Cactus Rose @ Brooklyn Americana Festival 9/23
We are excited to play this year’s Brooklyn Americana Festival on Saturday, September 23rd @ 7pm @ the 68 Jay Street Bar. Our friend Alex Battles is also in the lineup so looking forward to a fine night out of twang. Come & catch us there! – A’ho*
Another Country / Have a good summer!
Howdy y’all…we’re still glowing from performing at the first annual Another Country twang festival in Brooklyn. It was a day full of alternative country acts unknown to us & we had a lot of fun discovering new music before our headlining set in the evening. Here’s some press below that gave us a fine mention:
CACTUS ROSE cited in the Village Voice
For the rest of this month you can catch us at some local powwows but no more shows for a spell as we enjoy a much needed summer break. Hope you are enjoying the best the hot season has to offer! – A’ho*
Cactus Rose live dates upcoming for June & July
We are looking forward to the 15th annual Drums Along The Hudson powwow — after a jaunt down South Dixie-way — & then gearing up to play some shows around the 5 boroughs. Come on out & catch us when you can! A’ho*
(Jeff McLaughlin – Guitar for Cactus Rose)
(Ben Killen – Banjo for Cactus Rose)
(Kandia Crazy Horse – Vocals & twang concepts for Cactus Rose)
June 10: Art In The Garden @ RING Garden, Inwood, Manhattan @ 5:20pm
June 21: #MakeMusicNY – 2 sets: UGC Eats on Park Avenue @ 1:30pm & Morris-Jumel Mansion, 64 Jumel Terrace, 6:15pm
July 2: Another Country festival @ Littlefield, Brooklyn (doors 2pm, $10-20)
Cactus Rose to perform @ 20th Annual Gram Parsons Guitar Pull in September 2017
We of Cactus Rose are big, lifelong fans of the father of Cosmic American Music Gram Parsons & honored to finally be paying him homage in sound. Come the end of September, we are heading down to Gram’s hometown of Waycross, Georgia, to perform in the 20th year of the Gram Parsons Guitar Pull & Tribute Festival, with headliners including the great Kentucky Headhunters (who I wrote a seminal Village Voice review about back in the day); & we are very pleased to have special guests joining us: Stanley Booth & Lauren Barth. Take a gander at the purty poster that’s circulating & prepare to come join us down Georgia way when we shall be singing a set that combines Cactus Rose originals & select Gram Parsons classics – A’ho!
March 4th For Standing Rock NYC
Some scenes from yesterday’s march through Midtown Manhattan in support of Standing Rock. I spoke in front of the main branch of the NYPL on Fifth Avenue & 42nd Street about multiple pipelines afflicting Turtle Island, the Ramapough Lunaape Split Rock Sweetwater Prayer Camp & the role of my fellow musicians in this resistance. I was also later interviewed by BuzzFeed on the approach to Columbus Circle. Video to follow. Despite the cold, we had a pretty good turnout & the freewheelin’ jazz band held us down, dancing at the rear of the column. ‘Twas another great day to be indigenous & help spread awareness – A’ho*
(All photographs by Kandia Crazy Horse unless indicated)
(Eagle Woman o’er my right shoulder & Kandia Crazy Horse w/ her handmade sign @ NYPL Fifth Avenue & 42nd St before the speakers & march)
Throwback Thursday: Emergency Rally for Standing Rock NYC 2/22/2 #mniwiconi #NoDAPL
The forced removal of Indigenous people from our own land (although we don’t have the sense of ownership of Turtle Island that the dominant culture does…) at #StandingRock is part of a time-worn historical continuum of violence that this country operates on. A trail of broken treaties ghosted yesterday’s actions in North Dakota, the water protectors camps engulfed in flames as per this Time footage
( Kandia Crazy Horse @ Emergency Rally for Standing Rock @ Union Square (yesterday) in NYC, by Zapotec photographer & artist Javier Soriano from Puebla, Mexico )
Last night on Wednesday, February 22, I joined a group of water protectors gathered in Union Square to stand in solidarity with the water protectors at Standing Rock, as we had been alerted via digital smoke signals to the 2pm deadline for forcible eviction. Yesterday, the remaining core of water protectors were evicted from the camps — including Oceti Sakowin — near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota. It was also an occasion to enjoy some of the unprecedented pan-indigenous unity we’ve been experiencing, including Zapotec brothers from Puebla in Mexico to queer Pinoy activists holding forth about the conflict in Mindanao in the Philippines. I & a Lakota brother from Red Warrior Camp are both affiliated with Split Rock prayer camp in NJ & spoke to that at the rally to encourage our local tri-state sisters & brothers to engage with the fight against our own black snakes afflicting the Hudson River and surrounding areas — the resistance is not over yet, upon any part of Turtle Island. As one of the youngest speakers at the rally, Abby, mentioned, many of us come from so-called minority populations & indigenous communities disproportionately affected by environmental racism, and we cannot let it stand – A’ho*
A reminder: “The Oceti Sakowin Camp: a first of its kind historic gathering of Indigenous Nations. The most recent such assembly of Tribes occurred when the Great Sioux Nation gathered before the Battle at the Little Big Horn.
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe supports the peaceful and prayerful message of the Oceti Sakowin leaders. The on-reservation camp allowed the tribe to explore longer term ways to meet the needs of the community that is 100% off-the-grid and features Solar & Wind power generation.”
See some of the photographs that Brotha Javier took of the rally here:
http://www.javiersoriano.com/2017/02/23/standing-rock/
Cactus Rose @ Branded Saloon, Brooklyn 2/17 – Black Hillbilly live for Black History Month
Join us of Cactus Rose band for our first show of 2017 this Friday night! We are celebrating #BlackHistoryMonth with our own cosmic twang contribution to the #BlackHillbilly tradition & looking forward to reaching out farther with this advocacy into the national & international music scene during this year. Follow us on Instagram: @cactusroselovesyou
#CactusRose live @ Branded Saloon
2/17/2017
603 Vanderbilt Avenue, Brooklyn NY
10:30pm
More info/directions: brandedsaloon.com
( Black stringband in 1900)
Throwback Thursday: Kandia Crazy Horse x Sheila E. x D.A. Pennebaker @ Yale University | Repose en paix Butch Trucks
I am still recovering from the sonic & social whirl of this past week in Connecticut where we were engaged in mounting the #DavidBowie & #Prince memorial conference “Blackstar Rising & The Purple Reign,” organized by my dear friend & Yale University scholar Dr. Daphne A. Brooks. A good deal to reflect upon from all I heard from my former rockcrit colleagues including Ann Powers of NPR Music & Michaelangelo Matos & Greil Marcus, as well as those of the Academy such as Tavia Nyong’o of Yale & Eric Lott of CUNY Graduate Center. I do appreciate the wide audience that my session with Sherae Rimpsey & Alan Light — Everybody Still Wants To Fly — garnered due to our being the lead-in to Solange Knowles’ keynote address. My take on Prince as Mystery Cult via the prism of what Harold Bloom has denunciated as “California Orphism” was interesting to some folks (smile). And my Texan bandmate KAR / Kimberly Robison kindly traveled up from the Hamilton Grange to support me in my presentation & also did some vital research at Yale on Emily West aka the Yellow Rose of Texas for an upcoming project we wish to mount – stay tuned!
I was also very sad to learn upon my arrival in New Haven that Allman Brothers Band drummer Butch Trucks was gone to Glory. A lot of flashing on my time spent on-and-off the Road that goes on Forever with the Allmans is surfacing & I am doing a lot of listening to my favorites among their compositions — particularly one of my 3 most treasured songs: “In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed.” So, more to come after a spell on what transpired last week…yet here’s two precious souvenirs of my time spent in New Haven — meeting one of the scions of the great Escovedo family of American music that has had a profound influence on me since I initially grew up in a colony of Aztlan, a Chicano barrio in Chocolate City; I am very much a follower as a singer-songwriter of Sheila E. & her uncle Alejandro Escovedo…& as a past film school graduate and lover of concert cinema, I have also been influenced by D.A. Pennebaker who made my beloved Monterey Pop. An honor all ’round to briefly share space with them…A’ho*
( Sheila E. & Kandia Crazy Horse of Cactus Rose @ Yale University last Friday night, New Haven, Connecticut )
( Kandia Crazy Horse of Cactus Rose & legendary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker @ Yale, after screening of his 1973 David Bowie documentary “Ziggy Stardust” )
I Still Stand With Standing Rock #NoDAPL
There may be a new administration in Washington & they are obviously in cahoots with the corporations behind the #KeystoneXL & the #DakotaAccessPipeline — but we of Indian Country & our allies are still determined to stop all black snakes from afflicting Turtle Island. I have received communication from LaDonna Brave Bull Allard of Sacred Stone Camp & others to come stand with our precious water protectors @ Standing Rock — or to organize actions locally to support them. I am pondering the latter with my fellow Afro-Native bandmate of Cactus Rose & some of my Tri-State Native Circle. We all must do our part, when they are raiding camps & dishonoring rights. We cannot let this stand. And I shall still be acting in support of the Ramapough Lunaape @ Split Rock with their efforts to #StopSpectra here in NY/NJ/CT. See you on the frontlines! A’ho*
Kandia Crazy Horse x Prince x Stevie Nicks @ BlackStar Rising & the Purple Reign 1/26
Dearly Beloved, I hope you shall join us this week @ Yale University in New Haven for the Prince – David Bowie conference: BlackStar Rising & The Purple Reign
In the lead-in to the Solange (Knowles) keynote address, I shall be holding forth on Mystical Prince, the Afro-Native spirit of his jazz belle mother Mattie & his Muses including my key sonic foremother Stevie Nicks (of course, Stevie & Prince collaborated on “Stand Back” & among other thangs, Prince clearly derived some of his famous style from Stevie’s bespoke sartorial aesthetic). Rather than due to Prince’s most adored blackface-wearing, jazz fusioneer heroine Joni Mitchell (who transformed from Saskatoon prairie flower trilling songbird into a black pimp who punked the Asylum gang royalty of LA with her own alter-ego Art Nouveau), I am a latter-day Lady of the Canyon because of my heroine Stevie Nicks — & a select elite of cult favorite canyon muses including Wendy Waldman, Essra Mohawk, Claudia Lennear & Judee Sill; they are all collectively the Muses behind songs of mine such as “Quartz Hill,” “Cowgirls,””Songcatcher,” & “Rare Bird” (& yes, my sophomore album was titled Canyons). As a sonic & spiritual acolyte-turned-Adept of Queen California’s Electric Eden (who possesses the Source Family lineage name Songbird Aquarian), I am looking forward to being purified anew in the purple-hued waters of Lake Minnetonka.
A-ho*
Flashback Friday: Kandia Crazy Horse x Jonathan Demme @ Saddle Up Saturdays
The Myth of the (Black) West: Jonathan Demme & I screening/discussing “Run Of The Arrow” & its director Samuel Fuller, the African & Native presence in the genre of westerns, the Civil War, the New South, Going Native, the legacies of frontier fakery extended to current “Mountain Men” type “reality” television & western individuals like Rachel Dolezal (who most forget forged a “Little Tipi-on-the-Prairie” narrative prior to deciding to become a black woman) + more last weekend in Pleasantville, NY @ the Jacob Burns Film Center. I was honored to partake in the first post-screening program & hope to perhaps return to delve into acid westerns before the end of the series.
(photos courtesy of Jacob Burns Film Center)
#SaddleUpSaturdays #HarlemOnThePrairie #FlashbackFriday
Reflecting on the West & complex visions of America at this inauguration time, while a coalition of black & indigenous activists are massing elsewhere in my Uptown NYC area @ the Harriet Tubman monument. Perhaps fittingly, I am featured today on Swirl Nation, a blog focused on multiracial & multiethnic lives in this land: Kandia Crazy Horse on SwirlNation
With what’s goin’ down on the social & political scenes, I also reflect on my past as a professional journalist & mourn the New Year loss of two of my former colleagues @ NYC’s once-bohemian, alternative newsweekly The Village Voice. I just learned of reporter Wayne Barrett’s (a notable Donald Trump chronicler) passing this afternoon & have still been trying to reckon with the legacy of Nat Hentoff as a famed jazz critic who partly inspired my joining the field of rock criticism. We shall be missing such voices in the media even more during the new presidency in America. May Nat & Wayne rest in peace. – A’ho*
Jazz Critic / my former Village Voice colleague Nat Hentoff
NYT on my former Village Voice newsroom colleague Wayne Barrett
Kandia Crazy Horse x Prince x David Bowie @ BlackStar Rising & The Purple Reign
Hope y’all enjoyed the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday; I spent mine meditating on the post-60s emanations of The Dream — as well as its limits as manifest in the oeuvres of Black Atlantic & Heartland rockstars David Bowie & Prince. I am finally at liberty to invite y’all to join us in New Haven @ the end of the month for the “Blackstar Rising & The Purple Reign” rock conference. Courtesy of an invite from my longtime dear friend of the Black Rock scene, former Princeton professor turned Yale scholar Dr. Daphne Brooks, I shall be presenting on Prince & activism @ Yale University; my evening program on 25 January also features Solange (Knowles) as keynote speaker & former SPIN magazine editor Alan Light.
The program also includes Sheila E., Kimbra, Questlove & others + a closing concert by TV On The Radio. More info & registration instructions linked: KANDIA CRAZY HORSE presentation @ YALE UNIVERSITY for Blackstar Rising & The Purple Reign 1/25
Looking forward to my rebirth in the purifying waters of Lake Minnetonka: HARTFORD COURANT on BLACKSTAR RISING & THE PURPLE REIGN
HAPPY NEW YEAR & #NoDAPL 2017!
