Thursday, 18 March 2010
Nick Cave, Kylie Minougue, Shane MacGowan, Blixa Bargeld & The Bad Seeds - Death Is Not The End
(Thanx to Alan for an apt choice for today!)
Alex Chilton RIP!!!
Alex Chilton in an undated early photograph
Photo by The Commercial Appeal files
For nearly a decade starting in 1962, American Sound Studios in Memphis churned out hit after hit: including The Letter and Cry Like a Baby by the Box Tops (with a young Alex Chilton). By the 1980's, Chilton and Big Star, would foster a generation of rock bands. Chilton died Wednesday, March 17, 2010, in New Orleans.
Pop hitmaker, cult hero, and Memphis rock iconoclast Alex Chilton has died.
The singer and guitarist, best known as a member of '60s pop-soul act the Box Tops and the '70s power-pop act Big Star, died today at a hospital in New Orleans. Chilton, 59, had been complaining of about his health earlier today. He was taken by paramedics to the emergency room where he was pronounced dead. The cause of death is believed to be a heart attack.
His Big Star bandmate Jody Stephens confirmed the news this evening. "Alex passed away a couple of hours ago," Stephens said from Austin, Texas, where the band was to play Saturday at the annual South By Southwest Festival. "I don’t have a lot of particulars, but they kind of suspect that it was a heart attack."
The Memphis-born Chilton rose to prominence at age 16, when his gruff vocals powered Box Tops massive hit “The Letter.” The band would score several more hits, including “Cry Like a Baby” and “Neon Rainbow.”
After the Box Tops ended in 1970, Chilton had a brief solo run in New York before returning to Memphis. He soon joined forces with a group of Anglo-pop-obsessed musicians, fellow songwriter/guitarist Chris Bell, bassist Andy Hummel and drummer Jody Stephens, to form Big Star.
The group became the flagship act for the local Ardent Studios' new Stax-distributed label. Big Star’s 1972 debut album, #1 Record met with critical acclaim but poor sales. The group briefly disbanded, but reunited sans Bell to record the album Radio City. Released in 1974, the album suffered a similar fate, plagued by Stax’s distribution woes.
"I’m crushed. We’re all just crushed," said Ardent founder John Fry, who engineered most of the Big Star sessions. "This sudden death experience is never something that you’re prepared for. And yet it occurs."
The group made one more album, Third/Sister Lovers, with just Chilton and Stephens — and it too was a minor masterpiece. Darker and more complex than the band’s previous pop-oriented material, it remained unreleased for several years. In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine would name all three Big Star albums to its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
In the mid-'70s Chilton began what would be a polarizing solo career, releasing several albums of material, like 1979’s Like Flies on Sherbet — a strange, chaotically recorded album of originals and obscure covers that divided fans and critics. Chilton also began performing with local roots-punk deconstructionists the Panther Burns.
In the early '80s, Chilton left Memphis for New Orleans, where he worked a variety of jobs and stopped performing for several years. But interest in his music from a new generation of alternative bands, including R.E.M. and the Replacements, brought him back to the stage in the mid-'80s.
He continued to record and tour as a solo act throughout the decade. Finally, in the early '90s, the underground cult based around Big Star had become so huge that the group was enticed to reunite with a reconfigured lineup.
"It’s obvious to anybody that listens to his live performances or his body of recorded work, his tremendous talent as a vocalist and songwriter and instrumentalist," Fry said.
"Beyond the musical talent, he was an interesting, articulate and extremely intelligent person," Fry added. "I don't think you’d ever have a conversation with him of any length that you didn’t learn something completely new."
The band, featuring original member Stephens plus Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow of the Posies, continued to perform regularly over the next 16 years. Big Star became the subject of various articles, books and CD reissue campaigns, including the release of widely hailed box set, Keep an Eye on the Sky, released last year by Rhino Records.
"When some people pass, you say it was the end of an era. In this case, it’s really true," said Memphis singer-songwriter Van Duren, a Chilton contemporary in the Memphis rock scene of the '70s.
The band was scheduled to launch the spring 2010 season at the Levitt Shell at Overton Park with a benefit concert on May 15.
Big Star had not played in Memphis since a 2003 Beale Street Music Festival appearance.
Chilton is survived by his wife, Laura, and a son Timothy.
Is It Time To Stockpile “Survival Seeds”?
Are seeds the new gold? Advertisements for “survival seeds” are being run during Glenn Beck’s prime time show on Fox News, advising viewers to stockpile nonhybrid seeds rather than gold or silver. When the “politicians and bankers bring the whole thing crashing down,” you’ll be able to grow your own “crisis garden” with nutrient-rich foods to sustain your family…scary times.
Sickipedia: bid to shut offensive 'encyclopedia dramatica'
The Australian Human Rights Commission has threatened legal action against a widely read but controversial US-based website over an article that encourages racial hatred against Aborigines.
But online users' lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia said that trying to stamp out the deplorable content would only create the "Streisand" effect, whereby an attempt to censor online content only brings more attention to it.
In a letter to Joseph Evers, the owner of Encyclopedia Dramatica (ED) - a more shocking version of Wikipedia that contains racist and other offensive articles dubbed as "satire" - the commission said it had received 20 complaints from Aborigines over the "Aboriginal" page on the site.
The same page was in the news in January when, in a rare move, Google Australia agreed to remove links to the article from its search engine following legal action from Aboriginal man Steve Hodder-Watt.
On the Australian Communication and Media Authority's blacklist of "refused classification" websites, which was leaked in March last year, encyclopediadramatica.com was included. This means the entire site will most likely be blocked under the government's forthcoming internet filtering plan.
The commission argued in its letter, the first page of which was published by Evers on his website, that the article on Aborigines constituted racial hatred and was in breach of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975.
A disclaimer at the top of the article, which is too vulgar to repeat here, says it was "not racist at all" because it was written by "Australian aborigines who are satirizing racists in Australia in the same way that Sacha Baron Cohen, a jew, uses the character Borat to satirize anti-semetism [sic]".
A separate article on the site about Australia says the country is "comprised entirely of the still imprisoned distant relatives of Britain's worst criminals (tax dodging sheep f*****) and other detritus and a haven for aspiring international terrorists".
The page is illustrated with a picture of Josef Fritzl draped in an Australian flag. Fritzl was sentenced to life in prison for raping his daughter and for imprisoning her and their children over a 24-year period.
Evers had argued in an email to the commission that, because his site was hosted in the US, it was covered by the country's free speech regulations and not subject to Australian laws.
In response to this, the commission pointed to an internet defamation case heard in the High Court of Australia in 2002, in which US publisher Dow Jones was found to have defamed an Australian resident, Joseph Gutnick, in an article on Barron's Online.
The highly controversial case was settled in 2004 with Dow Jones agreeing to pay Gutnick close to $600,000 in damages.
"In this case an article on a website available from a server in the USA was held to have been published in Australia where the article was available for viewing and where the readers downloaded the story," the commission said in its letter.
"In light of this decision, it appears that the RDA [Racial Discrimination Act] is applicable to this matter."
In a blog post, prefaced with claims that Encyclopedia Dramatica was "a labor of love" and with tips for readers to "eat a few grams of highly potent mushrooms" in Chichen Itza in Mexico, Evers said he feared legal action would be brought by the commission against him personally.
"While I act in complete compliance with both the civil and criminal codes of the United States of America, and am assured the right of free speech according to our Constitution ... I can personally be jailed and fined for the violation of this law," Evers wrote.
"Encyclopedia Dramatica will never be censored in any way. We will keep publishing this content and our Australian users will be able to view it up until the point that your God-forsaken government blocks it with their soon-to-be-implemented secret list of banned material."
Evers said his lawyers had advised him never to visit his family in Sydney again or to set foot on Australian soil.
The commission refused to comment.
Colin Jacobs, spokesman for Electronic Frontiers Australia, said the article was "indefensible" but questioned whether Australian law could be used to take it down.
He said the Dow Jones v Gutnick case was different because it was a civil rather than a criminal matter and Dow Jones had paying subscribers in Australia, so was found to be publishing here.
"EFA doesn't believe that because something is on the internet it should be immune from critical examination or legal redress. Defamation and anti-hate-speech laws have a place even when applied to online content," Jacobs said.
"[But] a costly and lengthy legal battle would only give these guys more publicity, and the day the case was won, the page would pop up on a web host in another country. Trying to stamp out this fire will just cause it to spread."
Jacobs referred to the Streisand effect, named after Barbra Streisand's unsuccessful attempt to sue a photographer for $US50 million in an effort to have an aerial photograph of her mansion removed from a photo collection.
Once word of the legal action leaked out, the image spread like wildfire on the internet and hundreds of thousands more people ended up seeing it than had originally been the case.
Meet Terry Richardson, the world's most fucked up 'fashion' photographer
Terry Richardson's sexual tastes run to making tampon tea, being called "Uncle Terry," and hand jobs — at least according to one model who says the fashion photographer got naked on set and suggested that she touch his dick.
Jamie Peck, who was 19 at the time, shot with Richardson at his studio twice. Although she was prepared and willing to pose for him nude, she writes, "This man has built his business/pleasure empire on breaking the cardinal rule of asking a young girl you don't know to come over to your house and hang out naked: don't be a fucking creep."
The first shoot wasn't so bad. Richardson and Peck chatted before they started working, and he even made her tea, although she does note that "he spoke in the effeminate tones of someone trying very hard not to come off as sexually threatening despite the fact that he was basically walking around in a hipster pedophile costume." He also asked her to call him "Uncle Terry." Peck obliged.
"The second time," she says, "was the weird one."
I told him I had my period so I wanted to keep my underwear on, and he asked me to take my tampon out for him to play with. "I love tampons!" he said, in that psychotically upbeat way that temporarily convinces so many girls that what's fun for Uncle Terry is fun for them. (I can just imagine him chirping, "Why don't you wear these fairy wings while I fuck you in the ass? Wouldn't that be like, so fun?" to some attenuated girl fresh off the boat from Eastern Europe. Either the man's totally delusional, or he gets off on the fact that many of these things are not, in fact, very much fun for the girls.) I politely declined his offer to make tea out of my bloody cunt plug. It was then that he decided to just get naked.
Before I could say "whoa, whoa, whoa!" dude was wearing only his tattoos and waggling the biggest dick I'd ever seen dangerously close to my unclothed person (granted, I hadn't seen very many yet). "Why don't you take some pictures of me?" he asked. Um, sure.
It gets worse. "I'm not sure how he maneuvered me over to the couch, but at some point he strongly suggested I touch his terrifying penis," writes Peck.
This is where I zoom out on the situation. I can remember doing this stuff, but even at the time, it was sort of like watching someone else do it, someone who couldn't possibly be me because I would never touch a creepy photographer's penis. The only explanation I can come up with is that he was so darn friendly and happy about it all, and his assistants were so stoked on it as well, that I didn't want to be the killjoy in the room. My new fake friends would've been bummed if I'd said no.
I must have said something about finals, because he told me, "if you make me come, you get an A." So I did! Pretty fast, I might add. All over my left hand. His assistant handed me a towel.
The pictures were published in Purple, the magazine run by Richardson's friend, the influential editor Olivier Zahm. Peck was supposed to receive payment in the form of a signed print, but she was too disgusted with what had happened at Richardson's studio to return to pick it up. (For the record, Peck hardly seems bitter about it: "If you're reading this, Terry, and want to prove you really are a nice guy after all, I'm over it now and wouldn't mind collecting that print.")
Richardson wouldn't comment to The Gloss on Peck's allegations. He also wouldn't comment to the New York Post, and nor would he comment last week, when supermodel Rie Rasmussen publicly accused him of sexually harassing young girls. (Though he did reportedly call Rasmussen's agency to complain about her.) To date, his only response, if you can call it that, has been to post a picture on his blog of his mother proudly holding a copy of his book. But what Richardson, who seems to see himself as an heir to both Helmut Newton and Andy Warhol, has said in the past about the industry and his work is troubling. "A lot of it starts with me saying to a girl, 'Do you want to do nudes?' And they're like, 'I don't want to be naked,'" Richardson told The Observer in 2004. "So I say, ' I'll be naked and you take the pictures. You can have the camera. You can have the phallus.'" That's exactly what Peck says happened to her — but having a camera in her hands didn't make her feel more comfortable about Richardson having suddenly whipped off his clothes.
