US Blocks Musicians from Playing in Cuba

[Mika]

Source: Periodico 26, local newspaper of Las Tunas, Cuba.

The 12th International Electroacoustic Music Festival “Spring in Havana 2008” begins Monday in historic Old Havana but stepped up hostilities by the Bush administration is preventing US musicians from participating in an event traditionally marked by the fertile creative exchange between US and Cuban musicians.

Twenty US musicians were set to attend but at the last minute the organizers were informed that Washington has denied them permission to travel to Cuba.
The festival is sponsored by the Cuban National Laboratory of Electroacoustic Music (LNMEA).

The event’s coordinator, Jorge Bolanos, told the press, “The hostile policy of government once again is impeding us from extending this essential bridge between the cultures of our peoples.”

Composer Andrew Schloss, who for many years has lived and worked in Canada, is the only US musician present at the forum. Knowledgeable about Cuban electroacustic music and a collaborator with the National Laboratory of Electroacoustic Music, Andy regretted the absence of his compatriots, “It has become very difficult for them to travel to Cuba due to the ruthless policy of President George W. Bush.”

Read more: http://www.periodico26.cu/english/coverage/us-mu031008.htm

---

Freedom, on the march?

[SpiralHawk]

1. How to win enemies and alienate friends, the republicon fear & hate strategy...

"music is so dangerous. Terrorists listen to music. Music is evil."

- Republicon fear dwellers & mongers.

..Ptoooey....

[quispquake]

2. I just don't get this...

Cuba Communists are BAD...
Chinese Communists are GOOD...we don't mind giving them our manufacturing base...God forbid there's ever a war or something like WW2 where our manufacturing base gave us the upper hand!!!

Where is the connection here? What am I missing?

[Billy Burnett]

3. Cuba's gov doesn't run sweatshops making Nike, IBMs, lead based toys, etc.

Maybe that's a (one of the) reason(s).

[bigworld]

4. Our businessmen can make big bucks off cheap Chinese labor

.. that's why.

[Wednesdays]

19. With that in mind, is China even Communist anymore?

Despite what they call themselves. :shrug:

[Solon]

25. Technically I would call China a country with State Capitalism...

pretty much the same as the United States, but a little more heavy handed in regulating Unions(no independent unions) and more lax in regulating working conditions in factories.

[damntexdem]

26. And as we all know, the NY Philharmonic was sent to Gitmo for playing in N. Korea.

Right?

[ramapo]

5. This is so f***ing stupid

What a moronic policy. The NY Philharmonic plays deep in the axis of evil and everybody is wonder struck.

[DrDan]

6. during an election year . . . . hmmmmm . . . one would almost think this was voter pandering

the NY Phil plays in North Korea and these musicians are denied.

Could this get any more partisan.

[bobthedrummer]

7. "That would bring up the whole Bay of Pigs thing..." R.M.Nixon eom

[pingzing58]

8. Bush is kowtowing to the Elite Cuban exiles who believe that they will get their land back when they

return to their homeland. These exiles are Republican and Bush will do and say anything, however impossible to achieve, to keep these exiles in the party.

[timtom]

9. Mean-spirited and shallow

But, what have we come to expect from such lowlife scum?

[dipsydoodle]

11. Very nicely put

Couldn't have expressed that better myself. :toast:

[timtom]

10. By the flipping way,

Daniel Barenboim has spearheaded an extremely powerful and healing solution in Israel with an Israeli and Palestinian joint symphony orchestra.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3343876,00.html

So don't pull that crap with me, Bush Administration. You are so incredibly lame, I don't know how the fuck you've lasted this long...but, then again, so have "reality shows" like Top Model, et al.

Anyway the move is total bullshit!

[Karenina]

13. I LOVE BARENBOIM!!! What a guy!!!

:loveya:

[Freddie Stubbs]

12. They are probably afraid that they will defect

[Judi Lynn]

14. There would be Americans moving there now if the U.S. didn't refuse to send their Social Security

checks to them in Cuba.

