MFM Holds Its First Year-End Mixer at Catalyst Records
A Report by Dawoud Kringle
On Friday, December 12th, 2025, MFM held its first Year-End Mixer at Catalyst Records. MFM president Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi produced the event. Roger Blanc was the music coordinator. Chris North was the MC.
Ladjevardi provided the inspirational opening and made introductions.
Chris North, MFM’s new vice president, gave us an idea of some of the things that are in the works for the immediate future for MFM.
Roger Blanc spoke about his reasons for working with MFM and his association with other organizations, such as the Local 802.
Alan Sugarman, attorney, spoke about the restrictions against live music in conjunction with dancing in New York City. Explicitly. 9000 venues in New York City have liquor licenses that prohibit dancing at their venues. Sugarman has a coalition of musicians and dancers who are working to change this. This led to a brief discussion of the legal history and ramifications. He is asking for support from the MFM membership by signing his petition here:
http://dance-music-regulation.com/petition/
http://dance-music-regulation.com/petition-2/
I was next. I gave a brief discourse on the MFM Speaks Out podcast. I hosted and co-produced it for 2.5 years. When I retired, it went on hiatus, aside from some special episodes. Ladjevardi announced that he will take the reins and host the podcast. I also briefly spoke about my contributions to doobeedoobeedoo.info and mentioned the importance of reaching out to younger musicians.
Sohrab spoke next. He reiterated the primary mission of MFM: to work collectively to ensure musicians receive fair pay for our work. At this point, Ken Hatfield interjected. He mentioned that the United States was one of only three nations that historically never paid musicians royalties for broadcasting music. He urged the members to continue working to counteract this, noting that registering our works with SoundExchange and that the Local 802 Musicians Union is at work on this.
As the speeches ended and the music began.
Roger Blanc and Banning Eyre started things off. They played a few African-inspired pieces with Andy Weintraub on snare drum. Ken Hatfield stepped up next. He played a beautiful Brazilian jazz piece with percussion accompaniment. Blanc joined him on a blues. Other performers included Richard Scott (guitar), Volker Goetze (trumpet), Michael McHough, who performed Poetry with SoSaLa (Sohrab), Harvey Mars (Local 802), non-member Peter Knoll (guitar), and yours truly on guitar and poetry.
It was diverse, musically audacious, and delightfully messy in a way only informal gatherings among friends and colleagues could be.
Special thanks to Gary Guarinello of Catalyst Records for letting us come in and party in his store.