Archive for the music category
Photo by Daniel Hernandez
The Daily Swarm: Mexico’s Emo Witch Hunt: mob attacks in Mexico City and Guadalajara… Televisa VJ’s rants inspire violence… Emo kids fight back across the country…
Mexico has a fervent emo subculture:
“Emo” refers to a youth subculture which involves a punk-meets-geek approach to fashion, angst-driven “emotional” music, and a general depressive nature. It is often regarded as a watered down version of the punk movement, much to the emo kid’s dismay.
No Wrong Turns: Emos Attacked in Mexico and Chile by Kelsey Mulyk
Apparently emo kids are being targeted by other youth subculture groups like goths and punks. Negative sentiments and open hostility have given way to fighting, rioting and strategic targeting of emo groups (personally, I can’t even imagine real goths picking on anyone, nevermind attacking them). Daniel Hernandez is a reporter for the LA Weekly, living in Mexico City. He has a series on the attacks, his coverage is in depth and ongoing:
A bizarre wave of mob emo-bashings is sweeping across Mexico. The movement is being generated on message boards and social networking sites by non-emo youth who highly dislike like the emo look and attitude.
The spark came first in Queretaro on March 7. An estimated 800 young people poured into the city’s Centro Historico hunting for emos to beat the crap out of. They found some. The next weekend it spread to Mexico City, where emos faced off against punks and rockabillies at the Glorieta de Insurgents, the epicenter of emo social space in the capital. There’s also been reports of anti-emo violence in Durango, Colima, and elsewhere.
Hostility towards emos has been bubbling under the surface, but current attacks coincided with an expletive and vitriol-laced tirade on emos by on-air personality Kristoff, on a recent Televisa morning show. The video is shocking.
The nationwide assault campaign against emos in Mexico continues to surge forward, as word is spreading that emos will be hunted and beaten by anti-emo kids in Tijuana on Saturday. Word is emos will rumble with their adversaries at Plaza Rio, Tijuana’s central outdoor mall…
If you’re interested in this story you can follow Hernandez’s reporting and all-seeing YouTube has tons of clips on the riots and anti/pro-emo user videos.
Following up on the Dengue Fever post, Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten - Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll is a recent documentary directed by John Perozzi, who also directed Sleepwalking Through the Mekong.
During the 60’s and early 70’s, as the war in Vietnam threatened its borders, a new music scene emerged in Cambodia that took Western rock and roll and stood it on its head-creating a sound like no other.
Cambodian musicians crafted this sound from the various rock music styles sweeping across America and England, adding the unique melodies and hypnotic rhythms of their traditional music. The beautiful singing of the renowned female vocalists became the final touch that made this mix so enticing.
This documentary film, “Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten,” provides a new perspective on a country usually assocated with war and genocide. By celebrating this powerful music, and the people who created it, Cambodia’s musical heyday emerges from the shadows of tragedy into the light of history.
The site for the film has several songs that help define the sound, they are a trip. Surf Rock from an alternate dimension.
Tiger Phone Card is my new favorite song of the moment by Los Angeles band Dengue Fever, whose primary inspiration is 60’s era psychedelic Cambodian surf rock complete with lyrics in cambodian and english. Their music is wicked and their vibe is totally left field. There’s a new film about their pilgrimage to Cambodia Sleepwalking Through The Mekong and the trailer goes into their influences and how they’ve arrived at such an original sound.
The odyssey is a homecoming for singer Chhom Nimol and a transformation for the rest of the band as they perform with master musicians and record new songs along the way.
More than a rockumentary, the film serves up a portrait of modern Cambodia as the band tours through Phnom Penh and beyond, crossing a great cultural chasm with the same spirit of Cambodia’s original rock pioneers.
Cambodia is often synonymous with the brutal Khmer Rouge regime that left millions dead and scattered refugees around the globe. This tragedy overshadows the story of Cambodia’s music scene in the 1960s and 1970s. Cambodian musicians reinvented Western rock n’ roll with a distinctly Khmer flavor to crete a sound that is at once familiar and completely original.
Recently I’ve been incessantly listening to Yeasayer’s hit from last year 2080 (i’m late to the party, as usual). La Blogotheque’s Take Away Show idea is rad and i’ve linked them before. They’ve got a new episode up with Yeasayer performing 2080 and I have to say I almost like it better then the original. Stripped down to acapella vocals, piano, spontaneous choir and banging and clapping makes the song even cooler then it was before.
Update: I ripped the song to mp3 so I could bump it on the regular. I hope the Yeasayer kids (and Blogotheque) don’t mind, it seems to be within their politics and general vibe to be cool with this. Download it here.
The Playlist is “a place dedicated to that sweet spot where movies and music meet”. It’s the place to go if you’re a soundtrack junky like me. Articles usually focus on not-so-commercial upcoming film news with an emphasis on soundtrack related info. Their movie and music tastes follow my own, their sense of humor is unorthodox* and they’re in my top five daily blog reads.
The Playlist has an on-going feature called The Sountrack Series where the author picks a director who has an established sonic palette that accompanies their films, and creates 20 song playlists of music that could be used in said director’s films. The series is ongoing and current volumes include: Sofia Coppola, Jim Jarmusch, Cameron Crowe, Michel Gondry, David Gordon Green and Miranda July, Noah Baumbach, Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson. I downloaded the David Gordon Green volume (part 1) and dug it so much, I’m now downloading all 12 parts in the 9 current volumes.
This series is more then just an ode to soundtrack genius, it’s a great resource for discovering new music and possibly listening to music you’ve heard before through a different context. It’s a great freakin’ idea and I’m nonplussed I didn’t think of it first. As a consolation prize, I have hours and hours of new music to listen to. go check it out.
–
I just stumbled on to the music of Thao Nguyen. She goes under her first name Thao and her music could definitely be the soundtrack to any modern day water mountain sliding odyssey. Lots of acoustic guitar and whispery cat power-esque vocals. Her new album We Brave Bee Stings And All just came out on Kill Rock Stars (yeah, she’s cool like that).
Fader has a post on Thao’s handmade stop-motion video for the first single “Bag of Hammers”, super nice!. And for added cool points, here’s a video of Thao doing an excellent beat-box rendition of Gary Glitter’s Rock-n-Roll and then some acoustic-solo music over at imeem.
Listen: Swimming Pools | Beat (Health, Life & Fire)