Maybe they'd bump into "exiles" who have returned to Cuba, as illustrated in a book by former New York Times reporter, Ann Louis Bardach, published in 2002, before _Bush had gone completely beserk over travel to Cuba and slammed all the doors shut:

~snip~
In Cuba, one used to be either a revolucionario or a contrarevolucionario, while those who decided to leave were gusanos (worms) or escoria (scum). In Miami, the rhetoric has also been harsh. Exiles who do not endorse a confrontational policy with Cuba, seeking instead a negotiated settlement, have often been excoriated as traidores (traitors) and sometimes espías (spies). Cubans, notably cultural stars, who visit Miami but choose to return to their homeland have been routinely denounced. One either defects or is repudiated.

But there has been a slow but steady shift in the last decade-a nod to the clear majority of Cubans en exilio and on the island who crave family reunification. Since 1978, more than one million airline tickets have been sold for flights from Miami to Havana. Faced with the brisk and continuous traffic between Miami and Havana, hard-liners on both sides have opted to deny the new reality. Anomalies such as the phenomenon of reverse balseros, Cubans who, unable to adapt to the pressures and bustle of entrepreneurial Miami, return to the island, or gusañeros, expatriots who send a portion of their earnings home in exchange for unfettered travel back and forth to Cuba (the term is a curious Cuban hybrid of gusano and compañero, or comrade), are unacknowledged by both sides, as are those who live in semi-exilio, returning home to Cuba for long holidays.
(snip)

Page XVIII
Preface
Cuba Confidential
Love and Vengeance
In Miami and Havana

Copyright© 2002 by
Ann Louise Bardach

[AlphaCentauri]

20. How sad when people can't travel out of their country n/t

[Judi Lynn]

15. AudioSlave went to Havana not that long ago, before Bush got really vicious about this.

Audioslave Slay Havana With Historic Show
Band performs for nearly two and a half hours before an estimated 50,000 fans.
By: Jim Fraenkel and Corey Moss

HAVANA — With an inspired 26-song set, Audioslave made history on Friday, playing by far the biggest show for an American band in this communist country.

An estimated 50,000 fans at the sprawling La Tribuna Antimperialista José Martí watched as the band made one of its longtime dreams come true (see "Audioslave To Make History By Playing Free Show In Cuba"). Many of the fans were wearing T-shirts of Audioslave and other American rock bands.

Heavy on music and light on banter, the nearly two-and-a-half-hour set included several Rage Against the Machine and Soundgarden songs alongside Audioslave favorites and tracks from the band's forthcoming second LP, Out of Exile. The group also played a "jam?" (as it was called on the setlist) with the local opening act, singer X Alfonso.

While the crowd chanted "Aud-o-slave!" (their accents didn't favor the "i," so it became a three-syllable word), the band took the stage at 10:14 p.m., setting off its performance with the fittingly titled "Set It Off."

A mosh pit quickly formed near the front of the crowd, with Cuban military and security forces using their bodies to reinforce the barricade at the front and keep it from buckling.

More:
http://www.cmt.com/news/articles/1501463/20050507/audioslave.jhtml



Video Audioslave I Am The Highway
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWd1oO7r3jk

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It goes without saying bands from EVERYWHERE ELSE have always been going there.

[OneBlueSky]

16. Bush is an idiot . . . but then, that's not news . . . n/t

.

[lonestarnot]

17. Bushitler you ignorfucking anus!

[tachyon]

18. Can't allow that, it might lead to dancing.

:shrug:

[Judi Lynn]

21. That would be the end of life as we know it. Commie dancing! Have you seen this video?

DU'er magbana shared it with us in another forum:

http://hcvanalysis.wordpress.com/2007/08/26/cuba-casino-dancing-and-the-chinese-caballero/

Cuban casino dancing! :woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo:

[Judi Lynn]

22. Apparently "Western" bands are still new to Cuba, according to this article:

Friday, 16 February, 2001, 09:29 GMT
Manics make history in Cuba

The Manic Street Preachers are in Cuba making final preparations for their historic concert in Havana.
On Saturday the band from Blackwood in the south Wales valleys will become one of the first Western rock band to play the Communist state.

