Friday 11th July 2025
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Interview: Serj Tankian

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Serj Tankian, the multi-million selling Grammy Award-winning musician, best known for his work with System of a Down, came to Oxford last Wednesday 22nd April to talk to an issue very close to his heart: genocide. Screamers is a film that follows the band, all of whom are descendents of survivors of the Armenian genocide, as they tour and it points out the horrors of modern genocide that began in Armenia in 1915 and continue to the present day.

The screening of the film, put on by a partnership of the University’s Development Office and the Aegis society, gave an opportunity for students to ask Serj and other panellists Raffy Manoukian – London-based philanthropist and donor to the University who helped fund the film – and Professor Theo van Lint – Oxford’s professor of Armenian Studies and Fellow of Pembroke College – their questions in a panel discussion. We caught up with Serj before the event:

Have you had much time to see Oxford?
I’ve been to Oxford before! We actually played about an hour away in Reading over the summer and stayed in Oxford overnight. It was beautiful.

Not spent much time here today then just been travelling?
No we’ve just got here and have been travelling all day. Haven’t had any time to eat- [eats]

Do you know particularly or have any relationship with the other two men that are on the panel with you at the talk: Raffy Manoukian [London-based philanthropist] and Professor Theo van Lint [Calouste Gulbenkian Professor of Armenian Studies and Fellow of Pembroke College]?

I Know Raffy really well- I met him because he worked with the BBC on the production behind Screamers. I met him through that and became since then and he’s been very very active in promoting awareness about genocide. In terms of pushing the film as well getting distribution for it and screenings and working with different non-profit organisations he’s done a great job. He’s done a lot to be respected.

How did you get involved with making the film?

I was approached by the film maker Carla Garapedian a number of years ago and she was keen on getting System of a Down involved in making a film about genocide. So I met with her and I was really interested in presenting the similarities of different genocide and holocaust because I see a connection between them all. She was down for that idea which was cool and I thought that the uniqueness of the experience of the Armenian genocide in terms of it being denied by the perpetrators still after 94 years.

Urm, so, we kind of had a meeting of minds and I said OK let me go back to the other guys from SOAD and see if they are willing to participate and they were so we, you know, as a band we didn’t do anything differently than we did on a regular basis: our concerts, our activism, our meetings with congressional delegates. Everything that we do we did anyway we would do anyway with or without the film. We allowed her access so that she could film it and tied that into her story. So the film is really about genocide but it involves the band.

A lot of your song writing is affected by your politicization- how did this politicizing come about?

The hypocrisy of the denial of genocide in a well known democracy was the first spark for my politicization as a young adult and made me wonder how many truths there are out there that are being denied for economical or geo-political interests. Since then I’ve found a lot of others truths or injustices I might say that need shedding of light. So that was the first trigger for me growing up.

Was your primary motivation for making this film to raise awareness of the genocide issues surrounding it?

When I first decided to be involved with the film, one of the primary reasons was to raise awareness of the Armenian genocide another was to raise awareness of the human disease of this genocide in general. I think we haven’t realised the importance of prioritizing the reaction to genocide intervention to genocide as a global society and we still allow different interests to supersede intervention regarding genocide- Sudan being a prime example of our times today and how we- when I say ‘we’ I am primarily referring to the western nations and governments- have not really interfered in a major way.

Like you see Sudan collaborating a number of years back with the CIA and US intelligence on Al Qaeda authorities within the country because obviously Bin Laden had spent a quite a bit of time there and it’s purported that Bin Laden was there after it was known that genocide was going on- this was after George Bush Jnr. called the atrocities genocide within Sudan. So you start to think and think OK I guess for America that meant that fighting terror was more important than helping victims of genocide and that is a prime example of how our priorities are misplaced.

Are any of your songs particularly relevant to the issue of genocide?

System of a Down has two songs that touch upon genocide: one is from the first album we ever made and one is from the last album that we ever made. The songs are ‘P.L.U.C.K’ and the other ‘The Holy Mountains’.

Do you think that you could have been part of such a film if you didn’t have your status as a musician?

I would have wanted to have been part of such a film if I weren’t a musician- I’m not sure that anyone would be interested in asking me though!

So, do you consider it important for musicians such as yourself and Tom Morello to speak out on political issues? Do you think that it is an important voice?

I think every artist has his or her own vision- I think that it is important for every artist to follow that vision. I don‘t think every artist should be political. I think that … I’ve always said that a really great love song is more important than any political song ever written: it can change the world in much more interesting ways than any political song. However, that said, I think that music is a great narration of our times. It’s a great truthsayer of our times.

You listen to Bob Dylan’s music of the sixties and on and you see that it’s a great way of presenting some truths and a great way of fighting injustice and power through the arts. So, I think it’s definitely been part of my vision in life to always, you know, kind of bring certain topics to the forefront- you know, whether it’s through music or through conversation. Every artist has their own vision and I respect that.

