Dot Allison & Pete Doherty - Teardrop (Massive Attack cover)

Dot Allison - Thief of Me

Dot Allison - Strung Out

Shepard Fairey arrested in Boston

Full story at 'The Obama Art Blog' here.

$10 million government fund for bushfire victims

Premier John Brumby breaks down while speaking at a press conference at Kilmore. Photo: John Woudstra

A fund to help communities affected by what have been called the worst fires in Victoria's history has been started with a $10 million contribution equally shared by the State and Federal governments.

Outside the CFA station at Kangaroo Ground, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd also pledged the strength of the Australian Defence Force to help Victoria in its time of crisis.

Brian Naylor and wife Moiree amongst the dead

Brian Naylor & his son Matthew, who was killed in a plane crash last year.

I had better explain to non Australian readers that Brian Naylor was perhaps the Australian equivalent of the American newsreader Walter Cronkite or in Britain Trevor McDonald.

Story here.

Now 84 dead

Go here for more up to date information.

The number of dead is likely to rise even further as blazes continue to ravage the state with almost 312,000 hectares affected. At least 700 homes have been destroyed - 550 of those in Kinglake and surrounding areas.

UPDATE:
Hell on earth hits Kinglake
Greg Roberts
February 8, 2009 - 10:09PM
The end of the world reached the Victorian mountain town of Kinglake on Saturday, February 7.
Burnt out cars, many containing charred bodies, litter the road leading up to the town which now consists of a handful of still standing shops and hundreds of blackened piles of ash which used to be home to Kinglake's 1,500 residents.
As Victoria burnt on Saturday, a raging inferno raced through the state's central highlands, killing at least 12 in Kinglake itself and 10 in Kinglake West, leaving the once-idyllic community a charred ghost town.
Among the tragic stories to emerge from Kinglake were of a young boy and a girl burnt alive inside their home.
"The kids perished, their mother got out but she couldn't get the kids out," Kinglake resident Mary-Anne Mercuri told AAP.
Ms Mercuri also spoke of sisters in their 20s whose bodies were found in the front of their rented house.
"Two young girls around the corner from me were found in the front of their house. There's no way they could have got out. They would have tried to escape but there was nowhere to go."
The mother-of-three said that when the fire arrived it felt like exploding red burning bullets were being shot horizontally at them.
"These big burning chunks started falling from the sky, there was a lot of power behind them. I guess they were exploding parts of trees," Ms Mercuri said.
"We are lucky to be alive."
Her friend, Mandy Darkin, described the terrifying moment the fire arrived at Kinglake without warning.
"I was working at the local restaurant and we were all carrying on like nothing was going on but then word came that we should go home," the mother of five said.
"Soon after, I looked outside the window and said: `Whoa we are out of here, this is going to be bad'.
"I could see it coming. I just remember the blackness and you could hear it, it sounded like a train.
"I raced home in my car, straight into the driveway, placed all the kids in the house and within two minutes it was here and it was as dark as midnight at 4.30pm."
The 25km journey by road from Whittlesea to Kinglake is a cross between a trip into a war zone and a natural disaster zone.
The typical sunburnt landscape of southeast Australia gives way to a fire-burnt one with black scorched trees and earth.
Property after property is destroyed, burnt out cars line the side of the road, some sit stranded in the middle of the street, while a dead horse, carcass still smouldering, blocks the sporadic traffic.
The remains of two cars which collided head-on in their frantic bid to escape the blaze lie mangled on the road, and a five-car pile-up reveals the desperation of residents fleeing for their lives when the fire arrived.
It is believed six bodies were found in one car.
A media convoy being escorted to Kinglake was delayed at one stage as emergency crews removed another body from one of the burnt-out cars.

© 2009 AAP

UPDATE: now 76 dead

Story from the 'BBC' here.

Hell on Earth

"Hell in all its fury has visited the good people of Victoria in the last 24 hours. Many good people lie dead, many injured," Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told reporters, deploying army units to help 3,000 firefighters battling the flames.

UPDATE: 65 confirmed dead.

UPDATE: 49 confirmed dead in bushfires

Story from the 'BBC' here.

UPDATE: 'Worst day in history' Vic fires kill 14

Authorities in Victoria will on Sunday begin the grim search for bodies following Saturday's devastating bushfires, which have already claimed 14 lives.

