Covered: Smokey Robinson, Volume 2: 1966-1972
2 hours ago
Friday 17 June 2011
Metallica and Lou Reed Record Album Together
Here's one nobody was expecting: Metallica and Lou Reed have gotten together and recorded an entire collaborative full-length album, Metallica announced on their website yesterday. The LP doesn't have a title or a release date yet, but they finished recording it last week, and it's 10 songs long.
According to the Metallica website, the idea for the album came after the band performed with Reed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 25th Anniversary Concert, which went down at Madison Square Garden in 2009. Eventually, Reed came to Metallica's San Francisco home studio to record. Late-period Metallica are notorious for spending years on albums, but they bashed this one out over a few months.
Via
♪♫ Paul Kelly - King of Fools (Live on Enough Rope)
Bonus interview w/ Andrew Denton from 'Enough Rope' after the jump
Stop Mining in Gyama Tibet
At this moment, Chinese and Canadian mining companies are ripping apart the
beautiful Meldro Gongkar valley in central Tibet. For thousands of years, Tibetan nomads and farmers have lived on this land in harmony with nature. But now thanks to the constant mining operations, the rivers are being poisoned, the grasslands are deteriorating, livestock is dying, and people are falling ill from drinking the
contaminated water.
Who is profiting off this plunder? Of course, the Chinese government but they're not alone. The destruction of Tibet's environment is being aided by Canada's China Gold International Resources, one of the companies actively mining in Gyama, near Lhasa,
Tibet's capital.
Tibetans and their supporters in Canada are gearing up to protest China Gold's Annual General Meeting. They are also appealing to Canadian investors to stop funding the company's destruction in Tibet.
TAKE ACTION:
We can help by showing global support for this divestment campaign.
1) Send a letter to the President and CEO of China Gold International Resources, Mr. Xin Song: http://sft.convio.net/site/R?i=Xb4UU-sAqocmlZK-Dga-bg..
2) After you send a letter to the CEO, please pick up the phone and call China Gold's headquarters at +1-604-609-0598 to convey your opposition to mining in Tibet.
Helpful talking points are included below.
3) You can also take action by posting a comment on the company's website here:
http://sft.convio.net/site/R?i=1d9S1kDqs0mYVXd5mFzAqw..
China Gold International Resources is the overseas arm of China Gold Group Corp, one of China's largest state-owned mining companies and a company that has been operating in Gyama for a number of years. In 2010, a study by a group of scientists from Finland, Norway, and China revealed that water contamination as a result of the mining posed "a considerably high risk to the local environment."
http://sft.convio.net/site/R?i=wuwt8-9gEftvpMBRvte2Gg..
Today, Tibetans can no longer drink from the Gyama river without fear of illness; many domestic animals have died from water poisoning; and grassland degradation and desertification are increasing rapidly.
In 2009, Tibetans in Gyama protested the contamination of water resources and the resettlement of nomads. They also petitioned local officials to stop the mine operation. But instead of heeding their calls, armed police were sent to intimidate the local people from staging further protests:
http://sft.convio.net/site/R?i=g15fdYI7zV4qcq2Rvo8wnw..
Tibetans clearly do not want this mine. By stepping up the pressure now, we can help stop China Gold and other foreign companies from profiting off Tibetan lands. To learn more about how you can get involved, please visit:
http://sft.convio.net/site/R?i=VTEgDa2iw8hNeIqTNHpeEA..
With hope,
Tendor, Kate, Tenzin Lobsang, and all of us at SFT
P.S. Please donate to support SFT's Stop Mining Tibet campaign so that together we can protect Tibet's fragile eco-system for generations to come:
http://sft.convio.net/site/R?i=cbdmWzoZj3AwtWJjbeo7-Q..
Watch footage and view photos of SFT's previous actions targeting the company: SFT Canada demands answers at China Gold International Resources' Investors Meeting:
http://sft.convio.net/site/R?i=6Nd1Czifonw49yaQ1YaLHg..
SFT Canada's action at the Toronto Resource Investment Conference:
http://sft.convio.net/site/R?i=iEMfBRvce50rsUgmIAQ8NQ..
Protest at China Gold's previous shareholders meeting in Vancouver:
http://sft.convio.net/site/R?i=T3Jbl1MvgkaRvsmgdGI0DA..
Read on-the-ground reports from Gyama:
http://sft.convio.net/site/R?i=fI3myiIRuts8JEMh18iQUA..
Helpful Talking Points:
* I am calling on China Gold International Resources to withdraw its operations from Tibet.
* Until Tibetans can freely chose whether they want mining operations on their land, your company should not be profiting off Tibet's natural resources.
* Mine activities in Gyama are poisoning local water sources and destroying valuable farmland that Tibetans rely on for their livelihood.
