los anjalis

Kendrick Lamar tells the story behind “Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst” from his album Good Kid, m.A.A.d City. I knew it was deeply personal but didn’t realize this song embodied so much of Kendrick Lamar’s own transformation. If you haven’t listened to the actual song from the album, do that too, after watching this (it’s on youtube and elsewhere).

leng phe performs a keyboard/vocals cover of frank ocean’s Swim Good, and it reminds me how beautiful the lyrics are.

Rihanna threw me off guard with her two performances on Saturday Night Live yesterday. Phenomenal songs and performances. Below is “Diamonds”. Also, I want her hairstyle:

And “Stay”. Wasn’t ready for this one. Oh, my my.

Brilliant 36 min mix by DIPLO, entitled “got stoned & mixed really old records for half an hour.”

“Built for This” with Method Man, Freddie Gibbs, and Streetlife, was the first release from RZA’s soundtrack to Tarantino’s upcoming flick Man with the Iron Fists. This track has ridiculous bass and drum lines, and is quite addictive. It had me wanting more.

Well it’s time. The album’s due out in just a few days. Thanks to Pitchfork, you can stream the entire album until its release –> [Link]

I’ve been waiting patiently for El-P to release his next album. Really loved “I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead” (it was my anthem for a bit). And he’s great in concert too. So I’m excited about his first release off his upcoming album. The track is entitled Drones over Brooklyn. Here’s a link to a stream of the track on okayplayer, and El-P released the mp3 download of the track for free today. (link). Enjoy.

Lengthening Shadows is the first track that Joshua Eustis (of Telefon Tel Aviv) put together since the other half of the group passed away. It’s haunting and mesmerizing. And you get to have it all to yourself, to play on repeat or whenever you damn feel like it. Thanks to XLR8R, you can download it for free.

One day I’ll make music like Herbie Hancock.  (thx to James Neal for sharing this vid):

My latest post on LAist.com:  Tablacentric: Two-Week Long Residency Starts Tonight. Check out the events if you can, most of them are free. [And check out the LAist interview I conducted two years ago, with Robin Sukhadia, the organizer of Tablacentric].

no, i don’t know how dead people can dance. no, i don’t know why mj turned into a zombie. no, i don’t know what that blood stuff is coming out of the zombie’s mouth. no, I wouldn’t want to be a zombie. Yes, those zombies are …like harry potter inferi. no, i don’t know how to scream as long as that girl does. no, i don’t think mj can tame zombies.

- brownfemipower (who blogs at flipfloppingjoy), answering her really cute kids as they all watch michael jackson’s Thriller video. this was a facebook status update i had to copy here. it made me so happy.

THIS is creative. Cartoonists initiated a project to illustrate each of the songs on 69 Love Songs by the Magnetic Fields (official band website here). I especially love the cartoon for “Let’s pretend we’re bunny rabbits.”

I’ll eagerly await the cartoon for the song Absolutely Cuckoo:

Don’t fall in love with me yet
We’ve only recently met
True I’m in love with you but
you might decide I’m a nut
Give me a week or two to
go absolutely cuckoo
then, when you see your error,
then, you can flee in terror
like everybody else does
I only tell you this cause
I’m easy to get rid of
but not if you fall in love
Know now that I’m on the make
and if you make a mistake
my heart will certainly break
I’ll have to jump in a lake
and all my friends will blame you
There’s no telling what they’ll do
It’s only fair to tell you
I’m absolutely cuckoo

Yesterday I posted K’naan’s written perspective on environmental injustice, post-colonialism, and Somalia and pirates. Today, the one and only Mr Davey D posted two interviews he conducted with musician K’naan. The lessons for me: We are presented with such an unbearably skewed perspective in the West. And in the West our lives are worth more than others, and we can throw our shit wherever we want to, with no regard to the effects on the world. Here’s the 2nd video:

(the first video can be found here).

