What is with this institutionalized lying? It is a little on the unseemly side, especially for a website whose job is to give a fair counting of sales. Perhaps, and I’m just saying here, it has something to do with their advertisers here? Why bite the hand that feeds you?
Dylan went home in 1974 with a copy of his freshly recorded album ‘Blood on the Tracks’ and his brother suggested that he re-records some of the songs ‘because too many sounded the same’. Dylan executed and re-recorded half of it at Sound 80 in Minneapolis with other musicians.
So far I’ve gone from Highway To Hell to Back In Black to the latest and have done nothing but enjoy it. Welcome AC/DC to the 21st Century, stream em now.
‘WATCH “Our Hero” awake to a world of wonder! GASP at the shocking secret of “The Lookalike!” MARVEL at the mysterious transformative powers of the Vernal Equinox! DANCE to those which are already being called Titus Andronicus’s Greatest Hits Yet!” UNDERSTAND the underlying themes and motifs that elevate TMLT far beyond the petty constraints of a mere “rock album” and into the realm of that which the German philosopher K. F. E. Trahndorff first called, in 1827, Gesamtkunstwerk (“total art”—look it up)!!!’
Some weeks are bigger than others and some are just ridiculous in their greatness. This is one of the biggest weeks for pop records in recent history: Miguel, Vince Staples, Neil Young, The Internet, Bilal and Joy Williams all had potential albums of the week. And I can’t listen to them fast enough.
I took this portrait of Nina from a still photo in the Liz Garbus documentary. This was done in oil. I chose to put Nina on black canvas because she was such a strong voice in the black culture and will always be associated with such. Her portrait is done in an angelic white with a hint of blues illuminating her hair. I used shapes in the background (acrylic) from a stage show that was filmed later in her career. The font was my interpretation of a royal African style that is done in a gold and bronze in tribute to her regal ness
And so the wars begin in earnest and at first look, Apple has done a good job of integrating their streaming service into their Itunes library. I said at first look, I am already having problems on the client. I prefer the Itunes search engine to Spotify but otherwise, Spotify is superior
‘We were told we only had one guest each this time,’ said The Maccabees guitarist Felix White. ‘I’ve not got that many other friends who want to come, but I’m just making a point!’ And The Maccabees were not even performing on the same stage than Kanye. ‘We were told that this viewing platform’s been set up just for Kanye so he’s got hundreds and hundreds of guests apparently,’ added White.
One more day, one more day,just one more day and a whole lotta new albums with Miguel’s newbie actually already out. Can you feel the excitement in the air? I wasn’t crazy about his breakthrough album Kaleidoscope Dream, and was vaguely cool to his opening slot on last years Drake tour, but Wildheart is much better. Actually, it is really really good.
‘The guy from INXS has just died, I drew a monument, a scaffolding as a proof of my sorrow and at the top I put INXS. It was a way to express my sadness about losing this great pop star’. If there’s a devotional aspect to Devendra’s art, his function stays in the perpetual practice: ‘There’s no goal, it is a practice’ he repeated several times, ‘even if it is a homage’.
US: The Supreme Court ruled gay marriage was legal and the world rejoiced though Canada enacted the same law ten years ago in 2005. Even so the world became a rainbow and freedom rang as the world became gay for a day, during Gay Pride Week
Murder isn’t baseball, Denis Hamill claimed in the New York Daily News today, it isn’t a staticians game. Essentially telling us all to sit down and stop fretting. Perhaps, but homeless men with machetes attacking defenseless women in Bryant Park is rife with symbolism.And if murder was baseball, New York City has transitioned from the 2000 Yankees to the 2000 Mets, and that is far enough or we will be the 2014 Yankees before we know it.
The website also includes a listen section where you can stream the iconic ‘Closer’, set to ‘photographs by Charlie Meecham, the Lancashire-based artist whose work was used on the cover of Atmosphere’. They also promise us to add more ‘specially-commissioned videos, inspired by the band, in the future’.
