We Will Survive Capitalism! flash mob with
US Uncut [previously] and the
Brass Liberation Orchestra
Previous BLO flash mobs include Bad Hotel [previously], Operation Hey Mackey [previously], and "PAY UP!" (demanding Bank of America pay their taxes). Speaking of BofA, in San Francisco on Thursday activists turned every Bank of America ATM in the city into an Automated Truth Machine, using special non-adhesive stickers designed to look exactly like BoA’s ATM interface. But instead of checking and savings accounts, these new menus offered a list of everything BoA customers’ money is being used for, including investment in coal-fired power plants, foreclosure on Americans’ homes, bankrolling of climate change, and paying for fat executive bonuses. [more inside]
posted by finite
on Jan 15, 2012 -
42 comments
This is a story of a young man named Chotu Lohar* from a small nondescript village in
one of the poorest states of India. He dropped out of school to work in the iron mines. Music on a radio was the only entertainment available in his house but
last year he came to national notice on a reality show called
Dance India Dance - where although his untutored enthusiasm and energy captured attention - he was unable to make the cut. His passion, on the other hand,
caught the interest** of the show's producers who took him under their wing and a year later, he's
just made the shortlist for this year's show.
[more inside]
posted by infini
on Jan 7, 2012 -
7 comments
Girl Walk //
All Day (
previously), an epic dance video featuring Girl Talk's album
All Day (
previously) as the soundtrack, is finally
premiering at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple on 12/8. Don't fret if you can't make it to the free dance party though, because the entire film is being released in 12 parts for free over the next six weeks starting today. Here's part one,
School's Out.
posted by carsonb
on Nov 29, 2011 -
14 comments
Before there were yuppies, there were uppies—the term Up With People members use to refer to themselves. Most Americans over the age of 35 are vaguely familiar with Up With People, as its cast members have sung to more than 20 million people worldwide, and at the height of the ensemble’s fame it provided the halftime entertainment at four Super Bowls (1976, 1980, ’82, ’86). But many are unaware of the group’s cultish utopian ideology, its political connectedness, and how it was funded by corporate America, part of a deliberate propaganda effort to discredit liberal counterculture in the 1960s and ’70s. In the documentary Smile ’Til It Hurts: The Up With People Story (Storey Vision), writer-director-producer Lee Storey provides a thorough, balanced look at the organization’s history, demonstrating “what can happen when ideology, money and groupthink converge to co-opt youthful idealism.” [more inside]
posted by Trurl
on Aug 14, 2011 -
93 comments
After Kad & Olivier sign off and the Satisfaction production logo fades, viewing audiences are oftentimes treated to a cold open of an empty talk show set... one that quickly becomes the impromptu dance floor for a shameless Frenchman making an absolute giddy fool of himself while lip-syncing pop songs alongside a menagerie of...
wait, *what*?! That's right.
The Late Late Show's Craig Ferguson appears to have
a not-so-secret French admirer -- one who's not above ripping off both his opening titles and
his signature dance sequences (including
the iconic animal puppets):
"ABC" by The Jackson 5,
"Flashdance" by Irene Cara,
"On the Floor" by Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull,
"Waka Waka" by Shakira,
"Men in Black" by Will Smith,
"Let's All Chant" by the Michael Zager Band,
"Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" by Wham!,
"It's Raining Men" by The Weather Girls, and
"Vive Le Vent (Jingle Bells)" by Tino Rossi.
Luckily, Ferguson's sense of showmanship is
more prodigious than litigious -- he responded to Arthur's "
homáge" by booking a pair of translatlantic crossover shows, with Arthur visiting LA that week and Ferguson flying out to Paris just last month. Video of both shows (plus lots more) inside!
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Jul 11, 2011 -
12 comments
Scene and heard: Electro champeta |
Champeta.net |
I came across this dream collection of picós pictures on Africolombia's blog. Picós are these huge, powerful, customized, hand painted, highly fetishized sound systems from the Colombian Carribean Coast (Barranquilla, Cartagena, Palenque de San Basilio...). |
Sound Systems, World Beat, and Diasporan Identity in Cartagena, Colombia [pdf] |
Techno Tribal guarachero | Bonus cool link:
Brazilian Dual Mix Dance Free Step.
