When bikes and dogs collide...

...for cyclist Mona...

Vodafone brings solar power mobile phone to India

Dubblestandart meets David Lynch & Lee Scratch Perry - “Chrome Optimism” 12″ vinyl (plus 1 FREE DOWNLOAD)

In the new release, Dubblestandart brings together two eccentric geniuses–David Lynch, the iconic American filmmaker, and Lee Scratch Perry, Jamaican dub inventor on a new 12″ vinyl entitled “Chrome Optimism.” The release also features excerpts of French electronic music pioneer Jean Michel Jarre’s “Oxygene part 4.”
The 12″ includes dubstep and dub remixes from NYC’s Subatomic Sound System, a Dubblestandart dub, and a remix of another Dubblestandart/Lee Perry tune by Bristol’s RSD (Rob Smith from Smith & Mighty).





via dub.com

Hmmmm!

Fox on Sex: How to Pleasure a Woman

Trent Reznor: What to do as a new / unsigned artist

In September 2009 Trent Reznor writing on the NIN forums outlined his thoughts on what unsigned bands should do if they're hankering after success in the internet age. We're using this to inform the different avenues and outlets we'll be looking into in the coming weeks. We'll also take a look at the different distribution methods and guerilla marketing techniques.

Here's what he had to say:

I posted a message on Twitter yesterday stating I thought The Beastie Boys and TopSpin Media "got it right" regarding how to sell music in this day and age. Here's a link to their store: [illcommunication.beastieboys.com]

Shortly thereafter, I got some responses from people stating the usual "yeah, if you're an established artist - what if you're just trying to get heard?" argument. In an interview I did recently this topic came up and I'll reiterate what I said here.

If you are an unknown / lesser-known artist trying to get noticed / established:
* Establish your goals. What are you trying to do / accomplish? If you are looking for mainstream super-success (think Lady GaGa, Coldplay, U2, Justin Timberlake) - your best bet in my opinion is to look at major labels and prepare to share all revenue streams / creative control / music ownership. To reach that kind of critical mass these days your need old-school marketing muscle and that only comes from major labels. Good luck with that one.
If you're forging your own path, read on.
* Forget thinking you are going to make any real money from record sales. Make your record cheaply (but great) and GIVE IT AWAY. As an artist you want as many people as possible to hear your work. Word of mouth is the only true marketing that matters.
To clarify:
Parter with a TopSpin or similar or build your own website, but what you NEED to do is this - give your music away as high-quality DRM-free MP3s. Collect people's email info in exchange (which means having the infrastructure to do so) and start building your database of potential customers. Then, offer a variety of premium packages for sale and make them limited editions / scarce goods. Base the price and amount available on what you think you can sell. Make the packages special - make them by hand, sign them, make them unique, make them something YOU would want to have as a fan. Make a premium download available that includes high-resolution versions (for sale at a reasonable price) and include the download as something immediately available with any physical purchase. Sell T-shirts. Sell buttons, posters... whatever.
Don't have a TopSpin as a partner? Use Amazon for your transactions and fulfillment. [http://www.amazon.com/]
Use TuneCore to get your music everywhere. [www.tunecore.com]
Have a realistic idea of what you can expect to make from these and budget your recording appropriately.
The point is this: music IS free whether you want to believe that or not. Every piece of music you can think of is available free right now a click away. This is a fact - it sucks as the musician BUT THAT'S THE WAY IT IS (for now). So... have the public get what they want FROM YOU instead of a torrent site and garner good will in the process (plus build your database).
The Beastie Boys' site offers everything you could possibly want in the formats you would want it in - available right from them, right now. The prices they are charging are more than you should be charging - they are established and you are not. Think this through.
The database you are amassing should not be abused, but used to inform people that are interested in what you do when you have something going on - like a few shows, or a tour, or a new record, or a webcast, etc.
Have your MySpace page, but get a site outside MySpace - it's dying and reads as cheap / generic. Remove all Flash from your website. Remove all stupid intros and load-times. MAKE IT SIMPLE TO NAVIGATE AND EASY TO FIND AND HEAR MUSIC (but don't autoplay). Constantly update your site with content - pictures, blogs, whatever. Give people a reason to return to your site all the time. Put up a bulletin board and start a community. Engage your fans (with caution!) Make cheap videos. Film yourself talking. Play shows. Make interesting things. Get a Twitter account. Be interesting. Be real. Submit your music to blogs that may be interested. NEVER CHASE TRENDS. Utilize the multitude of tools available to you for very little cost of any - Flickr / YouTube / Vimeo / SoundCloud / Twitter etc.
If you don't know anything about new media or how people communicate these days, none of this will work. The role of an independent musician these days requires a mastery of first hand use of these tools. If you don't get it - find someone who does to do this for you. If you are waiting around for the phone to ring or that A & R guy to show up at your gig - good luck, you're going to be waiting a while.
Hope this helps, and I'll scour responses for intelligent comments I can respond to.
TR
TopSpin Media info:
[topspinmedia.com]

