what makes a movement?

and how does a movement move?...

the left forum (artist formerly known as the socialist scholars' conference) takes place in nyc starting tomorrow...

left forum 2011
the new solidarity

march 18th - 20th

pace university

new york

**

without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement.

: lenin

we sayin' something like this—we saying that theory's cool, but theory with no practice ain't shit.

: fred hampton jr.

maraming salamat to sergio :)

we dont need no occupation

roger waters, of pink floyd, in the guardian:

In 1980, a song I wrote, Another Brick in the Wall Part 2, was banned by the government of South Africa because it was being used by black South African children to advocate their right to equal education. That apartheid government imposed a cultural blockade, so to speak, on certain songs, including mine.

Twenty-five years later, in 2005, Palestinian children participating in a West Bank festival used the song to protest against Israel's wall around the West Bank. They sang: "We don't need no occupation! We don't need no racist wall!"

...

Artists were right to refuse to play in South Africa's Sun City resort until apartheid fell and white people and black people enjoyed equal rights. And we are right to refuse to play in Israel until the day comes – and it surely will come – when the wall of occupation falls ...

**

palestine will be free : maher zain

admittedly, islamic r&b is not my most favorite style. but what a beautifully animated video, no? and what beautiful sentiments. ¡¡palestina sera libré!!

hella ♥ oakland

ooohhh! so cute!! that's what i have to say about this love letter to oakland, a re-make of jay-z's empire state of mind. really, why have an empire state of mind? much better to have an oakland state of mind.

oakland state of mind : youth roots



the lyrics pay tribute to the flatland neighborhoods and legacy of movement & struggle that lives there still. and for those taking notes there are a few historic black panther party sites shown in that video, alameda county courthouse, defremery park, etc. know your history! those young people do.

one fist in the air for the town ya'll
everybody come together time to stand tall
no place in the world that can compare,
put ya fist up in the air, everybody say yeah

oakland

:)

dude you have no quran

just in case you missed it, this small anti-islamophobia act of solidarity speaks for itself. but why not let it speak again & again in a re-mixed club version?

thanks, gg :)

more gay butterflies

jeje, the previous post amused me very much. and i have to agree with la cumbiambera: that is a very gay video, and i'm also surprised at the lack of notice taken by music press.

everyone knows butterflies = queer. don't they?

...

si*se : mariposa en la habana (bonitafly remix)




**

julieta, for her part, has long defied the mexi-pop star standards of hetero beauty & propriety, ever since she was a little roquera hanging out with tijuana no!. she of course continues to play the hell out of her accordion (very uncommon for a high-profile female musician in latin america as that is traditionally a masculine role, thank you patriarchy) and currently she's pregnant & refusing to answer questions about paternity. anda, julieta.

here she is in eres para mi, with anita tijoux, charming everyone in her path, from a nun to a construction worker, in a very switch-hitter kind of way ;)

oakland para el pueblo!

oakland is getting ready to host its first marathon in 25 years. tomorrow!

in preparation, here is oakland's own mystic, from her first album, cuts for luck & scars for freedom, video featuring our beloved bay area city.

the life : mystic




**

the life : mystic (remix)



but you know and i know it's all about survival
this struggle of our people is like that unrivaled
the politicans they was never in control
it's deeper then that, a true battle for the soul
what they want is to bring us to our knees
so my people guard your life by any means

...

recently my friend lost her family home in east oakland. some vicious real estate speculators stole it from her grandmother, the result of a sketchy foreclosure & auction at the alameda county courthouse, where they bought it for one-half its current market price and paid in cash. her family had been in that neighborhood, in that very home, for more than fifty years, ever since they immigrated from the philippines to one of the only areas in the city that at the time wasn't whites-only.

ugh, gentrifiers are sucking the life out of so many of our neighborhoods. que se vayan al infierno! and i hope it's really hot in there.

oakland fans & marathon spectators should support the team that's running for causa justa / just cause, because every day they work to defend this city for all of us, organizing resistance to vulture banks & developers, fighting to keep families in their rightful homes & communities.

