Tag: Pussy Riot

RSVP HERE: Ilithios Streams Debut Live Performance + MORE

Welcome to our weekly show recommendation column RSVP HERE. Due to live show cancellations we will be covering virtual live music events and festivals.

More solo endeavors are sprouting up now that many musicians have been left separated from their bands due to social distancing. Most recently, Manny Nomikos of Catty released a music video of him dancing alone in quarantine and a cover of Nirvana’s “Come As You Are” featuring Rosie Slater. His latest project, Illithios (meaning idiot in Greek), stemmed from a collection songs that never fit well enough to bring to a band. All musicians write songs sometimes that come out of left field, but for Nomikos, a true New Yorker born and raised by a Greek father and Korean mother, the project has its roots in an identity of not feeling a true sense of belonging to either side of himself. The project’s namesake serves as a cover so that “no matter how idiotic it all turns out, at least it’ll be in character,” while the songs themselves range from Thom Yorke-inspired pop to personal drum machine fused folk. Never having performed live before the quarantine, Nomikos will have the unique experience of debuting this project via Instagram livestream. There are only a few tracks available online, so tune in for Illithios surprises tonight (4/27) at 8pm. We chatted with Illithios about how to get better livestream sound quality, Dodge Caravans, and his spirit animal quiz.

AF: You’re livestreaming your live show debut on Instagram. Is that as nerve wracking as having your first show in person?

MN: I hadn’t considered that really, but I suppose it’s way more nerve-wracking. Besides performing on your own, there’s also no physical audience to engage with, which makes the whole performance feel very unfamiliar.

AF: What is your live stream set up like? What’s your favorite piece of gear?

MN: This was the hardest part for me cause I was debating how much I should actually play vs. using samples/pre-recorded parts. I felt that rather than just play the guitar the whole time, I’d use a sampler and tape deck to trigger parts and focus more on a performance. Wasn’t sure I’d be very entertaining just playing a guitar for 30 minutes on the internet. So with that said, my fave piece of equipment is my Critter and Guitari Organelle which I’m using as the central part of the sound.

AF: It says your live stream will be presented in Hi-Fi, what does that mean exactly?

MN: Since being stuck at home I’m sure we’ve all been catching streaming shows and they all sorta have their ups and downs. Instagram live has the best foot traffic for live-streaming but their audio is garbage. So I’m running a bunch of software stuff I found to get IG live running off a laptop and using a proper audio interface so the audio doesn’t have that streaming washiness. Hopefully people put on their headphones and I don’t blow it in the mix and we all have a good time.

AF: One of your cover photos is what I think is a ’90s Dodge Caravan. I owned a 1995 Dodge Caravan named Patrick that was very dear to my heart. Do you have any good Dodge Caravan stories?

MN: There’s a special camaraderie of ’90s Dodge Caravan people. I have yet to meet someone who drove a Caravan who’s not a pretty alright person. I married a Caravan driving gal. One story that sticks out was driving with friends to the mall to get Doom 2. We were so excited to get home that I started to drive before my bud Lamar had closed the sliding side door. And I suppose the momentum or gravity or science did its thing and the door slid back so fast it flew off which was not good. We got it back on but it was never the same.

AF: What is your quarantine anthem?

MN: “Play at Your Own Risk” – Planet Patrol. Or Forest by Stella (with a Greek sigma).

AF: I saw on your Facebook invite you made a spirit animal quiz. What is your spirit animal?

MN: Ooooh… well first off, wanna make sure it’s clear that it’s not like a spammy quiz where I collect data or anything like that. I keep getting butterfly mixed with baby deer. Which is sad cause I made the quiz so I wouldn’t get butterfly but I suppose it can’t be avoided.

AF: What spirit animal do you think I am?

MN: We’ve had limited interactions so I’m gonna guess, based on your Kurt Cobain persona from your Sharkmuffin Halloween show… I’d guess you’re a bat mixed with a little bit of dog spirit. Bats have good intuition, they’re night creatures, are highly motivated but on their own schedule. Like you will make a plan to do your taxes, and you will do it and it will be well done, but like you’ll miss the tax deadline by like a few months. Dog mix gives loyalty and playfulness. I dunno, take the test and see how off I am!

AF: I took the quiz and turns I am 48% an Owl (so you were on track with the night creature), and 43% a Panda. 

RSVP HERE for Ilithios first ever live performance 4/24 8pm est on @mannynomikos Instagram.