Musician K’naan (born in Somalia, grew up during the civil war, proponent of human rights) recently penned a piece on why the pirate situation in Somalia is at best quite complicated. His piece is extremely well-written and shares a perspective we don’t hear from the mainstream media’s reporting on the situation. Check out his piece, published at the Huffington Post. It deals with environmental injustices, the attitude of the west towards lives in post-colonial countries (worthless), and peoples’ self determination. I share it because this is a viewpoint that is completely missing from the general discussion in the West. (Side note: no pirate’s captives have been harmed as of yet).

Great thanks to K’naan, (check out his music website).

Here’s an excerpt from the article, check out the whole piece:

Already by this time, local fishermen in the coastline of Somalia have been complaining of illegal vessels coming to Somali waters and stealing all the fish. And since there was no government to report it to, and since the severity of the violence clumsily overshadowed every other problem, the fishermen went completely unheard.

But it was around this same time that a more sinister, a more patronizing practice was being put in motion. A Swiss firm called Achair Parterns, and an Italian waste company called Achair Parterns, made a deal with Ali Mahdi, that they were to dump containers of waste material in Somali waters. These European companies were said to be paying Warlords about $3 a ton, whereas to properly dispose of waste in Europe costs about $1000 a ton.

In 2004, after a tsunami washed ashore several leaking containers, thousand of locals in the Puntland region of Somalia started to complain of severe and previously unreported ailments, such as abdominal bleeding, skin melting off and a lot of immediate cancer-like symptoms. Nick Nuttall, a spokesman for the United Nations Environmental Program, says that the containers had many different kinds of waste, including “Uranium, radioactive waste, lead, Cadmium, Mercury and chemical waste.” But this wasn’t just a passing evil from one or two groups taking advantage of our unprotected waters. The UN envoy for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, says that the practice still continues to this day.

UPDATE (4/13): Johann Hari has a piece in Alternet today that shares a similar perspective: “We’re Being Lied to About Pirates.”

ok, second most, after my brother and my lovely friends: the wide varied options for experiencing live music on a DAILY basis, in this great city. Joshua Pressman, LAist music editor, threw down a sampling of this coming week’s live music.

this is the number 1 reason why we need more public transportation (and train stations) in los angeles. (cross-posted at Cure This, a website you should get to know)

Came across this video by the Gap Band. Love it. I can’t embed it (the youtube user has disabled embedding) so check out the link…

Two legends of American folk, Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen, sang “This Land is Your Land” (along with Pete Seeger’s grandson, Tao Rodríguez-Seeger) at the Obama Pre-Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial in DC. However, they say the original lyrics, which includes two verses by Woody Guthrie that are not as well known (the verses about private property and the hungry Americans at the relief office). There were half a million people in the audience at this performance, and the video is quite moving. We share it with you here. Feel free to sing along, it’s better that way.

This Land Is Your Land

This land is your land This land is my land
From California to the New York island;
From the red wood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and Me.

As I was walking that ribbon of highway,
I saw above me that endless skyway:
I saw below me that golden valley:
This land was made for you and me.

I’ve roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts;
And all around me a voice was sounding:
This land was made for you and me.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling,
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling,
As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting:
This land was made for you and me.

There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;
Sign was painted, it said private property;
But on the back side it didn’t say nothing;
That side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.

Here’s a link to Woody Guthrie’s website with lyrics. And the Wikipedia entry for This Land is Your Land, with a bit of history (including why Guthrie wrote the famous folk song).

“If I Had a Heart” by Fever Ray. First video from Fever Ray’s self-titled debut album.

“My umi says shine your light on the world. Shine your light for the world to see. My abi says shine your light on the world. Shine your light for the world to see. Oh black people to be free, to be free…”

My friend Ramdasha shares her favorite queer music of 2008 (not necessarily from queer identified artists).  She says, so aptly:

to me, music becomes queer by possessing that certain something that hits you right in the gayplace. the same place that tingled whenever the ellen show came on. That’s ellen the sitcom, not the talk show. i mean, bonus if they experiment with music norms but really, its like-does this make me feel awesome and gay? or does it make me feel like queen latifah playing will smith’s love interest in the fresh prince of belair. booored.

right on!  check out her selections.  they definitely hit me in the gayplace.

