9.30.2003

Final Wish II

According to the Hell on Earth website, the Metal band that plans to have a Euthanasia Society member end their life on stage during a concert, the St. Petersburg, Florida local government has pushed a new law through the courts making such activity illegal. Hell on Earth says it will not hold the concert at the original location but at an undisclosed area and plans to webcast the concert live and in its entirety. If you missed the full episode please scroll down to the next segment for more information….

S. Remington – Editor
PhreshWater.com
Submit Editorials, Questions,
Or Comments to: editor@phreshwater.com

9.28.2003

The Final Wish

The band Hell on Earth, as reported by Rolling Stone, will be hosting an on stage suicide during their October 4th performance at St. Petersburg State Theater. An unidentified member of a euthanasia society, whose terminal condition is still unknown, has intent to take their own life on stage to raise awareness for the cause of dying with dignity. Billy Tourtelot, Hell on Earth front man, has agreed to allow the live suicide claiming that the band is not in legal jeopardy because they are not ‘assisting’ the suicide but merely allowing it to happen.

When I first read the story it reeked of being a bad publicity stunt for an ego feeding metal band who can’t rely on their own talent to bring in the press. It even sent me back to Junior High School days when the sociopath punk icon GG Allin kept a dedicated audience coming to his shows over a promise that he would take his life on stage as his final act.

After having read the article last night, slept off the judgmental chatter, and now looking at the subject matter fresh I have gained new insight into this somewhat bizarre story. There are definitely two sides to each coin and I want to point that out before I delve deeper. The BBC has done an amazing special section on their website on euthanasia and has evenly handled the issue properly from both perspectives: Supporters and opposition alike. The opposition feels that it is the duty of medicine to prolong lives and make death dignified but cutting off the pain and allow death to come in a slow comfort. Euthanasia supporters simply want the right to choose how and when they exit this life.

My personal opinion (you knew this was coming) is that now I am in full support not only of this metal band Hell on Earth but the idea itself, even if it is a publicity stunt. This is why: Publicity stunts raise awareness and mine has been raised beyond what it was last night. Whether you agree with me or not I will tell you that music is a very powerful medium that has been asked to fill many different roles in our cultures up to an including marriage, birth, war, grieving, and mainly the facilitation of death. I mean this last statement in the most positive way and in this day and age you might describe it as your death ‘Theme Song’ or the film score when your final credits roll up the screen and you sleep eternal. The ‘Shamanic’ or ‘Spiritual’ role of the musician is something that I’ve always been fascinated with like Jim Morrison who claimed that the spirit of a dead American Indian had possessed his soul since childhood and would come through his movements and song on stage with the Doors.

Rather than having tubes stuck in every orifice of my body, every medication known to man running through my veins, and some dim-wit nurse reading the latest beach novel beside my bed with no care of my own miserable ending only what time her shift is over, I’d rather go out on my own terms. Kudos to the euthanasia society member who wants to spend his final minutes and sharing his final right on this Earth with his Rock and Roll heroes on stage. Whether it really takes place or not, a pat on the back to Hell on Earth who has enough compassion to gladly respect the wishes of another human that merely wants their shamanic presence to lead them through the door. I’ll tell you right now that I’d rather have John Bell singing ‘Space Wrangler’ with an acoustic guitar or the remaining members of the Grateful Dead playing ‘Estimated Prophet’ or Traffic lulling me away with ‘Rainmaker’ than the mechanical whirring of the life support systems as a backdrop as my family (if they are alive at that point) and my friends (if they aren’t ashamed by me or if I haven’t run them away in deaths process) have to suffer watching me shrivel away into the dust with looks of gloom on everybody’s face. Wouldn’t they rather see me with a last nod to joy and my own relief experiencing my musical heroes as their song escorts me over the threshold into the unknown? That is my wish and it won’t match everyone else and that is for sure. But, shouldn’t I bear the right to HAVE that wish? Who decides what my final wish is? Shouldn’t it be me?

