Versatility has always been the Hordern Pavilion’s greatest attribute. Originally built to host the Royal Sydney Easter Show, it became a place of many firsts. It heralded the very first Big Day Out (now sadly gone from our festival catalogue) back in the nineties and has continued to play host to some of Australia’s best musical talent. Friday night was no exception, opening its cavernous hallways to the sell-out crowd, there to see electronica/hip-hop duo Hermitude on the Sydney leg of their Sweet Light Dark Night Tour.
The humid November night proved a sweaty event, with thousands of bodies cramming their way through to the vast, yet inevitably stuffy venue. A thick miasma of sweat and heat built as the anticipation quickly rose.
Hip-hop duo and ARIA nominees The Meeting Tree (Joyride and Raph Lauren) and Kilter, a.k.a, Ned East, both did a fantastic job at warming up the crowd, delivering the precise balance of percussive beats and heady hip-hop ready to get you in the mood for Hermitude.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKTJU21Aa3M&w=560&h=315]
It wasn’t long before the main act took centre stage. The boys – Luke Dubs and Angus Stuart (aka El Gusto) – brought out a full artillery of live instruments: soundboards, keyboards, hit pads, drum kits, which they both managed to play all at once during points of their performances of Searchlight and Ukiyo. It makes you realise what adept musicians the two of them are and how much their music has developed over the years to create such an inclusive live experience.
Highlight tracks included Get In My Life, which had the crowd screaming out in ecstatic roars and dancing in pulsating jumps. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Hermitude performance without the inclusion of one of their most famous and successful hits HyperParadise (the Flume remix of course), the track that brought them to mainstream acclaim and cemented their status in the Australian music scene.
Cartridge Kings brought it back to Hermitude’s hip-hop roots and showed off their incredibly deft skills on the turntables, while their Missy Elliott and Kanye remixes had every single crowd member going wild over those familiar loops. And just when you thought the night couldn’t get any better or you couldn’t be more drenched in sweat if you tried, the duo brought out Chaos Emerald for another classic, Speak of the Devil.
The guests didn’t stop there; Young Tapz made an appearance for a blistering Through The Roof, the young New Zealander almost bringing down the roof with the high energy performance accompanied by the triumphant sound of trumpets blaring from the speakers behind him. Mataya joined him for The Buzz, along with an entourage of seriously skilled dancers clothed in tight whites with the moves to match.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FulxpivZshg&w=560&h=315]
The show also featured some really cool lighting and imagery, including live shots of the artists playing drum pads, keys and more, which was a really cool addition – especially for an electronic show. The night ended with The Villain. Dubs and Stuart, obviously extremely happy with not only the turnout of the crowd but energy of their dedicated patronage, thanked the crowd earnestly, saying that it was “good to be home” after such a intense touring schedule over the year.
Check out our review of Dark Night Sweet Light here.
Check out our interview with Hermitude right here.
It happened as my friends and I were driving along the Murray River on the way to Strawberry Fields, a renowned bush doof/festival held annually near Tocumwal, near the NSW/Victorian border. As we were about 20 minutes out from the festival, we rounded a corner into slowed speed zone. What came next took us completely by surprise.
Set up on the side of the road was an army of cops. Looming ahead sat an ominous drug testing bus, while sniffer dogs and Victorian police were everywhere. This was nowhere near the entry to the festival, this was a random spot on the side of the road. Being a car filled with young people, we were immediately flagged down.
As soon as we were stopped, we were all asked for identification. We were told to exit the car, which the police then combed from top to bottom. None of us had any drugs or other pieces of contraband on us, but this didn’t seem to matter – even after they finished searching.
We told the police we had nothing, but they treated us with the suspicion someone actually carrying drugs would expect to receive. I was asked if I had ever done drugs, did I know drugs would be present at the festival and would I be doing drugs at the festival?
“Um, ahh, oh I don’t know, I think there will be?” I stammered awkwardly. How was I supposed to answer questions like that? Of course there would be drugs at the festival; IT’S A MUSIC FESTIVAL. My ambivalent answers were born out of a place of confusion and panic. I also have the unfortunate tendency to smile awkwardly when under intense scrutiny. If I answered wrong, what did that mean for me? Would I be fined? Charged? Arrested?
Unfortunately my hesitation was interpreted as non-compliance. They became convinced that my unwillingness to answer questions directly was an indicator that I had drugs on me.
