Wikileaks is a website that publishes anonymous submissions and leaks of sensitive governmental, corporate, organizational or religious documents, while attempting to preserve the anonymity and untraceability of its contributors. Within one year of its December 2006 launch, its database had grown to more than 1.2 million documents,^[1] leading to many front-page newspaper articles and political reforms.

www.wikileaks.org

Is called Wikileaks!

And is now another tool for the exchange of news and paperwork of worldwide gov’s.

Cons: It could be a total setup of the own US gov.

Jesus ok, know I haven’t updated for a second but man this has been kind of a crazy 2 weeks filled with mucho ROCK. First of all, last last Friday we threw a really fun show for BLUES CONTROL at Studio 1510 in West Oakland. Super great lineup that included WORK (Sarah from 16bitchpileup and Erin from Child Pornography), JAWS (one man band, white pants and a knife) SIC ALPS (the same band you know and love now with noel from comets on fire playing drums) and of course Blues Control from NYC. (Terry Riley was playing up the street, but Blues Control is basically the modern equivalent, dig?) The only bad part was that I forgot my damn camera so I have no video or pictures of it. BUT the good news is that since the show was in a studio we got a really nice recording of all the bands, which I will post now for your benefit. You can thank me later. Or thank LEIF from Studio 1510 (aka “East Nile”). Send him a postcard.

SIC ALPS

BLUES CONTROL

JAWS

WORK

Right after that Ezra was here and we practiced and wrote a new piece and then went down to LA to play it.  We played at the ECHO with 60 WATT KID, BEST COAST and TEARIST, all totally sweet bands that represent a cool cross-section of what is going on in LA, (and 3 out of us 4 were female-fronted, so howabout that?)  Which is part of the reason it was especially flattering to get this really nice write up in the LA WEEKLY…  The picture choice is a little funny, as it shows the old European tour lineup from 2 years ago, but I guess the one with 4 people really does look the most like a real “band” and nothing says “lead singer” like a miniskirt!  But all kidding aside, it was a very nice surprise and a great review. 

Another great thing was playing this new piece that I really like.  It’s huge and epic with swirling strident viola exploding into industrial guitar feedback.  It’s also about 15-20 minutes long, which I feel like is a really good length for a song.  We got a chance to track it in a little back shed in Claremont, and the question now of course is how to put it out.  Do we try to record more and make it part of a “full-length” album?  Does it make any sense to release “full-length” albums anymore?  Is one 20 minute piece the same as an EP?  What if we put track breaks in it?  Does a work that long still cost 99¢ on iTunes?  Please weigh in with comments if you’ve got any advice.  In some ways it seems so baroque!  having to wait for a physical object.  But on the other hand, something that never makes it out of ones and zeroes is kind of like the puppet that never becomes the real boy…  

me and lil sis, funny face

Right after I got home from that lil sis showed up to practice for our new grunge band WHEEL.  I had been wanting to make music with her again since she played with me in Some Dark Holler when we opened up for Throbbing Gristle.  She is an all-around excellent player, but in many ways the part I like best is harmonizing vocals with her.  It’s a total old-timey/Carter Family style pleasure, the sister vocals relating and overlapping, weaving around each other.  Our first show was a little shaky but overall really rewarding.  Here’s a short video of the show we played at 21 GRAND in Oakland:

That night’s show was especially fun as I got to reconnect with some old and new friends.  

TALK NORMAL at 21 GRAND

We played with TALK NORMAL again, who have a new record out on Rare Book Room Records.  Here is a video of them from when we played together in Brooklyn.  WET HAIR also played that night, which is Shawn Reed from Racoooon’s new band.  Someone described it as the Doors playing Can, which I liked, cuz there is lots of nice tranced out Manzerik-sounding keys, and also singing that is kind of a Morrison/Suzuki hybrid.  But that’s a stretch so don’t quote me!

colin's black eye

jeff and darren cuddle up on the couch

WET HAIR at 21 GRAND

Another good thing is that I finally got to give Shawn a master of some solo material that will be coming out as a tape on his label NIGHT PEOPLE.  It’s all little song-y things that were improvised straight to tape late at night mostly in my bedroom, using the voice function on the tape player to create a weird whirling atmosphere, really using the tape as another instrument.  It’s going to be called Little Sketches On Tape, and I’ll post more info as the release date nears…

Sorry this post was so scene-y but these coupla weeks were crazy!  Next post will include roasted kale recipes and outfit ideas that utilize blaze orange.

