Author Archives: Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi

Music listings – 5/30 through 6/5

Will be updated during the week!

1. Karl Berger’s Stone Workshop Orchestra

Date: Monday, May 30, 2011
Time: 7:30 & 10pm
Venue: The Stone (is located at the corner of Avenue C and 2nd Street)
Ticket: $10
Genre: Contemporary Jazz/improve

During the ‘70- and ‘80’s, the Woodstock-based Creative Music Studio was considered the premier study center for contemporary creative music. Founded in 1971 by Karl Berger , Ingrid Sertso and Ornette Coleman, CMS brought together leading innovators in the jazz and world music communities. Unprecedented in its range and diversity, CMS was an acknowledged phenomenon in the international music world.

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Video: Another Brick In The Wall (Hey Ayatollah, Leave Those Kids Alone!) cover!

Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi

Blurred Vision, a band of two young Iranian brothers, Sepp and Solh in Toronto used the Pink Floyed song  “Another Brick in the Wall“, which was written by the great Roger Waters in 1979, as a musical-political statement to express their support for the pro-democracy movement and revolution in Iran which started in the summer of 2009 in Tehran, Iran.

The famous line, “Hey. teacher, leave us kids alone” is replaced with “Hey, Ayatollah, leave those kids alone” which was approved by Roger Waters. The video shows a mullah and the security forces chasing after and beating the young protesters in Iran. The director of the  video is the Canadian/Iranian filmmaker, Babak Payami who lives in Toronto.

A great cover for a great cause! Continue reading →

Documentary Film Preview: Dark Girls

Clips from the upcoming documentary exploring the deep-seated biases and attitudes about skin color—particularly dark skinned women, outside of and within the Black American culture.
This film will be released in Fall/Winter 2011. Check out the Dark Girls page on Facebook for updates and information.

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Directed by Bill Duke and D. Channsin Berry
Produced by Bill Duke for Duke Media
and D. Channsin Berry for Urban Winter Entertainment
Co-Produced by Bradinn French
Line Produced by Cheryl L. Bedford
Edited by Bradinn French

Japanese TV commercials are the best! But Japan…?

Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi

Here are 6 Japanese TV commercials that would probably never be made in America. I love how Japanese produce their TV commercials which are very unique, serious but funny/hilarious at the same time, surreal, sophisticated, naive, ironic and sometimes “Zen like”. I also like the out of context use of sound and music contradicting each other. Peter Sellers or Monty Python would enjoy watching them!

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But…unfortunately these commercials can’t be applied or referred to daily life in Japan. In fact life in Japan isn’t as exciting as people here believe. It is unsophisticated and impersonal. In some degrees very boring.  Tokyo for example – which is Japan’s metropolis, the country’s brain and the center of culture and commerce – lost its life power since the start of the recession at the end of the 1980s. Since then no big changes have happened. In fact the recession forced the Japanese to get aware that something was wrong with them. Instead of getting in charge of their own lives they tried to keep their lifestyles of before. Nobody wanted to take any responsibilities. Most people ignored their own deep feelings and anger. By the way did you know that Japan has the highest suicide rate in the world? Doesn’t this say alot about this country?

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