Michael Davis ~ Bassist for the classic late 1960's proto-punk band The MC, later joined with Ex Stooge Ron Asheton in The New Order (not the other one). There is literally not a punk, garage or grunge band alive or dead that has not been influenced by the MC5. Nuff said ~ 68
THE MC5 ~ "KICK OUT THE JAMS";
THE MC5 ~ "MOTOR CITY'S BURNING";
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Levon Helm; Drummer with The Band and The Hawks from the 1950's on. Starting off as a backing band for Ronnie Hawkins on Roulette Records before Hawkins moved to Toronto. Helm later moved to Canada as well and rejoined Hawkins new all-Canadian group renamed The Band as they went on to play with Bob Dylan on his classic folk-rock records, still later the Band would go on to a solo career in the late 1960's and 70's with several classic albums. After the Band broke up Helm would continue with a solo career as well as acting, including a role as the father in "Coal Miner's Daughter". He had been battling cancer for years and died at age 72.
THE BAND ~ "I SHALL BE RELEASED";
Buggs Henderson, guitarist with the Nuggets era Texas garage band Mouse and Traps, best know for their blatant Dylan rip off "A public execution" as well as the excellent "Maid of Sugar Maid of spice" died of cancer last week at 68. He stared out with an R&B group called the Sensors and in later years recorded as a solo blues guy.
MOUSE ANT THE TRAPS ~ "MAID OF SUGAR MAID OF SPICE;
Freddie Milano ~ Singer with Dion and The Belmonts, one of the greatest white Doo Wop groups with hits lke "Runaround Sue", "Lovers who wander", "A teenager in love" ~ 72
DION & THE BELMONTS ~ "RUNAROUND SUE";
JERRY "BOOGIE" MCCLAIN ~ "TWIST 62";
Donald Duck Dunn; Bassist with Booker T & The MG's, the classic house band for virtually all the classic Soul and R&B hits put out by Stax Records in the 1960's. Hits by the likes of Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Rufus Thomas, Carla Thomas, William Bell, Eddie Floyd, Albert King, as well as several instrumental hits by the MG's themselves. Later worked with Wilson Pickett, Muddy Waters, Freddie King, Neil Young, Joe Walsh and Jerry Lee Lewis. Still later he played on Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks "Stop dragging my heart around". Appeared in the "Blues Brothers" movie as himself backing up the Brothers as well as Cab Calloway.
Booker T & The MG's ~ "Green Onions";
Herb Reed ~ Singer with 1950's Doo Wop group The Platters ~ 83
The Platters ~ "The Great Pretender" & "Only You";
Lloyd Brevett ~ Jamaican double bassist (The Skatalites) ~ 80
Chris Ethridge ~ Bassist with Gram Parson's International Submarine Band and The Flying Burrito Brothers. Also played with The Byrds and Emmylou Harris ~
The Flying Burrito Brothers ~ "Older Guys";
Robin Gibb ~ Singer with the Bee Gees, best remembered for their disco hits but originally known for a series of lush 1960's pop hits such as "To love somebody", "I started a joke" ~ 62
The Bee Gees ~ "I started a joke";
Vince Lovegrove ~ Co-lead singer (with Bon Scott) in 1960's Australian group The Valentines. The group broke up after a drugs bust and Lovegrove went on to be a producer and manager while Scott would later join AC/DC ~ 65
THE VALENTINES ~ "BUILD ME UP BUTTERCUP";
Richie Teeter ~ Drummer with late 1970's New York punk band The Dictators, later with 1980's hair band shockers Twisted Sister ~ 61
THE DICTATORS ~ "SEARCH AND DESTROY";
TWISTED SISTER ~ "WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT";
Ronnie Montrose with 1970's hard rock band Montrose along with singer Sammy Hagar before Sammy went solo became a total twat. Ronnie later went solo ~ 66
MONTROSE ~ "BAD MOTOR SCOOTER";
Mike Hossack, one of many drummers of the 1970's stadium rockers Doobie Brothers most of whom were not brothers and none of whom were named "Doobie" ~ 65
THE DOOBIE BROTHERS ~ "CHINA GROVE";
Tuesday, 13 March 2012
Sunday, 26 February 2012
Prof Kitzel's Time Machine Profile; Beyond Possession
BEYOND POSSESSION ~ "SKATER'S LIFE" (video by moi);
Beyond Possession was an early thrash/hardcore/skater crossover band from Calgary, Canada from 1984-89. They evolved out of an earlier bands named Riot and White Noise. They recorded a 7in ep ("Tell Tale Heart") in 1984 which was a fusion of skater thrash and horror punk, and, after switching guitarists, a full album ("Is Beyond Possession") in 1986 for Metal Blade Records that was more thrashy. They toured extensively especially on the west coast and praries touring with The Accused, Corrosion of Conformity, The Circle Jerks, DRI, Jr. Gone Wild, The Descendents, The Dayglo Abortions, GBH, Cheetah Chrome, The Cockney Rejects, Die Kruezen, Dr Know, Entropy, The Mentors, The Melvins, Six Feet Under, The Stretchmarks, Suicidal Tendencies, Soul Asylum, SNFU, Toxic Reasons, Verbal Abuse and Color Me Psycho (later known as Forbidden Dimension) and counted among their fans Metallica, Megadeth and the young Kurt Cobain. After going through various lineup changes (especially on guitar) they recorded demos for a second lp in 1989 that pointed to a more moody metal direction but broke up without finishing it. All their recordings were released on cd ("Repossessed") on the Melodiya label in 1996. They can also be found on youtube and lastfm.com and there is a Facebook group.
Line up;
Ron Hadley ~ vocals
Jaime Kenney ~ bass
Phil Pobran ~ drums
Ken Wall ~ guitar (1984/85)
James Yauk ~ guitar (1985/89)
Mike Davies ~ guitar (1989)
Will Pontes ~ guitar (1989)
Chris Banting ~ drums (1989)
John Heibert ~ guitar (1983)
Brent Beatty ~ drums (1983)
BEYOND POSSESSION ~ "THE TELL TALE HEART" (video by yours truly);
SHORT DOC ABOUT BAND POSTERS, THERE'S A BEYOND POSSESSION/DAYGLO ABORTIONS POSTER AT 1:24
Friday, 6 January 2012
On Christopher Hitchens & HL Menken
Christopher Hitchens died of cancer this December after a long and public battle. There have been the expected praiseful obituaries some of which I happily endorse, his reaction to cancer was lacking in the sort of maudlin self pity that passes for empathy these days.
And yet I have a caveat. First of all I have read some (but by no means all) of his essays and while I found some interesting and well written I have never been impressed with his biggest claim to fame, at least in the Excited States of America, his radical atheism. Let's be honest, religion is a laughably easy target. From crazed homophobic Christians to radical Zionists to violently hate filled Islamists to celebrity chasing Scientologists, God knows there are no shortage of targets. The smug self congratulatory pose atheists always adopt is too annoying to be really funny. Seriously; you aren't risking anything here being as how we aren't living during the Inquisition.