“You’re being a bit evasive with your answers. You know most people would just answer no to the questions were asking if they were innocent,” one of the police told me in a condescending tone. It’s pretty hard to feel confident asserting your innocence to three policemen who don’t believe a word you’re saying. I guess omittance is no quittance, as Shakespeare once said.
So they gave me a drug test while they took my friend Josh* to have a pat down down and my other friend Emily* to a tent to be stripped searched. Then the sniffer dog decided to plonk itself at my feet.
“The sniffer dog has indicated that you have something on you, so we are going to have to conduct a strip search on you,” said the policeman with thinly-disguised glee. They’d got me.
I was escorted to a tent by the side of the road and required to take all of my clothes in front of a female police officer, while she ruffled through all of my items in search of the drugs that I was apparently still hiding. She actually made me squat – totally, completely naked – in case I was hiding anything, erm, inside myself. All of this, on the side of the road, in front of a stranger.
I felt violated to the point of tears. How did the police have the right to just strip search people on the side of the road? At the entrance of a festival, perhaps I could understand it more. You know what you may be subject to when buying a festival ticket. It’s just a condition of entry that people must comply with.
But to be pulled up on the side of the road and forced to get naked when they had already searched us and found nothing? I’m not saying the police were acting illegally – they weren’t, everything they did was completely legal. But it doesn’t make it right, and it certainly doesn’t make me trust them. This article is not about the legality of this incident.
One of my biggest regrets was not asking the police why they had the right to do this. I think most young people or punters are too scared to ask questions in case it causes more trouble for themselves. The first thing the police told us was, “If you guys have anything on you, now is the time to declare it. If you tell us now, you’ll just receive a slap on the wrist.” Pure intimidation tactics meant to scare people into confessing.
The worst thing about the entire process of drug searches and prosecutions is that you’re guilty until proven innocent. Police appear to have infinite powers when it comes to suspected drug possession. If a dog sits at your feet, say goodbye to your rights. The kind of protections normally put in place by the law are suspended in the case of legally broad and powerful policy of ‘probable cause’. And if you resist their search, you can be charged with hindering the law.
The entire effect of this system is incredibly dehumanising. They take away your right to say no; they strip you of your dignity and your privacy – not to mention your clothes – and worst of all they criminalise otherwise innocent people. Lockouts, drug convictions for minor possession charges, strip searches… Sometimes it feels as if there is a war on young people. Why am I guilty by default because I’m a young person who was in a car on the way to a music festival? We weren’t swerving, we had nothing on us, and yet we were still treated like criminals.
Strip searches by the side of the road are not going to stop people buying or using drugs. All that does is incite intense fear and distrust, not to mention humiliation and dehumanisation. Was I committing a crime? Was I on drugs? Was I hurting somebody? No. A dog had sat by my feet. That was all.
Dogs and this kind of aggressive treatment is not the way to quell harm and drug use. Regulation, testing kits, education and information are the ways to minimise harm, and in turn perhaps even drug use. Education and regulation, not side-of-the-road strip searches. Prohibitive measures don’t work, we know they don’t. We need to update our archaic drug laws and we need to stop being treated like criminals when we’ve done nothing wrong.
After we were let go, all of us felt sick to our stomachs. And angry. Deeply, deeply angered by the treatment we’d received. But perhaps worst of all was the feeling of powerlessness. We couldn’t have done or said anything to stop what was happening. It makes you feel like you don’t have a voice sometimes.
For the record, the Strawberry Fields was still awesome. I’d highly recommend it to anyone.
*Names have been changed
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5fts7bj-so]
It’s always interesting when musicians talk about other musicians. It’s even more interesting when musicians review other musicians’ work. Especially when the two artists are as stylistically disparate as you can get. Given the recent amount of hype it’s garnered in the weeks up until its release, it was only apt that Will Butler of Arcade Fire gave Grimes’ new album Art Angels a go.
Writing for The Talkhouse, a website where musicians write about other musicians, Butler begins with a point about how reiterative pop music is, saying, “Pop traditionally tries to recreate the world the listener already lives in, just with bigger cartoon eyes and soft corners on the tables.”