Regardless of what you think of Trent Reznor or Nine Inch Nails' music you can't really deny his ideas.  As he points out:

"nobody knows what to do right now, me included. The music business model is broken right now. That means every single job position in the music industry has to re-educate itself and learn / discover / adapt a new way. Change can be painful and hard and scary. If any of these entities we're discussing are interested in you, ask them about their strategies IN DETAIL. None of them know for sure what to do. Some of them have an idea of how to negotiate these waters. Most of them don't. If you are young and use the internet, you know more about your audience than they do - for sure. This is a revolution and you can be a part of it. The old guard is dying, if you have good ideas - try them."

More...

@'We ARE the music industry' 

NB: 
Keep an eye on this new blog as one to watch...
The author has also contributed one of the remixes to Billie Ray Martin's 'Crackdown' project.

A Shot That Saves the Lives of Addicts Is Now in Their Hands

In a haunted world of heroin and hurt and heartless hustles, located between a dusty brickyard and rusty railroad tracks along the border of Chicago and blue-collar Cicero, Steve Kamenicky is the go-to guy.

Longtime addicts and novice users seek out Mr. Kamenicky, known as Pony Tail Steve, sometimes in the middle of the day, other times deep into the night. They go to him, usually in a panic, desperate for an injection for a fallen buddy or lover of what some call a miracle drug. They hurry over the paving bricks that Mr. Kamenicky neatly laid to lead the way to his tent, pitched among the tall weeds and trees in one of a string of small encampments of the homeless on the edge of the brickyard.
Mr. Kamenicky, 52, is not a dealer. His own heroin addiction is much too strong. He shoots every $10 bag of heroin he can.
But his fellow addicts consider Mr. Kamenicky a savior.
“I’ve saved more people than the paramedics,” he boasted the other evening as he sat in a Cicero parking lot, his long, salt-and-pepper ponytail snaking down his back.
The drug he administers to fellow heroin users is called Naloxone or Narcan, its brand name. Mr. Kamenicky estimated that in the last few years he had brought back from the deadly depths of heroin overdose at least 35 addicts — in abandoned buildings, crack houses and around kitchen tables.
Naloxone, which is injected, reverses the effects of an opiate overdose. A drug that was a few years ago given by doctors and paramedics, Naloxone is now directly dispensed to drug users like Mr. Kamenicky, who are trained by the Chicago Recovery Alliance and receive Naloxone through a doctor-supervised program. The effort is part of an up-from-the bottom movement in the struggle to rescue those addicted to heroin and other opiates.
“It saves lives,” said Dr. Virgilio Arenas, who leads the addiction division at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. “Naloxone is an effective antidote. It works within minutes once administered.”
Mr. Kamenicky receives Naloxone free, as do drug users across the city, from the alliance, a nonprofit needle-exchange and H.I.V.-prevention program. The alliance also dispenses fresh syringes, condoms and other paraphernalia to users in the hope that they will stay alive long enough to make “any positive change,” the group’s mantra.
Dr. Arenas said there were similar “harm-reduction” projects in Milwaukee, New York and other cities where needles and Naloxone were distributed.
Not everyone endorses the effort. “Some people in the addiction field feel it might foster more drug use,” Dr. Arenas said, adding, “but I don’t think people will use more because they have the antidote. I favor the harm-reduction approach.”...

