LISTEN UP: No Country owns music or culture music is a Global Bash: Altın Gün - Full Performance (ive on KEXPL)

Altin Gün show what happens when you open doors between Turkish folk songs on the one hand and a dirty blend of funk rhythms, wah-wah guitars, and analogue organs on the other. The Amsterdammers who come from various backgrounds (Turkish but also Indonesian and Dutch) and comfortably create their work in the adventurous no-man’s land that exists between these two worlds.

 up of Turkish, Dutch and Indonesian members, Altin Gün produce a sound that opens the doors between Turkish folk songs, funk rhythms, wah-wah guitars, and analogue organs. This fresh and beautiful sound comes from the inspiration of Neşet Ertaş, a Turkish folk musician whose musical legacy is invaluable. Altin Gün retain the themes and lyrical structure of Ertaş’s songs, mixing it up with alternate time signatures and adding fuzzy bass and sweltering organ sounds.

Biographies

Lekfa Maryam Saleh. A major creative force and a powerful voice for her generation, Egyptian singer and songwriter Maryam Saleh composes and performs music that is personal, political and contemplative. She released her monumental debut album Mesh Baghanny (eka3, 2012), after which she joined forces with Lebanese electro-pop pioneer Zeid Hamdan to release Halawella (Mostakell 2015). Known for her muscular, alluring vocals and charismatic stage presence, stemming from being brought up in the world of theatre by her late father, theatre critic, director and writer Saad Saleh. Maryam is also known for bringing the protest songs of Sheikh Imam back to life in new alternative forms through her band BarakA. She starred in many Egyptian films and TV series including Ibrahim El-Batout’s Eye of the Sun (2008) and Tamer El Said’s In the Last Days of the City (2016).

Maurice Louca. Inspired by many influences, from psychedelic to Egyptian shaabi, Maurice Louca’s second album Benhayyi Al-Baghbaghan (Nawa Recordings, 2014) shattered the confines of musical and cultural labelling and was dubbed by many as a game-changer for the region’s bustling independent music scene. He went on to co-found the Dwarfs of East Agouza with Sam Shalabi and Alan Bishop, releasing their first album together to worldwide critical acclaim. Maurice is also a founding member of Alif, Karkhana and Bekya and he continues to compose for film, dance and theatre.

Tamer Abu Ghazaleh. A cross-genre composer, producer and a prolific collaborator born in Cairo to a Palestinian family, Tamer released his latest album Thulth (third), via Mostakell in 2016, earning him widespread attention for melding virtuosity with fierce experimentation in Arabic composition, songwriting and performance. In 2012 he co-founded the critically acclaimed alternative band Alif with Maurice Louca and Khyam Allami; produced Maryam Saleh’s debut album Mesh Baghanny in 2012; collaborated with Yacoub Abu Ghosh on his album As Blue as the Rivers of Amman in 2011; started the cross-genre group Kazamada in 2010 with Zeid Hamdan, Mahmoud Radaideh and Donia Massoud; released Thawret Ala’ (Revolution of Anxiety), a collaborative piece of musical theatre performed by Al-Tamye Theatre Group in 2008; worked with Palestinian and Egyptian artists on Jehar with Huda Asfour; collaborated in Duo Buzuq with Rabea Jubran and in Kalam Mazzika with Salam Yousry and performed on Khaled Jubran’s Psalms in 2005.

Altin Gün On their debut album ‘On’ (Bongo Joe Records), the band show what happens when you open doors between Turkish folk songs which were passed on from generation to generation on the one hand and a dirty blend of funk rhythms, wah-wah guitars and analog organs on the other. The Amsterdammers come from various backgrounds (Turkish but also Indonesian and Dutch) and comfortably create their work in the adventurous no-man’s land that exists between these two worlds.

Older generations of Turkish musicians have also experimented with opening doors between previously unconnected sonic worlds. During the seventies, artists such as Baris Manço, Selda Bağcan and Erkin Koray practiced a way of songwriting and composing similar to Altin Gün’s.

Manço, Bağcan and Koray have all influenced Altin Gün, but their foremost inspiration is Neşet Ertaş, a Turkish folk musician whose musical legacy is invaluable. Comparisons are almost impossible to make but imagine someone with the same impact and status as Bob Dylan or George Gerschwin and you’re getting close. Many of the songs he wrote have become standards in Turkey, national treasures which are cherished up until the present day. Altin Gün retain the lyrical and thematic structure of Ertaş’s songs, though they often alter their time signatures and add fuzzy bass sounds, sweltering organ sounds and raw saz riffs. Ertaş wrote the majority of the songs on the album even if these are hardly recognisable after all the work Altin Gün have done on them.

