Comments on: Bjork: Declare Independence!

Bjork: Declare Independence!

rongorongo — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 03:16:38 -0800

Don't let them do that to you! (youtube) A punky Bjork boosts the cause for Faroese independence and gives the first mainstream showcase for the (aforementioned) ReacTable. 45,000 Faroe islanders are sitting on in the middle of an oil field worth a potential $84 billion; Denmark is reluctant to loose them.

By: rongorongo

rongorongo — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 03:23:45 -0800

Here is the interview where she mentions the background of the song.

By: Item

Item — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 03:25:11 -0800

I would dig up my grandmother's corpse and hand it over to neo-nazis if somehow it would put a ReacTable in my possession.

By: dreamsign

dreamsign — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 03:29:24 -0800

Me too, man. Me too. My table; your grandmother Interesting issue. I suspect economic independence is the cause of many a divorce.

By: dreamsign

dreamsign — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 03:29:51 -0800

(well, precipitating factor)

By: Item

Item — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 03:30:30 -0800

Was that Sir Paul McFartney bobbing his head at the 4:03 mark?

By: Item

Item — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 03:33:24 -0800

Ha! It totally is Paul. He looks like he's trying to figure out how to use the table synth to make sappy back-to-basics rock.

By: PercussivePaul

PercussivePaul — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 04:03:18 -0800

This stirring song was the second encore at her appearance at the Sasquatch Festival. One of the best moments of the whole show was shouting along with the crowd: Raise your flag! (Higher, higher!) Raise your flag! (HIgher, higher!)

By: pracowity

pracowity — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 04:11:55 -0800

Was that Sir Paul McFartney bobbing his head at the 4:03 mark? Yes. And I'm sure I saw Spock playing 3D chess in the corner.

By: chuckdarwin

chuckdarwin — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 04:13:03 -0800

Here she is on Later... last Friday night playing said song with said ReacTable (YT).

By: pracowity

pracowity — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 04:18:05 -0800

Isn't that the same as the first link of this post?

By: chuckdarwin

chuckdarwin — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 04:19:40 -0800

Oh, crap! That's the same link, isn't it? Shit... I assumed that it was a different concert based on the context of the FPP. Editors were also very good the other night... but what happened to Tom Morello? He was catastrophically awful... it was like a really poor mashup of Lenoard Cohen and Bob Dylan. He was out of tune, the riff sucked, the lyrics were ridiculous... Did he suffer some sort of massive head trauma?

By: chuckdarwin

chuckdarwin — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 04:21:03 -0800

Yes, pracowity (is that pronounced PRAY-COW-ITTY?)... I'm an idiot. My link hand is too strong.

By: wilful

wilful — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 04:24:27 -0800

Who are the Faroese being loosed upon?

By: pracowity

pracowity — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 04:32:50 -0800

[prah-tso-VEE-tih]

By: dreamsign

dreamsign — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 04:35:57 -0800

"Stirring"? Really? I was beginning to think that she'd come down with BCS (Bruce Cockburn Syndrome).

By: RavinDave

RavinDave — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 04:39:11 -0800

Toss in a few primal screams, and I was having Yoko Ono flashbacks. /Maybe that's why Sir Paul was there ...

By: chuckdarwin

chuckdarwin — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 04:44:36 -0800

McCartney was the headliner.

By: Meatbomb

Meatbomb — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 04:49:54 -0800

The solution is so obvious that I can't believe that the Danes don't already have plans underway. Just forcibly deport the Faroese to Denmark or other parts of the Empire, and colonise the place with pro-business Danish nationals. 45, 000 people is peanuts, you could load them all up and ship them off in time for dinner.

By: pracowity

pracowity — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 04:54:44 -0800

The Faroe Islands? Weren't they Vikings there?

By: Phanx

Phanx — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 05:05:44 -0800

The Danes seem to be taking a very mild line. They've already given the Faroes their own regional government, while paying them a £100 million a year subsidy to help them keep going. Now the Faroes think they've got billions in oil revenue, they want to keep it all for themselves. The Danish response? "Well, OK, but you realise that we might have to think about stopping payment of the subsidy in four or five years? No good deporting them to Denmark, though, Meatbomb, they'd just become suicide bombers.

