If you support the Occupy movement, relish discovering new music, and are gainfully employed, then you seriously need to plunk down ten bucks and purchase Occupy This Album.
An autonomous project designed to support Occupy, Music For Occupy has produced this epic compilation album to raise both funds and awareness for the global social movement tackling social and economic inequality. The compilation features 99 tracks by 99 artists, including heavy hitters such as Tom Morello, Yo La Tengo, Joan Baez, Ani DiFranco, Yoko Ono, Thievery Corporation, Willie Nelson, Girls Against Boys, and Debbie Harry. Michael Moore even makes an appearance, with a … how shall I say it .. unique take on a Bob Dylan anthem.
The deeply political, community-committed, and talented LAL from Toronto, sing about surveillance with images from the Toronto G20 manifestations from two summers ago. LAL was formed in 1998 and is comprised of poet, singer & Bengali-rooted Rosina Kazi, producer, sound designer, philosopher, aphorismist and Barbados-born king of chill, Murr, and last but not least bassist Uganda-born Ian de Souza. Video by Wandering Eye Productions.
When you go to the website for Berlin’s 7th Biennale, you encounter a stream of changing photographs from occupy and protest movements from around the world — Venezia, Toronto, Florence, Malacky, Athens and on and on. It is emblematic of curator Artur Zmijewski’s approach the largest art exhibition in Germany, which opened on April 27.
In the forward to Forget Fear, the accompanying publication of the Berlin’s 7th Biennale, Zmijewski explains that “Art needs to be reinvented, but not as some crafty option to aesthecize human problems of the impoverished majority. What we need is more art that offers its tools, time and resources to solve the economic problems of the impoverished majority. For the actual limit to the possibilities of left-meaning art is effective engagement with material issues: unemployment, impoverishment, poverty.”
Zmijewski wants to transform the art of impotence and individualist survival, which is how he describes contemporary art markets and the institutionalized art world of galleries and curatorial careers, into art that is “genuinely transformative and formative”, art that “practices politics”, and art that is “real action in the real world and [that bids] a final farewell to the illusion of artistic immunity”.
Over the coming weeks, Art Threat will be profiling some of the artists and their contributions to the 7th Berlin Biennale (which runs until July 1), and some of the events that will be happening in Berlin in the coming months. In today’s report, quick look at two upcoming events: a workshop for using art in political protest, and a performance installation that features interviews with 16 economists, historians, thinkers from around the world speaking on viable economic alternatives to capitalism.
Portrait of artist Shahrzad Arshadi by Thien V (Montreal, March 2012).
It Is Only Sound That Remains is a sound theatre performance by artist Shahrzad Arshadi, meditating on the life and death of Ziba Kazemi, also known as Zahra Kazemi.
The story of Kazemi’s 2003 death in Iran, the ensuing Canada-Iran diplomatic fallout and the ongoing struggle for justice in the case, led by Kazemi’s son Stephan Hachemi, is relatively well known in Canada.
Kazemi was arrested for taking photographs at a student protest outside Evin Prison in Tehran, a major jail for political prisoners in Iran.
Tune in, turn on and give a few bucks to one the most fabulous radio stations anywhere. WWOZ New Orleans community radio is having their annual membership fundraising drive, and now is the time to support this treasure in the midst of New Orlean’s cultural renaissance.
WWOZ is home to the New Orleans sound, old and new, including New Orleans jazz, Second Lines, Mardis Gras Indians, Pleasure Clubs, brass bands, gospel, dixieland, blues, calliope and more more more. All from the humble efforts of community volunteers, local musicians and donations from listeners.
WWOZ is a bright light in this beleaguered city, and the sounds they share warm hearts and souls all over the world.
Check it out (you can stream live here), and if you like what you hear, support local independent radio.
Yesterday’s Q show on CBC Radio One had a great interview with the director of REPO MAN and SID AND NANCY, Alex Cox. An outspoken critic of the studio system and of government and corporate efforts to crackdown on “illegal” downloading, Cox argues that the corporate studio system continues to make billions while artists get ripped off, so when someone downloads SID AND NANCY—a film he has not seen a residual dime from—the copyright holder “loses,” not the creator, who is already losing out to the copyright holder.
Cox doesn’t pull any punches, and is a refreshing voice in the debate, adding a dose of good Brit humour with a dose of sharp criticism against a rapacious system that doesn’t care about independent artists, only increasing profits. Hit play on the audio file below (after the jump), and after the intro from guest host Brent Brambury (who has his own interesting take on the Doonsbury comic controversy and Limbaugh the goon), Cox is first up.
Montreal artists are invited to join the growing collaboration of the Occupy Arts Committee, a gathering of artists from all disciplines who want to support Occupy Montreal with creative practice.
According to organizers, this meeting will be a creation workshop to start imagining, painting & drawing … Artists are encouraged to bring material, art supplies, paint & brushes, etc…. and to think YELLOW.
March 17, 2012 Café l’Artère, 7000 ave. Du Parc (métro Parc). 14h / 2pm
Today we bring you Blackitude, a new music video from Montreal hip-hop artist Vox Sambou, filmed in Batey San Luis in the Dominican Republic by Ariel Mota.
This latest video builds on a trajectory of socially conscious, contemporary hip-hop that has established Sambou as a key figure on the progressive front of the Rap Kreyòl movement.
A new recording from one of my favourite performers Rodney DeCroo is always a treasure, especially coming as this one does in the midst of winter’s least cheery days. DeCroo’s music warms from the inside capturing in a rare way the beauty, difficulties and dangers of what it means to be hungrily alive.
DeCroo has long been — to my mind — one of the strongest songwriters working in Canada. His songs are poetic, original and sometimes very funny. He brings a wry humour to some of the dark places he visits recalling his hard-scrabble youth growing up on the meaner streets of Pittsburg and then following his family to rural BC. But the tone for most of the performances on this new album is a kind of reclamation — remembering through the more savaged spaces of the human heart into beauty and acceptance.
There is something noteworthy about an artist who can inspire us to overcome what pushes us down. Rodney DeCroo is one of the few whose music and poetry consistently do just this.
Contributors
Stefan Christoff, Colin Horgan, Julia Pyper
Michelle Siobhan Reid, Valerie Cardinal, Race Capet
Laurence Miall, Terry Fairman, Tyler Morgenstern
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