Let Altin Gün open that door for you and get ready to indulge in their fresh and beautiful sound.

Altin Gün are: Ben Rider (guitar) Daniel Smienk (drums)Jasper Verhulst (bass) Merve Dasdemir (vocals) Erdinc Yildiz Ecevit (saz, keys, vocals) Gino Groenveld (percussion

Yellow Feather, "Lucille" Night Owl | NPR Music

 A bit of North Carolina Americana soul with heartbeat drum rhythm. Made me happy listening .... it's not red state music. It's mot blue state music ...It's American roots music  ...thanks Bob Boilan for posting

HOW AIPAC collects on its $$$$$$GIFTS to elected officials / Why is Israel Government demanding limiting the freedom of choice for US citizens

In Defense of  Ilhan Omar, Again

Did the House pass such a full-throated Resolution about anti-Semitism after Charlottesville, or after the recent Pittsburgh synagogue massacre?

Jeffrey C. Isaac — March 5, 2019

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The author © Steve Peterson | Design concept: Zachary V. Sunderman

Ilhan Omar is again at the center of controversy, this time for remarks she made last week at a panel discussion at Busboys and Poets, a Washington, D.C. bookstore and restaurant. Omar’s “offending” comment was a reference to “the political influence in this country that says that it’s ok for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country.” She was immediately accused of feeding centuries-old anti-Semitic tropes about the nefarious influence of a Jewish cabal. A chorus of denunciations have ensued, a number of prominent House Democrats, most of them Jewish, have taken particular offense, and apparently the House Democratic leadership has decided to pass a four-page Resolution denouncing anti-Semitism and especially references to “dual loyalty,” implicitly rebuking Omar (the Washington Post headline declares that “Rep. Omar’s comments force Democrats to act on anti-Semitism measure.” Indeed, House leadership was forced to do nothing; they are choosing to do this). Meanwhile, Republicans call for more drastic action against her, shedding crocodile tears about bigotry, seeking to inoculate their party by absurdly comparing Omar to the viciously racist Steve King, and gleefully sowing division among Democrats.

The political denunciations of Omar are defensive, self-righteous, and cynical. They represent political grandstanding and not a serious response to either her comments or to the real harms caused by anti-Semitism in the U.S., which are not being caused by Omar or her supporters.

The viral video clip in which Omar made the offending comment is nine minutes long. But people have been jumping on twenty of the words she uttered, in approximately ten seconds, taking them out of context, and treating those words as an attack on Jews when they are not an attack, and indeed do not mention Jews.

It is true that Omar lacks the sensitivity to Jewish people that comes from a certain experience that she does not have. There are many different ways that people from different parts of the world experience the world. (Is it really necessary for this to even be said in the year 2019?) Omar is a Somali-American who was born in Mogadishu and grew up in Baydhabo, not New York or Los Angeles. And she is a Muslim whose personal experiences as a refugee make her especially sensitive to the plight of marginal Third World peoples, including Palestinians. Her words about the politics of U.S. foreign policy, and about Israeli-Palestinian relations, are sometimes infelicitous. But hers is a perspective shared by many young people. And it is motivated by a passion for equality, and only by lifting her words out of context can they be seen as hateful.

I encourage everyone to watch the nine-minute video in its entirety. Far from a fire-breathing or hateful speech, Omar can be seen very carefully trying to parse her words in order to express her frustration, to defend herself, and to clarify her position on the rights of Palestinians. And while she does not fully succeed, she also tries to be careful to attend to the sensibilities of Jewish people, who she describes both as “constituents” and as “colleagues.”

Here is the video:

The “offending” words occur at 4:08. But to establish the context, I have transcribed the first five minutes of the video. Here are Omar’s words, verbatim:

“I get emotional . . . Because I know that I have a huge Jewish constituency and, you know, every time I meet with them, they share stories of safety and sanctuary that they would love for the people of Israel and, most of the time when we’re having the conversation, you know, there is no actual relative that they speak of, and there is still lots of emotions (sic) that comes through because its family, right? My children still speak of Somalia with passion and compassion even though they don’t have a family member there. But we never really allow space for the stories of Palestinians seeking safety and sanctuary to be uplifted. And to me it is the dehumanization and the silencing of a particular pain and suffering of a people that should not be ok and normal. And you can’t be in the practice of humanizing and uplifting the suffering of one if you’re not willing to do that for everybody. And so for me I know that when I hear, right, my Jewish constituents, or friends or colleagues, speak about Palestinians who don’t want safety or who aren’t deserving, I stay focused on what the actual debate about what that process should look like. I never go in the dark place of saying ‘here’s a Jewish person, they’re talking about Palestinians, Palestinians are Muslim, maybe they’re Islamophobic.’ I’ll never allow myself to go there, because I don’t have to. And what I am fearful of, is that because Rashida (Tlaib) and I are Muslim, that a lot of our Jewish colleagues, a lot of our constituents, a lot of our allies, go to thinking that everything we say about Israel, to be anti-Semitic because we are Muslim. And so, to me, it’s something that becomes designed to end the debate, because you get in this space of, ‘yes, like, I know what intolerance looks like, and I’m sensitive when someone says the words you use are resemblance of intolerance.’ And I am cautious of that, and I feel pained by that. But it’s almost as if every single time we say something, regardless of what it is we say, that is supposed to be about foreign policy or engagement or advocacy about ending oppression, or the freeing of every human life, and wanting dignity, we get to be labeled as something, and that ends the discussion. Because we end up defending that, and nobody ever gets to the have the proper debate of what is happening with Palestine. [Pause, applause.] So I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says that it’s ok for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country, I want to ask, why is it ok for me to talk about the influence of the NRA or fossil fuel industries or Big Pharma, and not talk about a powerful lobbying group that is influencing policy. I want to ask the question of why is it ok for you to push, for you to be, there’s so many people, I mean, most of us are new, but many members of Congress have been there forever, some of them have been there before we were born, so I know many of them were fighting for people to be free, for people to live in dignity in South Africa, I know many of them fight for people around the world, to have dignity, to have self-determination, so I know that they care about these things. But now that you have two Muslims that are saying ‘there’s a group of people that we want to make sure have the same dignity that you want everybody else to have’ we get to be called names and we get to be labeled as hateful. No, we know what that looks like. We experience it every single day. I receive death threats. . . . There are gas stations that have written on their bathrooms ‘assassinate Ilhan Omar. . . .’”

There is nuance in these words, and qualification, and frustration at being misunderstood, and a passion for justice but also a sense of vulnerability and a desire to have better understandings with colleagues and constituents, especially Jewish colleagues and constituents. But there is no hate.

Omar does not center her discourse on “anti-Semitic tropes.” And the broader context of her “offending” remark was a legitimate question: why are Muslim-Americans like her and Rashida Tlaib under an automatic cloud of suspicion — as they are for many — because they care about Palestinian rights, while it goes without question that Americans can simply love Israel if they choose? Why are many Americans — yes, unfortunately, including many Jews, though surely not all and perhaps not even most — more comfortable treating Bibi Netanyahu as a “partner” than treating American citizens and public officials like Omar and Tlaib as partners? These are real questions, and Omar posed them in the course of defending herself, and also noting the threats to which she is regularly subjected as a Muslim member of Congress (threats which are apparently being investigated by the FBI). That is the context of her words about “foreign allegiance.” The context doesn’t remove the sting that some Jewish people might legitimately feel. But that does not make Omar an anti-Semite.

Indeed, the proposed House Resolution seems almost like a validation of Omar’s question.

Did the House pass such a full-throated Resolution about anti-Semitism after Charlottesville, or after the recent Pittsburgh synagogue massacre? No. But now that one young Muslim-American Congresswoman has uttered ten words about “allegiance to a foreign country” in a nine-minute speech about human rights, it becomes necessary for Congress to make a big statement of denunciation?

Necessary? Such a claim begs credulity.

And so House members will rally around some flag, and join together to rebuke Ilhan Omar.

Meanwhile Israel and Palestine descend deeper into despair, and Trump and Jared and Bibi smile. And the world burns.

Jeffrey C. Isaac is James H. Rudy Professor of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington. He is a Senior Editor at Public Seminar, and his book #AgainstTrump: Notes from Year One, was recently published by Public Seminar/OR Books.

TAKE A BREAK ,,,Maggie Rogers: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

AH ,,,,,,, REPEAT . AH ,,,,,,,

Little kids. Big questions. amaze jr. is here to help!

