That is some sharp work.

From his myspace page: “Taru Dalmia is a reggae and hip hop artist based in New Delhi India. He has performed at various poetry forums and live shows, representing the lyrical and cultural tradition of reggae dancehall and hip hop in India.”

[HT, SC]

The rhymes were flowing and beat was strong. And I had a big, huge, grin through the whole night. It was the first night of Hiphopistan. I skipped the panel – as each panel skipped, adds 10 weeks to my life span – and showed up in the middle of Kabir’s set. I got to meet Yogi B and Natchatra – what great, genuine, and nice guys. Che Malabar was superb – and his Postcards from Paradise was the highlight for me. Things were political, things were tight. At one point, the taste at the back of my mouth and the incessant beat in my left ear, and I was transported to another place, long ago, in East L.A. when I went to my first hiphop concert. Ice Cube, who began the set with Assalamalaikum, mfers. Respect. Tonight, I will take pictures, and update this post. I am just happy. Long Live Desi Hiphop!

update: We will talk soon about this. Until then, enjoy the pictures and, below the fold, a couple of videos in crappy youtube (I will put up nicer streaming verisons on the hiphopistan website):

and

Saira Banu weirds out the all-too precious ode to motherland by Manoj Kumar. All I know is that Pran and Prem Chopra are _both_ in it – the baddest bad men ever.

Don’t believe me? Check this clip from the same, sampled and tweaked by Dan The Automator Nakamura and DJ Shadow in Bombay the Hard Way.

Talk about cross-currents.

Feist with Broken Social Scene, The New Pornographers, The National and some other people.

Does Kanye love chapatis? Hell Yeah, he does.

I absolutely demand that you read Samantha Shapiro’s Hip-Hop Outlaw from NYT Magazine. It is such a great read with asides like “(The Fox report on the DJ Drama raid included a shot of a grave-looking police officer saying, “In this case we didn’t find drugs or weapons, but it’s not uncommon for us to find other contraband.”). Furthermore, I absolutely recommend Clipse‘s Hell Hath No Fury.

While we are on the subject, anyone catch SFJ’s riff on Arcade Fire in the NYer? He gets their live insanity right – their show we watched in Chicago kicked ass – and he points out that they own their distribution channels.

ps. I really wish NYer would use permalinks.

Toronota based desi band, Falak – who think therefore they resist – want you to know that at least one of the 9/11 hijackers was just a spurned lover. In their video for the song, Yadain II – Memories II – the band rocks, ‘how do I live after forgetting you?’ while the hijacker gets ready. The video, with the disclaimer ‘Based on Tragic Events’ is here.

What. the. hell. is. wrong. with. you. people? [via]

Brett Lee duets with Asha Bhosle in one of the more bizarre things I have seen in a while. I do commend Lee on his rolled R’s.

I have issues with authenticity. ¹ One of the best scenes in Terry Zwigoff’s brilliant Ghost World is the horrific date Seymour has at the local “blues bar” where the frat/club/blues band the Blueshammer gives a soul-crunching perfomance of “Pickin’ Cotton Blues”: I been pickin’ cotton all DAY LONG. “Aren’t they great?,” asks Seymour’s chirpy date.

I was reminded of this scene recently in a discussion or two about Long Summer Day – a track on the new album by the San Francisco duo Two Gallants. I am a huge fan of their first record and think of them quite highly. However, I admit that the first time I heard this new track, I was taken aback by the track – and their moxie. This wasn’t just a blues song but a plantation song. This wasn’t a cover – they merely used the title and a chorus line – but an original work. Can two skinny white kids from San Fran really write, “Well I went down to the polling place but the white man there just laughed in my face/said “Boy this ain’t no nigger’s race, you best get on your way/“Sir I believe I’ve got the right.”/He said “You ain’t got nothing if you ain’t white./And I thought I said get out of sight.” Well what was I to say?” and get away with it? I wondered. Judging from the conversation with my friends and reading the reaction on music sites … I guess not. The track’s reception is largely harsh and contentious:

“Borrowing Otherness” – damn, thats just mean. The Two Gallants’ reference to their own “pale skins” also seemed compellingly awry to me. Yes, the critiques do hinge on the fact that Adam Stephens and Tyson Vogel are white kids from San Francisco because we are not really taking about white-from-black appropriations [that disqualifies all of rock, after all]. Eminem has, after all, built a world-wide following while “appropriating” and “borrowing otherness” along with plenty of N-bombs. And Jack White [heh] seems to have covered folk and blues standards through 4 discs with nary a peep from the Pitchfork defenders. My guess is that it isn’t their race or youth that has the critic’s ire – it is their class. And by “class” we can also mean “lefty, granola-crunching, san-fran hippies”. But, ah, you say – we can’t really talk about class in this country unless it is a stereotypical rags-to-riches story². Which is why we are picking on these pale-faces who can’t ever know about “a man as hardscrabble as Platt”. Surely not.

Funny thing is that when John Lomax first meets Moses ‘Clear Rock’ Platt at the Central Farm Texas Penitentiary in Sugarland, Texas, Clear Rock is engaged is some horrendous acts of cultural appropriation singing the songs of white folks from way back long:

There is a lot more that should be said about Clear Rock and maybe I will. You can, of course, go and read John Lomax’s wonderful narration of his trips in the early 1930s to collect these songs. As for the Two Gallants, I will see them in May when they visit Chicago and boo their hippie asses. In the meantime, what do you think, gentle readers? Should we rake Ra Da Punjabi Rapper over coals too?

1. and reality, but let’s leave that aside.
2. 50 ¢’s Get Rich or Die Trying is fast emerging as a pivotal text that I need to look at. Spike Lee’s Inside Man reinforced my gut on that.
3. Lomax, John A. The Adventures of a Ballad Hunter. New York, Hafner Publishing Company, 1971. p. 179.

