Celebrate The Summer Of Love With A Psychedelic Light Show And A Surrealistic Summer Solstice Jam!!!

Flowers will power the night this summer as the Conservatory of Flowers in Golden Gate Park becomes the canvas for an elegant light art installation to honor San Francisco’s city-wide celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Summer of Love. 

Developed in partnership with San Francisco Recreation and Parks by Illuminate, the nonprofit arts group behind The Bay Lights, and Obscura Digital, a world-renowned creative studio specializing in large scale light-based art, the installation will use gobo projectors to transform the all-white landmark with a series of exquisitely illuminated scenes inspired by the rare tropical flowers within, and the legacy of San Francisco’s flower children.

“The Summer of Love was always about an energy – a spark – bringing love and light at a time when the world needed it,” said Ben Davis, Director of Illuminate. “We are bringing that light back to where it all began in Golden Gate Park fifty years later with an electrifying, contemporary tribute.”

“Obscura has done projections on iconic buildings around the world, and we’re thrilled to be using Golden Gate Park’s architectural crown jewel as our latest canvas, here in our hometown,” added Chris Lejeune, CEO of Obscura Digital.

Davis and the Obscura team promise a nightly spectacle of spinning flower mandalas, animated butterflies, and much, much more. The free public installation will be on view nightly from sundown until midnight throughout the summer, June 21 through October 21, 2017.

Surrealistic Summer Solstice Jam

The opening night on 21 June – which coincides with the Summer Solstice – will include a musical celebration from members of the best jam bands San Francisco has to offer, featuring most of the surviving band members of the great bands of 1967.

“The Surrealistic Summer Solstice Jam will combine the music of 1967 with an epic Illuminate and Obscura Digital light show on the Conservatory of Flowers! It will be the most monumental light show the city of San Francisco has ever seen! Dan Lebowitz is music director. The house band will include members of ALO, Moonalice, and other great SF musicians. Jack Casady, Lester Chambers, David Freiberg, Linda Imperial, RonKat, Norman Greenbaum, Barry Melton, Steve Kimock, Dave Getz, Peter Albin, Darby Gould, Joli Valenti, Melvin Seals, Paula Frazer, Leslie Grant, Mark Karan, Jay Lane, Jason Crosby, Steve Adams, Grahame Lesh, Alex Jordan, Greg Loiacono, Lech & Johnny ... and many others are scheduled to perform. The concert and light show are free … no tickets are required, and it's the longest day of the year,” explained Moonalice’s Roger McNamee.

There will be three free posters for those attending, by leading poster artists Alexandra Fisher, John Mavroudis and Darrin Brenner, members of the Haight Street Art Center collective.

"We're really excited to be a part of this thing," Roger continued. "It's part of the on-going Summer of Love Festivals in San Francisco. We encourage you to attend or to watch the live stream, because it'll be fun!" How much fun? This video from the Surrealistic Superjam SF Summer Of Love 50th Anniversary Concert earlier this year gives a taste of musical treats to come on 21 June!

Logistics

Folks with mobility challenges are encouraged to either be dropped off or park near the Nancy Pelosi and Bowling Green corner - or - park in the Music Parking lot under the De Young Museum. Public transportation is HIGHLY recommended!

The following items are not allowed at the event:
No Tents, Canopies, Tables, or other structures
No Unpermitted Vendors
No Coolers larger than 9”x12”
No Barbecues or cooking equipment
No Amplified Sound Equipment
No Generators
No Glass
No Backpacks larger than 9 x 12

Please take the public transportation to the event if possible:
The closest MUNI bus is 5 Fulton bus which runs until the event ends and beyond. You can catch the bus at Fulton Street and 6th Ave, and it is also the closest bus stop to the event.
For Bus Schedule: https://511.org/…/schedules-ag…/agency/363/schedules/route/5
Or Plan Your Travel with Public Transit: www.511.org

However, if you must drive, you can park at Golden Gate Park’s Music Concourse Parking Lot, entrance at Fulton Street and 10th Ave:
Parking will available at the Music Concourse Parking Lot as it will be open late until 11 pm to accommodate parking for the event.

