THE FRESNAN

20 Seconds With A Fresnan: Devoya Mayo

It seems Devoya Mayo, aka Ms. Soulflower, is always doing something cool around Fresno. In fact, she may be doing something cool tonight. Probably, probably. Let's find out, through a little dorky telephone game we like to call: 20 Seconds With A Fresnan.

What hecks is this? We give Devoya only 20 seconds to tell us about her event. Sure, it costs us the same whether it's 20 seconds or 20 hours, but what fun would be 20 hours be? Plus we're jerks.

Listen to how it turned out (plus some bonus radio related news about Devoya) by downloading: 20secondswithdevoya.mp3 

You can also use the player if you're not iPhon-ing:

Fresgeek Weekend: What To Do Post, Post Arthop

Alright, so you've probably figured our where to go for Arthop at this point (and post-hop for sure). The MyCow Solo Show, CYC, the Iron Bird Cafe and the Everything Fresno store, among others, look good. But have you seen some of the cool little things going on this weekend?

FRIDAY
 >>>Tower Theatre hosts legendary dude of punk rock, print, screen and spoken word: Henry Rollins. He's returned to Fresno with another talking tour and it should be an interesting night. Famous Whitewater did a great full fanboy writeup about the show and Henry on Famous and even got to talk to him. It's a must read. Tickets can be found here or at the Tower Theatre box office.

>>>Returning this year is Movies In The Park. Every Friday throughout the Summer, the city will be showing a free movie at Eaton Plaza. Just bring a blanket to sit on or whatever and show up around sundown (you know, like we used to do at Woodward Park Drive In). This Friday's movie is the awesome (and partially filmed around Bakersfield) movie Star Trek.

>>>The first Friday of every month Creative Fresno finds a locally run place around town to meet-up with everyone to hang and talk about creative Fresno junk, usually over a cocktail or beer. This month it's at the still kinda new Mad Duck Grill and Tap Room. You can drop in anytime between 5 and 8 pm.

SATURDAY
>>>More alternative movie watching, this one is at the Tower Theatre and is hosted by Reel Pride. It's a film called Oy Vey! My Son Is Gay! Trailer it up for more info:

SUNDAY
>>>Remember when this blog was so lucky to have the talented Ms. Devoya Mayo aka Ms. Sunflower, doing some guest posting? Her biggest post was the one about Fresno needing a cooler breakfast spot. Well it looks like Devoya went and made that happen herself. She, along with Sonic Foundation, is hosting brunches at VVV's called Soulful Sundays. Check the details (clickable for better reading):

That's just a taste of what Fresno has to offer this weekend. We'll have a full rundown of what bands to see this weekend in our Bandgeek post on Friday morning. If you have something to add, please be a good Fresnan and leave a comment.

Post Arthop: Rademacher, DJ Bradley, Ms. Soulflower, Light FM

Bet that's enough DJ talent to keep folks off Audie's couches.

Also, won't hurt to remind you about this one:

Hopefully you're already familiar with Fresno's Rademacher and maybe Jonah And The Whale. Light FM is an alt/indie rock band from Los Angeles and according to their Facebook page have opened up for the likes of Billy Corgan and native-y Fresno band, Earlimart.

Some live Light FM:

Happening Tonight: Poetry In Motion II at Starline

It's the second annual gathering of Fresno coolness with some Arkansas thrown in for down home-y goodness:

Friday Fresgeek: So much Fresno nightlife, so little time

One of these Fresno spots will be the place to be tonight, you decide which one:

PALOMINO'S: "Stankonia" is tribute night for Outkast? For realz? Outkast? Um, okay. But hey, it's free and we do trust Ms. Soulflower and her putting-on-party-skills, so this can't be bad, even if it's Outkast. [Time: 9:30 Cost: Free]

CLUB FRED/AUDIE'S OLYMPIC: Fresno's Aesop will surely be preforming stuff off his new album "Living the Dream While Awake." Also joining in are DJ Swamp the Fay Wrays (fuck yea) and Benny and the Vets. [Time: 9:00 Cost: 10]

STARLINE: Super Lucky Catz and Bungalowdowns. See if you can get SLC to talk about their reality show tryout. [Time: 9:30 Cost: 5]

TOWER THEATER: The Fresno Filmworks people will be showing the movie "Ashes of Time - Redux." It's apearantly: "Elliptical, sweeping, lovely and thoroughly confusing" according to some dude at the Cron. [Time: 5:30 and 8:00 Cost: 10]

KUPPAJOE'S: Almost forgot this one, great lineup of indierock (and a pretty awesome flier) with Circles and Circles, From Indian Lakes, Racelegs and Awesome A Lot. [Time: 7 Cost: 6].

