Congratulations you lot, you’ve navigated your way to the cusp of another weekend. I must confess to being pleased at the prospect and in a more laid back country than this – this would even be a holiday weekend wouldn’t you think? Not since we’re all being pushed to work and work, then work some more though. Sigh…enough of that.

Long term readers of the blog may remember one of my very eariest posts was about the project ‘Let Fury Have The Hour’ by Antonino D’Ambrosio. As you’re probably aware the project evolved into a book and documentary that is a little tricky to describe, so with artistic license I’ll borrow from what the L.A. Times wrote back in January as they do a better job than I’ve done previously:

“Kudos to writer-director Antonino D’Ambrosio for taking such an eclectic and disparate number of aims, thoughts, subjects and mediums and creating the smart and inspiring — and uniquely whole —documentary that is “Let Fury Have the Hour.” A kind of think/performance piece about what’s termed here “creative reaction,” the film hears from a stirring swath of socially conscious artists whose work largely emerged as an anger-channeling counter to the Reagan-Thatcher era of conservative individualism”     -Barry Goldstein Los Angeles Times

The book was an interesting narrative seeing as the content came from so many angles and the word is that the film, pulling  its content from the essays within the book creates a stronger whole within the setting of a documentary. The movie was featured at film festivals in the spring of 2012 and drew strong praise from many quarters for accomplishing all it set out to do – take a modern look at activism and the arts from the mouths, pens, art and instruments of those impacted by our (horribly) big society. You can learn much more about the book, the film and the overall concept via the official website.

Naturally I’m not writing about it again just for the sake of it, but to alert you to the fact that the film is now available via iTunes download and I’m excited to announce I’ve got six posters for the film signed by Antonino D’ambrosio to giveaway below which feature the stunning artwork for the film featuring Joe Strummer at Victoria Park in 1978 as created by Shepard Fairey. What do you need to do to receive such kindness? Just answer the question below and also please share the news about the films iTunes release simply by sharing this post via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or even Pinterest if that’s your bag – I’d just appreciate it you can help spread awareness. Please share your tweets with @letfuryhavehour and @obeygiant if you’d be so kind and if you can share the short-link http://bit.ly/ZzRB4m I’d appreciate it, it helps make the prizes available to you good people.

You can purchase the film via iTunes download for $9.99 via this link. Here’s some more of the official word and then onto the prize giveaway.

Rough, raw and unapologetically inspirational, LET FURY HAVE THE HOUR is a charged journey into the heart of the creative counter-culture in 2012.  In a time of global challenges, big questions and by-the-numbers politics, this upbeat, outspoken film tracks the story of the artists, writers, thinkers and musicians who have gone underground to re-imagine the world – honing in on equality, community and engaged creativity – in exuberantly paradigm-busting ways.

“Exuberant… a thoughtful and entertaining debut film”
-Adam Schartoff, The New York Times

“Rousing… You’ll leave the theater wanting to create something LOUD.”
-Rachel Maddow, MSNBC

“A thrillingly articulate wallop of ’80s-era rage… refreshing”
-Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out New York

“Let Fury Have the Hour is a cinematic movement, not just a film.”
-E. Nina Rothe, Huffington Post

“Explosive blend of vision and expression”
-Indiewire 

To enter into the prize drawing for one of six signed prints you just need to answer the question below. I regret that I can only offer the prize to readers in the US and Canada at this time. I’ll do my very best to have a follow up drawing for a free download of the film open to everyone who isn’t in the US & Canada. How’s that sound?

To enter – all you have to do is answer the following question and email me the correct answer.

“In the same song that the film takes its title from – what colours does Joe Strummer warn that you might start wearing as you grow up and calm down?”

Please email your answers here and enter ‘Fury’ as the subject line. Winners will be announced and picked at random next Friday and naturally you’ll have to provide a mailing address if you win. I’d like to extend my thanks to Snag Films for the prizes and good luck and thanks for taking part.

‘Let Fury Have The Hour’ trailer

Check out the award-winning film Let Fury Have the Hour with Van Jones, Eve Ensler, Lewis Black, Billy Bragg, Shepard Fairey, Chuck D, Thievery Corporation, Antibalas, Gogol Bordello and other amazing artists, musicians and great minds. Now on iTunes! http://bit.ly/ZzRB4m

Let me try and phrase this correctly, in America there seems to be a desire to have ‘official’ or ‘hall of fame’ type things. It’s a curious need and I’m not suggesting that it is unique to the USA but just something I’ve noticed. From ‘the official shampoo  of women’s basketball’ to ‘the preferred banking partner of the Milwaukee Brewers’ it seems labels and branding run through to the core of almost everything. I can’t say I understand it any more than I like it but assume it comes to down to what the higher ups consider to be subtle sponsorship. However it’s not really is it?

