To those bored with M.I.A. hype, pretend I’m drawing a cloak of invisibility around this post. Pretend it was hidden somewhere far, far away where nobody would ever read it. In other words, my personal blog ;)

First up, Maya Arulpragasam’s dad and album namesake got a few lines in a 1995 book called Tigers of Lanka. The book describes his Sri Lankan escapades after training in explosives in Lebanon (via Nittewa):

One of the first three Tamils to go to Lebanon was Arul Pragasam, alias Arular. He reached Kannady, also in Vavuniya, in 1976 with a view to settle down and establish a base to woo the educated class into joining the EROS… Arular, with his Kannady farm barely 20 miles from Pirabaharan’s hideout, met the LTTE leader several times beginning September 1976. With his degree in engineering and newly-acquired knowledge in Lebanon, Arular passed on to Pirabaharan ideas about making explosives. In turn, Pirabaharan agreed to provide incendiary chemicals to Arular.

Once a LTTE courier carrying nitric acid to the Kannady farm was caught by the police after he could not give credible explanation about his presence in the Vavuniya forest. Arular, who came rushing from Jaffna on hearing about the arrest, told the police that he had ordered the acid to pour it into snake pits. Mercifully, the police were convinced by the explanation and released the courier. But Pirabaharan would not leave any evidence; at the first opportunity he had the police station raided and all documents related to the arrest were taken away…

Second, Turbanhead points us to some shaky handheld video clips of M.I.A. performing at Coachella. Live performances, like drinking, rarely look good in daylight, but Punk Ass Bitch reports that M.I.A. got a rare Coachella encore:

She walked off the stage when her set was over and the whole crowd was chanting “M.I.A - M.I.A. - M.I.A.” over and over again. Everyone wanted more. Nobody was moving. Even Diplo wasnt leaving his turntables. The sound crew was very confused. They made Diplo leave the stage and the crowd just kept cheering “M.I.A.” louder and louder.

Ya see nobody at Coachella ever gets an encore. They have very strict schedules to keep. It doesn’t matter how big you are, you dont get an encore. The only acts I’ve ever seen get an encore were the headliners at the main stage. Nobody who performs during the day ever gets an encore. Until M.I.A. The sound manager told his crew to not take the stage apart and let them do a couple more songs. I think he was afraid of the crowd. We were all hungry for more.

Diplo came back. and 2 mins later MIA was back on stage. I think she was in shock at the response she was getting. She said ‘I only have one album and we went through all our songs. But fuck it, we’ll just wing it.’ Diplo threw on some beats and she just started singing some of her b-sides. The crowd went ape shit. I still get goosebumps thinking about this set.

Previous posts here and in the music category.