It Might As Well Be String - The Goodies

Happy New Year!!!

AC/DC Full Concert 1977

AC/DC Live Golders Green London Hippodrome 27.10.1977.

Set List:

1-Let There Be Rock
2-Problem Child
3-Hell Ain't a Bad Place to Be
4-Whole Lotta Rosie
5-Bad Boy Boogie
6-Rocker
7-T.N.T.

Leh-Manali

I hitchhiked this route in 1996. Two hundred and twenty four kilometres and it took a week. We had a few days in Keylong staying with a sadhu.



A large part of it was in the back of one of these trucks, driven by Kashmiris.

The Revival

The Revival (Europe, 2009, 17 min)
Directed by Invincible. Produced by EMERGENCE Media and Iqaa the Olivetone.

The Revival gives a candid glimpse into the first meeting of legendary Hip-Hop pioneer Roxanne Shante and veteran Philly emcee Bahamadia, as they trade stories of their struggles and triumphs in the industry over their long careers. It also shows the exchange of lessons between them and up-and-coming artists DJ Shortee, Eternia, Stacy Epps, and Invincible. This short documentary, a collage of performances and behind the scenes footage, was filmed and directed by Invincible while on the road in Europe as part of We-B Girlz all women in independent Hip-Hop tour. The largest all female Hip-Hop tour of its kind, it spanned over three weeks, six countries, and featured dozens of female artists who performed for tens of thousands of supporters.

Throbbing Gristle - Persuasion (Live)

Good morning world!!!

John Lennon & Yoko Ono: WAR IS OVER! (If You Want It)

December 8, 2007
I miss you, John. 27 years later, I still wish I could turn back the clock to the Summer of 1980. I remember everything - sharing our morning coffee, walking in the park together on a beautiful day, and seeing your hand stretched to mine - holding it, reassuring me that I shouldn't worry about anything because our life was good.

I had no idea that life was about to teach me the toughest lesson of all. I learned the intense pain of losing a loved one suddenly, without warning, and without having the time for a final hug and the chance to say, "I love you," for the last time. The pain and shock of that sudden loss is with me every moment of every day. When I touched John's side of our bed on the night of December 8th, 1980, I realized that it was still warm. That moment has haunted me for the past 27 years - and will stay with me forever.

Even harder for me is watching what was taken away from our beautiful boy, Sean.
He lives in silent anger over not having his Dad, whom he loved so much, around to share his life with. I know we are not alone. Our pain is one shared by many other families who are suffering as the victims of senseless violence. This pain has to stop.

Let's not waste the lives of those we have lost. Let's, together, make the world a place of love and joy and not a place of fear and anger. This day of John's passing has become more and more important for so many people around the world as the day to remember his message of Peace and Love and to do what each of us can to work on healing this planet we cherish.

Let's: Think Peace, Act Peace, and Spread Peace. John worked for it all his life.
He said, "there's no problem, only solutions." Remember, we are all together.
We can do it, we must. I love you!

Yoko Ono Lennon
8 December 2007

The Cat Empire: The Lost Song

I had nine lives but I lost all of them
And I've been searching in the night
And I've been searching in the rain
I tried to find them
But they disappeared
They walked away they dressed in black
They left my side and all I say
Is that I wasted time
When I lookef for them
For now I know that things gone past
Are never to be found again
I had nine lives
But lost all of them.

I had a plan
But never finished it
And I've been searching for the thought
And I've been searching in a haze
I try all days
To remember it
But now the blueprint in my mind has gone
My mind forgot the colour of direction
And my eyes they see the hands
That could have built
That could have constructed
The empire in my mind
The empire
I'll never find
I had a plan
But that was where it ended.

Pineapple Express-Thug Life

I managed to watch Pineapple Express today, it was OK. The best thing about it was it reminded me what a great thing Public Enemy were.


Public Enemy, Lost at Birth.

Emegercency Broadcast Network

Its time for a tribute to the EBN.


Get Down


Comply


Dreammaster


Don't Back Down


We Will Rock You (Behavior Modification)


Psychoactive Drugs


syncopated ordinance demonstration #1


Watch Television


I will teach you


I am a man


Hello


This is a Test (Live)

Emergency Broadcast Network is the name of a multimedia performance group formed in 1991 that took its name from the Emergency Broadcast System. The founders were Rhode Island School of Design graduates Joshua Pearson, Gardner Post and Brian Kane (author of the Vujak VJ software). Kane left EBN in 1992. The EBN Live Team included DJ Ron O'Donnell, video artist/technologist Greg Deocampo (founder of Company of Science and Art (CoSA), and founding CTO of IFILM.com), artist/designer Tracy Brown and technologist Mark Marinello.

Josh Pearson, EBN's charismatic front man and principal performance artist, was also EBN's music composer and main video editor. The music and video editing techniques he personally developed and refined have been hugely influential on a generation of advertising and music video editors.

The first EBN video project was a musical remix of the Gulf War, created in 1991 as the war was still ongoing. The VHS tape of the remix project, which contained the George H.W. Bush "We Will Rock You" cover, became a viral underground hit, and was distributed widely by fans as bootleg copies. In the summer of 1991, EBN traveled with the first Lollapalooza tour, distributing tapes and showing their videos on a modified station wagon with TVs on the roof. The group also became well known for their media sculptures and stage props which were created by Gardner Post.

The EBN modus operandi was to take cable television broadcasts and remix them with a funky beat, often having the lyrics "sung" not by a singer but by half-second sound clips from TV, spliced together. For example, the lyric "electronic behavior control system" would be created with a clip of Ross Perot saying "electronic", followed by a clip of George H. W. Bush saying "behavior", then Ted Koppel saying "control", and finally a clip of Bill Clinton saying "system". This technique has been named video scratching.

