The Woke Police Have Ruined Entertainment
Posted: February 12, 2018 Filed under: Entertainment, Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News | Tags: Activism, Global Panic, Mean Girls, Movies, Music, SJW, Tina Fey, Woke Leave a commentJohnny Oleksinski When Tina Fey’s film “Mean Girls” came out in 2004, the comedy was lauded as a silly, satirical excoriation of modern high-school life and its cliques, cafeteria antics and materialism. “Mean Girls” was a “Clueless” for the millennial age. And it was so fetch.
Fast forward to 2018. “Mean Girls” is about to begin a new life as a Broadway musicalin March. But some Broadway watchers believe the subject matter is too mean for these kinder, gentler times.
“It just might not be the moment for ‘Mean Girls,’ ” one Broadway insider told me on the condition of anonymity. “It might feel stale and tone-deaf to the critics. And while this is something that could be critic-proof, maybe not.”
The fear of offending audiences isn’t limited to musicals about bratty teens. In this oversensitive era, TV shows, Oscar-worthy movies and pop music are all under pressure to be as nice as Betty Crocker. For millennia the best art has offended, tantalized, frightened, riled up and, of course, been life-affirming. But today the American public, looking more than ever like Soviet Russia, has just one rule for entertainers: Don’t rock the boat.
During last Sunday’s Super Bowl halftime show, singer Justin Timberlake barely rocked his hips. The former boybander is responsible for the most famous sex stunt in the history of the event — Janet Jackson’s 2004 nipple-baring “wardrobe malfunction.” Read the rest of this entry »
Rock & Roll Legend Chuck Berry Dies at 90
Posted: March 18, 2017 Filed under: Entertainment, History, Mediasphere | Tags: Andy Cohen (television personality), Atlanta, Boy band, Bruce Springsteen, Calvin Harris, Chuck Berry, Coming out, Culture of the United States, Ed Sheeran, Music, New York Post, Rolling Stone Leave a commentChuck Berry, the legendary “Father of Rock ’N’ Roll,” died at his home in Missouri on Saturday, said police in St. Charles County, just north of St. Louis.
He was 90 years old.
The composer and guitar innovator was known for the hits “Johnny B. Goode,” “Roll Over Beethoven,” “My Ding-a-Ling,” “Maybellene” and “Sweet Little Sixteen” — chart-toppers that endure to this day.
The St. Charles Police Department said on its Facebook page that cops responded to a report of a medical emergency at Berry’s home at 12:40 p.m.
“Inside the home, first responders observed an unresponsive man and immediately administered lifesaving techniques,” the police posting said.
“Unfortunately, the 90-year-old man could not be revived and was pronounced deceased at 1:26 p.m.”
Police confirmed Berry’s identity and said his family requested privacy.
Berry was a major influence on generations of musicians, particularly on early rockabilly stars such as Jerry Lee Lewis and British Invasion bands such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] Frank Zappa LIVE: ‘Whippin’ Post’
Posted: February 2, 2017 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: 1980s, Frank Zappa, Jazz, Live Music, Live Performance, Music, Rock, video, Whippin' Post 1 Comment
President Trump: ‘I’m Proud to Have the Bust of Winston Groovy Back in the Oval Office’
Posted: January 27, 2017 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Humor, White House | Tags: #GuysNamedWinston, 1970s, Bust, Donald Trump, Music, Oval Office, Parody, Reggae, satire, Sculpture, Winston, Winston Churchill, Winston Groovy 1 Comment
[VIDEO] Week 8: Chick Corea & John McLaughlin Duet; RTF Meets Mahavishnu
Posted: January 21, 2017 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: Chick Corea, Fusion, Jazz, John McLaughlin, Lenny White, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Music, New York, New York City, Return to Forever, RTF, The Blue Note, video Leave a comment
The Greatest Jazz Birthday Party Ever. Chick Corea @ 75, Blue Note Jazz Club, NYC
[VIDEO] REWIND: Music From National Football League Films
Posted: January 21, 2017 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: 1960s, Music, National Football League, National Football League Films, NFL Leave a comment
[VIDEO] Blue Note: Chick Corea, John McLaughlin, Victor Wooten & Lenny White
Posted: January 7, 2017 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: Afro-Cuban All Stars, Blue Note, Chick Corea, Jazz fusion, Jazz-Rock, John McLaughlin, Lenny White, Live Performance, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Music, New York City, Romantic Warrior, Victor Wooten Leave a comment

