Originally appeared on Dirt Rag Magazine.
Quotation:
The musicians rocked, packed and pedaled their way across the city, hauling their guitars, cellos, flutes and drum sets on rear trailers and Xtracycles, those endlessly useful bike rear extensions, and concluded with an evening show in the Mission District's Dolores Park.
THE BICYCLE MUSIC FESTIVAL
by Alastair Bland
It's no secret that cars stink, but who knew that bikes could rock? Around the nation and the world a growing number of musicians on the move are ditching cars and opting for pedal-power instead, taking their traveling acts entirely off the grid. In the winter and spring of 2007, the Ginger Ninjas, a folk-ska band from the Sierra foothills, took the revolution to new heights as they cycled 5000 miles in seven months from their hometown to Chiapas, Mexico. They played 80 pedal-powered shows and returned home in May by bus — and they made it just in time to headline the second annual Bicycle Music Festival in San Francisco.
On its first time around in August of 2007, the Festival rolled through the streets of San Francisco featuring local, low-impact acts that shirk cars and even dodge the ever-trendy biodiesel van. It was the first event of its sort-anywhere, to the best of its organizers' knowledge. Organized by Gabe Dominguez, guitarist in SHAKE YOUR PEACE! and Paul Freedman, a.k.a. Fossil Fool: The Bike Rapper, the festival featured a dozen bands and drew several hundred fans from venue to venue, beginning at the city's east side at the Alemany Farmer's Market. The musicians rocked, packed and pedaled their way across the city, hauling their guitars, cellos, flutes and drum sets on rear trailers and Xtracycles, those endlessly useful bike rear extensions, and concluded with an evening show in the Mission District's Dolores Park.
In its second time around, on June 21st, the Bicycle Music Festival, sponsored this time by Freedman's own cycling accessory company Rock The Bike, drew three times the fans as 2007, featured 15 bands, drew one thousand cyclists for the post-concert night ride and rocked louder. Musicians from every genre performed, and the electronics that gave sound to the bands were fully pedal-powered, generated by onstage fans riding stationary bicycles whose hubs were rigged to electrical converters, which in turn powered the amplifiers and microphones. This system was designed several years ago by Freedman, Dominguez and the Ginger Ninjas, who wouldn't have toured through Mexico without it. The technology has only grown lighter and more economical since its invention.
At the 2007 Bicycle Music Festival, two stationary bikes generated the amplifiers. This year, fans pedaled five onstage bikes and the music "was at least four times louder," says Dominguez, who hopes for even more volume for next year's event, though the permit-less guerilla nature of the festival commands a relatively low-key presence.
Meanwhile, the bike-music connection is taking hold elsewhere. John Silva, a communal bike ride organizer in Redondo Beach, California, has followed the lead of the San Francisco festival. On July 19 he, three musical acts with ties to the community, and scores of riders gathered at Valley Park in Hermosa Beach for an evening ride and a subsequent concert.
Dominguez believes the bike-band trend will spread, and in the town of his roots, Salt Lake City, rockers are itching to pedal.
"In Utah, the kids are totally ready, but there's no support base. They don't have the critical mass, so to speak, to rally the weirdos who would be this, and they don't have the time, the resources or the city that's willing to look the other way."
Dominguez has toured extensively around the arid West, the Ditty Bops, a high-profile gypsy- jazz duet in L.A., have cycled coast to coast, and bands basically everywhere are biking. The. nature of the Earth and of the bicycle precludes global cycling acts just yet, though the Ginger Ninjas are planning world tour. The band will address oceans as they're encountered and may choose to sail or hitch with cargo ships. But for bands that bike, there's still a continent to tour and fans who will follow, and the coming years could put a whole new sound to the meaning of rock ‘n' roll.