The Duke & The King: Union Street (warm-up)

Jason Pierce @ RFH

Photos by Crazybobbles @ Flickr

Spiritualized @ RFH, London

Jason Pierce performing Spiritualized's Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space at the Royal Festival Hall, London. Photograph: Jim Dyson/Getty

Released in 1997, Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space is the key text in Spiritualized's canon. It was the album that synthesised all of frontman Jason Pierce's influences (from gospel to free jazz) and preoccupations (drugs, religion, the agony of love). Performed in its cacophonous entirety at the Royal Festival Hall, in a suitably extravagant arrangement – aside from Pierce and his six-piece band, there is a mini-orchestra of strings and wind players, plus a 12-person choir – it still dazzles, although at this scale its imperfections also feel exposed.

There is a thinness to Pierce's songwriting: dwelling on his acrimonious split from the band's then keyboardist, Kate Radley, he seeks no complexity in his emotions. The affecting fragility of Broken Heart is undermined by the fact that what Pierce expresses is the lavish melancholy of Hollywood movies. In All of My Thoughts, Pierce luxuriates in his misery. And sometimes, that pleasure in pain becomes sadistic. Electricity is a screech of nerve-shredding noise, while the black screams in the seemingly interminable closer Cop Shoot Cop create the impression that hell has opened up. No wonder Pierce applauds the audience: we're passing an endurance test just by staying in our seats.

But at its best, the show offers a kind of transcendence. With its disjointed rhythm and odd texture, Stay With Me eschews sentimentality yet captures a lifetime of romantic experience. Initially woozy, I Think I'm in Love slowly envelops the audience in a pulsating, repetitive groove. When it ends, you feel exquisitely transported.

@'The Guardian'

1973 Catholic church logo

The 70s were definitely a simpler time, but today this logo for the Catholic Church’s Archdiocesan Youth Commission looks like an admission of guilt.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/11/the-11-creepiest-unintent_n_316963.html?slidenumber=3#slide_image

George Best by Paul Trevillion

Paul Trevillion
You are the Ref
(This takes me back to the days of 'Shoot' magazine!)

'New' Michael Jackson single a 'mistake'

The looming threat of terror that comes from the far right

@'The Independent'

Dylan's Early Christmas Present

News of Bob Dylan’s album of Christmas songs shocked fans. But his official historian-in-residence, Sean Wilentz, detects not a single ironic or parodic note in Christmas in the Heart—just a sincere homage to American Christmases past.
@'Daily Beast'

From extraction to consumption: Oil, an exhibition by Edward Burtynsky

State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) oilfields, Baku, Azerbaijan, 2006

Highway, Los Angeles, California, USA, 2003
A great photographic essay
@'The Guardian'

Elvis Costello - Veronica

Pretty certain that this was shot in St Kilda by John Hillcoat

and the video for 'I Wanna Be Loved' (which I can't find) has EC in a photo booth which at the end pans out to Flinders Street Station.
There is some trivia for all you Melbourne folk!

Elvis Costello - Accidents Will Happen

The first animated music video by Annabelle Janckel & Rocky Morton who went on to bigger things with Max Headroom.

Elvis Costello - Live at Amoeba! (June 22, 2009)

Going to see Costello tonight!

(Art by TimN)

A surprise!
(Thanx Loki)

Cloud over Moscow

Preview of Tom Wait's new live album

The extraordinary Mister Tom Waits is hereby formally announcing the opening of his first ever official web site as well as the upcoming release of his long rumored much speculated about live album “Glitter and Doom” due out November 24th.
To visit the new site, simply go to: www.tomwaits.com or just click here. Besides a sumptuous assortment of facts, images and sounds relating to the strange and beloved entertainer, you can also preview the first eight songs of “Glitter and Doom” for free!
Glitter and Doom is a two disc collection of tracks from Waits’ recent Glitter and Doom tour of the US and Europe. The first disc recreates an evening’s performance with 17 tracks are selected from 10 cities. The second disc is a bonus compendium called TOM TALES, which features the comic bromides, strange musings, and unusual facts that Tom traditionally shares with his audience during the piano set. The topics range from the ritual of insects to the last dying breath of Henry Ford.
The album features all eras of Waits’ as he shifts from an array of characters: carnival barker, preacher, country singer, soul balladeer; cabaret singer and storyteller. Backed by a versatile band, Waits departs from the songs’ original incarnations. The songs instrumentation and rhythms are rearranged and reimagined. There are swampy tribal rhythms, ominous hymns, gypsy flavored ballads, searing rhythmic r&b, and blues boogies.. As expected, the songs are about hanged men, woebegone sailors, sword swallowers, fugitives, shamans, ghosts, dance instructors and prison guards. Enjoy.