During the first Trump administration avant-garde collective The League of Assholes released two long-form sound collages - IM PEACH and IM PEACH The Sequel - about the idiots that were governing the asylum back then. It took them awhile, but in the midst of the major clusterfuck a third installment was in order, now that the Donald is even more unhinged and fucking dangerous. Marcelo Radulovich once again assembled the bits at his Titicacaman Studio in Cardiff, CA.
IM PEACH 3 goes through hills and valleys, switching between country (seriously), ambient, noise, free jazz, and post-rock. It is a 40 minutes plus rollercoaster ride, that will be frowned upon by health and safety. The main course will probably be way too much for most listeners, but they did not stop there. To hammer home the message they also included a backwards mix (which will have the Chistian right up in arms) and the muzzy 1930s mono mix (which sounds like scratched 78rpm).
So you thought that the Jimi Hendrix Estate could not stoop any lower than peddling a glass ornament for the Holiday season? Think again. They have launched a whole line of dog related crap that shits all over his legacy. What's next? A "Dolly Dagger" hunting knife? A "Red House" abode for playing dolls?
The Jimi Hendrix Estate has reached a new low: a glass ornament for the Holiday season, using the guitarist's image at his Monterey performance on June 18, 1967. This piece of crap will set you back $108.
War, huh, yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, uhh
War, huh, yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Say it again, y'all
War, huh (good God)
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, listen to me, oh
War, I despise
'Cause it means destruction of innocent lives
War means tears to thousands of mother's eyes
When their sons go off to fight
And lose their lives
I said, war, huh (good God, y'all)
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, just say it again
War (whoa), huh (oh Lord)
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, listen to me
It ain't nothing but a heart-breaker
(War) Friend only to The Undertaker
Oh, war it's an enemy to all mankind
The thought of war blows my mind
War has caused unrest
Within the younger generation
Induction then destruction
Who wants to die? Oh
War, huh (good God y'all)
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Say it, say it, say it
War (uh-huh), huh (yeah, huh)
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, listen to me
It ain't nothing but a heart-breaker
(War) It's got one friend that's The Undertaker
Oh, war, has shattered many a young man's dreams
Made him disabled, bitter and mean
Life is much too short and precious
To spend fighting wars each day
War can't give life
It can only take it away, oh
War, huh (good God y'all)
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, say it again
War (whoa), huh (oh Lord)
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, listen to me
It ain't nothing but a heart-breaker
(War) Friend only to The Undertaker, woo
Peace, love and understanding, tell me
Is there no place for them today?
They say we must fight to keep our freedom
But Lord knows there's got to be a better way, oh
War, huh (God y'all)
What is it good for? You tell me (nothing)
Say it, say it, say it, say it
War (good God), huh (now, huh)
What is it good for?
Stand up and shout it (nothing)
Roger Waters has put the shelved liner notes for the new box set of the Pink Floyd album Amnimals on his website. Once again he and David Gilmour don't see eye to eye.
As I am banned by Dave Gilmour from posting on Pink Floyd’s Facebook page with its 30,000,000 subscribers, I am posting this announcement here today and in full on rogerwaters.com.
First, a warm welcome back to our little band of brothers and sisters who have always kept an open mind, let’s hope some of the fans whose access to my words is suppressed by Gilmour find their way here and discover some truth.
What precipitated this note is that there are new James Guthrie Stereo and 5.1 mixes of the Pink Floyd album Animals, 1977. These mixes have languished unreleased because of a dispute over some sleeve notes that Mark Blake has written for this new release. Gilmour has vetoed the release of the album unless these liner notes are removed. He does not dispute the veracity of the history described in Mark’s notes, but he wants that history to remain secret. This is a small part of an ongoing campaign by the Gilmour/Samson camp to claim more credit for Dave on the work he did in Pink Floyd, 1967-1985, than is his due. Yes he was, and is, a jolly good guitarist and singer. But, he has for the last 35 years told a lot of whopping porky pies about who did what in Pink Floyd when I was still in charge. There’s a lot of “we did this” and “we did that,” and “I did this” and “I did that.”
Mike Esposito, the owner of The 'In' Groove in Phoenix, AZ, reviews a $450.00 vinyl reissue of the Sonny Rollins album Way Out West by the Electric Recording Company, a label selling limited runs (300 copies) of classic albums Spoiler: it is warped and it sounds bad.
"Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way". Some comfort from another playlist while the UK is struggling to make sense of the whole Brexit fuck up. Whatever happens, the music remains. In alphabetical order: Billy Bragg, Blur, Fischer-Z, Joy Division, Madness, Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Jam, The Kinks, The Who.
The first Quiet Desperation playlist can be found here.
I know more about your business than you do. I am in direct contact with musicians at the highest levels, as well as industry executives that hate every fiber of your beings and all you represent. They have explained everything about your business to me. In particular, I know all about your “social media ops manipulation squad” sent to pepper comments in posts made by people like me revealing the truth about what you are.
Today, I removed multiple fake comments from fake accounts created by Spotify employees or agencies posting on your behalf. The language was VERBATIM what you’ve told my musician friends and industry people. The fact that you don’t have the balls to post as yourselves speaks volumes about the pernicious bullshit and lies you spew. I’m on to you.
"Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way". Some comfort from a playlist while the UK is struggling to make sense of the whole Brexit fuck up. Whatever happens, the music remains. In alphabetical order: Alberteen, Fairport Convention, Led Zeppelin, Nick Drake, Pink Floyd, Robert Wyatt, Small Faces, The Kinks, The Smiths, The Zombies.
One of the world's most annoying mainstream songs ever is turned into an art installation. Namibian-German artist Max Siedentopf loaded an MP3 player with Toto's Africa playing on a loop in the Namib desert. Imagine travelling through the sand dunes for days on end and stumbling upon this in stead of an oasis. The damn thing runs on solar batteries, so it's likely to keep playing for quite some time. Now, that is truly a Desert Island disc from Hell.
The Trump administration is still a great source of inspiration for the arts. The vocal and very loud collective The League of Assholes weight in the release of IM PEACH, half an hour of improvised avant-noise that was unpredictable as the shenanigans of the Donald. Forget abut Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, or Joan Baez. Anger superseded any notion of melody. The Assholes meant to the hurt 45 and the rotating roster of cronies that surround him. And now The League is back with the shorter - but even more intense - IM PEACH The Sequel.
Once again assembled and mixed by Marcelo Radulovich the free-for-all anything-goes tapestry of outbursts, gnarly noises, drones and haunting voices that refuses to let go for 22 minutes. It's piece of music that will make the skin of the uninitiated crawl, but like any good doctor knows desperate diseases must have desperate remedies. Or in the words of The Assholes themselves: make America grate again.
Much has been said about the Trump administration and most of it is unfavourable to say the least. Nepotism, oligarchism, shady financial deals, the embracement of the extreme right (Nazis, fascists and the KKK), sexism and racism. O, and blatant lies. It's all there since a narcist became President of the United States. For the arts the Donald is a blessing. Satirists, cartoonists and musicians are having a field day defiling the latest scandals. No need for hyperboles, because - as they say - you can't make this shit up. And now The League of Assholes, a collective with a varying roster that has been around since the late Nineties, weigh in with half an hour of avant-garde called IM PEACH.
Assembled and mixed by Marcelo Radulovich at his Titicacaman Studio in Cardiff, CA IM PEACH is a tapestry incorporating the contributions of 30 musicians. It's a sonic brick through the windows of Trump Tower, with a note attached to step down or be ridden out of town on rail. Like 45 the improvisations go through tons of mood swings, from pastoral to all-out freak guitar outbursts, screaming brass and woodwinds, and flailing drums. But nothing is more scary than the incorporation of a couple quotes from the inauguration. IM PEACH is a one-fingered salute that should be played really fucking loud.
Moby has released the highly political album More Fast Songs About The Apocalypse. Aided by The Void Pacific Choir he speaks out about environmental issues and the toupet-wearing idiot who has moved into a building at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. This collection of high energy electro-rock songs is proof that you don't have to be a folkie with a battered acoustic to get mad at the powers that be.
More Fast Songs About The Apocalypse is a self-released album. Buy it (CD, vinyl, digital) from his website. Also available as a free download. Full stream on Soundcloud.
Mike Dillon wrote an angry and funny song about the tweeting president elect. Orange Julius Caesar is driven by a hillbilly country beat, with his pounding vribraphone leading the way.
