DOUBLE STANDARD? When John Cusack bombards his girlfriend's home with music, it's cute. When the CIA uses a boombox, it's torture.

So, a pretentious group of musicians is upset that their music is being used to torment America’s most dangerous enemies?

And now they want the U.S. government to release an official song list?

I can’t imagine that such a document actually exists. Are we supposed to believe that CIA and Pentagon interrogators around the world were issued official playlists by some audio-torture DJ?

It’s a safe bet that the music choices used to keep terrorists awake 24/7 were straight from a gazillion different iPods.

However, there WAS an official songlist when the U.S. Army flushed Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega out of hiding in 1989. The psychological warfare guys surrounding the Vatican Embassy during “Operation Just Cause” called in their requests to Army Radio.

How retro.

Guns N' Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle" made this dictator's skin crawl!

THE OFFICIAL 1989 MUSIC TORTURE SONG LIST FOR NORIEGA

Straight from U.S. Army records, here is a portion of the radio playlist used to annoy Manuel Noriega.

1. (You’ve Got) Another Thing Coming — Judas Priest
2. All I Want is You — U2
3. Big Shot — Billy Joel
4. Born to Run — Bruce Springsteen
5. Bring Down the Hammer — Georgia Satellites
6. Don’t Look Back — Boston
7. Don’t Fear the Reaper — Blue Oyster Cult
8. Eat My Shorts — Rick Dees
9. Feel a Whole Lot Better (When You’re Gone) — Tom Petty
10. Give It Up — KC and the Sunshine Band
11. Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down — Paul Young
12. Guilty — Bonham
13. Hang ‘Em High — Van Halen
14. Hanging Tough — New Kids on the Block
15. I Fought The Law and the Law Won — Bobby Fuller
16. Judgment Day — Whitesnake
17. Never Gonna Give You Up — Rick Astley
18. No More Mister Nice Guy — Alice Cooper
19. Panama — Van Halen
20. Paranoid — Black Sabbath
21. Stay Hungry — Twisted Sister
22. The Party’s Over — Journey
23. The Star Spangled Banner — Jimi Hendrix
24. They’re Coming to Take Me Away — Henry VIII
25. Time is on My Side — Rolling Stones
26. Wanted Dead or Alive — Bon Jovi
27. We Didn’t Start the Fire — Billy Joel
28. We Gotta Get Out of This Place — The Animals
29. Who Will You Run To? — Heart

Who knew that Billy Joel and New Kids on the Block would ever serve their country so effectively?

Wanna see the full list of Noriega torture tunes?  CLICK HERE.

You gotta love this! 

The Blue State Cowboys, led by Matt Farmer, sing country-style about “pay to play” in the Windy City.

For those who might want to adopt this in their band’s repertoire, I’ve posted the lyrics on my blog at: http://thepurplecenter.blogspot.com/2009/01/blue-state-cowboys-sing-pay-to-play-but.html

(h/t: American Copywriter)

I don’t watch really like the show so I never care who wins, but this is a hometown boy we’re talking about here so some props are in order for the guy who won the second most popular election in 2008.

Seriously, check out these numbers…

A record 97 million votes were cast overall, 23 million more than American Idol’s previous high. In the end, Cook won by a relatively wide margin, 56% to 44%, or 12 million votes.

In contrast, 122,267,553 votes were cast in the 2004 presidential contest. So to call this the second most popular election in 2008 is probably an accurate prediction.

And to think it almost didn’t happen…

Ironically, Cook never intended to audition for Idol. He accompanied his younger brother Andrew to an audition in Omaha, Neb. and was talked into applying himself. He performed Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer”, and was vaulted through to the next round. At the Hollywood auditions, Cook performed Bryan Adams’ “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” and Edwin McCain’s “I’ll Be.”

He caught the judges’ attention and became a serious contender after he performed Chris Cornell’s arrangement of the Michael Jackson standard Billie Jean, in a performance program in March. Cook then went on to perform songs by The Who (”Baba O’Riley”), Switchfoot (”Dare You To Move”) and Emily Shackleton (”What I’m Looking For”).

