Pittonkatonk: Mayday Brass BBQ & Potluck

Webpage: www.pittonkatonk.org
Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/402412510109169/
Indiegogo campaign: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/pittonkatonk-2017-a-may-day-brass-bbq-music-education#/

This event is free and open to the public.

What is PITTONKATONK?
Pittonkatonk is music
Pittonkatonk is a space of engagement.
Pittonkatonk is collaboration.
Pittonkatonk is political action.

Pittonkatonk is music without boundaries. Since 2014, Pittonkatonk is music in public spaces that belong to everyone, with no stage, no doors, and no right way to express yourself. There is no admission fee, no corporate sponsors, and nothing is for sale. It is a potluck event where people bring food, drink, music, dancing, and the desire to come together to celebrate music and community.

We connect people with national and local musicians, activists, and educators in order to empower them to use their love of performing music to engage the world around them. Our mission is to promote music performance as a means of achieving positive personal, social, and political outcomes. To do this we create events that engender purposeful music making on a communal level, blurring the lines between performer and spectator, entertainment and activism. We work with adults and teens from Pittsburgh to create public performance opportunities designed to give a voice vulnerable people in our city.

Our goal is to create a musical space for everyone, regardless of age, race, gender, class, or religion. Pittonkatonk brings together bands ranging from Balkan brass to activist marching bands, samba to New Orleans swing. How about a house show for the whole city? How about a family reunion with 2000 people you’ve never met? How about a neighborhood party with 90 neighborhoods? That’s what we’re about. Pittonkatonk works because we make a call to action and, for the past three years, the community has answered. This year, we want to join forces with again you to make our city more inclusive, progressive, and welcoming.

• Using music to promote fair and just relations between people and society. #MusicAndJustice
• Empowering people to use music to engage the world around them.#StrengthThruMusic
• Using music to achieve positive social and political outcomes.#MusicalResistance

The Brass BBQ is Saturday May 6th! The tentative lineup includes:

What Cheer Brigade (Providence, RI)

Afro Yaqui Collective (Pittsburgh, PA)

Black Bear Combo (Chicago, IL)

La Misa Negra (Oakland, CA)

Detroit Party Marching Band (Detroit, MI)

Lowdown Brass Band (Chicago, IL)

Extraordinary Rendition Band (Providence, RI)

Timbeleza (Pittsburgh, PA)

May Day Marching Band (Pittsburgh, PA)

May Day Choir (Pittsburgh, PA)

Detroit Pleasure Society (Detroit, MI)

Drum Lines and Hard Rhymes (Pittsburgh, PA)

Colonel Eagleburger’s Highstepping Goodtime Band (Pittsburgh, PA)

Related Events

PRINTonkatonk!
Friday, May 5, 2017
5:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Artist Image Resource
518 Foreland St, Pittsburgh, PA 15212
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1668274746808634/

Artists Image Resource (AIR) and Pittonkatonk join together to bring you PRINTonkatonk! PRINTonkatonk is an event where people can come together for music and printmaking! Free, fun and family friendly. With hands-on screen-printing and music from the May Day Marching Band, this is an opportunity for people of all ages to come together, be musical, and create art about political, personal, and social issues that matter to them.

Music•Labor•Resistance Public Roundtable
Friday, May 5, 2017
6:30 PM – 8:00 PM
James Street Gastropub and Speakeasy
422 Foreland St, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15212
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1666305620341150/

Pittonkatonk teams up with the Listening Spaces Project to host a public roundtable discussion on the topic of music, labor, and political resistance (in Pittsburgh and beyond) to be held on 5/5 after PRINTonkatonk. This will be a public discussion on how labor issues affect musicians both locally and globally. We’ll have a 5 panelists provide diverse opinions and experiences and then open the discussion up to the community. We’ll cover topics such as issues of being a working musician, how music has been used in labor movements, the roles race, gender, sexulaity, and economy play in how musical communities survive, the past and present traditions of how communities make music, DIY practices, the internet’s relationship with musicians, and much more. Celebrate International Workers Day by participating in an open discussion about issues that matter to people in the music industry.

Admission is free before 7PM.

---

The Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry is proud to support Pittonkatonk’s Education programs in part through a grant from the Frank-Ratchye Fund for Arts @ the Frontier Grant 2017-004