* Any Tibetan who speaks out against Chinese government-sponsored projects like
mine operations risks arrest, imprisonment, and even death.
* Tibetans want development but oppose projects that do not benefit local Tibetans, are environmentally destructive, and allow China to further consolidate control over their land.
Powered By Convio
http://sft.convio.net/site/R?i=55L3O-SOxPdm1QmmmsmqMw..
@'Jarboe Living'
MORE
Using Google Earth to Monitor Mining in Tibet: Gyama
From Wounded Knee to Libya
A Century of U.S. Military Inteventions
(powerpoint)
Frightening!
Thursday 16 June 2011
Icarus Line - We Sick
MORE
...and yes that is an 'Exile On Moan Street' t-shirt for sale from the band.
Great name. I wonder where they got it from?
I did try to blag a freebie but it was not to be...cheapskates LOL!
kevinmitnick Kevin Mitnick
Did @Lulzsec really take cia.gov down? Poking the tiger? No! More like kicking the tiger in the balls? http://tinyurl.com/3spmbcp
Woah: Lulz Security Just Took Down the CIA
Brian Barrett — Lulzsec, that merry band of hackers responsible for raids on Bethesda Softworks, the US Senate, Sony, terrorists, and rival hackers, has bagged maybe its biggest fish yet: the CIA.Lulz Security announced via Twitter that they'd taken down CIA.gov (which is, for the record, still incapacitated) a little before 6PM EST. No details about their methodology (presumably DDOS?), or the motive behind/beyond the lulz. Which, really, who needs more reason than that to take on the intelligence wing of the US government?
At the rate Lulz is going, their conquests will be Napoleonic before the summer's out. And at this point, it's hard to see how they'll be stopped, short of a land war in Russia. [LulzSec]
@'Gizmodo'
Wednesday 15 June 2011
Pakistan Arrests C.I.A. Informants in Bin Laden Raid
Pakistan’s top military spy agency has arrested some of the Pakistani informants who fed information to the Central Intelligence Agency in the months leading up to the raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden, according to American officials.
Pakistan’s detention of five C.I.A. informants, including a Pakistani Army major who officials said copied the license plates of cars visiting Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in the weeks before the raid, is the latest evidence of the fractured relationship between the United States and Pakistan. It comes at a time when the Obama administration is seeking Pakistan’s support in brokering an endgame in the war in neighboring Afghanistan.
At a closed briefing last week, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee asked Michael J. Morell, the deputy C.I.A. director, to rate Pakistan’s cooperation with the United States on counterterrorism operations, on a scale of 1 to 10.
“Three,” Mr. Morell replied, according to officials familiar with the exchange.
The fate of the C.I.A. informants arrested in Pakistan is unclear, but American officials said that the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, raised the issue when he travelled to Islamabad last week to meet with Pakistani military and intelligence officers.
Some in Washington see the arrests as illustrative of the disconnect between Pakistani and American priorities at a time when they are supposed to be allies in the fight against Al Qaeda — instead of hunting down the support network that allowed Bin Laden to live comfortably for years, the Pakistani authorities are arresting those who assisted in the raid that killed the world’s most wanted man.
The Bin Laden raid and more recent attacks by militants in Pakistan have been blows to the country’s military, a revered institution in the country. Some officials and outside experts said the military is mired in its worst crisis of confidence in decades.
American officials cautioned that Mr. Morell’s comments about Pakistani support was a snapshot of the current relationship, and did not represent the administration’s overall assessment...
Pakistan’s detention of five C.I.A. informants, including a Pakistani Army major who officials said copied the license plates of cars visiting Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in the weeks before the raid, is the latest evidence of the fractured relationship between the United States and Pakistan. It comes at a time when the Obama administration is seeking Pakistan’s support in brokering an endgame in the war in neighboring Afghanistan.
At a closed briefing last week, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee asked Michael J. Morell, the deputy C.I.A. director, to rate Pakistan’s cooperation with the United States on counterterrorism operations, on a scale of 1 to 10.
“Three,” Mr. Morell replied, according to officials familiar with the exchange.
The fate of the C.I.A. informants arrested in Pakistan is unclear, but American officials said that the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, raised the issue when he travelled to Islamabad last week to meet with Pakistani military and intelligence officers.
Some in Washington see the arrests as illustrative of the disconnect between Pakistani and American priorities at a time when they are supposed to be allies in the fight against Al Qaeda — instead of hunting down the support network that allowed Bin Laden to live comfortably for years, the Pakistani authorities are arresting those who assisted in the raid that killed the world’s most wanted man.
The Bin Laden raid and more recent attacks by militants in Pakistan have been blows to the country’s military, a revered institution in the country. Some officials and outside experts said the military is mired in its worst crisis of confidence in decades.
