Kansas City Fights for Home: From Rural Grit to RecordBar to City Hall and Back to the Brick

The Living Breathing Folk Song Last Monday

 

"If I had to start my business over, I wouldn't do it. There's a big difference between building a business and making a home”—Peregrine Honig, owner of Birdie’s, at the recordBar “Know Show”

Honig at RecordBar Know Show

In a March 4^th social media post, Kansas City’s great guitarist/vocalist/support player and all-around instigator Cody Wyoming, wrote these words:

 "Here’s the big downer.

 “I am astonished at how little value is placed on what is essentially my life’s work. Being a local musician, I am not unaccustomed to being undervalued. I’m no stranger to dismissal and disrespect. But even in this day and age, when Live, local music, is already an endangered species; I find myself aghast at how lowly and dismissively that the majority of the population views my 'life’s work' not mine specifically. All of it. Everybody who does what I do. People have no regard for what we do. We are not 'essential.' We are not important. And we are not worthy of consideration."

Kadesh Flow at Know Show

 In the entire post, but particularly in these words, Cody has captured where we are at this point--in our world, in our country, in our everyday life. What matters about life is not valued. It doesn't matter against the need to make the next big buck, particularly as the capitalist system falls apart.

 You know, there was a time (1776) when “Father of Capitalism” Adam Smith saw the potential of the system to liberate organized workers. Smith before Marx made it clear the workers had to collectivize because the owners (Masters, as he called them) would always push wages down. Of course, the first country based on this system immediately employed slavery for 80 years until the industrial economy won out. Then, it fought unions the whole way. Now that our technology has reached a point where the value of labor itself is trending toward zero, the owners are organizing in new ways, with speculations like that so well documented by John Sherman’s ‘Royal Request." 

The Filmmakers, Wednesday

I have included that video and seven others documenting the activity this week here: "John Sherman's 'Royal' Request"

This is why Rural Grit, the Record Bar, and a host of musicians--too numerous and from such diverse genres I cannot begin to try to sum it all up--are joining forces with KC Tenants, the Missouri Workers Center, Standup KC, and other groups fighting for basic rights and opposing the ridiculous lies currently being spewed by the billionaire class to turn downtown KC into nothing more than a series of interconnected amusement parks.

 

What's been happening at the The Brick the past few weeks has been even more amazing than what happens at the Brick all the time anyway. People are coming together to maintain that scrap of humanity that exists between the 1400 block of Grand and McGee and 20th Street, a place we have been proud of as the Crossroads Arts District, even the ground where Hemingway once pledged he learned most of what he needed to learn writing for the Kansas City Star. 

Nora Bell with her own, great "Vote No" song

The world is trying to move on to a place where billionaires can make their last cash grab before the system entirely collapses and the average person has no say in the future. From Artificial Intelligence to the richest of the rich planning their escape to Mars, we do realize this is the juncture in front of us, don't we? We've seen this coming a long time.

 Are we ready to fight for our quality of life?

 People may think this is simply a stadium question, but I would argue it's much more than that.

 It's about whether we believe people matter. As Cody says, "our life's work" is at stake.

 

That’s all of us who don’t have the money to push others around. That’s most of us in a world where a January Oxfam report stated, since 2020, “The world’s five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes…while the wealth of the poorest 60 per cent - almost five billion people - has fallen.”

 It’s not hard to see where our real interests lie—with each other, with our artists, our fellow tenants, and our fellow workers who can be outspent but who have numbers on our side.

 And we have our art. The Rural Grit Happy Hour moved its party to Kansas City’s premier music venue recordBar on Wednesday night and packed the house with four hours of short sets of everything from Indian instrumental music to hip hop to folk to rock to hardcore punk.  

Steddy P Rocks the "Hell No" Show

Everyone got off on each other’s music and perspective. I’ve never seen this city come together the way it did that night.

 And something even bigger is happening tomorrow, April 1^st.

 In the words of the organizers:

 RALLY TO SAVE EAST CROSSROADS!!

 EVERYONE BRING YOUR VOICES AND YOUR SIGNS!!

 MUSICIANS OF ALL SKILL LEVELS AND AGES: BRING YOUR INSTRUMENTS!!

 ALL SUPPORTERS, ADVOCATES, GROUPS, ALLIES, AND FRIENDS!!

 Rural Grit announces a community rally for all Jackson County residents and friends of East Crossroads to tell voters to VOTE NO! ON APRIL 2!!

 Assemble by 4:00 PM on Apr. 1st at Ilus Davis Park in front of City Hall. Musicians will be singing and playing and encouraging our entire community to sing with us.

 At 4:55 P.M. our Rural Grit All-Stars will lead us in singing and chanting our fight song: "Keep Singing In The Crossroads"

Royals go home!!

Keep singing in the Crossroads!

Royals go home!!

 Following the rally we will march to The Brick, 1727 McGee, for the final Rural Grit Happy Hour VOTE NO! SHOW.

 VOTE NO! ON APRIL 2ND!

This is no small thing. In some ways, it's everything. That's what I know when I see the best of us fighting together. I hope to see you tomorrow. DA