DCAC: The Downtown Community Arts Collective will have more Teresa Flores artwork and music by Paz. [Time: 5 to 8 Cost: Don't worry about it]

A PARTY we can believe in

We interrupt this regularly scheduled Tuesday indie music night at Starline post, to bring you: change. Fresno's genius party organizer, Ms. Soulflower, is helping put together an inauguration party like no other in town. There will be poetry, multimedia, and also music from Armen Nalbandian. Armen has assembled an all-star lineup of musicians to play music from Obama's iPod playlist - aaawsome idea. It's going down at Starline, it starts around 9:00 and is five bucks. More details can be found here or on Famous.

Hope we see ya out there, changing and partying it up.

Blogger on Blogger Crime: Late Update Interviews Devoya

Dammit! Balls! Why didn't I think of this first? Interviewing our own Devoya about her latest venture as Ms. Soulflower and her Friday night stints at Palominos. That's cool, Adrian at Late Update did a better job than I probably would have anyway. Play it:

Metropolis...

[Editor's note: Devoya, a.k.a Ms. Soulflower, is back with another fine contribution to The Fresnan; A firsthand rundown of the Metropolis craziness at the met.]

There are certain opportunities that are hard to pass up. I’ve been trying (rather unsuccessfully I might add) to say no to things that require I spend a lot of my free time working on. Yeah…I know I’m selfish. BUT….

About a month ago I was walking into Stones and there on the patio were Jason Merle and Dj Bradley chillin with what I can only imagine was the 3^rd or 4^th cocktail of the afternoon in hand.  As I strolled by Bradley stopped me, grabbed my hand and said “You’re playing my party next month at the Met. You have a 5 hour slot from Midnight to 5am.” And that my basically how it all started…

What happened is this:

1 Organizer per floor = 3 Organizers/DJ’s

3 Organizers/DJ’s book A/V Crew= 2 A/V Teams

3 Organizers/DJ’s book other DJ’s to fill slots between Midnight-5am= 14 DJ’s

14 DJ’S promote the hell out of said party and the lines are crazy long and ridiculous before the doors even open.

The day of the event I remember the word RAVE being tossed around on Myspace in regard to the party and immediately thought that might become a problem and sadly it did.

In the 24 hours since Metropolis I’ve heard at least 5 rumors as to why it ended before 5am as originally billed. The thing is I’m less concerned about that and more impressed that it even got that far. Moments like this are all too often just that…moments or dreams, rarely reality. That someone (in this case Bradley) had an idea , ran with it and somehow got 14 (busy) friends to participate for FREE is amazing to say the least. And you wanna know what? I bet all 14 of us (even the ones who didn’t get to play) would all gladly do it again.

Props

To the friends who weren’t able to get in (plus my sincere apologies) but tried.

To the heads that arrived early and chilled late…y’all are lovely.

To the out of town homies who randomly came through.

To the people who liked our “NO REQUEST SIGN”.

To the people who enjoyed the music we shared in The Departure Lounge

Below you’ll find my set-list from the night in question.

