Category Archives: Music

Beatles Evolution & Revolution

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If you are going to be successful as an act, you need management & a producer.

Brian Epstein was an ambitious music entrepreneur who managed the Beatles from 1961 until his death in August 1967. Epstein signed the Beatles with EMI’s Parlophone label, which became Capitol Records, and today is owned by Universal Music Group. Beatles songs were all produced by George Martin and remain a huge money maker, testifying to Brian Epstein’s ability to recognize talent, which itself is a talent, and then pair it with the necessary recording talent.

For the record, Brian Epstein was gay and like many stars & others of his era he died young (age 32) of a combined alcohol & barbiturate overdose, ruled accidental. Being gay is a difficult lifestyle, because apparently at some point there becomes an overwhelming need to separate from the mainstream. None of that conventional stuff satisfies. Beyond that, much of the conservative mainstream rejects gay, openly declaring its hostility.

Drugs & alcohol can become a refuge. Gay parties are different from straight parties. In my experience, there are much more drugs & sex going on at gay parties. Much of it is reckless & unprotected, as the attitude among many who are gay is to live it up today & die young. Many don’t want to live into old age, as they are in pain over their sexuality, and once it diminishes, their mental agony can become excruciating. Sadly this emotional pain leads to many early deaths.

Relationship building is an area where many people have issues. It’s especially hard for gays who have come out of the closet to trust straight people, because all straights said or did something offensive to their sensibilities at some point. It’s tempting for gays to become snowflakes on this, which doesn’t help anyone. Rehabilitation & education need to work together for there to be progress in sexual healing, but currently that is being cut out in favor of quackery, prejudice & identity politics. The real work that needs to be done is being actively resisted by all this.

After Epstein’s death, the Beatles attempted to manage themselves with Apple Records and it was a disaster. It wasn’t until after they officially broke up in the spring of 1970 that the Fab Four got they legal & financial issues in order so they could all get paid. Northern Songs was the famous Lennon-McCartney publishing company created under Epstein’s guidance. This got John & Paul paid equally on all their compositions.

George founded Harrisongs in 1964 which ensured he would get paid for his music. Ringo founded his own music publishing company, Startling Music Ltd, in 1968 after his deal with Northern Songs expired. Before the Beatles had begum to disintegrate as a band, each member was legally taken care of as far as songwriting, publishing & royalties. Those are the typical issues that break-up successful bands, and the Beatles showed the world how to handle it as it happened. “Creative differences” between band members is often rooted in legal issues that affect the commerciality of the act, along with who gets paid.

I’ve written in earlier posts that the Beatles wouldn’t be allowed to be successful in this 21-century era. The music industry has learned from the Beatles, punk rock, and 1990’s alternative rock/hip-hop. Those were times when popular music got out of their control and the industry doesn’t like that, even though it makes them billions of dollars. The industry wants to bottle everything up and endlessly sell it back to new generations of consumers, while never allowing another revolution in popular music. Historically, losing Frank Sinatra’s audience to rock & roll in 1955 started all this upheaval for the music industry. Charlie Parker & Sun Ra did the same in jazz.

You can’t stop history, which is metaphorically a raging river with unstoppable momentum & overwhelming power. Rock & roll is here to stay, and you can’t kill it. Same for reggae, rap, salsa, electronica, etc. Once a genre conquers the world, it becomes immortalized and can’t die because too many people, particularly kids, love it. It just keeps growing & flowing, increasing its influence as it goes along. All one can do is attempt to direct the flow. A revolutionary artist finds the best channel and directs all his/her energy into that historical task.

If the Beatles came along today and got their big audition on American Idol, Simon Cowell & company would listen for a bit, then insist to Paul that John be fired. Brian Epstein would be pushed out over a drug/sex scandal, etc, and Universal would handle all management through one of their preferred star agencies. This means Paul would be represented by CCA and be recognized as the undisputed band leader who gets all the songwriting & publishing money, while George & Ringo are a step above session musicians in this gig. If either protest they can easily be replaced. Drum machines that sample Pete Best & AI guitarists work much cheaper, making these new & improved Beatles more cost-efficient to the industry. This is the only way these new Beatles could be economically viable.

George Martin’s talents wouldn’t be applicable to these Beatles. Industry braintrust would surely prefer the guy who produced the Black Keys or Foo Fighters. New Beatles music would need that production edge with everything they’re missing, and George Martin is too subtle and respectful towards the artist to work in contemporary rock music which is now a top-down corporate-controlled project.

Under these conditions, John will struggle to get another opportunity as he’s too outside-the-box for this corporate era of music. He’s not sponsor friendly, so how can you market him? This is how all the gatekeepers & industry experts would understand a young John Lennon today. In this industry-created world, Paul McCartney & his New & Improved Beatles could become more popular than One Direction featuring Harry Styles. Of course, there wouldn’t be 1/10th the great songs from this new UK supergroup, but that’s just a cost of doing business.

Conclusion: There are great aspiring artists with the ability to make meaningful music, but it’s all being suppressed by ruling-class corporate which controls marketing, distribution & sales through its network of business partners, to which outsiders have no access. If you’re reading this, then you’ve discovered a real musical artist of the 21st-century. We’re all underground, censored & blacklisted by the establishment which has near-complete control over TV & the internet. It’s all dirty politics & big money that keeps us suppressed. Eventually the river of history will wash away all their detritus. This will happen when youth & working people unite in action, using music as a tool for revolutionary inspiration.

