Gigging of a Friday night (crosspost)

(posted on the Wellingtonista)...

Ted Brown and Dukes of Leisure and Marineville gigs tonight, Friday 31 August 2007.

more here...

Also The Stumps are playing at Happy with the Windups and others on Saturday night.

Separated at birth #3

Paul Reubens (55 this week!) and Adam Sandler:

What say you, savages?

UPDATE I reckon there might be some Dustin Hoffman in there, as well.

I asked her for a peppermint

More about the Judas Priest suicide thing..... on the left is how Ray Balknap and James Vance looked some time prior to this:

Two days before Christmas in 1985, 20-year-old James and 18-year-old Raymond Belknap spent hours listening to Stained Class in Raymond's room. They drank a twelve-pack of beer and smoked marijuana. They made a suicide pact, then went on a rampage, tearing at the room's walls and smashing belongings.

"The only things not broken in the room were the turntable and the albums," says Phyllis Vance.

Near dusk, the two went to the playground of a local church with Raymond's sawed-off 12-guage shotgun. Raymond Belknap, seated on a merry-go-round, placed the end of the shotgun under his chin and pulled the trigger, killing himself. A few minutes later, James pointed the same gun at his chin and fired. Somehow, the blast missed his brain and he lived.

On the right is what James looked like after surgeons had tried (and failed) to reconstruct his face.

Apparently he would ride his bicycle around town shocking people with his grotesque disfigurement. He later died in somewhat mysterious circumstances before the trial reached court.

Somewhere in the middle of this colossal page (scroll down to JULY 1990: Metal on trial), there's a comprehensive and entertaining account of the trial.

Some choice quotes:

It was originally about the track Heroes End - they tried to say the band were saying you could only be a hero if you killed yourself, till I had to give them the correct lyrics which is "why do heroes have to die?"... Then they changed their plea to subliminal messages on the album.

- Jayne Andrews, Management Co-ordinator for Judas Priest

It's a fact that if you play speech backwards, some of it will seem to make sense. So I asked permission to go into a studio and find some perfectly innocent phonetic flukes. The lawyers didn't want to do it, but I insisted. We bought a copy of the Stained Class album in a local record shop, went into the studio, recorded it to tape, turned it over and played it backwards. Right away we found "Hey ma, my chair's broken" and "Give me a peppermint" and "Help me keep a job".

- Glenn Tipton, Judas Priest

I took the two-track master tape of Stained Class with me to a studio near the courthouse and played it backwards till I found something. It took about two minutes... On the track Exciter, during the chorus where it says "Stand by for Exciter / Salvation is his task", played backwards it said "I-I-I asked her for a peppermint / I-I-I asked for her to get one".

- Rob Halford, Judas Priest

The only subliminal message I would put on an album would be, "Buy seven copies".

- Bill Curbishley, Manager

We had to sit in this courtroom in Reno for six weeks. It was like Disneyworld. We had no idea what a subliminal message was - it was just a combination of some weird guitar sounds, and the way I exhaled between lyrics. I had to sing Better by You, Better Than Me in court, a cappella. I think that was when the judge thought, "What am I doing here? No band goes out of its way to kill its fans".

- Rob Halford

It's a sad that two people died -- even though they wanted it that way -- but it's quite offensive that these retarded Americans tried to hoist blame on to someone else. Americans and Christians should fuck off and leave heavy metal alone. Bah.

Backwards mask

Suicide isn't particularly funny, but CelebNewsWire made me chuckle when they suggested that Owen Wilson had been listening to Judas Priest's Stained Class album backwards, before attempting to kill himself.

Of course, they immediately apologised for making such an abhorrently crass joke, and rightly so. Heh.

The writer was of course referring to the infamous lawsuit brought against the band in 1990, in which you may remember it was alleged that there was "back-masking" in the song Better By You Better Than Me -- and that the effect of which was to subconsciously urge two young American men to kill themselves. Naturally such a stupid and hysterical suit was tossed out, and aside from stupid and hysterical Christians, these days the threat of Satan-inspired "back-masking" is consigned to the same embarrassing period of stupidity and hysteria as Satanic mass-child-abuse allegations.

