MoJo Author Feeds: Lauren Ellis | Mother Jones

The 99 Percent Solution

Lauren Ellis — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 11:00:00 +0000

July 13	Adbusters proposes Occupy Wall Street.
August 9	OWS supporters in New York City hold a meeting for "We, the 99%."
September 8	We Are the 99 Percent Tumblr launches.
September 17	Occupy Wall Street protesters take Zuccotti Park.
October 3	#OccupySesameStreet Twitter hashtag takes off.
October 5	Anti-OWS We Are the 53% Tumblr mocks the 47 percent who supposedly don't pay taxes (not true).
October 6	Joe Biden slams banks on behalf of "99 percent of the American people."
October 6	Rush Limbaugh declares occupiers "perpetually lazy, spoiled rotten, 99 percent white kids."
October 7	Trademark applications are filed for "I Am the 99%" and "We Are the 99%."
October 7	"The 99% Declaration" calls for national general assembly.
October 10	Mitt Romney says, "I worry about the 99 percent."
October 11	We Are the 1 Percent: We Stand With the 99 Percent Tumblr launches. Actually, You're the 47% Tumblr pokes fun at the 53-percenters.
October 14	We Are the 1%, Bitches Tumblr launches.
October 15	We Are the 99 Purrcent cat-themed Tumblr launches.
October 16	White House spokesman says Obama will represent "the interests of the 99 percent of Americans."
October 17	Awwccupy Wall Street baby-themed Tumblr launches.
October 17	Trademark application is filed for "Part of the 1%."
October 21	Trademark application is filed for "The words 'occupy this' with an arrow pointing down."

The Finely Tuned Soul of Fitz and The Tantrums

Lauren Ellis — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 10:00:00 +0000

Nestled between the folk stylings of Justin Townes Earle and the bluegrass twang of the legendary Ralph Stanley at San Francisco's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival last month, soulsters Fitz and the Tantrums took to the Tower of Gold stage to transform the crowd into a hot, sweaty dance party.

Hailing from Los Angeles, the six-piece soul-pop band lays the Motown swagger on thick. But "we didn't want to make our album Pickin' Up the Pieces pastiche or revival, though some are quick to label us as that," says singer Michael Fitzpatrick. "There are a lot of different influences pouring out, hip-hop, new wave, ABC, Talking Heads, and even with the Motown and Stax influences, it's truly a hybrid of our music tastes and sensibilities."

The fact that I can't stop humming Average White Band's "Pick Up the Pieces" while writing about them goes to show that good funk is all about the feel. "We're high energy," Fitz explains. "That's where the tantrum comes in. We wanted it to sound like somebody just ratcheted the sound up to 11 and we're careening off the tracks."

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Peaceful Occupy Oakland March Followed by Late-Night Clashes

—By the Mother Jones news team — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 07:47:37 +0000

A massive crowd snaked through downtown Oakland yesterday afternoon, eventually shutting down operations at the Port of Oakland. There was sporadic vandalism, with windows broken at bank branches and a Whole Foods, but protesters were also seen cleaning up graffiti and holding others back from destroying property. After most protesters had left, a contingent of several hundred occupied the abandoned Traveler's Aid building and barricaded surrounding streets; when police moved in, protesters set barricades on fire, and police deployed tear gas. Several MoJo reporters have been covering the protest, and MoJo's Gavin Aronsen remains on the scene (follow him on Twitter). What follows is our live blog of the events, constantly updated using Storify.

Front page image: Adam Grossberg for Oakland North/Twitter

Doing Wrong Right: The Devil Makes Three

Lauren Ellis — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 10:00:00 +0000

The Devil Makes Three, a diabolical threesome of guitar, banjo, and upright bass, are masters at befuddling the critics with their genre-bending antics. They are more comfortable with the "hardly" and the "strictly" than the "bluegrass" part of San Francisco's free annual Hardly Stricly Bluegrass festival, where I saw them recently. Singer/guitarist Peter Bernhard told me that the media obsession with pinning their sound to a specific genre takes the fun out of letting their music answer the question. "Frankly, we never get that [bluegrass] association from fellow musicians who actually play bluegrass—it just comes from the fans and writers," he says.

To set the record straight, Bernhard and banjo player Cooper McBean recently quipped to Pop Culture Madness, "We sound like Freddy Mercury with a pogo stick on a back of a pony with Lyle Lovett playing the ukulele and the tamborine. If you don't understand that, you don't understand us."

