March 06, 2008, 07:20 AM
Björk's Statement

i have been asked by many for a statement after dedicating my song "declare independence" to both kosovo and tibet ( amongst others ) on different occasions.

i would like to put importance on that i am not a politician, i am first and last a musician and as such i feel my duty to try to express the whole range of human emotions. the urge for declaring independence is just one of them but an important one that we all feel at some times in our lives. this song was written more with the personal in mind but the fact that it has translated to its broadest meaning, the struggle of a suppressed nation, gives me much pleasure .
i would like to wish all individuals and nations good luck in their battle for independence.

justice !


warmth , björk.

responding to criticism of her recent concert in China

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Friday Random Ten

FRIDAY RANDOM 10 - Shuffle 'em up and show us your ten. link

1. Nobody Knows My Name - Rickie Lee Jones
2. It Takes A Lot To Laugh - Bob Dylan
3. No Cars Go - Arcade Fire
4. Bear Pitch - Panda Bear
5. If Gravity Lulls - Omar Rodriguez-Lopez
6. The Boho Dance - Bjork
7. Welcome To My Room - Vietnam
8. #1 - Animal Collective
9. SOS - Earl Greyhound
10. Sisters Of Mercy - Serena Ryder

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Earl Greyhound

Earl Greyhound

Rock critic's E F Hutton, Sasha Frere Jones, once said "Whether or not Earl Greyhound are the Next Big Thing is irrelevant - watching them will convince you that they are." Earl Greyhound



Random 10 Songs

1. Bjork - Earth Intruders
2. Bob Dylan - I Want You
3. Neenah Cherry - Braided Hair
4. Rolling Stones - Memo to Turner
5. Panda Bear - Bros
6. Patti Smith - Gimme Shelter
7. All India Radio - Four Three
8. Rickie Lee Jones - Nobody Knows My Name
9. Joseph Arthur - Diamond Ring (See Notes From The Road
10.Earl Greyhound - S.O.S listen to mp3 or watch the video on You Tube. Power rock trio is like the good stuff we used to listen to.

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Neon Bible - Arcade Fire

Neon Bible by Arcade Fire is officially out today ($9.99 if bought through their label) though many have been listening to some of the songs since December or so. When riding in the car, it is the one cd my daughter won't try to change so I'd say it has broad appeal.

The eagerly anticipated second album from Montreal's Arcade Fire exceeds all expectations. Neon Bible was written, produced, arranged, and performed by the Arcade Fire and recorded throughout 2006 in Quebec, New York, Budapest,and London with recording and engineering help from Markus Dravs (Bjork, Brian Eno) and Scott Colburn (Animal Collective, Sun City Girls). With string and orchestral arrangements by the band's own Owen Pallet (also Final Fantasy) and Regine Chassagne, Neon Bible is full of both half-assed punk rock mistakes and meticulously orchestrated woodwinds. Processed strings and mandolin. Quiet rumbles and loud rumbles. But mostly just eleven songs that the band thinks are really good!

link

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Anarchy in the DK

Anarchy in the DK

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - Demolition crews on Monday started tearing down a disputed youth center that was at the heart of recent street riots in Copenhagen.

Workers wore face masks under their helmets to conceal their identities as an excavator tore into the so-called Youth House, a graffiti-sprayed brick building in the Noerrebro district of the Danish capital.

A police anti-terror squad on Thursday evicted squatters from the building, triggering three nights of clashes with leftist youth that turned parts of the city into a battle zone.

More than 600 people were arrested and more than 20 injured as protesters hurled cobblestones at riot police and set fire to cars and trash bins in Copenhagen's worst riots in 14 years.

Punk Status

The Youth House for years served as a popular cultural center for anarchists, punk rockers and left-wing groups. The squatters considered it as free public housing, but courts ordered them out after the city sold the building to a Christian congregation.

The building, which has served among other things as a concert venue and featured performances by big stars like Icelandic pop artist Bjork and Australian musician Nick Cave, was recently sold to the Christian group Fadershuset, which requested the eviction of the youths.

An August 2006 court ruling ordered the occupants to be evicted from the centre, which they insist belongs to them. Riots have also been taking place around the Freetown Christiania area.

Related:
Solidarity Action
CopenBlog
History
Comments
ungdomshuset

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Björk Confirms 'Volta' Release Date

Björk Confirms 'Volta' Release Date - Icelandic chanteuse Björk has announced the May 7 release of Volta, her sixth studio album to date and much anticipated follow up to 2004's Medulla. The forthcoming long-player, written and produced entirely by Björk, features 10 songs.

link

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Friday Random 10

Friday Random 10 - Haven't done this in a while. Shuffle 'em up and show us your ten. (If you don't have a 10, an 8 will certainly do.)

