“There's no real objection to escapism, in the right places... We all want to escape occasionally. But science fiction is often very far from escapism, in fact you might say that science fiction is escape into reality... It's a fiction which does concern itself with real issues: the origin of man; our future. In fact I can't think of any form of literature which is more concerned with real issues, reality.”
― Arthur C. Clarke
Eat Static is an electronic music project from Frome, Somerset, England formed in 1989 by Merv Pepler and Joie Hinton. Hinton left the group in February 2008 after 18 years to spend more time with his family. Merv Pepler and Joie Hinton met as drummer and keyboard player (respectively) for Ozric Tentacles, a long-standing psychedelic space rock band from Somerset. Although Ozric Tentacles incorporated elements of electronic music, Pepler and Hinton were drawn towards the rave oriented dance music. In 1988 they collaborated on a project under the name of Wooden Baby which hinted at early rave and techno
sounds as well as numerous other styles, and by 1990, the project had
evolved in to Eat Static. Pepler explained: "There we were in Ozrics
doing all this technically impressive, weird music with mad timings, and
getting really involved with it, and this experiment that became Eat
Static was a good excuse to ignore all that, get the synths out, and be
as stupid as we could!" The duo toured in parallel with Ozric Tentacles for several years until 1994, when they left the band to pursue Eat Static full-time. Pepler and Hinton are often joined in the studio by Eat Static's third member Steve Everitt. Pepler is featured on the 2006 Ozric Tentacles album The Floor's Too Far Away, playing percussion on the track "Armchair Journey".
Their first album release, Abduction, immediately established the extraterrestrial/U.F.O. theme which is a running motif in their samples, track and album titles, and release artwork. The band's name is taken from a sample (as found on the track "Eat Static") from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
On 6 February 2008, Pepler announced on the Eat Static website
that Hinton was leaving as "he has had enough of all the travelling and
being away from home and family". However, Pepler stated that he would
continue to perform and produce under the Eat Static name as a solo
project. He also hinted that there would be more scope for
collaborations in the future.
Although most often associated with the psychedelic trance genre, the band actually span almost all forms of dance music, including trance, techno, gabber, drum and bass, and breakbeat. As such they are well-compared to other hard-to-categorise children of the British rave scene, like The Prodigy, Underworld, Orbital, Aphex Twin and Leftfield.
Despite the quote above, Eat Static are also notable within dance music for their frequent use of time signatures other than 4/4.
- Discography
Φωτογραφίααπό τις
μαθητικές κινητοποιήσεις που πραγματοποιήθηκαν νωρίτερα σήμερα, πέντε
χρόνια μετά τη δολοφονία του 15χρονου μαθητή, Αλέξανδρου Γρηγορόπουλου,
από σφαίρα αστυνομικού στα Εξάρχεια, από
τον διακεκριμένο φωτορεπόρτερ, Μάριο Λώλο.
-
Six weeks in Iceland in a 150 min video Content: Begin: Geysir 2:32 - Gullfoss 4:40 - Kjölur Trekking 13:12 - Hveravellir 15:58 - (Way to) Akureyri 17:26 - Trekking from Asbyrgi to Dettifoss 27:30 - Myvatn 31:50 - Godafoss 32:19 - Aldeyjarfoss 33:43 - Landmannalaugar 36:05 - Laugavegur Day 1 43:55 - Laugavegur Day 2 47:45 - Laugavegur Day 3 53:47 - Laugavegur Day 4 56:30 - Seljalandsfoss 57:28 - Skaftafell 1:02:00 - Jokulsarlon 1:06:15 - Svartifoss
Trekking from Landmannalaugar to Langisjör and back to Eldgia 1:08:30 - Part 1: Landmannalaugar - Ofaerudalur 1:16:55 - Part 2: Ofaerudalur - Eldgia 1:23:50 - Part 3: Eldgia to the western part of Langisjör 1:30:43 - Part 4: From west end to the east end of Langisjör (south side) 1:37:17 - Part 5: Between the lake and Vatnajökull 1:41:56 - Part 6: Back to the west end on the north side of the lake 1:47:59 - Part 7: Along the Skafta river to Jötnagil valley 1:52:18 - Part 8: From Jötnagil to Eldgia
- Marc Almond is an internationally acclaimed
and successful artist. He has sold over 30 million records worldwide and
is an icon and influence to a generation of musicians.
He was born in Southport, a seaside town in the north of England,
in 1957. After an unsettled childhood of moving to Harrogate, Leeds and
back to Southport, of illness and learning difficulties he finally left
school at 17 with few qualifications. As a teen he worked in Southport
Theatre and on Southport fairground while singing in a local band,
covering hits of the day. After school he spent five years at Art
College including a 3-year Fine Art B.A course at Leeds Polytechnic
where he left in 1979 with a B.A Honors. At Art college he developed his
style of mixing experimental performance and cabaret pop with music and
film studies. He began visiting London and worked in Soho in College
breaks, documenting his experiences in his early performances; Zazu,
Twilights and Lowlifes and Glamour in Squalor. It was at Leeds Poly that
he met David Ball and together they formed the internationally
successful 'electro duo' Soft Cell in 1979.
Soft Cell were signed to Stevo's underground label Some Bizzare and
licensed to Phonogram as part of the new electronic music phenomena.