Click little viddy at left to (not) see (but hear) Judas Priest (not) performing Better By You Better Than Me. Singer Rob Halford in court, during the trial, explaining his vocal performance:

Original composers Spooky Tooth performing the song here.

UPDATE More about the case here.

...

In tribute to not only Owen Wilson, whom I trust feels better soon -- but anyone feeling a bit under the weather -- I'd like to play the first three songs off The Polyphonic Spree's (kinda-icky Flash-based official site; wikipedia) first album The Beginning Stages Of..., as a sorta little medley of hope and cheer.

The Polyphonic Spree - Intro.. Have a Day.. Celebratory (3.13 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using player below)

The Polyphonic Spree - It's the Sun (3.13 MB mp3)

The Polyphonic Spree - Days Like This Keep Me Warm (2.79 MB mp3)

Keep warm, chicken.

Separated at birth #2

Paul Addis and Strongbad:

What say you, savages?

Separated at birth #1

Malcolm McDowell and Graham Cleghorn:

What say you, savages?

Misanthropy that is mine

Contrary to my best intentions and my better judgment, I have given myself over to ranting in public again. (and here; and here.) I'm not sure why I hate every-fucking-one lately, but I had it pointed out to me that for about a month I had been scowling at everyone else in the office. And so on. Go me.

But I was reading Jason Mulgrew and I had to chuckle:

One of the plays we read in this class was Moliere’s The Misanthrope. The play is about this dude who basically doesn’t give an F. A guy that he knows wrote this terrible poem and rather than say it was good to be polite, the protagonist says it sucks. Hilarity ensues. The main character eschews politeness and social convention because he doesn’t want to play nice, and in the end goes off and lives alone in a cave somewhere. I think.

I've already posited the suggestion elsewhere that I should fuck off and live in a cave; Jason has followed-up a detailing of his own mounting misanthropy with the amusing solutions he entertains as alternatives (cocaine; starting an exclusive social club). I'm not sure I like either, but since I identify fairly strongly with his remark that:

it has become apparent to me that I hate other people. I’ve always had an inkling that I disliked being around people I didn’t know, but I’m finding that as I’m getting older, this "dislike" is growing into something like "rageful passion."

.. I suspect that before it gets any worse, I may have to resort to some form of therapeutic outlet.

Don't worry, though -- I don't own a gun. Nor do I particularly have the stomach for killin' stuff.

...

I thought I might mention that the Commonsense Nihilist has posted the next section of his graphic novel project; it's good stuff.

lunareclipse_28aug2007

The lunar eclipse went off last night, albeit with a few hitches. Locally it was a bit cloudy early, but cleared up later on and in plenty of time. Pity about the wind.



Above image by TELPortfolio. There is a Flickr group setup for images of the eclipsing moon, but there are plenty of other pics on there which are not part of the group (tag "lunareclipse_28aug2007"). A favourite page is this one, which just kinda fell together out of TELPortfolio's tagged "lunareclipse":



Frankly, that's fucking erotic.

Oh, I almost forgot (wallpaper)...

...in Levin I found some incredible wallpaper, too. Isn't it just so purty?

Wants.

...

Following the David Bowies a couple of months ago, my new BFF neglected stairways has uploaded the 8-track version of Captain Beefheart's Strictly Personal.

On the left's a picture of The Captain; click it to be magically transported to a comprehensively fast and bulbous website all about the same.

From Levin to Jerusalem (or vice versa)

So it would seem that what Dan wants, Dan gets.

Billy Bragg - Jerusalem (2.33 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using player below)

I think that'll about do it now.

...

