6.9 :: Pirate Mapping at Trickster, Oberbaumstr. 11 , Berlin

A fundraiser for XLTerrestrials research and radical upgrades at the European Social Forum, Malmo. Rude + Rebel beats from Left-coast to Balkana to Globaltronic with djs Shazam (Nomad Sound System), Trecid aka Globaltronika ( ADF webmaestro, NL), dj Podinski ( XLT, San Fran), dj Hanuman ( Cargo Cult) + + Kino/Vjs from MDCBerlin.org …

3e suggested donation, no one turned away for lack of funds. Come early and get an XLT Pirate Map… and for a “possible” MDC vs. XLT Freiluft Kino in the Hof. Ab 21:00h, check back for more details.

There are dozens of NGOs headed to the European Social Forum ( Sept.17-21), here’s a small list of groups coming for the European Peace Action gathering, which is a parallel event focusing on direct actions against militarisation on many levels:

www.ofog.org // www.aldermaston.net // www.antimilitaristas.org // http://www.bombspotting.org // www.clownsfreiheide.de.tl // http://www.transnational.org/

___

3.9 :: dj Trecid from www.asiandubfoundation.eu, and friends at COOP.TV, Rochstr. 3, Berlin

—

5.9 :: Babylon Now (Part 3) w/ dj Shazam + Vjs Podinski w/ MDC , Pergamon Museum, 19:00h, Berlin Mitte

Our final event w/ dj Shazam + Vjs Podinski w/ MDCberlin. org …. as part of Pergamon Museum’s “Babylon: Mythos + Wahrheit” exhibition, revealing an alternate reality and poetic view of the life and times in the Middle East, namely Iraq, the region of ancient Babylonia. If you are interested to attend contact us before Thurs. morning ( 4.9) for a free ticket to the museum. Performance starts in the Babylon Lounge behind the Pergamon altar, 19:00h sharp.

—

5.9 :: SOLIKONZERT Fuer RBB RadioMultiKulti in der Werkstatt der Kulturren Hof ab 17:00h til late, Berlin

RBB is planning to shut down the MultiKulti station at the end of 2008, and replacing the frequency with more CORPORATE MEDIA CRAP… but there are many things that are being scheduled before it goes down, and the efforts to keep diversity on the airwaves are on the rise. Sign onto to the Save MultiKulit Radio murdyspace here, and find out what you can do.

—

10.9 :: O2-Halle Opening / Demo 17:30h Kottbusser Tor, 19:00h O2 Halle, Berlin

The grand opening of the “O2 World” venue in Berlin represents to many in the neighborhood: gentrification, trampling of residential rights and concerns, a massive corporate entertainment industry hosting sterile and culture-whoring events for maximum profit and little taste or meaning. A welcoming committee has been organized. Read more here:

www.ms-versenken.org // www.wba.blogsport.de // www.stressfaktor.squat.net

[ Steve Bell from the UK Guardian currently reporting from the US ]

More news coming from the RNC in the Twin Cities… Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman among journalists arrested, and 2 cameramen from Submedia TV … for now check their latest RNC Dispatch #3 ( AND #4 ) ! And please send them your support! Note: These 2 media outlets represent 2 very different styles of radical and cutting-edge reporting, one a very sober look at the news ignored by corporate-owned media, the second a very impassioned view disobeying all the rules of corporate newsroom lackey-dom, in other words a highly subjective journalists’ revolt.

Please distribute this Press Release from Democracy Now WIDELY ! ( an easy-to-use share click on the page) These arrests are an OUTRAGE to the journalist profession and concerned citizens alike, and is highly ILLEGAL. It should make for a very expensive lawsuit for the Minneapolis Police dept., and DN should file for maximum damages!

