A PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF MUSIC (during times of authoritarianism) - A visual and sonic presentation by Eric Isaacson (Mississippi Records)

A slideshow / lecture / film presentation from Mississippi Records founder Eric Isaacson telling a story of global music scenes that struggled and endeavoured during periods of authoritarianism. This is a timely and compelling interweaving of people and places, of past and present, of making and sharing music in very troubling times. It's the story of how the powerful interests try to control music and how people fight back, nimbly evading systemic repressions by puritans, corporations and tech lords alike.

Making wide, bold swings, this show, covers music from Ethiopia, North Korea, Kenya, the USA and beyond, while drawing on Eric’s colourfully described, personal experiences of the fascist creep.

Eric is known for his humbly comical, singular style and for his ability to revitalize audiences through digging up buried treasures from the global music underground. He has an intuitive and captivating way of finding the kinks, idiosyncrasies and soulful stories in the histories of under-acknowledged punk, gospel, soul, blues and roots based music from around the world. Eric has previously constructed and internationally toured three other mind-altering presentations, but never one as timely as this — a must-experience sampling of audio and visual folk art.

The presentation covers these subjects and more:

- The ongoing worldwide DIY music scenes forging connections between endangered communities.
- Underground music's resistance to censorship and propaganda
- The secret revolutionary messages hidden in pop music
- Unintentionally hilarious musical forays by fascists, authoritarian systems and states
- The insidious relationship between New Age music and fascism

This whirlwind presentation of archival film, sound clips and images avoids political grandstanding, instead emphasizing vital anti-authoritarian stories of resistance through samizdat music distribution. 

Eric Isaacson is the founder of Mississippi Records and many other small esoteric record labels such as Cairo, Pyramid and Velvet Ramp. Over the past twenty- three years he's released over 390 records and 165 mixtapes of DIY music from around the world. This catalog includes punk, African guitar griots, Greek criminal underground music, deep country blues, Gospel, Folk, Estonian classical music, Soul, Spiritual Jazz and much more. Eric conceptualized, designed the covers, edited, worked with artists and their ancestors, wrote the liner notes, assembled and mailed these records out.

For its first seventeen years Mississippi Records operated with zero internet presence, released no digital music and ran a cash only record store in Portland, Oregon. The company refused all press inquiries and never appeared on social media. Even with these limitations, Mississippi managed to sell over one million records.

Beyond releasing records and running a retail shop, Eric has traveled with presentations like this for the past twelve years. These performances all champion DIY culture and try to expose the exploitative nature of the mainstream music industry.