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Don Terry @'NY Times'

Heroin Overdose Kits - The Debate Goes On

Nalaxone

My thought is that it is commom sense to make Narcan available 24 hours for immediate use for people who have overdosed.

Know that when I was using there was a bottle handy.

The Upbeat Final Days and Busy Future of Harvey Pekar

How much could $8.7 billion help at home?

The GOP (the so called party of fiscal responsibility) held up unemployment benefits because they said it had to be funded, yet they support no time line to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan where the US is literally pouring tons of money into a hole. Right now, $8.7 billion is unaccounted for in the Iraq reconstruction and the total cost of just the Iraq campaign alone tops $3 trillion. If the mission is to bankrupt the US with ass backwards priorities, I'd say great job!
Read more on the missing $8.7 billion 
@'BBC'

♪♫ Orange Juice - Rip It Up

Foetus on sax!!!

Remember...

Mona Street

HA! (Thanx Fifi!)

In a newly uncovered video, Andrew Breitbart admits he "hearts" terrorists while a conservative audience applauds. Is this video real? Hey, video can't lie, right? Just ask CBS, The Washington Post, Fox, and other news outlets who've faithfully covered Andrew Breitbart's selectively-edited videos.

@'MoveOn.org'

Coming soon...Grinderman 2

Why the Critics Are Wrong - Olympia Food Co-op Boycotts Israeli Goods

On July 15, the Olympia Food Co-op Board of Directors decided to boycott Israeli goods at their two locations in Olympia, Washington. The July 15 meeting was packed with Co-op members when the Board reached this consensus. The Co-op becomes the first US grocery store to publicly join the international grassroots movement for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) on Israel for its human rights abuses. AC / JSC

Critics of the Olympia Food Co-op’s recent decision to boycott several Israeli products until Israel ends its inhumane occupation of Palestinian land and its suppression of Palestinian human rights have no moral or ethical basis to criticize the Food Co-op unless they can offer an alternative strategy to end Israel’s occupation. Until they do so, they are simply embracing and providing cover for the injustices of Israel’s occupation, whether they are willing to admit it or not.

Everyday, Israeli soldiers arrest and assault Palestinians in their own cities and towns, many of whom are tortured or forced into becoming collaborators with the occupation. Everyday, Israeli armored bulldozers destroy Palestinian homes, orchards and wells in order to clear land to build more Jewish settlements and their massive road infrastructure on Palestinian lands. Everyday, Israeli checkpoints and walls deny Palestinians access to essential food and medical supplies and deny them the right to travel freely between their own towns and to conduct basic life functions. Everyday, Palestinian lives are torn apart by Israel’s occupation. All of these practices are illegal under international law and all are condemned by international human rights organizations and institutions.

And for what reason? It is now clear that the primary function of these Israeli actions is not security but to steal Palestinian land for Israeli settlements and repress Palestinian opposition to this project, forcing Palestinians to live in ever shrinking enclaves. If Israel truly wanted security and peace rather than Palestinian land, it could easily accept the internationally accepted terms for peace and withdraw all of its over 400,000 settlers and soldiers to its 1967 borders with international guarantees for its security. But Israel has chosen settlement and stealing Palestinian land over peace and security. As with other national liberation movements, some Palestinians have indeed committed reprehensible crimes against Israelis, but the moral burden is always greater for the more powerful and oppressive, as it always has been in cases of colonization and dispossession...