Was in the mighty Horowhenua for several days. While the actual place wasn't as bad as it had been made out to be, never have I seen such a bunch of downtrodden people as I witnessed in the streets and malls and coffee shops and Warehouse of Levin. It was truly startling to my poor sheltered, cosseted self, and I had to put the camera away (not to worry, though I did take some pics of other stuff).

I saw a plate which reminded me of a Six Organs of Admittance album cover (click for closer look):

It's a valuable piece, by a ceramicist of note, whose name of course I can't remember.

Also scored this magnificent golliwog, to add to the ol' vintage knitted toy collection:

And finally, to aid in my ongoing investigation into the nature of offensiveness, at SaveMart I found possibly the best t-shirt ever:

...not to mention some hideous ceramics, to add to the ol' collection of hideous ceramics.

I also got to go to the Tender Centre. On the main street of Levin, I assumed that this was a sorta drop-in place where you can go and get hugs, and compliments, but I was wrong. It's a kind-of 2nd-hand store where nothing has a price and you make offers for goods -- rather like a single-shot offline auction.

So all-in-all the weekend was a raging success.

The Sneak is not dead

Once upon a time, Dr. The Sneak went missing. She used to go walkabout quite a lot, but she always turned up. This time, however, days and days went by and she never showed -- and we feared the worst.

To quickly invoke Sod's law and cause The Sneak to come home, I quickly whipped up a design and printed some The Sneak t-shirts:

The slogan The Sneak is Not Dead is based on the song that Strongbad (from Homestarrunner.com; video) sang when he thought his offsider The Cheat (video) had run away for ever.

Strongbad - The Cheat is Not Dead (2.79 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using player below)

Here is some more information about the song.

The Sneak is named after The Sneak (wikipedia), the old-timey version of The Cheat. He is described as being "a small rodent or opossum with a striped tail". It's alleged that he once put a Bengal tiger in The Kaiser's latrine. He had a song written about him -- The Ballad of the Sneak (video).

...

Oh, and yes -- The Sneak was definitely not dead (scroll down). Somehow she had found out about the bird sanctuary in Karori, and she had simply walked the several kilometers from our house to go and try her luck.

Friday Farce: Harvey Milk follow-up

Noone was able to come through for me with the answer to the brain teaser from the other day. I was starting to panic. Would I ever find the answer to this most vexing of queries?

(FYI if you came in late: the query was, what is that highly recognisable orchestral music in the middle section of The Anvil Will Fall by Harvey Milk?)

Then it struck me when I was -- literally -- in the shower. It's not Jerusalem, it's the bloody Rugby World Cup theme song, World in Union.

Ladysmith Black Mambazo - World in Union (3.57 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using player below)

Well not quite. It's actually the Jupiter bit out of Gustav Holst's Planet Suite. Some guy named Charlie Skarbek put words to it at some point, and it's been recorded and performed by Kiri Te Kanawa, among others. It was made the official song of the Rugby World Cup in (I believe) 1991, and was performed by Shirley Bassey and Bryn Terfyl at the opening ceremony of the 1999 cup (click image at right to watch video). It was also released as a single by Bassey around the same time.

This is Hubert Parry's hymn Jerusalem (a setting of William Blake's poem), arranged by Elgar (from the Last Night of the Proms, 2003):

Last Night of the Proms - Jerusalem (2.45 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using player below)

Here's a spooky organ/electronic version by film-composer Vangelis (probably from the film Chariots of Fire, the the title of which was taken from words in the poem/hymn):

Vangelis - Jerusalem (2.54 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using player below)

And here's a version by slighty-silly prog-rockers Emerson, Lake and Palmer, taken from their 1973 album Brain Salad Surgery:

Emerson, Lake and Palmer - Jerusalem (3.24 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using player below)

Well well well -- a result. I'm happy about that.

R.I.P. Dirk

Dirk had cancer. He also had one of the best mp3 blogs around, Cities on Flame with Rock'n'Roll. Somehow, in between bouts of chemotherapy and getting one of legs amputated, he found the time to post album after album of the best, most obscure, most rare and sought-after and utterly desirable oddities in the history of rock music -- in particular Japanese weirdstuff.