My readers are such lovely people. They know that I am just goofing off under the pretense of being busy. So, they do not hesitate to ask of me what they want. Here is gentle reader, Jeff:

Well, Jeff, I am so hip that I know that all the kidz these days are on MySpace! And that’s where you will find PakMan and Jay Sean and Rishi Raj and tons of others. Just follow the links. The music itself is available easily enough through the internets [you should be hip enough to know how] or desitunez4u or desihitz or here etc. Of course the big name is Bohemia aka Ra Da Punjabi Rapper [might I add, of CM fame]. But the truth is that my readers are way hipper than I am and they will leave recommendations in the comments. So, discover and send us a note back on what you find worthwhile. Lastly, sorry about your workplace.

The next request comes from gentlest of all readers like thabet, nitin, & zack about this. I was going to have some fun with pointing out the archetype of warrior-weapon but I don’t have my joseph campbell handy. After all, mythic warriors from Beowulf to King Arthur to ‘Ali to Khalid b. Walid to Arjuna to Aragorn to Dick Cheney have all had a named weapon of [mass] destruction [quizman can supply the names of these glorious weapons in the comments, no?]. Now, just leave aside the delicious irony of Ghaznavi or Ghauri being ambassadors of culture, why would the Pakistani state want to name their missiles after them? Friends, all this and more is indeed covered in my dissertation. I beg of you all two more months on that request. And yes, Nitin, I need the next one to be named Qasim. I need it.

I was toying with the idea of doing a top 5 or so albums of 2005. Since, I, um, actually paid attention to music, this year [not dissertating, obviously]. Stuck in an office staring at the computer monitor for 8 hours a day – every day – does that to you. I also, happen to have some peculiar tastes and am a bit less forgiving to the popworld. So, in an effort to combat my snobbery, I turned to my partner-in-concert-going-crimes sven. Him with warm ebullience. Remarkably, he agreed to do a joint top 10 albums of 2005 with me -over IM and lunch. We co-wrote the list [belatedly, I realized we shoulda gone writeboard] and it appears on his site as well.

Of course, the best albums produced this year would be the efforts of my friends and colleagues. Ed Yazijian‘s Six Ways to Avoid The Evil Eye which had a limited 32 print run in a wholly customized fashion [ahem]. So, no, you cannot buy it, anywhere. Though, maybe I can persuade Ed to do an iTunes release. However, Paul Kerschen’s The Pacific Theater is available and demands your attention. Also, Scott Schaafsma and his crew Magnus have their second release Portable Sun available for your rockin’ pleasure.

Read on for the list.

	#10. Low РThe Great Destroyer The ever-melancholy Low hit 2005 early with a much darker album. A departure from previous work that bordered on lullaby tunes, Destroyer garnished the band a new group of fans that were easily put off by their prior efforts. As their tempo stepped up, so did their sales. With tracks like “Monkey,” “California,” and “Death of a Salesman,” we’re hoping that this album is a hint of what is to come from this band hailing from Minnesota.
	#9. Madonna – Confessions on a Dancefloor Yes, Sven is gay. It’s part of his DNA that he is shamelessly drawn to this woman [should we hold that against him? -sepoy]. This seamless album flows from the first track to the last with high energy beats. While Confessions flirt with our dancin’ feet, the lyrics provide depth which is scarce amongst most dance albums. “You’re not half of the man that you lied to be,” stands to be the best lyric amongst a sonic sea of insight. The only track that we would have retooled would have been the lyrics to “I Love New York.” After listening, we vowed to never visit again.
	#8. The Decemberists – Picaresque All hail the “Infanta!” [All also urge Colin to take some time off in 2006 -sepoy.] The Decemberists joined the list in 2005 with another album of melodic storytelling. Picaresque‘s songs covered topics from spy-crossed lovers, to the digestion of whales, and even athletic aspirations. A lot of people ask us, “Yo! Dude, why you gotta be all crushin’ over this indie band? You like some hipster or somethin’?” We usually just allow the CDs to speak for themselves. Eventually, they’ll understand (as we do) that Colin Meloy just writes wonderfully crafted and great offbeat songs. But, it’s only after careful examination of the lyrics that you feel like you’ve just read a great vintage novel.
	#7. Gorillaz – Demon Days We weren’t big fans of Gorillaz’s first album. And we didn’t pay much attention to it this time around either. Then, we realized that “O Green World” was something like pop perfection. And “El Manana”. And “Feel Good, Inc.” And Dangerdoom had MF Doom over. Heralding the beatzalicious The Mouse And The Mask – which couldave been on this list. We tell you!
	#6. Stars – Set Yourself On Fire The Elefant of this year, Stars’ third record is great pop. These canadians could stay a beloved local band, but their cheekiness elevates them over many a pretenders. This won’t save your soul but you can sing it out loud in your car to your heart’s content; Coldplay be damned. [And this album totally starts out with bestest quote everz, "When there's nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire!" -sven]
	#5. Broken Social Scene – Broken Social Scene [Another canadian [super] band and one more coming. What’s up with that? -sepoy] We are big fans of You Forgot It In People and this sounds very little like that earlier record. That still doesn’t mean that it is not a damn fine record. Still, of everything on this list, this record is the one with the question mark in my head [not even gonna say anything about Sven's Madonna]. In years hence, will I reach for this over YFIIP? In related news, Lisa Feist had her own solo record come out. Check it out, if only for the single “Let It Die”.
	#4. The New Pornographers – Twin Cinema Ah, the canadian super group [wait, or is that BSS? -sepoy]. The New Pornographers gather all of our favorite solo artists… eh… two of our favorite solo artists amongst some other well known musicians to form… THE SUPER INDIE GROUP BAND! Dah, dah, dah, dahhhhh! CMJ calls them “the best pop band alive,” and we have to agree. Twin Cinema, their 3rd release, continues their steady stream of catchy pop tunes. We dare you to listen to “The Bleeding Heart Show,” “The Jessica Numbers,” or “Falling Through Your Clothes” and not tap your toes! Go! Now! We totally double-dog-dare you! Go ahead. We’re waiting.
	#3. My Morning Jacket – Z Someone said that this was MMJ’s OK Computer. Damn, we wish we had said that. This is the record that blew our socks away this year. Totally unexpected. Their first album It Still Moves was equal parts CCR, LynrdSkynrd with a side of fried chicken. We lourves it. This, however, is where MMJ’s sound becomes their own. “Into the Woods” with the carnival beat is perhaps the song of the year [Yes, it starts out "kitten on fire, baby in blender. both sound sweet." How can we resist!?].
	#2. Sufjan Stevens – Come On Feel The Illinoise Besides pizza, there’s nothing more that Sven loves than a concept album. Put a theme to an album, and you got his dollar. The second of Sufjan’s 50 State project, Illinoise delivers the history, emotion, joy, and horror of the state that Sven and Sepoy currently live in. How could it not be up there on our list? In truth, we debated on making it number one, but then Sepoy was all like, “Dude! Amazon made it #1 on their list. We can’t be all like Amazon, dude.” Then Sven was all like, “Yeah. Tots [short for TOTALLY]! We can’t be all similar to the website… that we look at… every waking minute… of our spare time at work… while dreaming of all the stuff… that we can’t afford. Yeah. There’s just no way.” So, it ended up bein’ our #2, yo.
	#1. Andrew Bird – Mysterious Production of Eggs When we started to think about this list, we knew for sure that Andrew Bird would be on it. We would’ve never predicted that he would rise to the top. Sepoy has been a fan of Bird’s strings and horns since Squirrel Nut Zippers [Remember that swingers fad? Poor band got killed by it. I did just see that they have a Best of..]. Bird, a Chicagoan, went on his merry solo way and had a couple of fairly good albums. You should, for example, find his cover of “50 Pieces” off Thrills as well as “Fatal Flower Garden” off of Bowl of Fire [see, iTunesMusicStore is your friend]. However, while those records had sparks of brilliance, this is all golden. Bird toned down his flourishes and sang [don't forget he whistled alot, too! -sven] the happiest sad album you will ever listen to.