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My life with gay

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Beauty is blessing with a curse. Physical beauty attracts the opposite sex & gay. If you are attractive, you are going to have to deal with gay.

For the record, I’m 100% straight. Don’t believe that nonsense which declares everyone has gay in them. I have no desire for gay sex. That doesn’t make me anti-gay, it’s merely my sexual preference. Some snowflakes get jealous and attempt to persecute me for that. Anti-gay reactionaries are always looking for political cover for themselves, and a scapegoat to point their dirty fingers at. When you’re a real socialist, you get attacked from all sides politically.

I grew up in the 1980’s, when ‘coming out’ starting becoming in vogue. MTV & Madonna were a big influence on that, and it was certainly needed. I had Wisconsin high school friends (boys & girls) who came out after graduation, and I was among the first of the straights to be told by them. The gay boys were attracted to me, and the lesbian girls knew I was cool and would still be their friend. The ex-jocks & elitists were always the most reactionary towards gay, often claiming they were “betrayed” when they found out so-and-so was gay. That’s why most gays move out of the small towns and to the cities.

Those homophobic bigots were the people I soon lost touch with after high school, as they went on to become cops & local attorneys according to their aptitude. I soon lost touch with my new gay friends too, as that world became a culture that organically excluded straights who were unwilling to “experiment.” The only reason I was being invited to gay parties was because they wanted to have sex with me, not to be my friend.

I was kidnapped into a gay house sleepover in college. I thought I was being taken back to my dorm in downtown Milwaukee, but was instead taken to a rented home in Menominee Falls. I was introduced to all these new gay friends of my high school classmates, and was told we are having dinner & sleeping over here. [!!]

After this deception, I was uneasy about drinking alcohol, or anything else I didn’t serve myself. The meal was well-prepared, but hardly enjoyable. When it was time for bed, I slept alone on the living room couch, while everyone else went into a bedroom to have gay sex. It was my job to deal with all this like a man by waiting until morning to be taken to my desired destination, and not be a jerk about this. That’s a tough spot to be put in.

When gays are amongst themselves, they speak much more openly. After dinner, my just-came-out-of-the-closet male high school friend is examining the CD collection and is excited to see the Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, etc, well represented. The flaming-gay home resident says loudly to me with a wink & a laugh, “He’s going through his fag rock stage.”

Since then, all that 1980’s goth music has been ‘fag rock’ to me, because that’s what the fags call it– I heard it myself. That doesn’t make me anti-gay, it means I understand gay MUCH better than most straight people. Gay people need a few more straight people like myself who are honest about all this sexuality, because everyone else it lying about it for their own purposes.

For the record, my ‘gaydar’ is exquisitely sensitive, as it needs to be. I am usually the first straight man in the room to know there is a gay person in the area. This has been happening to me since I was a child, so what’s speaking here is a lifetime of experience & learning. If you are attractive, gay is going to find you. It’s all about how you deal with it. What you must do is:

1) Determine your sexual preference and don’t allow any unnatural forces to influence it
2) Determine you social attitude towards a group with whom you are not sexually attracted
3) Set healthy boundaries & limitations and maintain them

This is pretty advanced stuff for most people, as much of today’s society is failing Sex Ed 101. If you aren’t physically attractive, then you don’t have this problem of gay kidnappings, or being lured to their parties, gay bars, etc. Many heterosexual reactionaries are jealous of me because they are ugly. They want to pretend they know better, when in fact they know nothing on this. They claim to be protecting the public interest, when in fact they are fascist haters looking to scapegoat artists & leftists so their crimes can stay hidden from public accountability.

Jealously is the most dangerous emotion. It leads to contempt & uncontrollable rage. Nothing good can come from that. When politics get hyper-sexualized, everything gets distorted because most people are out-of-control when it comes to sex. Most people are never comfortable with their sexuality, and that becomes a root of many disorders– mental, physical, social, economic & political.

I have always turned to music in the face of such difficult & substantive issues. If you love the Velvet Underground & Nico produced by Andy Warhol (1967) they way I do, then you can’t be anti-gay. If you respect David Bowie, etc, in your music listening, then you are a friend of the gay community. With these tools at your disposal, you have all you need to connect with gay people on amenable terms– anytime, anyplace.

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Milan Winter Olympics observations & thoughts

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The perils of promoting oneself as a “Quad God” before taking the ice in front of the world became an Olympic reality for US figure skater Ilia Malinin, who entered the free skate 1st, but placed 8th after two falls during his long program.

It’s painful to watch.

This was Olympic pressure cracking a very talented young man. NBC’s evening coverage from Milan, which is tape-delayed, featured two retired US figure-skaters who mentioned Olympic pressure as nothing an athlete can simulate or be completely prepared for. Tara Lipinski won gold in 1998, and she admitted her knees were shaking going into her long program– which won.

So we can see that every athlete feels the pressure, even those who prevail as champions. It’s all about managing oneself and focusing on the tasks of the competition. When you put yourself under more pressure because you have promoted yourself as a Quad God, then you are setting yourself up for failure. That’s all one can say to the athlete on this.

I’m of a firm belief that figure skating & ice dancing are art-forms that should be appreciated as performance, instead of graded as competition. I feel the same way about diving & gymnastics at the summer Olympics. I understand this opinion is in the minority, but there are points to be understood, even if it doesn’t change your mind.

