This is from the .blues blog maintained by my pal and fellow Yomiuri scribe, Les Coles. He also maintains the excellent tokyo-blues.com check out the harp lesson there or the edited version on the bbc's hitchhikers guide to the galaxy.
Les 6:50 PM [+] ::
...
Feel like going down the crossroads?


Voodoo doctor auctions Devil's Pact services on eBay

Eastern England (Aug. 22) -- Author and Voodoo practitioner Doktor Snake is auctioning his services on eBay to help musicians gain fame and fortune by making a pact with the Devil at the crossroads - just like 1930s bluesman Robert Johnson reputedly did.

Snake, author of "Doktor Snake's Voodoo Spellbook" (St. Martin's Press), says he has made the pact himself (before he got a publishing deal) and that he intends to personally guide winning bidders through the Crossroads Rite.

Snake says he will also provide a "genuine Devil's contract," which will serve as a binding agreement between the musician and the Lord of Darkness.

He does stress, however, that it is not as Satanic as it sounds.

"What lies at the heart of the Crossroads Rite is not about the Devil," he explains. "The Devil as prince of all evil is really a Christian invention. In the Crossroads Rite, the Devil is more a teaching spirit that gives you access to your inner-genius."

Snake claims that, during the 1990s, a number of now high-profile rock singers and musicians consulted him about performing the Crossroads Rite before they became famous. He says confidentiality prevents him from naming names.

He is confident that he can help winning eBay bidders gain fame.

"This is a foolproof method of achieving a meteoric rise to fame and fortune," he says.

Doktor Snake is a practising Voodoo doctor (or witch doctor), currently living in Norwich, Eastern England. Unusually for a professional Voodoo practitioner, he is white.

As chronicled in his "Voodoo Spellbook", Doktor Snake's Voodoo mentor was the late Earl Marlowe, a Trinidadian "conjure man" who Snake played in a band with in London during the 1980s. Marlowe took him under his wing and taught him the arts of Voodoo - along with the secret lore surrounding the Devil's Pact at the crossroads.

Doktor Snake's eBay auction goes live at midnight on September 7th

IN YOUR EAR



Kevin Wood / Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer

THE THORNS

The Thorns

Sony Music Japan Int'l, 2,400 yen


Grab your 12-string guitar, California folk-rock has returned.

The tasty three-part harmonies of singer-songwriters Pete Droge, Shawn Mullins and Matthew Sweet instantly evoke the The Byrds, the early work of The Eagles and especially Crosby, Stills and Nash, with an occasional hint of Tom Petty, the Beach Boys and the Mamas and Papas.

All three are accomplished solo artists and producers. Despite being accustomed to working alone, they were keen to try a more interactive project.

After things clicked during a brief demo session in the spring of 2002, the three spent a couple of weeks writing songs on a ranch in California's Santa Ynez Valley and in a suite in the Montrose Hotel in Los Angeles. That autumn, they were joined in the studio in Atlanta by producer Brendan O'Brien (Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam, Train), ace session drummer Jim Keltner and E Street Band pianist Roy Bittan.

The result is 13 tracks (plus two extras just for Japan) that hark back to the best of the aforementioned bands while creating a new melodic, harmony-driven power-folk for the new century that owes more to 1970s pop singer-songwriters like Jackson Browne than traditional folk roots. No faux-soul boy band nasal whinging tweaked in the studio here, these guys are the real full-throated deal.

The lead track "Runaway Feeling" has a steering-wheel tapping feel and simple catchy progression that could fool the listener into thinking they've stumbled onto a lost track from Tom Petty's Full Moon Fever, and the melancholic "Dragonfly" could have been the lead single from a Vietnam-era Crosby, Stills and Nash album. "Long, Sweet Summer Night" is the kind of short, sweet pop tune that Brian Wilson wishes he could still write.

The production and arrangements are polished and bright, but the rougher original demo of "Brambles" featured as a bonus track for Japanese release indicates that The Thorns might benefit from a looser, more acoustic-based approach that lets a darkness into their California sunshine.