Which love songs and political songs do you think are the best ones for conveying their message?

One of my favourite – I don’t know whether you can call it a love song – but one of my favourite songs is ‘Yesterday’ by Paul McCartney as one of those songs that is changing. It is a change oriented type of song. It makes you think back in time but it also paraphrases life in such a beautiful way.
But there are a lot of beautiful love songs. I think more sixties- because that’s when a lot of great lovin’ was going on [laughs]. The Summer of Love and a free and open society. But there’s a lot of good stuff being written today or quite recently.

Are there any up-and-coming bands or those of the past that are particularly good at conveying their political message?

There’s a lot more bands touching upon political subjects today than there were, I would say, six or seven years ago. All I remember is that right after 9/11, certain parties, myself inclusive, Tom Morello [Rage Against the Machine] inclusive were questioning some of the actions that were taken and some of the ‘gung-ho’-ness of the flag-waving involved. I appreciate authenticity and emotion in any type of situation but there was a lot of fear-induced flag-waving going on if that makes sense.

Also reactions that were prevailing: ‘Let’s cut them down’ that kind of stuff- very illogical type of response which I guess is acceptable for a tragedy. However, I don’t think that most people understand that the sources of those tragedies were injustices themselves from elsewhere- that it stemmed from somewhere and it didn’t just come out of thin air as a tragedy. It came as a reaction to foreign policy of the US, Britain and a lot of nations post WW2 and 1 having to do with the Armenian genocide and other topics. There are a lot of things that if we go back in history and look at how we’ve interacted as nations we can see how things are affected by that today.

Last term, there was a motion put to Oxford University Student Union amounting to a condemnation of the actions in Gaza. This provoked fierce debate amongst colleges as to whether it was the place of the student union to put forward a strong opinion on political issues- do you think that Student Unions should?

Most activism has started in universities. Historically, you look at the sixties, seventies, eighties, and I think university students are at a prime age and period of cognisant recognition of the world around them to be able to stand up for things and still have the youthful romanticism necessary to not be sceptical enough to actually put in their time and efforts to do so. I think that it is a very promising thing.

I don’t like sceptics of activism; we have plenty of it ourselves in what I do and what Tom Morello does- people saying ‘why should we listen to you you’re musicians and not foreign policy experts. I say I’m a human being beyond my particular job description and I happen to be involved in a number of things that include American foreign policy and I read a lot about that and I have so for the last 25 years so that doesn’t make me an official expert but I’ll sit down with an official expert and I’ll have a good repartee, you know?

Is there anything else that you think is particularly important to say in relation to Oxford students?

I went to university myself – I didn’t go to Oxford [laughs] but I went to Southern California University. It was a time of growth of the mind. I personally don’t think that you learn anything constructive in University. I think what you learn in University is to allow yourself to learn. I think that that’s what you learn. You learn to be open to things and to allow things to enter your mind without critically cutting it down and that openness to learning. You’ll retain some of the knowledge obviously but I think the average is about fifteen percent if at all. I certainly don’t remember anything that I learnt from my business degree in college except maybe a few quotes or something like that from funny professors if anything.

But I think it’s important, though, to have the community where you’re able to communicate with other people about things happening not just domestically but around the world and having like I said the lack of scepticism to be involved in standing up for what you truly believe in.

Corporate Decapitation

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Corporate responsibility. The word ‘corporate’ has its roots in the Latin ‘corpus’, meaning body. I hate to start an article with a point about etymology, but bear with me. The idea is, presumably, that such an organisation is like a body, and thus individuals in such organisations, particularly the higher ups, take responsibility for the actions of others, and notably for the actions of the body as a whole.

This makes sense, to a degree. Certainly, if we take the example of the subject of my last article, Sir Fred, it would seem appropriate that he should be held responsible for RBS’s contribution to moneygeddon (to borrow a phrase from Charlie Brooker) – he had a direct impact on RBS’s direction, leading to its current predicament, hence why he’s out on his ear, even if he’s not particularly uncomfortable.

Or take Bob “not so quick” Quick – prancing into No.10 with secret documents practically stapled to his forehead. Idiot. He clearly deserved to get the chop – 30 years of service or not, we simply cannot set the precedent that our chief counter-terrorism officer can do something like that and keep his job.

But in Britain, we don’t stop there. If the body corporate stubs its toe, for some reason, we seem to think that the responsible thing to do is to chop off its head. We practically clamour for it – it seems like every week the red tops (Cherwell excepted) are demanding the resignation of somebody or other, be it for daring to have a private life, or, more likely, for the failings of one of their employees. Think about the series of stories regarding data losses by the government – at this point, it’s fair to say that we do seem to have a systematic issue with data security, and indeed it seems reasonable that heads should roll. That wasn’t so obvious at the time it all started, and yet as soon as the stories broke, there were immediate calls for the resignation of Cabinet ministers, individuals who didn’t seem to bear any clear relation to the morons who thought that a seat on the DLR was an appropriate storage location for their laptop/data disc/sex tape.

