World’s Largest Record Collection is Worth $50 Million; No One Wants it for $3 Million.
Monthly Archive for August, 2008
Fox Lawyers Watching Warner Bros., Watchmen.
Who watches the Watchmen? It won’t be you, if 20th Century Fox has its way (at least not until Fox gets a taste of Warner Bros.’s action).
Slipknot have been blamed for a savage murder and series of stabbings in South Africa yesterday.
A schoolboy, dressed akin to Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison, was high on drugs when he stabbed a fellow pupil to death with a sword in Krugersdorp, South Africa. He then went on to stab two of the schools gardeners at Nic Diederichs technical high school.
“He stabbed one of the schoolkids in the neck and he died. He then went further and stabbed a gardener in the back and another gardener in the face. They were taken to hospital in serious conditions,” said Jacob Raboroko of the Johannesburg police force.
A representative for Slipknot’s record label, Roadrunner Records, has told South Africa’s The Times web site that the band had no comment regarding reports that the schoolboy (18-year-old Morné Harmse) who stabbed a fellow student to death with a sword in Krugersdorp, South Africa Monday morning (August 18) was dressed like Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison.
Declining to provide her name, the woman at Roadrunner Records said: “We’ve had no confirmation that it was, in fact, a Slipknot mask. The band is not going to respond.”
When asked how they had found out about the stabbing, the representative would say only that people had been phoning the label all day.
Local South African metal bands defended the music genre. As Internet forums from across the world buzzed over the incident, commentators said metal music had “always drawn the short end of the stick” in being linked to Satanism and teenage violence.
Hugo Louw of metal band FEARSTRIKE told The Times: “If you are down, then the music [lyrics] will work with your mind. You need to be mentally strong to listen to that kind of music.”
Louw said it was not fair to blame incidents such as the one in Krugersdorp on the music.
“It is not fair to blame it on heavy metal … it tells fans to show people you are strong and to not be afraid.”
Slipknot lead singer Corey Taylor told Blender Magazine: “Obviously, I’m disturbed by the fact that people were hurt and someone died. As far as my responsibility for that goes, it stops there, because I know our message is actually very positive.” He continued,”You have something like this happen, it could have been Marilyn Manson, it could have been any number of people who make art that is startling visually, on the darker side. It could’ve been Pat Boone, for Christ’s sake. At the end of the day, there are always going to be mental disorders and people who cause violence for no other reason than the fact that they’re fucked up and lost. And all we can do is try to learn from it.”
10 Years of Cuddly, Friendly iMacs.
I love my 24″ iMac!
Former Limp Bizkit member Wes Borland has joined Marilyn Manson as the group’s new guitarist. The news was announced by Manson himself at a press conference earlier today ahead of his band’s appearance tomorrow (Friday, August 15) at the ETP Festival in Seoul, Korea.
Manson said, “We have a new guitar player that’s gonna play for the first time tomorrow; it’s the first time we’ll play on stage [together]. His name is Wes Borland and he used to be in a really terrible band that he left because he felt that it was a destructive force in art, and he has his own band, Black Light Burns, but now he is in Marilyn Manson. We don’t know how permanent that is, but starting tomorrow will be the first step. So this will be the most indestructible Marilyn Manson.”
Marilyn Manson is in the middle of recording a new album, which is expected to be released sometime next year. (Let’s hope its a return to form and not the diabolical crap that was the last unlistenable ‘Eat Me, Drink Me’ garbage.
Manson’s longtime bassist, Twiggy Ramirez, toured with Manson earlier this year for the first time since 2002. The two co-wrote ‘Antichrist Superstar’, ‘Mechanical Animals’ and ‘Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death)’ together and Manson told The Salt Lake Tribune this past spring that he couldn’t be happier aboutRamirez returning.
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Herzog, Lynch team up.
Werner Herzog and David Lynch are teaming for My Son, My Son, a horror-tinged murder drama based on a true story.
(Please let it not be an abomination like Inland Empire - JR)
Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails has been in talks in with HBO about making a two-season maxi-series out of “Year Zero,” the dark future tale that Reznor has chronicled in his music as well as in a celebrated Alternate Reality Game (ARG) with the same title that was created by 42 Entertainment.
“It’s the most exciting thing on the horizon, it’s the thing that when I wake up in the morning it makes me say, ‘God it would be cool if that happened,” Reznor told me this week while sitting backstage before a Nails concert in Toronto. “This is my grand ambition. Will it happen? I don’t know. It was fun sitting and telling [the HBO] guys and watching them shake their head and having writers on board and producers that are in to it. It’s been a fun thing.”
“Year Zero” began (as so many things do in the music of NIN) from a place of negative emotion and sonic experimentation. Reznor was increasingly outraged by the geopolitical situation during the Bush years and he wanted to channel that fury into music, but he was loath to drift into the limiting lexicon of protest lyrics.
“How could I express what I was feeling in a way that didn’t sound like bitching about George Bush? I mean, you know, I love Neil Young but I didn’t want to listen to that record, really,” he said, referring to the singer-songwriter’s “Living with War.” “My reaction to that kind of record is, ‘We know this. It’s obvious.’”
