COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT IN GAZA

Extracts from a story by Marjorie Cohn about Israel's invasion of Gaza:

'Israel has used the killing of two Israeli soldiers and the capture of a third by Palestinians as an excuse to invade Gaza with overwhelming military force and demolish its infrastructure.'

'Israel's brutal retaliation against Palestinian civilians constitutes collective punishment. Attacks on a civilian population as a form of collective punishment violate article 50 of the Hague Regulations, which provides: "No general penalty, pecuniary or otherwise, shall be inflicted upon the population on account of the acts of individuals for which they cannot be regarded as jointly and severally responsible."

'The Fourth Geneva Convention also prohibits collective punishment. Article 33 says: "No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed." The Convention requires all states party to it to search for and ensure the prosecution of perpetrators of the war crime of "causing extensive destruction … not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly." Amnesty International called the deliberate attacks by Israeli forces against civilian property and infrastructure war crimes.

'Collective punishment is likewise forbidden by Article 75 of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions. As four U.S. Supreme Court justices agreed in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld last week, Article 75 is "indisputably part of the customary international law."

And Gideon Levy of the Haaretz newspaper:

'Will the blackout of Gaza bring down the Hamas government or cause the population to rally around it? And even if the Hamas government falls, as Washington wants, what will happen on the day after? These are questions for which nobody has any real answers. As usual here: Quiet, we're shooting. But this time we are not only shooting. We are bombing and shelling, darkening and destroying, imposing a siege and kidnapping like the worst of terrorists and nobody breaks the silence to ask, what the hell for, and according to what right?'

SOUL MUSIC IS TURKISH TOO

God, it's almost unforgiveable that I didn't even notice the death of Arif Mardin last week on June 25th. He was one of the greatest record producers. With the massive legacies of Mardin, Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun there's surely a strong case for the importance of the Turkish contribution to rhythm and blues or 'black music'. Distribute that authorship, babee!

I love this picture of Mardin in the Atlantic studio with Aretha (and is that spouse Ted?).

Just some of the roll call of artists he recorded: Howard Jones, Carly Simon, The Young Rascals, Bette Midler, Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross, Patti Labelle, Average White Band, Anita Baker, the Bee Gees, Judy Collins, Phil Collins, Culture Club, Roberta Flack, Aretha Franklin, Hall & Oates, Donny Hathaway, Norah Jones, Chaka Khan, Melissa Manchester, Manhattan Transfer, Modern Jazz Quartet, Willie Nelson, John Prine, Scritti Politti, Queen, Dusty Springfield, David Bowie, Jewel and Ringo Starr.

I'd be on my knees in sijdah just for Dusty in Memphis and I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You.

Goodbye, Arif.

MUSIC CONFERENCE, MEXICO CITY, JUNE 2007: CALL FOR PAPERS

The International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) is pleased to announce its 14th biennial conference:

¡Que viva la musica popular!

Universidad Iberoamericana
Mexico City, Mexico
June 25-29, 2007

Popular music remains at the heart of everyday life in many different ways. Its ability to organise, reassure, provoke, contain or anaesthetise attests to its influence within social life. The organisers of the 14th biennial IASPM in Mexico City invite papers that provide theoretically grounded accounts of popular music’s role as a soundtrack to individual, collective, local, national and international experience. This includes examination of the significant changes in popular music consumption, with, for example, the emergence of the mobile phone and TV talent show franchises as key links between contemporary youth audiences and performers. Equally, in the age of the ‘mash-up’, innovation in digital technologies (for example, Pro Tools and Acid Pro software) continues to challenge prior modes of production and viability for producers in an era of industry/company integration. While these are important issues for debate, this conference also emphasises effect and affectivity: the astonishing ways in which popular music moves us to different forms of expression and feeling.

The location of this conference is timely, given the rapid change in cultural trade flows and agreements between nations, where popular music plays a major role in debates about cultural sovereignty, and the feverish rhetoric surrounding the ‘cultural’/’creative’ industries. At the same time, popular music continues to be appropriated for specific political ends, representing particular ideologies, and in some cases, whole nations.

As has always been the case, conference organisers welcome papers that shed light on specific, local experiences and debates, along with wider issues of transnational importance. In keeping with the increasingly broad scope of popular music studies, the conference welcomes papers based on any disciplinary approach, including musicology, semiotics, philosophical/cognitive studies, anthropology, gender and cultural studies, sociology, literary criticism, etc.

Abstracts should be no longer than 250 words, and should include the following:

Paper Title
Surname, First Name
Institution
Email Address
Intended Stream

When attaching abstracts, please send as both an .rtf and .doc. Please use your surname as the file name, eg: smith.rtf, jones.doc.

The conference organizers would ask that you provide three to five keywords in order to help facilitate the organization of the schedule.

