AWmusic

As a musician, life is driven by creation. An idea is sparked and a great degree of time and energy are spent to form the perfect reflection of that idea. Music is a shared thing – heart and soul gets poured into a song, hoping to capture the heart and soul of an audience. Music is a personal thing – a reflection of one’s emotion. A feeling that can’t quite be put into words can be shared through a melody. Music has also been known to help cure, becoming a form of therapy. There is something magical in music that can take your mind and body, a warming calm mixed with thrill shivers envelops the listener. But what happens when a song intended to help is used to hurt? When therapy becomes torture? When those intentions of comfort are flipped and turned into a means of no escape?

Since the end of the 1970’s, music has been used as a form of torture. Ear splitting decibels of sound are being blasted for weeks to months on end. While some may argue this is a “light” method of torture, the mental anguish this causes is almost incomparable, driving a person to near complete insanity. Throughout this so-called ‘war on terror’, music torture has grown in popularity in the secret CIA-run facilities as well as high profile military prisons. Although President Obama has taken steps to the closure of such secret prisons and made strong statements against the use of torture, over 20,000 prisoners are being held in prisons not mentioned in the executive orders and no mention of music torture has been made.

A ‘silent protest’ has been started against music torture by zero dB, a website started by Reprieve (a legal charity organization for human rights) and supported by the Musicians Union. Artists such as Dizzee Rascal, Elbow, Massive Attack and Doves (to name a few) have taken part by uploading soundless video clips as a petition to silence. In a statement, Reprieve’s director Clive Stafford Smith urged others to take part, saying “Torture should have been left in the Middle Ages; yet it rears its head in new forms. Music torture tears people apart mentally – as much as any razorblade. I encourage everyone to join our silent protest against the use of music torture.”

As the zero dB website states “It’s (music torture) continuing use is not only a violation of the human rights of prisoners, but also of the rights of musicians who have had their music used.”

I, for one, am signing this petition to abolish using music as torture and strongly urge everyone to do the same. Help keep this a form of art and and not a means to destruct.

Click here for the zero dB website.

Dizzee Rascal and Armand Van Helden – Bonkers
Massive Attack Feat. Terry Callier – Live With Me

There are was some mild raining but nothing too worrisome. By the time we signed in and went inside the rain got a little bit worse and due to having just a cap on and being in a t-shirt we sought shelter in the Nokia DJ Tent. I didn’t mind checking out the music in the DJ tent in the first place but the real problem is that most of the people had their backs turned to them (when we were there) and the rain technically wasted the purpose of the tent though getting away from the rain was a major factor.

The first artist that I saw which hit the stage at 3PM was Dizzee Rascal a rap artist from the UK who was a winner of the Mercury Prize in 2003 and has been critically acclaimed for some time. The crowd was both familiar with his songs and screamed frantically with Dizzee would shout for some crowd noise backed him. It was generally the typical rap concert in my opinion with Dizzee’s support being kind of annoying. After every song, he would yell, “Make some fuckin’ noise”. I think after the 3rd time he said that I was pretty annoyed. Two other guys in front of me were commenting that maybe he should change it up a bit and get creative with trying to inspire the crowd to be even louder. The point being made though is that the crowd was already well into his performance so Dizzee’s support asking for some noise about 10 times was pointless and cliché.

I personally didn’t know Dizzee was so loved by the critics and I wasn’t wowed by his performance. He did work the crowd a bit and had some songs worth mentioning.

The next band, Vampire Weekend was clearly the reason I decided to go to Rogers Picnic in the first place. Ezra Koenig was in short-shorts, which he called a bathing suit, maybe, he was going to bathe in the rain? Anyway having caught Vampire Weekend at the Horseshoe, I was quite aware at hw good their live performance was already. They played a new song, which featured some fun singing from both Rostam and Chris. I have no idea what the title is but it was a fun song. They were great live and had a lot of fans singing and jumping around. Otherwise, it felt like a short set but were very good nonetheless.
MP3: One (Blake’s Got A New Face) by Vampire Weekend

The next band was Animal Collective and while I know about them, I’m not exactly their biggest fan. Their music is mainly weird and they seemed out of place at Roger’s Picnic. They definitely were more suited to Pitchfork’s Festival, which they played the day before. However, quite a few Animal Collective fans sang along. Animal Collective only came out with two of their members, with Noah Lennox aka Panda Bear and Avey Tare as the only members. The fans were generally quiet while Animal Collective played incredibly long tracks. The only track I knew beforehand was the song Comfy in Nautica. It was an alright performance but the crowd had blank stares for the most part. At the end of show, Animal Collective threw out T-shirts but Avey Tare didn’t have much of arm and could only throw them a few feet.
MP3:Comfy in Nautica by Panda Bear

The next band was Chromeo, from Montreal/New York, which had the crowd on fire. I may not be the biggest Chromeo fan but they had the type of performance that won people over. They kept things fun and a lot of the crowd was dancing. They occasionally threw drumsticks into the crowd, which kept everyone on their feet. They won over Kevin and in general, they were quite enjoyable which is important for a festival.
MP3: Fancy Footwork by Chromeo


Tokyo Police Club came out to one of the loudest cheers and has quite a few raucous fans. Overall, I was impressed with their guitarist, who played some awesome riffs occasionally. I had an issue with the guy behind me singing his lungs off lyric after lyric. In this case, this was bad for my impression of the band as lyrically it seemed weak and I could not judge how good the vocals were as Dave Monks singing was overshadowed by the overzealous fan (They haven’t seen this guide to not be a douchebag). They were alright, they didn’t change my opinion of the band though and it didn’t force me to like them at all.

Cat Power came out to a modest cheer but for the first 3 songs her performance seemed to lack an intimate feeling and it was something to just sit through. I absolutely had to leave early as my legs (specifically my ankles) gave out and I was forced to leave just as she was going to play Lost Someone. I wasn’t impressed with those 3 songs but I’m sure the show would have been much better had I stayed. Sorry Dallas Green.
MP3: Lost Someone by Cat Power

Out of all things from the festival, I was most impressed with the fans. The fans endured through the rough rain and still managed to provide much needed support. Crowd morale was generally quite high and an outdoor festival in the rain is something to be experienced once.

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