AlterPolitics » Arts & Entertainment

WATCH: The Go-Betweens Perform “Streets of Your Town”

Stan — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 20:17:32 +0000

In 1977, in Brisbane, Australia, songwriters Robert Forster and Grant McLennan — two Queensland University students enamored with the U.S. punk scene — met and formed The Go-Betweens.

Over the course of ten years, the band released a succession of memorable albums, culminating in their final LP for the 80′s era, 16 Lover’s Lane (released in 1988 by Beggars Banquet Records).

Their music has been described as something “Lou Reed could have written if he had fallen for Brian Wilson, not David Bowie.” (The Guardian)

The band called it quits shortly after 16 Lover’s Lane, and would remain apart until 2000, when Forster and McLennan reformed the group. Their 2005 release, Oceans Apart, duly won the ARIA award for “Best Adult Contemporary Album,” and garnered a five-star rating from Mojo Magazine.

On May 6, 2006, Grant McLennan died from a heart attack, which effectively ended The Go-Betweens. Robert Forster continues to record and perform to critical acclaim as a solo artist.

The single, “Streets of Your Town,” from 1988′s 16 Lover’s Lane, is perhaps one of the band’s most recognized songs. It became their biggest chart hit to date in both the UK and Australia, mixing upbeat guitar rhythms with lyrics that shift between ‘dreamy’ to lights-out-dark.

Filmed on the streets of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, here is the video for “Streets of Your Town.”

ENJOY:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The following are links for those interested in downloading the final two releases of The Go-Betweens (Oceans Apart, and their live CD/DVD release That Striped Sunlight Sound), as well as Robert Forster’s 2008 release, The Evangelist, all at YepRoc Records.

2 Lost Gems From Manchester’s Factory Records: Cath Carroll’s ‘Moves Like You’ and Northside’s ‘Moody Places’

Stan — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 18:58:57 +0000

When I was living in London in 1991, Select Magazine released a Factory Records sampler cassette ( FAC 305C ) that would eventually go on to melt in my car. I cherished this sampler, because it introduced me to some fabulous tracks by two largely unknown Manchester artists that I otherwise might never have discovered: Cath Carroll’s ‘Moves Like You’ and Northside’s ‘Moody Places’.

I did ultimately find Cath Carroll’s CD as a pricey import (back in the States), but that Northside track was not included on the group’s only LP release at the time, Chicken Rhythms. Over the years, I managed to forget about the song, its title, etc. (Note to our younger readers: the internet was barely in existence in the early 90s, and it would take more than a decade before decent search engines evolved.)

Well, twenty years now after its release — not sure what exactly made me think of that long lost sampler — I vaguely recalled the track, and thought to investigate on Google.

What I found: In 2005, Northside re-released its Chicken Rhthyms LP — currently unavailable in the US, even as a download — but this time with bonus tracks, including the long lost song, ‘Moody Places’.

Here is that song, streamed from the group’s MySpace page:

Find more Northside albums at Myspace Music

And for those who have never heard of the former-Factory Recording artist, Cath Carroll, here’s the video of her fabulous 1991 single ‘Moves Like You’:

Click here to view the embedded video.

WATCH: Big Country Performs ‘Inwards’ Live @ The Pier in New York City – 1986

Stan — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 14:06:16 +0000

Hailing from Dunfermline, Scotland, Big Country literally roared onto the world stage in 1983 with their debut album, The Crossing. The album sold over one million copies in the UK alone, and due to the success of its single ‘In a Big Country‘ the album quickly climbed into the US Billboard Top 20 and achieved Gold Record status.

Lead singer/songwriter Stuart Adamson (formerly of The Skids) brilliantly incorporated traditional Scottish music (including bagpipes) around his distinctive guitar-work, giving Big Country a truly unique sound for the times. His guitar sound became modeled by U2′s The Edge, R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, and even Metallica’s James Hetfield.

After The Crossing, Big Country would go on to release one EP and seven more albums over the course of twenty years, many of which garnered wide critical acclaim in the UK, and topped the UK charts. But in the US, none of these later efforts would come close to matching the success of their debut album.