Vier Jahre sollte es dauern bis Rollen Aller 1 fertig eingetütet war. In diesem Zeitraum (1996-2000) war Rap-Musik grosses Thema in Hamburg. Zwei Tapes sorgten für reichlich Gesprächsstoff,  zum einen das von Eins Zwo zum anderen das erste von Dynamite Deluxe. Ich kenne bis heute  die Cover nicht, da ich sie schon als mit Edding beschriftete Kopie in die Finger bekam, bevor ich sie mit meinem Doppel-Tapedeck für mich und meine Freunde selbst vervielfältigte. Die Beginner veröffentlichten mit Bambule ein Gold-Album, 5 Sterne Deluxe gründeten sich und veröffentlichten Silium, das Label Eimsbush wurde geboren und mit ihm erschienen u.a. Digger Dance, Illo77 und Paolo 77 auf der Bildfläche. Die zuvor genannten und noch viele mehr bildeten die Mongo Clikke und sie sind zum Teil in diesem kurzen Interlude zu sehen. Im nächsten Part dann wieder Skateboarding mit Rouven Shaw und Stefan Gerkens, doch jetzt heisst es erstmal:

“Hamburg City ist da! Ehrlich wahr man? Kein Zweifel!”

Zum vorherigen Part geht es hier

I was younger, with a boy, we were lost and in a bad situation. He was pleading for the freedom of his three year old brother. He was much too young to be given into the sex trade. The younger brother escaped, but we couldn’t find him. 

I followed the train tracks, found a little boy in a field by himself. I walked him across the highway to the only house in sight. He was home. They invited me in to stay. The young boy’s father told me he was going kayaking up the mountain and he asked me to come. I said I would love to, but that I couldn’t. I was older again and married to a guy who was emotionally damaged. We pushed and pushed each other until there was nothing left to push. 

A. was there in the kitchen making herself something to eat. The room was full of tension and I hated it her so much. I tried to fix myself something to eat after she left, but I burnt my toast in the microwave. 

My Dad had a tape deck and he couldn’t figure out how to work it. We were siting on a swing that was attached by metal chains. One of the coils started to come undone and I jumped back onto the dock. I held the swing over the dock so my father could get off of the crumbling structure. He was telling me what to do when I had already done it. 

A fight. Some sort of emotional catharsis. The guy I was married to and I held each other and we loved each other. We fell backwards off the dock into the lake, and we sank still holding each other. He was reciting the reasons why everything was going to be OK. Although, we were sinking towards to depth of the lake we weren’t suffocating to death. I was scared but comforted at the same time. I knew everything would be Ok as long as he kept on talking an holding me. 

Today I have mostly been listening to dub reggae.

It’s mainly due to AmberG who has taken to wandering around the house saying “dubbadubbadubba” to herself.

En este video Chris Pirllo te lo demuestra como.

Eighteen tapes labeled in two people’s handwriting from one event.

(I’ll let you figure out whose handwriting is whose.)

There are 30 nude photos and eight sex tapes of former Miss California Carrie Prejean. It’s the most shocking turn yet in a scandal that has continued to follow the woman whose anti-gay marriage stance led to a national controversy and pitted her against pageant organizers. Stripped of her crown, Prejean sued the Miss California USA pageant but reportedly settled after the sex tape surfaced. She called the sex tape the biggest mistake of her life.

Now a RadarOnline.com investigation has uncovered that there are SEVEN more “biggest mistakes” of her life – all of them solo performances, just like the one sex tape that the religious beauty queen has admitted to. And there are 30 photos of Carrie, most topless, some showing everything, and most taken by Carrie using her reflection in a mirror.

On one tape Carrie is wearing just a flowing white blouse as she touches her own body in an alluring manner. Carrie can be heard moaning on a few of the tapes.

The world’s largest porn company has obtained a copy of the Carrie Prejean solo sex tape and they’re desperately trying to release it. Vivid Entertainment tells us they obtained the tape legally, but they want Carrie to sign off on it personally before it goes wide. Good luck with that…

Tthe solo sex tape was played in front of several people during settlement negotiations between Prejean and the Miss USA Pageant just a few weeks ago. Once Prejean saw the tape, she instantly dropped her $1 million demand.

Vivid Prez Steven Hirsch tells TMZ, “The third party that brought the tape to Vivid affirmed that she was over 18 years of age at the time it was made.”