Among their videos are "Get Down and Electronic Behavior Control System" from their 1995 album Telecommunication Breakdown, which mocks the way television controls our lives. Another was a cover of "We Will Rock You" by Queen, with a vocal track made up of remixed clips of George H. W. Bush making announcements about the Gulf War. Bono of U2 took notice of their work and hired them to provide visuals for their Zoo TV Tour. EBN's video work featured prominently into the show, and their "We Will Rock You" cover was played at the beginning of each show. EBN also produced visuals for The Edge's performance of "Numb" on the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards. In addition to the visuals, audio from those clips were featured in the live performance to create rhythmic effects.

Brian Kane has since worked a number of times with British AV artists Addictive TV on many of their projects, both live and recorded - including Mixmasters and at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts.

Greg Deocampo continues his video remixes independently today, using footage from the 2003 invasion of Iraq (which he refers to as Gulf War II). In 2006, Deocampo started working with a trio of London video turntablists, Eclectic-method: Jonny Wilson, Ian Edgar, and Geoff Gamlen.

Ritual Visit to our Father Huaytapallana

Produced by the villagers in September 2009, the video has become enormously symbolic for the Quecha, leading many villagers to once again take up their traditions of nurturing Mother Earth.
The significance of this cannot be understated. Even though Quechuan culture has withstood “500 years of invasion and the dictatorship of individualism,” as Hugo Blanco points out, it is today broaching toward extinction, like the cultures and languages of so many other Indigenous Nations around the world.

As “Conversations with the Earth” notes on their campaign website, this became abundantly clear to Quecha earlier this year, when an evangelical Mayor banished Andean Ceremonies and Rituals – including the one you are about to see.
“Conversations with the Earth” is an indigenous-led multimedia campaign that helps communities share their stories of climate change. Several more films are available at their website, www.conversationsearth.org.

Anarchism and Anarchy- Barry Pateman at the 2009 NAASN Conference

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Part 5

"Anarchism and Anarchy: A Historical Perspective"

Opening Talk at the 2009 North American Anarchist Studies Network Conference
by Barry Pateman, anarchist historian and writer.

Video/Audio by Charngchi Way of the Authority Smashers Media Collective

Aphex Twin Live in Turin

Aphex Twin, Cabaret from Flat-e on Vimeo.

“Aphex Twin has done some legendary live performances in the past, so when we were asked to produce his stage show for the Traffic festival in Turin (with 20,000 people turning up), we wanted to do something a little out of the ordinary. We decided that we wanted to push the show away from just video projections so we enlisted the help of dance choreographer Darren Johnston of the excellent Array.

We wanted to combine our knowledge of video projections and Darren’s knowledge of dance choreography. So we had the dancers (Aphex masks, wedding dresses and all) move behind on stage screens and used video projections to morph their silhouettes into multi limbed monsters which raved away to Aphex’ set.

We offset this with a central screen which showed mutated hands working a variety of analogue audio gear. The result was a delightfully twisted cabaret which seemed to fit the event perfectly.” (via flat-e.com)

Latcho Drom

Latcho Drom is a feature film made in Western Europe (France), directed by Tony Gatlif and released in 1993. Completed in co-production with many countries and companies, the film stresses the motif of transition on many levels, and depicts its concrete and abstract synonyms with specific regard to the Roma community (the act of hybridisation, liminal states, in-between situations, travelling and fluid identities, intercultural dialogue, cross-cultural adaptation and appropriation, multi-lingual cultural practices, etc.).

Gatlif, who is himself Kabil Roma, proves to be an authentic expert, first of all, in presenting the Roma communities living in the Mediterranean region. While depicting his protagonists as humane, realistic and positive figures, he has made a quasi anthropological and ethnomusicological film in the form of a road movie about the Roma who took a historical journey through Asia and Europe, from their original roots in India to destinations in Turkey, Eastern and Western Europe.

Within the film, the many chapters of Roma history are presented as scenes from life and states of travel in different countries. Furthermore, the great professionalism and relevant knowledge of the creative team is apparent from the film’s integration of languages, clothes, customs, dances and musical traditions, not to mention using lyrics to narrate historical events such as the Porrajimos (the Roma term for the Holocaust), the communist terror in Romania or the period when people were expelled from Spanish cities. In spite of the hybrid, complex, diverse and colourful traditions of Roma people living in many countries throughout Asia and Europe, Latcho Drom creates the Roma cultural community as an entity, or as an imagined community, to use Benedict Anderson’s term, by drawing a linear and historical metanarrative. In order to achieve this, on the one hand the film repeatedly uses the motifs of the Roma universal symbol, the rolling wheel, the act of travel, the never ending music and dance, as well as the political, cultural and social oppression which forms a heavy burden in Roma lives. On the other hand, the film’s episodic structure appropriates the motif of transition on several levels, which provides its decentring power, in turn triggering both implicit and explicit criticism of the concepts of nation, hegemony, borders and everyday discrimination.

First of all, at the heart of the film there are the travelling Roma communities. Then every scene shows the fluent and prolific yet sometimes violent interaction between the Roma and the majority (examples of this violence include the Porrajimos, the communist terror, and evictions within the capitalist context).