The band was eventually dropped by their record label Phonogram in 1991, but they remained a favorite opening band for iconic groups like The Who, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Robert Plant & Jimmy Page. Mick Jagger called Big Country “one of the best opening bands we have had”.

When not working on side projects, Big Country continued to release albums and tour together, though these later recording efforts failed to achieve anything close to the commercial success they enjoyed in the 80s. Adamson who had had a long battle with alcoholism, dating back to the 80s, suffered from acute depression, and by the end of the 90s he’d resorted to sudden disappearing acts without notice.

His second marriage began to crumble in 2001, and shortly after his wife commenced with divorce proceedings, Adamson disappeared again. On December 16, 2001, Adamson’s body was found in a hotel room in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he had hanged himself. He was 43 years old at the time of his death. He is survived by two children from his first marriage.

The way Big Country stormed into the US charts in the early 80s only to seemingly vanish by the decade’s end, might leave some younger Americans — largely unfamiliar with them — to believe Big Country was just another 80s ‘one-hit wonder’ group. This is most definitely not the case. The Crossing itself is one of the best albums of that era, full of fabulous songs. I cannot recommend it enough.

Here is a video of Big Country in 1986 performing ‘Inwards’ (from The Crossing) at The Pier in New York City. Though, Adamson has to stop abruptly for a moment to quell some fan on fan violence, this video, in my opinion, succeeds in capturing the band’s live energy.

ENJOY:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Some other fabulous songs worth checking out from The Crossing LP include Fields of Fire, and Adamson’s personal favorite The Storm.

WATCH: Tracey K and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra Perform ‘The Cure & The Cause’ Live

Stan — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 22:39:09 +0000

Ireland’s Tracey K — a singer/songwriter who frequently collaborates with DJ/producer duo, Fish Go Deep (from Cork, Ireland) – is best known for her UK chart-topping dance track “The Cure & the Cause.”

She has been writing and recording House music for much of the last decade — ever since her college days at Galway University. You can learn more about her, and find additional Tracey K tracks on her site.

Here, Tracey K performs the very catchy “The Cure & the Cause” live in the studio with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra.

WATCH:

Click here to view the embedded video.

UPDATE:

Here is one of my favorite dance remixes of this song:

LISTEN: New Paul Weller Single ‘Starlite’ Evokes The Spirit of The Style Council

Stan — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 14:14:05 +0000

Last Tuesday, Paul Weller released a new standalone single, Starlite, which will surely delight his longstanding Style Council fans.

For the first time in 20 years, Weller recaptures that soulful dance spirit that made The Style Council stand apart from both his earlier The Jam material as well as his later solo work.

Here’s how Weller describes the new track:

Here’s a brand new track called ‘Starlite’ in time for the Summer. It’s not from the forthcoming album, it’s just for NOW! It’s part Balearic beat, poetry and psychedelic music. I hope you like it. ~PWx

Personally, I love it and have been playing it all week long, as I’m sure my Twitter followers can attest.

The track will be available for purchase on iTunes on August 7. I’ll provide an update with the iTunes link at that time.

Here is Starlite. Enjoy!

Author Turns Down $500k Contract From St. Martin’s Press – He Can Do Better Alone Selling eBooks

Stan — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 20:08:26 +0000

In this live Google docs discussion, authors Barry Eisler and Joe Konrath engage in a fascinating dialog about the ways in which the publishing industry is responding to the threat eBooks pose to its core business model.

One key point the two make is that publishers are presently contracting authors to eBook royalty rates equivalent to those they command for traditional books. Only the publishers don’t have to physically manufacture, warehouse, and ship eBooks — the rational behind those traditional royalty rates:

Joe: We figured out that the 25% royalty on ebooks they offer is actually 14.9% to the writer after everyone gets their cut. 14.9% on a price the publisher sets.

