With the refrain, “We’ll occupy the streets, we’ll occupy the courts, we’ll occupy the offices of you, till you do the bidding of the many, not the few,” Hawaiian singer Makana’s song, “We Are The Many,” “turned a top-security dinner of Pacific Rim leaders hosted by President Barack Obama into a subtle protest with a song in support of the ‘Occupy’ movement.” The video was posted prior to the dinner on November 10 and though the roughly 400 protesters, including activists for native Hawaiian rights and those against globalization, initially planned to march towards the dinner site, they were changed their plans in light of the mass amounts of security.
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About a month ago, I kept getting pinged by people sending me links to the video of California-based electronic pop band IAMMEDIC jumping around in Star Trek uniforms. I’m a sucker for a Starfleet uniform, so I got in touch with IAMMEDIC’s starship captain leader, Enik Lin, and it turns out these guys aren’t even Trekkies! So who are these guys who they call their fans “Paramedics,” anyway? Read on for more about IAMMEDIC, Enik’s guilty pleasure, and of course, his Asian comfort food!
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Shopping With GASP!
She’s at it again. No, not Britney. Margaret Cho! The Drop Dead Diva star is launching a campaign promoting her album, Cho Dependent and donating 20% of the proceeds to Immediate Justice, a human rights charity. However, this campaign focuses on encouraging and empowering the liberation of young women and queer colored people.
There aren’t that many Asian American singers and songwriters in the media these days. Actually, I don’t think Asian Americans get all the much recognition because they’re considered the underdogs of music.
As I was sitting at The Coffee Garden in Sacramento on a Friday night, I stumbled into a live show by an Asian American acoustic musician from New Mexico named Daniel Park. I sat, listened and was blown away at his talent. A one man band who records his instruments and loops them, using no additional band members other than himself. The singer humored the audience with jokes about his life in New Mexico and his inspirations for his songs. If records were sold based on raw talent alone, Park would be in platinum status; however, the industry does not work that way. I felt compelled by his voice and his natural talent on stage.
One song in particular stood out called “Sparks Fly”. I imagined sitting by a train station watching the fireworks go off in the summer sky.
Throughout the night, Park did top 40 covers and interacted with the crowd like they were guests in his home. After the show, I went up and introduced myself and asked for an interview via email. Find out what Daniel Park had to say after the cut.
If I hadn’t been hosting the Q&A for the L.A. theatrical opening of The People I’ve Slept With on Friday night, then I definitely would have been at Kollaboration Acoustic 4.
Luckily, there’s YouTube and fan-uploaded videos of the show, for those of us who couldn’t make it! Dawen, who has performed with Macy Gray and covered songs by Maxwell, won the night’s competition (and a cool $1,000) with an original song called “Shoes.” Congrats to Dawen and to all the performers!
Thanks to HypnoticAsia for the video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B74s4MgQ1rw
I am amazed at how people could even attempt to make the sounds they do through beatboxing. But just as Asians have started to dominate the bboy scene, it seems that they are starting to go crazy also with beatboxing. Daichi and Hikakin are the two most well known beatboxers from Japan, and both have done several television appearances.
Hikakin was the first one that my wife found out about when she was searching about Nintendo music and ran across his Super Mario beatbox. What’s really crazy is that most DJs use records and equipment to all the mixing and scratching, but these guys can do it straight from their throats with absolutely impressive beats.
So, how does the anniversary of the King of Pop’s death have to do with the Asian Diaspora? Well, it would be foolish to not acknowledge Michael Jackson’s contribution in music worldwide. After all, it was only in North America where his popularity nose-dived and was seen as a freak. Still, the legend does live on, in the case with the above song done by artists from a Korean label called Fluxus Music.
Info taken from YouTube:
Fluxus Music Artists combined together to commemorate the memory of the pop legend “Michael Jackson”.
Alex, Horan, Yi Sung Yol, Park Ki Young, Whale (W&Whale), Namu (byebyesea), Haewon (Winterplay), and Euna Chang, successfully integrate to create beautiful harmony of ‘BEAT IT”
This video contains varity [sic] of smart phone music applications that are capable of generating instrument sounds.
Engrish is very low. Enjoy!
[Hat Tip: Emily at Omgkpop.com]
I admit, before I was even told that David Choi has released By My Side — his second album — I haven’t listened to any of his stuff since he made that cute single with Kina Grannis, My Time With You. But something about his unedited thank you to his fans just draws you in; it’s dorky, but he knows it and comments about it, and you just have to chuckle and keep watching.
