Outspoken Jersey Shore starlet Snooki has ripped into companies who have pulled their ads from the wildly popular MTV show amid protest that the program fosters negative Italian-American stereotypes.
“I just have one thing to say to Domino’s, Dell, UNICO and all the other haters out there,” Snooki — whose real name is Nicole Polizzi — [...]
Irish blues legend Van Morrison has denied a report claiming he fathered a child with his manager, saying a widely reported birth announcement that appeared on his website three days ago was the result of a hacking attack and “completely and utterly without foundation.”
The publicity-shy crooner, now 64, has ordered his management to conduct an [...]
No more sexting for Tiger……AT&T, one of Tiger Woods’ biggest sponsors, has became the latest company to cut ties with the world’s No. 1 ranked golfer in the aftermath a sordid sex scandal that tarnished the athlete’s once squeaky-clean image.
“We are ending our sponsorship agreement with Tiger Woods and wish him well in the future,” [...]
The giant banks are treating the American Citizen like we work for them, are holding the economy hostage, and are taking our deposits and using them to speculate in casino style gambling.They’ve bought and paid for Congress and the White House. See thi…
Widespread Panic :: 12.30.09 :: Philips Arena :: Atlanta, GA
Set I: Solid Rock > Stop-Go > Radio Child, Aunt Avis*, Climb To Safety*, C. Brown*, Rebirtha > Angels on High**, Weight Of The World**
Set II: Ain’t Life Grand*, Time Zones*, This Part Of Town*, Blackout Blues***, Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys**** > Fishwater***** > Drums****** > Fishwater******, On Your Way Down******* > You Should Be Glad*******, Excitable Boy********, (Don’t Go Back To) Rockville********, Imitation Leather Shoes
E: Blue Indian*******, Chest Fever*******
* with John Keane on pedal steel
** with The MegaBlasters on horns
*** with John Keane on pedal steel, Randall Bramblett on saxophone
**** with Randall Bramblett on saxophone
***** with Randall Bramblett on saxophone, Yonrico Scott on percussion
****** with Yonrico Scott on percussion
******* with John Keane on pedal steel, The MegaBlasters on horns
******** with Mike Mills on vocals, Randall Bramblett on saxophone
[Only '(Don't Go Back To) Rockville', Only 'Excitable Boy'; Soundcheck: 'Expiration Day', 'Goin' Out West', 'Cream Puff War']
Setlist courtesy of everydaycompanion.com
Order the show for Download on LiveWideSpreadPanic.com
Panic perform again tonight (12/31) in Atlanta, GA. Complete Widespread Panic tour dates available here.
By: Dennis Cook
Electronic music can often have a disinfected, un-human tang to it, but some gifted hands are able to massage lifeblood into machines, merging technology and flesh & bone personality. Surrounded By Ninjas carry one back to the undulating roots of today’s electronica, finding the pulse inside the wires in the same artful way as the switched-on best of Jean-Michel Jarre, Tangerine Dream, and more contemporary blip manipulators like Morcheeba and Morgan Geist. Disassociation Association (Artdamaged Records) finds the Ninjas – Asher Fulero (Moog, Nord Piano, Ableton Live and more) and Joel Barber (turntables, samples) – stealthily refining their sound, where each piece rolls with a seductive forward motion and skin warming heat. Put more simply, stripping away the references, Disassociation Association is deeply pleasurable music, a bubble bath for your ears that makes the rest of you splash about.
From go this gets your head bobbing like a slightly stoned parakeet. Groove comes in many forms and SBN revels in exploring the vast corridors of rhythm, seasoning each stretch with artful scratching and smartly selected samples. One big aspect they have over many of their peers is a strong musical core. These aren’t just randomly selected boops ‘n’ blinks, these are real musicians who get the value of quality melodies, tone, and phrasing. Mostly instrumental, aside from a bookending pair of shoulda-been-trip-hop hits sung by Minda Stiles, the album flows so smoothly one might miss all the care put into each segment, including subtle, effective guest spots from Matt Butler (djembe), Scott Law (guitar) and Julee Avalone (flute). As Lisa once asked Wendy, “Is the water warm enough?” The answer with Disassociation Association is most assuredly, and one should find much to love inside these computer blue waters.
JamBase | Worldwide
Go See Live Music!
