California Roots Festival @ Monterey Fairgrounds

[Greg]

Wherever you go, there you are.

[Drunk Monk]

Def feel post-reggae…

[Drunk Monk]

Got my YMAA heavy lifting for today done. 

Now it’s time for a nap…

Still got some writing due tonight for an early deadline tomorrow.

[Drunk Monk]

Writing deadline met. Article submitted. 

I got a nice nap in and Stacy is giving me ample space to be blurry. And I'm hella blurry. I can't even focus my eyes that well. But I'm satisfied. It was a great weekend. 

Mike Love was great. He did a fun version of Pink Floyd's Money, but only one loop track. Nevertheless very enjoyable and those who watched with me from JM agreed heartily.

The sun came out Sunday. I got my Iaido sensei in, using the wristband that would've gone to Dirty HOel's mom if she didn't poison herself just before the show (she mixed the wrong cleaning agents and broke out in a horrible rash - Hoel says she's starting to have some memory issues). My sensei had a blast, as did my nooB from yoga. 

We caught Sensory Tribe first, an international group. The lead was from Peru. They were delightful and I bumped into the bass player backstage and took a selfie with him. Gave him major props and he was very flattered and grateful. 

Missed Matishyahu and only caught the beginning of Steel Pulse (the Rally round the flag song) when we headed over for dinner. SP is still solid. 

Listened to Eli-Mac over dinner. She didn't do much for me. 

Caught a bit of Common Kings, which was better than I remember.

Caught some of T-Pain, which was loud and sort of silly. He has a great stage presence but not many of his own songs. He mostly appears on other tracks. I didn't put together who he was until I heard him and was then like, oh I know that song. But they only did his parts, which are small. It was odd.

Finished with Dirty Heads. They were better than I remembered them too. They are definitely kings of the Cali reggae sound, but both Tara and I agreed that it only goes so far until all the tracks sound the same. 

We cut out about a half hour before they ended. We were home before midnight.

It was another irie weekend at Cali Roots. How good and how pleasant it was to spend time with my JAH Med family and my daughter, who has grown up in this scene. It's like coming home for us.

I assisted a C-spine to Dirty Heads "Lay me down" which struck me as funny, even though it wasn't.  Poor girl.  She wasn't even drunk or high.  She just slipped and hit her head - LOC so we had to roll.  

When Dirty Heads went into this song, I flashed back on this moment and all the amazing moments I've had at Cali Roots, most of which are documented on this thread. So grateful for my reggae life. JAH Med 4EVA!

[Drunk Monk]

Just gotta remember to pack my new camping chair & stickers to tag it. 

The new chair is the heaviest piece of gear I have now. It's very throne-like, which was Tara's goal in giving it to me. It got a few nice stickers over the weekend. It's built tough so we'll see how it does in the festivals to come...

I feel pretty good, all in all. Only my lips are a bit chapped. I must get some better chapstick because the one in my kit is as solid as a candle. Not too sore, no unexplained cuts or bruises, my tinnitus is just a notch higher than usual. All good. 

I'm still not quite back to the default world with a screener tonight and a concert tomorrow night. Then things should chill out a bit. I don't have any more big weekends until July.

[Drunk Monk]

I sunburned my nose a bit. Doesn't hurt but now it's starting to flake & peel.

[Drunk Monk]

I finally cut my CR 25 wristband yesterday. It was a cool one, black cloth with a gold Good Vibes logo (GV is the promoter). It paired well with a black rubber Shaolin Temple wristband the abbot gave me last year. I would’ve worn it longer but ID bands have these one-way clasps that act like a lobster trap, so they slowly tighten over time and this one was getting to the point where it might’ve cut off my circulation had I kept it longer. 

Good memories.

[Drunk Monk]

Cardiac roll Franti’s bass player rolled

 Sorry posted this to the wrong thread

Twas a rough start. After all the insertion bullshit, we got rocked for the last 2+ acts. Lots of calls, in every direction. The cardiac was intense - I wasn’t on that call. Franti played with some pianist subbing for bass and said his bass player was with him for 30 years. Sorry I missed that.

