Tag: israel is a terrorist state

#3 070 Shake: Petrichor

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

20th May 1983, a car bomb in the the South African capital of Pretoria went off. The target was the South African Air Force (SAAF), who were renting a building on Church Street West, where the bomb went off. The bomb killed eleven SAAF personnel, plus the two people who planted the bomb (unintentionally) and six civilians. Two hundred and seventeen people were injured in the attack.

The bomb had been planted by uMkhonto weSizwe (MK), the military wing of the African National Congress (ANC), a political group founded by Nelson Mandela in order to force the end of the racist policies of the South African government. The attack was a response to a cross border raid by the South African army into Lesotho in December 1982, which killed 42 ANC members.

Mohammed Eyad Maher Abu-Leila

#19 elbow: AUDIO VERTIGO

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

We live in a troubling age

Falling leaves in an unearthly autumn light
Become the frame
And chip my curse away
Above the waves, you can still see where we drown
No looking down
Oblivion’s oblivion

Her to the Earth

So, let’s quickly get everyone up to speed. Don’t worry, we’re only going to go as far back as the Six Day War in 1967, but – who knows – perhaps we’ll talk about earlier events with similar players later in this list. In 1967 though, when we begin our tale, the Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser had been handed information by the Soviet Union that Israel (hi there!) were gathering troops in preparation to invade Syria. Nasser phoned up the Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol and was like “Hey, that’s our mate, can you not?” and Eshkol was like “We’re not even, bro!” so Nasser was like “Yeah right mate, I’m just going to expel all these United Nations Emergency Forces that are here to ensure our 1949 Armistice Agreements” and then Eshkol was like “Na-uuuuuuhhhh!!” but then Nasser was just like “Er, yeah-uh! And also, you can’t use our Strait of Tiran anymore” so that made Eshkol go all red and like scream “Dude! That’s where we get all our stuff from! And that would totally be an act of war!”. Then Nasser did it anyway, because YOLO. Israel bombed the fucking shit out of Egypt, taking the entire Senai Peninsula, plus Gaza as a little souvenir trinket, but I imagine that’s the last we’ll be hearing about that tiny strip of land. Israel warned King Hussein of Jordan not to enter the war, but they also bombed the shit out of Jordan’s airbases on the first day of the war. So Jordan gave troops to support Egypt and Israel bombed the shit out of Jordan, capturing the West Bank and ensuring Jerusalem was in Israel for the first time. The combined Arab country losses were around 15’000, Israel less than a thousand. Israel also killed 15 UN peacekeepers – coz Israel gonna Israel! – and 34 American soldiers, because they’re the only country allowed to do that apparently.

Oh, and around 413’000 Palestinians were of course expelled or killed in this process, but that’s barely worth mentioning. For Israel it was just Monday.

Ilham Ahmed Hammad Khattab

#35 And So I Watch You From Afar: Megafauna

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 Comments

First, before I talk about the latest euphoric audio assault by Belfast’s finest noise merchant, I’d like to take a moment out of 2024’s Necessary Evil to just pay our respects to the beautiful, talented and influential megafauna that we’ve lost these past two million years or so.

These good megafaunas have had a tough time recently, with 80% of all mammals that weigh greater than a thousand kilograms dying off in the last fifty thousand years. Pour one out for our fatty bombatty brothers. Yeah, we still mostly have our elephants and our rhinos and our elephant seals. And our motherfucking bisons, boy!! Have you seen a bison?? I don’t think we’re ready to accept how huge those big boys are! I’m not counting the big fishes, like the blue whale, because they’re always hiding down there, I’ve never seen one in a zoo, and fish are boring. But I think we have to accept that we have sadly lost the best and brightest megafauna. We’ve lost all the dinosaurs, for fuck’s sake!? That’s nuts! And, if we’re being honest, we lost a lot of Earth’s stability when the dinosaurs went: ain’t no genocide in Gaza if Deir al Balah is partially populated by motherfucking titanosaurs!! Oh, what’s that, America? You want to aggressively and violently suppress the world until it accepts your neoliberal world order? Well, try telling that to the giganotosaurus, yeah? The ichthyosaur will fucking eat all your submarines, son! However, like I said before, fish are boring.

Anyway, heads bowed, please:

Hadi Hayel Shehdeh Abu Dahruj

40 Mumbles: In the Pocket of Big Sad

~ Lex Leeson ~ 4 Comments

I’m kind of sick of this self-obsessed white guy indie-emo thing where this kind of mundane shit you pretend’s got any symbolism, or greater important to other people’s lives, rather than just some fucking tedious self-involved nothing

Poached Eggs, Chili Flakes

Manchester! Na-nanana-na! Manchester! Na-nanana-na!

I fucking hate Manchester sometimes. Most of the time, if I’m being honest. Sure I was born here* but I had little to no choice in that matter, and I live here now, but that’s only because you’re unlikely to find a better UK city experience than sleeping in a tent in St Peter;s Square while you wait to be housed by the council**.

(*well… in Ashton, which nobody in Manchester would consider Manchester, but seeing as nobody outside of Manchester has heard of or is arsed about it, let’s just call it Manchester for the benefit of this post

**and, to bring us back in, there’s a joke that nobody outside Manchester is going to get)

Manchester is special though, yeah? We do things differently, isn’t it? Something something FAC9087546 something something Coronation Street something something actually that person you’re thinking of is from Salford and we’re really inconsistent about whether we consider that a worthwhile distinction. Remember Oasis though? Remember when both the Stone Roses and The Happy Mondays were on the same episode of Top of the Pops? What do you mean you’re not even old enough to remember Top of the Pops?? I’ll have you know that British institution enabled Jimmy Saville to prey on more children than you’ve had hot dinners, and you need to show it some respect!!

