This  was a pretty good fiesta. Nice crowd and sweet atmosphere. While other people caught colds from the thunderstorm outside we were sweating from the tunderstorm inside.

1. Weld (+ Arc)
2. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
3. After The Goldrush
4. On The Beach
5. Tonight’s The Night
6. Ragged Glory
7. Rust Never Sleeps
8. Zuma
9. Sleeps With Angels
10. Mirror Ball

NP: John Prine – Sweet Revenge

There is a growing movement that states that perhaps sustainable agriculture will support feeding the hungry.  The People’s Food Sovereignty met in Rome, Italy, from 13-17 November 2009.  Please read The People’s Forum.  At the end of the text there is an Explanation of Food Sovereignty by Nyelini Declaration from Mali, February 2007 at http://peoplesforum2009.foodsovereignty.org/the_peoples_forum

Native Harvest

The Americas have an abundance of native crops, including pumpkins and squash, that are drought hardy even considering climate change.  Two of the four most important crops in the world are native to the Americans being corn and potatoes.  The other two most important crops are wheat (Europe) and rice (Asia).

Native crops throughout the world have biodiversity that needs to be protected from an industralized profit driven global food system. 

Tashunka Witko (Crazy Horse) said, “One does not sell the earth upon which the people walk.”  1840-1877

Hoy hace 37 años que Danny Whitten (8 Mayo, 1943 –  18 Noviembre, 1972), guitarrista de Crazy Horse, abandonó este mundo siendo demasiado jóven. Tan sólo tenía 29 años! Una vez más se cumple el dicho “only the good die young” (sólo los buenos mueren jovenes). El compuso, entre otras, la maravillosa I Don’t Want To Talk About It que posteriormente  popularizó Rod Stewart y, a medias con Neil Young,  Come On Baby Let’s Go Downtown que apareció en el estremecedor Tonight’s The Night. Álbum fuertemente inspirado por la muerte de Danny.
Hoy es un magnífico día para pinchar Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere o Crazy Horse en su honor. Va por ti Danny!

I en tagning från 1971 framför Neil Young den oerhört smärtsamma låten, skriven med tydliga referenser till Danny Whitten i Crazy Horse. Bandet han kände sig tvungen att skicka på dörren under inspelningen av After The Goldrush, mycket beroende på Whitten’s heroinmissbruk.

Efter nästa skiva, Harvest, beslutade sig Neil Young för att ge Danny Whitten en chans att komma tillbaka som gitarrist på turnén. Men under repetitionerna blev det åter kaos, 18 november 1972 köpte Neil Young en flygbiljett till Los Angeles och gav Danny Whitten 50 dollar i näven så han skulle kunna söka hjälp för sitt beroende.

Whitten flög till LA, köpte heroin för 50 dollar, överdoserade och dog.

Young brottades med skuldkänslor i många år efter Danny Whitten’s död.

Lägg märke till att The Needle And The Damage Done skrevs innan Whitten dog. Och notera den alldeles speciella ofullbordade känslan låten ger i slutet. Precis som det ofullbordade liv Danny Whitten lämnade just den här dagen för 37 år sen… Han blev 29 år gammal.

Crazy Horse de Paris  es un famoso carabet fundado en 1951 por el suicida Alain Bernardin , y ubicado en el sibarítico “triangulo de oro” parisino.

Todos sus números de strip-tease son absolutamente chic, estando milimétricamente cuidados en lo que ha iluminación y sofisticación estética se refiere.

Lo más característico de este cabaret es ese juego de luces tan sofisticado. El espectáculo está protagonizado por un grupo de bailarinas, pero puede incluir actuaciones muy diversas.
Una habitual en estos espectáculos es la vedette Dita Von Teese.

En 1977 en propio Bernardin, dirigió una película homónima sobre los entresijos del club.

El DVD “Crazy Horse – Le Show”, hace un recorrido por 12 de sus funciones más representativas y aclamadas.

La sintonía  del local, “Crazy-Horse swing”, fue compuesta por Serge Gainsbourg en 1963.

Si alguien no sabe que regalarme para Navidad , solo es una idea ,pero me podeís invitar un fin de semana a París a ver un de los espectáculos del Crazy Horse, yo aceptaría encantada.. jijiji

Author: Jeremy Likness
Source: articleage.com

On June 3rd, 1948, a blast rocked the Black Hills of South Dakota. Ten tons of stone were dislodged from the mountainside and tumbled to the earth below. Earlier that day, a man named Korczak had ascended the mountain and single-jacked four holes at 6,740 feet above sea level.
Single-jacking is the practice of placing a drill-bit against hard rock, slamming it with a four-pound sledge hammer, then rotating the drill and banging it again until the hole is finished. It is a labor-intensive effort and a single man might only drill six to eight feet over the course of a day.