VARIOUS ARTISTS

Masked and Anonymous

Sony Music Japan Int'l, 2,400 yen

While film soundtracks rarely feature enough new material to merit critical attention, an exception must be made for Bob Dylan's latest cinematic effort, Masked and Anonymous. By all reports, the movie, directed by Larry Charles, is surreal, and the soundtrack certainly reflects that with four new performances by Dylan and 10 by other artists covering his compositions, often in other languages.

The Magokoro Brothers' "My Back Pages" with its Japanese lyrics might provide a good entry point for Japanese interested in seeing what all the fuss is about. Los Lobos add a little Latin spice to the semi-cajun "On a Night Like This" and the album even includes an Italian rap version of "Like a Rolling Stone." One of the most interesting interpretations is Sertab Erener's Arabian-flavored "One More Cup of Coffee."

America's greatest living songwriter tackles the traditional bluegrass number "Diamond Joe" and the Confederate anthem "Dixie" with equal aplomb and his scorching reworking of "Cold Irons Bound" from his 1997 Grammy-winning album Time Out Of Mind is the high point of the album.

A must-have for serious Dylan aficionados, but for the casual fan there are better collections of covers available.

Get with it people! The Beatles are tired! Van Halen is way better....&*$#$^%^#(....
Sorry about that, The spirit of John Shymko just took over my typing hand for a moment. Me like Beatles too!

Mike,
I actually had a dream about the Golden Nugget the other night. I owned the place and you were patting down the kids for quarters!
Ah, nuggin'.

J.

Ah, the venerable Beatles. I can't seem to get very far from the first band I ever loved. My obsession with the Fabs contributed to my eighth-grade social outcast status, and next month I begin rehearsals to perform the entire White Album live at the Phoenix Concert Theatre in Toronto. Check it here. I've been listening to that album over and over again for the past month, sometimes playing along and sometimes not, but it does not take a fatty of kind bud to affirm the essential goodness of all things Beatle. Funny thing about the moptops. Unlike, say, Dylan, Beatle outtakes tend to deserve their obscurity. I've listened to a few of the studio boots from the White Album era now and I can say that not one of the performances really deserves a place on a legit Beatles album. Not so with Bob, whose "Blind Willie McTell", "Series of Dreams", etc could easily have supplanted a few of their more favoured contemporaries ("Union Sundown" and "Disease of Conceit" spring to mind).

seriously the new Gibson book is really good too!

Great googly moogly as the man said.
Hiromi and the kids are up in Miyagi-ken ( I know that means fuck all to any of you, you're sitting there saying "well okay is that the next block or further away or what? Who, What, Where, When,Why is Miyagi?

Well actually Miyagi is an area in Northern Japan, it's the area my wife is from. She has gone up to her parents place with the youngins for Obon, which sort of the Japanese festival of the ancestors.


Long story short - I have the place to myself, and myself to myself for that matter, so tea has been consumed, if you catch my drift, and lo and behold, Nippon Public Broadcasting - NHK- just so happens to have Hard Day's Night on the schedule tonigt.

directed by Richard Lester, who also directed John Lennon in How "I Won the War" and Michae‚Œ?@‚x‚?‚’‚‹ in "The Three Musketeers" among other things.
‚h?@‚„efy any of you to roll a fat one and sit down and actually watch "A Hard Days Night" and not decide these guys are absolute geniuses!
I know its been said a million times by a million different people but-

Damn, the Beatles are a REALLY good band.

Really, really, good

more archival stuff from the yomiuri, though some of you might be interested in this one.

Gibson now just 15 minutes into the future



Kevin Wood Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer

Pattern Recognition

By William Gibson

Putnam, 368 pp, 25.95 dollars


William Gibson is a study in contradictions. The author of seven science fiction novels, he often denies being a science fiction author. He wrote his first novel, 1985's award-winning Neuromancer--which led to him being credited with launching the cyberpunk genre and coining the term cyberspace--on a manual typewriter.

While his previous works have been set in a dystopian near future, his latest, Pattern Recognition, is ostensibly set in the present, though some of the technology and practices described are so cutting-edge as to give the novel a sense of being set in the almost-future of next week or next month.

Though Pattern Recognition dispenses with the techno-wizardry and orbital communities posited in Gibson's earlier work, his recurring themes of the authenticity of art and the nature of creativity are still present. In terms of plot, Pattern Recognition echoes Neuromancer, centered as they both are on a search for the elusive creator of mysterious works of art.

