Job didn't know shit.
Got up to make my medicine this morning. We're out of sugar. I need three huge tablespoons of sugar for my medicine. My stomach is screaming. I need the medicine NOW!
The problem is the medicine is meant to be mixed with sugar because the smell and taste can otherwise cause vomiting.
We're out of sugar. I look across to my lovely awake cohabitant and point out to her that we're out of sugar.
'Yes I know.'
'But we've never been out of sugar before. Not in ten years.'
'Yes I know.'
'You just went shopping yesterday.'
'Yes I know.'
'Didn't you have enough money to buy sugar?'
'Oh of course.'
'Then why didn't you buy any? You always have a backup as well. Now none.'
'They didn't have my favourite brand.'
They didn't have her favourite brand?
Yes, her favourite brand costs about 40p less than the other brand. So to save 40p she decided to completely deprive the household of sugar.
Sugar isn't only used in medicine. It's used in cooking, it's used in hot drinks. And cohabitant must have been waiting for her 'favourite' brand for some time - she let us run out over a period of weeks, not a single shopping day.
All because she can't find her favourite brand anymore.
The medicine will have to wait. The pain has become excruciating. I am thinking of divorce.
Sunday, 29 August 2010
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
Compromise and Peter Garrett
Peter Garrett MP. Alternatively seen as an idol and a sellout. Vitriol is flowing freely as people are still eager to approach the person.
Peter Garrett was once frontman for Midnight Oil. No look at Garrett is complete without first looking at Midnight Oil.
Midnight Oil are the first, last, and only no-compromise rock group in the history of rock. It's hard to appreciate how deeply this goes without looking at their history.
Midnight Oil started in the surfer clubs in NSW outside Sydney. Clubs Garrett described as being as far from what one would find in LA as imaginable. More like what the Beatles saw in Hamburg but even more so. Biker types who would, in the words of Garrett, break the bottom off a beer bottle and shove it in your face if they didn't like the entertainment.
Midnight Oil were always about entertainment. Not laser shows and smoke bombs. Those things only make bikers pissed as hell. You had to make music - mach shau as the Beatles were told. And even if your average biker doesn't know that much about music theory or technique, he intuitively grasps when something is good and when something is really good and when something is truly exceptional.
Midnight Oil at those surfer clubs played roller coaster music. It took off, grabbed you, never let go, didn't let you catch your breath.
Midnight Oil searched for a recording contract but they had their stipulations. They were no-compromise before they even had a contract. They insisted on full artistic control and they wanted distribution, not a recording contract. There were no buyers.
So they financed their first album on their own Powderworks label. They were later to get distribution by CBS Australia but they never sold out.
Their title song on the Powderworks album starts with the ominous lyric 'there's a shit storm coming'. The song is 5:34 long. At 2:38 the instrumental roller coaster starts - and continues for several minutes on the twin guitars of Martin Rotsey and Jim Moginie with hectic bass work by Bear James and finally segues back into vocals at 4:28. Way more than half the song is instrumental. There are so many twists and turns in there it's not funny.
It's not just that the songs wear you out emotionally and intellectually - they're so technically demanding. No challenge without entertainment of course. The next song on that album is called Head Over Heels. Listen carefully. It's got hot plectrum work that not only is demanding and needs a lot of practice but is HARD WORK. And it's done in unison between one guitar and the bass. This is a song most groups would never even attempt to play - it's just too hard! But Midnight Oil did it.
Their time signature changes. Listen to the opening of Dust. It's a 3/4 song actually. But it's actually more like a 6/8. Yet the intro is definitely 3/4. And listen what happens in the second verse! This is not easy music making.
The arrangements - meticulously laid up. Best since Paul McCartney's work with the Beatles. Add on gradually. Keep the concept of song format in mind. And so forth.
This is brilliant music all around. The compositions are anything but trivial. The practice that went into mastering each of these tracks. The overriding rule that technique and virtuosity have to lead to something - to audience happiness.
The raucous Used And Abused - a rebel rock song. Again - hold on tight because it goes all over the place. Don't think so? Just wait until the second time around (it takes off at 1:24). And listen to the fast-picking unison work between guitar and bass. 3:11 but a very long 3:11.
Surfing With A Spoon. Have any idea what's going on there? For the first: one of the guitars is (some of the time) strapped with a capo at a very high fret - perhaps the 8th or even 10th. But it doesn't stop there. You have the usual mix of syncopation and attack drums but you also get a flurry of harmonics built around a organ grinder type of interlude which gives the guitarist with the capo enough time to switch instruments and sounds. And then he launches into a heavy solo which is taken over by his counterpart again so he can get the original guitar back in place for the finish.
Playing those harmonics as Midnight Oil do isn't easy. Neither is it easy to turn the solo and the whole song into a show-stopping experience. This is no-compromise music.