There are no boundaries between performers and spectators, and both are always presented together. The teaching–learning process is also based on transition, for example, passing on oral and cultural traditions to younger generations (see the young children in every sequence). The subtle changeover between the different chapters retains the unbroken poetic continuity. Furthermore, there is movement between fiction and documentary, which are mixed throughout the film in order to deconstruct the traditional frames of representation, thereby creating a poetic re-enactment of history. The power of the multi-levelled and continuous transition is valued by the academic interpretation. It is definitely the music which, as a second layer beyond the images, occupies the place of verbal narration and fulfils its function in a highly creative manner. The film is an ‘ironic history conveyed through music, which mocks narrative of origin designed to confer authenticity on people and places’, says Anikó Imre, adding that in the mirror of Latcho Drom, ‘the strength of Gypsy identity is precisely the “Gypsies’” ability to survive across great diversity’.

Latcho Drom has received widespread awards and praise, and enjoyed – and continues to enjoy – great success amongst audiences and critics; moreover, it has the power to strengthen Romani identity and make people acknowledge Roma culture and history via pure entertainment.

Nick Cave & Blixa Bargeld Interview

Nick and Blixa interview, rare pre-show footage shot during the first Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds American tour, June 27, 1984

John Lee Hooker Blues Before Sunrise

Steven Jesse Bernstein – Morning in the Sub-Basement of Hell

Steven "Jesse" Bernstein (December 4, 1950 -- October 22, 1991) was an American underground writer and performance artist who is most famous for his recordings with Sub Pop Records and close relationship with William S. Burroughs. Bernstein's substance abuse issues and mental illness contributed to his provocative local celebrity, though they ultimately culminated in his suicide.

Steven Jesse Bernstein was born in Los Angeles, California. He moved to Seattle, Washington in 1974 where he adopted the moniker Jesse, and began performing and self-publishing chapbooks of his poetry (the first chapbook was Choking On Sixth, 1978). Bernstein would become something of an icon to many in Seattle's underground music scene. Notable fans included Kurt Cobain and Oliver Stone. Bernstein's mental illness was not as alarming as it might have been off the stage, as his drug-reinforced manic episodes were harnessed and channelled into engrossing, often perverse, entertainment. According to one Seattle newspaper, he opened for music acts such as Nirvana, Big Black, Soundgarden, U-Men, and the Crows:

"He read poems from a stage with a live rodent in his mouth, its tail twitching as baseline punctuation. He tried to cut his heart out in order to hold it in his hands and calm it down. He once urinated on a heckler and tended to throw things: beer bottles, manuscripts, drumsticks, his wallet, a sandwich."

The concept for the Bernstein album Prison was for Jesse to do a raw, live performance at Monroe, Washington State Penitentiary Special Offenders unit in 1991. Jesse went with his manager Barbara Buckland, Bruce Pavitt from Sub Pop Records, Grant Alden, then with Seattle's Rocket Magazine, now known as the co-founder of No Depression Magazine, photographer Arthur S. Aubry, and various tech people. None of the session except for the photos taken by Aubry was usable, however, and SubPop later contracted Steve Fisk to finish the project. The album was intended to be produced along the same lines as Johnny Cash's At Folsom Prison, but [2] Fisk later decided to score the recordings with jazz and ambient music. The album was only partially completed when Bernstein committed suicide by stabbing himself in the throat three times with a knife. He was 40 years old when he died -- about a month and a half before his 41st birthday.

Prison was released on April 1, 1992. In 1994, one of these recordings, "Me and Her Outside (No No Man)",was used in the film Natural Born Killers.

I am Secretly an Important Man, a collection of poetry, short stories, and spoken performances, was released in March of 1996 by Zero Hour Publishing.

Sid and Nancy (Full Film)

Sid and Nancy (also known as Sid and Nancy: Love Kills) is a 1986 film directed by Alex Cox. The film materialized during a time of renewed interest in the period of punk rock, heroin addiction and specifically the life of Sid Vicious. It stars Gary Oldman as Vicious and Chloe Webb as his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen.

The movie is largely based on the mutually destructive, drug-and-sex filled relationship between Vicious and Spungen. Vicious's mother, Anne Beverley, initially tried to prevent the movie from being made. After meeting with Cox, however, she decided to help the production. Some of the supporting characters are composites, invented to streamline the plot.

Oldman lost weight to play the emaciated Vicious by eating nothing but "steamed fish and lots of melon," but was briefly hospitalized when he lost too much weight. Vicious's mother also gave Oldman Vicious' own trademark heavy metal chain and padlock to wear in the film.

Courtney Love recorded an infamous video audition in which she exclaimed "I am Nancy Spungen." Cox was impressed by Love's audition, but has said the film's investors insisted on an experienced actress for the co-leading role. Cox would later cast Love as one of the leads in his movie Straight to Hell. Instead Love was cast in the relatively minor role of Gretchen (a part that Cox wrote specifically for her benefit), one of Sid and Nancy's New York junkie friends. Somewhat ironically, Love would be compared to Spungen later in life on account of her marriage to Kurt Cobain.

In his 2007 autobiography, Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash revealed that the casting director hired all five members of Guns & Roses as extras for a club scene, having coincidentally scouted them in different locations without their knowledge. He said "all of us showed up to the first day of casting, like 'Hey...what are you doing here?'" However, Slash was the only one in the group to stay the entire shoot.
Gary Oldman as Sid Vicious.

Webb and Oldman improvised the dialogue heard in the scene leading up to Spungen's death, but based it on interviews and other materials available to them. The stabbing scene is fictionalized and based only on conjecture. Cox told the New Musical Express: "We wanted to make the film not just about Sid Vicious and punk rock, but as an anti-drugs statement, to show the degradation caused to various people is not at all glamorous."

The original music is by Pray for Rain, Joe Strummer and The Pogues. The film was rated R in the USA for drug use, language, violence, sexuality and nudity. Prominent musicians made appearances in the film, including: Iggy Pop, The Circle Jerks, and Edward Tudor-Pole, of Tenpole Tudor, and briefly the lead singer of the Sex Pistols. The film was originally titled Love Kills.

