R5 Productions

Crossposted at Young Philly Politics

In this series of videos you can see Philly Against Santorum volunteers and myself setting up and working a table at an R5 Productions show at the Starlight Ballroom.

The first video shows me introducing the various materials that Philly Against Santorum used for our youth outreach to that night's volunteers. On this particular occasion we had to make do with a smaller set of materials, since the box of materials that we usually left at the Starlight was misplaced:

Next we have a very nice little video that shows all of the partisan project posters on a mirrored wall at the Starlight, while a band plays in the background:

Finally, here's a video of the PAS table in action:

Two University of the Arts Students, Alana Hoffman and Raeann Drew, took video of some of the youth outreach work that I did for Philadelphians Against Santorum during the 2006 election, for their documentary: "Generation Gap". They were nice enough to send me some of their footage, as well as the full documentary, and gave me permission to post it all to YouTube. I'll be posting this video in a few posts over the next week or so, but if you want to see the entire series check out the Future Majority YouTube page.

Here are two videos of Anna Hyclak and Kayla Hilliard, two Temple students who I met while doing outreach on campus with the Temple College Democrats, and who ended up becoming two of the best volunteers for the PAS youth program. They were also the ones who connected us with the filmmakers and they are featured in a majority of the clips.

Here are Anna and Kayla working the table at the First Unitarian Church on the night before the election:

More to come soon!

Yesterday I happened upon a great podcast interview of R5 Productions' Sean Agnew at The Flux (Right click on the first link and click "save link as" to save the podcast to your computer). In this interview Sean covers a wide range of topics, including attempts to get him to run for City Council, the difficulties of staying in business as an independent promoter in Philadelphia, and the reasons why cities should support companies that bring culture to a city (like R5) and thus help it to attract and retain young people.

If you want a great example of the many ways in which culture and politics intersect, espescially for young people, give this podcast a listen!

Crossposted at Young Philly Politics

Once I knew that I would be doing outreach at concerts and on campus i started to pull together the materials that I would use to help with outreach and persuasion. When I first talked to Ray and Jen I had an idea of what types of materials would work in the environments that I'd find myself and towards the youth demographic that I was targeting. The main thing that I wanted was to make a series of youth oriented issue cards, similar to Music for America's issue cards (see below for some examples). These cards would have been co-branded between Philadelphians Against Santorum (PAS) and a few of organizations that we were either partnering with or that we felt exemplified the Left's stance on one or another issue. The idea would have been to have a series of cards that provided talking points for our volunteers, educated the people who read them, and gave a sense of the broad coalition that makes up the Left.

But once I got the job (in mid-September) and started to take a cold hard look at the calender, I realized that there was simply no time to create a series of my own materials, that I would have had to come up with the text and, given PAS' limited budget, either design them myself or find a designer that would do the work both quickly and cheaply/for free. And so, with only a month left to register people in PA, I decided to improvise, and I began to scrounge together whatever materials that I could from friends and allies around the state and nation to supplement the field materials that PAS had developed.  This post is a look at the materials that I ended up using at Concerts and on Campus during the 2006 Senate Race in PA.

As I noted, we mainly turned, to organizations that we were allied with, or whom I knew personally, to come up with materials. That said, these are the things that I was looking for as I pulled together my field materials:

• Variety - As I noted above, I wanted the materials I used to give an idea of the broad spectrum of issues that liberals/progressives/Democrats stand for & I also wanted to make sure that we had a diverse enough set of issue based materials so that people whom we talked with could "self select" the issues that we talked to them about.
• Design - Very often I find that left leaning political people have little to no understanding of communications design (I definitely am), but it is not hard to see the effects that well produced literature has (makes it more attractive, makes it simpler, makes it more professional, etc). Music for America's materials are always well designed and attractive, but the Partisan Project posters (see below) were probably the simplest, and most effective communications tool that I had in my "field chest" in 2006, and they will be the #1 thing I will use in 2008!
• Content - As the cards served as both talking points and as communicative tools, we needed to be clearly written & talk about what progressives/liberals/Democrats stand for while keeping the information as compact and to the point as possible.
• Appeal - Young people like posters, buttons, and stickers, and as such I sought these out the most (these were, by far, the main items that we gave away at shows and on campus).  The more attractive the materials, the easier it is to attract people to us (instead of going up to people's doors, or even tapping them on their shoulder at a show), which generally makes people much more receptive to our spiel(s), which makes us much more effective. And when you give people something that they want for free, they are much more likely to be receptive to what you have to say.

In the end we only used materials from a few organizations besides our own. Here's a look at what we used:

Crossposted at Young Philly Politics

As I noted in my first post-mortem piece, my plan for getting "the kids" to the polls centered around work at concerts and on campus. In my second in a series of post-mortem pieces I'll look specifically at the concerts we worked, including an introduction to Sean Agnew and R5 Productions, who made this work possible, and helped ensure it was a success.

Sean Agnew & R5 Productions

As you know by now, much of my outreach centered around working at concerts thrown by Philly's #1 independent promotions company- Sean Agnew's R5 Productions. Now, for those who don't know, or at least know of, Sean, he is, to use the scientific term, "The Man".  Sean has single-handedly kept the Philadelphia independent music scene fresh and available to kids of all ages, while going up against the two horrendous monopolies that dominate American concerts and events: Clear Channel (whose concert division has recently been "spun off" into Live Nation) & Ticketmaster. If you want an idea about what Sean does, and who he has to go up against, check out this Harper's Magazine cover story that looks at Sean and his much larger competitors, or just head to the First Unitarian Church (22nd and Chestnut), the Starlight Ballroom (9th & Spring Garden), or Johnny Brenda's (Girard & Fairmount) and check out one of the extremely well attended and almost always entertaining shows that R5 throws! He also recently had a stalker blog dedicated to spotting him, which I'm just assuming means that he is hot shit, and he shares Ed Rendell's love for politics and the Eagles (though I don't think he share's Ed's love affair with fast/junk food or yelling at little league umpires- which is my earliest memory of the Gov). And while Sean is definitely not the type of guy who most people would think of as political, and definitely not someone who politicians might look to for help and or advice, he is very passionate about politics and is exactly the type of cultural community leader whom democrats should be looking to work with. Here's Sean's current myspace picture:

Sean & Ed Agree! The Eagles should be 8-1!!!

I met Sean during the Presidential campaign of 2004, which you can read about in my thesis section Culture in Need of a Home, an Idea is Born, if you are so inclined. And, as some of you may know, I have been working with Sean since 2005 to try and build a permanent space for R5 which can support sustainable political activism and provide a home/working space for political, cultural, and civic non-profits (maybe some for-profits as well). The project was called 8th Street, but that location, which as you might guess is on 8th Street, is no longer a possibility for us and so if/when we get started we'll have to choose a new name. But at anyrate, as the summer months slipped by, and as it became apparent that I was not going to be able to get everything together before the election, I decided that I would try and make the political side of the project happen, which, as I noted in my first piece, Ray & Jen helped make it into a reality.

What I didn't mention fully in my first piece is why culturally bound political activism is so important, especially when it comes to youth outreach and engagement. If you're interested you can read a letter that I helped to write that explains why it is so important to bring together politics and culture under a single roof here: Keys to a Future Majority: Building a Model for Sustainable Progressive Activism. My colleague Mike Connery has also written some great pieces on this connection, the best of which is his two part Living Liberally: Reforming Democratic "Youth" Programs (part 2 is here).

This is what the future majority looks like. A small part of the crowd at an R5 Productions Concert at the Starlight Ballroom.

Connecting culture and politics is important for a few reasons.

When I started to work on the 8th Street project, one of my main goals was to have an impact in the 2006 elections in PA. But, things have (predictably) taken much longer than I had hoped, and I started to worry that I wasn’t going to be able to do anything to influence this extraordinarily important election (Operation Iranian Freedom, anyone?).

This worry turned to downright despair as I waited, and waited for some group or another to do a big push amongst the “millennials”, a.k.a. the under-30 set, for this election. After all, the future of our nation is at stake and our generation is slipping further and further behind in our quest for the American Dream (which has now apparently been revised to- “Well, maybe I can actually get and education. And when I graduate with massive debt, maybe I can find a job that can pay me enough to pay for my school debt- what should me called the millennial mortgage. Then, if I’m really lucky, maybe I can get health care and not go bankrupt by the age of 35). But as of last month, no groups had stepped forward to take on this monumental task, and I started to believe that we were doomed to fail.

Well, a few weeks ago I noticed that a group headed by someone I know was hiring in PA. The group this person heads is trying to turn out “new and infrequent” voters in Philly, and they were looking for some field staff. I asked to meet with them, listened to what they were trying to do, and then proposed what I though I could do to best ensure that we are not doomed to 6 more years of Man-On-Dog, Forrest Gump with an attitude, Bush’s favorite rubber stamp, or whatever you want to call that sorry excuse for a human being.

