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The tower was named after Chicago's greatest son, Wesley Willis.

The USA's relationship with Iran has been shitty since 1979

Actually, even before that due to our support for the Shah.

As for Israel, Jello Biafra has some interesting comments here.

Oh yeah, down with the RIAA!! How dare they profit from something illegal! Rock on Chicago, Rock on London, Rock over RIAA.

(best taken in small doses)

http://www.alternativetentacles.com/page.php?page= green
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=gree n+party+maximum+wage&btnG=Google+Search

Funny, I just happened to look them up the other day and found out about the legal mess. Its a really sad situation for everyone involved, and my opinion of all of them is much lower as a result. Its hard to separate the facts when all of the info I can find online is he-said-she-said. More info on the A.T. website and the 'official' band website.

My guess is Jello has gone off the deep end while the rest of the band grew up, got haircuts and just wants to get rich making music. Both of which are a sad endings to a truly great band.

I've seen Jello speak a couple of times here in Dublin. He's an interesting, charismatic and often poetic speaker with a great sense of humour that rarely gets in the way of the gravity of the discussion. He has a few records out on Alternative Tentacles. Also featured is an interesting history of the Dead Kennedys. Check out Jello's pages for the latest info on their infamous court battles.
Well worth going along just to hear him, in my opinion. Wish I could offer an opinion on the other speakers :)

I've seen Jello speak a couple of times here in Dublin. He's an interesting, charismatic and often poetic speaker with a great sense of humour that rarely gets in the way of the gravity of the discussion. He has a few records out on Alternative Tentacles. Also featured is an interesting history of the Dead Kennedys. Check out Jello's pages for the latest info on their infamous court battles.
Well worth going along just to hear him, in my opinion. Wish I could offer an opinion on the other speakers :)

I've seen Jello speak a couple of times here in Dublin. He's an interesting, charismatic and often poetic speaker with a great sense of humour that rarely gets in the way of the gravity of the discussion. He has a few records out on Alternative Tentacles. Also featured is an interesting history of the Dead Kennedys. Check out Jello's pages for the latest info on their infamous court battles.
Well worth going along just to hear him, in my opinion. Wish I could offer an opinion on the other speakers :)

Everything I know about schizophrenia I learned from Wesley Willis.

http://www.alternativetentacles.com/bandinfo.php?b and=wesleywillis

http://www.monzy.org/wesley/

http://www.wesleywillisart.com/

While you're at it, feed your brain.

If evolution is outlawed, then only outlaws will evolve.

Wesley Willis - Cut the Mullet.mp3

i've been pounding on the "requests" button every time i can't find a band-- i suspect a lot of the omissions have to do with licensing but it's a shame labels like AT (jello biafra/dead kennedys) aren't on there. they have free mp3s for download on their site-- i would think they'd jump on something like this, since their servers seem to be perpetually hammered.

I support my indie artists.

Jim Thirlwell (a.k.a. Foetus, Manorexia, Baby Zizanie) has a couple of cd's for sale at foetus.org. Radiolarian Ooze is awesome. Check out his aud/vid link for some samples.

Another oldie but goodie is Alternative Tentacles where you can find Jello Biafra and lots more.

Any other good indie stuff for sale out there?

Most of my favourite bands are on one or the other, and if it hadn't been for MP3s, I probably wouldn't have found most of the bands (and, hence, given the bands and their label money for CDs).

Most of the stuff on major labels is garbage in the first place, IMO.

If certain labels had a way for me to listen to streaming audio of their back catalogues, I'd probably tune in once in awhile. My favourite indie label has a lot of MP3s on their site, and I'm going to buy that Causey Way CD eventually...a band I never would have heard of if I hadn't been browsing their catalogue listings and seen that MP3 and thought the title looked interesting.

However, the RIAA is not going to listen. No amount of cranks make a consensus here, to paraphrase Harlan Ellison (who also should stop cutting off his nose to spite his face).

check them out:
matador
dischord
touch and go
mint
southern
merge
alternative tentacles

or, for the fast route, hit the google listing of record labels:

http://directory.google.com/Top/Arts/Music/Record_ Labels/

while i admit that this won't be everyone's taste, alternative tentacles embodies the diy/punk attitude, manages to turn a profit (this is an assumption on my part, so i could be wrong here), has an immense punk/progressive/uncategorizable catalog, and features jello biafra himself (in sort of a coincidence, being that he faced off with our pal tipper back in the day). there are bands i like better but honestly no other label i'd like to give my money to. oh. and free mp3 downloads (when their server's not being bum rushed- which is almost never). there have to be more labels like this somewhere, and i'm sure i'll think of five the second i hit submit. i bugged them a little while ago about going OGG in keeping with the free/diy/punk attitude, but they didn't seem very interested...