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Steve Niva @'Counterpunch'

Thankfully the ball is starting to roll, the huge weight of Israeli oppression that hangs over the lives of the Palestinian people and casts a noxious shadow over the rest of the world is being challenged in one small way, the boycott of Israeli goods by the Olympia Food Co-op and their reasons for taking on this task will hopefully have the desired/required downhill snowball effect of gathering many more businesses along the way. As Steve Niva rightly points out, the mirrors and smoke sham of defence that masks the viscious land grabs by Israel is an International provocation of world leaders, the absence of rebuke by these self-same world leaders is an unconscionable act that denies the Palestinian people all vestiges of our shared humanity. The actions of the Israeli government, under the guise of religious doctrine, does not even adhere to their own religion's Ten Commandments(steal,covet,murder,bear false witness). The out-clause that Non-Jewish people lack a soul, or can be justifiably murdered, stolen from, etc. is the same hypocritical nonsense that was used by the Nazis to justify white supremacism and advocated the very same horrors which followed, racial cleansing, or in this modern scenario, religious cleansing. The actions of the Israeli government and the unrelentingly, tortured stories of Jewish treatment during World War 2 are cruelly mimicked, with those once victims now the most cruel of new oppressors. Israeli politicians deliberately starving the Palestinian people, deliberately stealing Palestinian land, deliberately brutalising children, the elderly, men and women alike, deliberately denying adequate shelter, water and sanitation. If these are the workings of the soul and spirituality of Israel, they are the work of the devil. BOYCOTT ISRAEL NOW.

We Are Not Special, and There Is No Happy Ending: The Blood-Drenched Darkness of American Exceptionalism

You may not regard the two propositions in my title as deserving of any special attention. You may think, entirely correctly, that if we as Americans are special, it is only in the way that any human being is special: that each of us is unique and irreplaceable, that each of our lives, and the lives of all of us, demand reverence for the unrepeatable value of a person's brief passage in this world. And you may recognize, also correctly, that certain actions lead to destruction and loss in a manner and on a scale that forbid correction and amends, that on some occasions we can only accept the certainty of negative consequences that cannot be avoided. Human beings may be capable of remarkable, even wondrous achievement, but limits are inherent in existence itself. Sometimes those limits mean that wounds will never heal, that the pain will never end.If you view these observations as unremarkable, even mundane, that is because in certain crucial respects, you are an adult. Such a healthy perspective -- "healthy" designating that which proceeds from demonstrable facts -- enables us to see the extreme nature of the delusions necessitated by an unquestioned belief in the myth of American exceptionalism. Despite the events of the last decade, the myth remains the heart of American culture, of American politics, and of the American State. Our politicians still regularly assure us that "America is the last, best hope of Earth," and that "the American moment" will extend for the entirety of "this new century." Americans remain "the Good Guys: "The emphasis is not only on 'Good,' but on 'the': we are the Good Guys in a way that no one else is, or can ever be."
When we believe that America and Americans are unique and uniquely good in all of history, we will also believe that there is no problem we cannot overcome. Our political leaders tell us this fable time and again; many Americans are eager to believe it, in the manner of a damaged child who appeals to mysterious powers to vanquish the dangers lurking in the shadows of his room. We witness this mechanism in connection with a wide range of problems, even when those problems reach the catastrophic level. Here is Obama on the continuing catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico:

President Barack Obama struck an optimistic tone over the ongoing oil disaster Monday afternoon, saying that "things are going to return to normal" on the stricken Gulf Coast after much pain and frustration, and that the polluted waters will eventually be in better shape than before the leak began.

These are reassurances offered by parents to children whom they treat as doltish objects fit only to be manipulated. The parent or other authority figure -- here, Obama -- does not expect his words to be credited after a process of independent evaluation. He expects, in fact he demands, that you take his word for it, that you believe him without question or challenge. He demands that you obey. This is the way our political leaders treat their subjects both abroad and at home. (In addition to rejecting this method of forcible "persuasion," I also reject such reassurances for further, more specific and compelling reasons, as do many others. I recognize that we are provided only such information about the Gulf catastrophe as the government and BP, which are one and the same in this context, wish us to have. We have close to no idea what is actually going on, or the damage that has already been inflicted and that may manifest itself in the future. Moreover, I recognize the dangerous folly of entrusting any kind of solution to a crisis of this kind, or to the crisis of climate change however one may conceive it, to an inherently, fatally corrupted corporatist State.)...

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Arthur Silber @'Once Upon A Time'