Abstracts should be sent to the following address: pop2007@iaspm.net, and should be received no later than November 15, 2006. Presenters will be notified by February 1, regarding acceptance.

The streams for this year’s conference as follows:

1. Songs of desire

Convenor: Franco Fabbri

Feelings, emotions, passion are at the same time the subject of many popular songs (content), the factors that influence how subjects are articulated (expression), the shared competence within a genre or across genres (code). Affect in popular music is coded/decoded by the mind, interpreted by the body, predominantly mediated by the voice. This stream welcomes papers based on any disciplinary approach (musicology, semiotics, philosophical/cognitive studies, anthropology, gender and cultural studies, sociology, literary criticism, etc.) approaching song (individual songs, genres, idiolects) as the meeting point of thought and feelings, the body, the human voice, for any purpose and project.

2. Performance

Convenor: Shane Homan

Musical performance remains one of the central rituals and pleasures of popular music. This stream invites consideration of understandings of performance within a range of cultures and contexts, including the re-evaluation of ‘classic’ performances on the stage or screen that continue to inform contemporary practices and histories; debates about repetition and improvisation; or performance within multimedia environments, and the implications for the presentation and reception of the musical text in relation to particular discourses of authenticity. We welcome papers on the cover, tribute, or interpretation that investigates performing the ‘original’, or contributions to debates about stage virtuosity, including understandings of musical skills, training and creativity. Discussions can extend to how famous musicians ‘perform’ their celebrity roles in a variety of industry and media contexts; or how audiences ‘perform’ subcultures or fandom roles; or take on the role of ‘performer’ themselves.

3. Technology & industry

Convenor: Martha Tupinambá de Ulhôa

The use of the phonogram, the disc, the tape, and now the computer archive has changed enormously the way people produce and listen to music. Music technology has even blurred the distinction between the spheres of music production and consumption, as well as the notions of authorship and performance. Also the music industry has had to adapt to new ways of consumption that bypass its control, as the debate on copyright and the release of "historical" performances transfers is showing. This stream welcomes papers dealing with the technological impact on popular music practices, including studio, live and even private popular music production and consumption questions from cultural, aesthetic, ideological, economic, sociological, historical, legal or musicological perspectives.

4. Nation, Region, City

Convenor: Michael Drewett

This stream is concerned with popular music meanings which are specifically located within the context of space and place, whether on the local, national, global or glocal level, including the role of music in urban and suburban structures, in the construction of national identities and policies and in place-related practices of domination and resistance, such as post-colonial struggle. Papers that place particular emphasis upon the spatial dynamics of popular music are welcomed.

5. Popular and Unpopular Musics

Convenor: Geoff Stahl

The notion of ‘the popular’ can be cast in multiple ways. The meaning and uses to which ‘the popular’ is put means different things with regard to taste, musicians, the industry, governments, etc. The notion of what constitutes popularity and what that popularity may mean is fraught and contested in a number of fields, whereby the production, distribution and consumption of music can become the locus of many different kinds of struggles. This stream is designed to take up many of these issues, considering the different resonances of ‘the popular’ (and by inference its so-called opposite, ‘the unpopular’).

SPANISH RACISTS GO HOME

The Spanish fans and the national coach got their comeuppance with an African-Arab-Gallic nexus doing in the hyped Spanish team and sending them back to Madrid. Not to diss the Spain team itself which played well during the tournament, but if the bile from the terraces and the dug-out is what marks Spanish football, then I have to gleefully wave Byeee. Loved watching it on Univision, the Spanish language channel in the US. Gol!!!!!! Great that free-to-air television has a smarter alternative to the lame subscriber ESPN and their English-speaking commentators who try to explain the simplest procedures of the game to USanian viewers. A penalty kick is awarded when someone is fouled in the area!

Not sure if I want the French to beat Brazil in the quarter final. I just hope it's a pacey end-to-end flowing game with a decent referee and few amateur dramatics from the players. That might be too much to ask of the gods of football. A Brazilian win would be better for Nike and the marketing of the competition. For now, I'm just happy that multicultural soccer defeated openly racist Euro sentiment. I say that without any naivete about its ephemerality and the riots in the banlieus and the failures of univocal French multiculturalism. Zidane represents the possibilities of a Muslim Europe too; it's not just about the one-eyed mullahs and the hijabi schoolgirls. The anti-racist campaign in football needs greater commitment from FIFA. Blatter has blathered on with very little conviction. Brazil is noted for its amazing denial about its own racist hierarchies of skin colour.

WE'RE PRAYING FOR INGLAND

Isn't this a fucking ugly image of Wayne Rooney? I will be crucified and enjoy it. I'm so English though I've got an Irish name. Irish blood, English heart to quote Mozzer. I belong to the community of blood and the cross, consecrated during the holy wars. Two World Wars and One World Cup. Please Portugal, slide at least one past Robinson to spare us all more of this nationalist crap. Such Englishness be damned. And do they say in ancient times...