Michael Franti’s Soulshine At Sea Cruise Canceled Amid Mounting Controversy
Andrew O'Brien | Monday, August 18th, 2025
Photo: Steve Baran – Michael Franti performs in Grand Rapids, MI, 7/14/22

---

The sold-out Soulshine at Sea Cruise originally due to sail on November 4th, 2025 with a number of notable artists on board has been canceled amid mounting controversy surrounding the event’s host and headliner, Michael Franti.
A note from event producer Sixthman on Sunday published an announcement to the Soulshine at Sea website reading, “In light of recent events, the Soulshine at Sea with Michael Franti event scheduled for November 4-8, 2025, is cancelled. We are actively working to announce a new event that will sail November 4-8, 2025. …. As we communicated on Friday to booked guests, all guests will be offered options regarding their reservations, which include a full refund or future Sixthman credit. We appreciate your patience as we work behind the scenes to provide swift and clear information to our guests.”
The past actions of Franti, the reggae-fusion artist and Spearhead bandleader best known for feel-good songs like 2008 hit single “Say Hey (I Love You)”, recently came under scrutiny after Victoria Canal, a young artist who toured with Franti in the late 2010s and collaborated with him on the 2019 track “The Flower”, shared the story of her experience being groomed and emotionally abused by an influential artist. Although she did not mention him by name, fans were quick to pinpoint Michael Franti as the subject of Canal’s account.

Michael Franti & Spearhead w/ Victoria Canal – “The Flower” (Official Video) – Released 1/16/19 

In the days that followed, several artists booked to perform on Soulshine at Sea—including Dispatch, HIRIE, and Maggie Rose—announced in posts of their own that they were dropping off the lineup. On Sunday, around the time of the cruise’s cancellation announcement, Michael Franti made a post of his own on Instagram refuting the allegations indirectly levied against him.
While both the initial post from Canal and the ensuing responses from Michael Franti and other associated artists have been delivered via notes app screenshots notably devoid of specific names, the statements’ verifiable context and glaring subtext leave little doubt that Franti is the subject of Canal’s allegations.
In an Instagram post made on her 27th birthday with denoted trigger warnings for “sexual abuse” and “grooming,” Canal wrote, “I’ll only say this one. This is something I’ve never spoken about publicly, and have been holding for 8 years now—it has plagued my body, spirit, and mind, in subliminal and overt ways, for my entire 20’s. It was only earlier this year when I was assaulted by a stranger in a rehearsal space, that something in my subconscious awoke (including many buried memories) and helped me start to understand the effects of what happened to me. Today, on my 27th birthday, I am choosing my own freedom by sharing this with you all. I am letting it out, to be able to let it go. This decision feels so right in my body.
“When I was 19,” she continued in a second slide, “a very powerful, decades-older man plucked me out of the internet, and college, and invited me on my first professional opportunity. I won’t mention him by name or any specifics (as redemptive as that would feel) because I can’t risk the financial loss or emotional terror a lawsuit would bring.
“What’s important to say,” Canal went on, “is that I was made to feel safe by this person, at first. He appears to be loving, charismatic, and principled—to this day, he is beloved by his following, appears to be a family man, and has a very active career. However, behind closed doors, this person has a history of incredibly damaging behavior across the board, and has a team of enablers around him who have fiercely protected his image, perpetuating this behavior for decades.” Click below to read the rest of Canal’s account of her experience.
This person, at the beginning, would invite me to stay with his family, and introduce me to all of his “important contacts”… He would take me on walks, ask me about my life, slowly and surely introducing sexual topics… He would invite me to his hotel room to “record vocals”, telling me how much he believed in me, only to then insist that I lie down with him… he would take my body into his and rock back and forth, and to my quiet “not sure this is a good idea”, he would say “it’s fine as long as you don’t tell anyone”… when I was asleep in my bunk, he would stick his hand in and touch me on his way to the back of the bus… he would, I later learned, take pictures of me without my awareness or consent… these behaviors progressed over a year, slowly keeping me more isolated in a highly unfamiliar and contained environment.
I had no team at this time, and no tools as to how to communicate boundaries whatsoever. I was a virgin, it feels important to say. Also to say, for many months I wasn’t provided my own accommodation in this situation (though I had the same job as every other hired musician who was provided accommodation), so if I wanted a bed to sleep in and a shower to use, he made sure it was his.
At the time, this person made me believe that:

