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Tag: Music

Getting Vicious With Dallas Punk Rockers

Posted in Journalism, and The Texas Observer

In Vicious Velma’s world, concerts are primal and raw, rich with immediacy and spattered with bodily fluids.

Photographer Vera “Velma” Hernandez got her start shooting concert  photography in 2014 at a Tulsa punk festival called “Fuck You We Roll  OK.”

She recalled, “I took some photojournalism in high school, never  really did anything after that.” She’d been working at a mall  photography kiosk, but didn’t even have a camera of her own. Hernandez  (Instagram: @vicious_velma)  had to borrow one from her friend Jenni, who’d invited her to the show.  It was at that weekend festival where she realized she’d found her  calling: “I just kept it going after that.”

4Chan’s War On Alternative & LGBTQIA Culture

Posted in Austin, Burning Man, Journalism, and MintPress News

After Donald Trump’s election, 4chan declared war on queer people and the American counterculture.

4chan is a lawless, unmoderated and completely anonymous online forum that frequently serves as a hub of internet troll culture. 4chan helped to spawn the Anonymous movement when some of 4chan’s users launched an organized trolling campaign against the Church of Scientology in 2008. That movement later became known for its hacktivism against the wealthy and powerful during the Occupy Wall Street movement that began in fall of 2011.

In recent years, however, the board, especially a subsection called /pol/ have come to be dominated by a hyper-conservative, white nationalist movement. The users believe, with an almost religious fervor, that their “meme magic” helped to elect Trump. More sober analysts are worried that 4chan and Reddit are helping to radicalize a generation by turning disaffected young white men into dangerous neo-Nazis.

Since November 8, 4chan has been linked to two seemingly disparate, but ultimately interconnected stories.

#NoDAPL Spills Over: Musicians Boycott Dakota Access Pipeline CEO’s Record Label & Festival

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

When it comes to the Dakota Access pipeline, musicians want to stop the music.

Kelcy Warren, CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, the corporation building the controversial $3.8 billion pipeline, also owns Music Road Records, a small record label which presents the annual Cherokee Creek Music Festival in Austin, Texas.

The Indigo Girls announced in September that they would not be playing at the next festival, slated for May 2017.

Reaffirming their support for “Standing Rock, the Standing Rock Sioux, their friends and allies in protecting their sacred land and water by stopping the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline and all pipelines that carry dirty oil and threaten massive ecosystems,” the folk rock duo also encouraged other musicians to cancel their plans to perform at the festival.

‘Which Side Are You On?’ Rapper B. Dolan On Corporate Power & Making Racists Afraid Again

Posted in Austin, Journalism, and SXSW

B. Dolan was my favorite discovery of SXSW, an unabashedly political rapper from Rhode Island, and also an anti-corporate activist with Knowmore.org. I caught him during the same show where I saw Wheelchair Sports Camp and I knew we’d have to talk more.

It took until early last month before we finally connected with an interview, and then another month (thanks to the distracting spectacle of the election) before I finally put his words up on my site.

Thanks, B. Dolan, for taking the time to talk, and for your patience in seeing this published!

Kit O’Connell, Approximately 8,000 Words: Talk to me about what it’s like to play a huge commercial event like SXSW, especially the impact it can have good and bad on a community or your career. We had anti-gentrification protests at the event this year, in fact — is this something you take into consideration, as a politically aware musician?

Wheelchair Sports Camp On SXSW, Music Festival Accessibility, & Occupy

Posted in Austin, Journalism, Occupy Wall Street, and SXSW

Wheelchair Sports Camp is one of the better-known bands in the “krip hop” movement, led by Kalyn, a self-described “MC/beat-maker/activist/educator/shit-talker.” Their music combines electronic sounds and hip-hop beats with live jazz instrumentation, and, of course, Kalyn’s rapid-fire words. Sometimes funny, sometimes experimental, I’ve enjoyed every performance I’ve seen since I first caught them in 2012 at Occupy Austin’s ambitious “Occupy SXSW” mini-festival.

After seeing Kalyn perform again at this year’s SXSW, I asked her to answer a few questions by email.

I’m looking forward to their upcoming album, “No Big Deal,” which Kalyn mentions below.

From Anti-Trump Activists To Open Carry Advocates: RNC 2016 Opens With A Day Of Peaceful Protest

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

The tense political landscape and presence of open carry activists didn’t dampen a day of peaceful protest for demonstrators gathered outside the Quicken Loans Arena for the opening day of the 2016 Republican National Convention.

MintPress News was present outside the arena on Monday, where attendance by protesters seemed somewhat lower than anticipated. Even during an unpermitted march led by a musical “supergroup” featuring members of Public Enemy, Cypress Hill and Rage Against the Machine, no arrests were reported.

On Saturday, Cleveland police swore in hundreds of temporary officers recruited from forces around the country in anticipation of intense protest and potential unrest. Police and FBI agents were also reported to be visiting Cleveland activists at their homes in advance of the convention, apparently in an attempt to intimidate or discourage protests.