Over the following years more than eight million tons of rock would be blasted away. What was once a silent silhouette in stone began to take on a new shape. It would not be until over a decade after Korczak’s death – a full fifty years after he single-jacked the first holes – that the face of his muse, the proud Lakota warrior named “Crazy Horse,” would emerge. What Korczak had begun in obscurity by constructing his own 714-step stairway to the summit (one he ascended and descended multiple times in a single day) is now known throughout the world.

Over 10,000 hikers converge for the annual hike to the top of the mountain to view the face that alone is taller than Mount Rushmore.
One billion postage stamps with the likeness of Crazy Horse have been issued over the last few decades. It all started with a single hike up the mountain by man who was humble enough to begin the project by himself but had a vision large enough to believe he could transform a mountain into the noble image of a native war hero declaring the extent of his lands. It was a vision of greatness.

How did something so monumental begin with such humble roots? Perhaps the greatest clue left behind is the quotation found on the various knick-knacks in the gift shop next the mountain. I was moved when I heard the phenomenal story of the Crazy Horse project and bought a souvenir not to remind me of where I had been, but to encourage me to keep forging ahead to where I want to be. The beautiful swirl of agate was not what commanded the most of my attention – it was the words that spoke to my own dreams.

It reads:
When the Legends Die
The Dreams End
When the Dreams End
There is No More Greatness
Korczak insisted that it was not important to know when the monument will be finished. What was most important was to continue the dream. And continue the dream he did, through three separate operations to remove six discs. After quadruple bypass surgery, he was back on the mountain supervising his children as they painted the outline of the massive horse’s head. Crazy Horse, when completed, will be the world’s largest sculpture, taller than the great pyramids and overshadowing the Washington Monument by eight feet.

Seven of Korczak’s ten children continue the dream to this day along with his wife. Korczak himself rests peacefully in a mausoleum he built with his children before his death at the base of the mountain.
It is said the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first footstep. Just as the act of carving Crazy Horse’s face from living rock took fifty years, the quest to sculpt your own physique will not be fulfilled overnight. Why is so difficult to hold onto the dream of living a healthy, fit life? Have we lost our Legends, and let the Dreams End? You may be amazed to learn that every ordinary person in this world is destined to something extraordinary – if they are willing to stop trying to make it happen and instead able to search deep within to let it happen.

Are you ready to let success happen?
A pound of fat contains approximately 3,500 calories. I must admit, it was daunting to, www.chase.com, me when I began my journey and realized I had 65 pounds of fat to lose. Sixty-five pounds of fat boasts more than a quarter million calories. In our fast-paced world of instant gratification, I wanted the fat to disappear immediately. I did not want to single-jack those four holes, www.chase.com, and blast away the first ten tons out of eight million .

.. instead, I wanted the entire sculpture to reveal itself overnight. Where was my magic bullet?
Crazy Horse is in the Dakota Territory, which was first made famous to other Americas through the journals of Lewis and Clark. Many of us today dread stepping onto the treadmill or out into the cold morning air to run a few miles. The Lewis and Clark expedition crossed the entire country from St. Louis to the west coast and back again. The majority of this was on foot, dragging boats laden with supplies upstream against the aggressive current of the Missouri River.

One journal entry shared an extraordinary fact: each man consumed nearly twenty pounds of meat every day in order to supply the calories they needed to survive. In stark contrast, when they were struggling through a hard winter in the Rockies, they managed to drag equipment, supplies, guns, and tools over treacherous mountain passes while subsiding on nothing more than roots. The entire journey traversed over 8,000 miles and lasted several years, but the men and woman set forth knowing only what they wished to accomplish and focused on achieving it one day at a time.

They took their first steps without any knowledge of the land they were about to enter – it was terra incognito. Is a healthy physique “unknown territory” to you? It is easier to overcome fear of the unknown when you are in pursuit of greatness.
What does it take to step onto the treadmill to run a few miles? What courage is necessary to enter the weight room and force several pounds of iron to move against the will of gravity? The small excuses that keep you away from your goals are the dangerous ones.

