Soundtrack Saturday
53 minutes ago
Saturday, 26 December 2009
Neda Agha-Soltan is Times Person of the Year
Neda Soltan was not political. She did not vote in the Iranian presidential election on June 12. The young student was appalled, however, by the way that the regime shamelessly rigged the result and reinstalled Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ignoring the pleas of her family, she went with her music teacher eight days later to join a huge opposition demonstration in Tehran.
“Even if a bullet goes through my heart it’s not important,” she told Caspian Makan, her fiancé. “What we’re fighting for is more important. When it comes to taking our stolen rights back we should not hesitate. Everyone is responsible. Each person leaves a footprint in this world.”
Ms Soltan, 26, had no idea just how big a footprint she would leave. Hours after leaving home, she was indeed shot, by a government militiaman, as she and other demonstrators chanted: “Death to the dictator.”
Arash Hejazi, a doctor standing near by, remembers her looking down in surprise as blood gushed from her chest. She collapsed. More blood spewed from her mouth. As she lay dying on the pavement, her life ebbing out of her, “I felt she was trying to ask a question. Why?” said Dr Hejazi, who tried to save her life. Why had an election that generated so much excitement ended with a government that claims to champion the highest moral values, the finest Islamic principles, butchering its own youth?A 40-second telephone clip of Ms Soltan’s final moments flashed around the world. Overnight she became a global symbol of the regime’s brutality, and of the remarkable courage of Iran’s opposition in a region where other populations are all too easily suppressed by despotic governments.
Her name was invoked by Barack Obama, Gordon Brown and other world leaders. Outside Iranian embassies huge crowds of protesters staged candlelit vigils, held up her picture, or wore T-shirts proclaiming, “NEDA — Nothing Except Democracy Acceptable”. The internet was flooded with tributes, poems and songs. The exiled son of the Shah of Iran carried her photograph in his chest pocket.
She was no less of an icon inside Iran, whose Shia population is steeped in the mythology of martyrdom. Vigils were held. Her grave became something of a shrine, and the 40th day after her death — an important date in Shia mourning rituals — was marked by a big demonstration in Behesht-e Zahra cemetery in Tehran that riot police broke up.
It was not hard to see why Ms Soltan so quickly became the face of the opposition, the Iranian equivalent of the young man who confronted China’s tanks during the Tiananmen Square demonstrations 20 years earlier. She was young and pretty, innocent, brave and modern. She wore make-up beneath her mandatory headscarf, jeans and trainers beneath her long, black coat, and liked to travel. She transcended the narrow confines of religion, nationality and ideology. She evoked almost universal empathy.
The story of her death was so potent that the regime went to extraordinary lengths to suppress it. It banned a mourning ceremony, tore down black banners outside her home, and insisted that her funeral be private. It ordered her family to stay silent.
In the subsequent weeks any number of leading officials, ayatollahs included, sought to blame her death on British and American intelligence agencies, the opposition, and even the BBC — accusing its soon-to-beexpelled Tehran correspondent, Jon Leyne, of arranging her death so that he could get good pictures.
The regime announced investigations that, to no one’s surprise, exonerated it and all its agents. It managed to coerce Ms Soltan’s music teacher into changing his story, but it failed to do the same with Mr Makan, despite imprisoning him for 65 days — many of them in solitary confinement. Released on bail, he fled the country — making a five-day overland journey to escape.
Dr Hejazi also fled, back to Oxford where he had been taking a postgraduate course in publishing. There he confirmed in an interview in The Times that Ms Soltan was shot by a Basij militiaman on a motorcycle. But the regime still hounds him. It has harassed his family in Tehran, is trying to close his publishing company in the capital, and has accused him of helping British agents to kill Ms Soltan. It stages demonstrations outside the British Embassy demanding his extradition. He would be arrested the moment he returned to Tehran, meaning that he, his wife and infant son are now exiles.