Nobody wanted to write about Midnight Oil. They were the bad boys of rock. They didn't do stupid interviews, answer questions like 'what's your favourite colour' and 'do you sleep in the nude' and they weren't very appreciative of the media or the ABS either. And you all remember who controlled the media in Australia back then? Your good old friend Rupert. And his since imprisoned friend Alan. They had a great tactic Rupert uses to this day: you don't attack someone you don't like in an editorial - you just don't write about them at all.
Murdoch used this famously to swing elections all over the place. And Midnight Oil, that no-compromise group, retaliated with a song years later called Read About It - or as Garrett called it, The Rupert Murdoch Alligator Express. People in Australia didn't know shit if Rupert's newspapers didn't write about it.
Midnight Oil's album Powderworks got no play in the media, no airplay, and yet was a big success. What did Midnight Oil do? They invested their profits right away.
Things on the surfer circuit weren't that good for anyone save the venue owners. Midnight Oil set about changing all that with the profits from their first album. They started a booking agency and got most groups on the coast to sign with them. At which point they exerted a virtual monopoly. And what to do with this monopoly? Change the way the system worked.
They wanted lower prices for their fans and they wanted more pleasant behaviour from venue owners and their bouncers. And so forth. They got it because no one got a major act unless they went through Midnight Oil. And those were the conditions imposed by Midnight Oil. A lot of ordinary people loved Midnight Oil for this but the people with money did not. Amongst those people, they became more hated than ever.
Herb Alpert heard of this fantastic group and sent two pinstripes to Sydney to talk to them. Midnight Oil were at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds at the time. The A&M dudes went up to 2JJJ as they were told, got told Midnight Oil were in Vic, drove out to the MCG, asked around for free tickets, were told there were none, paid their way in, met Midnight Oil the following Monday.
The A&M dudes asked about the free tickets. Midnight Oil had known they were coming - couldn't they have left some free tickes?
Midnight Oil, not intimidated by the sugar daddies from California, told the pinstripes there was no mistake, there were no free tickets. Free tickets are only for their friends. Sorry.
Alpert thought he had the senstation group of the 1980s. But he wanted them to play his covers and he wanted less esoteric lyrics in what they themselves wrote.
Midnight Oil showed Alpert's people to the door. Here they were being offered a multimillion dollar contract with the express promise of being the BIGGEST THING OF THE 1980s - and they turned it down.
We've worked too hard and too long to sell out, said Midnight Oil. But they'd already had a second album out in Australia - Head Injuries - that went gold on word of mouth alone and is cited in books on rock history as the only real example of a recording that succeeds despite there being no publicity whatsoever. Think about that: the second Midnight Oil album Head Injuries went GOLD with NO PUBLICITY WHATSOEVER. Rock historians think this is a big thing because everyone would like to believe art succeeds on its own merits. Lots of theory there - but only one example in practice. Head Injuries. Midnight Oil.
Things still didn't turn around for Midnight Oil until their next album and more importantly England's entry into the European Union. That move by the UK meant Australia lost favourite nation status and suddenly exports to the British Isles evaporated and unemployment became rampant in the Lucky Country.
What did those bad boys Midnight Oil do? They organised a pan-Pacific telecast to fill the coffers of the unions - with themselves headlining of course. This concert was transmitted on radio and television all the way up the Pacific Rim and brought in millions to help the unemployed. Now bad boys Midnight Oil were suddenly the heroes of the nation.
As late as 1990 Midnight Oil drummer was still cursing CBS for exploiting the Australian bicentennial to push Beds Are Burning. Yes, he said he was pissed at the way they did that. Everything Midnight Oil did - whether pure sentiment or sham - was 'no-compromise'.
They hijacked Exxon after the oil scandal, pulled up in front of Exxon HQ in NYC with a flatbed truck and played a concert in protest at the Valdez, then held a press conference with Greenpeace about it - with Peter Garrett asking very pointed questions of Exxon for their lax technology.
Some of the songs Midnight Oil have recorded over the years (with very specific targets).
Don't Wanna Be The One (Herb Alpert); River Runs Red (Exxon); Dead Heart (lands rights); US Forces (guess); Power and the Passion (middle class lifestyle); Beds Are Burning (Lands Rights); Blue Sky Mine (uranium mining, workers rights); Forgotten Years (war heroes); One Country (Australia); In The Valley (ancestors and descendants); Sometimes (the 'man'); Read About It (Rupert Murdoch); Dreamworld (real estate exploitation); Only The Strong (parental child abuse); Sell My Soul (plight of migrant workers); Progress (what it sounds like); Hercules (Rainbow Warrior); Blossom and Blood (Hiroshima); Pictures (wood chip companies); Armistice Day (anti-war); Short Memory (anti-war); Warakurna (aboriginal rights); My Country (false patriotism); Feeding Frenzy (middle class mania); Truganini (aboriginal rights); Redneck Wonderland (reactionary Australian governments); Too Much Sunshine (destroying the environment).