They went on to record four albums; 3 in New York including the iconic
seminal Non Stop Erotic Cabaret, and had a number of top ten hits
including the international classic Tainted Love. Tainted Love broke all
records as the track that remained the longest in the U.S billboard top
100 and received a Brit award for best single of that year. Soft Cell's
arrangement of the track has been covered many times by artists as
diverse as Marilyn Manson and The Pussy Cat Dolls and has been sampled
by a generation of dance producers for artists, notably Rianna's SOS.
Soft Cell parted amicably in 1984 to pursue solo projects. Marc had
already branched out with Marc and the Mambas, a loose collective of
musicians, and recorded the innovative influential double album Torment
and Toreros which Marc has called 'a nervous breakdown put to music'.
Mambas shambolic and florid musical shows put Marc in a unique musical
place that had one foot in mainstream and the other in the underground.
Marc has always been one of very few artists able to comfortably move
from one to the other. Torment and Toreros was influenced by Spanish
Flamenco, Marc has always used World Music influences in his music from
Turkish torch songs to Brazilian Macumba and Russian folk. The Mambas
use of a full string section inspired a young Antony Hegarty later of
Antony and the Johnsons. Antony has always openly cited Marc as the
person that without whom it would not have been possible for him.
The mambas started Marc on his path as a chansonierre troubadour, a
singer of the songs of others that he would make his own, Jacques Brel,
Scott Walker, Lou Reed, Juliette Greco, Nico, Syd Barrett - all early
influences of Marc. Marc has said that his style comes from Jacques Brel
and Marc Bolan glam with a bit of Aznavour and Johnny Ray thrown in,
add some 60's Joe Meek and Orchestral Pop and some 60's Northern soul, a
pinch of Music Hall and you have something approaching Marc. It is this
mix of styles that have made him hard to pigeonhole, but also totally
unique. He has been called over the years The Judy Garland of the
Garbage Heap, The Acid House Aznavour, Jim Reeves of the Bedsit
Generation, Marc Bolan and Juliette Greco's love child and Britain's own
Piaf.
A diverse and acclaimed successful solo career followed with over a
dozen albums including Vermin in Ermine, Mother Fist and Her Five
Daughters, Enchanted, Open All Night and Stranger Things, and a number
of solo chart hits including Tears Run Rings, Stories of Johnny, A Lover
Spurned, Adored and Explored, Jacky, The Days of Pearly Spencer and
Child Star. In 1989 Marc had another number one, a duet with 60's legend
the late Gene Pitney, a cover of one of Gene's hits Something's Gotten
Hold of My Heart. It was number one in Britain for five weeks. The album
it came from, The Stars We Are, was Marc's most successful solo album
in the USA.
Marc has worked with a number of acclaimed producers including Mike
Hedges, Trevor Horn and Marius DeVries as well as more experimental
producers such as Iceland's Johann Johannsson. He's also had licensing
deals with a number of Major labels including Phonogram, EMI. Warners,
Universal, Rough Trade, Echo, Tres Bis XIII, Sanctuary and Virgin.
In 1987 he recorded two sister albums, one of French Chansons
Absinthe, specially translated songs made famous by Juliette Greco,
Barbara, Leo Ferre, Robert Nyal and poetry of Rimbaud put to music and
an album of Jacques Brel songs, many never sung in English before,
called Jacques. The estate of Brel cited him as being the best living
interpreter of Brel's songs.
In 2000 Marc worked briefly again with David Ball on a Soft Cell
tour and an album, Cruelty without Beauty. Critics and fans were warm
and welcoming, and they even reached the top 40 with a hit, a cover of
Frankie Valli's The Night a song they nearly recorded back in 1981
instead of Tainted Love.
In 2000 Marc went to live in Moscow and was invited to record a
project of music that has become dear to Marc's heart, Russian Folk and
Gypsy Romance. Produced by Russian Musical prodigy Andrei Samsonov,
Heart On Snow features collaborations with some of Russia's biggest
musical legends and stars, the icons of Russian folk Luydmila Zekina and
Alla Bayanova, Boris Grebenchikov, Ilya Lagutenko as well as a the
Russian Naval Choir and the famous Rossiya Folk Orchestra. Although
largely ignored in the West, Marc looks on this album as one of his most
successful records. It was an adventurous and highly creative project
never before undertaken by a Western Artist, and it has taken him back
to Russia many times to perform in public and in private beloved Russian
songs to Russians. He has been dubbed in the Russian press, 'adopted
son of Russia'.
Marc was going through a musical renaissance in 2004. He had
performed a residency of shows at London's Almeida Theatre that had
received unanimous, glowing praise from both critics and audiences
alike, when he was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident. He was in
a coma for two weeks and sustained near fatal injuries that took the
next few years to recover from. Marc has overcome many obstacles and ups
and downs in his life, including drug addiction, and it was one more
battle, but the motorcycle crash was his hardest fight. He had to learn
to sing again with the help of top vocal coach Mary Hammond, and regain
his shattered confidence. After Antony Hegarty bought him back on stage
as a surprise guest at his London show in 2005, he began to slowly gain
vocal and physical strength and today he is performing and singing
better than ever.
