The American system may result in a bit of stifling of creative music, but at least people have the freedom to make music without the fear of arrest. In Iran, on the other hand, musicians face government opposition all over the place. If you want to play rock there, good luck. And women in Iran are only allowed to sing solo in public in front of an all-female audience. If they want to sing to a mixed crowd, they must be accompanied by a male singer.

The Plastic Wave is an Iranian electronic rock band (with Portishead leanings) and has a female lead singer. They’ve been arrested before. But they had a rare – and legal – opportunity to perform in public when they were recently scheduled to perform at SXSW. Unfortunately, the US consulate in Dubai wouldn’t give them a visa to get them here, the band says.

New Yorkers, however, will still have the chance to hear their music, albeit through a cover band, at Littlefield in Brooklyn on Wednesday, March 3rd. The night is part of a worldwide protest in support of musical freedom aptly called Music Freedom Day. Cruel Black Dove will play Wave’s music, but for added poignancy, the night’s last song will be only a recording that will echo through the venue as the stage remains empty of all but the instruments they would have used. The event is called Impossible Music, and they plan to host more nights like it. This first session is sponsored in part by Freemuse, which is also organizing the worldwide protest.

On a related note, here’s a video of a pretty nice sounding cut by a female Iranian rapper named Farinaz, courtesy of The Atlantic. She would probably face arrest if she lived in Iran. (Image by Kako.)

In New York, half of women that are murdered are killed in domestic incidents.

Apparently, Keira Knightley is a megastar over in the UK, so daps to her for doing this public service announcement about domestic violence. Although some writers may disagree, Culture System thinks that the video was effective in bringing home the helplessness of Knightley’s situation at the end. By having her call out for the director’s help and exposing the film set, it blurs the line between reality and fiction, and helps tear off the glossy sheen of movies that we have all become accustomed to.

We thought the fact that Clark plays in the background was enough of a tie in to make this relevant to a music blog.

A New Era of Responsibility was the name of Obama’s budget proposal. But it might also be a phrase that describes what some expect for hip hop, now that a black man is the leader of the country.

In Slate magazine, Jonah Weiner writes about how Obama’s rise to the presidency could help to change the definition of power and success in hip hop.

“[Jay-Z] never tried to rewrite the rules of the game beyond the one that said a black man couldn’t win. While he takes pains to portray his success as, at bottom, a racial coup, he’s never been interested in dismantling the status quo so much as infiltrating and mastering it. This is a fair description of what Obama did, too—with one crucial exception. For Jay-Z, the fact that he got rich as a businessman constitutes its own rebellion. Obama, though, is a former community organizer who chose public service over private-sector paychecks. His example might open up new sorts of narratives in hip-hop, ones where power isn’t a synonym for wealth.”

(On a related note, peep this mini-documentary about Obama and 50 Cent.)

In Brazil, there are a number of rural communities called quilombos which were founded by escaped slaves or started on abandoned plantations. A new documentary called Quilombo Country, narrated by Chuck D, covers these communities in their contemporary state. The film is showing through Thu, Jan. 25, at Two Boots Pioneer Theater in the East Village, and again on Fri., Feb 6, at the Taller Latino Americano theater in Harlem.

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Image by Jennifer Daniel

NEAR THE START OF THE NEW YEAR, Apple revealed that it would begin selling all of its music on iTunes without copyright software. The move was welcomed by many as the introduction of a new era. But where does the move actually take music?

By shedding the software, listeners have many more options about what they do with the music they buy. But there are hurdles on this path towards freedom of use, including new privacy issues and inflexibility in upgrading collections previously bought at the iTunes store. Furthermore, new copyright software – often called DRM, which is shorthand for digital rights management – is popping up at Apple and iTunes for other forms of digital culture.

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From the comments section of a post over at Dutty Artz about knowing something about the lyrics and culture of the music DJs and producers are playing or sampling. A thoughtful discussion over there.

Since I was one of the only people to actually write something about her, it’s no surprise that Terry Lynn had some words for me on her new blog. She doesn’t like me too much because I clowned on her for biting Daft Punk.

In her post, she backs up her manager’s claim that DP gave Lynn permission to bite "Technologic." And although there was no reference to DP on her website, like he claimed, DP’s manager did show some love for her in a blog post that I overlooked. Actually, I saw the post back then, but didn’t realize that the author was Daft Punk’s manager. As far as all that goes: my fault.

And although she resorts to name calling, and ragging me as an "eeediot," I still say that I like the cut, and would even prefer to listen to it over the DP original. But it still needs a more prominent reference to Daft Punk. Just because someone gives you permission to bite doesn’t make it all better. If somebody in a graffiti crew flips a style like someone else that’s down, they still lose a measure of respect. The fact that Lynn hasn’t put out much of anything else doesn’t help her either.

But in the sake of good faith communication, I’ve included the original review I wrote with a couple small edits. Read it after the jump.

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A record store caught up in the throes of the rapidly gentrifying Harlem may need to close its doors after over 60 years.

Its owner may be the first black man to own a store on the area’s major thoroughfare, 125th.

Dude opened his store "before R & B music got its name".

Sounds like the type of thing the Landmarks Preservation Commission should be paying attention to.

<via the NYTimes>

A little while back, Culture System featured a story on how people search for music. It was about a survey of people meant to represent the whole population. In a bit of bad news for this blog, it found that the majority of people do not go online in search of new music.

The study did note, however, that music heads and the "Internet cognoscenti", as the report called the web savvy, search for music in a different manner.

And a couple of new studies might help to shed a little light on this part of the population.

A recent non-scientific survey of users of the blog aggregator Hype Machine found that, like the first report, friends still played a large role in discovering music for Hype Machine users. But friends were only the runner up as a source of music, not the prime source. Online editorials were the go-to place for Hype Machine users.

But one of the readers was a little peturbed that the study didn’t include radio as one of the multiple choice options for sources of new music. A total of 7.6 users wrote this alternative into the "other" category.

Entertainment Media Research also just recently published(pdf) a study of digital music consumption in the UK. (Net, Blogs and Rock’n'Roll caught this one.)

In this online study of 1,700 people, MySpace ranks as the most important web site for music, with YouTube coming in second. More importantly, perhaps, is that 10 percent of respondents said the social networking sites have led to purchases. This is surely to increase now that musicians are able to sell MP3′s directly through their MySpace profiles. And it’s just in time: nearly half said it needs to be easier to buy music from the sites.

Regardless of their popularity, two-fifths agree with the statement that the networking sites "are full of idiots nowadays". Yes, they really asked that question. So scientific.

Since we’re on the biting tip, this comparison of Avril Lavigne to an almost identical Peaches song was recently pointed out to me. But hey, who cares who came up with what? It’s all good, right?