Two showings by the late, lamented Poly Styrene, including her great Christmas song which our listeners propelled to number one. Keep listening and voting, friends! Ear Candle Productions is cooking up big plans for 2013.
1. Poly Styrene - Black Christmas - Black Christmas
2. Toiling Midgets - Preludes - Dead Beats
3. Mark Silverman - I Can't Dance - Perverse Milkman Art
4. Angel Corpus Christi - Encore - Angel Does X-tal - EP
5. The Quails - Your Heart Is A Muscle The Size Of A Fist - Atmosphere
6. Nervous Norvous - Transfusion - Lux and Ivy's Favorites Volume One
7. Husker Du - I Apologize - New Day Rising
8. Them - Could You, Would You - The Story Of Them
9. Siouxsie and the Banshees - 20th Century Boy - Downside Up
10. Sandy Bull - Carnival Jump - Re-Inventions
11. Poly Styrene - No Rockefeller - Generation Indigo
12. New Order - Ceremony (1st Version) - Ceremony: 30th Anniversary 'Record Store Day' Edition
13. The Kinks - You Make It All Worthwhile - Soap Opera
14. The Controllers - Electric Church - Tooth And Nail Comp.
15. Celine Keller and Holger Fath-Tati - Turnaround - Turnaround Soundtrack
16. X-tal - Smells Like Smoke - Good Luck
17. Nat King Cole - L-O-V-E - 100% Swing
18. Moon Duo - Seer - Mazes
19. Kristin Hersh - Your Ghost - Hips And Makers
20. Danger Can - Jet Turbo Theme - Let's Get Clecky!
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Monday, December 31, 2012
Why we never watch the Sunday talk shows
Crooks & Liars does an admirable job of skewering Tom Brokaw's inanity.
It's been said, and I agree, that you can't tell people what to think, but you can tell people what to think about. When I was a likkle youth, I thought that the conversation on these round table news-talk programs was way over my head; now I realize that no, these people are in fact catastrophically stupid.
It's been said, and I agree, that you can't tell people what to think, but you can tell people what to think about. When I was a likkle youth, I thought that the conversation on these round table news-talk programs was way over my head; now I realize that no, these people are in fact catastrophically stupid.
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Anything
The news of Ray Collins' passing reminded us of one of our favorite doo-wop love songs of all time. Please note, despite what the title says, this was written by Ray, not Frank:
A relaxed, amiable, unambitious guy with a golden voice who could sing it sweet or sarcastic and helped breathe life into the Mothers Of Invention. (In fact, he was the one who hired Zappa in the first place. Imagine: "I know this guitar player...")
Also: I must add this was the first song I ever learned to play on the piano.
A relaxed, amiable, unambitious guy with a golden voice who could sing it sweet or sarcastic and helped breathe life into the Mothers Of Invention. (In fact, he was the one who hired Zappa in the first place. Imagine: "I know this guitar player...")
Also: I must add this was the first song I ever learned to play on the piano.
New year, new music
As Neo and Davis wash off the academia for a month and settle into the winter break, we are pleased to announce that there will be several new Ear Candle releases coming up soon:
Zwanzig Kilometer Stau, the debut album of electronic moods and melodies by Dr. Spaceman
Aranka, the fourth album of psychedelic instrumentals by The Experimental Bunnies (built from a Christmas 2011 session with a five-piece lineup of J Neo Marvin, Davis Jones, Junko Suzuki Parsons, Mark Parsons, and Ben Furstenberg and named in honor of a neighbor who vanished mysteriously)
and for those who miss the songwriting side of our works, Neo and Davis are working on a new album by The Granite Countertops, with the likely title Planets Don't Twinkle.
Watch for these in 2013!
Zwanzig Kilometer Stau, the debut album of electronic moods and melodies by Dr. Spaceman
Aranka, the fourth album of psychedelic instrumentals by The Experimental Bunnies (built from a Christmas 2011 session with a five-piece lineup of J Neo Marvin, Davis Jones, Junko Suzuki Parsons, Mark Parsons, and Ben Furstenberg and named in honor of a neighbor who vanished mysteriously)
and for those who miss the songwriting side of our works, Neo and Davis are working on a new album by The Granite Countertops, with the likely title Planets Don't Twinkle.
Watch for these in 2013!
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Misogyny FAIL
When haters overreach, decent people notice. Backlashes get backlashed, and we inch toward social change.
Second Amendment solutions
The Bastard speaks, you listen.
Here is my proposal... call it "Second Amendment strict constructionism to make Conservatives lose their shit: If you want a gun, you must be a member of a well regulated militia, and not a nutbag Turner Diaries LARPer bullshit militia. You would have to register your gun, and show up for periodic (monthly or quarterly) muster, receiving training, safety instruction, and an evaluation of your fitness to bear that weapon. No regulation, no arms. It's as simple as that. Having no regulation of arms is the unconstitutional position... "conservative" distortions notwithstanding.A man of God responds to the tragedy:
"We ask why there is violence in our schools, but we have systematically removed God from our schools," Huckabee said on Fox News, discussing the murder spree that took the lives of 20 children and 6 adults in Newtown, CT that morning. "Should we be so surprised that schools would become a place of carnage?"Our Absentee Father who art allegedly in Heaven was unavailable for comment.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Picking the news apart for school
Took me two days to finish this take-home final in Broadcast News class. Here it is.
1) This answer concerns war coverage. Be sure to label the answers a) and b).
a) Watch a broadcast report (either television or online) of a conflict in the Middle East. Did you find it too graphic? Explain why and be specific. Also, make two references in your answer to Arielle Emmett's article, "Too Graphic?
The irony of this question is that, to answer it effectively, one is forced to actively seek out gruesome images in order to ask whether they are “too graphic” in the first place. It may be the case that Middle Eastern conflicts are a good bet for finding such footage, but there are no guarantees in an ever-shifting news landscape. The most reliable source I know of for both detailed analysis of Middle East issues and a marked lack of squeamishness in depicting human suffering is Al Jazeera. However, though developments in both Gaza and Syria, as well as land mine removal in South Sudan, were all among the top stories on the network on Saturday, Dec. 8, on this particular viewing we were treated to much insight but a dearth of gore.
