Jesus, when are politicians going to learn this one? You want to use some band’s music, you have to ask the band. For every Clinton campaign that obtains the rights to “Don’t Stop,” there’s a Charlie Crist, currently being sued by David Byrne of Talking Heads for using “Road to Nowhere.”

And a John McCain, who was sued by Jackson Browne for using “Running on Empty.” (McCain settled.)

And a Ronald Reagan, who pissed off Bruce Springsteen (though Bruce didn’t take legal action) for using “Born in the U.S.A.,” which is a really strange choice because “Born in the U.S.A.” is about a dejected-feeling Vietnam veteran.

[Rush attorney Robert] Farmer, general counsel for the Anthem Entertainment Group Inc. in Toronto, which is Rush’s record label, has sent a letter to Paul campaign officials informing them that they have violated copyright laws — and urging them to stop.”This is not a political issue — this is a copyright issue,” Farmer said in an interview. “We would do this no matter who it is.”

Jesse Benton, Paul’s campaign manager, said in an e-mail: “The background music Dr. Paul has played at events is a non-issue. The issues that matter in this campaign are cutting out-of-control deficits, repealing Obama Care and opposing cap and trade.”

He did not say if the campaign would stop using the band’s music.

Yeah, take the defiant tack. Good call.

[via Louisville Courier-Journal]

Come for the sweet rhymes, but make sure you stay for the crowd shots. Y’all lovin’ this yet, white people!?!

[Andrew Sullivan]

Ugh, somebody tell these guys autotune is over!

Actually, we realized that Rolling Stone was full of shit about a decade and a half ago when they proclaimed — and we’re paraphrasing — that Kurt Cobain was Jesus. Really, let’s be honest. The guy wrote good pop songs. Is he a Jimi Hendrix or John Lennon or Paul McCartney or Buddy Guy or Sam & Dave or Led Zeppelin or The Pixies or Bob Dylan or Janis Joplin or The Supremes? No.

Anyway, our years-old epiphany was proved right this week when we opened the “Best of the decade” issue. How? you ask. On the album front, Wilco’s unlistenable Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is #3 while the sublime Sky Blue Sky is #97, Arcade Fire places #6 (really? fucking Arcade Fire?), and that supreme piece of shit Kanye West rounds out the top 10 (although he’s been right about one thing in his career: George W. Bush doesn’t care about black people).

And Bruce Springsteen’s Magic is #24 but Working on a Dream isn’t on the list? (At least Springsteen’s epic “Outlaw Pete” made third best song of the decade.) Radiohead’s Kid A is Rolling Stone’s #1 for the decade and though it’s a delightful head-scratcher that demands (and rewards for) repeat listings, is it the best album of the decade? And just how did fucking Kings of Leon and that hack Fiona Apple end up on the list at all but Pearl Jam didn’t?

The problem may not be Rolling Stone. The problem may be popular music, and by extension, us. RS has always covered the mainstream. Of course, when Rolling Stone published its first issue in 1967, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, The Animals, The Who and The Supremes were the mainstream. And who’s mainstream now? White trash baby-shitting Britney Spears? Lady Gaga? The Jonas Brothers? Rihanna? Oh, fuck you, Fat America.

We won’t get into a rant that rock & roll and all its subgenres have been infantilized to a homogeneous bullshit because someone else — lots of someone elses — has done that. Just go back to sitting in your Barcalounger, using Sarah Palin’s nightmare conservatism as a playbook while watching “The Biggest Loser” as you pack on the pounds by eating processed food, drinking a ton of shitty beer and wondering why the middle class is shrinking while you’re buying made-in-a-Chinese-sweatshop toys for your fat, stupid, hateful children.

Like the category says: You’re the problem.

Or maybe that’s just my message (I can’t speak for Josh). But the whole still-geeky-after-all-these-years-despite-my-money-and-manipulation-of-the-music-industry is just fucking tired, man. Really. “Pork and Beans”? “Troublemaker”? “Beverly Hills”? Your new album is called Raditude? Hey, know how we knew The Red Album was moose piss? Stupid “Heart Songs,” which sounds like something that dispshit Mattie Stepanek would have written, and the fact that you let Scott Shriner sing one. I mean, WTF?

Look, Weezer (read: Rivers Cuomo), we’re onto your not-really-irony game. We’d be cool with letting you keep on keeping on if your music still was worth listening to. Unfortunately, in your last four albums you’ve only put out one album’s worth of listenable music, which is a shame. That’s why we smiled when we saw this story on the New York Times‘ ArtsBeat:

Rivers Cuomo, the front man for the rock band Weezer, sustained minor injuries in a tour bus crash on Sunday morning, and his wife, his infant daughter, his nanny and his assistant were left “either terrified or injured or both,” according to a post on the band’s MySpace blog. The band said that a bus carrying Mr. Cuomo, his family and assistants hit a patch of black ice on I-90 about 40 miles west of Albany at about 7:18 a.m. on Sunday. According to the blog post, the bus veered off the road and fell about 8 to 10 feet but did not flip or roll. The occupants were rescued by emergency medical workers and firefighters; Mr. Cuomo suffered three cracked ribs and his assistant, Sarah, fractured two ribs and a lower vertebra, but his wife and their daughter, who was in her crib, were said to be fine. The blog post said that Mr. Cuomo was “resting about as comfortably as could be expected now,” adding: “Whatever happens, we foresee some gritted teeth in his future.” The band said that its tour dates for December had been canceled and would be rescheduled as soon as possible.

