Neil Young appearing at last week’s Dive Into Media conference expressed his distaste for MP3’s in no uncertain terms.
Young, the perennial music purist, said that while modern music formats like MP3 are convenient, they sound lousy.
“My goal is to try and rescue the art form that I’ve been practicing for the past 50 years,” Young said. “We live in the digital age and, unfortunately, it’s degrading our music, not improving it.”
It’s not that digital is bad or inferior, it’s that the way it’s being used isn’t doing justice to the art,” Young said. “The MP3 only has 5 percent of the data present in the original recording. … The convenience of the digital age has forced people to choose between quality and convenience, but they shouldn’t have to make that choice.”
Young proposed that fans stage a grassroots movement to demand higher-quality audio. “Occupy audio!” he urged.
Here’s Young talking about digital recording with The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg and All Things Digital’s Peter Kafka.
A candy-colored Sixties’ short film promoting Paco Rabanne’s new belt line set to a cartoon soundtrack - sounds like Wile E. Coyote and The Roadrunner.
Shot in 1975/76 during The Rolling Thunder Revue tour, Bob Dylan’s four epic vanity production, Renaldo And Clara, is a pretentious hodgepodge of disconnected vignettes shot through with occasional moments of musical brilliance. But even staggeringly good performances of “Knocking On Heaven’s Door” “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” and “Tangled Up In Blue” can’t save this bloated folly flung from the depths of Dylan’s gargantuan narcissism.
A commercial bust when it was first theatrically released, Dylan later cut the film by almost two hours, leaving mostly concert footage, and even then audiences stayed away in droves.
In describing the making of Renaldo And Clara, Dylan said “a third is improvised, about a third is determined, and about a third is blind luck.” The improvisation part is clearly apparent and I imagine that the determined part is an allusion to the musical performances. But the last ingredient, the “blind’ thing, is what seems to have really driven the film…and blind ain’t good in a visual medium.
While a few critics compared Renaldo And Clara to French surrealist films like Les Enfants Du Paradis (must be Dylan’s mime make-up), I see absolutely no poetry or magic in the movie. I’m a Dylan fan and over the years I’ve repeatedly tried watching R&C with all the mercy and love I can bring to it. But it has yet to reveal any hidden genius to me. Are there readers out there who see something in this that I don’t? I’m open to having my mind changed. Really.
Anyway, here’s Renaldo And Clara in its uncut shambolic glory. It looks beautiful. Much better than the bootlegs I’ve seen in the past.
Noel Fielding’s new Luxury Comedy sees the Mighty Boosh’s “Vince Noir” going solo for a series of seven color-filled episodes on E4. Luxury Comedy is half-live action and half-animation. How can you not love something that makes overt references to Kennth Anger’s Lucifer Rising as well as Roy Wood within the first few seconds!?!?! (That’s a neat trick, I was duly impressed, Mr. Fielding.)
Fielding (playing “himself”) lives in a treehouse in a jungle, along with his band, a creature called “Smooth,” a German chick named Dolly and Andy Warhol. Yes, THE Andy Warhol. The music was co-written by Kasabian’s Sergio Pizzorno and Fielding.
Hollywood Illuminati’s website blows the cover off of Madonna’s half-time spectacle revealing it to be a lavish Lucifer worshiping group grope fueled by cosmic lunar forces in synchronization with ancient Illuminati rituals. It seems that Madonna was voguing with the Devil.
According to Lucifer Freemason Texts, Lucifer is the lord of light and to worship Lucifer one would wear a black robe (like Madonna had on) and by her having the entire stadium participate with her in this ritual by holding up lights to her ritual, she basically did a classic musician performance of casting a spell on her audience and fooling them into Satanic Worship.
Dont forget that before Madonna put on the black robe, her dancers were in red, gold & black outfits and some were in red & white, which are colors that one uses to worship Lucifer. The entire show had a Lucifer color theme.
We see the male dancers doing acrobats for her track “Music”. During this chaos, there were two male dancers that got down on all fours, like the Muslims do when they pray to Allah. Most cheerleading teams, do not actually assume a prostration position when building a pyramid but in Satanic Rituals, it is believed that Lucifer or the devil would assume a prostration position and the witches would line up and kiss his anus as a sign of respect. We not only saw a classic Lucifer Ritual Pose but we also saw the quick building of a pyramid by her dancers.
During the last act “Like a Prayer” we not only see lights that are made to look like Hell Fire & sometimes the beams of light even take on a giant, quick pyramid formation but also during this supposedly ”church song” she ends the show by dropping into the ground. This was a Satanic Ritual.