Guitar player Pauline France lists Things Women Who Play Guitar Are Tired of Hearing — and What You Should Say Instead in Guitar World. It's not about looks, it's about skill. Here's one:
I never figured you’re the type to play guitar. Oh shucks, I didn’t know there was a type. Please, enlighten me. Last time I checked all you needed were two hands, 10 fingers (…and a brain). Wink.
Recording engineer Steve Albini delivered the keynote address at Face The Music @ Arts Centre in Melbourne, Australia. Food for thought from an outspoken outsider who has never really been part of the music industry, but as veteran knows how the system has worked since the early Seventies. He embraces the internet as a means to distribute music.
A transcription is up on the site of UK news paper The Guardian.
There’s a lot of shade thrown by people in the music industry about how terrible the free sharing of music is, how it’s the equivalent of theft, etc. That’s all bullshit and we’ll deal with that in a minute. But for a minute I want you to look at the experience of music from a fan’s perspective, post-internet. Music that is hard to find was now easy to find. Music to suit my specific tastes, as fucked up as they might be, was now accessible by a few clicks or maybe posting a query on a message board. In response I had more access to music than I had ever imagined. Curated by other enthusiasts, keen to turn me on to the good stuff; people, like me, who want other people to hear the best music ever.
This audience-driven music distribution has other benefits. Long-forgotten music has been given a second life. And bands whose music that was ahead of its time has been allowed to reach a niche audience that the old mass distribution failed to find for them, as one enthusiast turns on the next and this forgotten music finally gets it due. There’s a terrific documentary about one such case, the Detroit band Death whose sole album was released in a perfunctory edition in, I believe, 1975 and disappeared until a copy of it was digitised and made public on the internet. Gradually the band found an audience, their music got lovingly reissued, and the band has resurrected, complete with tours playing to packed houses. And the band are now being allowed the career that the old star system had denied them. There are hundreds of such stories and there are speciality labels that do nothing but reissue lost classics like that once they surface.
Iggy Pop delivered this year's John Peel lecture. He shared his thoughts on the current state of the music industry ans stresses the importance of not being in it just for the money.
We are now in the age of the schemer and the plan is always big, big, big, but it's the nature of the technology created in the service of the various schemes that the pond, while wide, is very shallow. Nobody cares about anything too deeply expect money. Running out of it, getting it. I never sincerely wanted to be rich. There is a, in the US, we have this guy “Do you sincerely wanna be rich? You can do it!” I didn’t sincerely want to be rich. I never sincerely felt like making anyone else that way. That made me a kind of a wild card in the 60's and 70's. I got into the game because it felt good to play and it felt like being free. I'm still hearing today about how my early works with The Stooges were flops. But they're still in print and they sell 45 years later, they sell. Okay, it took 20 or 25 years for the first royalties to roll in. So sue me.
To start with, I cannot stress enough the importance of study. I was lucky to work in a discount record store in Ann Arbor Michigan as a stock boy where I was exposed to a little bit of every form of music imaginable on record at the time. I listened to it all whether I liked it or not. Be curious. And I played in my high school orchestra and I learned the joy of the warm organic instruments working together in the service of a classical piece. That sticks with you forever. If anyone out there can get a chance to put an instrument and some knowledge in some kids hand, you've done a great, great thing.
Thinking of licensing your song so that it can be used for an ad campaign? You sure? John Densmore shares his thoughts in arcitlce for The Daily Beast:
With music sales dwindling, many groups try to get a leg up by lending their songs to sell products. My new book, The Doors: Unhinged Jim Morrison’s Legacy Goes on Trial tackles this subject in detail. In fact, I was counter-sued for not allowing this to happen. I certainly don’t condemn a new band hawking stuff to pay the rent, but after one gets a toehold on success, maybe it’s good to drop the soundtrack to “Love Me Two Times … cause I just took Viagra.” Although there are some really “cool” ads by some really “cool” directors. Millions of bucks are spent to make them really “cool.” But the bottom line is that you’re changing the meaning of your lyrics. As Tom Waits said in a letter to The Nation in response to my piece on this subject, “corporations are hoping to hijack a culture’s memories for their product. They want an artist’s audience, credibility, good will and the energy the songs have gathered as well as given over the years. They suck the life and meaning from the songs and impregnate them with promises of a better life with their product.”
