The Birth of Rock & Roll

The Jazz man finishes his set, the keys smoke after his melody making. The crowd gives a standing ovation and the player stalks off stage. The smoke filled green room welcomes him back. In the green room the other players greet him. The blues man puts down his cigar and shuffles to the jazzman and the door. He congratulates the jazzman on his show and moves off to start his own set. 

The soul man eyes the jazzman suspiciously. Friends and rivals since they were kids, there’s now a distance between them. One wronged the other years ago, so long ago neither remembers what happened, but their pride is too great to allow either to relent and apologise. They exchange stiff and formal compliments about each others performances and then move off to join groups on either side of the room. Each regretful for a friendship lost.

The smoke that fills the room acts as a barrier between the two groups. The bluesman comes back after blowing the roof off the venue. He enters the room and the smoke dissipates. The presence of the blues man seem to relax the tension in the room. The 3 groups of musicians merge into one in the presence of the bluesman. A new sound is being formed.

The party is getting started, the banter is flowing and they are settling down for what looks like an all night jam session, then the door opens and smoke pours into the room. The silhouettes in the doorway seem alien to the room full of sharp suits and slow melodies.

The silhouettes enter the room and tall hell breaks loose, hammering the 3 musical styles together. The results will shake the world for decades. The backstage door opens, smoke pours out. A small crowd of roadies and technicians has gathered around the smoking door. The silhouette in the doorway is tall, with hair that resembles a lions mane. The silhouette moves with an arrogance and swagger never seen before towards the stage door. The lights go down, the crowd grows silent,

Then the music starts like a clap of thunder, the stage lights come up like lightning and the crowd is awestruck. Never before have they heard anything like this. The building shakes and the crowd sways in time with the music. As the silhouette walks off stage, an awe struck technician asks

“Who are you?”

The silhouette responds

“You may thing I’m strange, but I ain’t never gonna change. I’m about to become millions of peoples religion and law. But no one will be able to kill me. I’m Rock & Roll and I’m here to stay”

Published in: on July 29, 2008 at 10:06 pm Leave a Comment
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The Jazzman

The Jazz man finishes his set, the keys smoke after his melody making. The crowd gives a standing ovation and the player stalks off stage. The smoke filled green room welcomes him back. In the green room the other players greet him. The blues man puts down his cigar and shuffles to the jazzman and the door. He congradulates the jazzman on his show and moves off to start his own set. 

The soul man eyes the jazzman suspiciously. Friends and rivals since they were there’s now a distance between the. One wronged the other years ago, so long ago neither remembers what happened, but their pride is too great to allow either to apologise. They exchange stiff and formal compliments about each others performances and then move off to join groups on either side of the room. Each regretful for a friendship lost.

The smoke that fills the room acts as a barrier. The bluesman comes back after having a set that literally brought the house down. He enters the room and the smoke dissipates. The presence of the blues man seem to relax the tension in the room. The 3 groups of musicians merge into one in the presence of the bluesman.

The party is getting started, the banter is flowing and they are settling down for what looks like an all night jam session, then the door opens and smoke pours into the room. The silhouettes in the doorway seem alien to the room full of sharp suits and slow melodies.

The silhouettes enter the room and they start a ruckus, hammering the 3 musical styles together. When the door opens again the world will never be the same again.

Out of the door comes a musical form never heard before,

Out of the room comes the musical juggernaut that is Rock Music

Published in: on at 10:06 pm Leave a Comment
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Titleless

Pay no attention to the man in the corner. He’s old, a has been just waiting for death to take him. Earlier in his life though he was a great warrior, who wielded a mighty hammer. Some say that the only person who could match him in strength and skill with a hammer is Thor himself. The end of his fighting days came suddenly, one day he just simply could not lift his hammer. His pride was broken that day now he is a shadow of his former self. 

Ignore the man at the bar he’s a drunken holyman. He believes he’s on some holy quest from god to save the world. Says he must kill the one who came before him. He doesn’t know where that person is or what they look like but he must find and kill them. He will not be able to rest in peace till that person is in pieces. 

