Pete Seeger this Saturday 12/2/06!- Beacon NY

Subject: Pete Seeger this Saturday 12/2/06!
From: Suffet
Date: 30 Nov 06 - 04:28 PM

Greetings:

For all those who want to be at the right place at the right time, Pete Seeger will be among the various local Hudson Valley folk musicians appearing this coming Saturday evening, December 2, 2006, in the Pre-Holiday Hoot at the Howland Cultural Center in Beacon, New York. I believe the show begins at 8:00 PM, but if you want to be certain, you can call the center at 845-831-4988 to verify the time. If you missed the Dissident Folk Festival in October, here is your second chance. The Howalnd Cultural Center is located at 477 Main Street at the corner of Tioronda Avenue. There is a free municipal parking lot directly behind the center.

Musician and activist Chris Ruhe deserves thanks for organizing this event and getting Pete to participate, while fellow musician and activist John Pietaro deserves thanks for alerting me to it. As the Howland Cultural Center has a seating capacity of just 120, the only publicity for the Pre-Holiday Hoot has been strictly local.

--- Steve

Subject: RE: Pete Seeger this Saturday 12/2/06!- Beacon NY
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jan 07 - 11:05 AM

Hey Folks...

I only today, 1/14/07, saw this announcement from Steve (I guess I need to start reading more often) and thought I'd drop in a belated comment. I was a performer at this event, the "Pre-Holiday Hoot" in Beacon, and wanted to give you all some info on how it went.

When my band, The Flames of Discontent, was asked to participate, we nearly had to turn organizer Chris Ruhe down as we already had another gig booked for that evening. However, we realized it was possible to do both: though that gig was in Kingston NY's Alternative Bookstore (about 45 min north of Beacon)it ran from 6 till about 7:30. The "Hoot" was running 8 till around 10:30. More so, we love to be on any bill Pete Seeger heads up, so the decision was made. So after the first gig, we packed up our instruments and gear and our selves into the car, and we three Flames zoomed down the NYS Thruway back to Beacon. We made it in time to see the ending of the first set. The performer at that point was Zenote Sompantle, a gifted young Mexican-American singer/guitarist who performs mostly Spanish-language revolutionary music. Here, he played a few trad Mexican melodies, folk songs and "Felice Navidad".

As we stood quietly in the back of the Howland Center, Pete Seeger, walked back carrying his amazing, hand-made banjo (made by his own hands, that is, around 50 years ago). He was brimming with enthusiasm: "They'll sing along with you---its a very good crowd", Pete said to us. He was in a great mood, but we were disapointed to have missed his set; he'd insisted on being the opener of this event, as he's been doing in recent years. However, as Zenote's group left the stage and another got on, (forget their name but an excellent country-folk band based in the farm collective nearby), Pete said that he'd be going back on stage for one more number.


After that last group's set, Chris Ruhe, acting as both a performer and MC, told the crowd that Pete had a surprise for everyone. They called him back and the spry 87 year old literally ran down the aisle at top speed and lept up onto the small stage. Everyone laughed and roared with approval. A few minutes later he began the so-called surprise: it was a holiday gift to the many children in the front of the audience (ah, some things never change!), but as far as I was concened it was for all: Pete performed a beautiful rendition of "Abi-Yo-Yo" that had us all entranced. I'd heard the recording of this many times and have even performed it for kids in the past myself, but this was an amazing treat. I'd never seen Pete do it before, so my eyes were glued to him as he told the familiar tale of the little boy who saves the town by vanquishing the giant: "zoop!zooop!". Wow, what a terrific way to close the first set. I will remember that moment always.

So the second set begins and somehow The Flames of Discontent have to go on first and follow THAT up! But the room was lit and we fell into the energy easy enough. As we'd come from a gig where we'd just played 2 full sets already, we performed just two numbers--both in the holiday spirit (hey, even radicals love the holidays). We had a wonderful time and I finally got to see Pete do Abi-YoYo. And since then we have gotten to see the evil giant in the White House become increasingly marginalized, perhaps soon enough we can just "zoop! zoop!" the SOB away!

A Belated Happy New Year To All,
John Pietaro
www.flamesofdiscontent.org