In short, bandmates Bernhard, McBean, and bassist Lucia Turino could care less if their bluegrass/blues/old-time/punk/Americana sound confuses obsessive-compulsive music fans. The band's fiendish power lies in its ability to transform a crowd into a rollicking clusterfuck of heavy stomping, do-si-do-ing debauchery—a vibe that (at least at Hardly Strictly) brought carousing fans and mothers with cooing babies together as one big, jolly, rhythmic family.

Bernhard and McBean, both born and bred in Vermont, moved out West after high school and ended up in Santa Cruz, where they met Turino. As the story goes, sparks flew at their first jam—and after Turnio mastered the stand-up bass (which she hadn't played before), the trio began making a name for itself. DM3 is well known for its high-octane shows, like its sold-out sets at San Francisco's Cafe Du Nord and a recent two nighter at Petaluma's Mystic Theater, the venue where they recorded Stomp and Smash: Live at the Mystic Theater, released last week on iTunes.

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OWS: Time to Withdraw From Big Banks

Lauren Ellis — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 11:57:22 +0000

Nearly one month into the Wall Street occupation, critics are bemoaning the movement's inability to funnel its rage into something actionable. But some participants are letting their money do the talking—by taking their cash out of the hands of corporate financial giants altogether. Bank Transfer Day, launched on Facebook and racking up an attendance list of 45,000+, urges major bank account holders to transfer their funds into community banks or local credit unions by November 5 (Guy Fawkes Day).

This event comes on the heels of a recent hike in fees at large national banks. Bank of America, Citibank, and Wells Fargo have recently announced plans to charge customers $3 to $5 per month for using a debit card. Frank Keating, President and CEO of the American Bankers Association, lays the blame for the fee hike on the Durbin amendment. Introduced by Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the amendment puts a federal cap on the swipe fees banks collect from merchants when customers make debit card purchases, amounting to a projected $1 billion loss in profit for the banks.

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Pete Rock and DJ Premier's Jazzy Hip-Hop Smackdown

Lauren Ellis — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 10:00:00 +0000

For beat junkies and fans of jazz and retro hip-hop, the September 30 battle between Pete Rock and DJ Premier at San Francisco's Mighty nightclub was nothing short of epic. Beyond collaborating in the past with an impressive rolodex of artists, including Kanye West, Jay-Z, Big L, J Dilla, Wu-Tang Clan, Rakim, Nas, and Notorious B.I.G., these guys have graced the best of the best lists for beat makers two decades running. To top it off, both are the remaining halves of some of the genre's greatest jazz-rap combos: Gang Starr & Pete Rock & CL Smooth. The sheer star power was enough to push the crowd's adrenaline off the charts.

Following a brief tour of hip-hop history courtesy of opener DJ Shortkut, smoke machines ushered in a set change, and Premier and Pete Rock took over, serving up a goody bag of improved beats, club bangers, and individual scratch sessions as they took turns passing the proverbial mic.

They spun each other's classic material ("T.R.O.Y," "Full Clip"), laid down 1986-era Beastie Boys tracks, remixed classic soul and R&B crowd pleasers (including cuts from James Brown's funky people—like Maceo & The Macks "Soul Power '74" and The JB's "You Can Have Watergate." They even took a 15-minute diversion into classic TV themes like this and this.

Both of these producers are masters at weaving the horn improv into a heavy beat or taking a guitar lick and melding it with a spontaneous freestyle. Gang Starr, consisting of DJ Premier and the late Guru, helped pioneer the fusion of jazz and hip-hop. "Words I Manifest," the first track they ever recorded, sampled Dizzy Gillespie's "Night in Tunisia." Check it out below.

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Map: Occupy Wall Street, a global movement

—By the Mother Jones news team — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 10:00:00 +0000

The loose-knit protest movement known as Occupy Wall Street has stirred action from New York City to LA and spread overseas. Here we present an expanding map of protest hot spots and reported arrests, and track the movement's growth. Check back often for updates—and check out all the rest of MoJo's #OWS coverage here.

Protests taking place beyond Manhattan:

What began as a call for Americans to gather in New York's Financial District has given rise to like-minded actions nationwide and far beyond. Click on the dots for details from more than 462 locations and over 3,200 arrests (last updated: November 20, 9:30 p.m. PST):

Know of more locations for this map? Send a link to a news article or blog posts to traja [at] motherjones [dot] com or @tasneemraja.

Map production by Lauren Ellis, Samantha Oltman, and Tasneem Raja.

