The Residents blank out on new release
By Ed ChristmanSat Jun 24, 6:59 PM ET
Cult band the Residents and the Cordless e-label have teamed up to create something that is either a unique multimedia experience that will link the physical, digital and mobile worlds -- or is just plain wacky.
On June 13, Cordless issued the Residents' "River of Crime" -- a 1940s-style radio serial with a band-composed musical score -- in a cardboard double-CD package with artwork that reinforces the band's trademark eyeball, all for $14.99.
The catch? It contains two blank CDs so that the five episodes, which will be released sequentially during a 10-week period, can be burned after the last one becomes available. A unique code for each package allows users to unlock the subscription at riverofcrime.com.
The package is exclusively available at Virgin Megastore locations in the brick-and-mortar world and at idealcopy.com in cyberspace. A prerecorded version of the project is planned for wider release next year.
The episodes also can be downloaded individually as they are released at all digital music stores. Each episode is priced at $1.99.
Cordless and the Residents created a unique vehicle to issue "River of Crime" because they wanted to make it available on an episodic, subscription basis.
"It is a bit wacky, but so are the Residents," Cordless president Jason Fiber says. "The Residents are always pushing the limits, whether it's music, art or technology."
Customers purchasing the limited-edition digital subscription will also receive digital extras like ringtones and mobile wallpaper as well as materials that can be burned onto the blank CD-Rs, including alternate versions of the "River of Crime" artwork, scripts and instrumental soundtrack elements.
And Fiber asks, "How can a digital-only release be (positioned) as a collectible? Residents fans are collectors, and this gives them something tangible to add to their collection."
Through the effort Cordless, Warner Music Group's e-label, can help brick-and-mortar stores sell digital product in physical form.
"It is an experiment, but we think it is something that is relatively easy to understand," Fiber says. The package comes with a red sticker on the cover warning that it contains blank media and telling buyers not to burn "River of Crime" until all episodes are retrieved. Inside the package is an instruction card.
On the other hand, Fiber says it may also be confusing. If the helpline rings off the hook, he says he'll know the effort was too ambitious.
Reuters/Billboard
It's a free plug. They are awesome. And free thinkers ...
http://members.aol.com/Mungs/
http://www.nobeliefs.com/
Closing, but When?
By Pierre Marcelle
Libération
Friday 23 June 2006
Let's get real here: when George W. Bush (that is, the boss) declares to his European Union partners on a trip to Vienna: "I'd like to close Guantanamo, I'd like it to be over with," he's not announcing that he's going to close the loathsome camp, exemplary symbol of all that is arbitrary and lawless. When George W. Bush (that is, the boss), asserts that he "understands" the protests of his interlocutors, they themselves pressured by human rights defenders, he only does it to immediately pull an irrefutable argument out of his hat, and one irrefutably legal: "there should be no legal void [...] for individuals" (he's talking about prisoners who don't even have that status oen) who must be guaranteed "their individual rights and their freedom." Thus George W. Bush (that is, the boss) pronounces that the law prevents him from exiting lawlessness. And that in order to escape this "gray zone" that he, George W. Bush (that is, the boss) himself established, the absolute exigency consists above all in not replacing the "legal void" that defines that gray zone with a legal void. Each person will assess, in the speech of George W. Bush (that is, the boss), the share of malice, moral weakness, candor or impotence that inspires it [1]; and each person will measure against the yardstick of his own war intelligence whether George W. Bush (that is, the boss) will or can - for decent or dirty reasons, but for reasons which in any case are his alone - close the Guantanamo shop where American democracy leaves itself exposed. It is nonetheless necessary that a camp be open or closed, but, between "I'd like it to be over with" and "I'm getting it over with," there is the difference that distinguishes a desire from an act. By seeming to deliberate, George W. Bush (that is, the boss) gives the feeling that he himself is a prisoner of Guantanamo. And, in so doing, that he is no longer altogether the boss.
[1] It being understood that neither malice, nor moral weakness, nor candor, nor impotence - whether of a strategic or a tactical order - are mutually exclusive. That's even what identifies a state of war.
Translation: t r u t h o u t French language correspondent Leslie Thatcher.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/062306E.shtml
Mr. Grocer: This is Durazac 15, kid. It makes Prozac seem like de-caf latte.
Marty: I don't do that stuff anymore.
Mr. Grocer: Don't say "do it," because I don't "do it," I *ingest* it, on orders of my neurophysiologist. This stuff is legal. In five years they'll be putting it in the water for citizens, just like fluoride.
Mr. Grocer: Easy there Chief, I don't see Hollow-Point Wound Care on the menu.
Marty: Why are you in Detroit? Redwings need a new goon?
Mr. Grocer: [Marty and Grocer are shooting eachother] Comrade! Comrade!
Marty: What?
Mr. Grocer: Why don't you just join the union, we'll go upstairs together and cap daddy!
Marty: This union, there's gonna be meetings?
Mr. Grocer: Of course!
Marty: No meetings.
[They continue shooting]
Mr. Grocer : Workers of the world, unite!
Author: Noir-5 from London
Good movie. Particularly the part where John Cusack is using the frying pan to put his point across to the bad guy on the kitchen floor. It's hard not to belly laugh. I thought it took cues from 'Blue Velvet', with its uncommon blend of humour and ultra-violence.
I read that parts of the dialogue were contributed by Cusack and a couple of [real-life] school friends, though cannot confirm this. It's believeable though - for example when he meets the legal guy propping up the bar at the re-union. His offering of the pen, the aside that Cusack should 'read the cap' and asking to use the funny quip - 'they all seem kinda related' - must have been based on a real person. Too sad to be fiction.
Minnie [cab] Driver, Joan Cusack and Dan Ackroyd personalise their performances very well. The support cast were excellent too. The music was an oddly enjoyable mix and the fight sequence with the pen was the most realistic (and exhausting) I'd seen. It was the attention to small detail which swung it in the end though. Cusack's buddy's coke-fuelled, paranoid banter was spot on ("Jenny Slater, Jenny Slater") as was the burning the fingers on the furnace, to name just two random details. The effect of this, is that they all add up to a movie which you can enjoy watching many times. And that makes it a rare gem.
Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119229/
Okay. A FREE plug for a group I love ...
and a review of a movie that was unacknowledged as a cult classic.
dr phibes
p.s.
if you read my blog and find it even mildly interesting, it's okay to let others know ... they are allowed to tell me what I'm doing that's on the target and what I'm f*in ' up on ...
Till next blog ...
trust that all the great musicians will die , but their souls live through their maesterpieces ...
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