They are the little dream-stealers, attacking greatness. Living healthy is about more than simply losing weight or looking great on the beach. It is about excellence.
Wouldn’t weight-loss be easy if it were just a “thing?” We do “things” every day. We brush our teeth, go shopping, and prepare dinner. These “things” are part of our daily existence, and are as easy as watching the rain. So why is living healthy such a struggle to many? Perhaps it is because you are chasing something more than a number on the scale.

Maybe you feel that if you burn that fat, you will find your true self underneath. During the chase, you are not really losing weight – whether you like it or not, you are pursuing greatness. It is who we are.
According to Jim Rohn, “the ultimate expression of life is not a million dollars or a bank account or a home.” It is living a good life. Jim Rohn once lied to a Girl Scout because he did not have a single dollar in his wallet to buy cookies from her. He vowed he would never be in that position again, and is now America’s foremost business philosopher – a millionaire who has spoken to hundreds of thousands.

Jim shares that a good life includes productivity, good friends, culture, and religion. He tells us not to miss anything – not the game, not the opera, not the movie. What are you missing?
How hard is it to live the good life? We Americans are numb to our present condition. We are programmed to sit in front of the television set to absorb a constant stream of negative news,, www.chase.com, then punch the clock at a job that is high-stress and low-pay with little time remaining to live the good life.

We are exhausted, so we slump in front of the latest sitcom to find pleasure in someone else’s life because we don’t have the energy to live our own. Dr. Myron Wentz, who was born on a small farm only a few hundred miles north of Crazy Horse in North Dakota and is now pursuing greatness as a leader in the fight against degenerative disease, described the situation eloquently by stating “Most people die too long.”
It took me nearly a year to lose sixty-five pounds of fat. I was not an overnight success story – I had to work at it.

It was a struggle and sometimes I would backslide. When I’d stand on the scale to see that I had taken two steps in the wrong direction, I’d dust myself off, face the right direction, and keep moving forward. Many people who were attempting to lose fat with me gave up when they did not see their six-pack after a few weeks of sweating hard and eating clean.
Not content with being ordinary, I stubbornly refused to give in. Perhaps I can attribute some of my success to my birth in Sturgis, South Dakota – a small town nestled just inside the border of the Black Hills where many legends have roamed.

I do not consider myself a legend, but I could relate to Korczak when I’d rouse myself early in the morning after only a few hours of sleep to step into the cold basement and onto the unrelenting treadmill. I did not want to die too long – I was ready to live.
You see, I did not know how long it would take to reach my goal. I was unhappy and dissatisfied with how I was living my life. For things to change, I had to change. I was not ready for just any change – I wanted to do something great. Korczak had his mountain, I had my treadmill.

What we shared was the resolve to look beyond the next day and become part of a greater vision. I might have only burned a few hundred calories per day, but those emptied fat cells would never cause me grief again. It doesn’t matter when you reach that magic weight or fit into that special pair of shorts. What matters is keeping the dream alive every day. Live the good life. Strive for excellence. Excellence is not perfection; it is the pursuit of greatness – it is perfecting the process of becoming your best.

I remind myself of the dream to be my best each and every day, because I know when the dreams end, there is no more greatness.
Are you merely chasing the scale, or do you choose to pursue greatness? Never forget your dreams.
Jeremy Likness is an International Health Coach and motivational speaker. After losing 65 pounds of fat, he discovered his true vision to coach thousands around the world to better health. A Certified Fitness Trainer and Specialist in Performance Nutrition, Jeremy is the author of the internationally-selling e-Book, Lose Fat, Not Faith and the companion 5-CD set.

Jeremy has been published in major online publications including Tom Venuto’s Fitness Renaissance and Bodybuilding.com. Jeremy’s approach is unique because he focuses on fitness from the inside out. Visit Jeremy online at Natural Physiques.

Oggi Neil Young (Toronto, 1945) compie 64 anni. Eccolo con i Crazy Horse filmato da Jim Jarmusch nel 1997 per Year Of The Horse: Tonight’s The Night.

Heute gibt’s wegen Zeitmangel nur ein Kalendarium von mir.

Neil Young (Solokünstler, aber auch bekannt mit der Band Crazy Horse) wird heute 64 (!) Jahre alt. Meiner Meinung nach ist Mr. Young einer der größten Rock-Poeten des Jahrhunderts, nicht zu letzt wegen Lyrics wie die, von Out on the Weekend oder Needle and the Damage done. Herzlichen Glückwunsch und alles Gute für die nächsten 60 Jahre!

