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I put a small bid on this group of three pics. Man do these guys know how to party !
"What in Creation ?"
As per NYT 8/25 : Experiment Backs Novel Theory on Origin of Life, By NICHOLAS WADE
maverick theory about the origin of life has
received striking support from an experiment
that mimicked the violent interactions of deep
seated rock and common gases in the Hadean epoch,
the days when the earth had just formed as a planet.
Researchers found to their surprise that even in such
hellish conditions they had created a chemical that is
crucial for the metabolism of living cells.
The result is evocative because the chemical, known as
pyruvate, is a crucial component of living cells, being the fuel for a universal energy
producing process known as the citric acid cycle.
The new finding, reported in today's issue of Science by Dr. George D. Cody and his
colleagues at the Carnegie Institution of Washington's Geophysical Laboratory, does not
explain how or where life began but it supports a theory that proposes a new way of looking
at this long intractable problem.
The theory, proposed by a German patent attorney, Dr. Günther Wächtershäuser of Munich,
holds that the origin of life should be sought by looking for a metabolism, some repeated
cycle of chemical change, that could have taken place on the early earth and that could then
have built itself up into more complex molecules and organisms. This contrasts with the
conventional approach, which is to take familiar parts of today's cells, like nucleic acids, and
try to figure out the conditions in which they might have formed spontaneously.
Dr. Wächtershäuser dismisses the latter approach as the broth theory because even when a
researcher has found conditions under which the individual chemical ingredients of life might
have been formed, it is hard to explain why they should then assemble themselves into living
cells.
He calls his own proposal "the iron sulfur world theory" because he believes that metallic
surfaces, particularly that of the common mineral iron sulfide, would have been promising
facilitators, or catalysts, of the chemical reactions that created the precursor chemicals of
living cells.
It is unusual for amateurs, even a qualified chemist like Dr. Wächters häuser, to contribute to
the specialized worlds of modern science. And his ideas, being only theoretical, did not
arouse much enthusiasm until 1997 when he showed that an iron- sulphur surface could
promote the conversion of carbon monoxide to a two-carbon chemical important in
biochemistry of living cells.
To biochemists, his finding had particular resonance because at the center of many enzymes
are iron and sulfur atoms that transfer electrons in ways vital to the cell's energy
requirements.
The idea that living cells are elaborate codifications of some primitive chemical cycle that got
going on an iron-sulfur surface is to them not so alien.
Dr. Cody and colleagues at the Carnegie Institution decided to use a special high-pressure
apparatus they possessed to explore how Dr. Wächtershäuser's proposed system might work
at sites like the volcanic vents in the deep ocean. This kind of chemistry is a dangerous
pursuit, since at high pressures water becomes a violent acid and carbon monoxide eats
through steel.
"We set out to explore the ability of minerals to catalyse reactions that would be important in
a primitive metabolic sense," Dr. Cody said. Putting iron sulfur, a source of carbon
monoxide into their reaction tube, "We came across an unanticipated result," he said. That
was the formation of large amounts of pyruvate.
The tube also contained a hydrogen sulphide-like chemical to mimic the hydrogen sulfide
produced by volcanoes.
Pyruvate consists of three carbon atoms linked together and is an obvious building block
from which sugars and the other carbon-based molecules of life can be constructed.
Dr. Wächtershäuser believes the origin of life lies in autocatalysis, the emergence of some
natural chemical process, like the pyruvate-producing one, in which the products help the
reaction go faster.
"Evolution is better and better autocatalysis," he said in a phone interview yesterday.
If one of these autocatalytic processes started to generate the class of fatty chemicals known
as lipids, these might form a bubble round the system and the first cell would be generated.
The cell would have left the surface on which it was generated and later developed the
elaborate information-storage system embodied in today's DNA molecules.
Dr. Michael W.W. Adams, a biochemist who studies early life at the University of Georgia,
said Dr. Wächtershäuser had developed a very reasonable and testable hypothesis for the
origin of organic material relevant to life. "It makes so much sense to have metal catalysts
involved at the dawn of life," Dr. Adams said, "especially metal sulfides, because these are
essential to most energy conserving processes. I very much think he is on the right track."
In a written commentary on Dr. Cody's report, Dr. Wächtershäuser said that, with the
creation of pyruvate, all of the eight sequential steps needed to make peptides from carbon
monoxide had now been shown to be chemically possible. Peptides are short chains of
amino acids, the components of the protein molecules that are the workhorses of the living
cell.
The new results "greatly strengthen the hope that it may one day be possible to understand
and reconstruct the beginnings of life on earth," he wrote.
"Good to see The Republic of Texas guys back in the news", as per 8/25 NYT An Armed Texas Family Resists the Courts
By ROSS E. MILLOY
RINIDAD, Tex., Aug. 24 -- With a
revolver and a bowie knife strapped to
his hip and a semiautomatic rifle resting
next to him on a barbed wire fence, Jonathon
Gray pondered the question: Just what would
happen if law enforcement officers tried to
enter his father's 47-acre homestead?
"I can tell you one thing," he said. "They ain't
coming in."
The 28-year-old Mr. Gray stood guard today
with two of his brothers, who were also
armed, at the locked gate of their family's
property on the Trinity River just north of here,
some 60 miles southeast of Dallas. Seeking
shade from a grove of hickory trees in
blistering summer heat, they wondered just
which day the authorities would come to arrest
their father.
For more than 15 months, Mr. Gray and his
father, mother and five adult siblings have
defied a court order to turn over the 2- and
4-year-old sons of his sister Lisa, who lost
custody of them to her former husband by
default when she failed to appear at a hearing in
divorce court. Mr. Gray's father, John Joe
Gray, 51, is also wanted by local officials for
failing to show up in court to face charges that he assaulted a police officer in nearby
Anderson County last December.
The family, believed to be heavily armed, has resolved not to participate in court proceedings
or any other government activities, because, Mr. Gray said, its religious and political beliefs
do not permit doing so.
"The secular courts don't have any authority over us," he said. "We go by the Bible and the
Constitution, and I don't see anything in either one about child custody cases. We don't want
anyone to get hurt, but we're not giving up them kids."
The local authorities are proceeding with caution.
Ronnie Brownlow, chief deputy for the Henderson County Sheriff's Department, said:
"We're in no hurry to make a move. The last thing we want is for someone to get hurt."
Mr. Brownlow said that because of John Joe Gray's past associations with right-wing
groups, including the secessionist Republic of Texas, which engaged in a standoff with
law-enforcement officers three years ago, the authorities here had informed the Federal
Bureau of Investigation about the case.
Jonathon Gray said the family belonged to the Sabbatarian sect, a derivative of the
Seventh-day Adventists that strictly interprets the Bible.
The family patriarch refused to talk with reporters today, but last weekend he told The San
Antonio Express-News that he did not intend to surrender the children "as long as God
allows us to survive."
"I am more afraid of God than of them," he said of the authorities.
The elder Mr. Gray, who has lived on his spread for 16 years, is known to his neighbors as
a quiet man with a disquieting hobby: for years, he tried to recruit townspeople to become
members of a militia group.
"He used to come in here all dressed up in those military outfits and camouflage gear, trying
to get people to join up with him," said Susan Stansfield, a secretary at the city hall in
Trinidad.
The Gray family homestead is nestled in thickly forested hills, more than a mile from the
closest neighbors. Visitors have said it is fortified with sandbagged shooting positions,
trenches and an underground bunker built of concrete and wood. The Grays have been
without electricity for nearly six months because they did not pay the utility bills, said
Jonathon Gray, who, like his father, has been unable to work at his trade as a carpenter
because of the need he feels to remain holed up.
Fence lines and trees carry hand-lettered signs like "Disobedience to Tyranny Is Obedience to
God," "90% of Catholic Priests Are Child Molesters" and "We Are Militia and Will Live
Free or Die.
"
Asked today whether he or his father was a member of a militia group, Jonathon Gray only
smiled and said, "No comment."
But last weekend, by the account of both Mr. Gray and the local press, members of various
militia groups as well as religious fundamentalists -- more than two dozen people in all --
visited the family to offer support, many bringing food and other supplies.
Even today, as Mr. Gray and his brothers stood watch, a neighbor who would give her name
only as Punky stopped on the dirt road running alongside their property and told him: "You
keep them out of there. Don't let them in. If you need anything, give us a call."
"I wouldn't let them take my grandchildren either," she said.
NADER
In a message dated 8/23/00 5:12:28 PM, NJ4Nader writes:
Harper's Magazine -- September, 2000
Cover Story: A CITIZEN IN FULL (excerpts)
Ralph Nader campaigns for president with a course in civics
By Lewis W. Lapham, Editor of Harper's Magazine
"We can have a democratic society or we can have a concentration of great
wealth in the hands of the few. We cannot have both."
