Battle of the Bands

Hear Mount Pleasant, a group that has been fighting to bring live music back to the neighborhood’s bars and restaurants, and its foe, the Mount Pleasant Neighborhood Alliance, will both be holding live concerts in Lamont Park this Sunday. In a press release, Hear Mount Pleasant’s Natalie Avery calls it a “weird showdown.”

The concerts will begin two hours apart. Hear Mount Pleasant will present “Black and Latino voices…to speak about neighborhood, identity, race,” according to its Web site, at 4, and will feature *Lilo Gonzales* of Machetres. The Mount Pleasant Neighborhood Alliance’s band, Cheverly Hot Noodle Concern, part of its Music in the Park series, will begin playing at 6.

A couple weeks ago, Hear Mount Pleasant, which aims to promote arts and culture in the neighborhood, hosted a Lamont Park performance of The Evens, and a few months ago, they sponsored a showing of Footloose at Marx Cafe to publicize their cause. The group wants to replace voluntary agreements, brokered by the establishments and the MPNA, with agreements that permit live music, poetry readings, karaoke and dancing.