Peace~

Ms Soulflower Departure Lounge Set List

Nov 15^th 2008

1. Open Doors- Kira Neris
2. Take My Time- 4Hero
3. Heaven- Mark de Clive Lowe featuring Bembe Segue
4. Saturn- The Politik
5. Flashback- Fat Freddy’s Drop
6. Morena- King Britt Featuring Vikter Duplaix
7. I Miss You (remix)-Bjork
8. Love and War- Outkast
9. The Healer- Erykah Badu
10. Never been in love before- Talib Kweli
11. Get ta stepping- Mos Def & Vinia Mojica
12. Won’t do- JDilla
13. Universal Magnetic- Mos Def
14. Get A Hold- A Tribe Called Quest
15. Doomsday (remix)- MF Doom
16. Mr. Mister- J*Davey
17. Spazz- N.E.R.D
18.  Look what you’re doin to me- Jazzanova featuring Phonte
19. Keepin the faith- De La Soul
20. Girls around the world- Lloyd featuring Lil Wayne
21. La di da di- Doug E Fresh
22. Tonight- DJ Quik
23. Brass Monkey- Beastie Boys
24. Roller Skatin Jam Called Saturday- De La Soul

Appointment Radio: Move Up One Last Time

Regular readers to this blog know that my favorite Fresno radio show, Move On Up, is ending. I am sad that Fresno is losing this creative and educational little media outlet. Tonight is the final show for Devoya and Mykal. The guests tonight are Sol Lopez & Brotha Daryl Muhammad who will both discuss their work with youth of color. Tune in to 88.1 from 7:00 to 8:00.

And now, the whole story of Move on Up, from host Devoya:

And this is how the story goes....

Move On UP Is Moving On

Easily my favorite Fresno radio show of all time is KFCF's Move On UP on 88.1. No show has brought in such an eclectic mix of guests or covered the range of local and national issues that Move has.

Well, Saturday night at Audie's Olympic, MOU's Host Devoya Mayo and Engineer Mykal Powell will be celebrating the fifth anniversary of this Friday night radio staple. Normally that's nothin' but a sweet-ass party, but this one will have some of that old bitterness to it.

There are only two more shows left for Move On UP. The time has finally come to end it, that's all we really need to know. So it's going to be extra important to listen the next couple Friday nights at 7:00. And now even more important to be at Club Fred Audie's Olympic Saturday so you can see Devoya and crew off with a nice drink and some great music.

Fresno radio just got a little more bland. Move will really be missed.

New York Hip-Hop Crew Stranded in Fresno

It's not often that most folks are called upon to save Hip-Hop. Well....you've just been given that chance. As we speak New York Hip-Hop crew Readnex are stranded in Fresno and need your help in continuing their Frontlines Tour.

The tour bus, for this politically conscious group, caught a few snags in route to their next stop and they need to make some quick dough in the next few days to make said repairs. If anyone knows of spaces they can perform, please hit them on myspace or you can leave the info with me at [email protected] and I'll forward it along. Thanks in advance ~

A Return to Zapp's

It’s Friday and my guest on “Move on UP” tonight is none other than local musician (and friend) Niilo Smeds. We’ll talk about his recent tour with “Man Man” and what makes him excited in the way of local options. That all takes place at 7pm on 88.1 FM.

After that I’ll get in the Toyota and rush home to pick up my music, some Soulflower Compilations, and a few rows of 45’s I made as decorative as possible for tonight’s jump off over at “Zapp’s Park”. If you’ve never been to Zapp’s you should think about checkin it out. It’s a tiny spot just south of Olive on Blackstone. It share’s the odd distinction of having the ladies room attached to the Chinese food spot next door. So while you wash your hands you usually get a whiff or two of Special Chow Mein, but that’s beside the point.

The spot is well known for attracting an audience ready for live bands. Back in the day I had the pleasure of seeing Fresno favorites like Heavy Weather, Bennett Clark Funk Jam, Mofo, DLF and Papa Bear just to name a few. Even though the place was small it always left a big impact on me. I guess I’ve always had a soft spot for joints that have that juke joint aesthetic, so in 2003 I asked the owners if they’d allow me to throw a party there…and well that was the beginning.

I Enjoy, Drinking

I’ve always had a thing for a proper drink. I’ve also got a jones for local art. It’s for this reason that when approached to take part in Creative Fresno’s bartender challenge I immediately said yes. Of course that was back in 2007 when in the midst of a good karma streak I felt confident and ready to take on the world. Fast forward to 2008 and what you have is an entirely different bird. But that’s beside the point, so I’ll move on.

