Tag: Jtmp

OCT 28, 2013 - The musical world is in shock and in mourning, as we woke up to the sad news that one of music's biggest pioneers, Lou Reed, has died. He stayed strong till the last moments, even doing Tai Chi about an hour before he passed. I blogged about him last May when Lou underwent a liver transplant, and he was working hard on his rehab program saying on his website he is "bigger and stronger" than ever. Unfortunately though, he passed away at his home in Southampton, New York over the weekend, and numerous tributes to Lou Reed via Twitter poured out from musicians. Lou had a huge impact on the musical scene and the world.

My first contact with a Lou Reed was indirect. It was 1973, and I was about 10, and the rock band Brownsville Station had a song on their "Yeah" album I thought was one of the coolest rock guitar rhythms ever; that song was Sweet Jane. (Here is the Brownsville Station version I grew up on) Later when I was in my teens, my sister put on a Velvet Underground album that had the man who wrote that song in it, and I was floored. Pure musical genius, very original and creative; the music I heard coming out from those speakers inspired me and many other musicians to pick up the guitar and start a rock band. There is the famous quote from Brian Eno of where he comments on the first Velvet Underground only selling 30,000 copies to which Eno replied, "I think everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band". Count me in that crowd.

Probably the most hard hit musician was his band mate in Velvet Underground, John Cale. In a statement on his Facebook page Cale says, "The news I feared most, pales in comparison to the lump in my throat and the hollow in my stomach. Two kids have a chance meeting and 47 years later we fight and love the same way - losing either one is incomprehensible. No replacement value, no digital or virtual fill...broken now, for all time. Unlike so many with similar stories - we have the best of our fury laid out on vinyl, for the world to catch a glimpse. The laughs we shared just a few weeks ago, will forever remind me of all that was good between us." Watch a video below of Lou with Velvet Underground live playing one of the badass rock rhythm guitar riffs ever, Sweet Jane, and read more about the creative musical genius that had a huge impact on the rock scene on his Wikipedia page here and I recommend this NY Times article about Lou's career and passing here. JTMP joins in the mourning of Reed's passing, and also join the celebration of the musical genius he brought to the world. We will miss you Lou! (Photo credit: Marcelo Costa/CC)

OCT 27, 2013 - Huge crowds turned out yesterday in cities across the world speaking out against excessive surveillance by the NSA and other agencies, demanding their civil rights of privacy be respected and protected. Many artists and musicians joined in the effort, such as the Flobots, YACHT, Ai WeiWei, Tom Morello,  and JTMP's favorite, Anti-Flag, who are close friends and a huge part of JTMP's early days. Many groups, organizations and individuals from all political stripes came together in this massive street protest against what people firmly believe is a excessive intrusion into their daily lives, and people wonder if their phone calls and emails are being snooped on by the NSA and other agencies. It came out this morning that Germany's Chancellor Merkel has had her cell phone "tapped" and spied on by America's NSA since 2002! The crowd was also protesting the use of military drones, and the huge, bloated military and security apparatus by the American federal government and other countries, which had become huge, hostile, intrusive and unresponsive to the very people it is supposed to serve and protect. JTMP urges our supporters to contact their elected officials at all levels, and scream that you want your privacy back, and tell them to "Stop Watching Us"!

One of the leading organizations leading the protests is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and you can read more about them at EFF.org, and to read more about the various artists and musicians that were at a New York rally yesterday, check out BroadwayWorld.com. Watch an EFF YouTube video below of the scope of the chilling problem with our privacy, and if you want more check out the the rally's website at Rally.StopWatching.Us.

OCT 24, 2013 - The 30 Greenpeace activists that were arrested and detained after attempting to peacefully occupy an oil drilling platform in a protest action against oil drilling in the Barents Sea, now face charges of "hooliganism". Read more on JTMP Green here.

OCT 21, 2013 - Graham Nash talked music and politics with FOX411 recently, and he talked about how his father went to jail for a year over an incident where someone hid a $30 camera at his house, so he developed a "sense of unfairness." Nash told FOX411, "I always felt the justice system was buyable. Rich people don't go to jail, it's always the poor people." With JPMorgan trashing our economy and stealing money from people's retirement accounts and taxpayers and only paying a fine and nobody going to jail, it seems he is on to something. 

Nash talked about the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, and how he got a call from a friend telling him they needed defense money for people who disturbed the convention, and asked him to come out and sing. Nash said, "When I heard what happened to Bobby Seale, where they bound him and chained him and gagged him and called it a fair trial. When you put Bradley Manning into a room with bright lights for 24 hours a day and strip him naked and humiliate him for a thousand days before his trial, that's not fair to me." 

To read the entire FOX411 interview click here.  (photo credit: Matthew Harris/CC)

OCT 17, 2013 - As I was walking my dog this morning on the federal park land of the C&O Canal Towpath, me and several neighbors spotted a US Park Service truck pull up ad 2 feral Park Service workers got out. We welcomed them back, and they responded they had a lot of backed-up work they had to do. We were very welcome to see our vital government workers, in this case assuring we have safe outdoors to take walks and enjoy nature, back at work providing us the many needed services we rely on everyday. The old saying goes, "You don't know what you've got till it's gone" applies. The Teabaggers, by shutting down the government, made us appreciate the myriad of governmental services all of us Americans have created with our government that sustains a comfortable level of lifestyle. From an elderly retiree getting their social security check, the soldier receiving their pay, to young kids getting help with Headstart, our governmental services are vital and important. JTMP strongly urges our supporters to watch out for conservatives and conservative organizations. They are coming after our Social Security, Medicare and al the other governmental institutions built by progressives over the years. Make sure you vote every time even in primaries, and pay attention to local elections as well as federal elections. Make sure you tell your government workers and your government representatives: Welcome back! Thank you for your services, and please do all you can to protect and secure entitlement programs. Bolster them up, inject new funding, do means testing; do whatever it takes to SAVE our entitlement programs, not get rid of them like certain conservative organizations propose.  (photo credit: Chris Gray-Garcia/US Army Corps Engineers/CC)