Close Gitmo!: Musicians Angry Their Music Used For ‘Torture’

From the “Truth is Stranger Than Fiction” files:

Rock bands including Pearl Jam and REM have joined a coalition of musicians to support the US president’s efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay prison.

The National Campaign to Close Guantanamo, which also includes former military officers, launched on Tuesday.

Many of the artists who have signed up are angry that their music was used as an interrogation tool in the jail.

But CIA spokesman George Little said music was used only for security, rather than “punitive purposes”. (more…)

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Tags: Billy Bragg, Bonnie Raitt, gitmo, interrogation, Jackson Browne
Posted Oct 22nd 2009 at 10:22 am in Celebrity News, Politics | 250818112 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bighollywood/2009/10/22/close-gitmo-musicians-angry-their-music-used-for-torture/Close+Gitmo%21%3A+Musicians+Angry+Their+Music+Used+For+%27Torture%272009-10-22+17%3A22%3A08Big+Hollywood

It’s the End of the World As We Know It, and Michael Moore’s Cashing In

Michael Moore is a big fat idiot — or, is he?  Actually, he is a big fat Academy-Award winning capitalist who is making a movie sarcastically called “Capitalism: A Love Story.”  In it, he’ll use his magical megaphone to expose, in his words, “an economic system that is unfair, it’s unjust and it’s not democratic. And now we’ve learned it doesn’t work.”   So… will he also park his little white ice cream truck in front of movie theaters and chastise patrons who wish to pay for a ticket?  Will he offer the film for free — perhaps even share part of the proceeds with all of us? Of course not, he’s a millionaire.

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We’ve seen this film many times before from Mr. Moore. The Bush years were kind to him as he tapped into the fears of Americans as they questioned the post 9-11 world, or worried whether there were bogey men hiding in the front offices of America. Now, he’s able to exploit the recession and all the hardships we endure in one great big Mike Moore spectacular! In Moore’s world, free enterprise is unfair, health care is unfair, the 2nd amendment is unfair, life is unfair, paychecks, layoffs, mortgages and democracy itself is unfair — and America is the bad guy.  (more…)

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Tags: bush, Capitalism: A Love Story., Fahrenheit 9/11, Manhattan, michael moore
Posted Aug 6th 2009 at 8:41 am in Entertainment, Film, Politics | 19817866 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jmeath/2009/08/06/its-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-and-michael-moore-feels-fine/It%27s+the+End+of+the+World+As+We+Know+It%2C+and+Michael+Moore%27s+Cashing+In2009-08-06+15%3A41%3A57Jason+Killian+Meath

Buddy Holly: The Music Lives

Unfortunately, when people recall Charles Hardin Holley, aka Buddy Holly, many think first of the plane crash in which he, the Big Bopper, and Richie Valens died, fifty years ago today. That’s a shame because Buddy’s music was about life, about living bigger than a Cadillac. Buddy’s Sound was not about death. Nor was Buddy about “raging against the machine.” Buddy said, “move over, give me the keys to that machine, I want to see how fast I can make it go.” Buddy’s music is a Yes, not a No. 

Perhaps more than any other fifties rock and roller, Buddy displayed a capacity for growth, for pushing the boundaries of The Sound. At the time of Buddy’s death he was living in New York City, married to a young woman born in San Juan, Puerto Rico and hanging out in coffeehouses, where he listened to beat poetry and flamenco guitar; at the same time he had booked a steel guitar player for the recording session that he didn’t survive to attend. Buddy was both growing in new directions and sinking his roots deeper into that fertile American earth from which The Sound had sprung. Who knows what great music this restless creative spirit would have brought forth in the sixties and seventies? Maybe in Heaven Buddy will play us all a new song. (more…)

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Tags: big bopper, Buddy Holly, elvis, rage against the machine, rave on
Posted Feb 3rd 2009 at 2:00 pm in Entertainment | 4003824 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jlima/2009/02/03/the-music-lives/Buddy+Holly%3A+The+Music+Lives2009-02-03+22%3A00%3A13Joe+Lima