Rag Radio : The Occupy Movement and Activism in Austin

Occupy activists in the studios of KOOP-FM, Austin, February 24, 2012. From left, Richard Bowden, Joe Cooper, Mo McMorrow, Nate Cowan, Brian J. Overman, Lucian Villaseñor, and Rag Radio host Thorne Dreyer. Photo by Tracey Schulz / Rag Radio.
Rag Radio:
Representatives of the Occupy movement
discuss activist projects in Austin

By Rag Radio / The Rag Blog / February 29, 2012

A group of Austin activists discussed the Occupy Austin movement with host Thorne Dreyer on Rag Radio last Friday, February 24, 2012.
Listen to the show here.

Representatives of the Occupy Austin Movement on
Rag Radio with Thorne Dreyer, Friday, Feb. 24, 2012

They talked about Occupy Austin, and plans for Occupy Southby -- a series of events, including the Million Musicians March for Peace, a yearly Austin tradition -- scheduled to occur during the massive South by Southwest music, film, and interactive festival, March 9-March 18, 2012.

Representatives of Occupy UT discussed the movement on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin, including plans for a Teach-In and other events scheduled for Thursday, March 1, on the UT campus. And the group also included representatives of the Legion Co-Op Coffeehouse, a soon-to-open worker-owned coffeehouse that grew out of the occupy movement in Austin.

The guests included Richard Bowden, an Austin fiddler extraordinaire, long-time peace activist, and primary organizer of the Million Musicians March for Peace, Austin's unique, musician-led, annual community peace event. Joining Bowden on the show was Austin-based singer-songwriter Mo McMorrow, who has also worked as a visual artist, actress, and stand-up comic. McMorrow and Bowden performed live during the show.

Others on the program included Joe Cooper, who has been involved in Occupy Austin since the first planning meeting in September 2011, and was present almost daily during the four months of the 24/7 occupation; and Lucian Villaseñor, a student in Mexican-American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and an intern with the Workers Defense Project, who is a primary organizer of Occupy UT.

Also, Nate Cowan, an organizer of the worker-owned Legion Co-Op Coffeehouse, who has been a peace activist since high school, where he started Youth Activists of Austin to fight military recruiting in schools, and who has worked full-time with Occupy Austin; and Brian J. Overman, a writer and video producer, who is also an Occupy Austin activist and a developer of the cooperative coffeehouse which organizers envision as both a "sustainable economic model and a safe space for local activists."

This episode of Rag Radio was produced during the spring membership drive of KOOP 91-7-FM, Austin's cooperatively-run community radio station; fundraising pitches, underwriting announcements, and recorded music have not been edited out of the podcast.

Image from *eddie's photostream / Flickr.

Rag Radio, which has aired since September 2009 on KOOP 91.7-FM, a cooperatively-run all-volunteer community radio station in Austin, Texas, features hour-long in-depth interviews and discussion about issues of progressive politics, culture, and history.

Hosted and produced by Rag Blog editor Thorne Dreyer, Rag Radio is broadcast every Friday from 2-3 p.m. (CST) on KOOP and streamed live on the web. After broadcast, all episodes are posted as podcasts and can be downloaded at the Internet Archive.

Rag Radio is also rebroadcast on Sundays at 10 a.m. (EST) on WFTE, 90.3-FM in Mt. Cobb, PA, and 105.7-FM in Scranton, PA. Rag Radio is produced in the KOOP studios, in association with The Rag Blog, a progressive internet newsmagazine, and the New Journalism Project, a Texas 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation.

Tracey Schulz is the show's engineer and co-producer.

Coming up on Rag Radio:

March 2, 2012: Music writer Margaret Moser and screen actor Sonny Carl Davis on the movie, Roadie, the Austin Music Awards, and SXSW.

March 9, 2012: Singer-songwriter & author Bobby Bridger on the lasting impact of Native-American culture on American society.
March 16, 2012: Journalist and labor activist David Bacon on how U.S. policies fueled Mexico's great migration.

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Memorial Day in Texas : Farewell to Nick Travis and Lisa Morris

Nick Travis at the opening of the Under the Hood Café in Killeen, Texas. Photo by Carlos Lowry / The Rag Blog.
Memorial Day:
Texas peace movement
Looses two great friends

By Alice Embree / The Rag Blog / June 6, 2010

Memorial Day 2010 was a day to remember two friends who were mainstays of the Texas peace community. Nick Travis III, 55, passed away suddenly early Monday morning, May 24, in Austin. Lisa Morris, 28, passed away unexpectedly the next day in Copperas Cove.