Cars can enter at Fulton Street and 10th or at Lincoln near the Academy of Science. Please note JFK Drive will be closed from 8th to Kezar Drive staring 5AM on Wednesday, June 21st, it will be one of the closest locations for parking.
For maps how to enter – please go to: http://goldengateparking.com/. Cost is a flat $17.

Street Closures -- starting 5AM Wednesday, June 21st until 9AM Thursday, June 22nd the following streets will be closed to vehicles traffic:
JFK Drive between Kezar Drive and 8th Ave
Nancy Pelosi Drive between JFK Drive and Bowling Green Drive
Arguello Street at Fulton Street (entrance into Golden Gate Park)

Surrealistic Summer Solstice Concert and Grand Lighting!

Wednesday, June 21, 2017 from 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM (PDT)
date Outside of the Conservatory of Flowers
100 John F Kennedy Drive
San Francisco, CA 94118
Organized by Conservatory of Flowers

Any Song. Anywhere. Anytime. Six Years Of Live Broadcasts For Live-Streaming Pioneer Moonalice

Moonalice live broadcast on an iPad

Six years ago this week, San Fran psychedelic roots jam band Moonalice began live satellite broadcasts using HTML5. What began with iPads and iPhones streaming without an app has now extended to Android, PC, you name it. “The system is surprisingly inexpensive,” Moonalice front man and founder Roger McNamee commented at the time. “We paid a guy to write an HTML5 API and we found a carrier willing to provide bandwidth and storage at cost. The satellite system offers more bandwidth than alternatives at the same price.” 

Why the broadcasts? “People couldn’t have cared less about Moonalice, so we had to use technology just to get off the ground. We figured out Twitter, Facebook, live streaming. It’s not that nobody had ever done it, but nobody had ever been dependent on it the way we were. Instead of a manager or publicist, we spent money on technology and social media. Technology was a lot cheaper and we have built a whole community was around this,” Roger elaborated.

“Moonalice is more like a tribute to a style of show,” Roger explained. “That communal, artistic, very hippie-driven model we grew up with. Technology allowed us to do it. Before buying a ticket or an album, fans could listen to our music online and decide if they liked it. I don’t understand why younger bands aren’t aggressive around this. If your audience was 18-25, this would work 100 times better than it does for us.”

Poster by Chris Shaw

"The original decision to use HTML5 was economic: it was obvious from day one that native apps on iOS and Android would be more expensive and would leave us at the mercy of platform vendors who would never give us the time of day. The app market has been a train wreck for all but a few players, yet almost everyone still makes them," said Roger.

Fast forward to today. "How time flies ... this week is the 6th anniversary of MoonTunes^TM  the HTML5 player that enables Moonalice to stream concerts live to PCs and smart phones,” Roger reminisced. “We have broadcast many hundreds of shows since then, including the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. Weather-permitting, we will broadcast today's show from the Good Old Days Festival in Pacific Grove at 1pm PT in HD on http://www.moonalice.com."

Moonalice was also the first band to broadcast all its shows via Facebook Live. Below is the first set from the band's show at Paciaifc Grove yesterday. The benefit of these live broadcasts on Facebook is not only that fans can make comments and communicate with each other during the broadcasts, but the reach is orders of magnitude higher than sharing via link or even an upload. How much larger? Moonalice's reach is regularly in the region of 300- 500K, which translates to a lot of very happy fans!

"Thanks to our amazing Moonalice team, MoonTunes^TM remains the highest performance and lowest cost streaming platform on earth. Thanks to our fans, it has an enthusiastic following. We're proud of it," Roger concluded.

Any song. Anywhere. Anytime. Yesterday I watched the three Moonalice sets from the Good Old Days Festival in Pacific Grove, from a park, on the Interstate, and from my favorite Indian restaurant. Rock on, Moonalice!