Tuesday, 9 October 2012
The late George Melly on Mick Jagger's wrinkles
(Thanx CSM!)
Monday, 8 October 2012
Underground: The Julian Assange Story (Channel 10 Australia 7/10/12)
In 1989, known as ‘Mendax’, Assange and two friends formed a group called the ‘International Subversives’. Using early home computers and defining themselves as ‘white hat hackers’ - those who look but don’t steal – they broke into some of the world’s most powerful and secretive organisations. They were young, brilliant, and in the eyes of the US Government, a major threat to national security. At the urging of the FBI, the Australian Federal Police set up a special taskforce to catch them. But at a time when most Australian police had never seen a computer, let alone used one, they had to figure out just where to begin. Police ingenuity and old-fashioned detective work are pitted against nimble, highly skilled young men in this new crime frontier. What follows, is a tense and gripping game of cat and mouse through the electronic underground of Melbourne. CAST Christine Assange: Rachel Griffiths / Detective Ken Roberts: Anthony LaPaglia / Julian Assange: Alex Williams / Electra: Laura Wheelwright / Prime Suspect: Callan McAuliffe / Trax: Jordan Raskopoulos /Jonah: Benedict Samuel
Watch HERE
Suelette Dreyfus - Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier (PDF)
Info
Steve Kilbey: 'close to the ledger - mammon mia here we go again…'
and people keep telling me that i dont understand it
usually i find the people telling me that are the people who are withholding my dough
i have the bizness acumen of a wet sponge
i admit it
but lemme toss around a few ideas here
first of all
the music biz is one of the only if not the only bizzes in the world
where the guys at the very centre of it are the guys making the least
most nights at a gig
you can be sure everyone there is earning more than the players
i aint talking about pink floyd or brooce springsteen either
im talking about the other 98 per cent (incl myself)
the first bit o money i ever made was in 1980 when i signed a fifty/fifty publishing deal
for 500 bucks
the company i signed with are still hanging on to me
but in 2015 i will be able to slip out
after 35 years of them dipping into me
all because of that one stupid day in 1980 when i needed the 500 bucks
izzat fair?
eventually a manager got it changed to a 75 25 deal
ie i get 75 cents of each dollar i make n they get 25
wow thats a lotta money they collected for me over the years
and they did alright from their measly advance so long ago
at the same-ish time the church signed a deal
and we were off making albums that never recouped their cost
ie the album cost say 150 grand to make plus a few 100 grand vids
so you can never sell enough to get any money
thats been pretty standard for almost all albums
i have had 4 or 5 record companies go bust and take all my/our royalties with em too
including carrere in england
stunn in NZ
thirsty ear in america (boy i’d like to catch up with that c**t in a dark alley)
and another mob who bought 20 thousand MATS from me n marty
then distributed em n got the dough n then went bust!
in 1984 i signed a pub deal with my then manager
when we quit with him
he sold the catalog on
and i was acquired and disposed of a few times
in the middle of the nineties a big pub firm did this to me
they sent my money round n round the world
each branch in each country would apply a handling fee
until they whittled a cheque that had been about 10 grand a six month period
down to $250 a six month period
this was perfectly legal
in fact it was a STANDARD PRACTICE until a few years back….
the said manager commissioned us at 20 per cent of the gross
which meant that in 1988 when we were earning around 100, 000 gross a week
he was getting 20, 000 grand a week while the band was on 800 bucks a week
which is still what the church pays itself
800 bucks a week (when we are on the road)
off the road=nothing
(in fairness we do occasionally divvy up small mounts if a tour does well)
so theres some real non -indexation of wages for ya
1988 800 bucks a week, 2012 800 bucks a week
when we left the guy in 1990
he jumped up n down and got even more money out of us
he claimed were unpaid commissions
but he never ever presided over a tour that made money
they all lost money a small fortune (he made while we lost!)
but arista records picked up the loss
and tacked it onto a minus position we could never escape from
i remember ringing up the slimy philistine hopeless manager and saying
“how come you get 20 grand a week n i get 800?’
he said
YOU DONT UNDERSTAND SHOWBIZNESS!
