Tuesday, April 29, 2003

[edited]
so, coachella then. some moments:

moment:lying on my back listening to tortise's neo-floyd space rock, a bit of rest after a hard-fought saturday and a bit of prep for the rest of sunday evening, clear air and blue sky and palm trees rimming the periphery of my field of vision.

dicuss: i had never heard tortise before and they were great. i got up near the end of their set to meet my friends before heading over to see sonic youth and damn near half of the polo ground was littered with people knocked near unconscious by the groovy* (*not hippy, actually a bit forboding) music.

moment:kweli rips a freestyle about pres. george w., us foreign policy, etc. it was well reasoned and well worded and well rhymed.

dicuss: talib kweli is dope. what struck me about this was not what he said or how he said it but that almost none of the other performers i saw mentioned world affairs. the beasties mentioned the war a bit awkwardly, but that was it. i feel like we're at an erie place somewhere between fear and disbelief and intimidation. it's not that people aren't blasting bush and co. some are. it's more the sense that everyone's still partying like it's 1999. things have fundamentally changed in so many ways and to have so little public mention of that, let alone debate and discussion, feels strange to me. This is not necessarily the responsibility of musicians, but it's tough to accept that artists are not feeling the effects of geopolitics, and the absense of artists adressing this with their words or music scares me a bit. they're feeling it. we're all feeling it. some of this silence is likely a result of clear channel's demonstrated willingness to blacklist those artists that to loudly voice their discontent with the administration (see the dixie chicks, of course, and the pro-war rallies across the country during the war that were largely organized and promoted by clear channel radio stations. an obivously unrelated aside: the guy who runs clear channel is a friend and buisness associate of dubya from back in the day.) I won't go off on the FCC's proposed media ownership consolidation plans. this isn't really the time, and i have something else more pressing i need your help with:

playboy is searching for the "sexiest babe of indie rock." in the absense of some of my personal nominees being included, I am throwing my support behind Michelle Mae (of Make-Up/Weird War/Scene Creamers/Frumpies/etc. fame). I mean, she's wearing a fucking wizards jersey in her profile picture. how sexy is that!?!?! Anyway go vote for her now. The city and state of Washington need your help. in return, i will help you, uhh, vote for things on the internet.

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