Home Rule Music Festival on June 11th celebrates home-grown music, culture and community
/Home Rule Records on Kennedy Street and the HR Music & Film Preservation Foundation are hosting an awesome free music event on June 11th at 3pm at the Parks at Walter Reed: Home Rule Music Festival.
There will be performances by Black Fire artist Plunky & Oneness of JuJu, legendary progressive jazz artists Doug Carn and David Murray, and others.
The Home Rule Music Festival features food trucks, craft beverages, and a record fair with the finest local vinyl shops and record dealers. The event is free and open to all ages from 3pm to 9:30pm at the Parks at Walter Reed.
This year the festival gathers around the story and legacy of Black Fire Records, the legendary distribution service turned label, magazine, and cultural movement that served to define the soundtrack of 1970s DC.
“The Home Rule Music Festival: Black Fire Day is an outgrowth of the Home Rule Music and Film Preservation Foundation’s mission to engage the DC community with its shared musical and cultural heritage,” said organizer Charvis Campbell, “As well as trying to capture the spirit of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival as documented in the film Summer of Soul directed by The Roots’ Questlove. The Home Rule Music Festival is a celebration of Chocolate City, of a DC that is rapidly disappearing due to demographic shifts brought on by gentrification and exponential costs in the rise of living.”
One of the organizations that tried to capture the sound and spirit of the cutting edge of Chocolate City was Black Fire Records, co-founded by DJ and producer Jimmy Gray and saxophonist James “Plunky” Branch. Black Fire documented the Blackest sounds of 1970s D.C., from the gospel-soul of Wayne Davis to the first works of legendary go-go band E.U. Aside from record reissues by the like of Vinyl Me, Please and Strut Records, the full story of Black Fire Records has never been told until the Home Rule Foundation produced the forthcoming documentary short.
Jamal Gray, HR Records co-owners Charvis Campbell and Mike Bernstein, and nearly everyone involved in the projects know how record stores, vinyl records, contain so much of the history of Black music in America, especially those parts of the history marginalized or ignored by mainstream press and history. The festival’s emphases with the bands, the documentary screening and the record fair allows music enthusiasts, nerds and families of all ages to engage with the cultural history of Black Washington on a multitude of levels.
Guests will be able to purchase a limited-edition Festival Magazine that will include original reporting and vintage images.
The Home Rule Music Festival will end with a screening of a new Documentary Short Film on Black Fire Records.
VIP tickets are available offering access to VIP-only area near the stage, free t-shirt, free drink tasting ticket, free festival magazine and an artist meet and greet.
The mission of the festival is simple: to promote, support, and preserve DC music and film through performance, education, and advocacy.