Have had a week off during which i experienced a remarkable lack of exercise, other than a bike ride on Monday where i got a bit lost, cycled with a nice old man and ended up in Wetherby.

The chap that I ended up cycling with was a retired anesthetist and a ridiculously keen cyclist (he had something like 8 bikes…not with him at the time), he said he cycled most days and paced himself according to the heart monitor he was hooked up to – he wasn’t supposed to exceed a certain pulserate – but throughout the ride he completely annihilated me, he was super fit (or i wasn’t…probably the latter).
it wasn’t too uppity-downity but i think the toils with the old man took it out of my legs and the last 5 miles round the ringroad were no fun at all

Currently listening to Kyte’s cover of Peter Gabriel’s ‘Solsbury Hill’ http://hypem.com/track/798511/Kyte+-+Solsbury+Hill+Peter+Gabriel+Cover+ which is quite lovely. we tried to get them to do a session for tapes but they proved impossible to get hold of.

After a week of rest, we went back to organize our first colony of bees for our relocation exercise. The process is tedious but it is better to be safe than sorry. The colony will be placed in a bee proof cage for double protection. The bee hive itself will also be sealed except a small portion which we will only cover it with wire mesh.

All this were being done the night before because we have to wait for the foragers to come back. If not, when morning comes, some of the foragers will be left behind. We try to relocate the whole colony if possible.

It will be a slow two and a half hours drive from Kampala to Masaka. Setting off at 5am, hopefully with no traffic jams, reaching Timothy Centre by 9am. We have to abide to the schedule in order that we can quickly release the bees when we reach our destination.

Francis preparing to seal the top part of the hive.

Any gap that is more than 49mm must be sealed. If not the bees will escape.

We leave the last few bars free from tapes so that the bees can breathe through it. A fine wire mesh is place instead.

Wire mesh neatly covering the last few bars.

Francis is pleased that the whole process was done without aggravating the bees.

The colony is going to spend a night in my car.

Preparing to place the beehive inside the bee-proof cage.

Helmut came to assist while I was taking all these photos.

Colony safely inside my car.

The next morning at 5am, the journey starts. Luckily there wasn’t much traffic. We need to get out of town as quickly as possible just in case if there were any mishap or the bees somehow escape. We will then be endangering the public. Keeping our fingers crossed all the way.

Reached Timothy Centre around 9am. A black cloth is used to cover the cage to reduce the light from entering the hive. The bees will then be less active, less stressed.

Karl and his staffs were already waiting for our arrival.

The bees are going to their new home.

Timothy Centre bees haven.

The colony has reached its destination.

The bees are settling in for now.

Due to the aggressive nature of Api Meliferra Scutellata, relocation of these species, great care must be taken. One cannot slack in any of the procedure. Most important aspect when handling these bees is to minimize as much direct contact with them. The amount of smoke being introduced must be just right. Many Ugandan bee farmers are still having this idea of smoking too much, thus aggravating and suffocating the bees.

Once the bees are settled in, we release them. As for the tapes, we shall remove them as we perform our regular hive management. We do not remove all the tapes immediately, if not we will experience the whole colony pouring out, attacking anything within 100m.

Three cameras and two operators working feverishly to black and code twenty-four tapes before the shoot.

Lu’s mixtape series expands…Fahrenheit 1/15 number 6 drops November 25th, 2009. The official title will come soon enough…
Be on the lookout! Check out those first 5 if you haven’t heard them yet.

Peace, and remember to smile, love.

Frost/Nixon es una película dirigida por Ron Howard que nos presenta la importancia de las entrevistas en los descubrimientos de la verdad. De esta forma, el film nos cuenta la historia de la entrevista de David Frost y Richard Nixon, una que marcó historia al encontrarse en la vorágine originada a partir del caso Watergate. He aquí un análisis desde una perspectiva de la comunicación.

Cuando hablamos de una entrevista, lo más importante que debemos nosotros saber es que buscamos saber la verdad de las personas. Necesitamos nosotros saber eso para así poder tener una entrevista que realmente sea significativa, es decir, buscamos conocer cómo es que se llevan a cabo las significaciones en la mente del individuo a entrevistar. Por ello mismo, resulta de vital importancia saber de qué manera se pueden formular las preguntas y realmente motivar al entrevistado a expresar esta significación verdadera y no exclusivamente lo que se debe decir.