Corea was joined by a legendary group of musicians, including guitarist John McLaughlin, bassist Victor Wootenand drummer Lenny White. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, Lenny White, Victor Wooten, at the Blue Note: ‘Miles Beyond’, December 19, 2016
Posted: January 5, 2017 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: Blue Note, Chick Corea, Fusion, Jazz, John McLaughlin, Lenny White, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Music, NYC, Return to Forever, Victor Wooten, video Leave a comment
[VIDEO] ‘You Know, You Know’, John McLaughlin & Chick Corea at the Blue Note in NYC, December 8, 2016
Posted: January 4, 2017 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: Blue Note, Jazz, Jazz fusion, John McLaughlin, Lenny White, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Miles Davis, Music, NYC, Return to Forever, Victor Wooten, You Know You Know Leave a comment
[VIDEO] Wham! Last Christmas
Posted: December 25, 2016 Filed under: Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: Christmas music, George Michael, Music, Wham Leave a comment
[VIDEO] John McLaughlin and the Free Spirits LIVE at the Umbria Jazz Pageant, 1995
Posted: December 18, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: Dennis Chambers, Jazz, Jazz fusion, Joey Defrancesco, John McLaughlin, Live Performance, Music, The Free Spirits, Umbria Jazz Pageant, video Leave a comment
[VIDEO] ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ Will Ferrell & Zooey Deschanel
Posted: December 8, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: Baby it's Cold Outside, Christmas, Christmas Song, Holiday, Holiday Music, Music, video, Will Ferrell, Zooey Deschanel Leave a comment
Canadian Police Apologize to Nickelback for Using Their Music as Punishment
Posted: December 6, 2016 Filed under: Entertainment, Humor, Law & Justice, Mediasphere | Tags: Canadian Police, media, Music, news, Nickelback, Torture, video Leave a comment
[PHOTOS] Jazz Portraits by Herman Leonard at National Portrait Gallery, London
Posted: December 3, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: Buddy Rich, Frank Sinatra, Jazz, Lester Young, Louis Armstrong, Music, Photography, Sarah Vaughan, Thelonious Monk Leave a comment[VIDEO] Amish Sex Pistols
Posted: December 2, 2016 Filed under: Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere, Religion | Tags: Amish, Bridget Christie, Kevin Eldon, Matt Berry, media, Music, Parody, Peter Serafinowicz, Sendup, Sex Pistols, video Leave a comment
With Kevin Eldon, Peter Serafinowicz, Bridget Christie and Matt Berry
WRITER/CONCEPT Arthur Mathews
MAKE UP DESIGN Sarah Jane Hills
Here’s the original:
[VIDEO] John McLaughlin & the Fourth Dimension LIVE: With Mark Mondesir, Gary Husband, Etienne Mbappe
Posted: November 29, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: Etienne Mbappe, Gary Husband, Jazz, John McLaughlin, John McLaughlin and The 4th Dimension, Mark Mondesir, Music, Performance Leave a comment

©Andrei Jipa
www.andreijipa.com
Miles Davis: Photo by David Redfern
Posted: November 26, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: Jazz, Miles Davis, Music, Photography Leave a commentSource: Jazzyzin
Album Covers and Artwork by Robert Crumb for Eden & John’s East River String Band
Posted: November 21, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Comics | Tags: Album Cover Art, Comics, Comix, Eden & John's East River String Band, Illustration, Music, R. Crumb, Robert Crumb Leave a comment[VIDEO] Rebecca Pidgeon: Spanish Harlem
Posted: November 19, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: Acoustic Guitar, Music, Rebecca Pidgeon, Singer, Spanish Harlem, video Leave a comment
Rock in the Suburbs: Why Punk Moved Out of the City and Into the Cul-De-Sac
Posted: October 7, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Economics, Entertainment, History | Tags: Epitaph Records, K Records, Kill Rock Stars, LoBot, Melbourne, Music, Olympia Washington, punk, Punk rock, San Francisco, San Francisco Bay Area, Santa Rosa, Seattle, the Dead Kennedys, The Guardian, The Know, The Smell Leave a commentWith unaffordable Progressive Disneyland hell-hole cities like San Francisco’s predictable cost-of-living increases and perverse real estate inflation driving out all but the wealthy and well-connected, the bright lights don’t beckon young punks like they used to.