These would fall under the “SO CLOSE. BUT NO CIGAR. CAUSE OF THE SMOKING BAN ‘N JUNK” category:

Josh Rouse – Nashville

Josh is Sven’s new crush. While Ryan Adam’s is coming out with four albums in a year [one was a double disc], Josh put out a quality CD that pleased most critics. And more importantly, it pleased us. THE MOST IMPORTANT PEOPLE YOU WILL READ ABOUT!

Rogue Wave – Descended Like Vultures

Rogue Wave avoided the sophomore slump with Vultures. “Love’s Lost Guarantee” is guaranteed to tug at your heart strings as you throw back that bottle of Tequila another Thursday in a row. Even worse, while watching The O.C. on mute.

The Like – Are You Thinking What I’m Thinking

Guilty pleasure of the year. There is no need for this made-up band of hot daughters of record execs and producers from LA to exist. But, it does and the record is singalongy good. And, they hot. You know?

Beck – Guero

This album is like the best of… Beck. Some great tunes and def. one to get turned up to 11. But, let’s wait for the next one, shall we?

Kanye – Late Registration

We live in Chicago. We habitat on the South Side. If we didn’t have him somewhere in this post, he would like send his Gap clones in sweater vests to beat us up-n-stuff.

p.s.: Some other recommendations: The National’s Alligator is the rich man’s Tindersticks. And the lyrics are KILLER. Do check this band from Ohio. Also, Spoon’s Gimme Fiction, Silver Jews’ Tanglewood Numbers, OK Go’s Oh No.

Saw Arcade Fire at the Riviera last night with sven and rajeev. What an amazing show – def. one for my best of list. They play like maniacs and behave like ones too – rocking out in their band gear. So darn cute.

I must admit that after keeping them in heavy rotation for most of nov thru feb period, I had stopped listening to them. Also, the orchestrations were starting to sound a tad precious [same thing happened to me w/ regards to Decemberists except it was Colin's voice in that case]. So, while I wanted to see them, I wasn’t as excited as I could have been. Holy Smoke! they rocked my doubts away.

If the Arcade Fire come anywhere near your neck of the woods, GO SEE THEM.

updated: An actual review of the show from the Onion’s blog.

(written by dacoit)
The British-Sri Lankan singer/toaster/artist/producer M.I.A. has been anything but missing in action lately, blowin’ up the (cyber)spot on a worldwide(web) scale for the last few months and garnering mention in the US, Britain and Canada (though she is nowhere to be found in the press outside of Europe or North America as yet). M.I.A.’s anti-establishment quasi-activist sonic radicalism combines an old school UK punk aesthetic with genres ranging from the established (dancehall, hip hop, drum & bass) to the emergent (electroclash, mash-up, Brazilian baile funk).

This is flashy, trashy, funky and junky candy culture – but if M.I.A.’s music were candy it would be atomic fireballs (sugary sweet, brightly colored and cheap as dirt, but mad spicy to the point of being a little dangerous and unpalatable to the squeamish). Aesthetic judgments of her music’s quality or lack thereof have consumed several pots of ink and countless kilometers of bandwidth in blogland, the mainstream press, graying liberal rags , and more recently established arbiters of taste (and again). My primary interest is not in airing my own opinions of the music here (for the record, I find the idea of M.I.A. extremely compelling – both in terms of the styles she puts together and the politics – but the music itself has yet to grab me).

