Chinese bands back to SXSW

South by Southwest just announced an initial list of a couple hundred showcase bands for 2010 (it’ll climb up well over 1,000 eventually), and two of the Beijing bands that recently toured the U.S., P.K. 14 and Carsick Cars, are on it. I interviewed two members of those bands, and from what I saw in Brooklyn they were pretty well received by the crowds.

It’s not unprecedented: Lonely China Day and Re-TROS came in 2007 and got thumbs-ups from Jon Pareles. The big question is always whether they will return again. P.K. 14 and Carsick Cars might have a slight advantage here, since they’re already somewhat known, and have gotten their share of critical props: Alex Ross singled out Shou Wang of Carsick Cars in his mega New Yorker piece on Chinese music, and also chose a performance by him as one of his top 10 of 2008.

(HT to China Music Radar.)

Chuck Biscuits, RIP?

Very sad news, just in from The Daily Swarm:

Legendary hard rock drummer Chuck Biscuits, whose lengthy résumé included stints in such flagship underground acts as Black Flag and Social Distortion, died Saturday after a prolonged battle with throat cancer. He was 44… Chuck Biscuits was probably best known to the general populous for his work with Danzig. Beginning in 1988, Chuck played on that group’s first four albums, which are often hailed as Danzig’s best (thanks in no small part to Chuck’s powerful drumming style).

UPDATE: It's unclear whether this is actually true. James Greene Jr., the writer who first reported this, based on emails from someone claiming to be Chuck's wife, says that he has been contacted by family members, who deny it, but in an email to me he said he's still trying to verify it.

‘Here Comes Your Man’ stage video, and Pixies news

With visual reference to the original videos of both “Here Comes Your Man” and “Head On,” this plays as the stage backdrop while the Pixies do “Here Comes Your Man” on their current Doolittle tour, which has been going through Europe this month and arrives in the U.S. via Los Angeles in two weeks, with opening acts.

Pixiesmusic.com “has been attacked by hackers in China,” and apparently as a result, the band has changed its official Twitter account from @pixiesmusic to simply @pixies. UPDATE: Now they say that Pixiesmusic.com is unhacked and “running clean as a whistle,” but they’re still on the new Twitter account.

Black Francis is eating fancy sandwiches.

Joey Santiago has ... “hamtrhax”?

Black Francis tweets new song titles

Ok...titles for songs on new record...in no particular order:

LAKE OF SIN

O MY TIDY SUM

RABBITS

WHEELS

DEAD MAN’S CURVE

CORRINA

SIX LEGGED MAN

THE WILD SON

WHEN I GO DOWN ON YOU

NON STOP EROTIC

CINEMA STAR

Lately he’s “recovering from Arles” (on tour), and feeling “sexual” and “sensual” while indulging “mindblowing” apple tarts, cheese and Valence Royale sandwiches (“goat cheese honey walnut chervil”).

Michael Jackson graphic novel?

MBV tipped me off to this report in Publishers Weekly yesterday about the industry chatter from the Frankfurt Book Fair. Apparently Michael Jackson had been working on a graphic novel called Fated with Gotham Chopra, son of Deepak, and now, according to Publishers Weekly, a Random House imprint is preparing to release it.

The plot sounds eerily, perfectly MJ:

The book, Fated, is about a Jackson-esque pop icon named Gabriel Star whose fame has left him isolated and emotionally cut-off. After a suicidal swan dive from his hotel one night, Star survives only to see his celebrity grow and discover that he’s becoming, per the publisher, “something not quite human.”

I can only hope that Paul Anka had something to do with it.

#stuffaboutmichaeljacksonandhisnewsongwhichisactuallyprettyold

A day of shocking Michael Jackson news. First, the critics had barely even had time to file their mehs about “This Is It” before Paul Anka came out swinging over being erased from the songwriting credits. The estate acknowledged the mistake — not after two days of fan complaints, mind you, but after the appearance of the word “sue” — and, according to Anka, has vowed to make good.

