Café Du Nord hosted a packed benefit concert featuring Bay Area based, emo-prog- rockers, Division Day and dredg. The event benefited Music for America, MFA, a nonprofit organization that encourages young people to vote and get involved in politics.

This once-grass roots organization now boasts about 60,000 members and tours the nation at music events, setting up tables offering information for young people on how to register to vote. Music is used as a tool for the organization to get the message out that having an interest in political issues and having a voice within politics is important to everyone, especially young people.

MFA’s mission is to provide the cultural capital and political savvy for a generation to reinvent progressive politics, according to its Web site.

Don Menn, who has been active with MFA since 2003 and a SF State journalism professor, said that MFA is mostly a liberal organization, although its work is essentially non-partisan.

“We are doubling our efforts by not only trying to involve young people to register to vote but by encouraging participatory culture,” said Menn.

He added that young people are heavily pegged towards music, and therefore it is used as a “cultural springboard” from which to encourage political activism.

Jennifer Otter, who is currently studying her master’s thesis in the humanities department at SF State, is the Music Director for MFA and said that they are very excited to have both bands involved with their organization.

“Division Day and dredg represent the future of music,” she said. “They’re both politically active and they represent San Francisco in terms of their diversity. They really show where the industry is doing things independently and getting involved within the community.”

Drew Roulette, bassist for dredg, said that he felt it was important for them as a band to get involved with the organization and to help raise money for the cause.

“I think it is important for young people to be involved in their community as well as in politics of life. Young voters brought the Democrats in to the Senate so that was important to us as well,” Roulette said.

According to the organization, 4.6 million new voters registered in 2004. Four million of those voters signed on through youth outreach groups such as MFA. Rock the Vote, a similar youth-based political organization, which went bankrupt in 2004, similarly targeted young voters by setting up shop at larger venues and youth-driven musical events. Menn said MFA is a more alternative, progressive organization that has targeted smaller clubs and music venues.

MFA cites the multi-platinum, Grammy-winning punk band Green Day as heavy supporters, as well as musicians such as Death Cab for Cutie, Nelly Furtado, Michael Stipe of R.E.M and record label, Interscope Records.

The organization was started by three young guys, Andy Rappaport, Dan Droller and Josh Kumid, who were just out of college and had an idea of how to change politics. They found that many bands wanted to get their political message to their fans. The three created MFA as a host for bands to send their message and encouraged them to help spread that message.

According to their Web site, MFA is not only a political organization, but a cultural one.

The organization stands behind an idea called participatory culture, which is the idea that if you participate in your culture, you are essentially being political.

SF State music major, James Scragg, 31, interns for the organization and jokingly said his job is to entertain people in the office. He said he is involved with MFA because it is a youth-driven organization.

“This is the world we’re talking about here, the current state of this country is a disgrace,” said Scragg, who plays the drums and keyboard and has just put out an album with his band, Riff, titled “Play something we know.”