Success, if you want to call it that, was achieved in a piece on religious violence in Rakhine State in Myanmar. (Yes, South Asia is not even close to the Middle East, but for this question I am forced to go with what is available.) In this story on the violent breakdown in relations between the local Buddhist and Muslim communities, several images of mutilated bodies flashed on the screen, followed immediately by testimonies from tearful, traumatized survivors who lost their families in the fighting. In this case, I found the graphic nature of the images, when combined with the interviews, to be appropriate in delivering the emotional impact of the destruction of human lives for the sake of competing belief systems as an authoritarian regime continues to benefit from the divisions between its citizens. Emmett’s article deals with the conflict between the need to tell the whole truth (quoting photographer Patrick Farrell on Haiti: “You could write a million times that there are 100,000 dead…but if you don’t see it for yourself…it just won’t register”) and the need to respect people’s privacy and dignity (Haitian school principal Payen-Jean Baptiste’s highly critical response that such images are “humiliating”). In my own opinion, the use of these devastating images may be necessary to convey the truth of a story in many cases, but without an accompanying context that analyzes the issues and explains the causes, effects, and possible solutions to these dire events, the viewer comes away no wiser: a mere voyeur left shocked, morbidly entertained, and easily manipulated by propaganda. In this case, Al Jazeera did provide the necessary context, which I appreciated.
b) In Deborah Lynn Jaramillo's article, "The Spectacle of War," she writes in-depth of the complicated methods used by news organizations to cover wars. She poses the question: What purpose does war coverage serve and how do strategies of representation figure into the larger aims? Answer this question using her article for reference.
We would all like to think that the purpose of war coverage is to inform the public and explain the issues, but in practice, as Jaramillo argues, wartime media all too often operate in thrall to nationalistic myths and turn harsh realities into stirring romantic narratives. Jaramillo’s article applies Debord’s concept of “the spectacle” to the depiction of war on TV, also taking in Henry Giroux, who updates the idea by acknowledging the role of militarism in what he calls “the spectacle of terrorism”. War is mediated by ostensibly independent media that are not so much under the control of the military as motivated by a desire for profit and a need for access to the people and events they are covering.
After the Vietnam War, during which the news media often operated in a relatively independent and occasionally critical fashion, the Pentagon took a more active stance in preventing the free movement of journalists in war zones. First barring journalists outright from the Grenada invasion, then creating the “pool system” during the Panama invasion, the military used both force and co-optation to change the nature of televised war from hard journalism to flag-waving hagiography. Techniques from high-concept filmmaking are used to make war entertaining to viewers, and we root for our “team” (God, country, “the troops”) as if we are at a football game. The shift in attitude from news as a required public service to news as profit-generating splashy entertainment, the growth of media consolidation in recent decades, and a more media-savvy military industrial complex have created a situation where it is no longer necessary for governments to use an iron hand to compel the press or TV to do their bidding when the profit motive will do the job for them. In this atmosphere, it is easy to understand why so few people questioned the flimsy motivations for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and how large percentages of the American public still remain so poorly informed about issues that are crucial to their own well-being.
2) Explain what Reese and Shoemaker describe in "Studying Influences on Media Content," as media reality and social reality. In your opinion, how close do the media come to representing an objective reality? Give two examples from local or national news broadcast outlets. Be sure to note which outlets you used. If a network or local TV newscast, write down time of day as well.
Reese and Shoemaker use the term “social reality” instead of “objective reality,” arguing that objectivity is an elusive concept that is nearly meaningless when it comes to dealing with the perceptions of individuals. Instead, they compare “media reality” (reality as portrayed by media outlets) with “social reality” (“our best guess about what is actually going on the world”, based on data from a diverse and complex mixture of sources) to raise questions on how events are portrayed. They make a point of distinguishing between the “qualitative attributes of media content” and quantitative data; though it may be more difficult to measure how stories are told than to simply plot out the amount of times a subject is covered on a spreadsheet (a favorite tactic of conservative media critics who crunch numbers to prove “bias”), looking at media coverage in this way is highly revealing.
While Fox News Channel may seem like an easy target, the network is watched religiously by a large segment of the population and must be held at least partially responsible for how they see the world. Watching Mike Huckabee’s program at 5 PM on Dec. 8, it wasn’t hard to see the narrative being presented. Huckabee’s guest was William Marsh, head of a “small business” called American Bar Products (a Pennsylvania steel manufacturer…how “small” is his business, really?) who relayed a sad tale of how his taxes were excessively high and how “the coercive power of the federal government” was a “moral issue” that was “damaging small businesses” like his. “America is a unique place”, he went on to say. It is “the only nation in the history of man” formed on the idea that government should serve its citizens. Unfortunately, the government of this unique, singular nation “is no longer for the citizen.” The audience cheered every word and gazed attentively during the reaction shots. Now, one could grant that it may be inconvenient for Marsh’s corporation to endure a tax increase and to have to pay for his employees’ medical insurance, but is it really crippling his ability to do business? Perhaps he should support his claims by releasing all of his accounting records to the public so that we might fully understand his pain. (A quick Google search reveals that Marsh, unsurprisingly, has made a virtual second career of appearing on various conservative news outlets and Tea Party events to lament government regulations and taxes and denigrate the education and intelligence of his own employees.) One watches a segment such as this and gets an instant dose of a media reality in which we are living in a nightmarish dystopia where downtrodden CEOs of small businesses can’t catch a break. The tone is relentless, constantly angry, and strangely sentimental. Viewers attempting to think clearly and critically about what they’re watching may find themselves becoming almost physically exhausted while sifting through the torrent of desperate assertions being fired out from the screen, until the only choice is to either give in and believe or grab the remote in disgust.
Fox is a special case of course, a network devoted to adrenalized, passionate conservative propaganda. But any news outlet has some measure of disconnect between “media reality” and “social reality”, simply due to the necessities of storytelling. A journalist must have an angle, and a story must have a point, but the creation of a narrative can lead to more subtle distortions. Tuning in ABC World News at 5:30, the top story was a “new NFL tragedy”. A football player was charged with manslaughter after a drunken car crash that killed one of his teammates. Certainly, this was an unfortunate event, but what struck me most was the emphasis that this was “the second NFL player involved in a fatal incident”, referring to Jovan Belcher’s killing of his girlfriend and subsequent suicide the week before. One might want to point out that one of these incidents was an alcohol-related accident and the other was a murder/suicide that leaves behind an orphaned child; are these somehow equivalent because football players were involved? Should we question the network’s respect for the dead when they refer repeatedly to both events as “tragedies for the NFL”, as if the NFL has suffered more than the late Kassandra Perkins?
3) Give one example of celebrity news that, in your opinion, is genuine news and why. In your answer, cite two concepts from Steve Barkin's article, "Celebrity News." Discussions in class referenced Comedy Central's "Daily Show" and whether or not it can be used as a news source. Does it fall under Celebrity News or News/Information and why or why not?