Police expect the death toll to surpass 40.

All 14 of the confirmed deaths were in towns northwest of Melbourne - six people in one car were killed at Kinglake, four died at Wandong, three at Strathewen and one in Clonbinane.

Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Kieran Walshe said police would be able to undertake a more thorough search of burnt-out properties on Sunday with the fire in the area under control and cooler conditions.

"This is an absolute tragedy for the state and we believe the figure may even get worse," Mr Walshe told reporters late on Saturday.

"We base that on the fact we're only just getting into these areas now... to search buildings and properties these have been very very significant fires... the figure could get into the 40s."

Police spokesman Senior Constable Wayne Wilson said the clarification on a final death toll would take time.

"We have the official toll at 14. Obviously under the conditions we expect it to go higher, (but) we've got to go through these places in the daylight, where we can search them properly," he told ABC Radio.

"These sort of situations it does take time for clarification to come through... particularly when you are dealing with death.

"We do it as quickly as we can but we've got to do it in a methodical and accurate way."

Meanwhile, the bushfire burning around Kilmore was continuing to cause concern early on Sunday morning, despite a cool change moving in.

The Country Fire Authority (CFA) said the Kilmore East fire, burning in the Yarra Valley near Kinglake, was burning in a northeasterly direction.

The CFA said the wind change at 7.30pm (AEDT) on Saturday produced strong southwesterly gusts, moving the fire activity to a northeastern direction.

Weather conditions have turned favourable overnight and expected to continue to moderate.

But the CFA has warned communities of Kinglake, Kinglake West, Toolangie, Glenburn, Strathewen, Chum Creek, Dixons Creek, Castella, Pheasant Creek, Doreen, Yan Yean, Woodstock, Mernda, Mittons Bridge, Hurstbridge, St Andrews, Panton Hills, Arthurs Creek, Smiths Gully, Christmas Hills, Healesville, Yarra Glen, Coldstream, Tarrawarra and Steels Creek have been and may be directly impacted upon by this fire.

© 2009 AAP

Dewey Martin - RIP

Dewey Martin former drummer with the Buffalo Springfield is dead.

Story here.

Buffalo Springfield - 'For What It's Worth' (Monterey 1967)

47 degrees of perspiration

The hottest February day in recorded history here in Melbourne.
Not only stinking hot but also a northerly wind coming straight from the central land mass that brought with it so much soil dust that at times reached 80 kms an hour!.
Also the whole sky was just filled with smoke all day.
The change eventually came through and tomorrow looks like being a much cooler day.
Thank god!

UPDATE:

Fourteen killed in Kinglake ( which has been completely wiped out), Wandong, Strathewen and Clonbinane, northwest of Melbourne.

More than 60 houses reported to be lost.
At least 30,000 hectares burnt out, started around 4km east of Kilmore and winds pushed it 30km to the east through Whittlesea, Wandong and into Kinglake. Was also threatening Broadford late Saturday night.
There are reports just in that it is feared that the death toll could be as high as 40.

Obama changes tone

"...In a fired-up, mostly impromptu speech to House Democrats in Williamsburg, Va., Thursday night, Obama accused his Republican critics of wanting to return to “the same policies that for the last eight years doubled the national debt and threw our economy into a tailspin.”
“I don’t care whether you’re driving a hybrid or an SUV,” he said. "If you’re headed for a cliff, you have to change direction. That’s what the American people called for in November, and that’s what we intend to deliver.”..."

Full Story from 'Politico' here.

Iggy Pop & irate 'fan' - Toronto 1981

"I have the key to the mysteries of all things wanted, and here it is: Doo dum dum ..."

Leonard Cohen - Melbourne 5/02/09
(Photo TimN)

Start here on May 11, 2008 at the Fredericton Playhouse Canada and keep following the links and you will get reviews/setlists and videos of every concert of this world tour that brought us to this point.
My thoughts on this truly profound experience (and that is not a word that I often use in regards to this crazy thing called rock'n'roll I can assure you) will hopefully appear here tomorrow.

Hallelujah - Melbourne 5/02/09

לא נראה כמוך שוב

'Forget your perfect offering/ There is a crack in everything/ That's how the light gets in.'
Leonard Cohen - Melbourne 5/02/09

(Photos by TimN)

In case you are wondering the Hebrew reads 'we will not see your like again' (I hope).

