We Will Bury You: Alice, Allison, Punk, and LA: #GrrrlsonFiLMU

Alice Bag and Allison Wolfe are two of my personal heroes. As part of her coursework at USC, where she is an Annenberg Fellow (following in my footsteps!), Allison interviewed Alice. It‘s a great little podcast and article. Alice talks about the omnipresence of violence, which I’ve been thinking a lot about today, occasioned by this powerful article also by a Chicana punk. I’m glad today’s young punks are speaking out about the affronts that seemed casual and inevitable when Alice and I were growing up. It’s called progress, people. Believe.

Shameless plug: Alice will be on the We Will Bury You panel about LA punk at Grrrls on Film on March 19 (with Phranc, Nicole Panter, Raquel Guttierez, and Ruben Martinez), and Allison will be at the concert March 20. We’ll be screening The Decline of Western Civilization that Saturday as well, with director Penelope Spheeris and her daughter Anna Fox in the house. Details and reservation link coming soon; stay tuned to this blog and, always, to KXLU.

Pussymania Hits LA

Pussy pioneers Alice Bag, Allison Wolfe, and Azalia Snail (from left to right)

Pussymania is everywhere. Nadya and Masha were on Charlie Rose last night. They’ll be on Bill Maher Friday. And I saw them again Monday at the Voice Project panel. I wound up writing about their LA debut for Los Angeles magazine’s website. It was a cool night — MC5’s Wayne Kramer kicked out the jams — but I wish the Project had found a better representative of American women than Anne Litt. They could have chosen anyone from my pedigreed punk feminist cohort: I was honored to be hanging out with three pioneering musicians who paved the way for Pussy Riot: Alice Bag, whose 1970s punk band hid their visages with bags, balaclava-style; Allison Wolfe, who, as a OG Riot Grrrl, led the movement that gave Pussy Riot their name; and Azalia Snail, long-time lady of lo-fi. I worry that these Russian heroes are abandoning their girl-power roots for the limelight. But I was also stoked as hell to see their laser-sharp intelligence and cool on stage — and to see them hanging out afterwards. Support girl love!

Photo by Tyler Curtis for The Voice Project

Pussy Riot at Sunday Screening

PUSSY RIOT’S NADYA AND MASHA ARE COMING TO LA
FILM SCREENING ON SUNDAY 6th @ HARMONY GOLD THEATER

Masha Alekhina and Nadya Tolokonnonikova from Pussy Riot and Zona Prava will come to LA for the first time.

Masha Alekhina and Nadya Tolokonnikova are Russian conceptual artists and political activists. They are founding members of the art collective Pussy Riot. In August 2012 they were sentenced to two years of imprisonment following an anti-Putin performance in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. In March 2014, Alekhina and Nadya Tolokonnikova announced the opening of the Mordovia office of Zona Prava, their newly created prisoners’ rights NGO. Both are Lennon Ono Grant for Peace recipients.

Nadya and Masha will attend a screening of the movie Pussy vs. Putin. The event is organized by Cinema for Peace and the entry is free, please see the registration email address below.
Q&A with Pussy Riot / register for free guest@cinemaforpeace.com

More information:
Zona Prava – http://www.zonaprava.info/
Nadya Tolokonnikova – https://twitter.com/tolokno
Masha Alekhina – https://www.twitter.com/mashaalekhina

“Pussy vs. Putin” on Sunday April 6th at 4.30pm
HARMONY GOLD THEATER
7655 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, LA 90046

Masha and Nadya Coming to LA

The two formerly jailed members of Pussy Riot, Masha and Nadya are finally coming to Los Angeles, on Monday. They’ll be on a panel also featuring Wayne Kramer, Ann Litt, Shepard Fairey, and Pyotyr Verzilov. The panel is sponsored by The Voice Project.

KXLU at Noon: Music Criticism

Ruben Martinez and I will be on KXLU today at noon, talking about the 4:30 LAy of the LAnd symposium, Think Local, Write Global: The L.A. Music Critic in the 21st Century.

The L.A. Music Critic Panels

Curated by me!

LAy of the LAnd Flyer copy

A Peek at Iris

Caper set, Iris

Before there was cinema, there was the circus. During the 19th century, PT Barnum created the Greatest Show on Earth, stretching the public’s understandings of human achievement with acrobats and freaks, and of course, entertaining them with clowns. Then the advent of moving image and sound took the senses and imagination into even wilder terrains. Live theater, including circuses, have never had the same lustre.