If there is a recent story that qualifies as both celebrity news and genuine news, I would say it is the phenomenon of PSY and his runaway hit song and video “Gangnam Style.” For a South Korean rapper to break through to US audiences and reach the number one spot on the Billboard charts is unprecedented, and reflects a change in our own popular culture, suggesting that Americans might not be so provincial that we are incapable of enjoying something in another language after all. It doesn’t hurt that it’s a catchy pop song, the video is irresistible fun and the lyrics are actually a sharp satirical poke at class differences and upwardly mobile pretensions in the artist’s hometown. The difference between the surface impression of a campy bit of high-energy kitsch and the actual intent of the artist make the story more interesting when you delve deeper, and the new “scandal” about PSY’s previous guest appearance on a song by a Korean metal band with extremely inflammatory lyrics about American torture policies raises questions of its own. (Now that he’s big in America, do Americans expect a foreign artist to be loyal to the US? Does the fact that PSY recently made a public apology show what happens when a local star is suddenly thrust into the role of international diplomat? Does anyone in this country even remember the incident that sparked the song in which two Korean schoolgirls were killed by an American military vehicle?) All of this adds up to a case of celebrity that is itself newsworthy. Writers like Neil Postman, as quoted by Barkin, certainly have a point when they argue that Americans are as well-entertained as they are ill-informed; nevertheless, a closer look at the complicated relationship between citizens and popular culture reveals far more than a simplistic narrative about “poor brainwashed ignorant sheep” ever will. There is no question that, as Barkin painstakingly chronicles, the spread of celebrity news and celebrity journalists is ultimately money-driven, but this doesn’t mean that popular culture isn’t capable of telling us a lot about ourselves and others about us.
Regarding Stewart and The Daily Show, I think the question sets up a false dichotomy. In my opinion, the show is neither News/Information nor Celebrity News, but satire that deals with the press and the political scene in a mock-news format. Jon Stewart is a celebrity, and when he interviews celebrities on his show he may touch on celebrity news to an extent, but The Daily Show is no more “celebrity news” than a sketch comedy show like Saturday Night Live or a talk show like Letterman. Celebrity news shows like Entertainment Tonight may be delivered with irreverence, but they take the concept of “celebrity” itself very seriously. The Daily Show is a comedy, and therefore another genre altogether. One may as well ask whether a banana is an apple or an orange.
4) In about 200 words, sum up the important points from the article "Forgive Me Now, Fire Me Later: Mass Communication Students' Ethics Gap Concerning School and Journalism." (Need to include methodology.)
The article starts from the premise that students are more outraged by plagiarism in the media than by plagiarism in their own coursework. The authors conducted a survey of students at a Midwestern university for six consecutive semesters that not only tracked overall student attitudes toward plagiarism, but also tracked possible changes in attitudes over different points in their education. (e.g. do freshmen feel differently than seniors?) Students overall were indeed more concerned about and demanded more severe punishments for journalists inventing sources and fabricating quotes than for their fellow students doing the same. Students who worked in student media during their term in school showed increased concern for and expected punishment for dishonesty in both the academic and professional arenas. Students with media internships took a harsher stance against dishonesty in journalism (most noticeably among students whose internships were specifically in journalism) but only showed a slight increase in concern for cheating in school. Oddly, students with no internship experience at all had a higher degree of concern for academic dishonesty than those with non-journalism-related internships. The gap between degrees of concern for academic vs. journalistic dishonesty was far exceeded by the gap between recommended punishments for the two types of offenses; 60% of all students surveyed felt that a plagiarizing journalist should be fired, but only 5% felt a plagiarizing student should be expelled. Students, it appears, are considerably more apt to forgive their peers’ transgressions than those committed by supposed professionals.
5) There are two, unrelated, parts to this answer:
a) In "60 Minutes and the News Magazine," why was the program considered so revolutionary? What was Don Hewitt's role? How did "60 Minutes" forge new pathways for news programs? You may also use notes from class lecture.
The impact of 60 Minutes was its thorough rethinking of the possibilities of TV news programming, for better or worse. Veteran producer Don Hewitt created the show after seeing his own job gradually marginalized by CBS president Fred Friendly and needing a breakthrough if his career was to continue. What Hewitt did was to conceive a new format for a documentary series, modeled after the then-popular Life magazine, which combined serious news, lighter fare, and stunning photography. The new show was to be a “TV magazine” with three stories per episode and a staff of star reporter/anchors who played central roles in the stories they delivered. The prevailing sentiment had been that news was an unglamorous necessity, the vegetables you had to eat because they were good for you. 60 Minutes upended that paradigm by presenting news stories as entertaining narratives with drama, structure, conflict, and resolution, and the experiment paid off, becoming the highest-rated show on TV by 1978 and continuing to this day.
The success of 60 Minutes led to competing newsmagazine shows like 20/20 and Dateline, but it could be argued that the show’s greatest influence was that it demonstrated that TV news could be profitable, which has caused networks to expect higher ratings from all of their news shows and influence their formats accordingly. 24-hour cable news networks like CNN show a great deal of influence from the show as well. (Would Ted Turner have even considered investing in such a thing without the precedent set by 60 Minutes?)
Perhaps one of the most insidious influences the show had may be the “sting interviews” that Mike Wallace and others were famous for, in which the producers would record some unscrupulous character being drawn into a compromising position before the star reporter made a surprise appearance in a sort of non-comedy version of Candid Camera. We could trace a thread from these segments not only to the current pervasive phenomenon of reality TV (an early example, Cops, could plausibly be pitched as “Mike Wallace with a badge”), but also to the likes of right-wing would-be journalist James O’Keefe, whose staged video hoaxes may seem too absurd to take seriously, but had the very real effect of helping to destroy the community advocacy organization ACORN and attempting to wreak similar damage on Planned Parenthood. Again, 60 Minutes has often engaged in some admirable journalism, but the framing of news as entertaining, well-packaged, streamlined storytelling invariably creates a “media reality” that does not always match “social reality”, and has set a precedent for far less responsible actors.
b) What is the meaning of Cultural Chaos in terms of news in a globalized world, according to Brian McNair's study?