Besides, while I am by no means religious I can not deny that for some people religion has been a good thing. Martin Luther King was a pretty religious guy. A preacher in fact. And so were J.S. Woodsworth, Tommy Douglas, Norman Thomas, Desmond Tutu and the Berigan Bros. If religion gave them the strength to do great things that improved thousands of life who am I to belittle that. And yes that even goes for one of Hitchens' bete noires, Mother Theresa. Yes I know the Catholic Church hierarchy has been deeply implicated in pedophilia, homophobia, antisemitism, and it's opposition to birth control is inexcusable. But there is no denying that her mission saved thousands of lives. Are their lives less important than her nineteenth century beliefs? A true humanist shouldn't have to even ask that question.
Which brings up something I noticed whenever Hitchens was on some sort of panel show like Bill Maher's. Whenever anyone seriously questioned, or worse made fun of him, Hitchens seemed truly offended, even outraged that anyone could possibly disagree and not be held in contempt. I always found him smug and overly self satisfied with absolutely no sense of humour at all. Many obits mentioned his wit and humour, but I think they are mistaking a talent for invective, which he certainly had (he famously, and repeatedly called Mother Theresa a "Poisonous Dwarf" which was also a name Josef Goebbles was often called, something Hitchens probably knew) with real wit, let alone humour.
Invective might be witty, especially if it turns out to actually be funny, but sometimes it's just an insult. That's a judgment call and it depends on the target. And as an Irish saying goes; "Wit is the ability to laugh at others, humour is the ability to laugh at ones self". This is a quality Hitchens clearly lacked. He simply took himself far too seriously and held himself in too high regard. A humanist should have some humility and humour. While not exactly funny himself, Martin Luther King had this quality, as did Mandella, Desmond Tutu and Tommy Douglas, Hitchens however did not.
In the various obits about Hitchens comparisons were made with past writers like Mark Twain, Jonathan Swift, George Bernard Shaw, HG Wells and (his personal hero) George Orwell. But I always thought that his obvious successor was the early twentieth century American writer H.L. Menken. Both did not write non-fiction but instead wrote opinion pieces, reviews and essays. Both despised religion, superstition, cynical politicians, quackery, censorship, prohibition, professional killjoys and the dumbing down of popular culture. No argument there. Both gloried in literature, science and "serious culture". Both reveled in their large vocabulary and had a talent for incendiary invective. Both were best known for their contemptuous attacks on the main religious figures of the age. Both were lionized by liberals for doing so. Both then lost some of that praise when they then attacked liberal figures with only slightly less venom.
Menken savaged conservatives, but then he later turned his scorn on FDR and socialists for appealing to the great unwashed. Hitchens disdained Republicans but he despised Bill Clinton and JFK for their sex scandals (for a famed libertine Hitchens was something of a prig) and would famously support the Iraq war and would be full of praise for Tony Blair.
Both Hitchens and Menken were in fact true elitists. Elitism has become a hopelessly diluted term by now. These days the term "elitist" is used to define anyone who is not a right wing blowhard, especially when it's being used by right wing blowhards. However there used to be a real definition for the term. A true elitist believes that there is a class of people who are inherently better suited to rule over the masses, either due to race and breeding or because of their superior education and culture. True elitists are actually rather rare but Menken and Hitchens belonged to this last group. They were suspicious of the great unwashed masses who were too stupid and credulous to be trusted.
Those liberals who idealize Menken should read one his essays, "The calamity of Appomattox" in which he states his belief that the loss of the slave owning Confederacy in the American Civil War was a tragedy. Not because Menken in any way supported slavery or segregation of course, but because it dethroned the Planter Aristocracy of Jefferson Davis and Robert E Lee, cultured southern gentlemen, and replaced them with southern populist demagogues and Klansmen. He argued that they would never have been able to take power in the CSA, especially since most poor southern whites couldn't vote as the CSA had property qualifications that prevented them from doing so. He did have half a point there but I doubt condemning millions of blacks to lives of slavery and oppression and millions of poor whites to poverty and effective disenfranchisement is a fair price to pay to keep an "enlightened elite" in power.
Likewise Hitchens was perfectly prepared to toss aside a lifetime of belief in civil liberties and hatred of demagoguery, censorship, and hyper patriotism in order to support a war against the hated Islamicists. The end justified the means.
Another writer who comes to mind is Zora Neale Hurston. Again she is rightly noted for her high ideals, great writing and commitment to individualism. However those liberals who idealize her might pause to take a lok at some of her later writing in which she opposed desegregation in favour of protecting an imagined black elite. Menken, Hurston and Hitchens had a number of interesting things to say, but before granting them the sort of hero worship that the media encourages one should take a step back. You would think we would have learned a few things from the deification of Thomas Jefferson in an earlier age.
Someone once said about H.G. Wells that he "Loved mankind but hated people". I never got the feeling that Hitchens (or Menken or Hurston) much cared for mankind as a whole. At least not as much as they cared about their own ideas. In a writer this can be harmless, even admirable, in a political polemicist it is not.
H.L. Menken speaks (part of the only known surviving interview);
A podcast about Menken from "The Ludwig von Mises Institute presents The Libertarian Tradition, a weekly podcast with Jeff Riggenbach"
And yet I have a caveat. First of all I have read some (but by no means all) of his essays and while I found some interesting and well written I have never been impressed with his biggest claim to fame, at least in the Excited States of America, his radical atheism. Let's be honest, religion is a laughably easy target. From crazed homophobic Christians to radical Zionists to violently hate filled Islamists to celebrity chasing Scientologists, God knows there are no shortage of targets. The smug self congratulatory pose atheists always adopt is too annoying to be really funny. Seriously; you aren't risking anything here being as how we aren't living during the Inquisition.
Besides, while I am by no means religious I can not deny that for some people religion has been a good thing. Martin Luther King was a pretty religious guy. A preacher in fact. And so were J.S. Woodsworth, Tommy Douglas, Norman Thomas, Desmond Tutu and the Berigan Bros. If religion gave them the strength to do great things that improved thousands of life who am I to belittle that. And yes that even goes for one of Hitchens' bete noires, Mother Theresa. Yes I know the Catholic Church hierarchy has been deeply implicated in pedophilia, homophobia, antisemitism, and it's opposition to birth control is inexcusable. But there is no denying that her mission saved thousands of lives. Are their lives less important than her nineteenth century beliefs? A true humanist shouldn't have to even ask that question.
Which brings up something I noticed whenever Hitchens was on some sort of panel show like Bill Maher's. Whenever anyone seriously questioned, or worse made fun of him, Hitchens seemed truly offended, even outraged that anyone could possibly disagree and not be held in contempt. I always found him smug and overly self satisfied with absolutely no sense of humour at all. Many obits mentioned his wit and humour, but I think they are mistaking a talent for invective, which he certainly had (he famously, and repeatedly called Mother Theresa a "Poisonous Dwarf" which was also a name Josef Goebbles was often called, something Hitchens probably knew) with real wit, let alone humour.