The man behind the bar is a storyteller. His favourite one to tell is the one of the dueling dragons. The two ancient serpents that were each others opposites yet completed each other. They gave the world balance in the early years before law and order existed. The story of how one killed the other in a moment of rage. The slain one simply accepted it as fate. The other went mad and was killed to preserve the world.

The man behind the piano is blind he lost his sight when he was a boy for getting mud on some lords boots. He sits there in and plays the piano. He is trapped behind the piano unable to move trying to compose his masterpiece, a piece of music that will elate and bring joy to people. Some say he can see the music moving up from the back of the piano, that he’s trying to assemble this piece by sight looking for the solution in the melody. 

The man at table dressed in black emits a aura of danger, that death follows him where he goes. He is a death dealer all he lives for in life is the continuation of order and balance in the world. He is not a naive idealist that believes that good will prevail. He recongises the necessity for evil and wrong doing in the world. He is unique in order to gain his attention you must either be completely evil or completely good.

The bar shutters swing open and a woman appears in the doorway, she looks troubled and travel weary. In a bar where everyone is so absorbed in their own thoughts no one notices when she falls down from exhaustion. Time passes and the barman notices and lifts her to a couch at the back of the bar. The woman never wakes. 

Time passes and memory fades the storyteller leaves for bed and asks the man at the bar and the man at the table to leave. Outside the men lock eyes and the holy man asks the man in black.

Are you the one who came before me? 

The man in black looks at the holyman for a while.

The next thing the holyman hears is the click of the hammer going back on the man in blacks gun.

Then The man in black answers the holy man,

No I’m the eternal one neither before or after, I just am

The gunshot rings out in the still night, the holy man falls to a silent death none will mourn or miss him, none will even notice that he has fallen.

The man in black turns and walks away, knowing balance has been restored.

Published in: on July 26, 2008 at 6:10 pm Leave a Comment
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The Viacom/Youtube Fiasco

Some of you may have read about the court ruling in the US, that ruled that Google must hand over its entire user log to Viacom as part of a copyright infringement lawsuit Viacom have filed. The logs are massive, 4 TeraBytes (over 4000 GigaBytes) worth of users and their viewing history on YouTube. This has annoyed me for several reasons, firstly what has this to do with their current lawsuit? Secondly Are there any conditions attached to this data? and lastly and perphaps most importantly Is this not a blatant breach of people privacy rites and whatever personal (if any!) the United States provides for its citizens?

Some justification for my first point maybe that they are only going to use this information to find out how much of their copyrighted material is available in YouTube and how many times it has been viewed. But can a private company whose sole purpose is to make money and increase profits really just ignore all that information that can be used for Marketing? Imagine it, one of the biggest entertainment companies in the world with access to millions of peoples personal details and viewing preferences. We could see a wave of spam and targeted marketing that nobody signed up for. What’s more if there are no conditions attached to the data, what is to stop Viacom selling the lists to spammers. I don’t believe that this is simply about the court case and an attempt by Viacom to gain access to a huge bank of data that SHOULD be kept confidential by Google.

There are various news reports that are quoting the various laws that this ruling may be infringing on. I’ll link to these at the end of the post.

But more worrying to me is that in recent times the US has become hypocritical and seem to have reverted to the dreaded McCarthyism of the 50’s and the cold war. Recently I found out that the Irish government have given the US government to carry acts of rendition on IRISH citizens that they believe have broken US law and allow them to take them out of the country without going near a court or the Irish judicial system. Also the US government is negotiating with the EU to make this “privilege” Europe wide.

America is after doing a 180 on its views. After the long staunch against communism and steel resolve for the freedom of expression and speech. It seems that American citizens must now be careful about what they say and think in public. Michael Moore’s films while they should be viewed with a pinch of salt do present a somewhat accurate account of what has been happening in American politics and law making in recent years.