Cayce Pollard is an intuitive marketing consultant, a "coolhunter" who can tell at a glance whether a design will catch on or flop. She is also obsessed with "the footage" a mysterious series of compelling video clips of unknown origin that keep appearing on the Internet, spawning a dedicated subculture. When the eccentric head of a London advertising agency persuades her to seek out the creator of the footage, Cayce bounces from London to Tokyo to Russia with danger, betrayal and intrigue stalking her every step of the way.

Perhaps as a bit of self-satire of his earlier writing, which was sometimes criticized for using brand names in place of adjectives, or perhaps as the kryptonite to her coolhunting superpowers, Gibson saddles Cayce with a bizarre allergy to certain trademarks and logos, with Bibendum the Michelen Man causing nausea and too much Tommy Hilfiger leading to panic attacks. Cayce even has to have the Levi logo ground off the buttons of her jeans.

Cayce is also in mourning for her father, a former government "security expert" and probable CIA man who may or may not have been at the World Trade Center when he disappeared in New York on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Cayce has inherited a touch of her father's professional paranoia and his legacy looms large in the story.

Gibson has an impressive ability to create with a few deft phrases original characters like Cayce who, while seeming impossible, are eminently believable: Hubertus Bigend, the too-handsome and ultra-persuasive cutting-edge advertising whiz that his former lover, a friend of Cayce's, describes as a "real Lombard--loads of money, but a real dickhead"; Boone Chu, a Chinese-American "white hat hacker," security consultant and failed dot.commer from Oklahoma; Hobbs-Baranov, an abrasive, alcoholic retired mathematician and code-breaker obsessed with an early mechanical computer/calculator created in a concentration camp.

As in most of his books, the characters are not always as fleshed out as they might be and sometimes more attention is paid to their clothing than to their motivations. Nor is sparkling dialogue Gibson's strong suit, with conversations existing more to move the plot along than to develop characters.

However, when it comes to creating an atmosphere or capturing a specific feeling, few modern writers can touch him.

Evocative descriptions of places, from the "cyclopean Stalin-era buildings in burnt orange brick" of Moscow to the "manically animated forest of signs" of Shinjuku, Tokyo, fill the book. Where other writers these days are prone to throwing around postmodern references to television programs, movies or pop music, Gibson is more likely to reference architecture and design, graphic art and obscure subcultures such as Japan's "Otaku covens."

As the man who described cyberspace before there was an Internet, Gibson is especially adept at capturing the feel of bulletin board conversations, the paranoid fear of having one's personal Internet history and e-mail laid bare, the closeness of an e-mail relationship, the eeriness of hearing an e-mail friend's voice for the first time and the shock of a first in-the-flesh meeting between old e-friends.

While Gibson's best science fiction efforts have been set in a near-future that seems so real it could be last week, Pattern Recognition is set in a near past that feels like next week. This is by far his most complex work. By stripping away the action-movie violence and Buck Rogers (by way of William Burroughs) gadgetry that, while entertaining, often obscured the more serious themes of his earlier works, Gibson has managed a mature novel of considerable depth and perception that is rife with insight into the nature of electronic relationships, mass culture and the commodification of creativity.

sorry more archiving

Not much white marble in George Pelecanos' gritty Washington



Kevin Wood Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer

Soul Circus

By George P. Pelecanos

Little, Brown; 352 pp; 24.95 dollars


When most of us think of Washington, the first images that come to mind are of the U.S. Capitol building and the White House, of prosperous middle-aged white men in suits and ties going about the business of running the most powerful nation on earth.

Those familiar with the work of crime writer George P. Pelecanos may have a very different vision of the city. In Soul Circus, his 11th novel set in the roughest neighborhoods of Washington, Pelecanos gives the reader a close look at the world of gangs, guns, poverty and drugs that dominates much of the U.S. capital.

Pelecanos' Washington is a dark, dirty and dangerous place where even ex-cop private eyes like Derek Strange and Terry Quinn walk softly down some streets.

Soul Circus follows directly on the heels of Pelecanos' 2002 bestseller Hell to Pay and the 2001 novel that introduced Strange and Quinn, Right as Rain. Strange, a rock-steady pillar of the African-American community in his mid-fifties, has taken on the younger, hot-headed Irish-American Quinn as a partner in Strange Investigations.

Following up on the events of Hell to Pay, we find the two working for lawyers defending drug kingpin Granville Oliver. Strange has been retained to find the former girlfriend of Oliver's right-hand man, whose testimony can keep him off death row, while Quinn is involved in trying to find the ex-girlfriend of the loser brother of a local street gang leader.

As in his previous work, notably the three novels featuring hard-drinking investigator Nick Stefanos, even the heroes have flaws. The quick-tempered Quinn is unable to back away from the smallest affront and Strange has more than one skeleton in his own closet. While both act heroically on occasion and do their best to do the right thing, their very human weaknesses are what ultimately make the two protagonists sympathetic, realistic characters.

That gift for creating believable, detailed characters extends even to the most minor players in Soul Circus, with characters who pop up in only a few scenes expertly drawn with a minimum of exposition.

Where other authors might supply a quick stereotype or faceless cardboard cutout, even the counterman in the diner and the parents of the kids on the peewee football team Strange coaches have unique identities and distinct faces. Pelecanos has mastered the art of showing us a character through minimal but vivid description, realistic dialogue and believable action rather than long paragraphs of back story and explanation.

While mastering all the conventions of the hardboiled genre, Pelecanos is not a slave to them and manages to make political and philosophical points about race relations, gun control, feminism, masculinity and honesty without it interfering with the readers enjoyment of the story.

Pelecanos clearly argues that the easy availability of firearms is one of the greatest contributing factors to violent crime, even using Nick Stefanos, the hero of three of his earlier books, in a cameo role to drive the point home.

While offering a bleak view of life in the ghettos of Washington, Pelecanos also shows how small acts of decency can make a difference in the world and refuses to fall into the usual trap of having one tough good guy solve all the world's problems with his fists and a gun. Hollywood-style violence without consequences does not exist in the real world and Pelecanos shows how the death of anyone diminishes us all without preaching.

With Soul Circus, Pelecanos should garner the fame he richly deserves and take his place in the pantheon of noir greats alongside Raymond Chandler, Jim Thompson, Elmore Leonard and James Ellroy.

hey wow cool! swift responses - just like an almost conversation. I agree that kindereggs are less than wonderful but don't think they should be banned. I wouldn't buy them for my kids for a few years yet as they are too young and could choke on the bits, and the chocolate is awful.

I'd be all for taking costa rica into the fold. their constitution bars them from having an army!

Kev,
I moved (or I should say my family moved, I was far too young to pick up the couch) to Michagan when I was 2 years old. We moved back to Canada when I was about 6. Apparently, was was very relieved because I didn't want to get drafted in the U.S. I was never officially an American citizen. I think the deciding factor to move back to Canada was when a knife fight in the school yard behind our house interrupted a patio party.

As far as the anex project goes, I think we have unofficially annexed Costa Rica. Ceri and I were there a couple of years ago and encoutered many Canadians. There is even a Canadian newspaper. I highly recommend Costa Rica as a vacation destination.

P.T.
Kinder eggs are evil and should be banned worldwide. They are environmentally nasty and could cause young children to choke. Not to mention the wasted time trying to put the toy together.
And the chocolate sucks.

"Land of the Free" my ass!

If Kev's book review($23, eh....) has left any doubt in your mind.....
Any nation that would ban Kinder Eggs oughta be #1 on the Axis of Evil list. Here's a LINK to a story explaining the whole sordid tale.

P.S. I think the Turks and Caicos should anex us.

Jason, didn't you once tell me you were born in Michigan?

As far as the island thing is concerned, I think its a great idea. It would seriously change the Turks and Caicos and in the long run I think it would have an impact on Canadian culture too.

sorry, just archiving stuff from the yomiuri site

The power of sex, drugs and cheap strawberries



Kevin Wood Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer

Reefer Madness

By Eric Schlosser

Houghton Mifflin, 310 pp, 23 dollars


Those picking up this book expecting a collection of lurid tales from the counterculture--after all, it is named for a 1937 propaganda film about how smoking marijuana turns clean-cut kids into ax-murdering maniacs--may be in for a surprise.

Having exposed the "dark side of the all-American meal" in his 2001 best seller Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser turns his considerable talents to an examination on the trillion dollar underground economy of the United States.

