazz vocalist Nanette Natal, facilitated music connections, worked in various modalities of the healing arts, and was employed at an herb store.

When asked what led her to aromatherapy, Becker shares how the NYC herb store started her on the path of connecting to intention-based work, but it was her mother that informed her background and relationship to essential oils.

“My mother used a lot of essential oils on me when I was little to calm me, but also for earaches – like lavender, chamomile and eucalyptus – some of the regular, medicinal ones were just common in households in Switzerland. I’ve always really resonated with scent. From a young age on, scent was very powerful for me.

“Later on, when I got into aromatherapy and when I started creating my own blends and body oils, I would think about re-creating that feeling that I have with my mom; the way my mom smelled after she came out of the shower. She would put on this oil and it was citrus-y and floral and so warming and joy-inducing.”

When Becker moved to Tucson, she spent the first six months studying essential oils, their therapeutic and medicinal qualities, the folklore behind them and, “how powerful they are when you apply them on your body – they go into your bloodstream, they travel up to four hours within you and help calm you down or wake you up, balance a mood or enhance your sensuality and how it makes you feel when you apply it and smell it, it’s so powerful. And I didn’t at all have the intention of creating a company. I just thought I would create those to sell to my clients when I opened shop as a life coach and maybe locally. But they got feet, the doors just started opening.”

From talking to Kate, it was clear that it was more than doors magically opening, she was prying them asunder with true grit and self-admitted naïve persistence. Becker received an audience with Whole Foods in 2005, and locked in distribution to the chain’s Southern California, Northern California, and New York regions, and eventually six more regions across the country. These days, Whole Foods’ stores comprise about twenty percent of her distribution locales while most her products are in over 200 independent stores nationwide, “which is what I wanted, they are more customer oriented.”

***

For each of the Kate’s Magik anointing oils, aura mists, lotions, teas, diffuser oils, and sacred perfumes, there is a detailed description that explains their intended applications. If you seek more confidence, there is an anointing oil for that, there are anointing oils to help a person with clarity and focus, learning to let go, releasing negativity, among many other qualities we may hope to incorporate into our lives or find freedom from. The point and purpose is to mindfully use these products while working on your stuff.

Becker’s background includes working as a counselor and life coach, which informs her product line. “Everything always starts with my experiences,” she explains. “What has been most challenging for me? Where have I needed the most support or help or guidance? And then work with myself – what are the different tools that work for me? And then I go out from there.”

Kate’s Magik products include oils, teas, lotions, aura mists, and perfumes.
Photo by Julius Schlosburg

***

I am face down on the massage table, breathing deeply, slowly, releasing tension, looking forward to today’s Letting Go Ritual Massage. Vanessa Guss lightly knocks on the door, entering after my muffled grunt of consent. She smudges the room with sage, clears the air with the Heart & Spirit Aura Mist, gently places a heating pad on my shoulders, and sits down at my feet with hot towels. Oh, how we forget how much we beat up our feet! Hot towels, oil, and kneading is so simple, yet so completely transcendent. I’m melting into the massage table, feeling its thick comfy pad underneath high count cotton sheets. Details get hazy when one is semi-conscious, but throughout the massage, Guss is using the Isis & Rebirth and Letting Go oils, working every inch of my body with trained hands and Reiki mindfulness.

Her touch loosens and sooths my muscles, the music lulls me into a different world and the space feels as safe and nurturing as the womb. It’s a spiritual experience rooted in Earthy sensations and scents, which I later learned was likely due to the fact that all of the oil blends are 100 percent natural, no synthetics. My thirsty skin drinks up the moisture. It truly feels like a rebirth.

Reiki may be considered a pseudoscience by a number of scholars and academics, but what they can’t discount is the power of touch – which is the first sense that develops before all others.¹ There may not be a reproducible qualitative energy in the lab, but when you are laying on the massage table and feel the heat from the therapist’s hands, your body tells you something else. What mine told me was that I was blessed to receive work by a goddess masseuse.

***

Before Big Pharma, humans relied on plants to cure what ailed them. It’s an ancient science, and some might titter about “new age,” but really, it’s old school. Going back, quite literally, to our roots of utilizing the healing power of plants.

Kate describes the uses of different ingredients, how flower oils can aid in forgiveness and compassion while cedarwood is grounding. “And it does that physically and emotionally for you, so that’s the magic,” she imparts. “It’s magical, what these plants can do for us because everything is here. We came with everything on this planet. And they’re our family, the flowers, the trees, the bark, the root, the seeds, they’re all part of us. We all have a purpose to serve each other and they want to help us.”

***

Becker’s background in the healing arts motivated her to reach people through her oils as a way for her clients to take something home with them, as a reminder of what they are working on. “It becomes your helper, your assistant, your reminder, your supporter. Let’s say you apply Break Patterns & Addictions and you’re asking for assistance, for support around this challenge and every time you smell it, it will remind you of that support.”

What Becker didn’t realize 15 years ago when she started studying essential oils was her knack for blending. Working with oils isn’t easy. They have their own personalities, and some – as Kate said – are hard to wrangle. Tom Robbins wrote a whole book on the challenge of finding a proper base note to a jasmine, citrus combination.