“The report further indicates that the number of full-time songwriters in Nashville is down 80% since 2000, while wages of recording session musicians in LA have shrunk as much as 70% over a similar period of time. It is widely known that record sales are heavily down as well, about 60% down since 1994, to be precise.”
But this is beside the point, there’s more to the story, some people are becoming more and more suspicious that the whole deal was just a stunt, and that Swift was secretly cooperating with Apple from the beginning. Who are these people, some new conspiracy theorists? They are random faces on Twitter expressing doubt, but also Tom Conrad, Pandora’s co-founder, who tweeted a series of interesting sentences:
Patrick Ewing left the Knicks in 2000 and these guys are still rebuilding. After their worst season, how about a win now strategy? The Knicks aren’t rebuilding, they are a bad organization who can turn any one into losers with a toxic culture. Fourth round pick, Latvian 19-year-old, 7-foot-1 project, center forward
Sun Drug’s debut EP has an expansive sound, which seems to have the ambition of arena bands such as the Strokes caught on a dark day (‘Easy in Your Attitude’) or U2 snapped on a triumphant moment (‘Wildman’). The 5 tracks have a big, epic sound built around guitars and synths, moving move from sinister dance-floors (‘Soaked’) to dreamy-psychedelic balladery (’John Fante’), with a gloomy mood floating around giant hooks and bold vocals, aggressively dominating the inventive soundscapes.
Common is the Al Sharpton of rap, he never met a cause he couldn’t turn into a photo op or a coupla bucks. Selma Schelma, Common hangs his flags anywhere some black actual, you know, heroes, like Nelson Mandela show up, and then convinces that art is action AS SUCH. As though singing about Selma is the same as marching there all those years ago.
We have to start taking National holidays off here at -stories are so damn few and far between. Everybody has ta taken the week of for Independence, which is fine for the boys: Jimmy, Jimmy, James and Seth and the girls Wendy, Meredith, Ellen, Queen Latifah. Yup, apparently their Union mandates it: we get a day (actually, we work through it), they get a week. So let’s celebrate all the Talk Show Host because where would be without them? Well, more or less exactly where we are now.
The Supreme Court upheld the right to gay marriage in the US. Certainly, during Gay Pride week, I don’t know who would disagree that this is a great thing that should have never been an issue. Congratulations (or maybe I mean sympathy) to all homosexuals now legally ale to do what they did anyway. On a personal level, what I liked most about homosexuality was the indiscriminate sex men had before AIDS destroyed the fun. Just the entire constant seeing all over the places with tens, dozens of partners. Of course, it wasn’t marriage that killed it, but I am sure marriage will be the straw that leaves those days of glorious promiscuity to just a distant memory
“You know, in a restaurant you can’t really hear what’s happening. I thought, “Yeah, that’s my song. That sounds like ‘Perfume.’” Which was the single off the 97’s Grand Theatre Vol. 2 in 2011. And as the song went on I realized, wait, there’s a pre-chorus section; that’s not in the song. And then it hit the chorus, and the chorus was different from my song, but weirdly, the lyrics in the chorus were the lyrics in my song. And so I Shazam-ed it, of course, and I figured out it was the Michael Bublé song called “It’s A Beautiful Day.”
‘We have plotted brainwave activity into a knitted pattern. Using a wearable, non-invasive EEG headset, we recorded users’ affective states while listening to Bach’s ‘Goldberg Variations’, concretely the aria and its first seven variations. The audio was about 10 minutes long and we downsampled each second of the signal coming from the 14 channels of the EEG device. Three main features were measured: relaxation, excitement, and cognitive load.
The painting is pretty goofy looking. I don’t know why. Buck used to be pretty goofy onstage. I mean he threw out some great zingers at people that were dancing. He almost sounded like he had a few drinks in him, not sure, don’t need to know, but he was pretty dang funny. I also gave him some flowers just to gussy him up.
