Category: History
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Turn Off “The News”.2: Rania Khalek goes where the New York Times won’t
Korea has been on my mind recently as I was working on a song based on The Blowback Trilogy by Chalmers Johnson, who I have written about before on this blog. As I reread the trilogy looking for bits to use, I decided to try and use a teachable moment Johnson wrote about. He recounted…
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Top 40 Over 40.28: Matana Roberts, Coin Coin Chapter Four: Memphis
Yes, social media can be a waste of time, and a low self esteem machine. Yes, it facilitates hate and social sniping. But – with a good roster of musical friends it can also introduce you to a lot of great new music – both in the sense of just released, and new-to-you. My latest…
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The Marathon and the Sprint
I don’t make best-of lists at the end of the year, but the song I spent the most time listening to in 2019 was B-Movie by Gil Scott Heron: It’s not as well known as his most famous song, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, and I can see why because it’s clear which song…
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Top 40 Over 40.25: Wise Intelligent
Even rarer than artists making great records after 40 is those who are able to do so in quick succession. Back when I was high school, Hüsker Dü released New Day Rising and Flip Your Wig only 8 months apart. It’s hard to imagine young bands doing that in today’s post-internet crash music economy, let…
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Inka Cola / Holiday Shows
One of my favorite lyrics on our new record uses a nugget I got from a passage in Mark Pendergrast’s great history of the Coca-Cola corporation: in perhaps the perfect symbol of neo-colonialism, the Coca-Cola corporation actually bought out Inka Cola of Peru. The line in the song goes, “Mao’s Little Red Book slandered you…
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Bandcamp store now open
Our new record El Pulpo comes out in the US on October 20th, October 14th if you buy the Shrimper Records tape version from a participating brick and mortar store on Cassette Store Day. For the first time, I will be selling music through Bandcamp. I’ve uploaded the new double album as the homepage, (download,…
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Bacon Sheds Light on Pork
One of the ironies of teaching students to read on their own initiative outside of school is that the heavy work load of teaching can make it hard for teachers to do just that themselves. This is something I try and resist as much as possible, and it gets easier when I have some time…
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Pretty Bubbles Turning Into Grime
Michael Hudson has a new book out so I thought it was high time I posted some thoughts I’ve been meaning to write up about his last one, The Bubble and Beyond. I’ve posted before about Hudson’s 1973 classic Superimperialism, whose analysis of the economic strategy of American Empire was followed by a terrific 1977…
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Dirty Harry Does Diversity.1: Magnum Tucked In Tweed
One of the weirder phenomena of early 21st century cinema has been the emergence of Clint Eastwood as would-be spokesman for various groups marginalized by the white male power structure his famed ’70’s character Dirty Harry once defended with a famously long phallic symbol. Million Dollar Baby (2004) concerned itself with issues of gender and…
johnhdavis / inundation records 