-- Louis
Brandeis
Ralph Nader declared himself a candidate for president on February 21 in
a Washington hotel, and for the next two months the national news media
were careful to ignore the proposition. Although well-known as a zealous
consumer advocate, Nader didn't enjoy much standing as a politician.
So little was said about Nader's presidential campaign in February and
March that as late as April 10 it wasn't hard to find New York sources
supposedly well-informed (editors at Doubleday, columnists for Vogue) who
hadn't been told. They had heard that somewhere west of the Pecos River
Pat Buchanan was on the hustings for Ross Perot's troubled Reform Party,
but if in answer to a question about the November election I said that
I intended to vote for Ralph Nader, I could count on expressions of genuine
surprise.
Most of the upscale media adopted a complacent tone when they were obliged
to take notice of Nader's campaign in early May. The candidate by then
had placed his name on the ballot in fifteen states; actively in search
of votes, he was making stump speeches in Kentucky and South Carolina,
attracting endorsements from prominent celebrities (among them Willie Nelson,
Susan Sarandon, Pearl Jam, and Paul Newman), apparently being taken seriously
by the United Auto Workers union. Still not enough of a campaign to warrant
mention on the political web sites maintained by ABC, CBS, and CNN, but
certainly a curiosity deserving of the same attention paid to spotted owls
and giant pandas.
Nader's candidacy gained currency during the spring and early summer (his
acceptance in Denver of the Green Party's presidential nomination, nearly
$1 million raised in campaign contributions, his name on the ballot in
another ten states), but the official portrait in the media (that of the
harmless reformer, high-minded but faintly ridiculous) wasn't retouched
until June 30, when the New York Times promoted him to the rank of public
menace. The upgrade took the form of an impatient editorial, royalist
in sentiment and pompous in tone, reprimanding Nader for his meddling in
an election that was beyond his sphere of competence and none of his concern:
"He is engaging in a self-indulgent exercise that will
distract voters from the clear-cut choice represented
by the major-party candidates, Vice President Al Gore
and Gov. George Bush.
"It is especially distressing to see Mr. Nader flirt
with the spoiler role.
"Of course, both Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Nader have the
right to run. But given the major differences between
the prospective Democratic and Republican nominees,
there is no driving logic for third-party candidacy
this year, and the public deserves to see the major-party
candidates compete on an uncluttered playing field."
Disappointed as well as piqued, the editorialist acknowledged Nader's "legacy
as a conscience-driven crusader" and took the trouble to commend him for
championing the cause of automobile safety and having "sharpened Americans'
awareness of the flaws in their political system." Which was why it was
distressing to see a man once principled destroy his reputation with conduct
unbecoming a moralist. His irresponsible behavior threatened Al Gore's
chances in "swing states like California," and if he were a true gentleman
and a real liberal he would stay with the seat belts and leave the politics
to the professionals.
It so happened that June 30 was the same day on which I had arranged to
interview Nader in Washington, also to accompany him on his afternoon rounds
of the television talk-show circuit. I'd read the Times editorial on the
plane from New York, and when I arrived shortly before noon at Nader's
campaign headquarters on N.W. Fifteenth Street, I discovered that it had
been received as a gift of rare good fortune. The few campaign workers
present looked like graduate students -- young, idealistic, underpaid,
not the kind of people given to cutting deals with trade-association
lobbyists
or shouting into telephones -- and their response to the rebuke was less
loud or sarcastic than quietly pleased. It meant they were making progress.
The lead editorial no less, publicity that money couldn't buy, 618 words
of fatuous indignation proving Nader a candidate in fact as well as theory.
Several recent news clippings posted on the walls confirmed an uptick
of interest from syndicated columnists suddenly as worried as the Times
about the damage likely to be done to Gore, and among other signs as hopeful,
Nader's web site was receiving 20,000 visits a day; 12,000 volunteers were
setting up storefront operations in every one of the fifty states; there
was talk of a campaign bus, maybe even television commercials; some of
the national opinion polls were conceding Nader 7 percent of the prospective
November vote, as opposed to 2 percent for the far more lavishly financed
Pat Buchanan; Vogue had called with the request for an interview; so had
CNBC and Slate.
I found Nader in the front room on the third floor. He was wearing his
customary rumpled suit. The standard press description gets it right about
Nader's frugal habits and bookish manner -- sixty-six years old and never
married, he doesn't own a car, a cell phone, or a credit card -- but it
misses his candor, his modesty, and his wit. More amused than offended
by the Times editorial, he asked me if I knew who might have written it:
"You've got to love these people," Nader said. "They think the American
electoral process is a gated community."
Never in recent memory, he said, have the Democratic and Republican parties
so closely resembled each other, and if the absence of 100 million citizens
from the polls in the 1996 presidential election didn't indicate, or at
least strongly hint at, an impressive lack of respect for the threadbare
wisdoms in office (and thus "a driving logic" for a third party, or any
party at all that could reinvigorate the country's moribund political
debate),
then what would it take to prompt the editors at the Times to smuggle their
heads out of the sand? For ten years the American electorate has been voicing
its objection to "a government of the Exxons, by the General Motors, and
for the Du Ponts." The party of discontent voted for Ross Perot, elected
Jesse Ventura governor of Minnesota, made credible the candidacy of John
McCain, paraded in animal costumes through the streets of Seattle.
Several well-wishers already had telephoned that morning with the suggestion
that Nader distribute reprints of the editorial as an endorsement, on the
ground that anybody who so provoked the Times couldn't be all bad, and
when Studs Terkel called from Chicago to offer the same advice, Nader said,
"Remember that you're talking to your friend, the clutterer. Obstructing
the playing field for next autumn's Yale-Harvard game."
They talked for five minutes, then it was John Anderson on the phone, saying
that when he had run as a third-party candidate in 1980 the Times had cast
him in the same role --"spoiler," "ego-driven" nuisance, no friend of
America.
"You would think," Nader said, "that in twenty years they could come up
with some new words."
The judges on the bench of prime-time opinion say that Nader lacks charisma,
but the word admits of different interpretations, and if it can be referred
to a lively intelligence as well as a bright smile, Nader seems to me a
good deal more charismatic than David Letterman or Brad Pitt. I know of
few spectacles more entertaining than the play of a mind being put to
constructive
or imaginative use, and I like to listen to Nader talk. I never fail to
learn something new, and in Nader's idealism I find an antidote for the
cynicism that constitutes an occupational hazard on the shop floors of
the image-making industries in New York.
Accepting the Green Party nomination in Denver on June 27, Nader had
presented
his campaign as a question -- "How badly do we want a just and decent
society,
a society that raises our expectations of ourselves?" -- and in Washington
three days later he supplemented it with further commentary and explanation.
"Unlike Gush and Bore," he said, "I don't promote myself as a solution
to the nation's problems. The idea is to encourage a lot of other people
to use the tools of democratic government to take control of the assets
they hold in common -- the public lands, the public broadcast frequencies,
the public money. Whatever your issue is, whether it's racism, homophobia,
taxes, health care, urban decay, you're not going to go anywhere with it
unless you focus on the concentration of power. We have an overdeveloped
plutocracy and an underdeveloped democracy, too many private interests
commandeering the public interest for their own profit. Most Americans
don't realize how badly they're being harmed by the unchecked
commercialization
of what belongs to the commonwealth. If enough people knew what questions
to ask, we have both the ways and means to achieve better schools, a
healthier
environment, a more general distribution of decent health care."
Nader has been asking the questions for forty years. He established his
credibility as a consumer advocate in 1965 when he published Unsafe at
Any Speed, a fierce indictment of the carelessness with which General Motors
manufactured its cars. The book resulted in legislation that forced G.M.
to improve its automotive designs, and Nader went on to search out further
proofs of malfeasance almost everywhere else in corporate America, filing
investigative briefs against oil companies, banks, hospitals; publishing
another twenty books (about corporate accountability, the judiciary and
banking committees in both the Senate and the House, etc.); organizing
numerous civic-minded committees (among them the Center for the Study of
Responsive Law and the Public Interest Research Group); and bringing about,
or at least setting in train, changes for the better in the management
of the country's pension funds, classified information, and toxic wastes.
"The oligarchy," he said, never wants anyone to know what, or how much,
ordinary citizens can accomplish if they learn to use the power of their
own laws. Apathy is good for business-as-usual; so is cynicism. Convince
the kids that history is at an end, that nothing important remains to be
discovered, done, or said, and maybe they won't ask why a corporate CEO
receives a salary four hundred times greater than that of the lowest paid
worker in his own company."
The first of Nader's television appearances, a taped broadcast for CNN's
Crossfire, was scheduled for 2:00 PM, but he was slow to finish talking
to a reporter from Business Week, and in the car Theresa Amato, his campaign
manager, worried about being late.
As Nader was being ushered to his seat at the table between them, Theresa
and I found chairs against a back wall, and Novak greeted the candidate
with a condescending joke. "Well, Ralph," he said. "I see that you have
brought the whole of your bloated campaign staff."
