FUTURE/PAST: As the atmosphere heats up and with eight months to go, the Presidential race unfolds on a daily basis.
Kasoulides declared a vision for the future on June 13 and looked quiet confident about it. Papadoupoulos still waits to see what AKEL will do. Omirou has made his mind up by backing Tassos and the minute AKEL announces its candidate, EUROKO seems willing and ready to formally join the coalition and demand ministries.
The latter move sounds a tad too Machiavellian – but what do we expect? It’s bargaining time. Despite what FM George Lillikas says about AKEL ministers resigning before the election (a move many would consider irresponsible), Koutsou and his party seem to be jumping the gun. This is, however, a hint of things to come – at least in terms of future alliances.
I predict it’s more likely DIKO/EDEK/EUROKO will form an electoral pact which may in time become a new right-wing (posing) as born-again social democrat centre bloc. Their vision for the future will be to conjure up the demons of the not too distant past.
By living constantly in a ‘warzone’, these parties will; constantly remind us that ‘we’ voted ‘No’ – that the ‘Turks’ are only ‘Turks’ because they can only be ‘invaders’ and eventually the EU will see the ‘light’ of their vision for Cyprus (meaning Europe).
AKEL and DISY will both rely on the past, as they have always done, to entrench Greek Cypriots further but they will also be spouting more about the future, and trying to peddle hope for a solution.
Most people these days, or so I am told, exude a carelessness never seen before in Cyprus. It’s the fear of the unknown that really haunts Cypriots on both sides of the Green Line. That leap of faith called a solution will eventually have to be addressed.
Another five years of avoiding issues, ripe with procrastination, the blame-game and childish finger-pointing will achieve only more isolation. Negativity breeds negativity – the sooner we break the cycle the better.
CYBER SPACE UPDATE: Nowhere is music more cutting edge than online. It’s the instantaneousness of it all. One day you have some lyrics on the PC screen, the next someone has made it into a song, and the day after it’s in the charts, on myspace or soundclick.
Where radio stations have failed abysmally in their support for local music, many artists now take matters into their own hands and make their myspace pages into their own form of media. So here are a few worth checking…
As the first woman music producer making crisp beatz, St3phanie knew she had a whole heap of odds going against her. Now studying music production in the UK, her myspace page (www.myspace.com/st3phani3music) gets a serious amount of hits each day. ‘3Stripe Productions’ is open for all kinds of collaborations and experiments. With over 30,000 plays online, St3ph’s page is one of the most popular music sites by an individual from Cyprus.
A Greek music online radio stream would have had a fairly limited market ten years ago with possibly 25 listeners being able to tune in at any given one time. Global Greek Radio works between two people Dino in New York & DJ Zeus in London. These days it’s a serious initiative with thousands of listeners tuning in (www.myspace.com/globalgreekradio). With two live streams and three new ones to be launched, this site looks set to becoming even more popular in months to come.
I recently had the honour of collaborating on a tune online via Spill The Milk Productions in the UK. As most good things often do, the project came about completely by accident. Having sent my audio file to Don V Louie at STM (www.myspace.com/spilllthemilk.com) rising roots reggae singer Aaron Kedar (www.myspace.com/bongokanny) was also in the studio and liked the vibes.
‘Babylon’ is the result of this new cyber collaboration. Check it out at: www.soundclick.com/hajimike. I seldom feature in video clips, due to my old skool approach to music but this tune, being so different, will be having one soon.
Finally, if comedy is what you after check my long time friend Donald Mack (www.myspace.com/donald_mack). Partly responsible for baptising me with my DJ name, back in the 1980s while at Essex Uni, D nowadays entertains audiences with his charismatic humour which for the second year running will be happening at the Edinburgh Festival in August. On the Greek-North American tip, Angelo Tsarouchas’ space is at www.myspace.com/funnygreek. Check the video section – stereotypically hilarious!
