Photo by author. Click on image to enlargeWednesday, October 31, 2007
A Place Where One Person’s Costume Is Another’s Work Clothes
Click on image to enlargefrom the New York Times
Sapphire Morrison has 17 piercings: some in each ear and two across the bridge of her nose, as well as a nose ring, a tongue ring and a stud in her chin, among others. Piled high and wide atop her head is an unruly crown of black braids with strands of green and pink flares, which she occasionally swipes out of her eyes as she lugs large cardboard boxes full of wigs in the stockroom. Ms. Morrison, 32, was born on the Lower East Side. This is her fourth year styling wigs and doing makeup on the mannequins (and occasionally customers) at the Halloween Adventure store in the East Village. Read full article here
Brian Eno 'no genius'
Guardian writer Marcel Berlins on a new list of the top 100 living geniuses of the world." ... Now I yield to few in my passion for Eno - no, that's not quite true, I yield to many millions - but even I can tell that he is no genius, and not the second highest-rated musical person alive in the world - only Philip Glass was placed above him. Bowie, McCartney and Morrissey are also living geniuses, the list assures me... A panel of six alleged "experts in creativity and innovation" emailed 4,000 people, all of them Britons, asking for nominations. Some 1,100 replied, many of them obviously deranged. I'm sure, of course, that the nationality of the consultees had nothing to do with the preponderance of British and other English-speaking geniuses in the list... The danger is that these insane findings will soon turn into facts, cited in Wikipedia and such-like. Future generations who don't know any better - and indeed current readers - will genuinely believe that Brian Eno was a musical genius." Read full article here
Here's the Top 10: 1. Albert Hoffman (Swiss) Chemist 1. Tim Berners-Lee (British) Computer Scientist 3. George Soros (American) Investor & Philanthropist 4. Matt Groening (American) Satirist & Animator 5. Nelson Mandela (South African) Politician & Diplomat 5. Frederick Sanger (British) Chemist 7. Dario Fo (Italian) Writer & Dramatist 7. Steven Hawking (British) Physicist 9. Oscar Niemeyer (Brazilian) Architect 9. Philip Glass (American) Composer 9. Grigory Perelman (Russian) Mathematician. For the Top 100, click here
Fuerzabruta - the only show in town
Fuerzabruta has just opened at the Daryl Roth Theatre, 101 E. 15th St. off Union Square, Manhattan - and, by early accounts, it's pretty stunning. "Like Cirque du Soleil on acid!" said a friend. If, like me, you're miffed you missed the same people doing De La Guarda at the Daryl Roth, you probably shouldn't miss this. But take your wellies! Only show in town? Okay, after Spring Awakening.
Say the creators (who can't seem to make their minds up whether they're a one- or two-word title): "fuer • za • bru • ta\ f'where-zah-broo-tah \ 1: brute force 2: the new show from the creators of DE LA GUARDA 3: a 360° heart-pounding theatrical experience
THEY'RE BACK!!! From the creators of De La Guarda comes a brand new original work: FUERZABRUTA. A non-stop collision of dynamic music, visceral emotion, and kinetic aerial imagery, FUERZABRUTA is one of the most exciting events of the fall season. Having already taken South America and Europe by storm, this all-new work from the creators of the revolutionary theatre spectacle De La Guarda defies easy categorization. Featuring mind-blowing visual effects that must be seen to be believed - a man running full throttle through a series of moving walls, women frolicking in a watery world suspended just inches above the audience - FUERZABRUTA is a theatrical experience that floods the senses.
On MySpace: www.myspace.com/fuerzabrutanyc
Other Israel Film Festival at Symphony Space NYC
'Ringo & Taher' Click on image to enlargeThe Other Israel Film Festival comes to New York's Symphony Space Nov 10-13, showcasing the life, images, voices and stories of the Arab citizens of Israel. The festival will feature Q&As with filmmakers and actors each day.
Films to be shown are: The Red Toy & Ringo & Taher (Double Feature) (Nov 10); City of Oranges: A Conversation with Adam Lebor (Nov 10); Atash (Thirst) (Nov 10); I Am You Are & Arab Labor (Nov 11);
Roads & Empathy (Nov 11);
Pickles (Nov 11);
Behind the Walls (Nov 13).
Buy tickets for all films here
Read about Symphony Space's great New York history here
Films to be shown are: The Red Toy & Ringo & Taher (Double Feature) (Nov 10); City of Oranges: A Conversation with Adam Lebor (Nov 10); Atash (Thirst) (Nov 10); I Am You Are & Arab Labor (Nov 11);
Roads & Empathy (Nov 11);
Pickles (Nov 11);
Behind the Walls (Nov 13).
Buy tickets for all films here
Read about Symphony Space's great New York history here
Lauren Bacall a New York Living Landmark
from the Hollywood Reporter
Six more Manhattanites were inducted as Living Landmarks by the New York Landmarks Conservatory at a ceremony at Cipriani 42nd Street last night. The latest to join the fraternity "for preserving New York in their own legendary ways": Lauren Bacall, Oscar de la Renta, Jessye Norman, Mica Ertegun, Gerald Schoenfeld and John C. Whitehead.
Six more Manhattanites were inducted as Living Landmarks by the New York Landmarks Conservatory at a ceremony at Cipriani 42nd Street last night. The latest to join the fraternity "for preserving New York in their own legendary ways": Lauren Bacall, Oscar de la Renta, Jessye Norman, Mica Ertegun, Gerald Schoenfeld and John C. Whitehead.
Andy Summers to tell Police story in movie
from the Hollywood Reporter
Police guitarist Andy Summers' autobiography "One Train Later" is being turned into a feature documentary. The docu, from producers Bob Yari, Norm Golightly, Brett Morgen and Nicolas Cage, is set to feature concert footage from the Police's current tour. Lauren Lazin ("Tupac: Resurrection") is in negotiations to direct. Summers is in talks to narrate and would tell the Police story from his perspective, in the style of director Morgen's Bob Evans docu "The Kid Stays in the Picture." About 25,000 photos Summers has taken of the band over the years will be featured in an animated style to tell the story.The production filmed the band's June concert at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles with several helicopters, and filming will continue over three continents until the band's concert tour wraps in the spring. Morgen said the producers hope to have the Yari Film Group feature ready in time for the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Read full article here
Police guitarist Andy Summers' autobiography "One Train Later" is being turned into a feature documentary. The docu, from producers Bob Yari, Norm Golightly, Brett Morgen and Nicolas Cage, is set to feature concert footage from the Police's current tour. Lauren Lazin ("Tupac: Resurrection") is in negotiations to direct. Summers is in talks to narrate and would tell the Police story from his perspective, in the style of director Morgen's Bob Evans docu "The Kid Stays in the Picture." About 25,000 photos Summers has taken of the band over the years will be featured in an animated style to tell the story.The production filmed the band's June concert at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles with several helicopters, and filming will continue over three continents until the band's concert tour wraps in the spring. Morgen said the producers hope to have the Yari Film Group feature ready in time for the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Read full article here
Gorillaz to release behind-scenes documentary
from NME
Gorillaz have revealed they are to release a documentary film that goes behind the scenes of Damon Albarn's animated band. 'Bananaz' will be the first film to capture the reality behind the multi-platinum band that was created following a late-night conversation between Albarn and animator Jamie Hewlett in 2000. Full story here
Gorillaz have revealed they are to release a documentary film that goes behind the scenes of Damon Albarn's animated band. 'Bananaz' will be the first film to capture the reality behind the multi-platinum band that was created following a late-night conversation between Albarn and animator Jamie Hewlett in 2000. Full story here
Jewish groups protest show of Nazi band at church hall
from the NY Daily News
Outraged Jewish groups are demanding Edward Cardinal Egan speak out against Nazi-glorifying rockers set to take the stage Friday night in a Catholic Church-owned concert hall.
Croatian singer Marko Perkovic and his band Thompson extol ethnic cleansing - and their fans often greet them with the Nazi salute.
Now they're taking that message to a stage in the community center adjoining the Croatian Church of St. Cyril & Methodius on 10th Ave. in midtown.
"I urge you to take the lead on this issue, and to reaffirm the church's commitment against anti-Semitism, intolerance and violence," the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Mark Weitzman wrote the cardinal last week.
"Especially given some of the things that's been going on in the city recently, messages of intolerance and bigotry should not be welcome here," Weitzman said. Read full article here
Outraged Jewish groups are demanding Edward Cardinal Egan speak out against Nazi-glorifying rockers set to take the stage Friday night in a Catholic Church-owned concert hall.
Croatian singer Marko Perkovic and his band Thompson extol ethnic cleansing - and their fans often greet them with the Nazi salute.
Now they're taking that message to a stage in the community center adjoining the Croatian Church of St. Cyril & Methodius on 10th Ave. in midtown.
"I urge you to take the lead on this issue, and to reaffirm the church's commitment against anti-Semitism, intolerance and violence," the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Mark Weitzman wrote the cardinal last week.
"Especially given some of the things that's been going on in the city recently, messages of intolerance and bigotry should not be welcome here," Weitzman said. Read full article here
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Franz Beckenbauer: England like 'school team'
from the Telegraph, UK
World Cup legend Franz Beckenbauer has compared England to a lifeless school team and pointed to a lack of spirit as the cause for their faltering Euro 2008 qualifying campaign. In an extraordinary attack on the character of England's top players, he said: "It was like a school team, they are not talking and not supporting. That for me was the biggest surprise. There is no life in this team." Read full article here
World Cup legend Franz Beckenbauer has compared England to a lifeless school team and pointed to a lack of spirit as the cause for their faltering Euro 2008 qualifying campaign. In an extraordinary attack on the character of England's top players, he said: "It was like a school team, they are not talking and not supporting. That for me was the biggest surprise. There is no life in this team." Read full article here
Why new Gang of Four album will not be on CD
by Dave Allen, bass player with the Gang of Four... I have started a new category in the blog called ‘New Gang of Four album’ - by clicking on that category interested parties can follow my ruminations on what exactly a Gang of Four recording means in 2007. And what does that mean? Well, regular readers of this blog will know that I have nothing but disdain for the CD. That format is essentially over, the irony there being that the CD was introduced in the 80’s as the ultimate delivery system of music for generations to come; unfortunately for some, we have learned that ones and zeros have a habit of being very mobile when packaged correctly for delivery. Read full article at Dave's great Pampelmoose site here
Ghostly Gotham
Some of Manhattan’s haunted drinking holes are revisited in a timely New York Daily News feature today.
Star Lounge (which winds beneath the Chelsea Hotel, where Sid Vicious allegedly stabbed Nancy Spungen to death): “A month ago, we came in and none of the lights worked,” says owner Charles Ferri. An electrician was summoned and ‘after sawing through the ceiling, workers reached a tangle of wiring that had been rearranged.’
“ ‘How could anyone even get to these wires?” says Ferri.
White Horse Tavern (where poet Dylan Thomas spent his famous last night downing at least 17 whiskies): ‘A porter hired to carry kegs down to the basement often told [owner Eddie] Brennan he heard footsteps in the bar and found an empty beer glass and shot glass on Thomas’ favorite table, near the radiator in the middle room.’
Manhattan Bistro: “Sometimes people have spotted a young woman who is in a dirty dress with moss and vines on it. They say it’s the ghost of Emma Sands,” whose bruised body was found in a well beneath the premises in 1799.
Ear Inn: Apparition of ‘Mickey the Sailor’ gooses waitresses and has even been known to slide into bed with overnight guests. “It’s not a tale,” says owner Martin Sheridan. “It’s a fact.”
Waverly Inn: Celebrity hangout has a ghost who wears a top hat waistcoat and was “accused of switching the keys on the computer for meatloaf and fried chicken.”
Star Lounge (which winds beneath the Chelsea Hotel, where Sid Vicious allegedly stabbed Nancy Spungen to death): “A month ago, we came in and none of the lights worked,” says owner Charles Ferri. An electrician was summoned and ‘after sawing through the ceiling, workers reached a tangle of wiring that had been rearranged.’
“ ‘How could anyone even get to these wires?” says Ferri.
White Horse Tavern (where poet Dylan Thomas spent his famous last night downing at least 17 whiskies): ‘A porter hired to carry kegs down to the basement often told [owner Eddie] Brennan he heard footsteps in the bar and found an empty beer glass and shot glass on Thomas’ favorite table, near the radiator in the middle room.’
Manhattan Bistro: “Sometimes people have spotted a young woman who is in a dirty dress with moss and vines on it. They say it’s the ghost of Emma Sands,” whose bruised body was found in a well beneath the premises in 1799.
Ear Inn: Apparition of ‘Mickey the Sailor’ gooses waitresses and has even been known to slide into bed with overnight guests. “It’s not a tale,” says owner Martin Sheridan. “It’s a fact.”
Waverly Inn: Celebrity hangout has a ghost who wears a top hat waistcoat and was “accused of switching the keys on the computer for meatloaf and fried chicken.”
Turner: the greatest British artist ever
By Jonathan Jones in the Guardian, UK... It wasn't that I didn't love his art. It's just that sometimes it's fun to think something different. I've flirted with other great British artists. I've dallied with the unique compression of word and image in Blake's poetic vision. I've been drawn to the icy blood red soul of Francis Bacon, especially after seeing his preserved studio at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin.
There are some lovely works by Turner in the Paul Mellon memorial exhibition at the Royal Academy. Seeing his painting of a steamship chugging in front of Fingal's Cave in a silken cloud of glowing sea spray is especially revealing, as it hangs beside a dauntingly good picture by his contemporary - and of course his real rival to the crown - John Constable.
If you really want to see how un-British (or at least un-Victorian) Britain's best painter could be, visit Seduced: Art and Sex at the Barbican. Here, next to erotica by Klimt and Picasso, you can see something really rare - the notorious nudes and erotic sketches in Turner's notebooks that his executor, John Ruskin, thought a symptom of madness.... Read full article here
Going global
NewYorkCandy currently being read in Portland; Hopkins, Minnesota; Buenos Aires; Madrid; Peterborough, England; Zagreb; Amsterdam; Paris; Delhi; Adelaide, and Wellington. Cheers. (www.statcounter.com)
Marko Perkovic plays NYC national front disco
“If Adolf Hitler flew in today, they’d send a limousine anyway"– “White Man in Hammersmith Palais,” The Clash
New York City is – astonishingly - holding open the limousine door this weekend for the Croatian rock star Marko Perkovic, akaThompson (after the submachine gun), whose charming repertoire includes an anthem for the Ustashe, Croatia’s Nazi-backed military regime, that, as the New York Sun points out, “references extermination camps where tens of thousands of Jews, Serbs, and Gypsies were killed during World War II.”
Not only that, reports the Sun, Thompson “greets adoring crowds with a famous Ustashe slogan, and many respond with the Nazi salute.”
The New York Times writes: “The exchange with the audience is a routine part of Mr. Perkovic’s act, and the gesture seemed to lack any conscious political overtones. The audience — most of whom appeared to be in their teens and early 20s — just seemed to be having a good time. But Mr. Perkovic’s recent success among a new generation — many of them apparently oblivious to the history of the Holocaust — has prompted concern and condemnation from Jewish groups abroad and minority groups in Croatia.”
To its eternal credit, Canada has already closed the door on this evil clown. According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the international Jewish human rights organization: “In Toronto, the owners of the hall where the concert was scheduled cancelled after protests by the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and others. Authorities in Vancouver have indicated that they planned to send members of the Hate Crimes Unit to monitor the show.”
“ ‘Inviting this man to sing in North America is tantamount to inviting a singer to extol ethnic cleansing in Darfur,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center. “Croatia today is a free country but in a democracy, those who celebrate the genocidal Ustashe regime deserve condemnation, not accommodation,” he said.”
The show is, however, going on in Manhattan. Two of them, actually. The first, on Friday, has sold out (tickets are $45 a piece), and a second has been added on Saturday.
Protests are expected to take place at the venue for the two shows, upstairs at the Croatian Center, at 507 W. 40th Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues in Manhattan. Doors for each show open at 7.30 p.m.
Not only that, reports the Sun, Thompson “greets adoring crowds with a famous Ustashe slogan, and many respond with the Nazi salute.”
The New York Times writes: “The exchange with the audience is a routine part of Mr. Perkovic’s act, and the gesture seemed to lack any conscious political overtones. The audience — most of whom appeared to be in their teens and early 20s — just seemed to be having a good time. But Mr. Perkovic’s recent success among a new generation — many of them apparently oblivious to the history of the Holocaust — has prompted concern and condemnation from Jewish groups abroad and minority groups in Croatia.”
To its eternal credit, Canada has already closed the door on this evil clown. According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the international Jewish human rights organization: “In Toronto, the owners of the hall where the concert was scheduled cancelled after protests by the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and others. Authorities in Vancouver have indicated that they planned to send members of the Hate Crimes Unit to monitor the show.”
“ ‘Inviting this man to sing in North America is tantamount to inviting a singer to extol ethnic cleansing in Darfur,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center. “Croatia today is a free country but in a democracy, those who celebrate the genocidal Ustashe regime deserve condemnation, not accommodation,” he said.”
