Pitchfork

The fourth annual Brooklyn Peace Fair takes place this weekend, and artists ranging from Franz Nicolay of the Hold Steady (playing with Anti-Social Music) to (hopefully) Talib Kweli will play at the festival, which is comprised of "200 local organizations participating in a day of workshops, panel discussions, keynote speeches, music, and art," according to a press release.

Before the event itself takes place this Sunday, October 22, there is a benefit concert scheduled for tomorrow at Supreme Trading, the proceeds from which will benefit Brooklyn Parents for Peace, the non-profit organization behind the Peace Fair. Artists playing the concert include the Shapes, Dabrye remixer Outputmessage (who also has a DJ set toward the end of night), and Matthew Perpetua of the wonderful Fluxblog (thanks for new the Long Blondes track and for turning us on to Shrag, man!), whose DJ set will close out the night.

The artists performing at the actual fair on Sunday include Anti-Social Music (a group that includes the Hold Steady's Franz Nicolay, Songs: Ohia contributor Peter Hess, and Ida/Beauty Pill member Jean Cook), Beans, Jeffrey & Jack Lewis, Jason Trachtenburg of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls duo Magnolia, and, tentatively, Talib Kweli.

The true draws of the fair, however, are sure to be the "peace dance" and the "youth peace contest, moderated by M-1 of Dead Prez," which is like some sort of peace snake eating its own tail, i.e. exactly 17 overlapping kinds of awesome.

Sunday's fair, which will take place at Long Island University's Brooklyn campus, is free. In addition to the music and peace contest, it will include keynote speeches from author Sonia Sanchez, journalist Michael Massing, and CODEPINK founder Medea Benjamin, who will discuss "issues like Iraq, Israel-Palestine, Iran, North Korea, Darfur, and globalization; plus issues closer to home like the media, military recruitment, veteran's issues, Brooklyn development, healthcare, death penalty, drug laws, GLBTQ rights, and education." So, um, political stuff.