“I learned about all the different oils, and how they blend with each other and what their purposes are – medicinally, therapeutically – but once I sat down to blend them, and the anointing oils were the first line I created – they just kind of happened through me. To this day, now that I do the Bastet Perfume Society, which is a monthly perfume club and I’m having the ability to work with the really exotic high priced and rare oils, it still happens. I’ll make a blend and I can’t believe that I had that much to do with it. I think it’s just something that’s inside me, like musicians who already have the music in them, that’s what it is for me.”

On Saturday, Oct. 28, Becker and crew celebrate the boutique’s two-year anniversary at their Downtown location, 215 N. Court Ave., from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. The free event is dedicated to the Autumn Season, Samhain, and Dia de los Muertos. It will include an alter honoring those past, mini ritual treatments by Vanessa and Nicole, healthy treats and refreshments as well as a sale. Visit KatesMagik.com for product information and RitualTucson.com for information on the boutique. Call 520-422-2642 with inquiries.

Sweeney, Michael S. Brain: The Complete Mind. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2009. Print.

October 2017 Digital Edition

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Not Your Mama’s Mother’s Day Benefit

May 3, 2017 | Jamie Manser

The vivacious Jillian Bessett – leader and singer/songwriter, keyboardist and multi-instrumentalist of Tucson’s beloved Jillian & The Giants – is spearheading a concert fundraiser for Emerge! Center Against Domestic Abuse on May 13. You should go.

Here are 10 reasons why.

The incredible event line-up:

The Surfbroads: “Hot Broads Playing Cool Surf”
Jillian & The Giants: “Indie Rock with Soul”
Street Blues Family: “Neo-soul, Jazz, Rock, Blues, Hip-Hop, Gospel”
Tales From The Trash: “One Delightfully Trashy Mother’s Day Themed Art Pop Up”
Emcee Extraordinaire: Stephen Boughton

Five reasons for social justice:

One in four women and one in seven men have been victims of severe physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime.¹
A portion of the proceeds benefit Emerge! Center Against Domestic Abuse.
Emerge! Center Against Domestic Abuse provides domestic abuse crisis intervention and housing, prevention, education, support, and advocacy services to anyone experiencing domestic abuse.²
In Arizona, first- and second-time domestic violence offenders are not charged with domestic violence; only the third incident is charged as domestic violence. First and second offenders are charged with offenses that then have ‘domestic violence flags’ attached.³
There were 109 domestic violence-related deaths in Arizona in 2014; in 2012, Arizona ranked eighth in the nation in femicides per capita.³

Zocalo conducted a quick Q&A with Jillian over email to find out more about the event.

What was the impetus to create this event fundraiser for Emerge?

The greater impetus for this benefit is seeing women and female-identifying people lose a lot of
support in our current political climate and wanting to contribute some good in some small way.

During times when public funding is cut that supports our most vulnerable, nonprofit organizations like Emerge need to be prepared to help fill in the gaps. I love the idea of celebrating Mother’s Day weekend by having an opportunity to be more nurturing, giving, and generous to our community.

How/why were these bands chosen?

The bands on this bill aren’t just incredible musicians but they’re also incredible people, which is why they were pulled together for this event. Velvet Hammer, the drummer and founder of The Surfbroads quietly volunteers every week for The Lot on 22nd.

The Surfbroads
Photo by Julius Schlosburg

Rey Murphy, the frontman for Street Blues, practices guerrilla style support for people on the street with blanket drives and cookouts at the park. Amy Mendoza is a licensed therapist. Gigi Owen is a social scientist and activist who we’re all not so secretly hoping runs for office. These aren’t just musicians but active, involved members of our community who go the extra mile in support of the big picture.

Street Blues Family
Photo by Julius Schlosburg

The other beautiful thing about this group of bands is how interconnected they are. A shortlist of all the other projects connected to these musicians: Loveland, Velvet Panthr, Sugar Stains, Katie Haverly and the Aviary, Amy Mendoza and the Strange Vacation, Copper and Congress, Three Kings, Shrimp Chaperone, Trees Speak, Leila Lopez Band, West Texas Intermediate, The Cloud Walls, Orkesta Mendoza, Keli and the Big Dream, etc.

Long story short, a lot of the Tucson music scene is represented with these players and we’re expecting a lot of surprise guests throughout the night.

Mark Bloom and his dog Alfie with some of the permanent Tales from the Trash collection.
Photo by Velvet Hammer

How did Tales from the Trash get involved and what does “delightfully trashy” entail?

Tales from the Trash is an art show curated by Steve Purdy and my friend Mark Bloom. The premise is found discarded art that’s given a new lease on life in a cheeky art show format. The art is typically bad, odd, and peculiar in some form or another. But these unloved paintings and drawings get a frame and some space in the world to be looked at and appreciated – which is a pretty wonderful thing. If that’s not a metaphor I don’t know what is.

Not Your Mama’s Concert and Art Show Benefit for Emerge! is Saturday, May 13 at Flycatcher, 340 E. 6^th St. The event kicks off at 8 p.m. and there is a $7 suggested donation. More information is at Facebook.com/jandthegiants.

References

National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. (2015). Retrieved from www.ncadv.org/learn-more/statistics
Emerge! Center Against Domestic Abuse. (2017). Retrieved from www.emergecenter.org
National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. (2015). Domestic violence Arizona statistics. Retrieved from www.ncadv.org/files/Arizona.pdf