By: Dennis Cook
The stripped back, exposed opening minute of The Coachman (TiredWired Productions) rapidly crawls under your skin with a sharply drawn emotional tenor and singer with the sort of voice that reminds one why Auto-Tune will never replace a skipping, beautiful, inviting set of pipes like Kate Gaffney possesses and puts to work on one of the most readily winning, easy to enjoy singer-songwriter slanted albums in a blue moon.
Part of what makes The Coachman work so well is the way Gaffney taps into the same reservoirs as the best Bonnie Raitt, Aimee Mann and other touchstones but never sounds precisely like anyone else. She’s got the timbre down to resonate on their frequency but she’s gifted enough to skirt emulation. And she’s a got a soulful lilt that gives her music lovely hips, which she sways compellingly with primo collaborators like Jackie Greene, Greg Leisz, Andrew Lipke and Steve Kimock. There’s the touch of pros here and a sound that recalls the heyday of ’70s FM radio with a thoughtful assembly of ingredients and fine instinct for catchy turns of phrase and melodies, including a subtle one-drop, reggae vibe burbling under the surface of tunes like “Fallen For The Road.” Toss in choice covers of Greene’s “The Ballad of Sleepy John” and Woody Guthrie’s “Philadelphia Lawyer” and you can add good taste to Gaffney’s virtues.
Gaffney has been making waves in the San Francisco live scene, befriending some of the best players around, and it’s not hard to understand why they want to dig their fingers into this material. The 18-minutes-but-you’d-never-know-it flow of the title cut alone suggests there’s cool places for these songs to wander on stages. There’s a lot to work with here and a terrifically talented musician steering things. Maybe it’s high time we all got out to one of Gaffney’s “Kitchen Sink Sessions” at the Connecticut Yankee in SF. In the meantime, The Coachman will satisfy the urge for good music, pure and simple.
JamBase | Giving It A Whirl
Go See Live Music!
It’s hard to believe that another year has come and gone, but here we sit at the start of 2010 and a new decade. Let’s look back at some of the most interesting and important news items concerning the iPhone that we reported this year.
We learned last January that Skype was working on its own [...]
James Hansen – the world’s leading climate scientist fighting against global warming – told Amy Goodman this morning that cap and trade not only won’t reduce emissions, it may actually increase them: The problem is that the emissions just go someplace…
Once in a blue moon, as the saying goes, there are two full moons in a single calendar month, which NASA says happens every 2.5 years. A blue moon on New Year’s Eve is much rarer, last happening in 1990. Even rarer, though, is the partial lunar eclipse that will accompany the blue moon.
– Not only is the decade going to end on a blue moon the second appearance of
a full moon in a calendar month but also a partial eclipse of the moon, at
least for sky watchers in Europe, Africa and Asia. A partial lunar eclipse
occurs when the moon is partially darkened by the Earth’s shadow.
M…
COUNTRY’S political forces want the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) under civilian control, said President Asif Ali Zardari, adding “The matter of handing over control, however, has been postponed for the time being.”
In an interview with a private TV channel on Thursday, Zardari said the military establishmentÂ’s opinion was always heard and due attention was given to it as well. He said there was coordination between military and civilian leaderships on operations.
Responding to a query, the President said “The establishment is the name of a particular mindset, which acts in different ways. Sometimes, it surfaces in the shape of Farooq Leghari and Roedad Khan at other times.”
He said he emphasised on non-state actors in his speech and they responded by launching suicide attack on an Ashura procession in Karachi in which innocent people lost their lives.
Zardari said Baitullah Mehsud planned the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. “I hold him responsible for Bibi’s murder,” he added.
Zardari said political actors were working against the government. “I don’t think the Opposition is friendly with me,” he said. He said he had ‘political weapons’, which would be used at a proper time if needed.
To another query regarding security concerns, he said “I am being protected as the Federation head.” Replying to a question, Zardari said handing over LB system control is a gift to provinces. “I hope new LB elections would be held in next 90 days,” he added.
Zardari maintained that Supreme CourtÂ’s verdict on NRO will be implemented after the detailed judgment of the apex court is issued.
To yet another question, he said Bilawal could take part if mid-term election are held.