From LAist:

A group of classical musicians on their way to a Riverside Philharmonic concert this weekend were on the 91 freeway as the fire literally crossed it. They took this video (it gets crazy at 47 seconds in) and being orchestra geeks, most appropriately gave it the soundtrack of Shostakovich’s Symphony #10 (Mvt 2).

My brother and I were listening to the song “I go to the barn because i like the” by Band of Horses, and although the lyrics can have more than one meaning, we think it has to do with death.

What do you think? (video below is not their official video, someone just put the song to lyrics):

Well I’d like to think I’m the mess you’d wear with pride,
Like some empty dress on the bed you’ve laid out for tonight.
Maybe I’ll tell you sometime.

Time. Sometime.

And you were right.

Right.

You were right
Outside by your doorstep
In a worn out suit and tie
I’ll wait
For you to come down
Where you’ll find me
Where we’ll shine.

Oh.

I must say I am honored to be here with Senator Obama tonight. And once again I thank him for inviting me.

I’ve spent 35 years writing about America and its people. About what does it mean to be an American, what is our duty, our responsibility, what are our reasonable expectations when we live in a free society. I really never saw myself as partisan, but more as an advocate for a set of ideas: economic and social justice, America as a positive influence around the world, truth, transparency and integrity in government, the right of every American to have a job, a living wage, to be educated in a decent school, and to a life filled with the dignity of work, promise and the sanctity of home. These are the things that make a life. These are the things that build and define a society. And I think that these are the things that we think of the deepest level when we think about our freedom.

But today those freedoms have been damaged and curtailed by eight years of a thoughtless, reckless and morally adrift administration. So we’re at the crossroads today. And I spent most of my life as a musician measuring the distance in my music between the American dream and the American reality. And I look around today and for many Americans who are losing their jobs, or their homes or are seeing their retirement funds disappear and don’t have health care, who have been abandoned in our inner cities, the distance between that dream and that reality have grown greater and more painful than ever.

And I believe that Senator Obama has taken the measure of that distance in his own life and in his own work. And I believe that he understands in his heart the cost of that distance in blood and in suffering in the lives of everyday Americans. And I believe as president, he’ll work to bring that promise back to life, and into the lives of so many of our fellow Americans who have justifiably lost faith in its meaning.

Now in my job I travel around the world and I occasionally play to big stadiums or crowds like this, just like Senator Obama does. And I continue to find out that wherever I go, America remains a repository for people’s hopes, their desires. It remains a house of dreams. And a thousand George Bush’s and a thousand Dick Cheney’s will never be able to tear that house down. That’s something that only we can do, and we’re not going to let that happen.

This administration will be leaving office—that’s the good news. The bad new is that they’re going to be dumping in our laps the national tragedies of Katrina, and Iraq, and our financial crisis. Our house of dreams has been abused, it’s been looted, and it’s been left in a terrible state of disrepair. It needs defending against those who would sell it down the river for power, and for influence, for a quick buck. It needs strong arms, strong hearts, strong minds. We need someone with Senator Obama’s understanding, his temperateness, his deliberativeness, his maturity, his pragmatism, his toughness, and his faith. But most of all it needs us—it needs you and it needs me. And he’s gonna need us. Cause all that a nation has that keeps it from coming apart is the social contract between us, between its citizens. And whatever grace God has decided to impart to us, it resides in our connection with one another, and in our life and the hopes and the dreams of the man or the woman up the street or across town—that’s where we make our small claim upon heaven.

Now in recent years that social contract has been shredded. We look around today and we can see it shredding before our eyes. But tonight and today we are at the crossroads. We are at the crossroads, and it’s been a long, long, long time coming.

