position:songwriter

  • The Dead Kennedys - I Fought the Law
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dB_ubVAnGw

    1978 / 1987 - I Fought the Law - The Dead Kennedys version
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Fought_the_Law#Dead_Kennedys_version

    Songwriters: Sonny Curtis, Jello Biafra, East Bay Ray

    The punk band Dead Kennedys put together their own version of “I Fought The Law” shortly after San Francisco politician Dan White murdered city Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone in 1978. Most of the lyrics were re-written so the song was from White’s point of view; the chorus was changed to “I fought the law, and I won”, with the final line in the final chorus changed to “I am the law, so I won.” The song portrays White as someone who got away with first-degree premeditated murder and is unrepentant about it and specifically cites his use of the diminished responsibility defense. It also makes use of the reference “Twinkie defense”, where lead singer Jello Biafra sings “Twinkies are the best friend I ever had”.

    Dead Kennedys lyrics

    Drinking beer in the hot sun
    I fought the law and I won, I fought the law and I won
    I needed sex and I got mine
    I fought the law and I won, I fought the law and I won

    The law don’t mean shit if you’ve got the right friends
    That’s how this country’s run
    Twinkies are the best friend I’ve ever had
    I fought the law and I won, I fought the law and I won

    I blew George and Harvey’s brains out with my six-gun
    I fought the law and I won, I fought the law and I won
    Gonna write my book and make a million
    I fought the law and I won, I fought the law and I won

    I’m the new folk hero of the Ku Klux Klan
    My cop friends think that’s fine
    You can get away with murder if you’ve got a badge
    I fought the law and I won, I fought the law and I won

    I fought the law and I won
    I am the law so I won

    The Crickets - I Fought The Law
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKrxq5U8SBY

    The Crickets furent le groupe de Buddy Holly jusqu’à sa mort le 3 février 1959 .

    1958 / 1959 / 1960 - I Fought the Law - The Crickets version

    Songwriter: Sonny Curtis of the Crickets
    The Crickets lyrics

    I’m breakin rocks in the hot sun
    I fought the law and the law won
    I fought the law and the law won

    I miss my baby and good fun
    I fought the law and the law won
    I fought the law and the law won

    I’ve left my baby and it feels so bad
    Guess my race is run
    Shes the best girl that I ever had
    I fought the law and the law won
    I fought the law and the law won

    Robbin people with a zip-gun
    I fought the law and the law won
    I fought the law and the law won

    I needed money cause I had none
    I fought the law and the law won
    I fought the law and the law won

    I’ve left my baby and it feels so bad
    Guess my race is run
    Shes the best girl that I’ve ever had
    I fought the law and the law won
    I fought the law and the law won

    A titre de comparaison voici la version qui a rendu célèbre la chanson et en a fait la clé du succès des Bobby Fuller Four .

    Bobby Fuller Four - I Fought The Law - 45 RPM Original Mono Mix
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc8fdHYMLT4

    Une fois tombé entre les producteurs des grands labels le Bobby Fuller Four sort une version beaucoup moins hard .

    Bobby Fuller Four I Fought The Law Stereo Single Mix
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzgKR-AkhBs

    #musique #rock_n_roll #punk #politique #gay

  • Meet Francis Malofiy, the Philadelphia Lawyer Who Sued Led Zeppelin
    https://www.phillymag.com/news/2019/02/11/francis-malofiy-led-zeppelin

    Francis Malofiy may be the most hated man in the Philadelphia legal community. He may also be on the cusp of getting the last laugh on rock’s golden gods.

    #droit_d_auteur #musique #plagiat

    • @sandburg Voillà

      Meet Francis Malofiy, the Philadelphia Lawyer Who Sued Led Zeppelin
      https://www.phillymag.com/news/2019/02/11/francis-malofiy-led-zeppelin

      People Laughed When This Philly Lawyer Sued Led Zeppelin. Nobody’s Laughing Now.

      Francis Malofiy may be the most hated man in the Philadelphia legal community. He may also be on the cusp of getting the last laugh on rock’s golden gods.

      By Jonathan Valania· 2/11/2019


      Philadelphia-area attorney Francis Malofiy. Photograph by Bryan Sheffield.

      The fact that Philadelphia barrister Francis Alexander Malofiy, Esquire, is suing Led Zeppelin over the authorship of “Stairway to Heaven” is, by any objective measure, only the fourth most interesting thing about him. Unfortunately for the reader, and the purposes of this story, the first, second and third most interesting things about Malofiy are bound and gagged in nondisclosure agreements, those legalistic dungeons where the First Amendment goes to die. So let’s start with number four and work our way backward.

      At the risk of stating the obvious, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, let the record show that “Stairway to Heaven” is arguably the most famous song in all of rock-and-roll, perhaps in all of popular music. It’s also one of the most lucrative — it’s estimated that the song has netted north of $500 million in sales and royalties since its 1971 release. Malofiy’s lawsuit, cheekily printed in the same druidic font used for the liner notes of the album Led Zeppelin IV, alleges that Jimmy Page and Robert Plant — Zep’s elegantly wasted guitarist/producer/central songwriter and leonine, leather-lunged lead singer, respectively — stole the iconic descending acoustic-guitar arpeggios of the first two minutes of “Stairway” from “Taurus,” a song with a strikingly similar chord pattern by a long-forgotten ’60s band called Spirit. At the conclusion of a stormy, headline-grabbing trial in 2016 that peaked with testimony from Page and Plant, the jury decided in Zep’s favor.

      When the copyright infringement suit was first filed in Philadelphia by Malofiy (pronounced “MAL-uh-fee”) on behalf of the Randy Craig Wolfe Trust — which represents the estate of Randy “California” Wolfe, the now-deceased member of Spirit who wrote “Taurus” — people laughed. Mostly at Malofiy. The breathless wall-to-wall media coverage the trial garnered often painted him as a loose-cannon legal beagle, one part Charlie Sheen, one part Johnnie Cochran. “Everybody kind of dismissed me as this brash young lawyer who didn’t really understand copyright law,” he says, well into the wee hours one night back in December, sitting behind a desk stacked four feet high with legal files in the dank, subterranean bunker that is his office.

      Hidden behind an unmarked door on the basement floor of a nondescript office building in Media, the law firm of Francis Alexander LLC is a pretty punk-rock operation. The neighbors are an anger management counselor and a medical marijuana dispensary. “I think of us as pirates sinking big ships,” Malofiy, who’s 41, brags. Given the sheer number of death threats he says he’s received from apoplectic Zep fans, the fact that mysterious cars seem to follow him in the night, and his claim to have found GPS trackers stuck to the bottom of his car, the precise location of his offices remains a closely guarded secret. Failing that, he has a license to carry, and most days, he leaves the house packing a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson.

      While most lawyers are sleeping, Malofiy is working through the night to defeat them, often until sunrise, fueled by an ever-present bottle of grape-flavored Fast Twitch as he chain-chews Wrigley’s Spearmint gum and huffs a never-ending string of Marlboro menthols. We’ve been talking on the record for going on eight hours, and Malofiy shows no signs of fading; in fact, he’s just announced the arrival of his third wind.

      He has a pretty good ‘fuck you’ attitude that comes from an inner confidence. He might have had a little too much early on,” attorney Jim Beasley Jr. says of Malofiy. “If you piss the judge off with your pirate act, the judge can make it difficult for you. Sometimes you could avoid all that by not swinging your pirate sword around.

      Talk turns to the distinctly pro-Zep tenor of the media coverage of the “Stairway” trial. “I was a punch line for jokes,” he says, spitting his gum into a yellow Post-it and banking it into the trash for, like, the 42nd time. Nobody’s laughing now, least of all Page and Plant. Nor, for that matter, is Usher. Back in October, at the conclusion of a dogged seven-year legal battle marked by a bruising string of dismissals and sanctions, Malofiy won a $44 million verdict — one of the largest in Pennsylvania in 2018 — for a Philadelphia songwriter named Daniel Marino who sued his co-writers after being cut out of the songwriting credits and royalties for the song “Bad Girl” from the R&B heartthrob’s 2004 breakout album, Confessions, which sold more than 10 million copies.

      Also, in late September of last year, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Malofiy’s appeal of the 2016 “Stairway to Heaven” verdict and ordered a new trial on the grounds that the court “abused its discretion” when the judge refused to allow Malofiy to play a recording of “Taurus” for the jury. (Members were only allowed to hear an acoustic-guitar rendition played from sheet music.) The retrial is expected to begin in the next year, and Page and Plant, along with bassist John Paul Jones, are again anticipated to take the stand. Copyright experts say Led Zeppelin — which has a long history of ripping off the ancient riffs and carnal incantations of wizened Delta bluesmen and only giving credit when caught — should be worried.

      Malofiy, who calls Zep “the greatest cover band in all of history,” will go to trial armed with reams of expert testimony pinpointing the damning similarities between the two songs — not just the nearly identical and atypical chord pattern, but the shared melodic figurations, choice of key and distinctive voicings. He’ll also show the jury that Page and Plant had ample opportunity to hear “Taurus” when Zep opened for Spirit on their first American tour in 1968, two years before they wrote and recorded “Stairway.”