Charles Manson Superstar

In the late 60s, Charles Manson convinced a group of "followers" to move in to the California desert to train for the apocalypse. They eventually committed a horrific string of serial murders. Considered to be one of the definitive documentaries about Manson and his infamous "family," Charles Manson Superstar is a documentary film about Charles Manson, directed by Nikolas Schreck in 1989. Most of the documentary (the entire interview) was filmed inside San Quentin Prison. Schreck narrated the segments while images were shown, and music played in the background. There was brief footage of Spahn Ranch, and a short clip of James M. Mason being interviewed about the Universal Order, and Manson. Olivier Messiaen's "Death and Resurrection," Bobby Beausoleil's "Lucifer Rising," Krzysztof Penderecki's "Apocalypsis," and Anton La Vey's "The Satanic Mass," and Manson's "Lie & Completion," were the songs played during the film. Schreck was very calm and neutral during the interview. Manson talked and behaved in his bizarre way, but seemed more open and forthcoming with Schreck. Charles Manson is clearly an unbalanced man but he is interesting as a manikin on the scene of late twentieth century popular culture. It is noteworthy that Manson's inflections and emphasis in speaking are very similar to George W. Bush. Scary.

Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band (Cannes Beach, 1968)

We Had Love

The Scientists (Kim Salmon) - We Had Love


Thank you Friday...you put an end to an ugly week....

Timothy Leary Documentary from the BBC (2000)

The Swedish Mountains and the Men who Ride Them

Kebnekajse - Leksands Skänklåt (Live Nyhetsmorgon 2009)


Fläsket Brinner - Gånglåten
Swedish radio recordings 1970-75 Just The Music!


Träd Gräs och Stenar - Sanningens Silverflod


Pärson Sound - "Milano" (1969)


Archimedes Badkar - Wago Goreze (Edit)
From"Badrock For Barn I Alla Aldar"(1st / 1975) "Archimedes Badkar" was formed in Stockholm in 1972.

Robert Gardner: Forest of Bliss

Forest of Bliss from Documentary Educational Resource on Vimeo.

Robert Gardner's masterly film about Varanasi in India, Forest of Bliss (1986), does not need to be improved in any way, but with no commentary or score, it can be augmented without permanently affecting the pristine original. Gardner may have been an outsider, a visitor to Varanasi, but Forest of Bliss shares the same meditative, low-key style of Sleep Furiously. He can afford to be low-key because Varanasi is one of the most intense, visually intoxicating, delirium-inducing places on Earth. While sparing us none of the city's routine unpleasantness – a bloated corpse floating in the river, shit everywhere – the film is full of spellbinding images of the Ganges bathed in mist and of the burning ghat at Manikarnika. Baraka and Powaqqatsi both drop by or zoom in on Varanasi; Gardner offers a lingering, almost homely view of the day-to-day sacred divinity as resident landlord and (sometimes noisy) neighbour. The tacit message, in Hindi (rather than Hopi) might be "Way of life that never changes."


Robert Gardner in Mexico.


"Forest Of Bliss" Ecovillage Varanasi India

Jefferson Airplane - The Rock Scene (1967)

Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit (The Rock Scene, 14 Sept 1967)


Jefferson Airplane - Two Heads (The Rock Scene, 14 Sept 1967)


Jefferson Airplane - Ballad Of You And Me And Pooneil (The Rock Scene, 14 Sept 1967)

Incapacitants - Live In Tajima, Fukushima, 25. AUG, 1991

Classic Japanese noise. Beautiful.

Rock Arena: John Cale 1986

Interview with John Cale by Suzanne Dowling, Ep 63. Broadcast 16th September 1986.

Burning Man: Art in the Desert

A. Leo Nash in an artist and photographer. Burning Man: Art in the Desert is a photographic document of the Burning Man Festival assembled by Nash over the course of more than a decade.

Nostalia 101: What Happened in 1989?

I just discovered Rembrandt Pussyhorse by the Butthole Surfers on Spotify. Listening to it now takes me back in a big way. While it was Hairway to Steven (1988) that got me into the Surfers, anything before the somewhat lackluster PIOUHGD from 1991 is gold, even today as I age and wither.


The Butthole Surfers, before the whole Nirvana, Lollapalooza and the its-so-cool-to-be-aphasic thing was launched on the world, were the real deal. They did not make sense. The music was offensive and the lyrics worse. I still have a T-shirt from their 1991 tour and it makes my son embarrassed just to look at it (Mr Pee Pee the sailor and the sick clown in the raincoat). To like the Surfers was to be the kid that was avoided on the bus. University was made up of those that spoke to teachers, those that did work, those that walked tall and proud and us few Surfers fans (like about 12 people on a campus of thousands in 1989 in rural Australia). We felt different on the inside.

Butthole Surfers - Florida

We knew little about the Surfers in 1989. We made up stories, like they toured Mexico in a bus for a year. The dancer really had scales:





Double Live was a revelation. A housemate had it and played it non-stop for weeks. At the beginning of 1989 I was so disturbed by the record I banged on the wall begging him to stop. By the end of 1989 I owned a copy of it myself. A lot changed in 1989 for me.


The Butthole Surfers-Hey

Hosted by eSnips

Cheerub. Driving an allnighter (bullfighter, lamplighter moonlighter highlighter) to Sydney from Toowoomba. A thousand ks in the dull rain. Cups and wrappers and butts litter the dash. Windscreen wipers chug over cracked glass. Towns with unpronounceable names slide by our frosted glass and the Surfers cough out the sounds of what we wanted when we arrived in the metropolis at sunrise. Coming in over the bridge as Newtown breakfasts beckon.



