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Day: 2 March 2013

Live: Baauer

Written by James Hunter on . Posted in Music.

27th February 2013

Gorilla

You’re probably reading this because you’ve been drowned in the wave of recent viral ‘Harlem Shake’ videos and have even taken a taxing minute to look up the one responsible for your digital demise. So first things first, yes, Baauer did play Harlem Shake and yes, the aptly named record shook the crowd into a frenzied earthquake-inducing response of over-zealous (Harlem) shaking. But for those of you who are less acquainted. Baauer is a Philadelphian producer/DJ who is currently one of the forerunners in the trap game. So it was no surprise that on Wednesday, Gorilla was wall-to-wall packed, leaving just the right amount of hip-wiggle and elbow-flaring room.

Those who initially felt that more room was required were soon inspired by the insanely enthusiastic dancing by the man of the hour, Baauer. If you slacked on your finger blasting for just one second, he would be there with four fingers raised, timekeeping finger thrusting. Which did raise the question of how he had time to actually mix track after crowd-pleasing track from the likes of TNGHT, Major Lazer, 2 Chainz and Flosstradamus. Though he did, and as is now becoming necessary on the DJ circuit, Baauer supplied a hyped and energetic performance, which pandered perfectly to the baying crowd’s needs.

My only criticism would be that it could have been a little bit too hyped, as at times it felt like a barrage of sub-bass kicks and synthesized horn screeches, lacking a diversity in tempo and feel while leaving little time for much needed finger-blast recovery. Overall it can be said that Baauer came, he played, and he did exactly what was asked of him, delivered an enthusiastic musical montage of the latest and greatest in trap, and even added a little extra finger thrusting to the mix.

Live: Caitlin Rose

Written by Polly Checkland Harding on . Posted in Music.

1st March 2013

Ruby Lounge

4/10

Caitlin Rose looks like a devotional painting when she sings. With demure hair and eyes raised piously above the audience, she seems strangely detached from the sounds coming out her mouth. The purity and long reach of her voice is undeniable; on songs such as ‘For the Rabbits’ from her 2010 debut Own Side Now, the pining notes are the heart of the song. However, such settled vocal confidence dulls the grit and risk in the performance.

The audience too are curiously uptight and, though the gig is sold out, the enthusiasm during the set remains coldly restrained; talkers are shushed, jostlers tutted. It is only when Rose’s eyes drop between songs and connect with the crowd that the gig achieves any energy. Following the gently harmonized ‘Only a Clown’, from her new release The Stand In (2013), Rose starts a running gag in her Tennessee lilt, about how it is “glorious – wet and musky in here”; she closes a song by saying impishly “Thank you for your perspiration” and gets a proper laugh when using sweat as a ploy to sell t-shirts.

Speaking, Rose seems charmingly spontaneous. Musically, she slips into formula, repeating the blueprint of two or three steady verses then a guitar riff, followed by a final, more lively, round up: ‘Menagerie’, a romp that gets the audience bobbing reluctantly, is one of a few exceptions to this. Even the band’s encore is on automatic pilot: they go through the motions and stand off to the side, but don’t bother to leave the stage. Towards the end of the gig, an audience member pipes up with “We love you!”. Rose’s pat reply sums up her style playing live: “Aw, I love you too… we mean it as much as we can.”

Album: Veronica Falls – Waiting for Something to Happen

Written by Orlaith O Byrne on . Posted in Music.

A label formed in the wake of dream pop triplet Cocteau Twins, Bella Union seem to have a clear direction in the artists they choose to work with. No different are the melodic LondonersVeronicaFalls, a band with youthfulness managing to survive the curse of the second album with more breathy soprano harmonies from vocalists Roxanne Clifford and James Hoare than there are future X-Factor contestants singing their Saturday afternoon hearts out on Market Street.