Invective might be witty, especially if it turns out to actually be funny, but sometimes it's just an insult. That's a judgment call and it depends on the target. And as an Irish saying goes; "Wit is the ability to laugh at others, humour is the ability to laugh at ones self". This is a quality Hitchens clearly lacked. He simply took himself far too seriously and held himself in too high regard. A humanist should have some humility and humour. While not exactly funny himself, Martin Luther King had this quality, as did Mandella, Desmond Tutu and Tommy Douglas, Hitchens however did not.
In the various obits about Hitchens comparisons were made with past writers like Mark Twain, Jonathan Swift, George Bernard Shaw, HG Wells and (his personal hero) George Orwell. But I always thought that his obvious successor was the early twentieth century American writer H.L. Menken. Both did not write non-fiction but instead wrote opinion pieces, reviews and essays. Both despised religion, superstition, cynical politicians, quackery, censorship, prohibition, professional killjoys and the dumbing down of popular culture. No argument there. Both gloried in literature, science and "serious culture". Both reveled in their large vocabulary and had a talent for incendiary invective. Both were best known for their contemptuous attacks on the main religious figures of the age. Both were lionized by liberals for doing so. Both then lost some of that praise when they then attacked liberal figures with only slightly less venom.
Menken savaged conservatives, but then he later turned his scorn on FDR and socialists for appealing to the great unwashed. Hitchens disdained Republicans but he despised Bill Clinton and JFK for their sex scandals (for a famed libertine Hitchens was something of a prig) and would famously support the Iraq war and would be full of praise for Tony Blair.
Both Hitchens and Menken were in fact true elitists. Elitism has become a hopelessly diluted term by now. These days the term "elitist" is used to define anyone who is not a right wing blowhard, especially when it's being used by right wing blowhards. However there used to be a real definition for the term. A true elitist believes that there is a class of people who are inherently better suited to rule over the masses, either due to race and breeding or because of their superior education and culture. True elitists are actually rather rare but Menken and Hitchens belonged to this last group. They were suspicious of the great unwashed masses who were too stupid and credulous to be trusted.
Those liberals who idealize Menken should read one his essays, "The calamity of Appomattox" in which he states his belief that the loss of the slave owning Confederacy in the American Civil War was a tragedy. Not because Menken in any way supported slavery or segregation of course, but because it dethroned the Planter Aristocracy of Jefferson Davis and Robert E Lee, cultured southern gentlemen, and replaced them with southern populist demagogues and Klansmen. He argued that they would never have been able to take power in the CSA, especially since most poor southern whites couldn't vote as the CSA had property qualifications that prevented them from doing so. He did have half a point there but I doubt condemning millions of blacks to lives of slavery and oppression and millions of poor whites to poverty and effective disenfranchisement is a fair price to pay to keep an "enlightened elite" in power.
Likewise Hitchens was perfectly prepared to toss aside a lifetime of belief in civil liberties and hatred of demagoguery, censorship, and hyper patriotism in order to support a war against the hated Islamicists. The end justified the means.
Another writer who comes to mind is Zora Neale Hurston. Again she is rightly noted for her high ideals, great writing and commitment to individualism. However those liberals who idealize her might pause to take a lok at some of her later writing in which she opposed desegregation in favour of protecting an imagined black elite. Menken, Hurston and Hitchens had a number of interesting things to say, but before granting them the sort of hero worship that the media encourages one should take a step back. You would think we would have learned a few things from the deification of Thomas Jefferson in an earlier age.
Someone once said about H.G. Wells that he "Loved mankind but hated people". I never got the feeling that Hitchens (or Menken or Hurston) much cared for mankind as a whole. At least not as much as they cared about their own ideas. In a writer this can be harmless, even admirable, in a political polemicist it is not.
H.L. Menken speaks (part of the only known surviving interview);
A podcast about Menken from "The Ludwig von Mises Institute presents The Libertarian Tradition, a weekly podcast with Jeff Riggenbach"
Wednesday, 4 January 2012
Fade to black, SUN TV's Last Day in The Bunker
For those who didn't notice, and judging from their truly pathetic ratings most people didn't, SUN TV (AKA FOX North) went off air on midnight October 31 2011, after being ordered to cease all terrestrial (meaning over-the-air) broadcasting by the CRTC. SUN TV will still however be offered by some cable networks in some parts of Canada including Shaw and Bell.
The CRTC announced their order back in August 2011 ruling that SUN NEWS TV would be losing their terrestrial (over-the-air) signal at the end of October . It seems that SUN TV had been living on borrowed time since going on the air in a suspiciously rushed and slapdash manner during the last federal election, during which SUN TV acted as cheerleaders for the Tories. Since backing the winning horse in the election SUN TV had spent an remarkable amount of attacking their enemies in the media with vitriolic campaigns against the CBC and arts funding along with some what less frenzied attacks on the CRTC. Both SUN TV as well as FOX itself have been feuding with the CRTC for years while demanding the preferential treatment that would allow both of them to set up the kind of national wide right wing network FOX has in the USA and ultimately the rest of the (white) English speaking world including Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Israel. FOX's ambitions have dealt a serious if not lethal blow by the phone hacking scandals of course, but this hasn't dampened the frothing ambitions of SUN TV who continued to try and bully the CRTC into granting them a full nation wide broadcast. If SUN TV were assuming that they now had protection from the now all powerful Harper govt, they gambled wrong.
The odd thing about the SUN TV's sign off was it's stealthy nature. For a right wing trash talking tabloid who never pass up a chance to rage against the vast liberal establishment which is always censoring our poor oppressed billionaires and conservatives this silence spoke volumes. Even after the CRTC's public announcement the near silence from SUN TV was deafening. The assumption is that SUN wants another crack at this once the current CRTC chair, who has the honest-to-God name of Conrad Von Finkelstein (Seriously? He sounds like a Bond villain) is gone. Finkelstein's term is ending and while he has made it known that he would like to stay for another term, Harper has made it even more clear that he will be appointing another one of his more pliable cronies. So SUN is going to bide their time and not make things worse by picking a public fight with the CRTC.
An additional factor was the pathetic ratings of SUN TV which at times have been measured as being as low as 25,000 nation wide, which is less than some local TV stations. Some surveys showed them pulling less than half that (7000 at one point) which is even less than CKLN used to get. Pathetic. As SUN TV was circling the drain the CBC couldn't pass up a chance to rub salt in the wound by taking out ads bragging that CBC's ratings were 650 percent better than SUN TV's. And that was even before they went dark. This led to more impotent outrage from from various SUN TV talking heads who sputtered about the scandal that "Tax Payer Money" was being used to "attack" a poor defenseless mom and pop operation like SUN TV. Taking another shot in the increasingly nasty death match, the CBC piled on by running more ads pointing out the millions of "Tax Payer Money" that QMI (SUN TV's parent company) had gotten over the years from corporate welfare (which I also wrote about here,). QMI Boss Pierre Paladeu threatened a libel suit (like his pal Rob Ford when faced with bad press) and then failed to follow through (also like Ford). Notably he did not actually deny the accuracy of the CBC report however. He did however get to testify at parliamentary hearings which gave him yet another chance to sputter his outrage on behalf of the sacred taxpayers that the big bad CBC would be allowed to run adds smacking him down.
