Friday, June 26, 2009

Michael Jackson....





Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American recording artist and entertainer. - Wikepedia


It feels quite surreal to read that sentence.


My first musical memories are of Michael Jackson. I was three and and a half years old when he released Bad in August 1987. It was his seventh studio album but for all i knew it was his first , Michael Jackson year zero.




When i saw the music video for Bad it blew my mind. This man was the coolest person i had ever seen...The release of a new Jackson album and the music videos that accompanied them were events. Those music videos from the 1980s still give me goosebumps , the music , the choreography , the physics defying dance moves , the sheer ambition of it all. If you want to talk about childhood heroes yeah i guess you could say Michael Jackson was mine.

I pretty much stopped caring about Michael Jackson and his musical output in my early teens around the time he released HIStory. I remember it as being an event alright but somehow the man and his downright weird and strange personal life had got in the way of my enjoyment of his music , and truth be told his music just wasnt as good as before. ( okay Stranger in Moscow from 1996 is a damn good song.)

Maybe the Michael Jackson i grew up idolising died a long time ago. Maybe some time around 1993 and those child abuse allegations...I dont know. I suppose i just find it hard to seperate the man from the music. But maybe i could allow for two Michael Jacksons , : my childhood hero who seemed to make the world a more exciting place and the sad strange man whose world turned into a freakshow. I know which one ill be mourning the loss of.

Michael Jackson was an American recording artist and entertainer.


PS: For the record i now believe that Jackson was never a child molester but, rather, the victim of two extortion attempts.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

So this "Twitter Revolution."...

The mob mentality of the twitter hive mind and the habit of jumping on the bandwagon of issues which most of them are not overly familiar with worries me. Im not refering to actual Iranians in their own country using facebook , twitter and whatever other social media to organise themselves but i am talking about young progressive Westerners who are identifying and vicariously involving themselves with what they may think is an exciting revolution. All from the safety of their computer.


Jeremy Scahill over at Rebel Reports has some interesting thoughts on this and offers his two cents worth

Also over at Rebel Reports i found a link to this

Heres a truncated excerpt which articulates pretty well whats going on here..Its directed at all the new Iran experts...



"Who thought until this morning that Shiraz was just the name of a wine

Who’s beaming with pride you can now write ‘Ahmadinejad’ without copy-and-pasting it from a news website....

...Who’s changed your Facebook profile picture to a green rectangle saying “Where’s my vote?” even though you don’t actually vote in Iran

Who actually thinks that Mir-Hossein Mousavi is a secular
And that his election means that Iran will give up its nuclear claims
And allow you to visit Tehran for Christmas

Who joyfully makes Azadi/Tiananmen square comparisons
Who first heard of Azadi square last Sunday




But who nevertheless

Has been tweeting, and re-tweeting, and polluting cyberspace with what is essentially hearsay, rumours, and unconfirmed truncated reports or falsification coming from people who actually know about the realities of Iran’s political world and have an agenda:

You know nothing. Abso-fucking-lutely nothing about what happened, or is happening across Iran at the very moment. Most of us don’t, actually. What we see is a tiny slice of reality, mind you, what is happening on the main squares in the big cities, under camera lenses.
"

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Songs for Sunday

Overheard this track while perusing a newsagents in France the other week. It was pissing cats and dogs outside and i ran to the nearest shop for shelter. I searched in vain for an English language section , so i just enjoyed the book cover artwork instead. Avalon came on in the backround ,i dripped water on the books and realised how much i like this song and the album of the same name...Its my favourite Roxy Music record.





Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Soundtrack to my Summer...


...provided by Phoenix and their new record Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix




Six months into 2009 and i think i may have listened to my favourite record of the year.

track 1 )


the fan made video above is great..

track 2 )


Vive le France !!