Julian Cope-The Modern Antiquarian

Julian Cope does a tour of ancient monuments around Britain. The Modern Antiquarian has a website.

Karl Marx is OK

It seems that Karl Marx may have actually really understood something with all that writing he did, in the shadow of the recent goings-on in the world's financial markets. One sour commentator writes;

It was inevitable, I suppose, that some of the so-called experts should turn to the philosopher-father of modern communism, Karl Marx, for elucidation as they pick through the wreckage of Western capitalism. After all, didn't the old boy spend most of his life writing big, fat books, such as the notoriously unread Das Kapital, predicting its demise?

In recent weeks, he has been flattered for his prescience, not only in foreseeing the downfall of capitalism, but in accurately identifying, more than 130 years ago, some of the fictitious financial instruments, such as collateralised debt obligations, that brought it undone. SMH

I have read The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte and that's about it for me and Marx. I do have some desire to read more....time is a problem as most of my time is spent working. Which I suppose is why I should read Marx.

Sonic Youth @ Battery Park for the 4th of July 2008

Setlist for Sonic Youth:
WFMU Intro / She Is Not Alone / Bull in the Heather / Silver Rocket / Skip Tracer / The Sprawl / The World Looks Red / Jams Run Free / Hey Joni / Cross the Breeze / The Wonder / Hypertstation / Drunken Butterfly / Making the Nature Scene / Pink Steam / Schizophrenia / 100%.

Robert Hughes - "The Shock Of The New": Culture as Nature (1980)

The start of episode 7 "Artists began to take man-made images as their inspiration..."

Joseph Stella and Stuart Davis. New York City, Brooklyn Bridge

This landmark series (8 one-hour episodes) on modern art was written and presented by Robert Hughes, first broadcast in 1980.

It is currently available for purchase on a 4-DVD set.

Magic Sam

With the amount of bad retrospective music being slapped together by large music labels today in an attempt to revive interest in contemporary pop, one is tempted to just admit that popular music today is shit and just go back to the source until the last major chokes on it own demographics. Lets take a look at an artist who should have lived longer than he did:
Samuel "Magic Sam" Gene Maghett (February 14, 1937 – December 1, 1969) was born in Grenada and learned to play the blues from listening to records by Muddy Waters and Little Walter.

After moving to Chicago, Illinois in 1950, his guitar playing earned bookings at blues clubs in Chicago's West Side. He met his old childhood friend Magic Slim there in 1955, and gave him his nickname. Sam recorded for the Cobra label from 1957 to 1959, recording singles, including "All Your Love" and "Easy Baby." They never appeared on the charts yet they had a profound influence, far beyond Chicago's guitarists and singers. Together with the records of Otis Rush (also a Cobra artist) and Buddy Guy, they made a manifesto for a new kind of blues. Around this time Sam also worked briefly with Homesick James Williamson. Sam gained a following before being drafted into the Army. Not a natural soldier, Sam deserted after a couple of weeks' service and was subsequently caught and sentenced to six months imprisonment. He was given a dishonourable discharge on release, but the experience had undermined his confidence and immediate recordings for Mel London's Chief Records lacked the purpose of their predecessors.

In 1963, he gained national attention for his single "Feelin' Good (We're Gonna Boogie)". After successful touring of the United States, UK and Germany, he was signed to Delmark Records in 1967, where he recorded West Side Soul and Black Magic. He also continued performing live and toured with blues harp player Charlie Musselwhite.

Sam's breakthrough performance was at the Ann Arbor Blues Festival in 1969, which won him many bookings in the United States and Europe. His life and career was cut short when he suddenly died of a heart attack in December of the same year. He was 32 years old. He was buried in the Restvale Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois.

Baader Meinhof

Interview with Karin Bauer author of "Everybody Talks About the Weather... We Don't: The Writings of Ulrike Meinhof"


A depressed Ulrike Meinhof, soon to be the world's most famous female terrorist, is interviewed in her Berlin apartment. For more information, visit www.baader-meinhof.com.


