After LGBT support groups such as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation made petitions to festival co-producer Moss Jacobs, the Ragga Muffins festival, which has shows up and down California, has decided to drop the artist Capleton from its roster. Jacobscited complaints by the petitioners that the artist's lyrics promote violence against homosexuals in explaining his decision to the San Diego Press-Telegram.
Capleton's manager denies the existence of anti-gay sentiments in the singer's lyrics. In 2007, Capleton, along with Sizzla and other high-profile performers, signed a petition called the "Reggae Compassionate Act," a resolution expressing zero tolerance for anti-gay lyrics.
The festival, now in its 29th year, will still present all concerts as planned, and artists still in the lineup include Cocoa Tea, Barrington Levy and Gregory Isaacs.
The famous Los Angeles jazz club The Baked Potato, the oldest continually running jazz club in California, is putting on a festival in honor of the 40th anniversary of its opening in 1970.
Some of the club's regulars have included Al Jarreau, Larry Carlton and Steve Lukather.
The festival, which will not actually be held at the club but at the John Anson Ford Amphitheater in the Hollywood Hills, will run from Saturday, May 22 to Sunday, May 23. Throughout these two days, attendees will see 17 artists, including Carlton and Lukather.
To find out more information about the festival and purchase tickets, go to this link.
As if the following isn't completely overshadowed by the unveiling of the Coachella lineup, festival producer Guerilla Union has actually set up quite a nice winter season of live music.
First off, they have a reunited Goodie Mob (famous for first giving the world Cee-Lo Green of later Gnarls Barkley fame) tour running from today (at the Gothic Theater in Denver) until February 27, with the final show at Club Nokia in Los Angeles. In addition, on February 5, Rock The Bells alum Nas and up-and-coming rapper B.o.B. will join Goodie Mob on the tour in what is billed by Guerilla Union as an "intimate Rock The Bells experience" at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami.
For the Ascending Dragon Music Festival and Cultural Exchange, Pasadena's Grammy-winning Southwest Chamber Music ensemble will travel to perform in Vietnam for three weeks in March, while the city will host musicians from Vietnam for three weeks in April and May.
While he will only be performing a suite from the somber Schindler's List, it will still be quite a treat to see John Williams conducting one of his masterpieces live at the Laguna Beach Music Festival, which runs from January 18 through 24.
Presented by Paul Chihara, who is the head of the film music program at UCLA, the Festival will also feature works by non-contemporary composers Ravel, Beethoven and Shostakovich, and the West Coast premiere of a sonata by Philip Glass.
Besides Schindler's List, The Red Violin and local filmmaker Greg MacGillivray's The Living Sea will get scores to be heard at the 7th annual festival, which will be held at the Hotel Laguna in Laguna Beach.
So, this Press-Enterprise (of Riverside and San Bernardino) article doesn't really focus on it, but for all of those Southern California-based festival fans out there, it might behoove you to know that both Coachella and its venue have been nominated "Music Festival of the Year" and "Best Major Outdoor Concert Venue" by Pollstar magazine, the concert industry's main periodical:
The Empire Polo Field in Indio, home of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, the Stagecoach Country Music Festival and this year's Phish Festival 8, is nominated for "Best Major Outdoor concert Venue." Coachella also got a nod in the "Music Festival of the Year (non-touring) category.
The website Broadwayworld.com has the scoop on Los Angeles's Public Theater's first revue of up-and-coming musical songwriters:
The Public Theater's Music Theater Initiative presents its first Songwriter Showcase, featuring sneak previews of three musicals in development by today's hottest young writing teams, curated by MTI director, Ted Sperling, Tony Award winner for The Light in the Piazza
For more information on the first Showcase, click here.