How rich are the superrich? Eleven charts that explain what's wrong with America:

A huge share of the nation's economic growth over the past 30 years has gone to the top one-hundredth of one percent, who now make an average of $27 million per household. The average income for the bottom 90 percent of us? $31,244. See all of Mother Jones' inequality charts here.

A timeline of the Occupy Wall Street movement:

July 13: The Canadian magazine Adbusters makes a call to Occupy Wall Street.
August 30: The hacktivist collective known as Anonymous releases a video answering the call and encouraging others to follow suit.
September 17: Nearly 1,000 gather to protest corporate greed and begin occupying the financial district in New York City.
September 19: Roseanne Barr is the first celebrity to lend support to the so-called NYC General Assembly.
September 20: The NYPD starts arresting protesters for wearing masks, citing an arcane law that prohibits masked gatherings of two or more people with an exception: "a masquerade party or like entertainment." The police soon become more forceful.
September 22: Demonstrators interrupt a Sotheby's Auction, "in a show of solidarity with the art handler's union that had been locked out." This is the first instance of labor unions and the movement locking step.
September 24: 80 protesters are arrested during a peaceful march; a video of a police officer pepper-spraying a nonthreatening woman goes viral.
September 26: Anonymous allegedly leaks the name and details of the police officer who wielded the pepper spray.
September 27: The Occupy Wall Street campaign comes out in support of postal workers who are protesting their reduced five-day work week.
September 28: Transport Workers Union votes to support Occupy Wall Street; over 700 Continental and United Airline pilots demonstrate in front of Wall Street.
September 30: More than 1,000 demonstrators march on NYPD headquarters, protesting the police response against the demonstrators.
October 1: Over 700 demonstrators are arrested for marching across the Brooklyn Bridge and blocking traffic.
October 5: Major labor unions endorse the movement and join in a march on New York's financial district. According to ABC News, as many as 15,000 participate in the march.
October 6: Demonstrations spread to hundreds of US cities and around the world, with a global day of action planned for October 15. President Obama comments on the Occupy Wall Street protests.
October 8: The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum shuts down in DC after protesters clash with security. Patrick Howley, an editor at the American Spectator, claims he infiltrated the protest to "mock and undermine it."
October 10: In a late-night crackdown, Boston police arrest more than 100 protesters in Dewey Square. The clash includes members of Veterans for Peace.
October 12: At 7 AM, protesters in San Francisco engage in a sit-in in front of Wells Fargo headquarters. With entrances blocked for over five hours, the office decides to shut down for the day. Police arrest 11 demonstrators.
October 14: Protesters successfully thwart an eviction from Zuccotti Park. Arrests are on the rise in Denver; Seattle; Gainesville, Florida; and Portland.
October 15: The Global Day of Action brings tens of thousands out to the streets. In New York, several protesters are removed from a Citibank branch at Washington Square Park in New York City. Twenty arrests are confirmed. Riots break out in Rome, Londoners attempt to occupy the London Stock Exchange, and demonstrations take place in over 80 countries. Local police arrest protestors in Denver, Chicago, and Raleigh, North Carolina, and raid the encampment in San Francisco.
October 17: Adbusters calls for a global protest on October 29, demanding that leaders meeting at the G20 summit in France impose a Robin Hood Tax. The tax levies 1 percent on financial transactions and currency trades, which would raise funds to protect public services, fight climate change, and combat poverty.
October 21: Nearly 100 demonstrators are forcibly removed from their City Square camp site in Melbourne, Australia, enduring eye gouging, pepper spraying, dragging, and brutal punches to the face from riot squads.
October 25: Oakland police crack down on the encampment at Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, unleashing rubber bullets, flash-bang grenades, and tear gas on the protesters. Police arrest 97 occupiers after tearing down tents and destroying the site.
October 26: On the heels of the Oakland crackdown, Atlanta police move in on Woodruff Park and arrest 53 protesters, clearing the park by 2 a.m.
October 27: The General Assembly votes for a general strike in Oakland on November 2. The proposal passes by a vote of 1,484 to 46.
November 2: Occupy Oakland's general strike peacefully shuts down the Oakland port. Late night clashes between protesters and police follow after protesters occupy an abandoned Traveler's Aid building and barricade surrounding straights.
November 17: A mass demonstration in New York protests the recent crackdowns on encampments nation-wide.

Front page image of arrest of Occupy Austin protester: Ann Harkness/Flickr

Is #OccupyWallStreet Working?

