Moonalice rocks Sweetwater Music Hall for Prop 64 GOTV

The iconic Sweetwater Music Hall, co-owned by Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead, hosted a Get Out The Vote Concert November 3 to raise awareness on Proposition 64, the Adult Use of Marijuana Act. The show will be headlined by Moonalice, featuring Lorin Rowan and other very special guests. Moonalice is an eccentric blend of Roger McNamee aka “Chubby Wombat Moonalice” on bass, guitar, and vocals; Pete Sears on bass, keyboards, accordion, and vocals; Barry Sless on bass, guitar, pedal steel guitar, and vocals; with John Molo on drums.

Opening the show will be Steve and Andrew DeAngelo, two of the founders of Harborside, answering your questions about Prop 64/AUMA. Every guest received an assortment of rock posters by Alexandra Fischer commemorating the event and this historic election.

Roger McNamee spoke on his reasons for voting Yes on 64

For those who do not know him, Roger McNamee is a venture capitalist by day musician by night, who has “structured [his] life for the past 30 years” to allow him to play over 800 shows with his previous band, The Flying Other Brothers, and his current project, Moonalice. On the side, he found him to be a business adviser to the Grateful Dead, and found the private-equity firm Elevation Partners. McNamee has been called an “early adviser” to Facebook and Elevation has a stake worth over a billion dollars of the social-media giant.

“My first and driving motivation on Prop 64 is about civil rights,” Roger said. “I don’t know if you know this, but did you realize that people of color are arrested and incarcerated for marijuana at three times not just the rate of the population but thee times the rate of usage of marijuana? Essentially the drug laws are the foundation of the New Jim Crow. This is the way that white supremacists, one of the core ways for controlling people of color. It’s really horrible… To me, this is a civil rights issue, it’s not an investment opportunity.”

 Roger also spoke on the heavily-moneyed special interests who continue to oppose legalization.

“There is a tremendous campaign being waged by people who are coming out of industries like the pharmaceutical opiate industry, the hard liquor industry, for-profit prisons, and other people who are trying to protect the status quo, to keep our state from making what is a really, really, really important next step in the battle to free people from just the hell that has been the war on drugs. I want you to understand a few things. Proposition 64 is just a step. It’s one in a long line. It’s not perfect, but we’re going to fix what’s wrong with it, and it is so much better than what we have now.”