via Boingboing... The Beastie Boys are posting acapella tracks along with BPM info for their songs and encouraging their fans to make noncommercial remixes of them. A new track goes live every Friday. Link.
Maybe they're hoping for the cool-factor spinoff like Jay Z with the Grey Album.
Ottawa goes to town on Golden Horse (tip of the hat to NZM boards)
"New Zealand's Goldenhorse, opening for Toronto's Death From Above and Metric at the Sala Rossa March 3 were, uh, different. There'd been a little bit of hype leading up to them, and they're doubtless good at what they do, I just can't figure out for the life of me why anyone would want to do it. "It" being kind of melodically stodgy, goofily retro-inflected pop. As though Burt Bacharach were doing songs for Lulu. Bouncy and perky (but not for much longer if she keeps it up with all that bouncy) singer Kirsten Morelle definitely has a couple of things going up and down for her, and her singing is compelling when it's not off in some sort of Doris-Day-meets-Dolores-O'Riordan vocal death match, but the repertoire is somewhat baffling. Must be a kiwi thing. And speaking of death........"
www.ottawaxpress.ca/music/localsatlarge.aspx?iIDArticle=916
from coolfer.. The Chumbawamba Factor. (Pitchfork) A very interesting look inside P2P traffic tracker Big Champagne and the numbers of file sharing. The article delivers some data on The Arcade Fire: "The week of August 4, 1.3% of filesharers-- maybe 200,000-300,000 people-- were sharing the band's music, up from just .20% last December. From their debut LP Funeral, 'Rebellion (Lies)' scored the most listeners-- and the most searches-- and "In the Backseat" got the least."
Kanye West makes the cover of Time magazine, article text here.
When Rudy Guliani was Mayor of New York, he got taken to court 20 times for various violations of citizen's first amendment rights (freedom of expression, etc). One example; he tried to get street artists arrested for not having street vendor permits - they took him to court and he lost. He lost all 20 cases. Now, current Mayor Michael Bloomberg continues this dubious legacy...
[via sohh.com] "Yesterday, a federal judge reinstated a permit for fashion designer Marc Ecko's Getting Up Block Party, calling last week's revocation a "flagrant violation" of the First Amendment.
Last week, Mayor Michael Bloomberg revoked the permit for the Getting Up event after discovering that it would feature 20 graffiti writers spray-painting ten 48-ft long by 8-ft high replicas of the legendary NYC transit blue-bird subway cars.
Last Thursday, August 18th, Ecko, who organized the event, sued the city to regain the permit, convincing Manhattan Federal Judge Jed Rakoff not to believe the city's claim that the Block Party will condone vandalism.
"It will raise to the consciousness once again, in a celebratory way, graffiti vandalism on subway cars," city lawyer Paula Van Meter told New York's Daily News.
The judge disagreed with Meter's claim, stating: "By the same token, presumably, a street performance of Hamlet would be tantamount to encouraging revenge murder. ... The denial of the permit on the stated grounds that the demonstration will 'incite' others to actually paint graffiti on subway cars is a flagrant violation of the First Amendment and cannot stand."
Following the ruling, Ecko, outside the courthouse, told reporters that the judge was a "really cool guy" before adding, "It's kind of nice to remind yourself what the First Amendment is all about."
ADDED: Hans makes the cut in The 5th edition of the Kiwi Carnival. 'A self-selected collection of links to pertinent blog posts of recent time in New Zealand', have a peek this one, gives you an insider's view on Donna Awatere written by somone who has had contact with her... "It aint over until the fat lady staples".
1 comment:
That Block Party sounds great, even if it is just a promotion for the Marc Ekco video game -- but comparing it to a performance of Hamlet? Hmm. Bit of a reach. Sounds like that judge has been wanting to throw in a literary reference for some time now.
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