Monday, 24 May 2010
Gang of Four - You Don't Have to Be Mad
"We’re emerging blinking into the light after many months locked in Andy’s studio, clutching Gang of Four’s new album: Content. Later this summer you’ll be able to buy it on download or CD. But we’re offering weirder and more wonderful options to a limited number of GO4 aficionados. What about taking a helicopter trip to this summer’s Glastonbury Festival with us? Or you might enjoy a listen to our first ever gig (recorded in Leeds in May 1977), provided to you on a cassette inside a Walkman individually decorated by Andy and Jon. A private view of an exhibition of GO4 art combined with a gig in London’s ICA this June are just some of the other possibilities... Jon & Andy"
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Pot bust turns into yardwork
Like the old song goes, one of these things is not like the other...However, remind a police officer in Corpus Christi, Texas of those famed Cookie Monster lyrics and they're likely to give you an annoyed look.
That's because a recently discovered cache of plants, initially pegged by officials speaking to local news as "one of the largest marijuana plant seizures in the police department's history," turned out to be a relatively common prairie flower of little significance.
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@'Raw Story' Sunday, 23 May 2010
Review: Otis Redding - Live On Sunset Strip
Pop quiz: How many No. 1 hits did Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Otis Redding score before his death in 1967 in a plane crash?
Answer: None.
The R&B and soul great’s only chart-topping hit was “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” which was recorded less than three weeks before his death and released shortly after. And it’s the one song that casual Redding fans might wonder why it doesn’t appear on the new “Otis Redding: Live on the Sunset Strip” album being released Tuesday.
That's because the two-CD set was recorded at the Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood in April 1966, well before he laid down the track for “Dock of the Bay.” At the time of these fiery performances, Redding’s star was streaking across the pop stratosphere thanks to a rapidly expanding catalog of soon to be classic songs he’d written and recorded including “These Arms of Mine,” “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now),” “Mr. Pitiful,” “I Can’t Turn You Loose” and perhaps the only one on which he just might have been upstaged by another artist’s rendition, “Respect.”
Aretha Franklin’s version, however, was a little over a year away when Redding and his explosive 10-piece band powered through these shows, and you can practically feel the sweat in the room that night.
“Picture a calliope, spouting blasts of sound, and imagine a steam generator in the innards of the calliope, frantically driving the whole mechanism, and you have a fair vision of the 10-piece band led by Otis Redding, which opened at the Whisky A Go Go Thursday night with their massive Southern-style rhythm and blues sound,” Los Angeles Times staffer Pete Johnson wrote at the time in an article that’s reproduced in the 15-page CD booklet.
What’s great about the new Stax/Concord release is that it presents the complete three final sets from Redding’s four-day stint at the Whisky, which came right on the heels of his appearance at the Hollywood Bowl.
In 1968, some of the tracks surfaced on “Otis Redding In Person at the Whisky A Go Go.” In 1982, more of the Whisky performances were released, then in 1993 a CD, “Good To Me: Recorded Live At the Whisky, Vol. 2,” expanded on the previous LP. This is the first time the complete sets have been released in the chronological order in which they were performed.
There can’t be two fans any happier about this set than Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and not just because both were dyed-in-the-wool R&B and soul music fans. But because Redding’s recording of their “Satisfaction” was his latest hit when these shows took place, the song turns up no less than five times over the course of the three sets captured here.
He also detoured briefly from his own songbook to cover the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night” and James Brown’s “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag,” but it’s the made-in-Memphis stuff that is the heart and soul of these shows.
Redding’s opening act was the Rising Sons, an L.A. band featuring soon-to-be-celebrated players including Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder.
“After performing our act we couldn’t wait to get offstage to watch all the things the musician did,” Mahal recalls in the liner notes. “For a bunch of young guys in the business to just be around someone who had a national vibe like that, who put everything out on stage and wasn’t stuck up, that was totally fabulous.”
Another fascinating musicological tidbit in Ashley Kahn’s lively essay: “According to Redding’s manager, Phil Walden, Dylan offered Redding a listen to his recent recording ‘Just Like a Woman’ that evening with the hope that he’d cover it. Though Redding was open to performing the work of younger songwriters — besides ‘Satisfaction,’ the Beatles’ ‘Day Tripper’ was in his repertoire — he apparently thought Dylan’s song was too wordy.”