The show is, however, going on in Manhattan. Two of them, actually. The first, on Friday, has sold out (tickets are $45 a piece), and a second has been added on Saturday.
Protests are expected to take place at the venue for the two shows, upstairs at the Croatian Center, at 507 W. 40th Street, between 10th and 11th Avenues in Manhattan. Doors for each show open at 7.30 p.m.
The New York Police Department Hate Crimes Unit should be informed.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Daft Punk - Harder Better Faster Stronger [Alive]
Video compiled from clips supplied by 250 crowd members at NYC show. I lifted this from Gang of Four Dave Allen's great Pampelmoose site. He got it from the wondrous Fader mag.
Natalie Portman curates charity compilation (and not just an excuse to use a Natalie photo)
from Harp magazineNatalie Portman tastes like heaven, has made a shaved head look good and changed Zach Braff’s life. There’s even a band from Seattle called Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head! Now added to her list of accomplishments? Curating a charity compilation, Big Change: Songs for FINCA, which hits iTunes tomorrow.
The album, which will include tracks by M. Ward, Antony and the Johnsons, Norah Jones, Devendra Banhart, the Shins (in a Garden State flashback) and Beirut (Portman’s “new favorite band,” according to an interview with Entertainment Weekly), will include 16 tracks in all. To listen to the exclusive Beirut track, “My Night with the Prostitute from Marseille,” visit Entertainment Weekly’s website. Speaking to EW.com, Portman commented, "I love this whole movement now with Antony and Devendra and CocoRosie and Sufjan Stevens..." Read full article here
Barry Adamson at London Jazz Festival
Barry Adamson, former bass player with Magazine and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, will be the Southbank Centre's Artist In Residence as part of this year's London Jazz Festival.Adamson has programmed two special shows at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall. On Nov. 20, he will premiere the entirety of his hotly anticipated new album with full band, as well as performing favourite tracks from his back catalogue. The new album, heavily influenced by jazz, soul and blues, is not due for release until next year. Support comes from saxophonist Matana Roberts and her Quartet, whose album The Chicago Project is to be released early next year on Central Control.
There will be a post-show event at The Front Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall when Eugene Robinson from Oxbow will read stories from his upcoming book 'Fight: Or, Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Ass-Kicking But Were Afraid Youd Get Your Ass Kicked for Asking,' accompanied by Adamson, Ross Mason from Wonb and members of Strings of Consciousness. Post show is free admission to the general public.
On November 21, Adamson will present 'These Are a Few of My Favorite Themes'. Renowned for his trademark sinful noir film scores, Adamson chooses a selection of his favourite soundtracks for this performance. Featuring special musical guests and unique performance collaborations, this evening promises to be an unforgettable experience. Having covered, reinterpreted and collaborated with artists as diverse as Elmer Bernstein, Archie Shepp, Serge Gainsbourg, Nancy Sinatra, Angelo Badalamenti, Monty Norman and Dusty Springfield, Adamson tries to give you a fair idea of what you can expect: the unexpected.
A post-show event will be held at the Front Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, with Barry Adamson reading his published short-story Maida Hell (from the novel London Noir, published by Serpents Tail), accompanied by a unique soundtrack by Adamson, augmented live with Matana Roberts and Pete Whyman on saxophones. Post show is free admission to the general public.
Barry Adamson talks about 'Moss Side Story'
Heima - Sigur Ros (new movie preview)
Heima, with a mixture of full live songs, interviews and gorgeous scenery footage, is a love letter to the Icelandic landscape and people. Directed by Canadian Dean DeBlois (of Lilo and Stitch fame!), it captures the essence of the band, humanising without demystifying them, and makes Iceland looks like God's very own country. (Mojo magazine)
Listen, pal, I was there - Ridley Scott
Ridley Scott, director of new movie 'American Gangster,' starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, discusses his return to New York to film the newie years after spending time here following graduation from London's Royal Academy:
'... Even on a scholarship like that you have no money. I was living in a YMCA, but I had cameras. And I walked the streets and did a lot of photography in Harlem, and Coney Island and the war zone - the Bowery. I knew all of those areas well. So when I was doing ("Gangster"), people were saying, "It wasn't like this." And usually I was getting that from some 32-year old art director, and I'm saying, "Listen pal, I was there." We removed a section that we shot, where (Denzel Washington's) Frank Lucas walks the beach with a dog, and they'd have lunch next to the (Wonder Wheel) in Coney Island, and I stood there 50 years ago. So I was standing there 50 years on, and it hadn't changed ...' Read full Hollywood Reporter interview here.
Watch 'American Gangster' preview
'... Even on a scholarship like that you have no money. I was living in a YMCA, but I had cameras. And I walked the streets and did a lot of photography in Harlem, and Coney Island and the war zone - the Bowery. I knew all of those areas well. So when I was doing ("Gangster"), people were saying, "It wasn't like this." And usually I was getting that from some 32-year old art director, and I'm saying, "Listen pal, I was there." We removed a section that we shot, where (Denzel Washington's) Frank Lucas walks the beach with a dog, and they'd have lunch next to the (Wonder Wheel) in Coney Island, and I stood there 50 years ago. So I was standing there 50 years on, and it hadn't changed ...' Read full Hollywood Reporter interview here.
Watch 'American Gangster' preview
They’re With the Band
Click on image to enlargefrom the New York Times
The musician Damo Suzuki, formerly of the influential German experimental group Can, “elevates the pickup band to an art form,” writes Ben Sisario. Nomadic even by musician standards, he tours the country, picking up local acts to join his network as what he calls “sound carriers,” performing — well, whatever they want. Whatever it is, it’s unlike anything else. Tonight at the Knitting Factory his all-star players include Kid Millions, of the long-running Brooklyn trio Oneida, which Jon Pareles calls an “essential New York band”; Miles Seaton of the grungy Akron/Family; the cellist Okkyung Lee; and the minimalist composer and filmmaker Tony Conrad.
100,000 Brits in Dubai? Sounds like hell on Earth
from the Telegraph, UK
"We think of ourselves as 'the new Middle Easterners' ... We live here, work here, go on holiday in the region and most of our friends are here. I even pass the Tebbit test. I cheer for the UAE." Read full stomach-churning article here.
"We think of ourselves as 'the new Middle Easterners' ... We live here, work here, go on holiday in the region and most of our friends are here. I even pass the Tebbit test. I cheer for the UAE." Read full stomach-churning article here.
The Others
Click on image to enlargefrom the New York Times
Eco-minded fashion designers are making some startlingly beautiful clothes. Shalom Harlow encounters the supernatural. See full slideshow here Picture above shows Stella McCartney washed-silk-organdy hand-pleated dress, $3,495. 429 West 14th Street. Carolina Amato gloves. Hue tights worn throughout. Stella McCartney pumps.
Eco-minded fashion designers are making some startlingly beautiful clothes. Shalom Harlow encounters the supernatural. See full slideshow here Picture above shows Stella McCartney washed-silk-organdy hand-pleated dress, $3,495. 429 West 14th Street. Carolina Amato gloves. Hue tights worn throughout. Stella McCartney pumps.
New FIFA policy opens way for England World Cup bid
from the Guardian
England's chances of hosting the 2018 World Cup received a huge boost today after Fifa scrapped its policy whereby the tournament rotates between continents. Under the current system, the World Cup will go to Africa for 2010 (South Africa won the contest), South America for 2014 and - if rotation continued - would go to a country from north and central America or the Caribbean in 2018. But the Fifa vice-president Chung Mong-joon said today that the body's executive committee had unanimously voted to scrap the system, leaving England free to put forward a bid. Read full article here
England's chances of hosting the 2018 World Cup received a huge boost today after Fifa scrapped its policy whereby the tournament rotates between continents. Under the current system, the World Cup will go to Africa for 2010 (South Africa won the contest), South America for 2014 and - if rotation continued - would go to a country from north and central America or the Caribbean in 2018. But the Fifa vice-president Chung Mong-joon said today that the body's executive committee had unanimously voted to scrap the system, leaving England free to put forward a bid. Read full article here
'Control': Joy amid the pain
from the Toronto Star
... Everything, from the enigmatic album cover graphics to lyrics laced with graveside resignation – not to mention a sound that suggested a floating disco on the River Styx – suddenly seemed to foretell what had happened. Of such morbid matters rock cults spring eternal, and now Joy Division has the movie that, for better or worse, lives up to the myth. Read full article here
... Everything, from the enigmatic album cover graphics to lyrics laced with graveside resignation – not to mention a sound that suggested a floating disco on the River Styx – suddenly seemed to foretell what had happened. Of such morbid matters rock cults spring eternal, and now Joy Division has the movie that, for better or worse, lives up to the myth. Read full article here
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Only £2,000 raised for George Best statue
from the Mail on Sunday, UKMore than 100,000 people lined the streets of Belfast for the funeral of one of the world's greatest footballers, George Best. But almost two years after his death a fund set up to build an £80,000 statue of Belfast's favourite son has raised just £2,000 – and half of that was donated by Northern Ireland striker David Healy. Organisers of the George Best Trust admit they are on the verge of giving up the project because of a lack of interest from former fans. Read full article here
LES is more
In The Future No One Will Have A Past (Part 1), 2007 - Kanishka RajaClick on image to enlarge
from ArtKrush.com
Long home to a mélange of cultural attractions — burlesque clubs, anarchist squats, and Jewish delis — New York's Lower East Side is currently mesmerizing the art world. The neighborhood, with its friendly, DIY ethos, has recently birthed a host of new galleries, while more established galleries have also caught the LES bug and are setting up satellite spaces there. Venues range from smallish to smaller, but a quirky community vibe makes up for the modest square footage. Read full article here
Silent Clowns
from the Times, UKI had no idea that my favourite comedian suffered delusions of academic grandeur. I know that Paul Merton is a genius. He can twitter for England on Just a Minute, and is a principled bruiser on Have I Got News For You. But his obsession with silent black-and-white comedy is a total surprise.
I was flabbergasted to learn that this verbal wizard had assembled a whole series (albeit for BBC Four, a station thjat many of us have yet to discover) on Silent Clowns. And I am stunned by Silent Comedy, the book that his series inspired.
It's not a great piece of literature, and I'm no big fan of this early genre. But the personal touches impress, and the multi-coloured pages are cheeky. Merton slips two-page features about seminal films or forgotten stars into almost every chapter. I would like to add that he wears his research lightly, but that would be a bare-faced lie. Read full article here
Excuse me?
Pretty much everyone has the potential to be trim and to bring up fit children. We have the right to be disapproving of obesity because the costs to public health and to national productivity are borne by us all. We should stigmatise those who bring up fat children because it is a form of abuse, which probably condemns them to a shorter and less healthy life - Michael Portillo, Britain's former Treasury Secretary and Secretary of State for Defence, and now a columnist for the Sunday Times, UK. Read full article here
Gone global
NewYorkCandy currently being read in: Adelaide; Osaka; Poughkeepsie; San Francisco; Portsmouth; Rio de Janeiro; Eindhoven; Montpellier; Tokyo, and Caracas. Greetings (www.statcounter.com)
Pattie Boyd 'falling madly for a sound'
Click on image to enlargefrom the NY Times
... the appeal of [Pattie Boyd's new book] “Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me” is as self-evident as the seemingly simple but brash opening chord of “A Hard Day’s Night.” Boyd was working as a model in London when she was summoned to a secret audition for an undisclosed project, which turned out to be Richard Lester’s film “A Hard Day’s Night.” With her silky blond bob and irresistible chipmunk smile, the 19-year-old Boyd was cast as a schoolgirl who finds herself on a train with the four young men we know as the Beatles.
... the appeal of [Pattie Boyd's new book] “Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me” is as self-evident as the seemingly simple but brash opening chord of “A Hard Day’s Night.” Boyd was working as a model in London when she was summoned to a secret audition for an undisclosed project, which turned out to be Richard Lester’s film “A Hard Day’s Night.” With her silky blond bob and irresistible chipmunk smile, the 19-year-old Boyd was cast as a schoolgirl who finds herself on a train with the four young men we know as the Beatles.
Perched on a random crate in a baggage car, she watches the boys perform a faux-impromptu version of “I Should Have Known Better.” Watching the movie today, you could say that the rapture on her face is nothing more than passive femininity. Or you could see it as a far more resonant and telling image, one that has nothing to do with gender: to anyone who has ever loved the Beatles — and you know who you are — Boyd’s face captures the essence of falling madly for a sound unlike anything you’ve heard before, and also reckoning with the thrilling and vaguely terrifying possibility that it just might change your life. Read full article here
Vintage Neil Young, Still Working for the Muse
from the NY TimesNEIL Young was thrilled about an old car. Over chile verde at a Mexican restaurant near the landmark Fox Theater here, where he was rehearsing for his tour, Mr. Young’s grizzled face lit up as he described his Linc-Volt. The car is a 1959 Lincoln Continental Mark IV, a 19-foot, two-ton behemoth. It was a commercial flop in the year of the massive tail fin, and in its original configuration the car is an ecological disaster, guzzling gas and leaving giant black exhaust spots on the ground as it starts up. That’s the Linc part. Volt is because Mr. Young is converting the car to battery power, with a biodiesel engine for backup, and he plans to drive it to its birthplace in Detroit to demonstrate the viability of electric cars. He’s making a movie about the trip. The film, “is so different from everything that I’ve ever done,” he said. “It’s totally positive.” Read full article here
Friday, October 26, 2007
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Global communication
NewYorkCandy currently being read in: Zapopan, Mexico; Frankfort, Kentucky; Cambridge, Massachusetts; York; Budapest; Tel Aviv; Riyad, and Manila. Peace! (www.statcounter.com)
The Vignelli subway map
Click on image to enlargefrom New York magazine
In an instant, their pared-down designs — for the subway, Bloomingdale’s, American Airlines — conjure a particular moment in the city’s history.
Massimo and Lella Vignelli have a saying: “If you can’t find it, design it.” And it’s not just a saying. In the living room of their Upper East Side apartment—one of those old-fashioned grand studios with coffered ceilings and a twenty-foot leaded-glass window—almost everything of interest in sight is their own design, from the black leather chairs to the square steel worktable, the white porcelain coffee cups to Lella’s sleek silver choker and Massimo’s black cashmere Nehru shirt with the wire neck tab.
But it’s one thing to customize your surroundings, quite another to have the kind of far-reaching impact these two Italian-born architect-designers have had over the past 30 years. They’ve created corporate identities for American Airlines, Bloomingdale’s, Ford, and Knoll, and designed such everyday household products as Heller plasticware, Fodor’s travel guides, and a version of the New York subway map. When he arrived in New York to work for the Vignellis in 1980, says Pentagram partner Michael Beirut, he was overwhelmed by their presence. “You couldn’t travel around New York without encountering something by these two iconic, impossibly exotic characters." Read full article, and view the Vignelli subway map, here
History of the Vignellis' New York subway map here
Buy the Vignelli map at the fabulous New York City Transit Museum store here
Crowder learns he won’t need translator in London
from the Palm Beach Post
Maybe he was joking, but gregarious [Miami] Dolphins linebacker Channing Crowder confessed today he didn’t know until Tuesday that people spoke English in London. Crowder, a former Florida Gator and Atlanta native, apparently isn’t sure where the plane is headed when it takes off this afternoon for Sunday’s game against the New York Giants in Wembley Stadium. “I couldn’t find London on a map if they didn’t have the names of the countries,” Crowder said. “I swear to God. I don’t know what nothing is. I know Italy looks like a boot. I learned that. Read full article here
Maybe he was joking, but gregarious [Miami] Dolphins linebacker Channing Crowder confessed today he didn’t know until Tuesday that people spoke English in London. Crowder, a former Florida Gator and Atlanta native, apparently isn’t sure where the plane is headed when it takes off this afternoon for Sunday’s game against the New York Giants in Wembley Stadium. “I couldn’t find London on a map if they didn’t have the names of the countries,” Crowder said. “I swear to God. I don’t know what nothing is. I know Italy looks like a boot. I learned that. Read full article here
Death row diary
from the Guardian
The former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal has spent 25 years on death row in the United States - despite strong evidence that he is innocent. In his first British interview, he talks to Laura Smith about life in solitary, how he has remained politically active, and why the Panthers are still relevant today
... In Abu-Jamal's company, it is easy to forget that you are inside prison walls. As he talks, one is pulled into a world of urgent work that needs doing, of debates to be thrashed out, of injustices to be tackled. With characteristic eloquence, he calls Hurricane Katrina "a rude awakening from an illusion", watching television "a profoundly ignorising experience" and observes that much commercial hip-hop contains "no distinction, except in beat and tone, to a Chrysler advert". "If the message is, I am cool because I am rich, and if you get rich, you can be cool like me, that's a pretty fucked-up message." On American politics, he is damning. "You would think that a country that goes to war allegedly to spread democracy would practice it in its own country." Read full interview here
The former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal has spent 25 years on death row in the United States - despite strong evidence that he is innocent. In his first British interview, he talks to Laura Smith about life in solitary, how he has remained politically active, and why the Panthers are still relevant today
... In Abu-Jamal's company, it is easy to forget that you are inside prison walls. As he talks, one is pulled into a world of urgent work that needs doing, of debates to be thrashed out, of injustices to be tackled. With characteristic eloquence, he calls Hurricane Katrina "a rude awakening from an illusion", watching television "a profoundly ignorising experience" and observes that much commercial hip-hop contains "no distinction, except in beat and tone, to a Chrysler advert". "If the message is, I am cool because I am rich, and if you get rich, you can be cool like me, that's a pretty fucked-up message." On American politics, he is damning. "You would think that a country that goes to war allegedly to spread democracy would practice it in its own country." Read full interview here
"Real people with their own turn of voice" - Robert Wyatt
Singer Robert Wyatt on life at home in England, in Telegraph interview."I love sitting in the town square here by Stan's Van. Stan puts out a couple of tables and dispenses cups of tea for 40p, and wonderful sausage sandwiches. All kinds of people come past. There'll be the woman from Oxfam, who goes on hunts, sitting next to a biker. And we all find things to chat about. That feeling I like, and in music, too: real people with their own turn of voice, all joining in, in their own way."
Wyatt's new album, Comicopera, is released this month on the Domino label, also home to the Arctic Monkeys.
Excuse me?
"Homosexuality, and other offensive behavior, was taking place on the West Side piers ..."
- Professor James (Jim) Weiss, in a 'New York & the Seventies' presentation today on St. John's University Staten Island campus. Weiss teaches both Speech and Discover New York on the campus.
- Professor James (Jim) Weiss, in a 'New York & the Seventies' presentation today on St. John's University Staten Island campus. Weiss teaches both Speech and Discover New York on the campus.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Still in the neighborhood
from the New York Daily News' Rush & Molloy column
A shout-out to retired NYC teacher Patricia Molloy Edwards, who still lives on W. 25th St., where she was born 75 years ago today, the same block on which her ancestors arrived in 1847 after fleeing the Irish potato famine. As with Chelsea, the years have only improved her.
A shout-out to retired NYC teacher Patricia Molloy Edwards, who still lives on W. 25th St., where she was born 75 years ago today, the same block on which her ancestors arrived in 1847 after fleeing the Irish potato famine. As with Chelsea, the years have only improved her.
Coney Island's Astroland saved
NEW YORK (AP) — The world-renowned Astroland amusement park has a new lease on life. The venerable Coney Island institution, which appeared doomed after its Labor Day closing, will instead reopen for one more season next year under a deal announced today with the developer behind the neighborhood’s planned $2 billion makeover. “Astroland is very pleased that its 300 employees will continue to have jobs, and we want to thank our many supporters and fans who worked so hard to keep Astroland open,” said Carol Albert, whose family owns the beachfront attraction. Read New York Daily News story here
Tune Out. No, You Tune Out.
from the NY Times
Candace Bushnell was feeling ebullient. The author of “Sex and the City” had just heard that her latest novel, “Lipstick Jungle,” would be made into a television pilot. If all went well, a series with her as an executive producer would be headed to NBC.
Ms. Bushnell was clinking champagne glasses with her husband, Charles Askegard, a ballet dancer, in their apartment on lower Fifth Avenue when it occurred to her that she had not received a congratulatory call from her old friend Darren Star, the producer of “Sex and the City” on HBO. He was not involved in the new project, but he knew she had been working toward this triumph for two years. She had even written part of the novel at his house in East Hampton.
She remembers thinking: I’m so surprised Darren hasn’t called me. “So I called him,” she said. “His voice sounded weird on the phone. He said, ‘I got a show picked up, too.’”
“I said, ‘What is it about?’ Ms. Bushnell recalled.
“He said, ‘It’s a similarly themed show.’ He said, ‘It’s similar to Lipstick Jungle.’”
“I said, ‘Ooo-kaaay.’” Read full article here
Candace Bushnell was feeling ebullient. The author of “Sex and the City” had just heard that her latest novel, “Lipstick Jungle,” would be made into a television pilot. If all went well, a series with her as an executive producer would be headed to NBC.
Ms. Bushnell was clinking champagne glasses with her husband, Charles Askegard, a ballet dancer, in their apartment on lower Fifth Avenue when it occurred to her that she had not received a congratulatory call from her old friend Darren Star, the producer of “Sex and the City” on HBO. He was not involved in the new project, but he knew she had been working toward this triumph for two years. She had even written part of the novel at his house in East Hampton.
She remembers thinking: I’m so surprised Darren hasn’t called me. “So I called him,” she said. “His voice sounded weird on the phone. He said, ‘I got a show picked up, too.’”
“I said, ‘What is it about?’ Ms. Bushnell recalled.
“He said, ‘It’s a similarly themed show.’ He said, ‘It’s similar to Lipstick Jungle.’”
“I said, ‘Ooo-kaaay.’” Read full article here
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Bloggers in bed for French 'laze around day'
from the Telegraph, UK
A group of French internet activists aghast at president Nicolas Sarkozy's efforts to make France work harder have fought back with the launch of a national "lazing around day". Mr Sarkozy has promised to reform France in favour of those who want to "work more to earn more", while his minister for urban affairs, Fadela Amara, recently launched a campaign of zero tolerance of "glandouille", slang for "lazing around". Read full article here
A group of French internet activists aghast at president Nicolas Sarkozy's efforts to make France work harder have fought back with the launch of a national "lazing around day". Mr Sarkozy has promised to reform France in favour of those who want to "work more to earn more", while his minister for urban affairs, Fadela Amara, recently launched a campaign of zero tolerance of "glandouille", slang for "lazing around". Read full article here
Daughter on 10th Avenue
Check out a superb new blog, Internetwindowshopper, by a New Yorker raised in the city's legendary Hell's Kitchen neighborhood. Happy, sad, poignant, charming - it's got the lot.
... Things only got worse later that night when Dad couldn't find me anywhere and heard I had taken one of the neighborhood girls to Central Park to spend my birthday money. My friend Carol and I had walked many normally forbidden streets all the way to the park. When we first got there, we took a swim in the public pool, went for a few spins on the Carousel, ate cotton candy, hot dogs and topped our meal off with giant lollipops. I bought for us a couple of pinwheels and we went went off to the zoo, climbed some trees and rolled off the park's spectacular rock formations. It was a lot of fun until I got back to 10th avenue and saw Dad pop out of a doorway with THAT look on his face. He yelled, shoved and smacked me from the front of 438 to the second floor landing of our building, 423. I knew there was no use in crying too loud or protesting because it was a different time for children, too. Instead, I went straight to bed and sobbed into my pillow until I fell asleep. In the morning, I woke up to hear Mom coming through the door. Soon after, Mom's sister arrived and their voices were giving me a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. I got up and walked to the kitchen where I found Mom sitting at the table with her legs elevated on top of several pillows that had been laid across one of the kitchen chairs. I walked over to see what was going on and noticed both of her legs had blown up like two balloons. I was about to learn Mom's legs were not injured from some freak accident, but the result of a serious, often fatal heart condition. Read full post here
... Things only got worse later that night when Dad couldn't find me anywhere and heard I had taken one of the neighborhood girls to Central Park to spend my birthday money. My friend Carol and I had walked many normally forbidden streets all the way to the park. When we first got there, we took a swim in the public pool, went for a few spins on the Carousel, ate cotton candy, hot dogs and topped our meal off with giant lollipops. I bought for us a couple of pinwheels and we went went off to the zoo, climbed some trees and rolled off the park's spectacular rock formations. It was a lot of fun until I got back to 10th avenue and saw Dad pop out of a doorway with THAT look on his face. He yelled, shoved and smacked me from the front of 438 to the second floor landing of our building, 423. I knew there was no use in crying too loud or protesting because it was a different time for children, too. Instead, I went straight to bed and sobbed into my pillow until I fell asleep. In the morning, I woke up to hear Mom coming through the door. Soon after, Mom's sister arrived and their voices were giving me a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. I got up and walked to the kitchen where I found Mom sitting at the table with her legs elevated on top of several pillows that had been laid across one of the kitchen chairs. I walked over to see what was going on and noticed both of her legs had blown up like two balloons. I was about to learn Mom's legs were not injured from some freak accident, but the result of a serious, often fatal heart condition. Read full post here
Gone global
NewYorkCandy currently being read in Honolulu, Essen, Ho Chi Minh City, Indianapolis, Sana’a, Dublin, Seville, British Columbia and Canberra (www.statcounter.com).
Sam Riley talks about 'Control' in New York
Sam Riley, who plays Joy Division's tragic singer Ian Curtis in the indie hit 'Control,' will discuss his performance with moviegoers after a public screening in Manhattan tomorrow night.
Riley, whose nominations for Best Actor and Most Promising Newcomer were among an impressive 10 handed today to 'Control' in the 10th annual British Independent Film Awards, will take part in a question-and-answer session after the 7 o'clock screening at Film Forum, the Greenwich Village theater where the movie made its exclusive U.S. debut two weeks ago. 'Control', which received a Best Film nomination in the BIFAs, became Film Forum's top opener of the year and third highest in the West Houston Street theater's 37-year history.
"This is the kind of movie Harvey Weinstein shows himself to be very adept at marketing," said Steve Bunnell, Chairman Domestic Distribution for The Weinstein Company. "Our exiting polls showed that the Joy Division audience was there but we also attracted a younger audience who weren't old enough to grow up with Joy Division, between ages 18 and 34. There's also a romance that's the core of the film and our job is to capitalize on the growing word of the mouth and get that message out to women."
"Control," bought by the Weinstein Co. for $400,000, expanded Friday to the Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles and goes to additional cities this Friday.
Control's other BIFA nominations went to Anton Corbijn for Best Director, Samantha Morton, who plays Curtis' wife, Deborah, for Supporting Actress, and Toby Kebbell, who plays Joy Division manager Rob Gretton, for Supporting Actor.
Also competing for Best Film are ‘And When Did You Last See Your Father’, starring Colin Firth and Jim Broadbent, David Cronenberg’s ‘Eastern Promises’, ‘Hallam Foe’, starring Jamie Bell, and ‘Notes on a Scandal’, starring Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench.
Other multiple nominees include 'And When Did You Last See Your Father' (7), 'Hallam Foe' (6), 'Eastern Promises' (5), 'Notes on a Scandal' (4) and 'Garbage Warrior' (3).
The awards, established in 1998, celebrate and promote achievement in independently-funded British film.
Ray Winstone, who won Best Actor for his role in ‘Nil By Mouth’ at the first BIFAs, has been awarded The Richard Harris Award for Outstanding Contribution by an Actor, and James Bond star Daniel Craig will receive the Variety Award for bringing the British film industry into the international spotlight.
The jury includes actress and comedienne Kathy Burke, Children of Men star Chiwetel Ejiofor and director Neil Marshall.
The awards ceremony will take place on Wednesday, Nov. 28 at the London Roundhouse in London.
Riley, whose nominations for Best Actor and Most Promising Newcomer were among an impressive 10 handed today to 'Control' in the 10th annual British Independent Film Awards, will take part in a question-and-answer session after the 7 o'clock screening at Film Forum, the Greenwich Village theater where the movie made its exclusive U.S. debut two weeks ago. 'Control', which received a Best Film nomination in the BIFAs, became Film Forum's top opener of the year and third highest in the West Houston Street theater's 37-year history.
"This is the kind of movie Harvey Weinstein shows himself to be very adept at marketing," said Steve Bunnell, Chairman Domestic Distribution for The Weinstein Company. "Our exiting polls showed that the Joy Division audience was there but we also attracted a younger audience who weren't old enough to grow up with Joy Division, between ages 18 and 34. There's also a romance that's the core of the film and our job is to capitalize on the growing word of the mouth and get that message out to women."
"Control," bought by the Weinstein Co. for $400,000, expanded Friday to the Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles and goes to additional cities this Friday.
Control's other BIFA nominations went to Anton Corbijn for Best Director, Samantha Morton, who plays Curtis' wife, Deborah, for Supporting Actress, and Toby Kebbell, who plays Joy Division manager Rob Gretton, for Supporting Actor.
Also competing for Best Film are ‘And When Did You Last See Your Father’, starring Colin Firth and Jim Broadbent, David Cronenberg’s ‘Eastern Promises’, ‘Hallam Foe’, starring Jamie Bell, and ‘Notes on a Scandal’, starring Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench.
Other multiple nominees include 'And When Did You Last See Your Father' (7), 'Hallam Foe' (6), 'Eastern Promises' (5), 'Notes on a Scandal' (4) and 'Garbage Warrior' (3).
The awards, established in 1998, celebrate and promote achievement in independently-funded British film.
Ray Winstone, who won Best Actor for his role in ‘Nil By Mouth’ at the first BIFAs, has been awarded The Richard Harris Award for Outstanding Contribution by an Actor, and James Bond star Daniel Craig will receive the Variety Award for bringing the British film industry into the international spotlight.
The jury includes actress and comedienne Kathy Burke, Children of Men star Chiwetel Ejiofor and director Neil Marshall.
The awards ceremony will take place on Wednesday, Nov. 28 at the London Roundhouse in London.
Why you should buy the Love Music Hate Racism CD
'Love Music Hate Racism uses the positive energy of the music scene to fight back against the racism being pushed by Nazi organisations like the BNP.' Click hereby Andy Capper, The Guardian
About a year ago, singer Lisa Moorish told me how the BNP were skulking around in deprived areas of Britain handing out white power CDs to schoolchildren. At the time I said something like, "That stuff never really happens in the real world and it'd be better if we just ignored it because giving people like the BNP press only makes them stronger, etc etc." I'm pretty embarrassed about that little speech now, not only because Lisa's a committee member of the Love Music Hate Racism organisation (who are joining forces with NME and NUT to release a CD to raise awareness), but because of two other very serious things.
Firstly, I discovered the BNP are actually distributing their CDs in deprived areas, like West Yorkshire and the Midlands, which are often racially segregated and suffering from high unemployment. Neglected by central government, places like Keighley West in Bradford are where the BNP and its leader Nick Griffin do most of their evil-doings, attempting to recruit poor young mites with dads put out of work by the Polish next door with the lure of exciting-sounding WHITE POWER! CDs.
Here's the second reason: the CDs they're giving out free at school gates are so awful and they make Ashlee Simpson, Scouting For Girls and Pigeon Detectives sound like blissful, warm ocean waves. Read full article here
Firstly, I discovered the BNP are actually distributing their CDs in deprived areas, like West Yorkshire and the Midlands, which are often racially segregated and suffering from high unemployment. Neglected by central government, places like Keighley West in Bradford are where the BNP and its leader Nick Griffin do most of their evil-doings, attempting to recruit poor young mites with dads put out of work by the Polish next door with the lure of exciting-sounding WHITE POWER! CDs.
Here's the second reason: the CDs they're giving out free at school gates are so awful and they make Ashlee Simpson, Scouting For Girls and Pigeon Detectives sound like blissful, warm ocean waves. Read full article here
September 11 wasn't that bad, says Nobel winner Lessing
from the Guardian
The Nobel prize-winning author Doris Lessing has described the September 11 attacks as "neither as extraordinary nor as terrible" as people thought. The 88-year-old, who won the Nobel for literature this month, said some in the US would think she was "crazy", but that the attacks needed to be looked at in the context of the IRA's campaign of terror in the UK.
[She calls Americans] "a very naive people, or they pretend to be. Do you know what people forget? That the IRA attacked with bombs against our government.
[George Bush is] "a world calamity. Everyone is tired of this man. Either he is stupid or he is very clever, although you have to remember he is a member of a social class which has profited from wars." Read full article here
The Nobel prize-winning author Doris Lessing has described the September 11 attacks as "neither as extraordinary nor as terrible" as people thought. The 88-year-old, who won the Nobel for literature this month, said some in the US would think she was "crazy", but that the attacks needed to be looked at in the context of the IRA's campaign of terror in the UK.
[She calls Americans] "a very naive people, or they pretend to be. Do you know what people forget? That the IRA attacked with bombs against our government.
[George Bush is] "a world calamity. Everyone is tired of this man. Either he is stupid or he is very clever, although you have to remember he is a member of a social class which has profited from wars." Read full article here
Monday, October 22, 2007
First of the gang
The sweet and tender hooligans who made the front of the line for the first of Morrissey's five shows at New York City's Hammerstein Ballroom. And, yes, they were five hours early.Photo by author. Click on image to enlarge. Seek permission before publication (I WILL rip off your head, if you don't!)
The subtle and ironic world of Juan Pablo Zaramella
Four films by Argentinian animation master Juan Pablo Zaramella will open the fourth annual Corto Circuito, the Latino short film festival of New York, in Greenwich Village on Thursday night.Awards have been pouring in for the 35-year-old from Buenos Aires, who graduated from the Instituto de Arte Cinematografico de Avellaneda as an animation director before starting to make independent shorts with his wife, Silvina Cornillon, just seven years ago. ‘Journey to Mars’ (Viaje a Marte), made in 2005, has so far claimed 45 international awards, while the couple’s latest film, the 3 minute-30 second ‘Lapsus’ has garnered 11 to date. ‘Sexteen’, an educational film offering guidance to teenagers on adolesence, AIDS and pregnancy, was made last year and presents a possible first in motion picture history - a wire puppet with an erection.
'Lapsus' (‘Never underestimate the force behind the dark side’, pictured) and ‘Sexteen’ will both be shown at Corto Circuito, along with Zaramella's ‘The Glove’ (‘El Gante’) and ‘The Challenge to Death’ (‘El Desafio a la Muerte’), whose plasticine hero, Fakir Ayunanda, will ‘introduce his body into a blender and turn it on.’ That's four great films in 30 minutes, starting at 7 pm.
Corto Circuito will continue through Saturday at New York University’s King Juan Carlos I Center, at 53 Washington Square South, across from Washington Square Park.
Subways: A, B, C, D, E, F, Q, D to W. 4th St., 1 to Christopher St. or R, W to 8th St. NYU.
Lennon lives!
Associated Press reporter gets overexcited at meeting Sir Paul, and muddles his Beatles.
PARIS (AP) — Paul McCartney says the inspiration for the title of his latest album, “Memory Almost Full,” came from a phrase he saw onhis cell phone. “It seemed symbolic of our lives today,” the 65-year-old ex-Beatlesaid Monday. “Your messages are always full. And your mind is full. Andit doesn’t matter if you’re my age or 20. I think that we all need to delete stuff every so often.”
Lennon is in Paris for a concert at the Olympia theater...
Correction made:
Eds: SUBS graf 3 to correct to McCartney from Lennon.
PARIS (AP) — Paul McCartney says the inspiration for the title of his latest album, “Memory Almost Full,” came from a phrase he saw onhis cell phone. “It seemed symbolic of our lives today,” the 65-year-old ex-Beatlesaid Monday. “Your messages are always full. And your mind is full. Andit doesn’t matter if you’re my age or 20. I think that we all need to delete stuff every so often.”
Lennon is in Paris for a concert at the Olympia theater...
Correction made:
Eds: SUBS graf 3 to correct to McCartney from Lennon.
English football: Can you tell what it is yet?
from The Guardian
Paul Wilson, probably Britain's best sports writer, on the England football manager crisis, and the crisis in the domestic game in general.
... So try this scenario. Gerrard scores, England qualify, McClaren still gets the sack. Thanks very much, Steve, it was a rocky road in places, but you've done your job and brought us through. Now take this £3 million golden handshake and put your feet up for the finals because Jose Mourinho is available and we think we might be able to get him on a short summer contract. We don't really think international management is his bag long term, but England now have six months to prepare and six weeks in which to shine. We might as well get the best manager for the job. Why? Because we're worth it. And, naturally, because we can afford it. 'But we are building something with England,' McClaren protests. 'People can see that.' Yes, Steve, but what you are building with England is a bit like a Rolf Harris painting isn't it? People keep asking if you can tell what it is yet. With all due respect we think we need to get a proper artist in for the finals, someone capable of making a bold splash right across the European canvas, so if you don't mind picking up your ladders and your overalls, you can clear off now. Your work is done.... Read full article here
Paul Wilson, probably Britain's best sports writer, on the England football manager crisis, and the crisis in the domestic game in general.
... So try this scenario. Gerrard scores, England qualify, McClaren still gets the sack. Thanks very much, Steve, it was a rocky road in places, but you've done your job and brought us through. Now take this £3 million golden handshake and put your feet up for the finals because Jose Mourinho is available and we think we might be able to get him on a short summer contract. We don't really think international management is his bag long term, but England now have six months to prepare and six weeks in which to shine. We might as well get the best manager for the job. Why? Because we're worth it. And, naturally, because we can afford it. 'But we are building something with England,' McClaren protests. 'People can see that.' Yes, Steve, but what you are building with England is a bit like a Rolf Harris painting isn't it? People keep asking if you can tell what it is yet. With all due respect we think we need to get a proper artist in for the finals, someone capable of making a bold splash right across the European canvas, so if you don't mind picking up your ladders and your overalls, you can clear off now. Your work is done.... Read full article here
Anderson Cooper: The reluctant pin-up
from the Guardian, UKWith his silver hair and camera-friendly smile, the CNN anchor epitomises the glamour of US TV news. But, he tells Ed Pilkington, his show is more likely to feature Cambodian poachers than Hollywood gossip.
... His latest venture is a four-hour investigation of the global environmental crisis, Planet in Peril. With CNN colleagues Jeff Corwin and Sanjay Gupta, Cooper does his usual act of running around the globe, going undercover in an illegal animal market in Bangkok, hunting poachers in Cambodia, and travelling to Greenland to see Warming Island, a newly created landmass as a result of melting ice caps. After all this globe trotting, of course, he has to return to New York to sit behind his studio desk and broadcast to the nation. He can't keep running forever, I say. "Sadly, that's true," he replies... Read full article here
Going global
NewYorkCandy currently being read in Berlin, Chicago, Attiki (Athens), Saskatchewan, Vastra Gotaland (Sweden), Pretoria and the Isle of Man (statcounter.com). Thanks for stopping by!
Black Kids: Play well, and may the blog buzz be with you
from the NY TimesEvery place Black Kids played during the 2007 CMJ Music Marathon was mobbed. That’s not bad for a band that is still giving away its four recorded songs on its MySpace page, myspace.com/blackkidsrock. Black Kids were, it’s true, playing small places like the R Bar on the Bowery, where they shared the stage with a pair of stripper poles, and the Annex, where an amp gave out during their first song.
But they could have filled bigger spaces with all the name-tagged conventiongoers who wanted to see them, if only to claim bragging rights that they had witnessed what might be the next Arcade Fire (a band Black Kids could hardly resemble less). Black Kids, from Jacksonville, Fla., were riding an Internet buzz that had ricocheted across the Atlantic — New Musical Express, Pitchfork, Village Voice — to make them one of a handful of must-sees among the hundreds of more or less independent bands performing showcase sets at the 27th annual marathon. And they were well aware of it. “I know there’s been a lot of hype,” said Reggie Youngblood, the band’s leader, and when the R Bar suddenly hushed he continued, “about how physically attractive we are.” Suffice it to say that Black Kids will not be mistaken for supermodels. Read full article here.
Debbie Harry on affording New York City
"We all think it's changed for the worst. It's so very expensive. When I first came to New York you could get a great space for under $100 a month. Now you can't find anywhere for under $2,000. There are no subsidies for music or art, and you really have to work hard to survive. It eliminates a lot of young people coming there and charging the atmosphere with enthusiasm."- Debbie Harry of Blondie, in the current issue of Mojo magazine.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
New York Stories: Art Torn Screaming From the Headlines, Then Hung on Walls
Click on image to enlargefrom the New York Times
... The jumpy drawings, nearly eight feet by five feet, revisit those years while paying homage to the overheated language and myopic focus of tabloid journalism — specifically its highly compressed, go-for-the-jugular headlines. These pithy summations of events both significant and trivial are a form of linguistic folk art. They also make up an essential part of city life: they shout from newsstands, peek out on subways or drop at front doors (along with more decorous daily publications, of course). Read full article by clicking here.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Boys from the Boosh
from The Guardian
... the Mighty Boosh are on the verge of breaking free of their cult status and edging into the mainstream, but their approach to comedy hasn't really changed. Stage shows feature monsters made out of Jiffy bags; in the new series, Fielding briefly sports a Polo as a monocle. Theirs is a homemade, DIY, punk humour that knows few boundaries.... Read full article here
... the Mighty Boosh are on the verge of breaking free of their cult status and edging into the mainstream, but their approach to comedy hasn't really changed. Stage shows feature monsters made out of Jiffy bags; in the new series, Fielding briefly sports a Polo as a monocle. Theirs is a homemade, DIY, punk humour that knows few boundaries.... Read full article here
Lenny Kravitz's condo for sale (sans tusks)
from the New York TimesIT may be best to see Lenny Kravitz’s SoHo penthouse at dusk. That is when the tilted double-height wall of glass glows a deep blue and casts a warm glimmer on the chocolate brown walls and dark carpeting, on the steer horns standing sentry atop a huge glass dining table, and the zebra-skinned chairs. Mr. Kravitz, the singer and songwriter, with a yen for interior design, has spent 18 months and more than $1 million renovating and redecorating his 6,000-square-foot penthouse duplex at 30 Crosby Street, through his own nine-member design firm, Kravitz Design. Read full article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/realestate/14Deal1.html?ex=1208145600&en=e4583c5c481a3383&ei=5087&mkt=rephoto
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Joe Torre says no to $5 million Yankees deal
from the New York Post
Joe Torre fired The Boss. In a shocking result, the New York Yankees manager today turned down a $5 million, 1-year offer to return as the Yankees' manager for his 13th season. He was offered a $5 million base package and another $1 million for the division series, league series and the World Series. For full article, click here
Joe Torre fired The Boss. In a shocking result, the New York Yankees manager today turned down a $5 million, 1-year offer to return as the Yankees' manager for his 13th season. He was offered a $5 million base package and another $1 million for the division series, league series and the World Series. For full article, click here
View from the High Line
Click on image to enlargeFriends of the High Line, those groovy downtown souls working on the restoration of the old elevated rail road on Manhattan's West Side, and the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation are inviting the public to view preliminary design plans for Section 2 of the line (20th St. to 30th St.). Hipsters may recall that David Bowie curated the High Line Festival earlier this year, drawing attention to this ambitious and contentious project.
The High Line design team led by James Corner, principal of landscape architecture firm Field Operations, and Ricardo Scofidio, of architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro, will present the design concept, answer questions, and take comments.
The High Line Section 2 Community Input Forum takes place at the Cedar Lake Theater, 547 W. 26th St. (between 10th and 11th Avenues) on Tuesday, Oct. 23, from 6:30 – 8:30 p.m. Admission is free, but you have to RSVP to rsvp@thehighline.org
For full background on the High Line project, which is supported by a a bunch of other Gotham-loving celebs, including actor Edward Norton, click here
Last Rat Packer Joey Bishop dead at 89
from the Associated Press
LOS ANGELES - Joey Bishop, the stone-faced comedian who found success in nightclubs, television and movies but became most famous as a member of Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack, has died at 89. He was the group's last surviving member. Peter Lawford died in 1984, Sammy Davis Jr. in 1990, Dean Martin in 1995, and Sinatra in 1998.Bishop died Wednesday night of multiple causes at his home in Newport Beach, publicist and longtime friend Warren Cowan said Thursday. Read CNN obituary here
LOS ANGELES - Joey Bishop, the stone-faced comedian who found success in nightclubs, television and movies but became most famous as a member of Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack, has died at 89. He was the group's last surviving member. Peter Lawford died in 1984, Sammy Davis Jr. in 1990, Dean Martin in 1995, and Sinatra in 1998.Bishop died Wednesday night of multiple causes at his home in Newport Beach, publicist and longtime friend Warren Cowan said Thursday. Read CNN obituary here
Now the ads, for the Bowie at Target line, are among us.U2 to build tallest tower in Ireland
Click on image to enlargefrom the Guardian
Having seemingly tired of both rock'n'roll and international politicking, U2 are preparing to expand their portfolio of activities even further by erecting a €200m (£139m) skyscraper in their native Dublin, a building set to be called the U2 Tower. The landmark structure will be the tallest building in Ireland and will be located in the docklands area of Dublin, where the band are from. As well as featuring apartments, expected to sell for as much as €1.5m (£1m), it will house the U2's egg-shaped recording studio at its peak. Read full article at: http://music.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2192927,00.html
Foster to give Camp Nou Gaudi-inspired facelift
Click here
UK museum cancels scientist's lecture
from the Gulf News
A Nobel prize-winning scientist who reportedly claimed Africans and Europeans had different levels of intelligence is no longer welcome to deliver a lecture at London's Science Museum, the museum said on Wednesday. Read full article at: http://www.gulfnews.com/world/United_Kingdom/10161097.html
A Nobel prize-winning scientist who reportedly claimed Africans and Europeans had different levels of intelligence is no longer welcome to deliver a lecture at London's Science Museum, the museum said on Wednesday. Read full article at: http://www.gulfnews.com/world/United_Kingdom/10161097.html
Hop a chopper to JFK
... while the rest of us sweat on the subway for 45 minutes - and reflect on how we should have paid more attention at school.Photo by author. Click on image to enlarge.
$2 for coffee? Call the cops!
Photo by author. Click on photo to enlarge.I was aching to utter Ricky Gervais' incredulous anti-catchphrase, "Are you 'aving a laugh? Is he 'aving a laugh?" after ordering a cup of coffee - "large, milk, no sugar" - at the counter of Miss Kat's Italian Eatery and Cafe on 30th St. and Madison Ave. The guy wanted $2 (this is 'to go,' mind, and a month ago, it was $1.50 at the same place. Also steep, I thought at the time), which must be getting up there as the most expensive deli coffee in the city.
By way of comparison, a more regular haunt, the deli known to many as 'the Mongolian', way west at 10th and 34th, charges $1.25 for the same-size (and better) brew, while a big cup of Joe from the guys at 450 W. 33rd is an utterly reasonable $1 (though, I admit, a rarity in New York these days). With hungry construction workers from across the street behind me in the Miss Kat's line, I thought better of invoking the wrath of Ricky on the guy with the 'I only follow orders' expression.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Not the twins towers, but moving in the right direction ...
New Yorkers miss the World Trade Center towers for numerous reasons, not least for the way they helped you get your bearings once you emerged from a subway station. You'd spin around and quickly catch sight of the 110-story giants, which were visible, way down south, from almost every part of the city (day and night, thanks to the aircraft-warning lights that blinked on the 360-foot antenna on top of the north tower), and you were no longer turned around from your subterranean journey.Now, the city is experimenting with 'temporary directional compass decals' outside a handful of subway stations. Department of Transportation Commissioners Janette Sadik-Khan said, "Not a single person, native New Yorker or visitor, can truthfully claim that they have not, at least once, been confused as to which direction to walk when emerging from a subway station."
If the decals prove successful in helping subway riders get their bearings as they leave a station, the decals will become more widespread.
The locations for the decals experiment are:
150 East 42nd Street (south side of East 42nd St between Lexington Ave and Third Ave) - Entrance to 42nd Street/Grand Central station
The Grand Hyatt New York, 109 East 42nd Street (west side of Lexington Ave between East 42nd St and East 43rd St) - Entrance to 42nd Street/Grand Central station
570 Lexington Avenue (south side of East 51st St between Lexington Ave and Park Ave) - Entrance to 51st Street/Lexington Avenue station
509 Madison Avenue (south side of East 53rd St between Madison Ave and Park Ave) - Entrance to Fifth Avenue/53rd Street station
150 East 42nd Street (south side of East 42nd St between Lexington Ave and Third Ave) - Entrance to 42nd Street/Grand Central station
The Grand Hyatt New York, 109 East 42nd Street (west side of Lexington Ave between East 42nd St and East 43rd St) - Entrance to 42nd Street/Grand Central station
570 Lexington Avenue (south side of East 51st St between Lexington Ave and Park Ave) - Entrance to 51st Street/Lexington Avenue station
509 Madison Avenue (south side of East 53rd St between Madison Ave and Park Ave) - Entrance to Fifth Avenue/53rd Street station
Going global
NewYorkCandy currently being read in Buenos Aires, Cataluna, Sarajevo, Vancouver, Plaino, Bern, Eindhoven, Tokyo and Tehran (according to statcounter.com).
A Joy Division sneaker. Who'd have thought?
An independent artist called Dylan Adair has come up with this design for a Joy Division sneaker/trainer, according to hypebeast.com. The waves motif - actually, 100 successive pulses from the first pulsar to be discovered - is taken from the Peter Saville-designed cover of Joy Division's first album, 'Unknown Pleasures,' while the 'Fact 10' code on the back of the shoe is the Factory Records product number given to the record. Manufacturer 'New Balance is still waiting for approval on them but hopefully these will go onto production,' says hypebeast.
Lecturer helps recreate Joy Division
from the Nottingham Evening Post
What has to change before four guys holding musical instruments become a band? And not just any band, but Joy Division, one of the most influential rock acts of the late 20th century. When the producers of new hit film Control, which charts Joy Division's history, were faced with that very question they called up Nottingham [England] expert Liam Maloy.
The lecturer in popular music at New College Nottingham was brought in to teach the film's actors to play, move and sound like the late 70s outfit.
"If you are a band then you have spent time together - on tours and in rehearsals and gigs - and there is a certain closeness that develops," said 37-year-old Mr Maloy. Read full article here.
from the Nottingham Evening Post
What has to change before four guys holding musical instruments become a band? And not just any band, but Joy Division, one of the most influential rock acts of the late 20th century. When the producers of new hit film Control, which charts Joy Division's history, were faced with that very question they called up Nottingham [England] expert Liam Maloy.
The lecturer in popular music at New College Nottingham was brought in to teach the film's actors to play, move and sound like the late 70s outfit.
"If you are a band then you have spent time together - on tours and in rehearsals and gigs - and there is a certain closeness that develops," said 37-year-old Mr Maloy. Read full article here.