They will be showcasing tracks from their sixth album, Know Your Enemy, with a virtually free concert at the Karl Marx Theatre in the capital.

The event will be limited to 5,000 fans, who will be charged just 25 cents, the equivalent of 17 pence.

The band has been rehearsing the concert in Cardiff Bay ahead of flying out to the Caribbean Island.

"We've just got a lot of respect for the Cuban people and the Cuban culture, and we wanted to do something really different this time," guitarist Nicky Wire said as he flew into Havana.


Various references to Cuba and its 40-year conflict with the United States will feature in Saturday's ground-breaking concert.

One song, called "Baby Elian", will delight Cubans for highlighting last year's international custody dispute over six-year-old shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez.

"Kidnapped to the promised land ... America, the devil's playground," says the chorus to the song, in words echoing Cuba's view that the boy was unfairly detained in the US by Miami relatives after his mother died at sea.

He has since returned to his father in Cuba.
(snip)

The band's most recent single, Masses Against The Classes - which stormed to the top of the charts despite an absence of promotion - had a Cuban flag on its sleeve.

"It's not like a student Che Guevara sort of thing, said Wire.

"It's just that Cuba for me is the last symbol that really fights against the Americanisation of the world."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/1172686.stm



Clip of live performance in Havana:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSnodU5ao_g

[bagimin]

23. Obama will end this kind of crap

but fast.

[Judi Lynn]

24. No doubt you're right. Really hope that's the case. He seems to be far saner than the fascists. n/t

[Billy Burnett]

27. Wait and see.

According to Obama, Obama's position on the travel sanctions is that Cuban-Americans and Cuban US residents should be able to travel to Cuba. Not US born Americans.

[Posteritatis]

28. Just set up some *really* good speakers off the coast (nt)

[roody]

29. If the musicians want to go to Cuba, they should

go. They don't need the dictator's permission. You go to Cancun then buy a ticket to Cuba. Civil rights were not gained by people of color by obeying unjust laws.

[freethought]

30. Just when I thought the dim son couldn't get anymore

childish and stupid, something like this come up. What a f_____g idiot! Just what does he hope to accomplish? An island nation, of no particular strategic significance, of no real particular threat, run by a leader who had managed to outsmart U.S. efforts to get rid of him for the last 50+ years. God forbid some of us should enjoy the Havana nightlife or music scene.

I am no huge fan of Castro, but I have always thought that this weird preoccupation with Cuba and Castro has turned into a freaked out sort of mania. The embargo is outdated and counterproductive and only makes the U.S. look stupid. We were so close to getting that embargo dropped when Clinton was in office.

There's a saying, "keep your friends close but keep your enemies closer". I am not saying that Cuba and Castro are blood enemies of the U.S. Drop the embargo, let's start out with some tourism and let separated relatives and families visit one another. I'm a firm believer that if we can get some American tourism going and some normalized relations that some positive change will come to Cuba. I think the authorities there will soften with the presence of more visitors. I mean, what tourist wants to visit a police state. I am actually more afraid of how some American business interests might victimize Cuba by ravaging its resources should the embargo be dropped.

I have read some awesome things about the Cuban beaches. The Europeans are having a great laugh at our expense over Cuba.

I wonder if Ry Cooder has read this article. Some time back he and some musicians traveled to Cuba seeking musicians who specialized in a particular style of Cuban music. The whole effort received such a response that Cuba allowed the performers to do some appearances in New York City. A movie was even made about the whole adventure-"The Buena Vista Social Club" is what I believe it was. Some of the Cuban musicians were pretty aged, but some went on to do major tours in Europe. It was a great story.

[Billy Burnett]

31. FYI, Ry Cooder paid a $75,000 fine for going to Cuba for Buena Vista Social Club. n/t

[freethought]

32. WHAT!!!??? THAT'S ABSURD!!!!!!!

What about Audioslave? Did they pay a f_____g fine too?
GRRRRRRRRRRR! I don't even have words for this anymore.
:grr: :grr: :grr: :grr: