“A meme is a unit of information — a catchphrase, a concept, a tune, a notion of fashion, philosophy or politics. Memes pass through a population in much the same way genes pass through a species. Memes can change minds, alter behavior, catalyze collective mind-shifts and transform cultures. Whoever has the memes has the power.”
So psyched on *this show* I am putting on @ Great Scott next Sunday with Friends, Ganglians, La Big Vic, and Fat History Month. Thank you Hanna+Peter for the sweetest flyer!
“Legendary rapper” Jay-Z is the latest addition to the #SHITLIST #Onepercent Old ass bastard hasn’t even dropped a hot 16 since Black Album. #realtalk #OWS #SHITLIST Seriously - co-opting an anti-capitalist movement and turning into another tool for yr 1% capitalist agenda, without sharing the profits? Fuck Jay-Z. #SHITLIST Besides, I am the new Sinatra, not him. #jerzeyboy”
— Titus Andronicus front-guy Patrick Stickles keeps the conversation goin. Is Jay-Z for real? (via @titus_ndronicus)
The cast of our upcoming video for “Giants” in gif format.
Aahahahaha check out these sweet .GIFs y’all. I dressed up as a mall punk for a You Can Be a Wesley music video, for the song ‘Giants’ from their new record ‘Nightosphere.’ Dressing up as a mall punk was actually just kind of like wearing what I wear every day + borrowing Nick’s old Interpol t-shirt + wearing orange lipstick. Still, it really brought me back to 9th grade, Sunrise Mall, the Tower Record parking lot, Temple Betham, and the period when I wore an Every Time I Die hoodie everyday. ~~Simpler Times~~ I still wonder what happened to that hoodie.
“Both Papercut Zine Library and the Lucy Parsons Center have also long reflected many of the same values now nationally projected by the Occupy movement. Like the general assemblies, Papercut and the LPC run non-hierarchal consensus-driven collectives. And like Occupy Boston’s Free School University, Lorem Ipsum is home to radical free school Corvid College. Papercut has a section of activist guides and “know your rights” zines.”
FINALLY! Earthquake Party’s catchy-as-hell debut cassette. Three tracks of blown-out garage pop in 5 minutes. They are from Boston and play a lot of basement shows around here but also have opened locally for Times New Viking, the Babies, Smith Westerns, etc. They also played a Pellytwins-presented show in April. “Pretty Little Hand” is the hitfor sure.
“Anti-commercial, anti-capitalist ideology is a guiding principle in the DIY underground that has existed in music scenes internationally for decades. DIY promotes free expression while embracing independence from commercial systems. In Europe, DIY activity (including shows) often occurs in government-owned social centers. In New York, a DIY music scene is thriving in converted warehouses and industrial spaces. In Boston, it lives in houses.”
— From the article I wrote for the Phoenix about Allston DIY Fest in July. It is inspiring to revisit articles like this and think about how #Occupy has brought these values out of houses and into a public, national spotlight; onto the covers of newspapers instead of tucked away in the local music sections. Also simultaneously a reminder of how cool the Phoenix is for continuously publishing on these rad topics. (<3)
“I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be; one of them, a seventeen-year-old, presents little threat, although it would be of some interest to me to know again what it feels like to sit on a river levee drinking vodka-and-orange-juice and listening to Les Paul and Mary Ford and their echoes sing “How High the Moon” on the car radio. (You see I still have the scenes, but I no longer perceive myself among those present, no longer could even improvise the dialogue.) The other one, a twenty-three-year-old, bothers me more. She was always a good deal of trouble, and I suspect she will reappear when I least want to see her, skirts too long, shy to the point of aggravation, always the injured party, full of recriminations and little hurts and stories I do not want to hear again, at once saddening me and angering me with her vulnerability and ignorance, an apparition all the more insistent for being so long banished … It is a good idea, then, to keep in touch, and I suppose that keeping in touch is what notebooks are all about.”
— Re-blogging this quote from one of my favorite Joan Didion essays (“On Keeping a Notebook”) because she is speaking at a Harvard Book Store event tonight in Boston and I am going and I am so excited. So00o excited.
“A big part of their musical and cultural power came from their girl-gang status. By making music together, they were defying cultural stereotypes and expectations of jealousy and hatred among women, and making sisterhood look damn good.”