Cook is not entirely new to the music scene. He formed a garage band, Axium, in 1999, and was its [singer] for six years. One of the band’s songs was picked up by the AMC Theatres movie chain in the U.S. and played on more than 20,000 screens during trailer previews.

Again, congrats David!

(Song by The Go! Team)

By the way, the campaign had nothing to do with this. The people who made it were simply moved by his speech and made a song about it.

UPDATE:
I literally can not get this song out of my head.

Also, the Obama camp is now pushing it through their email list.

They should. It’s incredibly catchy.

The reactable is a multi-user electronic music instrument with a tabletop tangible user interface. Several simultaneous performers share complete control over the instrument by moving physical objects on a luminous table surface. By moving and relating these objects, representing components of a classic modular synthesizer, users can create complex and dynamic sonic topologies, with generators, filters and modulators, in a kind of tangible modular synthesizer or graspable flow-controlled programming language.

So what does that mean? Just watch.

Highly, highly cool…

Here are some of his thoughts on the guilt by association game reporters are playing:

Music and the underworld have always co-existed. Frank Sinatra and the mob. Bugsy Siegel and Las Vegas. Why is there a sudden infatuation and interest by the powers that be to tie Rap artists to the drug game? Guilt by association? Rap artists and drug dealers come from the same community, live in the same neighborhood and stay on the same block. If we are to allow the maturation of Hip Hop we must face the reality of the musicians who produce the music. Ninety-nine percent of rappers come from drug infested communities. Is this news?

Instead of trying to lock up Hip Hop, allow us to continue to create hope and legal economic opportunities in these same crime and drug infested communities. Yes, we know drug dealers and killers. We grew up together. There is only one hood. Yes we take calls, put money on books and go out and eat with felons and convicts. It would be impossible for us not to. Three out of five African American men have been arrested or served time. You know that. They are our people. We will not disown them. Let my Hip Hop business model encourage them to do the right thing. Let my Hip Hop business model, success and wealth allow me to invest in the community and bring hope to the next generation. I want to provide resources that help develop the next Kevin Lyle (President Warner Music), the next, Steve Stoute (dealmaker and broker), the next Sean Combs (artist, business man) and the next John Singleton and MC Hammer.

One caution though. An audio clip plays for like three seconds when you visit the site: “LOOK! LOOK! LOOK!” Yeah, it’s annoying, but still…it’s MC HAMMER!!!

Apparently it pokes the cats and gets them to meow. Heh.

Calm down, it was built back in 1650, so it’s not around anymore. Well, until I build a new one.

More at Gizmodo.

Jen(nifer) posts her three choices for all-time worst Christmas song.

I don’t have a three worst songs. I have one song that I’d nominate for all three position. “Happy Holidays/It’s the Holiday Season,” sung (and written?) by Andy Williams, the robotic ’60s easy listening singer with the eyes of a James Bond villain. He’s a passable crooner. It’s not Andy that’s the problem here; it’s these lyrics.

I must have forgotten this song, if I ever knew it. Because a couple of years ago someone in my office started singing it, and I said, “nuh-uh, that’s not a real song.” It couldn’t be. It’s just too terrible. No self-respecting lyricist would publish these words. Hell, you wouldn’t even hand them in for an eight-grade poetry writing assignment that you forgot about until homeroom.

It’s the holiday season, and Santa Claus is comin round,
the Chiristmas snow is white on the ground,
When old Santa gets into town,
he’ll be comin down the chimney down!
(he’ll be comin down the chimney down!)

“Comin’ down the chimney down”? What language is that? What, they couldn’t think of another word that rhymed with “-own,” so they said “down” twice in the same sentence, rendering the whole thing complete nonsense — and then repeated it for effect.

I mean, sure, a bad poet will reach for a lame word for the sake of a rhyme. But this second down has no other point, no other reason to exist, except to round out a line that ends in one of the commonest rhyme-sounds in English!

How lame is that?

It’s the holiday season,
so whoop-dee doo …

This was the line that made me go “nuh-uh.” That’s not lyrics. That’s the kind of thing a drunken karaoke lout blurts out when he can’t remember what the real lyrics are.

