Fela Kuti - Music Is the Weapon

Set against a backdrop of Nigeria in the early 80's, this documentary provides an interesting insight into the mind of musical and political renegade Fela Kuti as he struggles to maintain his self-proclaimed republic against the increasingly violent interventions of the country's corrupt regime.

In addition to his brave and uncompromising political stance against brutal military rule, Fela also had a mighty package -shown here in the possibly the smallest pair of briefs known to man- which could easily defeat anything in Niall's post here.




Plus some Yellow Fever, for it is awesome:

Immortal Technique "The Legacy of Bin Laden"

Remember when Chuck D called rap music the black CNN?

"It’s easy to blame Hitler for killing 6 million Jews. He’s the figurehead. He was a megalomaniac, an iron fisted dictator and a wild anti-Semite. It’s harder to take a look, though, at the society in Germany that turned everyday human beings, like the people you see walking around in America, into raving nationalists capable of anything. It’s easy to blame Stalin for his purges and millions of lives he destroyed. There are even people in this country ignorant enough to say that it is the inherent evil of Socialism and Godlessness that causes these things. However, it’s harder to pin point the person that is responsible for the African slave trade that cost hundreds of million of lives. There is no one person responsible for covered up massacre of Armenians or the mass genocide of Native American Indigenous people on this side of the world. You cannot hold Europeans collectively responsible, but most certainly those who were “escaping religious persecution” are dwarfed (again) by the hundreds of millions of lives that were lost as a direct result of their migration/invasion.

Bin Laden may be the face of radical Islam, but he was not its only leader. His death leaves a vacuum, a place for others that may wish to find fame and at the same time satisfy their supposedly pious Muslim ego in “accepting their duty” to engage in a Jihad against someone who is occupying their country. This person who wishes to be a singular entity must remember, only a few of those have ever held true power.

Bin Laden was not a devil. He was a regular person who was created by his circumstance, and by his many supporters including this government, but had he been born in Florida he could have owned a business renting boats or cars or running a restaurant. In the end, he chose his own fate, but I believe the radicalization of Islam, brought about by colonialism and harnessed by the Cold War was a factor.

The real question is, though, what do you believe?"

Read the whole thing here.

Epic, essential reading form one of few the outspoken political MCs left.

Hetherington Building occupied

Last year, the Hetherington Building closed down due to a number of factors, most notably "the legacy of bad management" that saw some extremely dubious / totally illegal financial decisions taken by the then management. Due to a certain amount of carried-over debt and a number of issues about how the club should proceed, it remained closed until recently, when Glasgow Uni Occupied took over the building and re-opened it to the public.

"We want the building to be a space for people across the city to utilise in the struggle against cuts and austerity. And we wantr it to be a safe, non-commercial space for students of Glasgow uni - for socialising, for education and for engaging with the movement against cuts and fees, both on our campus and across the city."

Whether it's used to forment political rebellion and combat austerity, or just turned back into the best party spot in Glasgow, this is great news.

Nice one.
Facebook group here.
Twitter.com/glasgowoccupied

Make the Malcolm X look work for YOU

From "Out", an American gay lifestyle magazine. This is totally beyond satire:



This will bring the gay community and the Nation of Islam closer together, what?

Fatima Mansions

I was doing a bit of nostalgia tripping the other day when I stumbled across some videos by the band Fatima Mansions, and was reminded how totally awesome they were. Fatima Mansions (named after a grotty housing scheme in Dublin) stake a claim as being the best Irish band ever, in my opinion. They were fronted by one Cathal Coughlan (who had previously sung in the equally culty Microdisney in the mid 1980's) and his bitingly sharp lyrics gave them the edge over other bands of the era. Channeling the discontent of an entire generation, he heavily ripped the piss out of the church, the state, politicians, the church, societal conventions, sexual mores and most of all the church. The band were musically diverse, being able to turn their hand to anything from hard rock to techno, and their 1991 cover of REM's Shiny Happy People has to be heard to be believed.