[more inside]
posted by nickyskye
on Jun 19, 2011 -
3 comments
It’s maybe a
little early yet for year’s end retrospectives, but who cares:
we’ve got 157 songs, 10.5 hours, 1.12 GB of “some of the best and most notable music from 2010... covering indie, pop, rock, punk, folk, rap, R&B, soul, dance, country, modern classical, ambient and electronic music, and in many cases, hard-to-classify genre hybrids.” —Curated by FluxBlog’s own Matthew Perpetua.
posted by kipmanley
on Dec 3, 2010 -
30 comments
Showing Off is a series of videos, audio clips and articles in which noted music journalist and Frankie Goes to Hollywood mastermind Paul Morley explores various facets of music. Each month has a theme,
[warning: most links have autoplaying video] Michael Jackson,
Kraftwerk,
classical music,
disco,
The Beatles,
folk music,
The X Factor,
the Noughties,
the next big thing,
UK hip hop,
jazz, and
dance. Here is some of what's on offer:
MeFi faves Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip on hip hop,
These New Puritans' Jack Barnett, Johnny Marr on folk (parts
1,
2), but isn't all just interviews, there are also a lot of performances, e.g.
Michael Nyman and David McAlmont,
Badly Drawn Boy,
Susanna Wallumrød covers Thin Lizzy's Jailbreak, and
Cornershop cover Norwegian Wood.
posted by Kattullus
on Apr 26, 2010 -
8 comments
Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and moving case for creating an education system that nurtures
(rather than undermines) creativity. (c. 2007 SLYT TED talk)
posted by snsranch
on Apr 15, 2010 -
5 comments
"
Imagine, amid the grey serge of wartime France, a tribe of youngsters with all the colourful decadence of punks or teddy boys. Wearing zoot suits cut off at the knee (the better to show off their brightly coloured socks), with hair sculpted into grand quiffs, and shoes with triple-height soles - looking like glam-rock footwear 30 years early - these were the kids who would lay the foundations of nightclubbing. Ladies and gentlemen,
les Zazous."
[more inside]
posted by Paragon
on Feb 8, 2010 -
15 comments
On September 10th, to celebrate their initiation week, 172 communications students at the University of Quebec at Montreal
decided to put on a show. After weeks of preparation, the costumed and prop-wielding crowd enacted
an exuberant, complex, and flawlessly-choreographed performance of the Black Eyed Peas song "I Gotta Feeling" that sprawled through the campus's multi-story Judith Jasmin Pavilion... and they did it all in
one continuous take (on their
second try). The feat is just the most recent example of "
lipdubbing" -- a video phenomenon where a single camera moves through a crowd of highly coordinated lip-syncers in a single seamless take, with the original recording dubbed over the finished product.
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Oct 1, 2009 -
83 comments
Just in case you were wondering, yes, indeed, it
is the people who dance to Zinli music in Benin who have the coolest, freshest dance moves on the planet. Once you get past the extended a cappella intro, and that delicious slow groove kicks in at the 3:26 minute mark,
this video will treat you to some of the most undulating funky moves EVAR. Now, whether you wanna try some of these gyrations yourself, or whether you just dig a nice, slow, cooly percolating West African groove for listening, go here for more from singer
Alekpehanhou the "Roi du Zinli Rénové".
[more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite
on Aug 23, 2009 -
16 comments
Canadian DJ bloke Tiga has a new album called Ciao.
He's made a spoof documentary to promote it.
It's really funny, even if you don't know about dance music - A bit like
Nathan Barley by the ever wonderful Chris Morris.
Part 1
Part 2
posted by debord
on Jun 4, 2009 -
20 comments
The Mehterhane or
Mehter, as they are often known, are thought to be the oldest military marching band in the world. Starting around the 13th century, the
band accompanied the Ottoman empire troops (
Janissaries, or
yeniçeri, roughly meaning "new troops" and were comprised mostly of young men from the Balkans) into battle, spreading their music along the way and influencing western classical composers like
Mozart and
Beethoven.
[more inside]
posted by sleepy pete
on Jul 19, 2008 -
14 comments
The
25 Greatest
Electronic Albums of the 20th Century. From the
instrument that was created by
Leon Theremin, to the
Moog Guitar that's been named after the legendary
Bob Moog (the inventor of the
Moog Synthesizer),
Electronic music has come a
long way since
its early days. YouTube [
a,
b,
(extreme caution advised: graphic images of death, destruction and 9/11 c),
d,
e,
f,
g,
h,
i,
j,
k,
l,
m,
n,
o,
p,
q,
r,
s,
t,
u,
v,
w,
x,
y]
(Previously mentioned here, here, here, here, here and here)
posted by hadjiboy
on Jun 29, 2008 -
84 comments