En el caso particular de Frost/Nixon nos encontramos con dos adversarios que conocían plenamente a sus rivales, conocían sus hábitos, sus gustos, sus historias, siendo esto mismo la perspectiva que les mantenía jugar el uno con el otro durante la entrevista. Sin una preparación adecuada, lo más probable es que uno de los dos termine por ser devorado. Por lo mismo, cuando analizamos la cinta, nos damos cuenta de dos errores principales por parte de los contendientes. Por un lado, Nixon se confía desde un principio y demerita la labor de un presentador de televisión, al grado de que llega a menospreciar sus habilidades y decide no prepararse mentalmente para todas las posibilidades. Por el otro, tenemos a David Frost, un presentador de televisión, que busca recuperar su credibilidad como posible reportero y no toma realmente en serio el hecho de estar entrevistando a una de las figuras más importantes del siglo XX.

Probablemente, Richard Nixon sea uno de los presidentes estadounidenses más polémicos de todo la historia, al grado de que se han realizado más de 50 diferentes interpretaciones del mismo hombre en diferentes medios de comunicación. Así, nos encontramos con que su presencia es una que definitivamente vino a moldear la perspectiva a través de la cual se mira a las figuras presidenciales. Esto mismo se refleja en la cinta, al grado de que diversos personajes se dan cuenta de la magnitud de lo que significaría una confesión pública de culpa, logrando así desmitificar a la figura presidencial y realmente otorgarle un carácter más humano y más terrenal.

En el terreno de la comunicación es extremadamente importante que tengamos en cuenta que cuando somos periodistas podemos realmente modficiar la precepción del público hacia una determinada persona, ya sea para bien o para mal, por lo que es extremadamente crucial que busquemos conocer lo más posible acerca de la situación en la cual nos encontramos, cubriendo absolutamente todos los ángulos, porque si no lo hacemos corremos el riesgo de cambiar el mundo, literalmente. ¿Qué hubiera pasado si David Frost no hubiera hecho la pregunta correcta a Nixon que lograra realmente ver qué fue lo que sucedió en el caso Watergate? Si Frost no hubiera buscado cubrir todos los puntos de investigación, entonces probablemente podríamos decir que absolutamente todo en el mundo sería diferente ahora.

O inclusive, regresando más al pasado, ¿qué habría pasado si los periodistas no hubieran realmente hecho la investigación que dejó ver la verdad del caso Watergate? Sin duda, no lo podemos saber con certeza, pero efectivamente lo más probable es que Nixon hubiera seguido en el poder afectando la historia mundial como la conocemos.

Por lo mismo, resulta de vital importancia que Frost reconozca que Nixon es una figura imponente, una figura que por el mismo emblema presidencial, marca y tiene una presencia que las figuras que conocemos día con día no poseen, pero que en medida de esta diferenciación, también es importante que se produzca una profundización en la entrevista y que se busque ir más allá de las banalidades. Esto se puede ver reflejado en diversos momentos en la película donde el personaje de Nixon realmente lgora evadir la gran mayoría de las preguntas recurriendo a cuestiones banales, que probablemente para un observador poco apto, pasarían inadvertidas. Sin embargo, cuando hablamos con periodistas, es necesario que tengamos en consideración que el mensaje no viene únicamente de lo que se dice, sino de lo que no se dice. ¿Y qué mejor manera de darnos cuenta de esto mismo si nuestro adversario/contraparte en una entrevista comienza a exhibir señales de preocupación? Nixon literalmente sudaba cuando se daba cuenta de que una pregunta realmente le estaba golpeando.

No obstante, no todo es miel sobre hojuelas para esta película y es que si bien es cierto que ha recibido buenas críticas por parte de críticos de cine, también es cierto que los historiadores se han quejado de muchas incongruencias históricas con la representación presentada en el celuloide. De esta forma, un fragmento de la cinta que nos muestra a Nixon vulnerable y quejándose de que siempre ha sido hecho menos por sus compañeros, resulta una cuestión bastante debatible por los eruditos, quienes desde un principio establecen que esa conversación nunca pudo haberse llevado a cabo. Aunque eso sí, hay que tener en cuenta que muchas de estas licencias dramáticas están basadas en progresión de los personajes y de relaciones que pudieron haberse dado de una manera bastante creíble. Por lo tanto esta confesión de Nixon no se ve ni siente extraña en términos humanos, puesto que si uno analiza algunas cuestiones de la vida de Nixon, se dará cuenta de que hay muchos momentos donde sus relaciones se pueden ver reflejados. Un claro ejemplo de esto es el concepto de que Nixon se sentía bastante inferior al compararse físicamente con Kennedy, y por lo mismo dejó que muchas de sus decisiones fueran tomadas por sus asesores de campaña.