      “Most big companies rely on the concept of wearing you down, forcing you to do so much work it literally drives you broke,” says Glen Kulik, a heavy-hitter L.A.-based copyright lawyer who signed on as Malofiy’s local counsel when the Zep case was moved to federal court in California. “If you have any chance of standing up to them, it’s going to require an incredible amount of persistence, confidence, and quite a bit of skill as well, and Francis has all those things in spades.” And Kulik would know, having successfully argued a landmark copyright infringement case before the Supreme Court in 2014 that paved the way for the Zeppelin suit.


      Francis Malofiy. Photograph by Bryan Sheffield.

      Ultimately, Malofiy doesn’t have to prove Led Zeppelin stole Spirit’s song; he just has to convince a jury that’s what happened. Assuming the trial goes forward — and that this time, he’s allowed to play recordings of both songs for the jury — there will be blood. Because contrary to his hard-won rep as a bull in the china shop of civil litigation, Malofiy possesses a switchblade-sharp legal mind, an inexhaustible work ethic, and a relentless, rock-ribbed resolve to absorb more punches than his opponents can throw. He’s a ruthlessly effective courtroom tactician with a collection of six-, seven- and eight-figure verdicts, not to mention the scalps of opposing counsel who underestimated his prowess. “I don’t plink pigeons; I hunt lions and tigers and bears,” he says. The big game he’s targeted in the past decade include deep-pocketed transnational corporations like Volvo (an epic seven-year case that ended in an undisclosed settlement) and Hertz (against whom he won a $100,000 verdict).

      In the arena of civil litigation, where the odds are increasingly stacked against plaintiffs, Malofiy claims to have never lost a jury trial, and that appears to be true. “I have lost twice — in the Zeppelin case and a lawsuit against Volvo — but got both decisions reversed on appeals,” he says, unsheathing a fresh stick of Wrigley’s. “Now, the same people that were asking me for years why I’m doing it are asking me how I did it.”

      If Malofiy prevails in the coming “Stairway” retrial, he’ll completely shatter the Tolkien-esque legend of the song’s immaculate conception — that it was birthed nearly in toto during a mystical retreat at a remote Welsh mountain cottage called Bron-yr-aur, to which many a starry-eyed Zep disciple has made a pilgrimage once upon a midnight clear when the forests echo with laughter. It will be like proving that da Vinci didn’t paint the Mona Lisa, that Michelangelo didn’t sculpt David. Barring a last-minute settlement, many legal and copyright experts predict that Malofiy may well emerge victorious, and credit for the most famous rock song in the world will pass from the self-appointed Golden Gods of Led Zeppelin to some obscure, long-forgotten (and not even very good) West Coast psych band, along with tens of millions in royalties, effectively rewriting the sacred history of rock-and-roll. And the man who will have pulled off this fairly miraculous feat of judicial jujitsu is the enfant terrible of Philadelphia jurisprudence.

      Malofiy hates wearing a suit and tie. Outside the courtroom, he dresses like a rock star masquerading as a lawyer: a crushable black trilby perched at a jaunty angle atop a blue bandana, a collarless black and orange leather Harley jacket, and a pair of beat-to-fuck brown Wesco boots, unlaced. “I’m always in jeans and boots when I meet new clients,” he says. “I warn them up front: ‘If you want a fancy lawyer in a suit, you should go elsewhere.’”

      The barrier to entry for new clients at Francis Alexander LLC is steep, because Malofiy doesn’t take on new cases so much as he adopts new causes. A case has to register on a deeply personal level if he’s going to eat, sleep, and fight to the death for it for the next five to seven years.

      “Lawyers have an ethical responsibility to advocate zealously for their clients,” says attorney Max Kennerly, who’s worked with Malofiy on a number of cases. “But frankly, in this business, a lot of lawyers play the odds and just do a ‘good enough’ job on a bunch of cases. Sometimes they win, and sometimes they lose. Francis really throws himself into his cases.”

      After 10 years of struggle, things finally seem to be breaking Malofiy’s way. Fat checks from cases settled long ago are rolling in, alleviating some fairly crippling cash-flow issues, and big cases just keep falling out of the sky — more than his two-lawyer outfit can field. They need to staff up, stat. Malofiy wants to hire some young bucks fresh out of law school — preferably Temple — as force multipliers in his quest to hold the powerful accountable on behalf of the powerless. “Most kids in law school right now will never see the inside of a courtroom,” he says. “Law schools don’t want to teach you how to change the system; they want to load you up with debt so you have to go do grunt work for some corporate law firm that specializes in maintaining the status quo.”


      Francis Malofiy. Photograph by Bryan Sheffield.

      Malofiy doesn’t have a website. He doesn’t do social media. He doesn’t trawl the watering holes of the rich and powerful. He doesn’t even have a business card. Thanks to the notoriety and name recognition that came with the Zeppelin trial, new clients chase him. He just got off the phone with a Brooklyn puppet maker who wants him to sue the band Fall Out Boy for alleged misuse of two llamas — Frosty and Royal Tea — that it created. Right now, he’s on a conference call with a trio of British songwriters who want Malofiy to sue the Weeknd for allegedly lifting a key section of their song “I Need to Love” for a track called “A Lonely Night” on his 2016 Starboy album, which has sold more than three million copies to date.

      “Why are you guys calling me?” he asks.

      “We’re looking for an honest person fighting for ordinary working people,” says Billy Smith, one of the Brit songwriters in question. Malofiy clearly likes the sound of that. After thinking it over for a few moments, he tells them he’ll take their case and gives them his standard new-client spiel. “I can’t promise we’ll win, but I can promise I won’t turn yellow when things turn bad. I won’t put my tail between my legs and run,” he says. “If there is any bad news, you will hear it from me first.”

      His teeth have been bothering him for days, and near the end of the call, one of his dental caps comes loose. He spits it out, and it skitters across his desk before he traps it under his palm. Most lawyers would be mortified. Malofiy thinks it’s hilarious. “I got teeth like you people,” he says to the Brits. Everybody laughs.

      Many people mistake Malofiy’s unconventionality as a design flaw when it’s actually a feature. “I think that’s an incredibly important part of what makes him so good as an attorney,” says A.J. Fluehr, 33, Malofiy’s right-hand man, co-counsel and, though eight years his boss’s junior, voice of reason. “Because he’s so unorthodox, I believe it causes a lot of other attorneys to underestimate him and think, ‘Oh, he’s not serious; he doesn’t know what he’s doing.’ All of sudden, there’s a massively serious case against them.”

      Even some of the defense lawyers who’ve done battle with Malofiy begrudgingly acknowledge his chops. “I’ve known Francis for four years now. He is difficult to deal with but a fierce advocate for his clients and his cause,” says Rudolph “Skip” DiMassa, a partner at Duane Morris. “Calling him ‘abrasive’ would be putting it mildly. But he wears it like a badge of honor that he is not like all the other lawyers in town.”

      When I read that and similar assessments from other lawyers back to Malofiy, he chalks them up to blowback for the heresy of Robin Hooding a corrupt status quo. “I have a target on my back because I sue big corporations, politicians, big law firms. Hell, I sued DA Seth Williams,” he says one night at the Irish Pub, as he’s nursing a screwdriver he’ll chase with a root beer. “When you start stepping on toes and suing the wrong people and get a few million shifted from those who have it to those who don’t — that’s where the change happens; that’s where you make a difference. And there is a price you have to pay for that.”

      According to family lore, Francis Malofiy’s maternal grandfather was murdered by Nazis in occupied Greece; his great-grandmother had to cut the body down from a tree and carry it home on the back of a mule. Concurrently, his paternal grandfather was murdered by Nazis in Ukraine, while his father and grandmother were frog-marched to camps in Germany. Some things can never be forgotten or forgiven. That’s why Malofiy is always kicking against the pricks. A slight child, he was often bullied at school, and after a brief experiment with turning the other cheek, he started fighting back. Hard. He recalls the day that a bully was picking on a girl half his size; young Francis cold-cocked him and threw him into a closet door. The kid had to be taken out on a stretcher. After that, the bullies moved on to easier prey. “I was always fighting for the little guy, even back then,” he says.

      In the third grade, friends turned him on to Poison’s Look What the Cat Dragged In and Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet, indelibly imprinting the spandexed bikers-and-strippers aesthetic of ’80s hair-metal onto his psyche. He started channeling the energy he once put into beating back bullies into beating the drums. One day in the sixth grade, he came home to tell his dad about a band all the kids were into: “The Led Zeppelins.”

      “He said, ‘No, son, it’s just Led Zeppelin.’”

      “No, I’m pretty sure it’s the Led Zeppelins.”

