Video Fridays: Kirsty MacColl and The Pogues' Fairtytale of New York

One of WOW's favorite Christmas songs is "Fairytale of New York" by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl, so I wanted to put this up as our Friday video feature, since 'tis the season! In researching the links, I discovered that next week actually marks the eighth anniversary of the death of the English singer-songwriter. She was killed in Cozumel Mexico, vacationing with her family. While scuba diving, a speed boat entered the restricted area, and Kirsty pushed one of her two sons out of the way, saving his life but resulting in her death. The driver of the boat paid a fine the equivalent of ninety U.S. dollars and was released. Since then, her family and friends have pressured the Mexican government to investigate the matter further through their Justice For Kirsty campaign. Part of the campaign is encouraging people to push "Fairytale in New York" to the top of the U.K. Christmas song charts every year, so we'd like to do our part to help. If you liked the song below, consider purchasing a dollar download via the button below.



Watch the video:

Worst Place To Be A Woman: Congo

We're heard the stories of the atrocities of civil war, militias run rampant, rape, and murder in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for quite some time, but now Amnesty International has made it official - the Congo is the worst place in the world to be a woman. Women and girls in the Congo are nearly all survivors of calculated and systematic sexual assault, which has been used as a weapon in the ongoing civil war since 1996. In addition to the emotional and mental anguish experienced by the survivors as well as members of their local community (assaults are often carried out in public, aimed to undermine the strength families or local towns), physical injuries have been devastating in an area of the world where medical care is sorely lacking, and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, are quickly rising. One result is that survivors are expelled from their families and communities, cut off not only from a support network but also from economic opportunity. To make things even worse, few aid organizations are able to work in the Congo, due to the civil strife that is ongoing.

Amnesty International hopes that by naming the Congo the worst place in the world to be a woman, they can urge other women to join in the call for an end to violence. They've prepared a petition on their website calling on President-elect Barack Obama to protect women of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. You can sign that here, and we hope you do.

Day Without A Gay

Today marks the first work boycott launched by the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in the United States. The mission of Day Without a Gay is to get LGBT employees to call in "gay" to work and spend the day volunteering at an organization working to further queer civil rights.
Not only will this put more hands on deck at organizations that need all the free labor they can get, it will draw attention to gay employees' worth as, you know, people and workers. Hopefully employers and co-workers will note their absence and connect the dots: "Hey, things aren't as fun/productive/smooth without Bob or Sue at work today. Wow, they are standing up for civil rights that they have been denied but I've been granted for arbitrary reasons. Gays: they really are just like the rest of us. Huh."

In an ideal situation, Day Without a Gay will create a noticable impact on straight allies and potentially change the minds of those who support hate-filled amendments such as those recently passed in California, Colorado, Florida and Arkansas. It will, at the very least, show that the community is done sitting down and accepting "tolerance" in the place of full civil rights. In other words: not being beat up (as much) and being given domestic partnerships or civil unions in a handful of states isn't enough, and we're taking action.

WOW Setlist 12/9/08

Tune in every Tuesday from 8 to 10pm on 88.7fm in Chicago, or online at wluw.org everywhere else!

