Barack Obama may have been giving speeches in Europe last weekend, but he missed one heck of a party in Greenpoint.
Part pub crawl, part rock-marathon, 20 bands played over the course of eight hours in bars and performance venues along Franklin Street including East Coast Aliens, Van Gogh’s Rodeo Lounge, and the four-month-old TBD, to crowds of their friends and Obama supporters. All of the proceeds raised for Ba-Rock Brooklyn’s Saturday night music festival went to the Obama campaign.
“The last band was tremendous even though the PA system fell apart,” said Chris McQuaid, a Greenpoint resident who came out to the shows to support friends who were in the band, Heavy Creatures. “Weeks ago I was drinking the Obama Kool-Aid a little bit but I was turned off after the campaign finance vote and becoming more centric. Ultimately I’ll still pull the letter D.”
Brandy Bennett and her fiancé Bruce Hall organized the event, booking many of the bands and coordinating local venues. Bennett, who studies malaria at the NYU School of Medicine, hopes to hold fundraising events in Greenpoint once a month up until the election.
“This is the first time I ever started getting involved in something like this,” Bennett said. “I had never been inspired enough by a politician before.”
Bennett and Hall came up with the idea before Super Tuesday to hold a benefit for the Obama campaign, though they chose to wait until later this spring to start planning their event when it was clear that Obama would secure the nomination. What began as a small fundraiser with a few of their friends’ bands soon ballooned into a multi-venue rock party with a short film program, t-shirt sales and coupon books with discounts from local businesses.
“People were really getting inspired by it,” Bennett said. “Once it got going, bands really wanted to play and bar owners were really enthusiastic. I had bands calling me right up until last week, asking for a slot to play and we just didn’t have any available for them.”
Highlights of the evening included the soulful synthesized crooning of headliners and recent Central Park Summer Stage performers Apollo Heights, the frenetic energy of Teedo Bilecky, an eclectic short film series held at East Coast Aliens, lead singer of the eponymous band “Teedo,” and the hip-shaking electricity of Oweinama Biu, lead singer of Madam Robot and the Lust Brigade.
“Nobody knows calypso but I’m trying to bring calypso into the funk scene,” said Kathleen Cholewka, also known as DJ Lupe Loop. Cholewka pulled triple-duty at the event, playing drums in Madame Robot and the Lust Brigade, singing in Discovery and spinning records at Ba-Rock Brooklyn’s after party late into the night.
For many of the musicians, supporting their friends while seeing other bands and raising money for the Obama campaign proved an alluring combination. If not for a significant tour through Europe and the Middle East, Obama surely would have enjoyed chilling out on Franklin Street listening to whatever sounds floated out their doors.
“Obama should be here,” Cholewka said. “He needs to be here. We would love it if he came.”
Ba-Rock Brooklyn will host another event raising money for the Obama campaign on August 9 at Coco 66 on 66 Greenpoint Avenue. For more information, visit www.ba-rockbrooklyn.com.