He returned to the studio to record Stardom Road, an album of songs
that had been part of his life and, in a way, told his story. Produced
by long time friend Tris Penna and Marius de Vries and with guests
Antony, Sarah Cracknell and Jools Holland. Marc, still not back to full
strength at the time of recording, looks on this album as his recovery
album. It was well received by critics and fans and Marc's music was
re-discovered and re-appraised. Marc undertook a number of short
appearances, at Patti Smiths Meltdown performing Brecht, Marc Bolan the
celebration where he performed with legendary producer Tony Visconti,
and made an appearance for the first and only time with original Tainted
Love singer and Marc Bolan's partner Gloria Jones on a duet of the
classic song, tribute shows to Sandy Denny the late great folk artist
and one of Marc's favourite singers, and Dusty Springfield for the BBC
backed by a 70 piece Orchestra, and with Current 93. Marc was also a
special guest singer on Jools Holland's 2006 and 2008 tours. Marc is a
regular guest and collaborator with Jools and his Rhythm and Blues
Orchestra. He gave a lifetime achievement award to The Doors at the 2007
Mojo Awards. He also made various D.J and P.A club appearances - all to
help build his stamina and confidence after his crash. 2008 saw him
back performing full sell-out shows in Britain, Europe and Russia. To
celebrate his full return to the stage he performed a retrospective show
on his fiftieth Birthday to ecstatic fans.
Marc has enjoyed Many diverse collaborations during his career,
Nick Cave, Siouxsie, Nico, Jools Holland, Bronski Beat, Rosenstolz, John
Cale, David Johannson, Kelli Ali, Current 93, Coil, PsycicT.V, Antony
and the Johnsons, Baby Dee, Little Annie, Matt Johnson, Jim Thirwell,
Ferry Corsten, 60's icons Gene Pitney and P.J Proby who he produced an
album for in 1998 entitled Legend. He has written many songs but prefers
to sing songs by other writers and artists, saying it frees him from
his own baggage allowing him to express the things he wants to, in
sometimes a better way than he can write himself.
He still enjoys occasionally working in electro Dance music,
collaborating with underground Dance producers, though his true heart
lies in the marathon Chanson, folk and 'twisted pop cabaret' shows he
calls the Sin Songs Torch and Romance Shows. These shows have been
recorded in 2004 at London's Almeida Theatre and in 2008, the double
live album/DVD, Marc Almond in Bluegate Fields Live at Wilton's Music
Hall, was released showcasing Marc back at his best as a live performer
and curator of song. These recordings along with 1992's Twelve Years of
Tears at The Albert Hall are the best testaments to Marc in concert.
2009, saw the release of another set of Russian Gypsy Romance and
Folk songs, a collaboration with Russian producer, arranger Alexei
Fedorov - Orpheus in Exile, the songs of the late Russian Gypsy Romance
singer, dissident and now gay icon Vadim Kozin. The album sold in
excess of 45,000 copies and received rapturous reviews. Marc is also
collaborating with Musician and arranger Michael Cashmore on a series of
limited singles, decadent poems of Count Stenbock and Jean Genet
amongst others, set to music. The project, Feasting With Panthers, will
be released in the future on the Durtro label.
As well as a huge body of recordings, Marc has also had two best
selling autobiographies, Tainted Life and In Search of The Pleasure
Palace, as well as three books of verse; The Angel of Death in the
Adonis Lounge, A Beautiful Twisted Night and The End of New York.
In 2010 Marc recorded a brand new mainstream album, Variete, which
was released in June to much critical acclaim. Variete celebrates Marc's
30th year as a recording artist and it is his first complete album of
self-written songs since Open All Night over a decade before.
2010 was a milestone celebration year for Marc, his thirty years in
music as a recording artist, with his most successful tour to date, All
The A's, Hits And A Sides. 2010 Also saw Marc presented with the Hero
Award by Mojo Magazine. The year ended with a special one off concert
at the beautiful Wilton's Music Hall.
In 2011 the album Feasting with Panthers, a collaboration with
musician and arranger Michael Cashmore, was released. It featured poems
of Count Eric Stenbock put to music as well as decadent and homoerotic
poems by Jean Genet, Jean Cocteau, Paul Verlaine and Rimbaud. Marc took
part in the unique music-theatre work Ten Plagues held at Edinburgh's
Traverse Theatre from 1–28 August 2011. Ten Plagues is a one man song
cycle based on Daniel Defoe's journal of the Plague Year (which dates
back to 1665), with metaphors of Aids and epidemics. It was a
collaboration between Marc, theatre director and designer Stewart Laing,
libretto author Mark Ravenhill and composer Conor Mitchell. The show
won the Scotman's Fringe First Award.
In 2012 Marc took the role of the Greek Stoic philosopher Seneca in
the Paris Théâtre du Châtelet's experimental rock adaptation of Poppea
based on Monteverdi's original 17th century opera The Coronation of
Poppea also starring ex-Libertines Carl Barat, Benjamin Biolay, Fredrika
Stahl, Valerie Gabail and Anna Madison.
