Culture

A powerful new film about the Northern Territory intervention, Our Generation, is being shown to audiences across the NT, and will screen in places across Australia. The film-makers, Sinem Saban and Damien Curtis, spent three years with “just a camera and a microphone and lots of tape stock and time” and no script, allowing Yolngu people in North-East Arnhem Land to tell their stories about how the policies of the intervention — introduced by the Howard government and continued by Labor — have changed their lives.

The introduction in May of a racist law targetting immigrants in the US state of Arizona has sparked a powerful movement from wide sections of US society. It has also sparked the biggest movement of musicians in the US since the times of South African apartheid, with a growing number of artists refusing to play in Arizona in protest. The musicians are organised through Sound Strike, an organisation initiated in May by Rage Against the Machine (RATM) lead singer Zach de la Rocha and film-maker Michael Moore.

Trans-Continental Hustle Gogol Bordello Colombia/ DMZ Review by Mat Ward Gogol Bordello have always said their aim is to smuggle Roma music into mainstream Western society. Their latest album, produced by former Beastie Boys DJ-turned-super-producer Rick Rubin, might just do that. The US-based band, whose music combines elements of traditional Romani music with punk rock, is largely made up of Eastern European Roma immigrants who understand the long-standing persecution of their people.

No … politeness, happiness, humanity Have … pain, sorrow, suffering Nobody is here, to love us Nobody is here, to be honest We are suffering without love We are expecting politeness person We are looking for humanity — but we couldn’t see anywhere We couldn’t see in the dream also We are suffering difficulties for a long time We faced so many sorrows in our country Even we can’t tell anything that our past life We can’t explain in a word

Review: Plastic Beach Gorillaz, EMI Escape to the Plastic Beach Tour December 6-19, on sale now Bookings via Ticketek, Premierticketek.com.au, 132 849 “If you watch MTV for too long, it’s a bit like hell — there’s nothing of substance there”, said Jamie Hewlett, graphic artist and co-creator of “virtual band” Gorillaz, in 2005 . “So we got this idea for a cartoon band, something that would be a comment on that.”

This open letter to Elton John was released on July 30 by Alexander Billet. It is reprinted from Sociarts.com. Billet’s blog on popular music can be read at Rebelfrequencies.blogspot.com. * * * Dear Elton, First of all, I hope you don’t mind that I refuse to call you “Sir”. Knights swing swords and ride horses. You play a piano.

Outlaw Directed by James Adler, written by Michael Healy Studio 2, Northcote Town Hall, Melbourne August 20 — September 3 Bookings: Eaglenest.eventix.com.au, (03) 9384 6900 “A tyre slasher in Berlin — radical green politics or someone just blowing a gasket?”, reads the blurb for new play Outlaw. “The friends of Tilman Hessel — the local Green's party leader — think it might be him ...”

The Decline are a punk band from Western Australia that formed in 2006. They “deliver catchy, melodic speedy punk rock, with humorous and socially aware lyrics”, TheDecline.com.au says. They have opened for groups such as Frenzal Rhomb, No Fun at All and the Flatliners. The Decline released their first full-length album, I’m Not Gonna Lie To You, in September 2009. Green Left Weekly’s Chris Peterson spoke to The Decline about the album. You can find out more, and buy the album, at their website.

In Fremont, Nebraska in the US mid-west, some of the biggest names in indie rock played a sold-out pro-immigrant benefit gig on July 31 titled “Concert for Equality”. Omaha.com said on August 2: “The theme of the day — and the reason for the show — was to fight Fremont’s recently passed immigration ordinance, which would fine employers and landlords who hire or rent to illegal immigrants.” All proceeds from the gig were offered to the American Liberties Civil Union to assist its fight against the law, Pollstar.com said on August 4.

The Gaslight Anthem must be sick of the Springsteen references by now. Ever since bursting into international consciousness a few years back, there’s been no shortage of critics willing to draw the connections between them and the Boss.

Review: The Imperial Controversy: Challenging the Empire Apologists By Andrew Murray, Foreword by George Galloway Manifesto Press, 152 pages, paperback £12.95 In the past decade or so, politicians, journalists and academics have attempted to rehabilitate the notions of empire and imperialism. For example, in 2009 then-British PM Gordon Brown told the Daily Mail newspaper: “The days of Britain having to apologise for its colonial history are over. We should move forward. We should celebrate much of our past rather than apologise for it.”

Review: Vale Kwementyaye Ryder — a photo essay Bob Gosford, The Northern Myth