By: chillmost

chillmost — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 05:05:47 -0800

Vikings! Oh Boy! That's where I'm a dreamer!

By: Kattullus

Kattullus — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 05:10:50 -0800

Yeah! Go Björk! I hope the Faroese get out from under the Danish yoke. As someone from a former colony of the Danes (Iceland) I'm all too ready to support pretty much anyone against Denmark :) Also, I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Don't people have any idea how moronic the whole "paul sux" thing makes them sound?

By: chuckdarwin

chuckdarwin — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 05:20:37 -0800

Don't people have any idea how moronic the whole "paul sux" thing makes them sound? Apparently not, if metafilter is a decent sample.

By: vertriebskonzept

vertriebskonzept — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 05:22:49 -0800

Maybe there is one island which has nearly all oil in its area of influence: so after the faroese get their independence from denmark it should declare its independence from the other islands.

By: pinespree

pinespree — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 05:40:31 -0800

I'm not really a big fan of Bjork. As I was watching that Later performance, I was thinking "why not?".

By: pinespree

pinespree — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 05:45:13 -0800

Also, I love Paul as much as anyone, but the thought of him shuffling those plastic icons trying to get that sweet, sappy synth sound he needs cracks me up. If paul-hating brings me more comments like that, play on!

By: pinespree

pinespree — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 05:45:58 -0800

er, that bolded part was supposed to be a link to item's comment. sorry

By: delmoi

delmoi — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 05:48:40 -0800

That's pretty stupid. Come on, these poor oppressed people because they can't split $84 billion among 45,000 people. Come on.

By: pracowity

pracowity — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 06:06:34 -0800

$84 billion among 45,000 people = 1.86 million dollars each? How hard is it to immigrate to those fine islands?

By: sparkletone

sparkletone — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 06:35:16 -0800

I got to be in the front row, nearly-center for the Chicago stop on her recent touring. It was pretty incredible. They had two guys handling the beepy sounds, but only one of them got to play with the ReacTable. However, both of them had one of these, which I lust after but doubt I'll ever be able to afford. Most of my favorite parts of the show involved hearing them rearrange old songs for the new touring group, particularly the Medulla songs. However, the high point for me was the total disco freakout that was the last minute and a half of Hyper-ballad being driven into a rather over the top version of Pluto.

By: pracowity

pracowity — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 06:41:22 -0800

Doesn't calling it a "cause" and a "fight" misrepresent Faroe Islands politics a bit? The only fight, if it's that, seems to be between the half of the islanders who want to stay and the half who want to go. The islands have been self-governing since 1948, and the Danes have told them go if you want to, you fish-smelling puffin botherers, but don't expect us to keep writing your welfare checks. And told that, the islanders changed their minds and stayed with Denmark. OK, I made up the "fish-smelling puffin botherers" part, but the rest looks true.

By: Mach5

Mach5 — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 07:05:31 -0800

Pickle, pickle, legs on fire!

By: WPW

WPW — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 07:09:30 -0800

I thought the Faroes were in Egypt. Sorry.

By: elpapacito

elpapacito — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 07:11:50 -0800

Revolution is like freedom, it's not always free or easily sustainable. Expecially when there is a solid possibility the oil companies will send their own people to run the country ...probably they already are behind the indipendece calls and are promising and paying some residents, building their own puppet government. That isn't necessarily bad for the locals...unless of course, like everywhere else, the politicians are not aware of the FLOOD of money they can obtain by sustaining a nationalization ; more likely they are cheaper then cheap whores (and a lot less intelligent, but a lot more moralizing) and will accept few millions in exchange for free access to billions worth of oil. Indeed a popular movement, working for the constant accounting of oil extraction , perennial revision of contracts and an absolute minimum year payment, presence of interested parties...in practice, a group of tought skilled ball breakers, ALL recruited among the residents and losing money if they leave before X years, are in need.

