I wasn’t going to post anything on the occasion of the one-year anniversary of Katrina, since I didn’t have anything particularly intelligent to say. But I thought of some things to offer today, so here we go.
This American Life offered some amazing coverage in the aftermath of Katrina; it’s highly unusual for them to offer current events coverage, but they really delivered. Here are some episodes for you to listen to:
- After the Flood (9/9/05); transcript of the program.
- This Is Not My Beautiful House (9/16/05)
Harry Shearer has done regular interviews on his radio program Le Show about New Orleans and the aftermath of Katrina. This is also unusual for him, but he is a part-time resident of the city. His last interview was with Ivor van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center and author of the new book The Storm: What Went Wrong and Why During Hurricane Katrina–the Inside Story from One Louisiana Scientist. You can hear that interview here.
In the immediate aftermath of Katrina and over the course of the past year, many artists have offered their commentary. Here’s a post I wrote about this issue, which also has links to Juvenile’s video “Get Ya Hustle On.” Here’s another post covering some more songs that came out at the time.
Here is a post largely inspired by the classic book Rising Tide, which offered some historical perspective. This post also quoted from the book and looked at New Orleans’ demographics. This post tried to offer some hope, but a year later, there’s still far more suffering than there ought to be.
The best song to come out of Katrina was “George Bush Don’t Like Black People” by Houston’s The Legendary K.O., which was a reconstruction of Kanye West’s “Gold Digger.” It was brilliant in every way: musically, politically, emotionally. You can hear the song here.
My second favorite song of the time was TV On The Radio’s “Dry Drunk Emperor,” a scathing indictment of Bush. Georgia Anne Muldrow’s new album Olesi: Fragments of an Earth was released this week and the lead track is called “New Orleans.” The sound is like New Orleans R&B done as free jazz. It’s also the sound of a city in chaos.
TV On The Radio – Dry Drunk Emperor
Georgia Anne Muldrow – New Orleans — BUY
Tags: Katrina, This American Life, Harry Shearer, Le Show, Ivor van Heerden, Rising Tide, John M. Barry, TV On The Radio, Georgia Anne Muldrow, MP3s
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2 Responses
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jAKAsso! Says:
I was reading a few posts back where you mentioned something about ‘they make me remove the mp3s…’. Could you explain who and how this is done, please. I have considered entering the music blogosphere, holding back only because I just don’t know about that stuff. Thanks man!
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The Pop View Says:
You’re speaking of this post here.
I’m no legal authority, but I would accept the basic premise that, in general, the redistribution of music is illegal. However, there is the doctrine of “fair use,” which is to reproduce a particular work for purposes of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.
The problem is that in the analog world, such reproduction meant quoting from a book or playing a brief snippet of a song. In today’s digital world, it means posting MP3s, which are an exact (more or less) copy of the original.
It appears that over the past few years, there has arisen a tradition of MP3 blogs that follow particular criteria in the manner in which they post MP3s. Given the response (or lack thereof) from the recording industry, it appears there is a stand-off for now. No law has been established, but it seems that if you follow the rules, you can generally stay out of trouble. There are exceptions, as the Thom Yorke incident demonstrates.
1) You shouldn’t post more than a few tracks from any particular album.
2) You shouldn’t keep MP3s up for more than 1-2 weeks. Ten days seems about right.
Otherwise, if you want to start an MP3 blog, this is probably the definitive guide.