From Darkness To Light

From Darkness To Light (Philip Orem) World Premiere

From this year's Pride Concert, the world premiere of Philip Orem's tribute to Nelson Mandela, "From Darkness To Light."

Pink Saturday 2014

SFLGFBand: Pink Saturday 2014

The band makes its annual appearance at Pink Saturday in the Castro.

Dance Along Nutcracker 2013: Dress Like a Pirate

Dance Along Nutcracker 2013: Dress Like a Pirate

Band and cast members offer some costume tips for this year's Dance-Along Nutcracker.

Talk Like a Pirate: Dance-Along 2013

Dance-Along Nutcracker2013: Talk Like a Pirate

Band and cast members offer some tips for Dance-Along preparation.

Dance-Along Nutcracker 2013: Trepak

Dance-Along Nutcracker 2013: Russian Dance 

First promotional video for this year's Dance-Along Nutcracker.  Footage shot at last year's show by Chip and me, titles animated by me.

The Widow Norton's Pilgrimage: 1997

The Widow Norton: 1997

If you never had a chance to attend the Widow's pilgrimage to the graveside of the Emperor Norton (Emperor I of San Francisco and Protector of Mexico), this video should give you a taste of the kind of things that happened on that hill.  

Jose Sarria: San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band

Jose Sarria: San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band 

In 2003, we drove to Palm Springs and interviewed Jose for about 2 hours, getting his thoughts and memories of the band and Jon Sims.

The Fairest Of the Fair

SFLGFB: Fairest Of the Fair

A montage of footage of the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band through 2003, including founder Jon Sims and conductors Jeff Foote, Wayne Love, Jay Kast, Nancy Corporon and Jadine Louie.

Events depicted include:

Concert at Davies Hall (conducted by Jon Sims)
10th Anniversary Concert (conducted by Jeff Foote)
25th Anniversary Concert (conducted by Jadine Louie)
Dance Along Nutcrackers (between 1986 and 2003)
Both Clinton inaugurations (as part of LGBA)
Gay Games
San Francisco Dyke March
Pink Saturday
The wedding of a former band member (1990s)
Community concerts at Bethany United Methodist Church
The Widow Norton's Pilgrimage 
Lesbian/Gay Day at an elementary school
Community basketball game
Concerts in Yerba Buena Gardens (with Mark Leno and Nancy Corporon)
1906 Earthquake commemoration
"The Greatest Of Ease" (LGBA concert at Davies)
 New Year's Day Outreach for Seniors (YMCA)
Playing with the Melbourne band on their US tour
Fresno Pride

San Francisco Pride Parade 2013

SFLGFBand: SF Pride Parade 2013

Video of the band in the parade.  Virtually no one else.  Very band-centric video.  Because no one else in the parade matters, right?

Pink Saturday 2013

SFLGFBand: Pink Saturday 2013

Here's the band playing in the middle of Castro Street at Pink Saturday last weekend. 

Yes, I know there a continuity thing with Mike's sunglasses and baton.  I don't care.

A Pride Celebration Moment

Mystery Music Video 

This past Sunday, the band was Unit 10 in the parade (read: "we were near the front"), so we finished a bit before noon, and so hit the band's booth at the celebration relatively early in the day.  We had also promised Cheer SF that we would play on their stage while all the  cheer groups were appearing on the main stage around 2 p.m.

As we were walking through the celebration between the band booth and the Cheer SF stage, three of us encountered a performer wearing a relatively large camera rig, with an SLR pointed at her face, lip-synching to a quiet playback.  The video director asked us to jump in behind her and pretend to play our instruments.  After a few seconds of our bobbing up and down and all around, he instructed her to start turning in circles and indicated that we should follow her and stay behind her.  So we did.

Luckily, Chip was there to capture this brief "making of the music video" clip.

Then, as we walked away, the director ran up and handed me a business card and said, "Here's where the video will be posted when it's finished in a few weeks."  For the record, the band's name is Dot Punto, and the performer's name is Katya Lopez.
 
I'll post the final video as soon as I know it's available.


Update 7/13/2013:  The video is online and can be viewed on YouTube.  We are visible briefly around 2:15.

DOMA/Prop 8 Celebration in the Castro - SF Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band

SFLGFBand: DOMA/Prop 8 Celebration

Here's my montage from Wednesday night in the Castro.  Yes, it's a bit Band-centric.  So sue me.

The Band Came Back

The Band Came Back - Twice

Here is a mash-up of two performances by the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band of the same Sousa number -- once in San Francisco at Ebeneezer Lutheran ("herchurch"), and again two days later in Pacifica at Terra Nova High School.

Plagiarized from Heidi Beeler:

The Band’s music librarian, Kevin Tam, has resurrected an unpublished humoresque from the Sousa Archives entitled The Band Came Back. The piece was never recorded and hasn’t been performed since ol’ John Philip himself waved the baton in front of his own band in the early 1900s.

Sousa is famously known as the March King, though more than half of his 320 compositions are anything but. The Band Came Back is a humoresque, which are compositions that feature musical practical jokes. Known for being a wisecracker, Sousa wrote 14 of these comic pieces decades before PDQ Bach hit the scene, but only two were ever published and only three recorded.

Premiered in 1895 by the Sousa Band, the piece opens with a solo oboe playing alone amidst a forest of empty music stands. Section by section, clarinets, flutes, trumpets, tuba join him onstage, adding solo quotations from well-known ditties like The Campbells Are Coming, Dixie and Sousa’s own Washington Post March. By the end, instruments all come together for a rousing rendition of the finale from Wagner’s Tannhäuser Overture.

Dance Along 2012

Dance Along 2012

Dance-Along Nutcracker 2012

DAN 2012 - Overture Miniature

It's that time of year again...

Dance-Along Nutcracker 2012

Dance-Along 2012 

Here's the first promotional video for this year's Dance-Along Nutcracker.  It has no graphics because this is the footage that will be made available to TV stations for use in the background of calendar listings (under a voice-over or whatever they choose to do with it).

AIDS Walk San Francisco 2012

 
SFLGFB - 2012 AIDS Walk San Francisco

Same spot every year -- Checkpoint 1, across from Mallard Lake (near 25th Street entrance to Golden Gate Park).

This riveting video has elicited one whole comment on YouTube, whose sheer enthusiasm and love of music and the band and AIDS Walk just totally overwhelms me:  "I've been in that park."

San Francisco Pride Parade 2012

 
SF Pride Parade - SFLGFB

Pink Saturday 2012

 
SFLGFB - Pink Saturday

Dance-Along 2011 photos (3 of 3)

Sunday AM - DAN

Confession: I did not take these photos.  Chip took them while I was recording the show with the video camera.