Midnight Oil were the musical arrangers of the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. Things were tense in Australia. Their 'Redneck Wonderland' PM refused to apologise to the aboriginals for further revealed transgressions. Midnight Oil were to headline the closing ceremony. They ambushed the PM (and the entire nation) by appearing on stage in black jumpsuits with the word 'SORRY' printed all across the sides and back. If the Australian government wouldn't apologise, Midnight Oil would.
That's Midnight Oil. That's why they're a legend. It's not only the no-compromise music - never any frills, light shows, laser beams, smoke bombs. Only music. And as far as their principles went: same thing. They started in 1978, ended in 2002, and were as true to their own ideas and ideals in 2002 as in 1978.
*
Now compare this with the political career of Peter Garrett. It's not germane if Peter Garrett has a point that he has to compromise. Blah blah. The point is he does compromise - something no one in Midnight Oil would have dared to do or dream about for 25 years. Compromise was anathema to them - their archenemy. Compromise was simply not in their character - not for a one of them. None of them would have considered it. Perish the thought.
Garrett made a show for the Nuclear Disarmament Party in 1984 (and of course wrote a book about it - Political Blues). No one expected him to win. The NDP wanted his candidacy to get more votes so they could get government subsidies. He got them those votes. He pulled so many hilarious stunts across the country and the media flocked to him. And he'd have won the seat in Canberra if Labor hadn't ganged up on him.
There was no compromise about Garrett back then. Most Australian were hoping he'd unite the green parties. He could have done it. No one is sure why he didn't.
It's often said Garrett has enough money and doesn't need to work. Perhaps he does have enough money but he's certainly not rolling in it - you can't quite do that when you sell only 12 million records in 25 years and you have to split the money half a dozen ways. Not even with the considerable concert revenues you pull in.
But Garrett could have been very influential outside mainstream politics - certainly had a more profound influence than today when people rarely hear him say anything of his own, hear mostly of his failures and demotions, and when Australia totally lacks the type of articulate voices that used to abound. Garrett says he has to compromise but the people of Australia see him only as a Labor lapdog.
Midnight Oil never compromised. Never. Peter Garrett knows nothing but. Maybe Garrett can sell an excuse to some people but he's still a sellout to himself and the group he fronted for 25 years - things good people took very seriously.
Peter Garrett was once frontman for Midnight Oil. No look at Garrett is complete without first looking at Midnight Oil.
Midnight Oil are the first, last, and only no-compromise rock group in the history of rock. It's hard to appreciate how deeply this goes without looking at their history.
Midnight Oil started in the surfer clubs in NSW outside Sydney. Clubs Garrett described as being as far from what one would find in LA as imaginable. More like what the Beatles saw in Hamburg but even more so. Biker types who would, in the words of Garrett, break the bottom off a beer bottle and shove it in your face if they didn't like the entertainment.
Midnight Oil were always about entertainment. Not laser shows and smoke bombs. Those things only make bikers pissed as hell. You had to make music - mach shau as the Beatles were told. And even if your average biker doesn't know that much about music theory or technique, he intuitively grasps when something is good and when something is really good and when something is truly exceptional.
Midnight Oil at those surfer clubs played roller coaster music. It took off, grabbed you, never let go, didn't let you catch your breath.
Midnight Oil searched for a recording contract but they had their stipulations. They were no-compromise before they even had a contract. They insisted on full artistic control and they wanted distribution, not a recording contract. There were no buyers.
So they financed their first album on their own Powderworks label. They were later to get distribution by CBS Australia but they never sold out.
Their title song on the Powderworks album starts with the ominous lyric 'there's a shit storm coming'. The song is 5:34 long. At 2:38 the instrumental roller coaster starts - and continues for several minutes on the twin guitars of Martin Rotsey and Jim Moginie with hectic bass work by Bear James and finally segues back into vocals at 4:28. Way more than half the song is instrumental. There are so many twists and turns in there it's not funny.
It's not just that the songs wear you out emotionally and intellectually - they're so technically demanding. No challenge without entertainment of course. The next song on that album is called Head Over Heels. Listen carefully. It's got hot plectrum work that not only is demanding and needs a lot of practice but is HARD WORK. And it's done in unison between one guitar and the bass. This is a song most groups would never even attempt to play - it's just too hard! But Midnight Oil did it.
Their time signature changes. Listen to the opening of Dust. It's a 3/4 song actually. But it's actually more like a 6/8. Yet the intro is definitely 3/4. And listen what happens in the second verse! This is not easy music making.
The arrangements - meticulously laid up. Best since Paul McCartney's work with the Beatles. Add on gradually. Keep the concept of song format in mind. And so forth.
This is brilliant music all around. The compositions are anything but trivial. The practice that went into mastering each of these tracks. The overriding rule that technique and virtuosity have to lead to something - to audience happiness.
The raucous Used And Abused - a rebel rock song. Again - hold on tight because it goes all over the place. Don't think so? Just wait until the second time around (it takes off at 1:24). And listen to the fast-picking unison work between guitar and bass. 3:11 but a very long 3:11.
Surfing With A Spoon. Have any idea what's going on there? For the first: one of the guitars is (some of the time) strapped with a capo at a very high fret - perhaps the 8th or even 10th. But it doesn't stop there. You have the usual mix of syncopation and attack drums but you also get a flurry of harmonics built around a organ grinder type of interlude which gives the guitarist with the capo enough time to switch instruments and sounds. And then he launches into a heavy solo which is taken over by his counterpart again so he can get the original guitar back in place for the finish.
Playing those harmonics as Midnight Oil do isn't easy. Neither is it easy to turn the solo and the whole song into a show-stopping experience. This is no-compromise music.
Nobody wanted to write about Midnight Oil. They were the bad boys of rock. They didn't do stupid interviews, answer questions like 'what's your favourite colour' and 'do you sleep in the nude' and they weren't very appreciative of the media or the ABS either. And you all remember who controlled the media in Australia back then? Your good old friend Rupert. And his since imprisoned friend Alan. They had a great tactic Rupert uses to this day: you don't attack someone you don't like in an editorial - you just don't write about them at all.
Murdoch used this famously to swing elections all over the place. And Midnight Oil, that no-compromise group, retaliated with a song years later called Read About It - or as Garrett called it, The Rupert Murdoch Alligator Express. People in Australia didn't know shit if Rupert's newspapers didn't write about it.
Midnight Oil's album Powderworks got no play in the media, no airplay, and yet was a big success. What did Midnight Oil do? They invested their profits right away.
Things on the surfer circuit weren't that good for anyone save the venue owners. Midnight Oil set about changing all that with the profits from their first album. They started a booking agency and got most groups on the coast to sign with them. At which point they exerted a virtual monopoly. And what to do with this monopoly? Change the way the system worked.
They wanted lower prices for their fans and they wanted more pleasant behaviour from venue owners and their bouncers. And so forth. They got it because no one got a major act unless they went through Midnight Oil. And those were the conditions imposed by Midnight Oil. A lot of ordinary people loved Midnight Oil for this but the people with money did not. Amongst those people, they became more hated than ever.
Herb Alpert heard of this fantastic group and sent two pinstripes to Sydney to talk to them. Midnight Oil were at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds at the time. The A&M dudes went up to 2JJJ as they were told, got told Midnight Oil were in Vic, drove out to the MCG, asked around for free tickets, were told there were none, paid their way in, met Midnight Oil the following Monday.
The A&M dudes asked about the free tickets. Midnight Oil had known they were coming - couldn't they have left some free tickes?
Midnight Oil, not intimidated by the sugar daddies from California, told the pinstripes there was no mistake, there were no free tickets. Free tickets are only for their friends. Sorry.
Alpert thought he had the senstation group of the 1980s. But he wanted them to play his covers and he wanted less esoteric lyrics in what they themselves wrote.
Midnight Oil showed Alpert's people to the door. Here they were being offered a multimillion dollar contract with the express promise of being the BIGGEST THING OF THE 1980s - and they turned it down.
We've worked too hard and too long to sell out, said Midnight Oil. But they'd already had a second album out in Australia - Head Injuries - that went gold on word of mouth alone and is cited in books on rock history as the only real example of a recording that succeeds despite there being no publicity whatsoever. Think about that: the second Midnight Oil album Head Injuries went GOLD with NO PUBLICITY WHATSOEVER. Rock historians think this is a big thing because everyone would like to believe art succeeds on its own merits. Lots of theory there - but only one example in practice. Head Injuries. Midnight Oil.
Things still didn't turn around for Midnight Oil until their next album and more importantly England's entry into the European Union. That move by the UK meant Australia lost favourite nation status and suddenly exports to the British Isles evaporated and unemployment became rampant in the Lucky Country.
What did those bad boys Midnight Oil do? They organised a pan-Pacific telecast to fill the coffers of the unions - with themselves headlining of course. This concert was transmitted on radio and television all the way up the Pacific Rim and brought in millions to help the unemployed. Now bad boys Midnight Oil were suddenly the heroes of the nation.
As late as 1990 Midnight Oil drummer was still cursing CBS for exploiting the Australian bicentennial to push Beds Are Burning. Yes, he said he was pissed at the way they did that. Everything Midnight Oil did - whether pure sentiment or sham - was 'no-compromise'.