More significant, though, is the accusation levied by two or three older ladies at a Ninth Avenue coffeeshop this afternoon that Jackson stole the Moonwalk from Curly Stooge. A little googling revealed it to be perhaps not such a crazy idea, though I have yet to see definite proof. For now, this will have to do:

Yorke + Flea = Good

My take on Thom Yorke’s still-unnamed new band is online now.

Will they also apologize to Oscar Wilde?

On Friday, Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain issued a public apology to Alan Turing, a mathematician and computer pioneer whose work as a code breaker during World War II helped defeat Nazi Germany. Mr. Turing was convicted of “gross indecency” in 1952 for having a homosexual affair and was forced to endure injections of female hormones. Two years later, killed himself by biting into a poisoned apple.

In his statement, Mr. Brown said:

Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War II could well have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely. In 1952, he was convicted of ‘gross indecency’ — in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence — and he was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison — was chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own life just two years later.

Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can’t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. (number10.gov.uk/NYT)

Turing was also very important in the development of artificial intelligence.

Internet desperately drives traffic to W.A.S.T.E.

Hey, did you hear that Thom Yorke is releasing a new solo single?

• Thom Yorke Announces “Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses” Single (Rolling Stone)
• Thom Yorke to Release New Old Song (New York magazine)
• THOM YORKE CONFIRMS NEW 12", CONSIDERS NAME CHANGE (Stereogum)
• Thom Yorke's new 12inch (Sound Verite')
• Thom Yorke Confirms Two New Tracks on September 21 (Green Plastic Radiohead)
• Thom Yorke Confirms Plans To Release New Solo Songs This Month (Gigwise)
• Radiohead's Thom Yorke Announces New Solo Single (Billboard)
• THOM YORKE TALKS FEELING PULLED APART BY HORSES AND HOLLOW EARTH 12-INCH... (The Daily Swarm)
• Thom Yorke Confirms New Single (Pitchfork)
• NEW THOM YORKE 12” VINYL AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER (Radiohead At Ease)
• New Thom Yorke 12" coming soon (Burn the Bowery)
• Thom York [sic] Confirms Solo Single for Sept. Release (Prefix)
• New Thom Yorke 12" (wdub new music blog — "reviews, news, and general musings of the music staff of WDUB 91.1 FM in Granville, Ohio")
• Thom Yorke confirms new 12″ (Consequences of Sound)
• Follow-Up: Thom Yorke Single (Absolutepunk)
• FeelingPulledApartbyHorses/TheHollowEarth 12inch(Radiohead/Thom Yorke (Drowned in Sound)
• Radiohead’s Thom Yorke Confirms Upcoming Single ... But Is It “New Moon” Bound? (Wall Street Journal)
• Thom Yorke Announces “Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses” Single (Fuzzfizz)
• Radiohead's Thom Yorke picks new solo project name – video (NME)
• Thom Yorke Confirms New 12" (Paste)
• Thom Yorke (of Travis, Muse, Coldplay, and Radiohead cover band The Karma Police) Confirms 12-Inch Due This Month (Tiny Mix Tapes)
• Thom Yorke Confirms New Songs Are Coming (INDIEBLOGHEAVEN)
• FeelingPulledApartbyHorses/TheHollowEarth 12inch(Radiohead/Thom Yorke) (Drowned in Sound)
• Anuncio oficial de nuevo single (Exit Music)
• Thom York [sic] releases solo single (Digital Spy)
• Radiohead’s Thom Yorke Picks New Solo Project Name, Video Available (Frantik)

Front-page headline today in my hometown paper, the Daily Gazette (formerly and still unofficially known as the Schenectady Gazette):

Hemingway look-alike sweats out contest win
Key West victor David Douglas has local roots

Lede:

Crediting his beard and a wool sweater, a Scotia native won the annual Ernest Hemingway look-alike contest in Florida on Sunday.

“You know, we always told him he looked like Kenny Rogers,” said Paula Mountain of her brother, David Douglas. “We used to tell people he was Kenny Rogers and they really believed us. But I guess now he looks like Ernest Hemingway.”