He then goes onto say that Art Angels comes from the world of 2000s pop, but personally I don’t really think Art Angels sounds too reminiscent of the noughties at all. Butler then says that he is ‘prejudiced’ against the music of the 00’s before admitting he actually admires Art Angels. Favourite track? Scream ft. Aristophanes, a Taiwanese rapper rapping in Mandarin.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUe9rnucPoU&w=560&h=315]
Butler even goes so far as to call Grimes’ production charismatic. “The work is divine and human. I think of the RZA alone back in the ’90s, sampling and nudging and piecing together technology,” he says.
However, he then goes on a weird tangent about Elijah and the priests of Baal, quoting indecipherable nonsense in an attempt to sound cultured.
It doesn’t stop there. He THEN goes on to question whether he really likes Grimes’ new album at all, saying, “I just keep wondering if the funkiness is justified. There’s no reason for my doubt — it’s prejudicial.” He draws comparisons with Bob Dylan, Bob Marley and Prince, seeming to insinuate that he almost had to force himself to like these revered artists, a point he seems to be making with Grimes’ new album
At one point he basically accuses Grimes of being a massive, self-pandering egotist, quoting the line “Can’t you see the enemy just isn’t me tonight?” out of track Butterfly, calling it a “classic Prince move – talking about himself”.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv9YoYCKNoE&w=560&h=315]
However, Butler does admit at the end that “Grimes is a genuine world builder” in deference to her creativity on the album, saying that, “it feels cold to stand outside her creation and judge it. It’s like watching the Big Bang from a different dimension.”
The whole interview sounds incredibly discordant and scattered. It’s not quite clear where exactly Butler stands on Grimes, but he seems to be slightly disdainful of her new album in tone.
Butler had better watch out though, as Grimes revealed on SiriusXMU that she wrote song California as a hate song for music website Pitchfork.
“It’s actually like a hate track for Pitchfork. Not for California, for like the music industry,” said Grimes when asked if the song was an ode to the state.
The hate song was written to express Grimes’ frustration at how the press handled the release of her song Go.
Who knows, maybe Grimes’ next song could include a hate song about Butler?
Art Angels is out now via 4AD. Buy it right here.
It was only last week that Santigold a.k.a Santi White, announced the release date of her new album 99¢, her first album since Master of My Make-Believe back in 2012. Now in an interview for Pitchfork with Zoe Camp, she’s revealed several details about the upcoming album, struggling to work with the record’s many producers, her thoughts on streaming, comedic endeavours and more. We’ve sifted through and listed the most interesting points:
She worked with a lot of producers on this album
Having worked with a whole bunch of different people, White became pretty burnt out from having to bring it all together. “I usually work with so many different producers, and a lot of time there’s a lot of producers working on one song. I end up being the one in the middle, pulling it all together, and it’s really hard,” said White.
Having had a pretty relentless touring schedule as well as becoming a mother had also left her exhausted. Vampire Weekend‘s Rostam Batmanglij, Hit-Boy, Patrik Berger, Justin Raisen, Sam Dew, John Hill, and Doc McKinney all contributed to the album, and she did a collab with iLoveMakonnen on Who Be Lovin Me, who she said intimidated her, but contributed the catchy lyrics you hear on the track.
99¢ makes some interesting consumerist/materialist observations about our society
Obviously the artwork for 99¢ is putting forward a pretty clear message about the consumerist nature of the society we live in. It features Santigold spread amongst a bunch kitsch, disposable items wrapped in cellophane frozen in a pose that looks like she is about to jump into action.
Camp asks if the lyrics on 99¢ are pertaining to this kind of culture, and Santigold replies, “The whole way that people interact with each other, the way that people write, the way that people view themselves, the way that people think about themselves or how to present themselves or the way that people deal with each other, the way that people meet people and date, I mean literally, what is that thing called? Tinder? You’re literally swiping to find dates!”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi171sZUQUA&w=560&h=315]
She’s torn on the whole streaming thing
Calling it ‘totally fucked up’, White is opposed to streaming for a few reasons, namely, that it’s hard for artists to make a buck when you’re getting paid zilch for your work. “As an artist, as a songwriter, it’s really hard. And people don’t realize that – you know, they want to keep getting great music and they want to keep getting real music that takes time to make, where the turnaround is probably slower than a lot of pop where you just throw records out every year,” said White. “It’s different, and you have to be able to, just like any career, you have to be able to sustain yourself while you’re doing it, you know?”
Fair point. But with the music industry model increasingly heading in that direction, holding out is becoming harder and harder. Saying she “tried to withhold for a long time”, White advocates for better deals for artists, ones which will pay them more money so they can support themselves.