Aside from pronouncements on whether her sound is derivative/original, good/bad, and so forth, much of the discourse on M.I.A. has been over the question of her politics (see, inter alia, Sepia). Many have voiced principled objections to purchasing recordings or attending performances based on her alleged support of the Tamil Eelam movement and specifically the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a militant Sri Lankan ‘terrorist’ or ‘freedom fighter’ organization (depending on how one chooses to narrate the situation) seeking autonomy for the ethnic Tamil regions in the northeast of the island nation. Indeed, M.I.A. – Maya Arulpragasam – is the daughter of Arul Pragasam (his nickname ‘Arular’ is the title of her album), a major figure in the LTTE and the radical Tamil nationalist student organization EROS that preceded the Tigers. She never exactly declares explicit allegiance to the projects and methods of the LTTE, either in the text of her lyrics or any of her numerous interviews, but the iconography she employs on stage and on her website incorporates the loaded symbolism of mighty tigers and various guerrilla-style implements of destruction, and she is not shy to refer to her father as a ‘freedom fighter’ in her lyrics (though in one interview she called him ‘insane’).

Notwithstanding MTV’s ban on her video for suggesting “like PLO/we don’t surrend-o”, M.I.A.’s political orientation is far more complex than many have taken it to be. As Robert Christgau points out, the only unambiguous message on her album is that education is crucial. Apparently, however, the ‘fact’ that M.I.A. is a supporter of LTTE terrorism is so obvious that some on the left see her as being an all-too-perfect target of neocon fear-mongering. Why might so many be so willing to dismiss her as a supporter of terrorism, pure and simple? This is a question that requires us to consider both the contemporary meaning of terrorism, and how the Tigers fit into this.

These days, the invocation of ‘terrorism’ performs a major political function in much of the world. The term is increasingly used as a blanket condemnation of any type of political opposition to an internationally recognized nation-state that does not use exclusively electoral means to get their points across. This works on a rhetorical level as well as to legitimate ‘counter-insurgency’ clampdowns in the language of international law. Crying ‘terror’ is also a significant means by which national governments can obtain resources for consolidating their own authority. Raising the specter of terrorism thus becomes a continuous process of state governments attempting to portray insurgent groups voicing oppositional political positions (often quite legitimate ones) as ‘terrorists’ to attract abundant international counter-terrorism monetary and military support. The global mass media plays a central part in the process of defining this or that organization as terrorist, and the end result is that accusations get flying so fast and furious that the term ‘terrorism’ loses whatever precise meaning it might once have had, and complex political conflicts from Palestine to Philadelphia to the Philippines are reduced to a global conspiracy of evildoers.

The way the global scourge of terrorism is localized in the case of Sri Lanka provides the key to the role of the Tamil Tigers in this picture. Emerging out of a grave failure of the post-colonial Sri Lankan state to incorporate the large and historically marginalized Tamil population in the north and east of the island, major resistance movements begin to flare from the late 1970s onwards. The Sri Lankan Tamil nationalist movement initially is aided by the Indian government, with the crack RAW section of Indian intelligence training cadres of Eelam-ites in the Indian Himalayas from 1983. This alliance is short-lived, and India’s military support of the Sri Lankan government’s counter-insurgency measures against the LTTE (which by this point has become the dominant resistance group) results in the 1991 assassination of former Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi by Tiger cadres in Indian Tamil Nadu. Since this period, the LTTE, at the insistence of a Sri Lankan state increasingly given to Sinhala nationalism, has consistently been branded a terrorist organization internationally (they are listed as a Designated Foreign Terrorist Organization by the US State Department and similarly notified in India’s recently repealed Prevention of Terrorism Act). It is of little use to debate the merits of this designation – the LTTE tends to conduct business in an authoritarian and undemocractic manner and is notorious for eliminating voices competing to represent the Sri Lankan Tamil nationalist position (especially, as one astute commentator points out, Tamil and non-Tamil voices seeking to raise the problematic of caste, class and gender justice outside of the Tamil nation framework). Also contributing to the case for the Tigers as terrorist organization is the involvement of child combatants and practice of suicide bombing (dispassionately portrayed in a recent film).

As with most scenarios where the appellation of terrorism is used to homogenize and demonize political opposition, posing the question as one of a legitimate Sri Lankan state against the terrorist Tigers obscures the serious issues of unjust distribution of political power and economic resources (including much-needed tsunami relief in the Tamil areas). I think that for the same reasons we need to take very seriously the conditions giving rise to radical militant Islamist positions such as that of al-Qaida, we also need to take seriously the situation of the Tamils in Sri Lanka. There is, for example, a relative lack of interest in this scenario on the part of the Indian left. This might have something to do with a tendency on the part of the Indian left to disregard the causes of groups that are not explicitly Dalit, Marxist or Muslim, hence the recent fascination with Nepalese Dalit Maoism and long-standing sympathy towards the plight of the Kashmiri Muslim peasantry (both of course legitimate causes), but relative silence on implicitly Hindu Tamils in Sri Lanka or, earlier on, the persecution of Sikhs in the Panjab and insurgent movements in the northeast. (I think this last is an argument for another day, gentle Indian leftist readers).

M.I.A.’s clear sympathy to the plight of Sri Lankan Tamils, the imageries employed in her vague leftist rhetoric and her family history makes it a natural that she would be called out as a supporter of terrorism in a media environment that is saturated with such accusations. Islam, of course, is consistently upheld as a central terrorist trait. This is not entirely another story, since M.I.A. puts some random Arabic on her album cover, reportedly ‘just random words she needed to find to represent Islam.’ This may be with regards to the fact that Muslims in M.I.A.’s native Britain are quickly becoming the most important underclass; the inclusion is also an indication of the extent to which the Islam has been envisioned as a global figure of ethical resistance (this notion goes back well into the era of European colonialism, and more recent manifestations have been discussed by Susan Buck-Morss in a major book Thinking Beyond Terror: Islamism and Political Theory on the Left, 2003). Whatever the case may be, this plays into an overall design on the part of M.I.A. (her record company XL supposedly cedes complete creative control to the artist) to effectively generate controversy by projecting her allegiance to whatever-means-necessary-type anti-imperialism.

