May Day Party
Dick Shay’s, NYC
NYC’s anarchists have made May Day a traditional day/weekend for gathering and we played the opening festivities for a wild crowd. This was the RMO’s third gig in about 6 hours, prompting the widely read underground email newsletter the Nonsense List to dub us the “hardest working band in NYC.”
Critical Mass Afterparty
Subtonic, LES, NYC
At this underground venue in the Lower East Side, the RMO played for a small, yet enthusiastic crowd.
Still We Speak Rally
Union Square South, NYC
Again, the RMO supported the pre-Critical Mass rally.
Anti-Rezoning Parade
Grand Street Park to the Waterfront at Kent and N. 11th, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Williamsburg and its growing arts community caught the attention of developers and the city, who smelled money in the prospect of rezoning much of the rough, yet beautiful, industrial waterfront of this diverse community. The many groups involved in the fight to make rezoning work for the neighborhood were fighting for height limits, mandatory affordable housing, and more public space. Our musical compatriots the Hungry March Band led the parade from the Grand Street Park and the RMO arrived at the ending location on the waterfront, ducking the police to play a few tunes for the assembled crusaders.
Queensboro Bridge Festival
Queensboro Bridge Park, Queens
This festival was moved back one day, thereby causing some time conflicts with our other show in the day, but the RMO would not be stopped. This was another show for the kids, celebrating the use of some of NYC’s best public space.
Central Park Earth Day Festival
Central Park, NYC
Each year, the Central Park Conservancy hosts an Earth Day celebration, and this year the RMO opened up the day’s events. Also present were the bike outlaws from Time’s Up, our friends the Groove Hoops and the world-spanning sounds of Paprika.
IMF and World Bank Protests
Washington, DC
At the behest of several DC-based peace and justice coalitions, the RMO once again traveled to the capital, this time to march in an anti-IMF and World Bank demonstration while the ministers of power and capital were gathered nearby in a swank Washington hotel. The high-energy march ended in a speakout near the meeting site. There, we played again, both alone and with the radical music collective Riot Folk, doing a rousing version of Bella Ciao. Later, we tore it up outside of an apartment party on the sidewalk before the cops were summoned. We then moved inside with a blistering improvised version of Take on Me and Turkish Disco, complete with drunken dueling solos. Limited photographic evidence is available.
Brooklyn Free Store Benefit
Asterisk, Bushwick, Brooklyn
This was a benefit for the Autonomous Space Collective, the group that operates the Brooklyn Free Store, a center for donations and free pick ups on Grand Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. They also hold events at the store, and have recently added an infoshop to the space.