Happy New Year, y’all & best wishes as the seasons unfold. I hope you had a grand ole holiday time; for my part, I finally got some much needed rest & a spell to rotate some albums of 2016 — especially country releases — that I never got to hear during the course of last year. We of Cactus Rose are taking some time to conjure, connect culturally & write songs during January & then we will be doing two shows on the Brooklyn Country scene in February. I will be making my first live appearances of 2017 in upstate New York & in Connecticut — the latter being a major event I am not yet at liberty to share details about. Stay tuned to this page &
…In the meanwhile: hope can rope yer hearts to join Jonathan Demme & myself @ the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, NY next Saturday for his western movies screening series / live event “Saddle Up Saturdays.” I will serve as the guest artist / interlocutor for the presentation of Dixie lore & Lakota-themed Run Of The Arrow starring Rod Steiger, Brian Keith & Charles Bronson — followed by a discussion + Q&A. The screening will be preceded by Jonathan’s Standing Rock documentary: Protection Not Protest: The People of Standing Rock
Neither I nor my fellow bandmates in Cactus Rose, Jeff & Kimberly/KAR, have forgotten about Standing Rock or Split Rock, despite the switch in focus to Aleppo or the trend hoppers moving on to the next new thing; and we remain committed to helping stop all the black snakes threatening Turtle Island. So this event will be a good opportunity to come and hear about the Split Rock actions & other causes of Indian Country as well as how it was for me to grow up Indian loving the western genre & cowboy music in the Vietnam Era when antiheroes dominated horse operas while there was a revival of Native American consciousness in the real world beyond celluloid. A’ho*
#IStandWithStandingRock
Tix & more information available here: RUN OF THE ARROW w/ KANDIA CRAZY HORSE 1/14 @ noon JACOB BURNS FILM CENTER
Throwback Thursday: Kandia Crazy Horse’s top albums of 2016 x Other Music NYC
I have been mostly focused on the Red Road > powwow highway > doing activism on behalf of Indian Country especially for Standing Rock / #NoDAPL during 2016. Yet once I was a rock journalist & music editor in a previous life, and I perpetually remain a vinyl collector & music fanatic. Amongst the many losses to the music world this year was my dear folks’ seminal record store in the NoHo section of downtown NYC: Other Music. I bought my last hauls of records there back in the spring/summer & we feted their existence with a great parade down the Bowery, followed by a concert @ Bowery Ballroom starring Yoko Ono & many other artists. So it’s now bittersweet to be closing out the year by voting for my most memorable recordings of 2016 in company with the OM fam — here’s my list:
KANDIA CRAZY HORSE 2016 ALBUMS (I will shortly be submitting ballots for the Village Voice Pazz+Jop in Manhattan & the Nashville Scene country music critics poll for Nashville, TN as well…)
& the other Other Music staff + fellow update contributors’ choices can be read HEREIN
& some scenes from the closing of Other Music…A’ho*
( Kandia Crazy Horse & Other Music staffer / WFMU DJ / Bim Marx producer Duane Harriott inside Other Music’s East 4th St store on the final day of operations )
( The last 2 physical copies of my debut album Stampede for sale @ Other Music NYC )
( Other Music co-owner Josh Madell & I outside the Bowery Ballroom on Delancey Street, after the parade / before the farewell concert started )
( Other Music staffer / bandleader of Chouette Amanda Colbenson & I outside the Bowery Ballroom after the OM parade down the Bowery, NYC )
( The banner that used to hang above the entrance @ Other Music on East 4th Street, NYC )
Throwback Thursday: Meeting Anna Deveare Smith
Yesterday was an afternoon well-spent in Midtown: attending the matinee of Anna Deveare Smith’s new play #NotesFromTheField @ Second Stage Theater & enjoying a post-show discussion of the school-to-prison pipeline and creative process. I was fortunate enough to see the work by the generosity of my friend who is planning to film the play in 2017, and then to meet Ms. Deveare Smith briefly afterwards. Of the many brilliant characters from various walks of American life that were featured in the play, I most enjoyed her voicing of Congressman John Lewis (D-Georgia) who is the activist that remained most at the forefront of my consciousness during 2016 & the presidential election cycle, as he urged folks to vote.
On a more personal note: Anna Deveare Smith gave me a treasured, high compliment – that my sounds / performance style / interaction onstage with space remind her of Sweet Honey In The Rock. Some of my most precious praise for my creativity that I have received & was happy to learn that Ms. Deveare Smith is from Baltimore, Maryland, aka B-more & thus of the same mid-Atlantic region – #DMV represent!