On 9 August 2012 Marc performed at Antony Hegarty's Meltdown Festival
in London's Southbank. He sang the whole Marc And The Mambas Torment
and Toreros album for the first time live. Some of the original
musicians on the album also performed: Gini Ball, Anne Stephenson,
Martin McCarrick, Jim Thirlwell and Lee Jenkinson. Hegarty sang "My
Little Book Of Sorrows" with Marc. At the end of 2012 Marc took time off
for an operation and subsequent recovery from Spleen and Gall bladder
removal.
In May 2013 Marc revived the Ten Plagues play for a month at Wilton's
Music Hall in London. Based on Stewart Laing's original direction and
the Edinburgh Traverse Theatre's production with new direction by Hester
Chillingworth. The production was a success both with audiences and
critics. Also in May of that year he received an Ivor Novello
inspiration award presented by Vicki Wickham. Marc recorded tracks with
legendary producer and orchestrator Tony Visconti for an EP The Dancing
Marquis for later release. He also recorded vocals for a project with
acclaimed composer John Harle called The Tyburn Tree for a February 2014
release. He set up a production company Lab Entertainment (The name
made from the initials of people involved) for development of films,
television, music and books. Lab's first project is a DVD of Ten
Plagues. In October Marc was awarded an Icon Award by Attitude Magazine. http://www.marcalmond.co.uk/history/
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- Motörhead are an English rock band formed in June 1975 by bassist, singer and songwriter Ian Fraser Kilmister, professionally known by his stage name Lemmy,
who has remained the sole constant member. The band are often
considered a precursor to, or one of the earliest members of, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, which re-energised heavy metal in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
To October 2013, Motörhead have released twenty-one studio albums,
ten live recordings, twelve compilation albums and five EPs. Usually a power trio, they had particular success in the early 1980s with several successful singles in the UK Top 40 chart. The albums Overkill, Bomber, Ace of Spades, and particularly No Sleep 'til Hammersmith, cemented Motörhead's reputation as a rock band. As of 2012, Motörhead have sold more than 30 million albums worldwide.
Motörhead are typically classified as heavy metal, and their fusion of punk rock into the genre helped to pioneer speed metal and thrash metal.
Motörhead's approach has remained the same over the band's career,
preferring to play what they enjoy and do best; their appreciation of
early rock and roll is reflected in some of their occasional cover
songs.
Motörhead's lyrics typically cover such topics as war, good versus
evil, abuse of power, promiscuous sex, substance abuse, and, most
famously, gambling. The name "Motörhead" is a reference to users of the
drug amphetamine. The band's distinctive fanged-face logo, with its oversized boar's tusks, chains, and spikes, was created by artist Joe Petagno in 1977 for the cover of the Motörhead
album and has appeared in many variations on covers of ensuing albums.
The fanged face has been referred to variously as "War-Pig" and "Snaggletooth". The band is ranked number 26 on VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mot%C3%B6rhead
Greek anti-fascist musician murdered by neo-Nazi thugs
Pavlos Fyssas, a 34-year-old
left-wing activist and hip-hop artist, was stabbed to death by Golden
Dawn supporters in the Keratsini district of Athens.
Pavlos’
friends made a remark against Golden Dawn inside a café where they were
watching a football match. Somebody from a nearby table overheard them
and made a phone call to Golden Dawn members. Golden Dawn squads arrived
almost simultaneously with DIAS motorbike police. Pavlos tried to help
his friends evade the scene, but he was ambushed by another Golden Dawn
squad and surrounded. Then another Golden Dawn associate drove with his
car opposite in an one-way street, stopped and stabbed him to death,
while the DIAS policemen did not intervene. One girl asked them to help
but they didn’t. They only approached afterwards to arrest the man with
the main suspect.
Around
24:00 a group of 15-20 fascists, wearing black T-shirts and military
pants and boots, was deployed on P. Tsaldari street. During that time,
Pavlos (a.k.a. Killah P) was walking with his girlfriend and another
couple when he was spotted by the fascists shouting “what are you
looking for here, you know there is no place for you in this hood”. The
fascists hunted the two couples down P. Tsaldari street towards Gr.
Lampraki avenue, where from another street, a new group of around 10
fascists came out and surrounded the guys. At that time, a car drove
opposite in an one-way street, stopped, the driver came out and stabbed
Killah P once in the heart and once in the abdomen (the stabbing on his
abdomen had an upside-down “L” shape).
The
whole scene took place in the presence of DIAS motorbike police, who
only afterwards and only as soon as most of the fascists had already
dispersed, arrested the murderer (according to some witnesses Killah P,
while still in shock, kept pointing at the murderer and this is how the
cops arrested him — a 55-year-old holding a knife, described by other
eye-witnesses as a known Golden Down associate). The ambulance took 35
minutes to arrive and Pavlos was pronounced dead at Nikaia general
hospital.”
A call for a gathering on
the spot of his assassination was made for today, Wednesday 18:00, on
60, P. Tsaldari street (from Athens, via public bus B18 from
Ralli-Salaminas, or Γ18 from Gr. Lampraki, from Piraeus via public bus
824 or 826). There are also calls for demonstrations in Thessaloniki:
10:00 in the teachers demo, 16:00 in Physics dept. in AUTH university
campus, 18:00 demonstration from “Kamara” on Egnatia street. In
Mytilene, Lesbos island, 18:00 on Sappho square, in Patras, 10:00 on
Olga square, in Larissa 10:00 in the 1rst Lyceum and 10:30 in the
teachers’ demo, in Komotini and many other towns there also demos on
18:00.
