Mississippi Records pres. A People's History of Music

Silent Green presents

A People's History of Music (Music in Times of Authoritarianism)

An audiovisual show by Eric Isaacson (founder of Mississippi Records)

The approximately 90-100 minute audiovisual presentation (more of a thrilling performance or screening than a presentation) tells a story of musical resistance.

She makes big, bold moves and returns time and again to artistic and unusual details. The focus is on music from Ethiopia, Slovenia, Kenya, the USA and beyond, as well as Eric's colorful personal experiences with the creeping rise of fascism. Archival films, audio documents and images tell of resistance against authoritarian structures and of independent, informal ways of distributing music.

The Cramps, Jimmie Rodgers (the “Yodeling Brakeman”), Kipsigis tribal musicians, Scientologists, Sting, Ethiopian pop stars, punks from Portland, Russian pirates, Spotify, octopuses, The Beatles, The Germs, African cowboys and techno fascists are a few who will be discussed.

Eric is known for his modestly funny, unmistakable style and for bringing forgotten treasures of the global musical underground to light. With a lot of intuition and intuition, he discovers breaks, idiosyncrasies and animated stories in the often overlooked traditions of punk, gospel, soul, blues and roots music from all over the world.

Key content areas

Continuing DIY music scenes worldwide and their connections between endangered communities

The resistance of underground music to censorship and propaganda

Secret revolutionary messages hidden in popular music

Involuntarily funny musical outings from fascists, authoritarian systems and states

The subliminal connection between new age music and fascism

Complemented by unusual stories, bizarre finds and examples of the sometimes absurd attempts by power-obsessed leaders to use music as a means of propaganda.

About Eric Isaacson and Mississippi Records

Eric Isaacson is the founder of Mississippi Records as well as numerous other small, specialized record labels such as Cairo, Pyramid and Velvet Ramp.

In the past 23 years, he has released more than 390 records and 165 mixtapes with DIY music from all over the world. The spectrum ranges from punk and African guitar griots to Greek underground music, deep country blues, gospel, folk and Estonian classical music to soul, spiritual jazz and much more. Eric conceived and designed the album covers, did the editing, worked with artists and their descendants, wrote the accompanying texts and took care of compiling and sending the publications himself.

In the first 17 years, Mississippi Records had no Internet presence at all, released no digital music and operated a record store in Portland, Oregon, where only cash payments could be made. The label did not answer any press inquiries and was not represented on social media. Despite these deliberate restrictions, it sold more than a million records.

In addition to releasing music and running a record store, Eric has been touring with presentations like this for twelve years. His events promote DIY culture and try to make the exploitative structures of the commercial music industry visible.

Thursday, December 3rd Admission: 19:30/Start: 20:00 Studio 2 Tickets