      So his father, who’d seen the band at the Electric Factory, drove Francis to the record store at the Granite Run Mall, where the clerks set him straight. His father bought the four-cassette Zep box set that had just come out. On the way home, Malofiy heard “Whole Lotta Love” for the first time, and before the song even ended, it was official: Led Zeppelin was his favorite band. When he was in high school, his drum teacher gently broke the news that Zep didn’t exactly, um, write all their own music — that key parts of their iconic songs had been cherry-picked from old, obscure blues recordings. “I said, ‘C’mon, don’t talk shit about Jimmy Page!’” Malofiy recalls. Then his teacher played him the Willie Dixon-penned Muddy Waters track “You Need Love” — which is what “Whole Lotta Love” was called before Zep hijacked the lyrics and the riff and Frankensteined them into the gloriously scuzzy heavy-metal Viking porno movie for the ears we’ve come to know and love. It was hard for Francis to process, and even harder when he was tipped to the uncanny similarity between Spirit’s “Taurus” and “Stairway.” Still, the spell Zep cast over him remained unbroken.


      Francis Malofiy. Photograph by Bryan Sheffield.

      As a young teenager, he built go-karts, dirt bikes and small-block Chevys. To make spending money for guitars and records, he started buying beater cars, fixing them up, and flipping them for quadruple what he paid for them. He almost didn’t graduate from high school because he’d played hooky too many times, to go fishing or work on cars or play guitar. When he finally got his high-school diploma, he raced home from school to show his mother in his Chevy S-10 lowrider. Tearing ass on the backcountry roads of Media, he blew past a cop who immediately lit up his cherry top and gave pursuit. Soon, one cop car became two, then three, until there were five cars tailing him.

      Much to his parents’ dismay, his run-ins with the law became common. They were never for anything all that serious, just the usual teen-rebel monkeyshines: fighting, speeding, the occasional high-speed car chase. He got a big wake-up call in 1998 when his beloved Uncle Nick — a.k.a. Nicholas “The Greek” Vasiliades — was handed a life sentence for running a high-volume meth lab in a warehouse in Manayunk that supplied the drug networks of the Pagans and the Mafia, as well as for his 50-gun arsenal of illegal weaponry. Malofiy was devastated. “I was going down a bad path,” he says. “My uncle pulled me aside and said, ‘You’re smart enough to do it the right way. You need to step away.’”

      Malofiy took the warning to heart and focused on getting a college education, graduating from Penn State in 2000 with a degree in finance. After college, he went back home to Media and his true loves: cars, girls and heavy metal. With a revolving cast of musicians, he formed multiple go-nowhere suburban hard-rock bands with cringe-y names like Prada G and Sluts ’n Slayers. Unimpressed, his parents urged him to enroll in law school. Eventually he relented, forging this pact: He would go to law school if he: a) could do whatever he wanted with the unfinished basement of his parents’ home (i.e., build a high-end recording-studio-cum-man-cave tricked out with a kitchen, bedroom and bathroom); and b) nobody hassled him about having long hair, rocking out and chasing girls. Deal. Malofiy took the LSATs and scored just south of 160 — hardly off the charts, but good enough to get into Temple, where he found himself drawn to copyright law.

      He graduated from law school in December of 2007 and took the bar exam the following July. On the night of August 16, 2008, he stopped into the Liberty Bar at 22nd and Market with his then-girlfriend. It was crowded, but they found a table in the back. After ordering drinks, they started getting static from a group of three young men in ball caps and white t-shirts. “Three drunken jerkoffs, white privilege out the ass,” says Malofiy. According to Malofiy’s testimony, the trio mocked his bandana and called him “cunt,” “pussy” and a “dirty spic.” (It was summer; Malofiy was tan.) According to Malofiy, at some point the men apologized and the situation seemed defused, but then one of them grabbed Malofiy’s girlfriend’s ass. “I said, ‘That’s it. Follow me out,’ and made for the door,” Malofiy says, but he was blocked by a member of the group. As they stood chest-to-chest, Malofiy says, the man struck him twice. Finally, Malofiy, who boxed in college, unloaded with a right cross that landed squarely on the guy’s left cheekbone, shattering the glass still clenched in Malofiy’s fist.

      The man suffered a deep gash in his cheek that would require 150 stitches and reconstructive surgery. Malofiy nearly severed the tendons in his thumb. Bleeding profusely, he had his girlfriend drive him to the emergency room at Penn Presby to get stitched up and then to Central Detectives to file a criminal complaint.

      Two months later, in October, notice came in the mail that he had passed the bar. His mother was ecstatic and insisted on driving him to the Pittsburgh office of the Prothonotary of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania immediately to obtain his law license rather than wait two weeks for the formal ceremony. When they got home the next day, Malofiy got a call from Central Detectives, who said they had a “body warrant” for his arrest on aggravated assault and related charges stemming from the Liberty Bar fight. The next day, he turned himself in and spent a night in jail awaiting a bail hearing. Had he not gone to Pittsburgh at his mother’s behest, it’s unlikely he’d have gotten his law license with a felony arrest on his record.

      Malofiy’s first case as a newly minted lawyer would involve defending a client staring down decades in prison if convicted: himself. Heeding the maxim that a man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client, Malofiy hired Sam Stretton, one of the most respected criminal defense attorneys in the city. Malofiy took the stand and delivered an impassioned defense of his actions. “He had already hit me twice, blocked my exit-way,” he testified. “I was scared for my safety and my girlfriend’s safety, and his friends had just yelled ‘Fight!’ and came up to me with fists drawn. I thought I had no other option.” The jury found him not guilty on all charges.

      “Welcome to Hogwarts,” Malofiy jokes as he shows me around the vast oak and stained-glass room that houses the law library at the Beasley Firm, possibly the most fearsome and feared personal-injury law firm in the city, where he worked, in an of-counsel capacity, from 2012 to 2014.

      Fresh out of law school and still wet behind the ears, Malofiy showed up one day in search of mentoring. Granted an audience with Jim Beasley Jr., one of the most successful plaintiff’s attorney in the city, Malofiy ended up with a promise of rent-free office space, the phone extension 666, and a commitment to help finance some of the highly ambitious cases he was mounting — a product-liability suit against Volvo, and a breach-of-contract suit, against a marble manufacturer that had screwed his client out of an ownership share, that resulted in a $4.2 million verdict — not to mention the Usher case. “Jim was like, ‘I keep getting calls from defense lawyers saying That kid’s the fucking devil, so you must be doing something right,’” Malofiy recalls.

      During Malofiy’s tenure at Beasley, he took out a controversial full-page ad in this magazine that depicted him crashing through a courtroom in a hot rod, looking every bit James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause. Many members of Philadelphia’s uptight, buttoned-down legal community thought it was disrespectful. “Everyone was outraged, but I thought it was funny,” says Beasley. “He has a pretty good ‘fuck you’ attitude that comes from an inner confidence. He might have had a little too much of that early on, but I think he’s throttled back a bit. So many of a judge’s decisions are ties and jump-balls that are not reversible, and if you piss the judge off with your pirate act, the judge can make it difficult for you. Sometimes you could avoid all that by not swinging your pirate sword around.”

      Malofiy has learned this the hard way. In 2015, a three-judge panel voted to suspend his license to practice law in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania for improper conduct in the Usher case — despite the fact that the special prosecutor recommended what amounted to a slap on the wrist: a reprimand.

      “It’s highly unusual that they would disregard the disciplinary recommendations of the special prosecutor after he has heard the facts,” says Stretton. The matter is currently on appeal before the Third Circuit.

      At Malofiy’s insistence, I’ve been tailing him for the better part of a month: from a big-dollar NDA’d settlement in a judge’s quarters, to a Port Richmond dive bar called Chuckles, to a Bucks County gun shop where he plunked down $1,729 for a handsome Benelli shotgun (a gift for his right-hand man Fluehr), to a back-alley strip bar in Center City and the disused factory under the Commodore Barry Bridge that he’s purchased and plans to renovate into office space, living quarters and a beer garden. I watched him hide his $82,000 Land Rover from the repo man (“It’s all a misunderstanding”) and then, days later, saw a pile of white letter-size envelopes stacked on his desk, each containing what looked to be thousands in cash. What I have come to learn is this: When you write about lawyers, there is so much you can’t write about lawyers.

      Malofiy slowly, methodically and unflinchingly parceled out the most personal details of his backstory — the good, the bad and the ugly — as I incrementally earned his trust. But always on his timetable, not mine. It could be exasperating, but by the end, I discovered the method to his madness: He’d been pacing his revelations as he would a trial presentation. And now we’re reaching the crescendo of his closing argument — the big reveal.


      Francis Malofiy. Photograph by Bryan Sheffield.

      It’s a few clicks shy of midnight at Malofiy’s house in Media on a Sunday night shortly before Christmas. In the morning, he’s jetting off to an auction in London to bid on the Helios recording console that captured “Stairway to Heaven” for the ages. (Malofiy, true to form, won’t confirm that he won or lost the auction.) Though he’s been locked in a nasty four-year legal fight with Led Zeppelin, they’re still his favorite band.