Nader let the remark pass without comment, and while the technicians fixed
his microphone Novak turned to the teleprompter to read the opening tease.
Smoothing his vest, adjusting his tie, he puffed up his voice into the
registers of mock urgency and canned sensation, bringing his viewers the
promise of furious debate -- "Ralph Nader in the crossfire. Ralph Nader
and his third-party presidential campaign. Will it last? Will he find
money? Will he take votes from Al Gore? Is he serious? Can he win?"
The lights went briefly down, and during the lull that accompanied the
first commercial break, Novak sagged back into the posture of a bored
Washington
courtier, the Rosencrantz to Bill Press's Guildenstern (or, on alternate
days of the week, the Guildenstern to Press's Rosencrantz); it was obvious
that with respect to the questions he had just asked, his answer to all
of the above was no. Nor was he particularly interested in the interview
that he was about to conduct. Nader quite clearly wasn't going to be giving
tours of the White House or tipping anybody off to tomorrow's bombing of
Belgrade. But the show was the show, and what Novak had to sell was the
sport of bearbaiting. When the lights again came up, he instantly regained
the pose of "the citizen who cares" and began a garbled interrogation along
the lines of the morning editorial in the Times, "Are you really totally
indifferent to these two candidates?" "If you were to take away enough
votes from California to carry the state for George Bush, I think that
might elect him. Does that give you trouble sleeping?"
Nader said he could sleep. The Democratic Party had shifted its thinking
and policies so far to the right that the only difference between Bush
and Gore was the relative velocity "with which their knees hit the floor
when the big corporations knocked on the door."
Nader began to explain his reasons for saying what he'd said (i.e., with
specific reference to the Clinton Administration's record on child welfare,
medical insurance, national forests, the Glass-Steagall Act, etc., etc.),
but well before he could complete the bill of indictment it was time for
another commercial break, and as soon as the cameras returned for the second
half of the program, Novak was talking about "Ralph Nader, consumer advocate
multi-millionaire!" He had seen a newspaper report placing Nader's net
worth at $4 million, and real money in the hands of anybody to the left
of William F. Buckley struck him as prima facie evidence of hypocrisy.
Liberals were supposed to be poor; their poverty was what made them
liberals.
So, said Novak, as if peering under a pillow or a rock, you have $4 million.
Nader said the number was about right, but he went on to explain that
he lived on only a small fraction of the income and gave the bulk of it
to his several public action committees. The answer didn't satisfy Novak,
and for the next fifteen minutes, attempting to discredit Nader's claim
to the prerogatives of an idealist, he pursued the subject with questions
about how the money was invested, in what kind of stocks, and were those
companies cruel monopolies, enemies of the people, creatures of the corporate
state? Because Nader answered the quiz without embarrassment or evasion,
the effect was lost.
Twenty minutes later we were back in the car, and Nader was saying that
he thought the show had gone about as well as could be expected. He cited
the list of issues on which Gore had sold out his avowed concern for the
environment to the highest corporate bidder -- oil development in Alaska,
organic food standards, greenhouse gases, ozone-depleting chemicals, the
California redwoods.
"Critics tell me that I ought to work 'within the system,' but people 'within
the system' don't welcome new ideas. They like to talk about social change,
but when it comes to actually doing something, they remember that social
change is outrageous, un-American, and wrong. Look at the history of the
country. I don't care whether you're talking about the Revolution of 1776,
or abolitionists forcing the issue of slavery in the 1850s, about women's
suffrage, the late nineteenth-century populist revolt against the eastern
banks and railroads, the trade-union movement, Social Security, meat
inspection,
civil rights. The change invariably begins with people whom the defenders
of the status quo denounce as agitators, communists, hippies, weirdos.
And then, ten or twenty years later, after the changes have taken place,
the chamber of commerce discovers that everybody's profits have improved.
The captains of industry never seem to understand that a free democracy
is the precondition for a free market; try to turn the equation the other
way around, and you end up with an economy like the one in Indonesia."
By the time we returned to the building on N.W. Fifteenth Street three
more newspapers had called with requests for interviews, 60 Minutes had
expressed interest, and Tom Brokaw's producers had asked if it might be
possible for Tom to follow Nader into Minnesota with a camera crew. The
campaign staff was impressed, but not to the extent of sending out for
beer and paper hats. Like their candidate, they understood the political
crisis in the country not as an ideological quarrel between liberal and
conservative, Democrat and Republican, but rather as an argument between
the people who would continue the American experiment and those who believe
the experiment has gone far enough, between the inertia conducive to
acceptance
of things-as-they-are and the energy inherent in the hope of
things-as-they-might-become.
To the delegates at the Green Party convention in Colorado, Nader had defined
his politics as "first and foremost a movement of thought, not of belief,"
and later in the afternoon, riding in a taxi to the PBS studio in Arlington,
Virginia, I asked him whether politics so defined didn't set him up for
a good deal of disappointment. "Maybe it would if I were into mood changes,
he said.
The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer allotted Nader ten minutes at the top of the
broadcast and didn't bother with the theatrics of false confrontation.
Lehrer asked straightforward questions, but they were so tired and
perfunctory
that it was apparent he didn't understand Nader's critique of the sham
democracy. Nor, like Novak and Press, did he seem to know what was meant
by the phrase "economic injustice." Where was the problem, and why the
complaint? Here we all were in the most prosperous society ever to see
the light of heaven, real estate prices going nowhere but up, the ever
expanding middle class floating in suburban swimming pools on the buoyant
mattress of the Nasdaq, and why were we talking about poor people?
In the time allowed, the conversation couldn't become anything other than
an exchange of platitudes, but it permitted at least one memorable question
and answer. Lehrer was asking Nader what he would do in and with the office
of the presidency in the unlikely event that he won the election. How
could Nader possibly appreciate the complex workings of all those vast
and complex government agencies in Washington? Nader paused for a moment,
as if he couldn't quite believe what he'd just heard. Then he laughed
and said, "Well, I don't know anybody who has sued more of them."
The station provided another taxi to return Nader to Washington, and he
offered to drop me at the airport if I still had policy issues that I wished
to raise. Once again we found ourselves stalled in traffic, but over the
course of the next half hour I mostly asked less lofty questions about
Winona LaDuke, the vice presidential candidate on the Green Party ticket
-- an Indian woman, a White Earth Anishinaabeg from Minnesota, Harvard
educated, an author, a social activist who shared his views on foreign
trade and human rights. He'd met her a few years ago and had been impressed
by her integrity and strength of character; he knew of no finer person
in the United States.
As my plane to New York climbed into a steep turn over the Potomac, the
sight of the Lincoln Memorial in the lovely evening light reminded me that
a democratic republic knows no higher rank or title than that of citizen.
The media prefer celebrities, who come and go like soup cans or summer
moths, unthreatening and ephemeral. Cheaply produced and easily replaced,
made to the measure of our own everyday weakness, celebrities ask nothing
of us except a round of applause. Like President Clinton, they let us
off the hook. Nader sets the hook on the sharp points of obligation to
a higher regard for our own intelligence and self-worth. Less interested
in the counting of votes than in the lesson of freedom, he mounts his
campaign
on the proposition that the party of things-as-they-are depends for its
continued survival on the party of things-as-they-might-become.
I got out bid on this photographic image/general @ e.bay. last friday
I fucked up !
SEX AND REALESTATE by Marjorie Garber
More Hairy Smith........
Anthology of American Music, Volume Four
"As Per The VV"
Subject: FWD: Statement on Table of The Elements CD
La Monte Young
P.O. Box 190
Canal Street Station
New York, N.Y. 10013
212-966-4089 Fax: 212-226-7802 Email:
mela@lamonteyoung.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
On Table of The Elements CD 74 "day of Niagara" April 25, 1965
La Monte Young
The Table of The Elements (ToE) CD 74, "day of Niagara" April 25, 1965, is an unauthorized release of my music from my ongoing
composition, The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys (1964-present).
I have taken the position all along for many years that I am the sole
composer of the underlying musical composition on this recording.
It is my understanding that the performers on the recording can no
longer contest my position because the three-year statute of
limitations on their claims of co-authorship expired many years ago.
Further, I believe that my position is correct as a matter of
substantive law as well. As I previously stated in an interview
published in The Wire magazine (Issue 178, December 1998): "To be
co-authors you had to agree that there was co-authorship, which I of
course never did; also, in order to be co-authors, your section,
whatever your contribution is, has to be copyrightable by itself,
which the contributions of Cale and Conrad may not be."
The sound quality of my Original Master tape is certainly measurably
superior to the "now restored and digitally remastered" CD made from
the allegedly unauthorized copy of my tape that has somehow surfaced
at Table of The Elements. Many of the reasons for the poor sound
quality of the CD are enumerated in Section II, "Sound Quality of the
CD" below. The version ToE wants to release is flawed and contains
several problems that were created in the process of the unauthorized
copying, not the least of which is that approximately one and a half
minutes of music are completely missing from their copy.