The term “cultural chaos” as used by McNair, though never explicitly defined in this excerpt from his book, seems to refer to the recent climate of decentralization and diversity of news sources beyond the old Cold War West vs. East paradigm. He begins with a jaundiced review of standard Marxist cultural theory critiques, arguing that Western culture was not merely imposed on the rest of the world but actively sought by people in other countries, and that resistance to Western influences was merely a mask for elite-run authoritarian regimes to hide their own repressive policies behind. All of this strikes me as little more than one glib generalization being countered by another, but as the article progresses, McNair touches on some interesting points, many of which have been covered from many angles in this class already. The advent of 24-hour cable news spearheaded by CNN and followed by BBC News 24 and many others transformed news into what he refers to as “a flow medium,” unfolding constantly rather than confined to scheduled one-hour reports. Technical developments from cable to satellite to the internet have enabled a station to become a truly global voice, reaching anywhere that viewers are allowed access. The big development McNair points to is the international success of Al Jazeera, a breakthrough for non-Anglophone media in the global media market. McNair points to this as a sign that the world is moving in a direction toward more diverse voices in journalism and a vibrant, exciting media future fueled by increased competition for a global market. One caveat to McNair’s optimistic prognosis is that it may require more faith in the vagaries of international capitalism, and, while he has a fine time debunking a straw man caricature of “cultural imperialism,” he may not be considering the full implications of his one-world vision. If the market alone determines how information is distributed on a global scale, and the market is a multinational one that cannot be subject to any oversight or regulation, what prevents one or two powerful corporations from taking over all available outlets? A more encouraging alternate view is one of a genuine “cultural chaos” in which a multitude of independent “narrowcasters” are exposed to small but widely scattered worldwide audiences because they offer journalistic content that the big conglomerates cannot.
1) This answer concerns war coverage. Be sure to label the answers a) and b).
a) Watch a broadcast report (either television or online) of a conflict in the Middle East. Did you find it too graphic? Explain why and be specific. Also, make two references in your answer to Arielle Emmett's article, "Too Graphic?
The irony of this question is that, to answer it effectively, one is forced to actively seek out gruesome images in order to ask whether they are “too graphic” in the first place. It may be the case that Middle Eastern conflicts are a good bet for finding such footage, but there are no guarantees in an ever-shifting news landscape. The most reliable source I know of for both detailed analysis of Middle East issues and a marked lack of squeamishness in depicting human suffering is Al Jazeera. However, though developments in both Gaza and Syria, as well as land mine removal in South Sudan, were all among the top stories on the network on Saturday, Dec. 8, on this particular viewing we were treated to much insight but a dearth of gore.
Success, if you want to call it that, was achieved in a piece on religious violence in Rakhine State in Myanmar. (Yes, South Asia is not even close to the Middle East, but for this question I am forced to go with what is available.) In this story on the violent breakdown in relations between the local Buddhist and Muslim communities, several images of mutilated bodies flashed on the screen, followed immediately by testimonies from tearful, traumatized survivors who lost their families in the fighting. In this case, I found the graphic nature of the images, when combined with the interviews, to be appropriate in delivering the emotional impact of the destruction of human lives for the sake of competing belief systems as an authoritarian regime continues to benefit from the divisions between its citizens. Emmett’s article deals with the conflict between the need to tell the whole truth (quoting photographer Patrick Farrell on Haiti: “You could write a million times that there are 100,000 dead…but if you don’t see it for yourself…it just won’t register”) and the need to respect people’s privacy and dignity (Haitian school principal Payen-Jean Baptiste’s highly critical response that such images are “humiliating”). In my own opinion, the use of these devastating images may be necessary to convey the truth of a story in many cases, but without an accompanying context that analyzes the issues and explains the causes, effects, and possible solutions to these dire events, the viewer comes away no wiser: a mere voyeur left shocked, morbidly entertained, and easily manipulated by propaganda. In this case, Al Jazeera did provide the necessary context, which I appreciated.
b) In Deborah Lynn Jaramillo's article, "The Spectacle of War," she writes in-depth of the complicated methods used by news organizations to cover wars. She poses the question: What purpose does war coverage serve and how do strategies of representation figure into the larger aims? Answer this question using her article for reference.
We would all like to think that the purpose of war coverage is to inform the public and explain the issues, but in practice, as Jaramillo argues, wartime media all too often operate in thrall to nationalistic myths and turn harsh realities into stirring romantic narratives. Jaramillo’s article applies Debord’s concept of “the spectacle” to the depiction of war on TV, also taking in Henry Giroux, who updates the idea by acknowledging the role of militarism in what he calls “the spectacle of terrorism”. War is mediated by ostensibly independent media that are not so much under the control of the military as motivated by a desire for profit and a need for access to the people and events they are covering.
After the Vietnam War, during which the news media often operated in a relatively independent and occasionally critical fashion, the Pentagon took a more active stance in preventing the free movement of journalists in war zones. First barring journalists outright from the Grenada invasion, then creating the “pool system” during the Panama invasion, the military used both force and co-optation to change the nature of televised war from hard journalism to flag-waving hagiography. Techniques from high-concept filmmaking are used to make war entertaining to viewers, and we root for our “team” (God, country, “the troops”) as if we are at a football game. The shift in attitude from news as a required public service to news as profit-generating splashy entertainment, the growth of media consolidation in recent decades, and a more media-savvy military industrial complex have created a situation where it is no longer necessary for governments to use an iron hand to compel the press or TV to do their bidding when the profit motive will do the job for them. In this atmosphere, it is easy to understand why so few people questioned the flimsy motivations for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and how large percentages of the American public still remain so poorly informed about issues that are crucial to their own well-being.
2) Explain what Reese and Shoemaker describe in "Studying Influences on Media Content," as media reality and social reality. In your opinion, how close do the media come to representing an objective reality? Give two examples from local or national news broadcast outlets. Be sure to note which outlets you used. If a network or local TV newscast, write down time of day as well.
Reese and Shoemaker use the term “social reality” instead of “objective reality,” arguing that objectivity is an elusive concept that is nearly meaningless when it comes to dealing with the perceptions of individuals. Instead, they compare “media reality” (reality as portrayed by media outlets) with “social reality” (“our best guess about what is actually going on the world”, based on data from a diverse and complex mixture of sources) to raise questions on how events are portrayed. They make a point of distinguishing between the “qualitative attributes of media content” and quantitative data; though it may be more difficult to measure how stories are told than to simply plot out the amount of times a subject is covered on a spreadsheet (a favorite tactic of conservative media critics who crunch numbers to prove “bias”), looking at media coverage in this way is highly revealing.
While Fox News Channel may seem like an easy target, the network is watched religiously by a large segment of the population and must be held at least partially responsible for how they see the world. Watching Mike Huckabee’s program at 5 PM on Dec. 8, it wasn’t hard to see the narrative being presented. Huckabee’s guest was William Marsh, head of a “small business” called American Bar Products (a Pennsylvania steel manufacturer…how “small” is his business, really?) who relayed a sad tale of how his taxes were excessively high and how “the coercive power of the federal government” was a “moral issue” that was “damaging small businesses” like his. “America is a unique place”, he went on to say. It is “the only nation in the history of man” formed on the idea that government should serve its citizens. Unfortunately, the government of this unique, singular nation “is no longer for the citizen.” The audience cheered every word and gazed attentively during the reaction shots. Now, one could grant that it may be inconvenient for Marsh’s corporation to endure a tax increase and to have to pay for his employees’ medical insurance, but is it really crippling his ability to do business? Perhaps he should support his claims by releasing all of his accounting records to the public so that we might fully understand his pain. (A quick Google search reveals that Marsh, unsurprisingly, has made a virtual second career of appearing on various conservative news outlets and Tea Party events to lament government regulations and taxes and denigrate the education and intelligence of his own employees.) One watches a segment such as this and gets an instant dose of a media reality in which we are living in a nightmarish dystopia where downtrodden CEOs of small businesses can’t catch a break. The tone is relentless, constantly angry, and strangely sentimental. Viewers attempting to think clearly and critically about what they’re watching may find themselves becoming almost physically exhausted while sifting through the torrent of desperate assertions being fired out from the screen, until the only choice is to either give in and believe or grab the remote in disgust.
Fox is a special case of course, a network devoted to adrenalized, passionate conservative propaganda. But any news outlet has some measure of disconnect between “media reality” and “social reality”, simply due to the necessities of storytelling. A journalist must have an angle, and a story must have a point, but the creation of a narrative can lead to more subtle distortions. Tuning in ABC World News at 5:30, the top story was a “new NFL tragedy”. A football player was charged with manslaughter after a drunken car crash that killed one of his teammates. Certainly, this was an unfortunate event, but what struck me most was the emphasis that this was “the second NFL player involved in a fatal incident”, referring to Jovan Belcher’s killing of his girlfriend and subsequent suicide the week before. One might want to point out that one of these incidents was an alcohol-related accident and the other was a murder/suicide that leaves behind an orphaned child; are these somehow equivalent because football players were involved? Should we question the network’s respect for the dead when they refer repeatedly to both events as “tragedies for the NFL”, as if the NFL has suffered more than the late Kassandra Perkins?
3) Give one example of celebrity news that, in your opinion, is genuine news and why. In your answer, cite two concepts from Steve Barkin's article, "Celebrity News." Discussions in class referenced Comedy Central's "Daily Show" and whether or not it can be used as a news source. Does it fall under Celebrity News or News/Information and why or why not?
If there is a recent story that qualifies as both celebrity news and genuine news, I would say it is the phenomenon of PSY and his runaway hit song and video “Gangnam Style.” For a South Korean rapper to break through to US audiences and reach the number one spot on the Billboard charts is unprecedented, and reflects a change in our own popular culture, suggesting that Americans might not be so provincial that we are incapable of enjoying something in another language after all. It doesn’t hurt that it’s a catchy pop song, the video is irresistible fun and the lyrics are actually a sharp satirical poke at class differences and upwardly mobile pretensions in the artist’s hometown. The difference between the surface impression of a campy bit of high-energy kitsch and the actual intent of the artist make the story more interesting when you delve deeper, and the new “scandal” about PSY’s previous guest appearance on a song by a Korean metal band with extremely inflammatory lyrics about American torture policies raises questions of its own. (Now that he’s big in America, do Americans expect a foreign artist to be loyal to the US? Does the fact that PSY recently made a public apology show what happens when a local star is suddenly thrust into the role of international diplomat? Does anyone in this country even remember the incident that sparked the song in which two Korean schoolgirls were killed by an American military vehicle?) All of this adds up to a case of celebrity that is itself newsworthy. Writers like Neil Postman, as quoted by Barkin, certainly have a point when they argue that Americans are as well-entertained as they are ill-informed; nevertheless, a closer look at the complicated relationship between citizens and popular culture reveals far more than a simplistic narrative about “poor brainwashed ignorant sheep” ever will. There is no question that, as Barkin painstakingly chronicles, the spread of celebrity news and celebrity journalists is ultimately money-driven, but this doesn’t mean that popular culture isn’t capable of telling us a lot about ourselves and others about us.
Regarding Stewart and The Daily Show, I think the question sets up a false dichotomy. In my opinion, the show is neither News/Information nor Celebrity News, but satire that deals with the press and the political scene in a mock-news format. Jon Stewart is a celebrity, and when he interviews celebrities on his show he may touch on celebrity news to an extent, but The Daily Show is no more “celebrity news” than a sketch comedy show like Saturday Night Live or a talk show like Letterman. Celebrity news shows like Entertainment Tonight may be delivered with irreverence, but they take the concept of “celebrity” itself very seriously. The Daily Show is a comedy, and therefore another genre altogether. One may as well ask whether a banana is an apple or an orange.
4) In about 200 words, sum up the important points from the article "Forgive Me Now, Fire Me Later: Mass Communication Students' Ethics Gap Concerning School and Journalism." (Need to include methodology.)
The article starts from the premise that students are more outraged by plagiarism in the media than by plagiarism in their own coursework. The authors conducted a survey of students at a Midwestern university for six consecutive semesters that not only tracked overall student attitudes toward plagiarism, but also tracked possible changes in attitudes over different points in their education. (e.g. do freshmen feel differently than seniors?) Students overall were indeed more concerned about and demanded more severe punishments for journalists inventing sources and fabricating quotes than for their fellow students doing the same. Students who worked in student media during their term in school showed increased concern for and expected punishment for dishonesty in both the academic and professional arenas. Students with media internships took a harsher stance against dishonesty in journalism (most noticeably among students whose internships were specifically in journalism) but only showed a slight increase in concern for cheating in school. Oddly, students with no internship experience at all had a higher degree of concern for academic dishonesty than those with non-journalism-related internships. The gap between degrees of concern for academic vs. journalistic dishonesty was far exceeded by the gap between recommended punishments for the two types of offenses; 60% of all students surveyed felt that a plagiarizing journalist should be fired, but only 5% felt a plagiarizing student should be expelled. Students, it appears, are considerably more apt to forgive their peers’ transgressions than those committed by supposed professionals.
5) There are two, unrelated, parts to this answer:
a) In "60 Minutes and the News Magazine," why was the program considered so revolutionary? What was Don Hewitt's role? How did "60 Minutes" forge new pathways for news programs? You may also use notes from class lecture.
The impact of 60 Minutes was its thorough rethinking of the possibilities of TV news programming, for better or worse. Veteran producer Don Hewitt created the show after seeing his own job gradually marginalized by CBS president Fred Friendly and needing a breakthrough if his career was to continue. What Hewitt did was to conceive a new format for a documentary series, modeled after the then-popular Life magazine, which combined serious news, lighter fare, and stunning photography. The new show was to be a “TV magazine” with three stories per episode and a staff of star reporter/anchors who played central roles in the stories they delivered. The prevailing sentiment had been that news was an unglamorous necessity, the vegetables you had to eat because they were good for you. 60 Minutes upended that paradigm by presenting news stories as entertaining narratives with drama, structure, conflict, and resolution, and the experiment paid off, becoming the highest-rated show on TV by 1978 and continuing to this day.
The success of 60 Minutes led to competing newsmagazine shows like 20/20 and Dateline, but it could be argued that the show’s greatest influence was that it demonstrated that TV news could be profitable, which has caused networks to expect higher ratings from all of their news shows and influence their formats accordingly. 24-hour cable news networks like CNN show a great deal of influence from the show as well. (Would Ted Turner have even considered investing in such a thing without the precedent set by 60 Minutes?)
Perhaps one of the most insidious influences the show had may be the “sting interviews” that Mike Wallace and others were famous for, in which the producers would record some unscrupulous character being drawn into a compromising position before the star reporter made a surprise appearance in a sort of non-comedy version of Candid Camera. We could trace a thread from these segments not only to the current pervasive phenomenon of reality TV (an early example, Cops, could plausibly be pitched as “Mike Wallace with a badge”), but also to the likes of right-wing would-be journalist James O’Keefe, whose staged video hoaxes may seem too absurd to take seriously, but had the very real effect of helping to destroy the community advocacy organization ACORN and attempting to wreak similar damage on Planned Parenthood. Again, 60 Minutes has often engaged in some admirable journalism, but the framing of news as entertaining, well-packaged, streamlined storytelling invariably creates a “media reality” that does not always match “social reality”, and has set a precedent for far less responsible actors.
b) What is the meaning of Cultural Chaos in terms of news in a globalized world, according to Brian McNair's study?
The term “cultural chaos” as used by McNair, though never explicitly defined in this excerpt from his book, seems to refer to the recent climate of decentralization and diversity of news sources beyond the old Cold War West vs. East paradigm. He begins with a jaundiced review of standard Marxist cultural theory critiques, arguing that Western culture was not merely imposed on the rest of the world but actively sought by people in other countries, and that resistance to Western influences was merely a mask for elite-run authoritarian regimes to hide their own repressive policies behind. All of this strikes me as little more than one glib generalization being countered by another, but as the article progresses, McNair touches on some interesting points, many of which have been covered from many angles in this class already. The advent of 24-hour cable news spearheaded by CNN and followed by BBC News 24 and many others transformed news into what he refers to as “a flow medium,” unfolding constantly rather than confined to scheduled one-hour reports. Technical developments from cable to satellite to the internet have enabled a station to become a truly global voice, reaching anywhere that viewers are allowed access. The big development McNair points to is the international success of Al Jazeera, a breakthrough for non-Anglophone media in the global media market. McNair points to this as a sign that the world is moving in a direction toward more diverse voices in journalism and a vibrant, exciting media future fueled by increased competition for a global market. One caveat to McNair’s optimistic prognosis is that it may require more faith in the vagaries of international capitalism, and, while he has a fine time debunking a straw man caricature of “cultural imperialism,” he may not be considering the full implications of his one-world vision. If the market alone determines how information is distributed on a global scale, and the market is a multinational one that cannot be subject to any oversight or regulation, what prevents one or two powerful corporations from taking over all available outlets? A more encouraging alternate view is one of a genuine “cultural chaos” in which a multitude of independent “narrowcasters” are exposed to small but widely scattered worldwide audiences because they offer journalistic content that the big conglomerates cannot.
Friday, December 7, 2012
Monday, December 3, 2012
The scenes with Claude Bessey were the shining exception
When The Decline Of Western Civilization first came out I thought it was deliberately edited in order to slander the whole punk scene. Interview the stupidest kids you can find and claim they represented something other than the rapid de-evolution of what was once something promising. Now people watch it and think they're getting an insight into what it was all about.
Of course, this was L.A. I came out of the original Santa Cruz scene, which was a mixture of college radicals, geeky record collectors and all-around oddballs.
Of course, this was L.A. I came out of the original Santa Cruz scene, which was a mixture of college radicals, geeky record collectors and all-around oddballs.
Neurons On The Go
Remixed and compressed to give it a little more oomph. Opening track from the upcoming Experimental Bunnies album Aranka, predominantly recorded on Christmas, 2011. If there's a "War On Christmas", the Experimental Bunnies have already won.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Ear Candle Radio's Top 20: November 2012
Two songs by the Mountain Goats, two songs by the much-underrated and thoroughly fantastic Mighty Ballistics Hi-Power (how's that reissue coming along, boys?), one from Ear Candle's newest signing, the mysterious Dr. Spaceman (full downloadable album coming soon!), an appearance by our excellent parodist pals the Mod-est Lads, the best Beatles cover of this century so far (even if it was actually recorded in the 70s) by Noh Mercy, Neil Young's mighty new stomping masterpiece, and more deep catalog goodness, in an atmosphere where truck-driving anthems, swirly Goth psychedelia, and a Bonzos-related piece of brilliance (featuring a bass sax pretending to be a tuba) all live together in one happy sonic family. Tune in to our station for a taste of a better world!
1. Dave Dudley - Six Days On The Road - T.L. 1960-1964 Classic Country
2. Siouxsie and the Banshees - Swimming Horses - Hyaena
3. Roger Ruskin Spear - When Yuba Plays The Rumba On The Tuba Down In Cuba - Unusual
4. Vital Disorders - Tough Times - Vital Disorders EP
5. John Lee Hooker - John L's House Rent Boogie - The Best of John Lee Hooker
6. Workdogs - Gun Shot Blues - Masters of the Working Blues: Greatest Live on the Radio
7. Dr. Spaceman - Tap Into The New - Zwanzig Kilometer Stau
8. Jon Langford - Sentimental Marching Song - Skull Orchard Revisited
9. Wild Flag - Racehorse - Wild Flag
10. Nervous Norvous - Transfusion - Lux and Ivy's Favorites Volume One
11. Neil Young with Crazy Horse - Walk Like A Giant - Psychedelic Pill
12. The Mountain Goats - Resonant Bell World - Beautiful Rat Sunset
13. The Mod-Est Lads - She Could Be In The Beatles - Trouser Load of Love
14. Mighty Ballistics Hi-Power - Black Gold - Matchless
15. Suicide - Power Au Go-Go - American Supreme
16. Noh Mercy - Girl - Noh Mercy
17. The Mountain Goats - Short Song About The 10 Freeway - Bitter Melon Farm
18. The Misunderstood - I Can Take You To The Sun - Acid Drops, Spacedust & Flying Saucers
19. Mighty Ballistics Hi-Power - Privilege - Here Come The Blues
20. The Loud Family - Spot the Setup - Plants and Birds and Rocks and Things
1. Dave Dudley - Six Days On The Road - T.L. 1960-1964 Classic Country
2. Siouxsie and the Banshees - Swimming Horses - Hyaena
3. Roger Ruskin Spear - When Yuba Plays The Rumba On The Tuba Down In Cuba - Unusual
4. Vital Disorders - Tough Times - Vital Disorders EP
5. John Lee Hooker - John L's House Rent Boogie - The Best of John Lee Hooker
6. Workdogs - Gun Shot Blues - Masters of the Working Blues: Greatest Live on the Radio
7. Dr. Spaceman - Tap Into The New - Zwanzig Kilometer Stau
8. Jon Langford - Sentimental Marching Song - Skull Orchard Revisited
9. Wild Flag - Racehorse - Wild Flag
10. Nervous Norvous - Transfusion - Lux and Ivy's Favorites Volume One
11. Neil Young with Crazy Horse - Walk Like A Giant - Psychedelic Pill
12. The Mountain Goats - Resonant Bell World - Beautiful Rat Sunset
13. The Mod-Est Lads - She Could Be In The Beatles - Trouser Load of Love
14. Mighty Ballistics Hi-Power - Black Gold - Matchless
15. Suicide - Power Au Go-Go - American Supreme
16. Noh Mercy - Girl - Noh Mercy
17. The Mountain Goats - Short Song About The 10 Freeway - Bitter Melon Farm
18. The Misunderstood - I Can Take You To The Sun - Acid Drops, Spacedust & Flying Saucers
19. Mighty Ballistics Hi-Power - Privilege - Here Come The Blues
20. The Loud Family - Spot the Setup - Plants and Birds and Rocks and Things
Friday, November 30, 2012
Chris Knox sighting!