In March 1991 I and my then-girlfriend and two friends hatched a fiendish plan in Brisbane. We borrowed a friend's car, a Datsun 120Y, saying we needed it for the weekend to move furniture (in a 120Y??). We fueled it up and split for Sydney. It is 1000kms. the car was painted orange but our friend had painted huge multicolored flowers and butterflies all over it. In Tamworth we stopped for fuel and the people at the garage said in a thick drawl "Yous aint from round here are ya?" "Nah we aint." We arrived in Sydney and spent a week around the dives and pubs of Newtown. We went to a party above shops on King Street. Hung out at the Sandringham Hotel. And on my 22nd birthday I saw the Surfers play.



While we were having fun in the big city the owner of the car and her boyfriend had become a bit concerned. They tried to find us and failed. Working out what we had done hey reported the car stolen. We drove the now-hot-car back to Brisbane and left it in their yard at 4am. Running from the scene of our crime.


Yup, we weren't allowed to say their name on the air back then! Aired 12-23-85.

My dog was named Gibby after the singer of the Surfers. Best dog a man could ask for. On our way to see the Surfers play at St George's Hall in Newtown, some of our company, not having tickets, tried to sneak in the back way to get in. At the door was none other than Gibby, singer with the Surfers. From a distance I saw him push the intruders out the door, saying the words savagely "I win. You lose."

(Spelling mistakes are intentional in reference to the fanzines that sustained so much street and minority culture in the 1980s and 90s)

Leary at Millbrook Under the Influence of McLuhan 1968

Tim Leary at Millbrook - Interview (Part 1) by Bodhisattva1956


Tim Leary at Millbrook - Interview (Part 2) by Bodhisattva1956


Tim Leary at Millbrook - Interview (Part 3) by Bodhisattva1956


Tim Leary at Millbrook - Interview (Part 4) by Bodhisattva1956

I think two things are particularly interesting about Dr Leary giving his spiel in 1968. First he continually returns to metaphors of visual technology, especially the microscope in various forms is evoked as a metaphor for the LSD experience. The second point that struck me is his references to media more generally. Old people "who drink whiskey and read books" are somehow contra to young people who take "psychedelic drugs and watch TV". The background supplied by Marshall McLuhan at this time plays into many of Leary's assumptions about the media landscape of the time.

Marshall McLuhan Interviewed by Playboy Magazine 1969
PLAYBOY: What's natural about drugs?

MCLUHAN: They're natural means of smoothing cultural transitions, and also a short cut into the electric vortex. The upsurge in drug taking is intimately related to the impact of the electric media. Look at the metaphor for getting high: turning on. One turns on his consciousness through drugs just as he opens up all his senses to a total depth involvement by turning on the TV dial. Drug taking is stimulated by today's pervasive environment of instant information, with its feedback mechanism of the inner trip. The inner trip is not the sole prerogative of the LSD traveler; it's the universal experience of TV watchers. LSD is a way of miming the invisible electronic world; it releases a person from acquired verbal and visual habits and reactions, and gives the potential of instant and total involvement, both all-at-onceness and all-at-oneness, which are the basic needs of people translated by electric extensions of their central nervous systems out of the old rational, sequential value system. The attraction to hallucinogenic drugs is a means of achieving empathy with our penetrating electric environment, an environment that in itself is a drugless inner trip.

Drug taking is also a means of expressing rejection of the obsolescent mechanical world and values. And drugs often stimulate a fresh interest in artistic expression, which is primarily of the audile-tactile world. The hallucinogenic drugs, as chemical simulations of our electric environment, thus revive senses long atrophied by the overwhelmingly visual orientation of the mechanical culture. LSD and related hallucinogenic drugs, furthermore, breed a highly tribal and communally oriented subculture, so it's understandable why the retribalized young take to drugs like a duck to water.

PLAYBOY: A Columbia coed was recently quoted in Newsweek as equating you and LSD. "LSD doesn't mean anything until you consume it," she said. "Likewise McLuhan." Do you see any similarities?

MCLUHAN: I'm flattered to hear my work described as hallucinogenic, but I suspect that some of my academic critics find me a bad trip.

PLAYBOY: Have you ever taken LSD yourself?

MCLUHAN: No, I never have. I'm an observer in these matters, not a participant.

Armistice Day

Anthem for Doomed Youth

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
By Wilfred Owen

Pandoras Box (2008) - Michael Flückiger

Details Pandoras Box

La Sierra (2005)

La Sierra (Spanish, with Subs.) More than 30,000 people were killed in ten years in Colombia’s bloody civil conflict, in which left-wing guerrillas fought against the government and illegal right-wing paramilitary groups. Guerrillas and paramilitaries sought to control marginal city neighborhoods, urban gangs aligned themselves with each side. In this way, the national conflict was translated into a brutal turf war that pitted adjacent barrios against each other. The documentary La Sierra explores life over the course of a year in one such barrio (La Sierra, in Medellin), through the prism of three young lives

Edison, aka “The Doll,” is a paramilitary commander in La Sierra. At the age of 22, he is also the de facto mayor of the neighborhood and a playboy who has fathered six children by six different women. Openly dedicated to and excited by his life of violence, he is also an intelligent and charismatic young man. As we follow him through the armed conflict, its victories and setbacks, he shares his dreams for himself and his children, and explains his attachment to what he calls “my war.” We follow his life up to the moment he is gunned down in the street, and then witness his family’s suffering and faith in the face of tragedy.

