Tag Archives: editorial

Meme Night at Terminal West

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Riff Riff at Terminal WestOne of the more interesting evenings of music Atlanta has witnessed in a while. I know it was for me, and given the lineup of Eli Porter, Riff Raff, and The Black Lips, I can only imagine the same holds true for anybody else in attendance at Terminal West at King Plow.

The evening starting with two rap artists, despite their television appearances, owe most of their success to the virality of their YouTube presence.

For a complete recap of the show as well as more photos and video, check beneath the fold.

Also be sure to check out Creative Loafing’s review of the evening as well
(but don’t tell them it wasn’t a dubstep show!)

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Six Reasons Music Shouldn’t Be Free

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Lil Wayne / PiracyAppropriately printed in the online magazine notorious for stealing intellectual property, Gizmodo recently reported on an interview with Grooveshark CEO Sam Tarantino.

In the interview Tarantino provides six reasons why he thinks all recorded music should be free. Ever the opinionated music writer, and capitalist, I felt it only proper to offer a retort to his six points.

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Criticism, Praise, and Artistic Distance

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Far too often, honesty is met with ridicule, shame, or outright rage from people hiding behind electronic media. As a community, if our goal is to continue raising the bar for design, we need to get to a place where objective discussion is welcomed, not scorned or drowned in obsequiousness.

An excellent read from A List Apart on the importance of criticism by exploring the concept of artistic distance, the necessary ability for all artists  achieving detachment from the creative process and ultimately the products of their creation. I have brought similar concepts before in a post on objectivity and criticism, and was excited to read something new covering familiar concepts.

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That One Time Bassnectar Blew My Mind

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A worthwhile read from Percussion Lab on the madness that was Bassnectar at Ultra 2012. Don’t be mistaken, I am still not a fan of his style of music but one can hardly deny that he and a number of other seemingly fringe artists have pushed dubstep from forgotten clubs a few years ago into mainstream commercial music festivals and licensing in major films, movies, and advertisements.

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Terminal West Is Not A Rave Cave

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Atlanta’s premier music destination in a converted iron and steel foundry, built primarily from reclaimed metals, wood and brick — and the coup de grâce, the original boiler as the centerpiece of the room and rooftop bar.

These are the only descriptions of Terminal West, King Plow’s new music venue, worth reading in Creative Loafing’s recent recap of the Terminal West launch, titled Terminal West at King Plow: The house that dubstep built.

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Andy Baio on Yahoo (‘A Patent Lie’)

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Recounting my sentiments in an earlier post on dangerous software trademark law, Andy Baio contributed this editorial to Wired on Yahoo’s recent litigation against Facebook.

Software patents should be abolished, plain and simple. Software is already covered by copyright, making patent protection unnecessary.

Ask any programmer — developing software is as creative and unique as writing poetry.

A Patent Lie: How Yahoo Weaponized My Work (Andy Baio) [via Wired]

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Remembering Jack Kevorkian

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"Dying Is Not A Crime" -J. Kevorkian

Today sees the passing of one of modern history’s great champion for personal freedom and human rights, Jack Kevorkian. I understand my politics at times are difficult for some to understand but hear me out before you dismiss this post based on what is not really a controversial statement at all.

Known to many as ‘Doctor Death’ for his public endorsement and practice of voluntary euthanasia. Much attention is paid in the United States in the handling of abortion issues, and how it pertains to government regulation over the physical bodies of its citizens.

The Supreme Court of the United States issued the following opinion in it’s 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey citing the Fourteenth Amendment:

“If the right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.”

I, for one, do not see any fundamental distinctions between freedom to choose what is best for someone’s own body as it pertains to abortion, euthanasia, getting a piercing or tattoo, or even wearing a hijab. These issues are not within the scope of the powers given by the people to our government. Understandably, euthanasia, abortion, or any of these are not one-size-fits-all solutions but no founding father would have willingly waived these decisions to an appointed authority. Additionally, with the freedom over healthcare becoming a keystone issue in US Politics in recent years, it seems counter-intuitive that we should continue to support selective freedom in selecting healthcare options.

Rest In Peace to a misunderstood man who was not afraid to take a controversial stand and surrender his freedom hoping to expand individual rights.


An Open Letter to Creative Loafing / The Mayor of Ponce

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Dear J. ‘Mayor of Ponce’ Winter, Creative Loafing Atlanta, Editor-In-Chief Mara Shalhoup, Music Editor Rodney Carmichael, and anybody else involved or who has a vested interest:

It seems the topic of ‘dubstep’ has been a popular topic of conversation in our city lately. As somebody who has been involved in the positive promotion of this in Atlanta from the beginning, I would appreciate the opportunity to lend a constructive retort to the article ‘Last Night Dubstep Molly Saved My Life‘ that appeared in your publication starting 2-March 2011. Please allow me to tell a different story about dubstep in Atlanta to contrast your example.

