Russian Punk Band Offends Putin & Church, Jailed

In case you were wondering, Russia is obviously still pretty fucked up...

Watch the BBC report

Read the full New Yorker article

JULY 24, 2012

PUTIN’S RELIGIOUS WAR AGAINST PUSSY RIOT

Posted by Masha Lipman

The pretrial hearings in the case of Pussy Riot, a Russian female punk band, are held behind closed doors in a Moscow court. Police have cordoned off not only the courthouse itself but also the street outside to keep the band’s supporters from even coming close to the building. Any attempt to hold a sign or chant is stopped; policemen grab the offenders and throw them into avtozaks (police buses). The three band members, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, twenty-three; Maria Alekhina, twenty-four; and Ekaterina Samutsevich, twenty-nine—Nadia, Masha, and Katya—are being prosecuted for an unsanctioned “punk-prayer” called “Our Lady, chase Putin out.” The women managed to perform for about thirty seconds in the Moscow Christ the Savior Cathedral before the church’s security guards kicked them out. A music video using the footage shot in the cathedral was distributed on the Web. For that, the three women have been kept in pretrial detention since March; on Friday last week, the judge extended their incarceration for six more months, and yesterday their trial was scheduled for July 30th. They are facing up to seven years in prison.

Ladies...please.

Ah... Sparkle Moore. Under-appreciated princess of wild, raucous, obscuro rock n' roll. An acquired taste perhaps, but a fine vintage nonetheless. It wasn't too long ago that I praised the folks at Aquarium Drunkard for their wonderful blend of "then and now." This post from late last month is more evidence to their credit.

Now, Rockabilly was and is, like a lot of music, male dominated, but that doesn't mean that there never were or never will be "kittens" who could hang with the "cats." Wanda Jackson's more hell-cat than kitten and it makes alot of sense that her name came up in the aforementioned AD article. Though, I wonder, just as I did when I got my very own copy of Ace's Good Girls Gone Bad (Weird, Wild, And Wanted), why one particular lady was left out.

Dubbed "the female Elvis", teen-queen Janis Martin could rock, roll, and bop with the best of them. A personal favorite, "Bang Bang" comes to mind. "Two Long Years" is another side, among others that deserves to be highlighted.