Shows like that are increasingly common in Santa Rosa, and it has a lot to do with the prohibitive cost-of-living in nearby San Francisco. “I had every intention of moving down to the city,” said Ian O’Connor, 23, who organized the gig.
[Read the full story here, at The Guardian]
“But when the time came, it was too expensive.” Instead, in the last three years, he has booked dozens of all-ages gigs in Santa Rosa, mostly at unofficial venues: detached garages, living rooms, lobbies of sympathetic businesses. The scene thrives on the participation of people like him, area natives in their early 20s who, not so many years ago, would’ve likely moved an hour south to Oakland or San Francisco.
O’Connor stressed that though Santa Rosa is relatively affordable, the local punk scene faces challenges that cities with established reputations lack. “If you’re in the big city, you can sort of just jump into the stream,” he explained. “If you’re in a small town, you have to get down on your hands and knees and dig a ditch so that the water can run.”
“I had every intention of moving down to the city. But when the time came, it was too expensive.”
— Ian O’Connor
One hallmark of punk’s inception in the Bay Area and throughout the Pacific northwest was the notion of cities as places of possibility, so hollowed out by eroding tax bases and selective civic neglect that they seemed “deserted and forgotten”, as music journalist Jon Savage wrote of his 1978 trip to report on San Francisco punk bands such as Crime and the Dead Kennedys. “It was there to be remapped.”
But with the same cities stricken by intensifying affordability crises – premiums on space that make somewhere to live, let alone rehearse and perform, available to a dwindling few – they don’t beckon young punks like they used to. And though reports of music scenes’ deaths tend to overstate, news of shuttering venues (see eulogies for The Smell, The Know, and LoBot) deters some of the intrepid transplants needed for invigoration. Dissipating metropolitan allure, however, helps account for the strength of scenes in outlying towns.
“The people who before just came to the shows are now setting them up. It’s been pretty astounding in terms of genuine participation…We could move and struggle somewhere else, but I think there’s a lot of people who’d like to see Santa Rosa become something like Olympia.”
— Ben Wright
In Santa Rosa, Acrylics are at the center of things. The five-piece, which recently announced a forthcoming record on leading west coast punk label Iron Lung, boasts a lashing and cantankerous sound, with staccato turnarounds and nervy guitar leads. They share members with a constellation of groups, including tightly wound punk outfit Fussy; sturdy hardcore units Rut and Service; and the dynamic noise-rock band OVVN.
“People in Olympia don’t think moving to a bigger city would be daunting – just dumb. Why pay five times the rent?”
“The people who before just came to the shows are now setting them up,” said Ben Wright, 24, who recorded recent releases by most of the aforementioned groups and plays guitar in Acrylics. “It’s been pretty astounding in terms of genuine participation… We could move and struggle somewhere else, but I think there’s a lot of people who’d like to see Santa Rosa become something like Olympia.”