Mr Coughlan is still very musically active, and co-incidentally released his fifth solo album only two weeks ago. I have yet to check this out, but I will definitely give it a listen and see if time has mellowed the man. I seriously doubt it. You can check out Cathal Coughlan's current work at his website and listen to music on his myspace.

RIP UK Film Coucil [Tories = Lame (again)]

More film news now, but this time of a bad nature. The Condem government have decided that it's in everyone's best interest to close the UK Film Council. The UKFC is a government-funded agency that annually invests £15 million pounds (from the tax payer) into making British films, and since 2000 has helped some of the best British films get made and distributed. Which ones? Oh, Red Road, The Wind That Shakes The Barley, This is England, Man On Wire, London To Brighton, Dead Man's Shoes, and more.

The full story: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-10761225

The UK film industry is in a pretty perilous state as it is, owing to a number of verying factors of course, but I don't see how doing this is going to help it.

Thanks Dave. Thanks a lot. Bastard.

Twin Lizard v.4 - Silent Britain

Twin Lizard V.4 - Silent Britain EP
Combining two of my favourite things, hip-hop and net audio, Twin Lizard have been honing their craft and reinventing themselves for more than a decade, emerging as an ever-changing and angrily political hydra-headed beast. Their current incarnation takes the leftfield UK style of Braintax, Mud Fam, Lowlife et al and splices it with hefty guitars, and to-the-point boom-bap. It's not reinventing the wheel or heralding a new dawn for MCing, but Twin Lizard spit intelligent and witty flows over faultless beats... Awesome.

I've always thought Braintax's most enduring line was "it's one for the treble, two for the floor, I'm Yorkshire to the bone, I don't copy New York", because it's a perfect statement of intent - a self-declaration that beats any big dick / car / gun bragging hands down. Twin Lizard do showboat, especially on opening track Statement of Intent, with Canadian counterpoint Daddy Lizard spitting that he's "decapitating hip-hop heads who don't believe / resuscitating breathless spirits who don't grieve / you motherfucking ringtone rappers need to leave", but for the most part, any braggadocios flows are handled with humour and intelligence.

Like Lowlife's crew, TL spit in Lincoln accents about British subject matter and British politics, raging about the failings of British government on polemics like Introducing... Citizen Tat and Single Motherland. It's fiery, tight and maturely observed hip-hop that manages to suck you up into the production without losing sight of the message, or lapsing into pure linguistic trickery. This is some of the most impressive UK hip-hop I've heard in a while.

Download it Here

Kern Draws Transgender Rival

One of these women is transgender. Can you tell which one?


From Tulsa World:

OKLAHOMA CITY — A controversiallawmaker known for her comments against homosexuality likely will face the state's first known openly transgender candidate in this fall's general election.

Fuck The Government! (not ours this time)

Slovakian cartoonist Martin "Shooty" Sutovec got in a bit of bother recently for the cartoon you can see to the left. The patient pictured is Robert Fico, Prime Minister of Slovakia. The doctor is reasserting his diagnosis that the his spinal pain must be a phantom pain, because wee Boaby Fico has no spine. This being satire-savvy Britain, it all seems to me rather like a gentle spray of fuck all, but Fico has taken it pretty badly and is suing Sutovec. Far from worrying about the attack on his freedom of expression, however, Shooty has gone on the offensive.

He's designed and commissioned two billboards:

top: "I've Had Enough. Have You?"
bottom: "What is yours is ours; what is ours is none of your business.”

His plan was to pop a few up. The campaign seems to have resonated with people, though, and he's been receiving loads of donations for more. Daryl Cagle reckons he's raised about 60,000 euros from over two thousand people. Sutovec's work is now on
200 billboards and 8 really fucking big billboards. Rab Fico's wee face is now sharing space on the first one with a nice wee abstract steaming shite... I bet he's glad he gave Claims Direct a phone now. Sutovec is planning a followup run of 200,000 stickers and a bunch of postcards.

Could the artist topple the self absorbed socialist?

(I was gonna whack a tune up to accompany this post, but it seems it's not on this laptop... bugger.)