Leben und Tod liegen nah beieinander. Deshalb an dieser Stelle auch einen Todesfall. Heute vor einem Jahr verstarb der britische Rock- und Jazz-Schlagzeuger John “Mitch” Mitchell. Mitchell war zuerst Kinderschauspieler, wurde aber erst als Schlagzeuger für Jimi Hendrix bekannt und war das letzte lebende Mitglied der legendären Band Jimi Hendrix Experience. Mit ihm hat die Welt einen begnadeten Musiker verloren.

Eure Blutsschwester.

Esta singular escultura podrá presumir de ser la más grande del mundo. Podrá, porque de momento no está terminada después de 50 años de construcción. Y es que la obra resulta faraónica, ya que medirá 195 metros de largo por 172 de alto. Se trata de la Crazy Horse memorial sculpture, la escultura dedicada a Caballo loco.

Se sitúa en Black Hills, Dakota del Sur (Estados Unidos) y como vemos en la fotografía la escultura presenta al popular indio montado en su caballo. Bueno, lo que vemos en grande es la maqueta, porque la verdadera escultura queda detrás, en la montaña, donde se adivina el perfil de la cara del indio, que es lo único de la obra que está más o menos reconocible.
El proyecto lo comenzó el escultor Korczak Ziolkowski en 1948 a petición del jefe Lakota Henry Standing Bear y otros ancianos americanos nativos.

Korczak murió en 1982, en la actualidad su esposa y otros miembros de su familia continúan el proyecto, en colaboración con la organización Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation.

Sitio Oficial: Crazy Horse

Fuente.: Diario del viajero
Imágenes.: Wikipedia

Dos artistes amb un mateix leitmotif: el més important és fer allò que vols fer, sense permetre que res t’aturi. Dues personalitats tan diferents com semblants, tant Jack Kerouac com Neil Young volien ser ells mateixos les 24 hores del dia. Sense “jefes”, sense ordres, sense horaris. Només ells i la seva sensibilitat, la seva emoció. Dos artistes que han seguit el camí que s’havien marcat, evitant que la maleïda fama els pervertís. Dues forces de la naturalesa, dues formes d’entendre l’art d’una mateixa manera: emotiva, càlida, emocional i directament des de l’ànima. Dos artistes autèntics, dues persones lliures. Ni els diners, ni la societat ni res els condicionava. Feien el que els hi donava la real gana: escriure, en el cas del rei dels beatniks; fer música, en el cas de Neil Young; i viure sense aguantar tonteries, en ambdós casos. I tot, amb humiltat, sense fanfarronades.

Algú es pot imaginar a Kerouac o a Young currant a una empresa o a una oficina, obeïnt al “jefecillo” estirat de torn?

ONE FAST MOVE OR I’M GONE: KEROUAC’S BIG SUR, de Curt Worden
El documental és un viatge retrospectiu sobre la vida de Kerouac durant la seva estància a la cabana de Lawrence Ferlinghetti a Bixby Canyon. Kerouac va decidir fugir de la ciutat, de la fama, del rebombori que s’havia muntat cap els beatnicks. A l’any 60 ser beatnik no era una manera de ser espontània, com ho va ser per Kerouac i per Ginsberg; va passar a ser una moda devorada per l’ambient cosmopolita, un ambient ja anestesiat, on els més activistes penjaven cartells amb el lema Where is the rage?. El de Massachussets no volia saber res de tot això; després de l’èxit de A la Carretera, éxit que va néixer d’una excel·lent crítica del New York Times, la vida li va canviar d’un dia per l’altre. Cal tenir en compte que Kerouac va insistir durant 5 anys perquè li publiquessin el llibre. La fama li arribà de cop i de forma totalment inesperada, ja amb Los Subterráneos i Los Vagabundos del Dharma publicats. Rebia milers de cartes, els mitjans van trobar un nou esquer; Kerouac va agafar quatre coses i se’n va anar a la cabana de Ferlinghetti, en un paratge verge de Bixby Canyon, als límits de Califòrnia. Penya-segats, natura, aire pur…Kerouac deixava enrere la ciutat, però no del tot. Regava els dies i les nits amb alcohol, i començà a escriure Big Sur en un dels seus famosos rotllos de paper; l’acabà en 10 dies, en un rotllo de 18 metres. La paranoia alcohòlica, la capacitat per arribar als racons més amagats de la psique humana, la tendència a donar-li voltes a l’existència, el kickwriting, és a dir, una prosa espontània, amb tota la força i emotivitat, la recerca del dolor d’una manera honesta i directa; res de barroquismes, dolor i exsitencialisme expressat amb una contundència i rudesa admirables. Profund i punyent, Kerouac té moments de claridividència que despulla les misèries de la vida per arribar a descobrir la serenor i el benestar que suposa superar els fantasmes, les paranoies i l’angoixa que tot cervell pot contemplar rumia. La seva lucidesa li va permetre adonar-se que la vida també té el seu costat lluminós, i d’aquesta manera va tancar el llibre Big Sur: amb un final lúcid i realment optimista.

