San Francisco kick-off party kicked something!

Just want to leave a note and record about send-off party we had on Sunday night. It was held at CELLspace (Collective Exploration Learning Labs) in San Francisco. Its a shared space for artists and activists, supplying a "public environment for the exploration of art, education, performance and community building." It's existence is due in part to 8 years of hard (and unpaid) work by SLR co-founder, Jonathan Yout. An old industrial factory of some sort, with high ceilings and beams, the space has been built up physically and energetically, to create quite a fun arena and gathering place. (And check out the Hunab Ku logo!)

I started the night setting up a RAN table, showing off some literature about Bank of America and Citi, and how they fund climate change. We also set up the "GMO Freak Show," an element of the carnival where you stick your face in a wacky poster and someone takes a picture. After setting up, I got started helping with food preparation. If you're going to have a gathering, you've got to have food! We threw together all the veggies we had, and made a pretty decent soup, if I do say so myself.

I was not prepared for the calibur of the entertainment that night. The music and visual acts totally blew me away. I particularly enjoyed the sounds of Beats Antique, an electronic amalgam of ancient and ritualistic musical elements. I was not surprised to learn that they'll be opening for Bassnectar on his upcoming tour.

There were also some sick visuals projected during the later performances. They were oddly familiar to the visuals I had seen the night before during the Bassnectar performance, between sets of STS9 at the Greek Theater (great freakin show, btw). I learned that it was in fact the same visual artist that performed at the show. Among other things, he used scenes from Baraka and the online video, techno plants.

The was closed out by the Extra Action Marching Band. They really know how to get a crowd going. Blaring horns, pounding drums, and a rather, umm... visually stimulating color gaurd. I think I'm going to find myself a horn somewhere along the road and get my chops back in shape... They made me miss marching band, that's for sure, although I don't remember it being quite like that, epecially the color gaurd.

The night was not only filled with amazing entertainment, but also some quality people. It was so great to see everyone come together to wish us luck on the tour. Hopefully next year we'll be able to take them all with us!