Mike Senyo
Staff Writer
A punk rock concert was held to promote peace and justice on President’s Day in the Pomona Arts Colony with four bands – Earn Your Keep, Malice of Forethought, The Dream is Dead and All Or Nothing – to showcase their unity.
Unless you have been living under a rock these past four years, many people are angry at the present government administration and its policies.
“President’s Day Punk Show” was presented by On the Rag Records to bring together people who all have one thing in common: a dislike for President Bush and his administration.
The show was developed as an example of what seems to be missing from the bubble gum pop artists like Ashlee Simpson and Simple Plan—musicians’ playing music with political awareness.
“As artists, we just want to express what we believe,” said Jared Nothing, bass player of All Or Nothing. “Our friends, The Dream Is Dead are from Indianapolis. They are coming out to record, and they wanted to do a couple of shows and we wanted to set something up.”
From that, the idea of the show being a politically oriented event grew.
“It’s up to the artist whether or not they want to be political,” Nothing said. “Music is a form of art.”
“Our songs are not just all political. Bands lately have not been very political,” he said.
“Recently, with our current administration, it seems like bands have stepped it up a little bit,” Nothing said. “Even if their songs are not necessarily political, they are trying to get the word out in political movements.”
Nothing hoped the audience was left with something to think about.
“First, I would like them to see The Dream Is Dead because they’re really, really good and they’re a very political band too,” he said.
“It’s always good if they can walk away thinking to themselves and lay out what’s going on. They can take what they want from it and hopefully they can take away something positive from it,” Nothing said.
“Nobody is trying to preach anything, we’re just throwing out what we believe in,” Wade Morales, guitarist of All Or Nothing, said.
Joe Camacho, a student from the University of La Verne, attended the concert.
“I wanted to hear some sweet tunes, man, and I know the presidents would want me to be rocking,” Camacho said. “I would like to think that past presidents would rather have us rock and look down on Junior Bush because he’s wasted a lot of our money and has placed us in a war which we don’t belong in.”
Located in the Pomona Arts Colony, 51 Buckingham hosted “President’s Day Punk Show.” The venue frequently puts on shows in their art gallery.
Tonight, the Stitches will be headlining for $7. For more information visit www.51buckingham.com.
Mike Senyo can be reached at msenyo@ulv.edu.