I’m honored to be here on the same stage as Senator Obama. From the beginning there’s been something in Senator Obama that’s called upon our better angels. And I suspect it’s because he’s had a life, where he’s had so often to call upon his better angels. And we’re going to need all the angels we can get on the hard road ahead. So Senator Obama, help us rebuild our house big enough for the dreams of all our citizens. It’s how well we accomplish this task that’ll tell us just what it does mean to be an American in the new century, what the stakes are and what it means to live in a free society.

So I don’t know about you, but I know I want by country back. I want my dream back. I want my America back! Now is the time to stand with Barack Obama and Joe Biden, roll up our sleeves, and come on up for the rising.

Brilliant! Just brilliant. Just… the best way to go into the day before the election. With a renewed sense of belly-shaking, coordination, and attention to detail. I LOVE this comedy crew.

Get out and vote, yo. And shake that belly.

Stephen Colbert and Nas bring it.

Lyrics to “Sly Fox” by Nas below…
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Tomorrow night brings a very special event. Los Angeles folks — if you’re free, come on out and support! It’s called NOT EXACTLY THE PIXIES and it’s at The Echo (1822 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles), doors @9pm, show starts @9:30pm.

Local LA musicians will perform songs from The Pixies, as a benefit for the Downtown Womens Center (a truly beautiful and empowering organization serving over 2000 homeless and low-income women). My brother’s going to be in one of the bands, playing geeeeetar! And my wonderful friend Jen DeMartino put together this event, found the performers, and organized everything, in her spare time. If you go, she’ll be the one MC’ing and she’ll be singing in one of the bands.

More details at this piece over at LAist.com. There will also be raffles and other fun things.

The venue’s NOT big and it’s going to get packed quicky, so come early if you can!

A little more than a week ago, I interviewed Robin Sukhadia, an amazing and accomplished tabla performer and teacher, on his innovative artists residency in Los Angeles, called Tablacentric. The full interview is at LAist.com, where I’ve started writing. I’ve pasted it below too. If you get a chance, check out the event. Ok, interview here:

This month, from March 13th through April 12th, the folks at Machine Project are hosting Tablacentric — an entire month devoted to the concept and feel of not the snare drum, not the piano, but yet another form of percussion — the tabla — a majestic drum originating in South Asia.

For the entire month, 12 pairs of tabla will be setup in the gallery for all students and performers to touch and play. A series of classical and contemporary concerts featuring local and international tabla artists will help to present tabla in a performance context. Cooking classes, instrument invention workshops, film screenings and listening sessions will also provide cultural context to tabla and South Asian rhythm as well.

The concept is conceived and developed by Robin Sukhadia, a recent MFA graduate of Cal Arts’ World Music Program, who performs and mixes tabla beats, teaches tabla and other instruments, and sets up music education programs in other countries. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area but is spending the month here in Los Angeles as part of Machine Project’s artist in residency program.

LAist sat down and talked with Sukhadia about tablas, robots and tablas, giving tablas away to kids in other countries, and Los Angeles.
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I think I’ve watched this video now 6 times in a row. And cried each time because it’s so damn funny. And as my brother shares, it gives us hope. Hope — that Obama can wipe the floors with McCain if it’s the two of them running against each other for President. It also contrasts the positive WE message of Obama against the cynical dottering i’mtakingyoutohellwithme McCain message (while giving us a taste of how out of touch McCain is with reality). Thank you, smattering of Los Angeles area comics, writers, and musicians, for putting this together.

The best line is the one at the end, “McCain 08: Like Hope, But Different.”

Watch it!

