Somerville, Mass. - Photo essay of the 6th Annual HONK! Festival of Activist Street Bands on Saturday.

After going from lawyer to folk singer to minister, the Rev. Fred Small is back in Cambridge, singing. This time his concert is not going on the road and there will be only one a year.

While Massachusetts Senate President Therese Murray and a handful of Democratic Senators were busy outflanking their Republican colleagues on the right in the we hours of the morning of May 27 by crafting the most conservative immigration measure to hit the state in a good long time, Zac de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine was equally busy spearheading a musical boycott of Arizona, where the most draconian immigration law in the country (SB 1070) has already prompted significant outrage. “The Sound Strike”—as the boycott is called—has attracted outspoken musicians from Kanye West to Sonic Youth, with others getting on board as I write. (The full list of artists who have joined the Sound Strike can be seen at http://www.thesoundstrike.com ) They are protesting a law that has been widely criticized for encouraging law enforcement to detain anyone who looks Latino. Why Massachusetts would want to get on that bandwagon remains a mystery.

Capitol/EMI is the smallest of the so-called Big Four major record companies. Like the other majors EMI been bleeding money over the last several years, but EMI has been bleeding talent as well, having lost signature acts such as the Rolling Stones and Radiohead since their 2007 purchase by private equity company Terra Firma. Rumor has it that Queen is talking to other labels. And EMI just lost a suit over downloading to Pink Floyd, an act that has been with the company for over 40 years. In addition to being seemingly unable to restructure their debt covenants successfully, EMI doesn’t seem to get the internet either. The recent departure of OK Go is a case in point.

It is difficult to peruse any avenue of pop culture these days without running across a video, a review, or at least some commentary on Lady Gaga. She’s everywhere. Granted she scored five top ten singles in 2009. And, truth be told, her opening performance at this year’s Grammys with (Sir) Elton John was captivating, if overblown. But then, everything at this year’s Grammys was overblown, from Beyonceé extravagant song and dance medley amid a gaggle of dancers who looked like starship troopers wearing World War II-era Nazi helmets to Pink’s cirque-du-soleilesque performance, suspended high above the audience (mostly upside down), while being drenched with water.

In 2003, Steve Jobs railed against music subscription services, telling Rolling Stone that “People want to own their music.” Now it appears that Apple might be changing its iTune. Apple’s recent $80 million plus purchase of music subscription service Lala suggests that the company that made it easy (and legal) to download digital music files to your iPod or computer might now be envisioning the future of music as a big jukebox in the clouds. One big question is where this will leave users? Another is where it will leave musicians.

BOSTON/Copley Square - Coming up on Sunday, December 20, 2009, the Aardvark Jazz Orchestra will present its long running annual Christmas Concert and benefit. This year, the orchestra performs at Emmanuel Episcopal Church, located halfway between Copley Square and the Public Garden, at 15 Newbury Street, Boston.

Proceeds from the show will benefit the Poor People's United Fund and The Massachusetts Council of Churches.

Duke Ellington once said, “There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.” He always felt his music was too organic and too free to fit in clear cut categories with trendy sounding names. In an industry where labeling one's sound is all but essential, in comes Elizabeth and the Catapult, a band who prefers to be told what genre they fit into since they have trouble figuring it out for themselves.

Hopefully, if there's any justice left in the world, in May of this year while Reverend Jerry Falwell was waiting in Purgatory to hear whether or not he was going to heaven or hell, the entertainment wasn't anything as good as the new show by musician and playwright Deborah Henson-Conant.

BOSTON/Davis Square - Kevin Leppmann and his associate Reebee Garofalo have an agenda for Honk! Festival and they aren't afraid to admit it: Get musicians off the stage and into the crowd, and make sure they bring the music with them.