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September 30, 2004
Michael Gira's throatI've seen Michael Gira live 5 times before, on 3 different Swans tours incl. the last 2, once with his utterly disgusting body horror stories and once with the shimmering, brilliant Angels Of Light, promoting their 1st album.
 This time around he was touring alone with an acoustic guitar, thru Scandinavia and Russia. I saw him in Oslo, Sept. 29th. Unfortunately he had caught a bad cold, and had to chug whiskey, tea, water and morphine cough syrup between every song. He did a lot of his weirdest, gnarliest solo/Angels songs (incl. "Nations", "Michael's White Hands" and "The Provider"), a couple of older classics ("Goddamn The Sun" and "Failure") and had to cut the set quite short after appr. an hour, because his voice was just blown out. Still, he managed to do the deep tones that he does so well on "Failure". Hopefully he'll be back next year promoting the upcoming 4th Angels Of Light album, "Other People".
This was a short, 8-date tour, and he has 3 gigs left. Good luck, Michael, but last night it sounded like you should maybe consider cancelling the rest and go back home. Go to his site and get some of his CDs, some of which are mail-order only, hand-stamped, numbered, signed, sealed and delivered by Gira from his office in Brooklyn.
Official Swans site // The Living Jarboe
14:53
September 26, 2004
Psychic TV Greatest Hits LivePsychic TV played in Oslo in 1984, at the height of their Psychic Youth cult mystique. No one attending that show would have thought that Genesis P-Orridge would return 20 years later with a greatest hits revival show. This was the fifth show in a 30-date tour of Europe and the US. No one knew what to expect of PTV3.
 On Sept. 22nd, they opened with the old & gloomy single "Unclean", and moved along to other minor 80s hits like the singles "Roman P" and "Godstar", also including the very catchy "Baby's Gone Away" from the 1984 "Pagan Day" album, and "Just Like Arcadia" from the equally sketchy "Allegory & Self" ('88). Other songs were "She Touched Me", "Riot In Thee Eye" (w/improvisational TG-ish middle part), "I Like You" (sounds like the Stones' "We Love You" performed by Velvet Underground), "How Do You Deal?" and "LA Angel". The encore was "Suspicious". They didn't do "Discipline" after that like on other shows, maybe the audience were a little too unenthusiastic towards the end, wanting to catch the last tube home or whatever -- I certainly needed that transportation.
The line up: David Max (guitars, voices) - Alice Genese (bass guitar, voices) - Genesis (noise bass, electric violin, voices) - Lady Jaye (samplers, tambourine) - Eddie O'Dowd (drums, percussive sampler) - Markus Fabulous Persson (Keyboards).
The band was youthful and energetic, refueling the old songs with appropriate garage rock gusto, combined with traces of 60's psychedelia. The concert sagged a bit in the middle, when they did tracks like "Depravity" and "Eden -- In The Body", but overall it was a surprisingly good show.
Gen looked like a middle-aged, bored LA housewife with his man-tits and silicone lips, dressed in a revealing top and red plastic miniskirt, but after a song or two people ceased caring about his bizarre appearance. Only one heckler demanded that he "Show us yer tits!". Most of us thought he should bloody well stay dressed. But who knows? He's looking back, maybe he'll do a revival Coum tour next, stark naked, cutting himself with rusty nails and eating his own vomit?
Read review of Haarlem 19/9 show at fopi.
http://throbbing-gristle.com
15:46
September 24, 2004
Russ Meyer dies at 82 The legendary independent filmmaker Russ Meyer just died. Known for his violent epics filled with big-breasted women, he had a fiery and very recognizable editing style, and was known for never moving the camera.
Some of his films were like flamboyant comedies, like "Beneath The Valley of the Ultravixens", "Supervixens" and "Up!", some were stark b&w dramas, like "Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!", "Lorna" and "Mudhoney".