I think there are a couple of different things that we can take away from the cultural phenomenon of M.I.A. and the quasi-politicized buzz that surrounds her. One point relates back to my desire to take seriously the question of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka, and the second has to do with our old friend globalization.

As we do with numerous militant aspirants to political power broadly on the left, from the PLO to the Chavistas, I think we should take the Tamil Tigers’ methods of ‘negotiation’ as a politics of desparation rather than branding it ‘terrorism’ and leaving it at that, and focus on the problem of governance in plural post-colonial societies. In South Asia alone, the Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi states have exhibited a crippling inability to develop political frameworks for addressing the concerns of marginalized segments of the population (see Sepoy on Baluchistan for an excellent case study from Pakistan). For all her cheap nintendo beats and vacuous posturing, M.I.A. does provide a narrative from the frontlines of disenfranchisement at the hands of an ethnic nationalist government (one supported by international capital and military force). If the most feasible means of self-empowerment for Sri Lankan Tamils is, as she suggests in her song ‘Sunshowers’, to go to work in a Nike sweatshop in order to support one’s family (and buy Reeboks) or to suicide bomb the well-armed opposition, then the Sri Lankan state needs to be seriously reconfigured (perhaps, as a multi-national state with power-sharing at the center; as AG Noorani argues, a similar scheme held great promise for India in the mid-40s, but was blocked by the insistence of the INC on a unified center).

A frequent result of the continuing conflict in Sri Lanka has been the emigration of countless Tamils (among others) to India, the UK, Thailand, Canada and so forth, funding the Tiger resistance with hard-earned rupees, pounds, dollars and bhats. The fact that insurgent subject positions are transnationally constituted is familiar terrain, and the Arulpragasam family’s peregrinations from Lanka to Lebanon (where Maya’s father trained with the PLO in the early 1980s) to London and back are a case in point. The centrality of new musical forms in the articulation of these positions, however, and the way they interact with global audiences is worth examining anew. The market appeal of M.I.A. resembles that of musics yoked to the cause of resistance to racial, ethnic or gender domination by content (punk and ‘two-tone’ from the UK like the Gang of Four or the Specials, hip hop from BDP to Talib Kweli) or genealogy (the guitarist for Rage Against the Machine is nephew to Kenyan anti-colonial nationalist Jomo Kenyatta). While her message is much more difficult to pin down than any of these artists’, she often advocates similar causes (‘Pull up the People’ is the most bland and obvious); but as she says elsewhere London, New York, Kingston and Brazil ought to be quieted down; long enough, hopefully, to comprehend the particular ways that global and local processes intersect to maintain conflicts and exclusions in Sri Lanka. It would be quite a shame if consumers of this music are to take its politics seriously enough to demand boycotts of M.I.A. for being an LTTE supporter, but obscure the cause of the problems in Sri Lanka by applying the chock-a-block ‘terrorism’ label.

Slate is having the yearly movie club that I enjoy tremendously. Everyone’s top ten is coming out in anticipation of award season. I didn’t get to the movies much this past year. Netflix was a heavenly savior. The best movie I saw was made in 2003 and won’t be released in America until later in 2005: Chan Wook Park’s Old Boy. So consider this belated news or early warning: Holy Shit. Old Boy is a hammer blow to your temple. It is what David Fincher can only dream of making. It shakes your complacent, warm, soupy ass out of the futon and hurls you out the window. And yes, my descriptions are all physical because this movie has a physical and visceral impact. The hallway fight scene, shot in one side-scrolling take, has humor, pathos and gut-wrenching physicality. The story, a brilliant mindfuck, is simply about vengeance. But vengeance tempered, nurtured, plotted, planned and executed with immaculate preparation, training and patience. Ok, I will stop. This is, after all, a “best of” post. Other notables of 2004, in no order of preference:

• Eternal Sunshine – which deconstruced memory so poignantly.
• Harold & Kumar – which was laugh out loud funny. I just saw Kumar on Angel Season 3 playing some swami guy with an exposed brain. Hopefully, he will get better roles after H&K.
• The Incredibles – which I just saw and confirmed that Iron Giant was no fluke and Brad Bird is a genius storyteller.
• The Corporation – in the YEAR of documentaries, nothing was as good as this. Brilliantly satisfied my leftist needs. Also, I have not purchased any non-Organic milk since.
• A Very Long Engagement – Merchant & Ivory should watch this to see how a period film should be made. Forget the movie, my inner historian loved every single detail about France in WWI – the railway stations, the cafes, the pubs, the libraries, the streets, the ships. Most excellent.
• Los Angeles Plays Itself – didn’t see it but really, really wanted to. Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote about it like 10 times in the Reader and made me hate life for missing it.

