JTMP

(Photo cedit: Kevin Winter)
MusiCares, an organization that is part of the Grammy foundation which "provides a safety net of critical assistance for music people in times of need", honored Neil Young with their "Person of the Year" award for his philanthropy work and musical legacy. Neil Young and his wife Pegi opened the "Bridge School", an "innovative organization educating children with severe speech and physical impairments", and hold benefit concerts every year to raise funds for the cause.

Many artists showed up to pay tribute to Neil Young and MusiCares, from Sheryl Crow to Elton John, and performed some of his biggest songs. The concert was filmed last January in LA, and is currently playing on VH1 Palladia in HD. It will also be available on Blu-ray DVD soon, and proceeds from the sale will go to MusicCares for their work in helping musicians in times of financial and medical distress.

For some great pictures of the event go here, and here is a video of Lady Antebellum singing "Only Love Can Break Your Heart".

Photo Credit: ©Simon Luethi

Pedal Power NYC, an organization "dedicated to capturing and repurposing human power with bicycles", held a first ever musical concert powered by humans on stationary bikes near the stage. On their website they say, "We provide the bicycles and the crew – you provide the Natural Ass! Let’s be honest, we’d rather power our stage with natural ass than natural gas."

The festival, NYC Celebrates Water Festival 2011, was held at Union Square and titled the "Natural Ass Sessions"; and featured 16 stationary bikes for people to pedal and provide the electricity for the amps for the musicians on stage. John Fox, maker of the great anti-fracking movie, "Gasland", showed up and helped out.

The Festival wants to assure that the safe tap water enjoyed by 8 million New Yorkers remains safe. Some of the musical performers were Vanessa Bley, Masa, and Gordon Voldwell. Also, environmental groups promoted sustainability, and an anti-fracking petition was passed around and got over 1,000 signatures. Watch a video of the practice sessions below, and to find out more information about Pedal Power NYC, please visit: http://www.pedalpowernyc.org and check out a great article with pictures about the event from a great local source over at Inhabitat.com.

Off the Grid Rehersals - Powered by Natural Ass from Pedal Power NYC on Vimeo.

Rise Against has released a new music video for their song, "Make it Stop (September's Children)", to help raise awareness about the "It Gets Better" campaign. The campaign aims to reach out to the LBGT community to tell them "It Gets Better", and to combat LBGT teen suicide resulting from bullying in school. Watch the new video below.

To learn more and get involved in the "It Gets Better" campaign, please check out: http://www.itgetsbetter.org
 

A punk band from the Navajo nation, Blackfire, has been blending music and activism out in Arizona for over 20 years, from speaking out against immigration policies to environmental issues. A current issue they are trying to raise awareness on and fight is a plan for a ski resort company to produce more artificial snow on the San Francisco Peaks, a land that is very sacred to 13 Native nations, and is part of their religious beliefs. The environmental impact of pumping up and depositing on the peaks "reclaimed refuse water" will have a devastating effect on the animal and plant life, and is considered a desecration of sacred land by the members of Blackfire: Klee, Clayson and Jeneda, who are also family. Read a great interview of them on Truthout.org, and watch a video of theirs below.

Blackfire has been partnering with two great organizations to empower Native youth to bring about social change. The first organization is Outta Your Backpack Media, who empowers indigenous youth through free movie making workshops, and seek to create community ownership of media and more. The second organization is Taala Hooghan, an "Infoshop" and Youth Media Arts Center, that are "an Indigenous-established, community based and volunteer-run collective dedicated to creatively confronting and overcoming social and environmental injustices in the occupied territories of Flagstaff and surrounding areas." They focus on the media, arts, and education to empower youth.

 Blackfire is also going to play at the Grassroots Festival, a music and dance festival near Finger Lakes that has been held for decades using music to raise awareness on issues and to raise funding for causes. Some of the causes and organizations they support are Doctors Without Borders, Ithaca Free Clinic, and many others. On the Grassroots Festival's website it says, "It's all about having a grand time, generating a feeling of community, and giving something back to enhance our town, our society, and our world."

The US Sentencing Commission voted unanimously to retroactively apply the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010. This move will allow over 12,000 prisoners to be released who were sentenced under harsh crack cocaine laws, prisoners that got sentences 100 times worse than someone who was convicted with powder cocaine. This led to a huge disparity between whites and blacks, since the majority of African-Americans were caught with crack cocaine, and white drug users tend to use powder cocaine.

Judge Patti B. Saris noted, "In passing the Fair Sentencing Act, Congress recognized the fundamental unfairness of federal cocaine sentencing policy and ameliorated it through bipartisan legislation. Today’s action by the Commission ensures that the longstanding injustice recognized by Congress is remedied, and that federal crack cocaine offenders who meet certain criteria established by the Commission and considered by the courts may have their sentences reduced to a level consistent with the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010.”

Congress has the final say, but it is unlikely to intervene and the decision by the commission will stand, and prisoners sentenced under crack cocaine offenses can start petitioning judges for a revised sentence in November. Reductions will not be automatic though, a judge will rule on each case, with both the defender and the prosecutor weighing in.

To find out more, please visit:
http://www.ussc.gov/