Review: Arab Strap - Scenes of a Sexual Nature (Boxset)

Arab Strap: "Daughters of Darkness"
From Scenes of a Sexual Nature (Chemikal Underground; 2010)
Box sets may be the fallback preserve of the over-investor, but every now and then a band put one out you’d gladly sell off both kidneys for. I’m not talking about the likes of the never-before-heard Courtney Love archive of “You Know You’re Right” masters—I’m talking about Arab Strap, Falkirk’s premier confessors of sleaze, and the time capsule they’ve just dropped to fans. After calling it quits in 2006 to the dismay of feral romantics everywhere, Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton forged respectable solo careers for themselves—Malcolm’s “We’re All Going To Die” was championed by Radio 1 for Christmas No. 1 2007, and Aidan…well, Aidan’s plain amazing. Their 1000-only Scenes of a Sexual Nature box sees them re-teaming to unearth old treasures, and while sixty sheets may seem a little steep, just look at what it gets you in the mail: repressed debut LP, repressed sequel to debut LP, newly-pressed LP of late nineties Peel Sessions, CD compilation of late nineties EPs, double-sided poster of reviews from newspapers, individually replicated “green frog demo” cassette that first got the label’s attention, handwritten liner notes from the band’s own Sharpie, a fat CD of MP3 backups, photos of the girls Aidan bedded between albums, and both singer’s Facebook passwords.
OK, so those last two items were a hoax, but seriously: that’s a pretty big kill for a day’s wages. The salivator though is new track “Daughters of Darkness”, which the band polished off in their original studio to show how seriously they’re taking this arrivederci. Seriousness was something the Strap always liked to get sticky with: festooned in bedroom paranoia, Moffat lays down his signature mutter over crashing guitar and piano, recounting the kind of Saturday night that keeps married people safely indoors. “Someone cracks a joke I’m not supposed to get so I pretend it’s over my head and try not to look too hurt / But the joke’s on them: they don’t know I’ve been reading their diaries,” he grumbles. Like John Wayne in The Shootist, this is the cowboys’ last night in town, though with no young Ron Howard to watch their backs menace bubbles from the outset. “Ecstasy killed the casuals,” muses Moffat at one point; “They used to wait for us outside and chase us home, but now they chat to us like old chums and try to sell us drugs.” One pick-up later, Aidan and pals hit the club, receptors opened up in their brains. “It’s amazing what a mirrorball and the right frame of mind can do,” he ponders from the safety of the girls’ toilet while bouncing his thoughts off the drum machine.
Unfortunately he’s not the only one bouncing, and Middleton’s trusty three-chord explosion signifies the lights-up, ejection, and fight. Some of those casuals weren’t quite so casual after all, and are now back from a night of bombing jellies to get a bit merry with weapons. As the band’s mate gets filled in and sliced on the pavement, you can’t help but recall their Peel Session mainstay “The First Big Weekend”—“Daughters” is essentially that track recycled; tweaked to take on the butterfly knife generation and cresting not with The Simpsons but casualty, where agency nurses piece the stabee back together. Moffat gets saved from a crisis of conscience by the twinkle in a wise girl’s eye, and as he vows to stick around for the end of the night you’re grateful this isn’t the end. Except, of course, that it is. Bon voyage, motherfuckers. You were good.


:: Buy Scenes of a Sexual Nature

George Bass @'cokemachineglow'

Death to “Piracy”: Should All Music Sharing Be Free?

@'Mashable'

Israel flotilla raid - fallout live @ The Guardian

The Palestinian-led International Solidarity Movement is reporting that a US activist injured in protests in the West Bank yesterday has lost her eye.

An American solidarity activist was shot in the face with a tear gas canister during a demonstration in Qalandiya, today. Emily Henochowicz is currently in Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem undergoing surgery to remove her left eye, following the demonstration that was held in protest to Israel's murder of at least 10 civilians aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in international waters this morning.
21-year old Emily Henochowicz was hit in the face with a tear gas projectile fired directly at her by an Israeli soldier during the demonstration at Qalandiya checkpoint today. Israeli occupation forces fired volleys of tear gas at unarmed Palestinian and international protesters, causing mass panic amongst the demonstrators and those queuing at the largest checkpoint separating the West Bank and Israel.

This YouTube video, posted by RussiaToday, appears to show Emily being carried to safety following a protest in Qalandiya.

HERE

Hunter S. Thompson: Self Portrait, After Beating by Hell's Angels circa 1960s

 M + B Gallery, West Hollywood

Dennis Hopper: Photographs

Tuesday Weld, 1965 © Dennis Hopper

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Why the Digital Economy Act simply won't work

With the passage into law of the dread Digital Economy Act comes Ofcom's guidelines for when and how rightsholders will be able to disconnect entire families from the internet because someone on or near their premises is accused of copyright infringement.

Consumer rights groups and privacy groups – such as the Open Rights Group, the Citizens Advice Bureau, Which, and Consumer Focus – participated in the process, making the Ofcom rules as good as possible (an exercise that, unfortunately, is a little like making the guillotine as comfortable as possible).

But this isn't the last word in the copyfight – not even close. Because disconnection for downloaders will only serve to alienate entertainment industry customers (remember that the most avid downloaders are also the most avid buyers – "most avid" being the operative word here – the 20% of customers who account for 80% of sales, downloading, concert tickets, box-office revenue, DVDs, T-shirts, action figures, etc). And because those who download most avidly will simply change tactics.

The entertainment industry's capacity to gather evidence and make accusations against downloaders relies on the fact that, at present, most downloading systems don't bother to encrypt the traffic or disguise the user's identity. Neither of these things are very hard to do, though both are computationally more expensive than the alternative. But, in case you haven't noticed, computation is getting cheaper all the time.