So the run up to the Oct.31 sign off was oddly muted. Other than a crawl across the bottom of the screen which listed the cable providers which would still carry SUN (which at that point was merely Shaw, at least in Southern Ontario) but actually did not mention that they would be off the air at all. That was pretty much it.
I watched the last hours from SUN TV's bunker curious to see how they would go into the dark, dark night, on Halloween no less. Still expecting some kind of grand defiant send off, or at least some kind of acknowledgement to their few viewers. What we got was slapstick.
With FOX North looking to come with a version of the ever popular "War on Christmas" that FOX South has been hawking for years, we had the ludicrous spectacle of Ezra Levant and Charles Adler ranting about the liberal "War on Halloween". The evidence for which being a few schools that banned Halloween dances. Running on a roll they then rambled on to rant some more about the outrageous liberal War on Disneyland. If the War on Halloween consisted of a few school board Killjoys, the War on Disneyland existed solely in the paranoid fantasies of Levant and Adler who simply speculated about how imaginary liberal activists MIGHT protest about racism in Snow White or whatever. The fact that nothing like this ever actually happened is apparently beside the point. As was the fact that the one group who actually HAVE protested Halloween has been Christians, outraged at a pagan holiday. Actually some Christians have even protested Disneyland for allowing gay tourist charters. But there I go using "facts" again, no fair.
At any rate with all this idiotic babble going on I plumb forgot that they were about to go off the air at midnight and turn into a pumpkin with no viewers. Apparently they forgot as well since they never bothered to mention this even once as the minutes ticked down to midnight. At about five to midnight as Levant was in still in mid rant the screen suddenly froze on Levant with his arms outstretched and his mouth silently agape. This shot stayed motionless like this for perhaps half a minute, then the screen went dark on SUN TV forever. And that was that.
I have now had the odd distinction of listening in to no less than three stations go off the air. I also listened in as 1050 CHUM went off air back in 2001 to become an all sports station. They had a classy sign off with an Elvis song "Heartbreak Hotel" (the first number one record at CHUM) and a long sound collage of various moments from CHUM's past. The new format didn't last very long and they soon came back as an oldies station, which also didn't last. Then they were bought out to simulcast CP20's TV newscasts, which was odd since there was obviously no video to go along with the commentary. This year that came to an end and they went back to being an all sports station, which is dying in the ratings again. I didn't catch those changeovers but apparently they were done with little or no notice, let alone fanfare.
1050 CHUM promo circa 1986;
And then there's CKLN. They were yanked off the air this April for being completely inept. Given their penchant for strident left wing ranting and bizzarro conspiracy theories their sign-off was oddly muted. As D-Day came there was no notice of their impending demise until mere minutes before when the station manager Jacky Harrison broke into "The OCAP Show" to announce they would be going off air in about five minutes. She then handed the show back to the perpetually outraged OCAP Radio show host to furiously rant about this censorship for a few minutes before Harrison came back to repeat the warning. Then back again to the OCAP host who was by then comparing CKLN to the Arab Spring protesters before being cut off in mid rant, putting an end to their Abbott and Costello routine for good with the sweet, sweet sounds of static.
It's worth pointing out that after being yanked off the air various members of CKLN's disgraced management gave their conspiracy theories about the CRTC's secret plan to destroy community radio, using this as an excuse for their incompetence and portraying themselves as hapless victims. To go along with this they confidently predicted that others would soon follow, particularly CO-OP Radio in B.C. and CIUT in Toronto.
CO-OP Radio did indeed face CRTC hearings last year partly due to some serious issues over their financial and equipment problems as well as some missed paperwork fillings, as well as a plan by CO-OP to trade their signal with a commercial radio station in exchange for enough money to fix their existing issues. I happily wrote a letter of support to the CRTC for them. The hearings were quite different from the CKLN Gong Show hearings of December 2010. In spite of the CRTC's supposed ruthless corporate racist agenda against community radio they granted CO-OP their extension and allowed their signal swap. And CIUT has been granted their extension along with every other community station as well. Except for CKRG who gave theirs up voluntarily.
CKRG was a Low Power campus station at York University's Glendon Campus. How low? About 5 watts, which would cover the area of the campus itself and that's it. They had been around since 1998 first as a Low Power AM signal then moving to Low Power FM in 2004. They had tried to go for a 200 watt license in 1994 but were turned down. Lately they had decided not to bother to renew their license when the current one came up for renewal in Aug. 2011. There was an extension to Nov. 2011 but by then CKRG had actually been off the air since school had let out the previous spring. Like many student stations (and CKRG was always a student station) CKRG had given up on trying for a terrestrial signal and had decided on a purely internet future. This is unfortunate since they had made this call before they know that CKLN was going down and would be creating an opening that they could have made a bid for. Oh well.
So the cheese stands alone.
A few other sign offs;
CINW-AM 940 in Montreal;
CIGM-AM 790 in Sudbury;
CJUL-AM 1220 in Cornwall;
WMJX-FM 96.3 in Miami (shut down by the FCC in 1981);
The CRTC announced their order back in August 2011 ruling that SUN NEWS TV would be losing their terrestrial (over-the-air) signal at the end of October . It seems that SUN TV had been living on borrowed time since going on the air in a suspiciously rushed and slapdash manner during the last federal election, during which SUN TV acted as cheerleaders for the Tories. Since backing the winning horse in the election SUN TV had spent an remarkable amount of attacking their enemies in the media with vitriolic campaigns against the CBC and arts funding along with some what less frenzied attacks on the CRTC. Both SUN TV as well as FOX itself have been feuding with the CRTC for years while demanding the preferential treatment that would allow both of them to set up the kind of national wide right wing network FOX has in the USA and ultimately the rest of the (white) English speaking world including Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Israel. FOX's ambitions have dealt a serious if not lethal blow by the phone hacking scandals of course, but this hasn't dampened the frothing ambitions of SUN TV who continued to try and bully the CRTC into granting them a full nation wide broadcast. If SUN TV were assuming that they now had protection from the now all powerful Harper govt, they gambled wrong.
The odd thing about the SUN TV's sign off was it's stealthy nature. For a right wing trash talking tabloid who never pass up a chance to rage against the vast liberal establishment which is always censoring our poor oppressed billionaires and conservatives this silence spoke volumes. Even after the CRTC's public announcement the near silence from SUN TV was deafening. The assumption is that SUN wants another crack at this once the current CRTC chair, who has the honest-to-God name of Conrad Von Finkelstein (Seriously? He sounds like a Bond villain) is gone. Finkelstein's term is ending and while he has made it known that he would like to stay for another term, Harper has made it even more clear that he will be appointing another one of his more pliable cronies. So SUN is going to bide their time and not make things worse by picking a public fight with the CRTC.
An additional factor was the pathetic ratings of SUN TV which at times have been measured as being as low as 25,000 nation wide, which is less than some local TV stations. Some surveys showed them pulling less than half that (7000 at one point) which is even less than CKLN used to get. Pathetic. As SUN TV was circling the drain the CBC couldn't pass up a chance to rub salt in the wound by taking out ads bragging that CBC's ratings were 650 percent better than SUN TV's. And that was even before they went dark. This led to more impotent outrage from from various SUN TV talking heads who sputtered about the scandal that "Tax Payer Money" was being used to "attack" a poor defenseless mom and pop operation like SUN TV. Taking another shot in the increasingly nasty death match, the CBC piled on by running more ads pointing out the millions of "Tax Payer Money" that QMI (SUN TV's parent company) had gotten over the years from corporate welfare (which I also wrote about here,). QMI Boss Pierre Paladeu threatened a libel suit (like his pal Rob Ford when faced with bad press) and then failed to follow through (also like Ford). Notably he did not actually deny the accuracy of the CBC report however. He did however get to testify at parliamentary hearings which gave him yet another chance to sputter his outrage on behalf of the sacred taxpayers that the big bad CBC would be allowed to run adds smacking him down.
So the run up to the Oct.31 sign off was oddly muted. Other than a crawl across the bottom of the screen which listed the cable providers which would still carry SUN (which at that point was merely Shaw, at least in Southern Ontario) but actually did not mention that they would be off the air at all. That was pretty much it.
I watched the last hours from SUN TV's bunker curious to see how they would go into the dark, dark night, on Halloween no less. Still expecting some kind of grand defiant send off, or at least some kind of acknowledgement to their few viewers. What we got was slapstick.
With FOX North looking to come with a version of the ever popular "War on Christmas" that FOX South has been hawking for years, we had the ludicrous spectacle of Ezra Levant and Charles Adler ranting about the liberal "War on Halloween". The evidence for which being a few schools that banned Halloween dances. Running on a roll they then rambled on to rant some more about the outrageous liberal War on Disneyland. If the War on Halloween consisted of a few school board Killjoys, the War on Disneyland existed solely in the paranoid fantasies of Levant and Adler who simply speculated about how imaginary liberal activists MIGHT protest about racism in Snow White or whatever. The fact that nothing like this ever actually happened is apparently beside the point. As was the fact that the one group who actually HAVE protested Halloween has been Christians, outraged at a pagan holiday. Actually some Christians have even protested Disneyland for allowing gay tourist charters. But there I go using "facts" again, no fair.
At any rate with all this idiotic babble going on I plumb forgot that they were about to go off the air at midnight and turn into a pumpkin with no viewers. Apparently they forgot as well since they never bothered to mention this even once as the minutes ticked down to midnight. At about five to midnight as Levant was in still in mid rant the screen suddenly froze on Levant with his arms outstretched and his mouth silently agape. This shot stayed motionless like this for perhaps half a minute, then the screen went dark on SUN TV forever. And that was that.
I have now had the odd distinction of listening in to no less than three stations go off the air. I also listened in as 1050 CHUM went off air back in 2001 to become an all sports station. They had a classy sign off with an Elvis song "Heartbreak Hotel" (the first number one record at CHUM) and a long sound collage of various moments from CHUM's past. The new format didn't last very long and they soon came back as an oldies station, which also didn't last. Then they were bought out to simulcast CP20's TV newscasts, which was odd since there was obviously no video to go along with the commentary. This year that came to an end and they went back to being an all sports station, which is dying in the ratings again. I didn't catch those changeovers but apparently they were done with little or no notice, let alone fanfare.
1050 CHUM promo circa 1986;
And then there's CKLN. They were yanked off the air this April for being completely inept. Given their penchant for strident left wing ranting and bizzarro conspiracy theories their sign-off was oddly muted. As D-Day came there was no notice of their impending demise until mere minutes before when the station manager Jacky Harrison broke into "The OCAP Show" to announce they would be going off air in about five minutes. She then handed the show back to the perpetually outraged OCAP Radio show host to furiously rant about this censorship for a few minutes before Harrison came back to repeat the warning. Then back again to the OCAP host who was by then comparing CKLN to the Arab Spring protesters before being cut off in mid rant, putting an end to their Abbott and Costello routine for good with the sweet, sweet sounds of static.
It's worth pointing out that after being yanked off the air various members of CKLN's disgraced management gave their conspiracy theories about the CRTC's secret plan to destroy community radio, using this as an excuse for their incompetence and portraying themselves as hapless victims. To go along with this they confidently predicted that others would soon follow, particularly CO-OP Radio in B.C. and CIUT in Toronto.
CO-OP Radio did indeed face CRTC hearings last year partly due to some serious issues over their financial and equipment problems as well as some missed paperwork fillings, as well as a plan by CO-OP to trade their signal with a commercial radio station in exchange for enough money to fix their existing issues. I happily wrote a letter of support to the CRTC for them. The hearings were quite different from the CKLN Gong Show hearings of December 2010. In spite of the CRTC's supposed ruthless corporate racist agenda against community radio they granted CO-OP their extension and allowed their signal swap. And CIUT has been granted their extension along with every other community station as well. Except for CKRG who gave theirs up voluntarily.
CKRG was a Low Power campus station at York University's Glendon Campus. How low? About 5 watts, which would cover the area of the campus itself and that's it. They had been around since 1998 first as a Low Power AM signal then moving to Low Power FM in 2004. They had tried to go for a 200 watt license in 1994 but were turned down. Lately they had decided not to bother to renew their license when the current one came up for renewal in Aug. 2011. There was an extension to Nov. 2011 but by then CKRG had actually been off the air since school had let out the previous spring. Like many student stations (and CKRG was always a student station) CKRG had given up on trying for a terrestrial signal and had decided on a purely internet future. This is unfortunate since they had made this call before they know that CKLN was going down and would be creating an opening that they could have made a bid for. Oh well.
So the cheese stands alone.
A few other sign offs;
CINW-AM 940 in Montreal;
CIGM-AM 790 in Sudbury;
CJUL-AM 1220 in Cornwall;
WMJX-FM 96.3 in Miami (shut down by the FCC in 1981);
Saturday, 24 December 2011
Prof Kitzel's Time Machine Profiles; George W Johnson
~ George W. Johnson (circa 1846~1914) was one of the first major recording stars and certainly the first black recording star as well as being one of the most successful singers of the Victorian era. ..
~ Early life ~ Born a slave between 1846 and 1850 in Virginia, Johnson was raised by a white family who taught him to read and write. His musical training is unknown although he does not seem to have played any actual instruments, he sang minstrel songs as well as being a virtuoso whistler. After the civil war he made his way to New York and New Jersey where he earned a living as a busker in various minstrel and medicine shows becoming a fairly well known figure. ..