It is hardly surprising that
the Greek police once again did nothing to prevent Golden Dawn’s fascist
violence (Golden Dawn is largely supported by the Greek capitalists,
the government and the church, as a willful thug against militants,
workers and the poor, and more than half of the police vote for this
openly neo-Nazi party) if not actively participating in or covering the
organisation of what looks as a death trap for a well-known radical,
member of the metalworkers union and antifa hip-hop artist in a working
class district, near the spot where a few days ago eight members of the
communist party (KKE) were also brutally assaulted by Golden Dawn
neo-Nazis.
The silence of the mass
media, which are kept alive with the government’s vast loans and
benefits, is hardly surprising. They either decided to describe the
assassination as a “fight after an argument about football” or not to
mention it at all. They are the same mass media that promote every
misanthropic Golden Dawn activity as an “opposition to the system’s
flaws”, and lately as a realistic government partner for the future.
They are of course the voice of their owners, the same few families of
capitalists, owners of a shitload of tanker ships, banks and hotels that
support the right-wing government and its thuggish little counterpart
on the streets, the Golden Dawn, in what they see as a Golden
opportunity to get rid of workers’ rights and turn Greece into a proper
labor camp under the nationalist and religious kitsch.
It
is worth noticing that this is a hard time for the government and their
Nazi counterparts, as even after their full scale assault on
anarchists, squatters, and workers’ struggles, the movements seems to
find again its momentum, with the current struggles of the teachers, the hospital workers, and so on.
Some additional info can be found in twitter: @antireport,#antireport, #KillahP
Where Eagles Dare is a 1968 World War II action film starring Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood and Mary Ure. It was directed by Brian G. Hutton and shot on location in Austria and Bavaria. Alistair MacLean wrote the novel and the screenplay at the same time. It was his first screenplay; both film and book became commercial successes.
The production hired some of the top moviemaking professionals and is considered a classic. Major contributors included Hollywood stuntman Yakima Canutt, who, as second-unit director, shot most of the action scenes; British stuntman Alf Joint, who doubled for Burton in such sequences as the fight on top of the cable car; award-winning conductor and composer Ron Goodwin, who wrote the film score, and future Oscar-nominee Arthur Ibbetson, who worked on its cinematography.
The Residents are an American art collective best known for avant-garde music and multimedia works. The first official release under the name of The Residents was in 1974, and the group has since released over sixty albums, numerous music videos and short films, three CD-ROM projects and ten DVDs. They have undertaken seven major world tours and scored multiple films. Pioneers in exploring the potential of CD-ROM and similar technologies, The Residents have won several awards for their multimedia projects. Ralph Records, a record label focusing on avant-garde music, was started by the band.
Throughout the group's existence, the individual members have
ostensibly attempted to operate under anonymity preferring, instead, to
have attention focused on their art output. Much outside speculation and
rumour has focused on this aspect of the group. In public, the group
appears silent and costumed, often wearing eyeball helmets, top hats and
tuxedos — a long-lasting costume now recognized as its signature
iconography.
Its albums generally fall into two categories: deconstructions of Western popular music, or complex conceptual pieces, composed around a theme, theory or plot. The group is noted for surrealistic lyrics and sound, disregard for conventional music composition, and the over the top, theatrical spectacle of their live performances.
-
The Residents hail from Shreveport, Louisiana,
where they met in high school in the 1960s. In 1966 the members headed
west for San Francisco, but after their truck broke down in San Mateo, California, they decided to remain there.
While attempting to make a living, they began to experiment with tape
machines, photography, and anything remotely to do with art that they
could get their hands on. Word of their experimentation spread and in
1969, a British guitarist and multi-instrumentalist named Phil Lithman and the mysterious N. Senada (whom Lithman had picked up in Bavaria where the aged avant-gardist was recording birds singing) paid them a visit, and decided to remain.
The two Europeans would become great influences on the band. Lithman's guitar playing technique earned him the nickname Snakefinger, after his frantic playing on the violin during the performance with the Residents at the Boarding House
in San Francisco 1971, where his fingers' speed made them look like
snakes in the eyes of the less-musically proficient, but imaginative
Residents.
The group purchased crude recording equipment, instruments and began
to make tapes, refusing to let an almost complete lack of musical
proficiency stand in the way.
Like all information pertaining to the early days of the band, this
is provided by The Cryptic Corporation and may or may not be invented.
-
-
Much of the speculation about the members' true identities swirls around its management team, known as the Cryptic Corporation. Cryptic was formed as a corporation in California by Jay Clem (born 1947), Homer Flynn
(born April 1945), Hardy W. Fox (born 1945), and John Kennedy in 1976,
all of whom denied having been band members. (Clem and Kennedy left the
Corporation in 1982, much to the chagrin of some fans.) The Residents members do not grant interviews, although Flynn and Fox have conducted interviews with the media.
Nolan Cook, a prominent collaborator with the group in both the band's live and studio work (as well as being a live member of I Am Spoonbender),
denied in an interview that Fox and Flynn are the Residents, saying
that he has come across such rumors, and they are completely false.