Dirk had the best attitude towards his health problems too. Nothing much seemed to faze him -- not losing a limb, not any of the other tedious and debilitating effects of his treatments -- just as long as he got to keep rocking the weird music on his blog. Just the other day he mentioned that he was heading into hospital for his seventh (and hopefully) last round of chemo, after which he said he "didn't want to see the inside of a hospital for a very long time".

The next post was from his mother, saying that the doctors had found a huge tumour in his lungs. A few days later there was another post from her, to tell us that Dirk was dead.

If you feel like it, please leave a message on his blog to support his family and friends.

They really can use some friends now.

USB Stealth Switch

The USB 'stealth switch' claims to be "the worlds first desktop cloaking device". From the GadgetLite blog:

This device can be hidden and controlled under your desk! With its 6″ USB cable, its foot tap button can be placed "hiddenly" under your foot. Once the foot tap is stepped, the following functions can be activated according to your preset options:

1. To switch or hide your current window/all windows instantly.
2. You can preset to bring up a preferred window at all times.
3. Password to protect your computer.
4. Mute sound, etc...

In other words, the 21st century version of the Boss-key.

20 seconds of Amy Winehouse was more than enough for me

Thought I'd finally check out Wino's (Wikipedia) shit, to see what the fuss was all about.


Twenty seconds -- the opening twenty seconds of the choon Stronger Than Me, debut single and the opening cut on her 2003 Mercury Prize-nominated (yikes!) album Frank -- was more than enough.

Amy Winehouse - Stronger than me (intro) (200KB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; or play using embedded player below)

If that don't put you off, I suggest you get on over to Smoke to preview some other tracks.

Here's some lyrics to inspire you:

You should be stronger than me,
But instead you're longer than frozen turkey,
Why'd you always put me in control?
All I need is for my man to live up to his role,
Always wanna talk it through- I'm ok,
Always have to comfort you every day,
But that's what I need you to do - are you gay?

Bleagh.

Being hungover

Being hungover is like winning the lottery, except they pay you in pink sweaters that have a picture of a bear on them. The bear is wearing a watch and pointing to it; the bear is saying "School time".


Dinosaur comics.

Waxing mood of an afternoon

I was trying to remain calm and positive in the face of reports from the U.S. that (1) Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama warned that he'd invade Pakistan in order to strike against al Qaeda, and (2) congressman Tom Tancredo suggested that the U.S. should "take out" Islamic holy sites, including Mecca. Way to go, retards. Way to stir up the ol' hornets nest even more. Could you guys just fuck off and leave the rest of us to get on with it? D'ya think?


I was struggling to remain chipper despite the encouraging reports that Venezuelan prez Hugo Chavez is continuing his peaceful economic revolution, and gathering support from other nations in the process. Holy shit. Harvesting a country's natural mineral wealth and, umm, funneling the proceeds back into the betterment and sustenance of the country and it's population? Outrageous.


I was fighting -- and failing -- to quell the urge to be WAY impressed at the Commonsense Nihilist's new project, a graphic novel involving himself, several artistic heroes, a time machine, and changing the course of history -- including the discovery of America. Not only does his idea rule, but he said he's going to do something and bugger me if he doesn't up and go and do it. Inspirational.

So it's not all bad news, is it.

Can't Touch Me Monday

In response to Wanda Harland's U Can't Touch This Sunday post.....

Friday Farce onna Sunday: Harvey Milk

Yeah yeah, I know, I promised you a farce and I've let you down. See -- my original plan was going to have to involve writing a potted history of reggae music, and I just ain't had the time. And somehow now it's Sunday and all I've got to show for it is this -- admittedly pretty special -- curiosity from Harvey Milk.

