america


Music

Cat Power calls U.S. out

Singer/songwriter says she’s leaving America on Instagram rant

Cat Power by Camille Garmendia
Cat Power by Camille Garmendia

Leave it to your trusty copy editor to place blame on the blameless. Cat Power, aka Chan Marshall, released a statement/rant on her Instagram page (with the Statue of Liberty as the backdrop), criticizing the state of America and claiming she’s leaving the country until things change. In the public statement, she claims the illusion of liberty has become a symbolism of entrapment, fostering hope in Americans in an effort to make them prisoners of false ideas. In the all-caps statement—chill out gurl; you don’t gotta yell—she claims that the powers that be have used said symbolism “AS FALSE CURRENCY TO RAPE THIS EARTH WITH IT’S[sic] LIES, PROTECTION OF WEALTH, AND VICIOUS SLAYINGS & INHUMANE PRIVATE CONTRACTED MILITARIES WORLDWIDE FOR DOMINATION ...”

She goes on to demand a tri-partisan government as well as a Native American vote. Preach on, Chan! But like I said, as a copy editor, I can’t help but twitch at the errors, considering it’s my job to make sure that all text entering the public domain is free of grammatical/factual errors so it reads smoothly. Now, I can attest to the fact that when something is written with passion, integrity, and a pressing need to completely reiterate certain feelings without censorship or too much thought, it’s important to throw the rules out the window and say what you gotta say. And I guess Ms. Marshall has ... she even went to the extent of tagging several well-known Twitter users like: Diplo, U2, Dave Chapelle, Madonna, The New York Times and more. Some good words, Chan, but if you need a copy editor, let me know. But then again, I may be making a moot point because a statement like this isn’t just meant to be typed/transcribed, but also meant to be spoken. As Marshall says, “HOW DO YOU FIGHT WITH JUST A WORD IN TEXT, SPEAK IT.”

Music

Cover me

 
Jeff Drew jeffdrewpictures.com
 

My obsessive-compulsive aural tendencies have undoubtedly been noted by careful—and dare I say, patient—readers who’ve been inundated with Halloween, Xmas, Valentine’s Day and themed playlists of all demoninations during my brief tenure. And now ... cover songs. Whether you love ‘em or hate ‘em, they’ve been around forever and appear to be here to stay. Nihil novi sub sole, eh? Refresh your cover memory with this week’s music feature, The Art of the Cover Song. Below, listen to a playlist of covers created by New Mexicans like Veery (Jessica Billey), Mama Coma (Marisa Demarco), The Rondelles, Steve Hammond, Cobra//group, Treadmill, Mistletoe, The Handsome Family, The Rivet Gang, Ant Farmers, Knife City, The Morticians, Sad Baby Wolf and Strawberry Zots.

More Videos

V.22 No.8 | 2/21/2013
 
Jeff Drew jeffdrewpictures.com

Aural Fixation

The Art of the Cover Song

Plumbing the inner reworkings of redux

By Samantha Anne Carrillo
Refresh your redux memory with Alibi Music Editor Samantha Anne Carrillo and rock out to a playlist of Nuevo Mexicano cover songs.

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NEWS

The Daily Word in Bigfoot's right to free speech, Robert Anton Wilson week, and (Un)-Occupy Albuquerque in Santa Fe

10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free.

(Un)-Occupy Albuquerque will be protesting in Santa Fe next week.

What happens to stuff dropped off at Santa Fe recycling stations?

It is Robert Anton Wilson week!

Women of the French Resistance.

Here is a different way of evaluating NFL teams and games.

"If you need a brassiere, wear one" and other dating tips for women circa 1938.

Too fat to fit in the CT-scanner? Try the one at the zoo.

Court finds state violated Bigfoot's right to free speech.

Heather Locklear is in hospital.

Arts

Great art sighting on the way to work

 
 

Nothing says America like a star-spangled mustang statue tethered to the bed of a Ford pickup. A free Alibi bottle opener key chain to anyone who can tell me the origins / final whereabouts of this magnificent stallion.