More great live streams this week…

4/24 Sleater-Kinney (conversation), Harkin via Instagram. 2:30pm est, RSVP HERE

4/24 Play On: 3-day virtual music festival: The Flaming Lips, Weezer, Cardi B and more via Youtube. 12:00pm est, RSVP HERE

4/24 Post Malone (Nirvana tribute) via Youtube. 6pm est, RSVP HERE

4/25 Bethlehem Steel 24 hour live stream for NYSYLC. 10am est, RSVP HERE

4/25 Block by Blockwest: a Minecraft music festival: Pussy Riot, IDLES, Cherry Glazerr via Block by Blockwest website. 3pm est, RSVP HERE

4/27 WINTER via Baby’s TV. $5 8pm est, RSVP HERE

4/28 Bully via Noonchorus. $8 8pm est, RSVP HERE

4/28 The Footlight Drink and Draw via Instagram. 7pm est, RSVP HERE

4/28 Exploding in Sound Live From Home feat. Pile, Shady Bug, Jordyn Blakely (Stove) + more via Instagram. 6pm est RSVP HERE

NEWS ROUNDUP: RIP Mac Miller, Fashion Week, Pussy Riot Member Hospitalized & More

RIP Mac Miller

Last week on September 7th, Mac Miller died at the age of 26 from a drug overdose in his LA home. Since his passing many celebrities such as Kendrick Lamar, Macklemore, Childish Gambino, J. Cole, Ariana Grande and many more paid tribute to the rapper. Earlier this week thousands of Mac Miller fans held a vigil at Pittsburgh’s Blue Slide Park – the namesake of his debut album. The blue slide had a fresh coat of paint and Miller’s grandmother made an appearance that evening thanking fans.

Fashion Week

Rihanna closed out New York’s fashion week with her Savage x Fenty Lingerie Show at the Brooklyn Navy Yard celebrating women of all shapes, sizes, ethnicities. Her runway show included plus sized models and two visibly pregnant models, one of whom went into labor backstage. The line mixes organic and futuristic concepts, and according to Rihanna is “what we hope to see in the future: women being celebrated in all forms and all body types and all races and cultures.” 

Cardi B and Nicki Minaj had an altercation at the Harper’s Bazaar Icons Party. Cardi threw a red high heel at Minaj while yelling that Minaj talked trash about her child. Cardi B was escorted out of the party with a bump on her head. Cardi issued a statement on Instagram, and Minaj responded on her Beats 1 Queen radio show denying she ever said anything about Cardi’s child and claimed Cardi B built her career off of “sympathy and payola.” Cardi responded on Instagram with videos of fans screaming her lyrics at her concerts early in her career prior to radio play as well as the list of 2018’s top Hip Hop Albums (Cardi’s Invasion of Privacy in the top three), with the caption “NUMBERS DONT FUCKIN LIE.”

Listen to a playlist of fashion week’s best music below…

Pussy Riot’s Peter Verzilov Hospitalized

Peter Verzilov, a member of Russia’s political punk band Pussy Riot and publisher of independent news website Mediazona, was hospitalized on September 11th and is currently in critical condition. He began showing symptoms of losing his sight, speech, and mobility shortly after a court hearing, leading his friends and partner to believe he had been poisoned. Verzilov is currently being treated at the toxicology wing of Moscow’s Bakrushin City Clinical Hospital, though the details of his diagnosis or treatment have not been released.

The New New

Lana Del Rey released the first new song “Mariners Apartment Complex” she recorded with Bleachers’ Jack Antonoff. She will be releasing another track, “Venice Bitch,” on Tuesday, although the album won’t be out until 2019.

Big Thief frontwoman Adrianne Lenker  released the second single off her album abysskiss, called “symbol.” The album will be released October 5th on Saddle Creek.

The Smashing Pumpkins are releasing their first album in almost 20 years featuring founding members Billy Corgan, James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin, along with guitarist Jeff Schroeder. Their first single “Silvery Sometimes” was released this week; the full album will drop November 16th on Corgan’s label Martha’s Music. 

End Notes

  • Apple will no longer provide the dongle adaptors for headphones free of charge with the iphone.
  • Spotify is lifting the 3,333 song download limit for offline listening and increased it to 10,000 songs.

NEWS ROUNDUP: Political Popstars, Return of the 2000s & More

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Pussy Riot

Political Popstars, Return of the 2000s & More

By Jasmine Williams

Pussy Riot Forever!

Days after members of Pussy Riot were arrested for staging a protest during the World Cup, the Russian firebrands were awarded a settlement relating to their 2012 jail sentences for performing a “punk prayer” at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. On Tuesday the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia has to pay around $57,000 in damages to Maria Alyokhina, Yekaterina Samutsevich and Nadezhda “Nadya” Tolokonnikova for being unfairly imprisoned. Following the World Cup, Pussy Riot released a new music video called “Track About Good Cop.”

M.I.A.

This week, another controversial female musician returns. M.I.A. has never been one to shy away from politics, forever finding a way to inject global news stories into earworm hooks. (“All I wanna do is bang, bang, bang, and get your money” has to be the most gangster satire on anti-immigrant sentiments, ever.)

Finally, fans of Maya Arulpragasam will be able to get an insider view into her life through an upcoming documentary. Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. will journey from her childhood among Tamil Tigers to her Super Bowl settlement. The film comes out this September.

That New New

It’s not just early aughts fashion that’s back, three of your favorite feely bands from the 2000s have dropped videos this week. Death Cab for Cutie and The Blow both released new clips that veer into art-student-film-project territory while Cat Power debuted the song “Wanderer,” featuring unlikely collaborator (and tour mate), Lana Del Rey.

Chance The Rapper announced his foray into media with a new track. “I Might Need Security” discloses his purchase of local news site, The Chicagoist.

Alt-rappers Brockhampton also entered new waters this week, the group dropped a music video for “1998 Truman,” their first release since the departure of ex-member, Ameer Vann, due to allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct.

End Notes

  • Pitchfork Music Festival is this weekend in Chicago. You can livestream many of the acts, including Lauryn Hill, Blood Orange, and Courtney Barnett on Pitchfork’s YouTube channel.

 

  • Fans who were worried about SZA can breathe a sigh of relief. After missing some dates on TDE’s Championship tour due to damaged vocal cords, the Drew Barrymore singer made a valiant comeback at Firefly Festival.

 

  • Jay-Z is disputing with Philadelphia mayor, Jim Kenney over the music festival that the rapper founded six years ago. Since its 2012 inception, Made in America Festival has been held in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art,  but this may be about to change. Without talking to festival organizers, Kenney told local news that the fest’s busy location was inconveniencing the city and would have to be moved in 2019. In response to the mayor, Jay-Z published a statement in the The Inquirer to voice his disapproval. Maybe op-eds are the new rap battle?

 

  • Mad Decent Block Party returns to New York after taking a one-year hiatus from the city. On September 24, TroyBoi, Walshy Fire, and more will play at the Brooklyn Mirage.

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ONLY NOISE: The Art of Dissent

If you are paying attention to the political sector right now – and I’d be concerned yet impressed if you’ve managed to escape it – every day may feel like a battle. Those who have suffered depression will be uncomfortably familiar with this sentiment. The difference being: now we experience distress as a collective whole. Shared unrest can at least make us feel less solitary, but it comes with its own set of side effects. A sense of widespread and impending doom, for instance.

In times like these, it is easy to write off seemingly frivolous forms of catharsis. To put away pleasure and fortify yourself with facts instead. To bury the arts under a headstone reading: “Trivial.” I’ve certainly found it difficult to appreciate art at face value lately. How could I dare enjoy something pretty amidst the calculated intolerance being issued by our new government? Surely I’m not the only one who feels guilt and futility lest I’m actively educating myself on the matter or combatting it – on foot or on paper.

And then, as if she could feel our hearts breaking, our shame and impotence triumphing, a respected member of the New York music community wrote a post on Facebook urging artists and musicians:

“DO NOT BE AFRAID OR FEEL ASHAMED to spread your work, or promote your shows amongst this chaos! It is in no way selfish. The community you build with your work, and the shows you’re playing are helping people heal, and find togetherness, and give people a moment of goddamn peace. Do not let Drumph oppress your work. Artists, you are SO IMPORTANT especially in times like this. Use your magic.”

She was unassailably right, and I try to remember that statement every day. In a rare moment of optimism, my hope is to push her words further. To highlight that while dialectics and dissent and physical resistance are all of utmost importance right now, so too is the creation and support of art. To learn from previous art and make new work that addresses our current despair.

It is my personal belief that the best art is birthed from conflict, internal or otherwise, and not necessarily from a pure urge to depict beauty alone. This, incidentally, leads me to liking a lot of “unpleasant” music, literature, film, and visual art, as my friends and family could tell you. Otto Dix’s depictions of the First World War, Hemingway’s accounts of The Spanish Civil War, the IRA drama The Wind That Shakes The Barley, Thatcher/Reagan era punk music, and of course George Orwell’s 1984.