An old Tall Dwarfs song just came on the iPod and the girl asked me, "so what's happening with Chris Knox lately? Have you heard anything about his progress?" I hadn't looked in a while but a search turns up this surprise performance of an old Toy Love song backed by a young Kiwi band called the Rackets. Check the smile on the great man's face! Feel the love in that room!
"Not to be nasty, but is that considered music?"
There's a whole meme now of "old people react to dubstep" Youtube videos, but I like this one best. Grandpa's really trying hard to keep an open mind here.
Fun Fun Fun!
I can't post something by the Bad Brains without giving equal time to the Big Boys. (Read your punk history if you don't know why.) Also, this is a nice reminder that, however much we love to make fun of Texas politicians and ignoramuses, it's important to remember that the state of Texas has also given us some of the most soulful people around.
UPDATE: More good readin' on the subject (plus videos!) can be found here, courtesy of Lisa.
UPDATE: More good readin' on the subject (plus videos!) can be found here, courtesy of Lisa.
Character development vs. non-stop gags
This piece does a good job of explaining why I both love and hate 30 Rock. On the one hand, hugely flawed and shallow, on the other hand, when they are actually funny, few things are funnier. Thanks to my video production class, I discovered its main competition when it started out, and it all made a lot more sense. Does anyone else find Aaron Sorkin's Big Anvilicious Wit-Of-The-Staircase Speeches as insufferable as I do? Apparently, the audience did, and they went for the more cynical alternative. (One big and rather telling difference: Studio 60's show-within-a-show comes off as a better version of Saturday Night Live, while it's clear that 30 Rock's is meant to be a godawful piece of unfunny, uninspired hackwork.) Also, Tina Fey, even when she is trying so hard to play a loathsome, unpleasant character, is so disarmingly cute that it's no wonder the show took off.
Also, it must be mentioned that our newest Ear Candle artist, Dr. Spaceman, got his stage name from the recurring character in 30 Rock.
Also, it must be mentioned that our newest Ear Candle artist, Dr. Spaceman, got his stage name from the recurring character in 30 Rock.
I'm A Man Who Is As Warm As You By Day/Who Downs The Boiling Hot Coffee In One Go
The Large Wicked Hair-Challenged Bastard links to this fascinating analysis of "Gangnam Style".
I think sometimes we look at things like this through our smug Western eyes and put them in the "fun tacky foreign pop" box so we can appreciate it ironically, and don't consider that they're quite consciously cracking a big satirical joke for their own audience.
I think sometimes we look at things like this through our smug Western eyes and put them in the "fun tacky foreign pop" box so we can appreciate it ironically, and don't consider that they're quite consciously cracking a big satirical joke for their own audience.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
A piece of wisdom from our hearts
(These incomprehensible lyrics are actually really good. I know HR eventually turned out to be an insane asshole, but my God, the Bad Brains sure were something when they first showed up.)
I make decision with precision
Lost inside this manned collision
Just to see that what is to be
Perfectly my fantasy
I came to know with now dismay
That in this world we all must pay
Pay to write, pay to play
Pay to cum, pay to fight
And all in time,
With just our minds
We soon will find
What's left behind
Not long ago when things were slow
We all got by with what we know
The end is near. Hearts filled with fear
Don't want to listen to what they hear
And so it's now we choose to fight
To stick up for our bloody right
The right to sing, the right to dance
The right is ours... We'll take the chance
A peace together
A piece apart
A piece of wisdom
From our hearts
Friday, November 23, 2012
Monday, November 19, 2012
And I say "ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, ho ho ho ho ho ho ho..."
What do you get when you combine the media mastery of Clear Channel with the financial wizardry of Bain Capital? Sweet, sweet schadenfreude!
My day is now officially made.
Side note: Not that Brian Wilson. And not that one, either.
My day is now officially made.
Side note: Not that Brian Wilson. And not that one, either.
Sunday, November 18, 2012
Sour grapes are served
Ain't no analysis like a Rude Pundit analysis 'cause a Rude Pundit analysis gets right to the point...rudely!
Alternately, you can blame the ideological media barons:
Alternately, you can blame the ideological media barons:
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
High crimes and treason
If we can stop talking about David Petraeus and his penis for a minute, there is an actual military scandal that is not getting much play in the media.
Consider this: during two highly controversial wars begun by an administration with a record of being less than forthcoming about any of its activities, military records have been destroyed with no paper trail and no backup available. This means that investigators and historians will never be able to research many of the questionable actions taken during this time. If we want to be concerned about potential “conspiracies”, cover-ups, and military corruption, isn’t this a rather more pertinent news story than the fact that our Military Industrial Complex is riddled with groupies?
This story merits a lot more attention, and now is as good a time as any, when legislators like Darryl Issa are holding highly-publicized, politically-motivated investigations of the Obama administration at every opportunity. I don’t find it unreasonable to apply words like “high crimes and treason” to this issue. There are certainly enough unanswered questions here to justify bringing in Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and others for questioning, unless we feel that our public servants should not be held accountable for their actions. (Or does that only apply to Democrats?)