Marian Zazeela and I listened to the CD several times, comparing it
and even "A-B-ing" it with a high quality DAT copy of my Original
Master tape. After several audits we concluded that the generally
deteriorated quality of the CD and the deletions from the music make
it a poor representation of the original, and by extension, of the
music composed by me and performed with great effort and inspiration
by the musicians in my group, The Theatre of Eternal Music.
Regarding this particular selection from The Tortoise, His Dreams and
Journeys, I would not have chosen the "Day of Niagara" recording
session to be released for several reasons (see Section I, "Selection
of Music for First Release" below).
That said, however, I do not object to the release of my music "25 IV
65 c. 8:15-8:45 PM NYC day of niagra" (spelling as per Angus
MacLise1s Calendar Year) from The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys,
as long as the following conditions are met:
1. That I receive proper credit as the composer of the underlying
musical composition;,br>
2. That I receive fair remuneration for my contributions;
3. That Table of The Elements obtain a complete version of the work
from my complete Original Master, which is in much better condition
than the unauthorized copy they have used to produce this CD.
My attorney is in discussion with the attorney for Table of The
Elements and I am hopeful that a satisfactory and harmonious solution
can be reached among the parties so that the music from my work of
this period can finally be released.
It is noteworthy, although unfortunate, that I was never contacted by
Table of The Elements regarding this release until after my attorney
contacted the ToE label manager following the online publication by
"Creative Loafing CL-Atlanta" of an article on the CD on June 7,
2000. According to CL-Atlanta, the CD was to be released during that
first week of June, but ToE has since represented to me that the CD
will not be released until August 2000. After my attorney spoke with
the label manager, Marian and I each received letters of notification
regarding the release from Table of The Elements, as well as two
boxes of CDs, so it has been only very recently that we have been
able to compare their "restored and digitally remastered" production
with my original master tape of the same date.
ANALYSES OF SOME ASPECTS OF THE ToE CD 74 "day of Niagara" April 25, 1965
I. Selection of Music from The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys for
First Release
Regarding this particular selection from The Tortoise, His Dreams and
Journeys, I would not have chosen the "Day of Niagara" recording
session to be released for several reasons, including, but not
limited to the following:
1. The mix is totally out of balance (see #6a in Section II, "Sound
Quality of the CD" below).
2. The texture of the music is somewhat uneven, with unaccounted for
stops and starts in the string section. For example, John Cale1s
viola is out or unamplified for a noticeable period from about 13:12
and reenters at 16:20 with a pop and sudden surge of volume. Nice to
have him back, but where was he? In the earlier sessions of The
Tortoise, the strings were still experimenting with amplifying their
instruments, and sometimes had to make road-stops to get their
pickups back in optimum placement. Or, a peg may have slipped. In
order to articulate beat-free tuning, it is best to play loudly in
the process. On the other hand, during a performance or recording
session, retuning must be as inaudible as possible. Although the
reason for Cale1s stop may have been important at the moment, the
result is that rather than sounding like a solid excerpt from an
endless stream of eternal music, the "day of niagara" session gives
too much of an impression of an endless stream of starts and stops.
If the strings were in better balance to the rest of the performers,
this problem would be less noticeable (see #6a in Section II, "Sound
Quality of the CD" below).
3. It is an atypical example of music from The Tortoise because of
the brief, albeit under-recorded, appearance of Angus MacLise (see
Section IV, "Appearance of Angus MacLise on this recording" below).
4. Usually the best realizations of a given genre of my music occur
later, rather than earlier, in a given period. For example, each
release I have made of The Well-Tuned Piano, the 1987 Gramavision
5-hour performance from October 1981, and the forthcoming DVD of The
Well-Tuned Piano in The Magenta Lights of the 6-hour, 25-minute 1987
performance, were of the final performance in a 7 or 8-concert
series.
There are many better realizations of The Tortoise, His Dreams and
Journeys recorded even a few months later on, such as "15 VIII 65 day
of the antler" from The Obsidian Ocelot, The Sawmill, and The Blue
Sawtooth High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer Refracting The Legend
of The Dream of The Tortoise Traversing The 189/98 Lost Ancestral
Lake Region Illuminating Quotients from The Black Tiger Tapestries of
The Drone of The Holy Numbers. The system of frequencies of this
realization has been published and analyzed in Kyle Gann1s essay,
"The Outer Edge of Consonance," in Sound and Light: La Monte Young /
Marian Zazeela (Bucknell Review Vol. XL, No. 1, 1996), and the score
of the work in Zazeela1s calligraphy, is published, also with
analysis, in Four Musical Minimalists by Keith Potter (Cambridge
University Press, 2000).
This "day of the antler" realization of The Tortoise, and
other realizations like it, also solve the problems listed in #s 1, 2
and 3 in this Section I, above.
II. Sound Quality of the CD
1. At 09:14 on the CD there is a serious dip in frequency with a
loud wow, most likely caused by someone bumping a reel on either the
playback or record machine that made the tape ToE used as a master to
create this CD from. The Original Master tape has no such noise.
2. The bump at 09:14 on the CD apparently also caused the loss
of at least 15 or 16 seconds of music that is recorded on my Original
Master tape but has been deleted from the CD by the inept copying
process.
3. The overall length of the CD is about one minute and 25 or 35
seconds shorter in length compared to the Original Master tape. In
addition to the loss of 15 or 16 seconds caused by the bump dropout
at 09:14, approximately one minute and 10 seconds is missing from the
end of the reel. Possibly, the reel the master was copied to was
slightly shorter in length than the Original Master and the tape ran
out sooner than the actual audio material on the Original.
4. The character of the ending sounds on the CD are different
from the ending on the Original Master, caused by the factor
indicated in item #3 above.
5. We were able to isolate at least one other spot on the CD
where there is a very slight speed drop, less noticeable than the
bump at 09:14, but nevertheless audible. This speed drop is not
audible on my Original Master tape. It is our opinion that there are
probably other spots like this that we would be able to identify if
we continued to endlessly compare the CD with the Original.
6. Balance and EQ:
a. In those days, I had no professional mixers and somehow managed to
get all the sounds onto one track of a reel-to-reel tape recorder.
Then we listened back to the results to determine whether or not we
had achieved a good mix. Table of The Elements has found a tape in
this case where the violin is extremely loud and up front. As one
turns up the volume to bring the rest of the group up to substantial
audibility without using additional EQ, the violin part becomes
boosted to an ear-splittingly painful level. However, being the
loudest sound source on the tape does not make a performer a
co-composer. I have only had one opportunity to attempt to
re-equalize the CD and I found that even with my limited home studio
mixer1s bass-mid-treble EQ, a more balanced and harmonious EQ of the
CD was achievable with no effort whatsoever. Even Angus1 drumming,
which is almost completely drowned out by the level of the violin on
the ToE CD, was improved, as well as the voices. Give me a day in a
professional Year 2000 studio with my Original Master tape and I can
improve the balance on this recording by 99% to 101%. This is not
the fault of whoever did the "restoration and digital remastering".
They were simply uninformed and given no proper instructions or
guidance.
b. Whoever "restored and digitally remastered" the CD from the
unauthorized copy of my tape for Table of The Elements was not
apprised of the fact that we always insisted that the bass be boosted
for playback of any of the tapes recorded by The Theatre of Eternal
Music group in order to bring out the low frequency combination
tones, just as we would boost the bass in the PA system to bring them
out in live concerts. Therefore, the overall sound of this
selection does not have the character I intended.
III. Packaging of the CD
1. The visual appearance of the ToE CD is certainly not up to
the high artistic standards of my own releases of my music, including
performances by various ensembles of The Theatre of Eternal Music.
Obviously, I could not expect a Marian Zazeela design, but this
package, other than the choice of the color purple, looks much like
other bootlegs of my music: plain, totally unimaginative, and with
very little attention to the visual aspect. Marian Zazeela1s
lighting designs and printed calligraphy accompanied and visually
characterized nearly every live performance of The Tortoise. This CD
bears no graphic or other relationship to the established visual
character of those performances. From the look of the CD, it is as
though the company threw it away, without any investment in the
production or inquiry into the history of the music.
2. The absence of program notes, a shared characteristic with
other bootlegs, is surprising, given the involvement of Tony Conrad,
an artist not given to understatement. Although none of the recorded
realizations of The Tortoise has yet been authorized for release on
CD, a substantial amount of documentation has been published on the
music, its history and its performers, but none of this information
was included in the booklet. As with other aspects of the production
of the ToE CD, I was not invited to contribute to the literary
content of the package.
