July-August 2007

EDITORIAL

 This July/August issue in your hands lists a plethora of sum­mer concerts. Look at page 3 for this summer's offerings at the Skir­ball, Culver City, Japan American Mu­seum, Grand At this time each year, we search through the listings and mark in our calendar all the wonderful concerts we plan on attending. We want here to thank all the producers who spend so much time, money and passion in searching out, negotiating, coordinating and presenting to us new and exciting artists from all over the world. FolkWorks is here to let you know about all this terrific music...along with the usual ongoing local events, dancing, singing, storytelling and folk-related art exhibits. In case you hadn't noticed, the Los Angeles Times and the L.A. Weekly (and other local "rags") hardly mention what we cover, from Queen Ida on the Santa Monica pier, to the Southern California Ukulele Showcase at the Japan American Museum to Vieux Farka Toure at both Grand Performances and the Skirball Cultural Center. Performances, the Santa Monica Pier and the Levitt Pavillion.

Letting you all know about these events is the reason we began FolkWorks. Seven years ago we figured that we needed 12,000 hard copy newspapers distributed to get the word out. Now we even look up telephone numbers online. Take a look at our new website www.FolkWorks.org to see what we are up to. Our calendar lists all the events for you to plan your social time and we will be expanding with new blogs so you can hear about bands we have found/heard in our travels across the country or across the street.

So guess you are getting the message. We managed to get this hard copy out at the coaxing of a lot of friends and writers. At this point, until/unless we can get the help needed to print hard copies, this really will be the last hard copy issue. We realize that this will be difficult for some of you but we've also heard from a lot of folks who get all their information online.

We are planning and discussing the new opportunities online and you will be getting announcements shortly about new venue ads, artists listings, musician teaching listings, etc. Be sure to look at the website and Yahoo Group for announcements. We plan to continue our ongoing columns about Music Theory, Old Time Music, Events Around Town and all the other regular columnists you love. In fact now you will be able to read them online and not have to worry about finding that old newspaper article. There is a good search engine on the site and you can find what you want. We, of course, will continue to have the great listing of upcoming events. We hope to make it easier for you to find what you are interested in, whether it is by location or category. This will be a bit down the road, but we are working on it.

We know you will want to continue to support us. While we will no longer have the huge expense of the printed edition, we will still have ongoing expenses relating to keeping up the website, computer repair and maintenance as well as the usual telephone, office supplies, etc. We will continue to give away CDs for those of you who support us at the higher levels and will be looking into bumper stickers and other products for those of you who give at the basic $25 level.

Be on the lookout for our new T-Shirts and promotional cards. Think you will love our new ideas. And as always...go out to live music, get out and dance, and become a part of the growing FolkWorks Family. See you at concerts this summer!