'All You Need is Me' - Morrissey on the Carson Daly show
'Great new Morrissey song on Carson Daly the other night,' a friend informs me. 'Sounds like a return to the sound of Your Arsenal.' Here it is
Monday, October 15, 2007
Weinstein's "Control" Tops in NY
from indieWire.com
A rocking weekend gross of $27,674 at New York's Film Forum made photographer and filmmaker Anton Corbijn's "Control" the top release on the iWBOT. "Control," about the British post-punk band Joy Division and its troubled vocalist Ian Curtis, was The Weinstein Company's highest exclusive debut since "Sicko."
The film made its exclusive debut at Film Forum, and was the theater's top debut for 2007 and third highest opener in its 37-year history.
"This is the kind of movie Harvey Weinstein shows himself to be very adept at marketing," said Steve Bunnell, Chairman Domestic Distribution for The Weinstein Company. "Our exiting polls showed that the Joy Division audience was there but we also attracted a younger audience who weren't old enough to grow up with Joy Division, between ages 18 and 34. There's also a romance that's the core of the film and our job is to capitalize on the growing word of the mouth and get that message out to women."
"Control," purchased by the Weinstein Co. for $400,000, expands Friday to the Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles and additional cities Oct. 26.
The iWBOT is based on per-theater averages reported by Rentrak Theatrical, the complete indieWIRE BOT weekly chart will be available Tuesday afternoon.
A rocking weekend gross of $27,674 at New York's Film Forum made photographer and filmmaker Anton Corbijn's "Control" the top release on the iWBOT. "Control," about the British post-punk band Joy Division and its troubled vocalist Ian Curtis, was The Weinstein Company's highest exclusive debut since "Sicko."
The film made its exclusive debut at Film Forum, and was the theater's top debut for 2007 and third highest opener in its 37-year history.
"This is the kind of movie Harvey Weinstein shows himself to be very adept at marketing," said Steve Bunnell, Chairman Domestic Distribution for The Weinstein Company. "Our exiting polls showed that the Joy Division audience was there but we also attracted a younger audience who weren't old enough to grow up with Joy Division, between ages 18 and 34. There's also a romance that's the core of the film and our job is to capitalize on the growing word of the mouth and get that message out to women."
"Control," purchased by the Weinstein Co. for $400,000, expands Friday to the Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles and additional cities Oct. 26.
The iWBOT is based on per-theater averages reported by Rentrak Theatrical, the complete indieWIRE BOT weekly chart will be available Tuesday afternoon.
Morrissey - $20 New York tickets on sale tomorrow
LiveNation.com is advertising 'a limited supply' of $20 tickets for the first of Morrissey's five gigs at New York City's Hammerstein Ballroom later this month. It'll be first come, first served when the tickets go on sale for the Monday, October 22 show on the site at 10 am tomorrow.
Missing the target on Bowie
I can understand designer Keanan Duffty overlooking the Kabuki frocks, the Victoria Station trilby - not to mention the stuff Dave's wearing on stage these days - when he he was seeking inspiration for his 'Bowie' collection for Target, but these are hideous ... dahling. They make my blog look worse than the lame ads you see top right here. Would it have been too much to ask for some riffs on the polka dot sweater from 'David Live,' or the ultra-cool duffel coat from 'Low' (and 'The Man Who Fell to Earth,' see below). And what's with the belt? Rising designers, take note, while checking out the works of Antony Price, and the following style guides.'Be My Wife' - David Bowie
'The Man Who Fell to Earth' trailer
Control: Opening in LA
Control, the Anton Corbijn movie documenting the life and suicide of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, 'opens in LA this Friday and will continue a platform release in other [U.S.] cities from October 26, ' according to an insider with the distributors.
The latest review, at NPR, says: '... Just as important, he's kept the music pristine. He has the actors performing the songs live on camera, and the effect is striking.'
The latest review, at NPR, says: '... Just as important, he's kept the music pristine. He has the actors performing the songs live on camera, and the effect is striking.'
Voxtrot: Vox Popular
from the New York Times" Urban Eye (with an eye on the CMJ Music Festival, starting in New York City Thursday)
First they were an indie rock success story, winning praise for literate pop songs. Then they were an indie rock cautionary tale, suffering the inevitable blogger backlash. Now Voxtrot should be riding high again, writes Kelefa Sanneh. The quintet’s “self-titled debut album is marvelous: a collection of 11 tightly coiled songs, loud and fast and sweet,” he writes. The singer, Ramesh Srivastava, “is an unapologetic overwriter, cramming stanzas full of details and songs full of stanzas.” Onstage he’s equally hyperactive. “One fears — well, hopes — that Mr. Srivastava is already tying himself in knots, trying to figure out how on earth his band will top this,” Sanneh writes. See if they manage to tonight, when they perform at the Music Hall of Williamsburg.
Grand National
John Pareles, the New York Times', and America's foremost, music critic, on the latest album by The National.
The National’s songs embrace a frame of mind that may be more familiar from movies than from daily life: a bleary urban predawn in which a deadpan antihero drifts among alienation and yearning, cynicism and vulnerability. “You were always weird, but I never had to hold you by the edges like I do now,” Matt Berninger sings in his resigned, morose baritone. “Walk away now and you’re gonna start a war.”
.... The National got started in Cincinnati before moving to Brooklyn, but its music looks toward Britain. With a steady eighth-note pulse, uninflected drumbeats and layers of guitars entwined around Mr. Berninger’s midtempo melodies, its song structures revive the 1980s mope-rock of New Order and the Cure. Yet the National’s songs aren’t aimed at clubland; they’re elaborated with orchestral brasses and strings that make them weightier and more inward-looking, dissolving 1980s nostalgia in the music’s sheer intricacy. Click here for full review.
First they were an indie rock success story, winning praise for literate pop songs. Then they were an indie rock cautionary tale, suffering the inevitable blogger backlash. Now Voxtrot should be riding high again, writes Kelefa Sanneh. The quintet’s “self-titled debut album is marvelous: a collection of 11 tightly coiled songs, loud and fast and sweet,” he writes. The singer, Ramesh Srivastava, “is an unapologetic overwriter, cramming stanzas full of details and songs full of stanzas.” Onstage he’s equally hyperactive. “One fears — well, hopes — that Mr. Srivastava is already tying himself in knots, trying to figure out how on earth his band will top this,” Sanneh writes. See if they manage to tonight, when they perform at the Music Hall of Williamsburg.
Grand National
John Pareles, the New York Times', and America's foremost, music critic, on the latest album by The National.
The National’s songs embrace a frame of mind that may be more familiar from movies than from daily life: a bleary urban predawn in which a deadpan antihero drifts among alienation and yearning, cynicism and vulnerability. “You were always weird, but I never had to hold you by the edges like I do now,” Matt Berninger sings in his resigned, morose baritone. “Walk away now and you’re gonna start a war.”
.... The National got started in Cincinnati before moving to Brooklyn, but its music looks toward Britain. With a steady eighth-note pulse, uninflected drumbeats and layers of guitars entwined around Mr. Berninger’s midtempo melodies, its song structures revive the 1980s mope-rock of New Order and the Cure. Yet the National’s songs aren’t aimed at clubland; they’re elaborated with orchestral brasses and strings that make them weightier and more inward-looking, dissolving 1980s nostalgia in the music’s sheer intricacy. Click here for full review.
Deep joy of the rugby World Cup
cc'd in today's Inbox, one expat rugby fan, of Irish heritage, deals with an English cynic. Quite Pinteresque.'When rugby is played at this level it is easily one of the most exciting games to watch. FYI the English have always been big rugby fans. Can’t speak for ex-pats but back home the Six Nations competition is a big deal. You came to see the Irish thrash the English in a game last year. Don’t you remember how big a deal that game was?'
A third party, a New York-based American, responds:
'Yes, and I remember virtually no English folks there watching the match, but loads of Irish. I remember flying to London overnight four years ago at the time of the last Rugby World Cup Final and upon landing and arriving at my hotel, thinking I’d missed the match, when I could have gone down and watched the second half. All my English acquaintances talked about for the next week was England winning the World Cup and where they were and blah, blah, blah, but when asked how many matches they’d actually watched and what they knew of the sport, very few had watched any of the tournament and fewer knew much of anything. The common refrain was: “I’m just so glad England won something”. I realize those days are arriving for the US, but even dopes like me know that England defeating France to reach the final was one thing. Defeating South Africa will be quite another. Let the Springbok jokes begin!'
Says the New York-based, English cynic:
'Wow, I love a good argument, this is great!! LOL! Just to add Newcastles to the fire, I generally care less about the game BUT, of course, as XX points out I get (mildly) excited when an England team gets to any final (darts, egg & spoon race etc!) and that's because in the one sport (footy!) I am truly passionate about we have won **** all since '66, so, yeah, I am excited about the rugger final and would actually turn up but I am working so can't. Suffice it to say that most, if not all, English football fans are severely depressed at our (consistent) lack of success, so that's why they get a little excited about the rugby team and/or the cricket team doing well. Why would you want to begrudge us of that? btw I see the Yankees are not going to make the North American Series this year ... shame!'
Says the American:
'Not a Yankees (or baseball) fan, thank god. It’s October, which means only two things: the NFL and hockey.'
The cynic:
'Mmm, don't know how anyone would watch American Football when there's rugby. I mean, come on, at least rugby's a real man's game. Five minutes of action and then all the players call their mums on cell phones to check to see if she actually seen them on TV. Load of b******s, if you ask me!'
The rugby fan of Irish heritage:
'A tad unfair that XXXX. Apart from the shape of the ball, the two games are worlds apart. The NFL is great to watch and you can’t beat watching it on a Sunday in Blondies on the Upper West Side. It’s great fun. Rugby is more exciting because it is free-flowing but the NFL has its own strengths. Anyone watching the Bears/Packers game last week couldn’t fail to be impressed. It was a classic.
I have to say that watching rugby with an NFL fan is quite amusing, though. They can’t believe that there is no padding or helmets. Seeing as how you have already stated that you aren’t really a rugby fan I think it’s a bit unfair to take a pop at the NFL, as well. If you want to take the p*** out of American sports, look no further than the NBA.'
Al-Qaeda In Iraq Reported Crippled -Washington Post
The U.S. military believes it has dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq in recent months, leading some generals to advocate a declaration of victory over the group, which the Bush administration has long described as the most lethal U.S. adversary in Iraq. Click here for full story.Image from www.weldreality.com
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Sigur Ros - When Good Interviews Go Bad
Thanks to Gang of Four Dave Allen's web site, pampelmoose.com, for pointing me in the direction of the following:
from NPR.com
Let's establish one thing right out of the gate: We love the band Sigur Ros.
Their music is beautiful and moving, so much so that it doesn't matter that they're singing in a totally made-up language. Sigur Ros is four lads from Iceland, and recently, they were in New York to screen a new concert film Heima at the New Yorker Festival. Their P.R. folks called and asked if we wanted them on the show, to which we quickly replied, "hells yeah".
Anyway, last Friday the band showed up promptly at 11am (EDT) and commenced to give what is possibly the worst interview in the history of electronic media.
Seriously.
It was that bad...
from NPR.com
Let's establish one thing right out of the gate: We love the band Sigur Ros.
Their music is beautiful and moving, so much so that it doesn't matter that they're singing in a totally made-up language. Sigur Ros is four lads from Iceland, and recently, they were in New York to screen a new concert film Heima at the New Yorker Festival. Their P.R. folks called and asked if we wanted them on the show, to which we quickly replied, "hells yeah".
Anyway, last Friday the band showed up promptly at 11am (EDT) and commenced to give what is possibly the worst interview in the history of electronic media.
Seriously.
It was that bad...
Radiohead's warm glow
from the NY Times
I didn’t pay anything to download Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” last Wednesday. When the checkout page on the band’s Web site allowed me to type in whatever price I wanted, I put 0.00, the lowest I could go. My economist friends say this makes me a rational being. Apparently not everybody is this lucid, at least not in matters related to their favorite British rock band. After Radiohead announced it would allow fans to download its album for whatever price they chose, about a third of the first million or so downloads paid nothing, according to a British survey. But many paid more than $20. The average price was about $8. That is, people paid for something they could get for free. Read full article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/opinion/14sun3.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
I didn’t pay anything to download Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” last Wednesday. When the checkout page on the band’s Web site allowed me to type in whatever price I wanted, I put 0.00, the lowest I could go. My economist friends say this makes me a rational being. Apparently not everybody is this lucid, at least not in matters related to their favorite British rock band. After Radiohead announced it would allow fans to download its album for whatever price they chose, about a third of the first million or so downloads paid nothing, according to a British survey. But many paid more than $20. The average price was about $8. That is, people paid for something they could get for free. Read full article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/opinion/14sun3.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Control's impressive first take
from the Associated Press round-up of the weekend's U.S. box-office ...
.... In limited release, the oddball romance “Lars and the Real Girl,” starring Ryan Gosling, took in a healthy $85,000 in seven theaters; “Sleuth,” with Michael Caine and Jude Law in an update of Caine andLaurence Olivier’s 1972 battle of wits, opened with $50,090 in nine theaters; and “Control” — a drama about Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, who killed himself at age 23, debuted strongly with $26,500 in one theater [New York City's Film Forum].
See also
Control: Triumph over misery
Click here
.... In limited release, the oddball romance “Lars and the Real Girl,” starring Ryan Gosling, took in a healthy $85,000 in seven theaters; “Sleuth,” with Michael Caine and Jude Law in an update of Caine andLaurence Olivier’s 1972 battle of wits, opened with $50,090 in nine theaters; and “Control” — a drama about Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, who killed himself at age 23, debuted strongly with $26,500 in one theater [New York City's Film Forum].
See also
Control: Triumph over misery
Click here
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Madonna leaves Warner after 24 years
from The Guardian
Madonna is leaving her lifelong record label Warner and is poised to sign a contract worth around $120m (£58.92m) with concert promoter Live Nation in a deal that has sparked fresh debate over the future of record labels. The US singer is thought to be getting a $17.5m cash advance on signing a 10-year deal with the US firm, the world's largest live music group, as well as another $50m in cash and shares and multimillion dollar windfalls for each of three albums she will commit to. Read full article at: http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2189070,00.html
Madonna is leaving her lifelong record label Warner and is poised to sign a contract worth around $120m (£58.92m) with concert promoter Live Nation in a deal that has sparked fresh debate over the future of record labels. The US singer is thought to be getting a $17.5m cash advance on signing a 10-year deal with the US firm, the world's largest live music group, as well as another $50m in cash and shares and multimillion dollar windfalls for each of three albums she will commit to. Read full article at: http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2189070,00.html
Morrissey tickets massacre
Morrissey fans will be able to see their hero at all five of his New York shows this month for under $100, if the slashing of ticket prices continues at this pace! As I reported Brooklynvegan saying a week or so ago, sales of tickets for Moz's Tuesday show (Oct. 23) at the Hammerstein Ballroom in midtown Manhattan had been so slow that the price had been reduced to $20.Now, I have it on good authority (someone I consider Morrissey's greatest, most adoring fan in New York City) that tickets for the Monday night gig (Oct. 22) have been reduced to $30.
The $210 five-day pass, allowing fans to see all the NYC shows, once seemed like a fantastic deal. Now I'm not so sure. That pass is still available at Ticketmaster.com - though no official signs yet of the Monday reduction.
I'm dumbfounded. Admittedly, Monday and Tuesday nights are comparatively slow in New York, with little apres-weekend partying going on, but I refuse to believe interest in Morrissey has waned so dramatically in the city - though I suppose I'm not as amazed as the Bard of Stretford probably is.
The rest of Morrissey's Hammerstein gigs, with Kristeen Young supporting, take place at the end of the same week, Friday (26), Saturday and Sunday.
CONTROL: Triumph over misery
Photo by author. Click on image to enlarge.NewYorkCandy's author was a regular at Joy Division's gigs, and, in the spring of 1980, he heard BBC Radio DJ John Peel deliver the devastating news that the band's singer, Ian Curtis, had died. The author attended yesterday's first New York public screening of the movie 'Control,' about the life and suicide of Curtis, at Film Forum.
Ian Curtis was spiraling to his demise, and we hadn’t the faintest idea. His lover walked, and pogoed, among us - we hadn’t a clue.
Fans who trailed Joy Division across Europe in two exhilarating years were blissfully ignorant of the turmoil that was tearing apart the band’s lead singer. The story of Curtis, ravaged mentally and physically by both his epilepsy and his on-the-road affair with a Belgian fanzine reporter (while he had a wife and baby daughter back home in the ‘boring’ north of England), was a closely guarded secret kept from his devoted audience by the band, its management and its record label. The fans witnessed the poetic young man with the magnetic presence and voice often compared to Jim Morrison collapsing into convulsions on stage on several occasions – yet were unaware of the true gravity of the situation, and how soon it would all end in tears. Could it be a put-on? they asked. Was he faking it to add a disturbing physical dimension to Joy Division’s unsettling sonic take on rock ’n’ roll?