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Flying In The Security Theater

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I haven’t flown since these policies were put into place, so let me be state early that I cannot speak from my own experience. (I’m sure when that changes you will hear all about it) What I can comment on however, is being treated like a criminal when there is no evidence. I hate people asking for my receipt when walk 15 yards from a register to a door leaving a retailer, and I detest the notion of other people looking under my clothes or touching my person in the name of “protection” and safety. I go to a lot of large music concerts, and yes I understand the need to search for contraband and alcohol brought in from the outside however never in my years of attending these and similar events have I seen a widespread complaint, let alone entire movements outlining overarching privacy concerns and sentiments of widespread feelings of violation. Wasting my time and destroying my privacy and assuming I’m a hellbent terrorist until proven otherwise does not make me feel safer. Innocent until proven guilty, unless you want to board this plane.

I’m not going to get into a long tirade about the nebulous health issues regarding the use of backscatter radiation to screen passengers or widespread groping occurring in our nation’s airports. These topics have been covered at great length by numerous other more informed and reputable sources than myself. I would however like to take a moment to at least bring the issue to light here and provide some links to some informative websites and groups that are mobilizing travelers, airline employees, and concerned citizens alike as encouragement to readers to take advantage of their voice, and experience the benefits of observing successful efficacy. It’s about time the notions of “social networking” and “crowd sourcing” were leveraged to bring about some substantial and relevant change within society.

Nude TSA Photos Leak Online [via Gizmodo]
The TSA is not compulsory [via Washington Examiner]
TSA Accosts Three Year Old Girl
Full Frontal Nudity Does Not Make Us Safer: Abolish The TSA [via Forbes]
National Opt-Out Day ( Website | Twitter )
DontScanMe
File a Report With EPIC

If anybody has their own stories or opinions to share here, I’d love to hear some first-hand accounts (no pun intended) in the comments if you feel so inclined. Oh the TSA also runs a blog, while not highly informative they have at least have an Agency approved troll thread

Edit: Thanks to my good friend @chumprock over on Twitter for linking an article from Jeffrey Goldberg posted this time two years ago outlining just how easy these ‘rules’ are to circumvent

Read ‘The Things He Carried‘ [via The Atlantic]

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‘Live From London’ – In Review

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This past week, I had the fortunate ability to catch some fantastic DJing in Atlanta courtesy of the Converse sponsored afterparty series for the XX US Tour. I forget how exactly I found out about it; it was pointed out in another blog that this show was not heavily promoted. I put up a post on a local electronic music forum and nobody had any clue about this event happening, however the line-up of Dusk & Blackdown, Cooly G, and Fantastic Mr. Fox had already been confirmed.

Cooly G opened the night with a phenomenal set of contemporary sounding house oriented tunes, very reminiscent of the current output of Hyperdub, the label she has the most notoriety representing, An hour of busy drums and rolling basslines unlike any of the house or ‘funky’ sets I have seen in Atlanta this year, to say I was impressed with her selections during her set that evening would be a cruel understatement. Large up to Cooly G, as she put the whole thing down on her UStream channel, go watch the evening here. You can probably catch me, Infernal Techno, and GrimeSpree all dancing like madmen on the empty dancefloor early on. I also caught a short video of part of Cooly G’s short set later in the evening. Fantastic Mr. Fox played shortly thereafter and unfortunately his set seemed plagued by numerous sound issues and was unfortunately cut short. Memorable selections from his set included some recent Mount Kimble, and the always enjoyable Burial — which I’m sure was a first for MJQ’s soundsystem.

A highlight for me personally this evening however was the opportunity to finally meet garage / dubstep icons Dusk + Blackdown. I have obviously been a fan of their work for a long time, especially more so now as my appreciation for the UK Garage roots of dubstep has increased exponentially over the past year. Additionally, my infamy surrounding the creation of the Brostep Forum led me to start to speak to them around this time last year; it’s always excellent to meet some wonderful people face-to-face after a long period of back and forth time online. On top of some excellent conversation between Dusk, Blackdown, Distal and myself, I got to see Dusk and Blackdown play a wonderful garage oriented set in Atlanta. Blackdown gives a much better rundown of his experiences on this tour on his own blog, including a very humbling short snippet regarding our short conversation last Wednesday evening.

Granted all this went down on a school night; it is rare for me to make it out during the week and especially for as long as I did. I am sad I could not stay til the very end but 2:30 on a night where the club closes around 3:00 AM is pretty good considering my legitimate work day starts at 9:00 AM. Thanks much to Converse for making this event available to everybody in Atlanta, especially for free. Thanks to all the artists involved, Cooly G, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Jamie XX, and Dusk and Blackdown for bringing some truly progressive and unique sounds to MJQ Concourse and Atlanta as a whole, we are extremely appreciative of what we witnessed.

Cooly G UStream of 10/6/2010 at MJQ Concourse
‘The XX Afterparty US Tour’ [via Blackdown]
‘Cooly G and Blackdown 10/6′ [via Donuts]
iPhone Video of Cooly G 10/6/2010 at MJQ Concourse

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