Great News! New Location!
The Folk Club is moving on May 3rd to Culver City 🎶😀
Thank you everyone for your patience as we found a new home for our folk club.
Where: The Culver City Memorial Building, Kaizuka Room; you can enter from multiple entrances. Main entrance is at front of building by fountain near intersection of Culver Blvd and Overland. All entrances are on the first floor and restrooms are nearby to the room.
Time: First Saturday of each month from 6–9 pm, May 3, 2025. Note, this is 1 hour earlier than our prior meeting times.
Parking: there are over 300 free spaces accessible via Overland or Culver Boulevards.
WiFi: there is WiFi available so we will be able to link to Zoom once we have a suitable AV system set up.
New Location:
Culver City Memorial Building, Kaizuka Room
4117 Overland Avenue, Culver City CA 90230
A Monthly Gathering
The Santa Monica Traditional Folk Music Club invites you to join us
on the first Saturday of each month from 7–10pm for a sing-along/a hoot/a jam!
On the first Saturday of each month,
somewhere between 10 and 25
folk musicians and singers gather in a circle
to make that magic combination of music and words —
traditional folk music.
Bring
a song,
a friend,
an instrument,
or join in the chorus!
2025 is is Our 47th Year!

Cost of Admission
We still charge just $5 (if you can afford it) for a one-time admission, or $50 for the year.
- Cash or checks when you come in person
- Checks to: SMTFMC, mailed to SMTFMC 1097 Aviation Blvd, Hermosa Beach CA 90254
- Paypal: @AprilWayland (write SMTFMC in comment section and if your name isn’t fully spelled out on your Paypal account, write your full name in the comments, too)
- Venmo: @April-Wayland‑1 (write SMTFMC in comment section and if your name isn’t fully spelled out on your Venmo account, write your full name in the comments, too)
- We are a 501c3 non-profit; contributions are tax deductible. Yay!
Q. Will it be on Zoom, too?
A. Only for SMTFMC members for now.
Monthly Themes
Many thanks to Janet Cornwell for this list of themes.
The following song themes are suggestions only to get your musical juices flowing …
Themes for 2025
January 2025
|
We’re definitely meeting in January! Promises & resolutions, |
February 2025 | Numbers, Socks & Underwear, Togetherness |
March 2025 |
OUR 47th BIRTHDAY! Cups & glasses, |
April 2025 |
Jokes, Giggles & Silliness, |
May 2025 | Perfume & Nice Scents, Uniforms, Certainty & Reliability |
June 2025 | Rings & Jewelry, Shirts, Loneliness,& Longing |
July 2025 | Distance, Sportswear, Dreams |
August 2025 | Games, No Clothes (at all!) Wishes |
September 2025 | Measurements, Dresses & Gowns, Luck |
October 2025 | Bottles, Flasks, etc., Costumes & Masks, Illness |
November 2025 | Boxes & Cartons, Boots & Shoes, Loss |
December 2025 | Sugar & Spice, Coats & Sweaters, Determination |
Further Information
Come bring a song or play along!
Click here for a snapshot of who we are, our mission, and our membership application.
(We encourage you to attend a meeting or two before becoming a member)
TO ALL BOOKING AGENTS AND PERFORMERS:
Please note that we are a group of friends who come together to make music. We do not put on concerts as a result of agent or performer solicitations.
If you’d like to join us in music and song on the first Saturday of the month, please come! But if you are contacting us in the hopes that we will put on a concert, please don’t.
The Beach Cities Folk Music Club (little sister to the SMTFMC) is just down the freeway–we get together on the third Tuesday of each month at a private home in Manhattan Beach.
So–if you’re in the L.A. area, join us on both the first Saturday or the third Tuesday of any month!
“When people ask, ‘Whatever happened to folk music? Do you think it will become popular again?’ I look at them dumbfoundedly and then I invite them to the Folk Club. I take great pride in being able to show them a place where traditional folk music lives in the hearts of ordinary people–strumming away and singing along.” ~ Ross Altman, full-time Folksinger/Songfighter; former President of the Santa Monica Traditional Folk Music Club
Q. Will it be on Zoom, too?
A. Only for SMTFMC members for now.
Folk Music Links
In no particular order:
- The Beach Cities Folk Club meets the 3rd Tuesday in Manhattan Beach @ a private home
- Songmakers – “Keeping homemade music alive since 1953”, Songmakers hosts a robust calendar of events around town
- FolkWorks – Check out this FABULOUS site for Folk Music and Dance events in the greater Los Angeles area
- Folk Alliance — The North American Folk Music and Dance Alliance–”one strong voice”
- The Topanga Banjo & Fiddle Contest & Folk Festival
- California Traditional Music Society ~ this links to their FaceBook page only
- Sing Out! Magazine
- Sing Out’s song books ~ especially Rise Up Singing and Rise Again ~ are well worth purchasing.
- The Living Tradition–they sponsor contra dances, folk music concerts and folk music jams. They have a great newsletter, too.
- The San Francisco Folk Music Club in 1978, April was inspired by the SFFMC’s Faith Petric to found our club.
- FolkScene is a program of traditional and contemporary music featuring live music, interviews, and recordings
- Dick Holdstock and wife, Carol, long-time friends of our club, perform wonderful songs of the sea and more with Allan Macleod
- Ross Altman, folksinger /songfighter and songwriter extraordinaire is the President Emeritus of the Santa Monica Traditional Folk Music Club…click on his name for YouTube’s collection of his songs.
- AcousticMusicScene.com–a site designed to promote quality acoustic music by providing news, commentary, advance notice and coverage of awards and contests, conferences of note and music festivals, U.S. national and Northeast regional news, a photo gallery, regional live music calendars, etc.
Please let us know if any of the links above are broken.
For more information:
aprilspencil [at] G Mail [dot] com (founder & folk club Mom, April Halprin Wayland)
Santa Monica Traditional Folk Music Club
Our business address (NOT meeting place):
1097 Aviation Boulevard
Hermosa Beach, CA 90254
The Santa Monica Traditional Folk Music Club is a 501c3 non-profit # 33–0335698