BMF and the Pleasant Revolution roll into Vancouver, BC this weekend for the last leg of the NorthWest tour this Saturday, August 29.

The info is below and can also be found HERE

Also, you can follow the happenings and see pics of the Bicycle Music Festival NorthWest tour through Little J’s blog: http://nowherelove.com

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This one day event is guaranteed to the be best party for bicycles in Vancouver this summer!

SCHEDULE

New Brighton Park: 10:30am – 12:30pm (early morning yoga class starts at 9:30am)

Crab Park: 2:00pm – 4:00pm

Vancouver Museum: 5:30pm – 10:00pm

There’ll be a beer garden and food at the Vancouver Museum and for anyone who has not yet visited the Velo-City exhibit, the Museum is staying open until 10pm for the party and all festival goers can see the beautiful bike exhibit for 50% off the regular ticket price!

This festival is being organized on a volunteer basis, and we really need your help to make it happen. Please please please email smartymaddypants(AT)gmail.com if you want to volunteer.

IMPORTANT VOLUNTEER JOBS STILL EMPTY:

1. Donation Fairies

2. Crowd Control at the Vancouver Museum

3. Set up and clean up crew

4. Homes/ place to camp for 14 visiting musicians for Friday/ Saturday and Sunday nights

And finally, ALL of the performers are volunteering for the festival too – this is a busking-style festival – so please bring a pocket full of change so you can show all of the awesome performers your support.

BANDS & PERFORMERS:
Ginger Ninjas
Orkestarslivovica
Bear Dyken
Little J
StitchCraft
Creaking Planks
Aunts and Uncles
B:C:Clettes
Cello Joe

Don’t forget money for the beer garden and for food.

Good times ahead!

Join the Ginger Ninjas on Sunday, August 30 from 2-4pm at the Vancouver Museum for a slide show presentation of the Pleasant Revolutionary Tour! Donations gratefully accepted (and help make the whole tour possible)

This Saturday, August 22, the BMF crew rolls into Seattle! Led by the Ginger Ninjas and the Pleasant Revolution Tour, BMFers will show Seattle how to pedal their way to musical bliss!

Tour Route & Lineup for Seattle:

9am Early Ride: Live On Bike Music ride to Waterfront Park starting at Delridge Playfield

10am Waterfront Park : Holly Phillips – Julia Massey – James Kennedy – Stitchcraft – Susan Harper – Bahia

2pm Afternoon cruise with Live On Bike music

3pm Denny Park : Blue 55 – Bend – Nettle Honey – Aeolian

6pm Ride to Space Needle

7-8:30pm Seattle Center Movies at the Mural : The Ginger Ninja – Cello Joe – Bear Dyken

9pm Evening ride to evening concert

9:30pm Evening concert Secret Location: Goose Vargis – The Pressure

BMF Seattle needs volunteers. Email seattlebicyclemusicfestival@gmail.com to get involved!
Visit www.seattlebicyclemusicfestival.com for more info on all stops on the tour.

Here’s the schedule for this Sunday, August 16:

City Bikes at 1914 Ankeny st.

On The Stairs         12pm-12:25pm
Mere Mention         12:30pm-12:55pm
Grace Tea              1:00pm-1:25pm
Catherine Feeny    1:30pm-2pm
Cello Joe                2:05-2:35pm

Hawthorne Street Fair cruise 2:45pm-3:30pm

Laurelhurst park
The Helping Hands          4pm-4:30pm
James Kennedy  if time– 4:35-5:00pm

Tom McCall Waterfront Park
Stitchcraft                          6pm-6:30pm
Spider & fly/Fast Rattler    6:35pm-7:05pm

Vanilla Bicycles 717 SE 35th ave.
Bear Dyken 8:00pm-8:30pm
Slideshow 8:35pm-9:05pm
Ginger Ninjas 9:15pm-10:45pm
Acoustic jam, chill, chat, love session 11:00-12:00pm

The Ginger Ninjas and their Pleasant Revolution are taking BMF on the road through the NorthWest.

Click on the image below or visit www.gingerninjas.com/bmf.
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Event recap from John Silva of the South Bay Cruisers .

We couldn’t have picked a better day to celebrate the first ever Southbay Bicycle Music Festival, July 19th, 2008. On a warm sunny afternoon we met at Hermosa Pier, sang happy birthday to Cruiser of the week “Tony’, then we headed off towards the Esplanade cruisin’ to the Beatles ‘Magical Mystery Tour’. (What can I say, it felt like we were heading off to Woodstock so the mix was leaning a little towards the ’60’s for this ride)We had a few newbies and some returning youngsters like 2 year old Lola Martin and her 3 1/2 year old sister Sophia, who came with their dad Roger. (Sophia and Lola are former Southbay Cruisers of the Week’ as well.)

