Last night, Brooklyn club Death By Audio hosted a benefit for the three jailed members of Russian anarcha-feminist band Pussy Riot. The main event of the fundraiser was a DJ set by Beastie Boys member Adam Horowitz, aka Ad-Rock, who made his first public appearance since the death of fellow band mate Adam Yauch, better known as MCA, in May. Despite the fact that the Beastie Boys’ first single was called “Cooky Puss,” Ad-Rock’s connection to the Pussy Rioteers is unclear. The $7 show also featured Brooklyn punk groups the Heliotropes, Tinvulva, and Shady Hawkins.
The event, organized by feminist art group Permanent Wave, was to raise money for Maria Alekhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, and Ekaterina Samucevich’s legal fees. The three women were arrested in March for charges of hooliganism and blasphemy after a controversial anti-Putin “punk prayer service” in Moscow when the group, clad in neon ski masks, broke into Christ the Savior Cathedral and staged a performance of their song “Holy Shit” on the altar of the church. The song’s lyrics implore the Virgin Mary to be a feminist and expel Putin from Russia as well as criticize Putin supporter and patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Kirill I.
Pussy Riot was formed from members of Russian art collective Voina — famous for overturning a cop car as a work of performance art — in late 2011 after Putin announced he was running for the presidency. During Putin’s election campaign, the group staged unauthorized and provocative riot grrrl-inspired punk concerts in Red Square, outside a prison, and in a subway station.
Though it has not yet reached Ai Weiwei proportions, the Pussy Riot uproar has now garnered a global audience for the group. On June 21, the band will be the subject of an exhibition, “The Case of the Pussy Riot Artists,” at Paris’s Palais de Tokyo. The women have also become a rallying point for the anti-government movement in Russia. At a Moscow protest yesterday, some marchers held signs that read “Freedom to Pussy Riot.” Though many have questioned the validity of the the arrests, the women face up to eight years in prison and a Moscow court has ordered their detention until June 24.
To see Pussy Riot in action, click on the video below: