The Sun Shakes It!

THE SUN SHAKES IT!

Image caption: Billy C. shakes it for the SUN

Going crazy down at Flood's on a Tuesday night with the Mojo Boogie Band, or screamin' and stompin' to Commander Cody and the Boogie Brothers at the Union Ballroom - that's how we're all helping to finance the SUN these days. Hundreds of people squeezed into the Odyssey dancing like nothing you've ever seen, with the UP, means hundreds of bucks for the SUN.

It also means the SUN is getting closer to more people all the time. Right now Ann Arbor bars are the only places around where you can hear good music, drink whiskey and take a few alley breaks for tokes when the music stops, and all at the same time. (The People's Ballroom will give musicians a chance to play and us a chance to hear them, and that's only a month away). You also get to see everyone down at the bar because you never know who is going to show at a benefit. Tuesday night Terry Tate showed up and jammed with the Mojo Boogie Band and drove the crowd crazy while Steve McKay blew his and everyone elses asses off on the saxophone while stomping the drums. The evening ended memorably with the Bum's Rush Boogie as a biker and his buddy were thrown out the door by Ned Duke himself.

There are never enough chances for musicians to get together and play. They might get jobs here and there, but when there's a SUN benefit at Flood's and Ned Duke is giving free drinks to all the entertainers, everybody wants to play. All kinds of people who ordinarily wouldn't get into the bar scene are glad to show up for a benefit.

The basis for all these people getting together is the economic relationships they're all forming in order to support the SUN. It costs us $850 to layout, typeset, print and mail out each issue of the paper, $500 opf which comes from local merchants buying ads. These same merchants also enable us to broadcast the Parks program over WNRZ. They give the park program an average $100 a week, through paying for sponsorships that also help them by advertising their business. This is especially good advertising for the merchants because it reaches the 5000 people attending the concert and the WNRZ listening audience, thanks to WNRZ who donated three hours every Sunday to the concerts.

Through the benefits we've set up economic relationships between the Musicians, the bar owners, the people who come to the benefits and the SUN. Because of the support of all these people

continued on page 14

continued from page 7

we will be able to publish all the information everyone needs to know and get it back to the very same people who originally paid to get in at the benefits. We're all supporting each other. We don't need anyone else outside of our community. The bars get advertising and crowds, the musicians get a place to play, the people get the music they need to hear and the SUN gets the door charge to pay its bills. And we do have bills.

We made $1200 from the benefit at the Union Ballroom thanks to Commander Cody, Stone School Road and the Boogie Brothers, and the average revenue from a bar benefit is $125 which is all gone as soon as we get it. All of this money just goes to pay our debts. We will need even more money to help us move to the Community Center and to make improvements such as buying a typesetting machine and darkroom equipment.

It's the bands, the merchants and the people who are making it come together with the musicians as the core of our economic development. Everyone plays for free and supports every chance we get to make money to finance community projects.

Thanks to; Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen, Boogie Brothers and sister Sarah Brown, Steve McKay and friends, UP, Mojo Boogie Band, Terry Tate, Pete Ostle, Stone School Road, Steve Newhouse, Ned Duke and everyone at FLOOD'S, ODYSSEY, Tom and Jerry and the BLIND PIG.

Ann Hoover

Lori Melton

Linda Ross