Then it must be May Day!

Hazel Dickens is a longtime union supporter and feminist folksinger. She comes from a family of miners in West Virginia, and has lent her voice to the cause of workers’ rights - especially women workers - countless times. She appears in Barbara Kopple’s incredible documentary Harlan Country USA, about a miners’ strike that ended in tragedy, and some of her most powerful songs are collected on the amazing album Coal Mining Women, and are a potent reminder that women have ALWAYS been part of the fight for safe working conditions, shorter hours and decent pay. She also, I should mention, has a voice that could raise the dead (and invariably makes me cry like a babe). Plus, in an industry (the music one, I mean) where youth is god and death may as well occur at 30, it’s really important to remember that there are people out there who have been doing it and doing it well since before you were born, you little pischer. So, as she says in Woman Coal Miner Blues, if you can’t stand by her, don’t stand in her way.

A mystery person (thank you, whoever you are!) has created this fan video featuring Dickens singing union organizer Joe Hill’s song Rebel Girl. It opens with a speech by feminist labour leader Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, and the images are all of women involved with the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World, or Wobblies). It’s really worth checking out the video’s original source for brief bios of all the women pictured. Powerful stuff. What? No no, I just have something in my eye, that’s all.

I’ve also posted the first half of a video biography of Hazel Dickens after the cut. Happy May Day!
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Time for a little shameless (heh heh) self-promotion (sort of): if you like your media free from corporate manipulation, remember that even free media ain’t free to run, and support your local community media outlet. CKUT, Montreal’s community radio station, is holding its annual funding drive, where the station raises money to cover its operating costs. Because they’re not backed by either large corporations or advertising, grassroots media organizations (like Shameless!) need the support of the public to exist. So if you have any cash to spare after donating to your fave feminist publication, consider helping out CKUT or an independent media outlet in your neighborhood. We need these organizations to ensure we continue to have a diversity of voices in the media landscape. And honestly, where else are you going to hear MIA and Team Dresch back to back? Clear Channel? Methinks not.

portrait of the author as a budding radio enthusiast, circa 1988

For Venus’s annual funding show, we’re going to be doing live karaoke in studio, with special guests from some of our favorite local bands, like Thundrah, Kickers, 100 Common Disasters, and more. The more pledges we get, the more we’ll embarrass ourselves! Tune in this Thursday from noon to 2 PM. Everyone wins!

In my years as a community-radio DJ, I’ve received many a promotional CD for a female artist with that most backhanded of compliments in its promo material: “Not your usual female singer-songwriter”. Okay, I take most music journalism about as seriously as I take Stephen Colbert’s presidential campaign, but this is annoying for so many reasons. What is “your usual female singer-songwriter”, and what’s so bad about that? Did Joni Mitchell really traumatize so many children of baby-boomers that we can no longer conceive of the (extremely broad!) category of female singer-songwriters as anything but derivative and banal? Humph. (Not that I think Joni is derivate and banal. But admittedly she did spawn a legion of copycats who occasionally make me want to poke my ears out.)

Okay. Now that I have that off my chest, here’s my recommendation for this week: Finders Keepers has released a compilation of female singer-songwriters called Bearded Ladies that is anything but banal, gooey, or involving songs about menstruation. What’s nice about this comp is that it seems to have no driving theme other than the unusual and the awesome - the songs date from the 1970s to last year, and the artists are from the USA, France, Turkey, and elsewhere. All the songs could be roughly categorized as folk(ish), but they all decidedly push the boundaries of what can be done with a guitar and a single voice. For instance, Peachtree, the contribution from Lispector (which you can listen to on the Finders Keepers site) is from 2007 but could have come from decades ago, with its 4-track warmth and meandering style.

Other contributors include Turkish protest singer Selda, Wendy & Bonnie, Speck Mountain, and the indescribable Brigitte Fontaine. In fact, I’m not even going to try to describe her. Just watch the video below the cut. Laurie Anderson, eat your heart out.
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When Anna posted about how “nothing says First Day Of Summer…like Cannonball by The Breeders” I couldn’t agree more, and all I could think about was this track:

I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself.

To me, nothing says First Day Of Summer (okay, not officially, but have you been outside today?) like Cannonball by The Breeders. Oh, the Deal sisters and their greasy hair. Oh, 1993. Fifteen years and this song still makes me grin like a maniac. This video, incidentally, was directed by Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, along with Spike Jonze.

I am all about supporting the amazing musical talent we have in the Native community across what is now known as “North America”. And this is the kind of show you don’t want to miss out on.

The Trail of Broken Mics tour features a number of incredible musicians who are trailblazers in their genres and are representing their communities with pride. The tour will begin on April 18 in Tempe, Arizona with stops in New Mexico before making it’s way to Canada on May 15 in Edmonton.

The phenomenal lineup starting in the U.S.A. includes Quese Imc - Manik - Dead Indians - Daybi - Os12 - Wab Kinew - Tactile - Lakota Jonez - Night Shield - Yaiva - DJ Abel Rock - Team Rezofficial - ill Methods - Definition Rare - and Tinsel Korey.

For more information and a full list of Canadian stops, show them some love on their MYSPACE.

This tour is going to be nothing short of WOW and showcase some of the best up and comings who are producing awesome work and changing the world while they are at it. Start listening to any one of the lyrics in any of their songs and you’ll see.

I’ll post an update as the tour winds it’s way to Canada.

Check out the cool promo video after the jump.(more inside…)

I’ve written before about how amazing d’bi.young.anitafrika is. See for yourself:

From Open Book Toronto:

d’bi.young.anitafrika is the author of Art On Black (Women’s Press, 2005) and blood.claat (Playwrights Canada Press, 2007). Her most recent is book, rivers… and other blackness… between us (Canadian Scholars Press, 2007). In this video, d’bi.young “talks about growing up working class in Jamaica, and taking ownership, through her work, of who she is….” The video, directed by Frances-Anne Solomon, is from LiteratureAlive.ca.

Very excited about Toronto’s Crystal Castles’ debut self-titled album - I was surprised to hear it was their first full-length release, since I’ve been hearing about this band for a while and nodding furiously along with various songs on their Myspace page. One reviewer described it (somewhat derisively) as “like being high on LSD and playing an old school video game”, a description with which I concur (but without the derision. Acid and Supermario, yeah). But it goes beyond gimmick - in particular, I like how they mostly reject standard song structures and, heck, lyrics in general, with singer Alice Glass warbling what sounds like a made-up language - much like some of my other favorite bands, Gang Gang Dance and Les Georges Leningrad.

Airwar is my top pick right now, and while there’s no official band video, the grab-bag that is YouTube has provided us with this fan video so we will have something to do with our eyes while we listen to the song. Hope you like ballroom dancing.

*apparently the band name is a reference to the home of She-Ra, the self-styled cartoon Princess of Power (were she and He-Man dating, or were they just friends?).

In other news, Montreal noise monsters Aids Wolf play tonight at La Sala Rossa, 4848 St. Laurent, with Black Feelings, Japanther, and Sightings. Be prepared for a serious blistering. I swear, sometimes I think singer Chloe Lum is channelling Yoko Ono. Video for Spit Tastes Like Metal after the cut.

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Ok, so you may already know that I spend a lot of time trying to rationalise my love for the Spice Girls, and convincing people that teen dance movies are the vanguard front of the revolution, but you may not know that I have an undying love for Mariah Carey.

Earlier this week MC knocked Elvis out of the #2 spot for most number of #1 singles and is now second only to the Beatles. This is what she had to say:

“I really can never put myself in the category of people who have not only revolutionised music but also changed the world,” she said…”That’s a completely different era and time …I’m just feeling really happy and grateful.”
…
Carey said being in such company was gratifying not only because of her personal success, but what it meant for women and minorities.

Score one for the ladies (and the ladies of colour, and the mixed race ladies, and the ladies who’ve struggled with mental health…)!

Watch the video for her new single “Touch My Body” after the jump. I could go on at length about how it joyfully celebrates sexuality, pokes fun at diva conventions, and confronts the stereotype that ladies don’t know tech talk, but I won’t push it…

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