Hang them.

I don’t watch or read the news, except if it’s music news. Today a regular news item happened before my eyes, apparently hell spits fire and doom upon our “national image” because of:

Please examine carefully. By all means, NSFW.

I give to you.. My Little Anti-Semitic Pony

OK so I can’t find the one with the pink My Little Pony sporting a swastika. That got the most votes for being a Nazi piece of crap. Of course, it’s fascist, what else could it be?

The snaps are from a Romanian art exhibit at the Romanian Cultural Institute of New York.

The exposé I got to see in teh news was journalists spoon-feeding some shit to a fan. I just love it when art gets discussed in the media. Something along the lines of, if it’s not controversial, it’s OK! No no, let me make a complete list:

1. Art must not bother you

2. Art must not irk your usual train of thought

3. Art must be pleasant to eye and not, under any circumstance, actually cause thought

4. Art is about higher ideals and principles, represented in a coherent form. And the colours are not to clash (wha’d they teach ya in art school anyway?)

Those are the basics. y’all. Dare to argue, punks?

Let that be a lesson for you artists everywhere, Romania won’t stand for your brain blobber all over that canvas.

And one thing I don’t get. I believe people talk in clichés and collocations all the time, it’s basic word association, and it lets you retrieve concepts for fast communication. Whatever. But I expect journalists not to use phrases such as “does not represent our country”.

What would be that thing that represents our country? The concept even? This is a pattern of thought that should be de-bunked or at least diminished for the consumer at large, instead Romanian journalism is reinforcing it.

This kind of reaction is a blow to freedom of thought everywhere. Seems like most anything is an excuse for stirring up the press and the people for .. nothing much at all, under the false impression that moral standards are being upheld and the masses’ amniotic bubble has burst because of this sick, corrosive shit. I mean look at it! Hell yeah, paint pink butterflies and daisies over it.

People from NY, go see the exhibit and judge for yourselves: “Freedom for lazy people”. Pics of the exhibit are up there, unless some communist hacker decides to dishevel the site.

And a Flickr photo-stream, props to twi-ny.com

This being an audio blog and all, I still have to post some music, so there:

Quantic – Death Of The Revolution (off his latest, Presenta Flowering Inferno) – seems to fit the mood

Censored the gramophone

I was going to have a happy post today on a band I've grown to love these past two days, Devotchka. I'll have to do that later. It's come to my attention that pandemonium's reigning in Romania these days as police have commenced actions against those sharing copyright-protected content by means of the so-called "neighbourhood networks" via P2P software DC++ or oDC. The operation bears the code name "The Gramophone".

Because the protection of intellectual property has received a "yellow flag" from the EU, the Romanian Police has ordered measures for organizing these actions, including weekly interventions to control this phenomenon. The police and DAs will collaborate with Internet Providers and hub administrators.

In Iasi, the police has issued several warrants and have confiscated hard disks, computers or switches. In Tulcea, over 20 Internet users have now have a police record, and dozens of hard disks have been confiscated.

Apparently they're soon going after this Regie district, where you have mainly dorms, ergo students from out of town with hardly any money and rusty-ass PCs. Because it's an easy target.
Check out the tactics: the pigs go online and start fictionally sharing, using a regular username and going throught he file lists of those sharing over 100 GB! Granted they all leeched it from somwhere at some point, but hey, it's nice to see good deeds are still punished properly. These guys really can't stand any form of freedom on our part, can they? We're like a zit on their ass they pluck and prod at, squeeze all the way until the puss comes out. Do we wanna be the puss here or what?
Supporting artists is one thing, supporting large/ multinational corporations is another.

Comments on the article, form the site:

These people gotta be kidding… I say, let them take care of them interesting issues, like high-level corruption… there's an entire dirty political system in Romania… and they're diverting attention from that by handling ODC hubs, come on, what the fuck…the police should clean up their own shit first, then pick on some dude that hasn't got the cash to go see a movie or buy an expensive CD, and wants a bit of entertainment with his buddies by watching a movie or two, or killing time cos they live in a shithole.