Stories that did not make the front page:

• City urged to hire 10-15 more police
• Official: Senators knew mortgage deals were ‘sweet’
• Gates 911 caller didn’t mention race to police
• Source: Anesthetic likely killed Jackson
• Limits on energy trading proposed
• Real estate market shows signs of revival

Could all the drum-circle guys be wrong?

Could it be that the first instrument was not a drum, but actually a flute? And does that mean that the first reaction to music was not to shake one’s ass but to nod gently and meditatively, Carradine-style? Or since it was in Germany, would it have been more like Krautprog?

At least 35,000 years ago, in the depths of the last ice age, the sound of music filled a cave in what is now southwestern Germany, the same place and time early Homo sapiens were also carving the oldest known examples of figurative art in the world....

Archaeologists reported Wednesday the discovery last fall of a bone flute and two fragments of ivory flutes that they said represent the earliest known flowering of music-making in Stone Age culture. They said the bone flute with five finger holes, found at Hohle Fels Cave in the hills west of Ulm, was “by far the most complete of the musical instruments so far recovered from the caves” in a region where pieces of other flutes have been turning up in recent years.

A three-hole flute carved from mammoth ivory was uncovered a few years ago at another cave, as well as two flutes made from the wing bones of a mute swan. In the same cave, archaeologists also found beautiful carvings of animals.

Oxford Collapse collapses

“After eight years, 450 shows, and four albums, we’ve decided that we’ve reached the end of the line,” the band says, via Sub Pop. (Which I saw via Stereogum.) I’ve liked them, and am sorry to see them go.

Their last shows are right here in New York (and Hoboken). Gotta love the fuhgeddaboudit service info for the second one:

Friday, July 17th
Maxwell’s (early show) (SOLD OUT)
Hoboken, NJ
w/Frightened Rabbit

Saturday, July 18th
Under the Tracks
508 W. 25th Street
New York, NY
w/CaUSE co-MOTION!, The Beets, Rape Excape
Starts at 9pm, won’t cost too much
(Don’t worry about advance tix—this place is huge!)

Ali Akbar Khan, RIP

In case you missed the obits over the weekend, Ali Akbar Khan, the great sarod player, who along with Ravi Shankar (his brother-in-law) was one of the foremost ambassadors of Indian music to the West, died on Thursday at age 87. I saw him live only once, at Lincoln Center in August 2000, and I still often think of it as one of the few times a big outdoor concert has really transported me.

Khan’s life had a heroic, old-world sweep that may not be possible anymore. Born in what is now Bangladesh, he started as a court musician — yes, like Haydn — and then got into the movie business and parachuted into New York. From William Grimes’s obit:

Defying his father, Mr. Khan moved to Bombay and began writing scores for films, including Chetan Anand’s “Aandhiyan” (1952), Satyajit Ray’s “Devi” (1960) and Tapan Sinha’s “Hungry Stones” (1960). His father, a friend of the director of “Hungry Stones,” went to see the film and said: “My goodness, who composed the music? He is great.” On being informed that it was his son, the elder Khan sent a telegram of forgiveness....

Intent on exposing Westerners to Asian music, [Yehudi] Menuhin brought Mr. Khan to New York in 1955 for a performance at the Museum of Modern Art, where Mr. Khan made what is believed to be the first long-playing record of Indian classical music in the United States, “Music of India: Morning and Evening Ragas,” for Angel. He scored another first when he performed on Alistair Cooke’s television program “Omnibus.”

In this day and age it’s not terribly easy to find Ali Akbar Khan records. There are no longer many record stores large or good enough to stock an Indian section with more than the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack, so you’re down to Jackson Heights or the long digital tail. Amazon has a decent selection, but Khan’s iTunes page is a rare ripoff: There are dozens of $9.99 “albums,” each featuring a single 20-minute raga.

eMusic is a little better, and even with their big price jump it’ll only cost you 40 cents or so per track. Both iTunes and eMusic sell this excellent album of mid-1960s recordings, which I’ve been enjoying for years.