“So it started with me trying to write it as a piece of fiction. I was thinking, ‘It could be the worst idea ever in the world but, if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t have to come out.’ I started by writing a kind of world bible about what life would be like around 15 or 20 years from now if things continue on the same path. I spent a few weeks filling it in with the events that could lead to this kind of time and place. Then as an experiment I started writing songs about people in this place and from different points of view.”
The problem was the music was compelling and powerful, but it was more about sensation than story.
“I had a record that would make sense to me but no one else would ever know what it was because there was no narrative. It’s modular, its a collection of snapshots. These were glimpses of a place. Maybe with liner notes I could communicate some of it, but how do you get liner notes in 2007?”
He considered a graphic novel. “That was the route we were going to go with initially. We talked to a different companies about releasing it. But it didn’t feel quite right. We thought about a film, but that has a different timetable and too many people need to say yes. That wouldn’t line up right. then I started thinking about how I could make it really interactive, something you experience rather than something you read.”
Reznor remembered reading about 42 Entertainment and their deeply layered ARG for the Steven Spielberg film “A.I.” He met with them and the result was a truly amazing through-the-looking-glass creation on-line, shaped by the 42 team working closely with the rock star and his art director, Rob Sheridan. “It’s ahrd to explain it,” Reznor said, and he’s right. But the best way to get your head around it is through the nifty (and entertaining) case-study presentation that you can find here.
Reznor was delighted with the result. “It was probably the most fun thing I’ve done.” Now he wants to finish the story he started and do it across a range of media.
“I just pitched it to HBO two weeks ago in L.A. It went great. Ideally, we’re trying to get them to do a two-year limited series. I prefer that over a film. We would have a second ARG tying into the second album and ties into the series and they all happen together with a budget needed to pull that all off. There would be a tour down the road. The record completes the story, the ending that no one knows. I know what happens. I knew when I started it. And it’s not what people think.”
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She may be retired, but Jenna Jameson is still taking it off - for animals. The former porn star shows quite a bit of skin in a new PETA public service announcement touting the merits of animal birth control.
“Sometimes too much sex and be a bad thing,” the ad says, next to Jameson’s come-hither look.
“Until dogs and cats can go on the pill or wear condoms, we need to help them practice safe sex—by spaying and neutering,” the 34-year-old said in a statement through PETA.
“Millions of homeless animals are turned in to shelters every year because there simply aren’t enough good homes for them all. The answer is as easy as ABC: Animal Birth Control, which means get your Fido or Fluffy fixed!”
Jameson joins the ranks of celebrities such as Eva Mendes, Pamela Anderson and Alicia Silverstone, who have also stripped down for the animal rights organization.
The ad is an interesting move for Jameson, who is rumored to be expecting her first child with boyfriend Tito Ortiz.
Continue reading ‘Jenna Jameson Gets PETA Naked’
Check out John K’s awesome new rubber Presidential candidates! You can pre-order these gems directly from the source. And as John K says… “Tell ‘em which ones you would like…”
More info here.
Oh My God! They’ve Killed Kenny Chef!
Isaac Hayes, the pioneering US singer, songwriter and musician whose relentless Theme From Shaft won Academy and Grammy awards, has died today at 65.
Britney Spears to play lesbian killer in Quentin Tarantino film.
The singer was apparently chosen by the Pulp Fiction director to play dancer Varla in a remake of the 1965 cult film Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
It’s always refreshing when a band like System Of A Down come along. It doesn’t happen all too often, but every now and then - a band springs forth which sounds like no other bringing with it a style and identity all there own. System Of A Down were such a band. Marrying their middle-eastern influence with the Metal genre and politicizing a musical genre who’s lyrics usually border on the sublime and ridiculous. The System were smart, uniquely melodic, brutally heavy and a superbly crafted band that dominated the scene over the course of the past ten years.
Having seen the band live a few years ago, I still rank that show as one to take to the grave.
So after 10 years of prolific activity and releasing some classic albums along the way, the band is on an ‘indefinite’ hiatus. (sigh!) Practically splitting into two camps, lead singer Serj Tankian released a so-so solo album last year entitled ‘Elect The Dead’ which also featured System drummer John Dolmayan on several tracks.
Dolmayan now returns as one half of Scars On Broadway with System lead guitarist Daron Malakian. Malakian drives the self-titled album with all the quirkiness and melodic sensitivities that he brought to the System table. Always a prolific song-writer, as can be seen by the Hypnotize and Mezmerize albums that System released a few years ago, Malakian is quoted as saying, “I could release ten solo records tomorrow…”
So here we are. Not quite ten solo records down the track, but the debut Scars On Broadway has hit the streets and as expected, features a slab of catchy as fuck ditties that are as infectious and supreme as some of System’s finest moments. The album zips past at breakneck speed and seems over before it even began, but along the journey there are some amazing tracks on offer.
Granted, I miss the vocal stylings of Tankian and the smooth melodies that he and Malakian would interject throughout the System Of A Down repertoire. But seeing as the band is on this extended break, this really is the next best thing until the planets align once again and the guys can’t get their shit back together. I mean, as good as this album is… it doesn’t hold a candle to the brilliance of System. I hope we’re all in agreeance on that.
Vox Populi
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