GOT KIDS age 4-9?  Please watch ... It made me happy ... hope it does you ... please share

Jake Tapper & Bernie Sanders and me and 2000 of my closest friends | SXSW 2018

I am very excited that Bernie Sanders has decided to run in 2020,,,,, Here,  he is a year ago at SXSW,,,,,, actually speaking truth to power...I can tell that all of us in the audience were wowed!  I remain believing he is the best candidate against a FOX NEWS  divided America,,, please let's move forward no matter who individually we supported in 2016,,, and let the race for the best VP begin

TRUTH MATTERS when we talk about Stonewall, Thoughs on the opening of the New York Public Library STONEWALL REBELLION Exhibition

STONEWALL: PLEASE READ: THE TRUTH IS SOMETIMES SHOCKING.     

I was shocked to see the word "RIOT" used continually in the NYPL STONEWALL/50 exhibition handout. As someone who was actually standing on Christopher street in front of the mafia bar known as the Stonewall inn from 10:15 until the streets had been reopened to traffic at 1:15. I know it was not a riot. That is when 6 gay men and I: included were Mark Seigal, Marty Robinson, and Michael Brown gathered together at the junction of where  Waverly meets Waverly.

We were excited by the night's activities and wanted to continue what had been released.  We attempted to conspire together to figure out how to continue the energy released that first night.

We succeeded!

No one who was actually present inside or outside the bar can justify calling what happened a "riot." Under no known definition of 'riot" does the spontaneous release of oppression each of us experienced that might meet the definition of "riot." There was no crowd out of control, no looting, no hospital admissions, no fire department report... What did happen  was each of us present on the street experienced at a particular flashpoint the spark of freedom and liberation as we became visible to each other and threw off the internalized homophobia and for once collectively challenged the external homophobia and the policing that the mob, the state, and the church had imposed on each of .us.

To try to place a straight 60's template on what happened diminishes who was there and how we as gay men acted that first night. When David Scott shares his first-hand, eye-witness experience. He says: it seemed more like a collective celebration.

It troubles me deeply that an institution like the New York Public Library which is known around the world as an esteemed research center would use language that misrepresents the reality of what happened. I would have thought they would have known better.  As to the confabulators who say different, are simply not telling the truth.

There were no bricks thrown,, No Slyvia Rivera, no ripping of parking meters out of the cement (really dear!) no setting fire to the building, Yes Marsha, who was my friend, did show up around 12: 15. Marsha hung out on the sidelines.    

Whatever happened to the phrase "The truth will set you free"?  

The second night was much more militant according to a revised memory by Lucian K. Truscott IV a straight writer (and a long time friend)...but again the events of the second did not meet the definition of riot.

I am saddened that people would rather believe false myth than the truly radical event that took place that actually changed history for homosexuals male and female of all gender expression everywhere.

What happened that first night seeded the desire for visibility, equality, and acceptance of same-sex desire and erotic expression. Wanting to be seen as expressing emotion, desire, and personhood as a natural part of human behavior.

Language matters to me ...and I hope to you.  What took place the first night of the Stonewall rebellion changed history and gave a new definition to being a gay man or a lesbian of any gender expression.

I use the word rebellion because it best represents to me what actually did happen.  Rebellion,  in the sense of rebellion against internalized homophobia and the external homophobia, imposed and manipulated by State and Church.

Yes, some choose to use the word "uprising.” But an uprising by definition involves pre-planning.  Please, trust me! It was spontaneous that first night ..anyone who tries to take credit is lying.

As to the NYPL opening reception, it was full of memory for me. Both Diana Davies photos were taken when she was an active member of GLF and Mattacine member Kay Tobin, lover and life partner to the late Barbara Gittings. Kay one of the people (including Gittings and Frank Kameny)  who took under their wings and mentored the 8 GLF men and 1 woman dissatisfied with the GLF meeting process and  left, They were mentored in single-issue politics in sharp contrast to the GLF politics of "no one is truly free until all oppressed people are free.

But the most iconic image that best expresses the true meaning of the STONEWALL/REBELLION  was missing. It is the recruitment poster published by the COME OUT cell of the Gay Liberation Front in the Fall of 1969. A photo was taken by Peter Hujar on the street in what is now called Soho of lesbians and gay men running in the street smiling. Out and inviting others to join them in changing the world. Not afraid! Although they had no protection in the workplace nor on the streets or in their homes.  …(oh, that is me in the striped pants!)

Please, now take a breath. What I have said may be disrupted to the message you might have heard. I have no reason to lie. I have not changed my story in 50 years.

Jim Fouratt