Over the course of the last week, filmmakers, writers, and fans gathered in Midtown Manhattan for the city’s 8^th Annual NYC Independent Film Festival (NYCIndieFF). The festival hosted screenings of over 250 films, spanning the range of documentaries and comedies to short films and animations. Dispersed throughout the film screenings were networking events, panels and seminars that festival-goers could attend to learn about topics such as crowdfunding and music licensing.

Last month, Donald Trump signed an Executive Order threatening Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monument with drilling, mining and logging. These monuments boast 1.9 million acres of canyons, arches, and piñon-juniper forests. They house artifacts, buildings, and sacred spaces of Native American communities. The Department of the Interior is accepting public comments on whether to let Big Oil destroy Bears Ears. So we need you to speak up NOW and help save this special place!

Joining founders Jeff Kazor and Lisa Berman and long-time member Erik Pearson (composer of the Crooked Jades tune featured by Sean Penn in his 2007 film “Into The Wild”) will be important former members of what some now call the Crooked Jades collective. Playing bass will be Megan Adie who is back in San Francisco after a decade of living and playing 17th and 18th century double bass in Europe.

The Grateful Dead played more than 2,000 concerts, but maybe none continues to spark interest and provoke discussion quite like the band's performance at Cornell University's Barton Hall on May 8, 1977. It is one of the most collected, traded, and debated concerts by any band ever, has topped numerous fan polls through the years, and was a favorite of the group's longtime archivist Dick Latvala, who stated: Enough can't be said about this superb show.