However, Cook himself is considered a member of the band by some, as he
is known to wear the same head coverings as the rest of the group during
live shows, even wearing the trademark eyeball mask during the Wormwood
tour. William Poundstone, author of the Big Secrets books, compared voiceprints of a Flynn lecture with those of spoken word segments from the Residents discography in his book Biggest Secrets.
After noting similar patterns in both, he concluded "the similarities
in the spectograms second the convincing subjective impression that the
voices are identical." He posited that "It is possible that the creative
core of the Residents is the duo of Flynn and Fox." A subset of that
belief is that Flynn is the lyricist and that Fox writes the music. In
addition BMI's
online database of the performance rights organization (of which the
Residents and their publishing company, Pale Pachyderm Publishing (Warner-Chappell),
have been members for their entire careers), lists Flynn and Fox as the
composers of all original Residents songs. This includes those songs
written pre-1974 (the "Residents Unincorporated" years), the year
Cryptic formed. Simon Reynolds wrote in his book Rip It Up and Start Again: Post Punk 1978–1984 that "The Residents and their 'representatives' were one and the same",
elaborating on one of his blogs that "this was something that anybody
who had any direct dealings with Ralph figured out sooner rather than
later." Reynolds quotes Helios Creed,
who identifies The Residents as a keyboardist named "H", a singer named
Homer, and "this other guy called John"; and Peter Principle of Tuxedomoon,
who claims that "we eventually figured out that the guy doing the
graphics and the engineer in the studio were in fact the Residents."
Cryptic openly admits the group's artwork is done by Flynn (among
others), under various names that, put together, become Pornographics,
but the pseudonym is rarely spelled the same way twice (examples: Porno
Graphics, Pore No Graphix, Pore-Know Graphics); and that Fox is the
"sound engineer" – meaning that he is the main producer, engineer,
master, and editor of all their recordings. (Since 1976, the Residents'
recordings have all listed their producer as "The Cryptic Corporation,"
presumably meaning Fox in particular.) Many other rumors have come and
gone over the years, one being that 60s experimental band Cromagnon shared members with the band.
Most recently, the group's Facebook presence lists the members of The Residents as "Randy, Chuck and Bob". Furthermore, a synopsis for their 2012 stage production Sam's Enchanted Evening provides the name Randy Rose as that of the Residents' lead singer.
While it is clear that the Cryptic Corporation has chosen to share this
information publicly, no further confirmation—nor any context as to the
roles of "Chuck" and "Bob" in the group, or if these names are, indeed, the names of the group's members—appears to have been issued to date.
René Daumal (16 March 1908 – 21 May 1944) was a French spiritual para-surrealist writer and poet, most known for his posthumously published novel Mount Analogue (1952).
He was born in Boulzicourt, Ardennes, France. In his late teens his avant-garde poetry was published in France's leading journals, and in his early twenties, although courted by André Breton co-founded, as a counter to Surrealism and Dada, a literary journal, "Le Grand Jeu" with three friends, collectively known as the Simplists, including poet Roger Gilbert-Lecomte . He is known best in the U.S. for two novels; A Night of Serious Drinking, and the allegorical novel Mount Analogue: A Novel of Symbolically Authentic Non-Euclidean Adventures in Mountain Climbing, both based upon his friendship with Alexander de Salzmann, a pupil of G. I. Gurdjieff.
Daumal was self-taught in the Sanskrit language and translated some of the TripitakaBuddhist canon into the French language, as well as translating the literature of the Japanese Zen scholar D.T. Suzuki into French.
He married Vera Milanova, the former wife of the poet Hendrik Kramer; after Daumal's death, she married the landscape architect Russell Page.
Daumal's sudden and premature death of tuberculosis on 21 May 1944 in Paris may have been hastened by youthful experiments with drugs and psychoactive chemicals, including carbon tetrachloride. He died leaving his novel Mount Analogue unfinished, having worked on it until the day of his death.
The motion picture The Holy Mountain by Alejandro Jodorowsky is based largely on Daumal's Mount Analogue.
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Mount Analogue is an album by John Zorn released in January 2012. It was recorded in 13-15 June 2011 and mixed in September 2011 at EastSide Sound, New York.
- Amon Düül II (or Amon Düül 2) is a German rock band. The group is generally considered to be one of the founders of the Krautrock scene and a seminal influence on the development of it.
The band emerged from the radical West German commune scene of the late 1960s, with others in the same commune including the future founders of the Red Army Faction. Founding members are Chris Karrer, Dieter Serfas, Falk Rogner (b. 14 September 1943), John Weinzierl and Renate Knaup (b. Renate Aschaver-Knaup, 1 July 1948).
The band was founded after Weinzierl (b. 4 April 1949) and the others met at the Amon Düül "art commune" in Munich.
The commune consisted mainly of university students, who formed a music
group initially to fund the commune, with everyone who lived there
joining in to play music whether or not they had any experience or
ability. The commune split when they were offered an opportunity to
record, which was boycotted by the more musically proficient members of
the commune (who went on to form Amon Düül II). Recordings were made by
the other members but were of very poor quality and were only released
later (under the name Amon Düül) to capitalise on the success of ADII's
albums. As Amon Düül II grew and personnel changed they still remained a
commune, living together as a band.