Let’s start with the ridiculous notion of music being an Olympic event and “best rock concert” wins the gold. The Beatles rock the house, followed by the Rolling Stones, Captain Beefheart & his Magic Band, the Velvet Underground, the Doors, Creedence Clearwater Revival, James Brown, and finally Jimi Hendrix. Judges (trusted old people) will rate their performances, based on criteria defined by them, and determine a winner & podium.

That may sound silly, and it is, but Rolling Stone magazine has been doing this since it started in 1967. More than anything, criticism of music & film and the judging of athletic performances are vehicles to promote personal favorites & devalue disliked acts. They act as political & social filters.

For the last 25 years the corporatized “music Olympics” has transformed from Rolling Stone magazine into American Idol reality TV, and it’s why music sucks so hard today. When industry gatekeepers control every aspect from development & finding talent, to access to resources & media promotion, it becomes nothing more than a popularity contest & pet projects among executives, instead of the kids deciding what they like & get to hear.

Back in the 1960’s, kids loved the Beatles & Stones, and demanded more from the record labels, and what followed was its classic rock era. Today corporate heads manipulate everything you see in the media. The last thing they want is another Bob Dylan revolutionizing things. Today. one must pass through the corporate filter of reality TV before one can be anointed a star.

The Beatles & Rolling Stones wouldn’t be allowed to exist and become famous these days. Their type is too wild & dangerous, too exciting & influential with the kids, and that can’t be allowed to happen. That’s been the corporate philosophy on music & entertainment post-Nirvana.

It’s the same process in sports, which is big money these days because it’s live entertainment brought to the viewer through traditional television & now internet streaming. Sports harvest eyeballs in all demographics, which advertisers love & networks cash in on.

Thus, I don’t get caught up in this Olympics ice dancing judging controversy.

Unfair judging has been part of the Olympics for decades, as these are political slights intended to project power towards an antagonist nation. The actual effect is to degrade an athlete’s performance while raising suspicions of dirty politics undermining the spirit of “fairness & international goodwill” at the Olympics.

Curling is a little known sport, and this is historically my first commentary on it. Team Sweden accused team Canada of cheating during their competition. Video shows illegal touching by Canada, but the sport is not subject to replay review officiating– yet. Cheating at a “gentleman’s” sport which most people don’t even understand or care about reveals that we have a competition problem at the Olympics.

The problem is everyone lies, and the more money that goes into winning, means more cheating & lying to become the “best”. This can raise the pressure to a breaking point for many athletes. “Cracking” happens in many different ways– bad performances, rules cheating, hidden PED use, etc. The drive to be the best involves making difficult decisions and managing serious expectations. Failure can derail a career in minutes. Sponsors want a winning face that pops. Silver medals don’t get it done, as an Olympic athlete needs gold to have a successful post-athletic career in broadcasting or whatever.

Of course, I understand the need to recognize the best in sports, and in competitions where the event is decided by time or some other objective measure, or on the field played by a predetermined set of rules that is officiated on the field, then it is a sport where Olympic medals can be fairly awarded.

X-game events are largely subjectively graded, and should be appreciated as athletic-artistic performances, instead of judged for medals in competition. Let the fans & viewers argue about who is top-tier & best, etc. These performances would be better if they were considered as such. Music, art & entertainment are competitive, so there would be no lack of motivation to be recognized as the best. What would be removed would be tainted judging & corporate dominance in messaging, and sports fans would appreciate that.

Conclusion: I’m not an athlete, I’m a musical artist. The two are similar in that managing your performance is more mental than physical. World class athletes train a lifetime for Olympic competition. Unless there is an injury, it’s typically not physical issues that concern when the time comes to compete. It’s the same in music, as the performer knows how to play, but it’s nerves that can wreck it. Learning to control oneself and be calm in front of an audience is an advanced skill for any performer– artistic and/or athletic. It’s not something anyone is born with, it’s something that can only be learned through hard experience.

It involves breathing, taking in the moment, and realizing where you fit in as far as the bigger picture is concerned. It actually helps to have a bit of contempt for all this crap & people’s expectations, etc. If you feel the only expectations you need to meet are your own, then you are at peace and ready to perform. If you can’t do this, then it is easy to be overwhelmed by the situation, which creates self-doubt & performance slippage.

Lindsey Vonn crashed out of her skiing event (pic above), after trying to compete with a torn ACL. That was her choice as a professional athlete in an individual sport. Team sports are different, where competing injured can set an organization back in the long-term. In those cases, team physicians & management must make the final call, for the safety of that player, other players, as well as the interests of the organization & league. But in individual sports such as skiing, it’s the athlete’s choice.

These athletes consistently push their bodies beyond the breaking point to be the best and amaze the world. All this competition (music, art, sports) falls into the category of entertainment.

You do push yourself to (& beyond) the breaking point when you attempt to be the best in these fields. People admire & are inspired by great music, art & sport, but often don’t really understand the sacrifices, or the heartbreak of coming up short, getting injured, having to retire. No one can sustain the greatness to be the best in any of these entertainment fields for more than a few years. It’s too competitive and always progresses into the future, favoring the next generation.

Old judges & seasoned critics contribute nothing useful or progressive to entertainment. They act as a brake on development & innovation, invariably favoring conservative corporate & political interests. Too much of these Olympics, along with all other sports, is about satisfying the demands of people who put themselves above the athletes in competition.

