I saw you last night walking with another guy / guess how I feel now

And a (partial) playlist for the morn went something like this:

• The Detroit Experiment - Think Twice
  the Henrik Schwarz and Mark E mixes of Carl Craig's gathering of Motor City jazz vets actually work, with Mr. E's pair having an edge IMO..and that surprised me.
• 
• Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique
  the 20th Anniversary edition complete with a replica of the first edition vinyl wrap around sleeve. I DJed at the NZ launch party. I feel old. This album does not sound old. Or maybe it does.
• Liquid Liquid
  the collection of just about everything that was out on vinyl in 2005 (as a reissue of a 1997 album just to confuse) and finally made it to CD late last year
• Benga - B4 The Duel
  I keep thinking early Bronx hip hop when I listen to this guy. This doesn't sound much like The Birthday Party but it carries the spirit. I'm not sure I know what I mean.
• Nuance - Loveride
  Big thumping electro vox track that we used to thrash at The Playground and The Brat. Yes, indeedy... and all I wanna a do is scream, scream, scream.....
• 
• Prefab Sprout - He'll Have To Go
  a bonus track on the US reissue of Steve McQueen although they called it Two Wheels Good so as not to offend Ali McGraw or something. It's a Jim Reeves tune init.
• The Saints - This Perfect Day
  the other great Saint's song. Did you know that I'm Stranded was produced by a New Zealander. There you go, we're everywhere.
• Studio -Origin
  Swedish nu-disco troupe successfully imitate New Order circa 1988.
• Diplo -Smash A Kangaroo
  on the recent collection of Diplo mixes and from a kind of collaboration with an Australian co-op in 2007. The (intentional) clunky ocker accents are choice.
• Johnny Thunders - Subway Train
  poor old Johnny. What is it about tragic old junkies? There always comes a point where the smack overtakes the talent. This big noisy ballad (first done by The New York Dolls on their debut, but clearly Johnny wsn't happy with that and this kills it) from So Alone, is a pretty strong reason to argue Thunders hadn't reached that point in '78. That came shortly after though....
• The Fireman - Nothing Too Much, Just Outasight
  McCartney (and Youth who seems to have a pretty token input) did quite well with Electric Arguments. It's pretty listenable (at least the first 6 tracks or so before it wanders off) and I love this son of Helter Skelter big time. You hang on waiting expectantly for Ringo's blisters wail each time it ends. Not bad for an old fella and a worth addition to a body of work that has improved substantially in recent years.
• Andy Stott- Unknown Exception
  tech collection from my favourite producer de jour.
• The Viceroys - Heart Made of Stone
  Soul wrenching ballad from Sly and Robbie's piano phase.

Seen sunny days / I thought would never end

So the odious Richard Perle thinks it's time to claim victory and place the wreath on the head of the unlamented W, and by implication, himself:

So, President Obama, who pledged a quick withdrawal from Iraq when many thought we were facing defeat there and crucial Democratic primary voters were demanding withdrawal yesterday, has decided on a slower, measured drawdown that will leave up to 50,000 American troops behind. They could remain until the end of 2011, the date on which the Bush administration agreed with the Iraqi government to complete the departure of American forces.

[From Richard Perle: The president should acknowledge the success of the surge and Iraq's progress to democracy | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk]

Of course this sidesteps a whole bunch of inconvenient stuff, like, uhhh, up to a million dead and several million sitting in refugee camps, essentially homeless

Marc Ambinder puts it well over at The Atlantic:

President Obama very appropriately and correctly thanked U.S. Marnines for precipitating the turnabout in Iraq. But if there is a chance of success in Iraq now as defined by Barack Obama, shouldn't there be some mention of the change in strategy, and the former Commander in Chief, the guy who hung in there? I think the American people will be more persuaded by the arguments for the counter; we don't know if Iraq is a success yet; we won't know for years; the problems solved by American troops were created by American politicians; the troops did their duty and did what was asked of them, but the asking was illegitimate and wrong.

Richard, I hear voices calling....

I know I'll make you yell, scream and holler for more / Yes, Yes, y'all

The Torrent Bay trial is fascinating and has provided the recording industry with an fairly high profile outlet for some of it's more outrageous claims, most of which either don't stand up to heavy scrutiny or analysis. There has been much written about the decline of the dollar value (although not the unit numbers, which are on the rise, giving substance to part of the below story) of the recording industry's business since 2000 but the things the labels don't want to talk about are fairly well summed up in the piece linked to below (and no, 'music is shite now' is not one them, thankfully).

Recently I noted a meeting I was at, close to a decade back, when the ogre of the day was blank CDs. An industry spokesman in NZ loudly and publicly touted a figure of lost sales based on CD burns using 50% of the blank discs sold in NZ as a base. Somebody quietly pointed out the figure being touted was greater than the sum of all NZ CD sales in the previous year.

Just as a note, this is taken from Torrent Freak which clearly has a side in this but writer Jens Roland is a guest of some substance.

According to Per Sundin, CEO of Universal Music, the decline in music revenues in the past 8 years can be fully attributed to (read: blamed on) illegal file sharing. If this were actually true, many of us might even respect his decision to go after pirates as fiercely as the music industry is doing right now. However, the past 8 years have seen a lot more changes in the landscape of home entertainment than Per Sundin would like to admit, and some of those changes have had a massive impact on music profitability — much more so than any amount of piracy.

Let us refresh our memories and take a look at what actually happened during and just before the past 8 years:

[From How To Kill The Music Industry | TorrentFreak]

yeah yeah yeah so you hate it all too / that doesn't mean that I like you

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know it's all over and done with but surely I'm still allowed a smile at this:

Four months back did we really think he was a contender?

He's a man / with a plan / got a counterfeit dollar in his hand

Yeech, that Bobby Jindal is yet another GOP freakshow with one foot in the Middle Ages. The future of the party you say....

Toward the conclusion of what Jindal called “the tremendous battle between the Susan we knew and loved and some strange and evil force,” Jindal and his friends forced Susan to read passages from the Bible. “She choked on certain passages and could not finish the sentence ‘Jesus is Lord.’ Over and over, she repeated "Jesus is L..L..LL," often ending in profanities,” Jindal wrote. Finally, evil gave way to the light. “Just as suddenly as she went into the trance, Susan suddenly reappeared and claimed ‘Jesus is Lord.’ With an almost comical smile, Susan then looked up as if awakening from a deep sleep and asked, ‘Has something happened?’”

[From Bobby Jindal's Secret Past - The Daily Beast]

They sure know how to pick them.