When The Queen’s College, Oxford, established a scholarship in Ms Soltan’s name the regime sent the university a furious letter of complaint.
Back in Tehran, the regime tried to buy off Ms Soltan’s parents by promising them a pension if they agreed that their daughter was a “martyr” killed by foreign agents.
Her mother, Hajar Rostami Motlagh, was outraged. “Neda died for her country, not so that I could get a monthly income from the Martyr Foundation,” she said. “If these officials say Neda was a martyr, why do they keep wiping off the word ‘martyr’ in red which people write on her gravestone? ... Even if they give the world to me I will never accept the offer.”
Soon afterwards, government supporters desecrated her grave. The regime has not arrested or investigated Abbas Kargar Javid, who was caught by demonstrators seconds after he shot Ms Soltan. The crowd, unwilling to use violence, and with the police the enemy, let him go — but not before they had taken his identity card.
Six months on, it is obvious that Ms Soltan did not die in vain. The manner of her death, and the regime’s response, has shredded what little legitimacy it had left. She helped to inspire an opposition movement that is now led by her generation, which a systematic campaign of arrests, show trials, beatings, torture and security force violence has failed to crush, and whose courage and defiance has won the admiration of the world.
As the new year approaches, the so-called Green Movement appears to be gaining confidence and momentum. It no longer seems impossible that the regime could fall in 2010. If and when it does, Ms Soltan will be remembered as the pre-eminent martyr of the second Iranian revolution.
Vic Chesnutt RIP
Vic Chesnutt, a singer-songwriter whose music dealt with mortality and black humor, died on Friday in a hospital in Athens, Ga., a spokesman for his family said. He was 45 and lived in Athens.
He had been in a coma after taking an overdose of muscle relaxants earlier this week, said the family spokesman, Jem Cohen.
In a two-decade career, Mr. Chesnutt sang darkly comic and often disarmingly candid songs about death, vulnerability, and life’s simple joys. A car accident when he was 18 left him a quadriplegic, but he has said that the accident focused him as a musician and a poet.
“It was only after I broke my neck and even like maybe a year later that I really started realizing that I had something to say,” he said in a recent radio interview with Terry Gross.
Discovered in the late 1980s by Michael Stipe of R.E.M., who produced his first two albums, Mr. Chesnutt has been a mainstay in independent music, collaborating with the bands Lambchop and Widespread Panic.
In 1996 his songs were performed by Madonna, the Indigo Girls, Smashing Pumpkins, R.E.M. and others for “Sweet Relief II: The Gravity of the Situation,” an album that benefited the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, a nonprofit group that offers medical support for musicians.
His survivors include his wife, Tina Whatley Chesnutt; a sister, Lorinda Crane; and nine nieces and nephews.
Recently Mr. Chesnutt had had a burst of creativity, releasing two 2009 albums, “At the Cut” and “Skitter on Take-Off.” In the song, “Flirted With You All My Life,” from “At the Cut,” Mr. Chesnutt sings about suicide, which he had attempted several times. Written as a breakup song with death, it expresses a wish to live:
“When you touched a friend of mine I thought I would lose my mind
But I found out with time that really, I was not ready, no no, cold death
Oh death, I’m really not ready.”
@'NY Times'
He had been in a coma after taking an overdose of muscle relaxants earlier this week, said the family spokesman, Jem Cohen.
In a two-decade career, Mr. Chesnutt sang darkly comic and often disarmingly candid songs about death, vulnerability, and life’s simple joys. A car accident when he was 18 left him a quadriplegic, but he has said that the accident focused him as a musician and a poet.
“It was only after I broke my neck and even like maybe a year later that I really started realizing that I had something to say,” he said in a recent radio interview with Terry Gross.
Discovered in the late 1980s by Michael Stipe of R.E.M., who produced his first two albums, Mr. Chesnutt has been a mainstay in independent music, collaborating with the bands Lambchop and Widespread Panic.