And finally: Russia & Belarus are once again banned from competing as nations in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina. Both nations were banned from the 2024 Paris summer games due to the ongoing war with Ukraine. This ban was a political decision made by western imperialism backed by its International Olympic Committee. Only a limited number of individual, pre-vetted athletes from Russia & Belarus can compete as neutral, non-represented participants– and most choose not to. This drastically affects: figure skating, cross country skiing, ice hockey, biathlon & speed skating.

The US is able to run up its medal count at the winter games due to: 1) new (X-game) events which largely favor US athletes; 2) banning Russia from the competition; and 3) massive sports spending in America linked to the NCAA, etc. World politics & corporate sponsorship are the unspoken elephants in the room as far as any international competition goes these days.

It’s not the Russian athletes’ fault that Russia & Ukraine are at war, yet they lose their opportunity for which they have trained a lifetime due to the rulings of corrupt politicians & their puppet institutions. This NATO-provoked proxy war in Ukraine is the work of US, UK & German intelligence, supporting fascists in Kiev in an effort to carve up Russia. None of that has any rightful place in influencing Olympic competition. Imperialist institutions are responsible for unfairly banning Russian athletes, stripping them of their opportunities for Olympic glory. Those are the real politics that underlie all the official lip service on internationalism & the Olympic motto of “Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together.”

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Ozzy Osbourne 1948-2025

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When a major figure in rock music passes away I typically put on their music as a form of tribute to gain final closure on their artistic significance. Lots of nonsense & false tributes get published after the fact, so doing this helps me gain clarity from media & industry bias. In the end it’s about the music, but I must confess that I’ve always struggled with Black Sabbath & Ozzy Osbourne, and I’m sure I’m not alone in that.

Black Sabbath & Led Zeppelin were the original UK heavy metal acts that formed in the late 1960’s and dominated AOR (album oriented radio) in the 1970’s. Both bands had their strengths & limitations, and honestly I always preferred Led Zeppelin, but I also have all the classic (Ozzy) Black Sabbath records so their legacy needs to be respected.

Black Sabbath had a great drummer in Bill Ward, and an amazing guitar player in Tony Iommi, with an adequate bass player in Geezer Butler who wrote good lyrics which is always welcome in any band. Add to this a frontman who couldn’t really sing in Ozzy Osbourne, who became the Prince of Darkness, and you have Black Sabbath. For me the best Black Sabbath songs include: “Paranoid”, “War Pigs”, “Fairies Wear Boots”, “Sweet Leaf”, “Into the Void”, “Supernaut”, and “Hole in the Sky”. Cover artwork was always a band weakness, as the blurred image on Paranoid (1971) is probably the worst album representation of a great rock record– ever.

Drugs & alcohol eroded the band’s power, and by the end of the decade Ozzy was kicked out for his excesses. He rebuilt himself as a solo act with an outstanding heavy metal outfit that included guitar prodigy Randy Rhoads, Rudy Sarzo on bass & drummer Tommy Aldridge. All this came to an end in Leesburg, Florida in 1982 when Rhoads was killed in a private plane crash under murky circumstances involving an unwell road crew member who piloted the plane while under the influence of drugs & alcohol. According to a Rudy Sarzo biography published in 2006, Randy Rhoads was killed trying to steer the homicidal pilot from kamikaze crashing his airplane into the band’s parked tour bus as he attempted to kill his ex-girlfriend inside. It’s this type of rock & roll excess that defined Ozzy’s controversial career, be it animal cruelty, drugs & other degenerate antics.

After the tragic death of Randy Rhoads, Ozzy became a parody of himself, with his 1980’s music bordering on embarrassment, but his persona always carried him through. In many ways Ozzy Osbourne personified the rock star whose primary talent was his persona. It carried him into reality TV and the creation of Ozzfest, a heavy metal festival which he repeatedly headlined. If less is more, then Ozzy Osbourne is probably the least talented rock artist of his era who (for better or worse) became a superstar. Since Ozzy’s music was so much about death & doom, it’s hard to deeply mourn his passing. In many ways he embraced death, so it is more of an inevitability then devastation for fans.

Final thoughts on persona

Ozzy Osbourne was above all a persona. When you become a performer for an audience you need to have an act. For Ozzy it was his persona as the Prince of Darkness. For all his limitations as a performer, Ozzy had “it,” that nebulous indefinable quality of being able to capture & hold an audience. Ozzy Osbourne was born to be a rock star, and probably couldn’t have been successful at anything else. Inspiration can be taken from that in that he knew exactly who he was and always stayed true to himself. People are drawn in by that because many don’t have the brains or guts to be who they really want to be.

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The Blend

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In musical artistic terms “the blend” refers to how your voice is integrated with the instrument you are playing. In my case it’s guitar. The blend is correct instrument playing & vocals which are projecting your true voice. You don’t have to be a 4-octave vocalist to be an influential singer. You don’t need to be Eddie Van Halen on guitar either, but you do need to blend like Jimi Hendrix. Blending means you have no weakness which limit your ability to communicate with an audience. All aspects of performance have to be at a high level of competency to be able to effectively blend.

Jimi Hendrix is still that standard for perfect rock blend, an unbeatable guitar prodigy who found his songwriting voice which is now imitated by everyone. No one can match Jimi Hendrix, so take what you can from that and realize he didn’t leave a blueprint to follow– for if you try to live like Jimi, you will die like Jimi. Hendrix had so much pure talent (which none of us have), meaning you can’t surpass him artistically– only be inspired by his greatness & learn from his mistakes. Jimi Hendrix was too far ahead of his time to be understood, but he was also human with fallibilities like the rest of us.