Setlist

Leonard Cohen - Melbourne 5/02/09
(Photo 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

Thanx to Crimpies over at the Leonard Cohen forum for the setlist.

Leonard Cohen - Rod Laver Arena Melbourne February 5 2009

Leonard Cohen - Melbourne 5/02/09
(Photo by TimN)

Just returned home from this amazing, uplifting and truly inspiring concert.

There will be much, much more later I promise.

In the meantime I give you Leonard Cohen's recitation of 'A Thousand Kisses Deep' & 'If It Be Your Will' as performed by the absolutely sublime cartwheeling (!) Webb sisters.

"You came to me this morning
And you handled me like meat.
You´d have to be a man to know
How good that feels, how sweet.
My mirror twin, my next of kin,
I´d know you in my sleep.
And who but you would take me in
A thousand kisses deep?

I loved you when you opened
Like a lily to the heat.
I´m just another snowman
Standing in the rain and sleet,
Who loved you with his frozen love
His second-hand physique -
With all he is, and all he was
A thousand kisses deep.

All soaked in sex, and pressed against
The limits of the sea:
I saw there were no oceans left
For scavengers like me.
We made it to the forward deck
I blessed our remnant fleet -
And then consented to be wrecked
A thousand kisses deep.

I know you had to lie to me,
I know you had to cheat.
But the Means no longer guarantee
The Virtue in Deceit.
That truth is bent, that beauty spent,
That style is obsolete -
Ever since the Holy Spirit went
A thousand kisses deep.

(So what about this Inner Light
That´s boundless and unique?
I´m slouching through another night
A thousand kisses deep.)

I´m turning tricks; I´m getting fixed,
I´m back on Boogie Street.
I tried to quit the business -
Hey, I´m lazy and I´m weak.
But sometimes when the night is slow,
The wretched and the meek,
We gather up our hearts and go
A thousand kisses deep.

(And fragrant is the thought of you,
The file on you complete -
Except what we forgot to do
A thousand kisses deep.)

The ponies run, the girls are young,
The odds are there to beat.
You win a while, and then it´s done -
Your little winning streak.
And summoned now to deal
With your invincible defeat,
You live your life as if it´s real
A thousand kisses deep.

(I jammed with Diz and Dante -
I did not have their sweep -
But once or twice, they let me play
A thousand kisses deep.)

And I´m still working with the wine,
Still dancing cheek to cheek.
The band is playing "Auld Lang Syne" -
The heart will not retreat.
And maybe I had miles to drive,
And promises to keep -
You ditch it all to stay alive
A thousand kisses deep.

And now you are the Angel Death
And now the Paraclete;
And now you are the Savior's Breath
And now the Belsen heap.
No turning from the threat of love,
No transcendental leap -
As witnessed here in time and blood
A thousand kisses deep."

Lux Interior - RIP

(Photo by Theresa K)

Erick Lee Purkhiser
(October 21, 1948 - February 4, 2009)
Lead singer of The Cramps.

The Official Statement (from Girlie Action, The Cramps’ media representatives):
For Immediate Release:
February 4, 2009
Lux Interior, lead singer of The Cramps, passed away this morning due to an existing heart condition at Glendale Memorial Hospital in Glendale, California at 4:30 AM PST today. Lux has been an inspiration and influence to millions of artists and fans around the world. He and wife Poison Ivy’s contributions with The Cramps have had an immeasurable impact on modern music.
The Cramps emerged from the original New York punk scene of CBGB and Max’s Kansas City, with a singular sound and iconography. Their distinct take on rockabilly and surf along with their midnight movie imagery reminded us all just how exciting, dangerous, vital and sexy rock and roll should be and has spawned entire subcultures. Lux was a fearless frontman who transformed every stage he stepped on into a place of passion, abandon, and true freedom. He is a rare icon who will be missed dearly.
The family requests that you respect their privacy during this difficult time.

'Tear It Up'

'Goo Goo Muck'

More Videos here and here and here.
Get the Ohio 1979 demos here.
Finally this will get you a whole heap of goodies!!!
Great fan site here.