But alas Europe is not much better, given the blatant bitch slap given to democracy and due process recently with Ireland’s rejection of the Lisbon Treaty. As soon as that NO vote was announced the treaty should have been dead in the water and abandoned. But no, at the EU in Brussels other member states were encouraged to continue and ratify the treaty. The country has voted NO and that should be it there should be no re vote. There needs to be a new treaty drafted and explained to the people in clear terms not with that farce of a leaflet they sent out.

Democracy which has been around since Ancient Greece, comes from to words Demo and Crate which mean power to the people. This seems to be failing lately as governments try and place more and more restrictions on their peoples. The words of V from the movie V for Vendetta ring especially clear to me lately.

There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who’s to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you’re looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn’t be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the <Insert Relevant Government here>

And to finish another quote from V,

“People should not be afraid of their governments, Governments Should be afraid of their people”

Links to reports on the YouTube ruling.

BBC Reports

EFF.org Report

Published in: on July 3, 2008 at 8:53 pm Comments (1)
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Neil Young Malahide Castle Dublin 29 June 2008

Went to see Neil Young on Sunday (29 June) despite a terrible week of weather, on Sunday the weather held up and the sun even made an appearance for extended periods of time. Got there 5- 10 minutes before the gates open, not a huge queue which worked out in our favour with stewards handing myself and my uncle PIT PASSES!!!. Pretty sweet probably at most 10-15 feet away from the stage.

The first band on stage was “Everest”, an indie/folk type band from California, they were very impressive and really helped the atmosphere of the gig. They came on stage with the sun shining and their set consisted of real laid back tunes that was just a good time. Sitting out in the sun just chilling with a great band how much better can it get.? The answer when you know Neil Young is on later on in the evening.

The Frames came on next and I wasn’t horribly impressed with them. The acoustic stuff at the start was boring with the singer guy looking like he was constipated when he tried to hit the higher notes/shout at the courses. All in all thought the singer was very good he bantered with the crowd and tried to get a sing along going. The sing along is actually my last criticism of The Frames he chose probably the most depressing song for a sing along. The song was called “Happiness” but was slow and really depressing to listen to. Even the bit he tried to get the crowd to sing along with was slow and depressing. Aside from the obvious mention of the word happiness it was hard to associate the song with anything other than just plain depressing.

Neil’s stage props and set up were strange to say the least. They included a pulsating red phone, Indian chief carving, a fan and light up numbers and letters. The artist’s easel that was beside the Indian carving was strange but turned out to be a pretty cool idea. Anyway the set list was as follows,

MALAHIDE SETLIST:

Love And Only Love
I’ve Been Waiting For You
Mr. Soul
Spirit Road
Powderfinger
Out of the Blue
Too Far Gone
Oh, Lonesome Me
Mother Earth
The Needle And The Damage Done
Unknown Legend
Old Man
Get Back To The Country
Words
No Hidden Path
—
A Day In The Life (Beatles cover)

Love and only Love lasted nearly fifteen minutes and was a great was to kick off the gig. The sheer wall of sound that came from the stage at the start was unbelieavable. The artists easel to the right of the stage had a canvas on it with a big N. Throughout the gig the setlist was displayed there, these canvas’s were painted by a guy standing at the back of the stage. The gig was fantastic and I’m not going to bore you with a bit about each song but I do have a few criticisms about the gig.

I wasn’t expecting Neil to be a showman ala Bruce Springsteen or Mick Jagger. But at times he seemes totally oblivious to the crowd, with his back turned to the crowd either with the bass player or the drummer. A lot of the songs degraded to self indulgent jamming. Which I have no problem with but when a five minute song gets stretched to the best part of forty minutes and he’s still singing/playing, that sort of thing shouldn’t happen on stage with a crowd that’s getting bored. I was disappointed with the encore as well, I thought he’s come out and play “Rockin in the Free World”, “Crime in the City” or “Cortez the Killer” but no he played a Beatles song.

Still though it was a great gig and I’m glad I went to see him, but I don’t think I’d go again.

The Needle and the Damage Done from the Gig (Sorry about the shakey camera hand)

Pics from the Concert

Published in: on July 2, 2008 at 9:12 am Comments (2)
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