Celebrating Diversity and Taking Part in Burgeoning Movements Through Music

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I’ve had such a plethora of honors lately to have been asked to play music at a few incredibly important events/festivals/rallies lately. It’s been epically humbling, and I’m really appreciative of the opportunities to play a role and some music (however small or insignificant to the events themselves) in these epic events.

A month ago, I had the chance to play music at the satellite March For Our Lives Rally in Springfield, Missouri, which was a satellite event in conjunction with the national marches in response not only to the Parkland school shootings, but also a response (especially against children) to gun violence in general.

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PC: Springfield News-Leader

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Surprisingly, I’ve received a bit of flack for playing at that event. I don’t give a fuck. People who know me know exactly what my political stances happen to be, and I am giving these people who gave me shit the benefit of the doubt because they don’t really know me, nor do they deserve to.

Plus, y’all, these incredible young people who worked very hard to organize the march and rally were absolute leaders and amazing individuals. In addition to playing a set, I also had the chance to accompany a mind-bloggingly talented student singing Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” and I think Matt Loveland Photography really captured what that moment’s impact truly was.

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I have played two sets in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, an amazing place settled in the middle of the Bible Belt which has facets of both that kind of small friendly Arkansas town, but they’re also known for being very accepting for the LGBTQ+ community, and even have multiple festivals a year to celebrate this..called Spring, Summer, and Fall Diversity Weekend, respectively.

Spring Diversity was also recent, and I had the opportunity to book every Saturday night for every 2018 Diversity weekends at Brews, one of my favorite places to play, and an outstanding taproom and coffeehouse, to boot.

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I’ve wanted to play a Diversity Weekend for a long time. I’ve also wanted to play at Basin Park...I had the chance to do both.

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If you don’t know about Eureka Springs’ Basin Park, you should check this out.

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Anyway, it was a wonderful day from the bottom to the top seeing love and diversity celebrated. My evening set, featuring Ryan Dunn and Jason Davis, was right after Drag Bingo...which had such amazing queens and kings performing amazing renditions of the gamut of music. My favorite was a medley that ended in “Defying Gravity,” one of my favorites from the musical Wicked.

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Ryan and I have played together a lot, obviously as I’ve posted in the past, but this is the second time I’ve played music directly with Jason Davis, who is in the band Eureka Music Revival with his wife Lorrie, and just a great musician and guy all-around.

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Here are a couple of pics from our show at Brews. The more I play at that venue, the more I enjoy it. If you ever travel to Eureka Springs, it is located at 2 Pine Street, right at the intersection of Spring and Pine. It’s a great little place that serves quality crafted coffee drinks, wine, spritzers, and Arkansas-local beer...which is always fun to try beers I don’t always have access to just across the state line in Missouri.

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Then, on Sunday, I played back in Missouri at the Springfield Brewing Company for the inaugural gathering for the # metoosgf movement, which is being organized in cooperation with many entities and spearheaded by amazing survivors and powerful people of strength. There were representatives from The Victim Center of the Ozarks, the Springfield Police Department, with the message the *you are not alone and that the metoo movement is something that can be grown into an amazing network of survivors. Jordan Harris Designs took some great photos in the booth at the event, including this one:

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Even though Missouri and general area seems to be going through a period of “Third Winter,” I have had events filled with impactful moments and surrounded by some of my favorites. Busy times like this make me feel like maybe I’m doing something right, as that’s really hard to feel lately...regardless of the books coming in. I’ll be posting about more shows from my last month or so tomorrow. I’ve been busy. It’s been awesome.

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Sunshine on my shoulders almost always makes me high. —John Denver

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COMMUNITY IS THE NEW MONEY

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