They hijacked Exxon after the oil scandal, pulled up in front of Exxon HQ in NYC with a flatbed truck and played a concert in protest at the Valdez, then held a press conference with Greenpeace about it - with Peter Garrett asking very pointed questions of Exxon for their lax technology.
Some of the songs Midnight Oil have recorded over the years (with very specific targets).
Don't Wanna Be The One (Herb Alpert); River Runs Red (Exxon); Dead Heart (lands rights); US Forces (guess); Power and the Passion (middle class lifestyle); Beds Are Burning (Lands Rights); Blue Sky Mine (uranium mining, workers rights); Forgotten Years (war heroes); One Country (Australia); In The Valley (ancestors and descendants); Sometimes (the 'man'); Read About It (Rupert Murdoch); Dreamworld (real estate exploitation); Only The Strong (parental child abuse); Sell My Soul (plight of migrant workers); Progress (what it sounds like); Hercules (Rainbow Warrior); Blossom and Blood (Hiroshima); Pictures (wood chip companies); Armistice Day (anti-war); Short Memory (anti-war); Warakurna (aboriginal rights); My Country (false patriotism); Feeding Frenzy (middle class mania); Truganini (aboriginal rights); Redneck Wonderland (reactionary Australian governments); Too Much Sunshine (destroying the environment).
Midnight Oil were the musical arrangers of the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. Things were tense in Australia. Their 'Redneck Wonderland' PM refused to apologise to the aboriginals for further revealed transgressions. Midnight Oil were to headline the closing ceremony. They ambushed the PM (and the entire nation) by appearing on stage in black jumpsuits with the word 'SORRY' printed all across the sides and back. If the Australian government wouldn't apologise, Midnight Oil would.
That's Midnight Oil. That's why they're a legend. It's not only the no-compromise music - never any frills, light shows, laser beams, smoke bombs. Only music. And as far as their principles went: same thing. They started in 1978, ended in 2002, and were as true to their own ideas and ideals in 2002 as in 1978.
*
Now compare this with the political career of Peter Garrett. It's not germane if Peter Garrett has a point that he has to compromise. Blah blah. The point is he does compromise - something no one in Midnight Oil would have dared to do or dream about for 25 years. Compromise was anathema to them - their archenemy. Compromise was simply not in their character - not for a one of them. None of them would have considered it. Perish the thought.
Garrett made a show for the Nuclear Disarmament Party in 1984 (and of course wrote a book about it - Political Blues). No one expected him to win. The NDP wanted his candidacy to get more votes so they could get government subsidies. He got them those votes. He pulled so many hilarious stunts across the country and the media flocked to him. And he'd have won the seat in Canberra if Labor hadn't ganged up on him.
There was no compromise about Garrett back then. Most Australian were hoping he'd unite the green parties. He could have done it. No one is sure why he didn't.
It's often said Garrett has enough money and doesn't need to work. Perhaps he does have enough money but he's certainly not rolling in it - you can't quite do that when you sell only 12 million records in 25 years and you have to split the money half a dozen ways. Not even with the considerable concert revenues you pull in.
But Garrett could have been very influential outside mainstream politics - certainly had a more profound influence than today when people rarely hear him say anything of his own, hear mostly of his failures and demotions, and when Australia totally lacks the type of articulate voices that used to abound. Garrett says he has to compromise but the people of Australia see him only as a Labor lapdog.
Midnight Oil never compromised. Never. Peter Garrett knows nothing but. Maybe Garrett can sell an excuse to some people but he's still a sellout to himself and the group he fronted for 25 years - things good people took very seriously.
Monday, 2 August 2010
Koalas, Acne Cream, Married Life
I was just over at the website of the Teen Choice Awards. I wanted to see how the Glee crew were doing. The TCAs are scheduled for later in August, so there was no news yet.
There were a number of links to video clips at the bottom of the page. One appeared to be for Katy Perry. I clicked it. It led to a telly ad by Perry for an acne cream.
Perry tells the viewers she's been trying this acne cream for a while and she's seen 'noticeable change'.
Bullshit. Katy Perry's probably not had a spot for years, if then. But the preteens who see this probably suck it up and tell their parents they have to buy this product 'because Katy Perry says so'.
Hypocrisy.
Australian MP and cabinet minister - and former frontman for Midnight Oil - Peter Garrett is currently listed on a 'wall of shame' for not being supportive of the plight of the koala. The koala is endangered because it needs eucalyptus to eat and because Shanghai billionaires have been trying to buy up the lands that form the koala's natural habitat to turn into lucrative real estate investments.
Garrett tell the Australian people that he will look into the matter.
Bullshit. The koala movement tried to contact Garrett twenty years ago when he worked for the Australian Conservation Foundation in Australia. The woman running the movement back then tried to contact Garrett to enlist his help. She couldn't get through to him. She tried to set up an appointment with the celebrity to talk about the issue and enlist his support. She was told each time she rang his office that he didn't have the time.