************************

http://bit.ly/cBbPeF Copyleft - Fuck the Government....

Malcolm Tucker

He's In.

Shite.



Feel free to spread this pic to all and sundry. Thanks to Richard Chater for the sterling work.

Take your pick

So who are you voting for?





Taken from the amazing blog of our mate Lola Dupré. We tried to convince Lola to do Nick Clegg too, and who knows it may yet happen.

Lord Pearson hasn't read the UKIP manifesto

My attention was recently drawn to this clip of Lord Pearson (leader of UKIP) appearing on the BBC Campaign show. I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry at this one.

They're here...

Exopolitics

"Exopolitics is a study based on the belief there is an extraterrestrial (ET) presence on Earth and clandestine government organizations have intentionally withheld the information from the population."

Iraq war was about aliens not oil?

http://www.exopolitics.org/

Fun with Dave

So the future Prime Minister of the UK has launched his new ad campaign, and the lovely people at mydavidcameron.com have been ripping it to shreds. You too can join in the fun - all you need to do is go to their site, download the blank advert, and fill in the gaps. Nothing childish now!

Politics in Ireland

- is obviously quite a different affair from the UK. Just check out TD (Irish version of MP) Paul Gogarty's language in the Dáil (Parliament) last week:

Bloody Berlusconi

Everybody's favourite Italian fuckwit Silvio Berlusconi was attacked over the weekend and left with a bloody nose. LOL! Reports say the Italian prime minister was punched, but judging by the footage on the BBC website, it looks like something was thrown at him from a distance. What do you think?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8411198.stm

Question Time RMX

Nick Griffin is more honest once Cassette Boy has had a go at him...




If you missed Question Time, You can still catch Griffin and Co. on the iPlayer.

It was basically a whack the wacko session, but hey. It was still entertaining telly, more so than anything endemol have ever done.

Friends from Berlin, Pt. 4: Dr. Nojoke

Another one tagged as "good people, good tunes."

Dr. NoJoke, aka Bogdan has been due a write-up for quite some time. The guy's great chat, very wise about the politics and economics of music, the music industry, and business in general. As well as helping to organise the festival, he's been involved in converting an old squat in the Friedrichshain area of Berlin into a functioning housing project, supported by a real give-a-fuck attitude. It's given people the responsibility for their own home, freed from all the hoops we're forced to jump through by market laws, and it actually works. We stayed there two nights. We would return.

Unsurprisingly, late night blether lead onto music - he likes Monolake, and Pole, and has pretty much the entire ~scape back catalogue. You can see why I clicked with him. A nice man named Proeff has made a mix entirely of his tunes, and you can check it out here;
All Dr Nojoke, all the time - think Vladislav Delay, Monolake, Marcel Dettman...

He also collaborates with J-Lab and Servando Bareirro under the guise TRIoon; an entirely improvised soundscape act. We've mention them before. Awesome.
TRIoon jam sun041009-I by Dr.Nojoke

He put together an instillation for Berlin Net Audio called Berlin Wall of Sound, which was a digital map of the city, with triggerable field recordings from across former wall locations. High art, casual entertainment, and pretty damn cool. A lot of it appears in TRIoon.

Liam

Mandy; Pawn of Satan

Mandelson was in the news a while back, after his oh-so innocuous holiday at the Rothschild's with Gaddafi Jr. and David Geffen. The decision to release Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi came after this meeting, so it's safe to assume this was more than a sunbathe and a blether. Mendacious Mandy also came home spouting copyright related nonsense, seemingly as the mouthpiece for Big Music. What a coincidence.
Michael Masnick of Techdirt doesn't think he got away with it, and has held some of his cack up for examination:
Peter Mandelson Defends His Sudden Conversion To Kicking People Off The Internet

We are living in a time when we can, and will, change these industries. Arm yourself with information, and never take the word of the majors or their spokesman.


(I realise this is a couple of weeks old but life has been on pause while I deal with Berlin related things. Anyway! the internet is a library as well as a newspaper, so it's fine.)