ha ha ha
so i still aint never been paid for any of those albums…only my songwriting royalties
(and then only if i was lucky!)
yeah guys
all those records you bought
very little if any at all came down the line to me
it still isnt
if this happened in any other business there would be an outcry
but we musicians are not very good at anything other than music
now
imagine this scenario if you will
(this is all imaginary from here on in)
some old veteran band eventually bumps into a very generous patron
now the patron doesnt wanna just hand out money to the band
that would be hopeless
but what he wants is for them to finally get some financial relief
some of the members were living below the official poverty line at the time
ie 35,000 grand a year in aust
so a couple of members of imaginary band go looking for a way to do it
they find some much younger guy who is a fan of this imaginary band
hes got a little label going and theyre impressed he aint some evil suit like in the old days
the kind and generous sponsor dips his hand in pocket a provides a “shitload” of money
for younger guy with his little penis..er sorry..i mean label to buy back said imaginary bands catalog
and put it on his honest john label called mom n pop records
wow at last n finally our heroes will get some $!! YAY!!
but guess what?
oh damn i bet you guessed
mr mom n pop still aint paying the old boys
hes a fan yep
he dont wear a suit, nope
but the boys still aint getting nothing
even tho quite a bit is coming in
i bet in this imaginary world and imaginary band too
that you would not expect mr younger mom n pop guy would also take 50 per cent
whoah! no way…i mean that would mean hes earning 3 times more dough
than stevie mainman who is the geeza WHO DREAMED THIS WHOLE FUCKIN TRIP UP!
(in this imaginary example natch)
hes pocketing dough from records
hes pocketing dough from kind imaginary patron
but he aint paying the guys properly (read ;AT ALL!)for records they made 25 years ago
when he was just a little snotty nose kid
jesus…the irony!
stevie mainman does a quick knee jerk calculation n figgers out
AT THIS RATE HE WONT SEE ANY DOUGH UNTIL HES IN HIS EIGHTIES!!!!
boy no wonder the imaginary anger
so he decides to take the law into his own hands
he decides fuck copyright fuck libel and fuck everybody else
its time he finally made some frickin money outta his own music himself
(luckily he had taught himself to sculpt in the meantime or he woulda been broke!!)
this mainman guy realises he has some powerful allies
allies that grew up listening to his sweet music and are not impressed
and allies that maybe are anxious to see things put right at all costs
well mainman got nothing to lose (literally by now)
also hes released a few solo records and sold a few hundred copies
and hes AMAZED to see how much money a few records can make!
and when he thinks of mr mom n pop he gets real real angry n bitter
and confused
he blurts out this
he blurts out that
he leaves his band who are wonderful musicians n friends
but who seem to labouring under some delusion that they know what they are doing
after all
in our imaginary world they got mainmans band hitched to mr mom n pop
who now
as per usual
aint giving our tired old veterans their just desserts after all this time
mr mom n pop seems to be taking from both sides
(or thats how it seems to our hotheaded imaj. hero)
anyway
i hope you enjoyed my theoretical example of how your whole lifes work can go wrong
besides do musicians even need to be paid when they obviously are having such a good time anyway?
who cares if agents, managers, publishers and record company guys are getting all the cream?
(despite the fact they cant sing, write or play a note!!)
alright
well there you go
judge for yerselves!
ps
and watch this
the turtles (who sang on most of marc bolans hits explain the biz….)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NdBGV86Vz6E
Via
'no i do not recant'
Bonus:
Covered In Folk: Radiohead (50 covers to celebrate Thom Yorke’s 44th birthday!)
As you listen, note the way earlier covers (and cover artists) trend towards the more melodic, with both coverage and traditional poprock song structure growing less common as the catalog turns towards Radiohead’s later, more challenging works. (Indeed, even a year and a half after the release of their most recent work, 2011′s The King Of Limbs, I have yet to find any favorite covers from that album’s short and often psychedelic songbook, though the avid fan is welcome to head over to YouTube for numerous covers of lead single Lotus Flower.)
