Johnny Scott Gramercy, hey, loved ones. I will be your selector this evening. Thank you so much for coming in. I come to you this Sunday as I do every Sunday at Neighborhood Love Radio. Tonight in studio, my guests, Isabel Rojas-Williams and Willie Jaron III. They're from the Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles, a great group preserving our culture through murals and artwork. And hi, kids. Hi, kids. How are you doing? Hello. How are you doing? Thanks for having us. Yeah, thanks for coming in. We're going to listen to a little bit of music and we're going to come chop it up, talk a little bit about their group and Los Angeles art and culture. Thank you so much, loved ones, for tuning in again. This is T-Connection, Groove City from the Classic Masters album. Enjoy. This is T-Connection, Groove City free back out back out along with me if you wanna prove come along with me oh yeah this is the place where you should be yeah you should be fancy free come along with me you can be what you wanna be take my hand and see you can be fancy free if you come along with me who said here I come who said here I come who said here I come who said here I come this is this is and hot You can never get enough Your life is shining bright And ladies look so nice So many things to do What you're gonna do is up to you The city is sharp for you You're not gonna leave If you wanna prove come along with me This is the place where you should be You should be, yeah You should be friends to three If you're going along with me You can do Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. tumor in her bile duct. Reports say that it's completely early and operable, so this will be a recovery year for her. She had to cancel a few dates, but we're sending out love and the best wishes to Miss Sharon Jones. This is Sharon Jones in the Dap Kings covering Sugar Yotus, Inspiration Information. Thank you. He had a rainy day I'm in a snake bag situation Here's a pencil pad I'm gonna spread some information You're making me happier Now I am happier I'm with you I got to be happy Cause I am happier When I'm with you You're my little euphonia Sick of weather I get a dark blue rain I get a slap back that cold From the beyond I get a purple string It gets It gets It gets I get another rain That'll take me for another ride I'll be the sun Heaven to the moon It should know It should know It should know I had you making me happier. Now I am happier when I'm with you. I got to be happy because I am happier when I'm with you. Inside a dream store, dreaming outside. I get up at 8 o'clock, sit down. Out in the country field, running, smiling, loving the dawn and the light. I feel the love of the pretty sun shining on me. I get up at 8 o'clock, sit down. Out in the country field, dreaming outside. I get up at 8 o'clock, sit down. Out in the country field, running, smiling, loving the dawn and the light. Smiling, loving, burning the guilt now. Jump left, smiling, having fun. Left, smiling, loving the guilt now. Smiling, loving, burning the guilt now. Jump left, smiling, having fun. Smiling, loving, get on down. Smiling, getting down. Smiling, getting down. Smiling, getting down. Smiling, getting down. Smiling, getting down. Smiling, getting down. Smiling, getting down. Smiling, getting down. dressed in red I just got to heaven and I can't sit down it looks like the children that Moses lay I just got to heaven I can't sit down why don't you sit down I can't sit down go away don't bother me I can't say that because I just got to heaven and I can't sit down It was a long long time It was a long long time It was a long long time It was a long long time It was a long long time It was a long long time It was a long long time It was a long long time It was a long long time It was a long long time It was a long long time It was a long long time It was a long long time ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ They own it now as a new collection on Ace Records. The beginning narration was Carl B. Stokes. He was a Cleveland major in the late 60s. Of course, Earl Leverton Nelson, the great jazz composer and band leader. Prior to that, we heard South Side Movement with Funk Talk, Chicago band, mid-70s. Before that, we heard Inspiration Information, which I talked a little bit about. Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, covering the great Shugie Otis. And started off with T-Connection from the Bahamas, Group City. Loved the ones I got in the chairs here. A couple of members of High Station from the Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles. They're a great group. I want to read off a quote here real fast. There are so many different languages, religions, and cultures in L.A., and they are all expressed in our public art. Who said that? I think I did. You sure did, yeah. Isabel Rojas-Williams, and I'm here with Willie Haron III. Isabel is the executive director, and Willie, what's your title? I know you restore murals, and you're on the board. Yeah, I'm currently the restorer that's doing most of the restorations for the Mural Conservancy. And you guys are, let me see, one of your current projects. There's a lot of things, and we're going to get to as many as we can. But one of your bigger projects right now is on the 1-1 freeway, the Olympics. Is that ongoing? Right. We started that a couple of years ago, and we're heading towards 2014 for the 30th anniversary. Oh, excellent. And a lot of hard work? Yeah, it's quite interesting. You know, the noise factor kind of gets to you after the fourth or the fifth hour, so I'm grateful to California. I'm grateful to Cal Trans that that's all I could