Lauren Ellis — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 10:00:00 +0000

In July, Adbusters, the Canadian anti-consumerist magazine, announced an ambitious protest against corporate greed, inviting 20,000 "redeemers, rebels, and revolutionaries" to Occupy Wall Street in mid-September. "Are you ready for a Tahrir moment?" it asked, name-dropping Cairo's Tahrir Square to suggest that this would be the beginning of the American version of the Arab Spring. In response to the call to "occupy Wall Street," 500-750 fed-up Americans descended on Manhattan's Zuccotti Park last week to shake the foundations of market capitalism. Since then, 100 activists have been arrested, police have pepper-sprayed peaceful protesters, and Yahoo barred users from spreading the #occupywallstreet message via email. Yet as it enters its second week, the campaign's presence in the streets has dropped to just a few hundred supporters and its goal of kickstarting a popular movement feels a long way off.

What gives? There are plenty of reasons to be pissed off at the superrich and Wall Street. So why is a campaign that says it stands for the 99 percent of us lacking traction? Here are four more reasons why Zuccotti Park hasn't yet become the next Tahrir Square:

1. The kitchen-sink approach: Occupy Wall Street's lack of focus is embodied by this Adbusters post titled, "Hey President Obama, get ready for our one demand!" Here's the opening sentence: "On Saturday thousands of us will occupy Wall Street. We will wave our signs, unfurl our banners, beat our drums, chant our slogans…and then we'll get down to business and hold several people's assemblies to decide what our 'one demand' will be." First make noise, then decide what the noise is all about?

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That Handsome Devil, Godforbid

Lauren Ellis — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:30:00 +0000

When Esquire published its list of "50 Songs Every Man Should Listen To," one reader responded that the editors had left out one crucial band for the XY set. It was That Handsome Devil, a gonzo-punk outfit out of Boston, whose music sounds as if a jowling, snarling creature had crept down from the rafters to join Mr. Toad on his wanton hell ride. But on the band's second (or fourth, if you include EPs) album, The Heart Goes to Heaven, the Head Goes to Hell, the musicians are in full control of their Haunted House-macabre sound. "Charlie's Inferno" is an unintentional nod to the TV show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. "Adapt" sounds like a back alley fist fight about to bust out. "Inside You," finds lead singer Godforbid mastering that clinging-to-the-bottle drawl the band's become known for. When I caught up with Godforbid last Friday, he regaled me with talk about hustling beer at Coney Island, milking tall tales, and his struggle between pure intentions and royal douchebaggery.

Mother Jones: One of my favorite tracks is "How to Get Money." Any tips for readers who are broke and pissed off?

Godforbid: [Laughs.] If I had gobs of cash I'd have plenty of ideas. But I've given all my tips up on that track. Well, there's an insane hustle in New York. I've got three jobs to keep the wheels spinning. But you can get creative with it; there are always fun little hustles out there. You can take beers and sell 'em down at the Coney Island Beach. Just walk around with a cooler and have a buddy walk 20 feet in front of you to cop watch. You can sell them for whatever price you'd like because people are just too lazy to stand in line.

MJ: What sort of work are you doing?

GF: I don't have many commodities other than the fact that I can write and perform. I've got three jobs where I'm making the same amount of money I would if I were 16. I press records at Hit-Bound Records, but it's hard working in a hot factory like that. I've got to meditate for a bit, turn into a robot for eight hours, to be able to do that job. And I do janitorial work for a plastic surgeon—you'll find fat globules and blood spatters, but it makes for good song writing. And depending on the gig, I'll do construction here and there.

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CANT's Dreams Come True

Lauren Ellis — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 10:30:00 +0000

CANT
Dreams Come True
Terrible Records/Warp

You can get the thrust of Grizzly Bear's intimate and subtle bearing from one of the quartet's most hauntingly beautiful tracks, "Shift." In a video of the song played live inside a cramped Parisian bathroom, a door opens on multi-instrumentalist Chris Taylor's clarinet intro, heralding an acoustic rendition as effortless as vocalist Daniel Rossen's swig from a bottle of beer. For Grizzly Bear fans expecting that same understated feel with Chris Taylor's new solo project, CANT, you may have to look elsewhere.

Dreams Come True, from Taylor's own Terrible Records label, finds the Grizzly bassist relying heavily on analog synthesizers and MPCs to craft an indulgently '80s new wave sound, unveiling a penchant for mixing trashy disco bits with modern tribal harmonies—necessary audial flourishes for anyone trying to create that contagiously popular bedroom-ambient sound.

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