~ Recordings ~ When Johnson began recording is unknown but it is rumored that Thomas Edison himself chose Johnson to be one of the first singers to demonstrate his new tin-foil based recording device in 1879 because his clear, staccato baritone could reproduce well on the crude technology. If so these recordings have not survived but when the improved wax gramophones came along a decade later Johnson became much in demand. He recorded "The Whistling Coon" in 1890 for The Metropolitan Phonograph company and then quickly did the same for The New Jersey Phonograph Company, The North American and Edison. The song became the first real hit of the recording era selling for various companies (which would grow to include most of Edison's competitors such as Berliner, Victor, Columbia, Starr and Zonophone) as was common at the time. Due to the crude technology of the day (there were no masters) records were recorded straight to disk five at a time which meant that Johnson would have to sing the same song over again for hours and days in order to make multiple copies. However since he got payed by the song this meant he was able to make a decent living for over a decade singing the same few songs. ..
GEORGE W JOHNSON ~ "THE LAUGHING SONG";
~ Repertoire
~ The number of songs Johnson actually knew is unknown but he only recorded about a half dozen titles. Besides his first hit he later had even bigger hits with "The Laughing Song" and the " The Laughing Coon". Laughing in rhythm was a fad of the era and "The Laughing Song" (originally written by the white song writer Sam Devere as part of a minstrel show) is believed to have been the first million selling record, being recorded for numerous companies between 1894 and 1910. These records were also popular in Europe and Latin America since there was little language barrier to overcome and there are stories of copies of the "Laughing Song" turning up in (then) remote Africa, China, the Arctic and the South Pacific were they were used by missionaries to break the ice with the locals. In the 1922 documentary film "Nanook of the North" film maker Robert Flaherty is shown playing a copy of the record to charm his Eskimo hosts. For a time Johnson was probably the most heard person in the world along with the opera tenor Enrico Caruso. Johnson also recorded a few other titles including "The Whistling Girl","Listen to the Mockingbird" and "Carving the Duck", copies of which have survived along with at least two others which have not, "The Laughing Darkey" and "Uncle Ned's Dream". Johnson also recorded at least two comedy singles as part of Len Spencer's Minstrel Troupe. Spencer (who was actually white) was a popular leader of his own minstrel troupe as well as booking agent who became a manager for Johnson. Besides his recordings Johnson also continued to appear in vaudeville and minstrel shows in New York City and Atlantic City, New Jersey. ..
GEORGE W JOHNSON ~ "THE WHISTLING COON";
~ Decline and death ~ By the twentieth century recording technology had improved allowing for master copies to be recorded as well as allowing a greater variety of singers and musicians to record more clearly and these factors along with more sophisticated tastes effectively ended Johnson's recording career. His popularity also suffered from a mysterious scandal involving his being charged the death of his wife in 1899, Spencer and other performing friends rallied around and raised money for his bail and defense and the charges were quickly dropped . Johnson continued to record until 1910 but then went into retirement and the loyal Len Spencer gave him a job as doorman for the Lyceum Theater in New York. Johnson died forgotten in his apartment of unknown natural causes in 1914. ..
~ Surviving recordings ~ Copies of some of Johnson's recordings an both cylinders and disks have survived in various conditions and sound quality, some have turned up on a compilation entitled "Lost Sounds" on Archephone Records, others can be found on archival websites.
Members;
George W. Johnson ~ Vocals, Laughing and Whistling w/ various pianists incl/ Edward Issler ..
GEORGE W JOHNSON ~ "THE LAUGHING COON";
Monday, 19 December 2011
The Stoopidist Band Mashup Ever
The 1996 book "Rolling Stone's Alt-Rockarama" book of lists and trivia contained a list entitled "100+ Alt-Rock Super groups we hope never happen". This was a list of band name mashups used to creat new stupid band names for ill advised supergroup pairings. Notable examples incuded;
Agnostic Front Line Assembly
Average White Band of Susans
Echo and the Bunnymen Without Hats
Greatful Dead Kennedys
The Husker Doobie Brothers
Iggy Pop Will Eat Itself
Kool and the Gang of Four
Marvin Gaye Bikers on Acid
Peter Murphy's Law
The Scoolly dB's
The Simply Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Soul 2 Soul Asylum
Steely Danzig
Swing Out Sisters of Mercy
Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love and Rockets
You get the idea.
Since I love stupid pointless trivia even more than I love stupid pointless band names here are a few of my own suggestions for this stupid pointless list;
The Aero-Smiths
Alien Sex Pistols
Altered Images In Vogue
The Amboy Dukes of the Stratosphere
Anti Black Flag
The Anti-Human League
Atomic 7 Seconds
Balaam and the Comsat Angels
Amy Bauhaus
Aprilwine and Iron
The Beaumarks Inside
The Body Count 5
The Big Bad Livers
The Black Flag of Convieniance
Black Lips Arkansas
Black Sabbath Flag
The Black Sabbath Keys
The Blue Cheer Demons
The Blue Demon Oyster Cult
The Blue Oyster Magoos
Blue Demon Rodeo
Blue Oyster Rodeo
David Bow Wow Wowie
Boy George Micheal
The Bullet Boys Brigade
The Chalk Circle Jerks
The Chocolate Watchband of Susans
Christian Death Angel
Christian Death of Samantha
The Chromosome Cranks
Courtney Love and Rockets
The Cowboy Mouth Junkies
The Cowboy Murder Junkies
The Crowded Housemartins
Curiosity Killed The Stray Cats
The Cutting Crewcuts
Dead Cats Can Fly
Dead Guy Smiley
The Dead Kennedys Can Dance
The Dead Milkmen Can Dance
The Death of Samantha Ronson
Deja Voodoo Glow Skulls
Deja Voodoo Machine
The Del Lords of the New Church
Destroy All Monster Magnets
Dexy's Midnight Run DMC
Dinosaur Jr. Gone Wild
The Dream Syndicate of Sound
D.R.Eyehategod
The Dropkick Peter Murphys
Emerson, Lake and Robert Palmer
Fifth Durutti Column
The Flamin' Groovie Sideburns
The Flat Duo Jetboys
The Fleshtonie Braxtons
The Florida Razorbacks
Gang of 4 Skins
Gaye Bikers on Scratch Acid
