Aug 172012
Pussy Riot
RTH knows best is yet to come. Stay strong #PussyRiot! (Official tweet from Rock Town Hall)
Perhaps the most alarming aspect of the recent Pussy Riot prison sentence that’s rocked Russia is how inept security was at shutting down the lip-synched performance. The London Police Service would have “pulled the plug” on the band in a sober, orderly fashion. Someone should have dialed 999.
On the bright side, artists and celebrities in the West have been provided a golden opportunity to grab some press by tweeting deeply meaningful shows of support. Even DJ Qualls risked backlash from his huge Russian Orthodox following by throwing his weight behind the band.
Perhaps we could ask Little Steven to assemble some singers together for a protest song. “I, I, I, ain’t gonna play St. Petersburg, aye yee aye…”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aopKk56jM-I
I’m willing to bet the house that is the first and only time Oats, Reed and Blades have been together onscreen.
They are certainly no The Queen Haters, that’s for sure.
This is required reading for contextualizing the whole Pussy Riot thing… and for seeing one of the PR chicks participating in an art-protest-orgy. It’s not as hot as I know you hope it is.
http://kalderarchive.blogspot.com/2012/07/pussy-riot-and-russian-art-protest.html
Good stuff, HVB, thanks.
That’s a very enlightening piece, HVB.
Interesting post in deed! Too many people say that band’s imprisonment is of a political nature, but there is nothing political here in my opinion. If they were to sing in a mosque – the Muslim brothers probably would have killed them all and seek justification to doing so. And as for craping on an acting president – well there should be no messing around. Good or bad – he is a countries representative and there should be no freedom of speech at him in this kind of format. I only wish that Bill had the same approach so that there wouldn’t have being such an embarrassment worldwide with the Monica performance! The saddest of all is that some artists have cancelled their tours in Russia referring to the PR imprisonment – I think it’s not justified. And for sure ‘god bless’ Madonna for not jumping from the Russian tour and putting on an excellent performance as always.
P.S. in the first paragraph of the article it says that the Moscow’s Church of Christ the Saviour was an open air swimming pool before the 90s.. well that’s correct, but the writer neglected to mention the fact that long before the pool it was yet Moscow’s Church of Christ the Saviour, one of the oldest churches. It was destroyed by anti-religious government and rebuild by former Moscow’s mayor Yuriy Lujkov. Rebuild to its original state as a gift to the public. This explains why the religious bikers protested.
Welcome aboard, YuryG. It’s good to hear an opinion on this subject from a native of Russia, I presume. I know what you mean about the consequences of their act had they took place in a mosque.
However, why should a rhetorical attack targeted at a head of state should be denied? There’s a nursery rhyme we teach our children: “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.”
Thanks for finding us, and feel free to take part in this or any other discussion.
I fully agree on the “sticks and stones”, but I believe it’s applicable to positive actions of rational individuals repressed by irrational powers. PR are far from positive or to be set as a good example. On the other hand – it would be applicable in educating children not to behave like they did in order to avoid collision with law. On one hand we all understand that the law is a tool of control, but it is also a set of rules we must play by, and if we choose to fight some aspects of law we should still follow the rules in order for the fight to be successful. But then again it’s another huge topic of discussion. To me act of PR is bad because it’s affecting concert life of Moscow… I truly hope that artists will start looking at the picture from a different perspective and continue touring in Russia))
I see your point about this story discouraging artists from touring Russia. Not knowing even a handful of details, part of what I was trying to say in my commentary was that the western celebrity world should be cautious of glibly overreacting to a staged event that was purposely offensive on levels beyond politics. The rest of us may take a moment to ask whether we should blindly follow the tweets of important American voices like DJ Qualls. In that regard we probably share some common ground.
Let me know if you would like to write a piece on the changes you are seeing in the Russian concert industry. I think our readers would enjoy learning about the bigger picture. Thanks.
Definitely! I mean all I need is a specific topic and a board that is well read!!