Which leads to…
She’s fine with lending her songs to commercials
When asked if her anti-consumerist theme was at odds with lending out her music to commercials, White was unapologetic. “I don’t know if it always wasn’t an option for music – you’re not going to get crazy play on radio if you’re making any kind of music that’s not fitting into cookie-cutter alternative or cookie-cutter mainstream pop.” The only way White was able to make money off her music was from licensing and touring, saying she barely made any money from her streams on Spotify.
“That’s how I make a living, especially since people are not buying music anymore.”
She loves acting
White appeared as a guest on The Office, appearing as a bemused judge on the panel of an American Idol-esque show called The Next Great A Cappella Sensation alongside runner-up Clay Aiken and NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers. “Oh my god, I love doing acting. I had so much fun, and I was getting so into it and then I got pregnant. And then I was like, rushing to get this record out, so I paused it, said White. “But I definitely plan to get back to it, it was just getting good for me.”
She might have a future collaboration with some comedic heavyweights on the horizon
Asked whether she prefers comedy or drama, White said she was a goofball at heart, remarking that “I’ve been told by people close to me that I’m not that funny.” However, White think she has a viable career as comedian, saying that she had dinner recently with Dave Chapelle and Chris Rock and that they were thinking about doing something in the future.
Check out the song Radio she did for film Paper Towns back in July.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjBdQmFnctA&w=560&h=315]
Few artists are able to breathe the kind of energy and life into instrumental music the way Chrome Sparks does. Effortlessly interweaving the intricate detail of the organic and synthetic to create a a musical hybridity like none other, the music somehow placates and excites simultaneously. Having dropped previous EP Goddess a year ago, Chrome Sparks have been consistent with their releases over time, choosing to release smallish EPs every year for the past three years. This works on two fronts: on one hand it keeps fans satiated for the time being, however the amount of songs is paltry enough as to keep us hungering for more.
At just three tracks long, Parallelism certainly achieves this. A decidedly less commercial venture than the incredibly catchy Losing U, it departs thematically from Goddess on several fronts. If Goddess could be imagined as an odyssey of some kind, one where you Enter the Chrome Forest, only to be Lost in the Chrome Forest, to a place where you eventually find the long-prophesied Goddess as a climatic end to the EP, then Parallelism is more like the amorphous exploration on the new frontier of the unknown.
Enter the parallel universe, where everything sounds unfamiliar. Like you’ve entered a brave new world. Starting with Moonraker, you open to an unfamiliar soundscape cautiously, unsure what to expect, until the building crescendo of synths and percussion opens out into a more broad landscape. But this is only the calm before the storm, where the slick synths become like the needles of an acupuncturist pricking delicately at your central nervous system.
However, Moonraker is just the precursor to the enormity of Give It Up, an epic, sweeping soundscape of grand proportions. Beginning with the gentle petter of the keyboard keys, a disembodied voice asks again and again, “Would I give it up?”, becoming clearer and clearer, while it’s underplayed with the distended voice of another. Then a crescendo starts to build, sounding like the apocalyptic sound score of a Terminator movie, before segueing abruptly into the hypnotically monotonous arrangement of keyboard rifts and synthesisers.
As it progresses, the beat is slowly stripped back, until it’s only the sound of the keyboard and and heavy bass, the sound oscillating unpredictably between different chords and volumes. It’s this continual variance along the six-minute length of the song thats keeps you engaged and enthralled, right from the beginning. When you listen to this song, you almost feel as if you are going to meet your maker.
Ride The White Lightning steps it up a notch. At a colossal nine minutes, we now understand why this EP is only three tracks long. Beginning on a simple, catchy percussive hook, it soon evolves into the ephemeral interplay of synths. Reaching its peak all too soon, the song downshifts into an exotic collection of sounds, all intersecting with each other in a manner so distinctively Chrome Sparks.
Although a short collection of songs, the length of each individual track makes up for it, while never tiring nor stagnating. Each unique piece smacks of the idiosyncratic sound we’ve come to expect from Chrome Sparks, while still remaining fresh and engaging.