In the same Observer story, Richardson is described as having an intern, a NYU communications major identified only by her first name, Alex, whose duties included doing his dishes and posing for photos fellating Richardson from the kitchen trash can while wearing a tiara that reads "Slut." Perhaps the most discomfiting passage of the article discusses "Boonk," a model Richardson says was a meth addict and a prostitute. He photographed her black eyes after she tried to escape from a john and didn't make it. "Whatever happened to Boonk?" he wonders in front of the reporter. This is a man who once said of breaking into modeling, "It's not who you know, it's who you blow. I don't have a hole in my jeans for nothing."
Frankly, "creep" seems inadequate to the task of describing Richardson's behavior. While it's important to note that Peck does not imply that she didn't consent to what went on with Richardson, it is troubling that she describes "zooming out" during their encounter. The environment she writes about at the studio, where she is surrounded by Richardson and his assistants, all armed with cameras (and, apparently, towels), all cheering her along, and all acting like it's the most natural thing in the world for a photographer to interrupt a shoot and demand a hand job from his model, is even more troubling. "Inappropriate" and "unprofessional" don't even begin to cover it. Given the power differential that exists between Richardson, who is old, wealthy, regarded as an artist, and vastly influential, and most of his model subjects, can the consent of these women even be said to be freely given? Richardson is a guy who publishes books with Taschen, hangs out with celebrities, and photographs the President. Peck was a "nerdy as hell" college freshman when she met him. Most professional models are even younger.
To those who would argue that any nude shoot carries an implied risk of lewd behavior on the part of the photographer, or that models should be aware of Richardson's oeuvre and avoid him if they don't like working in a sexualized environment, I say: Bullshit. Nudity is common in fashion, and when the clothes come off, it doesn't denote a holiday from the responsibilities of maintaining a safe working environment. When I modeled, I shot both topless and implied nude with a variety of photographers — in fact, my first editorial shoot, for Italian Glamour, was topless — and never was I sexually harassed on a set. Nor did I expect, or feel that I deserved, to be simply because of the kind of work I was there to do. Instead, I expected those around me to not violate my dignity at work. Peck agrees that Richardson's behavior is exceptional, and crosses some clear lines. "Of all the fine folks I've frolicked au naturel for, he's the only one who's left me feeling like I needed to take two showers."
It's not terribly surprising that Peck, who describes herself as "not a model, just a vain girl with nice tits who likes to pose for the occasional cheesecake photo," is more comfortable speaking out about her experiences with Richardson than many professional models. Rie Rasmussen is one notable, and courageous, exception, but the fact of Richardson's immense power within the industry, his long-standing relationships with both influential magazines like Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and Vogue Paris, and commercial clients like Miu Miu, Gucci, and Sisley, makes it difficult for most working models to openly criticize him. Pointing out the wrongfulness of his behavior risks hurting you more than it will him. And so agencies continue sending their young charges to castings with him, in the hopes of him giving one a big break. And so magazine editors who would never for a moment consider leaving their teenage daughters alone with someone like Terry Richardson continue booking him for shoots with other people's teenage daughters.
The stories about Richardson and his disgusting behavior are legion. Do you have one? If you do, I'm listening — and I can protect your identity if you, unlike Peck and Rasmussen, don't want your name to be known. Tell me if Richardson sexually harassed you while you were working with him, if he acted in ways that made you uncomfortable, if he asked you to perform sex acts on him. Tell me how old you were, and how he made you feel. And tell me what happened if you tried to complain or resist. If enough people start speaking out about Terry Richardson, then, at the very least, the people, brands, and publications who work with him won't have the fig leaf of plausible deniability anymore. And who knows? Perhaps some of them might even think on it, and reconsider those relationships.
Picture of Terry Richardson and Kate Moss via
Terry Richardson's Dark Room [NY Observer]
Me and My Mom [Terry's Diary]
For my fave couple from the PNW...(slight return)
A certain bassie says to say hello...
PS: Thanx - it was a great night,
MonaXXX
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