Blending on guitar means playing the notes well along with using volume & syncopation. Volume helps create drone effect, which the Velvet Underground perfected with John Cale, while Jimi Hendrix mastered drone by controlling amplifier feedback. See his famous Woodstock solo performance of “The Star Spangled Banner” posted below, as it’s the drone effect which hypnotizes the listener. He’s so natural.

Syncopation comes more into play as a solo performer who favors an acoustic approach with no drummer. Artistically & stylistically it can be considered the difference between Bob Dylan & Jimi Hendrix. Bob Dylan can’t play guitar like Jimi Hendrix, but he is a better songwriter, so he turns down the volume (even in his electrified coming out era) as compared to the Velvets or Jimi. Bob Dylan favors syncopation (beats in his head) over feedback. Bob Dylan achieves drone effect on harmonica, and is one of the most prolific harmonica players ever. Bob Dylan came from folk music & the blues, and when he found his songwriting voice (which he also blended as drone) became arguably the biggest rock star ever. It’s because he could blend.

John Lennon is another brilliant example of blend. Whether it’s on guitar or piano; with the Beatles, solo, or with studio musicians John Lennon could create songs with anyone who had talent. He could always blend.

Understanding the recording process & production is part of the blend. If you can do this then surely you will perform better to a live audience. The studio is where a lot of good musicians feel intimidated and can get overwhelmed. The art of blending comes when nervous, but talented musicians are on the clock in the studio. A new song is uncharted territory which can be scary. The leader is the one who blends by getting their part (in my case guitar & vocals) well recorded in a way that makes everyone else’s job on the song easier. If it needs a click track, for the drummer & bass player to add later, then it must be done to a click track, otherwise they won’t be able to blend with the song. Figure out what the song needs and pick your blend.

If the lyrics are tight & engaging that will inspire creativity from everyone involved. Everyone wants to be part of something great, especially in the music business. It is the songwriter’s responsibility to give the musicians & producer what is needed for them to blend their talents into the project. You can’t do it all by yourself, but you can learn how to do as many things as possible, making everyone else’s job easier.

Blending is about leadership. In rock music you start everything by writing a new song, then you find the right people to help and inspire them to be creative. It really can’t happen any other way. Blending isn’t allowed to happen anymore by a music industry that has been locked-up tight since the late 1990’s & American Idol. What’s happening now is all about professional songwriters & producers who are completely out of touch. Technically they have the chops, but there is no heart, soul, or real love in any corporate music anymore. It’s all canned product. The producers deserve most of the credit for any catchy hit that is made anymore. As a musical artist, it feels like K-Pop has now been mainstreamed into American popular music. K-Pop is about sexual exploitation, human trafficking, drug trafficking & the fashion industry but no one is allowed to say that.

Blending a songwriting voice with guitar in this era means understanding the politics of our time and being a leader. This means you will have fans & haters, so deal with both appropriately. What we have politically is fascism under Trump with the Democrats acting as Vichy collaborators. Writing new songs from this Marxist perspective keeps an artist on the path of truth politically, making the music more influential & easier to blend over time.

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Celebrities who can be trained to spread desired messaging

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Yesterday, a former US government official, Mike Benz, published an article on the USAID program to integrate imperialist messaging into popular music. Among those prominently named are: Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa & (of course) Pussy Riot. Also discussed in the piece are 22 rappers from around the globe, who have visited the US State Department over the years and been trained to write lyrics that dovetail with US imperialist interests.

The argument that USAID is necessary to fight global hunger, advocate for democratic rights, etc, is a fraud– a cynical concoction of Western intelligence. Trump/Musk are shutting down the notorious CIA fronts of USAID & the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) because of it’s fake left bias, which the fascists despise.

This has nothing to do with democracy, as Trump/Musk seek to reshape US intelligence in their Nazi image. Note that “Trump/Musk” and “intelligence” is an oxymoron.

It was a convenient starting point for the Trump/Musk government wrecking ball because so many people recognize this imperialist corruption. Only a few well-paid rainbow warriors (pic above) have protested the shutting down of USAID & NED. Perhaps the State Department can coax one of these celebrity assets into writing lyrics about the unfairness of this defunding. Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Vogue, etc, would give it a great review– for sure. That’s their job.

“Celebrities who can be trained to spread desired messaging” is the exact State Department phrase which became the title. These trainable celebrities are fascist collaborators & sympathizers. The irony is that most of these puppets weren’t fascists to start, but the Black Hand has corrupted them and that’s the Faustian deal one must make to become a celebrity. These iconic defeatists see no hope, no path to fight Trump/Musk, taking all their political cues from the CIA Democrats. These trained celebrities who learned nothing from history are Vichy France.

Vichy collaborators were paraded though the streets of liberated Paris with swastikas drawn on their foreheads, while the women also had their hair shaved-off for giving aid & comfort to the Nazis from 1940-44. The population of France lined their streets to spit upon & hurl verbal abuse at these fascists, seething with revolutionary anger & class hatred of the bourgeoisie. Fascism, which flows out of imperialism, is the bitterest enemy of democracy and that’s the lesson of WW2. The masses of the world still hate Nazis, and it is this retribution of the international working class that historically awaits celebrities trained to spread desired messaging.

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Pussy Riot reeks of provocation

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There’s a lot of fake political art out there: sophisticated propaganda that broadcasts liberal values to a liberal audience. Pussy Riot’s performance of A Punk Prayer (2012) occupies that pole: focusing on feminist-LGBT rights, while maintaining an explicitly anti-Putin line that dovetails with an undying support for the fascists in Kiev. It’s strictly identity politics & anti-Putin propaganda for these CIA cut-outs known as Pussy Riot.

Staged in brightly-colored balaclavas to conceal their identity, while punching & kicking the air in ‘punk defiance’, these feminist, pro-war phonies have existed under the protective wing of western imperialism for over a decade.  A Punk Prayer is nothing more than a provocative publicity stunt by a bunch of imperialist-backed puppets. After such a time, what is the balance sheet on their popular influence?

First, no one knows any songs by Pussy Riot. No kids have Pussy Riot content on any of their playlists, or seriously recommends their music. No members of Pussy Riot play any musical instruments or have any songwriting chops. No one can even name all the band members, or how they met, etc. Everything about Pussy Riot is shrouded in mystery. All their songs lyrics & political statements come straight from Langley, VA & the US State Department. Perhaps the most remarkable phenomenon about Pussy Riot is they are so well known in the media, without having any real fans– or content.

Pussy Riot’s western support is entirely from a wealthy political class & the fake corporate media. Since being mercilessly exposed as nothing more than anti-Russian propaganda by myself in the late 2010’s, Pussy Riot were branded “foreign agents” by the Russian government at the end of 2021, confirming my political & artistic analysis. As a musical artist, these imposters never fooled me, as I smelled a rat with Pussy Riot from the start.

At this point in history, Pussy Riot now labels itself an “activist art collective”, because they are obviously not a band or even musicians. Their “concerts” are a joke— instead of performing music, they talk about their feminism/lesbianism at length, then chant anti-Putin vulgarities while dumping water on the crowd. In 2020, Pussy Riot was online promoting a fake tour that didn’t exist, due to venue lockdowns at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Promoting Pussy Riot as ‘punk’ is no longer tenable, as all they do now is issue NFT crypto and promote US State Department propaganda through their website Mediazona. Here’s a cozy photo of Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova, with Antony Blinken in 2022.

Mediazona is a US-supported media propaganda outlet focused on anti-Putin opposition, founded by Nadya Tolokonnikova & her Pussy Riot cohorts in 2014. This has become Pussy Riot’s primary vehicle for “activism”, since their musical “popularity” has waned due to inconvenient facts coming to light. Once again, can you sing (or even hum) a single Pussy Riot song? Do you know ANYONE who can?

Pussy Riot has become a world famous “act” with no recognizable content. That’s quite remarkable, and reveals much about the state of art in today’s world. The art market has become completely corrupted by big money to the point where there is no art– only dressed-up propaganda narratives packaged as ‘art’.

In 2012, Nadya Tolokonnikova was listed as Time Magazine’s ‘100 Women of the Year’, while also receiving the LennonOno Grant for Peace. In 2019, Tolokonnikova received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts Degree from Rhode Island School of Design – for being a “powerful voice in the fight against tyranny,” while The Guardian ranked her #4 in Best Art of the 21st Century, for her Punk Prayer video. In 2023, Nadya Tolokonnikova was awarded the Woodie Guthrie Prize, rendering that honor meaningless while muddying the name of that great original folk singer. And so it goes, as Hillary Clinton is a big fan of Pussy Riot.

Kathleen Hanna was The Punk Singer (2013), the unmistakable voice of Bikini Kill, the last great rock band (in this artist’s opinion). What happened to Bikini Kill is what happened to the entertainment industry overall. Kathleen Hanna embraced Pussy Riot around the time her (long overdue) documentary was released on Netflix, so clearly her support for Pussy Riot helped with the movie distribution. For what it’s worth, The Punk Singer is a good documentary film and that’s what happened to Bikini Kill & rock music.

No, Pussy Riot isn’t here to save humanity from catastrophe though their fearless activism. They are instead stooges of imperialism. Pussy Riot receives complete support from the corporate media and every other capitalist institution. A February 2021 Greyzone investigative article titled ‘Reuters, BBC, and Bellingcat participated in covert UK Foreign Office-funded programs to “weaken Russia,” leaked docs reveal’, confirmed this. Pussy Riot’s role in this NATO propaganda campaign is discussed in it:

New leaked documents show Reuters’ and the BBC’s involvement in covert UK FCO [Foreign and Commonwealth Office] programs to effect “attitudinal change” and “weaken the Russian state’s influence,” alongside intel contractors and Bellingcat… As a UK FCO contractor, the Zinc Network said it was “delivering audience segmentation and targeting support” not only to Meduza, but also to Mediazona, a supposedly independent media venture founded by two members of the anti-Kremlin performance art group Pussy Riot. One of Mediazona’s founders, Nadya Tolokonnikova, shared a stage with former US President Bill Clinton at the Clinton Foundation’s 2015 conference. The following year, Tolokonnikova trashed now-imprisoned Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, claiming, “He’s connected with the Russian government, and I feel that he’s proud of it.”

For the record, Julian Assange is a heroic journalist, beloved by hundreds-of-millions worldwide, who was unjustly persecuted by the imperialist governments of the US/UK for years over phony sexual assault claims, for the crime of telling people the truth about government-approved war crimes, etc. Pussy Riot attacks Julian Assange (and anyone else who speaks for the oppressed masses) for inspiring revolutionary thinking & action. As reactionary puppets of imperialism, Pussy Riot reeks of provocation.