Rahaf Yihya Sa’di Hassan

Necessary Evil 24: The Biggest List Under the Sun

~ Lex Leeson ~ Leave a comment

Bumpin’ that bumpin’ that bumpin’ that…

Yeah, we’re back, so fuck me I guess?

The 16th year end Necessary Evil list of the year’s objectively and scientifically proven greatest music is a notable event for a few reasons. Firstly, it will be the first time I’ll be writing a list of year’s best bops and slaps that played out to a full twelve months of genocide. Like, the whole year. When I wrote last year’s list, it was only to the backdrop of a tiny bit of genocide that covered the last couple of months of the year. And who really pays attention in those winter months? Too busy thinking about Christmas, right? A couple of years back, for example, my housemate Darren engaged in the systematic and targeted slaughter of more than two dozen woman and children in those early December weeks, and I just didn’t notice because I spent the whole time trying to untangle the Christmas lights. Don’t worry, it happens, I get it.

Hajar Khalil Salah al-Bahtini

‘Definitely Maybe (30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)’: My Dynamic Affection

~ Lex Leeson ~ 3 Comments

adjective

  1. 1.(of a process or system) characterized by constant change, activity, or progress

It’s never talked about in 2024, but Oasis were actually a far bigger deal than Nirvana.

In the UK I mean, of course. I am from the UK and writing this in the UK from the perspective of someone who lived in the UK in the 90s. If I were Spanish, I might be writing the praises of the million selling debut album by Laura Pausini, by far the biggest selling record of 1994 in that country. If I were Japanese, I might be talking about how neither Nirvana nor Oasis can hold a candle to Mr. Children (ミスターチルドレン), whose 3.4 million selling ‘Atomic Heart’ album obviously hit that sweet spot between tentacle porn and genocide denial that the country cherishes so much. But, I’m writing in English, so you’d probably just imagine I’d cede to the American version of history, as we are so often wont to do.

we’ll have lasaaaaaaaagnaaaaaaaaaaa

Legit Bosses – The 160 Best Songs of 2023

~ Lex Leeson ~ 30 Comments

In their 1972 book ‘Psychology of the Arts‘, Hans and Shulamith Kreitler tried to explain the reasoning behind why certain people react in certain ways to certain pieces of art. However, they deemed that to fully explain it, your knowledge of each person would need to “extend over an immeasurably large range of variables, which would include not only perceptive, cognitive, emotional and other personality characteristics, but also biographical data, specific personal experiences, past encounters with art, and individual memories and associations”. Sounds like a lot of work, right? Well, luckily, I’m here to just tell you what the best music of 2023 was, so all that effort behind your own personal psychosis can be sidestepped altogether. Think of it as my new year’s present.

no spoilers on what number this particular classic finished

And there’s one hundred and sixty this year. Maybe one hundred and sixty one. Because there was a lot of great tunes released in 2023. While limiting the Necessary Evil list to just 40 albums still meant there was space for at least one ‘meh’ album and one absolute stinker, over the past week I’ve actually had to really edit this list down to prevent it being ridiculous. And yet here we are: 160. Maybe 161.

I’m also going to be giving shout outs to particular golden moments in certain songs – similar to what I did in 2018 – and for each of those I’m going to be using a picture of one of the greatest moments in the short history of All Elite Wrestling, because… well… I get the horrible feeling that company is cooked and I hope to look back on this list in five years time and laugh at how pessimistic I was.

Can I finish this before 2024 and maybe have some days off before I go back to work?? Let’s seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

[Edit: No. No I cannot. Not even close.

You’ve got some playlists though, will that make you happy?? Here’s the countdown on Spotify and on YouTube, minus the unavailable songs on whatever platform]

I REMEMBER NOTHING, SO THERE’S NOTHING TO REGRET

6 Noname: Sundial

~ Lex Leeson ~ 2 Comments

The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth

proverb of unknown origins, likely African

We could scapegoat everything
We could penny-pinch the homie for defendin’ the dream
A simpler thing, by any mean
Niggas will kill they team
Say the gun did it, run with it
White man or frontman, a whole vision

We just see self in his image
Won’t be a self-critic, burn up our whole village
That wasn’t us, that was colonialism
We keep our babies fed, we don’t beat and rape on our women, we good
We is Wakanda, we Queen Rwanda
First black president and he the one who bombed us, yeah

hold me down
AND I’M ALREADY ACTIN’ LIKE A DICK, KNOW WHAT I MEAN?

16 Young Fathers: Heavy Heavy

~ Lex Leeson ~ 1 Comment

I want your shield
I want your weapon
Gimme that bulletproof vest
And don’t forget I’m not susceptible to your nonsense
I’m a winner

No falling for your charms
No crash into your arms
Handful of coins
And a balled-up fist
Picking rubbish
Cleaning rubbish

I Saw

Aw, man, Young fucking Fathers, dudes??

They’re up there with Janelle Monae as Necessary Evil legends – and given the cultural importance of this blog that essentially makes them musical legends of the past fifteen years – with a simply inscrutable back catalogue that now demands they’re expected to meet higher standards than their peers. Like, I really loved the RobinPlaysChords album, but am I unconsciously and immediately setting it against some of the greatest music of the century? This means artists like Young Fathers, Let’s Eat Grandma, and Janelle – the most golden of Gold Star Artists – are, unfortunately and perhaps unfairly, held to a higher standards than mere mortals like Lauren Auder.

YOU’RE ASKING ME MY SYMPTOMS, DOCTOR, I DON’T WANNA FEEL