The book is built around expanded versions of three previously published magazine articles on marijuana laws, illegal immigrant labor and the pornography business, bracketed by an introduction and conclusion that discuss the role and nature of the shadow economy.

By and large, Reefer Madness is a damning debunking of the free market mantras and moral hypocrisy of pro-business political conservatives.

Schlosser begins with a look at the economic and legal consequences of the largest U.S. cash crop--marijuana.

Former U.S. President Ronald Reagan declared the opening of the "War on Drugs" in 1980 and in 1982 appointed the first "Drug Czar," Carlton Turner, who believed smoking pot was responsible for young people being involved in "anti-military, anti-nuclear power, anti-big business, anti-authority demonstrations" and that marijuana use caused homosexuality.

Schlosser points out the inconsistencies in the way offenders are sentenced in different parts of the country. "In New York State, possessing slightly less than an ounce (28 grams) of marijuana brings a 100 dollars fine, if it's a first offense. In Louisiana, possessing the same amount of pot could lead to a prison sentence of twenty years." He details the way some law enforcement agencies have become financially dependent on the income derived from property seizures connected to drug investigations.

In particular, Schlosser highlights the way the political race to demonstrate how tough candidates are on drugs has resulted in penalties that far outweigh the crimes they claim to punish.

"A conviction for a marijuana offense can mean the revocation or denial of more than 460 federal benefits, including student loans, small-business loans, professional licenses, and farm subsidies... federal welfare payment and food stamps. Convicted murderers, rapists and child molesters, however, remain eligible for such benefits."

He exposes the injustice of mandatory minimum sentencing rules that send people to prison for more than 20 years, and often for life, for offenses as minor as selling drug paraphernalia such as water pipes.

The second section details the plight of migrant workers in the California agricultural industry, mainly through an examination of the use of illegal immigrant labor in the strawberry farming business. Schlosser contends that the farm industry in the United States (and to a growing extent the meatpacking, textile and other industries that rely on cheap, semi-skilled labor) has become dependent on illegal immigrants. The underground economy relies on untraceable, untaxable cash transactions, and Schlosser asserts that nearly 30 percent of workers in Los Angeles County are now paid in cash.

Large agribusiness corporations skirt labor laws through sharecropping arrangements straight out of Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge, while the law punishes illegal immigrant workers far more severely than those who employ and exploit them.

"Left to its own devices, the free market always seeks a work force that is hungry, desperate and cheap--a work force that is anything but free" concludes the author.

The final section traces the history of the pornography industry in the United States by looking at the various attempts over the years to legally define obscenity and rule on what people can or cannot legally see, while telling the story of the founding father of modern porn, a former comic book salesman who built an industry that generates the same revenue as Hollywood's domestic box office receipts.

This section also serves as a primer on the fine art of tax evasion, tracing the efforts of porn magnate Reuben Sturman to skim off and hide hundreds of millions of dollars to avoid funding the government's long-running campaign to convict him on obscenity charges.

While the section is somewhat outdated in that it lacks much information on the financial impact of the Internet on the porn industry, it does provide a revealing look at a legal industry that is largely subterranean.

Overall, the strength of Reefer Madness is Schlosser's ability to put a human face on abstract statistics and tie dry historical facts to interesting human drama.

The only real complaint is that each of the main sections of the book could, and should, have been expanded to fill entire volumes of their own.

Ok, I take it back. You are Canadian. Only a Canadian would complain so much about being called "Un-Canadian". I do wish people would stop quoting a beer comercial when trying to affirm their heritage though.

By the way, I was born in Grimsby. You don't get much more canadian than that.

No, the only way I will come back to Canada is if I can get a job there. As far as being a Canadian is concerned, just because I don't live there doesn't it doesn't make me any less Canadian. I still crave Molson, Hockey Night in Canada and peameal bacon. I still drink too much on July 1, and no, it not just to celebrate you and Ceri anniversary. I still apologize when someone steps on on my foot in an elevator, I still say 'zed' not 'zee', and spell things properly (centre, colour, theatre goddammit!) I still don't zip up my coat until it hits -5 C, I still say 'eh' and am teaching my children to do so. I still know how to pronounce Atawapiskat and Kapuskasing, I still tell newfie jokes, listen to the Rheostatics, think Stompin' Tom Conners is a genius and I still drink a nice hot cup of maple syrup each and every morning....I Am Canadian!