What did this ritual mean? This Satanic Ritual, is a classic petition to Satan, in an effort to call for chaos out of order. While many people think that the Illuminati wants order out of chaos, that is simply not true.
According to Illuminati text, the Fallen One, desires Chaos out of Order. They will take what is orderly and make it chaotic!
So, this ritual, done by Madonna along with millions of Americans, spells wars, disease and a crashing of the Old World Order. While the lights at the end said “World Peace”-it doesnt matter what you see but instead you have to look at what they do and what is their definition of “peace”
For more startling revelations visit Hollywood Illuminati’s website.
So far there is no discussion of M.I.A.‘s arcane hand gestures and their link to the occult. But I have my own theories. Born Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam (oral/pray/orgasm), this deity worshiping Hindu rapper’s middle name “Maya” is Sanskrit for “illusion.” The question is, what kind of illusion was the dark-skinned Delilah trying to lure millions of unsuspecting TV viewers into? What horrible vortex of evil were we spared when NBC blotted out the “finger of death?”
Watch for yourself the whole sordid event. What has this world come to?
Some crafty anarcho-inspired culture hackers have made their own Crass/Mickey Mouse mash-up tees and discretely deposited them neatly folded in Disney boutiques. Unsuspecting shoppers will either be baffled or delighted by their DIY creation.
Me, I’m delighted! I need one of these! Now, I’ve got… Mickey envy.
BTJunkie, the popular torrent tracker that boasted tens of millions of monthly users has voluntarily shut down for good to avoid legal hassles. After a nearly seven year run as one of the world’s top five Bit Torrent destinations, the following message was posted on the homepage:
“This is the end of the line my friends. The decision does not come easy, but we’ve decided to voluntarily shut down. We’ve been fighting for years for your right to communicate, but it’s time to move on. It’s been an experience of a lifetime, we wish you all the best!”
Talking to TorrentFreak, BTjunkie’s founder said that the legal actions against other file-sharing sites such as MegaUpload and The Pirate Bay played an important role in making the difficult decision. Witnessing all the trouble colleagues got into was cause for a lot of worry and stress, and those will now belong to the past.
That said, BTjunkie’s owner still thinks there might be a future for other BitTorrent sites.
“I really do hope so, the war is far from over for sure,” he told TorrentFreak.
While BTjunkie was never targeted directly by copyright holders, the site was reported to the US Trade Representative (USTR) November last year. Both the RIAA and MPAA listed the torrent index as a ‘rogue’ site that facilitated mass copyright infringement.
BTjunkie is also one of the search terms censored by Google because it’s piracy related, alongside The Pirate Bay, RapidShare, uTorrent and others.
The latest 2-minute trash compactor from our friends at Everything is Terrible! This one is particularly… terrible, but, you know, in a good way!
For the next like four years or something the EIT gang will be criss-crossing America on their DoggieWoggiez! PoochieWoochiez! traveling cinematic roadshow, featuring a screening of the aforementioned new film. DoggieWoggiez! PoochieWoochiez! dares to pose the questions: “What if we make a movie composed ENTIRELY out of dog-related found footage?” and ‘‘What if this magickal movie, made up of thousands of other dog movies, is also a remake of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s 1973 masterpiece The Holy Mountain?” —and then answer them!
With our heroes, those gurus of found-footage viral videos back on the road again anything can happen, America.
On the heels of Madonna’s half-time spektakular and the new M.I.A. video (torrents of Arabia), may I present the The King of Rock and Roll (the white one) immortally preserved in hi-def.
Elvis on Tour was shot during a 15 city tour of the States in 1972 and Elvis is in fine Vegas form, wearing enough bling, satin, scarves and hairspray to make Liberace look like Bon Iver. Chubbier than in his sleek ‘68 Comeback Special, Presley still puts on a dynamic, though somewhat predictable, show.
The montage (split screen) sequences were directed by Martin Scorsese. I guess the producers thought if they replicated the look of the film Woodstock that hippies would suddenly think Elvis was hip. Had The King’s handlers let him stick to his lean mean black leather look of the ‘68 Comeback Special that might have happened. Afterall, a decade or so later, Morrissey found the look compelling enough to imitate it.
Whether you love or hate Michael Jackson, this painting of a young, innocent Michael holding a mask of his unrecognizable older visage speaks volumes. I don’t know who is responsible for it. If anyone knows, I’d love to credit the artist.
