Record Friday presents

                                                                                                                                                                Yeah I know this happened a bit ago bit I've had my own problems to deal with and my depression has been no motivation to get shit done . Well anyways on Friday December 17th there was a benefit toy drive for the Bakersfield Homeless Shelter and by the end of the night (well actually in a couple hours ) it had exceeded expectations .                                                                                                                        Organized by Keri Bryson

who has kept Record Friday going for a few years now , that this would be a first annual (and hopefully more to come) toy drive for the Bakersfield Homeless shelter and hopefully maybe other benefits for other charities . This like many other charities are not without their hiccups especially when it is not organized by some richy fucks who never disclose where all donations have gone to . For this all toys donated and money raised would be taken to and delivered to the Homeless Shelter the very next day . Well anyways there was a problem with the original venue which was suppose to have been Jerry's Pizza but they had double booked that night and they chose to go with whatever the else they had booked . Well on a tight time schedule to secure a venue , calls are made and another venue is secured , not all ages like what was wanted but the choice was made for The Mint to host the toy drive concert . 

There were some people already there (well it's a bar after all) at around 6 and by 7 PM there were a lot more people and the donation boxes were being filled up and by about 8:30 the donation boxes were overflowing and more toys still being brought in and the back area of The Mint was packed with people  

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           There was a couple tables set up by DANG LIES! who sells punk related items and then there was HOWIE'S MICHELADOS   

And a thank you to Ronald from Going Underground Records  for DJing for this and just having a bad ass record store 

The later it got the more and more packed The Mint was with people and so many old faces were out this evening , people I see on occasion or haven't seen in years , so many punks , drunks , skinheads , gangsters . Hell just an entire variety of people gathered together for one common interest and goal for the kids at the homeless shelter to hopefully to one hell of a christmas .                   It got to a point in the evening that if you left The Mint that they weren't allowing anyone back inside until some people had left , I'd have never seen that there before but was amazed at the amount of people who did so for such a cause . And for the toys collected , it was a lot , the first pic is early in the evening and so on                                                                                      

and this pics are from what was collected and before being delivered to the homeless shelter 

Overall this was a giant success and they're hoping to make this benefit a regular yearly thing and possibly some other benefit concerts . The DRY SOCKETS came up from Long Beach to play and a couple of incidents happened during their set , a couple people got into a fight in the back area of The Mint and toward the end of their set , I guess a couple of people (not from The Mint) got into an argument , blah blah blah and then someone fired a gun at the other person , never really found out much more about it but there were a bunch of cops out front of  (nothing unusual for 19th Street)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             There are a bunch of pictures but this was from throughout the night from what i took and of what Keri took , I have a bunch of video too but I'll get to those later .