Nick was a founding member of Instruments for Peace, an organizer along with Richard Bowden, of the annual Million Musicians March for Peace. He was a sustaining member of the Crawford Peace House and a Camp Casey regular. Nick and his wife, Melissa Garner, worked together to rebuild houses in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. They were also supporters of Under the Hood Café in Killeen, Texas, a pro-soldier, anti-war space for soldiers and their families, situated less than one mile from Fort Hood, the largest military base in the United States.

Lisa Morris, at the east gate of Fort Hood. Photo by Heidi Turpin / The Rag Blog.
Lisa Morris was an Under the Hood regular. A graduate of Rockford High School in Michigan, Lisa enlisted in the Army and was deployed to Iraq. She was present during the fierce fighting at Sadr City in 2004 when Tomas Young, subject of the documentary Body of War, was paralyzed. The fighting at Sadr City also took the life of Casey Sheehan, peace activist Cindy Sheehan’s son. Lisa was wounded later at Sadr City. She received a Purple Heart.

Lisa was part of the Under the Hood family. After her discharge, she stayed in the Killeen area, buying a home in Copperas Cove where she was known for her barbequing skills, and was beloved by neighborhood children and adored by all cats and dogs that crossed her path. Like many of the soldiers at Under the Hood, Lisa suffered with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Days before her death she had been hospitalized for an infection. She died in her sleep at home.

Nick was a musician for 30 years in the Austin area, a bassist performing with Natalie Zoe, The Vanguards, Guy Forsyth, the Paul LeMond Band, and Leeann Atherton. In recent years, he accompanied Miss Lavelle White, John Gaar and the Hopeful Soul, and Julieann Banks. Nick was also an actor, appearing in films and commercials and as a body double for Billy Bob Thornton in “Friday Night Lights.”

With his wide grin and big heart, Nick was always there for the benefits and the marches, getting the stage set up at Camp Casey or City Hall. He would serve as the emcee for the Million Musicians Marches and Instrument for Peace gatherings. More than 150 musicians and friends celebrated his life on Memorial Day at Leeann Atherton's Barn Dance site in Austin. One peace activist there said, “I feel like one side of the tent has fallen.”

Lisa’s life had only begun to take an activist turn after Iraq. She was a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. For her Under the Hood family, her loss was devastating. At the memorial for Lisa in Killeen, a neighbor sported a fresh tattoo -- a fitting permanent tribute to Lisa whose arms were covered with ink. The tattoo shows “America’s High Five,” a map of Michigan in plaid, and carries these words below the map: “R.I.P Lisa Morris, June 9, 1981 – May 25, 2010.”

In the ninth year of the war in Afghanistan, there are now a thousand U.S. dead. There are uncounted civilian deaths. Drone attacks and ambushes on celebrations occasionally make the news. Injured soldiers like Lisa return from the continuous waves of deployment with physical and psychological wounds.

The peace community must honor the lives of Nick Travis III and Lisa Morris. Then, in their memories, renew every effort to stop these endless wars before they morph across more borders and more decades. As Joe Hill urged before his death, “Don’t mourn, organize.”

[Long-time Austin activist Alice Embree is a contributing editor to The Rag Blog and a member of the board of the New Journalism Project.]

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Larry Piltz : Richard Bowden is an Instrument for Peace

Richard Bowden, organizer of the Million Musicians March for Peace, plays with Leeann Atherton at the Rag Blog Benefit Bash and Albert Einstein 131st Birthday Party at Jovita's, Sunday, March 14, 2010. Photo by Carlos Lowry / The Rag Blog.
Richard Bowden and a million musicians
Take to the Austin streets

By Larry Piltz / The Rag Blog / March 19, 2010

Million Musicians March for Peace in Austin, Texas, Saturday, March 20, 2010. Music/Rally at the Capitol, 12 Noon. Parade from Capitol through downtown Austin, 2 p.m. Music/Rally at Austin City Hall, 2:30-4 p.m. Be an Instrument for Peace.

Richard Bowden ain't fiddlin' at windmills.

He's not tilting either. He knows very well what he's doing and why, and will tell you his purpose straight up. It's to keep the hope for and goal of actual peace at the forefront of the hearts and minds of the people of Austin, and of people around the world, the billions who yearn for peace and desperately need peace in order to have safe, happy, productive, and healthy lives, or to even have lives at all.

