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Wednesday, 27 April 2011
Jeff Tweedy on Wilco's new album
"We're still chipping away at it," Tweedy tells SPIN. "We're just doing some overdubs and some tracking, but we're pretty far along."
So far, Wilco have laid down some 20 tracks for the album, which has the working title of Get Well Soon Everybody. Tweedy says the material fits into two categories: experimental-leaning rock and "cinematic-sounding country music…you know, folk music."
The band — Tweedy, bassist John Stirrat, guitarist Nels Cline, drummer Glenn Kotche, multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone, and keyboardist Mikael Jorgensen — hasn't decided which tracks will make the final product, but Tweedy says it could end up being a two-disc set. "I don't know what type of record is going to win out or if it just ends up as a double record," he says. "I put off that decision until I know which songs are still kicking my ass."
The finished album may be one of the group's most adventurous yet. "I do think it's a little bit more obnoxious and irreverent of a pop record than people have heard from us, maybe, ever," he says. "And that's exciting. But I have no doubt that the second this record becomes available there's somebody sitting in a basement at their computer with the word 'meh' already typed up, waiting to post a review."...
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France and Italy in call to close EU borders
Sarkozy and Berlusconi want passport-free travel within the EU suspended as north African migrants flee north
Read more HERE
Lobsang Sangay elected Tibetan exile leader
A Harvard University academic has been elected prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile and will take on the political role previously played by the Dalai Lama.
Lobsang Sangay won 55% of the votes cast by Tibetans around the world. He defeated two candidates for the role, Tenzin Tethong and Tashi Wangdi.
Mr Sangay must now assume the political functions of the Dalai Lama, who said in March he wanted to devolve this responsibility to an elected official.
The Dalai Lama will retain his role as Tibetan spiritual leader.
'Middle way' The elections were held in March and the result announced on Wednesday in Dharamsala, India, where the Tibetan government-in-exile is based.
"The Election Commission of the Central Tibetan Administration of His Holiness the Dalai Lama has declared Dr Lobsang Sangay as the third kalon tripa," Election Commissioner Jampal Thosang announced, using the Tibetan term for prime minister.
Almost 83,400 Tibetan exiles were eligible to vote and more than 49,000 ballots were cast, he said.
Tenzin Tethong, a former representative of the Dalai Lama in the US, got 37.4% of the vote and Tashi Wangdi, a government-in-exile bureaucrat, received 6.4%. The 42-year-old winner is an Indian-born legal expert who has never lived in Tibet. His father fled Tibet in 1959, the same year as the Dalai Lama.
He says he will move to Dharamsala to serve as prime minister and that he supports the Dalai Lama's stance on ties with China.
"What His Holiness stands for is the 'Middle Way', which is genuine autonomy within China or within the framework of the Chinese constitution," he told the BBC earlier this month.
"If Tibetans are granted genuine autonomy then his Holiness the Dalai Lama said he is willing to accept Tibet as part of China."
Daunting task An official told Reuters news agency that that Dalai Lama was "very happy" that people "took a very active part in the election process".
The 76-year-old monk announced in March that he wanted an elected official to assume some of his responsibilities, saying that such a move was in the best interests of the Tibetan people.
Analysts say he aims to ensure that even if China's government tries to select the next Dalai Lama, the Tibetans will have an elected leader they can look to who is outside China and beyond the Communist Party's control.
The BBC's Mark Dummett says Lobsang Sangay has the daunting task of trying to keep the issue of Tibet alive while the man who embodies the struggle for Tibetan rights gradually steps back from the limelight.
He has been elected head of a government which no country recognises and will face in China an opponent which has shown no sign of wanting to compromise, our correspondent adds.
@'BBC'
A sidenote. This record was releasd under the name 'The Charmer'.
In Arabic, charmer is 'farrakhan'.
Chernobyl now
MORE
Hicks should never have been charged: former US prosecutor
Australia's former Guantanamo Bay inmate, David Hicks, should never have been charged, according to the former Chief Prosecutor at the US military prison, Colonel Morris Davis.
In the latest twist in the long-running efforts by the Bush administration to get trials up and running at Guantanamo, the former prosecutor has been called as a defence witness at a pre-trial hearing for one of the detainees.Colonel Davis was originally a staunch supporter of the military commissions set up to try Guantanamo prisoners.
He quit the system last year shortly after Hicks was convicted, claiming there had been political interference in the cases selected for trial. Others too have left citing similar concerns, including former prosecutors Captain John Carr and Major Rob Preston in 2004.
Colonel Davis was called today to appear at Guantanamo at a hearing for the next prisoner due to stand trial, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who was allegedly Osama bin Laden's driver.
Colonel Davis' testimony comes amidst speculation that the closure of Guantanamo Bay is now a matter of time.
He told a hearing at Guantanamo today that Bush administration appointees lobbied for charges in particular cases because they would bolster public support for Guantanamo.
Colonel Davis also disapproved of the abusive techniques used to elicit evidence from prisoners.
Lawyers for detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan called Colonel Davis to appear at his hearing today, arguing that the former Chief Prosecutor's testimony is grounds for the case against Hamdan to be thrown out.
