Egyptian rappers Arabian Knightz have released the first rap song to come out of Egypt since the revolution began.

Arabian Knightz member Rush posted this message on Facebook before Egyptian authorities pulled the plug on the Internet.

“Certain indie artists have already released songs against the oppression and those songs were used on video campaigns [as of the Jan. 25 march], called the “Day of Anger.” Some of us went down to the streets to take part on the 25th. And some of us are now in the studios doing tracks about it to make sure peoples fire of revolution doesn’t get put out by fear.”

According to Revolt Radio this track was released quickly and is still a rough track:

Due, to the uncertainty of the communications situation in Egypt right now, Arabian Knightz have opted to release the raw, unmixed track because they need the world to hear their message. As of right now, they are the voice for the people of Egypt.

So here it is, the first communique to come out of those studios in Cairo. Proof that you can’t stop the music! Revolutions come out of the barrels of subwoofers and microphones. Keep the fires burning Arabian Knightz.
 

 
Thanks to Exile On Moan Street for the heads up.
 
Another track/communique from Arabian Knightz after the jump…

 
On February 4th 1983, The Smiths were booked to play the Hacienda in Manchester, England, as support to 52nd Street, a funk band signed to Factory Records. The audience was there to see the headliners, but it was the best band that Tony Wilson never signed who stole the night.

The show was a milestone in The Smiths career, a night when they went from interesting local band, to next-big-thing, and beyond.

As the band took the stage Morrissey greeted the audience by saying “Hello… We are the Smiths. We are not ‘Smiths’, we are the Smiths. ‘These Things Take Time’....” Following the latter set opener he simply said “Oh thank you” then the band launched into “What Difference Does It Make?”. Within a year the song would be released as a single and make it onto the band’s debut album. At this point it was played slower and featured slightly different lyrics. For example instead of “I’m so sick and tired” (album) or “I’m so very tired” (Peel session), Morrissey simply sang “I’m so tired”. Also, Morrissey sang “Oh my sacred Mother in falsetto at the end, instead of the more familiar “Oh my sacred one”.

Next up was “The Hand That Rocks The Cradle” and it was introduced by Morrissey with a simple drop of its title. This song also featured different lyrics to the version which would be released on the band’s debut album. The outro of “as long as there’s love / I did my best for her” was absent and a line was then sung as “your mother she need never know”. Right before “Handsome Devil” Morrissey said: “I repeat: the only thing to be in 1983 is handsome… ‘Handsome Devil’.” The next track was probably seeing its live debut and was simply introduced as “Jeane!”. Strangely it would not be performed for long, it was soon to be dropped from the setlist until the Smiths reinstated it when touring the debut album more than a year later.

The performance of “What Do You See In Him?” was a very passionate one. The song would not remain in the Smiths’ set for long. After being dropped for a few months it would re-emerge in June as “Wonderful Woman”, with the same music, but different lyrics. The song that would become the Smiths debut single was then introduced with a slowly articulated “Hand. In. Glove.” It was also performed very passionately, and seems to have woken the audience into paying attention to the yet unknown opening band. The song was well received and this prompted Morrissey to shyly say “Oh you’re very kind… thank you…”

The evening’s final number was then announced twice as “Miserable Lie”. The song’s early lyrics didn’t yet include the line “I know the wind-swept mystical air” while the line “I recognise that mystical air” was sung twice. Instead of “I’m just a country-mile behind the world” Morrissey sang “I’d run a hundred miles away from you”. After the song Morrissey simply said “Bye bye…” twice and the band left the stage while a few new converts cheered and whistled.

A review written by Jim Shelley and published in the NME a month and a half later had only good words for the Smiths, comparing them to Magazine, Josef K and The Fire Engines.

 
More from The Smiths at the Hacienda, after the jump…
 

 
For some reason when you look for Franklin Roosevelt in Google Images, this little dude Roosevelt Franklin pops-up. Try it out.

(via EPICponyz)

 
Niall unleashed some Cramps earlier today as I was preparing this and so I thought I might save this post for another time. But then I figured what the hell you can never get enough of The Cramps. So here goes.

Lux Interior was 60 years old in this performance footage and still the hardest working white man in show business.

This was filmed at the Lokerse Festival in Belgium on August the 7th 2006. One month later The Cramps played their last gig at the House Of Blues in Las Vegas.

Watching this I was reminded that Lux and Ivy were together for 37 years! True love. Amazing.
 

 
More Cramps at Lokerse after the jump…

 
Hilariously rude item from Letters of Note from baseball great Mickey Mantle, who was asked by the then-Vice-President of the New York Yankees, Bob Fishel, to relay his most “outstanding experience” at Yankee Stadium for the sport venue’s 50th anniversary celebrations in 1972. His answer is pretty classic!

 
Hilarious. The bigoted homophobic cretins at NOM (National Organization for Marriage) got punk’d bigtime yesterday when they hotlinked to a cartoon from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. There was only one problem, SMBC’s main man, Zach Weiner, changed the image… to the Freedom Flag!

Brilliant! Fuck these assholes, they deserve far worse. Name ‘em and shame ‘em, that’s what I say. Name ‘em and shame ‘em.

Via The Daily What

 
Lee Marvin and Angie Dickinson perform Steve Reich’s minimal piece “Clapping Music.” As one YouTuber points out, “His shoulders must be SO SORE.”

(via TDW)

 
Demdike Stare stand at the crossroads of dub, minimal techno, ambient electronica and abstract expressionism. At midnight under a full moon. Performing ritual musik magick. The duo of Sean Canty and Miles Whittaker, from the greater Manchester area and part of the Pendel Coven family of acts, have been slowly and subtly carving out their own niche over the last few years. They are very witchey, and slightly housey, but this is not witch house. This is something else.

Tending to keep a low profile, their vinyl releases on the Modern Love label have come in beautifully packaged limited editions (with artwork by renowned DJ and designer Andy Votel) and have seen them gain a dedicated following among future music heads. Now all three of their previous albums have been gathered into one deluxe CD set called Tryptych, which also features 40 minutes of bonus material. Tryptych is available from Boomkat in the UK, on both CD and digital formats. This is real headphone music - listen closely to hear the subtle psychedelic details, and to feel the ebb and flow of the seemingly free form tracks. Beautiful, haunting pianos and strings rub up against layers of found sound, treated heavily but subtly, and all underpinned by some seriously heavy bass.

The Demdike Stare live show is worth catching if you can, as they are accompanied by some beautiful visuals made up of obscure vintage horror films,worked live to correspond to the music. There are a few of these audio/visual clips on YouTube, like this one for “Forest Of Evil” (which contains both male and female nudity).

Demdike Stare “Forest Of Evil” (most likely NSFW)
 

 
After the jump, more Demdike Stare videos, and artwork by Andy Votel.

 
Singer with The Cramps, and legendary rock’n'roll front man, Lux Interior passed away two years ago today. It seems more fitting to celebrate the man on the anniversary of his death than his birth (October 21st), and besides, any excuse to get some Cramps up on DM is always welcome.

Lux is up there with Iggy Pop for sheer rock magnetism. His early performances are mind blowing - the way he moved, the way he sang, his physical appearance, it’s just incredible. Many people have tried to cop his moves, but none could do it like Lux. Outside of drag Lux was the only man to ever look good in a pair of stilettos, and I am always amazed at his pants’ ability to stay up even with the flies wide open and his hand in there. It’s what rock’n'roll should be about, but sadly rarely is. Here’s to his memory, and to all the folks missing him on this day.

Here’s the Cramps performing “The Crusher” live in Germany in 1993:
 

 
After the jump, more Lux performance footage, Lux in SpongeBob SquarePants, and an interview with the Cramps...

 
Actor Maria Schneider’s death yesterday brought to mind a film she starred in with Jack Nicholson in 1975: Michelangelo Antonioni’s The Passenger. Like all of Antonioni’s films, The Passenger uses space, emptiness and architecture to create a sense of spiritual longing in an existential void. The film’s final scene is considered to be one of the great cinematic achievements in the history of the medium—a seamless tracking shot that moves through a gated window enters a courtyard and does a 180 pan and returns to the window from the opposite point of view from which it left, no edits.  It was quite some time after the film was released that the method in which it was done became known to film buffs who had been baffled by Antonioni’s seemingly impossible feat. The definitive description of the seven minute long scene is this Wikipedia entry:

There were a number of reasons why the shot proved so difficult to accomplish and is so studied by film students. The shot needed to be taken in the evening towards dusk to minimize the light difference between interior and exterior. Since the shot was continuous, it was not possible to adjust the lens aperture at the moment when the camera passed from the room to the square. As such, the scene could only be shot between 5:00 and 7:30 in the evening.

Difficulties were further compounded by atmospheric conditions. The weather in Spain was windy and dusty. For the shot to work, the atmosphere needed to be still to ensure that the movement of the camera would be smooth. Antonioni tried to encase the camera in a sphere to lessen the impact of the wind, but then it couldn’t get through the window.

Then there were further technical problems. The camera ran on a ceiling track in the hotel room, and when it emerged outside the window it was picked up by a hook suspended on a giant crane that was nearly thirty metres high. A system of gyroscopes had to be fitted to the camera to mask the change from a smooth track to the less smooth and more mobile crane. The bars on the outside of the window were fitted on hinges. As the camera came up to the bars they were swung away at the same time as the hook of the crane attached itself to the camera as it left the tracks. The whole operation was co-ordinated by Antonioni from a van by means of monitors and microphones to assistants who, in turn, communicated his instructions to the actors and the operators.

In the DVD commentary, Nicholson states that Antonioni constructed the entire hotel entirely so that the final shot could be accomplished.

Here’s the scene. Watch it closely and be prepared to amazed. It was shot by Luciano Tovoli. The clip begins with a little bit of visual “noise” that is not part of the original film.