1. No one else wanted me there
   
2. He was my only safe person and he truly “loved” me
   
3. If I ever told anyone what he was doing, my career would be over before it started.
   

That is the terrorizing confusion of grooming; you think that person loves you, and you’re too naïve to possibly understand the abuse of power. Your brain convinces you you’re willfully participating in it, that you actually have agency, because that’s what it has to do to survive. Everyone in this environment witnessed this happening to me—one employee even walked in on this person doing something to me—and only this year have I had dialogue with those same people and have understood that, yes, this was a very, very fucked up situation, and nobody knew what to do about it. But everybody knew.
This experience, which lasted a little over a year, has had a years-lasting effect on my intimate life. At the very end of it, this person verbally admitted to me (while I was in an extremely vulnerable position) that getting me in this position had been his plan all along—from the moment he saw my face on the internet—a confession that froze me in time, and debilitated my body from feeling pleasure and freedom for years and years. I didn’t quite understand why my body would shut down anytime I wanted to explore with someone, or why I had PTSD symptoms every time someone would mention this person’s name to me—only with this recent assault did every memory come lurching back into my consciousness and make me go, “oh, of course.”
When that happened, my world ruptured. It’s been a long and evolving journey in reclaiming my emotional and spiritual health. Here are the things that have helped me:

1. So, so much therapy.
   
2. Psychedelic treatment.
   
3. Talking about it with other women, and other men too. Again, the way to let it go is to let it out.
   
4. Finally making art about it, including Body Behave (which I’m putting out soon) and a deeply mournful EP I’ll put out one of these days.
   

I want to make one thing abundantly clear: the person I’m referring to is not among the mentors that have championed me since I got signed to a major label in 2022. These men have actually been a healing force in my life in being able to understand that not all people in positions of power abuse it. For years, when any powerful person would help or encourage me, I’d think, “so at what point are they going to try to isolate me? When are they going to reveal their true intentions? When is this going to turn into that?” These mentors have, among others, shown me that healthy mentorship does exist, there are men that wholly want to help, and I am so so eternally grateful for that lesson. Please don’t entangle those people with this person.
The truth is, I just couldn’t carry on hiding this part of me. Hiding this from the young women who follow me has felt so painful, and I finally feel so ready to speak on it openly. The same way that sharing about body image, sexuality, and mental health through music and writing has helped me grow and heal, so will this, I know it.
At the same time, it is really quite profound to witness the joy, celebration, depth, and openness I’ve been able to access in myself despite the violence inflicted on my body. I feel this sense of awe with all women, because truly, every woman I’ve spoken to has experienced some degree of violence. And as I type this now I feel so strong in my body, so happy with who I’ve turned out to be, despite of, and informed by, it all. Body Behave will be the first song that speaks to this experience, in a way that feels so hopeful and liberating.
Alright, I’ve said it now. Peace runs through my body. Finally. Thank you for listening.

View Full Text

 
View this post on Instagram
 

A post shared by vc (@victoriacanal)

On Saturday, as Canal’s story continued to spread via social media and various associated acts began pulling out of Michael Franti & Spearhead events, she took to Instagram once again to post screenshots of various messages she had received from others who had experienced grooming and abusive behavior by the aforementioned “powerful artist.”
Although some of the messages Canal posted appear to have featured the accused artist’s name, Canal continued to obscure his name. The names of the people who sent the messages were also predominantly withheld in the post, with the sole exception being a message from Carla Swanson, the documentarian with whom Franti co-founded Stay Human Films, who wrote, “I read your post and I’m so sorry this happened to you. I wish I could share my full story too — but this same person forced me to sign an NDA. Twice. This is how abusers protect themselves: silencing survivors while keeping their image polished. But truth always has a way of surfacing.”