The quartet’s self-titled debut was largely well received, and deservedly so when peppered with pop lovelies like Found Love in a Graveyard and Bad Feeling. Equally, it was let down by steadily unimaginative drum patterns and a tambourine that at first glitters through every track, though soon becomes tiresome as it impedes on the listeners ability to hear anything else (listen out for it in the first track and you wont be able to block it out for the rest of the album!). More trivially, their somewhat futile denial of a C86 influence is trite when their sound can be so remarkably well fitted to such a category.

Waiting For Something To Happen is a satisfying advancement, with varied and thought out songs like the first single Teenage providing the fluctuations in beat that their first album lacks. What’s more, heart-fluttering chord progressions classic of their best songs are still present, familiar and comforting like the last leg of a drunken walk home. Highlights come in the form of poppy bass track So Tired with Sonic Youth circa 2006 vibes and an ethereal grunge chant Shooting Star; the impressive equivalent to the debut album’s ‘gothic’ hit Beachy Head. Perhaps at their very best is the affectedly quaint lyricism of track Buried Alive that they are so practised at: “I wanna get sick/ I wanna catch everything you’ve ever caught”. Charming! Winding down to a composed finish with Last Conversation, it’s clear that Veronica Falls are in possession of the song-writing talent required for captivating four-minute jingles.

Clifford may fall short of the expressive performance achieved by the band’s elder influences (have you heard Elizabeth Fraser’s performance of Song to the Siren?), but a modest indie album is something Veronica Falls can most certainly deliver. Whilst sticking to their broken toy guns, what they have achieved here is a calmer and more delicately contrasting version of their debut. An admirable accomplishment.

My Political Hero: Tammy Baldwin

Written by Emma Bean on . Posted in Opinion.

In the furore of the Presidential elections of 2012, many marvellous things occurred. Not only did the American people vote to keep Obama and reject the socially conservative republicans, rape deniers and general turds extraordinaire were defeated and the utterly fantastic Elizabeth Warren was elected to Senate. But it is not her of whom I wish to speak, but of another, an even more ground breaking result for America, for women and particularly LGBT women. The election of the first openly homosexual senator in the form of Tammy Baldwin, and a fairly awesome politician additionally represented an amazing victory in an evening of amazing victories.

Ms Baldwin has been an elected representative since 1993, where she served until 1999 in the Wisconsin Assembly. In the 1992 elections she was one of just six openly LGBT politicians to be elected. She was an early advocate for the LGBT community when in office, stating her disappointment at Bill Clinton’s compromise with the infamous ‘Don’t ask don’t tell’ policy, proposed legalizing same sex marriage in Wisconsin in 1994, and proposing domestic partnerships in 1995. She also is against capital punishment in the state.

As a member of congress, Baldwin had one of the most progressive voting records, and was a member of the Progressive Majority’s advisory committee – a group that aims to elect progressive candidates to public office.

On women’s rights, she was given a grade of 100 from the League of Women Voters in 2007 for her support of such policies and ideas as the Equal Pay Act, the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, stronger enforcement of laws against sexual violence and violence against women. She was a key supporter of the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program Reauthorization Act of 2007, which helped low-income, underinsured, and uninsured women pay for cervical and breast cancer-related medical services.

This is not the only good thing she has done for Healthcare provision in the US, she authored the Veteran Vision Equity Act which protects benefits for veterans; she spoke at the 2004 democratic convention at prime time on the issue of health care. During the 110th Congress, she wrote the Reeve Paralysis Act which authorizes additional funding for the treatment of ailments that result in immobility.  She has also had the concerns of the LGBTQ community in mind in her politics, pushing for provisions to the healthcare reform bill to address the past neglect of the queer and trans* community. Examples of this include the Early Treatment for HIV act, the effect of which would have been to allow states to provide Medicaid coverage to low-income individuals living with HIV and AIDS and the Tax Equity for Health Beneficiaries Act which intended to end a tax for homosexual employees whose partners were covered under their employment health insurance. Unfortunately, not all of these eventually made it through to law.