( Anna Deveare Smith & Kandia Crazy Horse, backstage @ Second State Theater in Midtown NYC )
Either through its staging or the eventual film, looking forward to Notes From The Field speaking to a wider audience. It is a masterwork engaging with this hard, turbulent moment of murders, #BLM, Standing Rock and the “New Jim Crow” on the prison-industrial complex that Angela Davis, Ava DuVernay & several others have been holding forth on, even as one of the major prison strikes in U.S. history has been unfolding this season with very little notice or coverage. How primary school students in minority / underserved communities are being treated is something we all need to think long & hard about…
Rebel Music In The Hour Of Chaos 12/12: On the State of protest music & activism in 2016 (final poster) #NoDAPL #BlackPower50 #IStandWithSplitRock
Beautiful poster art in my favorite color, by our brother-in-struggle Kyle Goen #kyledidthis
Rebel Music In The Hour Of Chaos: protest music concert @ Decolonize This Place NYC 12/12
“Rebel Music In The Hour Of Chaos:” Music emanates directly from my indigenous soul. Therefore, it immediately made sense for me to perform my music again this year as a soundtrack to our overlapping struggles – including #NoDAPL. Sounds, including freedom songs past & present, most powerfully link us together & amplify what’s transpiring from the actions in the streets. I was born in the Season of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going’ On,” an album that dominated my childhood as the strivings for Total Revolution continued past the 1960s societal upheaval; and the inspiration to become an artist-activist sprang from that era. I remain under the influence of rebel music from many artists and cultures – Please join us on Monday 12 December @ Decolonize This Place. 55 Walker St, TriBeCa NYC (Doors 8pm). when we will perform some songs of protest & be in conversation about our activism with Brotha Rob Fields (Bold As Love / Black Rock Coalition) – A’ho! Cactus Rose ft. Special Guests: Abiodun Oyewole (The Last Poets) & Mahina Movement
This may be our final show of 2016, so we really appreciate you coming through & all of your support during the many Standing Rock resistance actions – Wopila tanka, y’all
( Afro-Native sisterhood from Virginia: Kimberly Robison/KAR & Kandia Crazy Horse of Cactus Rose, Native Americana / cosmic country band, @ Decolonize This Place in TriBeCa this past Sunday for Black Art & Activism Now, curated by Dr. Camara Holloway & Tavia Nyong’o (Yale University) )
( preliminary poster for REBEL MUSIC IN THE HOUR OF CHAOS by artist Kyle Goen (Decolonize This Place/MTO Collective) #KyleDidThis )
( Jeff McLaughlin, lead guitarist / vocals of Cactus Rose )
( Kandia Crazy Horse with Lorena, Vaimoana & Gabby of Mahina Movement @ Decolonize This Place NYC )
( Kandia Crazy Horse & Abiodun Oyewole of The Last Poets – Cactus Rose Instagram: @cactusroselovesyou )
Kandia Crazy Horse x Democracy Now! 20 in NYC
Last night in Harlem, I attended the Democracy Now 20th anniversary celebration @ Riverside Church – by the grace & generosity of my filmmaker friend Jonathan (his footage from the past long weekend @ Standing Rock may be on the Tavis Smiley show tonight on PBS). This photograph is from just after I sang “This Land Is Your Land” in the nave @ Riverside with Tom Morello (Rage Against The Machine). They’d been spinning Woody Guthrie before the event & I reckon a Steve Earle version of the tune. I had been musing deeply on Woody, Pete Seeger, Madiba, my honorary uncle Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael)’s funeral in the same space & that MLK Jr denounced the Vietnam War from that pulpit. Singing in this sanctified Harlem space by the Hudson riverside got me fired up for next week’s rebel music program @ Decolonize #AllPowerToThePeople #CactusRose #KandiaCrazyHorse #artist #activist #indigenousrevolutionary #DemocracyNow20 #SingOut!!!
( Tom Morello by Kandia Crazy Horse )
Another photo from “Celebrate 20 Years of Democracy Now!” that Gina Belafonte sent me during the event. Although they knew each other previously, this was the first time Noam Chomsky & Harry Belafonte shared a platform according to him. What I loved best about Uncle Harry’s portion: he referred to Standing Rock & remade the call to Obama — as per my own wish throughout Walking Eagle’s presidency — to pardon Leonard Peltier. Accompanied by Democracy Now‘s footage @ Standing Rock & other indigenous resistance actions including those of Idle No More, I felt good to have our issues addressed on the date of the camps’ eviction (5 December). This discussion with the icons plus show hosts Amy Goodman & Juan Gonzalez occurred right before Patti Smith took the stage with a guitarist & her daughter Jesse on piano (a generational sonic nurturing I was glad to bear witness to as a female singer-songwriter & activist) to sing a forceful rendition of “People Got The Power” to a standing ovation.
( Noam Chomsky & Harry Belafonte sharing a platform for the first time – Democracy Now 20 @ Riverside Church in Harlem, by Gina Belafonte )
I am grateful I got to attend the event, be inspired by the speakers including Danny Glover & Danny DeVito, and, impromptu, be invited to sing a song for the people by one of our most hallowed American artist-activist icons, Woody Guthrie. Still musing on the takeaway from this celebration & will be sure to express it at my own protest music conversation/concert next week in Manhattan. Please join us in TriBeCa on the evening of 12/12 – We The People have many more reasons now in the Americas to #SingOut!!!
A’ho*
( Kandia Crazy Horse, singer/songwriter/indigenous activist of Cactus Rose, Native Americana / country music band, @ Riverside Church in Manhattan, after Democracy Now 20 )
Standing With Standing Rock #mniwiconi #NoDAPL #defendthesacred
Just returned a bit earlier from my twin Camara’s #blackartandactivismnow event in TriBeCa @ our home away from home #DecolonizeThisPlace — fortunately, my Black Rock Coalition/Bold As Love good friend/compadre Rob Fields was seated by me at the program, sharing the digital smoke signals about the #NoDAPL good news with me during the panel & then, upon returning home, got a ring from my friend Jonathan from the camps @ the frontline in North Dakota giving the confirmation that the easement was not granted to ETA – if they git’er done, Jonathan’s footage will appear on the Tavis Smiley show on PBS Tuesday night. I finally truly believe in the power of prayer, happy to see such a great outcome after many months of organizing, laboring, marching, rallying & of course, singing, in support of #StandingRock.