The Baader Meinhof Complex (2008)

Brisbane Bands 1976-1988

This is part 1 of a 1988 documentary titled 'Brisbane Bands'.
This documentary focuses on the isolation and struggle many Brisbane punk bands had to endure in the face of conservative Brisbane during the 1970's and 1980s.
Mark Callaghan (GANGgajang/The Riptides), Ed Kuepper (The Saints), Robert Forster (The Go-Betweens) and Ed Wreckage (The Leftovers) speak about growing up in Brisbane during the 1970's and forming bands.
Ed Kuepper reflects on the Saints' classic single '(I'm) Stranded' and the single's promo-video.



This is part 2 of a 1988 documentary titled 'Brisbane Bands'.
Mark Callaghan (GANGgajang/The Riptides), Ed Kuepper (The Saints), Robert Forster (The Go-Betweens) and Ed Wreckage (The Leftovers) speak about growing up in Brisbane and forming bands.
Ed Kuepper reflects on the Saints' success with '(I'm) Stranded' in Britain. Mark Callaghan (the Riptides) and Robert Forster (The Go-Betweens) speak about the impact The Saints had on them. Grant McLennan (The Go-Betweens) tells about how The Go-Betweens began releasing singles on their own Able label.
Part 2 of this documentary also looks at bands like The Riptides, The Go-Betweens, The Leftovers, Tangled Shoelaces, The Sharks and Outer Limits.

Tracks include:

The Riptides - Tomorrow's Tears
The Go-Betweens - Le Remick
The Go-Betweens - Your Turn, My Turn
The Riptides - 77 Sunset Strip



This is part 3 of a 1988 documentary titled 'Brisbane Bands'.
Mark Callaghan (the Riptides/GANGjaja) and Mark Dadds (The Sharks) comment on the sound of Brisbane bands.
Lindy Morrison and Robert Forster (both of The Go-Betweens) speak about Queensland police breaking up their gigs and parties and the brutal treatment of protesters against the Bjelke-Petersen government.
Mark Dadds (of The Sharks) reflects on the riots that took place at the Caxton Street Jazz Club and a particular night when the Brisbane task force attacked concert attendees.
This segment also shows footage of many riots and arrests that had happened in Brisbane during the 1970's and 1980's.
Mark Callaghan concludes this segment by speaking about many bands having to leave Brisbane in order to survive and prosper.

Tracks/Bands include:
Toywatches
The Apartments
Mistery Of Sixes
The Go-Betweens 'Karen'
Razar - Task Force




This is part 4 of a 1988 documentary titled 'Brisbane Bands'.
This segment opens with The Riptides' promo-video for the 1982 single 'Hearts & Flowers', followed by a house party attended by Mark Callaghan (GANGgajang/The Riptides), who reflects on the attitude Brisbane radio had towards many local groups including the Riptides.
Grant Mclennan (The Go-Betweens) furthers his opinion of Brisbane as a place that lacks imagination.



This is part 5 of a 1988 documentary titled 'Brisbane Bands'.
Darren and Greg Atkinson of late 1980's indie-band UPs & Downs comments on the state of the then-current Brisbane music scene and how many bands have to leave the city in order to get work.
Lindy Morrison (The Go-Betweens) also comments on the attitudes that many small town Brisbane bands face when playing to crowds.
Tracks/bands:
Thanks For All The Fish - Smalltown Hicksville
Shadow Factory - Never You Mind
Ups & Downs - The Living Kind

Vote...please...from people outside the USA who can't but get the results of it anyway.....

To be perfectly honest I DO NOT RELISH the thought of a United States led by Methuselah McCain and Scary Palin. The world deserves better, but we can't vote...I am not AMERICAN. Maybe you are. Please vote as this is serious.

CHARLES MINGUS.Better Get In Your Soul (1959)

Bus music as journey through late autumn in crowded space. Cramped cockpit of faces in blond wood. Small red shack towns on the edge of tiger forest like green robe draped across the shoulders of the world. Sweden. Early in the century. Back again tomorrow.

Eisenstein : a visual vocabulary

Using numerous examples from the film "Ivan the Terrible" as well as writings and sketches by Eisenstein, a good overview is given of the complex and sometimes purposefully contradictory ways in which Eisenstein used imagery, including his methods of having scenes mirror each other, his use of recurrent motifs, and his employment of the tropes of psychoanalysis. This is a fascinating essay that makes you look at these films in a whole new light.