Barry: Gracious of you to say “we.” You’re the first one to point out that a 25% royalty on the net revenue produced by an ebook equals 17.5% of the retail price after Amazon takes its 30% cut, and 14.9% after the agent takes 15% of the 17.5%.

Joe: Yeah, that 25% figure you see in contracts is really misleading. Amazing, when you consider that there’s virtually no cost to creating ebooks–no cost for paper, no shipping charges, no warehousing. No cut for Ingram or Baker & Taylor. Yet they’re keeping 52.5% of the list price and offering only 17.5% to the author. It’s not fair and it’s not sustainable.

Barry: I think what’s happening is that publishers know paper is dying while digital is exploding, and they’re trying to use the lock they’ve always had on paper to milk more out of digital. In other words, tie an author into a deal that offers traditional paper royalties, which are shrinking, while giving the publisher a huge slice of digital royalties, which are growing. The problem, from the publisher’s perspective, is that their paper lock is broken now.

They reveal how legacy publishers are engaging in tactics to stimy the adoption of eBooks — largely to their own detriment — as they desperately try to prolong their industry’s relevance:

Joe: … If you’re selling eggs, don’t piss off your chickens.

Barry: It’s not just the chickens. It’s the people who buy the eggs, too.

Joe: The readers. And the libraries. HarperCollins just announced they are putting a limit on ebook loans in libraries. After twenty-six check-outs, the library has to buy a new copy.

Talk about biting the hand that feeds…

Barry: Yes. The problem is twofold. First, by giving authors only 17.5% of the growth end of the business while keeping 52.5% for themselves, publishers are going to lose authors. Second, by attempting to retard the growth of digital–holding back digital releases until paper is ready, charging paper prices for digital books–publishers are thwarting their customers. Take a step back and consider it, and it’s hard not to see that this strategy is badly flawed. A business grows by giving customers what they want, not by insisting that customers take what the business wants them to have. It grows by cultivating its wholesale providers, not by alienating them with precentages so unfair that it motivates them to develop their own retail channels.

You’d think book publishers would have learned a lesson or two from the music industry’s well-documented missteps in dealing with the digital threat.

Eisler brilliantly sums up the core component of the book publisher’s digital dilemma:

If you think about it, for years publishers have been steadily outsourcing their core business functions. Culling the slush pile went to agents long ago. A lot of editorial devolved to agents, too. Marketing has increasingly become the responsibility of writers, who are expected to blog and be social media demons. I think publishers felt comfortable outsourcing all these functions because they felt the lock they had on their core function–distribution–made their overall position impregnable.

The problem is, they’ve lost that lock, and they’ve already outsourced so many of their other functions that it’s getting hard for them to offer a writer a coherent value proposition. For now, they have enough cash to offer advances, which most authors will need to live for the same reason most people need a mortgage to buy a house. But even that advantage is being eroded by digital, because with digital, you publish right away and start earning right away.

The two believe that with traditional book distribution going the way of the horse and buggy, editors will eventually begin to align with literary agencies and morph into full-service literary entities that provide editing, artwork, marketing, and digital formatting for 15% of a much larger pie (having cut out legacy publishers’ 52% royalty cut).

Every writer should read this conversation in full to truly appreciate the ramifications of the ‘eBook revolution’. It will most definitely impact writers’ livelihoods for many years to come.

LISTEN: Reggae Great Delroy Wilson Sings ‘This Life Makes Me Wonder’

Stan — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 18:01:29 +0000

In 1961, a thirteen year old Delroy Wilson began his music career in Kingston, Jamaica, recording ska hits penned by Lee “scratch” Perry, Coxsone Dodd, amongst others. His music evolved with the sounds of 60′s Jamaica from ska to rocksteady and eventually to reggae. By the late-60s/early-70s he was one of the most influential reggae recording stars on the island.

He first toured the U.K. in 1970, where British reggae label Trojan Records had him record a number of songs — a move that would help him to expand his European footprint.