You can see why we do it – we want to avoid embarrassing incidences, and if the people in charge are likely to lose their jobs, we’d hope they would run a tight ship. But there are limits to what is realistic. We seem to expect our executives to have  hive-mind like control over their subordinates; but, perhaps in spite of said executives perspective on the matter, their subordinates are not ants. They are people, and people make mistakes, act dishonestly, and cannot be expected to be controlled on all occasions.

I’d suggest that we might want to rethink our current position, for a couple of clear reasons. Firstly, if we continue to decapitate corporate bodies like so many Tudor brides, we are going to encourage the sort of executive paranoia that has bosses stalking their employees on facebook. When we (eventually) enter the real world, we presumably don’t want to enter a work environment where our employers feel the need to graft a GPS locator to our scalp, so lets not give them a reason to. Beyond personal privacy, it’s also just bad for business – this sort of approach encourages excessive micromanagement, and that isn’t helpful.

Secondly, it is clearly bad for government. Look at the Cabinet – our convention of ministerial responsibility requires that the members of the Cabinet must (at least publicly) agree with everything the government does. Would it be so disastrous if the Secretary for Work and Pensions had a dissenting opinion over an element of foreign policy? Why do we need to fire perfectly capable ministers for having their own opinions? Certainly, if they are genuinely disrupting the government’s work, they should go, but that they should be afraid mention a single instance of disagreement with the totality of government policy is surely not constructive. Given the limited executive talent available to governments, we can ill afford to be despatching ministers left right and centre.

It’s not particularly exciting, but we should keep our heads, and let a few more organisations keep theirs.

 

 

Iwu found to be in breach of OUSU standing orders

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An internal complaints committee has ruled Lewis Iwu to be in breach of OUSU’s standing orders.

The Complaints Board has judged, “The OUSU President to be….in continuous breach of standing orders” and advised that, “a motion of censure should be strongly considered by council.” The Board is an internal committee dealing with members dissatisfied with their treatment by OUSU.

The complaint made was in regards to “the lack of transparency in the running and management of OSSL and their dealing with OUSU.” Richard Hardiman, OUSU’s Strategic and Financial manager, has refused to divulge OSSL’s financial accounts and reports on request.

The Student Union’s Standing Orders, however, state that, “The Chair must report to the first council of each term the activities taken by OSSL during the previous term, as well as presenting Internal Financial Accounts for that term.”
The complaint was submitted by Ben Britton, MCR President of St Catherine’s. College. He said he was “concerned about the lack of transparency in both sets of accounts”, pointing out that accounts are “seeming transparent in OUSU, but smoke and mirrors in OSSL.”

This was the second complaint this year with regards to the financial transparency of OSSL.

However, OUSU’s 7th week council has not upheld the complaint.

Lewis Iwu, OUSU’s president, spoke in opposition to the ruling. He said, “Because [OSSL] is a company it is therefore governed by company law. We cannot make any actions which we feel will effect the company or its employees negatively….OSSL ruled that it would undermine the company, if we were to provide termly reports to council.”

He added, “This is why this information has not been released by previous business managers as it is against the law.”

Another member of the council added that this ruling “would hurt OSSL…it could reveal sensitive management information about other companies relating to when the deals are done.”

However, some accused Iwu of basing his defence on “murky interpretation of company law”.

Company law states that directors should act in the interest of the shareholders, and as shareholders, the Executive Body of OUSU could have full right to ask for the presentation of termly accounts of OSSL.

Thus, the release of OSSL’s accounts would not be against the law.

Ben Britton commented, “what appeared to occur was that the law was possibly misinterpreted for the purpose of failing the Complaints Committee ratification, and it seemed that OUSU Officers presented an ill considered case to Council, in breach of their duties to uphold the rights of all Students of this University.”
Another member, who wished to remain anonymous, said, “To give the complaints committee no notice that there were legal issues and then throw legal stumbling blocks in council reeks of an attempt to pervert the course of democratic discourse.”

He added, “As a student, I find it outrageous that these attempts by Lewis to block full transparency in all financial affairs are allowed to continue.”

Iwu did not comment as to whether his defense was viable. He replied, “Company Law clearly states that the directors need to act within what they believe to be the best interests of the company. The OSSL directors agreed that releasing management accounts would hurt OSSL’s relationships with clients, many of who require confidentiality, and would also hurt our reputation. I sought advice from the University which also concurred with that view.”