1. Take My Hand and Come With Me - Lähtö
2. Wake In The Morning - Pearls and Brass
3. Waiting Phase One - Porcupine Tree
4. Hyper-Ballad - Bjork
5. Rejoicing in the Hands - Vashti Bunyan & Devendra Banhart
6. Universal Soldier - Buffy Saint Marie
7. Winters Love - Animal Collective
8. Pandora - Cocteau Twins
9. Black Wall - Six Organs of Admittance
10.Monkey Man - Rolling Stones

Happy Friday!
Now to go spend some quality time away from my family.

*After a well deserved nap (i was on the rode at 4am) I wake to see I'm rushing the week along and it's only Thursday. Oops. --yawn--

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saturday morning me//
hazelnut coffee/hot cheese biscuit/oj,every day/
black jeans/grey hoodie/black sox/
goodbye: leftovers/hello: zantac/
today's forecast: going to time travel/
to visit our old commune/
listening: bjork/
so how about you?/

Today's Quote:
"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."
--George W Bush

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Friday Random Ten - Shuffle 'em up and show us your ten. I'll show you mine...

1. Moon Occults The Sun - Espers
2. For What It's Worth - Buffalo Springfield
3. Waiting Phase One - Porcupine Tree
4. Hyper-Ballad - Bjork
5. Rejoicing in the Hands - Vashti Bunyan & Devendra Banhart
6. Green Pasture - Growing
7. Winters Love - Animal Collective
8. Pandora - Cocteau Twins
9. Black Wall - Six Organs of Admittance
10. Monkey Man - Rolling Stones

Neo psychedelic music is garnering so much roar; not for pushing the envelope so much but for crawling up inside that envelope and mailing it back to 1969. Like the sounds I heard when I spent yards of time stoned in front of the 8-track. Go ahead. Jump in. (listen) You'll have a safe warm place to land.

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Friday Random Ten - Shuffle 'em up and show us your ten. I'll show you mine...

NEXT RANDOM
1. Creo - Monica Ramos
2. Monterey - Eric Burdon & The Animals
3. Sing - Dresden Dolls
4. Leaf House - Animal Collective
5. I've Seen It All - Bjork
6. Heard Somebody Say - Devendra Banhart
7. Buckie High - Boards of Canada
8. Season Of The Witch - Donovan
9. Space Age Ballad - Acid Mothers Temple
10. Happy - Rolling Stones

Music Quote
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."
- Hunter S. Thompson

Funky, free-spirited, fortifed Friday. Full of expectations Friday. Hope yours is Fantastic.

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Drawing Restraint 9 - a Film Steeped in Ritual, With Whales and a Wedding


Some of the reviews have been aggressively dismissive. While the New York Times liked the film, they noted "an overt spiritual dimension that is a new element in Mr. Barney's work. If that spirituality is an outgrowth of his relationship with Bjork, it is a welcome addition in an oeuvre whose obsession with athleticism, competition and fertility rites has sometimes taken on fascistic overtones." Ah, poor Hercules, your labours now seem to us like fascism! But who knew fertility itself was fascist? Well, survival of the fittest and all that, I suppose Mother Nature has a bit of a Hitler thing going on, or at least a Darwin one.
Link

A good part of the film follows Mr. Barney and Bjork, who are welcomed aboard the ship as Occidental guests and undergo elaborate preparations for a traditional Shinto wedding ceremony. Their union, however ecstatic, quickly leads to a solemn, stylized Liebestod that embodies the film's depiction of life as a series of passages in a relentless cycle of creation and destruction.

Link

Matthew Barney's latest labor of love, Drawing Restraint 9, which is now playing at the IFC Center in New York.

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Indie distributor IFC Films said Monday it secured U.S. theatrical rights to experimental filmmaker Matthew Barney's "Drawing Restraint 9." It will debut March 29 at New York's IFC Center, with regional distribution to follow.

"Restraint" is the latest feature film from art-world darling Barney, who wrote, directed and starred in several movies as part of his "Cremaster Cycle" from 1995 to 2002. It is his first onscreen collaboration with wife Bjork, the famed musician who also scored the film, which marks her return to acting after an acclaimed turn in Lars von Trier's "Dancer in the Dark." [MORE...]

Link

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Friday Random 10
Fire up the ol' IPOD, MP3 or other media device, set it to random play, and list the first ten songs that pop up.

