Monthly Archive for March, 2008

Banksy Backs Ban On Plastic

Published
by
JR
on March 7, 2008
in Art and Street Art
. 1 Comment

Banksy Backs Ban On Plastic

Banksy strikes again in Islington, north London - the graffiti artist is thought to have struck again overnight, leaving this image on the wall of a pharmacy in north London.

The new painting depicts two children pledging allegiance to UK supermarket giant Tesco. A Tesco plastic bag flies in the place of a flag.

The owner of the pharmacy in Essex Road, Islington, is said to be thrilled by his new paint job.

“I just walked into the shop on Monday and, lo and behold, there it was,” he told the London Paper.

“I am absolutely delighted - I think it’s just fantastic. I’ve heard how much these works can go for.

“We would consider selling the wall, but not the shop. I think anyone who would want to erase it is crazy. It’s a piece of art.” (It’s sad that Banksy has become synonymous with $$$ - JR)

Banksy’s latest graffiti follows Gordon Brown’s warning last week that retailers may be forced to cut down on plastic bags if they do not do so voluntarily.

The Prime Minister has hailed the example of retailers such as Marks and Spencer, who has announced it will charge customers 5p for every carrier bag given out by its food stores.

(via)


HIM’s Digital Versatile Doom!

Published
by
JR
on March 6, 2008
in Music
. 2 Comments

Digital Versatile Doom

I’m off to see HIM at Festival Hall in Melbourne on March 27 but in the meantime, the band have revealed the track listing for their new CD/DVD, Digital Versatile Doom: Live at the Orpheum Theatre, due on April 1.

The live portion of the DVD was recorded/filmed at the band’s November 14-15, 2007 concerts at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles. According to the HIM newsletter, “you’ll go on stage and behind the scenes with Ville Valo and the band as they give one of their most heartfelt shows to date.

Digital Versatile Doom

Also featured on the DVD, watch the journey of HIM’s biggest fans as they go to Seattle to meet the band, see the heartagram photo gallery and watch as Ville recounts the journey that was ‘Venus Doom’.

Digital Versatile Doom also features a second disc, with the full live performance from The Orpheum Theater and a 16-page booklet of original art and images.

Track listing:

01. Passion’s Killing Floor
02. (Rip Out) the Wings of a Butterfly
03. Buried Alive By Love
04. Wicked Game
05. The Kiss of Dawn
06. Vampire Heart
07. Poison Girl
08. Dead Lovers’ Lane
09. Join Me in Death
10. It’s All Tears
11. Sleepwalking Past Hope
12. Killing Loneliness
13. Soul On Fire
14. Your Sweet Six Six Six
15. Bleed Well
16. The Funeral of Hearts

(via)


Jimmy Page Les Paul Black Beauty

Published
by
JR
on March 6, 2008
in Music
. 1 Comment

Jimmy Page Les Paul Black Beauty

Early in Jimmy Page’s career, one of his most relied upon guitars was the three-pickup 1960 Les Paul Custom ‘Black Beauty’ with a bigsby tailpiece. In 1970, the guitar was stolen and never recovered, but thanks to the Gibson Custom Shop, this guitar is back in the form of a new Gibson Custom Shop Jimmy Page Les Paul Custom, recently announced at NAMM.

No one has had a bigger impact on the style and sound of hard rock guitar than the deservedly legendary Jimmy Page. As the musical mastermind of Led Zeppelin, Page’s tone, playing, and phrasing made him one of the most influential musicians of the past 50 years.

In Zeppelin’s early days, Page relied heavily on a three-pickup 1960 Les Paul Custom ‘Black Beauty’ with a Bigsby tailpiece. Unfortunately, the guitar was stolen in 1970 at an airport and never recovered. Page has always felt that that particular guitar was “the one that got away.”

Gibson proudly returns Page’s cherished lost guitar in the form of the new Gibson Custom Shop Jimmy Page Les Paul Custom - a painstaking recreation of that iconic instrument, with the addition of some of the most innovative electronics to ever grace a Les Paul.

