Katchafire - The Mezzanine, San Francisco - 4/25/2010

by Nicole Parisi-Smith, San Francisco Chapter

Thanks to Jimmy Vargas who invited the San Francisco Chapter to set up an outreach table at the Katchafire and Rebel Souljahz show at the Mezzanine in San Francisco on Sunday, April 25th! Big thanks, too, to Al from the venue who helped me get set up, and gave us an awesome spot right inside of the Mezzanine front entrance, and right across from the merch booth!



Thanks to our awesome spot, I was able to talk with a lot of very warm and friendly Katchafire and Rebel Souljahz fans who passed by our outreach table on their way to the venue's main floor.


photo: me hanging out at our outreach table

The highlight was meeting a fan who was wearing a 2010 Kokua Festival t-shirt. She said that she'd just returned from Hawaii that day, and had attended the Kokua Festival the previous day where she got to see Ziggy Marley, Jack Johnson, Adam Topol and Jake Shimabukuru perform together. She, like many fans I spoke with, took our 2010 Beach Cleanup Postcard, and expressed interest in our beach cleanups.


photo: Ziggy, Jack, Adam and Jake on stage at Kokua on Saturday. Photo from www.Twitter.com/Brushfire

The Rebel Souljahz and Katchafire show was fantastic, and the crowd very enthusiastic and engaged in the show. I was really impressed with Hawaiian band Rebel Souljahz's set.


photo: Rebel Souljahz on stage at the Mezzanine

I loved Katchafire's shout out to the Hawaiians in the house who, he said, have been supporting the band since the very beginning. That got a loud response from the audience:)


photo: Katchafire on stage at the Mezzanine

Thanks again to everyone who made the outreach possible, and to the awesome fans.

Luke Brindley at The Barns

Luke Brindley invited Surfrider to represent at his show last week at The Barns at Wolftrap. The Alternate Routes opened the evening with a fun set and Luke put on a great performance with a full backing band. If you haven’t been to the Barns it’s a beautiful venue—an actual barn remade into a classy performance space. Matt Gove was on hand to talk to fans about Surfrider’s goal of passing a bag bill in Virginia. It was an intimate and relaxed evening of great music and ocean conversation—thanks Luke!

State Radio and Save My Oceans Tour

State Radio and the Save My Oceans Tour hooked up at The George Washington University’s Mt. Vernon campus last Saturday and Surfrider was there to help spread the ocean love. The weather was crummy but that didn’t stop hundreds of students from taking the pledge to reduce their environmental footprint. You can take the pledge online at their website.

About 40 students also took the time to write a note to DC Mayor Adrian Fenty, letting him know they are not happy about him attempting to use the DC Bag Fee funds for non-conservation activities.

State Radio was integral to spreading the oceans word, and invited “Bagman” onto the stage to do a twirl. They even helped out at Surfrider's cleanup that morning at Kingman Island, thank you State Radio for leading by example!

Check out this interview with Chad from State Radio on the PBS website, which features photos from the cleanup!

Surfrider and Reverb at Ben Harper

Surfrider's Music Outreach Program was at Ben Harper's show at Pier 6 on April 20. Surfrider volunteers Brian Dalton and Matt Gove took in the beautiful evening in Baltimore, talking to lots of fans about ocean pollution and plastic bags. Much thanks to Reverb staff Amy and Kristen who let us participate in the event! They also let us be a part of their Eco Village and their raffle--awesome.

Many Marylanders signed our petition to pass a bag bill in MD, and a few folks even wrote postcards to DC Mayor Adrian Fenty—see picture. Ben Harper and Alberta Cross sounded great under the big tent, if you haven’t been to Pier 6 I recommend a visit.

Save My Oceans Tour w/Disney OCEANS Film - UC Berkeley - 4/21/2010

by Nicole Parisi-Smith, San Francisco Chapter

This is a follow up to my Saturday post about the Save My Oceans Tour concert with the Cold War Kids ...

Last night fellow San Francisco Surfrider Chapter volunteer Keely and I set up an outreach table at the Save My Oceans Tour screening of the new Disney enviro film, OCEANS.


photo: me & Keely

Students who had taken the online Save My Oceans Pledge previous to yesterday began lining up outside of Cal's Wheeler Auditorium sometime before I even arrived at the venue at 6:30pm. Once the film's coordinators arrived, and set up an EZUP outside of Wheeler Auditorium, all students were re-directed to a new line, which had formed in front of the EZUP. After collecting their hard tickets from the EZUP, students entered Wheeler where they waited in a second line outside of the theater doors.


photo: Outside of Wheeler Auditorium

We set our Surfrider table up right outside of the theater doors, where we could talk with students about Surfrider (and answer their questions about where to pick up their OCEANS tickets:)



Keely and I canvassed line #2 outside of the theater doors, to make sure that the students received info about Surfrider, even if they weren't able to stop by our outreach table.

We left some materials on our outreach table while we were inside the theater watching OCEANS, which was an awesome film!


photo: Keely waiting for OCEANS to start!

This concludes the Surfrider San Francisco Chapter's participation in the Save My Oceans Tour. Thanks to everyone who made it possible, including Disney rep Maureen, who helped us out with set up last night!

Coming Up - My Peoples (formerly Kapakahi) - Cafe Du Nord, San Francisco - Fri April 30

Thanks to My Peoples (formerly Kapakahi) Surfrider San Francisco will have an outreach table at the band's EP Release Party on Friday, April 30 at Cafe Du Nord.

