Sonia Grover loves her some NBA (you may know her better as Lil Dice of I Heart KG fame) and she loves her some music (as part of her job at a cool Twin Cities club).



She also knows about one of my favorite good causes Playing for Peace (which now has a new name, Peace Players International).



If you want to know more about that, click on the Basketball Does Good category over there on the right, then scroll down to the bottom and start reading.



Anyway, being a kindly and musical sort, Sonia didn't just think to herself, hey, you know what? That Peace Players International is pretty cool. She thought, hey, that Peace Players International is Pretty Cool, and I'm Going to Do Something About It.



Step one, it turned out, was getting on the phone with Sweatpants Boner and Trillbert Arenas. I swear, that was actually part of it. I'll let her explain how it is she came to put on a big old concert--featuring 30 bands (including the Sweatpants Boner kids) singing songs about 30 NBA teams--to raise money for Peace Players International:

I discovered Peace Players through my sister (she was applying for a job there) and True Hoop. I contacted 70+ bands about playing that night. The ones that committed did so because of one or a combination of the following:



1) they thought it was a great cause

2) they're big basketball fans

3) they're really good friends



Regardless of their affection for hoops or the cause, it was still difficult to get the bands I did. I had to cut a little slack with a few of them to convince them to do it. For instance, the band doing the Sixers and Celtics is going to write a song about World B Free and cover a song by Boston. Then there are the bands who have teams like the Hornets, Bobcats, and Raptors who are really excited to be writing songs about those teams.



January is a slow month in terms of events going on locally. Still, it needs to be something out of the ordinary to get people to leave their house and brave the elements, cabin fever or not. The benefit was set up to be more fun than the average rock show and, hopefully, intriguing enough to get people to the venue. Worst case scenario- no one comes to the show but Peace Players' name gets in much of the local press because there's not much else to cover in town.

Here's a listing with details of the show, which are as follows:

Saturday, January 20, 2007



7th St. Entry (First Avenue, Minneapolis, MN)



8:00pm Doors

$6.00 admissions

21+ show



Featuring:



Chooglin’, E.L. No., Trillbert Arenas, It From Bit, Supa Doopa, Shoveldance, Solid Gold, Sweatpants Boner, The Mad Ripple, Tom Cruise Control, and the Western Fifth.



Hosted by Ian Rans.



The bands will be performing 30 songs relating to the 30 teams in the league.



Peace Players International is an organization whose mission is “to use the game of basketball to unite and educate children and their communities.” The group has or is working on programs in the Middle East, Northern Ireland, South Africa, Cyprus, and Uganda.



For more info on the organization, check out its website at http://www.playingforpeace.org/.

 

Chad Ford wrote an article for ESPN on the group called “Hooping With The Enemy” that talks specifically on some of what they do.