From: sunofmusic@gmail.com   
      
   It takes an awful lot of love - not to mention care and preparation - to put   
   together one show around the Holidays to raise blankets and public awareness   
   for the homeless.   
      
   Try doing it for 19 years.   
      
   "When we started doing this we weren't thinking that far ahead", states   
   Blank-Fest founder and MC, Kenn Rowell. "At the time, we were just trying to   
   get all the acts together - and the sound man insisted on charging me, even   
   though I didn't have a job at    
   the time. I had to borrow $75.00 just to put on the first show. We weren't   
   thinking of 20 years from then, or even ONE year from then. We were thinking   
   that we'd be lucky if we could just pull off THAT one!"   
      
   Over the years, the annual Benefit (which collects blankets at the door as a   
   price of admission) has gone on to garner over 15,000 total donations between   
   the original Blank-Fest (which still happens in the same New York City suburb   
   of Nyack, NY - where    
   it began in 1997) and the various satellite shows which have taken place in   
   New Jersey, Wisconsin, Florida, Virginia, Canada and the UK. For the NY   
   "flagship" show, these blankets are handed out by volunteers - no middle-men   
   involved - to the less    
   fortunate on the streets of Manhattan and the other NYC boroughs, starting on   
   Christmas Eve.   
      
   This year's show is scheduled for Sunday, December 20 at Nyack's Hudson House   
   (134 Main Street - Phone: 845-353-1355), featuring upwards to 20 acts of   
   local, NYC-based, indie and major label pedigrees. Past acts have included   
   pedal steel guitar legend    
   Buddy Cage (who appeared with pioneering radio great Meg Griffin's band, Train   
   Wreck), Canadian Idol finalist Mookie Morris, and reknown guitarist Marc Rizzo   
   from metal mainstays Soulfly and Ill Niño. "Mookie was just some 18 year old   
   kid with a boatload    
   of talent who appeared at the first Canadian Blank-Fest up in Guelph",   
   remembers Rowell. "He kept asking me about the New York show and how he could   
   be a part of it. He actually got on a bus with his brother, came to NY, paid   
   for a cab to drive him up    
   from the City, played his set and then left. Said he had to get home by the   
   next morning because he had college finals to take. I thought he was nuts -   
   but I really appreciated his enthusiasm and dedication to the cause. A few   
   months later, someone sent    
   me an email with a link for some Canadian Idol promotional stuff and there was   
   Mookie's name and pic, front and center. He was all over national radio and   
   TV. I was floored! This guy had a lot more going on than he originally let on;   
   the fact that he    
   wanted to be a part of our Benefit flatters me, still!"   
      
   On Buddy Cage: "Buddy was part of Meg Griffin's band. Just having Meg, who I   
   grew up hearing on WNEW as a kid, was incredible enough. The fact that she   
   brought this star to be a part of the show, man, I still can't get over that!   
   I remember he got there    
   while the club was still empty and he asks me if there was a place where he   
   could get something to eat. I told him 'Buddy, you're a legend - you don't   
   have to ask'.........I arranged for him to eat, on the house. How the Hell   
   could you charge Buddy Cage    
   after he volunteers to raise blankets for the homeless?".   
      
   Not just an organizer and the Master of Ceremonies, Rowell also fronts an   
   indie band of his own, The Baghdaddios - an old school Lower East Side punk   
   outfit that have been recording and touring for over 20 years. They'll be   
   closing out the Noon-to-   
   Midnight show with a pleasant mixture of originals and punked-out seasonal   
   classics.   
      
   This year's returning greats include EMI alumna Patti Rothberg, former Misfits   
   and front man for The Undead, Bobby Steele and ReW and Who talk show host ReW   
   Starr. All have become traditions at the event.   
      
   "I've known Patti for over 20 years. I can still remember watching her on the   
   Tonight Show, MTV and Letterman and marveling that this was the same   
   girl-next-door that I met at CBGB. Then to think to today and how many times   
   she's selflessly contributed    
   to a majority of our shows - she played our second year show in 1998 and with   
   rare exception has made nearly every one since - I'm still in awe."   
      
   "Bobby is just a sweetheart. He loves playing the standards as a solo artist   
   and then switches gears and brings the band up on stage to rock the house. The   
   only year we've had the show broadcast live, in it's entirety (2007) was   
   Bobby's first show and    
   when he went live it temporarily knocked the station off the 'net, we had so   
   may people logging in to catch him!"   
      
   "With ReW we've known each other since she was part of the "Mother's Who Rock"   
   concert series at the old Cutting Room back around '02. Her band features   
   Television drummer Billy Ficca and she's had her stuff all over the Oxygen   
   Network. When she started    
   broadcasting she had a nice cult following that grew to the point where the NY   
   Times online edition was featuring her show and she was taking it on the road   
   to England and the West Coast. Needless to say, we're always grateful that she   
   can take time away    
   from her schedule to be a part of the fun!"   
      
   One of the newer acts added for this year is Rowell's long-time life-partner,   
   celebrated L.E.S. bilingual poet Yvonnne Sotomayor. Sotomayor's latest poetry   
   video ("Think 'music video' for spoken word, man!") for her published piece   
   "Shrunken" was added,    
   earlier this year, to the punk rock-driven BlankTV television, internet   
   broadcast and YouTube channel's lineup. But the grass roots impressario   
   bristles at any mention of favoritism when the subject is broached.   
   "Seriously, I'm a little hyper-sensitive    
   to that kind of critiscism. That's why I schedule The Baghdaddios for dead   
   last - the earlier time slots are plum spots as far as playing for a packed   
   house is concerned. In year's past we've played for 3 or 4 people at the very   
   end of the night - and I'   
   m more than happy with that, so long as we're involved. With Yvonne, we   
   actually didn't include her for the first 3 years we were together because we   
   didn't want anyone to say "Oh, there he goes, including 'the wife'. But over   
   time, it just got too    
   obvious to ignore. There's no way she would have been included this year if I   
   didn't think her poetry was slammin' or if I thought it wasn't relevant to the   
   spirit of the show. Her writings have found exposure in multiple countries and   
   she's performed    
   where Ginsburg used to do readings. She probably belongs on that stage more   
   than I do!" True, her aptly named "Blank-Fest Poem" appears as a call to arms   
   on the Blank-Fest official website.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)