Richard, a well-known and admired Texas fiddler, whose pickin’ partners make up a who’s who of major artists, instinctively understands that war robs people of the good things in life, that it steals time and resources from families and communities, and that it takes loved ones away permanently, suddenly, or changes them in ways that further strain the bonds of humanity.

Richard has also observed -- witnessing commercial journalism's utter default to deceitful jingoism in its coverage of the run-up to the Iraq War debacle -- that people are being led to war with no real reason or evidence for it, and with no real counterbalancing voices or information. Who would tell the people?

Basically no one, Richard figured. But what could he do? He wasn't a committed political activist. He's only a musician, after all...

Actually, it was the moment my Mom called me to tell me me that the twin towers had been destroyed by terrorists that I realized we were in trouble. I said, "Uh oh, Mom. They're going to try to take our democracy away." She sounded surprised and said, "Who, the terrorists?" I said, "No, Mom, the government."

When I saw my prediction coming true I knew it was my responsibility to do something, just as if I were a German citizen in the early 1930's. I wrote lots of emails to the newspaper, to friends, etc... At some point I realized that my strongest tool for reaching lots of people with challenging information was as a musician, with all my contacts and p.r. skills, and my ability to put on an event.

Then he thought about Face the Music Festival, a gathering of musicians and poets he'd helped to organize in 2002 to heighten public awareness about the draconian drug law enforcement that had resulted in the deaths of an innocent teen and a deputy sheriff within a year's time in separate Austin-area SWAT-style drug raids.

Richard Bowden with Barbara K at Rag Blog Benefit Bash. Photo by James Retherford / The Rag Blog.

"When those drug war deaths happened in the winter of '02-'03 I wasn't in the mood to be quiet," he remembers. "I see the so-called war on drugs as the necessary precursor to the so-called war on terror. The policy makes no logical sense, yet the population is afraid to speak out against it, for fear of being on 'the wrong side.'

Richard teamed with Drug Policy Forum of Texas and the ACLU -- which provided speakers at the festival -- and invited musicians and poets to help attract people to the otherwise educational event. Long story short, soon thereafter the violent middle-of the-night neighborhood drug raids ceased, and Richard had become a political organizer. (Though he always says, “I’m just a fiddle player. Everybody can be an instrument for peace.”)

This is why he founded Austin's Million Musicians March for Peace: To get the word out. To break through the conjoined barriers of information lockdown and apathy. In his words:

It was back during the time when everybody was scared to criticize the so-called war on terror for fear of being seen as unpatriotic, and I wanted to get people talking. We had to break the silence. This really was a job for musicians. It's always the musicians and artists who speak a truth first, before the general population. The artists give "permission" to the general population to try new things.

Why a musicians' march? You start with what you know. “We should all contribute what we're good at.”

Richard's first foray into musical political activism had garnered positive results. Why stop when you're on a (drum) roll?

In 2006 I was invited by Austin Against War to attend a planning meeting for the march they had organized for three years in a row since '03, the Iraq invasion. I took Bill Oliver, a fellow musician, with me. I figured it would be a huge group: the Austin peace movement! I was surprised to just see four or five people sitting around a table in a gloomy church basement. They wanted to see if I knew a musician who would play at City Hall when the march arrived.

I looked at my calendar and realized it was the Saturday of SXSW. I said, hey, lets turn the march into a musical parade for peace and invite every musician we can find to join us... The organizers asked, "Do you really think musicians would want to do that?" I looked at Bill. We nodded our heads..."They'll do it!"

We had two weeks to organize the whole thing, mostly me and Bill and Frank Meyer. We worked ourselves silly, but we pulled it off... hundreds of musicians showed up, including some of my musical heroes... in a downpouring rain!

So began the MMM, and it would be timed annually with Austin's international giant musician magnet, South by Southwest (SXSW). The word would go out, from charismatic speakers and artists at the Texas State Capitol, from what might be the world's largest marching band, playing and dancing along the Congress Avenue parade route, including musicians from many countries, and from speakers and robust performances at Austin's City Hall on Lake Lady Bird, out to the entire world.

Thousands of SXSW musicians and music apprecianados would become familiar with MMM, and many would spread the gospel. And who knows: someday MMM's might spring up in cities across the country -- across the world --- to help galvanize already existing world opinion for actual peace in our time.

