Monthly Archives: May, 2012

MAY 14, 2012 - More of The Nightwatchman and the Guitarmy from cool clips I found on the Internet.The first one is from NewYorkRawVideos with a montage of May Day.

Click READ MORE for more videos.

MAY 14, 2012 - Tom Morello led a Guitarmy through the streets of New York, with everyone singing "This Land is Your Land" in support of the 99% and Artisan News Service has a great video including an interview and him leading the troops to battle with their songs. Check out the video below.

MAY 14, 2012 - I wrote this a few years back, and decided to bring it out of mothballs when we had the BP oil disaster in the Gulf in 2010. I put the capo on the the second fret, updated the lyrics, and filmed the video shots at Great Falls Park, Maryland. The song is called, "Rise Up", and I hope it can help inspire more people to "Love our Mother", and support sustainability. Go Green!

MAY 14, 2012 - Zhanna Arshanskaya Dawson had a talent for playing the piano even from an early age, starting at 5. She even played Bach’s Invention Number 1 in public, encouraged by her parent’s love of music. Unfortunately she was a Ukrainian Jew living in Kharkov, and the year was 1941. German troops stormed her house, and marched her and her family towards a death camp She and her sister somehow managed to get away from the guards, and ended up in an orphanage. There, a caregiver heard her talent for playing piano, and offered her and her sister a chance to play with a musical troupe entertaining Germans, and they used their talent to stay alive, and eventually make it to America in 1946.

In a CNN article by Moni Basu Zhanna says about playing for the Germans, “I was playing for the memory of my parents. I was playing to survive.” She ended up hiding in plain sight entertaining the Germans with her music, and even was taken with the musical troupe back to Berlin at the end of the war. After the war in 1946 in a camp for displaced persons run by the Americans, she met Larry Dawson, a musical lover and viola player himself and he arranged to have a concert for the survivors of Dachau. She remembers fondly of finally playing for her people, and said, “These were such special people”.

Her and her sister’s musical talent helped them get to America, and even win scholarships. Zhanna now lives in Atlanta, and is being honored with a doctor of letters from Oglethorpe University. Her son Greg Dawson has wrote a book called "Hiding in the Spotlight" recounting the events, and has also made a mini documentary (watch below). You can read the full article over at CNN here.

MAY 10, 2012 - The Fender Music Foundation, whose mission is to assure "music is available to everyone in the communities that they serve", has received another signed guitar to their autographed guitar collection donated by artists and celebrities.

Tom Morello, aka The Nightwatchman, who has been active in the Occupy music arena recently has signed and donated a sweet Fender Kingman SCE dreadnought acoustic guitar. It can be yours too, all you have to do is donate $2,100 to the foundation and the bad boy is yours! All the funds will all go to benefit the Fender Music Foundation to help spread music! While you are there, you can get a guitar signed by Tom Petty, Vince Gill, and even President Jimmy Carter!

Wanna know more? Check out an intro to the Fender Music Foundation video below, and their website with testimonials of the awesome work they are doing is here.