The latter two have a special relationship for me, and given 1984’s recent resurgence in popularity, I found it an apt tie-in to the importance of embracing the arts in trying times. This isn’t the first instance post-publishing that 1984 has been all over pop culture. Its sales spiked 5,771% after Edward Snowden leaked the NSA’s phone tapping secrets to the world. 30 years prior, punk bands of the late ‘70s and ‘80s found its text all too applicable to Margaret Thatcher’s reign in Britain, especially groups like Subhumans, without whom I may have never read 1984.

Subhumans’ 1983 debut record The Day The Country Died is essentially a 1984 concept album, with dystopian themes throughout. Specifically, Orwell’s masterpiece is referenced in the opening track “All Gone Dead” (“So long to the world, that’s what they said, it’s 1984 and it’s all gone dead”) and “Big Brother,” which makes references to the novel’s voyeuristic telescreen spying on its citizens. In hindsight, the record and the novel reveal eerie premonitions: today, a majority of the United Kingdom is monitored by CCTV cameras (1 for every 32 people, as The Guardian reported in 2011).

Currently sales of 1984 are up 9,500%, the novel reaching the top of the Amazon best-seller list in the days after Presidential Counselor Kellyanne Conway stated that Press Secretary Sean Spicer gave “alternative facts” when discussing the number of those in attendance at President Trump’s inauguration. This paradox uttered by Conway immediately reminded thousands of Orwell’s terms “doublethink,” which refers to “reality control” and “newspeak” – the eradication of independent thought.

What I find most remarkable, is that in spite of this shitstorm we’re facing, people are actually trying to better themselves in every way possible; taking time out of their weekends to schlep to JFK and resist Trump’s immigration orders, creating and signing petitions, and even simply reading a piece of relevant literature – swapping out fantasy fiction for something radical, political, and “unpleasant.”

The fact that the arts are intersecting with politics at a volume that hasn’t occurred in decades, to me marks the end of cynicism in the creative world. When pop stars like Sia and Grimes donate tens of thousands of dollars to the ACLU and CAIR, when countless performers turn down a large paycheck for the sake of their political integrity (the star-studded scoff at the Inaugural Ball, I mean), when commercial singers like Janelle Monae and Alicia Keys and Madonna show up at the Women’s March on Washington – you know there is a paradigm shift at hand.

It is a sign that art can be radical. Music can be radical. I am not saying we should all hold hands and sing “Kumbaya.” I am saying we should hold our fists in the air and sing Pussy Riot, and keep making music that is topical, and angry, and full of conflict. We should read Orwell and Marcuse and Debord, but we should also write the next 1984, and the next Reason and Revolution, and the next The Society of the Spectacle.

It seems to me that if we could focus all of our efforts – especially artistic efforts – with a critical and productive lens, if we could make every atom of our reality about discussing and re-shaping what we can no longer accept, then we have a shot at real progress. There is a time for art that perceives itself (but isn’t actually) in a vacuum. There is a time for post-modern distraction, and the navel-gazing art of identity politics, and artistic fetishizing of antiquity. Now is not that time.

APPROVAL MATRIX: 2/2/14 thru 2/8/14

Dum Dum Girls Letterman

We’re huge fans of NY Mag’s Approval Matrix.  Here’s our take on the best and worst in music this week.

HIGHBROW

^^^^^^^^

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Two Pussy Riot riot members getting kicked out of Pussy Riot for supposedly abandoning the groups “leftist anti-capitalist ideology.” Kicking girl gang members out of the girl gang seems very anti-girl gang… [/box][/fusion_builder_column]

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Let us discuss how babelike the Dum Dum Girls looked during their performance on Late Night with David Letterman. So many maneating-gothess vibes. We’re definitely channeling this video this weekend. [/box][/one_half_last]

DESPICABLE <<—————————————————————————– >>BRILLIANT

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LES venue The Living Room may be moving to Williamsburg… so it can re-close in nine months to make way for another Duane Reade? [/box][/fusion_builder_column_inner]

[/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”1_2″_last][box type=”shadow”] Skaters‘ laid-back response to a shitty review of Manhattan in Vice:

Skaters Vice Response[/box][/one_half_last]

VVVVVVVV

LOWBROW

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