Tuesday, 31 January 2012

RG: Are you opposed to people bootlegging...
RF: Yes.
RG: ...your performances?
RF: Yes. People who turn up to Frippertronics concerts need only bring their ears. They need have responsibility to nothing else but their ears. If they're not prepared to get involved in the spirit of what is trying to be created there, they really shouldn't come, and I don't say that in any callous way at all. If the idea is to come along to take photographs, this is not the idea of a music concert. This is a peculiar custom that one should listen to music through the lense of a camera and I don't like being put in a situation where the sound, the atmosphere is being punctured by theft. I understand that on the subject of bootlegging there is this notion that it's preserving music which is perhaps of some value to other people and all those other vague notions. When I recieve the traditional proportion of royalties which a record makes from all the different bootlegs and notice that the ... whoever wrote the music is getting their proportion as well, I shall perhaps look on bootlegging, the... if you like...the so-called public-spirited bootlegging, in a different way. Were I a bootlegger, I would deduct a portion of the royalties for the artist and the writer and send them off anonymously. That's what I should do. I know of no one yet who does that so my suspicions of bootleggers and their motives remain. In fact I've just obtained the address of a man who, against all my requests, bootlegged the Kitchen concert in New York and I'm considering exactly what to do. You see, the traditional approach is that three very large burly men go around and inflict a considerable amount of muscular and organic damage upon the body of the person who's bootlegged this and destroy a lot of material objects. That's not my approach. But I don't like having the idea of working through the traditional dinosaur structure of copyright law and so on but I sense that I may have to do it because in a situation where normal requests from one human being to another in a very straightforeward way, where this isn't met by a decent and honorable response, one is violated and that situation simply can't go on. And it's such a pity that a very, very small proportion of people have led, for example, to increased security at airports throughout the world which make traveling now, for me, personally, almost intolerableand in terms of performance situations the point is that within two and a half years, we shall all be frisked when we go to a rock 'n' roll event...
Via
(Thanx Fred!)

♪♫ Beck - Nicotine & Gravy (27/7/200)

For all those like me trying to give up the ~~gravy~~ cigs!!!

The Big Yin on Zappa

Now that would have been a dream ticket :)
(Thanx MarcS!)

:))

IseeScott Irene Scott
this site makes me want to wash my hands...then wash my hands...then dust for approximately the rest of my life thingsorganizedneatly.tumblr.com

OakFoSho Spencer: For Hire
.@JeanQuan says she'll call national #OWS leaders. bit.ly/xeX5Wk Umm what leaders? #OccupyOakland #OWS #p21

Leonard Cohen - Songs From The Road

Leonard Cohen - Melbourne 5/02/09

(Photo by TimN)

THE BAND
Leonard Cohen - vocals, acoustic guitar, keyboard.
Roscoe Beck - bass, double bass, background vocals
Neil Larsen - keyboards, Hammond B3, accordion
Bob Metzger - guitar, steel guitar, background vocals
Javier Mas - bandurria, laud, archilaud
Rafael Bernardo Gayol - drums, percussion
Dino Soldo - keyboard, saxophone, wind instruments, dobro, background vocals
Sharon Robinson - vocals, shaker
Hattie Webb - vocals, harp
Charley Webb - vocals, guitar

What can you say? The re-emergence of Leonard Cohen and the respect that has been shown to him is to me one of the greatest things to have happened in music in recent times, even if it was due to very sad circumstances.

I was lucky enough to catch him twice in recent years and they were two of the most joyous gigs I have ever been to.

His new album 'Old Ideas' starts with the lines:

I love to speak with Leonard
He’s a sportsman and a shepherd
He’s a lazy bastard
Living in a suit

But he does say what I tell him
Even though it isn’t welcome
He will never have the freedom
To refuse...

...and to be honest I cannot make up my mind as to whether this is a subtle reference that perhaps he is telling us that this will be his last album or not.

I can hope that it isn't but if there was ever a man entitled to enjoy his remaining years (and may there be many more) then it is Mr. Cohen. Having said that boy does he enjoy performing as you will see for yourself in the video above.

Also please take time to visit 'Dangerous Minds' where Marc has posted an amazing documentary of the five years that Leonard Cohen spent at the Mt Baldy Zen Centre.
Bonus:
Leonard Cohen: Live at The Isle of Wight (1970)

???

How Spotify Could Restore Emotional Bonds

Julian Assange from forthcoming episode of The Simpsons

Via
(Thanx Gary!)

urihoresh Uri Horesh
NYTimes: A Police Training Film About Muslims: 2 Views // So the NYPD film was produced in Jerusalem. I'll say no more. nyti.ms/woU7xA