Mission Mission

If you’ve ever seen Rob Reich play accordion with Gaucho at Amnesia on Wednesdays or 1st and 3rd Thursdays at Tartine Bakery, you are well aware of his genius. He’s a brilliant improviser with an impeccable human-jukebox ear. Call out any tune to the guy, seriously. Overworld theme to Super Mario Bros. 2? No problem. Jump by Van Halen? Easy. Not only that, he’ll work it into a solo later in the night just to make you feel special. He’s so good that he’s been muralized in front of Amnesia.

Rob also composes the best original circus music you’ve ever heard for local troupe Circus Bella. After 3 years of performing his compositions at their live events he’s hoping to raise the funds to record a record with the Circus Bella All Star Band, which includes a bunch of amazing local musicians you’ve probably seen around. If you enjoy the music, consider donating to his kickstarter campaign. If you donate $10 you get a digital copy of the record. If you donate $250, hold on to your slide whistle, because you get to be on the record!

Here’s his composition Abigail’s Waltz for arial artist High Flyin’ Abigail Munn:

Here’s the kickstarter page, which contains a cool video of Rob describing the project.

There’s something wonderfully surreal about seeing a trapeze artist in the middle of a typical Mission backdrop.

Stephan Zielinski took this beautiful photo of High-Flyin’ Abigail at 20th and Harrison during Circus Bella‘s outdoor performance last Sunday. They have two more performances this month in Oakland. All proceeds go towards the Foot Locker on Broadway and Telegraph (no, not really):

• Friday, July 16 at 6:00PM. Studio One Art Center, Oakland
• Sunday, July 18 at 11:45AM. Dimond Park, Oakland

Check out the rest of Stephan’s shots on his web site.

Woah, didn’t this just happen less than a month ago? Well it looks like Sunday Streets in the Mission back for a second round this weekend. Not that anyone’s complaining.

Lots of cool free events will be scattered along the route including:

Circus Performance: Harrison Street at 20th (O’Connell H.S. lot)
Presented by Circus Bella
• 11:30-12:00 Parade down Harrison
• 12:00-1:00 Live circus performance

I caught Circus Bella last weekend at Yerba Buena and it was awesome. They set up their own circus ring and are accompanied with live music composed by local accordion hero Rob Reich. It’s going to be outdoors so you can bet that the trapeze will be hanging much higher than it was at their last performance at Amnesia.

Other than that, you can probably expect the usuals: purple robed guy on the tricycle with ginormo speakers, meligrosa snapping photos of her shoes, and a bunch of folks saying, “they should do this every week”.

More at Sunday Streets SF.

Circus Bella did a fundraiser performance at Amnesia last night. And, not to be deterred by the tight quarters, they managed to install a goddamned trapeze in the middle of the room:

That’s the artistic director Abigail Munn performing.

Circus Bella does it the old-school way and sets up free open air one-ring circus performances in parks. They feature a live band with original music written and performed by Rob Reich. You may remember last summer when they posted up in a beloved park in the ‘hood that starts with a “D” and translates to “pains”.

They are ramping up for the summer season and hopefully coming to a park near you. The next SF performance is at Yerba Buena  Gardens on July 3rd. They run on donations from supporters so find out how you can get involved here.