NDP, Liberal, etc..

Coalition governments. Try reading about them. You'll see that law doesn't apply, except in your two-party system.

And if you didn't realize it, Gore is not a solution. Tipper Gore went after music in the 1980s, saying that everyone should listen to U2 -- it would make the world a better place to do that. The Gore family has been doing a lot of evil. Jello Biafra spoke at length about it. Go get an update on Alternative Tentacles.

Don't believe the lies about Gore, he's just as bad as Bush.

"The fact is that publishers of art, specifically musicians need more than an inexpensive distribution channel. They need two other things, talent and, more so, marketing."

This is at least interesting. It's been a while since I've heard someone on /. who cared about what the publishers needed. If you ask me, they need to stop screwing the talent.

"For the past 5 to 10 years musicians have had the ability to publish and distribute their productions at a very low cost. Yet, there has yet to be a single artist who has achieved wide-spread popularity or fame through these channels."

This portion of the poster's argument just isn't true. For one thing, this has been the case for more than ten years. Remember selling tapes out of your trunk? And for another, artists as diverse as Ani DiFranco, the Dead Kennedys and N.W.A. have ridden independently-produced records to fame and... a modicum of financial stability.

There are some people who value "DIY" over mass-market acceptance.

Forced watermarking could be a very bad idea for all of us who produce music/movies/literature in our basements (or reasonable hand-drawn facsimiles). Where am I, a piker who puts together stuff with a PC and freeware, going to get expensive watermarking equipment?

Likewise, what would be the impact on those of us who don't live in the US, but might want to export our created media there (I have a lot of US friends and I like to share)?

What about independent record labels etc. within the US who don't particularly mind people sharing their music? I seem to remember one of the original Dead Kennedys albums came on one side of a cassette tape, with an inscription in the liner notes something like "Home-recorded cassettes are killing the music industry. Go and do your part."

Even though one poster had the valid point that this bill seems to be aimed at direct copyright infringement, where the MP/RIAA and friends are concerned, the definition of "copyright infringement" seems to be "any media transaction where we don't take a cut." We (here in Canada) already have levies on blank media (yeah, the equivalent to the MP/RIAA gets paid for every CD-ROM backup I make) -- what more could they want? Our first-born children? Our souls?

If it was download mix burn they might actually have a point...

There is plenty of music that is legally and freely distributed using the
"download mix burn" model:

http://www.etree.org/

http://www.furthurnet.com/

http://gdlive.com/

http://www.sugarmegs.org/

http://www.kapoho.net/

http://www.alternativetentacles.com/mp3.php

Just to name a few. Why should my rights to enjoy this music be taken
away? Why should rights of the artists to chose a free distribution
business model be restricted?

Don't tar us all with the same brush: "download mix burn" does not mean copyright
restriction!

personally i think parents should take a more active role in the lives of their children. then people will say "we dont have the time to monitor everything our children do". personally i think you should wait until you have time, then have children.

back when i was young, this lady named tipper started something called the parents music resource center (pmrc). she, and a few other senators wives with nothing better to do, started lobbying the major record labels for a rating system. eventually they got the major record labels to comply, but some others wern't all that quick to adhere to their "moral" views (see at).

so what was their solution? picket any stores that sell this music that they dont approve of. this leads to bands being blacklisted because they dont think morals should be dictated to them. one of the bands was the dead kennedys, an antigovernment band whos lead singer didnt have alot of nice things to say about tippers husband when he ran for election in 2000 (not that he had many nice things to say abou bush either).

so who cares right? i do, there is a small subset of the population dictating what is "morally right" and i dont think that bodes well with the liberties given to people by our constitution. this allows parents to be less responsible at a time when they should be _MORE_ responsible. i want parents to stop looking for external excuses for their childrens' behaviour and start to accept that they have to participate in the lives of their children to be a good parent.

The answer is DIY, Do It Yourself, or find someone who Does It Themselves. Independant labels can be successful, and are usually working harder to give the artists their fair share in the deal. I've heard many people argue that independant labels can't be successful because they're not corporate giants. This is bad and dangerous thinking, in my opinion. If labels like Dischord (owned by Fugazi's Ian McKaye), or Alternative Tentacles Records (Jello Biafra's label) can be as successful as they have been, then it's only a matter of how one advocates what they are doing and how one advertises oneself. If artists are truly interested in their share of what is made from their music, they should work together to form other niche labels instead of making a pact with the devil.