If I had EU salaries, yeah, I'd buy the shit!

Good night romania, last one to leave turns off the lights, throws away the match and locks the door

Yeah Romania's a crappy country compared to most, but at least we're fucking human over here and not some robots working our way to a mid-life crisis. I'm happy about living in Romania precisely because of that. Because we still make coffee and the stove and it's better that way. This is civilization huh. Where you're afraid of your own governments. The governments we elected, that protect or deny rights as they see fit. Protecting the rights of the large multi-national companies certainly reverberates in the most positive outcome for people with 100 euros a month as a travesty of a salary. Yes, we're becoming more and more European. I think it's revolution time, these bastards need to be taught a lesson.

Any Romanian-speaking reader can view the full article- Gardianul, OPERATIUNEA «GRAMOFONUL»

Oh but I guess you’ve heard this before

The Romanian musical landscape moves around the principle of concentric circles. The robustly-diametered outward circles are the masses listening to a strange breed of pop culture and gypsy music that I will not post. Then there's the mediocre brand of pop, substandard and all. The more you get to the center of the circles, to that one throbbing disc of lava that I like to pop my toe in, you either burn your skin or start dancing (after the convulsive twitching). Yes, bingo, adapting is the word. Again, I hope you haven't gone away. If you're still here…

Exhibit A. proto pop

Here we have a circa 1980s pop tune from a communist-era teeny bopper flick, "Liceenii"(The Graduates). Not as scary as it sounds, the film is a classic and so is this kitschy-catchy electro-pop-for-your-nan song. I still dig it.

Liceenii – Ani de Liceu mp3

Exhibit B. The Take-A-Stab at Indie Rock

Moving on to latter days in rebeldom, here's a band called OCS [formerly Omul cu Sobolani (The Man With The Rats), inspired by Steinbeck's Of Men and Mice]. This song expresses the struggles of having two emptied beers before you and the wish to exchange them with a new foamy pint.

OCS – 2oua beri goale (two empty bottles) mp3

You can buy OCSTV (concept album, la-di-dah) here.

Exhibit C. The Underlying Electro protest

 

Sometimes I find myself surprised by what my fellow-countrymen conjure up. There's an astute affinity and a growing understand of electronic music here in Romania. I know, shocking. The thing is, this goes beyond that. This, in my book, is genius. This is music for partying, sleeping, being disheveled, being a butterfly, looking at the sky. You have to download this next song. Just trust me. If you hate it, say so. (But you won't). Have you ever discovered music you just wish everyone would love? This is my pet-hype for today. Shukar Collective. Shukar is the gypsies' (Tamango, Napoleon and Clasic sing on this record) clan.

Shukar Collective – Malademna mp3 ESSENTIAL

Here's the iTunes link for the LP Urban Gypsy.

Exhibits D & E (for lack of time)

Folksy: A fable with vivid voice makeovers. Ada Milea – Greierele si Furnica (The Cricket and The Ant) mp3

Electronic: And finally. Music for art's sake with no hidden agenda. Șuie Paparude – Pentru inimi mp3
Du must lernen. Every day in every way.

Aievea

Romania is very good. Good woman, good drink, good food. You know? Yes sure you know. If you not know, I tell you man. Romania is illuminated. Nah ne naw – don't go just yet. You really need to listen to this so just skip the reading if you wish and download your new favourite songs for chilling.

Illuminated indeed. For a while now I've been itching to share fluids with you. Yes with you. Hang about, what's this fluid crap. Hey I ain't talking about bodily fluids. The fluids surrounding the spectacular neo-jazz beats sheltered under the hood named Aievea. Furthermore, Aievea [Ahyévĕa] is just.. you know, cool. Like good films, good music is universal. It keeps a tinge of recognaissance of its own roots but it looks towards the sun. A band of many talents. Electric Brother and Vlaicu Golcea (double bass), Marta Hristea, vocals. Marta's incredible, a smooth suspended voice reminiscent of Cat Power. Let the sun shine in with this breezy bunch:

Aievea – Everything's Possible Tonight mp3

Aievea – Vision For Two mp3

aievea