But listen, too, as the carefully winnowed set we have selected for our journey yaws wide through the voices and hands of the diversity that is folk, with paired and triplicate covers a study in contrast wherever possible. And remember that even here, our 50 delights are but the tip of an iceberg, with glacial runoffs that range from fast to slow, and thin to deep: from intimate, melodic Americana and coffeehouse folk to neo-traditional and experimental newgrass, hard-edged folk rock, soaring and often challenging indiefolk, and more.
HERE
(For HelenXXX)
William S. Burroughs - Politically Incorrect Advice to the Young
Well… here are a few simple admonitions for young and old:
Never interfere in a boy-and-girl fight.
Beware of whores who say they don’t want money. The hell they don’t. What they mean is they want MORE MONEY, much more.
If you’re doing business with a religious son of a bitch, get it in writing. His word isn’t worth shit, not with the good Lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal.
Avoid fuck-ups. You all know the type. Anything they have anything to do with, no matter how good it sounds, turns into a disaster.
Do not offer sympathy to the mentally ill. Tell them firmly, ‘I am not paid to listen to this drivel. You are a terminal fool.’
Now some of you may encounter the devil’s bargain if you get that far. Any old soul is worth saving at least to a priest, but not every soul is worth buying. So you can take the offer as a compliment. They charge the easy ones first, you know, like money, all the money there is. But who wants to be the richest guy in some cemetery? Not much to spend it on, eh, Gramps? Getting too old to cut the mustard. Have you forgotten something, Gramps? In order to feel something, you have to be there. You have to be 18. You’re not 18, you are 78. Old fool sold his soul for a strap-on.
How about an honorable bargain? ‘You always wanted to become a doctor. Now’s your chance. Why, you could have become a great healer and benefit humanity. What’s wrong with that?’ Just about everything. There are no honorable bargains involving exchange of qualitative merchandise like souls. Just quantitative merchandise like time and money. So piss off, Satan, and don’t take me for dumber than I look. As an old junk pusher told me, ‘Watch whose money you pick up.’
Via
Sunday, 7 October 2012
Photek - Essential Mix (BBC Radio1 6/10/12)
After the release of his album ‘Solaris’ for Virgin records, he relocated to Los Angeles, where he scored music for film and television, including the Italian Job remake and Pirates Of The Carribbean. He was nominated for a Grammy award for his remix of Daft Punk’s ‘End Of Line’ from the Tron Legacy soundtrack.
This is his first Essential Mix since 1997 and it features new material from his forthcoming album Ku:Palm, as well as new music from Grenier, Calibre and Sasha.
Apparat & Raz Ohara – Holdon (Modeselektor Remix) [SHITKATAPULT]
Photek – Quadrant [Photek Productions]
Apparat – Arcadia (Telefon Tel Aviv Remix) [SHITKATAPULT]
GRENIER – Bury The Blade [Unknown]
Cowboy Rythmbox – Shake [Comeme]
Truncate – Transients [Truncate]
Jan Driver – Gain Reaction [Boysnoize]
MJ Cole – TGV [Prolific Recordings]
Blackbird Blackbird – It’s A War [LAVISH HABITS]
Maxxi Soundsystem – Regrets We Have No Use For (feat. Name One) [Hypercolour]
Alan Fitzpatrick – Always Something For Nothing [Drumcode]
Parallel Dance Ensemble – Shopping Cart (Maxxi Soundsystem Remix) [Permanent Vacation]
Kobana & Yane3 – BN2 1TW (Original Mix) [Particles]
Ellen Allien & Apparat – Jet (Ben Klock Remix) [BPitch Control]
Appleblim & Ramadanman – Void 23 (Carl Craig Re-Edit) [aus music/FutureAudio]
Hot Chip – Flutes (Sasha Remix) [Last Night on Earth]
Apparat – Berlin [Shitkatapult]
Mao – Harvest [Southern Fried]
Delano Smith – Wires [Sushitech]
Maetrik – Revenge of Jack [True Soul]
GRENIER – Frenemies [Photek Productions]
The Mole – Stupid Famous [Maybe Tomorrow]
Photek – Quevedo [Photek Productions]
Calibre – Temple Step [Signature]
Photek – Pyramid [Photek Productions]
Dub Phizix – Handmade [Critical Music]
Photek – Shape Charge [Photek Productions]
Mala – The Tunnel [Brownswood Recordings]
Die & Break – Tear Down [Digital Sound Boy]
Enei & Kasra – So Real [Critical Music]
Light Year – Moderation [Bang Gang]
L-Vis 1990 – Feel The Void (Paul Woolford’s After Hours Mix) [PMR Records]
Cannible – Primitive [Monique Musique]
Oliver & Destructo – La Funky [BNR Trax]
Photek – Mine To Give (Satoshie Tomiie Remix) [Science/Virgin]
Download
Bonus:
Essential Mix: December 1997
Download
Tracklist
Misophonia: the hatred of sound
Misophonia – literally the hatred of sound – can be defined as a hypersensitivity to background sounds or visual stimuli that are generally ignored by other people. More importantly than the individuals inability to block out the offending stimuli or “trigger” is the acute negative emotional response experienced as a direct result of being in contact with a trigger.