The result is this stunning ‘Black Beauty’ with a slim-profile neck, Page BurstBucker pickups, gold Bigsby vibrato and an innovative six-position toggle that lets you isolate the neck and bridge pickups, or add the middle in any combination. A stop tailpiece version is also available.

Limited to a worldwide edition of just 500 guitars, the Gibson Custom Shop Jimmy Page Les Paul Custom is Gibson’s heartfelt tribute to a true legend and to the guitar he loved and lost.

Go here for a sneak peek!

Continue reading ‘Jimmy Page Les Paul Black Beauty’


‘I Am Legend’ Alternate Ending

Published
by
JR
on March 5, 2008
in Cinema
. 2 Comments

'I Am Legend' Alternative Ending

I caught ‘I Am Legend’ on its initial release a couple of months ago. I enjoyed it. A lot. Especially the first half which seemed to capture the solitude and magnitude of a man, alone in the vast sprawl of an abandoned and damned New York City.

So now, there’s an alternate ending doing the rounds on YouTube. Although this ending features some positively raw emotion between Will Smith’s ‘Robert Neville’ and the frenzied ‘vampires’ - I still think the ending we saw at the theaters also worked well. It certainly reinforced why the movie was titled what it was and it wrapped things up nicely for yours truly.

Anyway, with the DVD about to hit store shelves later this month, here is the leaked alternative ending.

So fellow Dogmatic droogs, which ending do you prefer?

UPDATE: As expected, YouTube have removed the video but… you can view it all here.


Shepard Fairey’s Barack Obama

Published
by
JR
on March 5, 2008
in Art, Street Art and The Real World
. 1 Comment

Shepard Fairey's Barack Obama

Coming straight from the Shepard Fairey camp is Fairey’s support for Barack Obama in the United States Presidential race.

“…I believe with great conviction that Barack Obama should be the next President. I have been paying close attention to him since the Democratic convention in 2004. I feel that he is more a statesman than a politician. He was against the war when it was an unpopular position (and Hillary was for the war at that time), Obama is for energy and environmental conservation. He is for healthcare reform. Check him out for yourself www.barackobama.com. Proceeds from this print go to produce prints for a large statewide poster campaign. Thanks. Shepard…”

As an Australian, the US election should mean jack-shit to me, but as a citizen of the World, I have more than a passing interest in getting Bush (and anyone or any Party associated with him) out of office. With that in mind, I’ll gladly post Shepard’s poster on this site and lend my support (however trivial) to Barack Obama.

Of course, the posters sold out almost instantly but if you missed out on getting the HOPE and PROGRESS posters, you can still help out the obama campaign by printing out your own obama paster here.


Rosemary’s Baby To Be Reborn

Published
by
JR
on March 4, 2008
in Cinema and Occult
. 2 Comments

Rosemary's Baby

Save your energy on this one, because it’s something that we now are just going to have to accept: all classic horror films will inevitably be remade. In the words of many a chip fat-scented girlfriend to her punchy boyfriend at pub kicking-out time, leave it, it’s not blaady woorf it.

Platinum Dunes, serial remakers, have decided to give a 21st century brush up to Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby, reports shocktillyoudrop. Based on Ira Levine’s 1967 book, the original film told of a recently married woman (Mia Farrow) who becomes spooked by the odd behaviour of her husband and creepy neighbours and then finds herself pregnant with something that might have cloven hooves in place of chubby toes. It was, of course, quite, quite brilliant and doesn’t particularly need replacing.

However, Platinum Dunes is now seeking writers for the remake. The company is also currently working on updates of Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Geez, you’d think they’d leave well enough alone. I mean, who can top what Roman Polanski did with this movie? Impossible. It is an absolute classic and should not be touched. Ever.

William Friedkin had said of the movie: ”I think it’s the nightmare of many women that they’re gonna give birth to a child that is evil. Not only evil, but the progeny of the devil. The young husband, played by John Cassavetes, makes a pact with a group of demon worshippers to allow the devil to have sex with his wife for the purpose of bringing onto Earth the child of Satan. And what is perhaps the most terrifying sequence of all, the mother, played by Mia Farrow, sees this baby, which is clearly a demon, and like all mothers, she embraces it. Really, it’s about blind ambition, and how far this young couple will go to achieve success. It deals with the demon inside all of us.”