Update: “Boy Behind the Mask” is by Santa Cruz-based artist Sarah Weaver. Thanks, Siobhan Stofka!
Despite being a bit of an MIA skeptic in the past, I have to admit I fuckin’ love this video!
Amid all the brouhaha surrounding Madonna’s “Give Me All Your Luvin’”, which also premiered on Friday (it’s ok, nothing special), it seemed a bit mystifying as to why MIA would choose to premier her own video on the same day. Who the hell competes with Madonna? Especially when you are already featured in her song? Well, put that thought on ice my friends, because “Bad Girls” is worth a dozen “Give Me All Your Luvin’“s.
Director Romain Gavras takes the standard music video tropes of cars and girls, transplants it to a North African setting, and captures some beautiful imagery and wicked stunts on the way (the kind of thing we’re normally used to seeing in shakey, low-res YouTube clips). Most importantly though, this succeeds where other MIA and Gavras videos have failed - in particular the infamous “ginger-killing” clip for “Born Free” - in that it’s not patronising.
To me MIA works best when she’s not trying to be controversial, but just does what she does. She’s so inherently different from what passes for mainstream “pop” performers nowadays, that she doesn’t need to work harder to seem more edgy or confrontational. That’s why “Bad Girls” succeeds where “Born Free” failed, and why its simplicity is a lot more subversive. Rather than bludgeoning us over the head with exploding body parts, it gently reminds us: “Hey guys, look, Arabs are cool too! They’re not just cannon fodder for Arnie films and Western Imperialist wars.”
Looking like an advert for Swinging London, Joe Massot’s 1965 short Reflections on Love mixes pop documentary with scenes devised by writer Derek Marlowe and (apparently) an uncredited, Larry Kramer. Though everything looks rather beautiful, it is such a terribly straight film, and considering the talent involved, and doesn’t really offer much love for the audience to reflect on. Then, this was the Sixties, when everything was new and exciting, and getting hitched in a registry office was daring and rad. O, how innocent it all seems. Massot went on to direct George Harrison’s Wonderwall and later, Led Zeppelin’s concert film The Song Remains the Same. Kramer went on to script Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (1967), and Ken Russell’s Women in Love (1969), before writing his novel Faggots in 1978. As for Marlowe, he wrote the classic double-agent spy thriller, A Dandy in Aspic, and followed this up with a series of idiosyncratic and stylish novels (from crime to Voodoo to Lord Byron), which are all shamefully out-of-print, and not even available as e-books - publishers please note.
The original version was twenty-one minutes long, and this is the revamped, re-scored (by Kula Shaker), re-edited (12 minutes) re-release from 1999, and still watchable pop-candy.
Before the police dragged them off, the members of Pussy Riot, the Russian day-glo balaclava-clad punk rock protesters, sang their anthem “Revolt in Russia” (“Revolt in Russia – the charisma of protest / Revolt in Russia, Putin’s got scared!”) near the Kremlin. Their inspiration for a style of resistance never before seen in Russia, was the riot grrrl punk movement, including groups like Kathleen Hanna’s Bikini Kill, and flash mobs. The young women of the collective, average age 25, have revealed only the smallest details about their lives. None will divulge their day jobs. They only use first-names.
In the two weeks since their mid-January action, the all-female group has become a potent symbol of anger at the status quo in Russian society and their videos have gone viral all over the world. Like many young people in Russia, the members of the Pussy Riot collective are furious at Vladamir Putin’s plans to seek the presidency again and his return was the impetus behind the formation of the group (as well as their song “Putin Has Pissed Himself”). From The Guardian:
“We understood that to achieve change, including in the sphere of women’s rights, it’s not enough to go to Putin and ask for it,” said Garadzha. “This is a rotten, broken system.”
Her bandmate Tyurya said: “The culture of protest needs to develop. We have one form, but we need many different kinds.”
The band began writing songs with lyrics such as: “Egyptian air is good for the lungs / Do Tahrir on Red Square!” and performing on trams and in the metro. Videos of the flash gigs began spreading across the internet. When the protest leader Alexey Navalny was jailed for 15 days after his arrest during Russia’s first post-election protest on 5 December, three members of Pussy Riot took to the roof of the jail where he was being held, setting off red flares as they sang “Death to prison / Freedom to protest!”
The fear of arrest long ago left the band members, steeped in the tradition of illegal protest. “We have experience with it, we’ve been detained at protests before,” said Tyurya. “It’s not scary – you’re surrounded by good, normal people, those who protest against Putin.”
All eight women were detained during the Kremlin performance, questioned and released. Most got off with administrative fines rather than the 15-day jail sentences often doled out to those who stage illegal protests.
“The revolution should be done by women,” said Garazhda. “For now, they don’t beat or jail us as much.”
“There’s a deep tradition in Russia of gender and revolution – we’ve had amazing women revolutionaries.”
The band is getting ready for its next performance, something that usually takes a month to pull together. Its members don’t discuss plans on the telephone or give away details, out of fear that the security services will disrupt the project. Is what they do art or politics? “For us it’s one and the same.”
Despite projected temperatures of -20C, tens of thousands of protesters are expected to march on Bolotnaya Square, across from the Kremlin, on Saturday. The Russian presidential election will be held on March 4. Vladimir Putin, is, of course, expected to win handily.
Read more: Feminist punk band Pussy Riot take revolt to the Kremlin (The Guardian)
Usually their videos have millions of views on day one, but this one seems to have slipped out unnoticed, relatively speaking. There is also an OK Go color game at Sesame Street.com.
Directed by Al Jarnow, the animator responsible for the iconic “Cosmic Clock” short. This is his first new work for Sesame Street in over 25 years.
Using a silent video (from 8 mm film footage) uploaded to Vimeo by Ruby Max Fury, Clash fans synched audio from bootleg recordings to the film to re-create a sense of what it was like on the night of September 21, 1979 when the The Clash invaded New York City. The second night of a two night stand at The Palladium, this was the show where Paul Simonon made rock history when he smashed his guitar to the stage and Pennie Smith took the iconic photo that graced the cover of London Calling.
In February of ‘79, I was in the audience for The Clash’s NYC debut. Standing in the swaying balcony and watching the The Clash pummel and strafe the audience with rock so hard you could feel it in your guts, I knew instantaneously I was witnessing a band for the ages. If there had been any doubt that punk bands could play their instruments, The Clash crushed that myth beneath a barrage of tight visceral beats and lacerating guitars. It was epic. And it was very very good.
Writer Tom Carson described The Clash live sound beautifully:
The musicians’ confidence was evident at every turn. Lead guitarist Mick Jones and bassist Paul Simonon leaped around as if no stage could hold them; Nicky Headon’s drums cracked through the music with the authority of machine-gun fire. The group’s perfect ensemble timing - the two guitars locking horns above the percussion; the way Jones’ ethereal, incantatory backup vocals filled the gaps in Joe Strummer’s harsh leads - went beyond mere technical mastery; it was audible symbols of the band’s communal instinct.
Unfortunately, I just discovered that this excellent Bill Cosby hoodie is no longer available from the online made to order website HeadHoods. Maybe if you write them, they’ll make you one?
Oh, and if you’re a Grace Jones fan, they have a hoodie of her, too!
Ingenious commercial for BBC Radio 2 is pretty damn convincing down to Elvis’s bemused smile when Keith Moon misses his cue.
The commercial is composed of clips from:
Elvis – 1973 concert, Aloha from Hawaii.
Marvin Gaye – Live in Montreux, 1980
Jimmy Page - Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary Concert , 1988
Noel Gallagher – The Who and Friends at the Royal Albert Hall, 2003
Keith Moon – The Who Charlton BBC Concert, 1974
Sheryl Crow – The Grammy Awards, 2003
Stevie Wonder – Sesame Street 1973
French director Henry Chapier’s 1968 documentary American Summer is a companion piece to Sex-Power which DM featured a couple of months ago. What I said about that film applies to American Summer: ” Revolution has never been sexier, more romantic, existential or just plain goofy when seen through the prism of the nouvelle vague.”
In American Summer we’re confronted with a bunch of white California militants who’ve aligned themselves with the Black Panther movement during the trial of Huey Newton. The film captures a moment in which the youth movement of the Sixties was becoming restless with passive forms of resistance against the Vietnam War and civil inequality, a time in which giving peace a chance was being supplanted by a naive and relatively unrealistic notion of revolution. The ideology was becoming more radical and language more provocative, but little action was actually being taken by the children of privilege. It was mostly a theoretical revolution composed of words and salutes. “In dreams begin responsibilities”...but most of us were still dreamers.
Featuring clips from speeches given by Black Panther party militants, an interview with Black Panther Party information secretary Kathleen Cleaver, concerts, a Black Panther military parade and music by Quicksilver Messenger Service.