I present to you, the awe-inspiring and shock-and-awe-ing quotes from McCain speeches, featured in the video:

The work that we face in our time is great
in a time of war
and the terrible sacrifices it entails
the promise of a better future is not always clear
there’s gonna be other wars
I’m sorry to tell you there’s gonna be other wars
there’s gonna be a lot of combat wounds
and my friends it’s gonna be tough
and we’re gonna have a lot to do
That old Beach Boys song, Bomb Iran?
Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb…
I’m still convinced that withdrawal means chaos
and if you think that things are bad now
if we withdraw–you ain’t seen nothing yet
was the war a good idea, worth the price in blood and treasure?
It was a good idea
President Bush talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years
Maybe a hundred, that’s fine with me
I don’t think Americans are concerned if we’re there for a hundred years, or a thousand years, or ten thousand years.

Compare these, my friends, with the video and lyrics from the song “Yes We Can”.

Have I mentioned how much I love creative folks making and freely distributing video?

From the fine folks at RockRap, today’s musical thought for the day:

The problem is
We’ve been trained
We’ve been programmed
To not dream
Not want
Not think that there’s a better life available
Other than the one that’s being portrayed to us
Through the tube
Through the radio
We don’t even understand how much
The world is ours
But we just haven’t claimed it yet

Black Ice & K-Salaam

Tuesday is Super Tuesday AND Fat Tuesday! That means it’s time to vote (for 22 states, including California) AND time to party before Lent starts.

After voting, I’ll be DJing this TUESDAY evening at the Roxy, opening for DJ Rekha from New York City. DJ Rekha is a friend who I’ve djed with in NYC at our monthly MUTINY parties and who’s been running the famous Basement Bhangra parties in NYC for over 10 years. I’ll be djing from 9 to 10ish, probably a hoppin’ mix of drumnbass, grime, and hiphop. Join us if you can! YES WE CAN! (not so subtle Obama plug)

Tuesday, February 5th, 2008 – “On the Rox with DJ Rekha”

Doors at 9pm
9pm to 10-ish: Los Anjalis (aka DJ Anju)
10-ish on… : DJ Rekha from NYC

The Roxy, 9009 Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069

Tickets: $8 advance, $10 day of show

Come say hi if you come out.
Si Se Puede! (another obama plug, I know, can’t help myself),
Los Anjalis

Simply, because we deserve better.

America needs a president who is passionately anti-war. Because the war in Iraq is causing major depressive disorder in Americans, causing thousands of US soldier suicides each year (and thousands more cases of PTSD and major depressive disorder and psychotic breaks), and has caused more than 600,000 innocent civilian casualties and hundreds of thousands more displacements and injuries, for Iraqi civilians. A whole generation of Iraqis has been damaged for life (whether mentally or physically) and Americans NEED to be able to elect a president who cares about ending the war. The Iraq War is *the* moral issue of our time. Americans have not forgotten that we have actively been in a WAR that was created on false pretenses for several years now. Hillary Clinton, even up to the last debate last week, stubbornly defends her vote in the Senate to allow President Bush to take us to war on shaky evidence. This is a huge fundamental difference between Obama and Clinton. I cannot imagine what the psyche of our younger generations of Americans will be if after all the energy they’ve put into the electoral process and into supporting Obama the anti-war candidate, Hillary “establishment” “clinton dynasty” comes into power. That would SUCK.

Obama also has such a unifying energy about him. For months and months I was wary he would not be able to garner enough support from Americans, partly because of his race (needless to say, racism exists in huge ways in america, personally and in institutions) and partly because of his broader messages of hope and change (as compared to more specific policies). But he’s shown us up. The momentum around him is amazing, and his ability to engage youth is unprecendented (Over 50% of caucus-goers in Iowa were in the 17-29 year old age group. and HOW many people do you know whose kids convinced them to vote for obama?) People want change. Endorsements are coming from everywhere. He has an energy that America is hungry for.

