Download it here on Brooklyn Radio.  Also features cuts from our man Melo-X, Kurt Vile and the Roots.

Posted by Wills Glasspiegel
wills@greenowl.com

Posted by Wills Glasspiegel
wills@greenowl.com

via PETITLOUIS

Posted by Wills Glasspiegel
wills@greenowl.com

Show tonight at Deitch in NYC
Images via TAUBAAUERBACH
Link via CARLOSCHARLIEPEREZ

Posted by Wills Glasspiegel
wills@greenowl.com

SO SO GLOS rocked Monster Basement last night in Brooklyn w/ Titus Andronicus.  Next stop: Boston, MA.   Full tour dates on their myspace.

"Love or Empire" in the stream.

Posted by Wills Glasspiegel
wills@greenowl.com

In Guatemala, a country that had previously been ravaged by the longest Latin American civil war, lasting from 1960-1996, radio is the lifeline for 5,000,000 indigenous Mayans (about half the nation’s population).  There are over 600 local radio comunitarias that were formed after the end of violence and hostility in 1996. These stations play traditional music, provide farming lessons, educational, AIDS health, civic election, political, and environmental information, as well as warnings about oncoming floods and hurricanes. All of this is critical for the survival of many of the indigenous inhabitants who are either illiterate or cannot speak Spanish. But, presently the country’s police and armed thugs are raiding, shutting down, and sometimes assaulting DJs of the stations, who more often than not cannot afford broadcast licenses and must instead do a live feed from small pirated local frequencies.

The Guatemalan Peace Accords and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples both stipulate and promise local Indians access to operating licenses, but at present, the government requires each of these stations to pay a $125,000 permit fee, or cease and desist. It’s a preventative practice, considering many of the stations are run out of single rooms in village houses with rudimentary donated equipment. Once jailed, the radio comunitarias have to ratchet up the fee and then start all over again, finding funds to pay for new equipment again.

Last month, a large band of rural Guatemalans marched to the capital to claim their support for the Community Media Act, or the “Antiproyecto de Ley de Medios de Comunicacion Comunitaria” which would form a National Council of Community Media that would endow local villages with licenses to operate radio stations.

So, this isn’t a matter of resisting conglomerations from flooding the radio stations with repeat top 40 tracks and engaging in pay or play tactics. For these people, it’s access to freedom of speech and the ability to survive in a land where they’ve been marginalized, underrepresented, massacred and ignored. Encourage and support radio comunitarias by writing to the Guatemalan president: 

Constitutional President of the Republic of Guatemala

Ingeniero Álvaro Colom Caballeros

Casa Presidencial
 6 a. Avenida, 4-18
Zona 1
Ciudad de Guatemala, GUATEMALA

Posted by Shilpa Nadhan
shilpa.nadhan@gmail.com

Janka Nabay, the Bubu King

via JANKANABAY

Posted by Wills Glasspiegel
wills@greenowl.com

Full story on INHABITAT

Posted by Wills Glasspiegel
wills@greenowl.com

via PBS

Posted by Wills Glasspiegel
wills@greenowl.com

Chico Mann comes hot and heavy with "Same Color Wolf".

Download here at bandcamp.

Posted by Wills Glasspiegel
wills@greenowl.com

Gilberto Gil

It's hard to believe that this is the first issue of WAXPOETICS to focus squarely on Brazil.  Record collectors' fascination with Brazil goes way back (even before D. Byrne's seminal comps on Luaka Bop!), but it crystallizes yet again in pages of WAXPOETICS Vol 36 with Gilberto Gil on cover (circa 1969).  We won't give it all away here, just a few hightlights: Gilberto G talks to WP about leaving Fela's compound in Nigeria on the day that it was raided; there's a laugh-out-loud piece on Tim Maia; and percussionist Airto goes in deep with stories about playing with Miles on Bitches Brew.

 "Rational Culture" by Tim Maia in the stream.

Tim Maia

Posted by Wills Glasspiegel
wills@greenowl.com

via RODIERKIDMANN

Posted by Wills Glasspiegel
wills@greenowl.com

Etienne (1/3 of THE VERY BEST) sips a brew in the background

The running man himself, Usain Bolt, hooked up with 2/3 of THE VERY BEST at the World Athletic Championships after-party in Berlin.   He's the fastest man in the world, they're "the very best" -- between them, more than enough superlatives for an excellent evening.  The guys got along famously and traded off on the decks all night long.  

The Bolt + Johan Karlberg and Mo Laudi (from Radioclit and THE VERY BEST)

Posted by Wills Glasspiegel
wills@greenowl.ocm

This week's MUGSHOT goes visual with STRAW VS GOLD, a design shop and blog by Chloe Leichman.  Hers are the lines we love: culture-couture hand-painted on recycled threads.  Aztec towers, Africa triangles, art deco ziggurats -- Chloe does it with graceful Brooklyn swagger.  It won't be long before you see these in a shop near you.  Until then, check our photos from her "factory" and cop your own at STRAW VS GOLD.

Posted by Wills Glasspiegel
wills@greenowl.com

JEREMY SCOTT web video thingy... Dir. NABIL from nabil elderkin on Vimeo.

Posted by Wills Glasspiegel
wills@greenowl.com