Otro punto a considerar es que la entrevista es mostrada de forma más dramática que lo que en realidad fue. Esto lo podemos ver comparando un fragmento de la entrevista real con la entrevista presentada en la ficción. Aunque eso sí, mucha de la tensión se sigue sintiendo y se encuentra presente en la entrevista real.

En definitiva, si deseamos hablar de la importancia de las entrevistas es totalmente necesario que nos enfoquemos en una de las entrevistas más importantes de nuestros tiempos: Frost/Nixon

Tapes 5 is finally ready, the podcast is available here http://www.jellycast.com/directory/index.php?page=jellycast&id=1985 and the zine will be online this evening.

the podcast features tracks from; sam airey, michael rossiter, sleepingdog, tiny vipers and her name is calla

thanks for bearing with us

Going lo-fi

After all the hype, rants, raves and “Pitchforkery,” I finally took the plunge and caught a Wavves one night at Bowery Ballroom. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I wouldn’t say I was a Wavves fan, but I’d heard his latest album and was impressed. So his appearance with Woods and Real Estate was definitely enough to persuade me into a ticket purchase. It was, suffice it to say, a perfect sampling of the lo-fi craze that’s got the blogs in a frenzy and musicians everywhere turning to GarageBand instead of a recording studio, so I dove in.

However, what struck me at the show wasn’t the tape hiss, or hollowed-out vocals or even the rough-shod guitar lines. It was the songcraft. Real Estate and Woods both opened the show with phenomenally impressive sets. The songs were beautiful, removed from the hazy basements that their records call to mind, and thrust into a setting that let them breathe, opening up the full tonality of the guitars and allowing the sheer power of volume to fatten the sound. Woods were especially awesome, with flamethrower solos and equally tender bits (“The Number” may be my favorite song of the year) that made them sound like the pop band they should be seen as.

This got me thinking. With songwriting this sincere, music this great, why the low fidelity? Why bury your work in sloppy sounding recordings? Anyway I looked at it and I couldn’t avoid the economic reasons. Music like this just isn’t seen as financially viable anymore. True pop had its heyday pre-’80s, when over-production excesses and marketing blitz became the norm for production. Since then, it’s been the artists with the “best” studios and “best” producers that control the pop market (read: most money). So, for an artist starting out today, with few resources or recording knowledge and a love for ’60s beach pop or for traditional folk, that GarageBand program or a four-track cassette recorder starts looking better all the time.

However, what’s most striking  about this aesthetic shift is the sheer scale of democracy such a movement precipitates. It is simple economics: lower barriers to entry lead to more competitors in the market. As people discover more music, the bands gain a following, possibly even a record deal. So from here, we’ve taken the power out of the hands of the music-lover (or blog!) to discern what’s worth our time. Intrigued? I hope so, because maybe it means that the next Michael Jackson (God willing) could emerge out of nowhere thanks to an album he cut in his bedroom on a laptop. We’ve already seen that sort of meteoric rise from Soulja Boy, so we can only go up from here, right?

Accordingly, I’m not saying all lo-fi as a rule of thumb is great. I was a bit unenthused by Wavves; the music was high-energy but lacking in any actual songcraft beyond some interesting noise and heavy bar-chords. Suffice it to say it wasn’t my favorite, but music like that has its place, and the market has spoken.

Now, it’s entirely possible, however, that I’m loading a simple choice with a colossal amount of hypotheticals. For all I know, it could be some reflection of generational indifference to quality mirrored in the current fashion sense of the hipsters I keep seeing flood the streets of Williamsburg daily, or even something REALLY serious. Either way, for the time being, it’s reassuring to know that a great songwriter can eat, maybe even live, on the strength of a stellar four-song demo cassette. After all, as Americans, isn’t such a rags-to-riches story what we all believe in?

– Dan Creahan

J-Zone schools a generation…. Sadly, few care about deaded formats, apart from the die-hard that grew up with shit. Now where did I put that pencil…

Head to Dante Ross blog for J-Zones take on why cassette culture will always be cool, regardless of fashion victims, trendies and the emptyheads at the gym