Banksy @ Swiss Embassy

Published
by
JR
on March 4, 2008
in Art and Street Art
. 0 Comments

Underground carpark in the Swiss Embassy a veritable treasure trove of Banksy artwork!


Writing was on the wall for ‘naughty bits’ poster artist

Published
by
JR
on March 4, 2008
in Art and Asides
. 1 Comment

Writing was on the wall for ‘naughty bits’ poster artist.
It was meant as a celebration of women, and yet not in a long time has one little poster created so much fear, loathing and political about-face.

More on Greg Taylor here.


Trent Reznor Drops Surprise Album Online

Published
by
JR
on March 4, 2008
in Asides, Music and Nine Inch Nails
. 0 Comments

Trent Reznor Drops Surprise Album Online.


Nine Inch Nails Gets Creative With Radiohead-Style Release

Published
by
JR
on March 4, 2008
in Asides, Music and Nine Inch Nails
. 0 Comments

Nine Inch Nails Gets Creative With Radiohead-Style Release.
Trent Reznor has been telling the whole world how happy he is to be free from his record label. Now the Nine Inch Nails mastermind has unveiled a post-label strategy that takes Radiohead’s In Rainbows concept further by leveraging BitTorrent and releasing songs under a Creative Commons license that permits purchasers to remix the tracks.


New Nine Inch Nails Album Hits The Web

Published
by
JR
on March 3, 2008
in Asides, Music and Nine Inch Nails
. 0 Comments

New Nine Inch Nails Album Hits The Web.
As expected, Nine Inch Nails is utilizing the Internet to disseminate its new instrumental album, “Ghosts I-IV,” which went live at 9 p.m. ET tonight (March 2) via the Trent Reznor-led group’s Web site.


New Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts I - IV

Published
by
JR
on March 3, 2008
in Music and Nine Inch Nails
. 6 Comments

Trent Reznor has a habit of teasing the hell out of his fans. Most of us have grown accustomed to waiting half a decade for new music but things recently have been a helluva lot more productive for the Nine Inch Nails camp. A couple of months ago, the official Nine Inch Nails site began updating by featuring Trent and co. hard at work at… something. No one knew what it was and most speculated that he had begun work on the sequel to Year Zero.

Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts I - IV

Over the course of the past two weeks, more teasing eminated from the site with Trent posting cryptic messages like “Two weeks”, “Soon” etc. A new Nine Inch Nails in two weeks? Yeah right Trent.

And the two weeks came and went. And here it is… a new Nine Inch Nails album! A NEW NINE INCH NAILS ALBUM!!!!

The official site went live at 9PM ET with the several versions of the new instrumental album entitle ‘Ghosts I - IV’

You can get the first 9 songs from the 36 track project for free or you can purchase the entire album digitally for a mere $5.

Straight from Trent… “…This music arrived unexpectedly as the result of an experiment. The rules were as follows: 10 weeks, no clear agenda, no overthinking, everything driven by impulse. Whatever happens during that time gets released as… something.

The team: Atticus Ross, Alan Moulder and myself with some help from Alessandro Cortini, Adrian Belew and Brian Viglione. Rob Sheridan collaborated with Artist in Residence (A+R) to create the accompanying visual and physical aesthetic.

We began improvising and let the music decide the direction. Eyes were closed, hands played instruments and it began. Within a matter of days it became clear we were on to something, and a lot of material began appearing. What we thought could be a five song EP became much more. I invited some friends over to join in and we all enjoyed the process of collaborating on this.

The end result is a wildly varied body of music that we’re able to present to the world in ways the confines of a major record label would never have allowed - from a 100% DRM-free, high-quality download, to the most luxurious physical package we’ve ever created.

More volumes of Ghosts are likely to appear in the future…”

Continue reading ‘New Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts I - IV’


Bikies In Plot To Kill Jagger

Published
by
JR
on March 2, 2008
in Asides, KillFuckDie and Music
. 0 Comments

Bikies In Plot To Kill Jagger.
The Rolling Stones singer was the target of an attempt to kill him that only failed because the boat the would-be killers were using was swamped in a storm.