Report back from Modesto DIY Fest from Wingnut Willy:

The night ended with Trash Orchestra performance in Modesto's center plaza downtown.

Again (1 year later), Santa Cruz folks took the public into the trash orchestrated post apocalyptic vision quest! Smashing on car hubcaps, plastic buckets, symbols & kicking over garbage cans, followed by a Trash Orchestrated Dogpile, set the public's mood on fire!

The end of Orchestra ( too late coppers...WE'RE DONE!) resulted in a debate between Modesto police & one T.O. member, with police claiming there were complaints from local merchants (who later denied it adamantly.  But police just seemed more interested in trying to prove they were arrogantly right & boasting their authority -- but whats new?!

Again, from Modesto police, "We're not impressed. "

According to the website, this is an exciting new annual festival celebrating the Monterey Bay's rich cultural and natural resources. The park's bench lands will be transformed into the "Piazza di San Lorenzo", an aesthetic contemporary arts and crafts marketplace.

We will be celebrating the "diversity of our town's tremendous cultural riches and creativity" in the very same park in which Santa Cruz police daily chase out modern day hobos and troubadours. So we hope to bring an illuminating vibe to the celebration.

We invite those who are down-and-out, itinerant, penniless, on the bum, dispossessed, destitute, homeless, broke down, busted, hard-up, on the skids, or just your punks or traveling kids to come enjoy a sunny day with food, music, and friends.

Food Not Bombs will be serving at the same time that Trash Orchestra starts.

We'll make a joyful noise and play for a time when the river will be unbounded by parks and levies and we'll all run wilder and freer.

Military Recruiters have been blocked from recruiting for three years at UCSC, and have been absent for over a year now, but it looks like they're going to try and come back. The upcoming career fair has FBI, CHP, Santa Cruz Justice Department, U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corp, and the Army health department, along with a lot of other heinous corporations and institutions.

On April 22nd, recruiters returned to UCSC. Trash was there to help with the UnWelcoming Committee. The police presence was light, and though security within the job fair was tight, the marchers paraded and demonstrated relatively unimpeded.

Video from corpo media Scotts Valley Sentinel:

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Hey Trashinistas:

Looks like next week we are playing a bunch.

Sat Apr 19th    Homeless Garden Fundraiser   
Sun Apr 20th    Regular Practice   
Tue Apr 22nd    Counter-Recruitment March at UCSC   
Sat Apr 26th    Free Skool workshop: Fun With Scrap Metal   
Sat Apr 26th    Aromas Live!
Sun Apr 26th    Regular Practice   

And somewhere in there, we were hoping to observe Gamelan Anak Swarasanti playing Balinese marching gamelan, beleganjur.  The busiest week ever, not counting Honk!  We hope you'll join us.

Check out our full performance schedule.

Sunday morning, marching bands took to the streets for a takeover of Ballard.  A march and rally down to the Farmer's Market, followed by a takeover of a public square in Ballard.

A night of more performance insanity.  Three more performances in three different venues in Georgetown, south of Seattle. Punched in the gut by a phenomenal performance by the bone-shaking Weapons of Marching Destruction.  Played with Hungry March Band and a remarkable set with Eugene's Samba Ja.  Picture Jake from Samba Ja rapping in Portuguese to an extended crazy breakdown version of our Ragga.

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Afterward, an after-party in the street with a dozen bands playing to a hundred dancers taking over the street.  Police start showing up, at least a dozen cars, dropping flares, blocking streets, disco party police car flashers.

An overheard surreal conversation:

Officer:  You have to move out of the street.

Drummer:  We're having fun!

Officer:  You're blocking traffic.

Drummer: What do you mean?  (pointing at a dozen police cars and line of flares) You're blocking the traffic!

Officer:  Come on now, this is silly.

Drummer:  Silly?  This (gesturing) is beautiful!

The officers walk away perplexed, shaking their heads.

And after the after-party, an after-after-party at a remote apocalyptic industrial area, a deafening drum jam, and Trash Orchestra plays flaming taiko.

Last Night we rocked a club in SE Portland.  In an obscure industrial part of town, through an unmarked door, up a dark stairway, an experimental music show, in which we were listed on fliers all over town as the hosts.

Two sets between performances of electronic looped, bent, sampled, modulated, and generated sound.  For the entire rest of the trip a lively and ambivalent debate sprung up over  the twisted nerdcore rap song, I Fucked the Giraffe.

As part of a nationwide day of action to mark the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, 1500 to 2000 students in the Portland metropolitan area walked out of class on March 20.

Trash Orchestra was there supporting the walkout, resistance to business as usual, youth liberation, and students taking greater control of their lives. It was thrilling to see 500 young people taking the street, demanding an end to a war that will affect their future. Hundreds of students chanting the lyrics to our songs. "Street by street! Block by block! Taking it all back!'

More than just symbolic, the walkout is also direct action, halting for at least one day the damage that these institutions do to our planet and our minds. Schools are preparing, preening, and educating students for entry into the middle-class world. This work -- something we consider the unquestioned and unavoidable dues of our citizenship -- and the consumerism that comes with it, is very much the problem, destroying what's good and beautiful on this planet and tearing apart the fabric of our relationships with each other and the Earth. Universities are very much part of the war machine, often doing weapons research and testing, administering weapons labs, and selling students into years of perilous military service.

Students took to the streets yesterday to say No to all that.