On the first Saturday of each month, somewhere between 20 and 70 or more folk musicians and singers gather in a circle at our club to make that magic combination of music and words ----traditional folk music.  May the circle be unbroken.

Going strong since 1978    

2009--our 31st Year!!

the Folk Music Club invites you

to join us

for a Sing-along/Hoot/Jam!!

Bring a friend!

Bring a song!

Bring an instrument!

Song circle!

Children welcome!

$5.00 donation at the door, or admission with membership.

The SANTA MONICA TRADITIONAL FOLK MUSIC CLUB

meets the first Saturday of each month,

7:30 to 11:30 p.m. at Sha'Arei Am (Santa Monica Synagogue),

1448 18th Street (corner of Broadway and 18th Street),

Santa Monica, California, 90404 (click here for map)

The temple is on the corner of 18th and Broadway at 1448 18th Street, SM.

It doesn't look like a temple--just a small, nondescript building.

There's a big parking lot in back.  Park there and enter through that back entrance. 

$5 at the door, if you can afford it.

  

MONTHLY THEMES FOR 2008

Our 31st Year!!!

~ the following song themes are only suggestions to get your musical juices flowing ~

Come play along and bring a song!

January 2009

  • Any dang thing you want to sing (1st hootenanny at the White House)

February 2009

  • New York (New Amsterdam incorporated)
  • River Boats and the Mississippi (Samuel Clemens takes nom de plume, Mark Twain)
  • Irish (James Joyce's birthday)

March-2009-Our 31st Anniversary meeting!!!

Note:

We cannot meet at our usual place for March and May (NOT APRIL). For both March and May, we will be meeting at the Friends' (Quakers') Meeting Hall at 1440 Harvard Street. Harvard Street is 2 blocks east of 26th Street, about 6 blocks east of 18th (where the temple is). The Meeting Hall is between Broadway and Santa Monica Blvd, just like the temple. There is minimal parking behind the Hall, and some of the streets are marked with signs "permit parking only", in other words, for residents only.  PLEASE CHECK THE SIGNS BEFORE YOU PARK OR YOU PROBABLY WILL BE TICKETED.and prepare to drop off those who cannot walk a few blocks.
Both March and May the meeting will start at 6PM and must end at 10PM, at the Friends' request.
March is the Club's 31st birthday month, so we will be having a Pot Luck before the music. Bring something for the Pot Luck, even if it is just rolls or a salad.
So, to recap:  For the months of March and May (Not April) the Folk Club will be meeting at the Friends' Meeting Hall from 6PM to 10PM, with a Pot Luck in March to celebrate our 31st Birthday. Parking is a little problematic, so be sure to check the signs.

We'll have a Happy 31st Birthday potluck dinner (bring yummy food!) at 6 pm and a cake cutting! 

We'll celebrate 31 years in song after we fill our bellies.

At this temporary venue, our meeting must end at 10 pm. 

March 2009--(see above re: change of venue for March and May)

  • Distance(Planet Uranus discovered)
  • Cotton (Cotton gin patented)
  • Licentiousness, Scandals (Scarlet Letter published)

April 2009

  • Sailors (US Department of the Navy established)
  • Animals (ASPCA founded)
  • Revolutionary War ("Shot heard 'round the world")

May 2009--

We cannot meet at our usual place in May.  Instead, we will be meeting at the Friends' (Quakers') Meeting Hall at 1440 Harvard Street. Harvard Street is 2 blocks east of 26th Street, about 6 blocks east of 18th (where the temple is). The Meeting Hall is between Broadway and Santa Monica Blvd, just like the temple. There is minimal parking behind the Hall, and some of the streets are marked with signs "permit parking only", in other words, for residents only.  PLEASE CHECK THE SIGNS BEFORE YOU PARK OR YOU PROBABLY WILL BE TICKETED.
The meeting will start at 6PM and must end at 10PM, at the Friends' request.
So, to recap:  the Folk Club will be meeting at the Friends' Meeting Hall from 6PM to 10PM. Parking is a little problematic, so be sure to check the signs.
  • Soldiers (Selective Draft Act passed)
  • Buying, Selling (Peter Minuit trades beads for "Manna-hata" island)
  • Locks, Keys (Linus Yale patents a lock and key)

June 2009

  • Explosions (Massive explosion over Tunguska, Siberia 1908)
  • Texas (Texas annexed to US in 1845)
  • Insanity ("Mad" King Ludwig of Bavaria dies)
  • bonus theme: Burl Ives (born 1909)

July 2008

  • Food and Cooking (National Culinary Arts Month)
  • Trains & Outlaws (Jesse James gang rob their first train)

  • Sing-A-Long Songs (Mitch Miller's birthday)

August 2008

  • Man's Best Friend (National Dog Day)
  • Surrender & Peace (Civil War ends)

  • Fish Stories & Tall Tales (Herman Melville's birthday)

September 2008

  • Money (U.S. Treasury Service established)
  • Building (Louis Henry Sullivan's birthday)
  • The Open Road (First US coast-to-coast paved road opened)

October 2008

  • North and South (Mason Dixon line established)
  • Returning (Douglas MacArthur returned to the Phillipines)
  • Clothes (tuxedo created)

November 2008

  • Nasty Habits American Cancer Society's Great American Smokeout (3rd Thursday)
  • Looking Good Jacob Schick patented the first electric shaver, 1923
  • Rollin' on the River Robert Fulton inventor of the steamboat is born November 14, 1765

December 2008

  • Games of Chance (National Dice Day)
  • Modern Medicine (First Artificial Heart)
  • Party Time (U.S. Prohibition ended)

 

Come play along and bring a song!

TO ALL BOOKING AGENTS AND PERFORMERS:

Please note that we are a group of friends who come together to make music.  We do not put on concerts as a result of agent or performer solicitations.  If you'd like to join us in music and song on the first Saturday of the month, please contact us. But if you are contacting us in the hopes that we will put on a concert, please don't.

You might try contacting Barbara Greenspan's Noble House Concert series to arrange a concert.
 
The Beach Cities Folk Music Club is just down the freeway--we get together on the third Thursday of each month at a private home in Manhattan Beach.  So--if you're in the L.A. area and are free to sing and jam either the first Saturday or the third Thursday of any month, please join us!

For more information:
     aprilstory@aol.com (founder & folk club Mom, April Halprin Wayland)

snail mail:

Santa Monica Folk Music Club
1097 Aviation Boulevard
Hermosa Beach, CA 90254
FAX: (24 hours) (310) 379-4523

"When people ask,
"Whatever happened to folk music?
Do you think it will become popular again?"

I look at them dumbfoundedly
and then I invite them to the Folk Club.

I take great pride in being able to show them a place
where traditional folk music lives in the hearts of
ordinary people – strumming away and singing
along."                                                                                                                                  

~RossAltman President, full-time Folksinger/ Songfighter 
& President of the Santa Monica Traditional Folk Music Club

Folk Links—in no particular order