Wavy Gravy leads the 2009 Million Musicians March. Photo by Mara Eurich / The Rag Blog.
Thorne Dreyer reported on last year's march in The Rag Blog:

As hundreds of locals, tourists, musicians and industry types attending South by Southwest -- the massive technology, film and music fest -- packed the streets of downtown Austin Saturday afternoon, March 21, the Million Musicians March for Peace -- with hippie legend Wavy Gravy leading the way -- snaked by in a rhythmic procession, creating its own lively soundtrack as it passed...

Marching behind a banner that said, “Be an Instrument for Peace,” more than 200 singing, chanting and dancing marchers followed a second-line type brass band from the Texas State Capitol through the busy streets of downtown Austin -- up Congress Ave. past the crowds queued up for a premiere at the Paramount Theater, then delighting the throngs along Sixth Street’s music row, and on to City Hall for a rally and concert...

About that event, Richard Bowden told The Rag Blog, “Of all the events worldwide in remembrance of the sixth anniversary of the Iraq disaster, the Million Musicians March for Peace was the only one led by musicians. He added, “I am so glad to be in Austin where we can do something like this.”

The 2008 MMM was massive, with more than 1,000 musicians and activists snaking through downtown Austin. Dreyer wrote:

Musicians, some on foot and others performing from floats, makeshift trains and art cars, played tubas and trumpets and bagpipes and drums. Groups of strolling guitarists strummed and sang, “We ain’t gonna study war no more.” Waves of demonstrators stretched for blocks -- young people and old, students and Iraq vets and old hippies, with dogs and children, carried banners, waved signs and danced in the streets. One young man carried a placard proclaiming “The Beginning is Near!”

Meanwhile Richard Bowden has as usual organized this year's MMM in the finest traditional style of fiddlers everywhere: Play your music, support the creativity and often madcap brilliance of your fellow musicians, and take the melodic lead at just the right times and in just the right ways. But above all have fun.

Sundays at Cafe Caffeine on West Mary Street became one happy energetic rehearsal for the big day (Saturday, March 20, from noon to 4 p.m., beginning at the State Capitol).

"If it's not fun, I'm going home." That's Richard's motto. But don't worry. It's always fun. For more details about this year's event, go to the Million Musicians March and Instruments for Peace websites.

The march is led by the Jericho Brass Band, a classic "second line" band first organized by Mark Rubin and friends... remembering that the walls of Jericho were brought down by the sound of trumpets!

This year, there will also be a big post parade party at Cafe Caffeine the next day, Sunday, March 21, from 2-7 p.m. with many of the musicians from MMM performing.

For all its local Austin zeitgeist and flavor, however, the MMM hasn't happened in a historical vacuum. Troubadours through the ages spread the news from town to town, and roving poets and theater groups told stories of what was really going on behind public facades. Raving poet-prophets have always tried to alert people to looming calamities caused by bad political and religious leadership. Maybe if Jeremiah and Isaiah had had horn sections (and better agents) things could have turned out ok!

Producer Gia'na Garel, former co-host of Air America's "On the Real" (with Chuck D of Public Enemy), provides an elegant reminder of this history:

During every major revolution in modern history -- there was a backbeat…The French sang and chanted through the streets with no less fervor backing their active revolt than did the Haitians or the Americans or later the civil rights era activists who learned to pump harder beats along with their fists. The very voice of activism is undercut with a pulse -- a vibration -- that catches us up and galvanizes the masses, as easily as it does one individual listening to their lone drumbeat.

It's the synergism of lone drumbeats that makes the music, that makes the group, with each lone drummer carrying the beat. Ed Ward, former Austin American-Statesman music critic and Rolling Stone contributor, who's lived and worked in Europe for many years and now lives in Montpelier, France, candidly talks about one aspect of the axis of individual artist and activism:

My guess is that most people don't know the political stances of most musicians because the musicians don't usually talk about that subject. Many musicians are smart enough to know that their opinions are essentially not very well thought out, and so they decline... The exceptions are usually people who have started in the folk tradition, where, thanks to the examples of Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan, there's a long lineage of people who've mixed purely artistic output with committed political output.

Will T. Massey.
One such musician, who took the time and trouble to educate himself about politics and its impact on the world, is Austin's Will T. Massey, whom the New York Daily News described as “one of the greatest storytellers since Dylan and Van Morrison," and who has been involved with the MMM for several years now.

Massey made a gradual transition to political songs, but the decision to do so wasn't easy. "It was a tough decision, something I had to think pretty hard about," says Massey. "I have about an equal number of new political songs and more traditional songs that are more about people and places. It’s certainly more challenging to take the political route; I’ve already heard from longtime fans that I should keep politics out of my music."

