Sunday Concerts for Assange with Michael Brunnock!
On Sundays Only on Youtube!
Sunday at Noon PST/15h EST/20h BST on Assange Defense, Stella Assange, we are premiering concerts from musicians around the world in support of Julian Assange.
An eclectic mix of never before streams on Youtube, the series include live, acoustic and home studio music sets from musicians including James Kennedy from the Underdogs, Adelchi & Jes, David Rovics, Ben Mitchell, Mark Chadwick from the Levellers, Gabriel Moreno, Alabama 3, Siobhan O’Brien, Jessie Grace, Rick DellaRatta, Banda POPolare Emilia Rossa, Viva la Muerte, Andrea Brosio, Peter Conway, Ngaio with Amber Patara, William Crighton, Jesse Jett and many more to come.
Sunday’s Concert for Assange with Michael Brunnock!
Watch it now on Youtube.
Tracklist:
1.Saving face
2. Suffragette
3. Wounded knee
4. Exit strategy
5. Dedication
Michael Brunnock is an Irish Singer-songwriter from Kells, County Meath Ireland.
In 2010, Michael went on to win a David Di Donatello 2012 (Italian Oscar) in the Best Song Performance category for ‘If It Falls’.
The soundtrack was written by David Byrne, Lyrics by Bonnie Prince Billy, sang by Michael in the movie ‘This Must Be The Place’ starring Sean Penn.
Directed by Paolo Sorrentino, the movie won 5 Italian Oscars in 2012, including best soundtrack mixed by Patrick Dillett.
Michael has performed solo and with a band all over the US and Europe.
His album releases include ‘So I Do’ (2007), ‘Live in NY’ (2011), and ‘The Orchard”(2012), reissued 2016.
Since 2016 Michael has written for plays and sound tracks focusing back in his native Ireland.
Check out his Spotify:
You've decided to join the fight and speak up for Julian, in an industry where many may find it expedient to keep silent.
The Music industry used to thrive on being anti establishment, from Bob Dylan to Sinead O'Connor to Roger Waters . It’s not so common today . The Shadow ban is a real thing.
I''ve wanted to highlight Julians story and work. His work has been is vital. As an artist this is the way I can do it.
If one more person gets onboard, becomes interested in helping, gets to understand, sees the hypocrisy of his persecution, wakes up, gets to share his story with others, from hearing something in my music, then its worth it.
What do you think formed your political perspective and activation?
I learned about an Irish Man named Roger Casement, The last knight of the realm who was hung for treason in 1916 by the British judiciary.
He had earned his knighthood for exposing the crimes of King Leopold of Belgium in The Congo, where 9 Million people had died due to his policies. However when Roger focused his attentions inwards to exposing the injustices against the occupation of his fellow Irish people, their right to self determination, and on the British commercial interest enslaving the populations of the Putamayo region of the Amazon, he was vilified and the out come of his trial for treason was already determined. I have developed a suite of songs from the poems and letters of Roger Casement.
I developed a perspective since being a teen in Ireland, following the search for justice , for the civil rights massacre by the British Army in Derry at the beginning of "the troubles” in Ireland. I followed the journey of the Birmingham 6 the Gilford 4, the Maguire 7 , all Irish, who were tortured into confessions and sustained long sentences for crimes they didn’t commit. The parallels between the treatment by Empire and compliant Media of Roger and Julian are obvious.
How did you come to care about this cause?
I felt you can't get better journalism, than exposing the actual words and actions of unaccountable power, be it military or political.
In the cases mentioned above, it was by exposing truth, exposing massive cover up, exposing perpetrators , exposing the judiciary and political class, that change came. Unaccountable Power are afraid of truth, afraid of Julian Assange.
Once exposed, and given the knowledge, the public, the average person then has capacity to demand change.
What's the most important thing you'd like people to understand about Julian’s case?
One ominous development since Julians incarceration in Belmarsh, is the extent to which narrative control in the US led western alliance has been elevated. Notably, the degree of punditry and censorship is astounding. The degree of compliance by European leaders, unquestioning the Proxy war in Ukraine. The shadow ban is being used to great effect to repress “unhelpful” information to those in power. The degree to which embargos and sanctions are used to as a tool of war against non-compliant nations.
One of Julian’s most famous publications was fronted by raw video of the callous murder of a group in Iraq, killing civilians, including journalists from an apache helicopter. At the time it sent shockwaves, Raised many questions and embarrassed the then administration. It exposed systematic war crimes and the purposeful coverups of those crimes.
Today through Technology, in Gaza, we are witnessing in real time, an ethnic cleansing, a wiping of a population with targeting killing, massive bombs and starvation. Narrative management has so advanced that these horrific daily images can be explained away, softened, by politicians and their compliant media. We are in a dystopian reality where war crimes in real time are allowed to continue, while the ‘Free Press” sanitizes the language and there images.
The empires war machine spends unaccountable trillions, and much of it is spent on managing media perception, censorship, keeping us asleep. Julian warned us that this was going to happen. And here we are. BBC RTE, Irish state media is just as compliant. The likes of Aaron Matê, Max Blumenthal, Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, all Great Journalists are few and far between.
Art has purpose. It can subconsciously change people. In order for people to demand change, the individual must understand that they are being manipulated, One not only needs to know the truth. One has to care. One must have empathy.
One must see themselves in the other. One must take responsibility.
Free Julian Assange!
Follow Michael on Tiktok, X, Intagram, Youtube, Bandcamp, Facebook.