It’s hard to put into works what hearing Chrome Sparks is like. If you have synaesthesia, its akin to a auditory display of kaleidoscopic explosions bursting behind your eyes from your neurotransmitters. Project of 22-yeard-old Jeremy Malvin, the Brooklyn producer has the unique ability to use sound to illustrate the intransigent nature of instrumental, percussive music. Each song is utterly unique and possesses an air of timelessness about it, as if it could go on forever. Once again, Malvin manages to achieve what is unique to his project: the ability to keep us hooked and clamouring evermore for the highly addictive music of Chrome Sparks.
Paralellism is out now via Future Classic. You can buy it right here, and order your vinyl edition here.
It’s the song that’s taken the world and the internet by storm, producing so many memes and parodies it virtually warrants a subculture of its own. But now, totally out of left field, Sufjan Stevens has taken a crack at Drake’s infamous Hotline Bling. Joining the ranks of fellow artists Art of Sleeping, Justin Bieber, Erykah Badu and Sam Smith with Disclosure, Stevens performs a cover that would make Drizzy proud.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMMJXmHzWjM&w=560&h=315]
Featuring Gallant, the video was for a Halloween concert shot at Loew’s Jersey Theatre. The R&B tinged sounds oddly discordant mixed in with Sufjan Steven ethereal, lightweight vocals. Laughter can be heard in the background, as delighted and slightly bemused punters watch on from the audience. The two manage to imitate Drake’s now legendarily dorky dance moves perfectly.
The song has spawned countless memes of Drake and his ridiculous dance moves being re-appropriated into Drake making pizzas, Drake in a lightsaber fight, Drake playing tennis and Drake the Pokémaster.
Would Drizzy approve of this latest cover? We certainly can’t see him approving of this cringeworthy Mike Tyson one…
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErhaAxzujqo&w=560&h=315]
But this Mr. G one should be made a part of the National Archives its so good. It was even released by Chris Lilley himself.
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Mr G’s Hotline BlingMr G’s Hotline Blingby fixmeinforty5 Tumblr
Posted by Chris Lilley on Saturday, October 24, 2015
However, Sam Smith and Disclosure collab veterans performed a sublime version on BBC’s Radio 1 Live Lounge.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDCcC_psV24&w=560&h=315]
But perhaps the best is the justice Erykah Badu’s does to the song.
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/226458560″ params=”color=ff5500″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
Back to more Sufjan Stevens related news…
He’s on tour in Australia next year. Check out the dates below:
Sufjan Stevens 2016 Australian Tour
Monday 22nd February – State Theatre, Sydney NSW – Tickets
Friday 26th February 2016 – Hamer Hall, Melbourne VIC – SOLD OUT
Saturday 27th February 2016 – Hamer Hall, Melbourne VIC – Tickets
Wednesday 2nd March 2016 – Red Hill Auditorium, Perth WA – Tickets
Friday 4th March 2016 – QPAC Concert Hall, Brisbane, QLD – Tickets
When self-declared demi-god Kanye West announced his run for President in 2020 back in August, it sent shockwaves out into the political world. Was he serious? Would Kim Kardashian become the first lady? Or was this just another one of Kanye’s self-aggrandisement tactics he was so fond of? However, West himself has confirmed that he is definitely running in an interview with In Camera with the simple affirmation of ‘Yea’.
Despite the initial dubious fanfare around the controversial announcement, West has slowly garnered support for his potential candidacy, including a vote of confidence from current President Barack Obama himself.
Demonstrating his uncanny ability for keeping up with the times, Obama effortlessly drops many a Kanye-related pun into his comments on West’s goal to become president. Perhaps his most irreverent and politically savvy comment came in the form of this:
“Do you really think this country is going to let a black guy from the south side of Chicago with a funny name be President of the United States?” The President said sarcastically.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5t5GnbQgCk&w=560&h=315]
However, West hasn’t won the support of all the presidents, both past and present. Former POTUS George Bush has made it pretty clear of what he think of West’s plans for presidency.
When asked by a TMZ reporter, “What do you think of Kanye running for president?” during a few autograph signings, the Republican basically does a politician’s version of ‘lol wut?’ and just laughs.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20RUlGqmuzM&w=560&h=315]
It should be noted that West doesn’t exactly have a favourable view of the former President either. Almost exactly 10 years ago, West accused the then-sitting president of ‘hating black people’ during what was supposed to be a carefully rehearsed charity telethon between him and Mike Myers for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIUzLpO1kxI&w=420&h=315]
The visibly take-aback Myers manages to main his composure and even West himself seems shaken by the enormity of what he’s said. It was a pivotal moment in the political discourse surrounding Hurricane Katrina that would come to represent Bush’s lowest point as President. NBC later distanced themselves from the events, stating, “his opinions in no way represent the views of the networks.”
