Pop-Culture | Posted by Julie Z on 06/3/2012
Support Women Artists Sunday: Ana Tijoux
Chile’s Ana Tijoux exploded onto the scene in 2010 with a sick, tongue-twistin flow that immediately captured the ears of unsuspecting listeners, regardless of the language flowing through their heads. Her style is utterly laid-back, nonchalant, and smooth – and then she’ll hit you over the head with a mad rapid-fire lyrical spit that will leave even Spanish speakers scratching their head thinking she must have learned Chinese.
With horns and strings blazing, her aptly titled album 1977 takes the listener back to the “golden-age” of hip-hop. Tijoux is determined to keep that style at the forefront of hip-hop, using the past while speaking in the present in order to build for the future. And if the world is forced to learn a little Spanish along the way, all the …
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Feminism | Posted by Dinayuri R on 05/28/2012
The Freedom of Having Your Own Space and Your Own Income
The issues that Courtney Martin expresses in her article, “‘You Are the NOW of Now!’ The Future of (Online) Feminism”, are closely related to Virginia Woolf’s own theories in her book, A Room of One’s Own. Martin gets straight to the point in her article as she states in her opening paragraphs, “The belief that online activism isn’t ‘real’ or deserving of financial support isn’t just an insult to entrepreneurial bloggers and organizers; it’s creating a crisis in the feminist movement.”
Though she was not necessarily talking about online activism through blogging or the feminist movement, Woolf would definitely agree with Martin.
In A Room of One’s Own, Woolf’s thesis is simply that in order for women to be able to produce literature, they need their …
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Pop-Culture | Posted by Julie Z on 05/27/2012
Support Women Artists Sunday: Hello Saferide
Hello Saferide’s cheery pop/rock is primarily the work of Annika Norlin, a Swedish music journalist and radio DJ who launched her songwriting career in the early 2000s. Although Norlin had written songs in the past, she hadn’t released any material until 2004, when the burgeoning songwriter uploaded her first recordings to the Internet. She quickly received label interest, and in September 2005, the Swedish label Razzia Records released Introducing… Hello Saferide. A live band was quickly assembled, and the newly expanded Hello Saferide toured throughout Asia, Brazil, and Europe in support of the debut album.
In addition to issuing a batch of EPs and singles, Norlin released a Swedish-language record under the name Säkert! in 2007. The album went gold and won two Grammis, Sweden’s equivalent of the Grammy Award. …
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Pop-Culture | Posted by Julie Z on 05/20/2012
Support Women Artists Sunday: El Perro del Mar
El Perro del Mar is the musical work of Swedish songstress Sarah Assbring. Drawing influence from ’60s girl-group music, church hymns, buddhist mantras, and twee pop, Assbring makes slow, sad, achingly beautiful pop-songs that favor simple repetition over overblown ostentation.
Assbring (born in 1977) was raised in Gothenburg, and was exposed to music at an early age via the record collection of her jazz-loving father. From her childhood, Assbring wanted to “first and foremost” be a singer. “I remember being amazed by Annie Lennox and Kate Bush as a kid,” Assbring has recalled, to Identity Theory. “I was totally into their way of going in and out of different personalities, almost as a form of acting when singing.”
Assbring abandoned early piano lessons because of their “restrictive” nature, and took …
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Pop-Culture | Posted by Julie Z on 05/13/2012
Support Women Artists Sunday: April Smith and the Great Picture Show
“I was the surprise,” says April Smith, the bonus baby her parents won late and whose moxie and dash astounded everyone she met. Today, she remains a welcome bolt: a loose-lipped, cocked-hip gal whose music and mien could buoy the Titanic.
As she took her place in the family, April developed a muscular, mellifluous voice and high-flying showmanship. Her mom adored Queen (”If you didn’t know a Brian May solo in the first few notes, you weren’t her child”) and her dad gave her his old 8-track tape player, letting her buy Elvis and Led Zeppelin tapes at yard sales. During summer vacations with Aunt Cricket and Uncle Fred, April discovered songwriters like Tom Waits and Kinky Friedman, stealing Fred’s cassettes and absorbing observational story-songs in a backyard tent. Waits …
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Creative | Posted by Julie Z on 05/6/2012
Support Women Artists Sunday: Polly Scattergood
Polly Scattergood (born 1987, Colchester, Essex, England), is a British singer-songwriter. She has been described as ethereal, dark, intense and quirky, while her musical style has been described as “early 21st century electro-dance-pop of London proper”. Scattergood’s debut album, self-titled, was released in spring 2009 in the United Kingdom and United States. Scattergood attended the Brit School where she wrote 800 songs. After graduation she caught the attention of music industry executive Neil Ferris who took on her management. Ferris then introduced Scattergood to Daniel Miller head of Mute Records. He led her to her current producer Simon Fisher Turner. Scattergood describes herself as a storyteller. “I write about emotions and moments, not all are biographical.”
via Wikipedia
Please Don’t Touch
I Hate The Way
Polly Scattergood on iTunes: 
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Pop-Culture | Posted by Julie Z on 04/22/2012
Support Women Artists Sunday: Nite Jewel
Nite Jewel is the performing moniker of Ramona Gonzalez. She is a composer, songwriter, and multimedia artist from Los Angeles, California, where she has exhibited a number of video and sound installation pieces. A recent sound installation entitled “The Question Concerning Technology” has been transcribed to traditional notation by Human Ear Music founder, Jason Grier. She has collaborated with Julia Holter and Cole M.G.N. of Haunted Graffiti, curated two exhibitions at the Tiny Creatures gallery, and performed the work of Michael Pisaro. She was a philosophy student at Occidental College in Eagle Rock, Los Angeles.
The Nite Jewel project is a remarkable combination of revisionist Bronx pop and hazy musical impressionism. Like her ex-pop peers, Ariel Rosenberg and Geneva Jacuzzi, she records solely on portable 8-track cassette deck, often composing …
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Pop-Culture | Posted by Julie Z on 04/8/2012
Support Women Artists Sunday: Girl in a Coma
Girl in a Coma formed when best friends Jenn Alva and Phanie Diaz met in Jr-high school art class over a mutual love of the Smiths, Nirvana, and skipping school. All they needed was a singer. Enter Nina Diaz, Phanie’s little sister. Nina blew them away with her mesmerizing vocals, a powerful voice some critics have compared to Bjork, Patsy Cline, and the band’s hero, Morrissey himself. The trio practiced for three years, gigged at local punk rock clubs, played a High School talent show, one kid’s birthday party, and then hit the road, building up a solid and loyal fan base across the country.
In 2006, the Girls played for Joan Jett and long-time songwriting partner and producer, Kenny Laguna, at New York’s Knitting Factory as part of a …
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