And here’s some pics from good ol’ boy democracy in action from Indybay.org :

tbc…

” Our Society’s obsession with controlling the future - and with insuring accumulation - has at least 2 major consequences. The first is the organization of a consumer environment for the immediate satisfaction of anticipated desires, with the effect of eliminating desire as such, and creating an atmosphere of suspended disbelief where entire populations move zombie-like and intellectually silent beneath exaggerated images of their unconscious drives. The second consequence, as we have seen with such violence in recent years, is the simple removal of those who might trouble this forcibly tranquilized landscape with any kind of disturbing presence or political speech. What results in both cases is a dampening of voice, a muffling of desire, an insignificance of critique, reaching a paroxysm in the national consensus surrounding American security fever and military intervention after Sept.11″

Brian Holmes from The Laboratory Planet, issue #2 … For the moment this is not made available online, but if you are interested in how to get it ( and/or distribute it) please feel free to contact us. See info XLt page 01.

[ New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina]

Unnatural Disasters: Republicrats, Katrina, Gustav, etc.

As we begin our continuing plog on “Unnatural Disasters” (part 1: DNC Protest Zone and The Republicrats’ Perpetual Short Change), the eye of Hurricane Gustav hit land about 3 hours ago near Cocodrie, Louisiana (about 9:30 a.m. CT). The above image of armed National guards in New Orleans from 2005, reveals a state not of government prepared to assist and deliver aid to people in tragic circumstance, but the desperation to maintain control in a city perceived to have already sunk below the parameters of a scripted social order. High on the list of priorities in Mayor Nagin’s response for the current situation is ordering a mandatory evacuation ( incl. Texas and Alabama areas, nearly 2 million, one of the largest in US history), implementing a 24-hour curfew and threatening to take any suspected looters straight to the State Penitentiary in Angola.

Is there any other society on earth, that in the face of the next serious catastrophe threatening the well-being of its citizens, the governing body acts first to secure property and enforce its rule?? As we write this Democracy Now reports that Blackwater, the private military firm with absolutely zero training or equipment for humanitarian assistance, is seeking personnel to deploy to the areas affected.

Is it a sign that there already exists only the most fragile charade of civil society? That Lousiana is already such a plundered, enslaved and abused population, that any vacuum of normal operations might open the floodgates for an idiot-regime to be toppled, uprooted, washed away like debris in a storm.

For anyone still confused about the myths surrounding the Unnatural Disaster befalling NOLA in 2005, this video produced by Levees.org, reveals how 53 BREAKS in the levee system built by The Army Corps of Civil Engineers “was one of the two most costly failures of engineered systems in history, rivalled only by the Chernobyl meltdown.” And similar disasters are waiting to happen in over 20 states throughout the US.

—

UPDATES ::

Laughingsquid, Boing Boing, and the website for the new documentary Trouble The Water (also reposted by Michael Moore) have all posted a list of very useful resources, which may be of some importance as the south faces a 2nd, and even 3rd barrage of Hurricane Hannah and tropical storm Ike in the next days…

Though the sad irony here is that the people who need it most will not likely have access to the internet, either because there are blackouts, as in Nola currently… and/or the populations most at risk, i.e. low-income folks in NOLA are no doubt a perfect example of the digital divide and a severe educational resources gap.

It also may sadly represent a crucial example which the XLT research has been attempting to illuminate: that “virtual migration” is creating a serious disconnect from life-on-the-ground, and in such scenarios digital culture will become practically worthless. A perspective which becomes poeticly illumined in Benh Zeitlin’s 2007 Nola film, “Glory at Sea” which relates the idea that all the Stuff you have, technology, your computers are absolutely ^%$#@ useless without electricity… and more poignantly without your loved ones.

Also interesting to note, a comment from “mumpeg” at Laughing Squid criticizes the lack of context, and perhaps the lack of critical analysis which might reveal that orgs like Fema and Red Cross, and of course the US Govt. Inc. are notoriously corrupt and should not be trusted. This posting and its list of ALTERNATIVE RESOURCES is worth repeating here:

” Dear Chris and LS readers,

Some additional info, and perhaps a small correction to the above comment. This isn’t exactly CONTEXT ( or content). It’s a list of basic resources… obviously well-constructed by a very experienced blogger… and should be considered a social obligation by people who run a media enterprise and who have such a wide readership, in such situations. Thank u Scott! Very useful!

As far as Context… which is often frighteningly absent from most blog media in general, and LS “reporting” in particular.

Here’s a list of contexts:

Hurricane Katrina was NOT a Natural Disaster, Watch THe Katrina Myth CLIP :
www.levees.org

Red Cross steals money from Katrina victims:
www.democracynow.org/2007/8/30/the_red_cross_ha…

FEMA, R. Cross, La.and US govt. officials should be facing criminal prosecution,
resources anyone ??!

the hideous statistics of post-Katrina New Orleans:
http://counterpunch.org/quigley08252008.html

Alternative grassroots organizations + more info
where u can be of assistance to NOLA :
www.commongroundrelief.org/
www.troublethewaterfilm.com/content/pages/learn…

the Republicrats are fuckheads and cannot be trusted to serve the people:
www.indybay.org
www.submedia.tv

“

[ Still from Benh Zeitlin's "Glory at Sea", big winner at SXSW and NOLA Human Rights Film Fest in 2008]

Radical Blurb XTraXTra :

[ Note: u can now use "Page 04" for a chronological LIST of XLT recommended events]

27.8 : 3 Years After Katrina
Movie Nite at Mano’s Bar
ecke skalitzer/lausitzer str. Berlin
Begins 8pm

Special guests:
Panpirat, Cyclown Circus musicians, Media Decompression + Podinski

Selected films from AK Kraak + PanMove, “Cataclysm” (2006), Benh Zeitlin’s ingenious and Kusturica-esque “Glory at Sea”(2007), current news clips from Democracy Now (2008.8), etc.

_ _ _

DNC Protest Zone and The Republicrats’ Perpetual Short Change

As the Democratic National Convention gathers in what might be appropriately called “the Denver SHU” (a prison term meaning Secure Housing Unit or maximum security), it comes to light that both cities of the Republicrat conventions ( RNC in Minnesota Sept.1-4) have received $50 million dollar grants in federal funding. You can see/hear more about all that in SubmediaTV’s DNC report and interview with Jared Jacang Maner, a writer for Westword.

That $100 MILLION budget scenario for “A Pigs’ Christmas in August” juxtaposed with Bill Quigley’s recent article for Counterpunch called Katrina, The Pain Index written on the 3rd anniversary of Lousianna’s Cataclysm ( incidentally the name of the Panmove documentary featured 2morrw at Mano’s Cafe in Kreuzberg) paints a horrifying picture of victims and citizens still left sinking in a very UNNATURAL DISASTER.

0 = the number of renters in Louisiana who have received financial assistance from the $10 billion federal post-Katrina rebuilding; 0 = the number of apartments currently being built to replace the 963 public housing apartments formerly occupied and now demolished at the St. Bernard Housing Development program; 0 = the 2.6 billion FEMA dollars that have been scheduled BUT NOT delivered to the State of Louisiana for Katrina damages.

But oh yes the Republicrats are taking a sweet bath in federal money! And when they’re not babbling about Change ( we should probably keep in mind when They use that word that it in fact means VIOLENT change!) they’re crooning about the American Dream (ditto!).

[ DNC protest zone (more pics/news at Indybay), hmm what on earth might be their beef with the Obama-Biden party?! ]

[ Graffitti Research Lab tagging the NSA - Verizon "merger" in NYC following the Congress' amendment to FISA Act on July 9th, expanding Prez Bush's demand for expanded eavesdropping authority. Full Story. ]

Latest news regarding GRL is that co-founder James Powderly is one of The Beijing Six, now being held in custody in China. From the ANAT ( Australian Network for Art and Technology) press release:

“Using an updated version of the L.A.S.E.R. Tag system … James had planned to “project the message ‘Free Tibet’ and additional messages that would have been three-stories high” said colleague Nathan Dorjeee.

Reports state James and his associates were detained before they were able to use the stencil, although a ‘Free Tibet’ banner was later displayed briefly by five other American artists before they too were detained.”

The Beijing 6 site is quick to point out that “Americans get 10 days jail, Chinese grannies get one year forced labor, and Tibetans get shot” where protests are concerned. Given that Powderly’s actions are quite a spectacular and tactical art of free speech, there’s a chance to focus new attention on the situations in China and Tibet, particularly throughout the art world. Media coverage includes NY Times, Boing Boing, and Democracy Now.