IV. Appearance of Angus MacLise on this recording
It is very unusual to find the participation of Angus MacLise in The
Theatre of Eternal Music performances and recordings of The Tortoise,
His Dreams and Journeys, since this work is structured around long
sustained continuous tones. In fact, this might well be the only
recording from The Tortoise that includes Angus. Angus drops out of
the recording early on (he does not appear on the CD after the bump
at 09:14, although he can be heard playing slightly longer on my
Original tape), probably because he had no complementary rhythmic
part to play against. It is for the same reason that Angus did not
play with the group as long as I was working with sustained tones
exclusively. His rhythmic contribution did not fit in with the long
sustained tones.
It may have been purely accidental that Angus was at the recorded
performance at our studio that night. According to our diary, we had
organized a dinner party for several friends for the evening of
Sunday, April 25, 1965, at which we were going to play music for our
guests. The guests were Henry Geldzahler, David Hayes, Jim Kirker,
Bob and Laura Benson, Diane Wakoski and Wesley Day. It happens that
April 25 was the birthday of Frances Araby Stillman, Angus1
girlfriend, with whom he had traveled to the Middle East and India in
1964. Probably, Angus dropped by with Araby, and, of course, they
were invited to join the dinner party. Because of all the years that
Angus played in the group when La Monte was playing sopranino
saxophone in a rhythmic style, Angus would have sat in with the group
as we performed, although he had not been rehearsing with us during
this period. Nor did he perform on any of the public concerts we had
given of sections of The Tortoise, His Dreams and Journeys in
October, November and December, 1964; March, October and December,
1965; February, July and August, 1966.
The barely audible sound of Angus1 extraordinarily intricate rhythms
in the background on this CD does not do justice to his legendary
stature as a percussionist.
--
I meant to mention that Psue Braun on fmu was going to play a pre-recorded interviwe with Kim Fowley last friday evening. Wow, two hours at warp speed year by year orgey by orgey hit by hit. "I'm the guy who invented lighting matches at concerts. Sorry, but I am !"
I think there may be better sites out there, but this 'ill get you started.
Disturbing Auctions! Got deer buts ?
THE LIFE CASTS OF CYNTHIA PLASTER CASTER: 1968-2000
JUNE 28TH--JULY 29TH, 2000
THREADWAXING SPACE
476 BROADWAY
2ND FLOOR
NYC 10013
HOURS: TUES-SAT 10AM-6PM
"Famous groupie and penis artiste Cynthia PlasterCaster will be featured in a live interview this Monday, July 10, at 8:30 PM on Jonbenet's Crackhouse on 91.1 WFMU. DJ Bronwyn C. is sure to ask plenty of incorrect questions about Cynthia's current exhibit at Thread Waxing Space, so tune in!"
More on this later........
dipshit Chistaug writes on (defends himself) Bangs, Meltzer and Toches in this weeks Voice.
Richard Meltzer
Worst Band Names.......
;-) and the Emoticons
Aesthete's Foot
The Affable Frenchmen
Articulate As Fuck
As If and the Air Quotes
Atlas Frugged
A Very Special Episode of Blossom
Borrowing Joe Orton's Hammer
Britney's Plain, Bitter Sister
Brother, Can You Paradigm?
Christo Draped My Girlfriend's Ass
Classified 'Nads
Ctrl-Alt-ROCK!
Demoted From Übermensch
Does This Dental Dam Taste Like Coleslaw to You?
The Dot-Coms Aren't Hiring Anymore Because The NASDAQ Is Tanking, So We Were Going To Make An Indie Film, But Then We Saw Blink-182 On MTV And We Figured, Hey, If They Can Do It, Any Idiot Can Do It, So We Formed This Band
Doubtful It's Mayonnaise
Droppin' Trou With Senor Wences
Dude, Your Mom is HOT!
Durwood Kirby Sleeps On My Living Room Couch
E. Coli and the Food-Borne Illnesses
Ernest Borgnine Naked
The Fact That We Rock Is the Third Secret of Fatima
Fartin' Sartre
Fat, Drunk, And Blowin' Chunks Onstage
Find the $100 Bill Hidden Somewhere in Our Drummer's Pubic Hair
The Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Beatles
Five Guys Who Formed a Band And Still Can't Get Laid
The Four Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf
The Four Horsemen of the Disappointing Ending
The Fuckin' A's
Garrotted with a Scrunchy
God's Only Nose
Go Foucault Yourself
Graceland Über Alles
The Grumpy Dead
Gynecological Whack-A-Mole
Hava Negilah, No, Have Two
He Called Me A Mook. You Can't Call Me A Mook. What's A Mook?
He Do The Police In Different Hairstyles
Hey...I Think I Know That Tongue
Hi I'm Five and I Can Count to One Hundred! One, Two, Three, Four...
Hissyfit Against the Machine
Hungry Hungry Hypocrites
I Don't Think Presumptive Means What You Think It Means
I Ejaculate Bosco
If 6 Was 9, That'd Be Just Wacky
If You're Ready to Rock and Roll, Press 1 Now
Inscrutable Crouton
I Should Have Been A Pair of Ragged Claws, But Instead I Work Nights At Wendy's
It Came From Burl Ives' Goatee
I Think My Spirit Guide Is Licking Me
It's Alright, Ma (No It Fucking Isn't Get Me A Doctor Before I Bleed To
Fucking Death On Your Goddamned Fucking Turkish Rug)
I Want To Die Like Lupe Velez
Jimmy Crack Whore
Kaballah Not Glue
Klaatu Verada Nick Lowe
Labia Menorah (X-rated klezmer band)
Lao-Tsu-Tsu-Tsudio
Leave the Gun, Take the Zamboni
Leg Humped By Quakers
Mack The Naif
Mangione...Or Astromangione?
MC Escher (I tried listening to his album, but I'm not sure where it begins or ends...)
The Men They Could Hang, But Didn't Because George W. Carefully Reviews Every Death Warrant That Comes Across His Desk And He Saw That They Might Be Innocent And Immediately Called Off The Execution
The Men Who Funk Forgot
My Enormous Mantits
My Nutsack Salutes You
My Uncle The Would-Be Trotsky Killer
Nebbishes With Attitude
New Riders of the Gulag Archipelago
Nixon Prayer Session
Noddy Holder's Spell Checker
No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You To Plotz,br>
Oh, There's Godot
Okay, We'll Throw The Girl In Too
Ontogeny Recapitulates Yo' Mama
The Other White Meat
Ophelia Self
The Orangina Monologues
Our Name Is Self-Referential!
Pantsed In Gaza
The Parts of a Chicken You're Really Not Supposed to Eat
The Perpetually Queasy
The Putra Faction
The Richard Feynmen
Ringo Ate My Baby
Schroedinger's Cat Scan
Schtup With People
Single Mullet Theory
Sisyphus is a Pusher
The Slouching Wallendas
Sociopath of Least Resistance
Sopping Wet Cusack
Speak, Mummery
Spy In The House of Pancakes
Syd Barrett's Missing Chromosomes Ate My Puppy
Tastes Nothing Like Chicken
That Darn Catheter
These Your Testicles?
Things That Look Like Pudding
Three Chords And a Legally Accurate Representation Of the Events As They
Transpired On the Night of September 14, 1997
Tinky-Winky, La La, Po & Young
Tittie Bar Sinister
Too Idealistic for the Oneida Colony
Tower of Impotence
The Trembling Mohels
Two Tons O' Nun
Ubu Roi G. Biv
Watch It or We'll Give You an Indian Burn
Weasels Who Drive Zambonis
The Weenie Mocks You
We Vishnu a Hare Krishna
What the Corporate-Owned Media Won't Tell You About My Eleven-Inch Love Muscle
What The Hell Happened to the Cat?
When People Were Shorter and Kept Things on Much Lower Shelves
Where The Hell's My Cookie?
Yoko Boingo
Zeppo Marx Was the Funny One!
Courtney on everything
yo alll...
"this is really long + love her or hate her....she is brilliant. she cribs a lot in the beginning from Steve Albini's piece, but then gets it so right..." -cb
............
June 14, 2000 | Today I want to talk about piracy and music. What is piracy? Piracy is the act of stealing an artist's work without any intention of paying for it. I'm not talking about Napster-type software.
I'm talking about major label recording contracts.
I want to start with a story about rock bands and record companies, and do some recording-contract math:
This story is about a bidding-war band that gets a huge deal with a 20 percent royalty rate and a million-dollar advance. (No bidding-war band ever got a 20 percent royalty, but whatever.) This is my "funny" math based on some reality and I just want to qualify it by saying I'm
positive it's better math than what Edgar Bronfman Jr. [the president and CEO of Seagram, which owns Polygram] would provide.
What happens to that million dollars?
They spend half a million to record their album. That leaves the band with $500,000. They pay $100,000 to their manager for 20 percent commission. They pay $25,000 each to their lawyer and business manager.
That leaves $350,000 for the four band members to split. After $170,000 in taxes, there's $180,000 left. That comes out to $45,000 per person.
That's $45,000 to live on for a year until the record gets released.