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“The Electric Cat” mp3 release

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Preface: I feel this is my last original song. As a creative artist you eventually reach a point where you are out of songs, call it burnout or whatever, but it’s a natural process. You can’t be innovative as an artist forever. All are eventually overtaken by the next wave of revolutionary artistry and the new energy it creates. It’s similar to an athlete retiring, you have to accept it and move on.

In music this means if I return, it will be as a legacy act. That means no new songs, just fan favorites to make the paying audience happy. When you are a revolutionary artist, you have a chip on your shoulder and aren’t always willing to meet those fan expectations. Instead, you are challenging fans to meet YOUR expectations. That limits the fan base, but makes it more fanatical. It’s about deeply influencing those few who get you.

As a legacy act you are accepted, loved & paid, so it’s easier to return the love to the fans. Legacy acts only happen when there is money, and since that never happened for me, I’m not holding my breath. The political climate is still too reactionary for artists such as myself to be allowed venues that could connect us with a mass audience. Neo-McCarthyist witch hunting & blacklisting rule bourgeois politics & corporate mass media. MeToo, BLM, and fake ‘anti-semitism’ campaigns are CIA Democrat ‘big lies’ meant to intimidate & silence any genuine leftist opposition to capitalist imperialism.

My influence is still exerted as a blogger. Perhaps the most revolutionary thing I did in my musical artist career was creating this blog. No other artist (in any genre) has written as prolifically on so many subjects. The internet & social media made it possible, and my creative & effective use of these platforms has changed how people approach them. Blogging is now an artform. It is much easier to write an essay than it is to write a new song, so I’ll continue to express myself as an artist through blogging. Thank you to all fans for your continuing support!

Production notes & AI

After Tom recorded this song, we discussed artwork ideas, as usual. In real life the Electric Cat has died and I have no pictures, only images in my memory. I suggested a cartoon image, and that’s when Tom replied by suggesting an artificial intelligence (AI) app he had started using. There’s a learning curve which must be negotiated, but the result is this AI-generated image for “The Electric Cat”.

AI created a hyper-cartoon image for me (from no pictures) in just a few hours of email back-and-forth with my producer. Hyper-realism is a genre of art where the painter paints to exquisite detail. It takes a long time to complete a large canvas because every square inch is filled with painstaking detail. It’s extraordinary to look at, but often lacks soul or an important overall theme.

AI can produce images to a hyper-realistic level that display lifelike characteristics. AI doesn’t get offended and throw a hissy fit when I (the client) don’t like something it presented. In the hands of a learned technician, AI can do whatever you ask in a relatively short period of time. You just need to know what you want and how to communicate it.

These AI apps are much deeper & more powerful than photoshop, etc, which is how most pop art has been created for decades. This AI app took an idea (seed), and after Tom tweaked parameters & fed in descriptive details, developed it into what we wanted. In the past, I gave Tom ideas (or images) and let him run with them. He usually came back with something great and that was it. I learned not to expect anything in particular, because he’s not a graphic artist who can deliver exactly what I want from scratch. You have to be really gifted to do that, and neither of us are apt in that field.

AI apps replace (supersede) the efforts of entire marketing & art departments at major labels & studios such as Sony, Warner & Disney. Artificial intelligence has that power. AI can now take this Electric Cat image and mutate it into pop art quickly & cheaply, rendering high-quality, marketable images on demand. It’s almost too easy, and that’s the danger. Andy Warhol would smile, wryly.

If the song (or album) is a winner, artists now have the ability to create iconic artwork using AI. This solves a lot of problems for independent acts who don’t have access to major label resources. AI (in everyone’s hands) levels the playing field on that front, and opens up a world of new ones. There is a class of people who don’t want creative working people to know this.

AI is a big reason for the current entertainment industry & tech sector jobs bloodbath, for the reasons I’ve outlined above. Used in expert hands, artificial intelligence convinces you immediately. My experience happened to every Hollywood producer, director & entertainment industry bigshot upon being introduced to AI. In the future you are going to see more & more AI-generated content in music, film, TV, art, etc. It’s already started.

In music, Brian Eno has been an AI innovator, which is par for him. Ever since his first experiments in ambient music (early electronica) in the 1970’s, Eno has been a pioneer of self-generating, perpetual technology: first in music, then in images & film. Those who have led the way should be listened to the most, so no discussion of AI media use, potential, ethics & pitfalls can be closed until innovators such as Brian Eno have their say & are respected.

I’m a newbie, as this is my first foray into AI as a creative tool. I’m mostly watched, giving input to Tom as needed, and observing the results of the process while asking questions as they arose. I’m not a techie, so I don’t know the app or how it works, etc. Ask Tom about that. For me it’s all about what AI can do, and when I see these-type results, I get excited. Producers now need to add ‘AI skills’ to their technical arsenal. These are the people who will replace all those who are getting pink-slipped. Honestly, I’m in favor of eliminating this parasitic layer of entertainment industry mediocrity. All they do is siphon money & influence away from the original artists who create all the cultural interest in the first place.

This experience has instilled awareness about what the technology is, and raised practical questions about its ethics. I believe the artist is ethically bound to tell their audience about any AI-generated content. Educate fans & be 100% honest about its use– no exceptions. It’s easy to fool a naive audience into thinking that you are better than you really are by having AI-generated content in the music, etc. Only full disclosure earns respect in this field, and cheaters must be ruthlessly exposed as phonies. Fans have a right to know, and always feel betrayed when it turns out they have been duped by charlatans.