Finally she traveled down to Sydney and visited his office. She sat in the waiting room for days. She saw Garrett come and go and kept asking for time to see him. She was told each time by his receptionist that he didn't have time.
This story hit the media in Australia twenty years ago.
I tried myself to get hold of Garrett. I first contacted his artist agent and was given a number to his office for the ACF in Sydney. There I talked with Garrett's press secretary.
I mentioned the story of the koala and the koala movement and the secretary laughed. 'Oh THAT woman', he said. 'She's politically naive.' And that was it. This poor woman, working without pay for this movement to save the koala, was summarily dismissed as 'naive' - and treated like chopped liver. All attempts to speak with the famous Garrett were sidestepped. She even sat in his office and still was not given five minutes with him.
Midnight Oil disbanded officially in 2002 as Garrett now wanted to go into politics, joining Labor and floating upwards rapidly on his notoriety. He's considered by many to be a sell-out as his actions as MP and cabinet minister go directly against the views he expressed as frontman for the rock group.
Hypocrisy.
Sweden's Magnus Uggla made a big stink some months ago when he severed his agreement with Spotify. He wasn't mad at Spotify - he was mad at his 'friend' at CBS Sweden. Uggla's never been in a recording contract with CBS - he's always had a 'distribution contract'. He's managed to keep most of the revenues for himself (and pay his musicians, both in the studio and on the road, not much more than dirt). The old joke was that the musicians in the tour bus read comic books and Uggla reviewed his stock portfolios.
CBS and the other major record labels own a controlling interest in Spotify. There's no way Spotify would have been given access to those extensive recording catalogues for less. Each of them paid a nominal sum of a few thousand US dollars for huge chunks of stock. The recording companies determine how much royalties will be paid to artists found on Spotify - the Spotify people themselves have nothing to say about it.
Uggla's always been a mysterious person with a well-guarded private life. Few of his fans knew, for example, that he led a quiet and tidy married life with three children in the suburbs of Stockholm. Few suspected such a thing.
One of Uggla's big show peaks at each concert was his diatribe against marriage. He'd start by asking the audience if they've ever been out on the town, met someone, got drunk, then woken up the following morning in a strange house and a strange bed.
I lift the bed sheet slowly and see if anything sticks, he tells the audience. Then I know if that girl there and I have done it. The audience go hysterical with laughter.
Then she invites me to her parents' house for dinner on Sunday, he continues. We're going to sit around a nice table and eat slottstek med gurka and we'll have the expected chitchat. But not for me - never! I WILL NEVER GET MARRIED!
And the audience go bonkers, cheering him loudly. They love Uggla for this. And most of his audience believe him - and purchased every record he released.
Then one day I run into him in Stockholm. He's hysterical with laughter. He's got a letter in his hand - a letter sent from one of his fans.
Dear Magnus, the letter begins, I can't believe what I am reading in the papers. You've gone and got married? But you promised you never would! You told us you didn't want to and would never get married! How could you do this to us! My whole bedroom - even the ceiling - is covered in posters of you! I have every record you've ever released! I BELIEVED IN YOU! How could you do such a thing?
Isn't that hysterical? Uggla asks. Of course he'd been married and shacked up with three children for some time - all that happened was it finally hit the newspapers.
Why is it hysterical? I ask him. The person who wrote that letter is your fan - he believed in you. HE ASSUMED YOU WERE TELLING THE TRUTH. You've shattered his dreams. How can that be hysterical?
Ah but he's just a STUPID FAN, says Uggla.
Stupid fan? Uggla goes on stage at every concert throughout his career and makes a big deal about being against marriage. It's part of his 'image'. It helps him SELL RECORDS.
But it's all bullshit. It's Katy Perry's acne cream and MP the HONOURABLE Peter Garrett's opposition to nuclear power and rabid support for the environment. It's a WAY TO MAKE MONEY.
There were a number of links to video clips at the bottom of the page. One appeared to be for Katy Perry. I clicked it. It led to a telly ad by Perry for an acne cream.
Perry tells the viewers she's been trying this acne cream for a while and she's seen 'noticeable change'.
Bullshit. Katy Perry's probably not had a spot for years, if then. But the preteens who see this probably suck it up and tell their parents they have to buy this product 'because Katy Perry says so'.
Hypocrisy.
Australian MP and cabinet minister - and former frontman for Midnight Oil - Peter Garrett is currently listed on a 'wall of shame' for not being supportive of the plight of the koala. The koala is endangered because it needs eucalyptus to eat and because Shanghai billionaires have been trying to buy up the lands that form the koala's natural habitat to turn into lucrative real estate investments.
Garrett tell the Australian people that he will look into the matter.
