Basslines and Protest Signs is Brett Callwood’s column looking at the intersection of music and politics. This week talks about the latest impeachment attempt.
On July 10th, it was announced that David Desrosiers has left Simple Plan following allegations of sexual misconduct.
I’ve been engaging in self-care through binging some brand-new Asian-fronted/Asian-created content for AAPIA Heritage Month. I hope you’ll join me!
The future belongs to our kids. They have a right to shape it. So we asked them to tell us how they feel, what they think. They spoke up and now we’re asking you to listen.
Despite monitoring him for more than a decade, the FBI did not uncover any major revelations about Michael Jackson’s private life nor did it find any solid evidence against him in connection with two different molestation allegations, according to newly released files.
The 2006 suicide of Megan Meier, which came after the girl was harassed online, spurred a flurry of new state laws aimed at cracking down on “cyber-bullying.” Now some members of Congress are pushing for a federal law against the practice. The Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act was first introduced last year. But it died in committee. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., introduced the measure again last month and says she believes she has enough support to make the bill law. “Schoolyard bullies – at least when you went home for the day, you could escape that,” Sanchez… Read more »
Green Day played the biggest show of its week-long tour of the San Francisco Bay Area April 14th, performing its upcoming album, 21st Century Breakdown, in its entirety. After only eight full rehearsals of the opera and those two club dates, the six-piece Green Day – Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt and drummer Tre Cool with guitarist Jason White, keyboardist Jason Freese and guitarist Jeff Matika – had the Quadrophenia-like hang of 21st Century Breakdown’s classic rock melodies and lifetime-punk drive down solid. “I”m not fuckin’ around,” Armstrong crowed in “Horseshoes and Handgrenades,” and there was no insecurity in the way… Read more »
The pressure had been building up behind the scenes for longer than most music fans realized. But when the teen-pop explosion burst onto the charts in early 1999 it felt like the music world had been blindsided overnight by a flood of squeaky-clean acts who would dominate the charts for years to come. And in some cases, those ripples are still being felt today. It’s hard to believe it now, but over the course of a few months between late 1998 and early 1999, radio and MTV were inundated with the debuts and breakthroughs from Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, ‘NSYNC,… Read more »
Posters of scantily clad youths that were seized by police at an Abercrombie & Fitch store in a Virginia mall this weekend may be inappropriate for young children, but they are not obscene, according to legal experts. Virginia Beach police apparently have agreed. On Monday, they dropped charges against the clothing company that markets to prep chic teens through sexually charged imagery. The window displays went up in 363 stores across the country in mid-January, including the Lynnhaven Mall in Virginia Beach. One of the posters showed three shirtless young men, one with his upper buttocks revealed. The second one… Read more »
Like Al Pacino in “The Godfather Part III,” just when eco warrior Al Gore thinks he’s pulled himself free of Washington, D.C.’s partisan politics, he gets pulled right back into the muck. Former Democratic Vice President Gore, one of the organizers behind the July 7 global-climate-crisis-awareness concert Live Earth , has run into opposition from Senate Republicans over his plans to have one of the eight worldwide shows take place in D.C. And, depending on who you believe, the objection to the concert is either a matter of simple parliamentary procedure or just politics as usual. Oklahoma Republican Senator James… Read more »