work there. And the way, let me see if I, please correct me if I'm wrong, there was, it was covered up at some point, that specific mural, where they put some sort of organic covering and then just like a whitewash or a paint over that. Do you have that correct? Yeah, actually they were all at one time or another covered by Cal Trans. And I want to say, as a, I mean, it's not as late as 2006. Some of the last ones were covered. There were still a couple from the 1984 Olympics that were just severely tagged and graffitied that weren't hit by the graywash so to speak, the Cal Trans gray. And those were one of the, some of the first ones we attempted to restore. Now we're working on the, the, four that were painted over with the gray paint. This isn't just talk for you. I mean, you guys are literally getting your hands dirty and working hard to restore these great public works of art. Right, yeah. I'm actually doing most of the removal of the gray paint, and I have assistants that then go in and make the colors and only put the color in where it's missing. So basically what we have left is almost 99% of the original artist's fingerprint. Hey, Lovet, before we start talking a little bit more, I just want to quickly mention you could find more. We're going to be talking about a thing or two here. You can also find a lot of information online. Let me see. Their website here is muralconservancy.org. You can also find them on Facebook, facebook.com forward slash muralconservancy. I think what really impressed me with the website was, great job, by the way, with the website, but just the cataloging of these existing works throughout Los Angeles, not just East L.A., not just a certain any specific neighborhood, but all the way like Van Nuys, Long Beach, all over Los Angeles. And whoever, all the people, you guys and everybody else, man, tip of the shaft. Whoa for that, because that, again, seems like a lot of work, a lot of cataloging, a lot of research and fact-finding and stuff. Yeah. You know, it's very exciting for us to do what we do. And in our city, at the Department of Cultural Affairs, they have about 1,650 registered murals. But we go, we have a lot of those, and then we also go out and find the new murals because there are dozens of murals. And we have a lot of murals painted every week, and we believe that we need to embrace everybody. We need to embrace all the neighborhoods. So we are about Greater L.A. We go South Central, East Los Angeles, the West Side. We go to San Fernando Valley. So we're constantly doing this, documenting, researching. We have our historians that help us to do the interpretations. We work directly with the muralists to find out what the inspirations were. So, you know, we are very proud of our archives. This is a course, you know, blah blah blah, all artists' objective and all that stuff. What it says to me, I mean, neighborhood murals are... There's just seems to be a running narrative and a voice to people who don't normally have a voice in popular culture or the news or what have you. You know, it gives people a voice. And it's a little edgy, you know, because we're talking about possibly, you know, public walls, or events like that. private walls where they don't necessarily whoever owns that particular space it's not their voice and they don't maybe not necessarily care. It seems like a tricky path you know to get everybody on board sometimes and preserve you know these culturally significant works. Who are you guys personally involved with like talking to some of the property owners? The way we work is that we do our mission is to restore, preserve, maintain and document the murals of Los Angeles so when we come to the point that the mural is already done but in many cases we serve as a liaison when an artist for example last year we worked from January to October to save a mural in East Los Angeles and the story of our struggle and we needed to talk to city officials to the county to the artists themselves so our role varies according to whatever the mural's issues are and as we told you a little bit earlier before you began the program right now we're helping to write the ordinance that is going to lift the 2002 moratorium that is going to allow muralists to paint legally again something that hasn't happened for you know so many years. I definitely have some additional questions made specifically about the ordinance. We're gonna come back and talk to that in a few minutes. Let me see let's get a little bit back into the music here. I'm gonna start you off Loved Ones with Fred Wesley and the JB's. Doing it to death is the name of the tune that's on the Pass the Peas record on the best of eight JB's record excuse me out 2000. Loved Ones I mean there's James Brown we all know him we all love him his backing band the JB's they just got such a large full extensive catalog and I really recommend it. checking them out Fred Wesley architect the funk right after that we're gonna hear Lonnie Liston Smith with expansion from his cosmic funk and spiritual sounds record also out on Ace Records before mentioned Ace Records and right after that we're gonna hear Los Angeles's own Orgone one of their brand new tunes called Ronin. They got a new EP out that's available on their website www.orgonespace.com www.orgonespace.com and the EP's called New You Part One. First off Fred Wesley and the JB's. Thank you Loved Ones. We're gonna have a funky good time. We're gonna have a funky good time. We're gonna have a funky good time. We're gonna have a funky good time. Let's take them up Fred. We gotta take it high. Yeah. Woo. Alright. You wanna do it again. You wanna do it