Bullshit. The koala movement tried to contact Garrett twenty years ago when he worked for the Australian Conservation Foundation in Australia. The woman running the movement back then tried to contact Garrett to enlist his help. She couldn't get through to him. She tried to set up an appointment with the celebrity to talk about the issue and enlist his support. She was told each time she rang his office that he didn't have the time.
Finally she traveled down to Sydney and visited his office. She sat in the waiting room for days. She saw Garrett come and go and kept asking for time to see him. She was told each time by his receptionist that he didn't have time.
This story hit the media in Australia twenty years ago.
I tried myself to get hold of Garrett. I first contacted his artist agent and was given a number to his office for the ACF in Sydney. There I talked with Garrett's press secretary.
I mentioned the story of the koala and the koala movement and the secretary laughed. 'Oh THAT woman', he said. 'She's politically naive.' And that was it. This poor woman, working without pay for this movement to save the koala, was summarily dismissed as 'naive' - and treated like chopped liver. All attempts to speak with the famous Garrett were sidestepped. She even sat in his office and still was not given five minutes with him.
Midnight Oil disbanded officially in 2002 as Garrett now wanted to go into politics, joining Labor and floating upwards rapidly on his notoriety. He's considered by many to be a sell-out as his actions as MP and cabinet minister go directly against the views he expressed as frontman for the rock group.
Hypocrisy.
Sweden's Magnus Uggla made a big stink some months ago when he severed his agreement with Spotify. He wasn't mad at Spotify - he was mad at his 'friend' at CBS Sweden. Uggla's never been in a recording contract with CBS - he's always had a 'distribution contract'. He's managed to keep most of the revenues for himself (and pay his musicians, both in the studio and on the road, not much more than dirt). The old joke was that the musicians in the tour bus read comic books and Uggla reviewed his stock portfolios.
CBS and the other major record labels own a controlling interest in Spotify. There's no way Spotify would have been given access to those extensive recording catalogues for less. Each of them paid a nominal sum of a few thousand US dollars for huge chunks of stock. The recording companies determine how much royalties will be paid to artists found on Spotify - the Spotify people themselves have nothing to say about it.
Uggla's always been a mysterious person with a well-guarded private life. Few of his fans knew, for example, that he led a quiet and tidy married life with three children in the suburbs of Stockholm. Few suspected such a thing.
One of Uggla's big show peaks at each concert was his diatribe against marriage. He'd start by asking the audience if they've ever been out on the town, met someone, got drunk, then woken up the following morning in a strange house and a strange bed.
I lift the bed sheet slowly and see if anything sticks, he tells the audience. Then I know if that girl there and I have done it. The audience go hysterical with laughter.
Then she invites me to her parents' house for dinner on Sunday, he continues. We're going to sit around a nice table and eat slottstek med gurka and we'll have the expected chitchat. But not for me - never! I WILL NEVER GET MARRIED!
And the audience go bonkers, cheering him loudly. They love Uggla for this. And most of his audience believe him - and purchased every record he released.
Then one day I run into him in Stockholm. He's hysterical with laughter. He's got a letter in his hand - a letter sent from one of his fans.
Dear Magnus, the letter begins, I can't believe what I am reading in the papers. You've gone and got married? But you promised you never would! You told us you didn't want to and would never get married! How could you do this to us! My whole bedroom - even the ceiling - is covered in posters of you! I have every record you've ever released! I BELIEVED IN YOU! How could you do such a thing?
Isn't that hysterical? Uggla asks. Of course he'd been married and shacked up with three children for some time - all that happened was it finally hit the newspapers.
Why is it hysterical? I ask him. The person who wrote that letter is your fan - he believed in you. HE ASSUMED YOU WERE TELLING THE TRUTH. You've shattered his dreams. How can that be hysterical?
Ah but he's just a STUPID FAN, says Uggla.
Stupid fan? Uggla goes on stage at every concert throughout his career and makes a big deal about being against marriage. It's part of his 'image'. It helps him SELL RECORDS.
But it's all bullshit. It's Katy Perry's acne cream and MP the HONOURABLE Peter Garrett's opposition to nuclear power and rabid support for the environment. It's a WAY TO MAKE MONEY.
Monday, 31 May 2010
River Runs Red
The ongoing BP disaster: besserwissers everywhere, some of who see through lies perpetrated by others. Kevin Costner leaving Home Shopping Network to peddle his own 'Set It And Forget It' oil spill cleaner. Tweeters like Christina Applegate and the ubiquitous Alyssa Milano condemning BP left and right.
Midnight Oil hit Exxon where it hurts when last this hit big scale. Peter Garrett held a press conference afterwards with Greenpeace, condemning Exxon. They made a DVD out of this at the time.
Midnight Oil hit Exxon where it hurts when last this hit big scale. Peter Garrett held a press conference afterwards with Greenpeace, condemning Exxon. They made a DVD out of this at the time.
