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"Me and Pedro" These are the guys that got Puck kicked off the Real World S.F.

This looks good !
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Uh-err I've been lost awhile but now I'm found. You have to get hit in the head twice to get back to where you once belonged. So I think the second shoe just dropped on my head r sumpin. Are there still two media trees ? I thin I've been up the wrong one lately.



Went to see Ted Nugent last Sunday @ Irving plaza and immediately noticed diminished hearing in both ears on the path ride home . All day Monday both ears were still ringing. Much better today with slight diminished hearing and ringing in right ear only. That constitutes a trend so I'm hoping for full recovery someday.

Mr. Nugent (clean and sober for all 52 years) has been opening for KISS lately so the Motor City Madman has co-opted the kiss army as his latest Detroit sound deciples. It was nice to be on a list considering the $30 entry fee. Missed the first act, but copped two fists of rolling rock and filtered w/ roomie Brian to a nice spot about 1/4 distance from the stage. Brian made some notes afterwards and I'll let them surfice. I uncleaned them up a little :

Pretty rockin' show with an entire stage of Peavey stacks, the Nuge in Indian headdress and some classic moments:

Ted as master of doublespeak:

-came ripping out on stage following a taped intro from "Blazing Saddles": "I'd like to extend a laurel and hardy handshake to the new n*gger..", then later gave a speech on how Rosa Parks was "his hero"

-announced how much he loved NYC repeatedly, then kept making references to those who ate "pastrami and matza shit" instead of the healthy meat of choice, venison. Also claimed that New York people were often "ugly motherfuckers" because they contaminated their bodies with pastrami instead of venison. Also gem moments:

-lectured to an 8 year old kid in the audience, first asking the parents "Do you mind me addressing your child frankly?" then proclaimed he had the cure to aides and proceeding to seriously tell him not to "buttfuck other people or share used needles"

-gave a stirring elegy to Jimi Hendrix, who died 30 years ago today: "Jimi got high, now Jimi is dead, I started hunting, and I'm still Ted."

-dedicated "Kiss My Ass" to those "pieces of shit", Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Al Gore, Janet Reno and "all the motherfuckers who want to take my guns away"

-performed a 10 minute pseudo-psychedelic oddysey about shooting bear

-drummer, a seemingly 60 year old shirtless guy with a giant afro, did a 10 minute drum solo, then tossed his sticks and did another 10 minutes with just his hands

-announced before "Cat Scratch Fever": "this is a Motown classic that will maken even the biggest faggots out there eat pussy tonight"

-mocked all the local New York musician-types in the audience with their "faggot earrings" and challenged them to come up and try to top the way he did the intro lick to "Stranglehold", offering to suck their dick if they did. Nobody challenged.

The jams were indeed heavy, though- pure raw rock trio sensibilities and amazing "Baby Please Don't Go/Train Kept a Rollin" medley and total nods to the roots, boogie etc. Nuge-ized of course..."Wang Dang" definitely has ASS ri ffery potential I realized too....

Along these same Detroit centric lines we offer :

By Ira Robbins salon.com

April 10, 2000 |   Among cultural historians, it has long been an article of faith that the '60s dream died in an ugly bar fight at Altamont Speedway in December 1969. Given the evidence, it's not a bad guess. After all, the Rolling Stones' well-intentioned fiasco proved that rock 'n' roll wasn't about good vibes and peace (man) and made it clear that the Woodstock nation was far better equipped to destroy itself than to take on any nebulous "establishment." Within a year, superstars would start overdosing like flies, the Beatles would sue one another and Don McLean would write "American Pie." How much more habeas corpus do you need?

As Freddy Krueger later observed, you can't kill something that's already dead. By the winter of '69, rock was already flat-lining. If the bad news had yet to reach the front lines -- and some might argue that it never has -- the monument to virile youth the Stones helped erect only a few years earlier was an edifice about to be wrecked.