Being a pioneering lab for high-tech culture jams and tactical media should prove to be like stepping on a hornets’ nest for authoritarian regimes, and GRL has already taken some quick steps to use the showdown as a means to project the issues through the internet.

YOU CAN USE Web banners for freeing the Bejing 6 here and more general: Students For A Free Tibet and Freedom for Tibetans (see fotos) and pic below. And updates on Powderly and crew are provided by Free Art And Technology (FAT).

But this is just a primer for a far deeper examination obviously beyond just these six Americans (and eye-candy laser beams) and for pushing the information AND the action further. A difficult task with the speed of the internet info flow, where something, usually in juicy visuals, blips on the radar one day and is gone the next. It will take a widening participatory effort and various new angles of persistence… and tangibility.

As Naomi Klein’s article recently revealed the Olympics are being used to unveil Police State 2.0, which is a transnational collaboration. Perhaps the news which can be more UTILIZED by US as PRAXIS CREATIVES, is that it appears that the activist+art world will also be making it a test site of our own. For, shall we call it : Global Citizen Solidarity is Everywhere and On The Rise! … And UNCONTAINABLE! Nor does the movement end simply cause the Olympic showtime comes to end.

Free the Beijing Six … and the 5.4 Million Tibetans! ( population # based on wikipedia Tibet entry). Now, how do we takes these memes* outside the virtual box!? And even beyond the region of the Himalayas, beyond China, similar perhaps in the way the Zapatista’s story becomes an inspiration, a model and part of the peoples’ toolbox around the world ?!

Having just re-read a very abridged Wikipedia entry on Tibetan history, there are claims that between the 1960s and 1980s, as many as ONE MILLION Tibetans were sent to labor camps. Some kind of Truth and Reconciliation between China and Tibet is inevitable and long overdue. And it now becomes increasingly important to spread both the history and the repression occurring today beneath this massive PR campaign through which China attempts to pump their sterilized Spectacle, and their version of what the prototype Future City and State should become.

And beyond news, sport, spectacle, and counter-spectacle, what might we do to set the stage for XL Terrestrials who do not compete for shiny useless medals and platforms for flexing patriotic muscle, but construct environments that sustain The Real global interactive game of shared and autonomous territories and its 6.6 billion inhabitants ??!

Lets first untie the Olympic mentality, this ballast of power and class and geographic-divider mechanisms! This shit’s SO OBSOLETE! Lets detach ourselves from stupid nationalist pet tricks, from flag-waving laps around a swimming pool to guns, tanks and missiles at the borders, because we either play the Real global game or the odds are high we won’t survive.

* re: Memes, A useful term/paradigm coined by Richard Dawkins, but a truly arrogant Fucker! The XL Terrestrials certainly do not ascribe to his fanatical belief system (i.e. his RELIGION) of western science and rationalist/reductionist methodologies. A fantastic theme for poetic deconstruction we’ll try and address in a future Podopolog article: The role of the so-called “secular humanists” in the Darwinian-fueled delusions of science, progress and social evolution in the corporate-capitalist-OxFORDian sector.

If this theme has already wet your appetite, read Terry Eagelton’s review of “The God Delusion”. Bravo!

“The installation of a missile defense system in Eastern Europe is, virtually, a declaration of war.” NOAM CHOMSKY

Excerpt of a support letter from Chomsky to Jan Tamáš with the Non-violent Movement against US bases in Czech Republic.

With the recent confrontations between US and Russia, and NATO being pushed into the game up-to-its- ears in western agendas, it seems a prime time to look around and see what global citizens are doing to preempt the madness of the breast-beating warmongers and military industry profiteers.

This September ( 17-21.9 ) European Peace Action gathers activists during the European Social Forum in Malmo, Sweden to “strengthen the cooperation between radical peace groups across Europe”.

“Five main themes for European Peace Action will be Nato and the Militarisation of the EU, the Globalisation of Militarism, Nuclear Weapons, the Militarisation of Space and Co-ordinating Our Resistance.”