Man jailed after Bodleian bomb hoax

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A man has been jailed for 8 months for pretending to have planted a bomb in the Bodleian Library.
Steven Thomas, 34, phoned the Oxfordshire police from a public call box and told them there were “incendiary devices set up in the Bodleian.”
Thomas, a resident of Headington, called the police from a public phone box on Cowley road on 24th November and told them to evacuate the library.
The police did not evacuate the Bodleian after receiving the call. They traced the number to the phone box and found Thomas there 20 minutes after the phone call had been made.
The prosecution, Clare Tucker described how the arresting officer found him. “His speech was slurred, he was unsteady on his feet and the officer could smell intoxicating liquor.”
His defence, Lucy Tapper, said, “The call seems to have been ill thought through and not really a genuine attempt.”
Tapper said of Thomas, “He is someone who is academically gifted and musically gifted.”
He was given his eight month sentence on 17th April by Recorder Guy Hungerford.
Thomas had alcohol and drug problems. He claimed that he was suffering from paranoid delusions and could hear voices in his head telling him to do bad things in order to be punished.
Thomas, of Awgar Stone Road, in Wood Farm, Oxford, admitted communicating false information with intent.
One first year student, who also suffers from paranoid delusions, said, “There’s a fine line between malingering – pretending to be suffering from delusions – and actual paranoia but if the symptoms he describes are true, prison will not be helpful; he needs to be sectioned.”
Thomas said that the incident had been a cry for help.
The University declined to comment on Thomas’ sentencing, but did say that they have plans in place if an evacuation were to be considered necessary by the police. They run regular fire drills.
The terror threat at Oxford is considered high by the police and University. Recorder Hungerford said of the Thomas case, “This kind of thing can only add to the public’s anxiety.”
However, one PPEist at Magdalen who said: “I’d never considered the University to be at particular threat before – a drunk and delusional man is not something I’m going to be losing any sleep over.”
Threats to University buildings in the past have chiefly been directed towards its controversial animal research facility. Police have had to deal with arson attempts at the site. University Buildings have also been evacuated before due to a false anthrax scare.

The grass is always greener…

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Trinity Term: a summery haze of afternoons spent languidly out on the lawns, the gentle lapping of the river against the side of an ambling punt. Long days followed by long nights locked troglodytic in one’s room as finals and prelims creep ever-closer.
As the clichés shake off dust for yet another year, I ask readers: who among us would pass up the chance to be a stereotype for the evening? And what could be more quintessentially Oxford than turning up, pitching one’s rug, unclipping one’s woven picnic basket, quaffing its contents, and enjoying first-rate student drama, whilst the sun sets gently over the spires and towers of Oxford? Yes, I am talking about that stalwart of aestival festivities: the Trinity Lawn Show.  
The Merton and Magdalen shows are generally considered to be the biggest and for time immemorial, Oscar Wilde and Shakespeare have been the playwrights of choice for our al fresco thespians. Tradition, you might have noticed, sticks fast in Oxford, and accordingly this year’s programme of lavishly eye-catching costumes and received-pronunciation includes Love’s Labour’s Lost at Merton, and All’s Well That Ends Well, performed against a backdrop of Edwardian splendour in the Magdalen College President’s Garden.
An adaptation of Waugh’s  embodiment of Oxonian life, Brideshead Revisited, is also coming to Oxford. Astoundingly, this will be the first time our dreaming spires have seen a production of it, so dig out your favourite Aloysius lookalike, adorn yourself with a scarf tossed jauntily over one shoulder, and get ready to see the hallowed lawns and gargoyles of blissful Oxford transformed, before your very eyes, into the hallowed lawns and gargoyles of blissful Oxford!
Such is the mythology and protocol surrounding these unique productions that the lawn play is something budding actors and directors aspire to do. But for all the joviality and light heartedness that characterise these shows, serious work and thought underpins each line. It is all too easy to overlook the obvious difference in acoustics between theatre and garden, and losing words in amongst the hedgerows and the chaises longues is a real risk.
So expect actors who have thus far successfully restrained their inner Brian Blessed to erupt magnificently into glorious fountains of camp.
The highlight of each performance is undoubtedly the gala night on the last Saturday of the run. I will warn you all now though, tickets sell out incredibly quickly, primarily because the chance to drink champagne, nibble canapés and don black tie in an exclusive setting at a non-exclusive price is an offer few can refuse.
So keep your eyes open for news, as these romantic and rosy-coloured summer nights spent chuckling at fellow students who strut around in period costume are the cherry atop a sumptuous Oxford cake of which everybody will want a bite.