Where were YOU born?

Niv,
what the hell is this "we" business? (with regard to the Carribbean Island stuff). You haven't been Canadian for several years now. Why do you care whether we annex an island or mother Russia for that matter? Are you saying that the only way you'll come back to Canada is if we add another province? ("this one goes up to 11").

I think the new quote speaks for itself

Apparently reading in public while bearded is now considered a suspicious activity in the "land of the free"
check this out!

Is there something in the water supply in Ottawa?

First we decriminalize ganjah and now we want to annex a Carribbean island

what do we think of this idea?
The links on the cbc site also point to a reasonably slick looking website for a newly formed citizen's group called CFATP - Canadians For A Tropical Province....I'm not really sold one way or the other and I think the outcome of bringing Turks and Caicos into Confederation is probably impossible to predict with complete accuracy as I think the long-term socio-cultural implications are profound and will affect the "Canadian Identity"(tm)
At first glance it seems to appear to probably maybe perhaps be a good idea even if it does sound like something out of a Richard Rohmer novel.



Canada's Caribbean ambition
Justin Thompson, CBC News Online | July 15, 2003


Quebec City too cold in February? Fredericton frosty in December? Nunavut November not for you? Fear not, there may be help: at least one member of Parliament and a handful of interest groups are asking the Canadian government to annex a little slice of sun-splashed heaven: the Turks and Caicos, a Caribbean gem with an average wintertime temperature hovering between 28 and 29 C.

Canadian Alliance MP Peter Goldring (Edmonton Centre-East) thinks it's a wonderful idea. He's drafted a motion to ask the government to look into the issue, and plans to introduce it in the fall. "I think around 100 per cent of people (in Canada, and Turks and Caicos) like the idea," he told CBC News Online in July 2003.

Currently a British overseas territory, the Turks and Caicos (actually a grouping of 40 islands located 250 kilometres east of Cuba) have a history of being on the wish lists of Canadian politicians.

PROS CONS
Agreeable weather: 350 days per year of sunshine; average temperature: June-October 29-32 C
November-May 27-29 C
No passports required for Canadian citizens
Same time zone as many Canadians (Eastern Standard)
Air Canada offers direct flights
English is the official language
Could be first island home to an NHL team
Hurricane-prone
Currency is the U.S. dollar
Would make plum hideout for wayward senators

DEPENDS ON YOUR PERSPECTIVE
Controlled drugs and pornography not allowed through customs
Public nudity is illegal

In 1974, NDP MP Max Saltsman tried to use a private member's bill to persuade the government to consider annexing the islands. He reasoned that there should be a warm-weather destination for Canadians to spend money on Canadian soil.

Unfortunately for sun-loving Snowbirds, the proposal was rejected.

In 1988, members of the Turks and Caicos government resolved to approach the Canadian government about establishing a special relationship. But alas, the idea of annexing a warm-weather island took back seat to the debate over free trade with the United States (something some Canadians consider annexation of a different variety).

Peter Goldring hopes this time around it will be different. "I have been talking with a number of members of the (Turks and Caicos) government," he told CBC News Online. "And I have indications from a couple of them that this is an issue they want to pursue."


Goldring says annexation could be mutually beneficial: Canada can provide good health care, economic ties, defence, and a steady flow of winter-weary Snowbirds; Turks and Caicos would give Canada a warm, friendly 11th province - a southern destination where the Loonie could land without breaking a wing.

Plus, says Goldring, tongue planted firmly in cheek, "Paul Martin would have a place to park his fleet."


QUICK FACTS:
Capital: Grand Turk (Cockburn Town)

Currency: U.S. dollar

Area total: 430 sq km (consists of about 40 islands, eight of which are inhabited)

Natural resources: spiny lobster and conch

GDP: $128 million (199 estimate)

Population: 18,738

Sources: CIA World Factbook, Turks and Caicos Tourist Board

Cousin drummo B. Wood can be found at drwoo@pipcom.com , he has been invited to join in here but hasn't responded really. I know he doesn't check his mail for long periods sometimes so don't expect an immediate response.