      Malofiy called to insist that I come to his house tonight. “Why? What for?” I demanded. He said he wanted to show me something I could only see there. I begged off, explaining that this article was due in the morning and I already had more than I could use. But he insisted, promising it would be worth my while. He doesn’t disappoint. He tells me to open the freezer. There’s a bottle of Tito’s vodka, an ice tray, and half a lemon on a plate with a yellow plastic knife. “That’s the lemon Robert Plant squeezed into his tea when we deposed him in London back in 2016,” he claims. This is deeply ironic and, if you’re acquainted with the role lemons play in Plant’s legend, cosmically hilarious. One of Led Zeppelin’s most infamous tracks is “The Lemon Song,” a sultry blooze ramble from 1969’s deathless Led Zeppelin II stitched together from pieces of Howlin’ Wolf’s “Killing Floor” and Robert Johnson’s “Travelling Riverside Blues.” (Zep settled a 1972 copyright suit over the Howlin’ Wolf portion of the song.) In the fifth verse, Plant sings:

      Squeeze me baby, till the juice runs down my leg
      The way you squeeze my lemon, ah
      I’m gonna fall right out of bed

      By swiping that lemon rind at the deposition, Malofiy stole Robert Plant’s metaphoric penis the way Prometheus stole fire from the gods. Zep famously invoked the mythic “Hammer of the Gods” from Norse legend. For Jimmy Page, that hammer was his guitar, but for Plant it was his, um, mighty lemon tree.

      Incredible though it may seem, Malofiy says he’s kept the lemon on ice for the past three years and had it in his briefcase like a talisman when he gave oral arguments for what proved to be his successful appeal of the 2016 “Stairway” verdict. He has every intention of taking it to the retrial that will, barring unforeseen developments, commence in the next year.

      “Robert Plant is always going on about his lemon, and at the deposition he made a big deal out of slicing it up and squeezing it into his tea and then sucking on the rind,” he says with a cat-who-ate-the-canary grin. “Jimmy Page famously dabbled in black magic and was always going on about Aleister Crowley, and I said to myself, ‘If they are going to use black magic to try to beat me on technicalities — well, two can play at that game.’”

      Published as “The Devil’s Advocate” in the February 2019 issue of Philadelphia magazine.

  • Pétition de personnalités britanniques (Vivienne Westwood, Peter Gabriel, Mike Leigh, Julie Christie, Maxine Peake, Wolf Alice, Roger Waters, Caryl Churchill, Al Kennedy) contre la tenue de l’Eurovision en israel et sa diffusion par la BBC.

    (un article en parlait déjà là: https://seenthis.net/messages/756450 )

    The BBC should press for Eurovision to be moved from Israel
    The Guardian, le 29 janvier 2019
    https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/jan/29/the-bbc-should-press-for-eurovision-to-be-moved-from-israel

    Traduction en français:

    La BBC devrait faire pression pour que l’Eurovision n’ait pas lieu en Israël
    The Guardian, le 29 janvier 2019
    http://www.agencemediapalestine.fr/blog/2019/01/31/la-bbc-devrait-faire-pression-pour-que-leurovision-nait-pas-lie

    Peter Ahrends, architect
    Amir Amirani, filmmaker
    Jonathan Arndell, architect, artist
    Roy Battersby, director
    Bloody Knees, band
    brave timbers, band
    Jen Brister, comedian
    Carmen Callil, publisher, writer
    Taghrid Choucair-Vizoso, performer
    Julie Christie, actor
    Ian Christie, film historian, broadcaster
    Chipo Chung, actor
    Caryl Churchill, playwright
    Michael Darlow, tv writer and director
    Paula Darwish, musician
    April De Angelis, playwright
    Tam Dean Burn, actor
    Drones Club, band
    Nancy Elan, violin
    Gareth Evans, producer, curator
    Peter Gabriel, musician, founder WOMAD festival
    Lots Holloway, singer, songwriter
    Rachel Holmes, writer
    Brigid Keenan, author
    Patrick Keiller, artist, filmmaker
    Reem Kelani, musician, broadcaster
    AL Kennedy, writer
    Desmond Lambert, musician
    Mike Leigh, writer, director
    Ken Loach, director
    Sabrina Mahfouz, writer
    Miriam Margolyes, actor
    Yann Martel, writer
    Declan McKenna, singer, songwriter
    JD Meatyard, musician
    Pauline Melville, writer
    Giuliano Modarelli, musician, composer
    Object Blue, DJ
    Maxine Peake, actor
    Jocelyn Pook, composer
    TJ Rehmi, composer, producer
    Reverend & the Makers, band
    Leon Rosselson, songwriter
    Rrose, DJ
    Alexei Sayle, comedian, author
    David Scott, music producer
    Nick Seymour, musician
    Sarah Streatfeild, violin
    Roger Waters, musician
    Vivienne Westwood, fashion designer
    Wolf Alice, band

    #Palestine #Eurovision #BDS #Boycott #BBC #Grande-Bretagne

  • The New American Songbook: The oldies of the future.
    https://slate.com/culture/2018/10/the-new-american-songbook-the-oldies-of-the-future.html

    Oct 18, 2018 - Here are the hits of the past 25 years that we’ll be listening to for the next 100.

    What makes a song last? The history of popular music tells us that many masterpieces of songcraft—and even the most world-conquering smashes—are quickly forgotten.

    Meanwhile, many earworms burrow deep into the collective consciousness, where they take root, whether we like it or not.

    Which of today’s hits will be tomorrow’s classics?

    Who could have predicted that “Don’t Stop Believin’ ”—which was, upon its release in 1981, a commercial disappointment from a critically derided band—would become the 20th century’s best-selling digital download?* Or that it would be a “novelty” dance single, of all song varieties, that would become Billboard’s pick for the greatest single of all time?

    Separating the most durable tunes from the millions of other would-be classics is no easy task. So we asked critics, musicians, and industry professionals to predict which tracks from the past 25 years we’ll still be dancing and singing along to for the next 100 years. Some of these songs our children will belt in sports arenas. Others our grandchildren will dance to at their weddings.

    The New American Songbook is emphatically not a list of the best songs of the past quarter-century, although many of these tracks would make that list, too. As predicted by our panel, tomorrow’s oldies, like tomorrow’s America, will be a lot less male-dominated, and a lot more diverse. Less than a third of the songs on our list are fronted by white men, and no artists are featured more frequently than pop music’s first couple Beyoncé and Jay-Z. Classic rock will soon be rivaled by classic rap, and the Cole Porter of the next American songbook may be Max Martin.

    Below, find the Top 30 songs, in order, all of which were nominated by at least two of our panelists. You can also read the individual ballots of everyone from Chuck Klosterman to NPR’s Ann Powers to Drive-By Truckers’ Patterson Hood. Which of today’s hits will endure as tomorrow’s golden oldies? Here’s our best guess.

    30. Idina Menzel – “Let It Go”

    Producers: Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Robert Lopez
    Songwriters: Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Robert Lopez
    Year: 2013

    29. Liz Phair – “Fuck and Run”

    Producers: Liz Phair, Brad Wood
    Songwriter: Liz Phair
    Year: 1993

    28. Daft Punk ft. Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers – “Get Lucky”

    Producers: Thomas Bangalter, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo
    Songwriters: Thomas Bangalter, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, Nile Rodgers, Pharrell Williams
    Year: 2013

    27. Alanis Morissette – “You Oughta Know”

    Producer: Glen Ballard
    Songwriters: Alanis Morissette, Glen Ballard
    Year: 1995

    26. Old Crow Medicine Show – “Wagon Wheel”

    Producer: David Rawlings
    Songwriters: Bob Dylan, Ketch Secor
    Year: 2004

    25. Destiny’s Child – “Say My Name”

    Producer: Darkchild
    Songwriters: LaShawn Daniels, Rodney Jerkins, Fred Jerkins III, Beyoncé, LeToya Luckett, LaTavia Roberson, Kelly Rowland
    Year: 1999

    24. Israel Kamakawiwoʻole – “Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World”

    Producers: Israel Kamakawiwoʻole, Jon de Mello
    Songwriters: Edgar Yipsel Harburg, Bob Thiele, George David Weiss
    Year: 1993

    23. Beyoncé ft. Jay-Z – “Crazy in Love”

    Producers: Rich Harrison, Beyoncé
    Songwriters: Beyoncé, Rich Harrison, Eugene Record, Shawn Carter
    Year: 2003

    22. Nine Inch Nails – “Hurt”

    Producer: Trent Reznor
    Songwriter: Trent Reznor
    Year: 1994

    Producers: Dr. Dre, Mike Elizondo
    Songwriters: Curtis Jackson, Andre Young, Mike Elizondo
    Year: 2003

    20. Adele – “Rolling in the Deep”

    Producer: Paul Epworth
    Songwriters: Adele Adkins, Paul Epworth
    Year: 2010

    19. Oasis – “Wonderwall”

    Producers: Owen Morris, Noel Gallagher
    Songwriter: Noel Gallagher
    Year: 1995

    18. Backstreet Boys – “I Want It That Way”

    Producers: Kristian Lundin, Max Martin
    Songwriters: Andreas Carlsson, Max Martin
    Year: 1999