So long, pardner.
So long, pardner.
V.20 No.30 | 7/28/2011
New Mexico—in a sticky situation
Rebecca Joelson

Aural Fixation

New Mexico

The band—not our fair state

By Jessica Cassyle Carr

Last year the Alibi received a package containing a zia-emblazoned CD. This wasn’t unusual. Many proud local musicians use the symbol in their imagery. What was unusual was that the band New Mexico hails from San Diego. This does not follow protocol. After all, Kansas is from Kansas, Alabama from Alabama; Chicago (which plays live on Wednesday, Aug. 3 at Inn of the Mountain Gods Resort & Casino in Mescalero) is from Chicago and Boston from Boston. Even Europe is from Europe, and America is from America (well, mostly). Not since Asia has a musical entity been so geographically displaced from its chosen moniker.

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V.19 No.30 | 7/29/2010
 

Feature

Om My Guru

Two authors trace the roots of yoga in the West

By Patricia Sauthoff

It “turned husbands into adulterers, it turned scholars into swindlers, it turned women into lunatics or shut-ins,” writes author Stefanie Syman. It sounds dangerous. It sounds exciting. It certainly doesn’t sound like something you can do at home on your Wii.

That thing is yoga, and Syman’s new book, The Subtle Body: The Story of Yoga in America, traces its path from esoteric to exercise.

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V.19 No.19 | 5/13/2010
 

ABQ Beer Geek

And I’m Proud to Be an American ...

By ABQ Beer Geek

You don’t see that headline in the Alibi too often, huh? All politics and karaoke classics aside, there is no denying that American craft beer innovations are influencing the world to emulate our beers. True, once we were identified by tasteless, watery beer, and there are still plenty of uninformed people who think American beer = yuck. Since I pass time trolling local liquor stores, I hear people talking up unremarkable European and Asian lagers and snubbing anything American. I can’t keep my mouth shut, so I explain how far our beers have come and how creative our brewers are, but my vaguely homeless appearance keeps me from being taken seriously, and off they go with their 12-packs of Stella Artois.

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Music

Spotify: At Last, Europe’s Popular Music Streaming Service Is Coming to America

 
 

Looks like American music fans will finally get a taste of one of Europe's most popular streaming music services. Financial news website Bloomberg.com reported that Spotify, a free music service with 7 million users, will reach the United States in the third quarter of 2010.

Of course, this isn't the first time Spotify has been rumored to be crossing the Atlantic to join the American Intertubes. According to Wired, Spotify has announced that it will release a U.S. version of their software twice before, failing to deliver both times.

Spotify allows ad-supported streaming of its entire library of music tracks. Users may play any track among the at least 3.8 million in the library (the latest official number is from August of 2009), at any time their computer is connected to the internet; Spotify also recently gave users the ability to play their own music libraries through the program. Users may also purchase a monthly subscription for €9.99 to get rid of ads and allow songs to be saved on their computer for offline use. It’s unclear which of these services will make it into the American version of Spotify; the high cost of streaming music has caused some to speculate that a free version of Spotify will not exist in the United States.

While Europeans citizens and tech bloggers alike have pronounced themselves smitten with the service, it has some drawbacks—you can't take your music with you unless you sign up for the Premium version of Spotify, which allows you to download an application to your phone and save songs for offline listening. In addition, the service has been criticized for paying small royalties to artists—a Norwegian label revealed (warning: poorly translated Norwegian) that it earned a grand total of $3 after its songs had been streamed 55,000 times through Spotify.

    blog

    Crazy Moments in American History

    This poster’s balanced use of rhetorical appeals, namely that of logos, clearly drives home its rational point.
    This poster’s balanced use of rhetorical appeals, namely that of logos, clearly drives home its rational point.

    I don’t mean the crazy stuff that’s happened to us, like Pearl Harbor or 9/11, both of which we can all agree, crazy. Instead, I’m talking about moments when the crazy level in America (a measurement of our citizens’ craziness) goes off the charts. Just this month, we’ve had the Birthers and the Health Care Town Hall Shouters, who liken Obama to Hitler because they think Obama’s a socialist and Hitler was a National Socialist (a movement which was actually fascist, but hey, words are confusing). Oh, and Sarah Palin.

    So, there’s three. McCarthyism was pretty batshit as well. Also, waterbeds. What’s your vote?

    Nonmobile version