As we made our way to Valley Park we were greeted by Makena, one of our featured artists, all set and ready to perform for us thanks to help from ‘Amy ‘The Wonder Woman’ who missed the ride so that she could decorate the park with posters and banners and help the musicians set up. She was also helped by Mary Caldera-who along with Shawnee made two awesome posters just for this occasion. (See pics on www.southbaycruiser.com)

After settling down to a barbecue, Makena kicked off the evening’s performances which included some classic and orignal hawaiian music which inspired us to get up and dance. All the way from Hilo, Hawaii, Makena was awesome, feeding our souls with island tunes like ‘Ulupalakua’ and ‘Waikiki Hula’ It was sure nice to finish a ride in a park and be greeted by Hawaiian music. This duo has performed on MTV and around the world and it was awesome to have them kick things off! They even taught us a little about Hawaiian culture between sets.

As the evening set in we lit our bonfire and were mesmerized by Manhattan Beach’s Delfina. Although only 18 years old, and with only one year of guitar/singing behind her, you’d think she’d been playing since the day she was born. Filling up our souls with stirring original tunes like ‘April Eyes’, and ‘Ritmo Porteno’, this Argentian born rising star had us all on the edges of our rocks around the bonfire. Were it not for the fear that our shared battery powered amps might run dry, she could have performed for us all night long.

Next came The 3 Heads. Acoustic rock legends in their hometown of Eureka,CA, these four took our makeshift stage around the bonfire, and picked up on what Makena and Delfina had started. Belting out original tunes ‘Undertow’, ‘Holiday’, and their anthem ‘World Was Ours’, these guys really helped set an intimate mood around the campfire with their acoustic guitars, bass, and cajon. Their jokes between songs were even more entertaining. At one point they broke into a spur of the moment spontaneous ‘Southbay’ rap song at the end. We were even entertained to one encore performance although, we would have loved to heard them play a few more.

We finished off the night with some karaoke performances including a few from Victor and his son singing some classic Doors. It’s hard to follow up to acts like Makena, Delfina, and The 3 Heads, but we had to try, and we had fun doing it too.

Last but certainly not least, we helped benefit ‘A Window Between Worlds’, (www.awbw.com) a local Venice,CA based group that helps abused women and children get a second chance on life by providing then with safe housing and an art healing program. We brought them canned foods, art supplies, clothing, and $20 in cash donations.

We are looking forward to the next Southbay Bicycle Music Festival. A year seems a little long to wait, so we might have this become a semi annual or possibly even quarterly event.

Cruising from Precita Park to Dolores Park at Saturday’s BMF

photo: Adam Aufdencamp

Cruising from Precita Park to Dolores Park at the first annual BMF in 2007

The largest crowds at Dolores Park showed similar growth.

BMF does not pay bands to perform. Instead, we pass the bucket amongst the crowd after each band plays. Some bands go to great lengths to be part of the BMF, and all of our bands have spent years developing their musical act. So show your support for the bands you like by throwing some cash in the bucket. It’s not cool to support bands early in the day, then run out of money for the later performers. Please bring plenty of ones and fives, or tens and twenties, high roller! As co-organizer Gabe says, “please take a few bucks out of your pocket, then put the rest in the bucket.”

Big thanks to this year’s Golden Goose, Kathy Rose, who’ll be leading the charge on our busking efforts.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

The Ginger Ninjas, just back from an epic 5000 mile bicycle tour to Mexico, got yet another chance to test out their sound system and rock festival-goers at this weekend’s Harmony Festival in Santa Rosa. With 4 pedal-power generating bicycles, there was enough clean, clear audio power to get over 100 people dancing. Musical highlights included Cipes and the People, and Los Ginger Ninjas.

The weekend was a good chance to work out any last kinks in the human power system before the Bicycle Music Festival. While there was a little troubleshooting to do on Sunday morning after Saturday night’s jam session, the system didn’t let fans down and was loud enough to have 8-piece bands rock out with a full drum set. You really don’t want to have to ask a drummer to play softly because the mains don’t have enough power to bring other instruments and vocals up to their level. It’s much better when a drummer can play out, and you can adjust the other instruments accordingly.

Fortunately the Ginger Ninjas’ sound system has that much power and more! We are psyched and grateful that they’ll be setting up the Human Power at this year’s BMF!

We had 11 bands over two days at last weekend’s Maker Faire. We had three pedal power bikes powering two 400-watt JBL powered speakers. Unlike the ones the Ginger Ninjas took to Mexico, these speakers were powered by traditional amplifiers, not digital amps. So the three pedal power bikes were barely enough. We couldn’t really have kids pedal one of the three, because they just didn’t put out enough power. And you really can’t kick a kid off a bicycle and feel good about yourself at the end of the night. So we said “adults only.” Fortunately for this year’s BMF, it’s looking like we’ll have the Ginger Ninjas in effect, with their Pleasant Revolution sound system, road-tested after 5 months through Mexico.

Anyway, there are some great shots from the Faire on Flickr. Hope you dig it.