...

¡oakland es del pueblo! el pueblo ¿dónde está?
¡¡el pueblo está en las calles exigiendo libertad!!

music of resistance

al-jazeera english has recently been airing this series of documentaries, music of resistance, hosted by steve chandra savale of asian dub foundation. i've seen a couple of the episodes, and while i would kind of wish for different interview questions here, or more relevant framing there, how cool is it that this series even exists?! hurray!

this is the one on tinariwen, a band of ex-combatants & roqueros from the sahara (touareg people). tinariwen have been darlings of the rock press for some time, as their backstory combines electric guitars & kalashnikovs, and they play gigs in the desert to audiences who arrive mostly via camel. the western press loves that. unlike most of the writing on them i've seen so far, this documentary lets them tell their own story, full of the struggle & love of their people and land, and it also includes some really beautiful video of their performances.

music of resistance : survival in the southern sahara





**

al-jazeera english, by the way, has done some excellent documentaries recently and though its regular coverage of regional and international events varies a bit in terms of editorial line, it's infinitely better than almost anything else out there in the english-language tv news world, and some of it is really brilliant. most cable providers in the u.s. don't won't transmit it, but you can find it online & in a mobile-accessible version.

bhangra + brass, this is why sikhs are hot

i was thinking, you know, there's just not enough bhangra on this roqueras blog. nor new orleans-style brass band for that matter.

meet red baraat! bhangra + brass = sooo sin fronteras, que no?



**

on a related note (related because sonny singh, who plays trumpet in red baraat, is an organizer at the sikh coalition)... you have to see this video, this is why sikhs are hot. i love it :)



anda, red baraat! adelante, coalición sikh!

no such thing as "the voiceless"

i hate this term "the voiceless". such liberal garbage. so devoid of context, political economy, class struggle. i think the concept exists for liberals to give themselves something to do-- worry about the voiceless, advocate for the voiceless, defend the voiceless, bleh.

arundhati roy, who has rejected the often-bestowed title voice of the voiceless put it plainly:

we know, of course, there's really no such thing as "the voiceless". there are only the deliberately silenced, the preferably unheard.

claro. people speak for themselves...

**

from occupation 101:



from stop the wall campaign:



**

and sing for themselves!

slingshot hip hop trailer :



slingshot hip hop, by the way, is now available on dvd.

you can't be neutral

... on a moving train.



cierto!
que descanses en paz, howard zinn.
miss you already.





comic image from a people's history of american empire. video from you can't be neutral on a moving train (song, the ludlow massacre by woodie guthrie).

defender lo nuestro

;( jesus christ. what the hell is wrong with people?

well, this is what you get when you reside in a "nation"-state founded as a white settler colony. apparently colonization, theft, murder, enslavement, and lies have not been enough. more lies are now needed. the texas state board of education is set to vote tomorrow on revisions to state standards for k-12 social studies. on the table for a preliminary vote is putting more christianity in and taking the mexicans out.

you know what though, cabrones, it doesn't matter, we are winning the demographics war (just like the palestinans)! right now over half of texas schoolchildren are latinos & that proportion is growing all the time so chíngense. or to put it in a language you can understand: go to hell!!!

**

i remember once at university, during the fight over (i think) ethnic studies, j. luna was agitating at a protest and she yelled "they are trying to invisibilize us! we won't let them!" well, time again not to let them. you can see more about this at the united farm workers (cesar chavez is on the list for proposed invisibilizing), and write a letter to the texas board of education telling them not to be so stupid.




my father, when he was a kid, used to work the summers picking fruit with his family in the orchards of southern & central california. a few years ago we ran into dolores huerta (pictured above), and my dad went up to her for a big abrazo & to tell her how much the efforts of the ufw meant to him. current issues with the ufw aside, the early movement for farm worker rights will always be our history, in our blood & in our hearts. let's defend what's ours.