On a similar yet different level I totally endorse national institutions like The Smithsonian and The Library of Congress and I’ll pretend for the purpose of this post that these examples are less sponsored than the ones I’ve bleated about in the opening paragraph. Well they are, but politicians certainly are not.

I wanted to write about the annual ‘inductees’ for the ‘National Recording Preservation Board of The Library of Congress’, to my mind it’s a cool enough concept to archive music and audio recordings that are deemed to be “Marked for preservation because of their cultural, artistic and historic importance to the nation’s aural legacy“. A lofty goal certainly but you can’t hold that against them. Dating back to 2002, each year recordings have been nominated for inclusion into the library and they’ve ranged from a foghorn sounding to poetry readings and radio broadcasts. Inevitably the library has expanded to include more and more music ranging from folk and classical through to rock and roll. This years new additions include the most diverse list yet and a little more modern music including Simon & Garfunkel, Pink Floyd and Philip Glass. Far more earth shattering is the news that the first recording that can be called punk has found a new home in the Library of Congress as The Ramones debut album from 1976 has been selected.

The optimist in me says that in a few hundred years time this cements the long term future of the documentation of punk music for generations far from being born today. To include The Ramones as (relatively) early in the process shows a greater awareness of heritage than I would have expected, also they don’t limit the recording to being American in origin as evidenced by the previous selections of The Beatles, The Who and The Rolling Stones. My point being of course that The Clash could one day be included, better still The Library of Congress accept nominations from the public. So I’m going to pen a few words about either London Calling or the self-titled debut and set it up on the website as an e-petition soon that you can all sign and then we’ll submit to to Congress. They’ll have to listen right?

First of all I need you to help me decide which album we should nominate – answers below please and in the interest of not splitting the votes I’ll focus on the most likely two to have a good chance. Then next month I’ll get the e-petition launched.

You can learn much more about the National Recording Preservation Board here and I must recommend a great article on Oregon Music News about this years additions to the archive. I am completely serious about nominating The Clash so please help me choose.

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Good morning, it’s a lovely foggy spring morning and I’m all ready with my coffee and some music and a stack of work but then it’s the weekend. I hope you enjoy yours wherever you may be.

It’s been written about a good few times before but I enjoyed this piece on CraveOnline about the 100 best songs that are under two minutes long. One of the oft-repeated cliches about punk music is that it was all three chords, a cloud of dust and everything was over in less than the magic two minute mark. The Clash did manage that on a number of their earliest songs (recorded versions) but live I think many of the tracks just over two minutes accelerated themselves under the same time threshold. Please check out the list, White Riot does make the top ten but in reality you can make a great case for it being in the top two or three. After all it was the debut single by a band that created the definitive album of 1977 and garage bands all over the world had a new blueprint to follow.

The two minute buzz that is often associated with punk was in no doubt in part associated with what had gone on between 1974-6, old established rock bands making endless songs that were more on the scale of mini-epics that punchy pop music. Bohemian Rhapsody is the perfect example at an endless 5:55, I remember as a kid thinking it was the longest thing I’d ever heard. DIY values and often musicianship saw the early punk bands charge through a song in a few minutes and once you got above 2:45 it seemed a bit close to the edge of staying around too long. To go against the grain then The Clash managed to sneak Police and Thieves into the mix clocking in at a hefty 6:01. In all the debut album contained five songs that got in under the two minute wire; White Riot, What’s My Name, Career Opportunities, Protex Blue and 48 Hours with another three (Janie Jones, London’s Burning and Cheat) just a few ticks beyond the benchmark. By way of contrast and when they headed back to the studio ‘Complete Control’ clocked in at 3:14.

The Clash, like most young bands, didn’t return to their opening brevity that often with only Koka Kola from London Calling as short along with Brand New Cadillac coming close plus The Leader from Sandinista! Many of the tracks on Cut The Crap were under 2 minutes but that was perhaps due to me moving the needle to the next track more often than not.

I guess The Ramones were the most loyal and arguably famous devotee to the two minute pace with 15 songs in all over the course of their first 3 albums clocking in under the barrier, more tellingly they failed to record a single song in excess of 2:59 over that same period. My memory obviously played tricks on me as I thought Buzzcocks were masters at the short song too but only one song on their first two releases fell into that category although they did stick to what worked, almost everything clocked in around 2:20-2:35. What two minute epics are your favourites?

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