It’s A Cancel in the USA, Trump Shoots Again, and more.
Added 2026-01-24 23:30:40 +0000 UTCHi loves.
I have so much to tell you about the last few weeks, it’s been a great whirlwind of friends, work, writing and travel. But meanwhile: a question and word about the state of the political storm.
First and foremost: how is everybody feeling in the USA? And…how is everybody NOT in the USA feeling? Hint: that means all of you.
A pointed question: does anyone out there (esp from the ex-US countries) know any other artists pulling out of US tours?
When the art walls go up, things shift darkly and deeply. These past few days, overseas artists are canceling US tours/dates (and not due to the meteorological weather, people.) I just saw the eloquent and heartbreakingly-delivered news from Quique Escamilla (Mexico)…
https://www.instagram.com/p/DTx4aS4kRTL/?igsh=ZDF1azdzajV6cWdr
…hot on the heels of Delilah Bon (UK) canceling USA dates. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DTxpilZCGn0/?igsh=Z3Q4ZTNpMW9mYWlq
Go to both of their IG feeds to see their statements (both towards the top). Also Tiniariwen…a collective of Tuareg musicians Algeria/ Mali. Canceled.
Does anyone know of any other artists canceling dates in the states? Please holler. Just don’t include Morrissey. He’s his own article. 😂 Talk to me America/World Internet. What’s going on. What closes something must open something else. What goes up…must come down.
Also a reminder that when actual weather hits and venues have to cancel whole weekends of programming, it’s yet another hit they can’t afford. So GO OUT next week, and week after next, to support your local indie bands, cinemas, record stores, venues and clubs. Book tickets. We have to have places to gather and they keep the lights on only when you get off your couch and participate. Go. See. Shows. Take a risk. Go. Go. Get out there.
And here’s the thought I posted to socials this morning.
My god America. Storm is brewing, all across the lands.
This ICE nightmare, this dark cloud poem, it rhymes too deeply with 1930s Germany, verse for verse. Trump's fed agents shot and killed someone, again. Where does this go? It feels like the timeline we are on is hockey-sticking in a rapid upward spiral.
To the Republicans in control of Congress: please. listen to the people.
People: keep marching, keep calling and pressuring. It's America. It always comes from people putting pressure on the top.
Stay focused.
Be kind to your neighbors.
Don't stop going to shows.
Love. Strength.
WTF.
I’m sending love to all of you.
More soon. Getting on a plane.
Pray for gentle weather in every department.
Xxx
A
Taken last night in LA by Geeta Dayal…
Comments
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Anna Kitty 😸
2026-01-27 00:50:28 +0000 UTCDear American friends, please, if you can and while you still can, resist this regime with all you've got! It is heartbreaking to watch this fascist takeover of your beautiful country. 😢 I don't know about any artists cancelling visits to the U.S., but literally everybody I talked to said that they will not travel to the U.S. while this administration is in power. Also, colleagues who used to do it regularly in the past now resist against being sent on business trips to the U.S. Same for me, sorry, but the "hand over all your passwords at the gate" policy alone is already unacceptable. Not to mention all the other scary stuff... 😬
Marcus
2026-01-25 22:33:40 +0000 UTCMy husband and I went to a mini concert and dinner at a local playhouse. It was difficult to sit there feeling comfortable and enjoying the show knowing how afraid so many are to leave their home just to go to the doctors or work. How different for those of the right skin color and lacking accents
LAHM 75
2026-01-25 21:18:24 +0000 UTC"Trump fed agents" ! He is spoon feeding shit to America, and expects us to say, "More, please" Fuck that !
LAHM 75
2026-01-25 21:08:08 +0000 UTCBob Vylan had their visas revoked before their tour for speaking out against the genocide. They were supposed to play a venue I work at. So now I, a Jew, make less money to… protect Jews?
Gregory Goldstein
2026-01-25 18:22:25 +0000 UTCWe're Jewish so its very scary in the states; we had our run in with ICE in LA before the murder squads started. Now the government is murdering people. Its sad and scary. We're also in retirement so that adds to our fears - the economy is a mess and we're afraid that some day ICE will come for us. Such a far cry from when Obama was elected and I hoped we'd turned a corner - we didn't.
Robert Hays
2026-01-25 18:17:37 +0000 UTCOur decomcracy and our freedom are under assault, not by foreign forces, but from within. This assault is led by a demagogue with malevolent and selfish intents, but who has manipulated the masses under the guise of being a savior. Our Founding Fathers feared this exact scenario. America needs to wake up and restore itself before things get much worse.
John Contarino
2026-01-25 15:30:05 +0000 UTCHello from Berlin, with a collection of contradictions. It’s deeply unsettling, absolutely terrifying. The shootings, the ongoing violence in the U.S. The horror is hard to put into words. The fear it creates. The brutal images. The future visions that flood in and feel almost unbearable to hold. As an artist, it changes everything. Canceling shows and projects becomes not just a statement, but an emergency. A response to something too heavy to continue performing inside. So much respect for anyone forced into that decision. Still, something else rises. A deep, almost desperate urge to rebel. To answer the darkness with as much life, joy, and fierce togetherness as possible. Art. Bodies in rooms together. Music. Laughter. Presence. Defiance. The contradiction is almost unbearable. Terror and grief on one side. On the other, this unstoppable no. This insistence on living. On opening rather than closing. On choosing connection over fear. Another layer: the political development, the isolation, the normalization of cruelty. It feels uncomfortably familiar. Growing up in the GDR, political terror wasn’t abstract. The patterns of threat, silence, suspicion, escalation. Hauntingly close. Parallels to the 1930s. Impossible to ignore. The way language shifts. How fear becomes policy. How violence becomes normalized, arbitrary. When art and culture don’t take place, spaces go dark. Still, art doesn’t disappear. It mutates. It finds other ways. New forms of subculture may emerge, in resistance, underground, quieter at first, but alive. Thank you, dear Amanda, and you all dear people here, for holding space for all of this at once. 🖤
Katharina Kwaschik
2026-01-25 15:17:07 +0000 UTCwhat a disgrace these people are. Bevino on cnn. that will come to light in the investigation. You also said his intent was on mass murder of the officers. does that look like that. Well because of men are well trained that didnt happed.
Steve Devitt
2026-01-25 14:17:34 +0000 UTCPanicked and looking at the world as you would at an explosion in slow motion. Band wise i just know of a punk band here in Antwerpen who didn't get visas to tour in the US last year, zero explanation and all their travel money lost. That will have worked as a cautionary tale, but no new names that explicitly refuse to tour there
irina
2026-01-25 09:40:14 +0000 UTC