    17. Rihanna ft. Calvin Harris – “We Found Love”

    Producer: Calvin Harris
    Songwriter: Calvin Harris
    Year: 2011

    16. The Killers – “Mr. Brightside”

    Producer: The Killers
    Songwriters: Brandon Flowers, Dave Keuning, Mark Stoermer, Ronnie Vannucci Jr.
    Year: 2003

    15. Céline Dion – “My Heart Will Go On”

    Producers: Walter Afanasieff, James Horner, Simon Franglen
    Songwriters: Will Jennings, James Horner
    Year: 1997

    14. Santana ft. Rob Thomas – “Smooth”

    Producer: Matt Serletic
    Songwriters: Itaal Shur, Rob Thomas
    Year: 1999

    13. Lauryn Hill – “Doo Wop (That Thing)”

    Producer: Lauryn Hill
    Songwriter: Lauryn Hill
    Year: 1998

    12. Drake – “Hotline Bling”

    Producer: Nineteen85
    Songwriters: Aubrey Graham, Paul Jefferies, Timmy Thomas
    Year: 2015

    11. Eminem – “Lose Yourself”

    Producers: Eminem, Jeff Bass, Luis Resto
    Songwriter: Marshall Mathers
    Year: 2002

    10. Carly Rae Jepsen – “Call Me Maybe”

    Producer: Josh Ramsay
    Songwriters: Carly Rae Jepsen, Josh Ramsay, Tavish Crowe
    Year: 2012

    9. TLC – “Waterfalls”

    Producer: Organized Noize
    Songwriters: Marqueze Etheridge, Lisa Lopes, Organized Noize
    Year: 1994

    8. The White Stripes – “Seven Nation Army”

    Producer: Jack White
    Songwriter: Jack White
    Year: 2003

    7. Mariah Carey – “All I Want for Christmas Is You”

    Producers: Mariah Carey, Walter Afanasieff
    Songwriters: Mariah Carey, Walter Afanasieff
    Year: 1994

    6. Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars – “Uptown Funk”

    Producers: Mark Ronson, Jeff Bhasker, Bruno Mars
    Songwriters: Jeff Bhasker, Philip Lawrence, Peter Hernandez, Mark Ronson, Nicholas Williams, Devon Gallaspy, Lonnie Simmons, Charles Wilson, Ronnie Wilson, Robert Wilson, Rudolph Taylor
    Year: 2014

    5. The Notorious B.I.G. – “Juicy”

    Producers: Poke of Trackmasters, Pete Rock
    Songwriters: Christopher Wallace, Hunter McIntosh, Sean Combs, Pete Rock, Jean-Claude Olivier, Samuel Barnes
    Year: 1994

    4. Kelly Clarkson – “Since U Been Gone”

    Producers: Max Martin, Dr. Luke
    Songwriters: Max Martin, Lukasz Gottwald
    Year: 2004

    3. Beyoncé – “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)”

    Producers: Christopher Stewart, Terius Nash, Beyoncé
    Songwriters: Christopher Stewart, Terius Nash, Thaddis Harrell, Beyoncé
    Year: 2008

    2. Jay-Z ft. Alicia Keys – “Empire State of Mind”

    Producer: Al Shux
    Songwriters: Angela Hunte, Alicia Keys, Alexander Shuckburgh, Bert Keyes, Janet Sewell-Ulepic, Shawn Carter, Sylvia Robinson
    Year: 2009

    1. Outkast – “Hey Ya”

    Producer: André 3000
    Songwriter: André 3000
    Year: 2003

    This future standard has the “best hook in history,” writes Powers. And it’s perhaps the strongest testament to Outkast’s world-conquering, genre-bending hit that you can’t help but mentally scroll through this perennial list-topper’s many catchy bits and respond, “Wait—which one?” Of course there’s the titular chorus, at once triumphant and melancholy. (While some panelists referred to it as “an expression of pure pop joy,” the lyrics find the singer worrying that all love is transient.) But there are also the hand claps putting three exclamation points on each couplet, the call-and-response section that lets the audience deliver the cooler-than-cool punchline, the “shake it like a Polaroid picture” bridge that people will be singing long after they’ve forgotten the purpose of shaking Polaroids, even the repetition of 14 straight “all rights” that embodies this song’s perfect combination of pop universality and André 3000 weirdness. (See also the time signature, which is either a standard 4/4 or a downright bizarre 11/4, depending on whom you ask.)

    And these hooks have already sunk themselves into subsequent generations. As Kois writes, “The first time I played this song for my kids it was as if they’d already heard it 1,000 times.” If what they say is “Nothing is forever,” “Hey Ya” might be the exception.

    #musique

  • Plagiarists or innovators ? The Led Zeppelin paradox endures
    https://theconversation.com/plagiarists-or-innovators-the-led-zeppelin-paradox-endures-102368

    La musique entre usage des communs et plagiat, entre appropriation et « just have fun ». Superbe article.

    Fifty years ago – in September 1968 – the legendary rock band Led Zeppelin first performed together, kicking off a Scandinavian tour billed as the New Yardbirds.

    The new, better name would come later that fall, while drummer John Bonham’s death in 1980 effectively ended their decade-defining reign. But to this day, the band retains the same iconic status it held back in the 1970s: It ranks as one of the best-selling music acts of all time and continues to shape the sounds of new and emerging groups young enough to be the band members’ grandchildren.

    Yet, even after all this time – when every note, riff and growl of Zeppelin’s nine-album catalog has been pored over by fans, cover artists and musicologists – a dark paradox still lurks at the heart of its mystique. How can a band so slavishly derivative – and sometimes downright plagiaristic – be simultaneously considered so innovative and influential?

    How, in other words, did it get to have its custard pie and eat it, too?

    As a scholar who researches the subtle complexities of musical style and originality as well as the legal mechanisms that police and enforce them, such as copyright law, I find this a particularly devilish conundrum. The fact that I’m also a bassist in a band that fuses multiple styles of music makes it personal.
    A pattern of ‘borrowing’

    For anyone who quests after the holy grail of creative success, Led Zeppelin has achieved something mythical in stature: a place in the musical firmament, on its own terms, outside of the rules and without compromise.

    When Led Zeppelin debuted its eponymous first album in 1969, there’s no question that it sounded new and exciting. My father, a baby boomer and dedicated Beatles fan, remembers his chagrin that year when his middle school math students threw over the Fab Four for Zeppelin, seemingly overnight. Even the stodgy New York Times, which decried the band’s “plastic sexual superficiality,” felt compelled, in the same article, to acknowledge its “enormously successful … electronically intense blending” of musical styles.

    Yet, from the very beginning, the band was also dogged with accusations of musical pilfering, plagiarism and copyright infringement – often justifiably.

    The band’s first album, “Led Zeppelin,” contained several songs that drew from earlier compositions, arrangements and recordings, sometimes with attribution and often without. It included two Willie Dixon songs, and the band credited both to the influential Chicago blues composer. But it didn’t credit Anne Bredon when it covered her song “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You.”

    The hit “Dazed and Confused,” also from that first album, was originally attributed to Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page. However in 2010, songwriter Jake Holmes filed a lawsuit claiming that he’d written and recorded it in 1967. After the lawsuit was settled out of court, the song is now credited in the liner notes of re-releases as “inspired by” Holmes.
    ‘Dazed and Confused’ by Jake Holmes.

    The band’s second album, “Led Zeppelin II,” picked up where the first left off. Following a series of lawsuits, the band agreed to list Dixon as a previously uncredited author on two of the tracks, including its first hit single, “Whole Lotta Love.” An additional lawsuit established that blues legend Chester “Howlin’ Wolf” Burnett was a previously uncredited author on another track called “The Lemon Song.”

    Musical copyright infringement is notoriously challenging to establish in court, hence the settlements. But there’s no question the band engaged in what musicologists typically call “borrowing.” Any blues fan, for instance, would have recognized the lyrics of Dixon’s “You Need Love” – as recorded by Muddy Waters – on a first listen of “Whole Lotta Love.”
    Dipping into the commons or appropriation?

    Should the band be condemned for taking other people’s songs and fusing them into its own style?

    Or should this actually be a point of celebration?

    The answer is a matter of perspective. In Zeppelin’s defense, the band is hardly alone in the practice. The 1960s folk music revival movement, which was central to the careers of Baez, Holmes, Bredon, Dixon and Burnett, was rooted in an ethic that typically treated musical material as a “commons” – a wellspring of shared culture from which all may draw, and to which all may contribute.

    Most performers in the era routinely covered “authorless” traditional and blues songs, and the movement’s shining star, Bob Dylan, used lyrical and musical pastiche as a badge of pride and display of erudition – “Look how many old songs I can cram into this new song!” – rather than as a guilty, secret crutch to hold up his own compositions.

    Why shouldn’t Zeppelin be able to do the same?
    Willie Dixon’s imprint can be found on a number of Led Zeppelin songs. Brianmcmillen, CC BY-SA

    On the other hand, it’s hard to ignore the racial dynamics inherent in Led Zeppelin’s borrowing. Willie Dixon and Howlin’ Wolf were African-Americans, members of a subjugated minority who were – especially back then – excluded from reaping their fair share of the enormous profits they generated for music labels, publishers and other artists.

