Well, this is all so fascinating.
Greg Artzner of Magpie here, writing for both myself and my partner Terry. I'm reading these comments to her before we post them. As the artists in question, we appreciate all of the comments. We have thoroughly enjoyed reading the various points of view, both in favor of refund and opposed to it, supportive of political statements in folk music and against them. We also appreciate the comments regarding the core of the issue for Sol, which is: "how do you deal with such a situation?" Many excellent points made here on both sides of every issue.
   First, since most of you weren't there, I'd like to let you all know what the 2 women were responding to. In her email to Sol one of the two women characterized our performance as "hateful, sarcastic, political mudslinging" and "hateful slander." The songs that they actually heard that apparently riled them up were nothing of the kind, and the proof is that the entire evening was video recorded. They were a couple of songs that deal with war. The first was one we wrote entitled "Where Have They All Gone?" which asks serious questions about the impact of the betrayal of all of us by political "leaders." It's based on the premise that unlike during the Vietnam war, the casualties and costs of the war in Iraq are well-hidden from us by design of the administration in collusion with submissive media. We followed that song with Phil Ochs' classic, "Is There Anybody Here?" introducing it with comments about the fact that the song was partly responsible for the stand I took against the Vietnam war as a conscientious objector. These songs are strong indeed, but "hateful, sarcastic, political mudslinging" and "hateful slander" they are absolutely not. Nor were our introductory remarks. If there was any hate expressed is was hatred of war and betrayal, certainly not of any person or group. The remaining songs in the set, including the ones before we "got political" were songs dealing with a spectrum of the human experience, including one song that pays tribute to the sockeye salmon which we preceded with a host of fish jokes! The disgruntled woman said we engaged in "hateful slander." Slander is malicious falsehood aimed at injury of another. I am afraid the only person engaged in slander here is her.
Terry and I truly appreciate the voices of support here from people who have heard us and know our music. Indeed it is true, our motivation has always been to be thoughtful as well as provocative and entertaining in support of the big causes: peace, justice, freedom, equality, environmental responsibility. They are issues that transcend politics, transcend political party. We certainly are proud to call ourselves progressives, but that is because we are committed to progress, not to any particular political ideology. We would never engage in "hate speech," but at the same time we won't cower from calling things as we see them, based upon the best information we have at our disposal. We are always willing to discuss controversial issues with members of our audiences who disagree. We have done it many times over the years. We only wish these women had stayed around long enough that we could have spoken with them during the intermission.
   As far as the issue of refund is concerned, I completely concur with the idea of non-refund for any type of performance. If I walked out of a performance mid way through the first set, which I would NOT do under similar circumstances, I would never expect a refund, no matter what my reasons for wanting to leave might be. I think these women were extremely rude to storm out of an intimate concert as they did, interrupting Sol's enjoyment of the program he had worked to present, to demand their money back from him. Terry and I have not yet decided whether we will refund the money. After all, it's already been spent. We put it into our fuel tank, and it's well on it's way to the coffers of the oil magnates, Cheney, et al. Seriously, we might just send her a check because frankly we don't want her money. We also would prefer to take the pressure off of Sol and the venue and diffuse the whole issue of small claims and ill publicity. But before we send her her money, we will attempt to engage her in a thoughtful email exchange regarding this whole affair.
There have been so many comments made that we would love to address directly, but too many to do so. Thank you all for helping us to find perspective on all the issues involved. We will keep your thoughts in mind.
   peace,
   Greg & Terry