1. Fast N' Bulbous - Paluco Cadaver
2. QOTSA - Everybody Knows That You're Insane
3. Crooked Fingers - Weary Arms
4. Blind Faith - Can't Find My Way Home
5. Patti Smith - Cash
6. Animal Collective - Mouth Wooed Her
7. Bjork - So Broken
8. Jeff Beck - I Ain't Superstitious
9. Frank Black Francis - Cactus
10. Aretha Franklin - Ain't No Way

Now it's your turn, you may either list them in the comments below or at your own blog, or go to Feministe and post them. via: Friday Random 10

(For good online radio, check Mark Morford's recent post listing decent stations around the country.)

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Guided by inspiration from his journey to Iraq, Palestine and Israel this past summer, musician/poet/activist Michael Franti heads to Kingston, Jamaica to team up with legendary godfathers of riddim Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records and long-time Beastie Boys collaborator, Jack Johnson producer, Mario Caldato, Jr.

BJORK is ready to speak out on behalf of down-trodden women because she is sick of men leading less complicated lives. She always avoided conversations about gender issues in the past because she didn't want to be labelled a feminist - but now she is prepared to speak her mind.

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Bjork's extraordinary new album, Medulla, is her seventh solo studio work, and first since 2001's "Vespertine." Produced and arranged by Bjork (with co-production on four tracks by her frequent associate, Mark Bell), "Medulla" represents another landmark recording for one of modern music's most ingenious and inventive artists. August 30, 2004 is the release date. {via: slatch}



The Yes Men follows a couple of anti-corporate activist-pranksters as they impersonate World Trade Organization spokesmen on TV and at business conferences around the world. See The Yes Men Trailer. Disinfo will release The Yes Men book September 8. And United Artists will release The Yes Men movie September 24. {via: Movie City News}

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50 Immortals of Rock

Good feature in latest Rolling Stone magazine of the greatest artists of all time.



Make your personalized signs here. Dozens of motifs to choose from. [via...presurfer]



Nicole Kidman is starring as Grace Margaret Mulligan in Lars von Trier's upcoming Dogville. Seen earlier at film festivals, it's getting great reviews especially on originality, as did his Dancer in the Dark with Bjork. [nyt review & set pic]



*FYI - my hiatal hernia is healing nicely. Pepcid and Nexium have me back to normal. Husband has finally got his diabetes under control after moving from just diabetic pills to also adding the insulin shots. And my sister, Robin continues to heal and get stronger by the day. Normalcy is underrated.



The Bush Dog & Pony Show brought to you by the letters "F" and "U" and the number "1".

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Lars von Trier - fast becoming one of my favorite directors. He did The Kingdom, aka Riget & Riget II, on which Stephen King's current mini series (Wednesday nights, 9:00 pm), the Kingdom Hospital is based. This is a pretty good show and now I really must see von Trier's The Kingdom, parts I & II movies.



He also did Zentropa (Europa), and one of my all time favorite films, Dancer In The Dark starring Björk and Catherine Deneuve. How haunting is Björk and her music in this movie? It was also on tv again last night. I never cared for her one way or the other until I saw this movie and there's just magic all around.

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Nick Cave sang Bring It On on Letterman last night. I had seen him earlier Wednesday night on a 1989 film called Wings Of Desire, singing From Her To Eternity. Also watched a good older movie with Bjork, called Dancing In The Dark. Rhonda and Laurie just returned form seeing him in concert in Chicago last weekend. (edited for movie correction)



Ta-Da...I am now using the New, Improved Blogger. We'll see.....



I'm thrilled that every single one of you take time out of your busy day to visit me. I bust my ass to visit you, too. Believe it. And I'm just as busy as the next person, but if you can make the time for me, I'll certainly make the time for you. Some people wonder why they don't have many visitors to their weblog, when they hardly visit anyone else. Driving with your turn signal on through blogland totally oblivious to your fellow bloggers doesn't garner much blog love. Blogging is as fulfilling to me now with many daily visitors as it was when I started out with 1 or 2 daily visitors. (when Maggie and Shirl were the only ones visiting!) I'll never bitch about who doesn't visit; just offer gratitude for those of you who do. Not trying to bark at anyone, just a heads up for some who may be unaware.



NewsHax, a political satire site I found on J-Walk. Unbalanced. Unfair. We Report. We Decide. [via j-walk]



Fun Site du Jour: Mondrian Machine. Neat. Make your own Mondrian design.





Quote For Today

One must still have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star."

~Nietzsche



The second day of a diet is much easier than the first day. By the second day, you're off of it.

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