By the mid-70s many British punks, including The Clash’s Joe Strummer, counted themselves as Delroy Wilson fans. Strummer, at the time, attended a reggae concert at the Hammersmith Palais to see Wilson and fellow Kingston musicians Dillinger and Leroy Smart perform. Expecting a rebellious ‘roots reggae’ performance, Strummer felt disappointed by their sets, claiming them to be “all very Vegas.”

British film director and musician Don Letts, who attended the show with Strummer, reflected on the evening: “I think that show was an eye opener for [Strummer], realizing that all these people were trying to get out of the ghetto roots life.”

The event inspired Strummer to pen the lyrics for one of The Clash’s biggest hits: “White Man In Hammersmith Palais.” In it you can hear Strummer shout out “Delroy Wilson, your cool operator.”

Wilson died at the age of 46 on March 6, 1995 of cirrhosis of the liver. He is often noted for his soulful vocals and melancholy lyrics. Of his many great songs, one of my personal favorites is his 1968 recording, “This Life Makes Me Wonder.” The lyrics are simple, yet strangely haunting, and the music is just so damned melodic:

This life makes me wonder
how to live another day to come
This life makes me wonder
how to live another day to come

I feel the strong of the hand of one that I was depending on

It takes a friend… to be a friend

It takes a friend… to stop a friend

ENJOY:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Delroy Wilson’s greatest hits album, Once Upon A Time, which features this song, can be downloaded here:

Why Is Chris Hedges A Lone Voice In Criticizing Huffington Post’s Business Model?

Stan — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:37:57 +0000

Chris Hedges’ new TruthDig column, Huffington’s Plunder, raises a topic that seems to provoke a lot of uneasiness in the liberal blogosphere. It points a spotlight on the business model pioneered by one of the country’s most prominent progressive voices, Arianna Huffington.

Huffington recently released a book entitled “Third World America: How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream”. In it she argues that our trade and economic policies have focused on corporate profits at the expense of the American worker. She posted at the Huffington Post her reasons for writing the book. Here, she describes a rigged system:

it’s become a bad carnival game where the rich always get the grand prize and the average American walks away empty-handed.

Hedges criticizes Huffington for engaging in the exact same business practices that she publicly denounces:

Any business owner who uses largely unpaid labor, with a handful of underpaid, nonunion employees, to build a company that is sold for a few hundred million dollars, no matter how he or she is introduced to you on the television screen, is not a liberal or a progressive. Those who take advantage of workers, whatever their outward ideological veneer, to make profits of that magnitude are charter members of the exploitative class. Dust off your Karl Marx. They are the enemies of working men and women. And they are also, in this case, sucking the life blood out of a trade I care deeply about.

The gist of the argument offered by those who defend the Huffington Post business model is that all the writers who contributed chose to write for free. No one forced them. They agreed, because they viewed it as an opportunity to expand their visibility as writers. This is true, and I doubt anyone would debate this point.

But Hedges responds that this line of argument is used by every company that exploits its workers:

The argument made to defend this exploitation is that the writers had a choice. It is an argument I also heard made by the managers of sweatshops in the Dominican Republic and Mexico, the coal companies in West Virginia or Kentucky and huge poultry farms in Maine. It is the argument made by the comfortable, by those who do not know what it is to be hard up, desperate or driven by a passion to express one’s self and the world through journalism or art. It is the argument the wealthy elite, who have cemented in place an oligarchic system under which there are no real choices, use to justify their oppression.

Who would not want to be able to carry out his or her trade and make enough to pay the bills? What worker would decline the possibility of job protection, health care and a pension? Why do these people think tens of millions of Americans endure substandard employment?

It is rather difficult to square away what is arguably the central tenet of progressive idealism — workers’ rights should not be sacrificed in the name of corporate profits — with Huffington Post’s business model.

Why is this an important discussion for those on the Left to be having? Because this issue is far bigger than the Huffington Post.

As newspapers and magazines continue to transition their core operations from paper to online content, they too will follow this business model. To fatten profits, they too will begin to rename traditionally paid positions like ‘journalist’, ‘columnist’ and ‘reporter’ to job titles such as ‘citizen journalist‘, ‘blogger’, and ‘fan blogger’.