Generation X-Ray Specs
Generation XTC
Gentle Giant Sand
Girlschooly D
The Go-Go Go Betweens
The Grapes of Wrathchild
Great Big Black Sea
Haircutting Crew
Hayseed Dixie Chicks
Richard Hellacopter & The Voidoids
Richard Helmet & The Voidoids
Holy Fuck Rounders
Iron Maiden Wine
Lambchop of God
Latex Generation X
LL Cool J Macias
The Lords of Scratch Acid
L7 Mary Three
The MC5 Star
Machine hHead
Magnetic Fields of The Nephelim
The Meatloaf Puppets
The Men Without Hats They Couldn't Hang
Meshugga-Knight
The Mighty Clouds of Joy Division
Mojo Nixon and Skid Row
Modern English Beat
Monster Voodoo Glow Skulls
Motley 2 Live Crue
The Mudhoneycombs
The Murder City Rollers
My Cordelia's Dad is Dead
Nashville Pussy Galore
The New York Toy Dolls
Nine Inch Nails Below Zero
999 Below Zero
999 Inch Nails
999 Pound Hammer
Nine Pound Hammer Below Zero
Pee Wee King Cob Steelie
The Knoxville Girlschool
The Luna-Chixdiggit
Nurse With Sucking Chest Wound
Operation Poison Ivy
Orchestral Maneuvers in The Dark Carnival
Hank Pennywise
Four Platinum Non Blondes
Poison Ivy Idea
Pretty Pink Boy Floyd
Prince and The Deep Purple Revolution
Public Images in Vogue
Puddle of Mudhoney
The Pukka Orchestra Manouvers in the Dark
Raised By Guitar Wolves
The Randypeter Murphys
The Raybeat Farmers
The Real Kids on the Block
Redd Kris Kross
Reel Big Fishbone
Renaldo and the Meatloaf
The Romeo Voidoids
Roomfull of Blue Cheer
Roomfull of Blue Demons
Roomfull of Blue Oyster Cult
Roomfull of Blue Rodeo
Roxx Gang Children
The Roxy Music Machine
Run DOA
The Samhain Roberts Band
Screamin' Lord Baltimore
Screamin' Lord Buckley
Secret Police Affair
Septic Death Angel
Seven Mary Three O'Clock
Sex Gang Children of Bodom
The Shadows of Gladys Knight
Sham 69 Eyes
The Sick Boys Next Door
The Silver Apples in Stereo
The Soft Boys Brigade
The Soft Boys Machine
Sonic Youth Brigade
Southern Culture Club on the Skids
Stray Cats Can Fly
The Subhuman League
Super Furry Animal Collective
System of a Down By Law
The Talking Motorheads
Teenage Head Fanclub
Teenage Headpins
The Thin White Amboy Dukes
The Thin White Dukes of the Stratosphere
They Might be Gentle Giants
They Might Be Giant Sand
The Ten Foot Polecats
The Tragically Hipsway
The Trashmen They Couldn't Hang
The Trashmen Without Hats
Tuuli Live Crew
Twisted Sisters of Mercy
The 2 Live Krewmen
The 2 Live Crewcuts
The 2 Live Cutting Crew
Type O Negative Approach
Type O Negative Trend
Undertones on Tail
Vanilla Ice T
The Velvet Underground Revolver
The Viletony Toni Tones
The Wanda Jackson Five
The White Flag of Convieniance
White Zombie Stripes
The Young Fresh Lions
It took me about a half hour to come up with those, OK make that an hour, or more. So I have no doubt you can come up with more. No fair using the names of bands that are so obscure nobody can tell if you're just making shit up.
Agnostic Front Line Assembly
Average White Band of Susans
Echo and the Bunnymen Without Hats
Greatful Dead Kennedys
The Husker Doobie Brothers
Iggy Pop Will Eat Itself
Kool and the Gang of Four
Marvin Gaye Bikers on Acid
Peter Murphy's Law
The Scoolly dB's
The Simply Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Soul 2 Soul Asylum
Steely Danzig
Swing Out Sisters of Mercy
Zodiac Mindwarp and the Love and Rockets
You get the idea.
Since I love stupid pointless trivia even more than I love stupid pointless band names here are a few of my own suggestions for this stupid pointless list;
The Aero-Smiths
Alien Sex Pistols
Altered Images In Vogue
The Amboy Dukes of the Stratosphere
Anti Black Flag
The Anti-Human League
Atomic 7 Seconds
Balaam and the Comsat Angels
Amy Bauhaus
Aprilwine and Iron
The Beaumarks Inside
The Body Count 5
The Big Bad Livers
The Black Flag of Convieniance
Black Lips Arkansas
Black Sabbath Flag
The Black Sabbath Keys
The Blue Cheer Demons
The Blue Demon Oyster Cult
The Blue Oyster Magoos
Blue Demon Rodeo
Blue Oyster Rodeo
David Bow Wow Wowie
Boy George Micheal
The Bullet Boys Brigade
The Chalk Circle Jerks
The Chocolate Watchband of Susans
Christian Death Angel
Christian Death of Samantha
The Chromosome Cranks
Courtney Love and Rockets
The Cowboy Mouth Junkies
The Cowboy Murder Junkies
The Crowded Housemartins
Curiosity Killed The Stray Cats
The Cutting Crewcuts
Dead Cats Can Fly
Dead Guy Smiley
The Dead Kennedys Can Dance
The Dead Milkmen Can Dance
The Death of Samantha Ronson
Deja Voodoo Glow Skulls
Deja Voodoo Machine
The Del Lords of the New Church
Destroy All Monster Magnets
Dexy's Midnight Run DMC
Dinosaur Jr. Gone Wild
The Dream Syndicate of Sound
D.R.Eyehategod
The Dropkick Peter Murphys
Emerson, Lake and Robert Palmer
Fifth Durutti Column
The Flamin' Groovie Sideburns
The Flat Duo Jetboys
The Fleshtonie Braxtons
The Florida Razorbacks
Gang of 4 Skins
Gaye Bikers on Scratch Acid
Generation X-Ray Specs
Generation XTC
Gentle Giant Sand
Girlschooly D
The Go-Go Go Betweens
The Grapes of Wrathchild
Great Big Black Sea
Haircutting Crew
Hayseed Dixie Chicks
Richard Hellacopter & The Voidoids
Richard Helmet & The Voidoids
Holy Fuck Rounders
Iron Maiden Wine
Lambchop of God
Latex Generation X
LL Cool J Macias
The Lords of Scratch Acid
L7 Mary Three
The MC5 Star
Machine hHead
Magnetic Fields of The Nephelim
The Meatloaf Puppets
The Men Without Hats They Couldn't Hang
Meshugga-Knight
The Mighty Clouds of Joy Division
Mojo Nixon and Skid Row
Modern English Beat
Monster Voodoo Glow Skulls
Motley 2 Live Crue
The Mudhoneycombs
The Murder City Rollers
My Cordelia's Dad is Dead
Nashville Pussy Galore
The New York Toy Dolls
Nine Inch Nails Below Zero
999 Below Zero
999 Inch Nails
999 Pound Hammer
Nine Pound Hammer Below Zero
Pee Wee King Cob Steelie
The Knoxville Girlschool
The Luna-Chixdiggit
Nurse With Sucking Chest Wound
Operation Poison Ivy
Orchestral Maneuvers in The Dark Carnival
Hank Pennywise
Four Platinum Non Blondes
Poison Ivy Idea
Pretty Pink Boy Floyd
Prince and The Deep Purple Revolution
Public Images in Vogue
Puddle of Mudhoney
The Pukka Orchestra Manouvers in the Dark
Raised By Guitar Wolves
The Randypeter Murphys
The Raybeat Farmers
The Real Kids on the Block
Redd Kris Kross
Reel Big Fishbone
Renaldo and the Meatloaf
The Romeo Voidoids
Roomfull of Blue Cheer
Roomfull of Blue Demons
Roomfull of Blue Oyster Cult
Roomfull of Blue Rodeo
Roxx Gang Children
The Roxy Music Machine
Run DOA
The Samhain Roberts Band
Screamin' Lord Baltimore
Screamin' Lord Buckley
Secret Police Affair
Septic Death Angel
Seven Mary Three O'Clock
Sex Gang Children of Bodom