In Trinity and Beyond

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For those keen to start watching immediately, Noughth week offers a ‘powerful evocation of the British sex trade’ in the form of Edinburgh Fringe sell-out A Thousand Pieces, at the North Wall Arts Centre.  For another light hearted start to Trinity, there’s Manon at the New Theatre, by the darkest of ballet choreographers, Kenneth MacMillan.
First week’s highlights will include an angry King Lear at the OFS. Then there’s His Dark Materials at the Playhouse.  A triumph when it appeared at the National in 2004, we are excited to see how it transfers to Oxford. Bear the Imps in mind too,  still at the Wheatsheaf on Mondays from First week.
For Second week there’s Betrayal by Harold Pinter at the BT: inspired by his affair with Joan Bakewell, it’s considered one of the Nobel Prize winner’s greats. In the late slot, a production of The Little Mermaid, based on the Anderson fairytale, plans to divide the audience with a fishing net! And at the OFS we have Fatboy, the tale, naturally, of Fatboy and his wife Fudgie and their rise to become king and queen of the world… Sunday also sees the Experimental Theatre Club’s annual Playday  – a place for people to put on plays in a ‘safe environment’. Sounds ominous.
Third week will be offering us All’s Well that Ends Well at the Magdalen Garden Show, one of the great delights of a sunny Trinity.  This years stars such as Roseanna Frascona and Hannah McGrath will light up Shakespeare’s blackest of comedies. Then there’s Collaborations at the Playhouse – four contemporary dances, based on John Donne’s ‘no man is an island’. The Oxford Revue also infiltrates the Playhouse on the Monday of this week.
At the Keble O’ Reilly Much Ado About Nothing is being shown in a ‘pretty madcap’ way, going from cafe, to street, to quad.  One insider told the Cherwell that they plan to ‘parade around Keble gardens and juggle whilst improvising Shakespeare with rubber ducks’.  Right.
This week has clearly been deemed crazy week, for Twelfth Night at the OFS will include performers breaking into slow motion and transfixed in dust, made, we’re told, out of light.  And the BT has The Love of the Nightingale with an all female cast playing around with stuff from Greek myth and elsewhere.
Fourth week: Even the directors call The Pitchfork Disney (BT) a warped play. And from the description it sounds it: ‘twenty- eight year old twins locked up in their home eating chocolate and sedatives’. But at the Keble O’Reilly this week we will be considering profound questions in This is India, which looks at cultural collisions as British Sara settles into a family in India.
Fifth week has A Real Doll at the BT. This is the sex doll, Alicia, who becomes the companion of Jeffry until an electric shock brings her to life. He discovers that love cannot be ordered from the internet. Then there’s the great Renaissance play The Changeling at the OFS, showing Beatrice as she succumbs to the assassin De Flores. For all you Disney aficionados, The New Theatre has Beauty and the Beast this week.
Having languished with English for five whole weeks, Sixth week is a chance to change into French by watching Phèdre at the BT.  The Cherwell’s going to tell you all about watching plays in foreign languages soon – so watch this space! This week also has Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus at the Keble O’Reilly – ‘Ugly hell, gape not! Come not, Lucifer!’
 The OFS has Tick Tick Boom, a musical presenting a composer falling into oblivion, while Oriel Arts Week heralds a production of The Spanish Tragedy, a bloody and darkly comic play by Thomas Kyd. In Seventh week the BT offers Caroline Bird’s Uncivil Partnership about a female string quartet playing at an unconventional wedding. But it is the Keble O’Reilly which finally offers us a play by Trinity Term’s patron saint, Oscar Wilde: Lady Windermere’s Fan.
 Last week we burnt books with Doctor Faustus, this week we shall drown them with The Tempest by acclaimed director Asia Osborne.
Krishna  Omkar returns to Merton‘s garden show for Eighth week with Love’s Labour’s Lost, while Tim Hoare and Matt Ryan will certainly offer us something splendid this week with Trojan Women. The final week of term is not likely to slide away quietly amid our exhaustion.

Edin Karamazov – The Lute is A Song

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At last we have an excuse to take more interest in the lute without simply tracing the whimsy of a washed-up Rock star (see Sting’s attempt). Bosnian born Lutenist, Edin Karamazov, has set out to create an album with the sole intention of making his instrument sing.
The collection of four songs and four pieces combine to form an incredible record which displays not only the sheer virtuosity of Karamazov himself, but also the incredible diversity and mystical nature of the lute.
Lute recordings may usually – perhaps understandably – remain ignored by the general public, but this album comes highly recommended to all open-minded music-lovers.
Excellent adaptations of iconic Baroque pieces, including Purcell’s ‘Dido’s Lament’ and J.S Bach’s ‘Toccata and Fugue in D minor’, stand out as exceptional examples of the expressional capabilities of the gigantic theorbo, an orchestral and solo instrument too often regarded as largely redundant, or simply as belonging only in the mid to late eighteenth century.
This record is a testimony to the revival and re-introduction of the lute. Karamazov is unafraid to juxtapose early music with modern: you may find more than you bargained for in this CD.
‘So Maki Sum Se Rodila’, a Macedonian folk song featuring the haunting voice of Kaliopi, is a beautiful articulation of both performers’ Balkan heritage, and adds to the cultural diversity of chosen tracks.
Edin Karamazov is joined by several friends along the way, including highly esteemed figures such as the countertenor Andreas Scholl, soprano Renée Fleming and even the aforementioned international nuisance Sting.
It was only a relatively short time ago that Sting was assisted by the Bosnian to assemble his own album of John Dowland’s seventeenth century lute songs, bringing early music, and the lute, into the spotlight after its considerably long  wait in the shadow of ‘popular classical music’.
Karamazov light heartedly admits that he may be only the second most famous Lutenist after Sting, but in the wake of this record it seems clear that this relegation to second place is no just indication of his talent as a musician.

