Quick version of their story: Singer-songwriter girl meets singer-songwriter guy in a Boston Club. They’re intimidated at first, then fall for each others’ tunes and then each other.
1 venue + 2 guitars x Starry night in Boston = The Weepies
Say I Am You is their second album together. Folky/chill/simple and thoughtful lyricists. Evidence of what happens when two independently great planets collide:
A while back, Nora, Sara and Joseph (three friends and fellow music lovers) had an extra ticket for a Ditty Bops show. Luckily, I just happened to have no plans that Friday night and scrambled to meet them at a local Starbucks for the drive up to Denver. The show was taking place at what I later learned was a sweet little venue called Swallow Hill, reputed as “Denver’s Home for Folk, Roots & Acoustic Music.”
For less than $20, I walked into a small white building that looked like (and may very well have been) an old, re-purposed church. It had all the ambiance you’d expect and seemed to attract only music purists. You know… messy hairdos, warm smiles and, if you looked closely enough, calloused fingers. I felt right at home and was excited to listen to a band that I had no history with.
Amanda and Abby–the Ditty Bops–did not disappoint. In fact, through the course of their performance, I went from feeling awe to admiration to a real (surely mutual) connection. I was convinced that they, especially Amanda, would become my new best friends. For these 10 reasons (and more):
Somehow, The Ditty Bops managed to captivate us all with their quirkiness, their talent and their authenticity. I fully intended to ask if they needed a third wheel violinist to complete their act and really felt like the cards were in my favor. Unfortunately, my party had to jet quickly after the show and I never got the chance.
Do check out their music. You deserve it.
(Amanda/Abby… if you’re reading this, I’m still interested.)
Everyone has a story, so why not tell it on a T-Shirt?
It seems that’s what Mike Fretto and Chris Lewis (founders of Rosa Loves) were thinking when they began this non-profit in 2006. So far, they’ve helped a woman who couldn’t walk get a walker, a seaweed farmer get a boat and a grandmother get a house after hers burned down. They’ve given South African kids the opportunity to continue surfing with better supplies and Mexican students scholarships which were previously non-existent.
How does it work? They get wind of people or communities in need, design a T-shirt to represent the need and give back a percentage of the T-Shirt sales to alleviate or diminish the need.
Their mission:
We hope to encourage individual people to get involved in the community around them on a somewhat tangible scale. We will accomplish this by providing financial support to those in need by infiltrating the t-shirt industry with a new perspective of how clothing can serve a purpose other than outfitting. Everyone has a story. Everyone has a need. By using art and creativity, we hope to foster hope and encouragement through the aid of apparel. Each story will be told through stimulating graphics and actual text that will appear on the inverse of the shirt directly in line with the heart, where the Rosa Loves movement stems from.
And of course they only use fair-trade quality clothing, “in order to promote the love and proper financial support around the world.”
Here’s the story of Made (the seaweed farmer from Indonesia):
Story by: Eric Hires
October 2, 2006My friend Made is a 30-year-old seaweed farmer and fisherman. He is one of the most kind-hearted and giving people that I have ever met. He has a wife and two beautiful children. A third child, a son, passed away when he was only three.
When I was on Nusa Lembongan I would go and visit Made and he would teach me Indonesian. One day I bought him ice cream because I wanted him to enjoy a simple luxury that he can rarely afford. He refused to eat it though; instead he took it home and gave it his kids. The next day he asked if I wanted to go fishing with him and of course I said yes. We went way out in the ocean and caught seven tuna - the other men said that this was a good catch. Made sold five of them for the equivalent of one dollar each, and gave two to his wife, which she began to grill over an open fire. They insisted that I stay and eat, so we sat around in their hut and pulled hunks of fish off with our right hands while shooing thousands of flies away with our left. We laughed as we did our best to communicate in our broken dialects. They bought me a Sprite, which is a big deal when you live on less than one dollar a day. I felt honored to eat with them and to be their home , where they treated me like an honored guest.
Made, like many of the men in Nusa Lembongan, is a seaweed farmer and a fisherman. This is how he provides for his family. Made and his family are very poor, even by Indonesian standards. The boat that Made took me fishing on was not his own. He doesn’t own a boat, but has to borrow a boat anytime he wants to fish or tend to his seaweed harvest. If Made had his own boat, not only would he be the happiest guy in Indonesia, but he would also be able to fish and harvest his seaweed on his own time. This would allow him to bring in more money and hopefully be able to provide his children with simple luxuries that we take for granted, like ice cream or education. A new boat would cost about $2500 USD. It would be something very special if we could raise the money to buy Made and his family their own boat. It would be a tangible way to show them the love of Jesus.
This is a beautiful idea. Buy a T-Shirt.