Com comentava el presentador del docuemental, Javier Pérez Andújar, autor de Los Príncipes Valientes i gran coneixedor de l’obra de Kerouac, aquest va deixar la ciutat, San Francisco, quan les botigues, la policia, els turistes i les marujas es van apropiar dels carrers, “com succeeix a Barcelona, sense anar més lluny”, és a dir, un ambient anti-cultura i anti-art.

La BSO, obra de Benjamin Gibbard de Death Cab For Cutie i Jay Farrar de Son Volt, acompanya perfectament un documental de carretera i intens com el protagonista del mateix: l’escriptor nòmada Jack Kerouac.

NEIL YOUNG. DON’T BE DENIED, de Ben Whalley
Un gaudi total. Intens, sincer i ple de força, com el motiu del documental, el gran canadenc, l’incomparable Neil Young. La pel·lícula comença amb una declaració d’intencions del mateix Neil Young: “A mi, la única cosa que m’importa és la música”. Stephen Stills, David Crosby i Graham Nash ho confirmen. Neil Young ho deixava tot per continuar el seu camí, per seguir fidel a la seva musa musical. Com tots diuen, el temps li ha donat la raó.

El documental fa un curt però metòdic repàs a la carrera de Neil Young, des dels temps de The Squires. Un jove Neil Young es va embarcar en un cotxe de difunts per guanyar-se la vida amb les seves cançons. Acompanyat dels Squires, se n’adonà que el seu so era cada cop més convincent. A base d’hores, influenciat pel primer grunge, com ell l’anomena, Link Wray, Neil Young va anar pulint i/o embrutant, segons es miri, el seu so. Primer eren temes instrumentals; però va fer cas al que diu Bob Dylan, qui comenta que no canta bé, però que vol cantar els seus temes, per tant, canta i punt. Neil Young en un concert començà a cantar, a allargar acords de la guitarra, a sonar com només sona Neil Young. Va abandonar The Squires, es va ajuntar amb els Buffalo Springfield de Stephen Stills, amb qui va tenir el primer èxit gràcies a For what it’s worth. Neil Young abandonà Buffalo Springfield per gravar en solitari. Des del primer disc, Neil Young,a l’últim, Fork in the Road, la seva discografia és magnífica, amb els alts i baixos que se li suposen a una obra tan extensa com la del canadenc. Els millors moments, potser els que va compartir amb els Crazy Horse, banda que s’anomenava The Rockets quan els va conèxier: la força de Neil Young més el rock primitiu i visceral dels Crazy Horse van formar una banda única.

És curiós com aborda la seva etapa 80’s, quan va coquetejar amb els ordinadors i les bases techno. Com ell afirma, ell no tanca la porta a res i volia experimentar; la realitat és que els disc dels 80’s són prescindibles. No obstant, indicar que Hey Hey, My My va sortir d’una jam session amb Devo. Per acabar-ho d’adobar, la disputa que va tenir amb Geffen. Aquests li exigien que fés un disc de rock n’ roll. Dit i fet. Neil Young va publicar un disc de rockabilly, amb un look 50’s: Everybody’s Rockin’. La recuperació absoluta va arribar amb Freedom, Rust Never Sleeps i Ragged Glory.

El documental arriba fins el combatiu Living With War, del 2006, on demanava que es denunciés a Bush i a la seva tropa per crims de guerra a Irak, i on exigia que la classe políticia actués com a tal. Neil Young. Don’t Be Denied servirà per gaudir i entendre una mica més l’obra i vida del músic canadenc, o per enamorar-se d’ell i introduïr-se en el seu món per qui no el conegui. Una bona mostra de la seva genialitat va ser el darrer concert a Barcelona: amb 64 anys i encara amb la canya i la ràbia a punt. Honestedat màxima…Rock ‘n’ roll will never die, tu ru ru tu ru ru…

The journey of Crazy Horse : a Lakota history
E99.O3C72457 2004

Photo: Chantal Thomass

We’ve watched lingerie fashioned as outerwear and loose meshed shirts revealing nipples as though the New York runways had taken a page out of Greece’s Paradise Beach on a Goth theme holiday. The voluptuous Dita Von Teese will be releasing a beauty guide this fall.