The response has been described as a reflexive emotional flood of rage and panic with a storm of fight-or-flight reactions becoming paramount. Adrenaline flooding, face flushing, heart-pounding and/or shaking and the need to physically flee or attack are often experienced.
Via
Saturday, 6 October 2012
The Century Of The Self (2002)
Info
Julian Assange: No longer true, just red, white and blue
President Obama has been waging a war on whistleblowers from the Oval Office, the most obvious example being the mistreatment of Bradley Manning. The Obama-Biden campaign brags about prosecuting twice as many "national security" disclosures as all previous administrations combined. There have also been sustained attacks on my organisation, WikiLeaks, via a financial blockade of donations enforced with the support of the US government.
Most disturbingly, WikiLeaks has been warned by the Pentagon not to solicit service members to leak classified information. Military personnel who make contact with WikiLeaks or our supporters could be charged with "communicating with the enemy," a crime that carries a possible death sentence. The Pentagon has also stated this month that it considers the continued publication by WikiLeaks of classified information belonging to the US government to be an ongoing violation of the law.
This sets a precedent: contact by military whistleblowers to any media organization may soon be treated with similar hostility.
But these attacks are not just directed at whistleblowers and those that publish their information for the public to see. Governments in the UK, the US and Australia are seeking to extend already extreme powers of surveillance so they can gather intelligence on their citizens.
Under proposed changes to national security laws, the Australian government will force Internet service providers to retain the internet and phone records of all Australians for two years. Some agencies are demanding even more extreme powers to keep a full record of citizens activities indefinitely. Such extremism will in effect be the reality: the proposed laws require the creation of a nation-wide infrastructure that is capable of intercepting all communications.
Every email, every Facebook post, every tweet, every google search will pass through this database and portions will be stored and could be used against you at some point down the track.
A nation wide mass interception infrastructure is a national security disaster waiting to happen. Of course, the changes to the law promised at the last election to protect whistleblowers have fallen off the legislative agenda.
These are significant expansions of government power without justification and without any checks and balances to ensure that the rights of everyday people are respected. There is no way of knowing how this or future governments will use such power. Australians deserve to know what is being done in their name.
Technology offers us incredible opportunities to share information, spread ideas and collaborate across geographical divides. It has the potential to shine a light on wrong-doing, correct injustice and empower those without a voice. The freedom to use such platforms must be safely defended, lest it become simply a place for the government to spy on its population.
The power given to governments to govern, after all, derives from the mandate given by the people. Technology should be about empowering citizens and giving expression to the inner core of our public and private political lives. This is a prospect that makes the powers that be very uncomfortable.
When an organisation like WikiLeaks shows the emperor with no clothes on, predictably every attempt is made to undermine us. The Prime Minister has never retracted the comment she made about WikiLeaks being based on an illegal act. By her own Governments admission, such an accusation is unsustainable. It is untrue and should be retracted.
The Australian Government has turned its back on one of its citizens, in order to avoid offending the US, and has repeatedly lied about its support for me. Ecuador, after careful and lengthy consideration of the evidence, concluded that I had a well-founded fear of persecution and that I could not rely on my own government to protect me.