here are some old ufw songs to play while you compose your letter to the texas state board of education:

el picket sign : teatro campesino



niños campesinos (farm worker children) : teatro campesino



yo no le tengo miedo a nada (i'm not afraid of anything) : ufw meeting, 1966

vivir lo nuestro

today is día de reyes (3 kings day/epiphany), and i really like j's invitation to friends to celebrate at our house tonight, pr & mexican style. starts like this:

Familia,

When the Macheteros liberated 7 million dollars from [a Wells Fargo] armored truck to advance the struggle for the independence of Puerto Rico, one of the first things they did was to arrive in el Barrio for el Dia de los Reyes dressed as kings to give presents to children and keep our culture alive...

that's the best possible invite to celebrate a catholic holiday i think ;) time for 3 kings cake. and coquito. ¡feliz día de reyes! ¡feliz año nuevo! ¡¡¡y que viva filiberto ojeda ríos!!!




fotos : posted at latinamericanstudies.org. macheteros distributing toys & arrested post-wells fargo operation.

**

día de reyes : pablo milanés




sin magias y sin leyendas
y con lucha y con amor
vendrá la revolución
sin santos llenos de estrellas

guarda tu risa para mañana
y seca hoy tu llanto,
en tanto
llega la libertad, sí

...


without magic or legends
with struggle & with love
the revolution will come
with no saints full of stars

keep your laugh for tomorrow
and dry your tears today
for freedom is coming
yes

radio para niñ@s insurgentes

gracias to cailey who sent this along in response to the songs for the baby roquer@s post! it's a clip from the children's show of radio insurgente (zapatista radio) and oh my, it's so super cute. this episode moves back and forth between children singing the zapatista hymn and their favorite julieta venegas refrains, interspersed with saludos solidarios to niñ@s en todas partes. enjoy!

juega soñando (radio show) : radio insurgente





fotos: ssba on amadito's bedroom wall

songs for the baby roquer@s

i like having political discussions with amado, who is 4. sometimes they are tricky. we've talked about the police, for example, a zillion times. he knows they hurt & kill people. but he also really likes vehicles & uniforms & sirens, which complicates things. in general, though, he really impresses me with his political analysis. a few months ago i was talking to him on the phone, telling him about my day and that i had been at this mission anti-displacement coalition event. land use issues are pretty easy to talk about with kids. i told him, we want them to make this parking lot into housing for poor families and a community center. i asked him what he thought, and he said he thought it was a good idea.

then there was a pause in the conversation and then he added:

y tambien queremos que cierren todas las cárceles
and also we want them to close all the jails ...

y tambien queremos que todos los policias se vayan muy muy lejos
and also we want all the police to go far away ...

y tambien queremos libertad
and also we want freedom ...

verdad, nina?
right, nina?

umm... sí! that about sums it up.

it's a delicate operation, raising leftist children. you want to encourage their critical thinking skills, and at the same time you want them to develop a deep sense of what we believe and why. but you can't tell them what to believe, unless you want to see them end up like one of those ex-red diaper babies who is now an adult reactionary or self-indulgent pain in the ass.

cultivating little roquer@s, and proper appreciation of good music in general, is kind of similar i think. just enough, not too much. they'll come along :) i remember when amado was a baby, we were in the car and fabulosos cadillacs revolution rock was playing. i turned around to say something to him and found him with his arms in the air dancing around in the back seat. no encouragement needed. eso!





foto: the other day amado came downstairs to ask for help with his hair, out of the blue, to make it "parado". oh man, i love this kind of tia responsibility!

ok, so here are a few songs for nayahuari, la baby cumbiambera, & mayari, amado's new little sister (born november 18th!), the two littlest roqueras (and future izquierdistas) de la familia rsf... to get them off to a good start!

amado likes these, as well as classical music (??!) and the star wars soundtrack.


