"ALLAH TREASURES HIS GAY AND TRANSGENDERED CHILDREN, HIS PRECIOUS HOMOSEXUAL CHILDREN. JESUS ADORES HIS GAY CHILDREN AND RESERVES A SACRED PLACE FOR THEM IN THE FOLDS OF HIS CLOTHES. IT IS A SIN TO HURT A GAY OR TRANSGENDERED PERSON. YOU HURT ALLAH WHEN YOU HURT ONE OF THESE MEN OR WOMEN, BOYS OR GIRLS. "

Sunset Rubdown - Black Swan

"ALLAH TREASURES HIS GAY AND TRANSGENDERED CHILDREN, HIS PRECIOUS HOMOSEXUAL CHILDREN. JESUS ADORES HIS GAY CHILDREN AND RESERVES A SACRED PLACE FOR THEM IN THE FOLDS OF HIS CLOTHES. IT IS A SIN TO HURT A GAY OR TRANSGENDERED PERSON. YOU HURT ALLAH WHEN YOU HURT ONE OF THESE MEN OR WOMEN, BOYS OR GIRLS. "

A brief, noisy moment that still reverberates

Richard Hell & James Chance (Photo: Julia Gorton)
Review of 'No Wave' byThurston Moore & Byron Coley
By BEN SISARIO
Published: June 12, 2008
@ 'NY Times'

Of all the strange and short-lived periods in the history of experimental music in New York, no wave is perhaps the strangest and shortest-lived.

Centered on a handful of late-1970s downtown groups like Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, DNA and James Chance’s Contortions, it was a cacophonous, confrontational subgenre of punk rock, Dadaist in style and nihilistic in attitude. It began around 1976, and within four years most of the original bands had broken up.

But every weird rock scene — and every era of New York bohemia — eventually gets its coffee-table book moment. This month Abrams Image is publishing “No Wave: Post-Punk. Underground. New York. 1976-1980,” a visual history by Thurston Moore and Byron Coley.

On Friday the book will be celebrated with an exhibition opening at KS Art, at 73 Leonard Street in TriBeCa, and, across the street at the Knitting Factory, the reunion of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, whose blunt, aggressive songs had instrumentation so minimal that on its records the percussionist was sometimes credited as playing simply “drum.” Lydia Lunch, the former lead singer, is flying from Barcelona to play the show.

In the last year two other books have been published on no wave and overlapping periods of downtowniana: Marc Masters’s “No Wave” (Black Dog) and “New York Noise” (Soul Jazz), a collection of photographs by Paula Court.

“It was a little, blippy scene,” said Mr. Moore, the Sonic Youth guitarist and historian of underground rock. “It came out of the gate finished.”

With crisp black-and-white photographs and interviews with musicians and visual artists, the book is a loving reminiscence of a largely unheard period, as well as a look at a seedy, pre-gentrified Lower East Side. Most groups in the no wave scene — which also included Mars, the Theoretical Girls and the Gynecologists — left behind few recordings, and the compilation album that defined the genre, “No New York,” produced by Brian Eno in 1978, has never been legitimately issued on CD in the United States.

Despite its brief, blippy existence, no wave has had a broad and continued influence on noisy New York bands, from Sonic Youth and Pussy Galore in the 1980s to current groups like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the Liars. But the original no wavers saw themselves not as part of any rock continuum but a deliberate reaction against such an idea.

“A guitar player like Lydia Lunch was somebody who clearly was not coming out of any kind of tradition,” said Mr. Coley, a veteran rock critic. “She didn’t have a Chuck Berry riff in her.”

The rebelliousness came out in many ways, from song composition — nasty, brutish and short — to the movement’s name, a cynical retort to “new wave,” then emerging as a more palatable variation on punk. The looks were nerdy and androgynous (or, in Ms. Lunch’s case, menacingly oversexed).

The sound reflected the squalor and decay of downtown New York in the late ’70s.

“New York at that moment was bankrupt, poor, dirty, violent, drug-infested, sex-obsessed — delightful,” Ms. Lunch said by phone. “In spite of that we were all laughing, because you laugh or you die. I’ve always been funny. My dark comedy just happens to scare most people.”

Mr. Moore and Mr. Coley’s book emphasizes the major role that women had in the scene. Besides Ms. Lunch, they included Pat Place of the Contortions, Ikue Mori of DNA and Nancy Arlen of Mars, as well as impresario-scenesters like Anya Phillips. Many photographs were taken by women, among them Julia Gorton and Stephanie Chernikowski.

