eventseekr Shuffle: Punch It or Hug It? A Playlist of Lovely Assault

“For one human being to love another, that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks … Love is like the measles. The older you get it, the worse the attack.” –Rainer Maria Rilke

Love and War are two words that change lives. Sweethearts swoon and entire countries are swept up by the ravishment of warfare. My choice of the word Love over Peace is quite intentional, as I’m a firm believer in the notion that the latter is in no way the antonym to the despair that is War. Peace is merely the middle ground: safety. Creation and community are needed in order to properly balance out the scale, therefore Love fits the bill quite nicely. But I advise all to be careful with quickly labeling Love and War as two entities working in opposition. The famous Hellenic War delineates otherwise, showing how love may beget war. In contrast, one can only hope that the converse is just as likely.

I aimed to create a playlist which highlights both of these aspects of human nature while also making room for the grey areas that lie between anger and adoration. There is a certain tension involved in love – a push and pull that can turn into frustration or worse. Some of these songs come purely from the heart while others were written with an antagonistic slant; some are literal in their relevance while others are more abstract, and nearly all of them convey a sense of anxiety. That being said, let’s leave the boggy waters of semantics behind and let the playlist speak its case.

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eventseekr Shuffle: Bright 11-1-11

I like making mix-CDs for road-trips, for my friends with music I think they would enjoy, and also for myself. Every once in a while, when I really get into compiling a particular mix, I wonder just how obsessive compulsive I get about this. It’s also no small wonder that one of my favorite books is Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, and that I also like the adapted movie of the same title that stars John Cusack.

The lead character, Rob, explains that there are many rules and guidelines to compiling a mixtape. Chief among them is that putting one together is like writing a letter. Well, being that I am a cinema nerd, and even went to school for it, I see making a mixtape as putting a story together using common themes that hold all of these songs together, and working with a narrative that guides you from Point A to Point B. 

For this particular narrative, I’ve put together 13 songs that will hopefully brighten your day should you feel beaten down, angry, disappointed, or what have you.

Whatever your disposition is to begin with, it’s best to let it all out.  The Bloody Beetroots‘ “WARP 1.9” will probably make the meekest of people want to start throwing some elbows and kicking down big redwoods with their bare feet. The Clash‘s inclusion in this list is very purposeful, just like the music they made and are known for. “Straight to Hell” is a song that is very heavy with its lyrics about injustices of all kinds, and along the lines of this narrative, is meant to represent a sort of reflection of yourself and everything that surrounds.

Bands With Unusual Names #2 – Fokofpolisiekar

BY NATHAN CRANFORD

The Western world has seen the rise (and fall) of numerous upstarts in various artistic fields. One could say that the rise of Dadaism in Europe, as exemplified by that most fabulous Fountain of Marcel Duchamp, did much to open up the possibilities of expression in visual art. So too did those illuminations of the deepest, darkest recesses of the human psyche found in many of the films directed by Italian auteur Pier Paolo Pasolini. Nearly half a century after their creation, these achievements in artistic expression continue to haunt and bewilder both art students and connoisseurs alike, despite never having achieved mass appeal for the public-at-large. Yet, with music, effecting change to the expressive limitations of the artform hasn’t always been so dramatic–and many of the controversies it introduced were quickly absorbed and formalized within the medium with little to no public fanfare over time.

Left to Right: Hunter Kennedy, Wynand Myburgh, Johnny de Ridder, Francois Van Coke, Jaco Venter. Photo by 187.

As time marched forward into the 21st Century, many felt that there was nothing that music could do to effect change, or at the very least, cause a stir–that is, until the South African punk band Fokofpolisiekar (Fuckoffpolicecar) burst out onto the country’s burgeoning youth scene in 2003.

Faustin Linyekula/ Studios Kabako at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts [Review]

For Americans in the 21^st Century, the concept of “punk” is unbelievably stale, but in some other parts of the world, not perverted by the whole “suburban mall punk” culture, that word still signifies promise and vitality. Late 1970s punk is what inspired Congolese choreographer Faustin Linyekula to create his new piece More, more, more… future, which was first shown in San Francisco on September 29^th at the YBCA. Linyekula and his team, including the prominent guitarist Flamme Kapaya, attempted to combine punk’s scorched-earth approach and political urgency with the culture of ndombolo, based around a very sensual and hedonistic Congolese pop music style.

Photo by Agathe Poupeney.