And, ironically enough, not by its sworn enemies or its craftiest exploiters. Not by MTV, hip-hop, the Internet or even Celine Dion. No, rock 'n' roll was done in by three well-intentioned nobodies who, to their credit, worked hard and believed in themselves. That their values ran counter to the counterculture might have left them on the outside looking in a year earlier, but the '60s were ready for last call. That party had gone out of bounds with hard drugs and the discovery of death as a lifestyle and was facing a grim and uncertain morning after. The new-left politics rock had inadvertently fueled had diverged into feel-good Moratorium marchers and self-obsessed bombers. Stardom had corrupted musical idealists and left them easy prey for commercial interests. With Newtonian certainty, the great leap forward was ready for its about-face.

The world didn't need any more fixing, at least not of the sort that had turned to mud at Woodstock. There was nothing to be nostalgic about, since youth culture needed to see its reflection, and the Elvis '50s didn't look familiar at all. The future was too hard to comprehend and far harder still to imagine shaping. No, what the world needed, in the eyes of those unaware of its possibilities, was the kind of fun that didn't mean anything. As the social pendulum began its great swing back, Grand Funk Railroad rolled up to embody that know-nothing reactionary spirit and make it the soundtrack of the '70s.

Grand Funk arose from Michigan's working-class industrial fug around the same time as the Stooges, but their garage-bred ineptitude was a completely different American breed. The Stooges were bad seeds, pollution-fueled aliens who had abandoned life's assembly line to make music of enormously negative appeal as they accelerated blindly toward a personal hell. Ugly and depraved, unsophisticated but knowledgeably honoring some worthy predecessors, these vicious bohemians fit into the cultural fabric like cigarette holes in a couch. Their clothes and demeanor, if at all conscious, were not meant to help them fit in but to stand out, to inflict whatever offense was still possible in a time of great moral decay.

Grand Funk were Nixon's silent majority, living proof that long hair and loud music signified nothing more than the Prez muttering "Sock it to me" on "Laugh-In." Arriving on the scene too late to grasp rock's pivotal role in shaping the '60s, they observed a landscape of no-account hippies, foreign influence and dissipating idealism and didn't like what they saw. (The braless chicks, drugs and ready cash were another story.) Unlike the sissies and bookworms who had found rock 'n' roll their court of last resort, Mark, Don and Mel were hard, simple and strong -- macho moral descendants of John Wayne and Billy Jack -- and they knew their country needed them. Owing nothing to history, unashamed of their shortcomings and undaunted by their obstacles, they suited up and got to work. Though hardly in the same league, they shrewdly fashioned themselves a power trio after Cream, who conveniently dissolved just in time.

Others could lock themselves away, spending unconscionable amounts of time in the studio making grandiose art-rock of increasing intricacy and technical reach; Grand Funk displayed the rugged efficiency of line workers. These get-it-done types released two albums in each of their first four years, paving the way for cynics like the equally unselfconscious Kiss, who also knew to keep striking while the iron was on fire.

In addition to a career-launching appearance at the Atlanta Pop Festival a month before Woodstock, Grand Funk released two albums in 1969 and began their inexorable plod to superstardom. Released only weeks after Altamont, their second long-player, "Grand Funk Railroad," is a textbook classic of sweat-rock, a lumbering collection of clichés played with the conviction of Charlton Heston parting the Red Sea and the mindless determination of Rocky Balboa leaking blood on the canvas. Whereas the Stooges presumably noticed the vast chasm between their work and the sound of young America -- and thought themselves the better for it -- Grand Funk comically gave it their best shot with quavering vocals, grunting bass and high-school guitar licks. And they were richly rewarded.

With three additional decades of rock history to consider, their ineptitude can be forgiven. After all, punk couldn't have happened if instrumental ability were a prerequisite. But lack of skill has to be mortgaged against some brilliant idea or at least a clever novelty. The members of Grand Funk, God love 'em, didn't have an original bone in their body. They went from being puppets of an autocratic manager to willing servants of strong producers like Todd Rundgren without ever demonstrating a shred of individual creativity. Their best work, save for the dumb-luck power of "We're an American Band," came via covers of classics like "The Loco-Motion" or "Some Kind of Wonderful," and uncredited borrowings like the Ten Years After chorus ("Love Like a Man") in Grand Funk's subsequent "Walk Like a Man." The significance of their merciless decimation of "Gimme Shelter," the Stones song for which the Maysles named their documentary film of the dismal doings at Altamont, however, is too dense to contemplate. No, GFR were hopelessly bad singers and players, but success calls its own tune, and their unmitigated shittiness became an acceptable '70s benchmark.

