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.
“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.
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.
Two years ago, a group of ten like-minded individuals came together with the goal of bringing performers of a niche style of music to Atlanta. This ‘meeting of the minds’ was nothing glamorous; a mere group of friends hoping to pool resources and promote a relatively unknown style of music. In February of 2009, Bazzaar was the host to Dutch native 2562. It was, by all accounts, a successful event that brought out a wide selection of mature and responsible adults to a nightclub to enjoy a musical performance. Not that much different from happens one doorway north from Bazzaar’s former location.
Two years later Atlanta Dubstep is a licensed and legitimate business in the state of Georgia. It is an organization that, while self-sufficient, does not make nearly enough to support the members who make the events happen. We have been fortunate enough the success of our events afforded us the opportunity to purchase our own soundsystems, and continue booking an internationally recognized roster of talent. Despite all this hard work and gain, at the end of the day all the members of the group are professionals beyond our involvement in nightlife, we engage these efforts out of our own desire. Nobody in Atlanta Dubstep is reaping any personal gain financially or otherwise as a result of organizing events. Thankfully, Atlanta has been very receptive to our efforts – and as member of the group I am extremely grateful for the growth that our events attendees have helped us achieve. To anybody who is reading this who has supported Atlanta Dubstep, I hope we continue to delight everybody and you all understand how grateful we are of the support.
The organization, while not perfect, does strive for a high level of professionalism. With the name ‘Atlanta Dubstep,’ we realize how we present the group, and our events, to outside talent reflects upon our city. As a member of the group I have worked hard to make something that I am passionate about gain widespread exposure in Atlanta. We have worked hard as individuals and as a group to create a product and a brand that does its best to conduct itself in a professional manner, ensuring the safety of our patrons and ultimately the longevity of our events.
It pains me in a manner difficult to express in words to read the misrepresentation of other individuals’ hard work – undermining another’s efforts because writers portray non-music related activities occurring at what appeared to be an illegally held event. Now, I am not so naive that I believe these types of events do not exist, nor do I feign ignorance that some individuals may engage in seemingly questionable behavior. This is not accurately reporting the story the headline portrays, instead it devolves into sensationalism. Your website and publication has a ‘Sex & Vice’ section, also a ‘Comedy‘ section. If that is what this article intended to be and it was simply misfiled, then clearly this was all one big misunderstanding.
All this being said, my offer still stands. There is a great organization within Atlanta conducting ‘dubstep’ parties with some level of self-respect, and respect for their attendees, and our partners who make our events possible. I would appreciate an opportunity to show you a proper representation of mature, responsible dubstep oriented events that occur regularly in Atlanta. That is assuming of course your publication is interested in printing journalism, and a lazy attempt to mimic Hunter S. Thompson in the context of 2011 dance music.
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.
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
If everybody had the same taste, we wouldn’t have to experience the displeasure that comes when a music critic dislikes a band that means a lot to us. We also wouldn’t need music critics. We need criticism because we are different from one another.
I know I’m a snob. I’m picky about people, music, food, and all sorts of other irrelevant crap. I don’t do it to be an asshole, and it’s never intended to be malicious. Hell, to be honest, I don’t even really care if people agree with me. I like what I like and I’m flattered that on occasion people are interested in hearing my opinion. I always try to present things in an informative manner, and judging by the response recently, some people enjoy it. If that makes me a hater, so be it. I myself have haters, it’s excellent; they day everybody likes what I’m doing and it’s perceived I am making no mistakes is when I’ll really begin to worry.
That’s a pretty simplistic way of putting it I suppose. Good friend, and blogger SNF recently sent me an interesting article on the rise and acceptance of subjectivity as it relates to music criticism. As he is a writer for Big Up Magazine, and his own site dubstepped.net, we often times find ourselves in conversation over the relevance, and importance of our own personal slants as it relates to our writing. It’s quite long, but is definitely worth it if you have the time.
In addition, Matt Shadetek’s Twitter account today reposted an article he contributed to his own blog earlier this month on the importance of “haters” and criticism in general, and most importantly, how to embrace the critiques as an artist as opposed to constantly treating them as a threat to individuality and creativity.
Both of these are excellent reads for anybody claims that I, or anybody else is a hater for no good reason.
Thirty two years later, this still accurately describes what I see happening in the bass music movement. RIP Joe Strummer, know that some of us still take the potential power of music seriously.
“He [Daedelus] likes Hyperdub’s Ikonika, but doesn’t “feel like she’s embodying a female perspective” musically. Other London-based female dubstep producers, Dot and Subeena, are “doing it maybe a little bit better.”
The above quote comes from a recent interview with west-coast producer, by Rosie McLean for The Skinny. I find it rather specious the title of this aforementioned interview is Thrill of Invention, because the gender-biased observation stated by Daedelus, for me, severely damages any credibility regarding his inclinations towards progressiveness or invention
Author’s Update: As noted by Daedelus in the comments below, Rosie McLean has all but retracted the quote in whole noting that it puts the quote severely out of context. I am perserving the comment as it was originally published online as my feelings below are not wholly a response to the interview in question however, an overarching mentality within the realm of electronic dance music.