Yet this is not the end, for we #blacksnakekillers of the Tri-State must be heartened by this result & continue to fight to #StopSpectra #NoAIM #NoAlgonquinPipeline & I remain #standinginsolidaritywithsplitrock >>>>>>>—–))—>♥ Sometimes we on the right side of history can prevail & conscience trumps greed and corruption. Thank you, President Barack H. “Walking Eagle” Obama & the Army Corps for your action!
Overjoyed that we water protectors have won! The Dakota Access Pipeline will be re-routed, which is a hard-won victory for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe & rest of the Oceti Sakowin. The ordered environmental impact statement will take months to complete, so it’s not all over & done yet. Still, we celebrate this huge victory & I will report back on the gnosis and mood of tomorrow night’s Democracy Now! event held by Harry Belafonte & Danny Glover et al @ Harlem’s Riverside Church – A’ho!
ARMY HALTS CONSTRUCTION OF DAKOTA ACCESS PIPELINE!
Throwback Thursday: Cactus Rose x Mahina Movement
Here’s a snap by youngblood Claude from last night @ Decolonize This Place, just before the sistren of protest music trio Mahina Movement sang a mighty powerful song In The Spirit of 1491. Contributing some guest vocals — impromptu, I joined them on singing “Ella’s Song” by Sweet Honey In The Rock, and some other tunes — & bearing witness to the live recording of their album for Palestine was a great way to end Native American Heritage Month.
(L-R) Kandia Crazy Horse, singer/songwriter/activist of Cactus Rose; Mahina Movement: Lorena Ambrosio (vocals, cajon, spoken word), Vaimoana Litia Makakaufaki Niumeitolu (vocals, spoken word) & Gabby (vocals, guitar), activists
We be #strongresilientindigenous & we’re looking forward to performing together come 12 December, back @ Decolonize in TriBeCa – A’ho!
#womenwarriorwednesdays #femalesingersongwriters #artists #activists #indigenousrevolutionaries #tbt #NoDAPL #FreePalestine
Still Standing In Solidarity With Standing Rock #mniwiconi #NoDAPL
As I have been these many months, I continue to be engaged in the Dakota Access Pipeline resistance in solidarity with the Oceti Sakowin of North Dakota – & now, supporting Split Rock as well (sanctioned by Red Warrior Camp), in solidarity with my cousin’s wife’s people, the Ramapough Lunaape of New Jersey, in order to stop the construction of the Algonquin Pipeline. Due to the escalation of attacks on the water protectors @ Standing Rock last Sunday night, I am receiving many communications on the cause & have now been invited to perform at yet another benefit for the camps, which will take place in NYC before Christmas. Other things are afoot as well & will relate about them as they unfold. Glad to note my Virginia Native great aunt is taking up flooding the phones to the president & state representatives with her circle of elders on behalf of Standing Rock!
( Kandia Crazy Horse, water protector, in Midtown NYC #mniwiconi #NoDAPL #NoAIM #defendthesacred #blacksnakekillers of Turtle Island )
For now, reflecting on having participated in the rally > march for Standing Rock last Wednesday @ Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan & then performing at the Benefit For Water Protectors of #StandingRock on Friday night — making our debut as Cactus Rose at Brooklyn’s famed Jalopy Theater for ole-timey/hillbilly/folk/mountain music. It was an honor to serve as the headliner for this benefit, with our special guest: Seminole/Shawnee/Mikisúkî singer/songwriter/activist Lonnie Moon Fire Harrington. I have been told by the organizer that the event raised almost $2,000 in donations, so – Wopila tanka to all who came through!
Enjoying these last days of #NativeAmericanHeritageMonth — before band rehearsals resume for our full slate of December performances & attending two events this week for artists I greatly admire: tomorrow’s BET screening of the Sharon Jones documentary (in memoriam) & the private viewing of Morrison Hotel Gallery’s traveling Neil Young exhibit in SoHo on Thursday evening. Looking forward to seeing y’all out-n-about, as well as at the Standing Rock teach-in later this week @ Decolonize This Place – A’ho!