Pitchfork, tinymixtapes, and many others that you can see here have told you this already. But, here it is once more: The Arcade Fire’s Funeral is the best record of 2004. The damn thing has been in constant rotation at home, in the car, at the office and I am still not sick of it. Will Butler has supplanted my crush on Colin Meloy. Like many other good rock records of the year it harkens back to three or four influences (people say Neutral Milk Hotel or early Bowie or whatever) but creates its own sound and space. The closest comparison I can think of is a few tracks from Stephin Merritt. Complex instrumentation, melodious, catchy as all hell and very, very depressing. Just buy the damn thing, if you haven’t already. Some other notables, in no particular order:

• Not Going Anywhere by Keren Ann – Move over Cat Power, I have a new addiction.
• Scissor Sisters by Scissor Sisters – This record made me laugh and singalong every song. Brilliant summer record. And Take Your Mama Out Tonight is the sickest date song. I love it.
• Franz Ferdinand by Franz Ferdinand – Until Funeral, this was the best record of the year and it still has amazing pop songs. Moacir deconstructs the record nicely. And I totally picked the assassination motif, dude.
• Van Lear Rose by Loretta Lynn. If only for Little Red Shoes.
• i by Magnetic Fields. i love thee. I Die is amazing.
• Hot Fuss by The Killers.
• Since We Last Spoke by RJD2. Excellent coding music.
• The Tipping Point by The Roots. Not their best but better than their last few ones.
• Blueberry Boat by The Fiery Furnaces. I didn’t like it as much as everyone else did but I liked it more than I thought I would like it. Any record that forces me to listen repeatedly is a winner.

Didn’t read much this year. I cannot even remember what I read that was not all about my research. But that has been the case since grad school started. We read so much but it all goes into pre-sorted bins. There was no Murakami to make me break all rules (there is one coming soon, though). Sad. Sad. Anyways. The best thing I read this year, for the first time since I was a teenager, was Rudyard Kipling’s Kim. As a colonial novel, it has lots to piss the poco crowd but I loved every sweaty, dusty minute in the ancient and wise India of Kipling. Highly recommended. The rest…

• Aimee Phan’s We Should Never Meet. Yes, she is a CM friend. But, don’t you love the title alone? and the titled story is just haunting. Her sense of location is so exquisite. Lovely words. Go buy it. More CM cronies will be debuting this year, so at least I will read something!
• Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time was recommended by Vu and lived up to its recommendation. I finished it in one saturday afternoon and you have no idea how happy that made me feel. Go Vu.
• Mitchell Duneier’s Slim’s Table is not from 2004 but I just got around to reading it. It is an ethnography set in a Hyde Park restaurant. One of the best things about race in America.
• Sussana Clark’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. I haven’t finished it yet. But damn good so far.
• Art Spiegelman’s In the Shadow of No Towers.
• I have concrete plans to read Suketu Mehta’s Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found soon as well as the Philip Roth.
• The NewYorker. Excellent writing this year. Led by Seymour Hersh’s brave reporting.

Your turn.

Aimee‘s book reading kicked off a most excellent weekend. She was great and I am looking forward to reading the short stories. Sunday, we went to see Yuri Bashmet and the Moscow Soloists play at a church in the north-western suburbs. This being the second weekend in a row that we were surrounded by hundreds of old Russian ladies. Last weekend, we saw Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata play at the CSO. That show featured two Concerto Grossi by A. Schnittke. If you aren’t on that band wagon, I urge you to jump here or here. Ms. Sepoy, who is a regional authority on Schnittke, is my window into that polyphonic world and seems not to get insulted when I call Schnittke the DJ Shadow of classical music.

The Bashmet event was exclusively Russian with a nice bazaar of CDs, DVDs and books. Picked up my coooolest toy ever [it is a little replica red soldier from 1918 who wobbles back and forth, most excellently]. The program was, uh, mixed and didn’t exist at the venue, but they played a light mixture including a piece by Toru Takemitsu (he composed for Ran). Bashmet talked a lot (in Russian) and told many amusing anecodets (in Russian). I laughed along.

The conversations turned to the impact of capitalism on classical music in Russia. Our russka informants said that the kids are having a hard time making a living now that every one is only interested in $s and no one wants to waste money on culture. Yikes. Imagine 20th century classical music without Russian composers and players. Pretty bleak and boring, if you ask me. Should we thank the communist regime for being oppressive enough to stimulate creativity and bureaucratic enough to support public arts? Which makes the recent noise about NEA going the way of the dodo bird all the more alarming.

Related question: Is Spain the dog that didn’t bark in western classical music? Someone know about the musical aspirations of the Church after the Reconquista?

I have driven across continental US twice – once without any sound system and once with only a working radio in the car. No one, perhaps, can understand the horror that is radio broadcasts in Kansas.
Here are some songs that I wish I was listening to…

• Magnetic Fields: Long Vermont Roads. Actually, one can pick any song of this brilliant album, The Charm of the Highway Strip, which is all about road songs, but I am partial to this one.
• Grant Lee-Phillips: See America. The guy is hit and miss but I like the idea of hopping into a cab and telling the driver to drive across America.
• Robert Johnson: Roadside Travellin’ Blues. The legend of meeting the Devil on the Crossroads begins.
• Holly Golightly: Walk a Mile. I love her unlovable voice. And she wants you to walk a mile in her platform, polka-dotted shoes. How can you not like that!?
• David Byrne: Don’t Fence Me In. Old Cole Porter that David Byrne turns into some rollickin’ country anthem. Great car singalong (with a chorus for the back-seat wallas).
• Talking Heads: Road to Nowhere. I√≠m feelin√≠ okay this mornin√≠ / And you know / We√≠re on the road to paradise / Here we go, here we go. Road to the White House!
• Lucinda Williams: Jackson. I like frequent stops.
• Proclaimers: I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles). A song that actually played a role in the courtship of Mrs. Sepoy. She made me walk 500 miles. Heartless wench.
• Air: Universal Traveler. Universal or Universoul? What the hell are these trip-hopping frenchmen saying? Nice blips nonetheless.
• Roger Miller: King of the Road. Will it surprise anyone if I say this song captures, absolutely brilliantly, how I wanted to live my life at the age of 16? Third boxcar, midnight train / Destination…Bangor, Maine / Old worn out clothes and shoes / I don’t pay no union dues / I smoke old stogies I have found / Short, but not too big around / I’m a man of means by no means King of the road . I had never heard this song, nor read Kerouac, but I used to sneak out of the house and board empty train compartments at night.

also see: sven, ultrablog, cheleblog, dune shack, reality remixed, bitchalicious, alien fur, brooks blog

The video is amazing [also here or here or here]. The lyrics are harsh and powerful (strap him with an AK 47, let him go/ Fight his own war, let him impress daddy that way).
This is what F 9/11 hoped it could be. Eminem’s Mosh could very well be our anthem, our Times They Are A-Changing, our last rallying cry in this last week. I need a mp3 quick.