I wanna leave a happy memory
when I go, I wanna leave something
to let the whole world know,
that the rock in roll daddy has
a done passed on, but my bones
will keep a rockin' long after I've gone


Roll on
Rock on
Raw Bones
Well I still got all the rythem in these
Rockin' Bones

Well when I die don't you burry
me at all, Just nail my bonesup on
the wall, Beneath these bones let
these words be seen, "This is the
bloody gears of a
boppin' machine"

Roll on
Rock on
Raw Bones
Well I still got all the rythem in these
Rockin' Bones

BIG thanx to Luke & Bella for passing on the sad news.

J.G. Ballard - Crash (Directed by Harley Cokliss 1971 Starring J.G. Ballard & Gabrielle Drake)

From: Ballardian:The World Of J.G. Ballard.

NARRATOR: In slow motion, the test cars moved towards each other on collision courses, unwinding behind them the coils that ran to the metering devices by the impact zone. As they collided the debris of wings and fender floated into the air. The cars rocked against each as they continued on their disintegrating courses. In the passenger seats the plastic models transcribed graceful arcs into the buckling roofs and windshields. Here and there a passing fender severed a torso. The air behind the cars was a carnival of arms and legs.

J.G. BALLARD: I think the key image of the 20th century is the man in the motor car. It sums up everything: the elements of speed, drama, aggression, the junction of advertising and consumer goods with the technological landscape. The sense of violence and desire, power and energy; the shared experience of moving together through an elaborately signalled landscape.

We spend a substantial part of our lives in the motor car, and the experience of driving condenses many of the experiences of being a human being in the 1970s, the marriage of the physical aspects of ourselves with the imaginative and technological aspects of our lives. I think the 20th century reaches its highest expression on the highway. Everything is there: the speed and violence of our age; the strange love affair with the machine, with its own death.

The styling of motor cars, and of the American motor car in particular, has always struck me as incredibly important, bringing together all sorts of visual and psychological factors. As an engineering structure, the car is totally uninteresting to me. I’m interested in the exact way in which it brings together the visual codes for expressing our ordinary perceptions about reality — for example, that the future is something with a fin on it — and the whole system of expectations contained in the design of the car, expectations about our freedom to move through time and space, about the identities of our own bodies, our own musculatures, the complex relationships between ourselves and the world of objects around us. These highly potent visual codes can be seen repeatedly in every aspect of the 20th century landscape. What do they mean? Have we reached a point now in the 70s where we only make sense in terms of these huge technological systems? I think so myself, and that it is the vital job of the writer to try to analyse and understand the huge significance of this metallised dream.

I’m interested in the automobile as a narrative structure, as a scenario that describes our real lives and our real fantasies. If every member of the human race were to vanish overnight, I think it would be possible to reconstitute almost every element of human psychology from the design of a vehicle like this. As a writer I feel I must try to understand the real meaning of a lot of commonplace but tremendously complicated events. I’ve always been fascinated by the complexity of movement when a woman gets out of a car.

NARRATOR: Her ungainly transit across the passenger seat through the nearside door. The overlay of her knees with the metal door flank. The conjunction of the aluminized gutter trim with the volumes of her thighs. The crushing of her left breast by the door frame, and its self extension as she continued to rise. The movement of her left hand across the chromium trim of the right headlamp assembly. Her movements distorted in the projecting carapace of the bonnet. The jut and rake of her pubis as she sits in the driver’s seat. The soft pressure of her thighs against the rim of the steering wheel.

J.G. BALLARD: The close relationship between our own bodies and the body of the motor car is obvious. American automobile stylists have been exploring for years the relationship between sexuality and the motor car body, the primitive algebra of recognition which we use in our perception of all organic forms. If the man in the motor car is the key image of the 20th century, then the automobile crash is the most significant trauma. The car crash is the most dramatic event in most people’s lives, apart from their own deaths, and in many cases the two will coincide.

Are we just victims in a totally meaningless tragedy, or does it in fact take place with our unconscious, and even conscious, connivance? Each year hundreds of thousands of people are killed in car crashes all over the world. Millions are injured. Are these arranged deaths arranged by the colliding forces of the technological landscape, by our own unconscious fantasies about power and aggression, our obsessions with consumer goods and desires, the overlaying fictions that are more and more taking the place of reality? It’s always struck me that people’s attitudes towards the car crash are very confused, that they assume an attitude that in fact is very different from their real response. If we really feared the car crash, none of us would ever be able to drive a car.