It’s a crafty slight-of-hand, where these new titles give the impression they’re not ‘real’ employees, even though they are in fact doing work that has traditionally been performed by paid workers.

Think this won’t happen? Think again. The Washington Post took a test drive on the Huffington Post business model as early as last August, with its unpaid ‘Fan Blogger’ program. Writers were asked to submit writing samples to be ‘hired’ by the Washington Post to cover each of the major Washington, DC sports teams (I wrote about it HERE).

So why isn’t anyone on the Left (outside of Chris Hedges and a few others) willing to discuss the fact that a supposed ‘champion for the American worker’ is reportedly netting $20-30 million dollars as her personal take from the AOL acquisition, off the backs of non-paid writers? The liberal blogosphere is a group hellbent on formulating candid opinions on just about anything and everything, but instead of hearing outrage, you hear … (listen closely) … crickets.

Here is why, I believe, the liberal blogosphere has chosen to shy away from this topic:

The grim reality of the political blogosphere is that it is something of a loosely-knit, homegrown, media environment where little if any money ever gets made. Well-trafficked bloggers tend to ask their readers for donations each holiday (sometimes every quarter) to help cover the hosting and maintenance of their sites, as well as for living expenses. Larger sites ask for donations to help pay staff writers. For this very reason, many blog site owners would feel a bit hypocritical jumping on Huffington for not paying her contributors when they truly cannot afford to pay their own.

Another reason is political in nature. Huffington Post is a liberal powerhouse, and it is true: many of us who blog would be honored to have our work appear there — paid or unpaid — just for the massive exposure it would offer us. Few want to risk jeopardizing this kind of opportunity, by criticizing such a highly-trafficked blogging institution.

But consider the irony of that logic. It could be said, that that’s what the blogosphere was supposed to be all about: pursuing truth wherever it might take you, and regardless of whom it might embarrass. The blogosphere was a reaction to what the main stream media wasn’t providing: honest journalism.

If bloggers refrain from criticizing the top power players within their own political network for fear of losing opportunities which they otherwise might have provided them, then how can they criticize the main stream media for not asking the tough questions of the political establishment for fear of losing access?

I sense there’s also a sentimental reason why the Left won’t discuss the Huffington Post business model. After the editorial pages of the Washington Post and the New York Times shifted to the hard-right during the Bush years, the left-leaning Huffington Post filled that void for many. And unlike those papers, the Huffington Post felt more communal, less corporate.

Most bloggers visit and read the Huffington Post daily, and so they don’t want to believe its business practices actually contradict the very progressive ideals they hold dear. It would be like shopping for organic, fair-trade products at your local co-op to then discover their produce was purchased from farmers whom they knew exploited undocumented workers. In some ways, progressives are in denial.

The Left has long celebrated Huffington Post’s success. Sam Stein (who writes for the Huffington Post) became the first blogger in history to ask a question at a Presidential news conference. Each success by the Huffington Post has been viewed by many progressive bloggers as a giant leap for the entire blogosphere.

I share a great deal of this sentimentality.

But the moment the Huffington Post accepted $315 million to get swallowed by AOL it went from being a fledgling, progressively-communal, news-editorial site to a deep-pocketed corporate entity (whose priority has now shifted to fattening profits). So the good will that had been granted to them before — no money, so we can’t afford to pay anyone — has suddenly become a major issue, as it very well should be.

I do hope that Huffington spreads some of her newfound fortune to those unpaid writers whose work helped to make Huffington Post what it is today.

And for the aspiring writers out there who choose to remain silent on this, just remember that when all the other publishers follow her lead, and the few paying writer jobs that are still available also vanish.

Because the Huffington Post business model actually devalues writing as a paid profession. According to this business model, writers at every established publication should be grateful to write for free, because their writings are being granted exposure to many readers (and so that in itself should constitute payment). Never mind the fact Huffington is actually luring all those readers (and advertisers), because of that very content she didn’t have to pay for.

