Friday, July 18, 2008

The Protest Issue

Okay, I pretty much luh magzines. I mean I have three current subscriptions and I still manage to buy Missbehave every quarter, Nylon every month, and Cosmo every once in awhile. But really, how many variations on the cowgirl position can they attempt to show me? (Someone bring back Jane before I get postal on mainstream women's mags, kthx)

So a few days ago I opened up my mailbox and found my new issue of Under The Radar Magazine, aptly titled The Protest Issue.

Open it up and you'll find page after page of discussions about current events, the state of music, and politics from indie artists around the world. Each artist is asked to make a personal sign of protest, and the results range from wittily clever, like Peter Moren's Down With Whistling, British Sea Power's Help: Let's Keep Polar Bears, Jamie Lidell's Free Cliche Guevara, and Akron/Family's I Want To Live In Woodrow Guthrie's America! to the more serious and more provocative, like Issac Brock (of Modest Mouse)'s Protests Only Work If The People You Are Protesting Give A Shit What You Think, Foals' Go Back To Bed America, Your Government Has Figured It All Out, and Michael Franti's George Bush Hates People.
The issue then goes on to talk about the correlations between politics and comic books, the documentary Body of War, and the Top 10 Protest Songs of the 21st Century!

All of this awesomeness is going on between interviews of Spiritualized, Portishead, Conor Oberst, and My Brightest Diamond, among others. And, as it turns out, every protest sign in the issue will be auctioned off on eBay and the proceeds will be donated to the War Child Organization. Add this to the plentitude of album, comic book, and DVD reviews and reissues and this issue goes from great to eggpants awesome.

Like, people, if you really want to hear about how the world is today from people who are living it, who saw it, who were there for it, you have to get this issue. It's amazing, and enlightening, and fucking fantastic.

Under The Radar is 4.99 at Barnes and Noble. So go get it!

Deuces,
Erika

4 comments:

Valentina said...

DUDE. I want this magazine now soo badly. Except I like have no more money available to purchase it with. Oh well, I'll just wait till I can go out with someone who i can convince to buy me stuff!

Fleet Foxes. Yes, please. Do want.

MACK said...

THANK YOU Erika for this post! I'm going to get this magazine ASAP...the protest signs are brilliant and everything else looks really interesting! All hail Erika.

PS-You must come to NY and let me take you to my mag spot. It's basically 4 long walls floor to ceiling of magazines AKA heaven. Plus theres a little cafe and tables so you can grab a mag, order a bagel, read your heart out and then not buy them if youre broke (Valentina)! Perfection, no?

Valentina said...

Where is this magic place Alex?! Where? My mag place has a really awesome selection, but there is no place to read them for free. You must share this secret!

Erika said...

Oh gawd Alex, do you know what that's worth?
Oooh heaven IS a place on earth!
That sounds awesome. I never worked at a mag place but I did work at a radio station with a "closet" which was really just shelves and shelves of CDs from 1994 to 2008. Can I compete? No.
Can I come to NYC? I really wanna!