We need an imbedded AI to determine the data running across our networks is not copyrighted... as well as a slot for quarters so that every time we play an mp3 we can drop in our spare change... I heard Alternative Tentacles could use the money.

the alternative tentacles label carries alot of spoken word stuff from noam chomsky. they even have some sample mp3's you can download to see what he has to say.

use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that

The proceeds shall benefit the Alternative Tentacles Legal Defense Fund . Why do this benefit? Becuase Alternative Tentacles was one of the first and most dedicated independent recording labels that not only issued releases from underground cultures, especially punk, but also numerous political, spoken word and benefit recordings. Founded by Jello Biafra when he was a vocalist for Dead Kennedys, Alternative Tentacles has been through countless trials and legal hassles. The famous obscenity trial for the DK's Frankenchrist album resulted in a precedent setting victory for free speech, but nearly bankrupted the label . Amazingly, despite the numerous famous artists under attack at that time, only Frank Zappa and a couple of others tried to help. Now Alternative Tentacles is at risk of total financial collapse once again, due to the latest court drama. This time, it isn't Jesse or Tipper or Falwell..it is the other three former members of Dead Kennedys. While Jello has stayed true to the ideals and vision of the early days of the band and label, the other three have been considerably less honorable. They have sought to seize control of the DK masters to cash in and use the songs for jeans commercials and other acts that total contadict what the band once stood for. Any Dead Kennedys release on a new label is unworthy of purchase. Alternative Tentacles continues to issue recordings by numerous artists who would have much less of a chance being released on another label. Further, they have released countless spoken word releases by Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and other voices that challenge abuses of power and the lies of the corporate media. Who Bombed Judi Bari (of Earth First) and All Things Censored (the censored recordings of Mumia Abu-Jamal) were also released on Alternative Tentacles. It is time to support this vital label and assist valuable allies in the struggles for justice. Please consider coming to this benefit and/ or helping to get the word out. Also please check out the AT website and offering support (and maybe getting some items from them).

The proceeds shall benefit the Alternative Tentacles Legal Defense Fund . Why do this benefit? Becuase Alternative Tentacles was one of the first and most dedicated independent recording labels that not only issued releases from underground cultures, especially punk, but also numerous political, spoken word and benefit recordings. Founded by Jello Biafra when he was a vocalist for Dead Kennedys, Alternative Tentacles has been through countless trials and legal hassles. The famous obscenity trial for the DK's Frankenchrist album resulted in a precedent setting victory for free speech, but nearly bankrupted the label . Amazingly, despite the numerous famous artists under attack at that time, only Frank Zappa and a couple of others tried to help. Now Alternative Tentacles is at risk of total financial collapse once again, due to the latest court drama. This time, it isn't Jesse or Tipper or Falwell..it is the other three former members of Dead Kennedys. While Jello has stayed true to the ideals and vision of the early days of the band and label, the other three have been considerably less honorable. They have sought to seize control of the DK masters to cash in and use the songs for jeans commercials and other acts that total contadict what the band once stood for. Any Dead Kennedys release on a new label is unworthy of purchase. Alternative Tentacles continues to issue recordings by numerous artists who would have much less of a chance being released on another label. Further, they have released countless spoken word releases by Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and other voices that challenge abuses of power and the lies of the corporate media. Who Bombed Judi Bari (of Earth First) and All Things Censored (the censored recordings of Mumia Abu-Jamal) were also released on Alternative Tentacles. It is time to support this vital label and assist valuable allies in the struggles for justice. Please consider coming to this benefit and/ or helping to get the word out. Also please check out the AT website and offering support (and maybe getting some items from them).

I don't know about you, but frankly I'm sick of our "free and democratic" mass media passing along whatever Big Corporation Guy says like a puppet.

Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one. You HAVE your own press. Use it, and quit bitching that you don't hear what you want to hear.

Jello says it best: Become the media. (And if he got it from somewhere else, please tell me.)

--

So if distributing "harmful matter" (what Jello Biafra was accused of) is criminal, or if distribiting DeCSS or other "infringing speech" is criminal, AND if creating a link to such a site is equivalent to the "crime" itself, what will become of search engines?

So, soon all the search engines will universally adopt the list of banned sites from BESS, Netnanny, etc., and then the net will be truly safe for children! Nothing controversial, no illegal speech, no forbidden speech, and we will all be using our cable modems to download live streams of Barney and Teletubbies...

QUICK! Grab all the Bill Hicks .mp3's .ra's and .rm's you can while it's still legal to give you this link!! http://www.sacredcowproductions.com/hicks/videos/i ndex.html (be sure to check out the "Positive Drug Story", it's a Hicks classic.)

