Fun and games in the music industry
from allhiphop.com...
Lil Flip has started Clover G Records & said that he is no longer signed
to Sucka Free Records. "Flip is still signed to the label," Sucka Free CEO Duane 'Hump' Hobbs told AllHipHop.com. "The only way I will let him go is if Sony [Lil Flips label] buys me out. Go grab your lawyer & let's get cracking." The falling out revolves around financial disputes. "If you say that we spent a million dollars on something, I want to see that," Flip retorted. "If we cool and you my homey, show me everything."
Bring on the accountants....

oh yeah, did you read about that talented cat Nathan Haines in the Sunday Star Times? He used to be a junkie (like some of his jazz idols) but he's all right now. No more Class A drugs, says our Nate. Glad to hear it. You aint gonna be around long on that stuff.

Whipped Cream and other delights.
This week's Listener has some great stories by Steve Braunias on LP cover art, from local fella Jack Thompson, who put out 1 LP a year for about 20 years thru EMI (they've just reissued a few of them), and England's Mrs Mills. Unfortunately the Listeners website deprives you of these glorious covers, so you'll just have to buy a copy. Braunias notes that the reissue cd covers "are bland; and in any case, a mere CD could never do justice to the original Thompson LP sleeves. This is a man who needed the big picture, a big canvas, to work his unholy art."

I remember once seeing a copy of an album by Mrs Mills that was a copy of the cover of Herb Alperts Whipped Cream and other delights, which featured a curvy young woman by the name of Delores Erickson naked, and covered head to toe in cream, which was pretty saucy back in 1965. Now, Mrs Mills was a rather solid English lass, so I really want to find this record! (Extensive Googling produced nothing.)
There was a number of other parodies of this cover; this site has a few of them linked if you scroll down the page.

The cover model for Alperts cover was interviewed by the Seattle Times in 2000 (link here - requires registration).

"The only whipped cream was on my head," Erickson recalls. "The rest was shaving cream on cotton. And the shaving cream kept slipping."
She was also three months pregnant.
Photographers routinely give models rejected prints for their portfolios. When Woorf sent the copies, Erickson was shocked at how much the slipped shaving cream revealed.
"I called a girlfriend and took them to her house. We hid them behind her refrigerator because I didn't want my husband to see them," she said. "I still have them, and now they look tame."
There's an alternate shot from the cover shoot here. Dolores also garners a mention at swingingchicks.com.
Reading the messages posted by various American record collectors, it seems that you will find a copy of this record in absolutely every thrift shop and flea market in the States (quote: "there isn't a charity store in the world that doesn't have at least two copies of this"), much like every junk shop in NZ will have a copy of the soundtrack to South Pacific. One fellow asks if anyone can help him collect multiple copies of it, as he is covering an entire wall in his house with it! Ah, wacky Americans.
Mary Tyler Moore also featured on a number of LP covers - take a look here. For more ridiculous covers, check Franks Vinyl Museum, including Muhammad Ali vs Mr Tooth Decay.

One of my local favorites in wacky cover art is Howard Morrison Quartets album Potpourri, that features Howie and the lads wearing chefs hats and throwing veges and pots round a bright orange studio set. (scroll down to see it). Got any local gems I should look out for?

The pun never ends
Heres a few Janet Jackson headlines...

The boob tube
A little show and no tell
Breasts of Mass Destruction?
'Breast Bowl' outrage is just tempest in a D cup
Janet wins titillation booby prize
Bush sleeps through Janet's 'boob show'
Any boob is good news
The Breast and the Brightest
Boobgate Broohaha Builds
MTV not a bust for Viacom
Tit for tat
'Right Breast Stole My Thunder' Says Super Bowl Streaker

Hey is Janet's breast a weapon of mass distraction?

Get your freak off.
Janet Jackson succumbed to a "wardrobe malfunction" according to Justin Timberlake ("I'm sorry if anyone was offended... It wasn't intentional and is regrettable"), who 'accidentally' ripped off part of her top during the Superbowl halftime show on Sunday, exposing her breast. He was singing a duet with Ms Jackson; Rock Your Body, the song in question, ends with the line, 'Cause I gotta have you naked by the end of this song.' Surprised?
So, MTV claims it was an accident, so does Timberlake, CBS apologises, the NFL are very disappointed, and you still think it was unplanned? Look at the Heralds photo; Jackson is wearing some kind of silver nipple ring over her nipple. So, she wears that all the time? I don't think so. Check this photo sequence. Why has no one in the media discussed this nipple ring? There is a story there, probably too kinky for mainstream media. Someone will pick it up.
The Drudge Report claims CBS execs knew about the stunt beforehand. Check the pic of that pierced nipple. Yep. It was staged. Still, Janet did a great job of taking the media spotlight of her wayward brother, Michael.
And there was a streaker. He had the name of a gambling website written on his chest. This foolish Englishman was levelled by a New England linebacker. Naked Pom vs heavily padded athlete.

Shame it detracted from a great game; predictions before were it was going to be the dullest Superbowl ever. There was no points on the board til the end of the second quarter, the longest a game has gone without points in Superbowl's history.
The third quarter was scoreless, then the fourth quarter it all happened. The lead swapped twice, then the Carolina Panthers tied the score with 68 seconds to go, at 29 all. Four seconds from full time the New England Patriots kicked a field goal, and won 32 - 29. Adam Vinatieri kicked the winning goal; he did the same stunt two years ago in the Superbowl. He's Evel Knievel's cousin. I don't fully understand Gridiron, but the BBC have a useful primer on it here. The Beeb compared Vinatieri's last minute kick to Johnny Wilkinsons performance in the Rugby World Cup final, noting that Wilkinson "has confessed that he finds the possibility of an eventual move to the NFL appealing" something to do with a $US2-3 million salary?

UPDATE: MTV (affiliated to CBS thru Viacom) promised 'Janet's shocking moments' before the game. MTV has wiped the page from its site - see googles cache for the page. Drudge says that Janet now claims that the nudity was deliberate, saying that Timberlake was supposed to rip away only the top layer and leave a bit of red lace behind... Mr and Ms Stupid dancing like fools....

Brash, or just plain foolish?
Don Brash continues to divide his own party, telling National's only Maori MP Georgina te Heuheu to toe the party line after his dubious speech, which he now claims is National party policy - Te Heuheu dryly observing on TV3News last night that if it was indeed party policy, it was sorely lacking. Today she's been stripped of her Maori Affairs portfolio, and been replaced by a honkie, Gerry Brownlee. While this might seem ridiculous, if National ends up in power and follows thru on Brash's contrversial speech, they will abolish Maori Affairs, hence appointing a honkie won't look so silly - his post won't exist, under a Brash-led Government. And the only reason Brash got away with the speech playing the race card is that Winston Peters, who usually has that bag sewn up, was otherwise engaged in dodging free dinner allegations.

Get on a good foot
James Brown has been arrested for domestic violence - check out the police mugshot. Scary. He was release without bail. He is due to play some shows down this way in April, over in Australia. If he's not in jail.

Love is the drug.
"Always follow your own way rather than look to others. And get very good lawyers - if you can have them as part of your family that's even better."
Singer Bryan Ferry (playing here late January) offers up some practical advice to musicians starting out.

Two double oh four in effect.
My new years eve started off with a swim in the sea in the afternoon, absolutely fantastic, then off to Aotea Square for the free festivities in the evening - ended 2003 sitting on the grass in the square listening to Goldenhorse, for free! Thats pretty choice. And to think, John Banks had a hand in that, somehow.