When you hear how much mileage he gets by bending the single word “time” in “I’ve Been Loving You,” almost to the breaking point, it’s easy to understand how quantity of words was simply irrelevant in Redding’s world. All he needed was one good, meaty one.
Do we still have a right to strike?
The union Unite has won its appeal against an injunction preventing members of British Airways cabin crew from going on strike.
But Unite is angry that BA won the injunction in the first place, after the High Court initially ruled that the union had not correctly followed rules about contacting its members with strike result details.
"It strikes at the heart of the democratic right to strike in a properly conducted ballot by bringing technical difficulties," Unite joint leader Derek Simpson said.
Unite says the decision was made because it had not told its members that 11 ballot papers had been spoilt in its latest vote on industrial action in February.
It calls it a "minor technicality" after 81% (7,482) of its members who had voted supported strike action.
Unite's other joint leader Tony Woodley said the case was about "stopping an effective trade union being effective in support of their members".
Mr Simpson added: "I don't blame British Airways - the law is wrong."
This is not the first time BA had won an injunction stopping Unite members from walking out.
In December, a judge ruled that the union had wrongly included staff taking redundancy in an earlier strike ballot, and that decision was not overturned.
In April, Network Rail was granted an injunction after it alleged discrepancies in the RMT's ballot for industrial action.
So is Mr Woodley right to question whether we still have the right to take industrial action?
"I don't think it does cut into our fundamental right to strike because the issues around these have been procedural issues, to do with the ballot, rather than the right to strike itself," says Andy Cook, chief executive of the specialist employee relations advisers Marshall-James.
While Roger Seifert, professor of industrial relations at Wolverhampton Business School, says: "It's not a challenge to the fundamental right to strike but he's right in the sense this is a challenge to the ability to carry out a lawful ballot."
Current legislation says unions do not have to get everything spot on but have to make a genuine effort to show that they have balloted properly, Prof Seifert explains.
A High Court injunction stopped RMT workers going on strike in April
"The recent cases have looked at what it reasonably means to get it right," he says.
"The judiciary is beginning to interpret the law much more strictly."
And why are judges getting more "pernickety" as he puts it?
"Judges tend to 'go with the flow' if you like. If the atmosphere is 'We're in recession, these are tough times', maybe they think companies can't allow strikes to happen."
But it seems that there is some disagreement among judges about how they interpret the law.
The panel that overturned the injunction was divided. The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, and Lady Justice Smith upheld Unite's appeal. The Master of the Rolls, Lord Neuberger, rejected it.
Even Mr Justice McCombe, the judge who granted the injunction, appeared to be in two minds.
He said in his ruling: "At present I am inclined to think that the union may well have failed to put in place an adequately analysed system calculated to ensure that all reasonable steps were taken to communicate with relevant members as soon as reasonably practicable the relevant items of statutory information.
"The point to my mind is an arguable one."
Andy Cook, who was head of human resources at Gate Gourmet when it was involved in airport strikes in 2005, says the recent spate of industrial disputes ending up in the courts is a sign of "employers growing increasingly frustrated with negotiations and looking at different ways to wield power in different situations".
He cites the Network Rail case as "an attempt by an employer to take the wind out of a union's sails" which, for the time being at least, has been successful.
"We haven't seen any notification of any new strike dates," he says. "The challenge has successfully managed to avert strike action."
But it's not just employers taking unions to court. There is a history of unions seeking legal action as well, Mr Andy Cook Chief executive, Marshall-James
In 2008, the pilots' union Balpa tried to take BA to court to stop the Open Skies agreement, he says, while Unite also tried to get an injunction to stop BA making changes in the first place.
And in November last year the Communication Workers Union had been due to go to the High Court seeking an injunction preventing the Royal Mail from using temporary workers while its members went on strike. The union later called off the legal action.
"Where strikes have been called and there really is no other way to resolve it both sides look to try and take legal action," Mr Cook says.
So what does all this mean for the future of industrial relations in the UK?
"I think employers will look at it and use the courts more. It's a sad reflection on industrial relations," according to Mr Cook.
Prof Seifert agrees: "It's irresponsible of employers to keep seeking injunctions and irresponsible of judges to keep granting them.
"Disputes should be resolved between the two parties involved."
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