Scott Young, 28, grew up in the Pacific northwest and moved to Olympia, Washington, in 2006. Until recently, he played bass in Gag, a winkingly scabrous hardcore band that’s lately influenced the genre significantly. Corey Rose Evans, 23, moved to Olympia from the Bay Area in 2010 to attend Evergreen State College and eventually joined both Vexx, a raucous foursome composed of inventive, tactile instrumentalists and a mightily expressive singer; and G.L.O.S.S. (“Girls Living Outside Society’s Shit”), a blistering and bold hardcore outfit that foregrounds transgender issues and skewers reformist politics. The scene is decidedly autonomous, centered around small labels and self-organized gigs. Read the rest of this entry »
[VIDEO] ‘Shake Your Pants’
Posted: October 3, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Humor | Tags: 1980s, Cameo, Cameosis, Funk, Music, pop music, Roller Rink Music, Shake Your Pants Leave a comment
Shake Your Pants – CAMEO 1980 Album ‘CAMEOSIS’
[VIDEO] ‘DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION’ — A Bad Lip Reading
Posted: August 20, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Mediasphere, Politics, White House | Tags: Bad Lip Reading, Bernie Sanders, Bill Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, Democratic Party, DNC, Hillary Clinton, Music, news, Parody, satire, video Leave a comment
Copenhagen Jazz Festival 2013 by Søren Behncke
Posted: August 14, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: Bill Evans, design, graphics, Illustration, Jazz, Music, typography Leave a comment[VIDEO] ‘High Fidelity’ on How To Organize Your Record Collection
Posted: July 21, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere | Tags: High Fidelity, John Cusack, Movies, Music, Records, video, Vinyl Leave a comment
[VIDEO] ‘Doctor My Eyes’
Posted: May 12, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: David Lindley, Glastonbury Festival, Jackson Browne, Manchester, Music, Performance, Pop, Rock, video Leave a comment
Jackson Browne Band with David Lindley play ‘Doctor My Eyes‘ on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury Festival on Saturday 26th June 2010. HD
[VIDEO] Prince & Lenny Kravitz: ‘American Woman’
Posted: April 29, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: Lenny Kravitz, Live Concert, Music, Pop, Prince, Rock & Roll, video 1 Comment
[VIDEO] ‘Deacon Blues’ Deconstructed: How Steely Dan Composes A Song
Posted: April 25, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Global | Tags: Composing, Crimson Tide, Deacon Blues, Donald Fagan, Jazz, Loser, Music, Pop, pop music, Saxaphone, Steely Dan, Suburbs, video, Walter Becker Leave a comment
[VIDEO] REWIND: Shocking Blue ‘Venus’
Posted: March 30, 2016 Filed under: Mediasphere | Tags: 1960s, 1970s, Music, pop music, Shocking Blue, Television, Venus, video, vintage Leave a comment
Official Video of “Venus” by Shocking Blue.
Poster: ‘Jazz West Coast’
Posted: January 29, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: 1950s, design, Illustration, Jazz, Music, Pacific Jazz Records, Photography, Poster Art, typography Leave a comment[VIDEO] Tal Wilkenfeld: Live at Namm Show, 2016
Posted: January 24, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: Bass Guitar, Funk, Fusion, guitar, Jazz, Live Performance, Music, Pop, Tal Wolkenfeld, video Leave a comment
Live at Namm show 2016 (may be incomplete)
[VIDEO] David Bowie: ‘Young Americans’
Posted: January 11, 2016 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: 1970s, David Bowie, Glam Rock, Music, pop music, video, Young Americans (song) Leave a comment
[VIDEO] Dancing Skeleton Puppet
Posted: January 5, 2016 Filed under: Humor | Tags: Bones, Dancing, Music, Skeleton, video Leave a comment[PHOTO] Sinatra with a Donut
Posted: December 31, 2015 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: Frank Sinatra, Jazz, Movies, Music, Photography, Show Business Leave a comment[VIDEO] Duet: Dean Martin & Scarlett Johansson, ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas’
Posted: December 25, 2015 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: Blue Christmas, Christmas, Dean Martin, Mariah Carey, Music, Scarlett Johansson, Sleigh Ride, The Little Drummer Boy, video Leave a comment
This duet between the infamous Rat Packer and the voluptuous actress would still be weird if it happened when Martin was still alive…Surprisingly, posthumous Christmas duets aren’t unusual, with Kelly Clarkson and Martina McBride teaming up with Elvis for “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” and “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” respectively.
Source: TIME.com
Andy Warhol: Jazz Album Covers 1952-58
Posted: December 18, 2015 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment | Tags: 1950s, Andy Warhol, Cool, design, fashion, Illustration, Jazz, Music, Style, typography Leave a comment[PHOTO] Dizzy for President
Posted: December 14, 2015 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, White House | Tags: Dizzy Gillespie, Jazz, Music, Photography, President of the United States Leave a comment[VIDEO] William Shatner Performs ‘It Was a Very Good Year’
Posted: December 12, 2015 Filed under: Art & Culture, Entertainment, Humor, Mediasphere | Tags: 1960s, 1970s, It Was a Very Good Year, Music, Singing, Television, William Shatner Leave a comment[VIDEO] Tal Wilkenfeld with Jackson Browne ‘Doctor My Eyes’
Posted: December 9, 2015 Filed under: Entertainment, Mediasphere | Tags: Australia, Bass Guitar, Bass Player, Jackson Browne, Jazz, Live Performance, Music, Rock & Roll, Tal Wilkenfeld Leave a comment