RM films // CNN // BBC // VG // E!Online
Meyer never finished his 9 hour epic film autobiography "The Breast of Russ Meyer", but you can get his huge 3-volume, illustrated autobiography "A Clean Breast" here, at $150. Nine of his films are available on dvd.
12:32
September 21, 2004
New Word Disorder A new issue of the utterly excellent webzine New World Disorder (#3) is now out for everyone to browse. This time one of my articles is included -- an interview with David Woodard that was originally published last year in Headpress #25 - The Flicker Machine issue.
Woodard's site: www.davidwoodard.com. Woodard at Juniper Hills, soon to be a sister town to Elisabeth Nietzsche's Nueva Germania, Paraguay.
When browsing the New World Disorder site, make sure you also read the interview with "Adam Gorightly", who has written great books on Charles Manson and the elusive, late Discordian Kerry Thornley.
19:28
September 11, 2004
All Conspiracy. No theory.Kenn Thomas' excellent parapolitics/conpiracy rag Steamshovel Press only comes out once a year nowadays. I've been reading it since the early 90s but my sub seem to have lapsed, as they haven't sent me #21 yet.
Features this time:
* Parapolitics! By Kenn Thomas
* He Stole the 2000 Election by Rob Sterling
* Jesus Christ, Mason of God by Acharya S
* The Gilded Age of Biodefense by Roy Lisker
* Caries, Cabals and Correspondence by the Readers
* Passion of the Christ: Jesuit Theater of
Cruelty by Uri Dowbenko
* Saucer Section: Project Beta: An Adventure
in the Disinformation Age by Greg Bishop
* Masonic Iconography by Max Well
* Book Reviews
Also, while on the site read the review of the book "The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran Contra Insider"
by by Lt. Cmdr. Al Martin, US Navy (Ret).
An excerpt: "According to "The Conspirators," the crimes and cover-ups of Iran-Contra have never ended. In fact the Bush Cabal has captured the White House and the US Government for the second time in recent history.
The crimes of the Bush Cabal include government-sanctioned narcotics trafficking, wholesale fraud, and illicit weapons sales to embargoed nations like Iraq and China. This white-collar criminal enterprise is effectively running the nation, and these high-level perps have never been indicted. In fact, they have been brought back to Washington as the new Bush Regime."
22:21
September 10, 2004
Muzak roundupIn the coming weeks and months, my household has tickets for 3 concerts:
Oslo, Sept. 22nd: PTV3. Genesis P-Orridge now has silicone lips & tits. When asked if he was a "chick with dick" he replied, "No, I'm a bloke with tits!". His new Psychic TV tour line-up can be seen here. Read a revealing June 2000 interview with former band member Fred at FOPI, under "interviews". I think the gig will be a slightly re-arranged greatest hits set from the house/techno late 80s/early 90s period.
Oslo, Sept. 29th: Michael Gira. Gira is doing a short solo acoustic tour of Russia and Scandinavia. Get his ltd. ed. solo cd, "I am Singing to You From My Room", signed and numbered with handprinted covers. Chances are he'll do both Swans and Angels Of Light songs on this tour.
Oslo, Nov. 16th: Rammstein. Their new album "Reise, Reise" is out Sept. 20th. Two singles are being released so far, "Mein Teil" & "Amerika". This band is an entertaining live experience. Enourmous amounts of pyrotechnics, the whole band and half the stage is burning. I recommend their dvd of promo videos, "Lichtspielhaus", which also has about 12 live songs on it.
Laibach is putting out a double compilation CD called "Anthems" in late September. CD1 is some of their well-known "hits", CD2 has a collection of old and new re-mixes. I could never be bothered with buying any of their singles, but some of their earlier remixes have been spectacular. New single: "Das Spiel ist Aus".
Not currently touring, Ween is working on a new album, developing their web-site (incl. an excellent 24-hour web radio of live tapes and rarities). Also a new live dvd + cd, "Live In Chicago".
15:49
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