Redditor suziecreamcheese says she made this abstract Beatles quilt for her friend’s baby shower. Where’s the “Butcher Block” cover?
Taken from the upcoming New Order/Joy Division greatest hits album “Total,” this rocky track has been played on Irish radio and since found its way onto the web. This brings up two questions in my mind - how can this be described as a “leak” if it has been played (presumably officially) on the radio? And why the hell do these two different bands need a combined “best of”?
Hellbent - New Order by oldwaver
Thanks to Jeb Edwards.
Here in the UK one of the most popular energy drinks (after Red Bull, of course) is the relatively new Relentless. The drink is a trademark of, and is aggressively promoted by, Coca Cola. So much so that in November of last year Coke threatened the Relentless Steak and Lobster House in Portsea with legal action over the typography of their sign. The matter has since been settled.
The tables have turned however, as the established British record label Relentless (which in the past has released music by Joss Stone, Seth Lakeman and KT Tunstall) is now taking Coca Cola to court over the use of the name in relation to music. This could force the drink company to drop the brand altogether. They have already been declined a trademark on their slogan “No Half Measures” because of a Glasgow-based management company of the same name. From The Independent:
The label sought mediation with Coca-Cola but has now issued a writ, calling for the drinks company to stop using the Relentless name in connection with music and to pay damages for trademark infringement.
Shabs Jobanputra, Relentless Records’ co-founder, said: “It is causing real confusion because Relentless drinks has a tented stage at the Reading Festival and sponsors venues like the Garage in London. Artists and managers are asking if we’ve been bought up by Coke. Some artists don’t like that kind of corporate association.”
Relentless, now an independent label after ending a partnership with EMI, is spending valuable resources on the court case. Jobanputra said: “We’ve been trying to resolve this for four years but their attitude is, ‘Let’s see how much money you’ve got’. They are a huge company. But it’s clear that we established the Relentless brand in music, years before the drink launched.”
Coca-Cola declined to comment on the record company’s case, but said it has reached a deal with the Portsmouth restaurant. A spokesman said: “We requested that they redesign the font of their logo. We believed it bore a strong resemblance to our energy-drink design and that this had led to consumers thinking the two were connected.
I await the outcome of this with interest!
I read this at my new favorite blog, No More Mister Nice Blog. If you like liberal rants as much as I like liberal rants, then you’ll find much to love about Steve M’s sharp, witty writing.
The context here is Steve’s contention that FOX News seems oddly intent on making it very, very difficult for a nationally electable Republican to get the party’s nomination because the network seems more interested in profitably pandering to their freedom loving patriots scooter-riding senior citizen wingnut viewership than continuing to be a reliable partner of the Republican party.
We call it “the right-wing noise machine” because we see it as an efficient, mechanized generator of propaganda that predictably steers the country rightward and regularly puts government in the hands of Republicans. But the Murdoch part of the machine is operating in such a way that the GOP is much less likely to win in 2012. Why?
Either the folks in Murdoch Land are supremely confident that they can move the country not just to the right but that far right—as far as Cain and Palin and even the birthers—or they don’t really care anymore about being the Republican Party’s propaganda wing, because catering to the needs of drooling ultra-extremists, even at the GOP’s expense, is such good business (and fits the personal predilections of rage junkies such as Roger Ailes).
Which means that Murdoch’s media properties may be harming the GOP right now—and may be helping to guarantee Obama’s reelection.
FOX News has really been floundering lately. Did you watch the clip of Jon Stewart on The O’Reilly Factor last night? He was being nice and he still wiped the floor with Bill O’Reilly on his own show. The Osama bin Laden hit left FOX’s talking heads discombobulated. It scrambled their predictable anti-Obama talking points. What do they have without them?
The notion that FOX News itself might be helping to reelect the president is one pregnant with irony, I think you’ll agree!
On the other hand, a just as valid argument can be made that it is now FOX News that runs the Republican party and not the other way around.
The Clash’s Joe Strummer wrote and directed this rather strange gangster filck, Hell W10, which stars fellow bandmates, Paul Simonon as Earl, and Mick Jones as kingpin gangster, Socrates. The film centers around a tale of rivalry and ambition, murder and violence, mixing the style of 1930’s gangster movies with 1980’s London. It’s a reminiscent of something Alex Cox might have made (who later directed Strummer in the punk spaghetti western Straight to Hell), and while the film self-consciously meanders, it holds interest, and is aided by a superb soundtrack from The Clash. Watch out for Strummer as a mustachioed cop.
Outside of Moscow, the eccentric members of nun-like sect venerate Russian politician Vladimir Putin as the reincarnation of the Apostle Paul, AKA Saul of Tarsus, AKA Saint Paul, early Christian missionary and proselytizer. The women are the followers of Svetlana Frolova, who calls herself Mother Fotina. From The Telegraph:
“According to the Bible, Paul the Apostle was a military commander at first and an evil persecutor of Christians before he started spreading the Christian gospel,” the sect’s founder, who styles herself Mother Fotina, said.
“In his days in the KGB, Putin also did some rather unrighteous things. But once he became president, he was imbued with the Holy Spirit, and just like the apostle, he started wisely leading his flock. It is hard for him now but he is fulfilling his heroic deed as an apostle.”
Reports from the sect’s headquarters close to the town of Nizhny Novgorod say that its members are all women who dress like nuns and pray for Mr Putin’s success in front of traditional Russian Orthodox Church icons that have been placed alongside a portrait of the Russian prime minister himself.
Followers are reportedly encouraged to sing upbeat patriotic Soviet songs at ‘services’ rather than hymns.
As befits a sect that worships a man who has denounced the decadence of the oligarchs, the sect’s members are said to survive on a Spartan diet of turnips, carrots, peas and buckwheat.
A local priest dismissed Mother Fotina: “Her so-called teachings are a nonsensical mixture of Orthodoxy, Catholicism, the occult, Buddhism and political information,” he said. “But (Mother) Fotina does not come across as a mad person.”
A spokesperson for Putin said that the macho Russian strongman was “bemused.”
Moscow-based artist and musician Alexei Tegin shifted from his experiments in electronic and industrial sounds toward the traditional ritual music of ancient Tibet. Tegin began exploring the roots of Tibetan Buddhism and the ceremonial practices of the pre-Buddhist philosophy of Bon and gathered like-minded artists to form his group Phurpa (named after a Tibetan ritual dagger.)
Employing various instruments, including drums, cymbals, gyaling oboes, dunchen and wandu horns, Phurpa is keeping an ancient musical tradition alive and introducing it to the West.
Tegin’s evolution from industrial music to ancient drone seems a perfect transition. The soundwaves of the human voice when amplified in the cavities of the throat, mouth and larynx is an awesome instrument, a virtual chest shuddering roar. The grinding of the spheres.
Overtone singing and incantation converge in a hypnotic, powerful resonant roar in this Bon mantra.
More Phurpa after the jump…
I wonder how old Dr. Dre is in this clip? Four? Nonetheless, he’s as cute as a button and charming on the late-70s game show Child’s Play.
UPDATE: There’s a lot of speculation on the Interwebs that the little boy is not Dr. Dre.