Been catching up on my reading over the holidays, plowing thru Michael Kings excellent History of New Zealand, and I got given Sweet Soul Music by Peter Guralnick for xmas, been dipping into that too. I read a letter in the December 2003 Vanity Fair that got me thinking. It was a response to an article called Saving the Saudis, about the Bush administration helping members of the Bin Laden family and other Saudis depart the US days after Sept 11 2001.
The letter writer, Florence Petris from Las Vegas, expresses dismay that the President helped 140 Saudis leave the US within days of Sept 11, and says "No wonder Osama hasn't been found. He never will be, as long as Bush is in power".
Then again, a few months ago it looked like the US would never manage to find Saddam Hussein. But then he is captured, just in time for Xmas. What a great morale boost to the US troops, to the Iraqi people, to GW Bush back home. Now, a few commentators have picked how convenient this all was, and what are the odds that, just before the US Presidential elections in November this year, they manage to find Osama? I know that seems hopelessly cynical, but Bush's cronies like Richard Perle have just published more suggested plans for regime change, in Iran and Syria. Its got the endearing title of An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror.

Howard Dean is a Democratic presidential hopeful who has some interesting fans. Check out punxfordean.org, set up by a 28 year old punker who met Dean and went home and set up this website. The Herald published a peice on Dean and his growing support recently. Wired magazine's Jan ish has a good article backgrounding Deans use of internet networking. Heres a slice of it...

It is 83 days before the Iowa caucuses, and I'm sitting at a small table on a private jet above Colorado getting a pure dose of Internet religion from Howard Dean. "The Internet community is wondering what its place in the world of politics is," Dean says. "Along comes this campaign to take back the country for ordinary human beings, and the best way you can do that is through the Net. We listen. We pay attention. If I give a speech and the blog people don't like it, next time I change the speech."

The biggest news of the political season has been the tale of this small-state governor who, with the help of Meetup.com and hundreds of bloggers, has elbowed his way into serious contention for his party's presidential nomination. As every alert citizen knows, Dean has used the Net to raise more money than any other Democratic candidate. He's also used it to organize thousands of volunteers who go door-to-door, write personal letters to likely voters, host meetings, and distribute flyers.

"We fell into this by accident," Dean admits. "I wish I could tell you we were smart enough to figure this out. But the community taught us. They seized the initiative through Meetup. They built our organization for us before we had an organization."

British scientists are still waiting for a signal from Beagle 2 on Mars. They got Blur to compose a nine-note tune for the unmanned space explorer to send back when it landed. Perhaps they might've been more successful if they'd chosen someone like Brian Eno? Just a thought.

Tis the season for creative spelling....
Let's see. There's Lightspeed New Yeah! for Lightspeed's new years dance party, then there's Summadayze Festival, a dance event in jan. They've taken their crazy wacky spelling one step further, with posters advertising individual acts at the event, including one for Groove Armarda (correct spelling Armada). Put my brain on hold and pas me the alcohol.....

What's up with the media beatup on police chases ending in deaths? What about driver responsibility? Two fatal crashes in the last two days, one with a suspected drunk driver (who killed two people, in another car and one of his passengers), another driving dangerously in a stolen car. Are the police supposed to not chase dangerous idiots?

I went to see Return of the King last night. Four word review - It rocks, oh yes. There's the general advice doing the rounds, which I recommend - don't drink any fluids for two hours before, or during the film - its three hours twenty minutes long - and if you have a problem with spiders, don't go. There is a huge freakin' spider in this film.
The Guardian has a good writeup on the experience, commenting on the ditching of footage of Saruman -

"...Without Saruman, it's not good versus evil. It's good versus... a sort of swarming amorphous danger.

...There is no sobering experience of loss, no real sense of the obscenity and tragedy of war and therefore nothing really at stake. That's why it appeals to adolescent boys, and to adults sentimentally loyal to their departed, adolescent selves.

It may seem churlish to remember how shallow The Lord of the Rings is, when the Peter Jackson movies have turned out to be such terrifically enjoyable escapism. I started the series an atheist and finished an agnostic.