3/5

Interview: MC Lars

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Californian rapper Andrew Nielsen—alias MC Lars—is the architect of post-punk laptop rap. Lars was a visiting student at Corpus Christi between years at Stanford University and has returned to the town many times whilst touring.
His new album, This Gigantic Robot Kills, sees MC Lars maintaining his unique style of ‘nerdcore’ whilst also diversifying from his usual comedic rap.
Although he has moved from recording beats in his bedroom to laying them down in professional studios, his style of commenting on pop culture and life events in a knowing and amusing way has not changed.
Dan Gallacher caught up with him at his gig at Oxfords O2 Academy.

To readers who don’t know MC Lars, how would you describe your music?

It’s post-punk in that it takes the ideologies of bands like post-first generation punk bands who used different sounding music with DIY messages. It’s laptop rap because it’s hip-hop I do on my computer. I tell people it’s the Beastie Boys with a little Chemical Brothers and some ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic.

You started your own record label, Horris Records, how much of a challenge has this been?

This Gigantic Robot Kills came out of a partnership with Horris Records and Oglio Records, under the guise of Jaret from Bowling for Soup’s new label Crappy Records. It was a challenge putting the album together but these guys helped me with the final tweaks and mixes. I’m all about giving away music for free, but with their involvement we are going the brick and mortar retail route and are kicking butt on both fronts. Bowling for Soup took me on tour in 2005 and are working on a new CD, staying in the pop-punk game. They are very great guys.
 
You’ve played in Japan, Australia and the UK. Do you worry some of your lyrics, like ‘Hyphy’, or ‘crunk’, get lost in translation?

People always ask us ‘what does hyphy mean?’ Crunk is pretty universal I’ve found, but there’s always that cultural clash when you bring up subcultures to different people. The Internet has kept everyone pretty much informed though, so the cultural divide has shrunk in the past few years.
 
BBC Radio 1 are celebrating thirty years since The Sugarhill Gang released ‘Rapper’s Delight’, which they see as the first ever Hip Hop track.  Would you agree?

‘Rapper’s Delight’ was the first hit rap single, but the first rap song was ‘King Tim III (Personality Jock)’ by the Fatback Band, which came out a few months before ‘Rapper’s Delight’…but of course that Sugarhill song was the epic hit so Radio 1 is right to give it its proper respects.

Anyone who’s heard your music or seen some of the T-shirts you wear will know your weren’t a big fan of George Bush, how do you think Barack Obama’s doing after his first few months? Is Obama punk rock?
 
Obama is punk rock in that he’s a self made man. Bush was an example of old world politics and conservative ideologies. I guess we’ll have to see how Obama does, but I definitely voted for him and definitely believe in him.
 
You lived and studied in Oxford in 2003.  What was your favourite Oxford haunt?  Did you discover any hidden gems that the readers should check out?

My favorite places in Oxford to hang out were the Radcliffe Camera and the Cellar on Cornmarket Street. George and Danver was always awesome too!

A lyric in your new song ‘Hipster Girl’ states ‘Donnie Darko makes no sense’ yet my housemate tells everyone he understands it. Is he talking rubbish?

 
It’s a very complicated plot. If you’re willing to accept the fact that physics, logic and the linear progression of time can be changed however you want arbitrarily, then it makes sense. I just don’t like how Jake Gyllenhaal is so surly and dysfunctional.

And what’s next for MC Lars?

 I’ve got an Australian tour, a US tour, then I’m back to the UK, and then hopefully will be getting to work on the new album!

Interview: Ian Hislop

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No democracy exists without the freedom to mock those at the top; satire is the cornerstone of a democratic state. That makes Ian Hislop, editor of  Private Eye and Have I Got News For You team-captain, a pretty important cog in the democratic machine. You might expect a cut-throat, stop-at-nothing vendor of grime and gossip, when you imagine the man behind the fall of Jeffrey Archer and Robert Maxwell.  A world away from the middle-aged, chuckling man sitting opposite me.

Don’t be fooled; Hislop’s dogged determination to sniff out the truth from the lies has landed him in court countless times, earning him the dubious title ‘the most sued man in British history’. Emerging from the extended court case with the wife of Peter Sutcliffe (The Yorkshire Ripper), who tried to claim up to £600,000 from the Eye, Hislop cheekily quipped ‘if that’s justice then I’m a banana’. His flippancy concealed relief; he appeared in court that day prepared to be sent to prison, toothbrush in briefcase.

