Rihanna - 'Te Amo'

Hope she's got some Vanish detergent to take out those grass stains.

Riz MC - 'Hundreds + Thousands'

I chatted with Riz MC yesterday about breaking through out-dated labels and the rewards of staying generic-free. Look out for his upcoming LP MICroscope, s'gonna be hella good.

M.I.A tweets Lynn Hirschberg's number in super web beef

It's kinda fun picking over whether Hirschberg's cool shrug quietly scathing take-down of M.I.A is warranted, self-serving, relevant or just plain mean. The cohesive idea of Maya's life and person as a political artist will always be open to dispute, accusation and praise. Personal approval and opinion is obvs a major factor - and always will be for music journalists who have to find the balance between their own subjective assessment and what is generally, all-round fair.

Everyone has their own truths. I heart MIA and her music, but I'm sure there is ego at work, and the moral-political paradox that human beans will always have. That tweet is funny and immature and instant and rude and maybe a little too much and by the same token I'm glad Hirshberg isn't averse to exposing hypocrisy where she sees it. Agitator met agitator and shit kicked off. Pt 2 this weekend when MIA will post what she's calling "the unedited version of the interview". Whether Hirschberg's character assassination is just or nay, it's sure helping the new-album hype generator.

Dessa - 'Alibi'

Theresa May on Question Time

So our part-time Minister For Equality ( HA. HA.) announced on last night's Question Time that she has decided gay adoption is NOT actually a sin. Well gee, thanks for being so fair and all. But before we all start patting her on the back for shedding off trashy, disgusting ideals, it seems prudent to point out that her reason was child-centred rather then parent-centred. The emphasis was on giving care-of-the-state children the best type of home start rather then allowing prospective gay parents the same rights as their heterosexual peers. And as the question she addressed was on adoption, we are still none the wiser on whether she maintains her other homophobic and anti-choice stances against transgender rights, abortion rights and IVF help for lesbian parents. I'd like her to prove me wrong, but I think behind the Elnett coiffure and Ralph Lauren suits, May is just your standard, Conservative bigot-demon.

I think the 69, 395 people who signed this petition feel the same.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8696102.stm

'The Space Between' - How To Destroy Angels

Dan Bull - Changes [an open letter to David Cameron]

AHAHA. The light sabre scene is CLASSIC LOLZ.

The internet, music journalism and How Stuff Works.

I was gonna be all tongue-in-cheek and say "I'm really behind with posting this because Everett True has been praising it for hot minutes" but the sarcasm would be too much even by my standards within the context of Weingarten's so very accurate argument.



Pretty sure a lot of this will go over the heads of non-music-journo types or people who aren't familiar with terms like SEO, but its relevant if you care about hegemony, the awesome sprawling dragon monster of the WWW, what it is doing to music journalism and by extension the wider repercussions (let yr imagination roam).

I agree with Weingarten almost 100%. The problem is that this has been happening for some time, and has the irreversible trend angle of mountain rock landslides. Trying to make a tiny, little independent ship of honest music criticism stay sailing in the gargantuan, click-counting, meta critic ocean is real hard. Possible, but real hard.

Reblog/Share/Repost

Kiana Firouz, 27 years old, is an outspoken Iranian LGBT rights activist, filmmaker, and actress. When clips of her video documentary work featuring the struggle and persecution of gays and lesbians in her country were acquired by Iranian intelligence, agents began to follow Firouz around Tehran, harassing and intimidating her. She fled for England where she could safely continue her work and studies.

She plays a starring role in Cul de Sac, a documentary film produced in the UK about the condition of lesbians in Iran, and based heavily on Firouz’s own life story. Directed by Ramin Goudarzi-Nejad and Mahshad Torkan, the movie will premiere in London in a few days. Since the trailer was posted on YouTube in December 2009, Cul de Sac has attracted global media attention, with thousands of views. Apparently, some of those views included members of Ahmadinejad’s puppet media in Iran. They know who Firouz is and what she stands for. They may want her to come back to the country she was born in to answer for it.

Here is the official Cul de Sac website.

Here is the petition endorsed by Kiana Firouz herself.

And this is her story.

http://coilhouse.net/2010/05/save-the-life-of-kiana-firouz/

ZINES

I realized something ridiculous today. I realized today that I am a writer who has long loved zines but never actually made one. How insanely silly.

This situation clearly needs a remedy.

The type writer is out, the note pad is primed, and I'm nudging the sleepy-head muses awake with promises of fresh, blank pages practically begging for some magic.

Soon come.