Haunted Stereo

“Lock The Doors” starts on a kind of alt-country bluegrass vibe but with a tinge of Nick Cave melodrama. It develops into a quite muscular sort of disco-folk groove (I couldn’t have imagined such a thing either until I heard this) with minor chords and spookiness much more of a concern than chewing straw and putting your finger in your ear. It climaxes somewhere in the territory of indie rock but with a particularly well paced and  (dammit, I wasn’t going to use this word) haunting fiddle and piano. This is a great song and it has you nodding your head from about half way through until its adroit conclusion.

“On A Pin” starts intriguingly with a tightly wound drum and bass line (not drum’n’bass) with delicate accompanying banjo, piano and fiddle parts, but rather than utilize the male vocalist who does a perfectly reasonable job on “Lock The Doors”, they have handed lead vocals to a lady. Vocals are where a lot of bands live or die for me, and while I had no particular objection to the male singer, the female singers voice is a little earthy, a little too trad-folk for me. When you pair this with the fact that the intro to “On A Pin” suddenly seems to devolve into a fairly bog standard bit of pub rock/folk, I suddenly found myself in the position of loving and hating the band at the same time. They do rescue this song at the end when it becomes a fairly lovely piece of instrumental folk rock and I even began to warm to her vocals on the acapella section.

In conclusion, I would definitely advise people to listen to this band. I think they will divide opinion, but if someone like me who feels nauseous at the mention of alt-folk can actively enjoy this finely named band then there’s definitely something for everyone. Make up your own mind by listening :

Kim Monaghan

http://www.hauntedstereo.co.uk/

http://www.myspace.com/hauntedstereomusic

Double A-side single On A Pin / Lock the Doors is available via Sotones Records on May 17th 2010

I dunno man...get a girlfriend or something?

This was just too weird to not post here. From The Consumerist:

Going from strip poles to iron bars in one night, a Consumerist reader says he got tossed in jail when he refused to give a strip club his thumbprint. Their ATM was broken so he had to pay his tab using a credit card cash advance. The club demanded a thumbprint and he refused, so cops that were already there threw him in jail. Was this legal?

Our intrepid reader writes, “I was at a “gentleman’s club” in downtown Detroit and their ATM didn’t work so I had to get a credit card cash advance on some moneys owed on my tab.

They charge a premium for this obviously but I just wanted to pay up and go (about 160 bucks). It was the end of the night and police were there already for whatever reason. They ran my card (with my photo ID in hand) and came back asking for a thumbprint. I thought this was absurd and declined. Well the two uniformed police stroll up and side with the bouncers and say surrender the thumb print. I refuse. They say they’ll arrest me if I don’t. I still refuse and I am taken in for disorderly conduct. Everything was later dropped but still this all felt terribly fishy.

I owed a girl for a few dances (I told her I would need to hit the ATM if I was going to get a dance when she approached me) and drinks for me and a friend (those add up fast at nearly 9 dollars a pop). They wouldn’t put the dances on the bar tab and basically made me use their cash advance (not the bank’s) system where you pay 20% to the club to front you cash. The advance fee, dances and drinks all came to something in the neighborhood of the 160. I had about 4 failed pings to the ATM the next day that vanished from my online bank statement a couple days later. Everyone was paid what they were owed in full.

I had to spend a night in jail which was obviously uncool; the lawyer I spoke to said it might be more trouble than it’s worth and pursuing it would be more a matter of principal. Sometimes righteousness isn’t very cost effective, I guess.

I must also confess that I had a couple adult beverages that night but it was made very clear to me that the ultimatum was “thumb print or jail”. I returned to get my credit card from the bar and an employee reiterated that, “all you had to do was put down your thumbprint!” The cops even took a moment to relish in mocking me when I said I know my rights and said I’d call the ACLU. He must have had a change of heart because when I arrived at court none of the police paperwork had been filed and I was free to go.

Mostly, I’m curious about the legality of giving my thumbprint to any CC merchant that wants it. I tried very hard to look into this and couldn’t find much info.”

What do you think? Legal? Abuse of power? A right not worth fighting over?

Ah well, there go my plans to see the Star Wars strip nights in LA.

Ken Eakins

Night of Pan in London

Brian Butler, the guest of our latest podcast (see the frontpage), is screening his new film ‘Night of Pan’ for free at London’s Horse Hospital tomorrow night.

