Archive for the ‘Music’ Category
Kernel of truth
Jack Conrad regrets in the CPGB podcast on ‘SWP rebellion and feminism’ that he has “not heard of any feminist movement raising radical demands for working class women”. If that is true, how thorough was his research? There exist socialist and Marxists feminisms, to name but two schools which speak of class almost incessantly. Even […]
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Tags: cpgb, feminism, jack conrad, marxism, swp
Disappointing anti-fascism
A comment I left on the Who Makes The Nazis blog. I’m a little disappointed that my article, “Of Runes and Men“, which you reposted from Red Mist a year ago did not stimulate any substantial discussion. Instead, we’re back to business as usual: musicians and their far right links and sentiments are listed, and […]
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Tags: anti-fascism, Death in June, love music hate racism, neofolk, Who Makes The Nazis
Of Runes And Men
Published in Red Mist, Weekly Worker, and Who Makes The Nazis? Warning! Attention, everybody! It looks like for the first time since the 80s, London’s ethnic communities must fear for their safety when certain rock bands come to town. As the Love Music, Hate Racism website warns us in bold letters, the Slimelight club in Islington, […]
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Tags: anti-fascism, Death in June, fascism, industrial music, love music hate racism, martial industrial, neofolk, Sol Invictus, unite against fascism
Love Me, I’m A Liberal
Published in Red Mist, 12th August 2011 Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School Of Medicine live in London As we were watching Jello Biafra advocating “non-violent direct action” from the stage of the O2 Academy in Islington, only a couple of miles up the road members of Tottenham’s impoverished community made their frustration felt by […]
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Tags: Alternative Tentacles, dead kennedys, enhanced methods of questioning, hardcore, jello biafra, Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine, left liberalism, Punk, punk rock
Joyriding in the Docklands
published in Red Mist, 8th May 2011 The Bermondsey Joyriders and John Sinclair live at London’s 100 Club “Where are they now?”, asked a 1982 song by South-East London band Cock Sparrer, lamenting the faded and lapsed heroes of the British punk revolution. The answer was simple. Some of the addressees of the lyric, such […]
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Tags: Cock Sparrer, gentrification, John Sinclair, Marx, oi, Punk, punk rock, rock n roll, The Bermondsey Joyriders
Lady Gaga and the gay gene
Published in Weekly Worker and Red Mist, 3rd March 2011 When Lady Gaga announced in early 2011 that her next single would be called ‘Born this way’, anyone familiar with the singer’s club-conscious pop and gay-friendly sound bites knew what she had in store… Read more at Red Mist
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Tags: Born This Way, gay culture, gay gene, gay rights, homophobia, Lady Gaga, LGBT, LGBT rights, pop
7 reasons why I like The Clash
I like The Clash because… … the over-privileged Joe Strummer spent his whole life impersonating what he imagined an authentic working class person would be like: bad teeth, unintelligible speech, chain smoking.
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Tags: 77 punk, Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, morning star, Punk, punk rock, rock, rock n roll, the clash
“Grandpa was Sturmführer of the SS – his grandson will be Sturmführer of the SS”, went a chorus typical of Berlin’s neo-Nazi rock group, Landser, whose rather nauseating songs recommended the murder of Jews, blacks, “Polaks”, “gooks” and communists. In 2005, the group was classified as a “criminal organisation” and banned by the German federal […]
Filed under: Music, Politics | 2 Comments
Tags: anti-fascism, communism, extremism, germany, landser, neo-nazis, skinheads, white power rock
A review of ‘Freedom Rhythm & Sound – Revolutionary Jazz and the Civil Rights Movement 1963-82′, 2 CDs on Soul Jazz Records. “No America, no jazz”, said jazz legend Art Blakey, “I’ve seen people try to connect it to other countries, for instance to Africa, but it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with […]
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Tags: black culture, black nationalism, black power, civil rights movement, identity politics, jazz, marxism, multiculturalism, racism
Nick Cave novel adapted for TV
Do you remember when Nick Cave was a needle thin punk on a death trip? Probably not – his time as a self-destructive living nightmare in The Birthday Party goes as far back as the early 80s.
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Tags: death rock, goth, new wave, nick cave, nick cave and the bad seeds, post punk, Punk, the birthday party, tv series
Postponed due to Icelandic volcano activity, fans were put on tenterhooks in anticipation of the Crystal Castles‘ live appearance at London‘s Heaven on 19th June. And their fans are very die-hard, to put it mildly, piling up as close to the stage as possible two hours before the set began as if waiting for the […]
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Tags: alice glass, crystal castles, dance, electro, electro punk, electronic, london, noise music, Punk
Extraordinary M.I.A.