( Cactus Rose, Native Americana/cosmic country band, debut @ Jalopy Theater – pix by Jan Bell of The Maybelles )
Kandia Crazy Horse & Cactus Rose debut @ Jalopy Theater, Brooklyn, for Standing Rock #NoDAPL
As a fan/supporter of the Americana & Alt-Country scenes for decades, as well as a longtime rock journalist/music editor covering the country genre, I became aware of Brooklyn’s Jalopy Theater at its inception & used to frequent it a lot in the earlier days of its existence when I socialized with a lot of rural transplants to the City from elsewhere in Mainland America. Since I started writing songs & then playing out, have long wished to play there for Jalopy is the main equivalent in NYC to what the Nashville country Mother Church, the Ryman, provided for generations of hillbilly singers & players during the 20th century. So I am pleased that I am finally making my debut appearance @ Jalopy Theater on 25 November, with my new Native Americana / Cosmic Country band Cactus Rose: Jeff McLaughlin (guitar, vocals), Evan Taylor (drums), Hilary Hawke (banjo, vocals) & our frequent guest star, Seminole elder/artist/activist Lonnie Harrington (guitar, vocals). Thanks to the organizer of this benefit for the water protectors of Standing Rock that we are performing in support of: Jan Bell of the Maybelles & #BrooklynAmericanaFestival
( My picker, Jeff McLaughlin, with his signature Heritage guitar, during our Cactus Rose band rehearsal this afternoon, High Harlem NYC – We are pleased to continue our activism & being of service via our art on behalf of Standing Rock — as well as the Split Rock — water protectors in North Dakota & New Jersey #mniwiconi #NoDAPL #NoAIM #StandingInSolidarityWithStandingRock #LoveWillWin )
It will be fun to again share a bill with the husband of my dear sistahfriend & fellow Georgia Peach, Amanda Jo Williams, that I have sung with for years: Matthew O’Neill – Matthew’s also a big Neil Young fancier & we commune often about Neil’s sounds & Native lore; so great timing to do a show with him during Native American Heritage Month & right after Thanksgiving. Looking forward! Nee Ah Nee – A’ho*
Kandia Crazy Horse on The Red Road East (the sequel) #NoDAPL #NoAIM
Last night, I received Supermoon Medicine & then journeyed to the television station of Bronxnet to serve as a guest artist-activist on Fierce-Truthseeker’s (Tsalagi) show The Red Road East, which covers art, entertainment & political issues of Indian Country. As you may recall, I was the guest on the first-ever episode of the program & was happy to be asked back again — specifically for Native American Heritage Month — to speak on the Standing Rock & Split Rock resistance movement in the NYC / Northeast area, what actions we have done & plan for the future & promote the upcoming Standing Rock benefits I will be doing here: on 25 November @ Jalopy Theater in Brooklyn & the weekend of 16 December on Manhattan’s Upper East Side @ Ibex Puppetry. Additionally, I will be doing an artists & activism program on the current state of protest music, back at Decolonize This Place in TriBeCa on 12 December, with my Native Americana / Cosmic Country band Cactus Rose & special guest Abiodun Oyewole of The Last Poets. Stay tuned / follow me on Instagram for posters, ticket links & updates on these events.
When The Red Road East airs, will share the footage here for y’all outside the local NYC network. The Standing Rock benefits of Neil Young, Jackson Browne & Dave Matthews have gotten a lot more notice than the efforts of our grassroots collective of activists & generally, it’s difficult to get the media to pay attention to the creation of independent musicians without multi-million dollar teams behind them. Yet we are trying hard with very few resources to contribute to the cause with an all-female artists lineup Standing Rock benefit – the one slated for mid-December — to remind people that, despite the election outcome, #TheFutureIsFemale …So we thank you heartily for your support & for coming through to the concerts. I am a mite weary, but enjoying #NativeAmericanHeritageMonth to the fullest! A’ho*
( Kandia Crazy Horse @ Bronxnet studios, before the live taping on “The Red Road East” )
( Kandia Crazy Horse of Cactus Rose & Abiodun Oyewole of the Last Poets @ Bronxnet, after the taping of “The Red Road East” #NativeAmericanHeritageMonth x #BlackPower50 #indigenousfutures #IStandWithStandingRock )
(The set / studio of “The Red Road East” hosted by Fierce-Truthseeker #Tsalagi #Cherokee)
“Those who damage Mother Earth, damage us all / Forgive them / They don’t yet see”
– Neil Young
Standing Rock National Day of Action #NoDAPL #NoAIM NYC
( Ramapough Lunaape president/chief Dwaine Perry & Kandia Crazy Horse, Native Americana singer-songwriter/activist, of Cactus Rose band @ Central Park, after the Ramapough Lunaape clan mothers’ march in Manhattan )
We of the Eastern Nations in NYC / the Tri-State area are standing in solidarity with Standing Rock today for the National Day of Action. Check your local groups for opportunities to participate. I did prayerful advance marching with the Ramapough Lunaape Nation clan mothers & their Chief Dwaine Perry who came into Manahata from New Jersey on Sunday. We proceeded from Columbus Circle up through Central Park where we held the circle & performed water ceremonies prior to the Supermoon rise. I have been invited to sing in support & be of service at the Ramapough Lunaape water protector camp @ Split Rock in future & look forward to it. Many of us indigenous activists of the NY / NJ / CT area are committed to stopping Spectra, the Algonquin Pipeline, & halting any other pipeline projects that arise in the Northeast. As Sister Davidica Little Spotted Horse of the Oglala Lakota told us last week, the goal is for folks to attend to the black snakes in their own backyard rather than everyone converging on Standing Rock – still we have much to learn from the Oceti Sakowin & remain strong in solidarity with them as they defend The Mother – A’ho* #IStandWithStandingRock & #SplitRock #StandingRockNationalDayOfAction #NativeAmericanHeritageMonth #mniwiconi #NoDAPL #NoAIM #LoveWaterNotOil
America: We Got To Work for Peace
“We got to work for Peace / Peace ain’t gonna be free / Gotta go to war…” so often sang my late hero & artist-activist influence Gil Scott-Heron (but he was not a warhawk, he was singing of peace-waging), when I used to see him annually in NYC at venues such as S.O.B.’s downtown. And, while I listened to his tunes “B-Movie” (about Ray-Gun America in the 1980s), “Winter In America” (a reminder for #NativeAmericanHeritageMonth & due to escalated actions around the Dakota Access Pipeline resistance & halting other black snakes of Turtle Island) & “Gun” (for obvious reasons in trigger-happy America & upon Veterans Day), this week & then just spoke with my Pamunkey great aunt Ethel from Virginia, who is an activist/southern belle/church lady in the truest sense & at 91 would have been embedded all year @ Standing Rock were it not for ailments, I was reminded indelibly that we cannot despair at this hour of chaos after the presidential election. We must be strong, we must be prayerful if we follow Native tradition & other faiths, and we must seek to be united as possible in order to work for Peace in the coming days of a New Nation that does not honor nor respect the rights of all of its citizens.