    Like their English countrymen Eric Clapton and The Rolling Stones, Zeppelin’s attitude toward black culture seems eerily reminiscent of Lord Elgin’s approach to the marble statues of the Parthenon and Queen Victoria’s policy on the Koh-i-Noor diamond: Take what you can and don’t ask permission; if you get caught, apologize without ceding ownership.

    Led Zeppelin was also accused of lifting from white artists such as Bredon and the band Spirit, the aggrieved party in a recent lawsuit over the rights to Zeppelin’s signature song “Stairway to Heaven.” Even in these cases, the power dynamics were iffy.

    Bredon and Spirit are lesser-known composers with lower profiles and shallower pockets. Neither has benefited from the glow of Zeppelin’s glory, which has only grown over the decades despite the accusations and lawsuits leveled against them.
    A matter of motives

    So how did the band pull it off, when so many of its contemporaries have been forgotten or diminished? How did it find and keep the holy grail? What makes Led Zeppelin so special?

    I could speculate about its cultural status as an avatar of trans-Atlantic, post-hippie self-indulgence and “me generation” rebellion. I could wax poetic about its musical fusion of pre-Baroque and non-Western harmonies with blues rhythms and Celtic timbres. I could even accuse it, as many have over the years, of cutting a deal with the devil.

    Instead, I’ll simply relate a personal anecdote from almost 20 years ago. I actually met frontman Robert Plant. I was waiting in line at a lower Manhattan bodega around 2 a.m. and suddenly realized Plant was waiting in front of me. A classic Chuck Berry song was playing on the overhead speakers. Plant turned to look at me and mused, “I wonder what he’s up to now?” We chatted about Berry for a few moments, then paid and went our separate ways.

    Brief and banal though it was, I think this little interlude – more than the reams of music scholarship and journalism I’ve read and written – might hold the key to solving the paradox.

    Maybe Led Zeppelin is worthy because, like Sir Galahad, the knight who finally gets the holy grail, its members’ hearts were pure.

    During our brief exchange, it was clear Plant didn’t want to be adulated – he didn’t need his ego stroked by a fawning fan. Furthermore, he and his bandmates were never even in it for the money. In fact, for decades, Zeppelin refused to license its songs for television commercials. In Plant’s own words, “I only wanted to have some fun.”

    Maybe the band retained its fame because it lived, loved and embodied rock and roll so absolutely and totally – to the degree that Plant would start a conversation with a total stranger in the middle of the night just to chat about one of his heroes.

    This love, this purity of focus, comes out in its music, and for this, we can forgive Led Zeppelin’s many trespasses.

    #Communs #Led_Zeppelin #Musique

  • Plus de 140 artistes (dont une vingtaine de français) de 18 pays, dont des participants à l’Eurovision signent une lettre appelant au boycott de l’Eurovision 2019 si elle a lieu en israel:

    Eurovision, ne blanchissez pas l’occupation militaire et les violations des droits humains par Israël
    The Guardian, le 7 septembre 2018
    https://www.bdsfrance.org/plus-de-140-artistes-signent-une-lettre-appelant-au-boycott-de-leurovisio

    Boycott Eurovision Song Contest hosted by Israel
    The Guardian, le 7 septembre 2018
    https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/sep/07/boycott-eurovision-song-contest-hosted-by-israel

    L-FRESH The LION, musician, Eurovision 2018 national judge (Australia)
    Helen Razer, broadcaster, writer (Australia)
    Candy Bowers, actor, writer, theatre director (Australia)
    Blak Douglas, artist (Australia)
    Nick Seymour, musician, producer (Australia)
    DAAN, musician, songwriter (Belgium)
    Daan Hugaert, actor (Belgium)
    Alain Platel, choreographer, theatre director (Belgium)
    Marijke Pinoy, actor (Belgium)
    Code Rouge, band (Belgium)
    DJ Murdock, DJ (Belgium)
    Helmut Lotti, singer (Belgium)
    Raymond Van het Groenewoud, musician (Belgium)
    Stef Kamil Carlens, musician, composer (Belgium)
    Charles Ducal, poet, writer (Belgium)
    Fikry El Azzouzi, novelist, playwright (Belgium)
    Erik Vlaminck, novelist, playwright (Belgium)
    Rachida Lamrabet, writer (Belgium)
    Slongs Dievanongs, musician (Belgium)
    Chokri Ben Chikha, actor, theatre director (Belgium)
    Yann Martel, novelist (Canada)
    Karina Willumsen, musician, composer (Denmark)
    Kirsten Thorup, novelist, poet (Denmark)
    Arne Würgler, musician (Denmark)
    Jesper Christensen, actor (Denmark)
    Tove Bornhoeft, actor, theatre director (Denmark)
    Anne Marie Helger, actor (Denmark)
    Tina Enghoff, visual artist (Denmark)
    Nassim Al Dogom, musician (Denmark)
    Patchanka, band (Denmark)
    Raske Penge, songwriter, singer (Denmark)
    Oktoberkoret, choir (Denmark)
    Nils Vest, film director (Denmark)
    Britta Lillesoe, actor (Denmark)
    Kaija Kärkinen, singer, Eurovision 1991 finalist (Finland)
    Kyösti Laihi, musician, Eurovision 1988 finalist (Finland)
    Kimmo Pohjonen, musician (Finland)
    Paleface, musician (Finland)
    Manuela Bosco, actor, novelist, artist (Finland)
    Noora Dadu, actor (Finland)
    Pirjo Honkasalo, film-maker (Finland)
    Ria Kataja, actor (Finland)
    Tommi Korpela, actor (Finland)
    Krista Kosonen, actor (Finland)
    Elsa Saisio, actor (Finland)
    Martti Suosalo, actor, singer (Finland)
    Virpi Suutari, film director (Finland)
    Aki Kaurismäki, film director, screenwriter (Finland)
    Pekka Strang, actor, artistic director (Finland)
    HK, singer (France)
    Dominique Grange, singer (France)
    Imhotep, DJ, producer (France)
    Francesca Solleville, singer (France)
    Elli Medeiros, singer, actor (France)
    Mouss & Hakim, band (France)
    Alain Guiraudie, film director, screenwriter (France)
    Tardi, comics artist (France)
    Gérard Mordillat, novelist, filmmaker (France)
    Eyal Sivan, film-maker (France)
    Rémo Gary, singer (France)
    Dominique Delahaye, novelist, musician (France)
    Philippe Delaigue, author, theatre director (France)
    Michel Kemper, online newspaper editor-in-chief (France)
    Michèle Bernard, singer-songwriter (France)
    Gérard Morel, theatre actor, director, singer (France)
    Daði Freyr, musician, Eurovision 2017 national selection finalist (Iceland)
    Hildur Kristín Stefánsdóttir, musician, Eurovision 2017 national selection finalist (Iceland)
    Mike Murphy, broadcaster, eight-time Eurovision commentator (Ireland)
    Mary Black, singer (Ireland)
    Christy Moore, singer, musician (Ireland)
    Charlie McGettigan, musician, songwriter, Eurovision 1994 winner (Ireland)
    Mary Coughlan, singer (Ireland)
    Luka Bloom, singer (Ireland)
    Robert Ballagh, artist, Riverdance set designer (Ireland)
    Aviad Albert, musician (Israel)
    Michal Sapir, musician, writer (Israel)
    Ohal Grietzer, musician (Israel)
    Yonatan Shapira, musician (Israel)
    Danielle Ravitzki, musician, visual artist (Israel)
    David Opp, artist (Israel)
    Assalti Frontali, band (Italy)
    Radiodervish, band (Italy)
    Moni Ovadia, actor, singer, playwright (Italy)
    Vauro, journalist, cartoonist (Italy)
    Pinko Tomažič Partisan Choir, choir (Italy)
    Jorit, street artist (Italy)
    Marthe Valle, singer (Norway)
    Mari Boine, musician, composer (Norway)
    Aslak Heika Hætta Bjørn, singer (Norway)
    Nils Petter Molvær, musician, composer (Norway)
    Moddi, singer (Norway)
    Jørn Simen Øverli, singer (Norway)
    Nosizwe, musician, actor (Norway)
    Bugge Wesseltoft, musician, composer (Norway)
    Lars Klevstrand, musician, composer, actor (Norway)
    Trond Ingebretsen, musician (Norway)
    José Mário Branco, musician, composer (Portugal)
    Francisco Fanhais, singer (Portugal)
    Tiago Rodrigues, artistic director, Portuguese national theatre (Portugal)
    Patrícia Portela, playwright, author (Portugal)
    Chullage, musician (Portugal)
    António Pedro Vasconcelos, film director (Portugal)
    José Luis Peixoto, novelist (Portugal)
    N’toko, musician (Slovenia)
    ŽPZ Kombinat, choir (Slovenia)
    Lluís Llach, composer, singer-songwriter (Spanish state)
    Marinah, singer (Spanish state)
    Riot Propaganda, band (Spanish state)
    Fermin Muguruza, musician (Spanish state)
    Kase.O, musician (Spanish state)
    Soweto, band (Spanish state)
    Itaca Band, band (Spanish state)
    Tremenda Jauría, band (Spanish state)
    Teresa Aranguren, journalist (Spanish state)
    Julio Perez del Campo, film director (Spanish state)
    Nicky Triphook, singer (Spanish state)
    Pau Alabajos, singer-songwriter (Spanish state)
    Mafalda, band (Spanish state)
    Zoo, band (Spanish state)
    Smoking Souls, band (Spanish state)
    Olof Dreijer, DJ, producer (Sweden)
    Karin Dreijer, singer, producer (Sweden)
    Dror Feiler, musician, composer (Sweden)
    Michel Bühler, singer, playwright, novelist (Switzerland)
    Wolf Alice, band (UK)
    Carmen Callil, publisher, writer (UK)
    Julie Christie, actor (UK)
    Caryl Churchill, playwright (UK)
    Brian Eno, composer, producer (UK)
    AL Kennedy, writer (UK)
    Peter Kosminsky, writer, film director (UK)
    Paul Laverty, scriptwriter (UK)
    Mike Leigh, writer, film and theatre director (UK)
    Ken Loach, film director (UK)
    Alexei Sayle, writer, comedian (UK)
    Roger Waters, musician (UK)
    Penny Woolcock, film-maker, opera director (UK)
    Leon Rosselson, songwriter (UK)
    Sabrina Mahfouz, writer, poet (UK)
    Eve Ensler, playwright (US)
    Alia Shawkat, actor (US)