Despite the focus on West’s comments about Bush’s alleged racism, the larger part of his segment was highly critical of the disparity between coverage of victims of Hurricane Katrina.
“I hate the way they portray us in the media,” said West. “If you see a black family, it says, ‘They’re looting.’ You see a white family, it says, ‘They’re looking for food.’ And you know that it’s been five days because most of the people are black. And even for me to complain about it, I would be a hypocrite — because I’ve tried to turn away from the TV because it’s too hard to watch. I’ve even been shopping before, even giving a donation. So now I’m calling my business manager right now to see what’s, what is the biggest amount I can give, and, and just to imagine if I was down there, and those are my people down there. So anybody out there that wants to do anything that we can help with the set-up, the way America is set up to help the, the poor, the black people, the less well-off, as slow as possible. I mean, this is — Red Cross is doing everything they can. We already realize a lot of people that could help are at war right now, fighting another way — and they’ve given them permission to go down and shoot us.”
Hopefully West can translate his tendency for inflammatory comments into a becoming a competent political orator in time for his 2020 run.
Prohibition is a policy that rarely works. Well, for our vices it would seem that way. Drug use at festivals is the modern day example of why having a no-tolerance attitude towards the ramifications of their misuse do more harm than good to communities. The latest victim of this tragedy? A young girl called Anneke Vo, who died from a suspected drug-related death at the Dragon Dreaming Festival.
The 23-year-old was found dead at around 5:30am at the festival in Wee Jasper near Lake Burrinjuck, about 50 kilometres south-west of Yass.
The usual discussion around drugs and festivals has flared up again. Even Vo’s sister has called for stricter controls around bringing drugs into festivals.
“A tragic loss to our family that we wish will never happen upon anyone else! Just hoping more strictly monitor of drug abuse and more looking out for each other festival goers !” Ms Nguyen wrote in a post to the Dragon Dreaming festival’s Facebook page.
Superintendent Zoran Dzevlan has commented on the situation, insinuating that if the festival hadn’t taken place, then Ms Vo would be alive.
“I didn’t want this event to happen in the first place. We put our objections forward to council and as a result of these drug detections, and the tragic death of a young lady, we will again be putting our recommendations forward for this event not to take place in our community,” said Superintendent Dzevlan.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wikg2Qu33AY&w=560&h=315]
As Miles Hunt, a lawyer and director of drug law reform and harm-minimisation organisation Unharm, points out in his piece for the Sydney Morning Herald, if someone had died in a car accident on the way to the festival, would their be calls for it to be banned in the future? No, because it is the link between drug taking and festival attendance that is stressed in these situations.
Over the course of that festival, 40 people were caught with drugs. That’s quite a lot when you think about. However, to put it into perspective 5,000 people went to Harbourlife. How many of those attendees would have been using illicit drugs considering the event bills itself as ‘Sydney’s essential outdoor party’? I’m going to say the large majority.
When people die at music festivals, all it proves is that punters take drugs at music festivals. Statistically speaking, the large majority of people who take drugs at festivals don’t die, so why is one death hijacked by the national discourse and interpreted as the symptom of a raging drug epidemic?
This kind of archaic view is actually symptomatic of the nanny-state laws put in place in attempt to control people’s behaviour, not keep them safe. Posting police officers at the entrance of festivals with sniffer dogs creates an atmosphere of surveillance. It criminalises the average punter and body searches violate their rights as a human being. Often revellers don’t even know what rights they forfeit in the terms and conditions of their ticket purchase. We need to only look to countries like the Netherlands and Portugal, who have instated drug regulation policies which have not only seen an increase in purity (ie you get what you pay for), but a reduction in drug-related deaths at music events.
Of course, these rules are put in place to exonerate festivals of blame when something bad happens. It has gotten to the point now that cruises on Sydney Harbour are now being cancelled due to a series of incidents such as violent assaults, use of prohibited drugs and excessive alcohol consumption.
But this is just a bandaid solution which doesn’t address the underlying problem at work here. As we’ve seen with lockouts, when you prohibit the activity of something from taking place in a legal, safe place, it pushes the problem into unregulated and clandestine venues where their is no safety and no oversight. Our culture of excessive drug and alcohol consumption is a cultural problem that can’t simply be legislated out of existence.