Cielo, age 17, was displaced from the countryside in sixth grade, when her brother and father were murdered by guerrillas. A mother at the age of 15, she was widowed when the father of her son (a gang member) was killed. Now Cielo is devoted to a new boyfriend, a paramilitary, who she visits in jail every Sunday. With little or no money to her name, Cielo goes downtown to beg and sell candies on the buses, resisting her friend’s suggestion of prostitution. After her rocky relationship with her boyfriend unravels, Cielo finally gives in and takes a job in Medellin’s red light district.

Jesus, 19, is a mid-level paramilitary member. Badly wounded when a homemade grenade blew up in his hands and face, Jesus presents himself as ready for death at any moment and hoping for little more than the opportunity to continue indulging his taste for marijuana and cocaine. But as the war in La Sierra comes to a end, and the paramilitaries begin a government-sponsored disarmament process, Jesus dreams of beginning a life without war.

La Sierra is an intimate, unflinching portrait of three lives defined by violence, and a community wracked by conflict. Over the course of a year these lives, and the life of the barrio itself, each undergo profound changes, experiencing victory, despair, defeat, death, love, and hope. In a place where journalists are seldom allowed, Scott Dalton and Margarita Martinez spent a year filming, interviewing, and building trust. The result is a frank portrayal that not only includes startling scenes of graphic violence and its aftermath, but also reveals intimate moments of love and tenderness, and shows the everyday life that manages to coexist with conflict.

MIKEY DREAD AT THE CONTROLS

The authentic sound of dread beat and dub. The righteous and the proud. Jah is livin.

Poets: First On and Last Off this Rock

In the laundermat
she peers
into the machine
As the sun goes down

Bashful beneath her tshirt
drapped across shoulder blades
and collarbones
Pushes straw hair from
hollowed eyes, and asks

Am I beautiful to you?

Bon Ceremony

Bön (Tibetan: བོན་; Wylie: bon; Lhasa dialect IPA: [pʰø̃̀(n)]) is the oldest spiritual tradition of Tibet. Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth Dalai Lama, has recently recognized the Bön tradition as the fifth principal spiritual school of Tibet, along with the Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyu, and Gelug schools of Buddhism, despite the long historical competition of influences between the Bön tradition and Buddhism in Tibet.

The syllable -po or -pa is appended to a noun in Tibetan to designate a person who is from that place or performs that action; "Bönpo" thus means a follower of the Bön tradition, "Nyingmapa" a follower of the Nyingma tradition, and so on. (The feminine parallels are -mo and -ma, but these are not generally appended to the names of the Tibetan religious traditions.)

Often described as the shamanistic and animistic tradition of the Himalayas prior to Buddhism's rise to prominence in the 7th century, more recent research and disclosures have demonstrated that both the religion and the Bönpo are significantly more rich and textured culturally than was initially thought by pioneering Western scholars.[citation needed] Some scholars do not accept the tradition that separates Bön from Buddhism; Christopher Beckwith calls it "one of the two types of Tibetan Buddhism" and writes that "despite continuing popular belief in the existence of a non-Buddhist religion known as Bön during the Tibetan Empire period, there is not a shred of evidence to support the idea... Although different in some respects from the other sects, it was already very definitely a form of Buddhism."

Sayat Nova (1968)

The Color of Pomegranates (Armenian: Նռան գույնը, Nran guyne; originally released in the Armenian SSR as Սայաթ-Նովա, Sayat Nova) is a 1968 motion picture by the Soviet Armenian director Sergei Parajanov, considered a masterpiece by Federico Fellini, Jean-Luc Godard and Michelangelo Antonioni. It was censored, refused an export license and banned in the Soviet Union but made the Top 10 list in Cahiers du cinéma in 1982 and Top 100 in Time Out

One of the greatest masterpieces of the 20th century, Sergei Parajanov's "Color of the Pomegranate", a biography of the Armenian troubadour Sayat Nova (King of Song) reveals the poet's life more through his poetry than a conventional narration of important events in Sayat Nova's life. We see the poet grow up, fall in love, enter a monastery and die, but these incidents are depicted in the context of what are images from Sergei Parajanov's imagination and Sayat Nova's poems, poems that are seen and rarely heard. Sofiko Chiaureli plays 6 roles, both male and female, and Sergei Parajanov writes, directs, edits, choreographs, works on costumes, design and decor and virtually every aspect of this revolutionary work void of any dialog or camera movement.



'Sayat Nova' beginning

Sayat-Nova (Armenian: Սայաթ-Նովա; Persian/Azeri: سایات‌نووا; Georgian: საიათ-ნოვა) (14 June 1712, Tiflis – 22 September 1795, Haghpat), meaning 'King of Songs' in Persian, was the name given to the Armenian[1] poet and ashik Harutyun Sayatyan. His mother, Sara, was born in Tbilisi, and his father, Karapet, either in Aleppo or Adana. He was skilled in writing poetry, singing, and playing the kamancheh. He performed in the court of Heraclius II of Georgia, where he also worked as a diplomat and, apparently, helped forge an alliance between Georgia, Armenia and Shirvan against the Persian Empire. He lost his position at court when he fell in love with the king's daughter, and spent the rest of his life as an itinerant bard. In 1795 he was killed in Haghpat Monastery by the army of Agha Mohammed Khan, and is buried at the Cathedral of Saint George, Tbilisi.

About 220 songs can be attributed to Sayat-Nova, although he may have written thousands more. Most of his extant songs are in Armenian, Georgian, Azeri Turkic and Persian. A number of them are sung to this day. He was also fluent in Arabic.

Poster Children: If You See Kay

Poster Children - If you see Kay (official video) from .-. on Vimeo.