    #Palestine #BDS #Boycott_culturel #Eurovision

  • Archie Shepp - In a Sentimental Mood - 1965
    Tenor Saxophone - Vibraphone

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFQ588IudL0

    https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_This_Night

    Tenor Saxophone — Archie Shepp
    https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archie_Shepp
    Vibraphone — Bobby Hutcherson

    Label: Impulse!
    A- 97 Format: Vinyl,
    LP, Mono
    Country: US
    Released: 1965 Genre: #Jazz

    http://www.jazzstandards.com/compositions-0/inasentimentalmood.htm
    https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_a_Sentimental_Mood

    In a Sentimental Mood I can see
    The stars come through my room
    While your loving attitude is
    Like a flame that lights the gloom
    On the wings of ev’ry kiss
    Drift a melody so strange and sweet
    In this sentimental bliss you make
    My Paradise complete
    Rose pearls seem to fall
    It’s all like a dream to call you mine
    My heart’s lighter thing since you
    Made me this night a thing divine
    In A Sentimental Mood
    I’m within a world so heavenly
    For I never dreamt that you’d be
    Loving sentimental me
    In A Sentimental Mood I can see
    The stars come through my room
    While your loving attitude is
    Like a flame that lights the gloom
    On the wings of ev’ry kiss
    Drift a melody so strange and sweet
    In this sentimental bliss you make
    My Paradise complete
    Rose pearls seem to fall
    It’s all like a dream to call you mine
    My heart’s lighter thing since you
    Made me this night a thing divine
    In A Sentimental Mood
    I’m within a world so heavenly
    For I never dreamt that you’d be
    Loving sentimental me

    Songwriter: Duke Ellington / Irving Mills / Manny Kurtz

    #musique_d'été #nuits_d'été
    #saxophone_ténor #vibraphone

  • #Leonard_Cohen (1934-2016) dies at 82 - World Socialist Web Site
    http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/11/23/cohe-n23.html

    Leonard Cohen (1934-2016) dies at 82
    By Hiram Lee

    23 November 2016

    Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen died in Los Angeles November 7 at the age of 82. His manager Robert Kory subsequently revealed that Cohen, who had cancer, died in his sleep after falling during the night.
    Leonard Cohen in 1988 [Photo credit: Gorupdebesanez]

    Cohen had just been through one of the busiest periods of his career. In 2008, after some 15 years away from the stage, Cohen made a successful return to touring and released a number of new albums in quick succession. His most recent album You Want it Darker was released on October 21.

    In July, Cohen penned a touching letter to an ailing Marianne Ihlen, the woman who had inspired a number of his songs, most famously “So Long, Marianne.” She died July 28. Cohen wrote to her, “Well Marianne it’s come to this time when we are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon. Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine.” This was Cohen at his most tender and humane.

    When Cohen (born September 21, 1934 in Montreal) first emerged as an artist some 60 years ago, it was not as a musician, but as a poet and a novelist. His first book of poems, Let Us Compare Mythologies, was published in 1956. His sexually explicit novel Beautiful Losers (1966) was controversial in its day. He continued to write and publish throughout his career, but it was as a songwriter that he achieved his greatest popular success.

  • Allen Toussaint (1938-2015)
    http://davidsimon.com/allen-toussaint-1938-2015

    I woke this empty morning to the sudden departure of a great and good man. There will be many better, more comprehensive tributes today from musicians, music lovers and New Orleanians who knew him well, so don’t stop here without going further to celebrate Allen Toussaint’s life. I met him on only a handful occasions and then only in a professional setting; others can attest to so much more. But there are a couple of warm anecdotes that I treasure and that ought to be added to the day’s reflections on a gentle, giving soul and one of the finest composers who ever created American music. Source: The Audacity of (...)

    • New Orleans songwriter, musician Allen Toussaint dead at 77 - World Socialist Web Site

      http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/11/12/tous-n12.html

      New Orleans songwriter, musician Allen Toussaint dead at 77
      By Hiram Lee
      12 November 2015

      The influential New Orleans songwriter and record producer Allen Toussaint died November 10 at the age of 77. On tour at the time of his death, Toussaint suffered a heart attack following a performance at the Teatro Lara in Madrid, Spain.

      Active since the late 1950s, Toussaint had experienced a career revival in recent years. He was touring and recording regularly and, after a lifetime behind the scenes, had begun to receive greater public recognition. A 2006 album with Elvis Costello, The River in Reverse, was a strong outing. The Bright Mississippi (2009) was an impressive tribute to (mostly) early New Orleans jazz. In 2013, he released Songbook, featuring new recordings of many of his classic rhythm and blues songs.

  • Stop the music
    By Charles Duan
    http://boingboing.net/2015/07/28/music.html

    In the District Court for the Central District of California
    Eugene L. Whitman v. Alfred Vail Enterprises, Inc.
    COMPLAINT FOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT
    February 18, 2044

    comes now plaintiff, Eugene L. Whitman, by and through his attorneys, and bringing a complaint against Alfred Vail Enterprises, Inc., states:

    1. Plaintiff Whitman is a songwriter and composer of the popular song ’Taking It Back.’

    2. On January 14, 2044, Defendant Vail Enterprises first distributed the now-hit song ’Straight Focus.’

    3. ’Straight Focus’ includes an eight-note sample from ’Taking It Back.’ Vail Enterprises accordingly infringed Whitman’s copyright by making an unauthorized derivative work.

    Wherefore, Whitman prays for judgment against Vail Enterprises as follows:

    A. A permanent injunction prohibiting Vail Enterprises from continuing to infringe Whitman’s copyright;

    B. Destruction of all copies of ’Straight Focus’ in Vail Enterprises’ possession; and

    C. An order requiring Vail Enterprises to erase the song ’Straight Focus’ from the memories of all persons residing in the United States.

    #copyright #drm

  • Israeli artist Shira Geffen takes the heat for criticizing the war in Gaza - Movies & Television - Israel News | Haaretz
    http://www.haaretz.com/life/movies-television/.premium-1.653671

    In the last few months writer and filmmaker Shira Geffen found herself in the eye of two media storms sparked by the explosive friction between artists who dare to express an opinion about their surrounding reality — and that painful, forlorn reality, which displays ever decreasing tolerance of criticism.

    It first happened last summer during Operation Protective Edge at the Jerusalem Film Festival, when Geffen asked the audience at a screening of her film to stand for a minute of silence in memory of four Palestinian children killed that day by Israel Defense Forces fire. The second time was a few weeks ago when her father, the songwriter Yehonatan Geffen, was assaulted at home for comments he made about the left’s less of the election.

    In an interview two weeks after the incident, Shira Geffen demonstrated steadfastness and determination by not retracting previous statements. Instead of panicking over the venomous criticism directed at her, she explains her position. Instead of caving into pressure she insists she will keep expressing her views the way she was taught to do. Instead of apologizing for politics penetrating her work, she expresses hope it will engender change.

    Amid the storms, Gefen’s creative projects still remain at the core, and as usual she skips with surprising ease between different, varied fields. Last December her sixth children’s book, “Sea of Tears,” was published. She is now promoting her second film, “Self Made,” while writing her first television drama series with her partner writer Etgar Keret. She is also busy writing her next feature film, “Accompanying Parent,” about a girl’s coming of age. Her other interests — theater, dance, acting and songwriting — have to patiently wait their turn. Even Geffen has her limits.