Sad news about Chris Knox of Tall Dwarfs

The Daily Swarm relays the news from various New Zealand sources:

New Zealand rock musician Chris Knox is unable to talk after suffering a stoke on Thursday.

He had apparently been able to drink water and answer basic questions while being taken to hospital, Kean told The Dominion Post.

And here’s a line from the family’s statement, which you can read on the blog they created for updates and comments:

Chris is not in pain and is responsive to family and friends who are very optimistic and focused on Chris’s well being. He enjoyed his vegetable frittata this morning but I suffered the classic Knox withering look when I mentioned beer.

The Tall Dwarfs’ last album, The Sky Above, the Mud Below, was my No. 2 favorite of 2003.

‘Black-folks prom, white-folks prom’

Fascinating piece in the Times Magazine today about segregated proms. The author, Sara Corbett, visits a high school in Georgia that has a prom for white students on one night and another for black students the next. Corbett says the phenomenon is common throughout the South; at one school in Mississippi, for example, Morgan Freeman offered last year to pay for an integrated prom, an idea embraced by students but rejected by parents. (In July HBO will have a documentary about it, “Prom Night in Mississippi.”)

More on Georgia:

Black and white students also date one another, though often out of sight of judgmental parents. “Most of the students do want to have a prom together,” says Terra Fountain, a white 18-year-old who graduated from Montgomery County High School last year and is now living with her black boyfriend. “But it’s the white parents who say no. … They’re like, if you’re going with the black people, I’m not going to pay for it.”

“It’s awkward,” acknowledges JonPaul Edge, a senior who is white. “I have as many black friends as I do white friends. We do everything else together. We hang out. We play sports together. We go to class together. I don’t think anybody at our school is racist.” Trying to explain the continued existence of segregated proms, Edge falls back on the same reasoning offered by a number of white students and their parents. “It’s how it’s always been,” he says. “It’s just a tradition.”

My one complaint: the story is way too short. The issue brings up a lot of important questions — about “separate but equal” Constitutionality, about the opinions and rights of parents, about subterfuge and sabotage by school officials — that can't be properly addressed, let alone answered, in 1,034 words.

Whoa: Alan Moore meets Mike Patton, Justin Broadrick. (Sort of.)

Billboard reports:

He may have insisted his name did not appear on the “Watchmen” movie. But legendary comic book writer Alan Moore has been enthusiastic in his partnership with U.K. indie Lex Records on the release of a new work including an audiobook and soundtrack.

Moore has already recorded the two-hour audio book for the deluxe package of the semi-autobiographical work, which is likely too appear in early 2010...

The score that accompanies the book is being worked on by Andrew Broder of alternative act Fog and spoken word artist Adam Drucker. Brown says musicians in the frame to provide key elements of the soundtrack include Mike Patton of Faith No More and Justin Broadrick, formerly of industrial metal band Godflesh.

Patton is working on separate Lex project with Tunde Adebimpe of U.S. alt-rock act TV on the Radio.

More tours by Cuban musicians?

Billboard has an interesting piece today:

Encouraged by President Barack Obama’s remarks in April that he’s seeking a “new day” in relations with Cuba, U.S. promoters have quietly begun planning stateside concerts by Cuban artists for as early as June, pending their ability to secure permission from the U.S. Department of State to perform in this country. Washington, D.C., hasn’t authorized such visits since 2003...

Cuban music enjoyed a boom in popularity in the United States after Washington exempted Cuban recordings and other “informational material” from the trade embargo in 1988 and later allowed Cuban artists to perform stateside. ... By 2000, hundreds of musicians from the island had performed in the States, most prominently the Buena Vista Social Club, whose 1997 Ry Cooder-produced album on Nonesuch went on to sell more than 1.8 million U.S. copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

“It became the opportunity to share a rich culture that was previously forbidden,” says Scott Southard, director of International Music Network, who adds that his company may try to bring back some of the surviving members of Buena Vista Social Club for U.S. performances later this year. The George W. Bush administration subsequently reduced the number of Cuban artists allowed to perform stateside and stopped issuing such visas altogether after 2003.