One hopes, and far from a vain hope, that she will continue with policies and ideals like this for many years to come in the senate. With people at the forefront of US politics like Tammy Baldwin, we can all feel a little less distressed by the world’s most powerful nation.

Students need to fight back against privatisation in higher education

Written by Charlotte Green on . Posted in Opinion.

Large scale, successful student protests have been somewhat lacking over the last ten years, most notably with marches and demonstrations in 2010 and 2011 failing to prevent the rise in tuition fees despite hundreds of thousands of supporters. The student voice is being ignored and our concerns overlooked. Is it the methods that are failing, or is it that students have lost the power to effect change? Time to shine a spotlight on the University of Sussex and their growing movement ‘Sussex against Privatisation’, where they seem to be getting it right.

In May of 2012 plans were revealed outlining proposed changes to the way services are handled at Sussex University. Senior Management revealed their intentions to outsource 10% of the workforce, privatising 235 jobs across the university by August 2013. The outsourcing will cover a large number of services including catering, grounds management, security services, building management and maintenance and areas of administration.  This news was greeted with dismay and the plans faced opposition from many students and staff who claimed that outsourcing would negatively impact the university and undermine its sense of community. Despite internal opposition the university pushed on with its plans, advertising jobs in the European Journal and opening up sectors of the institution to private bids. Tensions over the intended outsourcing have come to a head in the beginning of this year with the occupation by students of Bramber house, a conference centre attached to the university. Around 100 activists currently occupy the building, with the numbers increasing daily as public support for the movement grows. A simple yellow square has become the symbol of the protest and other universities and students have been expressing solidarity with the movement by placing yellow post-it notes in windows and yellow banners stating ‘Support the 235’ across student unions.

Along with the occupation activists have led large rallies and demonstrations featuring both students and staff around campus and a list of signatories pledging solidarity to the movement now numbers in the hundreds. It is through this list that media attention was first attracted to the movement as it contains support from high-profile personalities such as author Noam Chomsky, director Ken Loach, actor Peter Capaldi, comedian Mark Steel, columnist Owen Jones, as well as MPs such as Green MP Caroline Lucas and Labour backbencher John McDonald. The majority of the list is made up by university academics and professors, including David Wilkinson, a Teaching Assistant at University of Manchester.

So why was there a drive towards privatisation in the first place? Michael Farthing in a letter stated that “…As we [Sussex University] undergo a period of substantial growth and significant change … we want to ensure we have an environment and services that will be high quality, focused on students and staff and offer good value for money”. All of these are laudable aims. What is unclear however, is why private industry will provide this and the public sector cannot. If we contrast Sussex with the University of Manchester we can see the exact opposite, a large institution run efficiently and successfully by the university with only limited links to the private sector in specialist areas. Claims by the Sussex activists that the sense of community of the university will be diminished by privatisation have been rubbished by Sussex management, who doubt the impact of the university services on this ‘sense of community’. In contrast on the University of Manchester website under the ‘jobs’ section it tells possible employees that ‘…with more than 10,000 staff and nearly 40,000 students, the University is more like a community than a workplace.’ Manchester clearly does not devalue its own in-house services and the communal atmosphere in the same way that Sussex does.  With examples like Manchester proving the worth of public services, one wonders why the government seems so keen to discredit them, to continue with the dogma that private equals good, public equals bad.

The real issue at the heart of this protest is that of marketization, and whether we are prepared to let higher education become another battle ground for the private sector. Protesters at Sussex University are making a stand; it’s only a matter of time before other universities will have to decide whether to stand in favour of students as learners, or students as consumers.  And ultimately it’s up to us as the students to decide what we want our education to be. Do we want to be receiving an education or merely a product? The protest at Sussex University is just the tip of the iceberg.

Why I’ll be sleeping rough: STAR/Amnesty International’s Sleepout campaign

Written by Sophie Guinard on . Posted in Opinion.