S. Remington – Editor
PhreshWater.com
Submit Editorials, Questions,
Or Comments to: editor@phreshwater.com

9.20.2003

Legal Peer to Peer for All

I know that I’ve approached this topic many times in the past few months but I want to keep it on the hot plate so that others, those who are not ‘In the Know’, can get a taste of what I’m talking about. In the dark shadows cast by the RIAA by dragging Junior High School students into court to coerce $2000 out of mommies credit card for trading Britney Spears MP3’s (Which will have no value or fond memories in 2 weeks since she licked Madonna’s tonsils) it’s important to educate everyone that downloading music is NOT illegal if you are simply doing the right thing and getting it from the correct source.

I’ve heard people in the check-out line at the grocery store comment on taking away Sally’s computer because the Government is going to send their precious to prison sharing all those Justin Timberlake songs. This is just the kind of propaganda that the RIAA has been able to spin by not tackling the issue, coming up with any viable solutions, and using intimidation to wring our wallets at the Music Store which is ON THE WAY OUT! It’s called evolution folks.

Last night I finished downloading a great LEGAL copy of a pro-shot, Black and White, VCD (Video CD: Digital video that you burn onto regular CDR’s that will play in most DVD players or on your computer) of the Grateful Dead @ the Capitol Theater, Passaic NJ 04.26.77. I was so happy to make this find and I felt catapulted back in time watching the Dead jam through ‘Estimated Prophet’, ‘Good Lovin’, and many more. Jerry was a spry young man then and was jigging and two-stepping around the stage while blasting out guitar solos. What a treat for the archive!

Not everyone is a Grateful Dead fan, true. But there are so many great LEGAL things to share on the Internet that I can’t even fit them on this page. I hope that anyone that is reading this is taking the time to consider what I’m saying and help someone out by showing them the ropes or if this is all new to you that you follow suit. I guess the real issue here is that we support the artists and not steal from them and gladly share on the Internet what they ALLOW you to share as a fan. Here, again, are some great resources for getting started in Legal Peer to Peer downloading of music on the Internet.

Bit Torrent: A great way to share files that I’m just getting savvy enough to seed my own shows that I have in the archive. Check out SharingTheGroove.org. This Legal trading forum is HOT! They have all the info to get you started right inside the forum itself as well as exposing other great Bit Torrent download sites.

Furthur: A great Legal Peer-to-Peer downloading community. You can share and download many of your favorite artists live performances with a slick interface that even has a great chat room featuring the charismatic chat-bot: ‘Truxel’

Etree: A cornucopia of downloading knowledge, loss-less file compression formats, forums for Bit Torrent and other LEGAL trade music trading, and links to all the tools and tutorials to get you started. Definitely the leader in Loss-less audio information and resources.

S. Remington – Editor
PhreshWater.com
Questions or Comments: editor@phreshwater.com

9.17.2003

Merry Birthday

Today is the birthday of Ken Kesey who was a graduate student in 1959 concentrating in creative writing at Stanford University. He volunteered his time with Menlo Park Veterans Hospital, which was testing several varieties of psychoactive drugs at that time including LSD. During his volunteer time Ken would observe the testing patients, ingest these hallucinogens, and then wrote of his experiences. Kesey would go on to write his most famous work, influenced by these experiments, ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’.

Ken Kesey would then form his experimental group the ‘Merry Pranksters’ who through their use of psychoactive drugs, bizarre performance art, and peaceful confrontations of conformity, would eventually move on to the now famous ‘Acid Tests’. Through these series of parties, where guests either with or without knowledge of ingesting LSD, Kesey would continue to push the limits of experimentation while enlightnening many along the way to utilize altered states of consciousness to confront and overcome their fears. The Acid Test also served as the catalyst to launch one of the greatest bands of all time, the Grateful Dead, who served as the house band for many of the Acid Test parties.