As well as an appearance by Butler himself, the film features seminal film-maker Kenneth Anger as the Magus, and Buffalo 66’s Vincent Gallo as Pan.

Brian will be performing live music on the night with Death in Vegas’ Richard Fearless, who will also be DJing the event.

Check this mini-version of the film:

The event kicks off at 7:30, admission is free, but we recomend getting there early to avoid disapointment.

The Horse Hospital : Colonnade, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 1HX

Ken Eakins

DO WANT...on Verizon!

4chan site owner m00t has posted to the 4chan blog, and Twitter, that Verizon wireless, are blocking both in and outbound web-traffic to 4chan.

Unlike a recent scare involving AT&T last year, m00t believes that this time it’s for realsies, from the 4chan blog:

Over the past 72 hours, we’ve been receiving reports from Verizon Wireless customers having difficulty accessing the image boards. After investigating, we found that Verizon is dropping traffic to/from boards.4chan.org, only on port 80 (HTTP). No other subdomain/IP/port is affected, which leads us to believe this block is intentional. A call was placed to their support staff last night, and we were told that the ticket would not be looked at until Monday at the earliest, and: “You’ll need the customer to call to request it be unblocked…”

Note: Users with mobile browsers that proxy (BlackBerry, Opera) won’t necessarily have issues accessing the boards.

We’ll watch this story with interest as it unfolds, as it could point to the first in what some belive to be an upcoming war for Net Neutrality.

Ken Eakins

He is correct. Pic 'Tanya N'

Anonymous, the masked protesters that have spent the last two years protesting the Church of Scientology, have responded to a creepy Today Show report on the aid-work being conducted by the Church in Haiti.

Anonymous, best known for their masked street-protests, have responded by issuing the following statement (sourced from Gawker):

Hello [audience]. We are Anonymous.

We wish it it were under more favorable circumstances that we have chosen to address the world. However, after the demonstrably inaccurate interpretation handling of the victims of the Haiti earthquake as per the work of the Scientology ‘Volunteer’ Ministers, Anonymous could not remain silent.

The Volunteer Ministers are volunteers only in name. Their self-proclaimed humanitarian efforts have been shown to be harmful and self-serving time and time again. In the wake of the September Eleventh attacks at the World Trade Center, they impeded the work of the New York City Fire Department, and falsely claimed to have been given a reward for their efforts. These efforts involved little more than handing out pamphlets for the works of L. Ron Hubbard, while intentionally hindering the work of mental health professionals aiding the victims.

This same pattern of self-promotion at the expense of victims of disasters does not end there. Following the tsunami at Sri Lanka, the Volunteer Ministers attempted to convert the vulnerable and suffering victims into their cult, promising them aid and salvation at the expense of their livelihood***. These actions were repeated following the terrorist attack at the Ramada Inn in India*** and the Subway bombings in London, England.

In short: Scientology does not see a disaster as a tragedy, but rather, as a business opportunity.

First-hand accounts [[LINK TO GAWKER ARTICLE]], condemnations from legitimate aid groups [[SCREENSHOTS OF ARTICLES]], and even leaked documents from Scientology’s corporate heirarchy itself [[SCREENSHOTS OF DOX]] all confirm the cowardly and parasitic nature of the self-proclaimed Volunteer Ministers.

The very same self-serving, opportunistic proselytizing has been taking place in Haiti. Scientology has taken every opportunity to release their own manufactured press releases, taking credit for the work of legitimate relief groups. They arrived completely unprepared [[SCREENSHOTS OF THE COWBOY BOOTS REPORT HERE]], and were told to leave by the United States military [[SCREENSHOT HERE]].

An untrained Scientologist was alleged to be assisting a surgeon, using tools that had not been sterilized. This is blatant medical malpractice. John Travolta has also left several trained medical professionals behind at an airport, instead making it his priority to bring untrained Scientologists into the country with the sole intent of disseminating L. Ron Hubbard materials to an already vulnerable and suffering population.

Know this, Scientology: We are watching you. With every move you make, every victim you exploit, and every piece of choreographed propaganda you release into the mainstream media, the public already knows the truth about your organization. You are not fooling anyone, and no amount of proselytizing will change this. You have already been convicted in the court of public opinion. It is now only a matter of time before you are convicted in a court of law.