On the 7th of March, the annual STAR/Amnesty Sleepout campaign will be held on the Students’ Union steps to raise awareness of destitution amongst asylum seekers in the UK.  For the third year running, Manchester students, activist groups and performers alike will be ‘sleeping rough’ in order to highlight this pressing issue.  Although difficult to quantify the extent of the problem, some estimate the number of refused asylum seekers living in the UK to be 500,000, of which the vast majority are not allowed access to state support.

For these people, day-to-day life is a struggle, and individuals whose past experiences have already often been incredibly difficult often do not have anywhere to live and are in many cases forced to undertake illegal work, including begging and prostitution. All of this just to survive. Among those forced to live on the streets are particularly vulnerable groups, such as children. The Children’s Society recently reported a startling rise in young homeless asylum seekers that sought help from them.

The causes of destitution are often multi-factorial; but the process of seeking asylum in the UK has many flaws. Many argue that it is counter-effective and inhumane. In 2011, 77% of asylum seekers were refused protection in the UK as a first decision but in 26% of cases, those who appealed against a refusal gained refugee status.

Asylum seekers are given fewer rights to housing, healthcare and food than people on the lowest band of benefits. Many asylum seekers are forced to rely on just above £5 a day. Some of these are people who have been refused ‘leave to remain in the UK’ but who are, at present, not able to return to their country of origin on specific grounds; i.e. usually if it is either deemed too dangerous or if the physical health of the individual is too poor to allow their return.

The allowance they do get from the government takes the form of vouchers; an Azure Card which can be used to pay for food, clothes, toiletries and phone charges, but not for transport or any other expenses. The card can only be used in certain stores and contains funds equivalent to only 52% of the standard Income Support. The money, for the most part, is not cumulative. That is; saving more in one week doesn’t entitle that person to having more funds in the following week. A maximum of £5 is able to be carried across from one week to the next. As no asylum seeker (either refused or waiting on a claim) is permitted to work, this support from the government represents their only income. But £5 a day really does not go very far. A survey conducted in 2007 by Refugee Action found that many destitute asylum seekers with whom they have contact would qualify for this support, yet do not have it. A number of reasons have been given for this; predominantly the fears that people in these situations have of being deported back to a country in which considerable risks still exist.

The reality of the situation is that this support is meant to hinder more than it is to help refused asylum seekers, and this leads to people needing to find alternative means of survival. In 2007, the parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights judged that ‘the government has indeed been practicing a deliberate policy of destitution of this highly vulnerable group [asylum seekers]. We believe that all deliberate use of inhumane treatment is unacceptable.’ However, little has been done to address the issues highlighted by the report.

Despite the introduction of a New Asylum Model (NAM) in 2007 that aimed to speed up the decision-making process on asylum statuses and to deport people who had been refused, Refugee Action found that a high proportion of those seeking help from asylum seeker charities had gone through this “improved” system, and that forty percent of these were still living destitute. The NAM system also has failed to reduce the length of time to make initial decisions.  According to Amnesty, last year there were 3,000 asylum seekers in the UK who had been waiting over 6 months for a decision. This is despite promises made by the government to make key changes in this area.

Destitution is an atrocity that shouldn’t occur in the UK, and the Sleepout next Thursday aims to stress that. There were around 120 people attending last year’s Sleepout, with a third of people sleeping out overnight.  Even MPs have taken part in past events. This year, the event promises to be another great demonstration, with free food, activities, guest speakers a number of acts, including Harmony Gospel choir, Tiny waves, She choir and Nubian twist. The event starts at 8pm, and for those brave enough to sleep out, don’t forget a sleeping bag!

If you are planning on sleeping out on Thursday 7th and are able to get sponsored for your bravery, a sponsorship page has been set up which friends can donate to. All proceeds will go to the Boaz Trust, a Manchester-based organisation committed to helping destitute asylum seekers.

Sponsorship page: http://www.charitygiving.co.uk/STAR