What’s interesting is that despite that last video, the guy has a voice. A really dang good voice. Like a “holy motha-, why couldn’t I had been blessed with that” type of voice. No, it’s not a Justin Bieber voice (sorry, David, but I think yours is better.) Don’t believe me? Don’t make your judgment from his thank you video and instead check out his Youtube channel — after watching a few of the videos, I have to say that I’ll probably buy it just because of those great productions.
It also doesn’t hurt to have done quite a few things with production company WongFu either, another one of my West Coast faves. In any case, go grab your copy of By My Side, Out today.
Oh and on the off-chance that you’re still reading this and wondering why I mention giving birth in the title: I direct your attention to his blog post explaining his process in making the album.
h/t: Sam
As part of their East Coast tour, channelAPA.com sat down with Audio Fiction’s lead guitarist Charles Park and drummer/manager Mark O’Toole. This indie group has leveraged the online medium to their advantage from selling music through iTunes to getting on to the Rock Band Network Music Store. Charles Park breaks down what music means to him and how his guitar playing skills has given Audio Fiction a vibe it can’t live without. If you have Rock Band, be sure to get track Race the Hourglass by Audio Fiction and see if you can master the guitar skills of Charles Park. You can see an example of the game play here.
What’s up everybody? This is Steve from channelAPA.com, and I just want to say that I’m very enthusiastic about the partnership that we’ve formed with our friends here at 8Asians!
Along with the videos that you’ll be seeing on channelAPA’s end, I’ll be releasing exclusive content that you can only find through my channel.
With that having been said, the video shown above is a compilation that I’ve been working on throughout our NYC promotional tour. We pride ourselves in highlighting all facets of Asian American entertainment from all across the country. Throughout my travels, I’ve been reaching out to several New York/New Jersey based artists in order to collaborate and get them more involved with our channel. The making of this video would not have been possible without the help of our sponsor, Blacklava, film composer George Shaw, the channelAPA team, and the support of our followers in the East Coast.
The artists and groups that were featured include Heather Park, Audio Fiction, Triangle Offense, Johnnyphlo, The Notorious MSG, Dave Boyle, Rik Cordero, Teresa Lee of PaperDoll, Taiyo Na, Cynthia Lin, Decipher, Ellie Lee of seoulbeats/aatheory, Misnomer(S), Jen Kwok, Air Tabigue, Jordan White of Racebending, Cliff Chiang, Jeff Yang, Jerry Ma, Deep Foundation, Alfa, Gary King, and Choz Belen.
It’s been while since my interview with Kina Grannis, about three years now me thinks, and it’s been a long ride. But the wait is finally over with a fabulous album coming out called “Stairwells” after winning the Interscope contract and then leaving the label later on to become an independent. This album blends the well known voice of Kina with what I couldn’t really describe from the preview songs except for a style kind of like John Mayer. Maybe I’m just crazy but this album is probably one of her most polished yet and is already looking to be a hit.
What’s even more fun about this is that if you pre-order “Stairwells” before February 23rd, you’ll get your copy signed. And apparently she’s been spending many hours signing these babies if that’s any indication of where this album is going already. If you’ve never heard of her music, I would suggest you check out the official music video of Valentine above and entice your eardrums to those lovely vocals and gentle strumming of the acoustic guitar.
Beautiful stuff. Really.
There’s a ton of stuff going on in L.A. all the time, but if you love music & art, check out this awesome event “BY ANY DREAMS NECESSARY” featuring work by artist and designer Timothy Teruo Watters, a hapa, who was inspired by his grandfather. One of the singers is Jessie Malay, a super talented hapa. Don Chow Tacos, a Chinese taco truck, will also be there.
BY ANY DREAMS NECESSARY
LIVE ART. LIVE MUSIC. LIVE FASHION.
OPEN BAR. DON CHOWS TACO TRUCK.Date & Time: November 14, 2009, 8pm – 1am
Venue: Gallery 1018, 1018 Santa Fe Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90021Artwork by TIMOTHY TERUO WATTERS
Live Music by JESSI MALAY, TERRA INCOGNITA, SIX REASONS and more…
Live Fashion by DANIELLE KELLY
JOSEPH GETTRIGHT, DJ IZM, TRUTHLiVE, BZ and ED GOLD spinning all nightOFFICIAL RELEASE PARTY FOR DJ SKEE MIXTAPE “ENDANGERED SPECIES” featuring BRIAN “DEEP” WATTERS, PROPHET and SIX REASONS
TERUO ARTISTRY debuting its Fall Men and Women’s line
COL.ABO presents KORRUPTION: A Vinyl Toy ProjectArt raffle benefitting A PLACE CALLED HOME
Sponsored by EVERYDAY and JLP “The President’s Tequila
Want to learn more about what Teruo Artistry is about? Check out these videos by Skee.TV:
h/t: Koji
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