If “Summer Of ’42” happened in the “Summer Of ’15”, the war widow would be in jail right now because Oscy and Benjie (“I’m a dangerous man, I truly am” ) secretly filmed her and Hermie and posted it online and somebody (everybody) snitched to the cops -who took a break from frisking black male teenagers for loitering in their backyard, to bust her. We live in a sharp elbowed, intrusive, ill mannered, nosey, aggressive, and pointedly ignorant of human nature, age.
Rock criticism in 2015 is in the crosshairs of forces beyond its control: of editorial dictates and the power of mass condemnation,of a type of music -EDM, that lends itself to technical jargon, and of an underpaid and undernourished set of writers that falls back fast on 21st century chitter chatter, of a social media filled world happy to attack at the slightest provocation, and an overwhelming humorless 2015 air of defeated populism
The prices are high for everything except dollar pizza, even Subway quietly bounced their prices by 20% and from your cable bill to your groceries honesty means getting away with as much as you possibly can. Which is the reason for this, of 120 grocery stores in the city, 70% put the wrong weight on food purchases thereby overcharging you. Wholefood -the most expensive is the most egregious and are about to get fined.
‘This contract is particularly egregious in that it not only contains an all out rights grab on the photographers’ work,’ said Goodman to Factmag, ‘whilst limiting their editorial control and ability to earn from that work — and does so without compensation — but because it does so under threat of criminal damage or destruction of property.’
As a result of the so-called loudness wars, mainstream pop releases are being pushed onto CD and into mp3 files at such high levels they’re technically much ‘hotter’ than some of the loudest acts in history, in an attempt to make them stand out from the competition
What do I think? I think this is well past the pale but, much like Morrissey and Taylor swift, it has nothing to do with me.
Taylor hardly needs me to warn her that just because YOU CAN do something does not mean YOU SHOULD do something. Between Taylor and Apple, who cares anymore? It is just big corporations battling each other and nothing to do with me.
Dick Van Patten was the dad all of us wanted, a great job and two full families crammed together with a sweet disposition and a constant smile on “Eight Is Enough”. After that I recognized him from time to tome, he was the weakling doctor in “High Anxiety” for one, and it improved anything I was watching always. he died today at the age of 86, complications from diabetes
‘How are you any different to Apple? If you don’t like being exploited, that’s great.. make a huge statement about it, and you’ll have my support. But how about making sure you’re not guilty of the very same tactic before you have a pop at someone else?’ writes Sheldon. ‘Photographers need to earn a living as well. Like Apple, you can afford to pay for photographs so please stop forcing us to hand them over to you while you prevent us from publishing them more than once, ever.’
Live: I woke up today to 100s of reads of Edward Huerta’s admittedly excellent, Brian Wilson at the Greek review from Sunday. A pleasant surprise but how did that happen, right? How about this: Brian Wilson posted it on his Facebook wall. Considering all the negative being thrown our way it was a pleasant change of pace. Congrats to Edward and I hope we passed the audition!
A 21 year old white supremacist Dylann Roof entered “the historically black Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston on Wednesday night, attending a prayer meeting for an hour and then murdering nine parishioners.” Jon Stewart couldn’t find anything funny to say about it, but apparently he hadn’t studied the guys haircut long enough. Personally, I think that’s enough of a reason to install the death penalty.
Yesterday was a drizzly write off and today looks worse but that didn’t stop 1000s of would be merpeople from going off to Coney Island Island for the 33rd annual Mermaid Parade. New York, where every day is an excuse for a party!
Round are way, all hell has broken out after the world at large decided I was wrong to claim David Fricke was a company stooge. Of course, that wasn’t the first time I claimed Fricke was in Wenner’s pocket… this is the first time I claimed Fricke was a company stooge… in April 2011… I think it stands up nicely
‘You’ve got more attention on that Saturday night set from Kanye than maybe anything else. Who knows what will happen? He could walk out there and have 100,000 people bottle him on stage or he could walk out there and show the world that nothing else matters except for that moment. And I’m sure that is what he will do.’