In 1996 his songs were performed by Madonna, the Indigo Girls, Smashing Pumpkins, R.E.M. and others for “Sweet Relief II: The Gravity of the Situation,” an album that benefited the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, a nonprofit group that offers medical support for musicians. His survivors include his wife, Tina Whatley Chesnutt; a sister, Lorinda Crane; and nine nieces and nephews.
Recently Mr. Chesnutt had had a burst of creativity, releasing two 2009 albums, “At the Cut” and “Skitter on Take-Off.” In the song, “Flirted With You All My Life,” from “At the Cut,” Mr. Chesnutt sings about suicide, which he had attempted several times. Written as a breakup song with death, it expresses a wish to live:
“When you touched a friend of mine I thought I would lose my mind
But I found out with time that really, I was not ready, no no, cold death
Oh death, I’m really not ready.”
@'NY Times'
Flying Lotus - A Decade of Flying Lotus (Mixed by The Gaslight Killer)
Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone
as we’re approaching this new year, I felt it was time to let go of some things that have been gathering dust. Some old things, and some new things, I tried to pick out tracks that I know yall haven’t heard yet so there should be surprises around every turn.
can’t believe i’ve been making tracks for over 10 years now..That said, there’s so much to learn still.
I hope you all enjoy this mix. Thanks to the Gaslamp Killer for doing an incredible job on this.
Can’t wait for you all to hear my album ‘Cosmogramma’ coming out April 20th 2010 on Warp Records.
Enjoy
s
A Decade of Flying Lotus (mixed by GLK)Vic Chesnutt: UPDATE
The reports of Vic Chesnutt's death are unconfirmed. He is apparently still in a coma:
However, as of about an hour ago, new information has surfaced that Chesnutt has not died and is indeed still in a coma. As one Examiner piece notes, there has been no official word released, and many a death article (such as one in Spinner) have been re-written to fix the errors. The Wall Street Journal published an article about a half hour ago that says Chesnutt is alive. It quotes a couple of people close to Chesnutt, including the head of Constellation Records:
“There is no truth to the rumour that Vic has died,” said Don Wilkie, co-founder of Constellation, addressing rumors on the Web. “He remains alive.”
The Examiner piece also pointed to a comment on another Examiner site believed to be made by Jem Cohen. Here’s what Cohen wrote:
Vic Chesnutt is not dead. I am with him at the hospital in Georgia, and while he is in serious coma, we do not know what the outcome will be. Vic has survived serious comas in the past. Please do not report misinformation. You owe that to his family and friends, as well as to journalistic ethics.
Thank you.
Jem Cohen
Scurvy Bastard says:
"Hey, Pa," yelled Zeke, leaping barefoot across the front porch and into the kitchen. "There's some folks done snuck into the barn and the woman's gone and birthed a baby! They got it laying in the trough, wrapped in a feed sack." "That's the least of our worries son, look up yonder hill... looks like 3 terrorists headed this way."
America's health system (part fugn whatever...)
Vic Chesnutt - Spinner Magazine October 2009
Friday, 25 December 2009
Vic Chesnutt RIP Still in coma
Remember...
...that this time of the year can be a very difficult time for lots of people for a number of reasons...
Sometimes random acts of senseless kindness can make YOU feel a whole lot better too!
If things get too tough, for whatever reason you can always ring Direct Line if you are in Melbourne.
1800 888 236 (24 hours)
OR
Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800
if you are a young person.
Believe me there are people who will listen to you out there.
OR
Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800
if you are a young person.
Believe me there are people who will listen to you out there.
Unreleased Pop Group song(s)
The MySpazz page for 'Bristol Archive Records' has a number of songs from The Pop Group currently on the player.
'The Truth Is Feeling' is not one I have come across before...
Actually I have but not under that title
Possibly the Hugh Cornwell produced demos?
Anyone out there know for sure?
Actually I have but not under that title
Possibly the Hugh Cornwell produced demos?
Anyone out there know for sure?
(Thanx Richard)
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