OOH BETTY

1. Bettye Lavette--Damn Your Eyes (Live)
2. Betty Wright--No Pain No Gain
3. Bettye Swann--Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye
4. Brenda Holloway--Every Little Bit Hurts
5. Luther Vandross--Any Love
6. Minnie Ripperton--Inside My Love
7. Bobby Womack--I Can Understand It
8. Johnny Bristol--Hang On In There Baby
9. Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes--The Love I Lost (Long Version)
10. Bettye Swann--Kiss My Love Goodbye
11. Millie Jackson--A House For Sale
12. Jackson Five--I Want You Back (Z Trip remix)
13. Gladys Knight & The Pips--The Nitty Gritty
14. Jimmy Ruffin--Farewell Is A Lonely Sound
15. Gerald Wilson--California Soul

MUSIC ON THE MOVE

I'm writing from Ann Arbor, site of my alma mater and a hop skip and jump from Belleville, the origin of the techno Triplets (Saunderson, May and Atkins), and only a further few minutes down I-94 in an armor-plated SUV from the Big D of p-funks, slam dunks, slum villages, eerie boulevards and gunshot echoes in the distance. I'll be back in Auckland (not Oakland as I have to keep reminding the natives) in a couple of weeks after dropping into Phoenix and the City of Angels.

Just thought I'd catalogue the music I've been travelling with--at least 25 kilos of the stuff!

Firstly, in a South Indian diner in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, the owner was selling his light jazz, easy listening and soundtracks, collected since the early 1960s. In their dusty plastic covers, and Ahmedabad is semi-arrid I assure you, I found an album of covers done on the zither, some Henry Mancini and Lalo Schifrin work, and other stuff I haven't heard yet but in the Vince Guaraldi kind of jazz territory. For Indian stored oldies these discs were in remarkable condition. A real muso had cared for them for decades. I scraped off the dessicated plastic sleeves and clingfilm covers and gave the covers a moist wipe. Don't you just love those LP covers made of card with extensive sleevenotes that strain for literary significance. I had an idli with sambar with my dad-in-law to celebrate. He'd spotted the albums in cardboard boxes near the exit on a trip a few days before. There were two or three B-movie noirish soundtracks too but I don't remember the titles. This was in May, two continents away and I'm exhausted.

In Londinium, the dollar was divided by three so I was very careful. I spent only a day music shopping, confining myself to Berwick Street in Soho and immediate environs. Sister Ray has taken over Selectadisc but the layout & vibe of the store and the prices seem the same, more or less.

Bought Scott Walker's album The Drift on 4 AD though I haven't heard it yet. I've got the last two and some of the 1960s work and they're always growers and ultimately rewarding difficult listening. He's just one of those guys I want around the rest of my life, like Robert Wyatt.

Also picked up the Boards of Canada Transcanada Highway EP on CD since they were giving away a free DVD of the video. I love the way the main tune Dayvan Cowboy has two parts--that really slow churning opening followed by the full Duane Eddy meets Blue Oyster Cult effect for the second part of the track. Not sure about the video though. Just saw it once. A bit like an Old Spice video crossed with an Apollo broadcast but I guess that's the essence of ambient--from outer space to an ocean of sound. Works off that cliché quite well. And the editing makes it match the sound pinpointedly.

I guess on this trip I've been compelled to buy more uneasy listening, so that I can snooze and study without being too distracted. Man, I've got a book to write in 2006 so I need me some background sounds. So I took a punt on the unheard but perfectly titled Music To Fall Asleep by Klimek on the reliably precious Kompakt label. It's been very effective, delivering sweetly on its promise. Bill Frisell is thanked in the CD booklet and there are bits and bytes of guitar that owe something to his style littered throughout the record. It loops and loops and loops until zzzzzzzz... Just sublime. Good music for the bath too.

This shop also has a selection of excellent music related t-shirts which I've never purchased from due to their high prices. I did succumb to a Cassetteboy number with a computer screen interface on royal blue. Cute since I'm working on understanding popular music in the digital age.

Strolled down and around the corner to Sounds Of The Universe, the record shop of the record label Soul Jazz. Loads to choose from in a small space. But had read about Burial (first album on the Hyperdub label) in the grime/dubstep column on Pitchfork and it was on a listening station, so got that one. It's also excellent for falling asleep but has a melancholia and foreboding about it that really captures part of the Londonistan vibe at the moment. I hadn't yet read all the other guff about this album yet so feel satisfied that I was there early in the game of critical hype around this classic of dubstep and beyond.