I bet in some ways the Yankees wish A-Rod had crashed and burned this year, instead of just getting his 3,000 hit with a home run in a winning effort last night. I am so not a moralist on this stuff, I don’t see why he shouldn’t get paid his millions, if only for coming back from a horrendous couple of years and still being able to play the game at a ridiculously high standard.
The five emotions Joy (Amy Poehler), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling) and Sadness (Phyllis Smith) guide an eleven year old girl through a whirlwind of change as her parents move her from Minnesota to San Francisco. The resulting move leads Sadness and Joy on a journey back from Riley’s deep subconscious and leaves Anger, Fear and Disgust in control.
This isn’t the dog days of summer but it feels like it, ever since David Letterman sang the night we called it a day, it has felt much like, well, the day we called it a night. Bereft of life here lies the summer of 2015, with nothing to do but stay hot and bad tempered. Meanwhile, let’s go with Ray Wylie Hubbard who knows a thing or two about hell and heat.
After noting the strange grading on ‘Soaked in Bleach’ IMDb page (probably demonstrating a manipulation of the data), after knowing about Courtney Love’s direct threats to the theaters screening SIB, I would not be surprised if people were also messing up with these petitions. However, since the previous ones have never lead anywhere, I wonder what they are afraid about?
I have never been a fan but Madonna used to set the trends, to re-invent fashion and influence culture, she was a leader. Now look at this video, the bad pink hair extensions, the bad twerking, the bad use of the obliged female rapper, she just look like a follower.
Wolf Alice were pretty good at Le Poisson Rouge last night, they are at a very exciting place in their career right now with the debut album dropping on Tuesday. But their connection with the audience left something wanting, That shouldn’t be a problem for Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga tonight at Radio City Music Hall.
Wow, it now costs more to see an IMAX movie than 1D -they aren’t big enough for Stadiums any more. What happens next? The fifth album will tell the story but days when people were paying $500 to see them at Jones Beach appear to be over. I am glad I saw them at their height.
It takes ruthlessness to own a successful magazine, and that is an absolute truth, it takes layoffs, it takes cutting expenses, but there are places where she just don’t do it. Among them is the face of Rolling Stone rock criticism who has been with you for decades. C’mon, for a coupla grand? For a coupla grand you leave one of your top writers without a weekly paycheck? I don’t get it. It makes no sense, even if you have no moral compass whatsoever, the public relations black eye is too big. It isn’t worth the hit.
Courtney Love was not the only one sending cease or desist letters this week, Deadmau5 has done the exact same thing! He is targeting ‘Deadmouse: the Musical’, which is described as a ‘comedy about a mouse who aspires to be a house DJ but is discriminated against for being a mouse’
‘Zipper Down’ – well, check out this sexy and hilarious art cover! – is gonna be the first studio album of the band since their 2008 ‘Heart On’, and they have shared the first single entitled ‘Complexity’.
My album of the week, Hudson Mohawke’s Lantern remains my favorite album of the week with Rustie’s 2014 Green Lantern, which I unfortunately missed entirely last year, also getting time. James Taylor and Wolf Alice are taking up the rest of my life.
Can you imagine the anti-Vietnam demonstrations without music? can you imagine a war against the mass theft from the American public (all that blowback to the banks in 2009) with a soundtrack? Do you think you can argue wealth distribution to “Blank Space” or “Holy Grail” or “Believe”? Who would they influence and who would they be speaking t?
Folks, before we all get a little upset, let me do some ‘splainin’..This painting is not paying homage to Chuck Manson by any means. I was just trying to beat some get-rich-quick dude on a CD or LP cover….imagining if some lost tapes were unearthed between Dennis Wilson and the Manson, a what-if, if you will, of album art.