J.G. Ballard in ‘Crash!’ (1971; dir. Harley Cokliss).

I know that my own attitudes to the crashed car are just as confused. The distorted geometry of this tremendously stylised object: let’s face it, the most powerful symbol of our civilisation. It seems to pull at all sorts of concealed triggers in the mind: the postures of people in crashed vehicles; deformed manufacturer’s styling devices (crashed General Motors cars look very different from crashed Fords); the stylisation of the instrument panel, which after all is the model for our own wounds. Driving around, each of us knows what is literally the shape of our own death.

NARRATOR: Regaining consciousness, she stared at the blood on her legs. The heavy liquid pulled at her skirt. The bruise under her left breast reached behind her sternum, seizing like a hand at her heart. She sat up, lifting herself from the broken steering wheel, uncertain for a moment whether the car windshield had been fractured. Against her forehead the strands of blood formed a torn veil. Above her knees, her hand moved towards the door lever. As she watched, the door opened and she fell out. Lifting herself, she held tightly to the car, feeling the pressure of the door slip against her hand. Turning, she stared at the waiting figure of the man she knew to be Dr Tallis.

J.G. BALLARD: I remember seeing some films on television of test crashes a few years ago. They were using American cars of the late 50s, a period I suppose when the American dream, and American confidence, were at their highest point. Metering coils trailed out of the windows and they had dummies sitting in them. They were beautifully filmed. They filmed them beautifully because they wanted to know what was happening. They weren’t interested in the aesthetics of the thing. These cars were in head-on collisions, right-angled collisions and sideswipes. And ploughing into other structures like utility poles. One could see four feet of metal suddenly become one foot. Filmed in slow motion, these crashes had a beautiful stylised grace. The power and weight of these cars gave them an immense classical dignity. It was like some strange technological ballet.

I remember looking at these films and thinking about the strange psychological dimensions they seemed to touch. They seemed to say something about the way everything becomes more and more stylised, more and more cut off from ordinary feeling. It seems to me that we have to regard everything in the world around us as fiction, as if we were living in an enormous novel, and that the kind of distinction that Freud made about the inner world of the mind, between, say, what dreams appeared to be and what they really meant, now has to be applied to the outer world of reality. All the structures in it, flyovers and motorways, office blocks and factories, are all part of this enormous novel.

Take a structure like a multi-storey car park, one of the most mysterious buildings ever built. Is it a model for some strange psychological state, some kind of vision glimpsed within its bizarre geometry? What effect does using these buildings have on us? Are the real myths of this century being written in terms of these huge unnoticed structures?

More exactly, I think that new emotions and new feelings are being created, that modern technology is beginning to reach into our dreams and change our whole way of looking at things, and perceiving reality, that more and more it is drawing us away from contemplating ourselves to contemplating its world.

J.G. Ballard 1971.

Gabrielle Drake in ‘Crash!’ (1971; dir. Harley Cokliss). NB: Gabrielle Drake is Nick Drake's sister. More Ballard here.

Bonus:'Warm Leatherette' by The Normal.
Inspired by Ballard's 'Crash' this was by Daniel Miller and was the first release from Mute Records.

Oh dear, oh dear!!!

According to 'The Times' sales of Country Life spreads are up 85% since the John Lydon ad campaign started.

Serge Gainsbourg 2008 exhibition - Paris

Go to 'The Weaklings' here and let Dennis Cooper take you through the exhibition dedicated to Serge Gainsbourg.
Please note that this exhibition has been extended until March 15th.

Sarah Palin's ongoing ariel wolf slaughter

Pete Doherty faces eviction

Pete Doherty pictured yesterday in Paris is facing eviction from his country pad following the broadcast of the MTV 24 Hours show. The Babyshambles frontman faces the threat of being turfed-out, due to the state he has let the house get in, reports The Sun. "We've had a few problems. It's high time Mr Doherty found somewhere else to live," the newspaper quotes The Earl Of Cardigan saying.

Skip McDonald & Adrian Sherwood discuss the last Little Axe album 'Bought For A Dollar, Sold For A Dime'

There She Blows – Have The La's Ruined Lithuania's Eurovision Chances?

"Though nothing's been officially confirmed yet, news reaches us from NME's Eastern European division that Lithuania is currently in the midst of a musical crisis involving this year's Eurovision Song Contest entrant and… The La's.

