Thursday, November 16, 2006

To Hell With Poverty Saints In My Face

Headed out the door in a few minutes to catch Del The Funky Homosapien w/ Mike Relm at The Fillmore...

hopefully they are feeling fresher than me, a guy who spent a little too much time last night consuming a bottle of Irish vodka...

I did not know that the Irish even were involved in the vodka trade.. go figger

The vodka seemed free at the time, but today I've definitely been paying for it...

I went out and celebrated after I cashed a check last night for selling some video footageof my encounter with Borat to G4 TV, the ICONS show it's used in airs on Sunday night... check it out...

here's some random tunes I'll toss at ya while I take some asprin...

Gang of Four - To Hell With Poverty - Live on Rockpalast
courtesy the always rawkin' postpunkjunk.com


Sinead O' Connor , Huey Lewis, Mavis Staples w/ Umphery's McGee at Jammy Awards in NYC - I'll Take You There


Marvin Gaye vs Lipps Inc - Sexual Town - Esotic Mashup


pssst... is this the Indian George Carlin?

F*ck

anyone know the academic in question there?

Speaking of academic...

I just caught the GreenDay / U2 collaboration and while I enjoyed the flashy video and the sentiments and all...





Being a permanent member of the corporate rawk peanut gallery, I just gotta wonder...

uh, what took these guys so long?

I mean everyone complained that it took the US government way to long to mobilize an assistance effort along the Gulf Coast last year...but U2 & Green Day, two of the biggest/richest bands left in rock, took a whole year to get their act together and all they have is a half ass cover tune & a Monday Night Football half time show ...

The original version of that song was by a '77 era Scottish punk band called The Skids. The band's guitarist was actually the late stuart Adamson, singer of Big Country. Hopefully the royalties will do some good for an old punker somewhere...

The Skids - The Saints Are Coming

uh, nice choice at least, but uh, I still believe it's some 14 months after Katrina left the front pages?


Sh*t, I recall Michael Stipe had his Katrina single & video tribute bit ready in a few weeks...

Wynton Marsalis had a nationally televised concert, at Lincoln Center w/ folks like Cassandra Wilson, Terence Blanchard and other jazz performers and the Higher Ground Hurricane Benefit Relief Concert benefit CD was out within two months, in plenty time for Christams sales , a year ago!

Allen Toussaint & Elvis Costello recorded a whole album down there actually in New Orleans and had it out by spring...

Are like Bono & Billie Joe's schedules and label legal teams so busy that they penciled this thing into their blackberries or whatever pop stars & handlers do and just finally got around to finish it now?

Maybe they shoulda just hired a mash up DJ like Go Home Productions, Party Ben or Solofcon mix it and have it out in hours?



Party Ben - U2 vs Lyrics Born

Dj Diamond - Green Day vs Destiny's Child

The Hitmaker - U2 vs Mike & The Mechanics

Party Ben - Yeah Yeah Yeahs vs Green Day vs Oasis vs Love & Rockets vs Samantha Fox - Golden Boulevard

Cropstar - U2 vs Finley Quaye

Go Home Productions - Pt 1 Rocktober Superchunk Mix

Faultline - Green Day vs Flaming Lips

The track, already a big hit, will be featured on U2's new album, with a portion of the royalties going to Music Rising, a campaign striving to bring the music scene back to the Gulf Coast.

I suppose it all has something to do with Universal Music's holiday sales push & release schedules eh?

Not any real relevance to a post-Katrina charity effort...

But Uh...

Hey guys, it's cool and all, and the money raised will certainly come in handy I suppose, but is it me, or is it not exactly the freshest topic right now?

Maybe ya shoulda stuck to hyping the Darfur RED thing... most kids or adults for that matter, still don't know where that is...or why various factions in some east African country are slaughtering each other in a genocidal rampage...

I was as outraged as anyone by the US gov't's lackadaisical Katrina response, but said so within days, sent money & raised a lil hell. I think Kanye West made some sort of memorable comments as well, and sent a whole lot more money than me...
Kanye West - He Say Bush Doesn't Care Mix...


Even Pepsi, has had a Katrina relief billboard in my hood for many months...

Now U2 wants to jump aboard that train now, 14 months later...and are bringing Green Day along?

Did all you guys just get the Hurricane Relief memo or sumpin?

Is the New Orleans Katrina rescue issue just slightly played out in November of 2006, in an age of a series of tubes called "internets" & instantaneous communications?

maybe not...



Click here to visit The New Orleans Musicians Hurricane Relief Fund site.




Anyhow, nuff of my pontificating...


are you still here?

look... i already told you...
I gotta get out of here...

but, since yer still hanging around, here's one last tune...

I got it free courtesy the always entertaining Emusic.com...

So I thought it might be ok to pass onto y'all...


It's an interesting duet that just came out, that has nothing to do with Katrina, U2 or Green Day but is worthy of checking out...



It's built around the aged voice of Charlie Louvin, a man who should need no introduction, but since the media and the mayhem of the age ain't gonna pre-enlighten y'all ... I'll step up to the plate a bit.

Charlie was part of one of the greatest country / bluegrass acts of all time, The Louvin Brothers, with his brother Ira who both started performing in the 1930s. Louvin, born in Alabama hill country, toured throughout Appalachia and had radio slots on stations in Knoxville & Memphis Tn in the 1940's. By the 1950's they had a string of top country hits, and Charlie went solo also reaching the charts several times. His brother Ira died in a car crash in 1965.

He influenced a whole range of performers including The Everly Bros, Johnny Cash, Elvis, Gram Parsons, Nick Cave, and Cake who took Charlie out on the Unlinited Sunshine package tour with Cheap Trick and The Detroit Cobras a few years ago. Undoubtedly the guy he's singing with here, was a fan too, that being fellow country legend & Hall of Famer George Jones.

Charlie Louvin (featuring George Jones) - Must You Throw Dirt In My Face

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just an FYI,

I can't speak for Green Day, I've never been a big fan, but I know that the Edge was at work on the music-recovery efforts just weeks after the disaster, and also was working with his "focus area," inner-city at-risk youth by working on building teams to try to get some schools open ASAP. Adam & Larry did their Habitat for Humanity time, as did Danny Lanois. (Larry and Danny have done production and session work in NO with various artists including Emmylou Harris, so I imagine they have the same soft spot so many other musicians have.) Bono is so high profile, he tends to stay away until his profile can be a benefit. But I'd be surprised if he wasn't talking with his various contacts about needs so that his and Ali's money would go where it was most needed.

I know it seems contradictory b/c U2 is so high-profile, but they are notable for the seriousness with which they take their philathropy; i.e., charitable giving is supposed to be low-key, putting the emphasis on the recipient, not on the giver. And I do understand that they purposely waited to do their benefit because so many other artists jumped on the immediate needs. Yet we all could see that needs would be ongoing for months or years.

Bono can be a real egomaniac (and I've been a fan almost 25 years) and he really tweaks my hair sometimes, but I do think they try their best to put their heart - and their money - in good places. They just don't advertise it. (For example, most people in the States don't know that there is a primary school in Dublin named after David Evans, and have even less awareness of just how dedicated the Edge is to his foundation for at-risk youth.)

Thanks for posting the tracks.

lil m said...

Hey thanx for all the info on U2's efforts

I didn't doubt their sincerity... and have been a longtime fan as well...

my questions were mostly rhetorical in nature...

just tossing out fodder for a pointless post I suppose...

may we all stay high & dry & keep on rawkin in the freak world to the tunes that make us all a twitter for many years longer...

anyhow i gotta get back to watching my czech subtitled movie before the plot escaes me any further...