Hislop sits behind a large wooden desk in Private Eye’s musty head-quarters. His slightly grizzly appearance merges with the office around him, as though over eighteen years as editor-in-chief, it has become an extension of himself. Private Eye cartoons hang haphazardly on the walls, winking cheekily down at the piles of papers and randomly-placed chairs which litter his editor’s den.
‘Satire should mock the strong’ he begins, speaking firmly and directly, unlike the politicians he pokes fun at. ‘There’s a strong tradition of it in Britain, which aids freedom and democracy’.  

Hislop agrees with one of his few heroes, Alexander Pope; satire is the ‘exposure of vice, folly and humbug’.  Some examples?; ‘fiddling expenses’, deceiving shareholders…’ Politics hasn’t changed much in 300 years then. Hislop speaks angrily about the way politicians treat the public like they are stupid; and equally, praises the British press’s ‘rumbustious attitude’ towards authority figures. ‘This government has an authoritarian streak, but the press are always there to expose them’. Exposing people is at the heart of Hislop’s job; ‘my duty is to ask ‘Is that true?’ and to investigate’.

Hislop talks about his former self with a wistful admiration; the quick, sparky Oxford graduate who controversially became editor at 26.  ‘It is good when you are younger because you are more confident. This is one of the advantages of youth. They asked me if I wanted to edit the magazine with hardly any experience and I said ‘no problem’. Now I am a lot more careful.’  He claims, at least;  there have been times when the magazine has had to appeal to its loyal readers to save it from being made bankrupt by under the weight of libel cases.

Has he lost his nerve then, over the years? ‘I am more keen to get things right now, to run the correct stories and target the right people. Some stories turn out not to be true and you think ‘I wish I hadn’t run that’.  
All of which has its consequences. ‘Its reasonable that people should dislike me. You have to develop a thick-skin. I am much more thick-skinned now than when I first took the job.’ The resulting feuds can be public; mocking Piers Morgan on Have I Got News certainly brought Hislop more than he bargained for.
I ask him whether he’s ever stumped, especially on television.  Appropriately enough, his answer comes without hesitation: ‘Never’.  Both Private Eye and Have I Got News, he explains, provide a means to release pent-up frustration. ‘I often listen to the radio seething with irritation; Have I Got News is a platform. I’ve always fancied a platform where I could mouth off. Its a way to vent steam’. Hislop, who never misses an episode of the quiz show, hosts a team opposite co-star Paul Merton. He is the ‘witty one’, coming in with cutting quips and clever puns. I ask him whether he has a TV persona. He replies carefully that it’s an exaggerated version of himself; ‘friends and family will tell you that I’m just that bit more boring normally!’ Surprisingly, Hislop does admit that he’s ‘always nervous beforehand’.

Hislop is an efficient mix of ruthlessness and steely determination when it comes to exposing lies.  If I were Brown I would be quaking in my boots, for Hislop- master satirist- is not a fan. ‘Labour government?!’ He scoffs. ‘This is not what people expect from a left wing government’. He is staunch in his opinion. ‘The people of Britain are badly served by the government. There is nothing to grab them, nothing to choose from. Little surprise they are becoming more apolitical.’ I know better than to ask his own political leanings; though he does let slip that ‘Vince Cable seems at times to be the only sensible person in parliament’. When I suggest that flow of speech in this country isn’t as free as it could be, he immediately puts things into perspective, showing a level-headedness which balances his taste for scandal. ‘Lets put it this way; there are no satirical magazines in Beijing.’ 
But is satire dying out?  ‘Political correctness’, Hislop spits, ‘is a term used by the Right to get people to shut up, and by authoritarian governments to insure that nobody writes anything bad about them’. Ironically, another pet-hate of Hislop’s puts him on the same side as arch-nemesis Piers Morgan. ‘The tightening of privacy laws are a threat to freedom of speech. Its difficult to see yourself on the same side as the Daily Mail, but these laws make it easy for the rich and powerful to get away with things. They will be able to control what we know about them’.

As he starts to talk politics, Hislops frustrations emerge. ‘Since 9/11 there’s been a steady erosion of civil liberties under the pretense that its necessary…Terrorism isn’t a new phenomenon. I remember when the IRA bombed Oxford Street’. A stiff-upper lip is all that’s needed then? ‘Yes.’  And the same goes for the credit Crunch. He refers to the last economic meltdown; ‘In a similar climate of unemployment in the thirties, Oswald Mosley (founder of the British Union of Fascists) failed to spread fascism, simply because people’s reaction to him was one of laughter: PG Wodehouse turned him into a ludicrous figure of fun in the novel ‘Code of the Woosters’, and he was forced off the scene.’ 