American officials cautioned that Mr. Morell’s comments about Pakistani support was a snapshot of the current relationship, and did not represent the administration’s overall assessment...
Continue reading
Nigeria's pastors 'as rich as oil barons'
Nigeria's pastors run multi-million dollar businesses which rival that of oil tycoons, a Nigerian blogger who has researched the issue has told the BBC.
Mfonobong Nsehe, who blogs for Forbes business magazine, says pastors own businesses from hotels to fast-food chains. "Preaching is big business. It's almost as profitable as the oil business," he said.
The joint wealth of five pastors was at least $200m (£121m), he said.
Mr Nsehe said the richest of them, Bishop David Oyedepo of the Living Faith World Outreach Ministry, was worth about $150m.
Bishop Oyedepo owned a publishing company, university, an elite private school, four jets and homes in London and the United States, according to Mr Nsehe.
'Private jets'
The Nigerian blogger said Bishop Oyedepo was followed on the rich list by Pastor Chris Oyakhilome of the Believers' Loveworld Ministries. He was worth between $30 and $50m.
"Oyakhilome's diversified interests include newspapers, magazines, a local television station, a record label, satellite TV, hotels and extensive real estate," Mr Nsehe said.
He said three of the other richest pastors were: - Temitope Joshua Matthew of the Synagogue Church Of All Nations (worth between $10m and $15m);
- Matthew Ashimolowo of Kingsway International Christian Centre (worth between $6 million and $10 million) and
- Chris Okotie of the Household of God Church (worth between $3 million and $10 million).
"These pastors are flamboyant. You see them with private jets and expensive cars. This extravagance sends out the wrong message to their followers," he told the BBC's Network Africa programme.
He said the pastors acquired their wealth from various sources, including their congregations.
"We have Nigerians who are desperate, looking for solutions to their problems. They go to church for salvation, redemption and healing and pastors sometimes take advantage of them," Mr Nsehe said.
@'BBC'
Overground
Returning for a second year, Overground – the "festival within a festival" — may well become a regular feature of the Melbourne International Jazz Festival. Once again, the event sold out before the doors opened, demonstrating that there is a strong following for music that sits at the outer edges of jazz and improvisation.
The six-hour event took over the Melbourne Town Hall, with musicians playing on multiple stages, and roaming performance artists in the foyers and stairwells. The emphasis was on in-the-moment creativity.
Japanese duo Satoko Fujii (on piano) and Yoshida Tatsuya (drums) offered a dazzling set that fused bursts of percussive energy with ritualistic chanted vocals. Jerome Noetinger's solo set was another highlight, the French music-concrete artist using a vintage reel-to-reel machine to construct a rhythmic soundscape with loops and analog effects.
Many acts were one-off collaborations between local and visiting international artists. Charlemagne Palestine's tonal explorations on the Town Hall's Grand Organ were augmented by Oren Ambarchi's processed electric guitar, producing a series of layered, humming vibrations that were both hypnotic and ear-bleedingly loud.
Extremes of volume and sonic density featured in so many performances that the afternoon did become something of an endurance test, with instruments used as weapons and amplification used for shock rather than musical effect. Still, it was heartening to see so many drawn to such adventurous fare, an affirmation that the city's creative music roots are in fertile ground.
Murdoch's mother backs carbon price
A group of prominent Australians has published an open letter calling for a price on carbon to help deal with climate change.
The letter is signed by four former Australians of the year - including Professor Fiona Stanley, Ian Kiernan, Professor Pat McGorry and Sir Gustav Nossal.It is also signed by Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, the philanthopist and mother of News Corporation boss Rupert Murdoch.
Last month, Australian actress Cate Blanchett fronted an advertising campaign for a carbon price.
Professor David de Kretser, a former governor of Victoria, organised the letter and says he hopes it leads to climate change action "to ensure that we have an environment and a planet which actually is there for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren."
The letter says a carbon price is fundamental to reducing emissions and driving low-carbon technologies.
The group says it is confident that given the incentives, sustainable industries will flourish.
@'ABC'
...and I hope she gives Rupert a bollocking for all the crap his papers have come out with!
See A Little Light (The Trail of Rage & Melody)
“Dog on Fire” — the bouncy version on “The Daily Show” was recorded by They Might Be Giants — doesn’t exactly capture Mr. Mould’s signature sound. When people talk about Bob Mould and his guitar onslaught, the adjectives tend to be of the sort CNN anchors use when describing natural disasters: enormous, deafening, slashing, chaotic, flattening, consuming. These things are meant as steep compliments.
With Hüsker Dü in the 1980s, his band Sugar in the ’90s and as a solo artist, Mr. Mould has made many kinds of music, some of them acoustic and quite spare. But he’s best known for making, long before Nirvana, metal music for the kind of people who don’t like metal, or at any rate the kind of people who wouldn’t be caught dead flashing the Devil horns hand sign or reading Aleister Crowley. His songs matter so much to so many people, myself included, because of the introspection and pain he manages to layer into them behind and below their sonic brutality. There’s a high signal-to-noise ratio.
