Artist: Michael Moss and the Accidental Orchestra
Titel: Helix
Label: self produced
Genre: contemporary/jazz/modern world
Buy and listen to CD here: https://michaelmoss.bandcamp.com/album/helix
CD Review by Dawoud Kringle
Date: February 13, 2018
Venue: City Vineyard (NY)
Concert review by Dawoud Kringle Photos courtesy of Michelle Shocked
To say that Michelle Shocked is an iconoclast in the service of fairness and righteousness is an understatement. Her music and artistic vision was born of a constant struggle to remain true to herself and her vision. From the beginning of her musical career in 1984, she has explored a great variety of styles, and has been difficult to pin down. Her music has explored folk, rock, big band, and Latin. Throughout, she has remained true to a core belief in fairness, justice, and balance in a world either subtly or directly opposed to this. She has released 13 albums as a leader, was awarded Folk Album of the Year at the CMJ New Music Awards ceremony in 1989, and is a current member of Musicians for Musicians (MFM).
Artist: Mehmet Polat
Title: Ageless Garden
Label: Aftab Rec
Genre: oriental music/oud music
Review by Dawoud Kringle
The word “Hasret”is an Urdu word (derived from the Arabic word “Hasrah”) meaning “unfulfilled wish,” and a popular term for Urdu poets in India and Pakistan. “Hasret,” is also the first track on Mehmet Polat’s new CD Ageless Garden. The opening notes of Polat’s oud speak in a quiet yet authoritative voice against a subtle percussion background. As the piece progresses, unusual melodies and startling harmonies create an emotional intensity that eloquently expresses the longing within an unfulfilled desire. It ends with a return to the introductory melodies, except with a sad resignation.
Text by Michelle Shocked
Aftershocks are still being felt from the sub-prime mortgage fraud that roiled working-class Americans – particularly those in the Latino and African American communities – between 2007 and 2012. The extensive damage caused by this economic disaster should serve as an early warning of what now lies on the near horizon in the guise of the ironically named Music Modernization Act being considered in Congress. Proposed in the wee hours just before the end of the 2017 Congressional session, the Act should, in truth, be called “The Spotify IPO Protection Act”.
In 2011, on the front lines of defending homeowners during our efforts at Occupy Fights Foreclosure, I saw with my own eyes in the Los Angeles County Recorders office, sitting in front of an outdated DOS era computer, the consequences of unregulated banks creating private databases of public deeds far away from the prying eyes of the County Board of Supervisors and County Recorder.
As most people now understand (at least anyone who’s seen The Big Short), Wall Street “securitized” sub-prime mortgages, sliced and diced them into millions of tranches and sold them with insurance policies against their inevitable default, then shorted their own bad loans. Taxpayers were left crawling through the rubble of the collapse of 2008, while the banks made a seventy-fold profit on the foreclosures than what they would have earned by simply servicing those original loans.
Text By Dawoud Kringle
Music Venue Trust is a UK based network of grassroots music venues and their supporters. Their base concept, Agent of Change, was first introduced into the music scene in Australia, and then, three years ago, into the UK. Agent of Change is a term that is used to describe various approaches to controlling the relationship between newly built development (typically residential), and extant noise sources (typically, music venues).
The Agent of Change campaign believes that the cornerstone of the UK music industry is under threat and needs protection. Music venues are threatened with closure because of changes in planning laws to encourage residents to move into town centers. This change in policy was originally intended to address housing shortages (specifically, offices, car parks and disused buildings to be converted into residences. The problem arose with the UK’s music venues being next door to those offices and car parks. Music venues were subsequently forced to fight noise complaints, abatement notices and planning applications. The locations of the venues were deliberately chosen so that the music wouldn’t create problems for residents. With the aforementioned housing policy changes, residents made complaints about sound. The problem was exacerbated by the fact that the developers of the residential properties have no legal obligation to soundproof these new residences. UK law mandates that the business or person making the noise is responsible for its management.