que calor : pibes chorros



ooh child : nina simone (original the 5 stairsteps)



trenes camiones y tractores : árbol



luna negra : los cojolites

best drag ever

shit! this is terrible news. grrrrr. heard via lil miss hot mess that charlie horse at the cinch is ending. this makes me very upset, not just because of all the good times, cheap strong drinks, and glamorous company that i won't get to enjoy there. but also because this is another nail in the coffin of a sf neighborhood that was not so very long ago proudly working-class & queer, and is now in the clutches of the devil known as gentrification. here's what lil miss hot mess has to say about it:

Today Anna Conda announced that Charlie Horse is over, effectively immediately. I can’t get all the facts straight but it has to do with the gentrification of the Polk — hell, the gentrification of the whole city — specifically yuppies who want to have their cake and eat it too, and developers who want to sell it to them. Anna thinks that it’s a combination of people complaining about noisy queens and the Polk St. Merchants Association wanting to get rid of the gay bars. The Gangway (nearby on Larkin) already shut down all DJed parties months ago due to complaints. It’s ridiculous!

Like I said, I don’t know the full story, so I don’t want to start the blame game or get too much into the specifics of it. But hello, San Francisco: this is what you get when you invite your city to become a dot-com yuppie playground. This is exactly how neighborhoods gentrify. It’s easy to point fingers at artists and gays as gentrifiers — and not to say that we aren’t part of the system — but the bigger picture is about government colluding with the wealthy using tactics like selective law enforcement and policies that favor development.

**



foto: the lovely anna conda (sf weekly)

i've been meaning to post about anna conda & charlie horse for so long and of course now i'm sorry i didn't sooner. basically it's the best drag ever.

i have a soft spot in my heart for drag performance, especially the working-class kind in tiny over-filled dive bars and especially latin@ drag like the kind at b&b or norma jeans, a very soft spot. but... admittedly, i don't find most of it all that entertaining, and i don't usually last very long until i get bored. we were talking about this one time and ms. anna conda was like, i know! it's like how many times can you listen to whitney houston greatest love of all before you want to kill yourself, you know? true.

but anna conda & co. on friday nights at midnight, now that's some drag!!! their weekly show charlie horse was this magical combination of messy punk rock, bizarre vintage glamour, and biting social critique. the hair was piled high, the girls wore (and sometimes took off) amazing outfits. the music was always good, or self-consciously awful, either way a delight. and the performers worked their asses off, a new show every week! soooo entertaining, so irreverent, sometimes made me hurt from laughing so hard. the other thing i really appreciated about charlie horse & anna conda was that they saw themselves as holding down polk street for the working-class queers against the forces of displacement & assimilation. polk street for the gays! marina girls go home! as she used to like to chant. plus, at this year's september 11th show anna conda punctuated her mistress of ceremonies routine with a rant about colin powell being a war criminal. not really your average drag show banter. oh, i really wish it wasn't over ;(

**

for a little tribute to the beautiful & noisy event that was, here are a few fotos from charlie horse, and song dedications to anna, who is roquera de corazón. thank you so much, ms. anna conda, it was wonderful. here's a little volumen cero & jesus and mary chain especialmente para ti...

eres la queen... eres la queen... eres la queen...

la queen : volumen cero




i come around catching sparks off you...



head on : the jesus & mary chain



**

makes you wanna feel
makes you wanna try
makes you wanna blow
the stars from the sky

iranian cielito lindo

de la sierra morena
cielito lindo, vienen bajando
un par de ojitos negros
cielito lindo, de contrabando

**

cielito lindo must be like the most mexican of all mexican songs, no? a favorite of our people, it's often performed mariachi-style and even contains the very mexican expression: ay ay ay ay and very mexican advice: canta y no llores / sing and don't cry.

and look! other people like it too. here is our anthem sung by persian folk roquero mohsen namjoo. delightful.


cielito lindo : mohsen namjoo





image : cielito lindo by jesús helguera

**

leili joon! thank you, buen viaje, & sí, para la próxima yo voy contigo!!