According to The Independent, “A growing influence of the burlesque theme on beauty is undeniable: Nivea launched a collaboration with lingerie designer Chantal Thomass this summer… Vivienne Westwood released an update of her Boudoir fragrance and the Parisian cabaret Crazy Horse launched a full makeup range this month.”

S&M, Burlesque, what’s next? Stripper? Oh wait, that trend passed when Britney Spears installed a stripper pole in her home.

il est toujours fascinant de constater à quel point Neil Young est brillant aussi bien dans la douceur que dans le bruit. mais il y a une logique là-dedans, il s’agit d’exprimer un sentiment, une sensibilité: que ce soit la douceur, donc, ou quelque chose de plus rageur ne change finalement rien à l’affaire.

en tout cas, c’est énorme.

vive Neil Young, et vivement son prochain passage par ici (ou ailleurs).

bien @ vous,

nicogé

Explore Your Future at Universal Artists

When the city of Birmingham, Alabama, was established as a potential hub in direct competition with the great city of Atlanta (ATL) for the title as capital city of the Deep South, little did the world know the city’s greatest achievement and note as a power on the world front would come through a vehicle of hip hop acts and producers known now globally as Shaka Productions.

Shaka of Shaka Productions

From the mind of Joe Stern-McGovern, global agent and President of Universal Artists, International, comes the largest smack on the richter scale since the volcanic eruption on Krakatoa, DO and Mouf Piece of da City, blood brothers of Dem Hard Headz, and lyrical shoguns on the mic, Facts, Lo, and Hood Shuttlesworth of the Shuttlesworth long line of blue bloods, collectively known as Black Flock Gang aka BFG.

The Noble Hood Shuttlesworth of BFG

It’s rumored through inside sources the Black Flock Gang’s smash debut might break all previous records of Dirty South acts such as T-Pain, TI, 36 Mafia, Gucci Mane, and Yo Gotti put together, with it’s down home, grits and sweet tea thumper, bumper, and shaking the trunker collection on the coming self titled album, BFG. These numbers have been scientifically gathered and analyzed not only by the industry’s top number crunchers, pocket protectors and lab coats, but registered with the moderators of good taste and etiquette, Trap House Coalition, also hailing from Birmingham. Look for the Trap House Coalition’s Rodney Smalls on the coming single, “Don’t Think About It”, accompanied by Lo and Hood Shuttlesworth.

DO: One Half of Dem Hard Headz

The debut of the BFG is certain to titillate, shock, awe, and jaw drop any who hear the magnificence of an album largely consisting of beats by Tiptonville’s, A-Dub, www.myspace.com/adubbeatz, and the mastery of Shaka of Shaka Productions fame, www.myspace.com/universalshaka, as well as the artistic engineering genius and attention to detail of Hood Zone Productions.

Hood Zone of Hood Zone Productions

If you’re curious about the BFG and would like to check out a preview of the act, make sure to frequent downtown Birmingham’s art focused venues through the end of October, where copies of the hit debut, Black Flock Gang: BFG, will be sold in great numbers and all 5 of the act’s members themselves will be present following earth shaking shows to personally sign posters from their well known and much to do CD debut, BFG.

With Universal Artists, International’s expectations high in the firm belief they’ve hit pay dirt with the BFG, the agency has began to acquire new talent worldwide. If you think you have talent on the level of BFG, A-Dub and Lil’ J, The Bionic Rapper, Ms. Kesha Lee, or Christian Levi, please contact Universal Artists, International directly at either info@universalartists.net, or at universalartists@myspace.com.

BFG featuring Christian

If you are an investor in search of the chance to get in on the ground level of a company certain to rock even the most distant of the four corners of this earth, if you have a love for money, if you care about social conscience and humanitarian causes, or simply a fan of the genius of Shaka Productions and its acts, please write directly to France’s Guy Aeschelmann, entrepreneur, MBA, and counsel to Joe Stern-McGovern, at guy@universalartists.net.

Ms. Kesha Lee: Letting Her Hair Down

If you’d care to reach Shaka of Shaka Productions himself to pitch your talents and particular genius, feel free to write to shaka@universalartists.net. Only serious queries will be given attention. Please be prepared to submit photos, bio, and at least two songs as a demo, or the URL to your Myspace.Com profile. If your profile is set to private, make sure to add either www.myspace.com/universalartists, www.myspace.com/universalshaka, or www.myspace.com/joesternmcgovern.