Taking their name from the assassinated San Franciscan politician, Harvey Milk are Creston Spiers, Steven Tanner and Paul Trudeau. Their first two albums My Love is Higher Than Your Assessment of What My Love Could Be and Courtesy and Goodwill Toward Men mixed massive sludgy riffs with classical music, Kiss, and everything in between. The songs were given an extra dimension with Spiers' powerful, heartwrenching (and sometimes gutwrenching) vocals.

The particular tune I want to share with ya this afternoon displays some exceptional and groundbreaking work in the field of (mis-)appropriation and recontextualisation of existing work as incorporated into new work. Or as it is colloquially known, musical quotation.

Harvey Milk - The Anvil Will Fall (5MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; or play using player below)

The middle passage where the orchestra appears out of nowhere and plays the old, instantly recognisable British hymn Ummm by Shit, It's On the Tip of My Tongue (help? anyone? put me out of my misery and tell me what it is) -- while the vocalist mumbles and croons some obscure lyric over the top of it, even slipping into a boyish falsetto -- is incredibly affecting.

No word anywhere on whether the section is a "sample" of some recording, or newly recorded at the behest of the band. My best guess at this point tis that it's Hubert Parry's Jerusalem but I have a feeling I'm wrong and I can't find a recording of it to check.

Here are some varied reviews which help to create a nicely rounded impression of the My Love is Higher Than Your Assessment of What My Love Could Be album, and indeed the enigma that is Harvey Milk:

While its title may read like the wall art ramblings of a straitjacketed emo kid in solitary confinement, the record itself is—I shit you not—more tormented and knife-turning than half of your kvlt-as-fuck black metal collection. Basically, think of how unnerving Sunn O))) can be from time to time and switch the overall vibe from pure, self-conscious evil to complete insanity. Nothing makes sense on this album, from Paul Trudeau’s lumbering, gut-punch percussion patterns to Creston Spiers’ unpredictable (and seemingly nonsensical) use of wrecking ball riffs, mealy-mouthed shouting and staggered white space.

-- Andrew Parks, Decibel

Harvey Milk's first album My Love Is... is probably their least accessible and most versatile record. The sound varies from rude and obnoxious doomy, to fragile and lovely supported at times by a real orchestra (see The Anvil Will Fall). Creston Speirs' characteristic "Whiskey and too much smoke"-voice dominates the record, as well as the never logical rythm-section. File under intelligent noisy metal. With a twist, that is because one should not make the mistake of overlooking this band's self-humoristic aspect. If you can handle your depressed noise getting rudely disturbed by an army of happy violins and Eels-like vocals, this is a true must-have. People without a sense of humor or adventure should better stay away.

-- Lords of Metal

Another classic Milk track is The Anvil Will Fall, a moody drifting whispery ballad, peppered by huge bursts of downtuned pummel, when out of nowhere, in come the strings, some patriotic hymn, an almost recognizable tune that Creston sings along too in his warbly raspy croon, even kicking it up into a wicked falsetto, before petering back out into the original hushed crawl, eventually launching into a super moving moody goddamned ANTHEM. The sort of song that should have sludge fans teary eyed with hat in hand, and hand over heart.

-- aQuarius Records

This is a bit of a weird one. Thick, slow, drunken blasts of grunge kind of come and go without much form or structure, and occasionally a moaning voice -- like the ghost of Marley haunting Scrooge -- kind of rumbles and belches its way in the background. I repeat, what is this? 2/5

-- Jack Rabid, Allmusic.com

As for letting you down, well... I'll try not to do it again.

Heka on a Friday

Friday Farce? Ain't got none just yet; ran out of time here at Dorking Labs to upload the files. Sorry about that. I shall endeavor to rectify this situation while it is still Friday somewhere in the world -- Hawaii or Alaska, possibly.

Meanwhile, let's have some more Heka. (Remember Heka? also here.)

Heka - AC130 (2.87 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download)

"you can't kill for peace... you can't kill for peace..."