Happy Birthday, Ken. And, thank you for your contributions to popular music, culture, literature, and the power of peace. For more on Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters click HERE

S. Remington – Editor
PhreshWater.com
Questions or Comments: editor@phreshwater.com

9.12.2003

Johnny Cash 1932 - 2003

Johnny Cash, the Man in Black, passed away early this morning due to complications from diabetes that caused respiratory failure. Johnny was born in Kingsland, Arkansas, in 1932 and learned to play guitar during a time in the US Air Force and eventually made it to Memphis, Tennessee where he would launch his musical career. Johnny’s wife, June Carter-Cash, passed away earlier in May which makes this a very difficult year for the Cash family. Read the full story HERE.

Some of my earliest childhood memories were sitting in the back of the family car as the eight-track churned out Johnny’s raspy tales of the common man fighting against diversity as I looked out the window with the Maine woods passing beside. I think we had all the Johnny Cash eight-tracks and vinyl when I was growing up. Live from Folsom Prison was one of my favorites and ‘A Boy Named Sue’ would crack up my brother and I every time the dusty needle would find the groove on the console stereo. His purist, minimalist, yet powerful approach to his music would always set him apart in my mind from other musicians and group him into a class with other legendary minstrels like John Hartford, Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Billy Bragg, Hank Williams Sr., Elizabeth Cotton and many other fine artists.

S. Remington – Editor
PhreshWater.com
Questions and Comments: editor@phreshwater.com


9.10.2003

Would You Like Fries With That?

Apple iTunes just announced that they have broken the 10 Million Download threshold. That’s what I just said: 10 Million songs downloaded. Realize that these are paying customers, returning on a regular basis, and undoubtedly buying more downloadable singles via digital delivery. And, let’s not forget these folks aren’t wasting gas and time driving over to the mall for that overpriced $17 CD. This is legitimate, good-old American capitalism having a multiple corporate orgasm. Read the full story HERE.

On the other side of this factoid is the music industry and the RIAA. While the other major labels cringe in a corner pointing their fingers at Kazaa, Sony Music has finally decided to unleash their own digital music delivery service. The RIAA, instead of going after Kazaa directly, has resorted to dragging 12 year old girls into court so their grief stricken mothers can cough up $2000 in the name of copyright infringement. Read the full story HERE.

I find it amusing that Apple can make a great success evolving into the digital age and the legal live music trading community (Furthur, Sharingthegroove.org, and Etree.org for example) are zipping merrily along while the other faction is resorting to suing Junior High School students instead of building a legitimate network of their own. Should the American public be taking the fall for the blatant laziness of the music industry moguls while they sun in Cancun on the Billions of dollars a year they siphon from your pockets on overpriced CD’s? Give me a break.

Evolution isn’t always pretty. Some species die out and some get obliterated by large meteors and then there are the weaklings who get eaten by the larger, stronger members of the group. You don’t need a calculator to figure out that 10 Million paid downloads will clearly exceed the $2000 extorted from the credit card of Brianna Lahara's mom. These types of scare tactics do nothing but backfire and seem to do nothing more than increase the chances of the crime occurring more frequently. Maybe GW Bush will have all of these Kazaa downloaders put to death in Texas? I guess in a country where it’s common that sports figures can buy their way out of double-murders and rape that $2000 is quite a discount but it won’t solve the problems of the RIAA’s or the record labels lack of foresight.

S. Remington – Editor
PhreshWater.com
Questions and Comments: editor@phreshwater.com

9.08.2003

Warren Zevon 1947-2003

Warren Zevon was born in Chicago on January 24, 1947. Early in his childhood his family moved to Los Angeles, California where he studied classical piano and as a junior high school student had as an acquaintance the legendary Russian pianist Igor Stravinsky. Warren’s big musical breakthrough would come in 1978 with Jackson Browne producing his second album entitled ‘Excitable Boy’ which featured the Rock and Roll classic ‘Werewolves of London’.

While beginning work on his latest release ‘The Wind’ Warren started experiencing chest pains and consulted a doctor for the first time in 20 years. Having been diagnosed with lung cancer Warren knew this would be his final work and propelled himself into the most intense creative period of his life. Read full story HERE

Warren’s collaborations included 2 albums with R.E.M., Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, and Neil Young just to name a few of the impressive list of modern music legends. Rolling Stone.com has an extensive online biography of Warren Zevon which can be found HERE.