Also, I think this is unfair to artists under non-RIAA labels such as Alternative Tentacles , with artists like Dead Kennedys, Butthole Surfers, D.O.A., and I think Husker Du.

From Biafra's Bio:

(I hope that slashdot doesn't munge the links this time)

1985

Infamous Senate anti-music hearings are staged by Senator Al Gore and his cohorts as a favor to his wife Tipper and her openly bigoted fundamentalist friends calling themselves the Parent's Music Resource Center (PMRC). Among the PMRC's demands were the censorship through a labeling system of warning stickers, the "Reassessment of contracts" of artists whose lyrics are, "sexually explicit", "anti-Christian" or mention suicide or homosexuality. "Expert witnesses" called by the Washington Wives blame rock music for gang violence, suicide, murder, devil worship and sexual perversion. Frank Zappa stands virtually alone in opposing the PMRC and sensing their significance. The music industry above and below ground keeps their head in the sand, preferring to sleep through the hearings.

April 15, 1986

Two weeks after Dead Kennedys are publicly targeted by Susan Baker of the PMRC, Biafra's house in San Francisco is raided and torn apart by a squad of Los Angeles and San Francisco police officers. Cops even ransack the cat-box hoping to find - well? ask them. "Frankenchrist" albums and Giger posters are taken from the house and the Alternative Tentacles/Mordam offices.

June, 1986

Biafra and four others are charged in Los Angeles with one count each of "Distribution of Harmful Matter to Minors". They are the first people in American history to face criminal charges over a record; three years before the attack on 2 Live Crew. Biafra and other supporters form No More Censorship Defense Fund to cover the money to fight the charges. Defendants face a possible one year in jail and a $2,000 fine. The law had never been used before. The L.A. City Attorney's office admits to L.A. Weekly reporter Don Bolles that they kept files on several other PMRC-targeted musicians, but chose Biafra because it was, "a cost effective way of sending a message". The prosecuting attorney later says one of his goals was to destroy Alternative Tentacles. Fund-raising and the ensuing media circus delay the completion of the follow-up album to Frankenchrist, the appropriately titled Bedtime for Democracy .

August, 1987

Charges against Biafra and the other defendants are dismissed after a three-week criminal trial in Los Angeles. Even though Frankenchrist was not found to be obscene; Biafra, Dead Kennedys and Alternative Tentacles records are subsequently banned from a multitude of chain stores nationwide. This is exactly the type of de-facto censorship Tipper Gore and the PMRC had in mind. By this time, controversy has vaulted Biafra's spoken word performances from coffeehouses to the college lecture circuit, where he is brought in to "lecture" on censorship. For the first time the media is more interested in Biafra's political views than music-industry shoptalk on his latest music album. His documentation of Tipper Gore and the PMRC's ties to fundamentalist Christian extremists is no longer dismissed as lunatic. He also appears as an FBI agent in the Tim Robbins-John Cusack film, Tape Heads, wearing the same blue pin-stripe suit he wore at the trial.

________________________________________

From Biafra's Bio:

1985

Infamous Senate anti-music hearings are staged by Senator Al Gore and his cohorts as a favor to his wife Tipper and her calling themselves the Parent's Music Resource Center (PMRC). Among the PMRC's demands were the censorship through a labeling system of warning stickers, the "Reassessment of contracts" of artists whose lyrics are, "sexually explicit", "anti-Christian" or mention suicide or homosexuality. "Expert witnesses" called by the Washington Wives blame rock music for gang violence, suicide, murder, devil worship and sexual perversion. Frank Zappa stands virtually alone in opposing the PMRC and sensing their significance. The music industry above and below ground keeps their head in the sand, preferring to sleep through the hearings.

April 15, 1986

Two weeks after Dead Kennedys are publicly targeted by Susan Baker of the PMRC, Biafra's house in San Francisco is raided and torn apart by a squad of Los Angeles and San Francisco police officers. Cops even ransack the cat-box hoping to find - well? ask them. "Frankenchrist" albums and Giger posters are taken from the house and the Alternative Tentacles/Mordam offices.

June, 1986

Biafra and four others are charged in Los Angeles with one count each of "Distribution of Harmful Matter to Minors". They are the first people in American history to face criminal charges over a record; three years before the attack on 2 Live Crew. Biafra and other supporters form No More Censorship Defense Fund to cover the money to fight the charges. Defendants face a possible one year in jail and a $2,000 fine. The law had never been used before. The L.A. City Attorney's office admits to L.A. Weekly reporter Don Bolles that they kept files on several other PMRC-targeted musicians, but chose Biafra because it was, "a cost effective way of sending a message". The prosecuting attorney later says one of his goals was to destroy Alternative Tentacles. Fund-raising and the ensuing media circus delay the completion of the follow-up album to Frankenchrist, the appropriately titled Bedtime for Democracy .