Well, ostensibly you can, but that only really works at a kinda macro-geopolitical level, and ignores the lasting effect on those on the ground, picking up the bodies and mourning their dead friends and relatives.


Happy Friday!

Lunar park

My current project of rereading all of Brett Easton Ellis's books, in order, has culminated in me devouring his latest Lunar Park in a matter of hours, this week.

It's absurdly good. It features the main character Bret Easton Ellis, a wildly-successful author who achieved notoriety and success at a very early age, who has spent the subsequent twenty years getting fucked up, and whose life with new wife and kids has now fallen virtually to pieces. Yes exactly -- it is literally autobiographical, at least in part.

The book also features characters from Ellis' work, namely Patrick Bateman, who generally terrorizes him and goes about in Brett's neighborhood recreating the murders and violence of American Psycho. (We know it's Bateman because the guy looks a bit like Christian Bale, who played Bateman in Mary Harron's film adaptation of Psycho.) He is also being menaced by at least one of his former selves, and his dead father, and a child's toy bird which he gave to his daughter and which may or may not actually be a grotesque monster from another world. So it's really some kind of meta-novel -- a Stephen King-style pulp-horror fused with a soap-opera he-said she-said couples-counselling marriage falling-apart drama, all bound up in the sort of post-modern self-referential hyperreal structure that frankly I don't believe anyone but this author could get away with.

At some point Ellis observes that these terrors only exist because he -- at some point or another -- wrote them into existence; he immediately sets about penning a quick short story about the demise of Patrick Bateman, trying to write him out of existence again. It doesn't work.

I don't want to say any more and, besides -- you won't want me to give it all away, will ya; you'll want to find out for yourself. I have a feeling that I did the right thing in reading all his books in sequence before attacking Lunar Park; his habit of referencing and reviving characters from other works in new books is taken to an illogical extreme here and it helps somewhat to have, for example, every gory detail of Patrick Bateman's bloody rampages fresh in mind. Like I said, though -- absurdly, precociously good.

Some further reading:

Brett Easton Ellis in Wikipedia.
post-Lunar Park interview at The Morning News.
Brett Easton Ellis at e-Notes.
Video of interview on BBC.
Story about Lunar Park and BEE on Chuck Palahnuik's site.

Stumps on Saturday

Me band The Stumps is playing this Saturday at Happy.

Also appearing is Fertility Festival, Jeff Henderson's new "Sublime Frequencies-style" weirdo-'pop' band, and Sign of the Hag (a.k.a. Daniel Beban).

Here's another page about Jeff Henderson.


Bring the noise.



THE STUMPS, FERTILITY FESTIVAL AND SIGN OF THE HAG
9PM HAPPY 18th AUGUST 2007
$5

Blues du Jour

Maher Shalal Hash Baz is the long-running, and "deliberately amateur-sounding" ensemble from Japanese songwriter/bandleader Tori Kudo. (Deliberately amateur-sounding? Try pseudo-naive, or faux-naive.

A few months ago on another site I wrote of the band (in the context of their album Blues du Jour):

Ppl have been spazzing out about and awarding big kudos to Tori Kudo's latest avant folk creation; it's all deserved. It's his most soulful, compassionate work and at only 41 tracks, is considerably shorter than his legendary 83 song opus, Return Visit To Rock Mass. [The song] Futility is so little, and yet it's so big. Does that make sense? I mean it only clocks in at a little over a minute, and it covers off all the emotional and compositional bases it could ever need to just so damn fine.....

Maher Shalal Hash Baz - Futility (1 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download)


I've been listening to the new Maher Shalal Hash Baz record L'Autre Cap quite a lot recently. Upon hearing it, someone asked me to try to explain what the hell it was all about. (I don't think they really liked it.) I struggled at the time, but sitting on the bus this morning, squinting into the late-winter sun as we barreled down Lambton Quay, it struck me like a hammer-blow to the temple.