'Control,' the film based on the excellent book by Curtis’ cuckolded wife, Deborah (played here by the fast-rising Samantha Morton), makes the depressing truth of the matter only too clear, and often you wonder whether this particular rock story, though produced stylishly and, by all accounts, fairly and sympathetically by Joy Division photographer Anton Corbijn, is the stuff of entertainment. Of course, it's perfectly in keeping with the legendary band's bleak, doom-laden image. Control is at its most disturbing and heartbreaking when Curtis (played by Sam Riley, whose physical resemblance to the doomed singer is at times breathtaking) approaches his lowest ebb. Seemingly resigned to the fact that his life must end, he bawls that he had been entirely content with the masterpiece that was the debut album ‘Unknown Pleasures’ and, presumably, the acclaim it had received. That had been enough for him, he moans, he didn’t need anything else. Curtis had sung ‘I’m not afraid any more,’ yet he was terrified. It was never grimmer up north.
Thankfully, Joy Division’s elegant music, recreated marvelously by the actors in several captivating though all-too-brief scenes (Riley does Curtis' lowing voice and his possessed, fist-pumping dance extraordinarily well. Here, I got the shivers), and a dead-on performance by Toby Kebbell as caustically blunt band manager Rob Gretton save 'Control' from being the gloom fest many anticipate. "Where's your 20 quid?" Gretton asks the lank-haired Crispy Ambulance singer hastily bribed to substitue when Curtis can't make it on stage in the final days. "In my fuck-off pocket!" the manager tells him. Gretton also tells Curtis at one point, "Cheer up, Ian. You could be the lead singer with The Fall!" Credit here to Matt Greenhalgh for an authentic and earthy north-of-England script, reminiscent of other British classics such as 'Saturday Night, Sunday Morning,' 'Kes' and northern TV soaps such as 'Coronation Street' and 'Brookside' at their best.
An Oscar? By Christ, son, I wouldn’t rule it out.
P.S. Nice of Film Forum to get the audience in the mood for the movie yesterday by feeding us some Manchester-flavored, postpunky fare as we waited in the dark. There was The Fall, Buzzocks, some classic Manchester white-boy funk in the form of 'Do the Du' by A Certain Ratio, as well as Bowie's 'Subterraneans' (also used well in the movie). And thanks, too, for the girl in the audience with the Ziggy feather cut, camo jacket and drainy jeans. It was like being in the Factory all over again.
Also on NewYork Candy
Control: Life Between Rock and a Hard Place
http://newyorkcandy.blogspot.com/2007/10/control-life-between-rock-and-hard.html
Control: ‘Haunted and holy’
http://newyorkcandy.blogspot.com/2007/10/control-haunted-and-holy.html
Control: ‘Famous? I still wash his underpants’
http://newyorkcandy.blogspot.com/2007/10/control-famous-i-still-wash-his.html
Control: Joy Division adds up to classic cinema
http://newyorkcandy.blogspot.com/2007/10/joy-division-adds-up-to-classic-cinema.html
Control: Darkness & Muted Traumas
http://newyorkcandy.blogspot.com/2007/10/control-darkness-muted-traumas.html
Joy Division's greatest songs
1. New Dawn Fades
2. She's Lost Control
3. Heart & Soul
4. Atmosphere
5. Dead Souls
6. Decades
7. A Means to an End
8. Digital
9. Transmission
10. The Eternal
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Radiohead's In Rainbows - five stars, 'a masterpiece'
from The GuardianThe new album may represent the strongest collection of songs the band has assembled for a decade.
'... The most heartening thing about In Rainbows, besides the fact that it may represent the strongest collection of songs Radiohead have assembled for a decade, is that it ventures into new emotional territories: their last album, 2003's Hail to the Thief, had its moments, but it was scarred by the sense that the band's famed gloominess was starting to tip into self-parody and petulance. Here, there's wit - at 15 Step's conclusion, Yorke's patented end-is-nigh keening is undercut by a childrens' chorus merrily crying "hey!" - and warmth...' Read full review at: http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/music/2007/10/radioheads_in_rainbows_is_it_a.html
In Rainbows track listing
In Rainbows (vinyl, CD and digital download): 1. "15 Step" 2. "Bodysnatchers" 3. "Nude" 4. "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi" 5. "All I Need" 6. "Faust Arp" 7. "Reckoner" 8. "House of Cards" 9. "Jigsaw Falling into Place" 10. "Videotape"
Bonus disc: 1. "MK 1" 2. "Down Is the New Up" 3. "Go Slowly" 4. "MK 2" 5. "Last Flowers" 6. "Up on the Ladder" 7. "Bangers and Mash" 8. "4 Minute Warning"
In Rainbows (vinyl, CD and digital download): 1. "15 Step" 2. "Bodysnatchers" 3. "Nude" 4. "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi" 5. "All I Need" 6. "Faust Arp" 7. "Reckoner" 8. "House of Cards" 9. "Jigsaw Falling into Place" 10. "Videotape"
Bonus disc: 1. "MK 1" 2. "Down Is the New Up" 3. "Go Slowly" 4. "MK 2" 5. "Last Flowers" 6. "Up on the Ladder" 7. "Bangers and Mash" 8. "4 Minute Warning"
Maybe this is the future
Hail to the thief. That was the title of Radiohead's last album, wasn't it? And I suddenly feel like a thief, a bit naughty, and, sure, a cheapskate, having forked out all of nearly $2 (95 GB pence to be exact, including a processing fee) to DOWNLOAD ONLINE the band's out-today, pay-as-much-or-as-little-as-you-want-or-nothing-at-all-for-it album, 'In Rainbows.' Am I normal, feeling sort of guilty, like I've stolen something from these guys, something they've presumably slaved over, thrown TVs out of windows over, for, well, who knows how long? Four years since the 'Thief' wig-out, I'm told.
I've yet to hear the product of their latest labors, and my admittedly hard-earned 200 cents (I've just unZipped the thing - and I think I have to now drag it into my iTunes. Lord knows right now - I don't normally downsteal music. Navigation of the download site, where you 'buy' the thing, was simple, as was the payment process), but maybe this is the future - David Bowie was quoted a few years ago as saying that in the future music will be free. Well, as far as I'm concerned, we're here, as near as dammit to the future. $2 for the new Radiohead record? I've never been a huge fan (I walked out of their 1997 Glastonbury set after a couple of songs), but I'm tempted to say bargain.
Of course, I could think of it another way. Thom Yorke and co., are extremely well-off geezers and we, the people, have no doubt been shafted by exorbitant prices for CDs, and gig tickets, all these years. So now we're giving the biz back its bloody nose. Maybe.
Okay, okay, folder's flashed easily into iTunes. All tracks in place, titles are there. First track '15 Steps' - '15 Step,' sorry - was great. Racing tempo. Definite Aphex Twin influence, just like Thom's solo album. Gimme more of this! Up to track 3 now: 'Nude'. Slow, lilting groove. Thom's falsetto at its best. REALLY nice.
This is good. No, actually, it's a masterpiece (I'm up to the track 'Reckoner' now), a class apart.
Hail, Radiohead. Top blokes.
Control: 'Life Between Rock and a Hard Place'
Photo by author. Click on photo to enlarge.The New York Daily News today follows up music writer Jim Farber's full-page feature about the Joy Division movie Control - out in New York City this afternoon, so I'll be seeing you at Film Forum at 1 o'clock, Williamsburgers! - with a three-star review (out of four) by movie critic Jack Mathews. He writes: 'Since the dissonant monotony of the British rock band Joy Division is the kind of music I can imagine being used to force confessions at Gitmo, I'll limit my response to Anton Corbijn's "Control" to its lead performances by Sam Riley and Samantha Morton. As Ian Curtis, the band's ill-fated lead singer, and his teenage bride and eventual widow Deborah, Riley and Morton are sensational... ' Read full review at: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/2007/10/10/2007-10-10_control_shows_life_between_rock_and_a_ha.html
Haunting Songs of Heartbreak, Done by a Man With Experience
The New York Times' big-shot movie reviewer, A.O. Scott, today writes: Joy Division’s two albums were artifacts of their time that became permanent fixtures in the pop universe, available to any listener with a good reason to want a few minutes of voluptuous bad feeling. In tracing them back to their origins, Mr. Corbijn resists the temptation to pile on the evocative period details or to wallow in nostalgia for the early days of the Manchester scene. Shot in a pale, Nouvelle Vague black-and-white palette, “Control” manages to be both stylized and straightforward, avoiding overstatement even as it generates considerable intensity ... Read full review at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/movies/10cont.html?8ur&emc=ur
The New York Times' big-shot movie reviewer, A.O. Scott, today writes: Joy Division’s two albums were artifacts of their time that became permanent fixtures in the pop universe, available to any listener with a good reason to want a few minutes of voluptuous bad feeling. In tracing them back to their origins, Mr. Corbijn resists the temptation to pile on the evocative period details or to wallow in nostalgia for the early days of the Manchester scene. Shot in a pale, Nouvelle Vague black-and-white palette, “Control” manages to be both stylized and straightforward, avoiding overstatement even as it generates considerable intensity ... Read full review at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/movies/10cont.html?8ur&emc=ur
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
What Happens If Radiohead's Album Is Terrible?
from New York magazine
... Sure, everyone agrees that it's going to topple the record labels, inspire world peace, and bring Tupac back to life … but that's all based on the assumption that the songs are actually good. What if they're not? Read full article at: http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2007/10/what_happens_if_radioheads_alb.html
See also:
Radiohead's 'In Rainbows' & The Gang of Four
http://newyorkcandy.blogspot.com/2007/10/radioheads-in-rainbows-gang-of-four.html
Thom Yorke performs 'Cymbal Rush' on The Henry Rollins Show
... Sure, everyone agrees that it's going to topple the record labels, inspire world peace, and bring Tupac back to life … but that's all based on the assumption that the songs are actually good. What if they're not? Read full article at: http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2007/10/what_happens_if_radioheads_alb.html
See also:
Radiohead's 'In Rainbows' & The Gang of Four
http://newyorkcandy.blogspot.com/2007/10/radioheads-in-rainbows-gang-of-four.html
Thom Yorke performs 'Cymbal Rush' on The Henry Rollins Show
'They're the purity police, like the Taliban' - James Lipton
The host of the 'Inside the Actors Studio" TV show responds in 'New York' magazine to criticism of some of his guest choices:
"Oh, my God! Poor Jennifer Lopez, they went nuts. They say how dare Lipton sully the studio’s reputation! I have never regretted a single guest. I remember Teri Hatcher telling me there was a review that said, “How dare Lipton have such a nonentity on the show,” and she said she cried so hard that night. They’re the purity police, like the Taliban." Full interview at: http://nymag.com/arts/books/features/38925/
'New York' magazine at www.nymetro.com
"Oh, my God! Poor Jennifer Lopez, they went nuts. They say how dare Lipton sully the studio’s reputation! I have never regretted a single guest. I remember Teri Hatcher telling me there was a review that said, “How dare Lipton have such a nonentity on the show,” and she said she cried so hard that night. They’re the purity police, like the Taliban." Full interview at: http://nymag.com/arts/books/features/38925/
'New York' magazine at www.nymetro.com
In Some Schools, iPods Are Required Listening
from the New York Times
UNION CITY, N.J., Oct. 8 — A ban on iPods is so strictly enforced at José Martí Middle School that as many as three a week are confiscated from students — and returned only to their parents. But even as students have been told to leave their iPods at home, the school here in Hudson County has been handing out the portable digital players to help bilingual students with limited English ability sharpen their vocabulary and grammar by singing along to popular songs. Next month, the Union City district will give out 300 iPods at its schools as part of a $130,000 experiment in one of New Jersey’s poorest urban school systems. Read full article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/education/09ipod.html
UNION CITY, N.J., Oct. 8 — A ban on iPods is so strictly enforced at José Martí Middle School that as many as three a week are confiscated from students — and returned only to their parents. But even as students have been told to leave their iPods at home, the school here in Hudson County has been handing out the portable digital players to help bilingual students with limited English ability sharpen their vocabulary and grammar by singing along to popular songs. Next month, the Union City district will give out 300 iPods at its schools as part of a $130,000 experiment in one of New Jersey’s poorest urban school systems. Read full article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/education/09ipod.html
Happy birthday, John
Taken from The Guardian
Birthday thoughts 2007
On what would have been John Lennon's 67th birthday, a poem from Yoko Ono to commemorate the unveiling of her Peace Tower in Reykjavik.
We stand on this beautiful planet enjoying
the sunrise, the sunset, the change of seasons
the oceans, the mountains, the clear sky
and the lovely towns and cities we've created together
We cherish the moment of peace and quiet
We cherish the moment of having fun
We cherish every moment of warmth and love
We laugh, we heal, and we embrace
With what we've learnt and experienced
With our wisdom and the sense of unity
We protect our world from destruction
For our hearts beat in unison
Even when we fight with one another
We breathe for life
We'll survive
Remember: we are one
A big hug and kiss to each one of you
I feel privileged to share this time with you
Thank you for being in my life
at times as teachers, as angels, as friends
always as blessings, always with love
Without you, I would not be
Today is the beginning of our joyful lives
Let's dance together in our hearts
and play the game of life
In love
We breathe for life
We will survive
Remember: we are love
Please make sure you join us in spirit
on the day of the unveiling of the IMAGINE PEACE TOWER.
All you have to do is visit IMAGINEPEACE.com
and send your wishes which will go directly to Reykjavik.
We will all be together on that day.
They say that if people in China all jumped at the same time,
the axis of the globe will be shifted.
Well, we are shifting the axis of the world to peace by our unity.
I love you!
Yoko Ono LennonOctober 9, 2007
Birthday thoughts 2007
On what would have been John Lennon's 67th birthday, a poem from Yoko Ono to commemorate the unveiling of her Peace Tower in Reykjavik.
We stand on this beautiful planet enjoying
the sunrise, the sunset, the change of seasons
the oceans, the mountains, the clear sky
and the lovely towns and cities we've created together
We cherish the moment of peace and quiet
We cherish the moment of having fun
We cherish every moment of warmth and love
We laugh, we heal, and we embrace
With what we've learnt and experienced
With our wisdom and the sense of unity
We protect our world from destruction
For our hearts beat in unison
Even when we fight with one another
We breathe for life
We'll survive
Remember: we are one
A big hug and kiss to each one of you
I feel privileged to share this time with you
Thank you for being in my life
at times as teachers, as angels, as friends
always as blessings, always with love
Without you, I would not be
Today is the beginning of our joyful lives
Let's dance together in our hearts
and play the game of life
In love
We breathe for life
We will survive
Remember: we are love
Please make sure you join us in spirit
on the day of the unveiling of the IMAGINE PEACE TOWER.
All you have to do is visit IMAGINEPEACE.com
and send your wishes which will go directly to Reykjavik.
We will all be together on that day.
They say that if people in China all jumped at the same time,
the axis of the globe will be shifted.
Well, we are shifting the axis of the world to peace by our unity.
I love you!
Yoko Ono LennonOctober 9, 2007
Control: 'Haunted and holy'
Control, the new movie about the life and suicide of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, earns a full-page review in today's New York Daily News - penned by Jim Farber, one of the best daily press music writers in the U.S. He writes:
Everyone looks haunted and holy in the movie "Control." Gloomy shadows stalk the characters as glorious light bounces off their brows, jaws and cheekbones. It's a look that's equal parts scary and sacred. That's just the right balance for a film that means to tell the tale of Ian Curtis, doomed lead singer of the legendarily dark band Joy Division. It opens tomorrow at Film Forum. "There's a certain starkness, and even an industrial bleakness, to the music of Joy Division," says the film's director and visual czar, Anton Corbijn, "but there's also this eternal quality, this beauty." Read full review at: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music/2007/10/09/2007-10-09_control_highlights_joy_division_saga.html
How Curtis' death highlights changed times
from the Belfast Telegraph
... By all accounts Corbijn's film does justice to Curtis's memory, more than the partial account written by his widow, Deborah Curtis, in the mid-1990s and more than the other former members of New Order - who sometimes seemed straightforwardly cheesed off with being asked about him - have so far got across.
What Corbijn has managed to emphasise is that the death of this young man had not got so very much to do with his milieu or with his status as an artist, but with inadequate responses to the illnesses he suffered from, epilepsy and depression... Read full article at: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/opinion/article3041274.ece
Control and Kes
from Comingsoon.net
Interview with director Anton Corbijn and Sam Riley, who plays Ian Curtis.
Corbijn: "... There's something in Sam in his person that gave me the feeling that there was a very interesting person that is not actor-like. There was a freshness to him that was really deep down what I really was looking for. There's this movie "Kes" by Ken Loach that has this little boy playing the lead, and like Sam, he's from the North of England. The acting is so convincing that you think it's a documentary and I thought if he could get anywhere near that, where people look at the screen and think that it's real, I'd be very happy. I think Sam got very close to that for sure..." Full interview at: http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=37978
Everyone looks haunted and holy in the movie "Control." Gloomy shadows stalk the characters as glorious light bounces off their brows, jaws and cheekbones. It's a look that's equal parts scary and sacred. That's just the right balance for a film that means to tell the tale of Ian Curtis, doomed lead singer of the legendarily dark band Joy Division. It opens tomorrow at Film Forum. "There's a certain starkness, and even an industrial bleakness, to the music of Joy Division," says the film's director and visual czar, Anton Corbijn, "but there's also this eternal quality, this beauty." Read full review at: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music/2007/10/09/2007-10-09_control_highlights_joy_division_saga.html
How Curtis' death highlights changed times
from the Belfast Telegraph
... By all accounts Corbijn's film does justice to Curtis's memory, more than the partial account written by his widow, Deborah Curtis, in the mid-1990s and more than the other former members of New Order - who sometimes seemed straightforwardly cheesed off with being asked about him - have so far got across.