Doors at 8:30 Show at 9:30pm
Tix are $10 in advance/$12 at the door.


photo: My Peoples

The show will also feature the San Diego-based band Stranger, who were voted Best World Music at the 2009 San Diego Music Awards, and San Francisco's Dog Man Joe, who is also a great supporter of our Chapter.

If you make it to the show then please stop by the Surfrider outreach table to say hello! This is our first show at Cafe Du Nord - looking forward to it! But not our first show with the very awesome My Peoples - they rock:)

Coming Up - Katchafire - Mezzannine, San Francisco - Sun April 25

The Surfrider San Francisco Chapter will have an outreach table at the Katchafire show this Sunday, April 25, at Mezzanine in San Francisco.

Katchafire is New Zealand’s Premier Reggae Band. Since 2002 they have recorded three full length albums, a dub remix album and a Live CD. With years of touring under their belt, the band is constantly in huge demand in New Zealand, Hawaii, Australia and around the world.


photo: Katchafire

Other artists on the bill include: Rebel Souljahz, Jah Warrior, Hi-Fi, Shelter.

Doors 8pm, Show 9:30pm
Advance tickets can be purchased here.

If you make it to this show - which is sure to be fantastic - then stop by the Surfrider booth to say hello! Thanks to Jim Vargas, manager of Bayonics, another friend of our Chapter, for inviting us out to the show!

Save My Oceans Tour w/Cold War Kids - UC Berkeley Campus - 4/17/2010

by Nicole Parisi-Smith, San Francisco Chapter

On Saturday the San Francisco Chapter set up an outreach booth at the Save My Oceans Tour stop on the University of California at Berkeley campus.

The event coincided with "Cal Day", which is essentially an annual open house for prospective students and their families. So campus was hopping during the Save My Oceans event, especially since it took place on the lawn outside of Cal's main library, in Memorial Glade.



The event kicked off with a warm welcome given by Ian Campbell of The Marketing Division, who coordinated the logistics for our participation in the tour stop.


photo: Neel, Nicole, Keely, Ian, Emily, Lani

Ian was joined on stage by Jessica, the Cal student who helped coordinate the event, and "the plastic bag monster." Thanks, Ian for giving Surfrider a shout out, and for encouraging event attendees to stop by our booth!

We were set up towards the back of the event, in a "Village Green" area, alongside 2 water-themed non-profits, 2 Cal media organizations, and the Save My Oceans Tour booth.


photo: by Ken Chan

Ian, Jessica and the Plastic Bag Monster were followed by a great performance by the Cold War Kids. I'd heard of them numerous times, but this was my first time seeing them live - great show! I also really appreciated that they were there supporting the Save My Oceans Tour.


photo: by Ken Chan. Cold War Kids on stage.

The awesome Surfrider San Francisco Chapter volunteers present at the event with me were Neel and Keely, as well as Cal Surf Club Officers Lani and Emily. Lani and Emily came directly from the campus clubs forum, where they had been tabling all day long, talking with prospective students and family members about the Cal Surf Club. They were awesome! We were also joined by Neel's friend, Lani who helped us out by taking great group photos of the Surfrider crew in our booth:)


photo: Emily, Lani, the Plastic Bag Monster (a very good humored Cal student), Keely, Neel, Nicole

We got to talk with some very young prospective Cal students, an alum, an incoming freshman and his dad, fellow environmental activists who wanted to know more about Surfrider, and a graduating Cal senior who will be attending grad school at Scripps in the fall, and wanted more info about the San Diego Chapter. Thanks to an awesome Surfrider membership promotion that Ian put together for us, we were able to enroll several new Surfrider members at the event.


photo: Keely and Neel

Also thanks to Ken Chan of Studio Dream, who was taking photos for the event organizers, and was kind enough to send the photos to me, for use on this blog. Thanks to Laura and Kyle from Surfrider HQ who helped us get involved with the Save My Oceans Tour!

We are looking forward to doing outreach at the Cal screening of the new Disney film OCEANS this Wednesday night, in Wheeler Auditorium.

State Radio at Save My Oceans Tour

State Radio is back in town! After a great show at the 9:30 Club a few months ago, SR has teamed up with the Save My Oceans Tour for an afternoon concert at The George Washington University's Mt. Vernon Campus. Surfrider will be there to spread the good word on ocean advocacy. I’m not sure if the general public can purchase tickets to this show but it’s worth a try, especially if the weather is nice!

Luke Brindley at Wolftrap

Surfrider’s Music Outreach Program will celebrate Earth Day by reaching out to fans at Luke Brindley’s show at the Barns at Wolf Trap. Luke is a DC-based, roots rock favorite who co-owns Jammin’ Java in Vienna, Virginia. Luke and his brother’s album Playing With the Light was named “one of the top 12 debut records of the year” by Paste Magazine. Come check out a local artist and say hi to our MOP volunteers!

Surfrider at Ben Harper!

Surfrider will be representing at Ben Harper's show in Baltimore at Pier 6 next Tuesday the 20th of April! The show is part of a cool program organized by Reverb called the Campus Consciousness Tour: “CCT aims to inspire and activate students in an electric atmosphere while leaving a positive impact on each community the tour visits. In addition to educating and mobilizing students, the tour includes many greening elements and is run to have a minimal environmental footprint.”

Reverb is a great organization that provides greening programs for artists' tours while conducting grassroots outreach and education with music fans as well as a number of businesses in the music industry including venues, record labels, and radio stations.

Alberta Cross will open—these Brits have a great sound, check out their website.

Surfrider San Francisco Chapter's April 2010 e-newsletter :: MOP Feature

Yay! The Music Outreach Program made it into the Surfrider San Francisco Chapter's April 2010 e-newsletter.

Sign up to receive future editions of the e-newsletter here.