The challenge training took place on the Sunday preceding the event at Donavon’s (the lead organizers) home. Miriam (bartender extraordinarie) from The Landmark was our trainer. She really knows how to make you feel like you can handle a shaker at the end of two hours. I may have gained a false sense of security that afternoon. Donavon’s place was full of funny, smart and as the name suggests damn creative people. So of course I relaxed instantly and began to gauge what I thought things would be like in the actual setting.

But I gotta tell ya. Once I was at Palomino’s behind the bar with only Sunday’s two hours to prepare me, I was all thumbs. No sooner than I had gotten myself set up did someone roll up and ask for a Mojito. “Really…are you sure”? “Yep, strawberry please”. Just like that I had to dive right in and muddle on my very first try. Paul Palomino might just be the coolest man I know. He never once got mad at me for asking the same questions over and over and for stepping on his big toe. In fact at one point while Mike Oz was spinning (by the by, dope sets Mike and Tory) he leaned over and asked what night me and my boy (Mike) wanted to host our own night. Can you believe that? I’m making a mess all in the name of art in my neighborhood and he wants to know when I’ll come back? You gotta love it.

Drink For a Good Cause...for once

On any given night, you might go out and knock back a few with your buddies.  You start having some fun and you knock back even more.  Before you know it, somebody is calling you a cab as you hurl all over your spiffy new shoes.

Now, how does this little bit of debauchery help the city?  Or, a charity?  It doesn't.  Well, maybe you helped a local business with your booze purchases, a little.  But who else did you help?  Fucking nobody, ya drunk.

Tonight, it's time to turn your debauchery into charitable giving.

Come check out our own Devoya Mayo (hey, one post qualifies as a blogger here) as she battles DJ Heinz in a Bartender Challenge starting at 6:30 at Palomino's in the Tower District.  They make your drink, you give them a nice tip, and that tip goes to Creative Fresno's mural project.

Not getting this challenge thing?  Here's a better video explanation of what a bartender challenge is all about.

Fresno Needs a Cooler Breakfast Joint

There are few things in life more satisfying than a Sunday Morning (for me anyway). I tend to dwell far too long on Saturday nights in places that require you to vacate the premises just before the witching hour. But somehow, no matter the previous evening’s details, I’m always up and ready for what the day has in store for me on Sunday.

Sadly, that rarely brings anything in the way of breakfast for me. Let’s face it, if I stumble into bed after 2am, the last thing I’m thinking about is setting the timer on the coffee pot right?  This is however only 1 (of several reasons) why I’ve always wanted a cool breakfast spot in Fresno.

I mean think about it. How often have you been to Denny’s or an IHop and yearned for something other than Egg’s over Myhammy and piped in Muzak? You want more than that, you just don’t think of it as an option. You want a breakfast place that’s playing the same Radiohead song you were listening to the night before. You want a menu that boasts about its Vegan options but is not afraid to offer you the kind of bacon that makes you yearn for the days no one thought about clogged arteries. The kind of place that will provide you with the kind of decadence your severely hung over body so justly deserves. Oh and lets not talk about the décor? Would it be too much to ask for a place with a little ambiance built into the scheme of things? Trust me, there are more than enough Thrift/Vintage spots in Fresno to be able to pull that off without much difficulty.

But alas this is merely a re-occurring dream for a girl who usually takes her vacationing friends (yes, I have friends who come visit me in Fresno) to The Chicken Pie Shop or Irene’s for breakfast. That is not to take anything away from either of those places, I dig them both, but I think we have more than enough space to add a happening breakfast joint to the menu, especially when downtown is so ripe for the picking.

For instance, you can’t throw a rock without hitting a trendy breakfast spot in places like Chicago’s Bucktown Bongo Room (where I dined on the best pumpkin pancakes on the planet) or San Francisco’s lovely Mission district or even Downtown Sacramento for that matter.

I think it’s time people….time to have a place we can all read the Sunday paper, drink coffee and enjoy egg’s ( beaters or whatever) amid hipsters, backpackers, diva’s, poets, bboys and families alike all with a pulsing background of conversation, music and art. Now I ask you, is that too much to ask for?