The Strokes Close Coachella Set with Video Denouncing U.S. Foreign Intervention

[róisín_dubh]

The Strokes returned to Coachella’s main stage on Saturday for a second performance. This time, however, they closed their set with a direct condemnation of U.S. interference in foreign governments over the years. While performing their 2016 song “Oblivius,” which features the lyric “What side you standing on?," the band displayed a video montage accusing the CIA of aiding and abetting forced regime change in Chile, Bolivia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and more. The video concluded with videos of bombings in Gaza and Iran reportedly carried out by Israel and the U.S., respectively. Watch it below.

The montage named leaders like former Iranian prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh, former Bolivian president Juan Torress, and former Chilean president Salvador Allende, pairing their photos with captions accusing the CIA of conspiring to overthrow them. At one point, an image of Martin Luther King, Jr. appeared ahead of the caption “USGOVT found guilty of his murder in civil trial,” referencing a 1999 trial wherein a jury unanimously decided that there had been a government conspiracy to assassinate the civil rights leader. (In 2000, the Department of Justice reopened the murder case as a result of the trial, but said they found no evidence of a conspiracy.) The Strokes concluded their presentation with clips of human-made destruction in Iran and Gaza, at one point showing a large building exploding alongside the caption: “Last university standing in Gaza.”

https://pitchfork.com/news/the-strokes-close-coachella-set-with-video-denouncing-us-foreign-intervention/

ETA: I’m not at all a fan of Coachella or festivals in general, I came across this when I saw Jacobo Arbenz and Salvador Allende’s faces flash up on my Instagram feed. I find the criticism levied at musicians to avoid politics laughable.

[IcyPeas]

1. The Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas's father...

John Casablancas was pals with trump and epstein

At age 42, while married to model Jeanette Christiansen, Casablancas began dating 14-year-old Stephanie Seymour. At age 50, Casablancas married his third wife, 17-year-old Aline Mendonça de Carvalho Wermelinger. In 2002, Casablancas was accused of sexual assault of a minor in a lawsuit by a former model.

Casablancas was friends with future U.S. president Donald Trump, representing Trump's daughter Ivanka when she became a fashion model at age 15. After he died in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil in 2013 at age 70, The Guardian published an obituary stating, "Casablancas was frank about his personal preference for girls of only just legal age – 'child women'." In 2020, The Guardian reported that he was connected to Jeffrey Epstein. According to a 2019 lawsuit, Casablancas sent a 15-year-old female model to meet a photographer later identified as Epstein, who sexually assaulted her.

Modeling Agency Link: Casablancas, as the founder of Elite Model Management, is often mentioned in connection with the modeling industry's role in supplying young women for Epstein, alongside Jean-Luc Brunel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Casablancas

[róisín_dubh]

2. It's not his fault his dad was a monster

He doesn’t appear to be. And from what I’ve read, he credits his step father as a greater influence on him than his father. 🤷🏻‍♀️

We don’t get to choose our parents. My father was not kind to my mother, nor she to him and in turn she poisoned my siblings and I against him in a way he never reciprocated. I have very complex relationships with my parents decades later as a result.

None of this makes the song less poignant.

[IcyPeas]

3. Umm? where in my post does it say that. ?

[róisín_dubh]

4. Sorry!

I didn't realise you were just pointing out information. Trolls on instagram are essentially trying to minimise the song because of his dad.
Apologies for assuming. I've been too online today