What Corbijn has managed to emphasise is that the death of this young man had not got so very much to do with his milieu or with his status as an artist, but with inadequate responses to the illnesses he suffered from, epilepsy and depression... Read full article at: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/opinion/article3041274.ece
Control and Kes
from Comingsoon.net
Interview with director Anton Corbijn and Sam Riley, who plays Ian Curtis.
Corbijn: "... There's something in Sam in his person that gave me the feeling that there was a very interesting person that is not actor-like. There was a freshness to him that was really deep down what I really was looking for. There's this movie "Kes" by Ken Loach that has this little boy playing the lead, and like Sam, he's from the North of England. The acting is so convincing that you think it's a documentary and I thought if he could get anywhere near that, where people look at the screen and think that it's real, I'd be very happy. I think Sam got very close to that for sure..." Full interview at: http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=37978
Music to Brood by, Desolate and Stark
by Simon Reynolds in the New York Times
... there’s one crucial factor mentioned in “Touching From a Distance” that “Control” strangely ignores: Mr. Curtis’s romantic fascination with rock stars who died young. In the book Ms. Curtis writes that her husband told her he had “no intention of living beyond his early 20s.” This apparent death wish suggests that amid the depression and confusion, there was an aesthetic component to his fatal decision. From his teenage infatuation with glam rock to the attention he paid to record design, Mr. Curtis appreciated the power of gesture. Because his suicide preceded the release of “Closer,” it determined the album’s immediate reception and its long-term resonance. (In “The Eternal,” the narrator watches a funeral procession — his own?) It could be that Mr. Curtis planned it that way. He played a major role in choosing the album’s cover, a photograph of a sculpture tableau in a cemetery of the dead Christ surrounded by mourners. Full review at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/movies/07reyn.html
Monday, October 8, 2007
The art of David Opdyke
Rape row as 'new Marley' tours UK
from the Guardian
A bitter row has broken out over the imminent British tour of one of the world's most acclaimed reggae stars, recently released from prison after serving eight years for raping a woman at gunpoint. Jah Cure, the 29-year-old Jamaican Rastafarian who has been compared to Bob Marley, is drawing international attention for his heartfelt lyrics and melodies. His British tour this month is almost sold out. Read full article at: http://music.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2185369,00.html
A bitter row has broken out over the imminent British tour of one of the world's most acclaimed reggae stars, recently released from prison after serving eight years for raping a woman at gunpoint. Jah Cure, the 29-year-old Jamaican Rastafarian who has been compared to Bob Marley, is drawing international attention for his heartfelt lyrics and melodies. His British tour this month is almost sold out. Read full article at: http://music.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2185369,00.html
Morrissey New York tickets slashed to $20!
from Brooklynvegan.comPoor Morrissey. First reduced tickets to MSG, then it was completely cancelled, two of his LA shows were just cancelled, and now tickets to one of his upcoming NYC shows have been reduced in price again. Starting Tuesday October 9th at noon, you can purchase $20 tickets to the October 23rd show at Hammerstein Ballroom - at the Irving Plaza box office or online. Full priced tickets are also still available for all five NYC shows.
UPDATE:
Morrissey tickets massacre - click here
Ice skaters having a hot time of it
from the New York Times
Ah, Columbus Day. A day for … for … well, you could have a picnic at the beach or take a stroll through the park. Or, you could mark the annual opening of the ice-skating rink at Rockefeller Center by wearing shorts and a tank top and zipping around the ice — though most people were splashing in puddles and slipping in the slush. Morning temperatures were in the high 70s and crept up to the low 80s by midday — which for some today, the official start of the ice-skating season at Rockefeller Center, seemed the perfect kind of weather to lace up skates. Read full article at: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/ice-skaters-are-having-a-hot-time-of-it/index.html?hp
Ah, Columbus Day. A day for … for … well, you could have a picnic at the beach or take a stroll through the park. Or, you could mark the annual opening of the ice-skating rink at Rockefeller Center by wearing shorts and a tank top and zipping around the ice — though most people were splashing in puddles and slipping in the slush. Morning temperatures were in the high 70s and crept up to the low 80s by midday — which for some today, the official start of the ice-skating season at Rockefeller Center, seemed the perfect kind of weather to lace up skates. Read full article at: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/ice-skaters-are-having-a-hot-time-of-it/index.html?hp
Street Named For Tony Wilson
Whitworth Street West — home to Manchester, England's legendary Hacienda nightclub — is set to be re-named as early as next spring in honor of the late Tony Wilson, commonly known as Mr. Manchester.The club's owner, as well as founder of Factory Records and the annual In The City music festival, died in August at the age of 57 from compilations from cancer. His son, Oliver, and daughter, Isobel, put forward the idea, and — if two thirds of the residents vote in favor next week — the street will be changed and a celebration will follow.
Peter Saville, who designed album covers for Joy Division and New Order, has mentioned the idea to set up a Wilson Academy, where local children will be able to work on arts and music projects, although no official plans for the school have been announced.
Salcedo causes a rift in London's Tate Modern
from The GuardianAfter years of vast, architectural sculptures - towers, walls, horns, boxes, even a model of the sun - the eighth installation to occupy Tate Modern's Turbine Hall is somewhat starker. It is a crack in the floor.
The work by Colombian sculptor Doris Salcedo, entitled Shibboleth, runs the full 167 metres (548 feet) of the cavernous hall. It begins as a hairline crack in the concrete floor of the building, then widens and deepens as it snakes across the room.
Quite how it got there, however, is a mystery. Salcedo claims the work, made elsewhere but installed over the past five weeks, took her over a year to construct. Speaking at today's press unveiling, she was enigmatic about how the effect was achieved.
"What is important is the meaning of the piece. The making of it is not important," she said. Asked how deep the fissure goes, she replied: "It's bottomless. It's as deep as humanity." Read full article at: http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/news/story/0,,2186331,00.html
It's Official: Dida Is A Big Girl
The above headline, and the following article, from www.football365.com
Excellent news coming from UEFA headquarters. After collapsing in agony following a brush from a Celtic fan last week, AC Milan keeper Dida is to face disciplinary action for his flouncing that was at best a pathetic attempt to gain sympathy, at worst a cynical attempt to get the Scottish champions thrown out of Europe. Full article at: http://www.football365.com/story/0,17033,8652_2788885,00.html
Excellent news coming from UEFA headquarters. After collapsing in agony following a brush from a Celtic fan last week, AC Milan keeper Dida is to face disciplinary action for his flouncing that was at best a pathetic attempt to gain sympathy, at worst a cynical attempt to get the Scottish champions thrown out of Europe. Full article at: http://www.football365.com/story/0,17033,8652_2788885,00.html
Google's Stock Tops $600 for First Time
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google Inc.'s stock price sailed past $600 for the first time Monday, extending a rally that has elevated the Internet search leader's market value by about $25 billion in the past month. The Mountain View-based company's shares traded as high as $601.45 before slipping back to $597.58 in morning trading. It marked the sixth time in the past 12 trading sessions that the stock has reached a new peak climbing on the lofty expectations for Google's third-quarter earnings. The latest milestone served as yet another reminder of the immense wealth created since the company went public in August 2004. Full article at: http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g3f7BjnpukxiCWKtrqt1Sinik60wD8S53PJ80
CONTROL: 'Famous? I still wash his underpants'
The New Yorker magazine on the new movie Control, about the life and suicide of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis (in cinemas in the U.K. now, in the U.S. on Wednesday, October 10)
Speaking as someone so irretrievably square that I not only never listened to the band but didn’t even know anyone who liked it, I can’t imagine a tribute more fitting than this. “He’s quite famous now, isn’t he?” someone asks Deborah at a party. “Not to me,” she replies. “I still wash his underpants.” Read full review at: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2007/10/15/071015crci_cinema_lane?currentPage=2
Heart and soul
from Johnny Flamethowa
We do not see Joy Division tripping the rock’n’roll fantastic, despite their gathering fame. It’s cold and real, whether on the road, thrashing ever more chaotically through era-defining songs that provide their own self-fulfilling prophecy - “Disorder”, “New Dawn Fades”, “Isolation”, “Heart And Soul” – or stuck at home in Macclesfield. Which is where this story ends, one man hanging from the ceiling, desperate for mercy at the hands of his own life. Ian Curtis had problems stretching far beyond crack addiction or getting married by mistake and he and his band wrote the soundtrack to match. Which is what makes “Control” a total triumph. Read full review at: http://uk.blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-mrfcAlc7dK7yHijtU5ey7DM__xuHPDN3gA--?cq=1&p=127
Speaking as someone so irretrievably square that I not only never listened to the band but didn’t even know anyone who liked it, I can’t imagine a tribute more fitting than this. “He’s quite famous now, isn’t he?” someone asks Deborah at a party. “Not to me,” she replies. “I still wash his underpants.” Read full review at: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2007/10/15/071015crci_cinema_lane?currentPage=2
Heart and soul
from Johnny Flamethowa
We do not see Joy Division tripping the rock’n’roll fantastic, despite their gathering fame. It’s cold and real, whether on the road, thrashing ever more chaotically through era-defining songs that provide their own self-fulfilling prophecy - “Disorder”, “New Dawn Fades”, “Isolation”, “Heart And Soul” – or stuck at home in Macclesfield. Which is where this story ends, one man hanging from the ceiling, desperate for mercy at the hands of his own life. Ian Curtis had problems stretching far beyond crack addiction or getting married by mistake and he and his band wrote the soundtrack to match. Which is what makes “Control” a total triumph. Read full review at: http://uk.blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-mrfcAlc7dK7yHijtU5ey7DM__xuHPDN3gA--?cq=1&p=127
Sunday, October 7, 2007
The Cult of the Lads from Manchester
from the New York Times
“Control” and “Joy Division” are both necessarily elegies, not merely to Mr. Curtis but also to a host of people and places that are no longer around. “To be brutal about it, the equity of Factory is death,” Mr. Savage said, referring to Factory Records, the now-defunct label that made its name with Joy Division. Read full article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/movies/07lim.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
“Control” and “Joy Division” are both necessarily elegies, not merely to Mr. Curtis but also to a host of people and places that are no longer around. “To be brutal about it, the equity of Factory is death,” Mr. Savage said, referring to Factory Records, the now-defunct label that made its name with Joy Division. Read full article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/movies/07lim.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Robert De Niro: Tribeca Godfather or business bully?
from the New York Daily NewsRobert De Niro is celebrated as the tough guy savior of post-Sept. 11 lower Manhattan - a homegrown hero who rejuvenated downtown when it was down and out. But the acting icon also is De Niro Inc., a business baron who has jacked up ticket prices, unleashed his lawyers on small companies that use the name Tribeca, angered Village residents with a proposed mega-project on the Hudson River - and collected millions of dollars in state subsidies. Armed with $39 million in tax-exempt Liberty Bonds awarded after 9/11, De Niro will soon unveil his newest moneymaker, an 83-room hotel, The Greenwich, complete with a pricey new eatery, Ago. Read full article at: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/10/07/2007-10-07_robert_de_niro_tribeca_godfather_or_busi.html
Joy Division adds up to classic cinema
from the Evening Post, Nottingham
.... Musically, Control is exceptional and one of the most impressive, least pretentious films about rock that has been made."I wanted there to be poetry in the film, but I didn't want it to jump out at you," says Anton Corbijn, the photographer turned debutant director…
… The performance scenes are not mimed, and Riley captures the weirdly gangling Curtis moves to perfection. No one could complain that the soundtrack - written by New Order, which includes the remaining members of Joy Division - isn't as authentic as it could have been. We get a real scent of a postpunk era of the late Seventies in which Joy Division had such a lasting influence, even if there is little analysis of the music. Read full review at: http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=246482&command=displayContent&sourceNode=190054&contentPK=18607671&folderPk=112388&pNodeId=190064
Black-and-white towns
from smokebelch
First, I didn’t expect it to be so visceral. I’d imagined Anton Corbijn would have gone more ethereal, relying on imagery and symbolism, following on from his Atmosphere video. But there’s very little that can be called self-consciously “arty” in the cinematography. A clever bit with some telegraph wires, the lighting on the live shows and a stunning cutaway to Deborah Curtis sat in the dark perhaps. But for the most part it’s the reality of late 70s life in Macclesfield and the grotty world of backstage rooms, small clubs, and long drives back from London in vans with broken heaters ...
And the music has a stunning “right there” quality to it. Obviously the bits of real Joy Division used in the soundtrack sound as good as you’d imagine on cinema screen. Atmosphere in particular. You know exactly when it’s coming. You know exactly how it’s going to be used. But it still catches you with a lump in the throat (and I confess a tear in the eye) ... Read full review at: http://smokebelch.wordpress.com/2007/10/06/black-and-white-towns/
See also Control: Darkness & Muted Traumas on this link
http://newyorkcandy.blogspot.com/2007/10/control-darkness-muted-traumas.html
Joy Division snap up icon award
from ITN
Cult rock band Joy Division scooped the 4Music Icon gong at the Diesel:U:Music awards in north London. Factory Records designer Peter Saville was also honoured with an award for Contribution to Music at the ceremony which celebrated new and established talent.
Factory Records designer Peter Saville was also honoured with an award for Contribution to Music at the ceremony which celebrated new and established talent. Saville designed some of the best-known album covers of the 1970s and 1980s, notably for Joy Division and New Order - the band formed by the surviving members of Joy Division after the group's singer Ian Curtis committed suicide in 1980 ...
The star-studded event was hosted by Alex Zane and Alexa Chung and was attended by Hollywood actress Rosario Dawson and Sadie Frost.
The band have recently been re-introduced back into the spotlight with new biopic Control, which tells the story of their iconic frontman and stars Samantha Morton and newcomer Sam Riley. Full article at: http://itn.co.uk/news/5edd6e6765fe57044b172cd5b299a26d.html
.... Musically, Control is exceptional and one of the most impressive, least pretentious films about rock that has been made."I wanted there to be poetry in the film, but I didn't want it to jump out at you," says Anton Corbijn, the photographer turned debutant director…
… The performance scenes are not mimed, and Riley captures the weirdly gangling Curtis moves to perfection. No one could complain that the soundtrack - written by New Order, which includes the remaining members of Joy Division - isn't as authentic as it could have been. We get a real scent of a postpunk era of the late Seventies in which Joy Division had such a lasting influence, even if there is little analysis of the music. Read full review at: http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=246482&command=displayContent&sourceNode=190054&contentPK=18607671&folderPk=112388&pNodeId=190064
Black-and-white towns
from smokebelch
First, I didn’t expect it to be so visceral. I’d imagined Anton Corbijn would have gone more ethereal, relying on imagery and symbolism, following on from his Atmosphere video. But there’s very little that can be called self-consciously “arty” in the cinematography. A clever bit with some telegraph wires, the lighting on the live shows and a stunning cutaway to Deborah Curtis sat in the dark perhaps. But for the most part it’s the reality of late 70s life in Macclesfield and the grotty world of backstage rooms, small clubs, and long drives back from London in vans with broken heaters ...
And the music has a stunning “right there” quality to it. Obviously the bits of real Joy Division used in the soundtrack sound as good as you’d imagine on cinema screen. Atmosphere in particular. You know exactly when it’s coming. You know exactly how it’s going to be used. But it still catches you with a lump in the throat (and I confess a tear in the eye) ... Read full review at: http://smokebelch.wordpress.com/2007/10/06/black-and-white-towns/
See also Control: Darkness & Muted Traumas on this link
http://newyorkcandy.blogspot.com/2007/10/control-darkness-muted-traumas.html
Joy Division snap up icon award
from ITN
Cult rock band Joy Division scooped the 4Music Icon gong at the Diesel:U:Music awards in north London. Factory Records designer Peter Saville was also honoured with an award for Contribution to Music at the ceremony which celebrated new and established talent.
Factory Records designer Peter Saville was also honoured with an award for Contribution to Music at the ceremony which celebrated new and established talent. Saville designed some of the best-known album covers of the 1970s and 1980s, notably for Joy Division and New Order - the band formed by the surviving members of Joy Division after the group's singer Ian Curtis committed suicide in 1980 ...
The star-studded event was hosted by Alex Zane and Alexa Chung and was attended by Hollywood actress Rosario Dawson and Sadie Frost.
The band have recently been re-introduced back into the spotlight with new biopic Control, which tells the story of their iconic frontman and stars Samantha Morton and newcomer Sam Riley. Full article at: http://itn.co.uk/news/5edd6e6765fe57044b172cd5b299a26d.html
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Brian Eno: This ban will not stop us
Brian Eno, former member of Roxy Music and producer of U2, writes in The GuardianParliament might want to forget about Iraq, but we will march on Monday to remind them.