From Daisychain Reaction, a lost gem of guitar fuzz from the early 90s

Strange Beliefs: Sir Edward Evans-Pritchard

Part of a television series 'Strangers Abroad', shown on television in the 1990s. Details of the programme, including producer, director and other credits are at the end of the film.
The film centres on the work of E.E.Evans-Pritchard, particularly his work on Azande Witchcraft. For interviews with other anthropologists and further materials, please see www.alanmacfarlane.com

Coming of Age: Margaret Mead

Part of a television series on 'Strangers Abroad' shown in the 1990's. This is on the distinguished anthropologist Margaret Mead and her work in New Guinea, Bali etc. All credits to director, producer etc. are at the end of the film. For interviews of other anthropologists and other anthropological materials, please see www.alanmacfarlane.com

GamelaTron

The Gamelatron at Galapagos Art Space from Zemi17 on Vimeo.

Modeled after traditional Balinese and Javanese gamelan orchestras, the GamelaTron is an amalgamation of traditional instruments with a suite of percussive sound makers. MIDI sequences control 117 robotic striking mechanisms that produce intricately woven and rhythmic sound. Performances follow an arc similar to classic Indonesian gatherings, where stories from great epics, such as the Ramayana, are told and settings given in words that are continued in music.

We are the Dancing Apes

From "Lucky People Center International"

Sublime Frequencies UK Tour 2009

Sublime Frequencies UK Tour 2009 with Omar Souleyman and Group Doueh from Sound and Music on Vimeo.

A short video from the amazing Sublime Frequencies UK Tour 2009 with Omar Souleyman and Group Doueh.

The Sublime Frequencies label was founded by Alan Bishop, Mark Gergis (both of Sun City Girls) and Hisham Mayet in 2003, to seek out some of the greatest expressive music from around the globe and let it be heard, seen, respected and recognised.

The specially commissioned tour followed in that anarchic tradition and featured two live acts who have released albums on the Sublime Frequencies label; Group Doueh (from the Western Sahara) and Omar Souleyman (from Syria).

Sublime Frequencies:
sublimefrequencies.com

Qu Junctions
qujunktions.com

Sound and Music
soundandmusic.org

Sound in Context (Full Film)

Sound in Context (Full Film) from Sound and Music on Vimeo.

Sound in Context is a short documentary exploring the unique practice of sound within the visual arts world. Through conversations with a number of key art institutions/galleries, artists and curators working with sound in the UK, Sound in Context allows practitioners to discuss some of the issues of presenting and exhibiting sound in the gallery and contemporary art domain.

Sound as a medium is time-based and is sensitive to space, perception/experience and environment, and has become intertwined with disciplines of sculpture, architecture, installation, film and media art. The ephemeral, invisible nature of sound poses a number of challenges within cultural practice and presentation. Situated between practices of music and art, sound overflows boundaries of the gallery, disrupts line between stage and audience, moves beyond categorizations, and merges models of economy and culture industry. Sound in Context explores the place and future of sound within an expanded arts milieu, while opening up reflections for sound artists engaging in the art world, and visual artists engaging with sound in their work.

Interviews with:

Seth Cluett (artist), Benedict Drew (artist/curator), Barry Esson (director, Arika), Anne Hilde Neset (deputy editor, The Wire), Hans Ulrich Obrist (co-director, Serpentine Gallery), Mike Stubbs (director, FACT), David Toop (writer/curator), Richard Whitelaw (programme director, Sonic Arts Network)

Produced by: Jonathan Web and Ashley Wong
Thanks to: The Jerwood Space, Goldsmiths' University of London, Sonic Arts Network, Nicolas Sauret, Arika, FACT Liverpool, Serpentine Gallery, The Wire

Sound and Music is an arts organisation that supports innovative practice in contemporary music and sound. From sharing information at our website, to a full programme of live events and commissioned activity, we raise the profile of contemporary music and sound in its cultural context, to build support and audiences for new work in the UK.

Delia Derbyshire/Nightwalker

Good morning..... Delia Ann Derbyshire (5 May 1937 – 3 July 2001) was an English musician and composer of electronic music and musique concrète. She is best known for her electronic realisation of Ron Grainer's theme music to the British science fiction television series Doctor Who and for her work with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

Primitive

Primitive by The Groupies

Goodnight heathens...see you tomorrow.

La Montaña Sagrada (The Holy Mountain)

La Montaña Sagrada (The Holy Mountain, reissued as The Sacred Mountain) is a 1973 cult film directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky who also participated as actor, composer, set designer, and costume designer. The film was produced by Beatles manager Allen Klein of ABKCO after Jodorowsky scored an underground phenomenon with El Topo and the acclaim of both John Lennon and George Harrison (Lennon and Yoko Ono put up production money). It was shown at various international film festivals in 1973, including Cannes, and limited screenings in New York and San Francisco. However the film was never given wide release until 2007, when a restored print toured the United States, screening with El Topo, and released in DVD format from May 1.

The film is based on "The Ascent of Mt. Carmel" by St. John of the Cross and "Mount Analogue: A Novel of Symbolically Authentic Non-Euclidean Adventures in Mountain Climbing" by Rene Daumal, a student of G.I. Gurdjieff. In particular, much of Jodorowsky's visually psychedelic story follows the metaphysical thrust of "Mount Analogue" such as the climb to the Alchemist, the assembly of individuals with specific skills, the discovery of the mountain that unites Heaven and Earth "that cannot not exist" and symbolic challenges along the mountain ascent. Daumal died before finishing his allegorical novel, and Jodorowsky's improvised ending provides a clever way of completing the Work (symbolic and otherwise.)