( Caitlin Rose & Kandia Crazy Horse @ Mercury Lounge NYC (w/ photobomb by Roddy of Daniel Romano’s band – Follow @cactusroselovesyou on Instagram )
2016: A year of sonic loss, domestic terrorism against #NoDAPL water protectors & days of rage in newly-minted Trump America…I will not retire from my activism & I am feeling a renewed dedication to songwriting, illuminating the folkways of the postmodern New South, and collaborating with other (Native) artists that also follow the Way of the New World to work towards indigenous futures. So, instead of wallowing — although I was/am mighty weary — I went out into the fractious City, finding fellowship & even some laughs with other indigenous activists from near and far as well as musicians from Argentina (Nico), Canada (Daniel Romano & band), & my sistah-in-twang Caitlin Rose (Nashville via Texas). While we raised a toast of Tecate backstage @ Mercury Lounge in the East Village/Lower East Side to Canadian singer-songwriter icon #LeonardCohen & #MightyBaby’s Martin Stone who just passed & then I rotated sounds of my treasured record collection overnight in their memory + for Veterans Day (my step-great-grandfather Mr. Bridges of SW Georgia fought bravely in World War I & always remember him upon this day) — Elyse Weinberg, Stevie Nicks (who I mightily wish I could catch on her current tour!) & Fleetwood Mac, Jon Lucien, Rufus Wainwright — it was deeply impressed upon me that we must be thankful that #WeAreStillHere able to sing, play, laugh, dance & write songs, despite possible dark days ahead on Turtle Island and all of the many sad losses that have befallen the music world in 2016. As discussed with #CaitlinRose, I look forward to playing in Nashville, doing some festivals & sharing new songs in 2017, with my trusty band Cactus Rose holding me down. Some don’t like (colored) women who are brave & fly the freak flag high; there are concurrent wars against us of the #NoDAPL resistance and the collective body of black women in this society; and there are some entities that have tried/want to silence my Voice – but still I shine on. And I am going to stay #BlackHillbilly ’til I die. Here’s to #TGIF — as my great aunt would say — and looking forward to enjoying the remainder of #NativeAmericanHeritageMonth
A’ho #countrygirlsdoitbetter
( Nico Bereciartua of Magpie Salute (from Argentina) & Kandia Crazy Horse of Cactus Rose band (in hat Karen Dalton) @ Henry Diltz’ Morrison Hotel Gallery in SoHo for “Midnight Rider” photography exhibit on Gregg Allman of the Allman Brothers Band by Patricia O’Driscoll, NYC )
>>>>>>—–))—>
( Why I want to see Stevie Nicks (who I have never seen) live…She composed this song “Silver Springs” while on the Road in my homeplace of the #DMV. I used to spend special times with my late mother in Silver Spring in the brief period before she walked on & grew up going there often in my “Maryland is for crabs…Virginia is for lovers” shirt in the 1970s. Precious memories…& songwriting inspiration! )
( How I came to truly know/love Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” – via my beloved & the best male Songbird of my generation #JeffBuckley (RIP) #ScorpioRising #ScorpioSeason – In Memoriam for all the Singers & Players & Freedom Fighters )
( & Leonard Cohen & Jeff Buckley’s acolyte who’s one of my most beloved contemporary artists: #RufusWainwright – This 11/11 tune comes from his double-LP masterpiece Want One / Want Two that was life-changing for me in the early Aughts. I still treasure getting to meet Rufus once backstage at a taping of the Jimmy Fallon Show in Manhattan, courtesy of my brotha Kirk Douglas of The Roots )
cactusroselovesyou.com 