Fly focuses on covering music around the world. The articles are usually only so-so, but I find it worthwhile to keep tabs on what is on the site. For London people, they have a Gigs Guide I suspect is useful.
A new article, “Persian Electronica: Musical Subversion and Children’s TV”, quickly discusses some of the music used on television following the 1979 revolution in Iran. It is a quick and amusing read; here’s the highlight:
Sometimes interesting things occurred as well. There was a programme called ‘The Analysis of the Week’s Politics’ on Iranian TV and they occasionally talked about Germany and France helping Iraq in the war. The sound themes were works of Klaus Shulze and Jean Michel Jarre! Anyway, for years, we were surrounded by psychedelic tunes in our radio and television. Years later, I found out why those things happened.
One day, I was chatting with the owner of a teaching institute I was working at and he told me that he had a friend in Iranian TV, whose job was to choose the music for TV programmes. I asked my life-long burning question; did that guy knew what he had chosen for the TV or not? Then I was told that the gentleman knew exactly what he was doing. That his entire life had been spent on electronic music and he had plans to go to Europe and collaborate with Tangerine Dream. As I was told, nobody in the TV organization even knew who those tunes’ composers were and basically nobody ever questioned his music picks.