Consider this: during two highly controversial wars begun by an administration with a record of being less than forthcoming about any of its activities, military records have been destroyed with no paper trail and no backup available. This means that investigators and historians will never be able to research many of the questionable actions taken during this time. If we want to be concerned about potential “conspiracies”, cover-ups, and military corruption, isn’t this a rather more pertinent news story than the fact that our Military Industrial Complex is riddled with groupies?
This story merits a lot more attention, and now is as good a time as any, when legislators like Darryl Issa are holding highly-publicized, politically-motivated investigations of the Obama administration at every opportunity. I don’t find it unreasonable to apply words like “high crimes and treason” to this issue. There are certainly enough unanswered questions here to justify bringing in Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and others for questioning, unless we feel that our public servants should not be held accountable for their actions. (Or does that only apply to Democrats?)
Saturday, November 10, 2012
I'm glad I left, now I'm that much more sure
Very well put together session chronicle. Whoever did this forgot to mention the lead singer's name for some reason. Passive aggressiveness against one of the most hated men in pop music?
Thursday, November 8, 2012
The Psychedelic Shamans Totally Called It
Had we known this, we'd have known we really had no need at all to be nervous.
In other news, scary Republican lady with strings is not amused.
And NO, you venal, butthurt rubes, you can't get your money back.
Jon Stewart really said it all this time:
I had to wonder, how is Colbert going to top this?
In other news, scary Republican lady with strings is not amused.
And NO, you venal, butthurt rubes, you can't get your money back.
Jon Stewart really said it all this time:
| The Daily Show with Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Post Democalypse 2012 - America Takes a Shower | ||||
| ||||
| The Daily Show with Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Post Democalypse 2012 - America Takes a Shower - Fox News Meltdown | ||||
| ||||
| The Daily Show with Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Post Democalypse 2012 - America Takes a Shower - Karl Rove's Math | ||||
| ||||
I had to wonder, how is Colbert going to top this?
The Colbert Report
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Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Criswell predicts!
If and when Obama wins today, I predict the spin on the Republican side will be "See, this is what happens when you nominate a Massachusetts liberal like Romney" and a new "grassroots movement" will emerge, filled with "new" ideas that will have nothing to do with the Tea Party (who's that?) even though it will be filled with all of the exact same people, only even more rabid. The media will be captivated by this BRAND NEW, UNPRECEDENTED right wing populist movement and its bright new ideas and vibrant new personalities. Rick Santorum will become the moderate voice of the GOP and be voted Presidential nominee in 2016.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Ear Candle Radio's Top 20: October 2012
1. Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band - On Tomorrow - Strictly Personal
2. The Revolutionaries - Street Fighting Dub - Top Ranking Dub
3. John Cale - Hello, There - Vintage Violence
4. Johnny K Killen & The Dynamics - I Don't Need Help - Eccentric Soul: The Deep City Label
5. The Fall - Kurious Oranj - I Am Kurious Oranj
6. Devo - Wiggly World - Duty Now For The Future
7. The Weirdos - Jungle Rock - Destroy All Music
8. Tobi Vail/Pussy Riot Oly - Free Pussy Riot - Free Pussy Riot
9. Richard & Linda Thompson - For Shame Of Doing Wrong (6 June 1982 San Francisco) - Shoot Out The Lights
10. Marson Ramos - Today is Halloween - Today Is Halloween
11. Heartless Bastards - All This Time - All This Time
12. ESG - Dance - A South Bronx Story
13. Curtis Mayfield - Hard Times - There's No Place Like America Today
14. Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band - Sweet Sweet Bulbs - Trout Mask Replica
15. The Sweet Bones - The Wall Talks Back (J Neo Marvin dub mix) - BCST 125
16. Pearls Before Swine - These Things Too - These Things Too
17. Noh Mercy - Girl - Noh Mercy
18. Karen Mantler - Arnold's Dead - Farewell
19. John Trudell - Rich Man's War - AKA Grafitti Man
20. IanSchultz - Track 11 - Silly Noisy Spacey Stuff
We're adding new songs every week and constantly moving the playlist around to keep it fresh! Thanks for listening!
2. The Revolutionaries - Street Fighting Dub - Top Ranking Dub
3. John Cale - Hello, There - Vintage Violence
4. Johnny K Killen & The Dynamics - I Don't Need Help - Eccentric Soul: The Deep City Label
5. The Fall - Kurious Oranj - I Am Kurious Oranj
6. Devo - Wiggly World - Duty Now For The Future
7. The Weirdos - Jungle Rock - Destroy All Music
8. Tobi Vail/Pussy Riot Oly - Free Pussy Riot - Free Pussy Riot
9. Richard & Linda Thompson - For Shame Of Doing Wrong (6 June 1982 San Francisco) - Shoot Out The Lights
10. Marson Ramos - Today is Halloween - Today Is Halloween
11. Heartless Bastards - All This Time - All This Time
12. ESG - Dance - A South Bronx Story
13. Curtis Mayfield - Hard Times - There's No Place Like America Today
14. Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band - Sweet Sweet Bulbs - Trout Mask Replica
15. The Sweet Bones - The Wall Talks Back (J Neo Marvin dub mix) - BCST 125
16. Pearls Before Swine - These Things Too - These Things Too
17. Noh Mercy - Girl - Noh Mercy
18. Karen Mantler - Arnold's Dead - Farewell
19. John Trudell - Rich Man's War - AKA Grafitti Man
20. IanSchultz - Track 11 - Silly Noisy Spacey Stuff
We're adding new songs every week and constantly moving the playlist around to keep it fresh! Thanks for listening!
Friday, October 26, 2012
Complete History Of The Soviet Union, Arranged To The Melody Of Tetris
Our pals the Mod-Est Lads turned us on to this piece of pure awesome:
A Complete History Of The Soviet Union Through The Eyes Of A Humble Worker, Arranged To The Melody Of Tetris.
Music by "Pig With The Face Of A Boy"
Written and performed by DONALD NEWHOLM and DAN WOODS, with MALCOLM GAYNER & ROBIN HARRIS
Photographed by TIM JORDAN
Costumes by LUCY NEWHOLM
Production assistant NICOLA LINCÉ
Special thanks to JAMES LAMONT and REMY LAMONT
Additional sound effects: www.freesound.org/people/nemoDaedalus/ www.freesound.org/people/themfish
Produced by CHRIS LINCÉ and DAN WOODS for Xylophone Productions
Directed, animated, and edited by CHRIS LINCÉ
WINNER - BEST ANIMATION - Super Shorts International Film Festival 2010
WINNER - LOW BUDGET AWARD - Super Shorts International Film Festival 2010
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