XLTerrestrials are planning to attend !

And on Nov. 14-15, is War Starts From Europe, the European day of action against military infrastructure.

tbc

More musika news ( and links) coming soooon… meanwhile if your in SF, Don’t miss these: Monsters of Accordions OR Mezklah with Fosforo et al !! Ohhh tuff choice, but knowing the migratory Bay Area patterns, the SFsters will go to 12 Galaxies and the East bay will go to the Oakland Bottoms.

Also This news just in :

The launching of The Sustainable Living Roadshow - National Tour- is Today (16.8) for FREE in front of SF City Hall.. a unique form of cultural praxis and alternative action on the move… we’ll have to come back and analyze more:

[ Dear Podopolog readers and XLt organisms, we are STILL working on the new Wordpress updating (glitch), and still have comments DOWN, so please do not attempt to submit comments, but rather send us an email if you have any thoughts you would like to share.]

[ From the film about renegade architect Michael Reynolds, Garbage Warrior by Oliver Hodge ]

New: We finally opened up our films + hot docs Page, which is for now just a recommended playlist w/ links for Ecotopia Gathering 2008, which began this weekend in Sinop, Turkey, 750 km east of Istanbul. We learned from a compa who works with the Berlinale and Globale film festival that Sinop, which had been mostly known for its prison in former times, has now transformed into something of a progressive community outpost, a place of global citizens in a kind of voluntary exile. A few years ago, Tobias H. travelled there a couple of times to organize a theatrical performance/presentation based on Peter Watkin’s La Commune.

Today Sinop faces the predicament of government plans to build a nuclear power plant in the area ( 1 of 5 new reactors in the next 5 years). With this new story as a preface, Ecotopia has organized this year’s 2 week gathering there around the theme of Energy issues. Also rumors are that Ecotopia is considering a new format for its annual activities and this may be its last Camp/Bike Tour.

Atomkraft by Pierre Brauchli in Pergamon’s “Babylon Mythos” catalogue

—

In other news, Podinski and Dj Shazam were guests on Mikro.Fm’s weekly program now broadcast on funkwelle.org 95.2 which has rented a frequency for a month and has just one more week to go… Might be we are playing more music for them for the grand finale next sunday.

—

We read a curious piece from Alexander Cockburn at Counterpunch this weekend, and while we’ve been entertained and informed by his talks at the Anarchist Bookfair in San Francisco on a number of occasions and generally consider his deep analysis on the sorry and disturbing state of American political “affairs” on the radical ( if not always tactical) side, this new article strikes us as a misfire on the Spineless Corporate Media. Strangely Cockburn considers the current Edwards scandal/affair as one of 2 Hot summer topics ( WTF ??! XLts can surely give you some better themes)… which reminds us of Michael Franti of Spearhead singing in one of his sharper tracks of a few years back titled “Oh My God”:

“Politicians got lipstick on the collar; the whole media started to holler. But I don’t give a fuck who they screwing in private; I wanna know who they screwing in public.”

Cockburn revels in the fact that the National Enquirer was somehow more in touch with reality than the main corporate sewage pipe. Ok, funny enough, but this merely shows the worthlessness and Spectacle-addictions of all the mass media trip wires, and that often an equally vicious left likes to swim in it as well whenever they get ahold of an early scoop ( or just trying to keep their readers piqued).

Ok, there’s certainly something nauseating about the Edwards scenario ( not because of an xtra-marital affair! ), but the way the press world determines how public figure/politicians sex lives must exist in the shadows, we can probably expect their public policy perversions to only become more tortured expressions in proportion to their unfulfilled (or unadmitted) desires. Would be intriguing to see a study of monogamous politicians vs. polyamorous vs. closet politicians, a Reichian-esque analysis of repression + aggression. Sounds like an issue better handled by Dr. Block.

On the Counterpunch front, far more interesting is their summer reading list from contributing writers.

Oh and Saul Williams in a murdy newsletter sent out a summer reading list, with reader/fans replying. Hmm, can’t find it now, but i’ll try and add some later… Pretty sure Naomi Klein was on it.