'... Civil liberties never seem important until you need them. But by definition, that is the very time you won't be able to get them, so they have to be in place in advance, like an insurance policy. In his book Defying Hitler, the historian Sebastian Hafner describes how Germany slid into nazism. At first people laughed at Hitler and played along with what seemed trivial changes in the law. For most Germans it was all rather abstract, and they were expecting things to return to normal when Hitler faded back into obscurity. Only he didn't, and civil liberties were so compromised there was no way to stop him...
'Stop the War Coalition planned a march from Trafalgar Square to Parliament Square on Monday - the day parliament resumes - to draw attention to the fact that a lot of us are still thinking about Iraq and to call for the immediate withdrawal of troops. Using an archaic law (the 1839 Metropolitan Police Act), that demonstration has now been banned. Now why would that be? Stop the War Coalition has organised dozens of such demonstrations, and as far as I know not one person has been hurt. So it can't be public safety that's at stake.' Read full article at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2184924,00.html
"Crouch, you lanky wanker"
from the Guardian
[Liverpool and England striker] Peter Crouch draws strength from highs and lows of a career yet to peak. For every person who is derogatory there are eight who are complimentary.
... He is among the small number of England internationals to have suffered the crushing rejection of being booed by the team's own supporters and he will never forget his first day at Liverpool, standing outside Anfield, soaking in the history and feeling more than a little pleased with himself, when a bus went by and someone leant out of the window. "Crouch," he shrieked, "you lanky wanker."
People yelling stuff is one of the hazards of the occupation but Crouch, it is fair to say, gets more than most. "I went to Miami with a few mates after the World Cup," he recalls. "I used to go to America and nobody would know who I was but this time we walked past a bar and someone shouted, 'Oi, robot boy!' I carried on walking but my mate stopped. 'Isn't that Mickey Rourke shouting?' he said. And there was Mickey Rourke doing the robot dance. That's when I knew I had made it" Read full article at: http://football.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2184889,00.html
[Liverpool and England striker] Peter Crouch draws strength from highs and lows of a career yet to peak. For every person who is derogatory there are eight who are complimentary.
... He is among the small number of England internationals to have suffered the crushing rejection of being booed by the team's own supporters and he will never forget his first day at Liverpool, standing outside Anfield, soaking in the history and feeling more than a little pleased with himself, when a bus went by and someone leant out of the window. "Crouch," he shrieked, "you lanky wanker."
People yelling stuff is one of the hazards of the occupation but Crouch, it is fair to say, gets more than most. "I went to Miami with a few mates after the World Cup," he recalls. "I used to go to America and nobody would know who I was but this time we walked past a bar and someone shouted, 'Oi, robot boy!' I carried on walking but my mate stopped. 'Isn't that Mickey Rourke shouting?' he said. And there was Mickey Rourke doing the robot dance. That's when I knew I had made it" Read full article at: http://football.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2184889,00.html
Friday, October 5, 2007
Control: Darkness & muted traumas
from the Telegraph UKDirector Anton Corbijn was one of the few people to know Joy Division's Ian Curtis. His account of his life features an extraordinary performance from Sam Riley, writes Sukhdev Sandhu.
Why make a film about Ian Curtis? Does the world really need another myth-peddling hagiography? Another death-fetishising, last-of-the-great-rock-stars biopic that elevates - or rather reduces - artists to the Too Much Too Soon canon of Jim Morrison, Sid Vicious, Kurt Cobain? And why place on the big screen the lead singer of a band who killed himself at the age of 23, and whose photo never appeared on record sleeves? A famous image, taken of all people by Anton Corbijn, the Dutch photographer whose directorial debut Control is, shows them facing away from the camera. It's hard not to worry that the darkness, the sheer mystery and muted traumas of Joy Division's music will disappear in the transition to the multiplex. READ FULL REVIEW AT: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2007/10/05/bfcontrol105.xml&DCMP=ILC-traffdrv07053100
A Rock 'n' Roll Suicide
from the Belfast Telegraph
' ... Anton Corbijn's movie avoids and inverts a lot of the standard, stereotype rock band/big star origins movie: initial recording and appearance contracts are signed, literally, in blood and the whole Factory/Manchester music scene seems more realistically portrayed than in 24 Hour Party People...' Read full review at: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/film-tv/reviews/article3030279.ece
Film of the year?
from the Liverpool Daily Post
'... Corbijn’s direction is assured throughout, filming the closing scenes with sensitivity. Best film of the year? Quite possibly.' Full review at: http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-life-features/liverpool-arts/film/2007/10/05/film-review-control-64375-19903311/
"And I feel sorry for all these young bands coming through because none of them seem to be able to knock Joy Division off our pedestal." - Joy Division's Peter Hook, speaking at last night's premiere of Control in the band's Manchester backyard.
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/entertainment/film_and_tv/s/1018626_stars_come_out_for_control_premiere
from the Belfast Telegraph
' ... Anton Corbijn's movie avoids and inverts a lot of the standard, stereotype rock band/big star origins movie: initial recording and appearance contracts are signed, literally, in blood and the whole Factory/Manchester music scene seems more realistically portrayed than in 24 Hour Party People...' Read full review at: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/film-tv/reviews/article3030279.ece
Film of the year?
from the Liverpool Daily Post
'... Corbijn’s direction is assured throughout, filming the closing scenes with sensitivity. Best film of the year? Quite possibly.' Full review at: http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-life-features/liverpool-arts/film/2007/10/05/film-review-control-64375-19903311/
"And I feel sorry for all these young bands coming through because none of them seem to be able to knock Joy Division off our pedestal." - Joy Division's Peter Hook, speaking at last night's premiere of Control in the band's Manchester backyard.
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/entertainment/film_and_tv/s/1018626_stars_come_out_for_control_premiere
'I don't want to be Travis Bickle'
Ben Bailey, one of New York's best standup comedians, has carved out a highly successful side gig as the presenter of 'Cash Cab' on the Discovery Channel, in which our man conducts a quiz show from the driver's seat of a Gotham taxi. Check out the clips on the link below, in which the always-engaging Bailey, who says the movie 'Taxi Driver' is an inspiration for 'what not to be' as a cabbie ('I don't want to be Travis Bickle'), spills a few secrets about his Emmy-nominated show. He explains that New York cab drivers are 'the only ones who'll give you a break'. 'Cash Cab' is on Discovery tonight at 5 and 5.30 pm EST.Clips at: http://dsc.discovery.com/video/?playerId=203711706&categoryId=934464199&lineupId=1133262682
BYO Training Wheels
from the NY Times' Urban Eye (subscribe now, it's free!)As if his role as cultural forefather, musical maestro and chair maven weren’t enough, now David Byrne has gone and gotten sporty. At the New York Festival tomorrow, he’ll be the host of an event called “How New Yorkers Ride Bikes.” He would know: he’s been pedaling the city for more than two decades and has a forthcoming book about his experiences. Among the guests joining him for musical performances, films and griping about potholes are Calvin Trillin; Jan Gehl, the Danish architect and urban planner; and the Classic Riders Bicycle Club, antique bike enthusiasts from Brooklyn. Valet bike parking will be provided.
“Indie Rock’s Patron Saint Inspires a New Flock
“He’s just kind of pursued what he finds interesting and hasn’t been specifically chasing after an audience, and I have a lot of respect for that,” said Win Butler of the Arcade Fire.
An Island Joins the Mainstream
from the NY TimesA 40-BLOCK baguette-shaped piece of land in the East River, between Manhattan and Queens, Roosevelt Island has had about as many different names through the years as functions. Varcken’s Island had a hog farm, while Blackwell’s Island contained that family’s country getaway. In the mid-20th-century, Welfare Island was home to a notorious prison.
What the place hasn’t really had, though, was many full-time residents (at least of their own free will), especially when compared with the Upper East Side, which sits about 700 feet from the island’s western seawall. Read full NY Times article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/02/realestate/02livi.html?8ur&emc=ur
DALI: PAINTING & FILM - L.A. County Museum of Art Oct 14-Jan 6
And sometimes, I'd rather be in L.A.Dalí: Painting & Film, coming to Los Angeles, the epicenter of film, aims to illustrate the cinematic influences and elements in Salvador Dalí's work as well as the contribution he made to cinema. Key pieces from Dalí's oeuvre, incorporating painting, film, photography, sculpture, and texts, will be on view. Throughout his life and career, the renowned surrealist maintained a deep connection with film as an artistic medium. He collaborated with movie greats such as Luis Buñuel, Alfred Hitchcock, and Walt Disney, and created works influenced by Cecil B. De Mille and the Marx Brothers.
Still Disco-Punk, Still Spoiling for a Fight
LCD Soundsystem supporting Arcade Fire at Randall's Island in NYC tomorrow.
THERE are probably more peaceable ways to usher an album into the world than with a single called “North American Scum.” But if you’re James Murphy, the mastermind and frontman of LCD Soundsystem, peaceable is hardly what you’re going for. Brash and propulsive is more like it, and by those criteria the track fulfills its calling. It may be lousy as diplomacy, but it’s a monster on the dance floor. In other words, “North American Scum” is both vintage LCD Soundsystem and a textbook specimen of disco-punk, the subgenre that Mr. Murphy helped foment. Read full NY Times article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/arts/music/18chin.html?8ur&emc=ur
THERE are probably more peaceable ways to usher an album into the world than with a single called “North American Scum.” But if you’re James Murphy, the mastermind and frontman of LCD Soundsystem, peaceable is hardly what you’re going for. Brash and propulsive is more like it, and by those criteria the track fulfills its calling. It may be lousy as diplomacy, but it’s a monster on the dance floor. In other words, “North American Scum” is both vintage LCD Soundsystem and a textbook specimen of disco-punk, the subgenre that Mr. Murphy helped foment. Read full NY Times article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/arts/music/18chin.html?8ur&emc=ur
Thursday, October 4, 2007
U.S. Repels British Invasion
from the Wall Street JournalImmigration policy collides with surge of U.K. bands, scuttling fall concert plans
British pop star Lily Allen was supposed to perform at the MTV Video Music Awards last weekend and then head to the West Coast for the week of sold-out concerts she had booked. Instead, she spent this past week at home in London.
The reason: The chart-topping singer can't get into the U.S. American authorities took away her immigration visa last month.
This fall, the British aren't coming. Immigration restrictions are stopping some popular United Kingdom acts from reaching U.S. borders. At least three anticipated tours by British artists scheduled for this month alone have been called off or pushed back because of musicians' visa problems. That is on top of at least 10 scuttled tours by buzzed-about British acts in the last year. Read full article at: http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118980966247828081.html
New York & the Seventies
Learn how New York City has evolved since the tumultuous Seventies. Professor James Weiss will take his audience on a journey through some of the most noted events in New York City history. Hear about the Budget Crisis of 1977, the Son of Sam tragedy, the Blackout Riots and how the discos craze still shapes our city today.
Weiss holds graduate degrees from Fordham, Long Island and St. John’s universities. He worked for the New York City Board of Education for 24 years as an assistant principal. He has published two books, several short stories about growing up in Brooklyn, and a short anthology of poems. Currently, he teaches both Speech and Discover New York on the St. John’s University Staten Island campus.
Event: Academic Lecture Series - New York and the Seventies - Staten Island Campus
When: October 25, 2007 12:15 PM
Where: Campus Center Gymnasium, Staten Island campus
More information at Academic Lecture Series Student Life (718) 990-6567
Weiss holds graduate degrees from Fordham, Long Island and St. John’s universities. He worked for the New York City Board of Education for 24 years as an assistant principal. He has published two books, several short stories about growing up in Brooklyn, and a short anthology of poems. Currently, he teaches both Speech and Discover New York on the St. John’s University Staten Island campus.
Event: Academic Lecture Series - New York and the Seventies - Staten Island Campus
When: October 25, 2007 12:15 PM
Where: Campus Center Gymnasium, Staten Island campus
More information at Academic Lecture Series Student Life (718) 990-6567
Radiohead's 'In Rainbows' & the Gang of Four
From Broken Dial
As I am tasked with some level of music criticism on this site, I will state for the record that I am not particularly curious about Radiohead's new album In Rainbows, largely because I expect I know to a degree of roughly 95 percent what it will sound like and I am equally confident the remaining five percent will not move me. But I have been to the website. I placed a 0.00 GBP order for an album I won't download to have seen the process first hand. At some point I might pre-order to have gone through the entire process.
Regardless of your feelings on the band, you have to acknowledge that something different is going on here, and while some might go so far as to call out artists we otherwise consider virtuous (Bono the practical pacifist, Sting the tantric vegan, Bob the iconoclast poet) for taking the major label coin, I'll just call it the logical extension of something Gang of Four started. Gang of Four had egalitarian ambitions within the capitalist system as well. It's hard to coordinate your socialist world view with the need to rely on capitalists to get music/messages in people's hands (and feed the fam, as well) but both have done it to the extent possible. To think one band so deeply influenced Radiohead and Franz Ferdinand. It really is one incestuous scene on that island nation. READ FULL ARTICLE AT: http://brokendial.insidepulse.com/articles/70958/2007/10/04/beating-the-drum--speaking-of-radiohead.html
As I am tasked with some level of music criticism on this site, I will state for the record that I am not particularly curious about Radiohead's new album In Rainbows, largely because I expect I know to a degree of roughly 95 percent what it will sound like and I am equally confident the remaining five percent will not move me. But I have been to the website. I placed a 0.00 GBP order for an album I won't download to have seen the process first hand. At some point I might pre-order to have gone through the entire process.
Regardless of your feelings on the band, you have to acknowledge that something different is going on here, and while some might go so far as to call out artists we otherwise consider virtuous (Bono the practical pacifist, Sting the tantric vegan, Bob the iconoclast poet) for taking the major label coin, I'll just call it the logical extension of something Gang of Four started. Gang of Four had egalitarian ambitions within the capitalist system as well. It's hard to coordinate your socialist world view with the need to rely on capitalists to get music/messages in people's hands (and feed the fam, as well) but both have done it to the extent possible. To think one band so deeply influenced Radiohead and Franz Ferdinand. It really is one incestuous scene on that island nation. READ FULL ARTICLE AT: http://brokendial.insidepulse.com/articles/70958/2007/10/04/beating-the-drum--speaking-of-radiohead.html
Out of control
Jason Solomons in The Guardian:
You've probably heard about Control already. It was a hit with everyone in Cannes and the music and style press have been swooning over its depiction of angsty icon Ian Curtis, who - if you believe them - basically changed the entire world of popular music by fronting Joy Division, being miserable and dying young.
Based on the book Touching From A Distance by Curtis' widow Deborah, the film Control admirably recoils from both hagiography and bitterness. Four reasons: Samantha Morton's performance (I think she's a real screen animal, the best, most instinctive, carnal and visceral British actress of her generation - has been since her debuts in Cracker on the telly and in the amazing film, Under The Skin); Sam Riley's sympathetic and intelligent portrayal of Curtis; Toby Kibbel's amusing turn as band manager Rob Gretton; and Anton Corbijn's stylish direction, impressively of a piece with his photography of the band and the era.
The film's arrival has prompted several pieces about great rock films and Control, I think, does take its place among them, although it doesn't quite have the scope and sense of mischief achieved by Michael Winterbottom in the splendid 24 Hour Party People.
You've probably heard about Control already. It was a hit with everyone in Cannes and the music and style press have been swooning over its depiction of angsty icon Ian Curtis, who - if you believe them - basically changed the entire world of popular music by fronting Joy Division, being miserable and dying young.
Based on the book Touching From A Distance by Curtis' widow Deborah, the film Control admirably recoils from both hagiography and bitterness. Four reasons: Samantha Morton's performance (I think she's a real screen animal, the best, most instinctive, carnal and visceral British actress of her generation - has been since her debuts in Cracker on the telly and in the amazing film, Under The Skin); Sam Riley's sympathetic and intelligent portrayal of Curtis; Toby Kibbel's amusing turn as band manager Rob Gretton; and Anton Corbijn's stylish direction, impressively of a piece with his photography of the band and the era.
The film's arrival has prompted several pieces about great rock films and Control, I think, does take its place among them, although it doesn't quite have the scope and sense of mischief achieved by Michael Winterbottom in the splendid 24 Hour Party People.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Control 'powerful and moving'
sm.jpg)
from Merseyside ConfidentialThe best rock n roll film ever?
So says John Robb after watching the Ian Curtis biopic, Control
The myth of Joy Division is so powerful that it has become one of the great untouchables. How could you make a film about that? After all, few bands have a story as bleak and sad. Few bands made such powerful music that changed so much and on their own terms. Somehow, against the odds, Control perfectly captures the brief and tragic story of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis and makes for a powerful and moving film. Read full review at: http://www.liverpoolconfidential.com/index.asp?sessionx=IpqiNwB6IwfkNwB6IaqiNwA
Control opens in New York City ...
at Film Forum (209 W. Houston St. , between 6th Avenue and Varick, 7th Avenue) next Wednesday, October 10 and playing through October 23
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