And though Obama’s surrounded himself by some Washington insiders, he doesn’t have NEARLY as much of an “establishment” presence as Hillary Clinton does. Hillary’s got the top corporations on wall street rooting for her; she’s gotten the most in financial contributions (dem or republican) from the pharmaceutical industry and the health insurance industry; she’s got deeply rooted Washington insiders guiding her campaign. Our candidates really should be judged as much by who they surround themselves with as by who they are. Case in point — President Bush is an idiot, an absolute bumbling idiot. There’s no way he could come up with the tone and policies that his administration has put forth. It’s the people behind him who are calling the shots. Given, if Clinton OR Obama were president, they’d be calling more shots than Bush because they’ve got solid brains in their heads. But still, it’s important to look at the folks these candidates are surrounded by. And Bill! Do we want more of NAFTA, industry deregulation, welfare “reform” aka punishment, DOMA, and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell? Do we want more of Democratic Leadership Council corrupted politics? No, and no.

I’ve been very critical of Obama in the recent past, and have challenged my friends who supported Obama over Edwards on why they did so. (and i’ve blogged RIGHT here very recently about an objectionable statement Obama put out about the Israel-Palestinian conflict). But I think Obama’s gotta be more responsive to the peoples’ desires than Clinton (and Clinton’s thoughts on the israel-palestinian conflict are even WORSE) and I think his mistaken policies are outweighed by his positive policies.

But there’s just something so much bigger going on. Obama is infectious. INFECTIOUS. And that’s what we need.

I’ll leave ya’ll with a moving video that you’ve probably already seen by now, because it’s gotten almost 500,000 hits in less than 24 hours, and it’s spreading like wildfire (did I mention INFECTIOUS?)

Will.I.Am (of black eyed peas) and others, spreading the love:

the words from Obama’s speech featured in the video:

It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation.

Yes we can.

It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom.

Yes we can.

It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness.

Yes we can.

It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballots; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land.

Yes we can to justice and equality.

Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity.

Yes we can heal this nation.

Yes we can repair this world.

Yes we can.

We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.

We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics…they will only grow louder and more dissonant ……….. We’ve been asked to pause for a reality check. We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.

But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.

Now the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people; we are one nation; and together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story with three words that will ring from coast to coast; from sea to shining sea –

Yes. We. Can.

Can you think of ANY other presidential candidate in our lifetimes who can inspire this?

Obama’s cut seriously into Hillary Clinton’s lead in the national primaries in the past few weeks. The past week’s polls are absolutely shocking — the kind of momentum that Obama’s got right now is unstoppable. It’s a phenomenon.

Vote. Tell your friends and neighbors. Take action.

It is upon us! The 10th anniversary MUTINY event is here, TODAY, and it’s time to reunion-ize and party at the first regular south-asian influenced electronic music event in the states! I’m DJing along with my fabulous co-residents Zakhm, Siraiki, Navdeep, and the famous DJ Rekha. We threw this party every month for 6 years (I jumped in durng year two) and it started with beautiful intentions — as a fundraiser for Siraiki (aka Vivek Bald)’s documentary called MUTINY: Asians Storm British Music (about the south asian electronica scene in Britain). The first party (the fundraiser) was super successful and it turned into a beautiful monthly event.

Summer MUTINY parties were off the hook and held at the Frying Pan, a boat anchored at Pier 63 on the west side of NYC (the boat was previously submerged for years and quite rusted). Winters were wonderful, as MUTINY was a warm (HOT!) place to dance and listen to damn good music. We had special guest performers most months, from the UK, India, and other parts of the US. We stopped throwing parties after 6 years as we were all working in various other projects and spread out by this point across the country. TONIGHT very special guest from the UK – Talvin Singh – is doing a DJ set, and the lovely Shaa’ir + Func are performing!

But now we’re back together again for one HOT night. More info at the MUTINY website (info on the MUTINY documentary too). I’ll be DJing an “early set” and a “late set” — though the party starts at 10pm so early is really not that early and late is “madrugada” as they say in Spanish. BUT alas, the end of daylight savings time means you get one extra hour for MUTINY. And TONIGHT very special guest from the UK – Talvin Singh – is doing a DJ set, and the lovely Shaa’ir + Func are performing!