Their first album Phallus Dei
('God's Penis'), released in 1969, consisted of pieces drawn from the
group's live set at the time. By this time the line-up was built around a
core of Karrer (mainly violin and guitar), Weinzierl (guitar, bass,
piano), Rogner on keyboards, bass player Dave Anderson,
and two drummers (Peter Leopold (b. 15 August 1945) who had joined the
group from Berlin, and Dieter Serfas). Renate Knaup at this point was
only contributing minimal vocals but was very much part of the group.
According to Weinzierl by this time "The band played almost every day.
We played universities, academies, underground clubs, and every hall
with a power socket and an audience".
Releasing an album brought the group greater prominence and they began
to tour more widely in Germany and abroad, playing alongside groups such
as Tangerine Dream, and in Germany staying in other communes including the pioneering Kommune 1 in Berlin.
Their second album Yeti
saw them introducing arranged compositions along with the bluesy violin
and guitar jams such as the long improvised title track. The next album
Tanz der Lemminge was based on four extended progressive rock suites. By this time bassist Anderson had returned to England and joined Hawkwind,
to be replaced by Lothar Meid (born 28 August 1942), and the group was
augmented by synthman Karl-Heinz Hausmann (Karrer had formed a
short-lived group in 1966 - supposedly named 'Amon Düül O' - with future
Embryo founders Lothar Meid and drummer Christian Burchard).
Still touring widely, they recorded their Live in London album in 1973 and in 1975 signed with Atlantic Records in the US, and United Artists Records Germany and initially disbanded in 1981.
As well as their albums and live shows ADII received offers to write music for films, winning a German film award, the Deutscher Filmpreis, for their contribution to the film San Domingo.
Amon Düül II's drummer Peter Leopold died on 8 November 2006. A
memorial service was held for Leopold in Munich, where the remaining
members of Amon Düül II sang a song for him. Leopold was replaced by multi-instrumentalistDaniel Fichelscher, for many years guitarist and drummer of Krautrock group Popol Vuh.
Fichelscher is not new to the group, and in fact has had a long
affiliation with Amon Düül II, having played with them as early as 1972
in Carnival in Babylon. -
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Albums:
1969 – Phallus Dei
1970 – Yeti
1971 – Tanz der Leminge)
1972 – Carnival in Babylon
1973 – Wolf City
1973 – Live in London
1974 – Vive la Trance
1974 – Hijack
1975 – Made in Germany
1976 – Pyragony
1977 – Almost Alive
1978 – Only Human
1981 – Vortex
1972 – Utopia
1973 – Live in Concert (BBC recording from 1973)
1995 – Nada Moonshine
2009 -- Bee as Such
- Amon Düül II was born of an artistic and political community’s scission called Amon Düül
(who recorded during the late sixties a long live session made around
collective and free musical improvisations). The band emerged from the
underground German rock scene with a very original and eccentric album
called "Phallus Dei" (1969). The musicians who participated to this
delirious and psychedelic experience were (among others) Peter Leopold (ex Amon Düül), the front woman and singer Renate Knaup, John Weinzierl on the guitars... with guests as Holger Trützsch who plays tribal percussions (original member of Popol Vuh).
Then almost with the same musicians the band recorded the seminal
"Yeti" (1970). An album in a similar vein than the previous but more
accomplished (with a couple of structured songs always with numerous
pieces of epic improvisations). "Yeti" will launch Amon Düül II career
outside Germany. The same year the bass guitarist Dave Anderson leaves
the band to join Hawkwind.
"Tanz
Der Lemminge" which follows directly "Yeti" is an impressive work with a
great diversity of powerful, emotional songs with some folk accents
next to long free space jamming. Recorded in 1972, "Carnival in Babylon"
announces a slight new musical direction taken by the band. This album
is dominated by shorter songs with the omnipresent and beautiful Renate
Knaup’s vocals. A more conventional work with a few memorable prog-folk
ballads. The classical period of the band will end with "Wolf City"
(1972) and "Vive La Trance" (1973). After the departure of Renate Knaup
who joins Popol Vuh in 1974 and the release of a few albums, Amon Düül
II split up. In 1981, with the album "Vortex" Chris Karrer tried without
success to reform the band.
- http://www.amonduul.de/main.html http://www.discogs.com/artist/Amon+D%C3%BC%C3%BCl+II http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amon_D%C3%BC%C3%BCl_II
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- Ozric Tentacles (also known as The Ozrics) are an instrumental rock band from Somerset, England, whose music can loosely be described as psychedelic or space rock. Formed in 1983, the band has released 28 albums as of 2011, and become a cottage industry selling over a million albums worldwide despite never having major label backing. Throughout many line-up changes over the years, guitarist Ed Wynne has remained the only original member of the band.
The original lineup met in 1983 at the Stonehenge Free Festival and its name arose from discussions of hypothetical cereal brands (Malcolm Segments, Desmond Whisps, and Gordon Lumps are among the names, that were considered). In the 1980s the band built a fanbase on the festival circuit, becoming particularly associated with the Glastonbury Festival, and made a series of cassette releases, sold at gigs and via a fan club.