Massey writes about his decision in "American Prayer":

I’m advised to rein my words in tight/to take my tunes and go quietly in the night/I hope you’ll help us all to speak our minds/because the voices of the people are being left behind/tell them that we’re tragic when you get up there/and that we need some magic, my American prayer.

Massey collaborated with MMM founder Bowden on "a political record I made a few years ago.”

My involvement in the march was a natural extension of that as the record was all pro-peace. Through working on the march, I've become increasingly aware of the peace community in Austin which is affirming to my pacifist tendencies... I'm proud to be a part of such a vast group of people. I'm proud of everyone who participates.

Massey, besides being a wonderful songwriter and musician, exemplifies the merging of musician and activist, and the larger merging of musician/activist with community/audience, an accelerating trend as mass communication binds like-minded people closer in more cohesive groups.

We become less isolated and more naturally inclined to form groups, based on our interests and our beliefs. We naturally gravitate toward each other, beginning at least a partial unwinding of an almost century-long trend toward dispersal and separation. It's a democratization of information -- and groups that make better use of their cohesiveness and the flexibility that instant communications allows will usually be more successful than those that don't.

This is where partnership between artist and community/audience becomes especially important. This is one reason the MMM is such an interesting phenomenon. It has great potential to bring common purpose and coordinated action in the social and political realm.

Bobby Bridger at the 2009 Texas Book Festival. Photo © 2009 Larry D. Moore / Wikimedia Commons.
According to former Austin musician, actor, playwright, visual artist, and general Renaissance Mountain Man Bobby Bridger:

In the olden days artists would publish a manifesto clearly stating their mission as well as the causes they supported. I did something like this for eight years with my quarterly tabloid, Hoka Hey!, which focused on American Indian concerns."

This seems to be a more simpatico state to which artists and their audiences are now gradually returning, an evolution in reverse to a more workable framework for allowing personal input and power into our lives and communities, local and otherwise.

We know who we are, who our natural allies are, and therefore can better act in concert for the greater good. In this way, we may be beginning a process of potentially returning to a more decentralized state of governance as well, with the artist-audience relationship being both bellwether and building block.

Bridger continues:

I've been involved with American Indians since the beginnings of my four decade career, so I haven't even considered them a "cause"; instead, my involvement with Indians is as intrinsic to my personal journey as is my music or my career as a visual artist or playwright. It is all integrated into "who" I am.

Bridger seamlessly describes the unity ultimately inherent in all human relationships, not only with each other individuals but also within chosen groups -- and also in our relationship with our treasure of a world.

Which brings us all the way back to a certain march for peace, with musicians, and families, and friends, and a beautiful day rain or shine.

Carolyn Wonderland, with Guy Forsyth, plays at Austin City Hall, during 2009 Million Musicians March for Peace. Photo by Alan Pogue / The Rag Blog.
Valerie Bowles -- who was a well-known bassist in the phenomenal Dallas and Texas at-large punk-rock world -- remembers her experience participating in the first MMM:

Steven [Harper] and I marched in the first one in the rain. There were a few less than a million. We walked alongside Billy Bragg, who in his own career has influenced a heck of a lot of people politically. The night before, we had heard him sing songs by Woody Guthrie, who had led his own movement for peace and justice.

Lydia was 15 at the time, and she marched, too. Hopefully, it will get bigger and better publicized every year, but yeah I'd definitely do it again. It kind of reminded me of one of those New Orleans funerals with the tubas and jazz players.

In Richard Bowden’s words:

WHY do we do it? Because it’s the seventh anniversary of the Iraq occupation: To remember the millions of innocent victims, and the trillions in growing U.S. debt, and warn of spreading, endless war. Because Austin is uniquely suited to using popular culture to encourage a popular movement for peace. To promote independent information media. Because knowledge IS power. Because everyone has valuable talents and skills: "Everyone can be an instrument for peace."