Welcome to your October surprise, Mr. Rove.

[I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
And to the Republic for which it stands
One nation under God
Indivisible?
It feels so good to be back..]

Scrutinize every word, memorize every line
I spit it once, refuel, reenergize, and rewind
I give sight to the blind, mind sight through the mind
I exercise my right to express when I feel it’s time
It’s just all in your mind, what you interpret it as
I say to fight you take it as Im gonna whip someone’s ass
If you don’t understand don’t even bother to ask
A father who has grown up with a fatherless past
Who has blown up now to rap phenomenon that has
Or at least shows no difficulty multi task
And juggling both, perhaps mastered his craft slash
Entrepreneur who has held long too few more rap acts
Who has had a few obstacles thrown his way through the last half
Of his career typical manure moving past that
Mister kiss his ass crack, he’s a class act
Rubber band man, yea he just snaps back

Come along, follow me as I lead through the darkness
As I provide just enough spark, that we need to proceed
Carry on, give me hope, give me strength,
Come with me, and I won’t steer you wrong
Put your faith and your trust as I guide us through the fog
Till the light, at the end, of the tunnel, we gonna fight,
We gonna charge, we gonna stomp, we gonna march through the swamp
We gonna mosh through the marsh, take us right through the doors

To the people up top, on the side and the middle,
Come together, let’s all bomb and swamp just a little
Just let it gradually build, from the front to the back
All you can see is a sea of people, some white and some black
Don’t matter what color, all that matters is we gathered together
To celebrate for the same cause, no matter the weather
If it rains let it rain, yea the wetter the better
They ain’t gonna stop us, they can’t, we’re stronger now more then ever,
They tell us no we say yea, they tell us stop we say go,
Rebel with a rebel yell, raise hell we gonna let em know
Stomp, push up, mush, fuck Bush, until they bring our troops home come on just . . .

Come along, follow me as I lead through the darkness
As I provide just enough spark, that we need to proceed
Carry on, give me hope, give me strength,
Come with me, and I won’t steer you wrong
Put your faith and your trust as I guide us through the fog
Till the light, at the end, of the tunnel, we gonna fight,
We gonna charge, we gonna stomp, we gonna march through the swamp
We gonna mosh through the marsh, take us right through the doors, come on

Imagine it pouring, it’s raining down on us,
Mosh pits outside the oval office
Someone’s trying to tell us something, maybe this is God just saying
we’re responsible for this monster, this coward, that we have empowered
This is Bin Laden, look at his head nodding,
How could we allow something like this, Without pumping our fist
Now this is our, final hour
Let me be the voice, and your strength, and your choice
Let me simplify the rhyme, just to amplify the noise
Try to amplify the times it, and multiply it by six
Teen million people are equal of this high pitch
Maybe we can reach Al Qaida through my speech
Let the President answer on high anarchy
Strap him with AK-47, let him go
Fight his own war, let him impress daddy that way
No more blood for oil, we got our own battles to fight on our soil
No more psychological warfare to trick us to think that we ain’t loyal
If we don’t serve our own country we’re patronizing a hero
Look in his eyes, it’s all lies, the stars and stripes
They’ve been swiped, washed out and wiped,
And Replaced with his own face, mosh now or die
If I get sniped tonight you’ll know why, because I told you to fight

So come along, follow me as I lead through the darkness
As I provide just enough spark, that we need to proceed
Carry on, give me hope, give me strength,
Come with me, and I won’t steer you wrong
Put your faith and your trust as I guide us through the fog
Till the light, at the end, of the tunnel, we gonna fight,
We gonna charge, we gonna stomp, we gonna march through the swamp
We gonna mosh through the marsh, take us right through the doors

[Eminem speaking angrily]
And as we proceed, to mosh through this desert storm, in these closing statements, if they should argue, let us beg to differ, as we set aside our differences, and assemble our own army, to disarm this weapon of mass destruction that we call our president, for the present, and mosh for the future of our next generation, to speak and be heard, Mr. President, Mr. Senator

Will it get air-play?

Now that diss. week is over, roses can bloom. Except, it is kinda cold. So, sven and some other cool people do these music lists. Normally, I am not the one for lists. It’s the hierarchy that gets to me. But, this latest one caught my attention. Top Covers. I dig covers. My criteria for any cover is, simply, that it should be an “interpretation” not mimicry. Which means anything done by P. Diddy, B. Spears, Alien Ant Farm, A. Lavigne, C. Aguilera etc. etc. does not count. With that said, here is my list of top covers (these are not in any order):

