"Music is haram!"
Oct. 18th, 2009 10:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyI actually went out to a show last night. With music! And people! I felt like a human being again instead of a spinster schoolteacher.
After spending all day at the conference, I made my way to the screening of Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam at the Royal. (Toronto folks: It's playing today and Monday, so you can still go see it, and you should.) It was very good. Unlike Afro-Punk, which didn't meet up to my rather high expectations, it didn't downplay the politics or strip down the nuances of the tiny-but-awesome taqwacore scene. My main criticism was that it focused too much on Michael Muhammad Knight (who is very interesting, don't get me wrong) rather than on the musicians. And while it started to address class, particularly at the end when they were in Lahore, it could have gone farther. But anyway, it's a great film. (The "pigs are haram" scene is the best thing ever.)
Then![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
frandroid and I made our way over to the El Mo for the after party. I went mainly for the Kominas, but I was impressed by the other bands, especially Humble the Poet (I've seen those guys at demos a bunch of times and I didn't know they were hip-hop artists, go figure) and Secret Trial Five (who are local, yay!). The crowd was small, but very high energy, and the music made me a very happy girl. And I finally got to meet the lovely punkistani IRL. A measure of how great the music was is that people were dancing. This may not seem too surprising to those of you who don't live in Toronto or have never attended a Toronto show where everyone just stands around looking cool, but Toronto audiences don't usually dance. (Or throw shoes at the band. Very punk rawk.)
And I am not even that hungover. Huzzah! Also, now I want to go to Lahore. (The city, not the restaurant down the street, though if anyone wants to go to the restaurant soon, I like that place a lot too.)
After spending all day at the conference, I made my way to the screening of Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam at the Royal. (Toronto folks: It's playing today and Monday, so you can still go see it, and you should.) It was very good. Unlike Afro-Punk, which didn't meet up to my rather high expectations, it didn't downplay the politics or strip down the nuances of the tiny-but-awesome taqwacore scene. My main criticism was that it focused too much on Michael Muhammad Knight (who is very interesting, don't get me wrong) rather than on the musicians. And while it started to address class, particularly at the end when they were in Lahore, it could have gone farther. But anyway, it's a great film. (The "pigs are haram" scene is the best thing ever.)
Then
frandroid and I made our way over to the El Mo for the after party. I went mainly for the Kominas, but I was impressed by the other bands, especially Humble the Poet (I've seen those guys at demos a bunch of times and I didn't know they were hip-hop artists, go figure) and Secret Trial Five (who are local, yay!). The crowd was small, but very high energy, and the music made me a very happy girl. And I finally got to meet the lovely punkistani IRL. A measure of how great the music was is that people were dancing. This may not seem too surprising to those of you who don't live in Toronto or have never attended a Toronto show where everyone just stands around looking cool, but Toronto audiences don't usually dance. (Or throw shoes at the band. Very punk rawk.)And I am not even that hungover. Huzzah! Also, now I want to go to Lahore. (The city, not the restaurant down the street, though if anyone wants to go to the restaurant soon, I like that place a lot too.)