One of the pleasures of Mr. Mould’s new memoir, “See a Little Light,” is watching him try to conjure up words to describe his own majestic din. “Imagine the sound of someone starting up a chain saw in preparation for clearing a parcel of overgrown land,” he writes in one early, wobbly stab. Later he calls a song “the musical equivalent of the sound of throwing a box of glass off the roof of a house.” Another song is likened to the sound of “someone regaining consciousness in a hospital after being pounded for hours with bare knuckles.” Hey, you think, he’s getting closer.
“See a Little Light,” written with the rock journalist Michael Azerrad, is on some levels a typical, and typically flat, rock memoir. There are road stories, bad record label deals, dim memories of greasy sexual and pharmacological buffets. Mr. Mould’s drugs of choice included “trucker speed,” crystal meth and cocaine. When in Kansas, he’d stop in to “smoke pot and throw knives” with his friend the writer William S. Burroughs.
Scores are settled. He pokes another beloved Minneapolis band, the Replacements, because it “didn’t give back” to other bands the way Hüsker Dü did. He pours gasoline atop his long-running feud with a founding member of Hüsker Dü, Grant Hart, and then pulls out a Bic lighter.
There’s rock world gossip. Michael Stipe of R.E.M. liked to force some guests to enter his house, humiliatingly, through a window. Mr. Mould was in the running to produce “Nevermind,” Nirvana’s breakthrough LP. The guitarist Chris Stamey complains, while playing with Mr. Mould on tour, about the volume.
“Alex Chilton took this ear, and you’re not taking this one,” Mr. Stamey said, pointing to his other. The author describes his weird detour into script consulting for World Championship Wrestling.
There’s even a big emotional revelation (Mr. Mould may have been sexually abused as a child) that’s ready-made for afternoon television. At the book’s end there are tidy clichés about redemption that made me groan.
In more important ways, however, “See a Little Light” isn’t typical at all. Most centrally, it’s an audacious and moving account of Mr. Mould’s coming of age as a (mostly closeted) gay man in the macho alternative rock scene of the 1980s and 1990s. The book is impressive, too, for its author’s radical unwillingness to ingratiate himself. He was famously severe onstage; mostly, that’s what he is here.
Mr. Mould’s book is also frequently well observed. It doesn’t leap out of the box like a cat, the way Bob Dylan’s and Keith Richards’s memoirs do. But the nice moments start early and maintain a steady drip.
Mr. Mould was born in Malone, N.Y., a small town near the Canadian border, in 1960. His father was a TV repairman; his mother was a switchboard operator. His father, who sometimes beat his mother, was paranoid. (He’d leave a tape recorder running when he left a room.) But Mr. Mould’s childhood was, he reports, relatively un-insane.
He learned to play the guitar early and started Hüsker Dü, a trio, while attending Macalester College in Minnesota. (The band’s name came from a Swedish children’s board game.) The band got famous fast, and released its first studio album, “Everything Falls Apart,” in 1982. Mr. Mould dropped out of Macalester.
Hüsker Dü played faster and louder than almost any band of its era. The noise was an evocation of, and a cover for, Mr. Mould’s roiling emotions. He knew he was gay at 5, but throughout most of his career he fled from the stereotypical gay lifestyle. There was nothing campy or effeminate about Bob Mould.
After the years with Hüsker Dü and Sugar blow past, “See a Little Light” changes, and so does Mr. Mould. He begins to seek out pieces of what he calls “the big gay puzzle” and, typically for him, does nothing halfway. He gets buff. He becomes a D.J. and makes electronic music. He begins to describe himself as a “bear” and hangs out in leather bars.
Mr. Mould had several long-term relationships, but once those end, his libido begins to roar the way his guitar did. He writes about his fondness for gay military porn and sleeps with “someone from every branch of the military.” He has so many one-night stands that he learns to “keep a Costco family pack of toothbrushes on hand” because he is, he says, a “thoughtful whore.”
Among rock memoirs I’ve read, “See a Little Light” calls out to be a serious comic book, a graphic memoir. Sex aside, it’s a book with an interestingly Manichean, superherolike worldview; its author calls his younger self a “Miserabalist” and he wrestles with “the darker side of life.” This is the kind of book in which relationships are discussed using phrases like “mutually assured destruction.”
The critic Lester Bangs used a phrase, “imperative groin thunder,” to describe the loud, raw music he loved most. Mr. Mould’s music brings that kind of thunder. Some of the time, and in surprising ways, so does his book.
Dwight Garner @'NY Times'
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