And ours currently includes, not as recommendations exactly as we’re still fishing through and weighing them, and sure as hell don’t expect to finish them, but here goes: Spook Country - W. Gibson, 54 - Wu Ming ( ok , STILL trying to finish that one), Die Radiotrinkerin - Max Goldt, Imaginaire Grosse - Stanislaw Lem, Tito ist Tod - Marica Bodrozic, Adressat Unbekannt- Kressmann Taylor, Babylon Mythos- Pergamon Museum, Sound Unbound- Paul Miller, Complete Poems, Selected Letters - Rimbaud… and online: a wee bit too much commondreams, and Brian Holmes and DMZ’s Blog… ( links coming).

_ _ _

World War 5 ??! According to the film Venezuela Bolivariana, the Cold War took enough casualties to easily be considered a World War so that makes THREE, and Big Noise’s Film 4th World War describes # FOUR as the (corporate/military) Globalization waged upon the so-called 3rd World or the global south… So the Oil Heads battling over the last (retro-)energy resources ( and water next … and/or concurrently ) by our calculations makes FIVE…

SO, if you’re following the news on the latest brought to you by the Oil Heads, You should read THIS:

War in the Caucasus: Towards a Broader Russia-US Military Confrontation? by Michel Chossudovsky

tbc ?

The next “Babylon Now” set from Dj Shazam + Vj Podinski + special guests is Sept. 5th. Also inbetween is a series of live events including musicians from Iraq on Aug 22. ( link coming soon).

Salut/Salaam/Gruesse arts + praxis organisms!
( mehr auf deutsch unten)

Invite:

8.8.8 Babylon Now

Dj Shazam + Vj Podinski
at Pergamon,
Museum Insel, Berlin
19h-21:30h
Friday, August 8th

a special “Babylon Now” 3 part mix
(8.8. + 5.9 will be our 2nd and last sessions at Pergamon)…
intertwining and colliding sound + image , myth and truth(s), ancient
to contemporary, war (Inc.) and peace, chaos to poetry…

Shazam ( Nomad Sound System + Spark ) brings a mostly vinyl collection
of music from the Babylon region, Bagdad, Basra, Iran and Arabic
influences far and wide.

And in the visual mix, new footage from : Douglas Fairbanks in Thief
of Baghdad, David O. Russell’s Three Kings, Robotic Angel/ Metropolis,
Disney’s Aladdin and Gillo Pontecorvo’s Battle of Algiers ( along with
Pasolini’s Arabian Nights, Abbas Kiarostami, Al Jazeera news, James
Longley’s Iraq in Fragments, David Martinez’s 500 miles to Babylon,
GNN, Media In Cooperation + Transition, Media Decompression archives,
and more.

“Babylon Now” is Part of the Pergamon and Piranha label’s Babylon Live
series in collaboration with SMB Staatliche Museum Zu Berlin, the
Louvre, and The British Museum’s Babylon, Myth + Truth exhibition.

The Museum entrance is 12euros but if you Write us NOW [ pod (at)
xlterrestrials (dot) org ] we may still be able to include you on our
guestlist! …which includes entrance to this very controversial and problematic
exhibition. ( We were offered a fairly unrestricted guest list, but a disclaimer
“while supplies last” might apply if we go over capacity)

Hope you’ll join us!

Podinski

0—-O—-o
www. xlterrestrials. org/plog
arts + praxis organisms
o—–O——0

—

more info ( auf deutsch) from Shazam below:

—

hey ihr lieben, diggt das:

Freitag 08 08 08
von 19 bis 21h
Museuminsel Berlin

Pergamon Museum
Babylon Expo:

BABEL NOW

VJ Podinski (XLT, San Francisco)
&
DJ Shazam (Culture Jamming Funk, Berlin)
world exclusive AudioVisual Show on Iraqi music & film footage !!

at Babel Lounge / Pergamon Museum

ein bisschen info dazu:

BABYLON, das antike, liegt, teilweise auch von deutschen architekten
ausgegraben im heutigen IRAK. das Pergamonmuseum zeigt eine Austellung
verschiedenster altbabylonische rExponate,mit vielen leihstücken aus
dem Louvre in Paris und dem British museum in London, ausserdem gibt
es hier nach wie vor das sensationelle Ishtar Tor zu bestaunen. diese
Austellung ist einzigartig, nur diesen Sommer in Berlin zu sehn und
hat natürlich ihren eintrittpreis (12,- euro) aber weiter unten gibts
dazu gute nachrichten.