M.I.A. is no ordinary pop star. Her new video Born Free features extreme violence and has been removed from Youtube for user terms violation. It depicts scenes of US soldiers on a bizarre mission to exterminate redhead youths.
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Tags: alternative, dance, electro, electronica, hip hop, london, m.i.a., political pop, tamil independence
Badu than evah
Everybody is the queen or king of something these days, and Erykah Badu is the ‘queen of neo soul’. But this tag doesn’t really do her justice as her work incorporates elements from hip hop, jazz, reggae, R&B and many other styles.
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Tags: dance music, erykah badu, funk, hip hop, neo-soul, psychedelic, r&b, soul
Q and A
In response to Ben Lewis’s piece, ‘Taking Labour seriously’ in Weekly Worker, 21st January, I have contacted the general election candidates in Hackney North and Stoke Newington.
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Tags: diane abbott, eco-socialism, green party, labour party, local elections, matt sellwood
In the mid 70s, the fairly repulsive svengali producer Kim Fowley picked up five teenage girls at Rodney Bingenheimer’s English Disco – the glam rock place to be in Los Angeles – to form the first all-female, all-teenage hard rock band The Runaways.
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Tags: cherie curry, glam punk, glam rock, joan jett, los angeles glam, proto punk, Punk, rock n roll, the runaways
Happy birthday, Rio Reiser
If he were still alive, Rio Reiser would turn 60 today. Vocalist and main songwriter of 1970s Berlin band Ton Steine Scherben, he led a rock group unlike any other in the world.
Filed under: Music | 2 Comments
Tags: 1968, anarchism, berlin, communism, mc5, proto punk, rio reiser, rock, ton steine scherben
Michael Jackson news from Iraq!
http://www.newser.com/story/64330/sadistic-brit-soldiers-made-iraqis-dance-like-jacko.html Looks like our boys had a jolly good time down in Iraq: they made people dance like Jacko, they tortured detainees, they beat civilians to death – nice! And this is just the tip of an iceberg.
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Tags: capitalism, imperialism, iran, iraq, london music, michael jackson, Punk, socialism
Lech Walesa vs. Madonna
In his early 1980s heyday, Polish trade unionist Lech Walesa led a major strike against a corrupt regime that perpetuated something best described as a parody of socialism. Today, though, he seems to be increasingly fighting against windmills. The strictly Catholic ex-president’s latest object of objection is Madonna’s live appearance in Warsaw
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Tags: madonna, poland, pop, religion, religious fundamentalism, russia, solidarnosc, the religious right, walesa
Shakira on female empowerment
In a recent interview, the 32-year-old Latin pop star of Laundry Service fame explained the meaning behind her new single She Wolf: “She Wolf is the woman of our time”, Shakira said, “the woman who knows what she wants. The song about women feeling empowered and being able to fully express themselves”.
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Tags: charts music, dance pop, latin pop, pop, post feminism, shakira, she-wolf, soft porn, women's liberation
New York Dolls to play 100 Club
If the Rolling Stones built rock ‘n’ roll Babylon, then the New York Dolls turned it into a rock ‘n’ roll Sodom and Gomorrah. Formed in the early 70s in the post-Warhol-Factory milieu, they were the most happening and most decadent act on NYC’s trash glam circuit.
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Tags: 100 Club, glam punk, glam rock, new york dolls, ny punk, proto punk, Punk, punk rock, rock n roll
Punk rock in Bulgaria 1979-2008
Punk rock didn’t have it easy in socialist Bulgaria, a country in which all aggressive rock music was officially banned. That didn’t keep Novi Cvetya (“New Flowers”) from performing punk rock as early as 1979.
Filed under: Music | 11 Comments
Tags: bulgaria, eastern bloc, hardcore punk, music history, Punk, punk rock, punks, subculture, the balkans
There’s something strangely fascinating about radical skinhead music. We’re not talking Oi! music or ‘street punk’, that politically unadventurous football hooligan variant of punk rock that cropped up in the UK around 1980. We’re talking angry young men who have dedicated their music and their lives to a cause and are not adverse to using […]
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Tags: anarchist, anti-fascism, hardcore punk, non-servium, oi, Punk, red and anarchist skinheads, skinheads, street punk
