by David Burn | Feb 11, 2006 | Music
Aquarium Drunk is offering three free tunes from John Hermann’s 2001 Fat Possum Records debut, Smiling Assassin. The version of “Lonely Avenue,” with John Bell singing background vocals cooks.
JoJo’s Fat Possum follow up, Defector.
In October 2000, Hermann holed up with longtime pals Luther and Cody Dickinson (DDT, The North Mississippi All-Stars) and Paul “Crumpy” Edwards (Bloodkin) in Water Valley’s Money Shot Studio where they recorded the album The Smiling Assassin.
If you visit the Fat Possum page for the album, you can also download two more tracks, making five in all, factoring in Aquarium Drunk’s offering.
Fat Possum, an Oxford label, also has several other notable artisits on their roster: Solomon Burke, The Black Keys, Heartless Bastards and Junior Kimbrough to name a few.
by David Burn | Feb 10, 2006 | Place
Mystic Hot Springs courtesy of David Gans.
by David Burn | Feb 10, 2006 | Advertising, Digital culture
With my recent inclusion in Morph, “the Media Center conversation,” I’m asking myself if I am now part of the mainstream media. Better yet, part of the media elite.
With the inception of AdPulp, just 16 months ago, something shifted for me. My career took a strong turn towards writing, editing and publishing (and away from the brand-sponsored “writing” that had been the centerpeice). I feel like I’m in a better place now.
I still write copy and I still help big brands construct and implement their communications strategies. Perhaps, I always will. But I don’t enjoy doing it for strangers, nor for firms at odds with my fundemental beliefs.
I want to help companies working to improve the world in some way. Advertising is powerful stuff. So is media, in all its varieties. I want to apply advertising and media to powerful ideas–like solar, wind, biodiesel and hemp. All emerging industries that need my drive and experience (and yours!) to help move hundreds of millions of energy consumers to a post-oil economy.
I miss my youthful ambitions and idealism. It’s time to bring them back.
by David Burn | Feb 8, 2006 | The Environment
Guardian Unlimited: Sweden is to take the biggest energy step of any advanced western economy by trying to wean itself off oil completely within 15 years – without building a new generation of nuclear power stations.
The attempt by the country of 9 million people to become the world’s first practically oil-free economy is being planned by a committee of industrialists, academics, farmers, car makers, civil servants and others, who will report to parliament in several months.
The intention, the Swedish government said yesterday, is to replace all fossil fuels with renewables before climate change destroys economies and growing oil scarcity leads to huge new price rises.
“Our dependency on oil should be broken by 2020,” said Mona Sahlin, minister of sustainable development. “There shall always be better alternatives to oil, which means no house should need oil for heating, and no driver should need to turn solely to gasoline.”
Ms Sahlin has described oil dependency as one of the greatest problems facing the world. “A Sweden free of fossil fuels would give us enormous advantages, not least by reducing the impact from fluctuations in oil prices,” she said. “The price of oil has tripled since 1996.”
by David Burn | Feb 8, 2006 | Music
Colin Meloy of The Decemberists appeared on NPR’s “All Songs Considered” last week. Kevin from So Much Silence was kind enough to transpose NPR’s useless Real Audio files into MP3s, and the entire performance is available from his site.
Here’s one song, if you just want a taste. The file is 4.9 megs.
by David Burn | Feb 8, 2006 | Chicago
Image courtesy of Luke Adams
I love this romanticized image of our old neighborhood. It makes the place seem so quaint, and it is quaint for a few blocks in each direction. But this neighborhood is also surrounded by concrete and traffic and noise in every direction for miles upon miles. I guess that’s the beauty of photography–the focus.
by David Burn | Feb 5, 2006 | Food & Beverage, Lowcountry
We’ve been feasting on great wines, of late. Thankfully, we’re fortunate enough to do so, because there are some fine reds out there waiting for a celebration. Last night, at Saltus River Grill in historic downtown Beaufort, we uncorked another splendid Pinot from Oregon’s Willamette Valley.
