SAT 9/8: Day Cheapness

For some reason, this weekend has several event with huge amounts of music. I can't explain it -- just enjoy what works for you.

I'm still interested in the "Before I Die..." board on the Greenway that I mentioned the other day.

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10am -- Porschefest
10am -- 6th Annual One Heart Festival
11am -- 1st Annual Daoism & Health Festival
Noon -- "Ahts": Boston Arts Festival
Noon -- 2nd Annual JP Music Festival
Noon -- 33rd Annual Banjo & Fiddle Contests
2pm -- Ice Cream Showdown #4
4pm -- MixFest
5pm -- "Spokes 2012": Somerville Bike Fest
5pm -- 5th Annual Virgo-A-Go-Go
6:30pm - Laura Stevenson & The Cans, Destry, Poison Ivy League

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SAT 9/8

10am to 2pm
Porschefest
at Larz Anderson Auto Museum, 15 Newton St, Brookline
$10 / $5 military, seniors, students, children under 12

It doesn't matter whether you love the old-time 356's or the modern marvels of German engineering that fall along the 900's. There will be plenty to gawk and maybe caress.

SAT 9/8

10am to 6pm
6th Annual One Heart Festival
at Codman Square, 661 Washington St, Dorchester
FREE

Feat: Garrisun Family, Jah-N-I Roots Band, Jah Jah Drummers, King-i, Mamadou, Princess Menen, Pete Doom, Peter Fyine, Tony Funches, more

I don't recall seeing the One Heart Festival before, but there have been 5 previous iterations as the One Heart Festival or Codman Square Peace Concert. I think an article was more informative than the actual website.

The schedule is a mystery, so one could take a ride in the Ashmont direction and sample a variety of reggae, hip-hop, gospel, and R&B.

SAT 9/8

11am to 2pm
1st Annual Daoism & Health Festival
at Josiah Quincy School Playground, 885 Washington St, Boston (Chinatown)
FREE

The Daoists would be the closest that we earthlings have to Jedi system, except Jedi-ism has gained some ground in the UK...

Neither have functional light sabers, the Daoists are offering to share some performances, workshops, and philosophy with Bostonians.

SAT 9/8 (and SUN 9/9)

Noon to 6pm
"Ahts": Boston Arts Festival
at Christopher Columbus Park, about 120 Atlantic Ave, Boston (Waterfront/North End)
FREE

Saturday schedule:

12:30pm -- Sam Cornish
1:45pm -- Bird Courage
2:30pm -- Love Experiment
3pm -- Miss Fairchild
3:45pm -- Yesberger Band
4:15pm -- Stereo Telescope
5pm -- Me vs. Gravity
5:30pm - Rag Time

When I went a few years ago, I saw some cool things and almost bought a print. I say go for walk by the water, catch a performance or two, and browse around the art.

About 60 booths are set up in a row, then Boston's poet laureate kicks it off on one of the stages. The rest of the lineup will be sending grooves and good vibrations in the atmosphere.

SAT 9/8

Noon to 7pm
2nd Annual JP Music Festival
at Pinebank Baseball Field, about 200 Perkins St, Jamaica Plain (Jamaica Pond)
FREE

Stage 1

Noon -- Opening Ceremony
12:20pm -- Members of JP Symphony Orchestra
12:45pm -- Mariachi Mexamericana
1:15pm -- Riding Shotgun
1:50pm -- Morris & the East Coast
2:25pm -- Eamonn Bonner
2:40pm -- Rick Berlin w/ The Nickel & Dime Band
3pm -- Dennis Brennan w/ The Nickel & Dime Band
3:40pm -- Whiskey Boys
4:10pm -- Tallahassee
4:45pm -- Bob Bradshaw
5:20pm -- Rocky Nook
5:55pm -- Almost Righteous
6:45pm -- Love Whip

Stage 2

12:05pm -- Late Greats
12:30pm -- Lauren DeRose
1pm -- Gracious Calamity
1:30pm -- Thick Wild
2:05pm -- Sweatshop
2:30pm -- Members of the Cambridge Symphony Orchestra
3:20pm -- Coyote Kolb
3:55pm -- Lenny Lashley's Gang of One
4:30pm -- Lono
5pm -- The Needy Visions
5:40pm -- Fully Celebrated
6:15pm -- Streight Angular
7pm -- Closing Ceremony

Jamaica Plain is a place where things still stay organic and DIY, and this is going to be the real thing. It's funky not in the Parliament kind of way, and it's great.