.Podinski (XL Terrestrials) hat aus verschiedensten video archiven
aktuelle Bilder aus dem Irak und auch babylonische rezeptionen im Kino
der restlichen welt zusammen gestellt, die er in ganz eigener culture
jamming weise cutten und morphen wird zu meinem soundtrack aus alten
und etwas neueren soundz aus den regionen um Babylon, Bagdad, Basra
und angrenzenden gebieten und ländern.
Mr.Podinski: www. xlterrestrials. org

Wer sich dafür interesiert was CNN bestimmt nicht zeigt (fuer einen
zeit befindet sich eine US Militärbasis auf dem gelände des
weltkulturerbes!) und auch offene ohren für den reichtum der
arabischen folklore, klassik und auch moderne elektronische varianten
davon mitbringt, soll nicht enttäuscht werden.

ciao,

- shazam

www. myspace. com/shazamberlin
www. myspace. com/sparksoundz
www. myspace. com/nomadsoundsystem

This weekend we visited Camp Tipsy, a very non-commercial cultural festival on the outskirts of Berlin. High on the list of inspiring moments (which we are willing to make public in the plogosphere) are as follows… sleeping in a Tipi* while it rains; Jumping in the cool lake waters after not sleeping for more than 24 hours; being nourished by all the Volkskueche action; watching the crew and citizens of the camp delicately attend to an over-intoxicated passenger; witnessing a collective member of the Dub Pub with hardcore, unshakable principles refuse to allow Non-Bio milk to remain anywhere in the vicinity of his bar/dj table at sunrise inbetween making coffee for the few dawn survivors and dropping vinyl…

And oh yes, The MUSIC…

But before I get into the finer details of shamanic beat-sharing ( from folks like dj Shazam, A Guy Called Gerald, Hanuman + Peter from L.U.X.,) this post is also meant to alert those of you in Berlin that Popdeurope’s season is a little more than midstream… and 2nite is Buraka Som Sistema (Po), Panteón Rococó (Mx), and Berlin’s own La Chusma djs at Arena.

We had our first interaction with Popdeurope during Arena’s 10 year anniversary in 2005, while organizing a Radio Organisms outpost for the convergence of radio makers and djs, musicians, and alternative media pilots… and hosting youth radio workshops together with Haus Der Kulturen.

Popdeurope has been producing world music programs since the summer of 2002, and has pretty much invited musicians from every corner of the globe! This is not just Pop, No No not your Uber-mediocre to bottom-feeder music industry Pop, this is the heart and soul of ethnic diversity, a micro-to-macro viewfinder for the way the world really comes to dance and play on the post-modern popular culture stage.

Yes there’s a litte business being done around this, and a lot of the program runs a little more mainstream than what XL Terrestrials are usually covering, but when you get right down to it: This is where the 3rd world majority ( to borrow the phrase from an oakland activist group) makes its voice the loudest, and undoubtedly most alluring… and perhaps most invincible! And over the years, alongside its most popular fare, popdeurope has even invited a few of political rock/world music genre’s current heavy-hitters… Fun da Mental, Balkan Beat Box, Nomad Sound System, Transglobal Undeground, Emir Kusturica and the No Smoking Orchestra, Amsterdam Klezmer Band, Aiwa, Ojos de Brujo, Visionary Underground, Black Baudelaire, Temple of Sound, Femi Kuti, and P18… etc. etc.

tbc…

*Tipis: along with bicycles are perhaps one of the most ingenious human inventions for practical + sustainable living … it’s conical shape with its narrow portal to the sky is also a guiding conduit to dreamtime.

more info coming soon.