And, most of all, please pretty please with sugar on top come say hi to me! I’d love to see ya’ll — old friends and people i’ve never met before. Bring it!

M.I.A. just performed in NYC at the CMJ Music Festival (an awesome festival I used to go to when I lived on the eas’ coas’), and I’m excited to see Nate Chinen’s review of her show, given I’m going to see her in November here in Los Angeles (yay!):

Populism often takes the form of a battle cry for M.I.A., a k a Maya Arulpragasam, the former Sri Lankan refugee, longtime Londoner and part-time Brooklynite with a taste for head-rattling rhythm. The jostle of bodies seems to goad her on: poised at the lip of the now-crowded stage, she looked both elated and defiant. She sounded that way too, barking lines from “Bird Flu,” a standout single off her second album, “Kala” (Interscope).

The stage takeover lasted only one tune, but M.I.A. packed the show with others from “Kala,” reveling in a barrage of sampled third-world signifiers: tribal drums and air-raid sirens, singing children and machine gun reports. “Paper Planes” employed a loop from “Straight to Hell” by the Clash; its hook was made up of four shotgun blasts, a cartridge reload and a cash-register ring. This came after the Nigerian rapper Afrikan Boy bounded onstage to reprise his verses on “Hussel,” including a blunt challenge: “You think it’s tough now? Come to Africa.”

Obviously there’s something strange about any dance party this obsessed with social turmoil. But M.I.A. left little room for queasiness, whether she was darting about in her silver high-top sneakers, jabbing at a touch-screen computer or body-surfing the crowd. Even when her voice was swallowed by the thump of the music, her presence was huge.

She called for more outside assistance during the encore, and got it, from Rye Rye, a Baltimore rapper who had performed an opening slot with DJ Blaqstarr. But M.I.A. didn’t really need the help. She was unarmed but seemingly invulnerable, and the crowd was firmly under her control.

Nice.

PJ Harvey ROCKS. The above video of her performing “Rid of Me” at the Big Day Out Festival in Australia says it all — angst and passion and sensuality and twistedness and an amazing performance. My brother and I off to experience a PJ Harvey performance tomorrow at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles.

She’s already performed in New York City at the launch of this tour, and this is what the critics have to say about her most recent tour:

Looking like one of the Brontë sisters in a white frock dress, the indie rocker, now almost 40 (!), performed a motley mix of songs to a reverential crowd at her only scheduled show on the East Coast.

Sans opening act and backing band, Harvey played a 90-minute set drawing from all parts of her discography, with a focus on her minimalist but likable new album, White Chalk. Despite some time out of the spotlight and, well, the effects of aging, her vocal range still filled every square inch of the venue, on songs like the erotic “This Is Love” and the startling “Down by the Water.”

Harvey moved around the stage, which was decorated with a few simple Christmas lights, alternately playing the guitar and funking around with amps, keyboards, cymbals, and even a maraca. (2004’s Uh Huh Her featured Harvey on every instrument, save for the drums.)

It’s gonna be quite an experience. The Orpheum Theatre is an elegant venue, and the audience is never too far from the stage. My brother and a few friends and I saw Ani Difranco perform there last year — it was intimate and beautiful. I probably won’t go as crazy as I did with recording the Bright Eyes concert at the Hollywood Bowl (videos here), but I may get a photo or two at the concert, which I’ll share, of course.

Photos from pretty damn close to the stage, at the Hollywood Bowl (Bright Eyes + LA Philharmonic, M Ward performing):

Above:  Bright Eyes (Conor Oberst) and M Ward performing “Smoke without Fire” – Hollywood Bowl.

Above:  M Ward performing at Hollywood Bowl

Above:  Setting up the LA Philharmonic after M Ward’s performance and before Bright Eyes’ performance with the orchestra