And, finally, we'll help you launch your own march with an email-reply poem from Thom Moon/ Thom the World Poet, M.C. at Cafe Caffeine Sundays, in answer to the question:

Why march?
well, we do not!
we walk /dance/jog /strut together -
poets,musicians,artists
down Austin streets
between Capitol performances and city Hall shows
with great joy and jubilation
Forms are improvised as we glow-
1. all are welcomed
2. every "march" is different
3. what happens this march is only partially planned
This is the best poetry on march 20 at noon
so i join the lines as they free verse swing through SXSW laminates
between APD and citizenry-for peace!
Usual petitions/placards/posters-unusually talented musicians
harmonics as role modeling-rhythm meets rhyme in public and at large
Where else can poets go except where following the Muse?
Each year ,a different eclectic mix of Austinites ask for peace
and the media/public response is positive
So every sunday we rehearse spontaneity
adding to the glow of the flow-seeking volunteers
making Paradise possible, practical and pragmatic
We are all volunteers
We are artists,poets,musicians
We are on a steep learning curve
What happens next is unknown
This is why we meet, greet and enjoy each other's company
Every sunday at cafe caffeine 909 west mary 2pm to 4.30pm
and @the Capitol saturday march 20 at high noon
Be there! Poetry meets music meets people for peace!
Yes,please!
MILLION MUSICIANS MARCH 4 PEACE"

Those participating in this year's Million Musicians March for Peace include:

Guy Forsyth, Carolyn Wonderland, Shelley King, Leeann Atherton, Barbara K [Kooyman], The Jericho Brass Band, Oliver Steck, Ryan Gould, Samantha Vanderslice, Bill Oliver, Daniel Cioper, Frank Meyer, Mo McMorrow, Jim & Sherry Patton, Karen Abrahams, Will T. Massey, Jon Emory, Thom Moon Bird, Nick Travis, Kathy Rowell, Brenda Freed & Michael D'Eath (Him an Her), Cleve Hattersly, John Jordan, Bill Johns, Edgar Pace, Bob Slaughter, Datri Bean, Minor Mishap Marching Band, Bruce Salmon, David Garza, Regan Brown, Dana McBride, Krishna Lee, Bear Beam, J.D. Finley, P.J "Cowboy Poet" Liles, Joe Carr,and Richard Bowden.

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Ric Sternberg Video : Million Musician March for Peace, Part 3

The Million Musician March:
STILL Keeping Austin Weird

By Ric Sternberg / The Rag Blog / May 5, 2009

Part 3 of the 2009 Million Musician March trilogy is now up and running.

[The 2009 Million Musician March for Peace, an Austin tradition, took place on March 21, 2009. Organized by Instruments for Peace and led by Hippie legend Wavy Gravy, over 200 performing musicians and friends paraded through downtown Austin and held musical rallies at City Hall and the State Capitol.]

It consists of an invocation by Wavy Gravy, followed by excerpts from songs by the always amazing Guy Forsythe, Carolyn Wonderland and Shelley King. These are three of the most powerful and soulful voices that this town full of good voices has to offer. Their choices of songs are inspirational - gospel-freedom songs that take me back to my days walking the line with CORE. And they ROCK. Please check them out.

Please check out parts 1 & 2 also. Part 1 has excerpts from the pre-march performances at the Texas Capital building. Part 2 has bits of the march itself, featuring the (all-inclusive) New Orleans style Jericho marching band and rock and roll from folks grouped around Bill Oliver's mobile shopping cart PA system. Each of the pieces runs close to 10 minutes, which is the YouTube limit. The three together make up one complete 30 minute musical documentary.

See related coverage on The Rag Blog:

• Ric Sternberg Video : Million Musician March for Peace by Ric Sternberg / The Rag Blog / March 31, 2009
• Thorne Dreyer : Wavy Gravy Leads Austin Musicians in March for Peace by Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog / March 23, 2009
• FILM / Saint Misbehavin' : The Wavy Gravy Movie by Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog / March 23, 2009

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Ric Sternberg Video : Million Musician March for Peace

"Bionic Ric" Sternberg played in the band and also filmed the Million Musicians March -- led by Grand Marshal Wavy Gravy -- on March 21, 2009, in Austin, Texas. Photo by Alan Pogue / The Rag Blog.
The Million Musician March:
Just Keepin' Austin Weird

By Ric Sternberg / The Rag Blog / March 31, 2009

On March 21, 2009, Instruments for Peace staged its annual Million Musician March for Peace. OK, so maybe there weren't a million, but hundreds of Austin's musicians and supporters marched from the Texas Capital building down to the City Hall. The parade snaked through Austin's live music district and many participants and attendees of the South by Southwest Music Festival hit the streets to cheer the marchers on. This is Part 1 of my coverage of the event: excerpts from the pre-march rally and concert on the Capital steps.



Next is Part 2 of my coverage of the event: excerpts from the march and an exciting melding as the parade reaches City Hall and Carolyn Wonderland, Guy Forsythe and Shelley King join that marching band in a jumping version of "Down by the Riverside." (Part 3 is still to come.)