Nick Drake: A Skin Too Few

Nick Drake A Skin Too Few - The Days of Nick Drake documentary from Daniel Elias on Vimeo.

Nicholas Rodney "Nick" Drake (19 June 1948 – 25 November 1974) was an English singer-songwriter and musician best known for his haunting, acoustic, autumnal songs. His primary instrument was the guitar, although he was also proficient at piano, clarinet and saxophone. Although he failed to find a wide audience during his lifetime, Drake's work has grown increasingly more well-regarded, to the extent that he now ranks among the most influential English singer-songwriters of the last 50 years.

Drake signed to Island Records when he was 20 years old and released his debut album, Five Leaves Left, in 1969. By 1972, he had recorded two more albums—Bryter Layter and Pink Moon. None of the albums sold more than 5,000 copies on their initial release. His reluctance to perform live or be interviewed further contributed to his lack of commercial success. Despite this, he was able to gather a loyal group of fans who would champion his music. One such person was his manager, Joe Boyd, who had a clause put into his own contract with Island Records that ensured Drake's records would never go out of print.

He suffered from depression and insomnia throughout his life, and these topics were often reflected in his lyrics. Upon completion of his third album, 1972's Pink Moon, he withdrew from both live performance and recording, retreating to his parents' home in rural Warwickshire. On 25 November 1974, Drake died from an overdose of amitriptyline, a prescribed antidepressant; he was 26 years old.

There was residual interest in Drake's music through the mid-1970s, but it was not until the 1979 release of the retrospective album Fruit Tree that his back catalogue came to be reassessed. By the mid-1980s, Drake was being credited as an influence by such artists as Robert Smith and Peter Buck. In 1985, The Dream Academy reached the UK and US charts with "Life in a Northern Town", a song written for and dedicated to Drake. By the early 1990s, he had come to represent a certain type of 'doomed romantic' musician in the UK music press, and was frequently cited by artists including Kate Bush, Paul Weller, The Black Crowes, and Elliott Smith. Drake's first biography was written in 1997, and was followed in 1998 by the documentary film A Stranger Among Us. In 2000, Volkswagen featured the title track from Pink Moon in a television advertisement, and within a month Drake had sold more records than he had in the previous thirty years.

Tibet ཊིབེཏ་:'Graffiti & the City' Lhasa 2008

Will Oldham is Near God

Palace Brothers on MUZU.


Palace Brothers: You Will Miss Me When I Burn


I See a Darkness (Live)


I am Goodbye


Bonnie 'Prince' Billy "Beast For Thee" 6-14-04

matt | MySpace Video
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy "Beast For Thee"

Will Oldham, a.k.a. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy (born 24 December 1970 in Louisville, Kentucky), is an American singer, songwriter, and actor. From 1993 to 1997 he performed and recorded under variations of the Palace name, including the Palace Brothers, Palace Songs, and Palace Music.
Will Oldham is known for his "do-it-yourself punk aesthetic and blunt honesty,"[1] and his music has been likened to Americana, folk, roots, country, punk, and indie rock. He has been called an "Appalachian post-punk solipsist"[1], with a voice that has been described as "a fragile sort-of warble frittering around haunted melodies in the American folk or country tradition."[1]

Will Oldham first performed and recorded under various permutations of the Palace name, including Palace Brothers, Palace Songs, Palace Music, and simply Palace. Regarding the name changes during this period (1993-1997), Oldham said:
“ Well, I guess the idea is that when you have a name of a group or an artist, then you expect that the next record, if it has the same name, should be the same group of people playing on it. And I just thought we were making a different kind of record each time, with different people, and different themes, and different sounds. So I thought it was important to call it something different so that people would be aware of the differences.[2] ”

Beginning in 1998, Oldham has primarily used the moniker Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, which draws inspiration from several sources:

“Yeah, the name has so many different references that it could almost have a life of its own. Bonnie Prince Charlie has such a beautiful ring to it, and I was very conscious of appropriating that mellifluous sound. And I was also thinking about the name Nat King Cole. But it wasn't until later, and this may have been subconscious, that I remembered that Billy the Kid was William Bonney or Billy Bonney.”

Oldham has explained that "the primary purpose of the pseudonym is to allow both the audience and the performer to have a relationship with the performed that is valid and unbreakable."

The Block

A brief history of The Block in Redfern, Sydney, including a talk and rally and details of the ongoing struggle of indigenous people in the area.


The Block: Lives, Plans & Futures
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

The Magic Carpathians & Ula Stosio, Jan Kubek, Andrzej Widota

Part 1


Part 2

Anna Nacher Marek Styczyński - The Magic Carpathians & Ula Stosio, Jan Kubek, Andrzej Widota.
Music from - acousmatic psychogeography- & - sopatowiec session : gharana - 2009.

Deadly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Dance

Once a year, in Laura (Queensland Australia), some Aborigines and Torres Strait tribes from Cape York and beyond meet for 3 days of traditional music and dancing.

Yidinyji Aboriginal Dancers, Cairns region
Performance of Yidinyji men and boys, from the Cairns region. They carry the large wooden shields, typical of the rainforest Aboriginal groups of this region. In this dance the traditional making of fire is depicted; at the Laura Aboriginal Dance Festival, Cape York, in Far North Queensland, Australia.


This 1988 film shows some of the songs and dances of the Lardil people of Mornington Island and the Borroloola community. Of particular interest is the use of the overtone note in the didgeridoo accompaniment. The sugarbag (Wild Honey) dance with didgeridoo accompaniment is one of the more popular dances performed by Aboriginal groups in Queensland, NSW and Victoria today.