Ms. Gorton, who was a student at the Parsons School of Design in the late ’70s and now teaches there, said that everyone in the no wave circle knew one another. “There were a lot of late nights, a lot of pitchers, a lot of Polaroids,” she said.

The book’s genesis was two years ago when Mr. Moore heard that Abrams, which published “CBGB & OMFUG: Thirty Years From the Home of Underground Rock” in 2005, was considering a book on no wave, with a broad and multidisciplinary approach.

Mr. Moore and Mr. Coley, who said they had been considering a no wave book for years, rushed to the Abrams office to pitch their idea, which would instead have a narrow focus, excluding everything that did not meet their strict definition of no wave.

A restrictive approach to one of the most obscure periods of rock music would seem to limit a book’s audience. But Tamar Brazis, who edited both books, said there was enough interest in the period to justify the “No Wave” book, and that the depth of Mr. Moore and Mr. Coley’s knowledge bowled her over. The CBGB book, she said, has sold nearly 40,000 copies, an impressive figure for an art book, and she added that Abrams has similar expectations for “No Wave.”

Mr. Moore said that only a narrow definition would fit the genre, which was so contrary in its sound and attitude that too much outside context would dilute its impact.

“We liked the absurdity of how small it was,” he said. “We kept our parameters really tight. We needed a cut-off point, and we cut it off as soon as anybody played any semblance of rock ’n’ roll. Any kind of traditional aspect of rock, it’s over.”


Foreword by Lydia Lunch & excerpt
HERE

PHOTOGRAPHS

Icons

Photo by Roberta Bayley
Dee Dee Ramone & Richard Hell

Lil' Bow Wow

Parents, STOP THIS! Stop this now! Your kid is not a dog, get him off the leash. I don’t want to hear that you are too busy to watch your child in public. Your priorities are kid first, remembering milk second. Most of the time it’s the kids on leashes that are ignored by their parents the most. But I guess its okay that little Timmy is throwing Oreos at an employee as long as he is doing it while tied to his monkey backpack leash. JUST STOP IT.
@ 'People of Walmart'
Too true!!!

For Fox Sake Amerikkka!

David Hockney: iPriest of Art (Evening Standard 30th April 2009)

Mixed media: David Hockney in his London studio with his iPhone,
which has its own mini easel

By Geordie Greig

"Who would ever have thought that the telephone would bring back drawing," says David Hockney, who has been using an iPhone to make some of his new pictures. He has swapped paint for pixels to extend the scope of his ever-changing art.
He has only had an iPhone for four months but is an evangelical convert. Already he has painted flowers, drawn landscapes, played the keyboards on a virtual piano and, of course, spoken incessantly on the phone. His has a screechingly loud police-siren ringtone to compensate for his deafness.
Hockney also loves to use his phone to send by email his latest theories on the history of drawing, using images of Picasso to Rembrandt. "Sometimes I lie in bed and send illustrated art lectures to friends and also my own iPhone paintings. No camera is involved. I like to draw flowers by hand on the iPhone and send them out to friends so they get fresh flowers. And my flowers last! They never die!" His tip on phone-art: "You must stroke the screen very softly," he confides.
His love affair with the iPhone is single-minded. "BlackBerries are for secretaries and clerical workers while the iPhone is used by artistic people," he declares as he touches the tiny screen to show a new picture of irises, made, he declares triumphantly, without using paint, film, ink or pencil. "This is all new territory for art," he says, as he rests his iPhone on its own wooden mini easel on a table in his London studio.
Aged 71, Hockney is momentarily tongued-tied when it comes to describing his new work. "It's absurd to call it digital art. That is like calling a traditional drawing pencil art. What I can tell you is that when I am drawing on a phone or computer, I just know I am making 'drawings in a printing machine.'"
That is the title of an exhibition of his new work which opens today at the Annely Juda gallery in Mayfair. It is of pictures mostly made using a computer, camera and also painting on printouts from them. The show includes landscapes of Yorkshire and portraits of his family and friends. The pictures - a hybrid of old-fashioned draughtsmanship and hi-tech wizardry - are all for sale in limited editions of up to 30 copies.
"I used to think a computer was too slow for a draughtsman. You finished a line and the computer reacted 15 seconds later but things have changed and now you can draw very freely and fast with colour." But while Hockney loves his art wizardry he despairs at the political scene in Britain. "I am annoyed they want to interfere with my life. I am perfectly willing to pay the tax. I do mind them telling me I can't smoke. Parliament is the worst it has ever been. They debate nothing serious."
He tries to remain unfazed by what he sees as political and cultural vandalism. "It is appalling that they have spent 30 years discussing plans for education. Any party that has been discussing education for so long is bound to be swindling two generations."
He remains optimistic by making images of "things I consider beautiful. I like things that are pretty. I always have. It is good for your health. I happen to like the way that an iPhone has a sense of the absurd about it and is therefore close to life."