again. Yeah let's do it one more time. Higher. Ha. Yeah. Brother. Yeah. Now I want everybody. Let Fred blow up our two choruses. And then I want to wave you and let's go until every minute's now. Alright. Alright. I'm gonna get that bella with the little horn over there. See that James horn on me. Yeah James horn. Let's get it going. Fred can you take us higher. Yeah. Take us higher. Fred. Fred. Fred. It gets Kalau. It gets Kalau. It gets Kalau. It gets Kalau. It gets Kalau. You know what? When I hear a groove like this groove, oh, it's got to get high. Yeah, baby. Yeah. Yeah. Like way up young, man. You know what I'm saying? You know, I believe. Hey, Brad Thomas, brother. I'm getting ready to wave y'all in. You know what? I feel so down. I need to get down. In order for me to get down, I got to get in D. In order for me to get down, I got to get in D. Need to get in D. Dog to D. Down D. Funky D. Sanky D. Down D. Get on down. Morgan Lamb. You like D? I think I think about making a big M. Look here. Look at that. You over there. You better sing one verse, bud. All right. What we got to do. Gotta have a funky good time. Oh, yeah. Gotta have a funky good time. Oh, yeah. Gotta have a funky good time. I didn't know you were singing, Brad. Come on. Don't moan so much, brother. Don't moan so much. Gotta have a funky good time. Check them out, then. We gotta make it high. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. High. Is that Maceo? He's doing everything over there. Maceo? Is it who? Maceo, you know like, Maceo, won't you blow? Oh! Yeah! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! EP available on their website, www.orgonespace.com. They're currently out on tour, but they will be back in Los Angeles playing in August, August 2nd at the Echoplex. Let me see, we were talking a little bit about the city ordinance available, and I knew that there was much more to get to, so I wanted to come back. Could you explain briefly what the ordinance is all about? In 2002, there was a, there is a MIRRA moratorium that was established in 2002. So since then, the MIRRA community has been advocated to leave that moratorium so the artists can create legally again. And it's taken over a decade to come to the point where we had help at the MIRRA Conservancy of Los Angeles with the MIRRA community to write the ordinance that is going to help lift the art of the artist. So we're going to have a lot of work to do with that moratorium, but also it's going to include issues that benefit the muralists. As you know, traditionally, the muralists had painted our city for free. We are a vibrant city because our muralists, and they had gifted this city with this. So now, you know, it's time for us to support them and to give them legal rights and to protect their rights in every way possible, because their art is an incredible asset to our city. So the MIRRA ordinance, it's establishing different issues. Really, in reality, before 2002, there wasn't any ordinance. And so you could go and paint murals wherever you were allowed to do so. So now we have this ordinance that had many issues that we didn't approve or we didn't like. So we've been working with the city officials to change that. And we have done that. And we had meetings throughout the city in 2011 and 2012 where we were informing the mural community, the art advocates and the mural people who love murals, about the issues that will affect our communities if we don't do this ordinance in the right manner. And there are two issues that I would like for Willie Geron to speak about it. We have two issues that are very important and that we, the city officials, understand that need to be addressed correctly. And I'm going to talk about the first one, which is grandfathering in the murals, meaning that any mural that has been created, because before 2002, it wasn't illegal to paint murals. Those should be protected. Everything existing, which, like I mentioned before, many of which are cataloged on your website, MuralConservancy.org. Yes, exactly. So all those murals, you know, they were painted legally because there wasn't any ordinance. But since 2002 to now, there were many murals that have been painted and they are painted on a daily basis that we are asking the city officials to grandfather in so they can be protected. And then the second issue, I will pass it to Willie so he can explain, you know, the importance of what he's going to say. Yeah, and actually for me, there's actually two more, but the main one right now, in addition to the one Isabel mentioned, has to do with artist painting on single-family private homes in residential areas. And I feel that that has and will take away the ability of our youth to have a voice and to find a voice. To find a place where they can be heard. And I think a lot of neighborhoods really need to give the youth a space to relate what it is that they're experiencing, what they're going through. It actually nurtures, I think, a lot of youth to stay out of gangs and it abates, I think, on many levels of frustration and anger that may come out of not having that ability. And that freedom to paint. It gives them an avenue to communicate. Right. And so I think that that's a very important issue. You have more affluent areas that are really concerned of possibly ghettoizing their neighborhoods by allowing this. But that ordinance also explains the definition as not, a mural cannot be defined by its content. So we're also saying, it includes faux finishes, it includes trompe l'oeil, it includes all these European finishes and frescoes and so on. And it also includes tiles. So if you have a lion fountain spitting out water in your front yard and it's on the wall, a mosaic, it includes all of that. It's not just Che Guevara or Pancho Villa painted on the side of a garage. And the second... The third one for me is also giving the power to the property owner to deregister a mural after it's registered. It's actually going to give the power to the building owner and the property owner to erase it if they want to. I understand that on Thursday, July 15th, we're going to hear from Councilman Reyes. 