9/18/2023 0 Comments Chinatown punk wars madam wongsIt’s hard to pinpoint favorite shows because they’ve all been awesome, but I’ll share just a few cool moments off the top of my head… What have been your favorite shows so far? Mike Magrann from Channel Three and Hector Penalosa from The Zeros showed up just to support the cause, and then they played our next show! Not only did Bob play a solo set of Thelonious Monster and Bicycle Thief songs, but Nate has stuck around to become a huge part of Save Music in Chinatown and is now one of my best friends. I sent an email to Nate Pottker, who I had met through Bob Forrest’s podcast. LA Fog was another HR-based group that stepped up and Eric Kim suggested Deradoorian as well. More than one friend (Gabie Strong from UCLA and Jabberjaw days, Wendy Yao from Emily’s Sassy Lime and Ooga Booga) directed me to Human Resources as the ideal spot for us to have our benefit shows, and Lucky Dragons came along with it! Luke and Sara were both on the planning committee and volunteered their band. Who were the first musicians to get on board? So the idea was for us to build a bridge between Chinatown’s punk rock history at places like the Hong Kong Cafe and Madame Wong’s and today’s art gallery scene to help the kids there now. (I co-founded it in 1994 and edited and wrote in every issue, and she designed every issue from 18 to the end, issue 68.) I also had a lot of friends in the art world. Wendy came up with the idea of fund-raising concerts because she knew that I had made a lot of friends in bands over the years that helped make Giant Robot magazine. Wendy and I knew there was no way the mostly immigrant and blue collar neighborhood would come up with that sort of dough, so we tried to think of ways to help besides donating loads of money since we aren’t rich. We loved that our family would be spending time in the neighborhood where my immigrant grandparents and in-laws spent time.īut I think it was in the first week or so that we got a memo saying that the school’s music program was de-funded and that we parents could help raise $50,000 to help pay for it. We thought the dual language Mandarin program was really cool. My wife Wendy and I immediately liked the school, the teachers, and the kids. It started right when Eloise started attending kindergarten at Castelar. When and how did Save Music in Chinatown get started? We spoke with founder Martin Wong about the program. Save Music in Chinatown hopes to create a bridge between musicians, artists, and the community, to come together and help the kids. “The inner-city campus serves mostly immigrant kids who don’t get much exposure to performing arts or creative outlets.” Chinatown was an integral part of LA’s early punk scene with clubs like Madame Wongs, and is now a center for LA’s art scene. The elementary school was established in 1882 and is in the very center of Chinatown. All proceeds (after Eventbrite fees) will be donated directly to FACES (Friends and Alumni of Castelar Elementary School, a registered nonprofit organization) to be applied specifically to the music education program. The concert features The Crowd, Bad Cop / Bad Cop, FourEyedFour, and Bombón. Sunday, January 31st from 2pm – 6pm, Save Music in Chinatown will present their 8th fundraising concert to help the music education program at Castelar Elementary School. Sean Wheeler and Zander Schloss (Photo by Martin Wong)
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