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The CHIRP Blog
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesFed Up Fest Is Here!
Fed Up Fest 2016 is returning to Chicago this weekend. We asked the collective what it's all about...
What is Fed Up Fest? How did it get started?
Fed Up Fest came out of conversations about the lack of queer and trans folks in a punk scene largely dominated by straight and cis folks. It felt uncomfortable and unsafe at times. Originally taking inspiration from the Black & Brown Punk Collective, organizers decided to create a fest dedicated to showcasing and celebrating radical queer and trans voices in punk and hardcore; confronting and challenging the oppression and abuse in our scenes; and creating stronger and more sustainable bonds between and across radical queer and punk communities.
In order to achieve these goals, the FUF collective organizes a three day, all ages, music, art, and workshop fest dedicated to elevating the music and visibility of queer and trans people engaging with and confronting white supremacist, heteropatriarchy; and, actively challenging microaggressions, cultural appropriation, and rape culture in punk and hardcore scenes. The Fest is also a fundraiser for a local organization that centers its work around the queer and trans community; this year that beneficiary is the Transformative Justice Law Project.
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesWhat’s Happening at CHIRP Radio (Week of July 25)
Upcoming Events
- Kickstand Productions and CHIRP Radio present Ought at Beat Kitchen on Monday, July 25th
- Kickstand Productions and CHIRP Radio present Alex Calder at Subterranean on Tuesday, July 26th
- It’s time for CHIRP Night at the Whistler with So Pretty and Hawley on Wednesday, July 27th
New Media
- Dylan Peterson interviews La Sera
- Amanda Roscoe Mayo interviews Baby Money
- Five Songs The Republican Party could have used at their convention last week
- The CHIRP Radio Movie Collection: 24 Hour Party People
- The Blake Babies Reunion Show
- Friday MP3 Shuffle: Happy Birthday Brian Chippendale edition
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesFriday MP3 Shuffle: Happy Birthday Brian Chippendale Edition
Fans of experimental noise Rock rejoice! Today is Brian Chippendale’s birthday. He plays drums and sings in the band Lightning Bolt and several other of his own projects including Black Pus and Mindflayer. “Have I ever heard Brian Chippendale play?” you might ask yourself. Rest assured, you would know if you’ve heard him. Chippendale’s style is a storm of speed and rhythm that maximizes volume and drum hits per measure in an ecstatic frenzy that makes Keith Moon’s technique sound like meditation. “Fierce” and “bold” don’t begin to describe the sounds he makes, but he’s not a one-trick pony. Among his numerous collaborations (including playing drums for the 2007 Bjork album Volta) he is also a visual artist who created all of the Lightning Bolt’s album art as well as his own comics and graphic novels.
It’s a good day to make it loud, so take your MP3 player, press the "shuffle" button, and share the first 10 songs that play:
Craig Reptile: Your Sunday Sonic Sundowner writesThe Blake Babies Reunion Show is at Evanston SPACE This Saturday!
Boston’s Blake Babies were one of those many, many “college rock” bands that burned brightly and burned out quickly in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. Legend has it that their name was provided by Allen “Howl” Ginsberg after a reading at Harvard, most likely inspired by a poet of an earlier generation, William Blake.
The core trio of Juliana Hatfield, John Strohm and Freda Boner came together in 1986, released three high quality but little heard records, Nicely, Nicely (1987), Earwig (1989), Sunburn(1990), broke up in 1991, and reunited in 2001 with God Bless The Blake Babies.
During those ten years or so, Hatfield embarked on a successful solo career (she was the crush of many a bespectacled cardigan-wearing indie-rock loving college boy, back in the day), including her hit single “My Sister” (which was either a very strong song or a brazen attempt to garner Top 40 airplay, depending on which of those fans you asked, many of whose fickle favors had moved on to other, similarly unrequited focuses of adoration).
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesCHIRP Radio Movie Collection: 24 Hour Party People (2002)
[The CHIRP Radio Movie Collection documents great movies that feature musicians or the use of music in storytelling.]
The Plot: The rise and fall of Factory Records, told through the eyes of label founder, Manchester booster, and (depending on who you ask) overall scoundrel Tony Wilson
There’s a story about the history of Rock music that’s almost certainly apocryphal but is too good to not use: Only a couple of hundred people ever saw the Velvet Underground perform live, but every single one of them went on to form their own bands. This brief anecdote highlights the power music has over people, a power that remains explainable more by magic than science.
It’s this magic of discovery and creation and being part of a scene that’s captured brilliantly in 24 Hour Party People, the story of how local TV presenter Tony Wilson helped briefly turn the city of Manchester into the center of the music world with his label Factory Records. Director Michael Winterbottom starts the film with a VU-eque sequence - in this case, a late ‘70s Sex Pistols show with about a dozen people in the audience. Wilson, the narrator, scans the room and points out a few of the not-yet-known individuals in attendance: The young woman over there with the wild hair would soon be known as Siouxie Sioux of Siouxie and the Banshees. The curly-haired dude off to the side would become the lead singer for Simply Red. And the three intense-looking young men in the back? They would start a band called Joy Division, and in doing so change the course of music history.