Hislop’s frank manner is refreshing, rather than blunt, cutting through the proverbial political bullshit; ‘Why is the government blanketing the whole population in the name of wiping out terrorism? Why are they clamping down on protests?’ Why indeed.

Hislop is optimistic about young people, blaming flaws in the system rather than laziness for the apparent lack of political zest amongst the youth. He rejects the belief that youngsters are only interested in reading about film and music celebrities. ‘We do not believe in ‘catering’ for young people. Its condescending to think they only want to read about popstars – the number of them involved in organisations like ‘Liberty’ and ‘Amnesty’ demonstrates this.’ Do you target any audience at all, young or old? ‘No, what we put in the magazine comes from things I like and find funny.’ This apparently simple strategy works. Private Eye is read by over 700,000 people, and sales are increasing.

Hislop is a moralistl, not a gossip; dedicated to truth, not lies.  When I ask him whether he isn’t sometimes just a little tempted to make use of his position to finish a grudge or two, his answer is honest: ‘I try not to’. Does he ever think about giving it all up, trying something different? ‘Sometimes. But then I think, what else would be this much fun?’

Review: Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival

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As usual, I was late. Cruel fate had decided to put many interesting events on at 10am which is, as everyone knows, four hours before internationally accepted vacation waking time.

But the sleep deprivation was worth it. I’d been expecting a bunch of writers to read their work and then wait to sign hopefully newly-purchased books, and to be fair, there were plenty such events, some better than others – but was floored by the sheer variety of what else was on offer.

‘Literary’ wasn’t just a codeword for schmoozing over classics, or the writings of an old boy network, but embraced pretty much anything and everything in writing. There were books and discussions about science, politics, food, art, architecture, even a malt whisky tasting.

Some of the higher-profile events included the first annual lecture on ‘Englishness’, delivered by the Archbishop of York, Dr. John Sentamu, and the Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence ceremony, in which Ian McEwan was duly honoured.

I was more interested in the national final for Off by Heart, which is the BBC’s new poetry reciting competition for 7-11 year olds. Not just because I’m a fan of poetry, but also because you’re allowed to laugh at kids more than authors and archbishops.

Talented and often funny performances were put on by all, especially the 10 year old winner Yazdan Qafouri Isfahani, whose exuberant charm was buoyed up by a snazzy outfit that made him look like Michael Jackson out of Thriller (minus the creepiness).

The adults did provide some entertainment too. A debate on who was the greater writer, Orwell or Dickens, saw a lively and light-hearted exchange between the four speakers, including the hilariously deadpan comedian Hardeep Singh Kohli. It didn’t make much difference to people’s opinions in the end, but was definitely enjoyable.

I also took the chance to attend events to satisfy my inner self-help junkie. One of the most engaging talks was given by Abbot Christopher Jamison, best known from the reality TV show The Monastery, who discussed some of the ideas from his new book Finding Happiness.

Obviously he considered religion as fundamental to happiness, although when asked what to do if one didn’t believe in gods, his response was disarmingly direct: ‘Become a Buddhist.’

More worryingly at one point, the abbot stated that a key to appreciating religion was to wake early enough to watch the sun rise, but my faith in him was restored when he hastily added, ‘Except for teenagers.’ Apparently it’s enough for the hormonally advantaged to pray at night, with candles as solar substitutes.

While a lot of these events often put forward familiar viewpoints, some managed to venture further. At the Oxford Poets & Refugee Writers event, for example, refugees who’d had the chance to work with local poets read aloud their life stories turned into poetry.

True, it wasn’t great poetry with all the bells and whistles of the English tradition, but the poems’ rawness often added to their force. It’s difficult to deny the empowering and cathartic effect literature can sometimes have when you listen to someone read about their experience of being raped, beaten, or losing their children, and most people in the room were visibly moved.
Similarly enlightening was a discussion on how disabled characters were portrayed in contemporary literature. The key issue was that disabled characters’ lives were often portrayed as revolving almost solely around their disability, although a lot more about disability in general was said by the three speakers.

The panel itself was diverse, comprising of the very witty former Head of Comedy Development at Carlton TV, Nigel Smith, and the Canadian playwright and literary manager Alex Bulmer, both of whom talked frankly about the experience of dealing with their own disabilities.

The third member, the able-bodied writer Adam Mars-Jones, also read a scene from his work in which two adolescent boys in a school for disabled children play at being secret agents. Skilfully interwoven with the homoerotic elements were meticulous descriptions of, for example, how one of the boys handles the supports he uses to assist his polio-crippled legs.

Ultimately, it’s these little unexpected glimpses which drew me in and stayed with me afterwards. And I was glad that the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival had embraced a definition of literature that celebrated as many voices as possible, both expected and unexpected.

Of course, that’s just what appealed to me. The beauty of such variety is that there really is something for everybody.