I’m still recovering physically and mentally and socially from HONK! last weekend. What a magical event! Such energy! Check out all these great photos by backseatpilot on flickr! And even more from Greg Cook!

Brass Solidarity were guests of honor at HONK! this year after their visibility (audibility?) in Minneapolis’ community response to government opression over the winter. There’s a bunch of viral short-form video of them playing at Alex Pretti’s memorial that I’m not going to link here because I don’t use those apps, but go look them up on there, it’s powerful stuff.

Brass Solidarity is a Minneapolis community street band that formed after the murder of George Floyd, whose core mission is Black Liberation. Something they were careful to emphasize to folks is that they didn’t just come together spur of the moment in response to ICE murdering people this year - they’re out playing in George Floyd Square every week, so when their community was under attack they knew what to do. It goes to show the huge importance of connecting with your community and building these sorts of bonds with your neighbors.

It was really inspiring to hear about how they run their organization, in particular the centering community over the music itself. I think the like, joy/grief/solidarity comes through in their performances, regardless of like musical technique or whatever they were being self-effacing about. They sound fantastic.

“Hold On (Change is Comin’)” is a song by Minneapolis gospel ensemble Sounds of Blackness from their 1997 album Time For Healing. Brass Solidarity has made it one of their standards and it sounds really hype sung through a megaphone.