    Being multidisciplinary does not make her work shallower, Geffen says. She certainly isn’t sorry her multiplicity of tasks prevents her from specializing in one profession.

    “I’m not a linear person at all. I’m all about breadth, being associative,” she says. “That’s how I write and think. That’s how I think I develop.”

    Geffen, born in 1971, never studied film, but this fact didn’t stop “Jellyfish” — the film based on her script and co–directed with Keret (who also has no film education) — from debuting at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. It even won the Camera d’Or, the prize for best first feature film. Seven years later, when she finished the first film she had written and directed on her own, she was invited back to the prestigious French film festival. The critics praised “Self Made,” and the film made the long festival circuit around the globe. Along the way, Geffen won AFI’s New Auteurs Critics’ Award and picked up two awards at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

    The heroine of “Self Made,” which will debut next weekend (translated into English) in Israel, is Michal (Sarah Adler), a successful Jerusalem artist. One morning, just before going abroad for an important event, her bed breaks. She hits her head and loses her memory. One army roadblock away lives Nadine (Samira Saraya), a young Palestinian woman whose internal reality is also a bit shaken. By coincidence, the two women exchange identities at the roadblock. Nadine is sent off to live the life of the Jerusalem artist, and Michal is sent to live Nadine’s life in her Palestinian village.

    Shopping instead of exploding

    Geffen conceived the film’s original idea a decade ago, when she read a Haaretz interview with Arin Ahmad, a Bethlehem student whose fiance was killed by soldiers.

    “They contacted her when she was in pain and sadness, and recruited her for a suicide operation, to be a shahida ("women martyrs"). They dressed her as an Israeli woman, put an explosive belt on her and sent her to the Rishon Lezion pedestrian mall,” recalls Geffen. In the interview she said she reached the mall, saw people shopping, and what she wanted to do was go into the stores and shop. That moment aroused in me the question when and where does the will to live awaken? Suddenly, I imagined the continuation. What would have happened if she had entered the stores and because of the explosive belt looked like a pregnant woman, and would start trying on maternity dresses and buying things for the expected baby. My imagination suddenly went there. In reality, Arin Ahmad suddenly had regrets and decided not to blow herself up, but this moment basically drove me to write the script.”

    Geffen consequently researched the subject of shahidas. She visited Ramallah six years ago to see the home of the first female suicide bomber, Wafa Idris.

    “I was scared. It was my first time in Ramallah, and before I entered her home, I was really afraid of what I would say, how I would speak with her mother. I had a lot of fears,” she says. “And then, when I went in, I saw an elderly, tired woman, and the first thing she did when she saw me was hug me. I saw behind her a huge poster of her dead daughter, and during this hug I suddenly felt her daughter, the one she didn’t have. It was all mixed in my head. I was suddenly her daughter, who wanted to kill me, and this confusion — the understanding that all is one, and suffering is suffering, and that a woman who loses her daughter is a woman who loses her daughter no matter where, and that I can be anyone’s daughter — is basically one of the things that brought me to writing the script.”

    Geffen recalls that she then said to herself that if she chose to live in this complex, volatile place, she had to say something about it, so she decided that would be the next thing she’d do.

    Neither shock nor dismay

    Last summer, “Self Made” was screened in Jerusalem’s International Film Festival just as Operation Protective Edge was beginning. The directors whose films were competing in the Israeli festival got together and decided to use this stage to protest the war. They convened a press conference and called on the government to agree to a ceasefire. They protested the tendency of the local press not to investigate what was transpiring in Gaza and read the names of 30 Palestinian children killed in IDF bombings there.

    Culture Minister Limor Livnat called the protest a “disgrace” on her Facebook page, but Geffen and her colleagues kept protesting throughout the festival. Geffen took the most flak after calling for a moment of silence. Some in the audience jeered her. Some left the hall in protest. Social media went wild. The curses and invectives spread across the Internet, and the news broadcasts and newspapers reported it widely.

    Looking back, Geffen explains that she had read the headline about the children’s deaths that morning and was filled with pain and sorrow. She felt she couldn’t remain quiet.

    “I felt the need to present the names of the children, who in another moment would be forgotten. So I did what I did. I didn’t think at that moment about how it would reverberate, and I was surprised to discover how much rage people have,” she recalls. “When I mentioned the minute of silence, a minute when people are used to standing and remembering the soldiers, it was suddenly perceived as treason. But for me it was instinctive, and I’m not sorry about it. I am not sorry that I am humane. I think I acted from a place of connectedness, and all the harsh criticism about me was very sad and also very scary.”

    The threats she endured for expressing her opinion are nothing new to the Geffen family. Eight months later, a man showed up at her father’s front door, and attacked and beat him, calling him a murderer and traitor, a few days after comments he made at a concern. The elder Geffen had said that Election Day, March 17, would be declared “the peace camp’s Nakba Day,” referring to what Palestinians call their catastrophe, the day Israel was established. Gefen also called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “racist,” and charged that Netanyahu’s regime was based on “scaring the people.”

    Ynet wrote the Geffen family was in shock and dismay [over the election results], but Shira Geffen says the family was neither in shock nor dismay.

    “All these years, which have encouraged polarization, have led to this. All the walls and barriers between the Palestinians and us, and among us, this racism, what Netanyahu said (on Election Day) about Arab droves — these things don’t come out of nowhere,” she says, referring to the prime minister’s warning that the Arabs are “coming out to vote in droves.”

    “My father said it most precisely: It’s not a matter of right and left. There is no more right and left. There’s humanism and fascism. And in this place they’ve already forgotten what it is to be humanistic, what it is to be a human being,” she says. “My father was attacked because he spoke against the [last] war and the next war. And people, like Michal Kayam, the character from my film, have a very short memory. Repressing wars is something this place is expert at. No one here talks anymore about Protective Edge and the people who died and the soldiers who died, except for Michal Kasten Keidar (widow of Lt. Col. Dolev Keidar, who fell in the operation), who broke the automatic circle of mourning and expressed pain, and even then they came down hard on her,” she says referring to the widow who spoke out against the Gaza war in a recent interview in Haaretz. "Why was my father attacked? Because he spoke about this taboo, about the war that was and the children who will die in the next superfluous war.”

    #Shira-Geffen

    • Avant la fille, Yonathan Geffen, son père, avait été attaqué à son domicile
      http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.648048
      Writer Yehonatan Geffen was attacked at his home near Netanya on Friday afternoon, when an intruder burst into his house, tried to hit him, branded him a leftist traitor and then fled.

      Geffen has been a vocal critic of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reelection last week.

      Israel Police combed the area around Moshav Beit Yitzhak but could not find the assailant. The police said they assumed the incident was premeditated.

      The author and journalist’s manager, Boaz Ben Zion, said he hoped the incident was a one-off, adding, “We don’t know yet why Yehonatan was attacked, and we hope the police catch the assailant.”
      #Yonathan-Geffen

  • Suzanne Vega – Close-Up: Vol 3, States of Being (2011)
    http://chewbone.rickshide.com/2013/08/06/suzanne-vega-close-up-vol-3-states-of-being-2011

    Suzanne Vega – Close-Up: Vol 3, States of Being (2011) EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 250 Mb (incl 5%) | Mp3 (CBR320/Stereo) ~ 115 Mb (incl 5%) | Scans includedGenre: Folk Rock, Pop Rock, Singer/Songwriter | Label: Amanuensis/Cooking Vinyl | # COOKCD523 | Time: 00:44:09 “ In 1985, singer/songwriter Suzanne Vega released her [...]

  • How The ’70s Majorly Screwed The Major Labels | TuneCorner Music Blog
    http://blog.tunecore.com/2011/09/how-the-70s-majorly-screwed-the-major-labels.html

    Lava lamps, Happy Days, mood rings, MASH, and Jimmy Carter’s Playboy interview weren’t the only things to come out of the ’70s. In addition, copyright law was revised by the U.S. government granting artists and songwriters “termination rights.” This law states that 35 years after 1978 the recordings and songs “owned” by record labels or publishers would revert back to the artist or songwriter regardless of if the artist or songwriter was recouped, un-recouped, etc. In other words, the government said to the labels and publishers,“ 35 years is long enough. Times up, give them back control over their work.”

    For those of you counting, 35 years from 1978 is 2013.

    This means albums and songs from Cheap Trick, The Kinks, AC/DC, Kraftwerk, Carole King, Peter Gabriel, The Cars, The Buzzcocks, KC & the Sunshine Band, Kenny Rogers, David Bowie, Black Sabbath, Tom Waits, Yes, Sex Pistols, Boston, Ramones, Bryan Ferry, Heart, Uriah Heap, Neil Young, Aerosmith, Brian Eno, Hawkwind, Whitesnake, Queen, Kate Bush, and countless others are eligible to revert back to the artists. Which means that the record labels, in addition to losing control over distribution (think TuneCore) may now lose the rights to the only thing left keeping them alive, the recordings that they make money off of.

    [..]
    As you can imagine, the labels are fighting it.