Local Victoria show promoter Koby Andrews is organizing a benefit concert with all proceeds going towards mutual aid organizations to help those affected and displaced by the recent fires in Los Angeles.
Andrews is a local mutual aid advocate, a pillar of the Victoria music community and is always looking for a way to help those in need the most.
He says that a good friend of his, Taylor Pannell, was down in the Pasadena area of Los Angeles during the recent wildfires, and just by seeing their content, his eyes were opened to the scale of the crisis that was taking place.
When Pannell got back from LA, they met with Andrews and told him of all the chaos that followed the wildfire along with how underprepared the region was to care for all those who had been displaced by the blaze.
“Seeing this unfiltered live stream of how detrimental it all was, how bad it was and realizing that the Canadian news ban is doing a lot to keep the information out of the eyes of people in Canada,” Andrews told Victoria Buzz.
“A lot of the actual action behind this situation is from grassroots mutual aid groups and there were things that I saw that showed me how wildly unprepared these institutions are.”
Andrews decided to use his position within the local music scene to organize a benefit show with the guidance of Pannell and chose three diverse acts to play the show who he says represent the community well.
The show is called ‘Out Loud for Altadena’ and it will be held at downtown Victoria’s Lucky Bar, featuring KŪMAIMI, a DJ who will play a range deep cut Afro-diaspora music and also happens to be close friends with Pannell; Hot Pot, who are an Afro-fusion band inspired by hip-hop, reggae and soul music; as well as Fangirl, who are a pop-punk/surf rock band.
Tickets for this show are being sold on a sliding scale of $10 to $40, with a recommended donation of $20.
All funds from this benefit concert will be donated to the Altadena Rebuild Project and other mutual aid groups with boots on the ground in LA that require support to help those that have been displaced by the fires.
“Altadena Rebuild project is supporting a lot of people sheltering at the Pasadena shelter which was threatened to be shut down because it was a temporary measure,” Andrews explained.
“At the time [of the fires] there was another shelter that people could go to, but it didn’t have enough room and space for everybody, so it just left a lot of people with housing insecurity in the short term and the long term.”
He added that he and Pannell want the money to go to help displaced people as much as possible, but also be open and flexible with where the funds go in the spirit of mutual aid.
Although the relationship between Canada and the USA is tense right now with the looming threats of tariffs and a trade war, Andrews says that he believes mutual aid projects like this benefit show transcend the borders that divide the American people from Canadians.
“I don’t really see it as much as a division between Americans and Canadians, as much as a division of government powers asserting their control over the populations to make us despise one another,” said Andrews.
“It’s wildly inappropriate and at the end of the day it’s making us treat people poorly when we have a lot more in common with them than the people running this country.”
At least 29 people died in the wildfires that tore through LA in January and displaced tens of thousands of people by destroying over 16,000 structures.
In addition to all his community-based work and his work in the music scene, Andrews is also an events coordinator at CFUV, UVic’s campus radio station and hosts a show every Friday, from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. called ‘Freak Frequencies.’
‘Out Loud for Altadena’ at Lucky Bar
- When: Friday, February 28th, doors at 7 p.m., music at 7:30 p.m.
- Where: Lucky Bar, 517 Yates Street
- Tickets: Available online or at the door on a sliding scale
- Age restrictions: Attendees must be over 19-years-old
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