• Fiona Apple/Beatles: Across the Universe. First of all, the song is terribly cheesy (jai guru deva om, indeed). But Fiona Apple’s breathless delivery just makes it all work for me.
• Jeff Buckley/Leonard Cohen: Hallelujah. A lot of people have covered this song. But Jeff Buckley’s version remains supreme to me. If there is a greater voice in my generation, I don’t know about it. I had “…and love is not a victory march” up on our quote board in the office for a long time. The live version on the Mystery White Boy CD is also great because he name-checks Cohen.
• Cat Power/Rolling Stones: Satisfaction. Take the most sexual song by the band that oozes male predatory impulses, strip the rollicking chorus, the exaggerated swagger and show the world how lonely and vulnerable the lyrics really are. Brilliant cover.
• Johnny Cash/NIN: Hurt. The song and the video that ended up being Johnny’s requiem.
• Negativland/U2: I Still Haven’t Found What I Am Looking For. This is just funny. We hear Casey Kasem cussing a blue streak. Island Record sued them. And so did Casey. When it was all over, we had sampling, splicing and grinding enter the mainstream.
• Nirvana/Leadbelly: Where Did You Sleep Last Night? I won’t lie…I love nothing more than blues standards re-worked. Part of the reason, I dug the White Stripes. Huddie Ledbetter was one of the greatest voices of early 20th c. This cover is not an re-interpretation but I like it and its my list so, there.
• Talking Heads/Al Green: Take Me to the River. The cover song that started it all. This is a Talking Heads song not an Al Green song. To take soul music, slow it down and blip it around. What a great punk move.
• Beck/Hank Williams: Your Cheatin’ Heart. Beck doesn’t do too many covers. Though, some can argue that his entire discography is a cover. Still, this lethargic, dreamy riff on Hank Williams is pitch perfect.
• The Sundays/Rolling Stones: Wild Horses. Another cover that raised a lot of heckles when it was released. Screw the Rolling Stones.
• Uncle Tupelo/Carter Family: No Depression In Heaven. Jeff Tweedy just sounds weird with a southern accent and Uncle Tupelo is some deal with the alt-indie devil. Still this song (and album) is an amazing testament to music that gets reborn with each passing generation.

better lists: brooks blog, write on, megs, iseemonsters, alien fur, bitchalicious, dune shack, meghan’s deep thoughts, sheets & blankets, shoulda said, chele blog

Britney was seeking to cast her new video and, apparently, she asked for a Pakistani. She should have called me. Unlike sven, I am not a fan of Ms. Spears talents but I do want Pakistan getting proper respect in soft-core music videos. I would have asked one of my retired elders to lend some dignity to the proceedings.
But seriously (ok, I kid) what could possibly be the script for this music video that calls for a 100 year old Pakistani male? Is he a pimp-daddy? A mystic? Perhaps Britney wants to show the softer, older side of Pakistan which is not busy fighting War On Terror By Proxy…the waaay older side. I really, really want to know.
Also, I want to make sure that Om Puri does not get the role. He is a screen hog.
Via [Defamer]

BRITNEY SPEARS Music Video SHOOTS: TODAY!!!!
LOCATION: Los Angeles
RATE: See roles below
SUBMIT ELECTRONICALLY ASAP [NAME REDACTED]

[MALE #1] 35-60 years old, Caucasian. ITALIAN. Tall and thin. Short & fat…$250.00+ 20%

[MALE #2] 60-100 Years old. Pakistani…$250.00 + 20%

[MALE #3] 55-80 Years old. Latin. This role is for a minister who will perform the wedding ceremony…$250.00 + 20%

[MALE #4] 50-100 Years old. East Indian men. Tabla (drum) players. Submit even a ”look” though. Make a note if they really play…$250 + 20%

Please tell me what you think the plot could be. The closest guess will get an dl’d copy of the video (via bitTorrent, of course).

Last night, k. (mrs. sepoy) went to see Maybelline presents Chicks With Attitude with ourlawyerfriend at the House of Blues. For a take on Liz Phair’s music, I urge you to read wonkette neÈ theanticmuse’s thoughts. k. upon return was thoroughly disgusted by the GirlsGoneWild vibe of the place. So, enjoy a review of the show prompted by an email from ourlawyerfriend. This was not intended for CM audience but it needs to be shared:

On Aug 5, 2004, at 11:32 AM, ourlawyerfriend wrote: Any thoughts on last night’s show? I am attempting to compile my gripes and I need some help.

well, let’s see…
you could start with the way overt sexuality has usurped intelligent challenges to dominant gender paradigms to become the new feminism.
elaborating on sexuality, you could explore the changed role of sexuality. see, as time passes and women push the boundaries of the status quo, forms of rebellion have to change too. these women (“chicks with attitude”) – or perhaps the men producing them and promoting them – are operating under the mistaken impression that female sexuality is still a forbidden topic; that somehow it still has some bit of mystique about it. but a woman’s sexuality is no longer the scary, taboo thing it once was. it is an accepted part of life and society. as such, women must find another stigma or barrier against which to rebel. the obvious choice would be the stigma against ugly and/or fat women’s sexuality: the beauty myth. only hot women can be sexual. ones who don’t live up to the harsh standards set by ford modeling agency are expected to do nothing but bask in their pathetic-ness and try to attain impossible ideals, all the while hating themselves and depriving themselves of the exuberant life the media would make us believe belongs only to hollywood starlets. in this respect “chicks with attitude” totally fails by being sponsored by a make-up company, offering makeovers to all those chicks with attitude (reinforcing the notion that there’s no such thing as natural beauty) and cavorting on stage with “everyday” hotties like bunnies at hef’s mansion. the absence of any women of normal everyday proportions on that stage – whether due to liz phair’s refusal to pull them up there or their own insecurity – only underscores the blind eye society as whole turns to un-hotties. furthermore, the hotties on that stage – grinning and bumping and grinding away – are not celebrating female sexuality; they are celebrating the fact that they have finally accomplished their goal and buffed their way into the hottie mold.

k

a note on “chicks”, “attitude” and ugly bitches:
some mention must be made of the need for “chicks with attitude” to be hot; an ugly woman with attitude is just a bitch with an ax to grind. (have you noticed this distinction? only hotties are chicks and their hottie status is what allows them to be “cool” when they offer their watered down opinions. an attractive woman with a truly controversial attitude or opinion is deemed crazy. an ugly one is scary. did you notice the crazy backlash against fiona after her “this is bullshit” rant?