I have written before about the restorative power of music.
It can also call us to action. Ford Nation Elimination, taking place in Kingston on October 21st, will put some of the area’s best musicians along with community activists on stage to entertain and energize those in attendance.
When I ran into musician Luther Wright at the Skeleton Park Arts Festival in June, we found ourselves bemoaning the outcome of the provincial election just a few weeks earlier. It seemed to us even then – before the notwithstanding clause debacle, before Ford ended the basic income pilot, before we knew for sure that the 2015 sex ed curriculum was being shelved, before he cut the size of Toronto’s city council from 47 to 25 seats, before he announced his plan to “kill” Bill 148, before he began dismantling green energy projects – that we would need a foot-stomping, toe-tapping live music event to cheer us up and move us to action.
Musicians and activists together
And so was born Ford Nation Elimination. Luther took on finding the musicians and I took on putting the event together. We have called on the generosity of many to pull this off: from musicians willing to work on a Sunday afternoon to a designer who created the event’s look, a writer who came up with a name for it and my daughter who got us organized on Facebook and other social media. (Side benefit: I have learned how to use Facebook and how to tweet!)
The lineup is impressive: Luther, of course, who will act as MC and perform. Rusty Ford, who knows how to write a lyric that sticks in the mind (think about “If the phone don’t ring, you’ll know it’s me” for just a minute), Juno award-winning Jenny Whiteley, Toronto’s Suzanne Jarvie, pedal steel guitar master Burke Carroll and many more.
With municipal elections the next day, we will hear from community organizers who are active in campaigns to save Bill 148, to stop the cancellation of the basic income pilot, to promote the ranked ballot referendum and more.
No buck a beer here!
Please spread the word and join us if you can. If you can make a donation, we’ll take it, but you are still welcome if you can’t.
We can promise you music, dancing, speechifying and a good time. It’s a chance to kick off the despair that many of us have been feeling since June 7th by spending time with others who feel the same way. You can leave with information about campaigns to get involved in over the upcoming weeks and months as well as with CDs to keep the music alive long after the event is over.
But don’t come looking for buck a beer because you won’t find it here.
The Mansion
506 Princess Street, Kingston
Sunday October 21, 2 – 5 p.m.