We are Anonymous.
We are Legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
Expect us.

Anonymous begun their campaign in Feburary 2008, after a spat with the Church over the now infamous ‘Tom Cruise Address’ internal promotion video being posted onine.

Ken Eakins

Click for further details

Digital Nation – a PBS Frontline documentary I’ve been working on for, gosh, two years now – is finally airing this coming Tuesday evening, Feb 2, at 9pm on pretty much all PBS stations in US. (I know: that’s during the Lost premiere that even Obama feared going up against. But you can Tivo Lost, watch us live, and watch Lost after without the commercials.) For those of you outside the viewing area or without TV’s, you can watch the whole thing anytime from broadcast onwards by going to http://pbsdigitalnation.org.

The entire doc is now availble to watch below. It’s very good (if there is a problem with Part 5, goto the site for Digital Nation, and select part 5 in the included player):

Meanwhile, I’m happy to announce that Frontline has agreed to let me host a series of Roundtable discussions following the broadcast. One per month, with invited guests and running commentary from you. (I’m shooting for something like the Talmudic format Steven Johnson used for Feed magazine – still the best threaded dialogues I can remember happening online between a central conversation and the general public. With any luck, these Roundtables will be the next main thing I’m doing – and I really do need quality conversation to happen there to keep it alive.

The above clip – Patrick Stewart on Twitter, the iPhone, and his passion for gaming – is not in the show. But it is an example of the kind of conversations and guests we’ll be having in the Roundtables – both by text and video.

Doug has produced two other great documentaries, The Persuaders and The Merchants of Cool, which you can also watch free (follow links).

Ken Eakins

(Source: Rushkoff’s Site)

Douglas Rushkoff has also appeared on our shows, Open Source Reality with Douglas Rushkoff, and What Happened to the CounterCulture, check them out.

More awesome than 10 awesome things!

Now, I know that you might be asking yourself “hey Ken, isn’t this site meant to be about underground and weird stuff?”, and normally, I’d reply “yes you’re right sir/madam”.

However, I’ll make an exception in two cases: 1.) MacGyver, and 2.) The Lonely Island. SO, if you like both Macguyver AND The Lonely Island, this trailer is one-stop-shopping:

Need more proof of the awesome directing talents of the Lonely Island’s Jorma Taccone?:

That’s a fantastic facial-hair/cardigan combo there Jorma!

Ken Eakins

Check here for updates on this work of genius

Bit larger than your average iPhone

VJ Fader, a fan of OTT club technology it would seem, has created the ultimate tactile trance-orientated portable touch screen…thingy. I say ‘thingy’, as other than a (very cool) toy, the faderTouch 3.0 is pretty pointless as a device, but very cool as a piece of art.

Fader is a fan of using visual art to stimulate musical output in new and innovative ways. Personally I think 1:44 is pretty cool sounding:

This isn’t the first time I have encountered Fader’s work. He also simulated a very Wilsonian ‘Processing Interactive Sequencer’.

…and this crazy ‘Orb’ exhibit.

Ken Eakins

Check DJ Fader on Vimeo and Myspace

Weird Weekends happen here!

The Centre for Fortean Zoology is the only professional, scientific and full-time organisation in the world dedicated to cryptozoology. We’ve had the pleasure of speaking to one of its founders Jonathan Downes on our show, and after listening to him explain some of the research conducted by his team, you can only be awed by the effort that goes into what they do.

Now the CFZ need your help to stay afloat. They are a non-profit making organisation, and none of its directors are paid for all the effort they put in, I’ll let Jessica explain what you can do to help:

The Weird Weekend is a really unique event, and we at SittingNow WILL be attending this year (the gods have stood in our way previously), so make sure you get your tickets, and find some way to help keep this fantastic and unique organisation alive and kicking.

Ken Eakins

I remember back in the day when these sorts of things used to appear all over the Interwebs. The problem, at that time, was the low-resolution screens and crappy moniters gave you the digital equivalent of a dirty hangover when you finished the starefest. Now, thanks to high-def screens, and hlf-decent graphics cards, we can finally experience these optical illusions without needing a post-stare-brain-scan.

The guys over at Unreality have compiled some great examples of these head-spinners:

I’m sure there are some even better ones, if you know of any, let us know!

(source – Unreality)

Ken Eakins