Once non-anonymous, non-encrypted downloading bears a significant risk, downloaders will simple switch to anonymised, encrypted alternatives.

For example, SSL-based proxies like Sweden's IPREDator (use of which is also a tonic against identity thieves and other creeps who may be monitoring your network connection) provide a nigh-impenetrable layer of misdirection that confounds anyone hoping to trace a download session back to a user. And services like Easynews.com provide encrypted access to enormous libraries of material including infringing copies of popular shows, music and movies.

So why worry? If users won't be deterred from downloading – and may even be driven to start taking care to protect their connections from snoops and creeps – then how bad will the Digital Economy Act be?

Bad.

Because the naive user who only downloads occasionally will still be in harm's way, as will his family or housemates if his connection is disconnected by an entertainment bully.

And because once the state decides that it has a duty to police the internet to maximise the profits of a few entertainment companies (no matter what the public expense), it sets itself on a path of ever-more-restrictive measures. Once disconnection drives downloaders to make use of SSL-based proxies, watch for Big Content to inveigle their friends in parliament to enact laws prohibiting the use of virtual private networks – never mind that these are the best practice of anyone trying to safeguard a corporate or organisational network.

Once the Act drives downloaders to use SSL-encrypted services that are harder to monitor, watch for the entertainment lobby to ask for great swaths of the internet to be blocked by the Great Firewall of Britain that the Act also provides for.

Once you swallow a spider to catch a fly, you're on a course to swallow a bird to catch the spider, a cat to catch the bird, and so on until you swallow a horse – and every toddler knows that happens next.

Cory Doctorow @'The Guardian'

"I just don't know where to turn if I'm too bad even for a porn recovery group. Makes me want to cry.”

 

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Sydney Morning Herald editor says journalists safe but being held in Israeli jail

Israel: Pirates?

Via Craig Murray

A word on the legal position, which is very plain. To attack a foreign flagged vessel in international waters is illegal. It is not piracy, as the Israeli vessels carried a military commission. It is rather an act of illegal warfare.
Because the incident took place on the high seas does not mean however that international law is the only applicable law. The Law of the Sea is quite plain that, when an incident takes place on a ship on the high seas (outside anybody’s territorial waters) the applicable law is that of the flag state of the ship on which the incident occurred. In legal terms, the Turkish ship was Turkish territory.
There are therefore two clear legal possibilities.
Possibility one is that the Israeli commandos were acting on behalf of the government of Israel in killing the activists on the ships. In that case Israel is in a position of war with Turkey, and the act falls under international jurisdiction as a war crime.
Possibility two is that, if the killings were not authorised Israeli military action, they were acts of murder under Turkish jurisdiction. If Israel does not consider itself in a position of war with Turkey, then it must hand over the commandos involved for trial in Turkey under Turkish law.
In brief, if Israel and Turkey are not at war, then it is Turkish law which is applicable to what happened on the ship. It is for Turkey, not Israel, to carry out any inquiry or investigation into events and to initiate any prosecutions. Israel is obliged to hand over indicted personnel for prosecution.

@'Pickled Politics'

Info released on Saturday!

The Israeli army and navy, under direct supervision and orders from the Israeli government, prepared a plan dubbed “Operation Sky Wind” to attack the Freedom Flotilla” heading to Gaza and kidnap and the activists onboard.

Make-shift prison in Ashdod - Arabs48

Israeli sources reported that the navy had concluded all preparations to takeover the Freedom Flotilla, by force in needed, in an attempt to prevent it from reaching the Gaza coast to break the four-year long ongoing siege.
The planned offensive includes four stages;
1. Warning stage; the navy will try to stop the ships from reaching a “line” dubbed
as a red line, should the ships reach the designated line, they will be warned and informed that they “violate the law”.
2. Boarding and controlling the ships; should the ships fail to adhere to the demands of the navy, the navy will attack and control the eight ships carrying nearly 800 activists. The ships will then be taken to Ashdod Port and the activists will be detained in a huge tent installed for this purpose.
3. Deportation by air; Israeli soldiers and policemen would order the detained activists to sign statements accepting to be deported to their countries, and will be deported by air via the Ben Gurion Airport.
4. Arrest before deportation; those who refuse to sign deportation statements, will be arrested, sent to medical examination, then transferred to the Nahshon Brigade which belongs to the Israeli Prison Administration before being sent to Be’er Sheva Prison and likely other prisons.
They will be prosecuted and deported at a later stage.
Some 600 human rights activists boarding the eight solidarity ships heading to Gaza said that they are determined to reach Gaza regardless of Israel’s threats.
Greta Berlin, spokesperson of the Free Gaza Movement, stated that “nothing is going to stop the ships”, and that the human rights activists are determined to break the illegal Israeli siege on 1.5 million Palestinian in Gaza, and deliver the humanitarian supplies. 

@'International Middle East Media Centre'

(Thanx Fifi!)

Dialectic Physics

One through nine, no maybes, no supposes, no fractions. You can't travel in space, you can't go out into space, you know, without, like, you know, uh, with fractions - what are you going to land on - one-quarter, three-eighths? What are you going to do when you go from here to Venus or something? That's dialectic physics.

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WOW!

Dulux Walls - Global film for the Let's Colour Campaign by Euro RSCG London
Let's Colour is a worldwide initiative to transform grey spaces with colourful paint.
This 2 minute global film was shot by multi-award winning director Adam Berg over four weeks in Brazil, France, London and India. Every location is real and they remain transformed by a palette consisting of 120 different colours. The people in the film are not actors, they are real people who rolled up their sleeves to transform their community with colour.
Read more about the Let's Colour project here:
www.letscolourproject.com/blog
www.letscolourproject.com

Has Israel lost lone Muslim ally Turkey?