And when you really think about it, you can extend this sort of rationale to just about any professional field. Hair stylists who want to work at popular trendy establishments should probably also be expected to work for free, because working there helps to introduce them to a client-base they otherwise might not have had access to. Film studios probably shouldn’t ever have to pay employees, because there are many independently wealthy people out there who would be willing to work without pay, just to hob-knob with celebrities.

It’s a rationale that always leads to the same outcome. Again, to quote Arianna Huffington: “the rich always get the grand prize, and the average American walks away empty-handed.”

UPDATE:

Alison Rose Levy, a Health Journalist who writes for the Huffington Post, just wrote a powerful article on this topic which I highly recommend.

UPDATE 2 (Feb. 28, 2011):

Raw Story is reporting that the Newspaper Guild, ArtScene and Visual Art Source are now ramping up the pressure on Arianna Huffington to pay her writers and to modify her ‘unethical’ business model.

Washington Post Now Hiring: Unpaid ‘Non-Employees’ To Produce Content

Ayn Rand Movie Coming Soon

Rummy_Swashbuckle — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 05:08:50 +0000

from http://thetempestuousnemesis.blogspot.com/

“Ayn Rand,” real name Alisa Zinov’yevna Rosenbaum, was a proponent of “egoism” and the “Virtues of Selfishness”. As far as she was concerned, altruism was a sin.

Her anti humanitarian philosophy is a favorite of libertarian/republican corporate CEOs.

She condemned social programs that helped people but received social security and medicare benefits under another assumed name (ann o’connor).

Rand also believed that the scientific consensus on the dangers of tobacco was a hoax. By 1974, the two-pack-a-day smoker, required surgery for lung cancer.

She was a cold-hearted hypocrite;
and unfortunately, her book Atlas Shrugged is being made into a movie (in theaters april 15).

WATCH: Ricky Gervais’ Controversial 2011 Golden Globes Monologue

Stan — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 05:03:53 +0000

Ricky Gervais was absolutely hysterical Sunday night as host of the 2011 Golden Globe Awards!

Granted, he pushed the envelope in terms of appropriateness, but come on now — seriously! — isn’t that what all of us are secretly hoping for from any major award event’s comic MC? Without a Ricky Gervais or Chris Rock or someone who’s going to shake the evening up a bit, the event always evolves into something resembling a slow death — an unmemorable, uneventful fizzle.

Chelsea Handler hosted the Mtv Awards recently, and it was obvious that she deliberately toned it down — played it conservatively. I had to switch the channel after about 10 minutes. Boring! More often than not, these comics rose to stardom, because they wouldn’t allow their shtick to be roped into some old Hollywood magnate’s idea of “wholesome & uncontroversial” etiquette.

Now, I don’t enjoy seeing blatant cruelty directed at anyone, but look at who he singled out for a spirited ribbing: Charlie Sheen, Mel Gibson, Hugh Hefner, and some unnamed Scientology stars. And he pummeled Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie’s latest film, The Tourist. None of them strike me as the kinds who will lose sleep from being joked on by a stand-up comic, like Gervais.

It’s been reported that members of the Hollywood Foreign Press reacted as if his jokes destroyed the entire evening. I’m guessing they’ll soon discover that this year’s Golden Globes will be the most talked about event of the month. And if they were wise enough to bring Gervais back next year, the event would likely garner twice the ratings it did this year — on Gervais’ presence alone.

But that appears unlikely to happen.

Gervais apparently got in the most trouble for making fun of Philip Berk, the current head of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA). Another member was quoted as saying to PopEater:

“Ricky will not be invited back to host the show next year, for sure,” a member of the HFPA tells me, adding that Gervais’ relentlessly mean shtick could have even larger consequences. “For sure any movie he makes he can forget about getting nominated. He humiliated the organization last night and went too far with several celebrities whose representatives have already called to complain.”

I doubt Ricky Gervais is worried. His stock has risen considerably after this performance.

WATCH his beginning monologue:

UPDATE:

Ricky Gervais responds to his critics.