With the green-eyed gods of commerce on their side, Grand Funk sold an unheard-of 10 million albums within two years. And that was that. Critics could carp all they wanted, but it was a new decade and a new generation had spoken. The '60s suddenly felt like a pitifully naive oasis, preschool for the big boys. In the wake of Grand Funk's jolly thuggery, the era they had wiped away felt like it might have been a mass hallucination, and rock was revealed to be just another cynical American industry, free of social consequence and solidly status quo. Flag burners be damned -- the irony-impaired Grand Funk posed nude in a barnyard full of flags and made it look respectful.

The success of Grand Funk dragged rock back to earth from its wildest imaginings, as if the space program had been taken over by McDonald's and NASA's rocketry breakthroughs converted to broil burgers. In their clumsiness, Grand Funk inadvertently knocked down the wall that had divided rock self-expression from market-driven factory pop. Shorn of its pretensions and dreams, its politics and its effeminacy, rock entered Have a Nice Day hell, the vapid wasteland of the early '70s in which musical styles became random buttons on the Top 40 jukebox. While Britain's teens embraced the future in platform heels and eye shadow, Americans would go years before rediscovering music's artistic and cultural ambitions.

But, in their own minds, Grand Funk were ready to save America. Weighing in late on the Vietnam saga (14 months before the signing of the Paris peace accords, as it happens), they declared, "People, Let's Stop the War" on 1971's "E Pluribus Funk," reducing years of protest against the military-industrial complex to three incoherent lines: "If we had a president that did just what he said/The country would be just alright and no one would be dead/From fighting in a war that causes big men to get rich." On the same album, which is the most outspoken for singer-guitarist-songwriter Mark Farner, "Save the Land" warns, "Look out for the land rush ... /All we've got is just the land/Take a stand, save the land." More typical of the group's spiritual concerns is the unbridled passion of "Heartbreaker," a minor hit released in early 1970: "Heartbreaker/Can't take her/Heartbreaker/Bringin' me down."

Critics raked them over the coals, but Grand Funk had the last laugh. Victory was theirs, no matter how many pussies with pens proclaimed that they sucked. Their sales as much as their sensibilities cleared a path to football stadiums, where rock, sports and other testosterone-fueled mass gatherings could finally meld into one universal crud culture. That would lead to even worse things. (Maybe you don't care that rock songs have become "jock classics" or that hawkers vend hot dogs in the stands at Pink Floyd shows, but I do.) Farner went on to become a survivalist and born-again Christian. In the liner notes to the band's "Thirty Years of Funk" box set, he writes, "Just for the record, I despise the men and women who under the influence of darkness have compromised the sovereignty of the People of the United States." Can you spell W-A-C-O?

There have been far worse bands than Grand Funk Railroad, but try to imagine what might have happened if it had been, say, Melanie who had been able to outsell the Beatles at Shea Stadium. That would have fixed rock's male paradigm, wouldn't it? What Grand Funk did was establish banality as a mass-market ideal, inverting the idealism that had once driven artists to strive for creative progress, testing and shedding styles like babies learning to walk. For a brief, exciting time, rock could not bear to stand still, and its greats were those who constantly sought new challenges. Between 1966 and 1969, it was swept by waves of psychedelia, sitar, folk, blues, country and more. The arrival of Grand Funk stopped progress dead in its tracks. Ill-suited to do more than sweat, stomp and sell, they were neither capable of, nor inclined to, advance. By the time they got out of the way, ushered into the past tense by two albums that tanked, the latter having been produced by Frank Zappa (bless his bearded little head), the '70s were more than half over. As if on cue, the Ramones were counting it down on the Bowery, and it was time to begin again.

salon.com | April 10, 2000 GO THERE
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Marianne Nowottney has a song on this compilation :

Ace 010 Various Artists - Keep Left full length CD to benefit David Barsamian and Alternative Radio

Release Date August 14th, 2000. A benefit CD for David Barsamiand and Alternative Radio featuring: Kronos Quartet, Lorren Mazzacane Connors, Negativland, Olivia Tremor Control, Physics, Treiops Treyfid, Built To Spill,Friends Of Dean Martinez, Elliott Sharp,South, Flowchart, Marianne Nowottny, Windy and Carl, Pere Ubu with liner notes written by Howard Zinn. Ace Fu Records will be donating all profits from this benefit CD to help Alternative Radio meet the financial obligations necessary for them to continue their important social service.