See related coverage on The Rag Blog:

• Thorne Dreyer : Wavy Gravy Leads Austin Musicians in March for Peace by Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog / March 23, 2009
• FILM / Saint Misbehavin' : The Wavy Gravy Movie by Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog / March 23, 2009

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FILM / Saint Misbehavin' : The Wavy Gravy Movie

Saint Misbehavin': The Wavy Gravy Movie, directed by Michelle Esrick was screened in Austin at SXSW.
The Saints Go Marching in Downtown Austin

Wavy Gravy's evolving persona as poet, storyteller, merry prankster, jester and clown reveals a deeply spiritual and resourceful man who has used his gifts of humor and wit in dangerously charged situations to defuse tension, prevent violence, turn the tables and achieve positive, constructive outcomes.

By Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog / March 23, 2009

This spring break week in Austin, the SXSW music, interactive and film festivals converged to make Austin an absolute epicenter of the creative arts. What a fabulous week! The city literally hummed.

My partner and I gravitated to the documentary films and took in as many of the offerings as we could at the festival. Notable among them was the premiere screening of "Saint Misbehavin', The Wavy Gravy Movie," produced and directed by Californian, Michelle Esrick. Making the film was a 10-year project for Esrick, and her commitment has achieved a first-rate visual biography of the 60's icon, interspersing recent interviews with footage from Wavy Gravy's Woodstock and Hog Farm bus tour days, including remarkable scenes from the group's trek across Europe through the Middle East and Asia in 1970.

Wavy Gravy's evolving persona as poet, storyteller, merry prankster, jester and clown reveals a deeply spiritual and resourceful man who has used his gifts of humor and wit in dangerously charged situations to defuse tension, prevent violence, turn the tables and achieve positive, constructive outcomes. Through his own stories, recollections from his closest family and friends and accompanying film vignettes that show Wavy Gravy in action, we are shown how nonviolence actually works. And, in typical Wavy Gravy fashion, he transforms even this kind of work into play. His long-time projects involve teaching children nonviolence, meditation and performance techniques (at his legendary Camp Winnarainbow in Northern California), and supplying medical services to restore vision to cataract patients in underserved parts of the world (through the SEVA Foundation he co-founded 30 years ago with several colleagues, including his wife, Jahanara Romney and his good friends, Ram Dass and Dr. Larry Brilliant, who are also featured in the film).

My partner and I attended the Saint Misbehavin' premiere on the first Saturday of the SXSW film festival and were so taken with the story that we returned for the final showing the following Saturday with a friend who was in town to visit. Wavy Gravy was present at each venue, answering questions with characteristic aplomb.

And the compassionate clown gave Austin even more. Earlier in the day of his final film showing, Wavy Gravy became the somewhat impromptu grand marshal of the Million Musician March for Peace that marked the 6th anniversary of the beginning of the invasion of Iraq. Organized by the local musicians' group, Instruments for Peace, the march was a colorful, family-oriented New Orleans-style parade led by musicians through downtown Austin, past SXSW venues, beginning at the Texas state capitol and winding up at Austin's City Hall plaza for a concert where some of Austin's finest musicians performed for the marchers.

At the head of the parade, Wavy Gravy and Michelle Esrick were ensconced in a festively decorated pedicab, the perfect peace convoy, leading us in tye-dyed, bubble-blowing style.

We CodePink folks were also on hand with eye-catching fuzzy peace signs made by our own Heidi Turpin. Heidi presented Wavy Gravy with one of the multi-colored peace signs that matched his attire to a T.

I hope Michelle Esrick's fine film is distributed and reaches a wide audience. If its warm reception in Austin is an indication, the film will indeed carry the Wavy Gravy message forward: Put your good where it will do the most. Then, you will have fun doing it!

[Susan Van Haitsma also blogs as makingpeace at Statesman.com and at makingpeace.]

Aso see Thorne Dreyer : Wavy Gravy Leads Austin Musicians in March for Peace by Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog / March 23, 2009

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Thorne Dreyer : Wavy Gravy Leads Austin Musicians in March for Peace

Hippie legend Wavy Gravy leads the Million Musicians March in Austin, March 21, 2009. Photo by Mara Eurich / The Rag Blog.
Austin musicians and activists decide to be "instruments for peace." Photo by Alan Pogue / The Rag Blog.

