Topic: General Band News

However, the soloist of the American band, Serj Tankian, has openly stated in a recent visit in Finland that this will be under one condition: if they will be able to use Eurovision as a way to make the much-debated Armenian Genocide issue known. "Esc would be an excellent way to make this theme known. We must seriously think of this." said Tankian in response to a question posed by Finnish News Agency.

Check out a recent audio interview with John Dolmayan, talks about his drumset that he displayed at the comic con, the artists that contributed to it, his love of music and comics and System of a Down and Screamers.
He also talks about the moment where he ran to his parents room one night, just missing the bullet that went through his room. The bullet went right to his pillow. They moved to Cyprus, then Canada, then LA.

Some interesting things mentioned in the interview:
- John announced November 1, 2007 as the Torpedo Comics opening date!

- John said that he finished 6 tracks for Serj's new CD (new album titled 'Elect The Dead') and when Daron heard about it, he called John and said, ok you're doing Serj's tracks, now you gotta do some tracks for me! so john went in and jammed with Daron, then they called Shavo and they started jamming, and they said instead of just jamming, why don't we just make another album on the side? so the three of them went to Serj and told him about it and Serj didn't have a problem with it, and so John said you can expect a Scars on Broadway album within a year. and john said, during shows Serj can probably come out and join them on stage.

-Funny thing that john mentioned:
he said you know what would be really great? a show with Serj's side project, Scars on Broadway and System of a Down all together at one show! haha that would definitely be so awesome!

So download the three segments and give them a listen, it's awesome!

Link:

http://www.worldtalkradio.com/archive.asp?aid=9092

Credits toWorld Talk Radio Comic Zone

Vartan and Zepur Malakian (Daron Malakian's Parents) did video interview on the daily news' website in the memory of the Armenian genocide on the April 25.

Click the following link to watch the video:

http://www.insidesocal.com/video/videos/remembering_the_armenian_genoc.html

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Following the UN Secretary General’s request to remove a sentence referring to a million Armenians being murdered during the Ottoman Empire from the Aegis Trust exhibition “Lessons from Rwanda,” and the exhibition’s subsequent cancellation, Serj Tankian and Carla Garapedian have issued the following statement:

“We are very shocked by this decision by the Secretary General to remove mention of a historical event which is well-documented by thousands of official records of the United States and nations around the world, including Turkey’s wartime allies, Germany, Austria and Hungary; by Ottoman court martial records; and by eyewitness accounts of missionaries, diplomats and survivors; as well as decades of historical scholarship. In the U.S., President Bush has called the events the ‘forced exile and annihilation of approximately 1.5 million Armenians.’

“Elie Wiesel says denial is the last stage of genocide – this act of censorship by the Secretary General is effectively an act of appeasement to the very forces in Turkey that led to the recent death of Hrant Dink and the prosecution of Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk. Other writers and artists in Turkey are facing prison sentences today under Article 301 for wanting to speak openly about this issue. What message does this send to them? The reason why genocides have continued in the last century – from the Armenian genocide, to the Holocaust, Cambodia, Bosnia and Rwanda, to the genocide going on now in Darfur – is because the international community has not intervened to stop them. Sadly, the Secretary General’s decision to stop any mention of the antecedents to the Rwanda genocide is a blow to those who want to stop genocide now.”

Serj Tankian, songwriter, singer, poet, activist and lead singer of System of a Down, appears in the film “Screamers,” which traces the history of genocide in the last century, from the Armenian genocide, to the Holocaust, Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur. He was invited by the Aegis Trust to meet the Secretary General on Monday, along with “Screamers” director, Carla Garapedian. Aegis is co-sponsoring a screening of “Screamers” in the British Parliament, following its theatrical run in the U.S. and screening in the U.S. Library of Congress.

James Smith, Chief Executive of the Aegis Trust, wrote to Tankian and Garapedian explaining why Aegis wouldn’t submit to the Secretary General’s request, which followed a protest from the Turkish government. The sentence in dispute: “Following World War 1, during which one million Armenians were murdered in Turkey, Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin urged the League of Nations to recognize crimes of barbarity as international crimes.”

“Had we been asked to remove reference of atrocities to Jews because Germany objected, we would have been equally resistant,” said Smith. “We can’t apply one rule to some and not to others because the political wind in the UN is blowing against the Armenians,” he said. Removing the sentence would amount to a “denial of elementary facts.”

Garapedian added, “Perhaps the Secretary General should visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, where another sentence is engraved on the wall – ‘Who remembers the Armenians?’ That was Hitler’s answer to why he could get away with murdering the Jews. Hitler used the Armenian genocide as a blueprint for the Holocaust. The Secretary General should also visit the Kigali Memorial Centre in Rwanda, which has become the focal point for national remembrance and education about the 1994 genocide. There, too, the Armenian genocide is commemorated. No one there is trying to bury the truth.”

Source: businesswire.com