Recapping Some Recent Music News
It has been an eventful recent past for music listeners. First: our mother of otherness, Ms. MIA, recently brought a child into the world, as I’m sure you’ve heard. I can’t really imagine growing up in a house where one’s mother is an MC with semi/pseudo radical politics and one’s father is a rock musician (Ben Brewer from The Exit), but no doubt the boy will have access to a cornucopia of colourful costumes and expensive guitars, not to mention a sense of entitlement to the privileged status of “global citizen.” But yes, a hearty congratulations to the happy couple.
In much sadder news, Gang Gang Dance, one of my more favourite recent so-called experimental acts, whose self-titled debut in 2004 was one of my favourite records of that year, had all of their gear destroyed in a fire. They were forced to cancel a European tour. Fire is, of course, a major destructive force in artistic history. It destroyed the Library of Alexandria, the homes of numerous notable artists who lived in Chicago during the Great Fire there in 1871, and of course all the museums and galleries and schools in Iraq during the American invasion of 2003, and during their subsequent occupation. Hopefully, GGD will be able not only to recover from this event but use it as a means of reshaping their sound so it is henceforth incendiary (fight fire with fire, as they say), and indestructible.
Last, but certainly not least, one of my favourite Canadian chanteurs, and certainly one of my favourite Canadian poets and writers (of which there are, frankly, very few brilliant ones and many mediocre choices), the one and only Leonard Cohen, is set to play Coachella in the spring. Yeah, I thought it was kind of strange, too. Not because he’s 74 years old, or because he hasn’t played festivals enormous venues in the past, but because his will be a truly melancholic contrast to the others on the bill, like The Killers, for instance. (Does Leonard Cohen listen to the Killers? I doubt it. I hope not.) There are several other pieces of news, but these three caught my attention. Forgive me if they are a little late in coming, but I thought I would at least inform all the tortoises like me out there. Y’all have a good week, now.
MIA-Boyz (Hatchmatik Remix)
Leonard Cohen – Ain\'t No Cure For Love
GGD – First Communion
Tags: news
