TMI at UPRISE! 06 Posted by Marek Vermin on February 23rd, 2006
Friday, April 14th + Saturday, April 15th 2006
The Martyr Index will be playing at this year’s UPRISE! festival, which is a benefit to open an all ages venue and youth recreation centre in Calgary called the Joe Strummer Memorial Hall! We are totally excited to be helping this amazing project get off the ground! The line-up this year is killer and you can see it in the “shows” section of this website.
Below is a press release from the Joe Strummer Memorial Society…
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A Joe Strummer Memorial Hall in Calgary
1. The Joe Strummer Memorial Society has been founded with the purpose to open a hall in Calgary
2. The hall will be called the Joe Strummer Memorial Hall
3. The purpose of the hall will be threefold
a. Host all ages musical events. The concerts will be run by a committee of volunteers who book shows and will help make Calgary a primary touring locale for small and mid-sized touring acts.
b. Youth Recreation Centre. It will be a place where young urban citizens of Calgary can hang out and get involved in projects of their own design. It will also provide a number of facilities to assist these youth-based projects.
c. Memorialize the legacy of Joe Strummer, singer and songwriter of the Clash, the Mescaleros, the 101ers, and social activist.4. The Joe Strummer Memorial Society will kick-off its fundraising efforts with a benefit concert hosted by the Uprise! Festival Society.
5. More details below.
Calgary has a new group in town. The Joe Strummer Memorial Society intends to open up a youth-centered music and recreation hall here in Calgary. The hall, which bears the proposed name of “The Joe Strummer Memorial Hall”, will be a multi-functional facility, dedicated to improving the well-being of Calgary’s youth by providing a permanent venue for numerous activities. The hall’s main functions will be three-fold.
First, it will serve as a music hall for all ages concerts, booked and run similar to the model used by 924 Gilman Street in Berkeley, California. 924 Gilman is the infamous volunteer-run venue where NOFX made their debut, and it is one of the oldest and most successful all ages venues in the world. Recently MaximumRocknRoll, an equally notable punk-rock stand-by, has published a full-length book on the history of the 924 Gilman Street project (available through AK Press), complete with an entire listing of past shows to date. For obvious reasons, the Joe Strummer Memorial Society has chosen to base the functioning of the music events to a great extent upon the experiences of the 924 Gilman Street project.
Secondly, it is hoped that the Joe Strummer Memorial Hall will be a full-time recreation hall, to be used by the youth of Calgary for hanging out and organizing various activities. There are currently not enough places in Calgary where kids are welcome to just hang out and are not expected to be ‘consumers’ or where they can get together and host their activities. Groups like Food Not Bombs, which are mostly youth based, often have a difficult time finding a space that will allow them to prepare their meals and organize events. It is hoped that the hall will have a fully certified kitchen, so that groups like Food Not Bombs will have a space to operate from that they can feel at home.
Third, it will serve as a memorial to the legacy of Joe Strummer. Why Joe Strummer? Joe Strummer, born John Mellor, was the guitarist, singer and primary composer of the seminal punk-rock band, the Clash, one of the most influential, innovative, and socially conscious rock groups of the twentieth century. This dedication to creating music that challenged barriers was maintained throughout his career, and the Mescaleros album released just after his untimely death – Streetcore – is a brilliant exhibition of Joe Strummer’s ongoing vitality and passion. His legacy is one that the Joe Strummer Memorial Society feels is worthy of institutionalizing, since it is one that embodies the combined spirit of rock n roll and social justice. Not only was Joe Strummer a prolific composer and vibrant live performer, but he was also highly active in various campaigns for social justice; he had played benefit concerts for striking workers and loaned his voice to organizations such as the Anti-Nazi League, Rock Against Racism, and Class War. The Joe Strummer Memorial Hall will serve as an active monument to the legacy of this dynamic and creative individual and it is hoped that his namesake might help inspire others to be fearless and creative. The name of the society and the hall has been granted with a full endorsement by the Joe Strummer estate and Strummerville.
In order to raise some of the start-up funds for this notable project, the Joe Strummer Memorial Society is working in conjunction with the Uprise! Festival Society. Uprise! is an annual festival which hosts a benefit concert to raise funds for alternative infrastructure in the City of Calgary. The concerts feature local bands who support the projects through the donation of their time and energy, as well as a select group of out-of-towners who feel that the project is a worthy venture. This year’s Uprise! festival, running from April 14-15, will feature over 40 acts and is hoping to raise some of the initial start-up funds needed for such a large endeavour as the establishment of a new hall in Calgary. Additionally, the concert will serve as a celebration for the spirit of cooperation in musical rebellion, which is still alive and going strong in the city of Calgary.
If you would like any more information on the Joe Strummer Memorial Society, please contact us at strummerhall@gmail.com.
Sincerely,
Mark Bizek
On behalf of the board of
The Joe Strummer Memorial Society of Calgary