Beyond that, AI can be harnessed & used limitlessly to enrich & simplify our lives. AI is a tool for human use and has enormous potential to help solve all of our most difficult problems. The technology itself is neutral. It comes down to who controls it that determines its destiny. That will be determined by class struggle. The mission of artists is to enlighten humanity. Using AI creatively & openly for the benefit of all is now part of that.

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The Electric Cat

Silently stalks & prowls throughout its habitat
The Electric Cat

Those crazy dogs got burs in their fur again. Drat! Why can’t they be more like that…?
Electric Cat

Silky & slinky with claws & a bite, lookout for that!

I give it food & love, it purrs by my side. I love that
Electric Cat

At its best and at rest, always respect that
Electric Cat

Felinus Electricus, a miniature Indian tiger cat
It’s all that
The Electric Cat

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Recorded 01-12-2024 in Eustis, FL by Tom Pearce

Production & AI artwork* (see notes) also by TomP at Last Minute Productions

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The Electric Cat: advance promo

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I have fans on all inhabited continents. My demographic is 18-24, girls & boys. The messages I receive from them are mostly, “Wow!! How come I’ve never heard of you? You’re amazing!!” These are serious young kids who have been scouring the internet for new acts, kinda like the kids who devoured the fanzines & watched MTV obsessively back in that day. My reply to them is, “I’m too good & too far left, so I’m blacklisted. Read all about it on my site.”

That’s how I’ve marketed & promoted myself over the years. Eventually the platform cuts me off from my fans as a power grab and that’s when I stop on that platform because you can do anything without a true connection to the fans. The industry rule is: there is no money for Ric Size so every platform steals my juice to pump themselves up & put me down.

In the real world, I’m blacklisted from every venue and even if I could book something, that venue would soon get pressured to drop the show. That’s the nefarious influence of the CIA Democrats. No one will pay 100% in advance, non-refundable to an artist, so I’m being unreasonable there, etc. It’s impossible for me to do business with anyone and that’s why I don’t perform live. I have covers and can do-it-all solo, but too few people in the business even respect that anymore. The fans are the ones who suffer the most. Mainstream music today sucks and it’s been that way since the late 1990’s.

With that introduction, I’d like to advance announce the latest Ric Size single, “The Electric Cat”. This is the cover image and it was created with artificial intelligence (AI) by my producer. I’ll be publishing much more on this exciting & powerful new technology.

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Artists are the culture

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Film, music & art are highly personal & aesthetic tastes. With that said, there are objective processes to all of them. It’s the objective material forces of imperialist capitalism that are acting on all artists, and what we get is a reflection of that in their work. The best artists understand imperialism from a Trotskyist perspective and can make great art that will have lasting influence. The creators of House of Cards (S1-5) are an example of great art. Those who can’t (won’t) understand the world as it really is are limited by that. That’s why most movies & television today is unwatchable.

The Velvet Underground (2021) documentary speaks about 1960’s music, art & culture. The VU, Andy Warhol, Captain Beefheart, the Stooges, Sun Ra, etc, were considered & labeled ‘subculture’ by the mainstream press & entertainment industry. But Jonas Mekas makes it clear in that film that these artists were (& still are) the culture. These are the visionaries who pushed things forward in an era of Beatles-style hippie idealism. Drummer Maureen Tucker speaks about how the VU despised naive hippies who thought they could change the world by wearing flowers in their hair & smiling at everyone. They were right.

And gay rights, that started with Andy Warhol & the VU– as Lou Reed was bisexual. David Bowie pushed through his sexuality in the 1970’s and by the end of the decade it was okay for Elton John to be gay, at least in Hollywood. These are the true artists who re-invent our culture. To carry that artistic torch, you have to be influenced by them.

Under capitalism, corporations eventually appropriate the culture (created by these mostly unattributed artists) for itself. It censors what it doesn’t like, and filters any progressive content into its propaganda through identity politics. It was female alternative-rockers & hip-hoppers in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s that established women as artistic & earning equals in music entertainment. When Madonna was attacked for “Justify my Love” and such, she became alternative-influenced and arguably made her best albums while the feminists mostly hated on her.

In sports, it was the 1999 USWNT that made ‘soccer moms’ a phenomenon that has stayed. They did it all with passion, as there was very little money. For years when the USWNT were WC champions (1991) and #1 in the world, no one knew or cared. It wasn’t any easier for race car driver Danica Patrick, who broke though by competing against men (and attracting sponsorship) for many seasons in Indycar & later NASCAR. The feminist crowd had nothing do with any of these iconic sporting moments & cultural advances, as they ignored Danica Patrick getting intentionally-wrecked weekly in NASCAR, yet they claim the be the infallible arbiters & guardians of all culture. That’s their big lie. The artists & athletes create the value, but only those who “play ball” are recognized & compensated. Corporate wins in all these cases.

By the 1990’s, the kids had gotten the message, largely through music & sports culture: men & women are equal, don’t be a gay bigot or racist Nazi skinhead, etc. Gay-themed shows started appearing on network TV making homosexuality mainstream because the kids had (largely) already accepted it, but that didn’t stop the networks from taking credit for this sudden phenomenon of gay awareness. That’s what they do.

Since then, it’s been about getting MORE rights for these elite gay, feminist & black groups, so they can be more equal than others in Orwellian doublespeak. Identity politics is about unequal rights for those making the demands. Equal rights isn’t good enough for them, and that’s the fundamental issue with all reactionaries & philistines.

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