Astrochimp

Rage Against The Machine is getting back together for the Cochella Music Festival. The future of the band is uncertain, but guitarist Tom Morello and singer Zach De La Rocha are going to be playing together again. Chris Cornell who was the lead singer of Soundgarden/Rage combo band Audioslave quit the band recently giving Morello and the crew some free time.

The last time Rage Against the Machine performed, in 2000, the country was changing political hands.

Singer Zack de la Rocha went on to pursue a solo career that never fully developed and guitarist Tom Morello, drummer Brad Wilk and bassist Tim Commerford joined former Soundgarden vocalist Chris Cornell to form Audioslave (Cornell quit in February, citing “personality conflicts” and “musical differences”).

One of the last performances for the band, known for its socialist ideologies and fusing hip-hop with hard rock, was the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. At the time, de la Rocha said in a statement that he decided to leave because the group’s decision-making process had failed.

When I originally heard about Audioslave I was genuinely excited. Two of my favorite bands getting together. But something was not quite right for me. I liked the first album, but it was not a keeper. I try to avoid any mention of Audioslave since they seem to become old dad music. What is that old saying, careful what you wish for, you just might get it?

Whatever happened to Zach de la Rocha’s promised solo effort? Nothing ever happened, and we missed the voice of leftist anger during the entire Bush Administration. Now that railing against the president is the new national pastime, it may be a good time for a band like Rage to get back together.

The War experience brought home with sketches that come to life. This was a PBS Documentary not long ago. I completely missed it, but thanks to Youtube…

I’m enjoying the new Nine Inch Nails “Year Zero” album purchased in iTunes. I missed out on the thermo CD which changes color from black to white when heated, but CDs are a thing of the past for me. NIN is one of the few bright spots in the world of Rock which is in tatters. Sure there are plenty of great artist out there now that are easily accessible from website, myspace and the like, but they get zero help from major labels.

Canadian music megaproducer Bob Ezrin wrote a letter about the sad state of the music industry. He praises Trent Reznor for controlling his own destiny despite the major labels.

…Ezrin, who has penned a letter damning the lack of art and lust for commerce in today’s corporate music industry. The letter praises NIN’s Trent Reznor as the master of his own acclaim; a success nurtured seemingly in spite of the record labels. Ezrin remembers a time when the music business was built by “passionate amateurs who revered the artists, and who became their protectors, advocates and promoters.

“But now,” spits Ezrin, “the biggest part of the business is run by cold-hearted professionals whose reverence is for the bottom line, first and last.” (We can almost feel the planet’s orbit shift with all the simultaneous nodding from artists everywhere.)

Trent Reznor is a true visionary. He has broken and reinvented the rules of engagement on every level, from recording to touring to interacting with his fans.

He’s an intensely determined person—aware and on top of everything that happens in his name, from his music to his marketing. Trent controls all things Trent. Yes, he’s had help along the way, but he’s the captain of the Trent ship and his career is a product of his imagination and drive. He is not manufactured, homogenized, manipulated or packaged. He is Trent—and the rest of the folks get to react.

There’s a clue in here to how to run one’s life as an aspiring artist. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in situations where aspiring artists (as you know, I hate the designation but will grant it to a few sublimely talented folks like Trent) have created something and have had a vision that has not resonated with their “handlers” from management to producers, to the record company to even sometimes their lawyer—and have succumbed to the pressure to conform to the taste and judgment of these people at the expense of their own intuition—and have failed either immedately or ultimately because, in the end, they simply weren’t distinguished enough to connect to a large group of people in a lasting way. They may have produced a “hit song” but they typically did not create a career.

“Thank God For Trent Reznor” at http://www.torontoist.com/

A fan made movie trailer put together for only 10,000 dollars. Pretty good considering. The trailer is all over the place, but it makes for an interesting concept. Too bad the classic Robin costume can’t be updated, or Robin uses his other character Nightwing.

Well Top Gear is not exactly in danger of going away (Season 9 was super popular). They are a BBC program meaning that they are not driven by ratings. But the question to Top Gear producers is that this last season was not so much about test driving cars and was more about escapades such as driving in Alabama. So Jeremy Clarkson asks should they go back to reviewing cars or should they be about entertainment?

Season 10: Its up to you

Jeremy Clarkson reveals his love for the Ford GT40.

Lee Iacocca is 82 years old, but his new book seems to have the fire of someone much younger. In an excerpt on the Borders website you get a pretty good idea that Mr. Iacocca is fed up with the policies of the Bush Administration. And why not, with anyone who disagrees with the current government policy being called weak or accused of “emboldening the enemy”.

Am I the only guy in this country who’s fed up with what’s happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We’ve got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we’ve got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can’t even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, “Stay the course.”

Stay the course? You’ve got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I’ll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!

You might think I’m getting senile, that I’ve gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don’t need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we’re fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That’s not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I’ve had enough. How about you?

I’ll go a step further. You can’t call yourself a patriot if you’re not outraged. This is a fight I’m ready and willing to have.

Read more at http://www.bordersstores.com/

Vonnegut died as a result of brain injuries suffered a few weeks ago. I will never forget the time Vonnegut was a speaker at my college graduation.

NY Times Obit

When speaking with the locals at the various locations Charla and Mirna switch to an odd, simple broken English dialect. I can understand they want to slow down their speech to be understood, but the accent seems a bit odd and probably more difficult to understand especially since most people in the world speak English as a second language. They probably look at the two puzzled since they think they probably don’t speak English.

Check out the clip below for when they solicit manicures in Africa.

Here is a clip from their original season:
“GO FAST, GO LIKE THIS”

And this is funny, after they come in first, they get a ….catamaran…what is that?!

“How much dollar you need?” “Take all our money, what do you want? $20 to eat food, I don’t eat tomorrow”

Did the directors of Amazing Race somehow convince Charla to get dressed as a knight instead of Mirna? They must have made a deal for Charla to get in the knight costume in exchange for the getting first in later episodes.

BTW, Mirna has sausage? Did she get some extra in a take home bag or did she stuff the extra in her purse?