It is bitterly disappointing that the country that I love has abandoned my organisation. WikiLeaks is an Australian organisation and an Australian success story and yet the Australian Government has done nothing to defend us. Quite the contrary. It has slandered us in public during a time when we face significant risks.
For me personally, it is difficult and in some cases impossible to see my family and friends. I have been unable to be with them in recent moments of family grief.
I want nothing more than to do my work in peace. I began my career as someone who understood the importance of exposing corruption and wrong doing. I am now a publisher who faces persecution for doing my job. It is the duty of publishers to fearlessly publish the truth and the duty of all good citizens to defend their right to do so.
It is time for Australia to embrace a different path: to reject campaigns of harassment and intimidation against publishers, journalists and whistleblowers. We must demand that our government abandon efforts to impose a surveillance state on its citizens. We deserve a government that protects its citizens no matter whom they have offended or embarrassed. We have the opportunity to build a democracy that welcomes transparency and the more just, humane and responsive government that it brings.
Via
Sunflower
Tomato
Garlic
♪♫ Television - Foxhole (OGWT 1978)
For those interested in old/rare Television/Tom V. articles, Youtoober Bobjb999 has created a link to a file of scans of approx. 60 articles/interviews (most contain interview content):
http://www.4shared.com/zip/p6aGwLm6/Tom_Verlaine_Television_etc_Ar.html
Collected between 1978 & 1990, & the articles date from '74 to '90. The Wonder fan site has an excellent articles collection (mostly text files), but many of these articles aren't yet available there. Also, here's a link to a file of scans of 'The Night', a poetry book(let) by Tom Verlaine & Patti Smith, published 1976. The book was called The Night reportedly at least partly 'cause Tom & Patti wrote all the poems in one night. Even numbered poems are by Tom, odd numbered by Patti. Patti consciously relates the book to French poet Arthur Rimbaud and from memory the font used was the same as an early Rimbaud book. My thanx to friend of Exile Kaggsy who scanned her copy for me a while ago as I had long lost mine.
http://www.4shared.com/zip/eM4vfO6L/The_Night_Tom_Verlaine__Patti_.html
Now if anyone can hook me up with a complete copy of this tape or Richard Hell's article about David Johansen from Hit Parader from about 1975 which from memory was nothing less than Hell's rock'n'roll manifesto.
http://www.4shared.com/zip/p6aGwLm6/Tom_Verlaine_Television_etc_Ar.html
Collected between 1978 & 1990, & the articles date from '74 to '90. The Wonder fan site has an excellent articles collection (mostly text files), but many of these articles aren't yet available there. Also, here's a link to a file of scans of 'The Night', a poetry book(let) by Tom Verlaine & Patti Smith, published 1976. The book was called The Night reportedly at least partly 'cause Tom & Patti wrote all the poems in one night. Even numbered poems are by Tom, odd numbered by Patti. Patti consciously relates the book to French poet Arthur Rimbaud and from memory the font used was the same as an early Rimbaud book. My thanx to friend of Exile Kaggsy who scanned her copy for me a while ago as I had long lost mine.
http://www.4shared.com/zip/eM4vfO6L/The_Night_Tom_Verlaine__Patti_.html
Now if anyone can hook me up with a complete copy of this tape or Richard Hell's article about David Johansen from Hit Parader from about 1975 which from memory was nothing less than Hell's rock'n'roll manifesto.
Richard Hell & Patty Oldenberg (c.1970)
Patty met Richard and “Tommy Miller,” the future Tom Verlaine at the artist’s bar, St. Adrian’s at the Broadway Central Hotel in early 1969. Richard was 19, Patty was about to turn 35, and they were soon living together. It was an important time and an important relationship for both. Richard has written: “The two and a half years from early 1969 through summer/fall 1971 that began when I met Patty and ended with the composition of Wanna Go Out? (a set of collaborative poems written by Tom [Verlaine] and me in the persona of a despairing, faux-vicious hooker named Theresa Stern) were probably my most formative.” Patty and Richard continue to be friends in regular contact with one another.
Via
Richard Hell, Genesis: Grasp, and the Blank Generation: From Poetry to Punk in New York’s Lower East Side
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