"Of all the events worldwide in remembrance of the sixth anniversary of the Iraq disaster, the Million Musicians March for Peace was the only one led by musicians." -- Richard Bowden, Instruments for Peace

By Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog / March 23, 2009

See gallery of photos from the Million Musicians March, by Alan Pogue and Myra Eurich, Below.

AUSTIN -- They weren’t quite a million, but they sure made some beautiful music.

As hundreds of locals, tourists, musicians and industry types attending South by Southwest -- the massive technology, film and music fest -- packed the streets of downtown Austin Saturday afternoon, March 21, the Million Musicians March for Peace -- with hippie legend Wavy Gravy leading the way -- snaked by in a rhythmic procession, creating its own lively soundtrack as it passed.

[SXSW is the largest event of its kind in the world, focusing the attention of the music industry on Austin for several days in March. In the face of a down economy, this year’s event was a rousing success. It featured 2,000 musical acts from over 50 countries and drew hundreds of industry reps. It was highlighted by unannounced performances by Metallica, Kanye West, Devo and others.]

Marching behind a banner that said, “Be an Instrument for Peace,” more than 200 singing, chanting and dancing marchers followed a second-line type brass band from the Texas State Capitol through the busy streets of downtown Austin -- up Congress Ave. past the crowds queued up for a premiere at the Paramount Theater, then delighting the throngs along Sixth Street’s music row, and on to City Hall for a rally and concert.

Wavy Gravy, aka Hugh Romney, wore a tie-dyed peace symbol-adorned t-shirt with matching baggy pants, a sideways beanie, a red clown’s nose and a beaming smile.

Riding a yellow pedicab, he was the Grand Marshal. Gravy, of Hog Farm and Woodstock fame, was in town for SXSW, promoting a documentary about his looney life called “Saint Misbehavin’.”

Also in the parade was Jim Fouratt, New York-based activist and cultural critic who was a founder of the theatrical Sixties new left group, the Yippies.

The Million Musicians March was organized by Instruments for Peace and sponsors included MDS/Austin, Texans for Peace, CodePink Austin, Texas Labor Against the War, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and The Rag Blog.

One banner shouted “Rich Man’s War, Poor People’s Fight.” Demonstrators carried signs saying “Prosecute War Criminals” and “Truth is the First Casualty.”

According to writer and graphic designer Jim Retherford, the event, which is an Austin tradition, “may not have been as large as in some years past, but it had a wonderful energy. There were affinity groups of musicians throughout the parade and it was great to see the ethnic mix and the kids with parents and grandparents laughing and dancing together along the way.”

Jim Fouratt told The Rag Blog, “I was impressed that Austin Music Award winner Carolyn Wonderland was front and center. She warmed my heart. And I was proud to march beside Wavy Gravy. It will be artists and musicians who lead us out of the chaos.”

Wonderland, a consistent activist for peace and other issues, joined noted musicians like Guy Forsyth, Leeann Atherton and Shelley King, the first woman to be named official Texas State Musician, in the concert at City Hall.

“It was great to see all my grey-haired colleagues alongside multi-generational families, all decked out in the costumes of old Austin like it was before the high-tech incursion,” Jim Fouratt added.

The theme of this year’s Million Musician March was to oppose the continuing occupation of Iraq and it also saluted the alternative media and its role in getting out the word.

Musician Richard Bowden of Instruments for Peace, the moving force behind MMM, said, “Of all the events worldwide in remembrance of the sixth anniversary of the Iraq disaster, the Million Musicians March for Peace was the only one led by musicians.” He added, “I am so glad to be in Austin where we can do something like this.”

[Thorne Dreyer, a sixties activist and underground journalist, lives in Austin, Texas. He is a director of the New Journalism Project, a contributing editor to Next Left Notes and is co-editor of The Rag Blog.]

Carolyn Wonderland, double winner at the recent Austin Music Awards, plays for peace at Austin City Hall. Photo by Alan Pogue / The Rag Blog.
Shelley King, 2008's Texas State Musician, on the stage at MMM. Photo by Alan Pogue / The Rag Blog.
Austin's Guy Forsyth is an instrument for peace. Photo by Alan Pogue / The Rag Blog.
Demonstrator tells it like it is. Photo by Mara Eurich / The Rag Blog.
Members of Austin Against War join the MMM. Photo by Alan Pogue / The Rag Blog.
Multi-generational protest of the continuing occupation of Iraq. Photo by Alan Pogue / The Rag Blog.
Dude's another instrument for peace. Photo by Mara Eurich / The Rag Blog.
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