My opinions on gender roles in music should not be a mystery to many; a number of my readers are familiar with the short-lived Brostep Forum meme I created as a response to what appeared to be a comical aesthetic shift in the dubstep underground towards overly masculine and aggressive styles. It is a correct assumption that I created that site in an attempt to make fun of something everybody was aware of, but at the same time there was a hope it would awaken those with similar sentiments to my own. In short, unless it intends to explore it at it’s central theme, gender should not dictate stylistic integrity.
Before the jump, for the full opinion check out some Ikonika if you haven’t already:
I’m going to just go ahead and say it: I’m really sick of the assumption that dance music needs to be overly aggressive, masculine, rough, or any other like synonym I am neglecting to include. It was especially pervasive in drum-and-bass. As much as I hate people trying to parallel drum-and-bass with dubstep, I am fearful that the same mentality is going to reduce something I have a passion for to a self-referencing joke, a second time around. Look at a majority of posts on dubstep YouTube videos, forum threads, event names, and track titles. There is a constant insinuation towards violence and aggression. It iss not only far too acceptable for my liking but becoming standard.
At the risk of being called a hypocrite, allow me to clarify; I enjoy Distance, Pinch, Loefah and the ‘harder’ side of dubstep however these have no context without the balance of artists like Pangaea, I.D., or Martyn. To me, tracks like “Mud” are as integral to the understanding that is dubstep as “Memories”. There is nothing feminine about admitting you have soul, passion, or explore emotions other than anger and aggression. If you don’t see it this way I won’t make an attempt to change you but instead just feel pity that you are depriving yourself of fulfillment.
Where did the myth start that a producer or DJ’s aesthetic is to be dictated by their gender? It’s 2010, I think it’s pretty well established by this point that nineteenth century expectations of gender roles are out-the-window. I don’t aspire to follow an expectation that my styles are dictated by my biology. When I set out to play a DJ set, record a mix, or do a radio show I am not thinking “let’s do this for the men/women” nor “let’s do this because I ama male/female.” For me, performance is an opportunity to share art I have an appreciation for.
If Daedelus thinks Ikonika is a gender-bending producer than what are his impressions of Geiom and the Berkane Sol label? I absolutely love what Geiom, but recently a majority of his tunes feature stunning female vocal leads over dancefloor poly-rhythms. Is he wrong for not making tunes that sound like a construction site run through a sequencer? I certainly hope not, he is an artist pursuing a sound that is distinctly their own, and as artists that is what we should be commending each other for.
First off, my sincerest apologies to anybody who has been a long time supporter of rightClique, either by being a part of our events we did in Atlanta, or through supporting us by reading the website we maintained over at rClique.org. It was a fun time, I learned a lot about myself, collaborating with other people, and grew monumentally as a performing artist gaining a valuable amount of insight through the experiences of playing and hosting events.
Unfortunately, as the adage says, all good things must come to an end, and so is the case with the rightClique blog. Due to some internal conflict that came about as a result of one individuals theft of operating capital, DMCA violations on our website, and lack of communication with other board members, we felt we needed to separate ourselves professionally and artistically from the artist ‘Merkatroid’ aka DANCEFORMERS. As a result of his actions, we removed his access from our WordPress hosted blog, as well as a number of shared accounts on social networking sites such as Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook.
Upon his observation of these changes, he made it clear to the rightClique readership that he was no longer affiliated with our group, offered his website as a location to keep in touch with his artistic endeavors. We wished him the best, and kept the comments active on our sites in order to ensure traffic intended for him would be routed appropriately. We did then, and still do continue to wish him success in this path.
Unfortunately, his separation from rightClique did not last long; within 48 hours of this message being made available online, the domain rClique.org was forwarded from it’s existing location to Merkatroid’s personal website / blog, where a post outlining his reasoning for discontinuing his relationship with us was outlined at large; citing both professional and personal misunderstandings. We offered repeated attempts to negotiate a solution amicable to all parties involved but were unclear to come to a satisfactory resolution for either party.
As it stands now, with the domain name pointing to another address, no less than 27 individual email accounts are inaccessible, and, by all accounts forwarding to a mailbox within Merkatroid’s personal email hosting solution. This serves as a problem to a number of rightClique individuals who had been using the accounts as their main personal email accounts, and the addresses used on a number of marketing information as well. [email protected], an account set up to provide single-booking availability for all the members of rightClique is inaccessible to a majority of it’s members; leaving us unable to professionally contact anybody who has expressed interest in our artists. Personal online accounts that rightClique members have assigned to their rClique.org email are unable to be recovered or changed due to the account holder’s inability to access their email accounts.
It has taken us two weeks and a few dozen emails back and forth for us to be given a just a window of opportunity to make any necessary changes under these accounts, and Merkatroid, who in the past few weeks cited his own lack of involvement with rightClique is demanding the dissolution of the website, domain name, and all affiliated projects. I am quite reluctant to accept this as any form of resolution just based on the amount of time, energy, and money I spent on this project; and the notion that anybody would be allowed to continually take, and make demands despite their public announcement that they opt to not be involved.
Do not fret however; the rest of us who were involved in rightClique up to this point are as committed as ever to bringing you cutting edge music, and some exciting events back to Atlanta. rightClique is about more than a logo on a bumper-sticker, or a marginally popular blog. I don’t want to say “we will be back” because the reality is, we have yet to go away.