As previously stated, prohibition doesn’t work. States in the U.S with abstinence-only sex education programs have the highest rates of teenage pregnancy. During the prohibition era in the 30’s, alcohol consumption actually went up, as well as alcohol related deaths due the unregulated and often toxic substances that flooded the black market.
Why should drug use be viewed as anything different? In Portugal, where all drugs have been decriminalised for 14 years, the rate of drug use has dropped across almost every indicator. Harm minimisation tactics in Europe such as testing kits at festival and government sponsored counselling services turn drug use from a criminal matter into a social issue.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYzmZ1IU4zY&w=560&h=315]
Decriminalising drug possession and drug use would go a long way to stop alienating high risk groups of people from seeking help when things go wrong. Removing the social stigma attached to drug use would prevent unnecessary deaths like Bartter’s and Vo’s.
Let’s face it: the sooner we simply accept that young people will experiment with drugs, the sooner we can tackle the consequences accordingly. Legalisation won’t encourage more drug use because decriminalisation certainly hasn’t stopped it. Our best hope to control the ill-effects of their use is through regulation. Music festivals are place where people come together to connect and experience that community the comes from their collective love of music. So let’s try to keep it that way by keeping people safe.
Cultural appropriation. A phrase so laden with meaning in the modern media landscape, it almost feels like it should be a set of capitalised, proper nouns. It’s a term usually relegated to the uncultured masses who sport bindis and Native American headdresses at festivals. Oh, and Iggy Azealia. Unfortunately for Natasha Khan, a.k.a Bat For Lashes, Afghan-American artist Zohra Atash, from the New York band Religious to Damn and Azar Swan, has sullied her good name with accusations of the damning expression.
Khan has teamed up with producer Dan Carey and psychedelic rock band TOY to come together in 2013 for The Bride, a cover of Amir Rassaie’s Aroos Khanom. Carey first discovered it on the 2013 compilation Zendooni: Funk, Psychedelia And Pop From The Iranian Pre-Revolution Generation.
After officially reuniting earlier this year to form Sexwitch, the trio released their debut album of their same name off of Carey’s Speedy Wunderground label last month to a positive response. The album is made up of a collection of covers of 70s folk and psyche songs from countries all over the world like Morocco, Thailand, Iran and even the US.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js-J2qqXDWc&w=560&h=315]
However, Atash has taken up arms against Sexwitch in an essay for The Talkhouse, accusing them of gross misappropriation of Asian culture, saying that it strays into the imperialistic process of ‘othering’ that so many covers inevitably end up doing.
“Through the portal of six cover songs, we enter a Mean-Disney-era dystopia of imperialist, witch-burning othering where gender, cultures and archetypes are whittled down to the lowest common denominator for the sake of slapdash art,” writes Atash.
Despite the fact that Khan has Asian roots herself (she’s half Pakistani), Atash says Khan’s attempts at the Asian style of singing are “over-the-top attempts at heavy-melisma Eastern singing styles such as mawwal and alap.”
Atash also dregs up other insistences in which she believes Khan has committed cultural appropriation, such as the time that, “Natasha Khan homogenized a disenfranchised people by claiming some nebulous affinity with Native Americans and regularly wore feathered war bonnets and played a shaman stick live.”
She continues with by saying, “Asia is not one big country full of primal dancers and/or terrorists. We are living in a world in which tensions between East and West are reaching an apex. So forgive me if I’m not psyched — ha! — that you think the East is your blank canvas.”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_bge44OBx0&w=560&h=315]
However, the greatest offence Atash seems to take to the record is a “fuck-up so egregious” that is “calls into question the authenticity of the whole project”. She’s talking about of course the fifth track on the album Ghoroobaa Ghashangan from the Zendooni compilation, which Atash says does not resemble the original by an Iranian singer Ramesh.
Atash, who claims to be a longtime Ramesh fan, says the track is in fact a cover of a lesser known artist Pooneh called Hamishe Tanha. The ignorant mistake caused Atash to literally and involuntarily scream out an angered phrase in Farsi (for which no English translation exists – we can only assume its full of expletives).
Despite the criticism Atash had for the majority of the album, she have did praise for Helelyos and Kassidat el Hakka. There’s still no comment back yet from Sexwitch, there’s a very obvious lesson here for artists: be careful with incorporating other culture into your own.