If you love beer, art and music, then the Santa Monica B.A.M. Festival is where you should be on October 2nd from 1pm-6pm. The event offers 20+ beers, four bands, three galleries, open artist studios and food trucks. Tickets are $35 and before you freak out over the price, we’ll tell you what you get. A ticket provides you with unlimited beer tastings, five hours of live music and guess what, the proceeds support the 18th Street Arts Center’s programs and artists.

Participating craft breweries range from big to small, including New Belgium and Stone Brewing Companies to the smaller Eel River and Green Flash Breweries. From cool-fermented lagers to warm-fermented ales, the craft beer offerings at the 18th Street’s Beer, Art and Music Festival offer a range of styles for tasting.

The music lined up for B.A. M. Fest is just as diverse as the beer samples. From the blazing Blues infused sound of JT Ross and his rock-and-roll band Speedway, to the acoustic rock/pop music of The 3 Heads, the featured music at 18th Street’s festival is sure to make attendees groove. The Venice-based Makepeace Brothers evoke an American folk, blue-grass feel with what they call rootsbased power-pop and the Christopher Hawley Rollers keep the party going with their very danceable mix of soulful lyrics, slide guitar, thumping bass and soaring percussion. All four local beach bands bring their own feel-good flavor to this cultural event.

To widen the sphere of attendees, 18th Street Arts Center partnered with Los Angeles based art organization, Create:Fixate and artist-duo Rick Mendoza and Jim Marquez. Founder of Create:Fixate Michelle Berc is curating an exhibition by emerging and mid-career artists in 18th Street’s Main Gallery. In the Pasillos I Gallery, Mendoza will present his gritty and raw photography of the Downtown LA ‘scene’ while Marquez performs his written works on life and partying East of the 405 Freeway. 18th Street Artist Fellow, Elena Siff will oversee the collaboration of multiple artists as they build a virtual and actual art marketplace in 18th Street’s Project Room. In addition to the gallery shows, the resident artists who live, work and create daily at 18th Street will open their studios for attendees to experience works in progress and to purchase selected art.

Tickets are on sale at: http://www.18thstreet.org/events/bam-fest and in person at the Library
Alehouse, 2911 Main Street, Santa Monica, CA. 90405. For more information about B.A.M. Fest
2010 and 18th Street Arts Center visit http://www.18thstreet.org.

http://s7.addthis.com/js/250/addthis_widget.js?pub=xa-4a5e990e29489c7a