see also

ok, so i guess i'm kind of on a roll with all these recommendations. will return to regular programming here soon. but in the meantime there's the arab film festival in sf (& la), october 15th-25th. directed by michel shehadeh, it's really one of the best in the bay area (which has some film festival or other running at almost all times of year). ziad was on the jury for this year's awards. he highly recommends:

ein shams / eye of the sun : ibrahim el batout (egypt)



casanegra : nour-eddine lakhmari (morocco)



i will take him at his word & also throw in...

laila's birthday / eid milad laila : rachid mashrawi (palestine)



salt of this sea / milh hadha al-bahr : annemarie jacir (palestine)



...two very good films that are playing now which i've seen before.
ok ya, ándale pues.

tango love

hay milonga de amor
...este tango es para vos



foto : salon tango finals, world championship in buenos aires, august 2009. by natacha pisarenko (ap)

apparently tango made it onto unesco's "representative list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity". whatever. the compiling of such a finite list of deserving cultural "elements" and allocating protected status & funding on that basis is ummm, problematic. and ridiculously far away from such realities as war & imperialism. and of course unesco, like all un-related entities, is sketchy to say the least.

but dios! tango is sooooo beautiful, isn't it? originating in the poor immigrant neighborhoods of buenos aires & montevideo, it was most likely first danced by (& between) young men who worked in the río de la plata ports in the early 1900s. that's a bit of distance from the glammed-up ballroom version that people tend to imagine as tango today, but you know how it goes...



foto : buenos aires. young men dancing (among men) and listening to tango, circa 1900. (from the museum of tango, buenos aires)

tango music & dance have experienced in recent years a sort of resurgence owing to modern pop cultural reinterpretations. those arguably do more to rescue them from declining into obscurity than the unesco designation will. and maybe are also bringing back a bit of the more street-level consumption, no?

**

siento un dolor / i feel pain
muy dentro de mi corazon / so deep in my heart
si amarte es un pecado / if to love you is a sin
yo me quemo pues / i'll burn then
en el infierno junto a vos / next to you in hell

: tango del pecado (calle 13)


tango + electronica =
pa' bailar : bajofondo



tango + reggaeton =
tango del pecado : calle 13



tango + mas electronica =
mente fragil : tanghetto



tango + mas electronica + argentine hiphop =
mi confesión : gotan project w/ koxmoz



tango + rock en español =
mareo : bajofondo w/ gustavo cerati



tango + popular revolt =
queremos paz : gotan project

sake 1

awww. i was walking down broadway in oakland tonight, late to where i was going and not really looking up when i heard this voice yell, "chula vista! in the house!". which of course made me smile even before i saw who it was. i looked up and saw my old friend and comrade...



ah, so good to see him! one of the most beloved deejays in the bay for sure, sake 1 & his mixes are legendary. soul deluxxe 1, 2, & 3 would be like classic soul + audio from angela davis + early dancehall. excellent. and it would be playing at the club. then there was that fania one. hector lavoe + ismael rivera + más hector lavoe = super-chevere.

you can find dj sake 1 spinning weekly at pacific standard time and keep up with those quality remixes at his site...

la murga (sake 1 remix) : hector lavoe & willie colón



milk & honey (sake 1 remix) : goapele




buen trabajo, camarada :)

happy birthday to us!

saludos! we first welcomed you here one year ago today, on the fiestas patrias, 16 september 2008. so it's our one-year birthday, hurray ;) muchísimas gracias for finding us here, reading and listening. ¡abajo el imperialismo! ¡arriba el rock en español!

dedications to you from each of us...

thinking about how things (ie- the struggle) are better when done together and this lovely song came to mind. it goes out from me to all of us.

-la cumbiambera

te quiero : amparo ochoa




This song is for all the generations of roquer@s that have kept rock alive for the next generations.

-la pachuquita

Nostalgia : El Tri




this one is an invitation to rebel & take down the pinche sistema, latin american-style, in the streets against the state with pots & pans. ¡vamos camaradas!

-diabólica

la cacerola : che sudaka