because the consultants say this is a good idea
Dennis Somera, who performed at last month’s New Reading Series, is featured in this article by Claire Light on KQED arts blog. The article is about Neo-Benshi, something several of our ever-name-shifting reading series’ writers/poets have been involved in.
Here’s the link to an article about 21 Grand, by Larry Kelp, though it requires a fair amount of scrolling.
For your convenience, and ours, the text:
A 21 Grand Experiment
Oakland’s Pivotal Avant-Garde Art Space Hangs in There
The address may have changed, twice, and it may have recently run a gauntlet through the city’s use-permit bureaucracy, but the unique arts and performance space 21 Grand has kept its name and lofty goals intact, providing a room in Oakland for visual and musical artists to push the boundaries. (more…)
A few weeks back, the SF Bay Guardian featured a well-meaning blog post about us. The author laments not getting out to our shows as often as she’d like. While we are well aware what materials pave the road to hell, we would be dishonest not to admit that we, too, don’t get out as often as we’d like. Plus, we’ve spent a lot of time pondering the phrase “egalitarianism begets mediocrity,” and greatly appreciate that the author feels we are an exception to that common occurrence.
This post was also about the benefit we held a few weeks ago at ATA which was a great success. Thanks to everyone who performed, attended, and left a significant quantity of high-quality discounted Valentine’s Day candy for us to eat for the next week.
21 Grand resumes event programming with this weekend’s 8th Annual T-10 Video Festival, curated by Kriss DeJong and eliot daughtry of Killer Banshee. Different programs Saturday and Sunday nights, both starting at 8:30pm.
If you like, peruse the press coverage:
Rachel Swan’s article in the East Bay Express.
Reyhan Harmanci does us proud in the SF Chronicle.
This was an interview conducted by Josh Wilson of the Expo for the Artist and Musician from 2005 that was edited and published in The Expo’s newspaper.
Profile — 21 Grand
21 Grand came up in the thick of the Bay Area’s dot-com spree. It was a period of excess, but also lots of cultural ferment. Tell us about the original motive, impulse and cultural/social/political moment that gave rise to 21 Grand. Also good is any background on what it took in terms of fundraising, motivating resources, finding volunteers, etc.
21 Grand began with six people brought together by JD Schreiber, who had a storefront gallery on Telegraph Ave. to form a larger collective, arts space. We wanted to do something in Oakland at a time when San Francisco was still pretty much the only place to go, though a lot of artists and people in general were leaving SF for Oakland because of the dot com effect. It was April of 2000. The 21 Grand Ave. space came first before the collective. It was available and it was cheap – $700/month for approximately 900 sq ft of storefront and about 1500 sq. ft. upstairs as potential studio space.
First, major thanks to everyone who has donated money (you know who you are) and those who have donated time and expertise meeting with us about our current situation (Lori Z., Jen and Nicole, Ian, et al.). Thanks to Moe! for organizing the Rock Lotto, Aaron and the Fishtank for hosting, and everyone who played and attended for doing so. Thanks to Kimberly Chun for writing a article about us in the SF Bay Guardian. Thanks to David Downs for blogging about us for the SF Weekly.
We’re currently in a temporary holding pattern with the building department and should soon find out when and if they will let us obtain special events permits for shows. We may be limited to a capacity of 49 people until certain conditions are met. We don’t know yet.
We’re also looking for places (ideally in Oakland) to have benefit shows in the early part of next year.
An innocent google blog search turned up this KQED review of August’s Monsters of Accordion show. We were totally unaware that our local NPR/PBS affiliate had content of this sort.
East Bay Express profiles Ike Levin and tonight’s Forward Music Festival. We’re not sure whether we appreciate being referred to as a place improvising musicians are “relegated to,” however.
Derk Richardson in the Chronicleon the inimitable David Slusser.
Scroll down for SF Bay Guardian calendar pick of Old Time Relijun. Bonus points to the author for referring to a previous show.
Oakland Magazine’s Mills College Music Department article mentions 21 Grand several times and devotes paragraphs to regulars, Aurora Josephson and Theresa Wong.
21 Grand’s existence has certainly given the East Bay Express things to write about; not as much as Jerry Brown has, but we do our part. The East Bay Express has sometimes showered us with praise, and at other times, covered us with clueless and condescending prose, sometimes in the same article. We know enough not to be outraged by this. After the 2001 blurb in the short-lived Urban View that proclaimed 21 Grand is “so hip it sucks,” our skins thickened quite a bit. We did breathe a sigh of relief when the Express ceased to be a tentacle in the New Times Village Voice Media empire, as it significantly decreased the likelihood that we’d be the subject of a salacious exposé of the Invaded by Hipsters variety.
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