August, 1987

Charges against Biafra and the other defendants are dismissed after a three-week criminal trial in Los Angeles. Even though Frankenchrist was not found to be obscene; Biafra, Dead Kennedys and Alternative Tentacles records are subsequently banned from a multitude of chain stores nationwide. This is exactly the type of de-facto censorship Tipper Gore and the PMRC had in mind. By this time, controversy has vaulted Biafra's spoken word performances from coffeehouses to the college lecture circuit, where he is brought in to "lecture" on censorship. For the first time the media is more interested in Biafra's political views than music-industry shoptalk on his latest music album. His documentation of Tipper Gore and the PMRC's ties to fundamentalist Christian extremists is no longer dismissed as lunatic. He also appears as an FBI agent in the Tim Robbins-John Cusack film, Tape Heads, wearing the same blue pin-stripe suit he wore at the trial.

________________________________________

The ideal ticket for the next election might be Jesse (Ventura) and Jello. They would *really* rock the vote.

Actually Jello is running in this election under the green party he is just not doing ANY campaigning. I guess running for mayor all those years back gave him a bad taste for campaigning.

Learn more about Jello at the Alternative Tentacles website. Also, you can order his new CD (the one mentioned on the H2K front page) here.

The ideal ticket for the next election might be Jesse (Ventura) and Jello. They would *really* rock the vote.

Actually Jello is running in this election under the green party he is just not doing ANY campaigning. I guess running for mayor all those years back gave him a bad taste for campaigning.

Learn more about Jello at the Alternative Tentacles website. Also, you can order his new CD (the one mentioned on the H2K front page) here.

Alternative Tentacles was formed by Jello Biafra when he was in the Dead Kennedys, but the band and the label are not one and the same. They are non-RIAA though. Anyway, the other Dead Kennedys members have sort of drifted away from alternative tentacles after jello and them got into an argument over having Holiday in Cambodia being in a Levi's commercial... you can read about it at:
http://www.alternativetenta cles.com/page.gsp?id=DKvsATR

Alternative Tentacles was formed by Jello Biafra when he was in the Dead Kennedys, but the band and the label are not one and the same. They are non-RIAA though. Anyway, the other Dead Kennedys members have sort of drifted away from alternative tentacles after jello and them got into an argument over having Holiday in Cambodia being in a Levi's commercial... you can read about it at:
http://www.alternativetenta cles.com/page.gsp?id=DKvsATR

If you're into punk rock, the majority of punk rock bands are on indie labels (not affiliated with the RIAA). A few are:

Nitro Records - AFI, Guttermouth, TSOL, One Hit Wonder, old Offspring, Vandals, etc.

Fat Wreck Chords - some NOFX, Bracket, Propagandhi, others

Epitaph - Rancid, NOFX, older Bad Religion, some Offspring, Ten Foot Pole, Pennywise, and a ton of others

Alternative Tentacles - Dead Kennedys, SNFU, random other bands

If you're into industrial, TVT Records has KMFDM, some old Nine Inch Nails, and an assortment of lesser-known bands

And of course there's always mp3.com - they sell cds of most of the bands featured there. Some are actually pretty good.

Try Alternative Tentacles. They do Dead Kennedys and the like :)

So assuming that the DeCSS case will wind up in the worst case scenario, i.e., the companies outlaw knowladge, I think it would be a great time for programmers to being to unionize, and go on strike.

I think Jello Biafra said it pretty good in Electronic Plantation

Vinyl is still an affordable medium for independent bands to put out music on. If you take a look at any of the larger independent labels in existence (like Dischord, Alternative Tentacles, Victory or Matador) you can see that they still produce a tremendous number of vinyl records.

This is done for a few reasons:

It's a less substantial investment than CDs (if the band just doesn't sell, it's less money lost by the label than if they gone ahead and released a full-length CD with them).

Consumers are more willing to spend $3 on a seven inch record of a band they've never heard of than $12 for a full-length CD.

A seven inch with four songs by a band just starting out will most likely have four of their better songs, whereas they might have to struggle to produce an entire CD of music, and write a lot of crappy songs.

and of course:

Damn it, they just sound better.

Sure, Al invented the Internet, and Tipper is one of the world's foremost free speech advocates, but can they really hold a candle to the man who wrote California Über Alles and Holiday in Cambodia?

Vote Jello!