Monday, December 6, 2021

LA Art and Music Festival Benefiting Mutual Aid Project A Success Despite Threats from Far-Right and Police

Report on successful anarchist art and music festival in the so-called Los Angeles area. To support the Autonomous Anarchist Revolutionary Front’s ongoing mutual aid project, go here.

In October, the Autonomous Anarchist Revolutionary Front (AARF) reached out to LA Crust Printing (who is known to help mutual aid groups raise funds) for collaboration on an event to raise money for it’s weekly free store. At first the idea was to have just a show with a few local bands – but LA Crust envisioned something bigger.

Vendors and artists from around the LA area were contacted and an art show was planned in conjunction with the bands playing. Habak – a crust band from Tijuana – was set to headline the event and LA Crust Fest was set to take place in a warehouse in Boyle Heights on December 4th. The event quickly gathered attention from all over the area, with the flyers being re-shared from people both in and outside of organizing spaces. Needless to say it wasn’t long until  it also got on the radar of far-Right chuds.

Five days before the Fest, the warehouse canceled – not just the Fest but all scheduled gigs – saying that the police came to tell them that they could no longer have any events, citing permits as the issue – FUCK 12 and FUCK THE CITY. This major setback had us scrambling to find a place that would host an event of this size with such short notice. We reached out via social media for help with suggestions – and the outpouring of support from the scene was amazing. Literally 24 hours before the event – a studio was found that would host the artists and vendors and a venue not far from the location was booked for the show.

The art show was a success with many displaying their paintings, drawing portraits, tabling zines, selling clothes and merch. The event went on for 6hrs until it was time to move to the next venue for the bands. The turnout for the bands was even bigger than the art show and was not expected to be so huge! Many people donated extra at the door for the free store and zines were also given out at the entrance. Prior to the first bands set some fuckface abuser was outed for touching underage girls and was dealt with accordingly.

Not long after the venue also reached full capacity and people had to be turned away per the venue owners rules (fuck him). Unfortunately the cops also came right before Habak was able to play their set – and the power was shut off. Three pigs stood by the entrance while the crowd filtered out into the parking lot and a fight broke out between two people, it was quickly deescalated by the punks, while the pigs just stood there useless as fuck like always. The bands were able to play their set at another location later that night.


by Anonymous Contributor via It's Going Down
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