Comments

sort by
Recent
Reset
  • marye
    Joined:
    Video stream to watch tonight
    If only because you're never going to see all these acts on the same bill again... https://twitter.com/i/live/925097701229805568
  • martin.george
    Joined:
    Livity SoundCornelia Parker
    Livity Sound Cornelia Parker
  • Randall Lard
    Joined:
    Kurouzu
    Kurouzu Anthony Donovan - fretless-half guitar & electronics Ian Simpson - prepared lap steel Charlie Collins - percussion & metal at the Mopomoso free improvisation afternoon event at the Vortex, London, on 19 April 2015 filmed by Kostas Chondros
  • Randall Lard
    Joined:
    Big City Orchestra
    Big City Orchestra Das - amplified objects, percussion Ninah Pixie - reeds, percussion Andy Cowitt - voice, reeds, guitar Polly Moller - flutes, percussion Suki O'Kane - percussion 15th Annual Outsound New Music Summit San Francisco Community Music Center, July 30, 2016 Big City Orchestra presents a unique version of "In a Persian Market" by British composer Albert William Ketèlbey. Composed in 1920 and inspired by Johann Strauss II's composition "Persischer Marsch", it was very popular with theater orchestras and in sheet music form, and was followed by other similarly exotic compositions such as "In a Chinese Temple Garden" and "In a Monastery Garden".
  • Randall Lard
    Joined:
    Lisa Mezzacappa
    Lisa Mezzacappa ORGANELLE ORGANELLE is a “set" of compositions, inspired by diverse scientific processes – some enormous and unfathomable, others impossibly microscopic – that form a whole through the insights and explorations of master improvisers. The modular work draws its musical ideas from the different ways that the human body, the natural world, and the cosmos mark and “experience” the passing of time. The notes, rhythms, musical relationships, melodies, and structures in each movement of ORGANELLE are connected to theories of cell biology, astrophysics, paleontology, zoology, or neuroscience, exploring these otherwise-imperceptible phenomena through sound. The first iteration of ORGANELLE premiered in Europe in spring of 2016, with musicians in Köln, DE; Naples and Rome, IT; and back at home that fall, in Berkeley, CA at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. In each presentation, the music is revised, re-imagined, and expanded to embrace a new set of musical personalities and a different performance context. New movements will be added, and old ones discarded or re-worked, to suit different configurations of musicians as the work continues to develop in the coming years. ORGANELLE also reflects my fascination with the challenges of notating musical ideas for improvisers to play (with), which for me has an interesting parallel with the ways science tries to visually represent complex, multi-dimensional systems and processes with flow charts and graphs and diagrams. The practical concern of wanting this score to be playable by any kind of improviser - a laptop electronic musician, an experimental koto player, a guitarist with nontraditional tunings - meant I often needed to find ways of visually representing musical ideas and relationships that were not confined to the traditional music staff. Many of these new graphic notations ended up having poetic connections to the scientific diagrams I was discovering in researching the content for the piece. Part I: Syzygy Lisa Mezzacappa, contrabass + Wayne Grim, electronics/sonification Part II: Percussion Quartet Gino Robair, Kjell Nordeson, Mark Clifford, Jason Levis at Exploratorium, Pier 15, The Embarcadero & Green St., San Francisco, CA
  • dwlemen
    Joined:
    Dead Kennedys
    Hey, cool link! I saw a lot of the old 80's punk bands but never did get to see DK's. Peace, -Dave
  • Randall Lard
    Joined:
    Dead Kennedys
    Dead Kennedys Jello Biafra - vocals East Bay Ray - guitar Klaus Fluoride - bass, vocals D.H. Peligro - drums, vocals at DMPO's On Broadway Nightclub, San Francisco, Saturday, June 16, 1984
  • Randall Lard
    Joined:
    Fire! Orchestra
    Fire! Orchestra Fire! Orchestra - Ritual Mats Gustafsson – conduction, baritone sax Martin Hederos – keyboards, violin Mats Äleklint - trombone Mette Rasmussen alto saxophone Finn Loxbo - guitar Lotte Anker – alto saxophone Sofia Jernberg - voice Niklas Barnö - trumpet Mads Forsby – drums Mariam Wallentin – voice Johan Berthling – bass Nate Wooley - trumpet Andreas Werliin – drums Anna Högberg - tenor saxophone Per-Åke Holmlander - tuba Julien Desprez – guitar Per Texas Johansson – bass clarinet, clarinet Andreas Berthling – electronics at A38 Ship, Budapest, Hungary, 6 June 2016
  • Randall Lard
    Joined:
    Maja S. K. Ratkje
    Maja S. K. Ratkje Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje - vocals, electronics, live processing Tord Knudsen - live visuals at Punkt Festival 2013, Kick, Kristiansand, Norway
  • Randall Lard
    Joined:
    Paula Temple
    Paula Temple Paula Temple - laptop, electronics at The Peacock Society Festival, 17.02.2017, Parc Floral de Paris, France
user picture

Member for

16 years 9 months
Forums
...and there's nothing on? Say it ain't so!
user picture

Member for

11 years 7 months
Permalink

Thomas Fehlmann "I find that life in general is a source of inspiration and the vital spark to me where the music, let's say produces the cement to achieve and to have a good mood."
user picture

Member for

14 years 2 months
Permalink

Season 4, episode 11 The Papal Chase Great dialog, cartoon art. Archer's nasal voice cracks me up!
user picture

Member for

11 years 7 months
Permalink

I got there by typing into google: youtube ship my pants K-mart.......and several selections came up which worked. This already has 700,000 more hits from just this morning. Very funny!
user picture

Member for

11 years 7 months
Permalink

Aldo Tambellini Aldo Tambellini has no predecessor. A pioneer in electromedia in the early 1960s his work, "Black Zero", "Blackout", "Black TV" and other's has altered the way we view art and it's intersection with media. Poet, painter, sculptor, professor and communications junkie, Aldo Tambellini sat down with Kamaria Muntu, Editor of Femficatio and Philosophy Editor Malkia Charlee NoCry the day after his live performance of "Black Zero" and "Moondial" at the Tate Modern in London, 14th October 2012. Producer: Kamaria Muntu Arrangement: Malkia Charlee NoCry Artist: Aldo Tambellini Footage courtesy of the Tate Modern, Archived Footage and Aldo Tambellini and Anna Salamone http://www.aldotambellini.com
user picture

Member for

11 years 7 months
Permalink

Stefan Betke 'A good master can only be as good as the mix, but a master becomes better with understanding the purpose and ideas behind the music.' Artist, producer and mastering engineer based in Berlin. Founder of ~scape and Pole labels and Scape Mastering Studio.
user picture

Member for

14 years 2 months
Permalink

I've been touting this show since the third episode of season one, six years ago. It has proven to have wide popular acclaim and has racked up a slew of Emmies. After this weeks episode (Season 5.2; #10) the confrontation between Walter White and his DEA brother-in-law reaches white-hot as the DEA agent wants Skyler to testify against her husband. Meanwhile, Walt's erstwhile partner has angst about the huge stacks of cash he has made and has been arrested for distributing wads of cash from his car like a newspaper boy. I do enjoy the real pathos going on here. The writing is speaking to true, raw human emotion. The story is reaching a logical conclusion. But, much like a good work of fiction, there is sure to be surprising twists at the end. Can't wait for the last six episodes and then maybe canceling my subscription to cable. I don't think I'll find another TV show that will ever beat this one, imho.
user picture

Member for

11 years 7 months
Permalink

about Breaking Bad. Saw all of Sopranos on dvd; this series eats that one for lunch. I have only been able to watch this through Netflix and just finished the last two episodes of the first half of season 5. The "behind the scenes" sections on each dvd with Vince Gilligan and the actors is priceless. Really gets into his thinking and creativity, how the scenes were done -like Gustavo's demise - 19 takes - and even some bloopers. Vince was also on Charlie Rose a short time ago for the entire hour discussing the series. It's already been said about the last 8 episodes that "if you can't watch the series as it happens, you're going to have to take the spoilers like a man because there's no way you're not going to be able to NOT hear or read about it". I'm already cheating and reading a really detailed recap on Mondays after each new episode. Can't help it!! Gotta know! And I'm still gonna watch it on Netflix when it becomes available on dvd.
user picture

Member for

14 years 2 months
Permalink

I can't believe I haven't commented on this TV show yet! Daniel Tosh is a 30-something comedienne with his own TV program and production company called "Black Heart Productions" (with his own almost fictional Black Lab called "Ubu" (Sit Ubu, Sit!) The name of the production company, by the way, mirrors his brand of post 2000, i-phone video, quick hook-up generation now cutting it's teeth on 50 Shades Of Gray. The Dark Humor is what mostly sets it apart and is more than a bit scary in it's reflection of reality. "Sit, Ubu, sit! She said seductively as she rolled down the dark nylons...
user picture

Member for

11 years 7 months
Permalink

an outstanding documentary from filmmaker Eugene Jarecki from 2012 regarding this country's war on poor people and minorities, aka, the war on drugs. Far too much to review for my meager writing abilities but lets just say, it's extremely honest, accurate and informative. "jury nullification" is the name given to the procedure whereby a juror, completely legally, disregards the judge's instructions and votes with his/her conscience and can thereby throw an entire case. It is one method, recommended here, to help change the terribly unjust drug laws and sentencing guidelines used to fuel the highly profitable prison business. The documentary opens with this: "Since 1971, the War on Drugs has cost over $1 trillion and has resulted in more than 45 million arrests. During that time, illegal drug use has remained unchanged." Judges, lawyers, police, prison guards, prisoners, psychologists and historians all weigh in on this ludicrous system. Be a good citizen and smoke some herb before you watch this :)
user picture

Member for

16 years 9 months
Permalink

...in other words, follow the dollar. It'll lead you to the primary perpetuators of the sisyphean struggle. I saw that documentary as well (I actually prefer his "Why We Fight"; an engaging documentary on an equally tough topic). $1 tln spent logically leads to someone is getting paid in the status quo! The 'good news' is our corporate overlords have begun to see greater profit potentials in weed being legal. I just wonder how the private prison lobby is going to react, and for whom they will be taking out the long knives next. In the meantime, chief on!! (as they say, "Smoke 'em if ya got 'em")
user picture

Member for

14 years 2 months
Permalink

Breaking Bad took the "Best Dramatic Series" Emmy last evening during the penultimate 60th episode showing live on AMC. One more show to go! Some people call this the best TV show ever. Is it a reflection of out times and American culture? A high school teacher with broken dreams and lost potential develops cancer and builds a drug empire by being the best meth cook ever, eventually accumulating 80 million dollars, to take care of his family after his imminent death. But he kills so many through circumstance in the meantime his family doesn't want anything to do with him or the money. You're either bad or you're good, there ain't no grey angels.
user picture

Member for

11 years 7 months
Permalink

Breaking Bad is but one more (absolutely exemplary) story of the human condition. Love of family, love of life, facing one's own mortality and the complete and utter corruption of all of that love for.......money. Clearly knowing right from wrong (legally and, more importantly, morally); knowingly producing one of the most addictive substances known ('if I don't do it, someone else will' rationale) and the acceptance of and willingness to be deadly violent in order to keep the machine running that "pays the bills". Love, corruption, ego and greed......Vince Gilligan has outdone everyone else with this series. Period! The show is more addictive, imho, that the 99% pure blue meth that Walt churns out. It's a combination of crystal meth, crack and nicotine. If you have not seen this series yet, you need to.
user picture

Member for

14 years 2 months
Permalink

After capturing three Emmies this year alone (Best Dramatic series; Best Supporting role }Anna Gunn, Walter White's wife 'Skyler'[; Best Production/Technical values (or similar)) I would have to say that the ending episode of the series, it's ultimate conclusion, was satisfying. The series was always praised by TV critics. One of the things underlined before the final episode by said critics, and myself also here in this thread last year, is the playing out of the series on a lean, spare run to it's logical conclusion. That is, every episode had something to contribute to the plot line and there was no playing out tangents that had nothing to do with furthering the dramatic content of the series, with the possible exception of the "fly in the super-lab" (not it's official name) episode. Now, as for the ending.... It wasn't one of those confusing or ball-bustingly unsatisfying endings that leaves you gnashing your teeth and wanting to yell at the ceiling. For instance, it would have been a bummer if Walt had left Jessie slaving away in a Meth mine for the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang bent on supplying the Czech Republic's meth-head population. It would have been unsatisfying had not the whole Aryan crew not been taken out by a simple but tech-savvy swiveling machine gun in the huge trunk of an old American car. An older car, but an American classic that logically had room for such a device. The ending continues to play out with such things as Walter being able to pay for his son's college education (coincidentally, with the amount he originally set out to make in the first episode) and getting back at his old lover and her new husband who had used Walter's brilliant technical research for their ultimately wildly successful high-tech start-up called "Grey Matter" or something to that effect. Brilliantly, Vince Gilligan's writer's manage to kill a third bird by including Jessie's two old cohorts whom he has using laser pointers to convince the couple that they are guns for hire who will kill them should they not give "Flynn" (the nickname for Walter's son named Walt Junior) his college cash. that Lydia, the conniving bitch who plays the materials handler for the big German conglomerate that provided a necessary, hard to get precursor chemical gets hers with a simple phone call from Walter saying ricine had been spiked into her stevia sweetner packet at the cafe (slightly unbelievable unless you believe he is willing to kill everybody using stevia at said cafe that day). The number of people who end up being killed on this series during it's six year run is truly staggering and if I had to hazard a guess I would say the number is somewhere around two to three hundred starting with an obscure character chained up in the basement of then Jessie's aunt's house. There is poignancy being developed even at this early point as neither partner in crime wants to kill somebody and they end up having to toss a coin to see who will do the deed. Walt shows a father's tenderness by cutting the crusts off the sandwiches he is feeding his prisoner and showing some real angst about the matter, an angst that is only dispelled when he realizes, by solving the cognitive puzzle of a missing piece of dinner dish that is a jagged shard, that his prisoner intends to kill him with should he get the opportunity. Fast forward one or two seasons when Walt, Jessie and Gus Freyne narrowly avoid being killed by an apparent drone missile attack called in by the DEA, I think, on the marriage of an important cartel relative that is also a summit between two cartels and thus a prime target. The missile kills probably 50-100 people. Fast forward to the last episode while Jessie slowly strangles to death the baby-faced Aryan brotherhood sociopath stone killer whose uncle runs the prison gang. Walt kills the uncle without any compunction at all. The scene that follows is what I found most interesting about the whole final episode: Jessie picks up a pistol and prepares to shoot Walter, who seems to welcome the death which is impending from all angles. Jessie finds this too easy and asks Walter's permission, which he enthusiastically grants. Jessie finds that all too easy and drops the pistol, telling Walter to do it himself. Well thought-out ending by Gilligan's writers of the interaction between these two main characters. Jessie then high-tails it out of the compound, busting a gut laughing while he busts the gate. Walt, meanwhile, takes a final tour of yet another meth lab on the premises of the Aryan compound Jessie has been forced to labor in as the police close in. Whether it be from the cancer, the cops or the bullet wound he has sustained in the final scene, Walt knows he is dying and is no longer running from the law. The most telling scene in the entire episode comes earlier when he is talking to his wife Skyler about why he did this continuing series of crimes when he had had multiple opportunities to just walk away with mad stacks of Benjamins. He says something to the effect that he likes it. It was something that made him feel alive, even as he was dying. Two supporting characters that are worthy of mention and probably rate Emmy's for their support roles, are the lawyer Saul (not even his real name in the fictional mode) who was always good for a laugh whenever he made an appearance. He had the lawyer/criminal/lawyer role nailed right down to the white Cadillac with the license plate "lawyrup". The other was Mike, the former cop turned hard core criminal security chief. The show would have paled somewhat without the brilliant performances turned in by these two. I have to say for a final time that I loved the pathos of this show and the social commentary it provides as a plot for so many people's lives in America, whether it be for the ongoing $800,000 a year lifestyle or the Eighty million dollar empire built up over time. Otherwise good people are turned bad for the slightest of justifications. In America there are ever so many more people "Breaking Bad" rather than "Breaking Good". Thank God for the example of those Breaking Good. May their example always shine brightly! (Please excuse the length of this review, I hope you found it a good summation and a good read.)
user picture

Member for

12 years 7 months
Permalink

Nice write-up, Anna. I loved the series but found the finale a bit disappointing. I guess I was hoping for a little more thought-provoking ending. Instead, it was a pretty predictable shoot-up. I thought maybe Walt finally succumbing to his cancer, quietly, alone, might have been more poignant. And the machine-gun in the trunk seemed a bit far-fetched. (we knew Walt was a genius chemist, but now apparently he is also a brilliant mechanical engineer....(?)) My favorite seasons were 1 and 2; those seemed to be the most realistic to me. After that they sometimes seemed to try a little too hard. Still, I loved all of it. I think it's the greatest psychological suspense/thriller i've ever seen (movies, TV, or otherwise).
user picture

Member for

11 years 7 months
Permalink

Cornelia Parker What Do Artists Do All Day? In Conversation Cornelia Parker is a London-based sculptor and installation artist. She was born during the year 1956 in Cheshire, England. She was raised on a Cheshire smallholding. Cornelia Parker's work is regarded internationally for its complex, darkly humorous, ironic style. Cornelia Parker's work is highly allusive and patterned with cultural references to cartoons, a style which she adapts to her need to capture things in the moment before they slip away and are lost beyond human perception. When examining her work holistically one can see the following themes driving her work forward consumerism, globalization, and the role of the mass media in contemporary life. Cornelia Parker was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1997 and featured in the 8th International Sharjah Biennial in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates in 2007. Cornelia Parker has rural roots, as Simon Hattenstone for the Telegraph writes, Her sickly father had never been out with a girl until he was 34 and met Parker's mother, a German girl who had been traumatised as a Luftwaffe nurse in the second world war. Life was tough and physical – mucking out the pigs, milking the cows. "My father wanted a boy badly and didn't get one, so I was happy to be the surrogate boy. I was very strong, always doing manual labour." Later, Cornelia Parker studied art and received her MFA at Reading University in 1982. The Telegraph reports that Cornelia Parker trained at Wolverhampton Polytechnic because she was turned down by the larger colleges in London. After her Masters degree Cornelia lived a bohemian lifestyle in the fringes of Eastern London where she worked from home. She was awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Wolverhampton (2000), the University of Birmingham (2005), and the University of Gloucestershire (2008). As the Telegraph writes: While she got teaching jobs in the art schools that had rejected her, she was opposed for years to the commercial art market, and wasn’t represented by a gallery until she was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1997. Parker is married to the American artist Jeff McMillan. She has a daughter Lily, with whom she became pregnant with at the age of 44. The pregnancy is depicted in a piece of art in which Parker purchased the night gown worn in the film Rosemary's Baby hoping to wear it for birth but it was too small so she displayed it as a piece of art. Many of Cornelia Parker's artworks are ephemeral or 'site-specific', created for a single time and place. Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View (1991) was such a work, in which Cornelia Parker had the British Army explode a garden shed, and the fragments were suspended in the air around a single source of illumination casting shadows of the shattered pieces on the walls. This work was displayed at the Tate Modern Gallery. Mark Hudson wrote the following in a review of the work for Telegraph: Squashing a brass band is quite another. Flattening a whole band’s worth of instruments and sending them to the North East, home of the Durham Miners’ Gala, where the blare of brass is the very breath of proletarian pride, suggests a degree of chutzpah bordering on the suicidal. The striking style of the suspended sculpture, which challenges the limitations of time and space, is typical of Cornelia Parker's work. Hanging Fire (Suspected Arson) (1999) is another example of this type of sculpture, in which charred fragments of a building supposedly destroyed by arson are suspended by wires and pins in a pattern which is both geometrical and chaotic. The work captures the identity of the two states by a retroactive positioning, much in the manner of a forensic scientist might reconstruct the scene of a crime. Cornelia Parker has had numerous solo exhibitions in England, Europe, and the United States, at the Serpentine Gallery, London (1998), ICA Boston (2000), the Galeria Civica de Arte Moderne in Turin (2001), the Kunstverein in Stuttgart (2004), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, California (2005), the Modern Museum at Fort Worth, Texas (2006) and Museo de Arte de Lima, Lima Peru (2008). The work of Cornelia Parker was included in group exhibitions and public collections at the Tate Gallery in London, MOMA in New York, the British Council, Henry Moore Foundation, De Young Museum in San Francisco, the Yale Center for British Art and many other venues. Some of her most noted exhibitions and works include Chomskian Abstract (2008), Never Endings (2007, 2008), Brontëan Abstracts (2006), The Distance (A Kiss with String Attached) (2003), Subconscious of a Monument (2002), Blue Shift (2001), Edge of England (1999), and The Maybe, in collaboration with Tilda Swinton (1995). b. 1956, Cheshire, England For some years Cornelia Parker’s work has been concerned with formalising things beyond our control, containing the volatile and making it into something that is quiet and contemplative like the ‘eye of the storm’. She is fascinated with processes in the world that mimic cartoon ‘deaths’ – steamrollering, shooting full of holes, falling from cliffs and explosions. Through a combination of visual and verbal allusions her work triggers cultural metaphors and personal associations, which allow the viewer to witness the transformation of the most ordinary objects into something compelling and extraordinary. 2013 a solo exhibition at Frith Street Gallery, London 2012 The Unseen: 4th Guangzhou Triennial, Guangdong Museum of Art, China 2012 Medals of Dishonour a group exhibition at Hermitage’s Menshikov Palace, St Petersburg, Russia 2011 Thirty Pieces of Silver York St Mary’s, York 2010 Doubtful Sound, a solo exhibition at Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead 2008 Latent News, a solo exhibition at Frith Street Gallery 2007 – 2008 Never Endings, a touring solo exhibition at IKON, Birmingham; Museo De Arte de Lima, Peru 2001 a solo exhibition at GAM, Galleria Civica D’Arte Moderna, Turin 2000 a solo exhibition at ICA Boston http://www.frithstreetgallery.com/uploads/artist_cvs/Parker%20CV.pdf
user picture

Member for

16 years 9 months
Permalink

I nominate Pussy Riot for the best band name ever.
user picture

Member for

16 years 9 months
Permalink

it appears that Cyndi Lauper sings "At Last" very well.
user picture

Member for

11 years 7 months
Permalink

it's no surprise a male dog barks aggressively.a pussy would sing soprano. did you sign the petition Mary and Mike?
user picture

Member for

16 years 9 months
Permalink

I tried to sign it, but that website didn't seem to care for my Android.
user picture

Member for

11 years 7 months
Permalink

by Grace Dent - Storyville: Pussy Riot - A Punk Prayer. Review - The Independent. 'The actions that skewered Russian protest group Pussy Riot, causing national trauma, are, to the British viewer, so minor that the footage is rather laughable. We watched during Pussy Riot – a Punk Prayer as the girls donned pastel-coloured balaclavas in the Cathedral of Christ Saviour, Moscow, then ran about dancing, singing and making some unsporting comments about Putin. In fact, most Brits wouldn't even find this laughable. More utterly unremarkable. If I were to go to Westminster Abbey this Saturday and leap about in a silly hat and no bra saying David Cameron was a prick, I'd have a bloody long wait for Sky News and the police to turn up. The reactions, I'll wager, would involve: some Christian types who were mid-Mass tutting, someone in a Boden cardigan mumbling that this was a bit like when Jesus protested against money-lenders, some nuns on a day trip from Tring putting me on Instagram and then, eventually, a volunteer in a tabard from the tea shop bringing me a cup of milky PG Tips and a lavender slice. What it would certainly would not lead to is national horror, mass rallys, calls for my hanging, my burning, my exorcism and my eventual transportation to Penal Colony Number 14 in Mordovia. As the documentary aired this week on BBC4, Pussy Riot member Nadia Tolokonnikova was being transferred to another unconfirmed colony. Nadia was, essentially, missing in the Russian prison system, which feels, to me, as disconcerting as the threats that the girls would “be killed in Siberia” for their unholy, feminist, anti-establishment actions that were heard during the trial footage. Nadia is an enigmatic character. She is staggeringly beautiful and aware of the fact. She is emotionally ungiving and puts her feminist beliefs before her role as a mummy. She is wholly shameless about a previous protest she took part in where she had sex in a museum. She is calmly, aloofly and defiantly unrepentant about this whole Cathedral business. All of these elements – each and every one – so very very unbecoming in a woman, especially a Russian woman. The Orthodox Church, the media and her prosecutors detest her. The manner in which the Russian Orthodox Christians of 2013 quickly slip into calling Nadia, Masha and Katia “demons” or discussing how there must be a devil moving in them to commit this “sacrilegious act” feels like earwigging on footage of the Salem witch trials. But it's 2013 and they're holding the Winter Olympics there next February. As we watched footage of the girls in their prison cage, being refused the right to see their children, being warned they might die in prison, while their ageing parents were jostled about by Orthodox thugs, it struck me how half-hearted and duplicitous the tone of tolerance and acceptance would be at the Sochi opening ceremony as compared to Danny Boyle's explosion of Great British free-thinking tolerance. Pussy Riot could have ran across Boyle's Green and Pleasant land topless with chainsaws and, in the grand scheme of things, no one would have cared. “But don't you see, in Russia dancing in a cathedral is the equivalent of pissing on a war memorial?” someone Tweeted the other evening as I watched. And, yes, the documentary showed this too. It showed a country where religion was suppressed for many years and is thus now doubly sacred. But, more importantly, it showed a country with no history of performance or conceptual art protest; therefore, Pussy Riot playing bad electric guitar near an altar felt literally like the end of days. Like the Sex Pistols going on TV in the Seventies in Britain and telling Jesus himself to fuck off. Meanwhile, in Britain 2013, we're bored to death with performance art, with Spiderman clinging to Buckingham Palace shouting about his rights as a father, or the Turner Prize exhibition full of child mannequins with cocks for faces or a whole array of passionate political fools who turn up daily on the green at Westminster in fancy dress as toilets, sheep, vaginas etc waving banners to make their point about clean water, EU quotas or chlamydia. In fact, we're so bored by the British equivalents of Pussy Riot that when laws are brought in to deplete our rights to protest, we don't really give a damn. Whether one agrees with Pussy Riot's beliefs or their methods, A Punk Prayer's examination of the girls' fearlessness, their determination to shove feminist protest in the face of Russian Orthodoxy and their unflinching calm in the face of jackboots and holy water was wholly compelling. Before the girls were sentenced – their vows that they weren't being sacrilegious, weren't militant atheists and were in fact making a comment about state involvement in religion roundly ignored – they were permitted to give statements. Katia said: “I now have mixed feelings about this trial. On the one hand, we expect a guilty verdict. Compared to the judicial machine, we are nobodies, and we have lost. On the other hand, we have won. The whole world now sees that the criminal case against us has been fabricated.” I'm not sure that the whole world knows Pussy Riot's story, but this Storyville certainly helped augment their growing legendary status.' Randall Lard - I once again humbly urge everyone on this site to sign the petition here - http://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-action/PussyRiot
user picture

Member for

14 years 2 months
Permalink

I wrote about Pussy Riot in the Current Events thread when the incident happened and it drew exactly -0- response from deadheads. As you aptly observe, nobody gives an apathetic two shits about Pussy Riot. These three courageous and creative protesters might as well be from Mars, being from Russia. Now they have disappeared into the Gulag with only Amnesty International left to look after them. I'm afraid institutional prejudice is going to win the day in this case and there is not much to be done, unless Ed Snowden takes up their cause personally with his new pal Putin. But I'll sign the petition. I believe what they did in the US, depending on geographical location, would have warranted a stern legal warning from a Catholic lawyer to stay away to a charge of Criminal Trespass with perhaps a few days of jail time, if it happened in Tupelo, Misssissippi. The Russians are a strange, long-suffering people and you don't want to cross them. Not in this way, in this institution. I think you aptly pointed that out. I know it sounds trite, but how would Christ have responded to Pussy Riot?
user picture

Member for

16 years 9 months
Permalink

All things considered, I am not for the moment going to unpublish the full copyrighted article posted above. For future reference, as we have noted previously, please post a short excerpt with a link, as we have no legal rights whatever to reproduce other people's articles here, unless it's the author or another rights holder doing so. See the TOS, not to mention the Berne Convention. I will be editing down all future posts of the work of third parties in this fashion. Thank you. And now back to your regularly scheduled discussion. Thanks.
user picture

Member for

14 years 7 months
Permalink

With season 4 just around the corner I can't help but wonder what's in store for some of the beloved characters. I haven't read the books so I really haven't a clue. But I will say that i'm rooting for the dragons and hoping for King Joffrey to have his throat slit from ear to ear...very slowly.
user picture

Member for

11 years 7 months
Permalink

Thank you. Please see PM. A heartfelt response is coming soon.
user picture

Member for

11 years 7 months
Permalink

'There's a marvellous antidote to the surfeit of office party faux-bonhomie and murder-inspiring John Lewis ads this Christmas thanks to Robin 'Scanner' Rimbaud. The electronic artist is curating a night called Scanner: Lachrimae takes place on December 13th 2013, and features the following excellent mordant entertainment: Scanner will be performing his interpretation of John Dowland’s Lachrimae, Carter Tutti and Gazelle Twin are playing, Chris Turner and Anna and Maria von Hausswolff are screening films, and friend of tQ Spencer Hickman of Death Waltz Records will be gothing it up in the lounge after.' Details and persons wishing to buy tickets are available here - https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadA… Tickets £15, concs £11.50 (Members pay £1.50 less) http://thequietus.com/articles/13796-scanner-gothic-festival Scanner - Lachrimae -

Scanner / Lachrimae from Favourite Colour: Black on Vimeo.

'One of the UK’s foremost composers presents an evening of live music and film inspired by the the gothic spirit. As well as performing an interpretation of John Dowland’s mournful ‘Lachrimae’, Scanner will be joined by Gazelle Twin and Carter Tutti in exclusive live cinematic performances, and present specially made films by Chris Turner and Anna and Maria von Hausswolff. With Death Waltz Records presenting spectral, dissonant dancefloor tunes in the Benugo lounge until late.'
user picture

Member for

11 years 7 months
Permalink

can't come a moment too soon. Robert Hood, Luke Slater, Jerome Sydenham, Shifted, jozif, Fritz Zander Oval Space/ 29-32 The Oval; Bethnal Green; London E2 9DY; United Kingdom. we await a plan for the floor.
user picture

Member for

14 years 2 months
Permalink

A monument to American excess mixed with a reverse twist of sarcasm. Colbert is a monumental ego who addresses his audience as "Nation". Inevitably there would be a comic who took it to this edge. Although a stupid conservative might feel a kinship with Colbert's comments, it is his unique brand of sarcasm that makes his show witty and Emmy-winning. Although entertaining, it can wear on the intelligent mind after a longer or shorter period.
user picture

Member for

11 years 7 months
Permalink

M.R. James: Ghost Writer Mark Gatiss steps into the mind of MR James, the enigmatic English master of the supernatural story. How did this donnish Victorian bachelor, conservative by nature and a devout Anglican, come to create tales that continue to chill readers more than a century on? Mark attempts to uncover the secrets of James's inspiration, taking an atmospheric journey from James's childhood home in Suffolk to Eton, Cambridge and France, venturing into ancient churches, dark cloisters and echoing libraries along the way.
user picture

Member for

11 years 7 months
Permalink

Gilbert & George Mark Lawson talks to Gilbert & George
user picture

Member for

16 years 9 months
Permalink

but I don't think you need to be a big Journey fan to love this tale about how Neal Schon is on YouTube desperately looking for somebody to replace Steve Perry, and here's this little guy in a bar band in Manila with the most stunning voice ever. http://www.everymansjourney.com/ I especially love the story one of the PBS folks (this is in heavy rotation for pledge week or something) told about how the guy Arnel goes to the US consulate in Manila and says he needs a visa to go to the US because he's supposed to audition for Journey. Consulate guy looks at him and says, uh-huh. Sing a few bars. The guy Arnel sings a few bars (Lights, as I recall). Consulate guy says OMG, here's your visa.
user picture