As is customary for most, if not all, Eurovision-participating countries (I don't know, I keep well away from this stuff usually), Lithuania is in the process of choosing its song and performer for the competition via a public TV vote. What makes this year's competition noteworthy is the song by Deivis – a catchy little number called 'Lietuva'. Impressively, the tune scored maximum points in the quarter final heats earlier this month, making it the hot-favourite to go on and be the country's official entry.
Even better than that, though, is that it appears to have been stolen hook, line and sinker from The La's 'There She Goes'. Weirdly, nobody seemed to notice this until it had been performed in front of millions of people on TV. From what we can tell from these news reports (both written in Lithuanian), after 'Leituva' was performed, various viewers alerted Eurovision organisers that the song was just a tiny bit similar to 'There She Goes'. Annoyingly, most of the subsequent reports seem to credit Sixpence None The Richer with the song (in actual fact they butchered it), rather than elusive La's mainman Lee Mavers. It seems an investigation into the similarities is being carried out by some Eurovision suits, and Deivis is waiting to find out if he's been kicked out of the competition or not.

All of which is loads more entertaining than getting Andrew Lloyd Webber involved (as we have here in the UK) has been. Have a listen to 'Lietuva' for yourself. I quite like it actually. It's even got a key change before the end. Didn't think of that, did ya Mavers?"

By Matt Wilkinson Posted on 28/01/09 at 03:32:10 pm @ NME.com

BONUS:Three different versions of The La's 'There She Goes' as produced by
Steve Lillywhite, Mike Hedges & John Leckie.

The Situationist International - On the passage of a few people through a rather brief moment in time

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

WARNING: CONTAINS CLAPTRAP FROM MALCOLM MCLAREN.

The Bureau of Public Secrets

Several documents on Guy Debord's films have recently been added at the Bureau of Public Secrets website:
Technical Notes on Debord's First Three Films
http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord.films/technotes.htm
Letter about Debord's Film "On the Passage of a Few Persons..."
http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord.films/passage-letter.htm
Original Announcement of Debord's Film "The Society of the Spectacle"
http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord.films/spectacle-announcement.htm
The Use of Stolen Films
http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord.films/stolen-films.htm
The Themes of Debord's Film "In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni"
http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord.films/ingirum-themes.htm
Instructions to the "In girum" Sound Engineer
http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord.films/ingirum-soundtrack.htm
Debord Chronology
http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord.films/chronology.htm
Debord Filmography
http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord.films/filmography.htm
Texts Relating to Debord's Films
http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord.films/bibliography.htm

* * *
See also Guy Debord's "COMPLETE CINEMATIC WORKS", translated and edited by Ken Knabb and published by AK Press, which includes the scripts to all six of Debord's films plus 62 illustrations and extensive annotations
http://www.bopsecrets.org/cat.htm
For online excerpts from the filmscripts, along with the latest information on the films themselves, see
http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord.films/index.htm
Knabb's translation of Debord's "The Society of the Spectacle" is online at http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord/index.htm
The Situationist International Anthology is online at
http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/index.htm

Thanx to Ken Knabb for all the links.

Too True

(Photo by TimN)

5 Most Obnoxious Front Men of All Time are...
1 Chris Bailey
2 Chris Bailey
3 Chris Bailey
4 Kate Cerebrano (sic) from I'm Talking ( but she's a religious nutter and can't help it)
5 Courtney Love ( but Kurt had just died)
Great gig though..god bless Ed Kuepper
Big Ern xxx
Melbourne Australia

A comment left at 'That Striped Sunlight Sound' here.

Throbbing Gristle - Discipline

Throbbing Gristle to play Coachella!!!

TG: Cosey, Chris, Sleazy & Gen.

Demonoid down again

Full story here.
UPDATE: BACK AGAIN.

John Coltrane - My Favourite Things (Live Germany 1961)

Debord Game Guy

Guy Debord 1951

You can read about Guy Debord and his 'Game of War' board game here.

'The Society of The Spectacle' here.

Thrillbillies indeed - a vertical backflip on a Big Wheel plastic toy trike!!!

Via 'Boingboing'

New album from Pete Doherty 'Grace/Wasteland' due on March 24

Full details and 'Last of the English Roses' mp3 available at 'Micropsia' here.
You can also download his diaries here and don't forget his sage advice here.