Rainy Night on Bridlington Promenade 2009

Autumn Leaves 2008

The View From Here (Excerpts), 2001 (Hazel Dooney/Girlz With Gunz # 81)

In 2001, when she was just 22, Hazel Dooney was invited to join nine, very well established, middle-aged Australian male artists including John Olsen, Tim Storrier, David Larwill and Robert Jacks on a privately funded artists expedition to central Australia. This unusual journey was the subject of an ABC documentary, The View From Here, excerpted here, directed by Liz Jones and produced by Jenny Day and Liz Jones, and a best-selling coffee table book, William Creek And Beyond. The resulting artworks toured museums and regional galleries all around Australia.
The resulting series of paintings, prints and photography can be viewed at Hazel Dooney's web site here.

Can anyone translate this for me?

Karroubi details new evidence of detainee abuse in Iran's prisons.
@ 'NY Times'

RIP Keith Floyd

Keith Floyd, a flamboyant chef who shared his passion for good food and fine wine with a generation of British television viewers, has died, his ghostwriter said Tuesday. He was 65. James Steen said Floyd died Monday of a heart attack in Bridport, southwest England. He had been suffering from bowel cancer. Born in 1943, Floyd developed an interest in cooking while serving in the British army, trying out his culinary creations in the officers' mess. He later worked in kitchens in Britain and France before opening his own restaurants in Bristol, southwest England, where he was discovered by a television producer. Starting in the 1980s, series like "Floyd on Fish" and "Floyd on France" made him a household name in Britain and were shown around the world. He became famous for his bow tie, ever-present glass of wine and unscripted banter with his cameraman that sometimes tipped over into bickering. Steen said one of Floyd's breakthroughs was to attract men to the world of cooking. "At that time it was thought that if you were a man you couldn't cook," Steen said. "But he said 'I'm a man, I love rugby, I love women, I can cook.'" Floyd paved the way for a generation of TV chefs that includes Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver. Oliver said Floyd had been "an inspiration to me and to so many others."

Bonus: Audio
The Stranglers - Peaches (1976 Demo)

Girlz With Gunz # 80

Via 'Mogadonia' with thanx!

Before & After

Portraits of boxers before and after a fight.
Here

Spank!!! # 11 (Special 'Down Under' version)

Meanwhile over at (Son of)

HERE

Make up yr fugn mind Amerikkka

You can't have it both ways you know.
Once more here are the definitions of 'Socialism' and 'Fascism'.
They are diametrically opposed to each other.
Take your time read s l o w l y, I know there are a lot of words that you will NOT understand...
but try and get your head around it.

Do these people actually know what they are talking about?

Interesting series of articles on how Mexico's new drug laws will impact on the US

@ 'NY Times'
Then read
If marijuana is legal will addiction rise.

Closing the book on the Bush legacy

Thursday's annual Census Bureau report on income, poverty and access to health care-the Bureau's principal report card on the well-being of average Americans-closes the books on the economic record of George W. Bush.

It's not a record many Republicans are likely to point to with pride.
On every major measurement, the Census Bureau report shows that the country lost ground during Bush's two terms. While Bush was in office, the median household income declined, poverty increased, childhood poverty increased even more, and the number of Americans without health insurance spiked. By contrast, the country's condition improved on each of those measures during Bill Clinton's two terms, often substantially...
@ 'The Atlantic'

HA!

The mighty Steve Bell

Click to enlarge.

Prince Jammy, Bunny Lee, Scientist - Jailhouse Rock

Darwin movie cannot find US distributor

Movieguide.org, an influential site which reviews films from a Christian perspective, described Darwin as the father of eugenics and denounced him as "a racist, a bigot and an 1800s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder". His "half-baked theory" directly influenced Adolf Hitler and led to "atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning and genetic engineering", the site stated.