Member for

11 years 7 months
Permalink

Are You There? Andrea Parker and Daz Quayle with a live performance of 'Are You There?' at The Roundhouse, London. Taken from the album 'Private Dreams and Public Nightmares' featuring the archived sounds of British electronic pioneer Daphne Oram, re-worked and reinterpreted by Andrea Parker and Daz Quayle. Available on aperture records. http://www.aperturerecords.com Audio by Andrea Parker and Daz Quayle Visuals by Paul Key, Andrea Parker and Daz Quayle Use of photos courtesy of The Daphne Oram Trust http://daphneoram.org/
user picture

Member for

11 years 7 months
Permalink

Osamu Tezuka 'NHK Tokushu Tezuka Osamu: Sosaku no Himitsu' God of Manga. Creator of Astro Boy, Black Jack and Kimba the White Lion, the original source for Disney's The Lion King, criminally unacknowledged. Apparently any similarities were 'purely coincidental'. Of course they were...
user picture

Member for

11 years 7 months
Permalink

Art électronique A Genève, les enfants reçoivent des cours dans les studios de la radio Suisse. Ils ont la possibilité de se servir du studio analogique.Les enfants et le responsable, J. GUYONNET sont interrogés sur les différentes possibilités de création, sur ce qu'est la musique électronique. Emission: Les clés de la musique Production: producteur ou co-producteur Télévision Française 1 Générique: réalisateur: Jean Wetzel participant: Jacques Guyonnet ; Geneviève Calame Thanks to Chris Carter for the link. https://twitter.com/chris_carter_
user picture

Member for

11 years 7 months
Permalink

Livity Sound Credits: Producer & Director - Patrick Nation Camera - Luke Ogden, Patrick Nation Sound Engineers - Rich Cufley (Sound Services) Production Assistant - Debbie Butts
user picture

Member for

11 years 7 months
Permalink

Surgeon - Awakenings, Gashouder, Amsterdam, 19/04/2014 Mønic - Human Pattern [Osiris - OSMUK039EP] Mr. Jones - Reality Check (Inigo Kennedy Remix) [DSNT004] J Tijn - ILGD [Overlee Assembly - OA 003] Pris - Dust [Resin - RSN001] Lag - Trema Stream Theory - Road 004 (MTD Remix) [Affekt - AFK 008] Rupcy - Assemblage [Ilian Tape - IT023] Aphex Twin - Tha [Apolla] Roebin De Freitas - Stuck Midway Karenn - ? [Unreleased] Hans Bouffmyhre - Bring It Back (Oscar Mulero Remix) [Sleaze SLEAZE093] Simian Mobile Disco & Cosmin TRG - Sannakji [Delecasies] Regis - Speak To Me [Downwards] Objekt - Agnes Demise [OBJEKT003] Qoso - Ardmore (Tool) [In Paradisum - IP012] Eschaton (Ancient Methods & Orphx) - Kali [Token - 38D] Source Direct - Black Rose (Blawan Remix) Surgeon - ? [Unreleased] Yan Cook - Suspense [Ann Aimee - Ann4x4] Northern Structures - Eastern Bridge [Sonic Groove - SGD 1464] Ontal - Lithosphere [Overdraw - 001] Robert Hood - Untitled 1 (Taken From Moveable Parts Chapter 1) [M Plant - MPM 19] Leo Anibaldi - Attack Random [ACV1002] Xhin - Else [Semantica 64] J Tijn - Henry [Overlee Assembly - OA 003] Corax - Drakkar [Rodz Konez - MAK 044] Splinter UA - Explosion Fracture HARD Blawan - ? [Unreleased] AFX - .1993841 [Rephlex]
user picture

Member for

11 years 7 months
Permalink

Signal I Music - Long Distance Poison Video - Matthew Caron From "Signals To A Habitable Zone" LP/DVD/HZ Signal Sync Blueprint - Fin Records Nathan Cearley plays a Minimoog Model D, Roland JX-3P with a PG 200 controller, a DSI Mopho keyboard, and an Arp Omni 2. Erica Bradbury plays a Roland Juno-60. Casey Block plays a Micromoog. MIDI Free Records produced by Brendon Anderegg and Nathan Cearley. Recorded at Telescope Recording Brooklyn, New York All songs Baby Ghost Music (ASCAP). Mastered by Martin Feveyear.
user picture

Member for

11 years 7 months
Permalink

Sarah Angliss - Loving the Machine, TEDx Brighton, January 2011 Composer, multi-instrumentalist, roboticist, sound historian
user picture

Member for

11 years 7 months
Permalink

Hacker Farm Home-made, the salvaged and the hand-soldered