Also at SOTU, I tracked down Lovers Rock by the Love Joys (Wackie's label). I know one of the Love Joys sings on a Rhythm & Sound track of a couple of years ago, and the Berlin boys are responsible for re-releasing the Wackie's back catalogue, but I wasn't aware of these soulful Brixton songstresses until DJ /Rupture/Jace Clayton linked us to Auratheft's online mix of the Love Joys' phonolog. This is a terrific reggae album: strong grooves that are varied and extend dubwise in many directions, beautiful harmonies and horn patterns, and superb lyrics about relationships. Got to find me more of that lovers rock.

Decided to limit myself to buying CDs because I just didn't want to carry vinyl in my luggage. But the big haul in London was the bulk of my brother's record collection. He only listens to Sufi Muslim discourses on his iPod these days, so he said I could have all his Jamaican pre- 7" singles, some twelves, and loads of dub albums on CD and vinyl. I've got a box of 45s--one of those plaggy ones that fall apart really easily--forming the central bulk of one bag. The singles include many post-punk and mid 1980s records in great condition--stuff I sold my brother about 15 years ago when I was skint but still hoping that the archive would remain in the family. These include the Smiths singles and the Jesus and Mary Chain and Take the Skinheads Bowling by Camper Van Beethoven, three Husker Du's and a bunch of other gems.

The reggae stuff is the product of years of visiting Reggae Revive in Portobello Road and stalls at Camden Market. Then there are loads of Blood and Fire dub albums and early hardcore and electronica from the Prodigy and Orbital et al. One suitcase is almost full with bubblewrapped CDs. I had to do this after much time spent calling postal services and couriers about how to send the music by air or sea to New Zealand. It's fucken expensive either way in the UK. Don't even think about it. I therefore spent even more time stressing about which albums and twelves and sevens to leave behind until the next time I visited the UK. Anyway, versions galore for The Basement in the coming months. The Crowning of Prince Jammy is one of the special ones. I love the crackle you hear on those Jamaican B-sides. Fat We Fat!

In Ann Arbor, there are several good music stores, and mainly independent and secondhand at that. At Wazoo, which I frequented from 1988-91, I bought Slowdive's Souvlaki. The shoegazing classic and its wash of post Bloody Valentinian sound (extra tracks on the US release) has been on my list for a while since I was reminded of the glory of 40 Days by a friend and Nick lent me an electronic tribute to the group on Morr records of Germany.

With somnambulant purpose, I also bought Bibio's Fi on Mush records. What a perfect name for the label. I'd downloaded a couple of tracks of Bibio's after being alerted to him over a year ago. The titles evoke minor geographies of the city and the suburbs.

Found cheapo secondhand copy of Asa-Chang & Junray's Junray Song Chang on Leaf Records. Vicky lent me this some time ago, and I loved Hana off it, so 8 bucks appeared a bargain.

Another album on my wishlist for a while is Akufen's My Way. Had heard the phenomenal and awe-inspiring Skidoos on Nick's copy of a Sonar festival CD, and downloaded one or two other glitchy radioscans from the album, but this was 8 bucks too.

Still searching for Akufen's (under real name of Marc Leclair) album Music Pour Trois Femmes Enceintes (Music For Three Pregnant Women) which has been reviewed well by Philip Sherburne and others and promises to be another great snoozy ambient electronic feast. Saw it in HMV's megastore, Oxford Circus, London but the thing was pricey so decided to try in North America since it's a Canadian release. No one in Ann Arbor has it, but I figure I'll order it off Amazon when I'm in Phoenix. It's there along with the UK also-overpriced release of Betty Swann's compilation album on Honest Jon's. I downloaded one Betty Swann track and was completely blown away by the Muscle Shoal blues of it. Put that on a soul playlist 'Ooh Betty' (homage to 70s sitcom Some Mothers Do Ave Em) which features other Betty(e)s: Davis and Lavette, amongst other soul gems.

In Schoolkids in Exile, a basement record store on State Street, I came across another gloomy ambient record, the appropriately titled Melancholia by William Bazinski, in an unmarked curvaceous and snug CD case.

Almost bought Spacemen 3's Dreamweapon, but resisted it in corporate Border's Ann Arbor flagship store.

That's it so far.

Musicians have left holes and tears since they departed after I left the shores of Aotearoa:

RIP Grant McLellan of The Go-Betweens--we 'part company' but your songs and voice linger
RIP Desmond Dekker--the Israelites need to hear you breaking down that wall of heartache in the west bank
RIP Billy Preston--vital organ intact and in the groove of sundry tracks

That's it for now. I'll be back with more by the time I get to Phoenix. Bu-bum. Peace.

ROE VS. WADE

Q:
What's George W. Bush's position on Roe vs. Wade?

A:
He said he didn't really have an opinion on how people got out of New Orleans.