Warren, may you rest in peace…

S. Remington – Editor
PhreshWater.com
Questions or Comments: editor@phreshwater.com


9.05.2003

Cuban Music Crisis part II

As I have reported earlier in this editorial column several Cuban musicians were kept from attending the Latin Grammy’s to receive their hard earned awards. For the second year in a row the US State department has stymied the efforts of the Cuban musicians and claiming, much like a spoiled brat, that the musicians simply failed to give ample time to perform ‘proper’ background checks. State Department spokesperson, Richard Boucher, sunk his left foot deeper into his mouth by claiming that the musicians could pose unwanted terrorist threats.

“Am I a threat to U.S. national security?” asked rhetorically Eliades Ochoa, a leading folk singer. “That makes me laugh! I’m only dangerous when I’m holding a guitar, making music.” Read the Full Story HERE

To think that music, our planets precious song in its many forms, can attempt to be squelched by the devious and blatant actions of Governments on either side of the ocean. Terrorist threat? For the love of Moses, did the state department think that one of the musicians was going to detonate his pair of castanets in the middle of a Salsa number? Who in the hell gives these people jobs in our US Government? I guess only the idiotic and the brainwashed are accepted to perform our countries most dirtiest work and to continually fuel the ‘Caribbean Cold War’ with asinine antics that we have seen one to many times. Shame on the State Department for this covert, schoolyard, bratty display of upholding the laws of our wonderful nation.

Hats off to Cuba who had the tenacity to host their OWN concert that night as a dual purpose event to celebrate their own countries musical virtuoso’s and also slap the faces of Castro and the US State Department. I hope that Ibrahim Ferrer, Buena Vista Social Club member, had a great time up on stage that night and will have enough kindness in his generous heart to realize that most of the people on this continent do not support the actions carried out by our Government full of witch-hunting, McCarthy pandering, dip-shits.

S. Remington – Editor
PhreshWater.com
Questions or Comments: editor@phreshwater.com

9.03.2003

Labor Daze

I hope that everyone had a great Labor Day weekend whether you were out seeing your favorite band or hanging out at the pool, and a special thanks to those of you who worked over the holiday so I could enjoy mine. I want to mention again that this Blog serves as the ‘Editorial Section’ of PhreshWater.com | Music News & Reviews. This means that your involvement is always welcome in the form of comments, questions, or editorials of your own. Please feel free to use the email below or to your right at any time for your thoughts on my favorite subject; Music!

While enjoying my weekend I took a rare opportunity and indulged in my Father-in-Law’s digital cable or ‘Two-hundred channels of nothing’ as we both decided it should be called. I stopped at CNN for a brief moment to catch up on some blood, gore, and bombs. A news anchor was expounding on the Labor Day weekend and how many Americans were going to be on the road or on vacation. She then said that the USA is lagging behind most countries when it comes to vacation days from work. The UK and Italy topped the chart with 35 average days off per year! The USA had a dismal 10 average days off of work per year only to be beaten by China with 15.

And to think of all the crap I’ve listened to from G.W. Gump and Donald Rumsfeld about China and their deteriorating civil rights! At least the Communists are getting better rest with an additional 5 days of vacation per year. Makes you feel ‘Proud to be an American’ now, huh? You can’t blame me for being a bit shocked at those figures. No wonder our country is stressed to the max and pumping out $300 a month in psychoactive pharmaceuticals! I guess if my US job were only allowing me less than 10 days off a year, no time off for maternity leave, and no promise of a financially stable future or retirement savings then Government authorized drugs might be just what I need. Then again, with no available time off to visit the Psychiatrist, I guess that my hopes of masking this sense of impending doom have been completely deflated.

Coffee anyone?

S. Remington – Editor
PhreshWater.com
Questions or Comments: editor@phreshwater.com