Armistice Day
R Hirst, J Moginie, M Rotsey
You're watching people fighting
You're watching people losing
On Armistice Day
The watchers do the wincing
Reporters so convincing
The TV never lies
I went looking for a war
And the only guns I saw
Were never used in anger
The fixers do the fixing
The locals do the lynching
The papers deny
I went looking for a headline
Got taken to the back line
They'd never seen the action
You're watching people fighting
You're watching people losing
On Armistice Day
The watchers do the wincing
Reporters so convincing
The TV never lies
I went looking for a war
And the only guns I saw
Were never used in anger
The fixers do the fixing
The locals do the lynching
The papers deny
I went looking for a headline
Got taken to the back line
They'd never seen the action
Sunday, 30 May 2010
Winning Lyrics
Germany won Eurovision. Thank goodness the lyrics of Kristian Lagerström were nowhere near the final.
Herewith the lyrics of the winning entry. These to compare with the 'work' of Kristian Lagerström.
I went everywhere for you
I even did my hair for you
I bought new underwear they're blue
And I wore 'em just the other day
Love you know I'll fight for you
I left on the porch light for you
Whether you are sweet or cruel
I'm gonna love you either way
Love oh love I gotta tell you how I feel about you
'Cause I oh I can't go a minute without your love
Like a satellite I'm in an orbit all the way around you
And I would fall out into the night
Can't go a minute without your love
Love I got it bad for you
I saved the best I have for you
You sometimes make me sad and blue
Wouldn't have it any other way
Love my aim is straight and true
Cupid's arrow is just for you
I even painted my toe nails for you
I did it just the other day
Love oh love I gotta tell you how I feel about you
'Cause I oh I can't go a minute without your love
Like a satellite I'm in an orbit all the way around you
And I would fall out into the night
Can't go a minute without your love
Oh love I gotta tell you how I feel about you
'Cause I oh I can't go a minute without your love
Where you go I'll follow
You set the pace we'll take it fast and slow
I'll follow in your way
You got me you got me
A force more powerful than gravity
It's physics there's no escape
Love my aim is straight and true
Cupid's arrow is just for you
I even painted my toe nails for you
I did it just the other day
Love oh love I gotta tell you how I feel about you
'Cause I oh I can't go a minute without your love
Like a satellite I'm in orbit all the way around you
And I would fall out into the night
Can't go a minute without your
Love oh love I gotta tell you how I feel about you
'Cause I oh I can't go a minute without your love
Love love love love love
Herewith the lyrics of the winning entry. These to compare with the 'work' of Kristian Lagerström.
I went everywhere for you
I even did my hair for you
I bought new underwear they're blue
And I wore 'em just the other day
Love you know I'll fight for you
I left on the porch light for you
Whether you are sweet or cruel
I'm gonna love you either way
Love oh love I gotta tell you how I feel about you
'Cause I oh I can't go a minute without your love
Like a satellite I'm in an orbit all the way around you
And I would fall out into the night
Can't go a minute without your love
Love I got it bad for you
I saved the best I have for you
You sometimes make me sad and blue
Wouldn't have it any other way
Love my aim is straight and true
Cupid's arrow is just for you
I even painted my toe nails for you
I did it just the other day
Love oh love I gotta tell you how I feel about you
'Cause I oh I can't go a minute without your love
Like a satellite I'm in an orbit all the way around you
And I would fall out into the night
Can't go a minute without your love
Oh love I gotta tell you how I feel about you
'Cause I oh I can't go a minute without your love
Where you go I'll follow
You set the pace we'll take it fast and slow
I'll follow in your way
You got me you got me
A force more powerful than gravity
It's physics there's no escape
Love my aim is straight and true
Cupid's arrow is just for you
I even painted my toe nails for you
I did it just the other day
Love oh love I gotta tell you how I feel about you
'Cause I oh I can't go a minute without your love
Like a satellite I'm in orbit all the way around you
And I would fall out into the night
Can't go a minute without your
Love oh love I gotta tell you how I feel about you
'Cause I oh I can't go a minute without your love
Love love love love love
Friday, 28 May 2010
This Should Have Been Sent, This Would Have Won
Now they're admitting they made a mistake. Now they're saying this should have been sent instead. Now...
And of course they're right. It's still trash but it's Eurovision-winning trash.
But no. The obvious choice was too difficult for them. At the time...
There's nothing quite like corruption and there's nothing quite as dumb as a swede...
Visit the girls at their site. Their first full length CD is already out and they're currently on tour.
http://www.timoteij.se/
And of course they're right. It's still trash but it's Eurovision-winning trash.
But no. The obvious choice was too difficult for them. At the time...
There's nothing quite like corruption and there's nothing quite as dumb as a swede...
Visit the girls at their site. Their first full length CD is already out and they're currently on tour.
http://www.timoteij.se/
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