The record is a big hit and sells a million copies. (How a bidding-war band sells a million copies of its debut record is another rant entirely, but it's based on any basic civics-class knowledge that any of us have about cartels. Put simply, the antitrust laws in this country
are basically a joke, protecting us just enough to not have to re-name our park service the Phillip Morris National Park Service.)
So, this band releases two singles and makes two videos. The two videos cost a million dollars to make and 50 percent of the video production costs are recouped out of the band's royalties.
The band gets $200,000 in tour support, which is 100 percent recoupable.
The record company spends $300,000 on independent radio promotion. You have to pay independent promotion to get your song on the radio; independent promotion is a system where the record companies use middlemen so they can pretend not to know that radio stations -- the unified broadcast system -- are getting paid to play their records.
All of those independent promotion costs are charged to the band.
Since the original million-dollar advance is also recoupable, the band owes $2 million to the record company.
If all of the million records are sold at full price with no discounts or record clubs, the band earns $2 million in royalties, since their 20 percent royalty works out to $2 a record.
Two million dollars in royalties minus $2 million in recoupable expenses equals ... zero!
How much does the record company make?
They grossed $11 million.
It costs $500,000 to manufacture the CDs and they advanced the band $1 million. Plus there were $1 million in video costs, $300,000 in radio promotion and $200,000 in tour support.
The company also paid $750,000 in music publishing royalties.
They spent $2.2 million on marketing. That's mostly retail advertising, but marketing also pays for those huge posters of Marilyn Manson in Times Square and the street scouts who drive around in vans handing out black Korn T-shirts and backwards baseball caps. Not to mention trips to Scores and cash for tips for all and sundry.
Add it up and the record company has spent about $4.4 million.
So their profit is $6.6 million; the band may as well be working at a 7-Eleven.
Of course, they had fun. Hearing yourself on the radio, selling records, getting new fans and being on TV is great, but now the band doesn't have enough money to pay the rent and nobody has any credit.
Worst of all, after all this, the band owns none of its work ... they can pay the mortgage forever but they'll never own the house. Like I said: Sharecropping. Our media says, "Boo hoo, poor pop stars, they had a nice ride. Fuck them for speaking up"; but I say this dialogue is imperative. And cynical media people, who are more fascinated with celebrity than most celebrities, need to reacquaint themselves with their value systems.
When you look at the legal line on a CD, it says copyright 1976 Atlantic Records or copyright 1996 RCA Records. When you look at a book, though, it'll say something like copyright 1999 Susan Faludi, or David Foster Wallace. Authors own their books and license them to publishers. When the contract runs out, writers gets their books back. But record companies own our copyrights forever.
The system's set up so almost nobody gets paid.
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)
Last November, a Congressional aide named Mitch Glazier, with the support of the RIAA, added a "technical amendment" to a bill that defined recorded music as "works for hire" under the 1978 Copyright Act.
He did this after all the hearings on the bill were over. By the time artists found out about the change, it was too late. The bill was on its way to the White House for the president's signature.
That subtle change in copyright law will add billions of dollars to record company bank accounts over the next few years -- billions of dollars that rightfully should have been paid to artists. A "work for hire" is now owned in perpetuity by the record company.
Under the 1978 Copyright Act, artists could reclaim the copyrights on their work after 35 years. If you wrote and recorded "Everybody Hurts," you at least got it back to as a family legacy after 35 years. But now, because of this corrupt little pisher, "Everybody Hurts" never gets
returned to your family, and can now be sold to the highest bidder.
Over the years record companies have tried to put "work for hire" provisions in their contracts, and Mr. Glazier claims that the "work for hire" only "codified" a standard industry practice. But copyright laws didn't identify sound recordings as being eligible to be called "works
for hire," so those contracts didn't mean anything. Until now.
Writing and recording "Hey Jude" is now the same thing as writing an English textbook, writing standardized tests, translating a novel from one language to another or making a map. These are the types of things addressed in the "work for hire" act. And writing a standardized test is
a work for hire. Not making a record.
So an assistant substantially altered a major law when he only had the authority to make spelling corrections. That's not what I learned about how government works in my high school civics class.
Three months later, the RIAA hired Mr. Glazier to become its top lobbyist at a salary that was obviously much greater than the one he had as the spelling corrector guy.
The RIAA tries to argue that this change was necessary because of a provision in the bill that musicians supported. That provision prevents anyone from registering a famous person's name as a Web address without that person's permission. That's great. I own my name, and should be able to do what I want with my name.
But the bill also created an exception that allows a company to take a person's name for a Web address if they create a work for hire. Which means a record company would be allowed to own your Web site when you record your "work for hire" album. Like I said: Sharecropping.
Although I've never met any one at a record company who "believed in the Internet," they've all been trying to cover their asses by securing everyone's digital rights. Not that they know what to do with them. Go to a major label-owned band site. Give me a dollar for every time you
see an annoying "under construction" sign. I used to pester Geffen (when it was a label) to do a better job. I was totally ignored for two years, until I got my band name back. The Goo Goo Dolls are struggling to gain
control of their domain name from Warner Bros., who claim they own the name because they set up a shitty promotional Web site for the band.
Orrin Hatch, songwriter and Republican senator from Utah, seems to be the only person in Washington with a progressive view of copyright law. One lobbyist says that there's no one in the House with a similar view and that "this would have never happened if Sonny Bono was still alive."
By the way, which bill do you think the recording industry used for this
amendment?
The Record Company Redefinition Act? No. The Music Copyright Act? No.
The Work for Hire Authorship Act? No.
How about the Satellite Home Viewing Act of 1999?
Stealing our copyright reversions in the dead of night while no one was
looking, and with no hearings held, is piracy.
It's piracy when the RIAA lobbies to change the bankruptcy law to make
it more difficult for musicians to declare bankruptcy. Some musicians
have declared bankruptcy to free themselves from truly evil contracts.
TLC declared bankruptcy after they received less than 2 percent of the
$175 million earned by their CD sales. That was about 40 times less than
the profit that was divided among their management, production and
record companies.
Toni Braxton also declared bankruptcy in 1998. She sold $188 million
worth of CDs, but she was broke because of a terrible recording contract
that paid her less than 35 cents per album. Bankruptcy can be an
artist's only defense against a truly horrible deal and the RIAA wants
to take it away.
Artists want to believe that we can make lots of money if we're
successful. But there are hundreds of stories about artists in their 60s
and 70s who are broke because they never made a dime from their hit
records. And real success is still a long shot for a new artist today.
Of the 32,000 new releases each year, only 250 sell more than 10,000
copies. And less than 30 go platinum.
The four major record corporations fund the RIAA. These companies are
rich and obviously well-represented. Recording artists and musicians
don't really have the money to compete. The 273,000 working musicians in
America make about $30,000 a year. Only 15 percent of American
Federation of Musicians members work steadily in music.
But the music industry is a $40 billion-a-year business. One-third of
that revenue comes from the United States. The annual sales of
cassettes, CDs and video are larger than the gross national product of
80 countries. Americans have more CD players, radios and VCRs than we
have bathtubs.
Story after story gets told about artists -- some of them in their 60s
and 70s, some of them authors of huge successful songs that we all
enjoy, use and sing -- living in total poverty, never having been paid
anything. Not even having access to a union or to basic health care.
Artists who have generated billions of dollars for an industry die broke
and un-cared for.
And they're not actors or participators. They're the rightful owners,
originators and performers of original compositions.
This is piracy.
Technology is not piracy
This opinion is one I really haven't formed yet, so as I speak about
Napster now, please understand that I'm not totally informed. I will be
the first in line to file a class action suit to protect my copyrights
if Napster or even the far more advanced Gnutella doesn't work with us
to protect us. I'm on [Metallica drummer] Lars Ulrich's side, in other
words, and I feel really badly for him that he doesn't know how to
condense his case down to a sound-bite that sounds more reasonable than
the one I saw today.
I also think Metallica is being given too much grief. It's anti-artist,
for one thing. An artist speaks up and the artist gets squashed:
Sharecropping. Don't get above your station, kid. It's not piracy when
kids swap music over the Internet using Napster or Gnutella or Freenet
or iMesh or beaming their CDs into a My.MP3.com or MyPlay.com music
locker. It's piracy when those guys that run those companies make side
deals with the cartel lawyers and label heads so that they can be "the
labels' friend," and not the artists'.
Recording artists have essentially been giving
How about that musical ethics watchdog Pat Metheny?
"Wow, an amazing concise spew of bile and rage. First Metheny starts making noise records and dueting with Derek Bailey, then he shoots a fish (kenny g) in a barrel. 17,000 times. I predict next he replaces Eazy-E on the NWA
reunion tour." -bt
from www.patmethenygroup.com
Date: Jun 05 2000 Subject: Controversy and Kenny G
Question: Pat, could you tell us your opinion about Kenny G - it appears you were quoted as being less than enthusiastic about him and his music. I would say that most of the serious music listeners in the world would not find your opinion surprising or unlikely - but you were vocal about it for the first time. You are generally supportive of other musicians it seems.
Pat's Answer: kenny g is not a musician i really had much of an opinion about at all until recently. there was not much about the way he played that interested me one way or the other either live or on records. i first heard him a number of years ago playing as a sideman with jeff lorber when they opened a concert for my band. my impression was that he was someone who had spent a fair amount of time listening to the more pop oriented sax players of that time, like grover washington or david sanborn, but was not really an advanced player, even in that style. he had major rhythmic problems and his harmonic and melodic vocabulary was extremely limited, mostly to pentatonic based and blues-lick derived patterns, and he basically
exhibited only a rudimentary understanding of how to function as a professional soloist in an ensemble - lorber was basically playing him off the bandstand in terms of actual music. but he did show a knack for connecting to the basest impulses of the large crowd by deploying his two or three most effective licks (holding long notes
and playing fast runs - never mind that there were lots of harmonic clams in them) at the keys moments to elicit a powerful crowd reaction (over and over again) . the other main thing i noticed was that he also, as he does to this day, play horribly out of tune - consistently sharp.
of course, i am aware of what he has played since, the success it has had, and the controversy that has surrounded him among musicians and serious listeners. this controversy seems to be largely fueled by the fact that he sells an enormous amount of records while not being anywhere near a really great player in relation to the standards that have been set on his instrument over the past sixty or seventy years. and honestly, there is no small amount of envy involved from musicians who see one of their fellow players doing so well financially, especially when so many of them who are far superior as
improvisors and musicians in general have trouble just making a living. there must be hundreds, if not thousands of sax players around the world who are simply better improvising musicians than kenny g on his chosen instruments. it would really surprise me if even he disagreed with that statement. having said that, it has gotten me to thinking lately why so many jazz musicians (myself included, given the right "bait" of a question, as i will explain later) and audiences have gone so far as
to say that what he is playing is not even jazz at all.
stepping back for a minute, if we examine the way he plays, especially if one can remove the actual improvising from the often mundane background environment that it is delivered in, we see that his saxophone style is in fact clearly in the tradition of the kind of playing that most reasonably objective listeners WOULD normally quantify as being jazz. it's just that as jazz or even as music in a
general sense, with these standards in mind, it is simply not up to the level of playing that we historically associate with professional improvising musicians. so, lately i have been advocating that we go ahead and just include it under the word jazz - since pretty much of
the rest of the world OUTSIDE of the jazz community does anyway - and let the chips fall where they may.
and after all, why he should be judged by any other standard, why he should be exempt from that that all other serious musicians on his instrument are judged by if they attempt to use their abilities in an improvisational context playing with a rhythm section as he does? he
SHOULD be compared to john coltrane or wayne shorter, for instance, on his abilities (or lack thereof) to play the soprano saxophone and his success (or lack thereof) at finding a way to deploy that instrument in an ensemble in order to accurately gauge his abilities and put them in the context of his instrument's legacy and potential.
as a composer of even eighth note based music, he SHOULD be compared to herbie hancock, horace silver or even grover washington. suffice it to say, on all above counts, at this point in his development, he wouldn't fare well.
but, like i said at the top, this relatively benign view was all "until recently". not long ago, kenny g put out a recording where he overdubbed himself on top of a 30+ year old louis armstrong record, the track "what a wonderful world". with this single move, kenny g became one of the few people on earth i can say that i really can't use at all - as a man, for his incredible arrogance to even consider such a thing, and as a musician, for presuming to share the stage with the single most important figure in our music. this type of musical necrophilia - the technique of overdubbing on the preexisting tracks of already dead performers - was weird when natalie cole did it with her dad on "unforgettable" a few years ago, but it was her dad. when tony bennett did it with billie holiday it was bizarre, but we are talking about two of the greatest singers of the 20th century who were on roughly the same level of artistic accomplishment. when larry coryell presumed to overdub himself on top of a wes montgomery track, i lost a lot of the respect that i ever had for him - and i have to seriously question the fact that i did have respect for someone who could turn out to have have such unbelievably bad taste and be that disrespectful to one of my personal heroes. but when kenny g decided that it was appropriate for him to defile the music of the man who is probably the greatest jazz musician that has ever lived by spewing his lame-ass, jive, pseudo bluesy, out-of-tune, noodling, wimped out, fucked up playing all over one of the great louis's tracks (even one of his lesser ones), he did something that i would not have imagined possible. he, in one move, through his unbelievably pretentious and calloused musical decision to embark on this most cynical of musical paths, shit all over the graves of all the musicians past and present who have risked their lives by going out there on the road for years and years developing their own music inspired by the standards of grace that louis armstrong brought to every single note he played over an amazing
lifetime as a musician. by disrespecting louis, his legacy and by default, everyone who has ever tried to do something positive with improvised music and what it can be, kenny g has created a new low point in modern culture - something that we all should be totally embarrassed about - and afraid of. we ignore this, "let it slide", at
our own peril. his callous disregard for the larger issues of what this crass gesture implies is exacerbated by the fact that the only reason he possibly have for doing something this inherently wrong (on both human and musical terms) was for the record sales and the money it would bring. since that record came out - in protest, as insigificant as it may be, i encourage everyone to boycott kenny g recordings, concerts and anything he is associated with. if asked about kenny g, i will diss him and his music with the same passion that is in evidence in this
little essay. normally, i feel that musicians all have a hard enough time, regardless of their level, just trying to play good and don't really benefit from public criticism, particularly from their fellow players. but, this is different. there ARE some things that are sacred - and amongst any musician that has ever attempted to address jazz at even the most basic of levels, louis armstrong and his music is hallowed ground. to ignore
this trespass is to agree that NOTHING any musician has attempted to do with their life in music has any intrinsic value - and i refuse to do that. (i am also amazed that there HASN'T already been an outcry against this among music critics - where ARE they on this?????!?!?!?!- , magazines, etc.). everything i said here is exactly the same as what i would say to gorelick if i ever saw him in
person. and if i ever DO see him anywhere, at any function - he WILL get a piece of my mind and (maybe a guitar wrapped around his head.) NOTE: this post is partially in response to the comments that people have made regarding a short video interview excerpt with me that was posted on the internet taken from a tv show for young people (kind of like MTV) in poland where i was asked to address 8 to 11 year old kids on terms that they could understand about jazz. while enthusiastically describing the virtues of this great area of music, i was encouraging the kids to find and listen to some of the
greats in the music and not to get confused by the sometimes overwhelming volume of music that falls under the jazz umbrella. i went on to say that i think that for instance, "kenny g plays the dumbest music on the planet" - something that all 8 to 11 year kids on the planet already intrinsically know, as anyone who has ever spent any time around kids that age could confirm - so it gave us some common ground for the rest of the discussion. (ADDENDUM: the only thing wrong with the statement that i made was that i did not include the rest of the known universe.) the fact that this clip was released so far out of the context that it was delivered in is a drag, but it is now done. (it's unauthorized release out of context like that is symptomatic of the new electronically interconnected culture that we now live in - where pretty much anything anyone anywhere has ever said or done has the potential to become common public property at any time.) i was surprised by the polish people putting this clip up so far away from the use that it was intended -really just for the attention - with no explanation of the show it was made for - they (the polish people in general) used to be so hip and would have been unlikely candidates to do something like that before, but i guess everything is changing there like it is everywhere else. the only other thing that surprised me in the aftermath of the
release of this little interview is that ANYONE would be even a little bit surprised that i would say such a thing, given the reality of mr. g's music. this makes me want to go practice about 10 times harder, because that suggests to me that i am not getting my own musical message across clearly enough - which to me, in every single way and intention is diametrically opposed to what Kenny G seems to be after.
Aron Kay is Pieman
A J Weberman is a Garbologist
Rhino hand made is ok to work with, I bought their limited edition of Larry Fishers work. Forgot to post this when I got it, anyway :
Greetings Earthling!
This Monday, 22 May 2000, at Noon Pacific Daylight Savings Time [1900UTC], The Archivists at The Rhino Handmade Institute Of Petromusicologywill begin taking orders for DAVID PEEL & THE LOWER EAST SIDE 'And TheRest Is History: The Elektra Recordings'.
DAVID PEEL was, and still is, a street musician and political activist from the Lower East Side of New York City. With a collection of friends who became his bandmates, and who were eponymously called THE LOWER EAST SIDE, he recorded two groundbreaking albums of social reflections, urban tales and hippie mythology for Elektra Records. The first, entitled 'Have A Marijuana', was released in 1968. The second, 'The American Revolution', was released in 1970. Both were, well, what can we say, just exactly as you would think they would be from their album titles: Musical Counterculture Manifestos Presented With Guitars And Grins.
DAVID PEEL & THE LOWER EAST SIDE 'And The Rest Is History: The Elektra Recordings' collects both of these albums, remastered -of course- from the original tapes, as well as two previously unissued tracks recorded for, but not used on, the second album. It also includes a nifty informative booklet with Mr Peel's recollections of the recording of the albums and a track-by-track commentary on his composition of the songs.