Concrete Blonde - "Everybody Knows" V/A: Pump Up the Volume Soundtrack (MCA)
Imogen Heap - "Daylight Robbery" Speak for Yourself (RCA Victor)
Asobi Seksu - "I'm Happy but You Don't Like Me" S/T (Friendly Fire Recordings)
The Reputation - "Some Senseless Day" To Force a Fate (Lookout)
Bang! Bang! - "Move" Do You Like It? (Heads Up)
Jucifer - "Ruin and Pink Chiffon" Calling All Cars on the Vegas Strip (Capricorn)
Petra Haden - "I Can See For Miles" Petra Haden Sings The Who Sell Out (Bar None)
Nouvelle Vague - "Ever Fallen in Love?" Bande A Parte (Luaka Bop)
Puffy Amiyumi - "Can-Nana Fever" I Love Guitar Wolf... Very Much (Narnack)
Mavis Staples - "This Little Light" Live: Hope at the Hideout (Anti)
Belle & Sebastian - "(My Girl's Got) Miraculous Technique" The BBC Sessions (Matador)
Mirah - "Nobody Has to Stay" C'mon Miracle (K)
Loretta Lynn - "High on a Mountain Top" Van Lear Rose (Interscope)
Guadalcanal Diary - "...Vista" Flip-Flop (Elektra)
Sinead O'Connor - "Mandinka" The Lion and the Cobra (Chrysalis)
Shesus - "Hang on to Yourself" V/A: Spiders from Venus (Skipping Discs)
Cub - "Little Star" Betti-Cola (Mint)
18th Dye - "Backdoor" Amorine Queen (Crunchy Frog)
Bettie Serveert - "Captain of Maybe" Log 22 (Hidden Agenda/Palomine)
Free Kitten - "Never Gonna Sleep" Sentimental Education (Kill Rock Stars)
Neko Case - "Rated X" The Tigers Have Spoken (Anti)
The Shangri-Las - "Train From Kansas City" Myrmidons of Melodrama (RPM)
The Cramps - "Goo Goo Muck" Bad Music for Bad People (IRS/A&M)
The Gossip - "Jason's Basement" Movement (Kill Rock Stars)
Essential Logic - "Aerosol Burns/Quality Crayon Wax O.K." Fanfare in the Garden (Kill Rock Stars)

Accolades for The Accolades

Check it out, Saudi Arabia's first all-girl rock band!

Fighting still-oppressive public morality standards, The Accolades are a group of college-age girls who, encouraged by the growing trend of rock and roll in the country's more urban settings, have decided to start their own band.

In a country where women are not allowed to drive and rarely appear in public without their faces covered, the band is very different. The prospect of female rockers clutching guitars and belting out angry lyrics about a failed relationship... would once have been unimaginable here.

“In Saudi, yes, it’s a challenge,” said the group’s lead singer, Lamia, who has piercings on her left eyebrow and beneath her bottom lip.... “Maybe we’re crazy. But we wanted to do something different.”

Read the full article (courtesy of the New York Times) here.

RIP Odetta

Legendary African-American civil rights folk singer Odetta died yesterday at the age of 77, just weeks before she was to perform at the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Odetta started her singing career in the opera and musical theatre as a teenager in Los Angeles (cleaning houses with her mother to pay for classes), but made the move towards folksinging in 1950 after encountering the new American folk revival in San Francisco. She toured extensively across the country, bringing a sound of jazz and blues mixed with American folk revival and spiritualism to audiences from New York to Los Angeles and influencing artists like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. Using her musical skills to give voice to the civil rights struggle, Odetta toured the country, marched on Washington, and met with Presidents of many administrations, including Bill Clinton who introduced her as the 1999 winner of the National Endowment for the Arts National Medal of Arts. When her health failed in recent years and her doctor forbid her from performing, she switched doctors and defiantly went on stage in a wheelchair with an oxygen tank. We wish that Odetta could have lived to sing at the inauguration!

Women On Women Music Program setlist 12/2/08

Listen live every Tuesday from 8pm - 10pm on WLUW 88.7fm or online at wluw.org.

setlist 12/2/08
The Gossip - (Take Back) The Revolution
Sonic Youth - Mariah Carey and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream
Beth Orton - This One's Gonna Bruise
The Fiery Furnaces - Guns Under The Counter
Asobi Seksu - New Years
Patti Smith - Cartwheels
The Muffs - Kids In America
Sleater-Kinney - Rollercoaster
P.J. Harvey - Rid of Me
Metric - Live It Out
Lady Sovereign - A Little Bit of Shhh
Le Tigre - Mediocrity Rules
Heavenly - P.U.N.K. Girl
Eleni Mandell - American Boy
Marianne Faithfull - Sex With Strangers
The Magnetic Fields - I Die
Sarah Harmer - Don't Get Your Back Up
Charlotte Gainsbourg - The Songs That We Sing
Stars - The Night Starts Here
Mirah - You've Gone Away Enough
Cat Power - Cross Bones Style
Yo La Tengo - You Can Have It All
She and Him - Sentimental Heart
Tegan and Sara - I Bet It Stung