Lo of the BFG: I'm Coming for You

If you are a videographer or film editor, producer, or director, please visit us at www.quicktimefilms.com, or contact Joe Stern-McGovern’s assistant directly at joesternmcgovern@myspace.com, or by adding Joe Stern-McGovern at www.myspace.com/joesternmcgovern with bids on future studio projects such as music videos and documentaries.

If you are a retailer, distributor, label, scout, or if you care to book the BFG for any show of merit, please write to Universal Artists, International’s info@universalartists.net attention Ashley M. Our acts are generally available 24/7 for the right gig, the right price, or the right cause.

BFG: In Concert Summer 2009

For information on how to donate to the favorite charities of the BFG, please write to their representative at payments@universalartists.net, or the act themselves on Myspace.Com at www.myspace.com/blackflockgang attention, “Hood Shuttlesworth”.

If you are interested in Universal Artists, International’s artists, wholesale products, or merchandising their retail items such as ball caps, T-Shirts, sweat shirts, posters, or special edition CDs, make sure to write to info@universalartists.net.

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Preacha Boi: Mouf Piece of da City

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A-Dub and Lil' J of the 731

Discord, anarchy, bedlam…I sing thy praises.
Give me the detuned, the sweat stained and warped. Give me the broken and off-kilter. Give me Chaos. In other words give me Rock and Roll like it’s god damn meant to be played.
Open a window on the night, stick your head out, and what do you hear? Chaos, children, the world over: Horns and sirens, jackhammers and garbage trucks, the soft mutterings of the insane and the rabid squeals of the young; cicadas in ecstasy and bullfrogs in heat, lifting their scaled eyelids from ditches filled with the boiling detritus of summer. Do you remember that sound, from the womb perhaps, or from the approaching grave? Some of us do. We long for it in our very cells like a remembrance of the morning our fathers brought us before the pale and ceaseless ocean for the first time; a great unknowable chasm that flowed and roared through the very chambers of our flesh.
But enough of memory. I speak of the present and the needs of the living. Surely this music that today calls itself Rock, in whatever fractured or mutated state, is not of the same gene pool which gave rise to the great warlord-freaks and poet-savages which once stalked our land. Surely these automated Stepford Crooners house not the flame of those who trod the awesome Buckets of Blood and infamous Night Stomps that ravaged the minds and spirits of this nation’s freedom-fighting musical alchemists. Oh, great snivelers, pale whiney rodents: Was it you I saw whimpering before the great Golden Calf wrapped in your Bugs Bunny blankey?  Surely, it was no other I spied shivering beneath your mother’s skirt when Joshua blew his great horn of death and triumph.
Let it be written: The stiff and the overly measured have no place in the dank underworld of rock. The calculated and soulless, the dull breath of complacency and tepid pulse of reason, each be damned to your individual ice-encased limbos. The world has had its fill of your soft-coma trilling.
Great devouring Shiva, is it any wonder the youth are no longer passionate about this music? Where are the killers; the manic, red-eyed dream catchers and animal skin aficionados? Where are the artists?
I dream a simple dream: A band that can wobble to the precipice, peek over the edge into the abyss with one leg dangling over, then turn on its platform heels laughing like a banshee and slowly ease its way back and…well, how the hell else do you tell what a band’s capable of, whether its member’s hearts, guts and balls are all mixed up in the sound and glory of the thing?
I’m not talking about sloppiness; I’m talking about momentum, friction, courage — musicians who have such trust in one another that they don’t panic when someone goes careening off-script or falls flat on their face; who understand it’s not about perfect pitch or choreographed dance moves or auto-tuned vocals and it sounds something like this: Oozing black loam, grease and razor wire and then all at once a wounded panther trapped in a cave at midnight as the fog rolls across the river and carries its screams into the valley amongst the little ones nestled safe in their mother’s bosoms. Listen. Listen.