… and dickory-dock, …

::rolls eyes:: Mr. Karaoke hasn’t got the lyrical thread back yet. More nonsense words. Come on, snap out of it!

… and don’t forget to hang up your sock, …

::sound of needle dragging across grooved vinyl:: OK, hold it right there. Right there. This is not a song. I don’t know what it is, some sort of ADHD rant by a kid who just ate his entire stocking full of candy by 9 a.m. on Christmas.

Hang up your “sock,” for crissakes? That’s not even a viable synonym for “stocking” in the Christmas sense, and the whole reason it’s in there is to rhyme with a nonsense word (dickory-dock) that has nothing to do with Christmas or this song either.

And of course, the verse ends — again — with

cause just exactly at 12′o’clock,
he’ll be comin down the chimney down,
he’ll be comin down the chimney down

Every time I hear this musical assault on the holidays I want to do something violent to someone who had a hand in producing it. But none of them is ever around. So if you see a big long-haired trollish-looking man walking around wearing a radio on one foot, you’ll know what happened.

Yes, it never was.

But I can’t help enjoy a rather dismissive review of a book that itself dismisses two of my favorite modern American composers, Barber (born in my hometown, I used to pass his house every day; he wrote the alma mater of my dad’s high school) and Copland.

First off, the announcement was “tucked into an Iraq war briefing.” Is that the appropriate place for of a massive march and memorial concert such as this? I hope we get a bigger announcement, especially since I first heard about this from an Australian newspaper.

Also, and more importantly, is it up to the government to hold marches in the vein of Million Man March? Especially ones entitled “America Supports Your Freedom”? Who’s freedom? The Iraqi’s? Ours? The world’s?

And why just country music? I’d say a good majority of our population doesn’t listen to the stuff. Is this truly representative of our nation and those who died in 9/11?

Yes, yes, I’m naysaying, but consider my points for for a moment. This march/concert seems to be designed to be some sort of government sponsored “Million Republican March”. In other words a rally for war supporters that’s paid for by the government. Doesn’t exactly sound like what I would consider a very “uniting” type of event.

By the way I HOPE I’m wrong about this. Let’s wait and see how it shapes up.

What if little Anthony just says it in a conversational tone, or types it in an Internet chat room?

In The Agora, a great, group political blog, has a post about The White Stripes and some criticisms of the band. I respond in the comments section.

Take a look and tell me what you think.

But when he’s on other shows…well…

So rewind with me to October 2004. Jon Stewart confronts Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson on Crossfire and the blogosphere goes wild. At the same time I’m messing around with a music authoring program on my Mac called Garageband. I get ahold of a file of the show and start importing the audio from it into Garageband.

The result? A salute to a guy who’s not afraid to confront the hacks on their own turf.

• Jon Stewart Rocks

Listen, enjoy and share it with your friends. I think you can also download it by doing a right click and “save as”.

And just in case you’re wondering, the main instrument I used was a didjeridu. I’m sure Duncan will appreciate that.

Alice! Tsk, tsk, tsk. Of course, I won’t file this one under “Dumb Things Said By Smart People” this time. You get a free pass for being a rock god. However, next time I’ll be forced to. Behave yourself.

This interview with Andrew Denton is priceless:

ANDREW DENTON: It doesn’t worry you, the false connection that was made between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein, all that stuff that’s been shown?

ALICE COOPER: No. It doesn’t bother me because I honestly think it’s all connected.

ANDREW DENTON: The one thing we do know about 9/11 is that nobody involved in it actually came from Iraq. That’s probably the one thing we absolutely know.

ALICE COOPER: Well, it’s probably true, but I can’t see them going, “Oh, gosh.” The guys in Iraq going, “Gee, how horrible for America.” I think there’s a general feeling in that world that if America falls they’ll be in a much better state, so we have to view those people in the same boat. I don’t see much difference between the al-Qaeda and Iraq – not the people, I’m talking about the governments. The people, the poor people, are the victims.

Found via Chrenkoff via Instapundit via my awesome newsreader.

Found via Contact Music.