The film has sparked fierce debate on US Christian websites, with a typical comment dismissing evolution as "a silly theory with a serious lack of evidence to support it despite over a century of trying".

@ 'Telegraph'

???

(Sorry words fail me yet again...)

Pipecock Jackson (AKA Pope Perry)

Photo © Morgan O’Donovan

Lee 'Scratch' Perry - Play On Mr Music

Abe said:

"Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."
- Abraham Lincoln - 18 Dec. 1840

Revealed: The ghost fleet of the recession

The biggest and most secretive gathering of ships in maritime history lies at anchor east of Singapore. Never before photographed, it is bigger than the U.S. and British navies combined but has no crew, no cargo and no destination - and is why your Christmas stocking may be on the light side this year.
@ 'Daily Mail'

The Antagonist Art Movement (For Dummies)

Birds On The Wires

"Reading a newspaper, I saw a picture of birds on the electric wires. I cut out the photo and decided to make a song, using the exact location of the birds as notes (no Photoshop edit). I knew it wasn't the most original idea in the universe. I was just curious to hear what melody the birds were creating."

Icons

William S. Burroughs & Jim Carroll

Jim Carroll Band - People Who Died

RIP Jim Carroll

Jim Carroll, the poet and punk rocker in the outlaw tradition of Rimbaud and Burroughs who chronicled his wild youth in “The Basketball Diaries,” died Friday at his home in Manhattan. He was 60.

The cause was a heart attack, said Rosemary Carroll, his former wife.

As a teenage basketball star in the 1960s at Trinity, an elite private school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Mr. Carroll led a chaotic life that combined sports, drugs and poetry. This highly unusual combination lent a lurid appeal to “The Basketball Diaries,” the journal he kept during high school and published in 1978, by which time his poetry had already won him a cult reputation as the new Bob Dylan.

Obituary @ 'NY Times'

PS: Head over to Willard's blog for a bit of a rarity.

Check it out...

(Son of) is back up and running...
and keeping in the mood of the posts here today!

Make It Right

Make It Right

I'm fitting out, I'm fitting in
And those diesel rigs ah they're ramblin' by
But I ain't blue now if I go lame
I just flag a ride
I'm lookin' out for a street corner girl
I'm lookin' out for a street corner girl
And she's gonna beat me whip me spank me
Ah make it right again,
Trying a little trick honey
Ah that you never used before
I wanna be your victim
your sweet little victim of love
Come on and beat me whip me spank me
Mama make it right again
Ah make it right
It's been wrong too long
oh, Johnny dreams
you and my white queen been rolling again
Well the talk around town is
She might be burned out
But I know by midnight
She gonna burn you down
Yeah, she gonna burn you down
I'm lookin' out For a street corner girl
And she's gonna beat me whip me spank me
And make it right again,
Trying a little trick honey
You never used before
I wanna be your victim
your sweet little victim of love
Come on and beat me spank me whip me
Mama make it right again...

"I gotta talkin' in tongues..."

Tim Buckley

U.S. to Expand Review of Detainees in Afghan Prison

The Obama administration soon plans to issue new guidelines aimed at giving the hundreds of prisoners at an American detention center in Afghanistan significantly more ability to challenge their custody, Pentagon officials and detainee advocates say.
The new Pentagon guidelines would assign a United States military official to each of the roughly 600 detainees at the American-run prison at the Bagram Air Base north of Kabul. These officials would not be lawyers but could for the first time gather witnesses and evidence, including classified material, on behalf of the detainees to challenge their detention in proceedings before a military-appointed review board.
@ 'NY Times'

Tim Buckley - I Woke Up & Interview (The Show 1970)

Tim Buckley - Dophins (OGWT May 1974)

Tim Buckley - Song To The Siren (Live on The Monkees TV Show)

Bonus: Audio
Tim Buckley - Live At The Starwood LA January 1975
(Buzzin' Fly - Nighthawkin' - Dolphins - Get On Top - Devil Eyes - Finale)
Tim Buckley: vocals, guitar/Joe Falsia: guitar/Buddy Helm: drums Jeff Eyrich: bass
& John Herren: keyboards

The Cat Piano (Narrated by Nick Cave)

Thanx Fifi!

Dear oh dear Amerikkka!