Its first label release was Pungent Effulgent in 1989, which was also re-released in the early 2000s, packaged with Strangeitude (1991). This was followed by Erpland (1990), an album dedicated to the Pongmaster, a character which appears on many of the band's album artworks. 1991 saw the Strangeitude LP. By 1993 the band had grossed over three million dollars, and its Jurassic Shift album reached the Top 20 of the UK Albums Chart
The band have gone through myriad line-up changes, with Ed Wynne (guitar, keyboards) being the only constant presence since the beginning. Many members left to pursue more electronic music spin-off acts, such as Eat Static, Transglobal Underground, Nodens Ictus, Dubblehead and Moksha. Nick Van Gelder (aka Tig), drummer for Jamiroquai during the Emergency on Planet Earth era was once part of the Ozric Tentacles line up, contributing drums and songwriting on the original cassettes Tantric Obstacles and Erpsongs. Nevertheless, the band maintained its identity and continued with this prolific rate of albums throughout the 1990s, and into the new millennium. It also continued to tour extensively, releasing a live DVD in 2002 entitled "Live at the Pongmaster's Ball".
The band are famous for their live performances, fronted for years by "Jumping" Jon Egan (a.k.a John Egan), who used to dance around the stage in a trance-like manner while playing a variety of flutes. Ozric Tentacles has long taken an audio-visual approach to live performance, with an integrated lighting and projections crew. The band has seen many rhythm section changes over the years. As of May 2012, the lineup featured Ed Wynne (guitar, synths), Ed's wife Brandi Wynne (bass, keyboards), Silas Wynne (synths, keyboards) and Oliver Seagle (drums, percussion). (Vinny Shillito toured the UK as a bassist in 1990 as stand-in bass player, when Roly Wynne was ill and remained friends with the band after forming his own band Grooveweird with his brother Dominic.) Brandi is back on bass and Silas Wynne (Ed's son) is on synths.
In 2011, Ozric Tentacles released their latest studio album, Paper Monkeys, and toured the record in America in March 2012, moving into a six week long, laid back but extensive European tour in April-May 2012.
In June 2012 their home in Colorado was destroyed by wild fires, that had ravaged the area for over a week. The band was on tour at the time. Archived material was destroyed as was their studio and some instruments. After the fire, the band reached out to fans to help rebuild the archive.
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- Musicology
Ozric music is a highly psychedelic mixture of thumping basslines, sound effects and keyboard and guitar work, with a sound influenced by Steve Hillage and Gong. Many of the Ozrics' songs are in unusual time signatures and/or unusual Eastern-influenced modes. Furthermore, the band often features complex arrangements, which change time signature, key signature and tempo frequently in the course of a track, a well-known element present in progressive rock. There are also moments of straightforward funk-influenced grooves and strong influences from jazz fusion, dub/reggae and ambient music styles.
These features are mixed with electronic elements, including densely layered psytrance- and techno-influenced arpeggiated synthesizers, pads, synth basslines, effects and programmed drumbeats. There is also a strong influence from dub and ambient music, with many quiet relaxed tracks, that balance the frenetic, intense material.
The Ozrics also use a wide range of instruments in their performances. Electric and acoustic guitars, flutes, recorders, xylophones and even sounds of digitally tweaked human voices appear throughout.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozric_Tentacles
- DOWNLOAD FULL DISCOGRAPHY VIA TORRENT HERE
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Merv Pepler and Joie Hinton met as drummer and keyboard player (respectively) for Ozric Tentacles, a long-standing psychedelic space rock band from Somerset. Although Ozric Tentacles incorporated elements of electronic music, Pepler and Hinton were drawn towards the rave oriented dance music. In 1988 they collaborated on a project under the name of Wooden Baby which hinted at early rave and techno
sounds as well as numerous other styles, and by 1990, the project had
evolved in to Eat Static. Pepler explained: "There we were in Ozrics
doing all this technically impressive, weird music with mad timings, and
getting really involved with it, and this experiment that became Eat
Static was a good excuse to ignore all that, get the synths out, and be
as stupid as we could!" The duo toured in parallel with Ozric Tentacles for several years until 1994, when they left the band to pursue Eat Static full-time. Pepler and Hinton are often joined in the studio by Eat Static's third member Steve Everitt. Pepler is featured on the 2006 Ozric Tentacles album The Floor's Too Far Away, playing percussion on the track "Armchair Journey".
Merv Pepler and Joie Hinton met as drummer and keyboard player (respectively) for Ozric Tentacles, a long-standing psychedelic space rock band from Somerset. Although Ozric Tentacles incorporated elements of electronic music, Pepler and Hinton were drawn towards the rave oriented dance music. In 1988 they collaborated on a project under the name of Wooden Baby which hinted at early rave and techno
sounds as well as numerous other styles, and by 1990, the project had
evolved in to Eat Static. Pepler explained: "There we were in Ozrics
doing all this technically impressive, weird music with mad timings, and
getting really involved with it, and this experiment that became Eat
Static was a good excuse to ignore all that, get the synths out, and be
as stupid as we could!" The duo toured in parallel with Ozric Tentacles for several years until 1994, when they left the band to pursue Eat Static full-time. Pepler and Hinton are often joined in the studio by Eat Static's third member Steve Everitt. Pepler is featured on the 2006 Ozric Tentacles album The Floor's Too Far Away, playing percussion on the track "Armchair Journey".