Thankfully, it has stopped raining here which meant I could get some fresh air today and curtail web viewing activity of varying quality (see previous post). I still found time to watch IHS Global Insights’ Nariman Behravesh release his firm’s ’Top-10 Economic Predictions for 2010′. It has a rather downbeat feel. It looks like emerging markets will continue to do better, economically than the West. But at least interest rates stay low, and he also believes commodity prices will be soft. Overall, plenty of constraints to economic growth globally, with some risks still there on the downside. The challenging business environment for the auto industry continues.
Got me thinking though about a management briefing I am working on concerning the automotive industry outlook for next year. I’d be very interested to invite your thoughts – general or specific – on the auto industry in 2010. What do you think the 2010 US light vehicle market will do? Winners and losers? Growth markets? China? South Africa? Vietnam? Russia? AvtoVAZ? Hot new products? Safety systems? DSG/DCT? Biofuels? If you want to bowl in a view or throw in a thought that can be shared, perhaps this blog can work as a place to get a thread going (hit ’comment on this blog’, bottom right of the box)…
Oh, and, whatever it eventually brings, Happy New Year!
Thankfully, it has stopped raining here which meant I could get some fresh air today and curtail web viewing activity of varying quality (see previous post). I still found time to watch IHS Global Insights’ Nariman Behravesh release his firm’s ’Top-10 Economic Predictions for 2010′. It has a rather downbeat feel. It looks like emerging markets will continue to do better, economically than the West. But at least interest rates stay low, and he also believes commodity prices will be soft. Overall, plenty of constraints to economic growth globally, with some risks still there on the downside.
Got me thinking though about a management briefing I am working on concerning the automotive industry outlook for next year. I’d be very interested to invite your thoughts – general or specific – on the auto industry in 2010. What do you think the 2010 US light vehicle market will do? Winners and losers? China? Hot new products? If you want to bowl in a view or throw in a thought that can be shared, perhaps this blog can work as a place to get a thread going (hit ’comment on this blog’, bottom right of the box)…
Oh, and, whatever it eventually brings, Happy New Year!
On December 21st, Glenn Greenwald quoted from The Jewish Daily Forward to make an important point:While reports have focused on alleged tension between the Obama administration and Israel over the latter’s uncooperative conduct, this is what is actuall…
The Verizon Wireless versions of the Palm Pre and Pixi may boast a little extra something, Boy Genius is reporting. Likely to debut soon, the devices are expected to be called the Palm Pre Plus and the Pixi Plus.
–
The Palm smartphones headed to Verizon Wireless in 2010 wont
the same old Pre and Pixi on the Sprint Nextel network. According to reporting
from the Boy Genius Report, Verizon
will call the former the Palm Pre Plus, and the latter the Palm Pixi Plus.
The tech site says it has …
Information technology continues to be one of the leading industries for new hires in the coming year, show reports from CareerBuilder and ExecuNet. Yet, the winners in the first part of 2010 continue to be those who already have jobs.
– More than a third of information technology
employers will be hiring full time employees in 2010, according to
CareerBuilder. The job board’s recent report surveyed 2,720 hiring
managers and human resource
professionals in November 2009. Full-time employee headcount increases
are
expected for …
Honestly, that’s just not even fair.
(Busted Coverage)
Yes, there’s really a naked clown calendar. The dead mall calendar is kind of cool though.
(Asylum)
Windows 7 is a vast improvement over Windows Vista. Some might even say Windows 7 is what Vista should have been from the beginning. It has an improved task bar. It features a host of new security features that have helped reduce exploits. And Windows XP Mode has helped address some of the compatibility issues that arose when Vista first hit store shelves.
But that doesn’t mean that it’s not without some issues. When Microsoft released Windows 7, it promised bigger and better things. It certainly delivered in many areas. But it fell flat in others. Today, Windows 7 lacks some elements that would otherwise make it an almost perfect operating system. This eWEEK slide show looks at 10 issues that Microsoft needs to address in Windows 7. Some are major problems, others are small. But if the company is diligent in addressing them, Windows 7 could be a far better operating system than it already is.
– …
The celebration of the New Year traditionally signifies a chance to start over and make resolutions to change for the better. For participants in 21st century technology, the New Year also symbolizes the start of updated gadgets and gizmos that promise to make our lives more entertaining and easy to live. With those two concepts in mind, here are 10 iPhone applications that offer users a chance to pick up a new hobby, live healthier or simply organize their lives a little bit better. Happy New Year!
– …