By: Kattullus

Kattullus — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 07:31:24 -0800

Oh gosh golly! Too bad those damn colonials have to keep letting the side down. If only they'd be as sensible and logical as the colonizers we wouldn't have all these problem. Surely they can't want independence for themselves. It must be those dastardly foreign oil companies that are muddling their underdeveloped minds. It's not as if the government of Denmark gives money to the Faroese out of the goodness of Danish hearts. They do it because it gives them more geopolitical weight. Their rule over The Faroese Islands and Greenland makes them, militarily speaking, not irrelevant pipsqueaks. I'm also sure that Danish corporations profit handsomely from the arrangement.

By: Phanx

Phanx — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 08:05:16 -0800

Actually I think it is out of the goodness of Danish hearts. I don't detect any desire for military or geopolitical weight in Denmark, and I can't really see that posession of the Faroes is going to make a perceptible difference on the world stage anyway.

By: zeoslap

zeoslap — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 08:07:04 -0800

That was cool, sounded like something you'd expect to hear in some scifi flicks dance scene

By: four panels

four panels — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 08:20:24 -0800

Celebrity waning? Become an activist! You'll be back in the news in no time.

By: triolus

triolus — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 09:43:02 -0800

Sometimes Bjork makes really good music. Sometimes, she makes this.

By: humanfont

humanfont — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 10:28:31 -0800

It is really depressing is to see another culture on the verge of obliteration. The riches will be less than they expect. The oil will destroy the fishing grounds; leaving them jobless. The rougnecks will overrun the islands with lawlessness. I hope they get their independence and think about their choices before it is too late.

By: AwkwardPause

AwkwardPause — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 11:24:27 -0800

Actually I think it is out of the goodness of Danish hearts. Except for the fact that renting Greenland out to the US/NATO has allowed Denmark to have one of the smallest armies/military expenditure per capita of all the NATO members. Pretty good deal. Now if they discovered oodles of oil under Greenland...

By: ericbop

ericbop — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 11:46:01 -0800

thanks, rongorongo. now I have an excuse to post this.

By: heeeraldo

heeeraldo — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:25:23 -0800

I'm pretty sure Bjork's closed most of her recent shows with Oceania redone with horns and Declare Independence. I got to see her at Deer Lake Park and at Sasquatch, both times from about three rows away. Amazing. I also ran into Damien Taylor (guy on Reactable) after the Beastie Boys' instrumental set at Sasquatch and had a bit of a chat; he's a really friendly approachable dude and had I been thinking straight I would've bought a Volta shirt (we were by the swag stand) and gotten him to sign it. Also he's really cute. Oh, also: Hyperballad -> Pluto was amazing, but Joga + horns is transcendant.

By: jeffburdges

jeffburdges — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 16:19:47 -0800

If they want independence, fine, but they should pay back the Danes for all the subsadies & bailouts. I'm not sure the Danes care much since the EU rips them off by far far more, but still. In fact they are almost surely better off remaining part of Denmark. Yes, they may officially get more money themselves this way. But they can't stand up to the oil companies, while Denmark can. They might get almost as much money as part of Denmark, while spending it vastly more wisely. This independence movement is almost surely being supported by the oil companies who'll just buy any indepent government. In turn the government will just "invest the oil royalties in infrastructure" which it then leases to the oil companies well below cost. Small islands full of fishermen don't negotiate well with multinational corperations who are preparied to rig elections and kill people.

By: Kattullus

Kattullus — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 16:45:10 -0800

Sometimes, a little bit of googling may help you get perspective. From The Columbia Encyclopedia: In World War II, Great Britain established (1940) a protectorate over the islands after the German occupation of Denmark. After the war there was considerable sentiment for full independence, and following a plebiscite in 1946, the islands' parliament proclaimed independence. The Danish king dissolved the Lagting, and after a new parliament was elected, the proclamation was reversed. However, in 1948 the Faeroese obtained home rule from Denmark.

By: ageispolis

ageispolis — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 17:03:16 -0800

Totally awesome song, I too saw her at Sasquatch. And I want a Lemur.

By: MapGuy

MapGuy — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 19:21:56 -0800

Lyrics need some work. Referendum, vote, og sa skrid. Hun er ska tosser. Han er bare gammel. Jeg gide ikke en skide.

By: schleppo

schleppo — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 14:23:33 -0800

Her set at Coachella also included the ReacTable. I'm sure it's a part of her current tour.