Grace/Wasteland
Set for release March 2009
1. Arcadie
2. Last of the English Roses
3. 1939 Returning
4. A Little Death Around the Eyes
5. Salome
6. Through the Looking Glass
7. Sweet By and By
8. Palace of Bone
9. Sheepskin Tearaway
10. Broken Love Song
11. New Love Grows on Trees
12. Lady, Don’t Fall Backwards
(13. B-Side I Am The Rain)

UPDATE: Three tracks from the album are available to download from 'Our Iron Lung' blog here.

Piece

(Photo of Piece by Dennis Brown - November 2007)

The post the other day of the complete recordings of Turkey Bones & The Wild Dogs was inspired by recently meeting a bloke who it turned out was from Perth in Scotland.
When I was told this I casually mentioned that the only people I knew from that part of the world were the members of Turkey Bones (Scotty-vocals, Arab-bass, Herman-drums and Piece- guitar).
Dennis then mentioned that the last time he had been back home he had run into Piece at a Rezillos gig and you can see the resulting photo above.
I was trying to think when I first met Piece and it must have been 1977 or 78. From memory I seem to recall that he was a gas fitter and the house that I was living in at the time needed some work done.
At the time I was living right beside Alexandra Palace in North London and was hanging with a bunch of crazy guys who were mostly from Scotland and Liverpool who were all living in Muswell Hill.
I remember that Piece was sharing a house with Nik (from Alien Sex Fiend) and Razzle who would go on to drum with Hanoi Rocks before being killed when he was in a car that was being driven by Motley Crue's singer Vince Neill crashed.

TBC

Epic driving fail

John Martyn & Danny Thompson - Couldn't Love You More (OGWT 1977)

John Martyn - I'd Rather Be The Devil (OGWT 1973)

John Martyn & Danny Thompson - Big Muff

John Martyn - Small Hours (Live 1978)

John Martyn - Bless The Weather (Live 1978)

John Martyn - 1948 - 2009 R.I.P.

John Martyn passed away yesterday apparently from pneumonia.
Story from the 'BBC' here.
More John Martyn here and here and this will give you one of his best songs.

".....was just in the kitchen at lunchtime eating a sandwich with ben, when the news came on radio 4 that john martyn had died today....now this couldn't truly be said to be "shocking" news, in the true sense of the word, but still, what a sad day....i remember the first night i met ben, over in the student union building, and we had a few drinks in the bar and then went back to his student bedroom....and of course the first thing i did was to rifle through his record collection, and discovered that we had precisely TWO records in common (vic godard, and the durutti column)....at which point he pulled out an album i had never even heard OF, let alone heard, and it was john martyn's solid air.....ben had only arrived in hull earlier that afternoon, same as me, but he'd already re-arranged his room to suit his preferences....the desk, that item you might imagine being central to a student's bedroom, if not very existence, he had stashed away safely out of sight on top of the wardrobe, and in its place now stood an old, battered trunk with a record deck on top, and to either side a huge pair of speakers, the like of which i hadn't seen before....on went solid air, and it filled the room, and that was that.....the first record we listened to together, cheers to you john martyn, bless you and the weather....xx"

(Tracey Thorn)

Turkey Bones & The Wild Dogs

"GOLDFISH/ZOOLOGY"
1983 Anagram Records
ana 10

"PURPLE NOISE SANDWICH"
RAYMOND/AIRCRAFT CARRIER/HELICOPTER MAN
1984 McKechnie Gramophone Records
MAC 1/12

"NO WAY BEFORE THE WEEKEND"
FEEL THE PURPLE HILLS/PLANE CRASH/SNAKE/CHEROKEE NATION/SHAKE/MOTORBIKE
1985 ace records
Ned 13

Bart Simpson a scientologist?

Story from 'The Huffingfton Post' here.

44 degrees yesterday 44 today 43 tomorrow - too hot!!!

UPDATE: Was just walking home with son # 2 and we came across a bat that was on its back in the middle of the road. A stick was got and it was put in a quiet place after it was given a bit of a cooling down with water.
My Bindi Irwin moment (apologies Bella!)

Lykke Li - I'm Good, I'm Gone

Joe Henry - God Only Knows (Live Paradiso Amsterdam 12/02/08)