RIP: Mauricio Kagel, Avant-Garde Composer

From an article by The New York Times:

Mauricio Kagel, an avant-garde composer whose often absurdist works blurred the boundaries between music, theater and film, died on Wednesday in Cologne, Germany. He was 76. [...]

By temperament a dadaist and provocateur, Mr. Kagel drew on the musical examples of composers like John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen. In “Anagrama,” a work from the 1950s, singers and instrumentalists were called on to emit notes, squeaks, whispers and shouts corresponding to an elaborate system derived from the letters in a Latin palindrome.

- Mauricio Kagel Wikipedia entry
- Mauricio Kagel site by Björn Heile
- YouTube video: Mauricio Kagel- "siegfriedp"
- YouTube video: Mauricio Kagel: "Der Eid des Hippokrates" (1984)

McDonald’s Offers Zune Users Free Wi-Fi; Wow, So Cool

Finally, one location that offers both free wi-fi and happy meal toys courtesy of that young girl from that foreign country! Indeed, readers, McDonald's is giving away free wi-fi by the bushels, specifically to users of Microsoft's MP3 player, Zune. McDonald's serves nearly 47 million customers daily at over 31,000+ stores worldwide, and roughly 9,800 locations are set to promote the free (and slow) wi-fi deal. Damn, that's a lot of participating stores -- over 30%, in fact!

But despite this surprisingly large amount of locations offering FREE wi-fi to ZUNE users, there's one major flaw in McDonald's' logic: no one uses the Zune.

Jaguar Love Announce North American Tour with Japanese Band Polysics — Polysics Announce One Bad Idea After Another and Probably Make Jaguar Love Regret Associating Themselves with Such a Clueless Group of Musicians

Johnny Whitney was in The Blood Brothers. He is now in Jaguar Love. He runs a clothing company that specializes in “edgy” screen-printed apparel. Japanese people love tacky screen-printed crap. Polysics are Japanese. Polysics are touring with Jaguar Love. With a just little bit of deductive reasoning and offensive stereotypes, the upcoming Jaguar Love and Polysics tour begins to make more sense.

Jaguar Love, comprised of ex-Blood Brothers Johnny Whitney and Cody Votolato and ex-Pretty Girls Make Graves member Jay Clark, are touring North America on behalf of their debut LP Take Me To The Sea (TMT Review), released last month on Matador Records, and their eponymous EP released in June, both to generally positive reviews. And you should go see them because their lead singer’s vocals are usually compared to acts of torture and animal cruelty.

But what to do with Polysics? The Japanese band is co-headlining the majority of the dates with Jaguar Love, and the members have wasted no time announcing a veritable cavalcade of idiotic ideas on their MySpace in preparation for said tour. Speaking of MySpace, the nu-ravers (it just seems as if they would spell it that way -- you know, because they suck) are releasing their new album We Ate The Machine on the most hallowed of labels, MySpace Records, on September 30, and they are also doing some confusing digital discount thing, but I guess you can just check their MySpace for details, if you’re really that interested.

I, on the other hand, would prefer to simply make fun of them. Or just let founding Polysics member Hiroyuki Hayashi do it for me, in what was supposed to be a promotional release for the group. Here is “Hiro” on his love of Devo and a little lesson on how to be punk — not, like, putting-product-in-one’s-hair punk, but real punk rock, Polysics-style:

I thought it was so much more punk than just acting like a gang by greasing one’s hair. I was so impressed, and I thought, ‘I want to do new wave punk dressed in a jumpsuit like Devo!’

Finally! Kids these days need to be schooled on what it truly means to be punk, like a MySpace campaign to plaster their logo on various public spaces. So, head over to the public library and get to printin’, cause Polysics are playing at the Roxy in Los Angeles October 18 and The Casbah in San Diego the following night.

Jaguar Love tourdates:

* Polysics

# Nine Inch Nails, Stone Temple Pilots, The Flaming Lips, The Kooks

The Ruby Suns Announce Tourdates From Now Until Eternity, Hope D’Addario Strings Last Long Enough

Readers, let us pause together and take a gander at The Ruby Suns’ MySpace profile. You'll notice under their “Influences” section a picture of Bruce Willis from his role in Die Hard juxtaposed with an image of Thin Mints Girl Scouts cookies. Scroll just a bit further down and under the “Sounds Like” section, you’ll see a picture of an odd-looking burrito instead of a list of bands or genres that The Ruby Suns emulate. Either they really like food, or these New Zealanders have a great sense of humor. It's probably the latter, though, since their MySpace headline reads: “It’s Only Music!” It’s definitely refreshing to see an up-and-coming band that doesn’t let the blog hype inflate their egos.

On a different note, I’m currently watching some late-night TV as I type this story, and a Microsoft Windows Vista commercial just came on with none other than The Ruby Suns’ “Oh, Mojave” playing in the background. Hmm, it may be “only music” to the Suns, but it's music that pays the bills for all the jet-setting they’ll be doing the rest of this year.

Oh, Bill Gates:

& The Dodos

RIP: Earl Palmer, Hall of Fame Drummer

From an article by the Associated Press:

Earl Palmer, the session drummer whose pioneering backbeats were recorded on such classics as Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti" and The Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin,'" has died. He was 84.

Palmer died Friday at his Los Angeles home after fighting a lengthy illness, his spokesman Kevin Sasaki said.

- Earl Palmer Wikipedia entry
- Earl Palmer MySpace (dedication page)
- The Associated Press article: "Hall of Fame drummer Earl Palmer dead at 84"
- YouTube video: Earl Palmer "Tipitina"
- YouTube video: Earl Palmer "Walkin"

RIP: Willy Graves, former member of The Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower

From a MySpace post by Willy's former bandmate Brandon Welchez (via Punknews.org):

As I'm sure many of you have already heard, our dear friend Willy Graves passed away Sunday, September 14th. During our years together, we felt more like a family or a gang than we did a band. Every high and every low we experienced together. Willy brought so much to our band artistically, aesthetically, and in terms of general morale.

When the going got tough (and believe me, things would get fucking rough), we could always count on Willy to be the eternal optimist. Whether we were getting beat up in Salt Lake City, having our tires slashed in Baltimore, or getting pint glasses heaved at us in Wellington, NZ, we could always count on Willy to crack a joke or act silly to distract us from the lows. Same goes for all the highs we experienced together. All the amazing shows we got to play, amazing places we got to see, and amazing friends we got to meet; Willy lived all these things 100%. I've never seen him happier than when we raising hell in some foreign country.

We discovered so many things together, went through so many things together - it's unbelievable that he is gone so young. He had a lot more love, humor and art to give the world. This is everybody's loss. Please keep him in your hearts and remember him for the son, brother, musician and friend that he was.

- The Plot to Blow Up The Eiffel Tower MySpace page
- The Plot to Blow Up The Eiffel Tower Wikipedia entry

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