Since their release three decades ago, legions of bipedal non-hoofed ungulates from all around the world have adopted several songs from these DAVID PEEL & THE LOWER EAST SIDE albums as the equivalent of National Anthems. And, since these two Elektra albums, David has continued to record and release albums which express his unique vision and musical viewpoints as well as remain active as an icon, advocate and volunteer for social and political reform in which he strongly believes.
So return with us now to the time of pink prismed eyeglasses, hand-rolled patchouli incense and colorfully patched denims. To the time of co-ed bodypainting, cross-country Volkswagen expeditions and 'In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida' played at full volume. To the time of peace, love and understanding before Warfare was conducted from Satellites, before generic names of Antibiotics were Household Words and before Cynicism became a full-time National Sport.
Both 'Have A Marijuana' and 'The American Revolution' have been out of print in the United States for about a quarter of a century and neither has ever before been released on compact disc anywhere on Planet Earth. How blessed then that The Archivists at The Rhino Handmade Institute Of
Petromusicology have painstakingly cultivated all of the original master tapes in order to again plant the creative seeds of 'And The Rest Is History: The Elektra Recordings' into your personal audio stash.
DAVID PEEL & THE LOWER EAST SIDE 'And The Rest Is History: The Elektra Recordings' is available in an individually-numbered limited edition of 7,500 (seven thousand five hundred) copies. It is not distributed to any store on the planet. It is distributed directly from us to you. It is available only from The Archivists at the Rhino Handmade Website at: http://www.rhinohandmade.com
The complete track listing for DAVID PEEL & THE LOWER EAST SIDE 'And The Rest Is History: The Elektra Recordings' is at the bottom of this e-mail. And sound samples for every track will be available on the Rhino Handmade Website this coming Monday at Noon.
When we again meet I shall certainly bring you word of the next Rhino Handmade release though, as I write this, The Archivists are not yet certain whether it will be long out-of-print 1950s treasures from JACK WEBB or a previously unreleased album from the mid-1990s by THE SKY
KINGS. (As you should know by now, The Archivists are a very wacky and very musically diverse lot.) Anyway between now and then I promise you that, if nothing else, we will
flip a coin.
Always Blissfully Yours,
R W Hand
Curator
e-mail: mr.hand@rhino.com
[Mr Hand carefully reads each and every e-mail you send but, regretfully, cannot always personally answer each one.
DAVID PEEL & THE LOWER EAST SIDE
'And The Rest Is History: The Elektra Recordings'
Catalogue Number: RHM2 7713
ALL TIMES APPROXIMATE
[Approximately 67:45 Total Time]
1. Mother Where Is My Father? 3:07
2. I Like Marijuana 5:17
3. Here Comes A Cop 2:36
4. I've Got Some Grass 0:38
5. Happy Mother's Day 2:06
6. Up Against The Wall 1:44
7. I Do My Bawling In The Bathroom 6:51
8. The Alphabet Song 2:27
9. Show Me The Way To Get Stoned 2:28
10. We Love You 3:15
Tracks 1 to 10 taken from Elektra album EKS-74032 'HAVE A MARIJUANA'
11. Lower East Side 3:12
12. Pledge Of Allegiance 0:36
13. Legalize Marijuana 2:57
14. Oink, Oink 3:48
15. I Want To Get High 4:59
16. I Want To Kill You 4:22
17. Girls Girls Girls 4:33
18. Hey Mr. Draft Board 4:31
19. God 3:03
Tracks 11 to 19 taken from Elektra album EKS-74069 'THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION'
21. I Am A Runaway 3:34
Tracks 20 and 21 are PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED <1970>
Hell's Angle: The Life and Times of Sonny Barger and The Hell's Angles Motorcycle Club
MORE-MUSIC,MORE-MUSIC,MORE-MUSIC,MORE-MUSIC:
6/2 - Ian Hunter @ Bowery Ballroom
6/3 - Shell @ The Cooler
"SHELL "Shell is Swell" (Abaton) CD $13.99
"Marianne Nowottny, teen queen of the glissando vocals, teams up with her best friend Donna Bailey for their second release. These spokeswomen for
freaky girls everywhere give us a reminder that men do not understand women (and never will!). It's girl's night out, and throbs of distortion set the scene: spooooky. Minor chords march up and down: PJ Harvey and early Tom Waits are definite influences, but Nowottny's style is her own -- not even the late Marc Bolan could slide up to notes like this. If you love the first minute, you'll love the entire record." [GF - Other Music]
"Harry Smith's Anthology Of American Folk Music, Volume Four" (Revenant) 2xCD $29.99
"It's almost fifty years since Folkways released the three volumes of Harry Smith's "Anthology Of American Folk Music," and thousands of words have
been written about the thousands of lives it supposedly changed. But even the thunderous publicity given the 1997 CD reissue didn't reveal that we were only given three-quarters of the story. The original three volumes were colored green, red and blue, which, in Smith's highly personal alchemical system, were meant to symbolize water, fire, and air. Smith intended to complete the series with a fourth volume, colored yellow and symbolizing earth. He assembled a track list and began work on his notes, but the release was derailed by an argument with a Folkways representative, who insisted that he include a Delmore Brothers song celebrating the reelection of FDR. Now Revenant has reverentially stepped in and released the 28 items on Smith's list, on two CDs tucked into a beautiful 96-page hardcover book featuring essays and descriptions by Ed Sanders, Greil Marcus, John Fahey, John Cohen, and Dick Spottswood. Nothing can replace Smith's lost notes, though, so the correlations he intended to make between his selections will remain a mystery. And, ironically, the excitement which Smith's efforts first engendered might even make this volume a bit superfluous for some collectors, as other reissues have rendered the works of performers such as the Carter Family, Uncle Dave Macon, Leadbelly, Robert Johnson, and others considerably less esoteric than they once were.
>Nevertheless, there are rarities here, by the likes of the Arthur Smith Trio, Sister Clara Hudmon, Al Hopkins and His Buckle Busters, and more, and every selection is worth owning. Dark, haunting, an elegant work of American backyard surrealism, this set comes as close as anything probably mever will to completing a seminal work of recorded popular music." [AL - Other Music]
Links : NO LINKS (put on your sneakers and walk over)
OHM The Early Gurus of Electronic Music
VON DUTCH
More great info on a guy who was completely under the radar prior to the net.
Gene !
In response to your letter and book. First off I have never read any books other than trade manuals-motorcycle engines or guns. I am not nor ever interested in people, only in what they make. When I was in business I gave them some courtesy and did not speak my mind. Now I have know reason to do that. So they get the truth and hopefully they go away. I also not use the telephone either anymore. I use people to make money or to lift heavy things for me. And would just as soon see everything covered in concrete. I don’t like mud or keeping care of landscaping. I went through a lot of crap with my wife because I wanted sex. When my kids were in there teens I wasn’t to go through all that shit. So I left them completely alone with any pain in the ass relatives.
Religion, All of them are bullshit! Happens the Christians are fucking up the world the worst than the others. They are the only one with a healer so they capture sick people more.
So gett off me with it!
BYE
VonDutch
V.D. Home Page ?
More Von Dutch info.
V.D. Gallery
Great Bio and pics
post mortem rip off
Site Listing NYC Restaurant Inspections Starts a Feeding Frenzy on the Web - nyt metro 5/18
"The city's Department of Health created an instant sensation among food-crazed (read : health concerned) New Yorkers yesterday by inaugurating a Web site listing every blemish noted by inspectors at all licensed restaurants in the five boroughs."
J.C. Community Bulletin Board 5/16 :
From Brian @ WFMU :
Hello friends,
www.wfmu.org now has a discussion board for listeners , click here for the "message board".
"We're giving it a trial run, so feel free to post any pertinent info and start threads-a-plenty. It will probably go down as soon as the topic turns to Fred Durst, or male DJs here start pathetically hassling female posters for dates, whichever comes first." - Brian
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Is there room in your life for a new dog ?
A friend is trying to place two puppies in a good home. If you know someone that might want one or both of these cuties, you can contact Michael at the number below.
Otis/bill
"I came across two puppies in a junk yard that need homes.
They're 10 wks. old & very very cute. shepard, chow, pit bull mother, rottie father. (big paws).
I know one's a male, reddish brown, more rottie looking, not sure of the sex of the second, lighter tannish-brown, more shepard looking.
If you know anyone who might be interested, the poor little guys are living outside w/ no mommie or daddie, very little human contact. The guy owns a towing company, and keeps them in a dog house in the parking lot. they're well fed and healthy looking . He's given away the other six of the litter & would be happy to find homes for these two. the mother dissapeared.
I found them quite friendly and eager to make somebody a happy new parent. again, very good looking puppies. (and we all know mutts are the way to go!)
Please forward to anyone who might be interested.
and leave a comment to be recontacted. - ed