With enormous energy and a passionately exacting eye for detail, Jackson has made the regressive-romantic legend live again. He has given the Tolkien myth a turbo-charged rush into the 21st century. It's tripe. But he's made it mind-blowing tripe."

Close to home
Last night at about 7pm, I was walking down Queen St in central Auckland, when a bunch of cars drove by, the drivers honking their horns and their passengers cheering and waving flags. The front car had an American and Iraqi flag, the other cars had Iraqi ones. There was probably a dozen or so cars, in this spontaneous parade, celebrating Saddam Hussein's capture. They stopped at the lights, kept up the cheers and horn blasts, then drove off to the bottom of town, still cheering.
The effects of the Iraq War seemed like something so distant from where I live (except for puff pieces on local Iraqis by that great humanitarian Paul Holmes), and yet, there it is, driving down Queen St. Local Iraqi's celebrating, just like they did on television.

Pet Rock
After going out for ramen noodles the other night, we did a walk round the old QEII Square at the bottom of Queen St. Its now called something else like Britomart Transport Courtyard, and there's some fine public art there.
The Maori warrior that used to be there before rennovation has been returned, and is no longer towering over passerby,as he's been taken off his pedestal and is now planted with his feet on the ground. He's still 12 foot high, so he's no less imposing, and this was the way the artist Molly McAllister originally wanted him installed. Back in the dim distant past, someone at the Council thought they knew better and put him on a pedestal. Now the late artists wishes have finally been met.
There's also a new sculpture, that's a large chunk of rock, cut out roughly into a rectangular shape, that is taller than it is wide. It has Maori motifs carved into the side, and water running down it form the top, which has been cut off flat. There's a pool of water around its base, with yellow and red coloured lights under the water, pulsating on and off. The best part; every two minutes or so 4 foot high flames shoot out of the top of it! How cool is that? Its like a sculpture that wants to be dance party.
If you're near Downtown of an evening, go and check it out. Its outstanding. If anyone reading this knows who the artist is, let me know.

UPDATE.
from Suzanne Sinclair, Britomart Transport Display Centre ...
"The concept of the fire rock comes from the Britomart Architect, Mario Madayag's original design for the project and the carving was done by Ngati Whatua O Orakei stone carvers.One of the design themes of the station represents Auckland as a volcanic region and there are 11 light wells shaped like volcanoes in the roof of the station.The 12th, outside is a real (gas fired) volcano, the fire rock." Nice work.


I'm with stupid.
From the Waikato Times newspaper...

Safety and security procedures at a Taupo bungy operation will not be stepped up after a man threw himself off the platform overlooking the Waikato River on Sunday.
Taupo Bungy marketing manager Keith Lewis said the man, Carl Goodwin from Hawera, had jumped over a locked gate while staff were taking a break during a lull in jumping.
The waist-high gate restricts access to the end of the platform for jumpers and staff only.
Mr Lewis said a 2 metre tall gate on to the platform would not be locked to prevent the same thing from happening again.
He said staff, who did not realise the 30-year-old had jumped until the recovery crew heard him hit the water, would not be required to guard the platform either.
"Osh (Occupational Safety and Health) have told us it is a police matter," he said. "We have had no problems since opening 12 years ago."
Osh Taupo and Eastern Bay of Plenty service manager Murray Thompson said Taupo Bungy had taken appropriate measures to ensure visitor safety.
"If someone wants to do these things and climb fences then they are going to suffer the consequences," he said.
Mr Goodwin was flown to Rotorua Hospital. It is understood he has broken ribs.
Mr Lewis said Mr Goodwin was lucky to have survived the 47 metre drop into the Waikato River.
Taupo Senior Sergeant Tony Jeurissen said police had investigated the incident and decided to take no further action against Mr Goodwin.
Mr Goodwin, who had been drinking, had been in a small boat on the river with two friends before he decided he wanted to jump.