'McCarthyism'???
(Lawd help us.)

Normally I would put links to show the difference between 'communism' & 'fascism' but it is a waste of my mental energy...
...re: the pic of one of the dumbest kids in the US. They talk about Obama's 'indoktrinashun'!!!
Hey kid: it is 'fascist'! (just sayin')
The sign below really just sums it all up.

'Infromed' ?

WTF?

Bonus: Audio
Parliament - Chocolate City
P Funk from 1975
All you racist retards, the nightmare's come true for you eh?

Soundscapes

'Miami' Steve blasts Primal Scream

Grab it before it disappears...

Seriously!!!

?

Sounds like a great idea to me...
No...really! It does...

Get yr head into this...

Melbourne’s own Luke Brown (Leslie Salvador) and Thomas Henderson have come together for a new side project: Negativ Magick. The boys have handed us a mix which is absolute quality as always. Very dark, 80’s – early 90’s dark wave, industrial, goth and new beat. Its not your average mix, this is inky, deep and very mature. This one calls for a bit of audience participation too, we’re not going to post the tracks, just the labels so you can do a bit of digging and discover some new shit for yourselves.

Labels (In order):

Ink Records
Subway
Paragoric
Merciful Release
Epitaph Records
VVM
Kaos Dance
Wax Trax
No Label
Finiflex
Wax Trax
Dean Records
Virgin
New Zone
Concrete Productions

Perfect for a dark sweaty warehouse party.

MP3: Negativ Magick Mix

Download'n'enjoy!
Look I survived. So will you.

Richard Hell reads in Tompkins Square Park, NY

HA! BBC newsreader needs a comma!

Gordon Brown apologises after Turing petition

Gordon Brown has said he was sorry for the "appalling" way World War II code breaker Alan Turing was treated for being gay.

A petition on the No 10 website had called for a posthumous government apology to the computer pioneer. In 1952 Turing was prosecuted for gross indecency after admitting a sexual relationship with a man. Two years later he killed himself.

The campaign was the idea of computer scientist John Graham-Cumming. He was seeking an apology for the way the mathematician was treated after his conviction. He also wrote to the Queen to ask for Turing to be awarded a posthumous knighthood. The campaign was backed by Ian McEwan, scientist Richard Dawkins and gay-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell. The petition posted on the Downing Street website attracted thousands of signatures. Mr Brown said: "While Mr Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can't put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him."

National legacy

He said Mr Turing deserved recognition for his contribution to humankind. In the statement he said: "So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work I am very proud to say: we're sorry, you deserved so much better."

Organisers of the petition welcomed the move and Mr Turing's three nieces said they were "delighted" and "very glad" to see the injustice recognised. Alan Turing was given experimental chemical castration as a "treatment" and his security privileges were removed, meaning he could not continue work for the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ). Alan Turing is most famous for his code-breaking work at Bletchley Park during WWII, helping to create the Bombe that cracked messages enciphered with the German Enigma machines.

However, he also made significant contributions to the emerging fields of artificial intelligence and computing. In 1936 he established the conceptual and philosophical basis for the rise of computers in a seminal paper called On Computable Numbers, while in 1950 he devised a test to measure the intelligence of a machine. Today it is known as the Turing Test. After the war he worked at many institutions including the University of Manchester, where he worked on the Manchester Mark 1, one of the first recognisable modern computers. There is a memorial statue of him in Manchester's Sackville Gardens which was unveiled in 2001.

@ 'BBC'

David Lynch installation at Galeries Lafayette du Boulevard Haussmann in France

HERE

Massive Attack on the new album

Sitting at the control desk of Massive Attack's studio, which lurks on an unprepossessing Bristol industrial estate, Robert "3D" del Naja lets out a sigh. No, he says, the album isn't exactly finished yet. Actually, he can't exactly say how finished it is. Six years after Massive Attack last released an album, its followup is "in a kind of state of flux". It's nearly done. They've had a lot of collaborators in. There was Guy Garvey from Elbow, Damon Albarn, Tunde Adebimpe from TV On the Radio and the California singer Hope Sandoval, the last of whom seems to have left what you might most politely describe as a lasting impression. "You ever seen 'Ope Sandoval?" asks the other half of Massive Attack, Grant Marshall, in his soft West Country burr, before exhaling heavily. "Fuckin' 'ell, mate."
@ 'The Guardian'