Free Pussy Riot!‏ By Tom Kipp

This week NATION editor Katrina vanden Heuvel brings attention to an unlikely political cause celebre involving a Russian punk rock collective called Pussy Riot. Some remarkable YouTube video footage accompanies her piece:

 

http://www.thenation.com/blog/167647/free-pussy-riot?rel=emailNation

 

And their Wikipedia entry makes clear that PR is a remarkable project all the way around:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pussy_Riot

 

This particular photo puts me in mind of San Francisco’s fabled conceptualists, The Residents, though Riot Grrrl and British Oi! seem much closer to the mark with regard to their musical output:

 

  

 

Anyhow, Pussy Riot is certainly something new under the sun, and here’s hoping that broad international exposure will lead to the presently-incarcerated members being released from custody and permitted to resume their lives, personally as well as artistically and politically.

 

– Tom Kipp

http://youtu.be/GCasuaAczKY