Monthly Archives: October 2013

Robert Plant Discovers Lost Led Zeppelin Tapes

Music, news, , , , , , , ,

zep
Robert Plant says he recently discovered old Led Zeppelin tapes that include unreleased music, some of which could show up on remastered versions of the group’s albums, which Jimmy Page has been working on for some time. There is currently no release date set for the remasters.

“I found some quarter-inch spools recently,” Plant told BBC 6Music’s Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie. “I had a meeting with Jimmy and we baked ’em up and listened to ’em. And there’s some very, very interesting bits and pieces that probably will turn up on these things [the remastered albums].”

Plant said bassist John Paul Jones sang on some of the tracks and joked that Jones has bribed him not to release them.

“So far, he’s going to give me two cars and a greenhouse not to get ’em on the album,” Plant said.

No new music to hear yet, but if you need a Zep fix:

Watch: Another Teaser Video From Arcade Fire, “Afterlife”

Art, Music, news, streaming music, Video, , , , , , , ,

Footage was shot in Haiti where Arcade Fire recorded the new album, Reflektor. There’s also footage from a show at Montreal’s La Salsatheque, according to Consequence Of Sound.

Watch the group perform “Reflektor” on Saturday Night Live.

Watch the post-Saturday Night Live special:

Banksy NYC ART Day #18: Two Collaborations With Os Gemeos

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For Day #18 of Banksy’s “Better Out Than In” New York street exhibit the artist is showing two collaborations he made with Brazilian artists Os Gemeos, on West 24th Street, between 10th and 11th avenues.

banksy day 18-1

Today (Oct. 18, 2013) on his website Banksy writes:

“Are you the sort of person who enjoys going to art galleries, but wished they had more gravel in them? Then this temporary exhibition space is for you. Housing just two paintings but also featuring a bench, some carpet and complimentary refreshments. Opens today through Sunday 11am til midnight.”

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Banksy has also included audio about today’s art:

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If you missed my previous Banksy posts, here’s an easy way to check them out: Day one, day two, day three, day four, day five, day six, day seven, day eight, day nine, day ten, day 11, day 12, day 13, day 14, day 15, day 16, day 17. Plus: “A Consideration Of The Politics Of Banksy’s Syria Video,” “Source For Banksy’s ‘Concrete Confessional’ Revealed,” and “Banksy Update: NYC Mayor Attacks Street Artist.”

At the bottom of Banksy’s Oct. 18 post on his website he writes:

People ask why I want to have an exhibition in the streets, but have you been to an art gallery recently? They’re full.

And finally, the owner of the building that Banksy stenciled yesterday (Oct. 17, 2013) has an article, “I’m the Accidental Owner of a Banksy,” that you can read here.

Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova To Be Transferred To A Different Prison

Music, politics, , , , ,

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Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova  will be transferred to another Russian penal colony in the wake of her nine-day hunger strike and the ensuing media attention, the Associated Press report today (October 18, 2013).

“The Federal Penitentiary Service said in a statement Friday it will meet Tolokonnikova’s demand and move her to another prison ‘for her personal safety,'” the AP report.

The Pussy Riot member has been suriving a two-year sentence in Penal Colony No. 14 in the Mordovia region of Russia.

For more of this story.

Why John Tefteller Paid $37,000 For A Blues 78 RPM Record

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John Tefteller Museum 78's, Pre-War Blues

John Tefteller makes his living buying and selling records. In September he paid the most anyone has ever paid for a 78 RPM blues record. The record he bought was Tommy Johnson’s “Alcohol and Jake Blues.”

Why did he pay so much for an old blues 78?

“These original Paramount delta blues records have attained such a mythic status over the years, and there are loads of people who would love to buy one of these things, that it just becomes so legendary,” Tefteller  told Fuse. ” When you actually see one for sale, which happens once or twice in a lifetime, you have to make a decision.

“It’s also historically extremely important because there are no masters on these records,” he continued. ” You think of modern-day records and there are master tapes that you can go back to and make new copies of. When you go back to these 1920s and ’30s blues recordings, this is it. The masters were destroyed years ago and there’s no way to recover them. The only way anyone is able to hear this stuff now is to search out an [original] commercial pressing. So when you find one of these blues records in really super nice condition, that’s an earth-shaking event in the record collecting world.”

For more of Fuse’s interview.

And here’s another good story about the

Watch: Arcade Fire To Perform On “The Colbert Report”

Art, Music, news, , , , , , ,

arcade f

Arcade Fire will appear on the October 21, 2013 episode of “The Colbert Report,” a Comedy Central show.