This is what aQuarius records wrote about L'Autre Cap:

As always, it's a magical, melancholic mishmash of lilting indie-pop, innocently sweet vocals, lovelorn lyrics, little big band (dis-)arrangements, woozy horns, percussive pitter patter, gently jazzy guitars, bassoon bass lines, and dysplastic Farfisa, all performed with unique, shambolic charm. Fans will be happily aware of what they're getting into here. Those unfamiliar with the band, we suspect you'll also enjoy the unsteady but friendly hugs Kudo and crew are doling out to your ears (and wish you could squeeze 'em back). That is, unless you're particularly hard of heart and/or uptight about musicians not "coloring outside the lines" as it were.

... and so this morning it all made sense in a whole wrapped-up no-loose-ends kinda way, it's all about the avant-pop semi-composed lunacy/experimentalism of The Red Crayola, of Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd, of Captain Beefheart's Magic Band on Trout Mask Replica... and an amateur brass band, or the Portsmouth Sinfonia, or something.

Got me?

John Campbell vs. the back-end of a bus

Several readers have emailed me asking what the hell I am on about in my post yesterday re. John Campbell and his rodent-like visage-distortion on the back of Wellington buses.

For their benefit, and for the benefit of anyone else who may be wondering, it was (mostly) satire. And in an homage to Monty Python, here's the previous sentence in visual form:

Yes. Mostly satire. I mean, some aspects are for real -- I feel bad for John having an ostensibly-objective rendering of his features distort in such an unfortunate manner, but I don't believe it was deliberate.

Nor was it I who distorted the image. The light waves bouncing off the back of the bus were detected by the photo-sensitive cells in my phone's camera, encoded and compressed as a JPG-format file in its flash-memory file-system, transferred using the Universal Serial Bus protocol to my computer, cropped and composed using Adobe Photoshop CS2, and saved and uploaded to my website. No tampering of any form was undertaken.

Nor is this a Campbell Live (CampbellLive?) publicity-stunt, at least not that I know of.

There are several other buses of differing makes and models driving around which have much less distorted John Campbells on their back-ends, so the answer is actually that a stock-standard image/decal for the campaign is effected by an unfortunate distortion on one particular model of bus.

Of course, if he was a parliamentarian, he could bring charges -- or at least sue.

If I was John Campbell...

...I'd be considering legal action.

     

Now. Having had some experience in the design and postering and graphics bizzo, can I just say that THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN BY ACCIDENT. (Not that I can remember what this phenomenon is called, so let's just make something up on the spot... ok... what about "sheet foreshortening"?)

Exhibit A: image on the left. They couldn't have picked more precisely the region of his face which, when subjected to "sheet-foreshortening" because of having to lay over 3D protuberances on the back of a bus, would distort in the vertical dimension and render poor JC more-or-less as a rodent. (Region of face delineated by blue arrows in image on right).

In fact, to make him look any more like a cute little mousie, they would have had to actually vandalise the image Perez Hilton style (ok, not really -- there's no fake-jizz or writing or cocaine boogers -- but you get the idea), as per Exhibit B: image on the right.

I know I've banged on about this to all and sundry recently, but, really. Disgraceful.

(click on pics for closer looks)

Hymns and Spheres

I love the internet.

There, I said it.

...

About ECM Records (Wikipedia):

Founded in Munich by producer Manfred Eicher in 1969, ECM has released more than 1000 albums spanning many idioms. Establishing an early reputation with standard-setting jazz and improvised music albums, ECM began to include contemporary composition in its programme in the late 1970s, and in 1984 a sister label, ECM New Series, was launched. The quality of ECM albums at all levels -- from musicianship, production and engineering to cover art -- has been widely recognised and the label has collected many awards.
[...]
The label has been hailed, by UK newspaper The Independent, as ''the most important imprint in the world for jazz and new music.''