 
View this post on Instagram
 

A post shared by vc (@victoriacanal)

Once again noting trigger warnings for “sexual misconduct” and “grooming,” Canal wrote in the post’s caption, “I was not planning on following up on my statement up [sic] with any other statements of my own, because I am so happy to feel free of this and move on with my life. I also feel like the person who groomed me doesn’t deserve so much real estate on my page.”
“However,” she continued, “after hearing many stories about the same person, I feel a responsibility (and have been asked by some who approached me) to share on these victims’ behalf. I have permission from everyone here to share these screenshots with you, including the name mentioned. There were more to share but as is totally understandable, not everyone feels comfortable speaking out on their experience regardless of anonymity. It’s a scary thing. Let this be a shedding of light on my own discovery – that I am not the only victim of this person.”
She added, “I am so grateful for the solidarity I have felt this week. You have no idea what it means to me for people to see the truth and to support me in my own letting go and healing. Thank you so, so much.”
The comments sections on both of Canal’s posts have also remained active, with thousands of fans and fellow artists offering support and encouragement.
On Sunday, Michael Franti made an Instagram post of his own in which he refutes Canal’s implicit account of their relationship. While he similarly does not mention Victoria Canal by name, his account appears to be an alternate telling of the same relationship described by Canal in her original post. Unlike Canal’s post, comments are disabled on Franti’s statement, which has generated more than 11,000 likes as of publication time.

 
View this post on Instagram
 

A post shared by Michael Franti (@michaelfranti)

 
“I come here most humbly to share my story with you,” Franti wrote. “7 years ago I had a romantic relationship outside my marriage. It was with an artist who was touring with me. I broke my wedding vows, I broke my wife’s trust, I broke her heart, and for that I am deeply sorry for the pain my actions have caused her. The artist and I had written a song together and later my team offered her a spot on tour as the support act. Over the course of the tour, we spent a lot of time together and soon began to feel strong emotions for one another.
“Eventually,” he continued, “I made the most regrettable mistake of allowing the relationship to become romantic. My wife found out about it and to save my marriage, we ended the relationship. The artist stayed on tour with us and we maintained a professional relationship. After the tour ended, she continued to perform at several shows.”
“During the last 7 years,” Frantin went on, “My wife and I have done an incredible amount of work for me to repair the damage that I did. I’m aware of the recent posts this artist made about our relationship, and while I support her need to express herself publicly, the relationship was completely consensual, based on mutual feelings and attraction. I vehemently dispute any version of the story that says otherwise.”
He added, “I will however, take full accountability for not better recognizing the power imbalance as she was younger than me, and I was the headliner on tour. For those reasons alone, I never should have allowed the relationship to become romantic.
“I have and continue to apologize to my wife Sara and my family for the pain that I have caused you. I am also apologizing to the artist for the pain that you are going through. My mistake was breaking the vows of our marriage, and involving someone else in the breaking of those vows. For that I will have to atone for the rest of my life. A public conversation about a private issue is never easy for anyone involved and I am sorry you are hurting. If you’re somebody who’s known me directly or somebody who’s known me through my music, you will know that I have my good qualities, as well as a lot of flaws. I wake up every day trying to work on them. Perhaps all the things I’ve been reading about me online are just God’s way of saying ‘do the work to become the person that you really want to be’ and I promise I will continue to do just that.
“I want to thank everyone in our community who reached out to me with such kindness and care,” he concluded, “and to those who were hurting in the unknown, I see you. Thank you to those who are holding us in your heart as my family and I navigate something like this for the first time.”
Soulshine at Sea 3 is not the only upcoming engagement that has been affected by the mounting controversy surrounding Michael Franti.
Spearhead’s ongoing Welcome to the Family tour, which has already been running for more than a month with various opening acts, was due to feature Tank and the Bangasand ALO on various upcoming dates. On Thursday, Tank and the Bangas pulled out of their Welcome to the Family run, noting, “While we are not aware of any specific details related to the matter, in light of the recent post made about the artist, we have made the difficult decision to not participate, until we have a better understanding of the facts.” On Sunday ALO dropped off a stretch of upcoming Michael Franti tour dates in Texas, citing “allegations against the headliner.”
This story is developing.

[Greg]

Sometimes the Quote function throws up hiccups and I get to fix them.

[Drunk Monk]

Sometimes the Quote function throws up hiccups and I get to fix them.

Thanks but don't feel obligated. We're all big bois here and understand about such formatting issues ('cept for PPFY but I don't think it matters for kerosene powered devices). You should focus on your crotch.

---

 You should focus on your crotch.

I confess
The only reason I replied to this thread was to post that.

[Greg]

And a mighty 'duh' was heard throughout the land

[Drunk Monk]

Focus!

Focus on your Crotch!!!

[Greg]

Like a laser, dude.

[thatguy]

--tg

[Greg]

I don't want me to die.