The group will be interviewed by Steven Colbert and will perform as The Reflektors, a pseudonym they’ve been using while promoting their new album, Reflektor.

Banksy Update: NYC Mayor Attacks Street Artist

Art, news, politics, , , , , ,

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With a front page headline screaming “Get Banksy!” the New York Post reports that police are on the lookout for the world famous graffiti artist.

“Law enforcement sources have told The Post Banksy will be charged with vandalism if he’s found scribbling his stencils on city walls,” The Post reports.

But the Daily News in New York reports that police are not actively looking for Banksy.

“It is graffiti, so if someone complained about it, members of the Vandals Unit would investigate,” a police source told the Daily New. “I haven’t heard of anyone complaining.”

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg calls Banksy a vandal, not an artist.

“Graffiti does ruin people’s property and is a sign of decay and a loss of control,” Bloomberg said yesterday (Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2013).

“Art is art, and nobody’s a bigger supporter of the arts than I am,” he continued. “I just think there are some places for art, and there are some places [for] no art. You running up to someone’s property or public property and defacing it is not my definition of art.”

Now if I was Banksy, I’d be quite happy to have the Mayor of New York talking about me. How cool is that. Banksy as Batman?

Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova Fights For Prisoners’ Rights In Mordovia

Music, news, politics, , , , ,
Photo by Denis Bochkarev.
Photo by Denis Bochkarev.

Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is fronting a new organization, “Mordovlag” (an abbreviation of “Mordovia Camp” in Russian), which will fights for prisoners’ rights in the Mordovia region of Russia, according to Rolling Stone.

Tolokonnikova is currently serving a two year sentence at Penal Colony Bo, 14 in Mordovia.

Mordovlag “will employ experienced lawyers and activists to inspect the region’s prisons, visit prisoners and assist in legal appeals and other procedural issues,” writes Patrick Reevell in Rolling Stone.

Rolling Stone also reports: “In the meantime, Tolokonnikova’s move into prison advocacy appears to have already had an effect: Last week, the prison service announced that it would reduce the number of hours worked by inmates and raise their rate of pay. Her hunger strike, and the open letter she released at its outset, have brought public scrutiny onto the camps not seen in decades.”

Read more here.

Meanwhile another member of Pussy Riot, Ekaterina Samutsevich has joined calls for a boycott of next year’s  Sochi Winter Olympic games to protest the country’s recent legislation against gays and lesbians.

“I do not think there is any other way to make our authorities see and understand…,”  Samutsevich told a BBC reporter. “These rights are laid down in UN documents and sadly Russia violates them.”

Read more here.

This is the latest in a series of posts I’ve been doing on Pussy Riot and Tolokonnikova’s situation. To read them all, simply use the search window and search for Pussy Riot.

Books: Early Reviews Are In On Morrissey’s “Autobiography”

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morrissey auto

Morrissey’s much awaited autobiography, “Autobiography,” published by Penguin Classics, appeared in bookstores today in the UK and Europe. It has not yet been published in the U.S.

The first reviews are in. In the English paper, The Telegraph, Neil McCormick writes:

“With typical pretension, Morrissey’s first book has been published as a Penguin Classic. It justifies such presentation with a beautifully measured prose style that combines a lilting, poetic turn of phrase and acute quality of observation, revelling in a kind of morbid glee at life’s injustice with arch, understated humour, a laughter that is a shadow away from depression or anger. As such, it is recognisably the voice of the most distinctive British pop lyricist of his era. It is certainly the best written musical autobiography since Bob Dylan’s Chronicles, and like that book it evokes a sense of what it must be like to dwell within such an extraordinary mind.”

Over at iJamming!, Tony Fletcher praises Morrissey’s writing ability. Fletcher says Morrissey’s description of his childhood has:

“…such vivid detail and such literary prowess that it competes amongst the very best writings on 1960s and 1970s Manchester.”

Over at Consequence Of Sound they’ve put together a list of all the most important revelations that are in book, based on what reviewers have written so far.

Here’s a few:

“Morrissey was upset to discover that The Smiths’ debut album was released in different configurations around the world (via Telegraph). He writes, ‘I vomit profusely when I discover that the album has been pressed in Japan with Sandie Shaw’s version of “Hand in Glove” included. I am so disgusted by this that I beg people to kill me.'”

And:

“Morrissey received a letter from Johnny Marr years after The Smiths’ broke up, which he reproduces in the book (via The Daily Beast): ‘I’ve only recently come to realize that you genuinely don’t know all the reasons for my leaving. To get into it would be horrible, but I will say that I honestly hated the sort of people we had become.'”

For more: Consequence Of Sound