ALSO NEW WIRE ISSUE OUT w/ profile on MARIANNE! The Wire MG (September 2000) The September issue of The Wire includes a cover story on Royal Trux and feature stories on Burnt Friedman, Francisco Lopez, and a history of dub. Also included: Lois V. Vierk, Joseph Suchy, Marianne Nowottny, and an Invisible Jukebox by Sunny Murray.


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Catskill Culture (good reading list with some chapters published)
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I noticed on the front page (lower half) of NYT today that :

"For the first time, computer scientists have created a robot that designs and builds other robots, almost entirely without human help."

So, wasn't that one of those events you have to remeber where you were and what you were doing when it happened ?

also in the news (news letter that is) :

SHELL
"Shell Is Swell" (Abaton/Import abaton@crystal.palace.net) Vor 2 Jahren erschien ein Tape, das hiess "Shell vs. Neu!" und machte einen Radio-DJ in NYC ziemlich nervös. Denn die beiden Mädels, die darauf lustig vor sich hin homerecordeten, waren gerade mal 15. Und kannten Neu! Die kenne ich auch, Shell aber war bisher nur ein Ölkonzern. Das ist nun anders, denn diese CD ist unglaublich: man möchte "Fürsorge!" und "Jugendschutz!" rufen, wenn Marianne Nowottny (die mit ihren zarten 17 schon mal solo in der Knitting Factory spielt!) und Donna Bailey ihre schrägen Spässe treiben. Zwar nur ganz vage, aber doch spürbare Parallelen zur jungen Lydia Lunch, bubblegum singalongs - als Ulk viel zu gut. Das Info sagt dazu Gothteen-Girlpop, ich nenne es Trash-Audio-Art und gemastert hat das Ganze Elliot Sharp. Karsten Zimalla

This is the Shell review, translated courtesy of alta vista. It reads kinda like a puzzle......

Before 2 years a Tape appeared, was called " Shell vs. new! " and made rather nervous a radio DJ in NYC. Because the two girls, who homerecordeten on it merrily before itself, were even times 15. And new knew! Those I know also, Shell however was so far only an oil company. That is now different, because this CD is unbelievable: one would like " welfare service! " and " protection of children and young people! " call, if Marianne Nowottny (with their tender 17 already times solo in the Knitting Factory plays!) and Donna Bailey their diagonal fun float. Only quite vaguely, but nevertheless noticeable parallels to the young Lydia Lunch, bubblegum singalongs - than joke much too well. The info. says to it Gothteen Girlpop, I calls it Trash audio type and gemastert the whole Elliot Sharp. Karsten Zimalla
-- alli

Alas, it seems that German culture is still on summer holiday. Asphyxiated boy where are you?
Abaton

Asphyxiated boy where are you?

I'm here, I've been trying to translate it... but it's in SUCH strong colloquial language that it's proven quite difficult for me... I'm sorry! *sob*

But then, I'd challenge any educated German to try to successfully navigate some hip-hop magazine... I doubt they'd get too far.

More email to come!

xoxo - John

[an interesting compliment about our valiant narrator that perhaps you may find agreeable/true] "you're the aston-martin of robots"
- xovoxovoxo

here a quick, dirty translation of the article on "Westzeit" (as a contribution by an early Shell fan):

"Two years ago a tape called "Shell vs. Neu!" was released and made a NY radio DJ rather nervous. And this because the two girlies that had fun recording at home were just 15. And they knew Neu! I know them too, but Shell has been only a oil company untill now. This has changed, as this CD is unbelievable: one feels like calling "children care!", "protection to the minors!" when Marianne Nowottny (who in her sweet 17 already plays solo in the Knitting Factory!)and Donna Bailey go for their wierd fun. Even if there are some vague but sensible parallels to Lydia Lunch, bubblegum singalongs, they are too good to be a joke. The info calls it Gothteen-Girlpop, I call it Trash-Audio-Art and Elliot Sharp has mastered the whole thing." Karsten Zimalla  --------------------------------------------------
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