So that's the official word on ECM Records; the unofficial one is that despite the occasional gem of rare beauty and importance, they are the perpetrators of the most vile, offensively-inoffensive easy-listening inconsequentialities in the known universe. Often this "genre" is referred to in disapprobation as "Scandinavian Jazz". See Jan Garbarek, Ralph Towner, Pat Metheny, Arild Andersen, et. al. See for e.g. this review at Amazon of Stephan Micus' Desert Poems:

I imagine that Micus (or at least ECM) is frustrated that his albums are tossed into the New Age section at the record store alongside outright dreck like Enya and Yanni..

(I imagine that Micus -- or at least ECM -- are bloody-well used to it by now.)

It's no stretch to add that in addition to the list above, one of the most (in)famous perpetrators of this awful muck is Keith Jarrett, whose The Koln Concert is in turn one of the finest examples of said muck; a meandering, unfocused, mess of cheesy improvised cheap-TV-soundtrack sentimental piano, accompanied by embarrassing jazz-vocal outbursts. No stretch at all. To the extent that indeed, The Koln Concert can be said to epitomise all that is rotten in the state of Denmark.

(That was a joke. Denmark? "Scandinavian Jazz"? Need I go on?)

It's always good -- actually, it's always fucking awesome -- when something comes along that totally destroys your preconception about how something, somebody, some -- anything -- is. And so it was when Jani Hellen turned me on to Keith Jarrett's Hymns and Spheres album, which is from roughly the same time as the reviled Koln Concert record, but the diametric-opposite to that debacle; primarily, incredible.

I love organs. I love the vast ouvre of Olivier Messiaen. I love Gyorgy Ligeti and I love Romantic organ music. No, not lounge-lizard covers of classic love-songs. Romantic Organ Music -- think Cesar Franck, Franz Liszt, Charles-Marie Widor, Felix Mendelssohn and their crew. Think burst of harsh noise, long drawn out tones, atonal blasts and the gentle gentle drones of soft reeds. Think thunderous recitals on colossal instruments in ancient cathedrals. And I love Hymns and Spheres, Jarrett's album of improvised organ music which was recorded in 1976 on the mighty Trinity Organ at the Benedictine Abbey in Ottobeuren, Germany.

TheGline.com disc-of-the-week review:

Those familiar with Jarrett through the warmth and intimacy of his piano improvisations will be shocked at how positively alien this record sounds, not only because of Jarrett’s atypical playing but the sound of the organ itself. It brings to mind Tangerine Dream’s very early Virgin-era records, which consisted not only of electronic instruments but conventional ones that had been heavily processed with studio effects and tape manipulations.

(According to the original album liner notes: "No overdubs, technical ornamentations or additions were utilized, only the pure sound of the organ in the abbey is heard. Many of the unique effects, although never before used, were accomplished by pulling certain stops part way, while others remain completely open or closed. Amazingly, baroque organs have always had this capability.")



And an Amazon.com review:

..the album contains some of the most transcendent music Keith Jarrett has recorded..

The album is a unique diversion from his earlier works and Jarrett paints an evocative, sad, and poignant landscape of sound (both beautifully harmonic and wonderfully dissonant). Sadly though, the full original release of the album is not available, for bookending the Spheres portion of the album is the Hymn of Rememberance, and the Hymn of Release, two glorious blast of spiritual bliss:

Keith Jarrett - Hymn of release (3.85 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download)

That is, not available on CD. But after reading on Jani's podcast note that "ECM is still selling the double-lp at their web shop" I spent approximately 1 minute and 20 mouse-clicks locating the album, and purchasing it. One week, 27 Euros (incl. the somewhat-steep but not-unacceptable 10 Euro shipping) later, and like the birth of a precious child, to my hands was delivered one copy of the original 1976 pressing of the double LP -- all the way from the other side of the world.

They're still selling copies of the original 1976 pressing of Hymns and Spheres.

This is unprecedented.

Like I said, I love the internet.


UPDATE

What the divine Ms. K said to me, upon arriving home the other night as I was blasting Hymns and Spheres through the whole house:

"Why are you listening to funeral music, hon?"

Love that gal.