Music Matters By Rachel Montoya
Music is an important part of our daily lives. We have all grown up listening to music on the radio and many of us were fortunate enough to participate in music classes in school. However, in recent years, many musical programs in the public schools have been cut back or discontinued completely, leaving it up to us to do fundraising events to bring them back.
That’s where Music Matters comes in. This Friday, March 30, at the Westfield Shopping Center, there will be an all-day event to raise money for the music programs in the PSUSD. The event will have DJ’s of all ages and musical styles spinning tunes from Noon to 10pm. There will be dancing, food vendors, games, a henna tattoo artist and other fun activities for the whole family. The admission is only $5 and if you get there before 3:00 you will get a free ticket to enter the drawing to win a free ticket to Coachella Festival. They will give away a ticket for week one and another ticket for week two. If you arrive after 3pm, don’t worry, you can still purchase a ticket to enter the drawing for only $5.
The best part of all of this fun is that 50% of the proceeds are going to a worthy cause; The Pinnacle Fund, which puts arts and technology back into PSUSD. This includes schools in Cathedral City, Desert Hot Springs, Palm Desert, Palm Springs, Rancho Mirage and Thousand Palms.
The event was put together by Craig Michaels who has been a local mobile DJ for over 25 years. About 8 months ago Michaels started the Coachella Valley DJ Association, which now has about 18 members, who meet monthly at local bars or restaurants. “I wanted to bring everybody together so we can elevate the level of professionalism of the DJ’s here in town,” said Michaels. “As a result some of the guys have been able to help each other get more work.”
Michaels goes on to say that one of the reasons he started the group was so they could do charity events to give back to the community. “Dynamic Dave suggested we do a DJ-Athon and that’s how this event came to be.”
Michaels saw the Pinnacle Fund online and liked that they had a music program and of course they were happy to be on the receiving end as well. Then Westfield Shopping Center came on board as they like to be involved in community driven events, so they sponsored the location, which is downstairs center of the mall in an empty department store. Then Classic Party Rentals jumped in along with R&R Broadcasting Group to help promote the event.
From there it snowballed and Alex Martinez of Extinct Entertainment heard about it on Facebook and contacted Michaels wanting to get involved. “His company works with younger DJ’s , some of who attend Palm Desert High School. So I thought they would round out the line-up,” shared Michaels.
This time around Michaels won’t be spinning any tunes as he will be overseeing the activities to make sure everything runs smoothly. “Maybe I will at the next one,” he says smiling. “We want to continue doing these events on a regular basis to raise money for other charities too.”
Craig Michaels is the co-owner of Musical Affair Entertainment.
DJ’s interested in joining Coachella Valley DJ Association can contact Michaels at 760-619-3276.
The DJ line-up is as follows:
12:00 DJ Kermie / Floor Filler Entertainment
1:00 DJ Thorn/ Prime Time Productions
2:00 Mark Karlstrom/ Creative Audio Productions
3:00 Kerwin Greenidge & Sherwin John/ DJ Island Rhythms
4:00 Ulises Ruiz/ Main Event Entertainment
5:00 Luis Frausto/ Prime Time DJ’s
6:00 Dynamic Dave
7:00 Chase Martinez/ Chase Martinez Entertainment
8:00 Waylay/ Extinct Entertainment
8:30 Aero Nautics/ Extinct Entertainment
9:00 Take Off/ Extinct Entertainment
9:10 Elementia/ Alex Martinez Extinct Entertainment.
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