Two dozen of the many bands that live and share a kinship with neighborhood are kicking ass on 2 stages. It's bigger than last year, and it'll be bigger in the future.

* My pick of the day! *

SAT 9/8

Noon to 6pm
33rd Annual Banjo & Fiddle Contests
at Boarding House Park, 40 French St, Lowell
FREE

Yeah, it's in Lowell. Someone out there can't get enough of down-home, bluegrass, and Dixieland music.

SAT 9/8

2pm to 4pm
Ice Cream Showdown #4
at Dewey Square Park, Kennedy Greenway, about 170 Summer St, Boston (near South Station)
$8

From the first Ice Cream Showdown in a parking lot in Somerville -- which was awesome -- the showdown puts on its big-boy pants and heads to Boston's Greenway where people were protesting economic inequality.

Today we protest shitty ice cream as you'll taste cool, delicious, creamy excellence from JP Licks, Toscanini's, Emack & Bolio's, Giovanna Gelato e Sorbet, Picco, and FoMu.

I haven't heard of a couple of these places, which was so amazing about that first time. I had flavor combinations that I've never had before from brands that will never be known across the country.

SAT 9/8

4pm to 8pm
MixFest
at Hatch Shell, Storrow Dr, Boston (Charles River Esplanade)
FREE

6:30pm -- Train
5:20pm -- Gavin DeGraw
4:15pm -- Andy Grammer

Umm... There will be slightly more room, because I won't be here. On the other hand, I know people love Train's breezy pop-rock despite the the rhyme scheme is so often obvious and repetitive.

SAT 9/8

5pm to 9pm
"Spokes 2012": Somerville Bike Fest
at Union Sq Plaza, Somerville (nexus of Somerville Ave, Washington St, Bow St)
FREE

While JP rocks out tonight, my 'hood plays with bicycles...

Celebrating the fastest zero-emission, calorie-burning mode of transportation is just as important and worthwhile as sitting on a lawn and spacing out to good tunes!

From 5pm to 7pm, there will be 30-minute workshops on bike maintenance.

One of the my favorite movies is "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" that will screen a la "bike-in" style (will that be comfortable?) at 7:30pm where a good-hearted man-boy embarks on an odyssey to find his stolen bike.

Post-film, the amazing pedal-powered sculptures of S.C.U.L. leads all interested parties on a ride through Somerville.

SAT 9/8

5pm
5th Annual Virgo-A-Go-Go
at Radio, 379 Somerville Ave, Somerville (Union Sq)
$10

Main Stage:

6pm -- Didn't Planet
7pm -- Ghost Truckers
8pm -- Glenn Yoder & the Western States
9pm -- Van Buren Boys
10pm -- Three Day Threshold
11:20pm -- Tallahassee
Midnight -- 80s Dance party

Stage two:

5:30pm -- Mike "Tank" Ryan
6:35pm -- BIlly Letendre
7:35pm -- John Stump
8:35pm -- Hansen Sisters with John Ransom
9:40pm -- Cactus Prick
10:45pm -- Summer Villains

It's the Annual Virgo-A-Go-Go Festival, and from the little I know, Virgos like to celebrate that their parents conceived them around the winter holidays. Maybe it was just a cold night or maybe the winter boots were a-knocking after many glasses of champagne or egg nog. Or maybe Papa put his dick in a box...

There's more than a barrel of kickass music, and folks are encouraged to dress like it's 80's that will make sense for the end-of-night dance party. In general you may look like as ridiculous as when your parents conceived you.

The doors open 4pm, and you may get free pizza and wings if you get there early enough.

SAT 9/8

Laura Stevenson & The Cans (8pm), Destry (7:15pm), Poison Ivy League (6:30pm)
at TT the Bear's Place, 10 Brookline St, Cambridge (Central Sq)
$10 / All Ages

Let's remember that no one has to stay for a whole 7-hour music festival or show for the first band of a long musical party. On the other hand, there's nothing wrong with simply offering a finite amount of folky/punky indie-rock then going about your business for the rest of the night -- or retiring early.

In that case, alums of other projects like Bomb The Music Industry and Straylight Run might just fit your bill.