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Any band that experiences such a meteoric rise in popularity like that of Vampire Weekend is bound to provoke a backlash. And…
Alexander Billet
I'm a music journalist, writer and activist living in Chicago, and sit on the editorial board at Red Wedge magazine. A regular contributor to SocialistWorker.org, the Electronic Intifada and Green Left Weekly, my articles have also appeared at TheNation.com, Z Magazine, New Politics, CounterPunch, PopMatters.com, Dissident Voice, the International Socialist Review, the Washington Peace Letter, MR Zine and Razorcake.org among others.One of my articles “Is Russell Simmons Playing Politics with Hip-Hop?” appears in the academic collection At Issue: Should Music Lyrics Be Censored For Violence and Exploitation? released in 2008 by Greenhaven Press. My first book, Shake the City! How Crisis and Resistance Are Reshaping Music, is currently being written and will be released in early 2014.I have discussed music and politics on WBEZ's "Eight Forty-Eight," on Radio Free Adelaide in Australia and W.E.A.L.L.B.E. radio show. I'm a member of the National Writers Union/UAW 1981, a founder of Punks Against Apartheid and is a longtime activist in various movements for civil rights, economic justice and international solidarity. If you're interested, an archive of my work can be seen at my website Rebel Frequencies, and I can be reached at [email protected], or through my Facebook and Twitter.
It’s been a year since the world watched at Barack Obama was elected president of the United States. I remember sitting in…
Book by Antonino D’Ambrosio; Nation Books, 2009, 288 pp. It’s hard to disagree with the sentiments expressed in "Shuttin’ Detroit Down," a…
“When you hear a song that is written in a way you never heard before, or you see a painting that is…
Over the years, MTV’s notion of "controversy" has become about as enticing as a trip to the corner store to pick up…
There is a lot of sound and fury over the upcoming stage version of American Idiot. Unfortunately, it signifies nothing. The recent…
WARNING: the following sentence may cause you to vomit a little bit in your mouth. Creed have reunited and are releasing a…
[Go to part one: https://znetwork.org/znet/viewArticle/21716] As the evening continued (and the alcohol flowed), my conversation with Son of Nun drifted into even…
Call it a hazard of the profession. I’ve interviewed many artists in all different genres, and while all have been more than…
It’s an inescapable truth on March 17th, inevitable as shamrocks and Guinness. Be you Irish or not, you are almost certain to…