According to Oregon Pinot Noir Club, the Terrapin Cellars Pinot Noir 2004 is a major score.
WOW – pinot noir that tastes good for just $16! I’ve been tasting a lot of “value-priced†pinots from Oregon lately – most of them are simply disgusting, and undrinkable. Thus I was quite pleased to find this gem. It’s made by a guy named Rob Clark, who manages nine vineyards around Salem, and got into winemaking as a very minor sideline. From the ’04 vintage he made almost 1,000 cases of pinot gris, and only 150 cases of this pinot noir. I just want to make a good table wine that sells for a reasonable price,†he told me. He succeeded with this wine, which has plentiful dark-flavored fruit, a bit of plumpness in the middle, and a fruit-based finish that is extended for long seconds thanks to that fresh ’04 acidity. It’s a bona-fide bargain.
This bold wine is earthy and spicy. The timid need not apply.
by David Burn | Jan 31, 2006 | Media
The Bush administration has been expert at framing American deaths and injuries in Iraq as a strict numbers game. Thankfully, Cindy Sheehan and Rep. John Murtha have successfully personalized our losses, and therefore have presented impressive challenges to institutional deceit.
Now, with ABC’s Bob Woodruff seriously injured by a bomb, Americans have another reason to pause.
Christiane Amanpour on CNN’s Larry King Live last night:
We have to have an independent eye on these conflicts. The war in Iraq has basically turned out to be a disaster and journalists have paid for it, paid for the privilege of witnessing and reporting that and so have many, many other people who have been there.
And I think that’s terribly, terribly difficult for us and unfortunately for some reason, which I can’t fathom, the kind of awful thing that’s going on there now on a daily basis has almost become humdrum. So, when something happens to people that we identify, like Bob and like Doug, we wake up again and realize that, no, this is not acceptable what’s going on there and it’s a terrible situation.
by David Burn | Jan 29, 2006 | Literature
Jay McInerney, author of Bright Lights, Big City, Ransom, Brightness Falls and several other novels, submits to Vanity Fair’s Proust Questionnaire:
Q. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
A. My tendency to exaggerate.
Q. What is your greatest extravagance?
A. Bespoke clothing.
Q. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
A. My tendency to get mistaken for Bret Easton Ellis.
Q. Who are your favorite writers?
A. Fitzgerald, Carver, and Austen.
Q. Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
A. Stephen Dedalus.
Q. What is your most treasured possession?
A. My first edition of The Great Gatsby.
Q. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
A. No wine list.
by David Burn | Jan 27, 2006 | The Environment
New Scientist: Development giants China and India “hold the world in balance”, says a new report by a US environmental think tank.
“The choices these two countries make in the next few years will lead the world either towards growing ecological and political instability — or down a development path based on efficiency and better stewardship of resources,” says a report from the Worldwatch Institute in Washington DC, US.
One in every two tonnes of cement poured today will be in China — such is the country’s breakneck pace of economic development. The country also uses one-quarter of all the world’s steel, eats one-third of the world’s rice, and is the world’s largest importer of tropical timber and second largest importer of oil.
Veteran US ecologist and China-watcher Lester Brown last week warned that if China’s economy continues to grow at the present rate, average Chinese incomes will reach current US levels by 2031. At that point “China would consume two-thirds of the world’s current grain harvest and twice the world’s current paper production”.
However, the think tank warns against assuming that economic growth is an environmental problem only in poor countries. “Record-shattering consumption levels in the US and Europe” are equally to blame, stresses Christopher Flavin, president of Worldwatch. In the past decade alone, the ecological footprint of the average American has grown by the same amount as the total footprint of a Chinese person today.
But Flavin says countries like China and India have the chance to develop in a more benign way than already industrialised nations. “[By] leapfrogging today’s industrial powers, they can become world leaders in sustainable energy and agriculture within a decade,” he says.
This is not unrealistic. China recently announced plans for the world’s first “eco-city” on marshes outside Shanghai. India has the world’s fourth largest wind-power industry and plans to generate one-quarter of its energy from renewables.