The Shadows of Gladys Knight
Sham 69 Eyes
The Sick Boys Next Door
The Silver Apples in Stereo
The Soft Boys Brigade
The Soft Boys Machine
Sonic Youth Brigade
Southern Culture Club on the Skids
Stray Cats Can Fly
The Subhuman League
Super Furry Animal Collective
System of a Down By Law
The Talking Motorheads
Teenage Head Fanclub
Teenage Headpins
The Thin White Amboy Dukes
The Thin White Dukes of the Stratosphere
They Might be Gentle Giants
They Might Be Giant Sand
The Ten Foot Polecats
The Tragically Hipsway
The Trashmen They Couldn't Hang
The Trashmen Without Hats
Tuuli Live Crew
Twisted Sisters of Mercy
The 2 Live Krewmen
The 2 Live Crewcuts
The 2 Live Cutting Crew
Type O Negative Approach
Type O Negative Trend
Undertones on Tail
Vanilla Ice T
The Velvet Underground Revolver
The Viletony Toni Tones
The Wanda Jackson Five
The White Flag of Convieniance
White Zombie Stripes
The Young Fresh Lions
It took me about a half hour to come up with those, OK make that an hour, or more. So I have no doubt you can come up with more. No fair using the names of bands that are so obscure nobody can tell if you're just making shit up.
Thursday, 1 December 2011
John Cage makes Iron Butterfly look like DRI
You think rock operas are absurdly long? How about free jazz solos? Emerson, Lake and Palmer? John Coltrane? Tangerine Dream? Amateurs all of 'em. Ladies and gentlemen I give you the reigning heavy weight champion (drum roll please); John Cage!
Whatever clever artsy idea you think you had, John Cage has already done it. Probably better too.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
JOHN CAGE & TAKEHISA KOSUGI:
World’s longest concert will last 639 years
By Maura Judkis (Washington Post)
You’d be praying for intermission if you attended even just a fraction of the world’s longest concert. Now in its 10th year, “Organ²/ASLSP(As SLow aS Possible),” by avant-garde composer John Cage, is just getting started.
Composer, John Cage rehearses his 12-hour composition "Empty Words" in Hartford, Conn., in 1981. (Anonymous - ASSOCIATED PRESS)
The concert began in 2001 at the former St. Burchard church in Halberstadt, Germany, and is scheduled to conclude in 2640, for a duration of 639 years. Though Cage did not specify a duration for his piece, the length was chosen because the start date for the performance is 639 years after Nicolaus Faber built the first church organ. Other performances of the piece have lasted between 29 and 70 minutes.
The Halberstadt performance, by an automated organ, progresses so slowly that visitors have to wait months for a chord change (for one note change, in 2008, more than 1,000 visitors came to listen). They occur on the fifth of the month, but the next one isn’t scheduled until July 2012. The organ emits a low meditative hum at all times. You can hear it on the ASLSP Web site.
The performance is so slow that the organ it is being played on was not even complete before the music began. Pipes were added to the organ, which keeps the music steady thanks to a machine called a blower that provides a constant stream of air, in 2008.
Supporters can sponsor a note for a year with a donation of 1000 € or more. Those who donate can choose any year through 2640, and will receive a metal plaque with their name and year in the church.
Fans of Cage, such as board chairman of the town’s John Cage Organ Foundation, Rainer Neugebauer, say that the performance is a rebuke of hectic modern life.
“Everything does not need to happen so fast. If something needs a bit longer then it can give us an inner calm that is rare in normal life.”
Update, Nov. 28: There is competition for the world’s longest concert. On Twitter, Mark Polishook alerts Arts Post to Longplayer, a 1,000-year-long musical score that is being played by computers.
JOHN CAGE PERFORMS "WATER WALK" ON "I'VE GOT A SECRET" 1950's;
JOHN CAGE NOISE SPECIAL 1966;
JOHN CAGES' "4:33" PERFORMED BY WILLIAM MARX;
Whatever clever artsy idea you think you had, John Cage has already done it. Probably better too.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
JOHN CAGE & TAKEHISA KOSUGI:
World’s longest concert will last 639 years
By Maura Judkis (Washington Post)
You’d be praying for intermission if you attended even just a fraction of the world’s longest concert. Now in its 10th year, “Organ²/ASLSP(As SLow aS Possible),” by avant-garde composer John Cage, is just getting started.
Composer, John Cage rehearses his 12-hour composition "Empty Words" in Hartford, Conn., in 1981. (Anonymous - ASSOCIATED PRESS)
The concert began in 2001 at the former St. Burchard church in Halberstadt, Germany, and is scheduled to conclude in 2640, for a duration of 639 years. Though Cage did not specify a duration for his piece, the length was chosen because the start date for the performance is 639 years after Nicolaus Faber built the first church organ. Other performances of the piece have lasted between 29 and 70 minutes.
The Halberstadt performance, by an automated organ, progresses so slowly that visitors have to wait months for a chord change (for one note change, in 2008, more than 1,000 visitors came to listen). They occur on the fifth of the month, but the next one isn’t scheduled until July 2012. The organ emits a low meditative hum at all times. You can hear it on the ASLSP Web site.
The performance is so slow that the organ it is being played on was not even complete before the music began. Pipes were added to the organ, which keeps the music steady thanks to a machine called a blower that provides a constant stream of air, in 2008.
Supporters can sponsor a note for a year with a donation of 1000 € or more. Those who donate can choose any year through 2640, and will receive a metal plaque with their name and year in the church.
Fans of Cage, such as board chairman of the town’s John Cage Organ Foundation, Rainer Neugebauer, say that the performance is a rebuke of hectic modern life.
“Everything does not need to happen so fast. If something needs a bit longer then it can give us an inner calm that is rare in normal life.”
Update, Nov. 28: There is competition for the world’s longest concert. On Twitter, Mark Polishook alerts Arts Post to Longplayer, a 1,000-year-long musical score that is being played by computers.
JOHN CAGE PERFORMS "WATER WALK" ON "I'VE GOT A SECRET" 1950's;
JOHN CAGE NOISE SPECIAL 1966;
JOHN CAGES' "4:33" PERFORMED BY WILLIAM MARX;
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