13, one three. 13. Yes. Sorry about that. Thursday, July 13th. An update about this specific ordinance. That's at six o'clock. Where's that? Avenue 50, studio in Highland Park. It's on the Avenue 50 and Figueroa. And of course this information is available on the website, muralconservancy.org. Yes, it is on our Facebook, Mural Conservancy of Los Angeles. And we have invited council member, Reyes, District One, who has been one of the leading council members about passing this ordinance. And so we have asked him to come and explain to us how does the last draft of the mural ordinance look like? Because we haven't seen it. And we believe that we cannot go into this blindly. We need to know what are we going to be facing. Yeah, you demand action and demand to be heard and some sort of decision. Yeah. Yeah. Well, shit, that's pretty heavy. I'm going to definitely read more into this ordinance and I'm going to go back to music for just a moment. This is Behind Us Right Now You're Here 400 Years by Peter Tosh and the Wailers. Thank you so much, loved ones. I'll take you to a land of liberty I'll take you to a land of liberty I'll take you to a land of liberty I'll take you to a land of liberty I'll take you to a land of liberty I'll take you to a land of liberty It is a land of liberty It is a land of liberty It is a land of liberty It is a land of liberty It is a land of liberty It is a land of liberty It is a land of liberty And be free Look how long 400 years Wait too long And the people My people Can't see Said it's 400 long years Get patient Say it's philosophy It's been 400 years Wait so long It's been 400 years Look how long 400 long, long years People hiding from reality Look how long 400 years 400 years 400 years Don't you have 400 years They stick them flow around them Cannot notice Shepherd is calling all his flock Ready to shiver the air from the grave Oh Only to remain the walls of Zion Walls of Zion Mystique them flow around them, cannot notice Shepherd is calling all is true Ready to shiver the air from the grave Only to reveal the walls of Zion Walls of Zion Though the world steps on Gomorrah With men's cause and our evil ways I know that we can see the paradise Only to reveal the walls of Zion Walls of Zion With only peace and love and fairness He only walketh brighter Take it and leave it now Peace and love and fairness He only walketh brighter Peace and love and fairness He only walketh brighter Peace and love and fairness He only walketh brighter Peace and love and fairness He only walketh brighter He only walketh brighter He only walketh brighter He only walketh brighter Promises you have made Please try to fulfill them Promises you have made Please try to fulfill them No matter what the constraint Just put your people in trust first No matter what the constraint Just put your country in trust first Then you walk it brighter Walk it brighter You walk it brighter You walk it brighter You walk it brighter Just brighter than the former And brighter for our future This is our day You walk it brighter You walk it brighter You walk it brighter Just brighter than the former And brighter for our future Water bloom, water bloom, water now It's your bloom Water bloom, water bloom, water It is your bloom They stick them flow around them, cannot notice Shepherds calling all this fluke Ready to shiver the air from the grave Only to rebuild the walls of Zion It's your bloom There's no Zion It's your bloom It gets you down It gets you down tours every other month the next one's coming up in July 22nd and that's a second June June 22nd I'm so sorry and that's that second Gary yes yeah so we're meeting place that is $20 but also includes a yearly membership which allows you entry into some of their other great events like the happy hour with it as artists socializing and networking and mother what's we got a couple seconds what's another good event is somebody might look forward to getting to me iconic mirrors of Los Angeles like Willie Heron himself can't tweet y'all you know many of the people who participated in the mirror movement from the 70s on as well as graffiti artists because we embrace the younger generation and we try to have events where we include everybody from all sorts of neighborhoods and languages and religions and it kind of goes without saying that this is a nonprofit organization so if this is somebody they need your support not necessarily and nobody's asking for money per se but you know go on the site and shoot them a quick message let them know that you appreciate it if you know of a particular artwork they need to know about let them know you know attend one of the events and again they're not as good for anything free you know come down let them let them show you some of the murals and show you a good time and have a great day and I'll see you next time bye bye thank you so much for coming in thank you Johnny this was great I wish we had more time I wish we had more time we have to book another another sit down um murealconservancy.org this is the Isabel Willie thank you again thank you thank you thank you Johnny and thank you loved ones for tuning in I will talk to you next week bye now you