It comes down to this: Who’s brave enough to risk it all, to not just flirt with danger but openly court disaster? I speak of the glory of (in no particular order) — Exile-era Stones, Drive–by Truckers, a psychotic slice of 60’s garage rock by the One Way Streets called “Jack the Ripper” (a cover of the Screaming Lord Sutch classic), Jerry Lee Lewis’ Sun Records recordings, “Wine, Wine, Wine” by James Luther Dickinson; The Replacements; Howling Wolf and the great Chess session band; Sly and the Family Stone; Neil Young and Crazy Horse circa “Tonight’s the Night;” Hound Dog Taylor; the immortal R.L. Burnside blowing the joint out with his “adopted son,” redneck guitarist Kenny Brown, backing him up, pushing and pulling the rhythm like taffy through a fun house of rib-thumping bass and jailhouse slide guitar that somehow manages to work itself into one big ass-shaking scream while its individual components lurch and dawdle off in directions not found on any modern-day compass.
Lest I forget the early Kinks sides; Otis Redding with Booker T. and the MG’s at the Monterey Pop Festival; Bob Dylan’s first electric shows with The Hawks; “Fulsome Prison Blues;” “Search and Destroy;” The Mercy Seat RocksOffWaitingfortheManTheWandererTuttiFruttiIFYOUWANT BLOODYOUGOTITWHODOYOULOVE?PILLSBURNINGHELLGOINGOUTWEST, LEESCRATCHPERRY NICKCAVEANDTHEBADSEEDS X THE GERMS GANGOFFOUR GENEVINCENTANDTHEBLUECAPSJAILHOUSEROCKUPYOURARSE…Damn, it can be done. Wild and wonderful shards of barely- coherent racket can be brought back kicking and screaming from the Great Void. Racket…that’s a fine word:  It’s what your momma told you to stop doing when you were a youngen and broke into the kitchen cabinets to beat hell out of a steel frying pan with a butter knife or maybe a grease-smeared wrench. You craved a little chaos, a little tempest to undo all that control and shiny, shiny, shiny. You wanted to fling a little shit on the walls and crawl through the neighbor’s drainage pipes, didn’t ya?  Don’t lie to me, dammit.
But here’s the thing some of these so-called avante garde noise birds don’t seem to fathom: There’s more to the art of Chaos than mere noise. You have to hold hands with her and caress her neck, right there, in the sweet spot so she’ll close her blue-velvet eyes and smile and her fangs will start to show, just a little.
As anyone acquainted with the latest physics theorems and equations understands, Chaos, though seemingly random, always has a hidden design, a barely discernible pattern weaving its way amongst the shattered glass, flames and tsunamis. Ask any scientist worth his salt and he’ll tell you: There’s all kind of beauty hidden down there in the dark and out there amongst the colliding, shimmering mass of stars and impossible vortexes of creation. That’s why it takes skilled musicians of exquisitely sensitive dispositions to handle this music, to ride its razor-edged crests and navigate the black forests of its hidden grottos. It’s a job for the criminally inclined and the terminally obsessed – you have to be in love and insane. You gotta swing that bitch. You have to listen.
Speaking of which, lend your ears to some of rocks most inspired moments and what you’ll hear is musicians barely in control of the great, all-engulfing YAWP they’ve somehow managed to conjure into being: Is that really our shy, retiring hippie hero, Neil Young, leading his drug-addled compadres in Crazy Horse through the crazed, shambling lurch of “Come on Baby, Let’s Go Downtown,” from the aforementioned “Tonight’s the Night?” Is that horrid little squirt Johnny Rotten actually espousing far-right, anti-abortion sentiments in the vengeful, swarming junk-rock of “Bodies?” How the hell is Keith Richards even remaining vertical long enough to grind and grate his way through the tortured euphoria of “Happy,” located at the pivotal mid-point of “Exile on Main St.” Knock back a few shots, run naked through the dancing pines — I promise it will all make sense. Contradiction is central to this grandiosely simple, majestically complex symphony. It can’t help itself:  It bleeds and pleads; promises and rebukes. It spits in your eye and kisses your ass and you love it, at least some of us do.
Give me the inspired mistake, the idiot savant, the dark-blue gallop of hooves on human bone. There: Watch as the hyena lifts its throat and serenades the world’s decay; as children pounce on one another and roll entangled in the soft fields of autumn. Listen: The sound of that midnight train must have scared the living shit out of the natives when it first drifted across their mud huts and dismal cabins; but they learned to love the thing — that billowing sorrow redolent of freedom and power that sank into their very being and found a second life amongst the blood and viscera and dreams. They made love to that sound; raised children in its midst and their whelps grew with a hunger for slow death and lunging sex; struck out amongst the cities and filth and made their own music of rust and rat droppings. So what?
The fact is, fellow travelers, in order to unlock the treasure you’ve got to dig in the dirt; daub mud under your eyes and run with the cannibals. You’ve got to stare into the eyes of the great gray ape.
He’ll tell you: The god’s favor the mad.  And Chaos is their favorite son.