We’re glad no one was seriously injured. Now use the holidays to recuperate and write a song worth a shit, or break up.

So what is this post about? Well, needless to say, we (I?) have a special fondness for Christopher Walken, and with today’s super-special Halloween post, we’re sharing a video of Mr. Walken reciting Lady Gaga lyrics.

If you have no idea what this song is, you can click the YouTube link after the jump, because God forbid someone embed a Lady Gaga video on his awesome weblog.

Posted in Stuff we actually like Tagged: Christpher Walken, funny, Halloween, Lady Gaga, music, Poker Face, video ]]> http://somecountryforoldmen.com/2009/10/31/christopher-walken-lady-gaga/feed/ 0 Josh http://somecountryforoldmen.com/2009/10/22/the-meow-mix-jingle-is-torture/ http://somecountryforoldmen.com/2009/10/22/the-meow-mix-jingle-is-torture/#comments Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:47:51 +0000 Josh http://somecountryforoldmen.com/?p=2438 ]]> Aw shit, y’all. While you were at home belting out the Meow Mix jingle at the top of your lungs (“meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow”), some people were literally being tortured by those very same clever lyrics.

It’s TRUE! Well, at least it’s maybe true. Either way, it’s something we need to know. Well, it’s something gumshoes like Michael Stipe and Eddie Vedder need to know, anyway.

According to a story in today’s Washington Post, a group of musicians — including members of R.E.M., Pearl Jam and the Roots — has endorsed a Freedom of Information Act request to determine whether and exactly what kind of music was used as part of “enhanced interrogations” at Guantanamo.

Was the theme to “Sesame Street” really played to torture prisoners held at Guantanamo and other detention camps? What about Don McLean’s “American Pie”? Or the Meow Mix jingle? Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.”?

[The artists] demanded Thursday that the government release the names of all the songs that were blasted since 2002 at prisoners for hours, even days, on end, to try to coerce cooperation or as a method of punishment.

Okay, just to be clear, if forcing people to listen to Bruce Springsteen is torture, Dave and I might both be guilty of crimes against humanity. Setting that aside, though, is there any way this isn’t torture:

Seriously, that was torture when it played in my living room. It’s gotta be torture at Gitmo.

Quick, show us indignation!

[Musicians], including Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and Tom Morello, formerly of the band Rage Against the Machine, also expressed outrage.

“The fact that music I helped create was used in crimes against humanity sickens me,” Morello said in a statement. “We need to end torture and close Guantanamo now.”

More more more more more!

I think every musician should be involved,” said Rosanne Cash in a telephone interview Wednesday. “It seems so obvious. Music should never be used as torture.”

Ugh, we hate to go back to it again, but if music should never be used as torture, what the hell is the point of that Meow Mix ad? And more importantly, what exactly is it that people like Miley Cyrus do on a daily basis?

So hey, why the huge outcry over this now? What’s that all about?

The musicians’ announcement was coordinated with the recent call by veterans and retired Army generals to shut Guantanamo. It is part of a renewed effort to pressure President Obama to keep his promise to close the prison in Cuba in his first year in office. Television and radio spots focused on the issue also launched this week by the National Campaign to Close Guantanamo, led by Tom Andrews, a former congressman from Maine.

A White House spokesman said music is no longer used as an instrument of torture, part of a shift in policy on interrogations that Obama made on his second full day in office.

In other words, it’s about nothing. Music is no longer used as torture (at least not at Gitmo), and yet there they are — Trent Reznor et. al. — fighting to stop music from being used in torture.

Of course, the use of music in torture has a rich history, according to NYU professor Jayne Huckerby (who, incidentally, seems to have spelled both her names incorrectly):

According to Huckerby, the use of loud music was “pretty much a widespread tool of the U.S. government and a standard condition of CIA prisons.” Huckerby’s organization represents Mohammed al-Asad and Mohamed Bashmilah, former prisoners who were released in 2005. Both men say they were forced to listen to excruciatingly loud music continuously for days and weeks.

[Suzanne] Cusick, [an] NYU music professor, has interviewed a number of former detainees about their experiences and says the music they most often described hearing was heavy metal, rap and country. Specific songs mentioned include Queen’s “We Are the Champions” and “March of the Pigs” by industrial rockers Nine Inch Nails.

Another former prisoner, Binyam Mohamed, told Human Rights Watch that he had been forced to listen to the rapper Eminem’s song “The Real Slim Shady” for 20 days.

In other words, it wasn’t torture at all. It was really Americanization. After all that, Binyam Mohamed is probably just a skateboard and a baseball cap away from being an American teenager. See, torture works!

USA USA USA!

[hat tip to Alexa!]