Society Promotions presents First Fridays: An Exploratory Excursion Into The Depths of Gainesville’s Growing Arts Community. The first of its kind will be October 1st. Stay tuned for more information.

Here it is.

Wednesday, March 31, 8:00 pm

Our friends at Volta are honored to present an evening with Geoff Watts, Intelligentsia’s VP of Coffee and Green Coffee Buyer. Join them at 8pm for a round-table discussion of (among other topics), Intelligentsia’s development of the Direct Trade model of coffee trade, new production and processing experiments at origin, and the impact of the Ethiopian Commodities Exchange on specialty coffee.

Under Geoff’s management, Intelligentsia practices direct trade, working closely with actual producers–and not just importers or exporters– promoting a “seed to cup” attention to their product. Geoff Watts assisted in the opening of Intelligentsia Coffee in 1995.Today, he travels extensively to farms throughout Central and South America, Africa, and Indonesia, establishing new relationships with farmers, exporters, and specialty coffee importers throughout the world, all the while gathering insight and understanding of what it is that makes that makes coffee extraordinary.

Visit Volta at http://www.voltacoffee.com/

“Pierce Pettis doesn’t write mere songs, he writes literature…End to end the songwriting is brilliant…Pierce Pettis albums are events in my listening. His writing just gets better all the time and his singing is marvelous, wry and warm…” Sing Out! Magazine

Pierce Pettis, appearing in Gainesville on March 12, is an amazingly under-appreciated musician.  He is an excellent guitar player with a haunting, soulful voice but it is his songwriting that draws you in – he is an engaging and skillful storyteller.

The fact that Pettis’s songs have been covered by artists like Dar Williams (“Family” on Mortal City), Garth Brooks (“You Move Me” on Sevens), Dion & the Belmonts, Sara Groves, Randy Stonehill, among others, reinforces that he is the songwriter’s songwriter.

Check out some of his work:

Pierce Pettis – Legacy

Pierce Pettis – She Walked Away just Like Jim Brown

Pierce Pettis – My Life of Crime

And then make plans to come see Pierce on March 12.

The CMC shares the frequency with 2 local churches  but still maintains a healthy roster of music and chat shows that appeal to a broad range of interests.

The stated mission of WGOT (from their website) is:

• Take back the public airwaves by providing a fresh, engaging, and empowering approach to news, entertainment, cultural and educational programming.
• Challenge listeners with factual national, state, and local news from a fresh perspective, and to provide objective information on issues critical to you.
• Become a public forum for citizen debate and greater democratic participation.
• Listen to our audience as we decide new avenues to take as an organization.
• Celebrate our community by highlighting new voices in the arts, especially local musicians, artists, authors, and performers.
• Dare to be courageous, outrageous, boldly eclectic, unabashedly quirky, and unremittingly innovative.
• Be the loud, clear, honest, grassroots radio voice of Gainesville.

Society Promotions and CRex have been partnering for a couple of years on various projects. This year, we are again having our Silent Art Auction that will benefit the work of CRex. One of the things that draws us to different organizations is creative and out of the box thinking.  Check out what CRex is all about:

From their website – http://www.crexonline.org

We are here to help musicians, artists and festivals green their projects, tours and operations through socially responsible and cost-effective energy solutions. CREx benefits our Gainesville community as an initiative of the non-profit Earth Givers which engages in local energy conservation, alternative energy development and carbon sequestration projects.

Ultimately, we can rely on merely offsetting the total carbon produced from any project, but our goal is also to provide a longer lasting reduction once the festival, event or tour is over.

We are here to not only help make your project carbon-neutral but to create a residual awareness on how every single one of us can affect change and rise to the future’s greatest challenge: global climate change and diminishing resources.

Music and art are our best mass communicators.  Together we can help change one fest, one tour bus, one band, and one person at a time .

Michael and his friends do their thing every Wednesday night at Flaco’s. And, as you will read in the article linked here, it’s more than just a guy and some other guys playing music in front of some people. Read on…

Alligator article on Michael and his friends

Michael and his friends on YouTube

Michael on myspace

Michael will be appearing with Drew Holcomb on October 24….come out and see us!