Musicians from Cuba were not the only ones who had visa troubles during the Bush administration, of course.

Chinese quake: Death by real estate bubble?

Peter Kwong, a professor at Hunter College, has an interesting Op-Ed today about the student deaths in the Sichuan earthquake last year. Kwong mentions something I had neglected when I wrote about the Chinese government’s crackdown on journalists and pesky families: the hush money offered to parents of students killed in schools (5,335 kids according to the government; 10,000 according to Kwong and many others).

[G]overnment officials offered the parents $8,800 for each child killed in exchange for their promise not to pursue the issue any further.

Kwong also gets at another important aspect of this. There’s a simple economic reason that the schools were constructed so poorly that they collapsed like cardboard, while neighboring buildings weren’t hit so hard. In its push to modernize, China has diverted money away from inland social welfare programs — like building schools — and toward developing its coastal mega-cities as global showpieces.

For a capitalist marketplace that is closely controlled by a central government, it’s their version of a real estate bubble: build build build in Beijing and Shagnhai and Guangzhou, at the expense of the villages of Sichuan.

Meanwhile, the neo-liberal economic policies of the central government over the past 30 years stripped away much social-welfare funding and investment in education. Local governments had to raise cash through bank loans and donations.

The dearth of funds led to what critics call the construction of “three without” schools in rural areas — classrooms built without standardized design, without construction supervision and without quality control. Since contractors made very little from school projects, they resorted to cheating on construction material.

So to answer the parents’ questions about who was responsible for the safety of school buildings, the authorities would have to reveal their own relationship with contractors, developers and other interests.

The one-year anniversary of the quake is tomorrow.

Attacks on foreign journalists in China

It’s been almost a year since the earthquake in China that killed up to 90,000 people.

You’ve probably read about parents being harassed or detained for asking questions about the deaths of children in poorly constructed schools; one such advocate was recently arrested for “illegal possession of state secrets,” an espionage charge that all but guarantees conviction and harsh punishment. The Chinese government, after long refusing to account for student deaths in the quake, just announced that 5,335 kids were killed, a figure disputed immediately as being far too low.

But in case you haven’t seen the coverage, it’s worth also looking at how China has been treating foreign journalists who are reporting on this. From today’s report in the New York Times:

Foreign journalists trying to interview parents have been detained and have had equipment broken by security officers in recent weeks, according to a report issued Wednesday by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Beijing, which advocates for greater media freedoms in China.

A reporter for the Financial Times was punched on May 5 by a thug, possibly a security officer in plain clothes, while conducting interviews around Mianzhu. After he and his colleagues retreated to their car, they were surrounded by a dozen hostile men, one of whom tried to punch a Chinese news assistant.

Liu Xiaoying, whose daughter died in the Fuxin school, said a French television crew was detained by security officers and led out of the temporary housing camp where Ms. Liu lives after the officers learned that the crew was interviewing her.

A report in the Financial Times also mentions attacks on a Finnish television crew and a reporter from the Irish Times. A correspondent from the Independent gives a first-person account of his detention.

This isn’t new, of course. China also intimidated and arrested foreign journalists during the Olympics. And don’t forget about Tibet, or the security crackdown over the imminent 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre.

Olympian seeks hopscotch record

The AP reports:

Olympic gold medalist and three-time world decathlon champion Dan O’Brien is hoping to accomplish a new feat: the Guinness World Record for the fastest game of hopscotch.

O’Brien will be training Tuesday morning with dozens of New York City school children at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan.

On Thursday, the 42-year-old will attempt to break the current record for a game of hopscotch — one minute and 23 seconds — at Chelsea Piers....

O’Brien won the Olympic gold medal for the decathlon at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.

He also won three world titles in the 1990s. At the time he was dubbed “World’s Greatest Athlete.”