Australian David Hicks did not contest the charges against him, and since he was convicted in 2006, no other detainee has faced trial, with some now being held for more than six years without a day in court.
The Hamdan trial is set for May, though there is much discussion in national security circles in Washington that the closure of Guantanamo Bay is now inevitable. The three remaining Presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain, all say the facility should be shut down.
This raises the question of the fate of the prisoners who can't be released, including high level terrorist suspects such as Khalid Sheikh Mohamed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks and Hambali, the alleged architect of the Bali bombings.
Trials in regular courts for such suspects are not possible. Any charges against them would be thrown out because of irregularities and abuses in their detention and interrogation.
Two staunch academic critics of the military commissions have floated the idea of a new National Security Court in the US, using sitting federal court judges.
Under such a system the US Government could produce classified information to argue the case for the indefinite detention of certain prisoners.
The defendants would have lawyers under the proposal, although they would have fewer rights than in regular criminal cases.
Civil libertarians oppose the idea, but it may appeal to the Bush administration or to a future President McCain, Obama or Clinton, facing the politically unpalatable and arguably strategically unwise alternative of simply freeing Guantanamo inmates.
Leigh Sales @'ABC'
Ira Cohen RIP
Ira Cohen.
February 3, 1935 - April 25, 2011.
William Burroughs and his Gilded Cobra
by Ira Cohen
USA 1966
From the Mylar Chamber
Via
wikileaks WikiLeaks
UK amongst the countries that have highest support for legal action against Assange. Thanks Guardian! http://tiny.cc/j6l4b
From Judith Miller To Julian Assange
“The performance of the Times was especially deficient. While occasionally running articles that questioned administration claims, it more often deferred to them. (The Times’s editorial page was consistently much more skeptical.) Compared to other major papers, the Times placed more credence in defectors, expressed less confidence in inspectors, and paid less attention to dissenters. The September 8 story on the aluminum tubes was especially significant. Not only did it put the Times’s imprimatur on one of the administration’s chief claims, but it also established a position at the paper that apparently discouraged further investigation into this and related topics.”
@pressthink.org
@pressthink.org
Kate Bush - Deeper Understanding
In the video for Kate Bush's reworked take on her 1989 track "Deeper Understanding", Robbie Coltrane (aka Hagrid from the Harry Potter movies) plays a man who falls in love with a computer program, played by Bush's son Albert. And that is only the tip of the weirdness iceberg here...
Watch the video, directed by Bush herself, below.
Watch the video, directed by Bush herself, below.
GregMitch Greg Mitchell
NYT coverage of Gitmo files continues focus on how dangerous many prisoners were, not how innocent most of them were. http://bit.ly/dJBjge
Tuesday, 26 April 2011
REpost: My cassette of choice (The Blank Generation!)
Go here and at the bottom of the page you should be able to find your favourite cassette!
Super Injunctions the ‘scourge of journalists’?
Via
Nothing about Ryan Giggs here at all, move along please...
Nothing about Ryan Giggs here at all, move along please...
Punk icon Poly Styrene dies at 53
Punk singer Poly Styrene, former singer with the X Ray Spex, has died at the age of 53 after suffering from cancer.
She was one of the first female punk icons, whose unorthodox yet infectious style was highly influential.
Real name Marianne Elliot-Said, she had cancer of the spine and breast.
A statement on her official Twitter feed said: "We can confirm that the beautiful Poly Styrene, who has been a true fighter, won her battle on Monday evening to go to higher places."
Poly Styrene formed her band after watching the Sex Pistols perform on Hastings Pier on her 18th birthday and became known for her unpolished vocals and energetic rallying cries against consumerism and environmental destruction.
X Ray Spex's signature tune was Oh Bondage Up Yours!, a riotous rejection of social and gender norms that began with Poly Styrene's spoken line: "Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard."
The band released just one album, Germ Free Adolescents, in 1978, before splitting up.
The singer went on to record a more subtle and subdued solo album, Translucence, in 1980, before retreating from the music industry to join the Hare Krishnas.
She moved into a Krishna temple in Hertfordshire with her daughter, and struggled with bipolar disorder.
Boy George - who once tried to break her out of the temple - was among those paying tribute on Twitter.
He wrote: "I was a fan of Poly before I got to know her, she was a Krishna follower too, oh bless you Polly you will be missed! Legend!"
She occasionally re-emerged into the limelight, and released her third solo album, Generation Indigo, last month.
"I know I'll probably be remembered for Oh Bondage Up Yours!" she told BBC 6 Music. "I'd like to remembered for something a bit more spiritual."
@'BBC'
Poly Styrene RIP
Music magazine NME has just confirmed the news, after the internet was flooded with rumours earlier this evening.
X-Ray Spex, part of the first wave of British punk bands, released their first single 'Oh Bondage Up Yours!' in late 1977.
Other classic songs by the group include 'Germ Free Adolescents' and perhaps their best-known song 'The Day The World Turned Day-Glo'. They only released one album before splitting in 1979.
Poly Styrene, real name Marion Elliot-Said, had just released a solo album, Generation Indigo, in March.
Her death comes only six months after fellow female punk trailblazer Ari Up, of the Slits.
@'3NewsNZ'
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