Basically, my idea was to start the political side of 8th Street, even though we still lack a home, meaning we will do outreach and registration at all of R5 Productions shows between Friday and election day. But, we will also be doing a lot of outreach on campuses, at coffee shops, and anywhere else where young people congregate. I also hope to have a few events before October 5th (the registration deadline) to try and get as many kids registered as possible.

My hope is that we can both make an impact and prove some of the concepts that have been written about in my thesis and on this site. But- it is going to be one hell of a job. Almost all of the groups who did work in Philly during last years’ election are either MIA or actively strip-mining the grassroots, as Greg put it. Many kids have already been registered, and many will only need to be reminded that an election is coming up and told where they should vote to increase turnout. But, either way, making an impact on the election is going to be a daunting task, one that I am looking forward to taking on.

Of course, I can use a lot of help. If you can volunteer or donate (time, money, skills) please let me know. If you know researchers looking to study the efficacy of various strategies, let me know. If you know any bands or famous people who can draw crowds of young people, and who hate the direction our nation has gone, let me know.

For a list of shows you can volunteer at check out R5 Production's show page. I'll have a volunteer page up shortly, but for now if you see any that you like, please e-mail me using the Future Majority contact page.

The election is only a few months away, and I am finally getting back to the work that I love. But- we all need to pull together to pull out a victory, no matter what the polling might say.

Whose ready to help make some shit happen?

Below is the letter that Mike, I, and some of our advisers wrote as an introduction to the (award winning) business plan that we developed to propose a new way of thinking about, and funding, the building and sustaining of progressive infrastructure. This is very close to becoming a reality, and we should know for certain if it is going to happen in the next few weeks.

Right now, the progressive movement is homeless. While the Christian Right is busy using churches to tap into evangelical culture, recruit new hearts and minds, and out-organize the left, progressives are scrounging for office space and seem incapable of tapping into one of our greatest resources – our culture.

What if we could create a space where local progressives could meet, network, and get organized? A space where independent music could thrive amidst an industry that is increasingly dominated by corporations unfriendly to progressive causes? What if – like the Christian Right and its churches – the two could feed off each other, creating a cycle whereby progressive-minded folks supported the independent music scene, which in turn fed new, younger faces into the progressive movement? That is the goal of 8th Street: to create a hotbed of cultural and political activity that will symbiotically provide a home for the progressive movement and allow independent music to thrive in the Philadelphia metro area.

If progressives want to regain control, we must learn to exploit the connection between culture and politics, and reconnect local activism with the every day lives of our constituents. In the coming years, Philadelphia offers us an ideal testing ground for this organizational model, and 8th St. is positioned as the perfect venue to accomplish these goals.

In the next three years, SE Pennsylvania will have nine competitive House races and a fiercely contested Senate race. As a swing state, it will be a cornerstone of both parties’ electoral strategies. And in the run-up to the 2010 midterms, it will most likely face a contentious redistricting battle around new census data. Philadelphia is also a hotbed of online activism, with many A-list bloggers located in the metro-area, including Atrios’ Duncan Black, MyDD’s Chris Bowers, as well as bloggers from Booman Tribune, Suburban Guerilla, and Whiskey Bar. Thriving Drinking Liberally and DFA chapters also call Philly their home.

The political machinery is in place, but it requires a home to live in, and a hook to draw in new members.

More than a political center, Philadelphia is also the cultural center of eastern Pennsylvania. For ten years now, R5 productions has been known for bringing the hippest shows and best concert experiences to the Philadelphia area. Thousands of students and young professionals trek into the city from the suburbs to attend R5 events. These concerts are the perfect vehicle to reach progressive minded folks under 30.

A captive, like-minded audience is available, but it has no official home, and no way to plug into the larger progressive movement.

8th St. will bring these pieces of the puzzle together. By using peer to peer outreach tactics at shows, we will make a connection between politics and the lives of our estimated 70,000+ concert-goers. We will identify and nurture the next generation of political activists by serving as the road to political participation for young, disenfranchised voters. Beyond basic outreach, we will recruit, train and track volunteers, and push our newly minted activists to join local campaigns in the city and suburbs. We will work with political groups from around the Philadelphia metropolitan area to train their members in traditional politics, while also teaching them how to use social activities to increase their reach and effectiveness.

Envisioned as an organization with a dual non-profit/for-profit structure, 8th St will be more than the latest progressive vanity project, destined to disappear after the next election cycle. It will be a self-sustaining venture with high standards of accountability, and a diversified funding base. We are in this for the long haul, and hope that 8th Street will be making a difference in progressive politics long after George Bush is out of office.

It’s time for progressives to stop wandering in the wilderness. It’s time for the progressive movement to find a home. In the Philadelphia Metro area, we hope to make 8th Street that home.

If you, or anyone you know, would like to be involved in this project or check out our business plan, please shoot me e-mail me. I'll post updates here as the project moves towards completion.

November 2nd, 2004 was a dark day for me and tens-of-millions of other progressives around the nation. Despite a faltering economy, a war of choice that was sold with lies and horribly executed, and rising health care and tuition costs, George W. Bush, our own Nero, won reelection. John Kerry, the terribly out-of-touch, indecisive, and uninspiring Democratic candidate, couldn’t convince the nation that he would be better than the current disaster, and so the nation voted for Bush.

Though conventional wisdom holds that Kerry lost over “values” voters, the most compelling statistics that I have seen paint a different picture. In fact, it seems that Kerry lost on the issues of Terrorism and National Security. It appears that the Bush and Republican-aligned Campaigns (such as the infamous and typically ironically named Swift Boat Veterans for Truth) were able to convince many Americans that George W. Bush was a more capable handler of the War on Terror, and they were able to use John Kerry’s Vietnam service against him. I believe I had been correct in guessing that the election would hinge upon a war fought 30 years ago; that the memories of that important time in the lives of many, if not most, of the voting public would call upon the lessons of that war and color the decisions that these people made. However, I was completely wrong to believe that this would help John Kerry. I thought that people would look at this war as a new Vietnam and reject the President who put us there. Instead, the behavior of Kerry and other Democrats during the tumultuous 60s and 70s, and especially their protests of Vietnam, is what was brought to mind by skillful Republican messengers.

My conviction that perceptions about security and strength amongst the group that came of age around Vietnam determine the outcome of the election, and not so-called values like hatred of homosexuals, was hardened a few months after the Presidential election. In the most Republican district in the entire American North East, Ohio’s 2nd Congressional District, a little known Iraq War Veteran named Paul Hackett decided to run for office as a Democrat, in a special election for that district’s U.S. House Seat. Hackett, who said that those who opposed Gay Marriage were “un-American,” narrowly lost his election to Jean Schmidt, 48-52. Bush had won the district with 64% of the vote less than a year before.

I finally met Sean Agnew in person on Halloween night at a show at the Trocadero in Philadelphia, just a few days from the election. As I mentioned in my last Keys to a Future Majority (my Masters thesis) piece, I had been told on numerous occasions that this was the guy to know in Philly if you were interested in both politics and music. I had attempted to meet Sean in person a few times to talk about politics, music, and the Philly scene, but his reputation for being extremely hard to track down was well deserved, and my NYC-Philly commutes made my schedule pretty inflexible. However, I did reach him via e-mail a few times; he was unbelievably helpful, and he allowed Music for America to work at almost all of his many events. He also was really excited by what MfA was doing, and seemed genuinely interested in helping to build upon MfA’s model of culturally based political engagement. Though he said the story I was often told about Ed Rendell, the Governor of Pennsylvania and former mayor of Philadelphia, asking him to run for City Council wasn’t really true, I could tell from our e-mails about politics why it would ring true to people. When I e-mailed him that I wanted to bring him some MfA t-shirts for helping us out so much he seemed really excited, and asked if I could also get some shirts for his staff, who I had also found to be extremely helpful and politically engaged. He told me that he would definitely be at the show on Halloween, and so I gathered up a big bag of shirts and headed out to the show, where I was going to work as an MfA volunteer.

When I was introduced to Sean I was a bit shocked. Whenever someone talked about him they made him seem like some sort of industry big-wig, and I fully expected to find someone who was, at the very least, full of themselves (even though he was nice enough over e-mail). Instead I met a young, punkish, and unbelievably humble kid my age, dressed in jeans and a hoodie. I wanted to thank Sean a thousand times for what he was doing, and yet he thanked me for the shirts and helping to turn kids out at the shows. I only got to talk with Sean for a few moments that night—keeping an entire city’s independent music scene vibrant is hard work for one man—but before he left he mentioned that this show was going to be the last for him at the Troc. The Chicago-based company House of Blues (who have since been bought out by Clear Channel) had just finished negotiating for the booking rights to the previously independently booked venue, which meant that Sean would no longer be able to throw concerts there.