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Wall Street's Misdeeds Cost Trillions, But It's Main Street Who's Getting Nickel-and-Dimed
Take a look at these two sentences:
"(I)f losses from the 2007- 2009 crisis were to reach similar levels (as they did in previous recessions) … losses could exceed $13 trillion." Government Accountability Office
"You would think that any regulation that could affect a major part of the economy and cost industry and/or consumers millions of dollars to comply with would be based on rigorous and consistent economic analysis." David C. Johns, Heritage Foundation
In the face of trillion-dollar losses, Wall Street's conservative spokespeople sound like Dr. Evil presenting his demands to world leaders: I will destroy the planet unless you give me … one million dollars.
The Price of Greed
The other day the GAO released a report on the costs of the 2008 financial crisis and the recession which followed – which is still going on for millions of Americans. The report confirmed and even increased previous estimates of the crisis' cost, concluding that losses in American output could reach $13 trillion.
The report did something else that was important and admirable, too: It considered the human cost of the recession, noting that "real GDP" – the most commonly used economic measure in situations like these – "is an imperfect proxy of overall social welfare."
That's especially true today: While overall statistics show that our country is in a recovery, the top 1 percent in US income captured 121 percent of the gains, while everyone else has actually lost ground since then. Once that's considered, even the GAO's new figures may have understated the costs for the vast majority of Americans.
But, admirably, the GAO report summarizes the painful but now well-known loss of jobs in the present – and, especially for younger people, the earnings potential that they will suffer for the rest of their lives.
Homeowners Are Financing a Backdoor Bailout
The GAO also estimates the loss in housing value for American families, which it pegs at $9.1 trillion, noting that "national home equity was approximately $3.7 trillion less than total home mortgage debt."
What they're describing is nearly four trillion dollars in money that Americans owe to their banks for real estate value that no longer exists. They base that number on December 2011 figures, and it will have changed by now – both because some real estate markets have picked up, and because millions of homeowners have been foreclosed upon. But the figure is still in the $3 trillion range.
That's $3 trillion in debt that homeowners took because the banks a) systematically drove up the costs of housing by lowering underwriting standards and creating a boom in mortgage-backed securities, b) knowingly bilked investors by selling them lousy risks (which the so-called "credit rating agencies" labeled "AAA"), and then c) accepted a government bailout when the inevitable collapse followed.
And in yet another enormous favor to the banks, they continue to carry this worthless value on their books. They collect payments on it, or use it to foreclose on families.
Designed by a Committee
The GAO report's conclusion is all the more astonishing, since it was produced by a committee which included a number of relevant "stakeholders": A major institutional investor (from the California Public Employees' Retirement System); bankers, financiers and hedge funders from institutions like Goldman Sachs, Deutschebank, and Black Rock; the pro-99 percent Americans for Financial Reform; along with Paul Volcker, Sheila Bair and other subject matter experts.
...behind the "some experts believe" language is an inescapable conclusion: The 2008 crisis cost the US economy in excess of $10 trillion, and possibly more than $13 trillion.
That means the report's filled with "he said/she said" counterpoint on even relatively non-controversial matters. But behind the "some experts believe" language is an inescapable conclusion: The 2008 crisis cost the US economy in excess of $10 trillion, and possibly more than $13 trillion.
What's more, there's very little controversy about the fact that it will happen again. Even Jamie Dimon, the JPMorgan Chase CEO who has appointed himself to be unapologetic face of Wall Street excess, agrees. He proudly told a Congressional hearing that when his little daughter asked him "What's the financial crisis?" he answered "It's something that happens every five or seven years."
Recurring crises are part of their business model. And while every crisis won't all cost $10 trillion or $13 trillion, one will eventually come along that costs much more.
Hired Guns
Banks are deploying every possible argument to prevent that from happening. The latest is to ensure that bank-subservient Republicans block funding for any agency that's been tasked with monitoring bank activity.
Before we get to the Republicans, though, did you happen to see this story? "Former U.S. Sen. Kent Conrad has signed on with the national Campaign to Fix the Debt," it says.
"Fix the Debt' is a covert lobbying group for big banks, defense contractors, and individual billionaires. When it comes to corporate buyouts, members of both parties are available. Democrat Conrad spent years telegraphing his support for the corporate agenda.
As we like to say, "bipartisan" is a Washington code word for "buying members of both parties."
But, while some Democrats may be morally compromised, it now appears that the Republican Party has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Wall Street. They're blocking the funds to implement the Dodd/Frank bill. That bill's reforms fall short of what's truly needed to end Wall Street's destructive rampage, but it's a step in the right direction – which means that, for the GOP and its parent companies, it's a step too far.
Mad-Hatter Economics
You have to be pretty shameless to say something like this: "The Committee will seek to ensure that regulators carefully and transparently assess the costs and benefits of regulations called for by the Dodd-Frank Act in order to strike an appropriate balance between prudent regulation and economic growth."
That was Republican Representative Jeb Hensarling, echoing the right-wing line: Can't spend millions to protect us from losses in the trillions. Meanwhile the SEC is begging for funds, as are the other agencies charged with implementing Dodd/Frank.
...as Washington argues about whether it should spend millions to save Main Street's residents trillions, both parties are reportedly open to a budget agreement that would cut $130 billion in Social Security benefits for the elderly and disabled over the next ten years (according to White House estimates). In Washington that's an acceptable "buy-partisan" solution.
But the ultimate in tortured pro-bank logic is a bill called the "Financial Regulatory Responsibility Act," which has been floating around the Hill since its introduction in 2011. It would require regulators to prepare lengthy analyses of the cost of enacting new regulations, and then to submit their economists to a politicized interrogation before Congress.
This bill's just another tactic for delaying and obstructing urgently-needed reform, and the arguments wear thin before the sentences are even completed. "American job creators are under siege from the Dodd-Frank Act," said cosponsoring Senator Richard Shelby. "In their rush to expand the reach of government into our private markets, Congressional Democrats refused to consider the impact of the Dodd-Frank Act on economic growth or job creation."
With 20 million jobs lost worldwide after the 2007/2008 crisis, this is hardly a strong argument for the defense. If these guys are such great "job creators," where are the jobs?
Pay Now and Pay Later
But if the "Financial Regulatory Responsibility Act" can't be understood in logical terms, it can certainly be understood in financial ones – especially for its Congressional sponsors, who bask in campaign contributions and look for to Conrad-like sinecures upon leaving office. Organizations lobbying for the bill include the American Bankers Association, the US Chamber of Commerce, the Managed Funds Association, and a wide range of financial and insurance companies.
As the saying goes: Follow the money.
And as Washington argues about whether it should spend millions to save Main Street's residents trillions, both parties are reportedly open to a budget agreement that would cut $130 billion in Social Security benefits for the elderly and disabled over the next ten years (according to White House estimates). In Washington that's an acceptable "buy-partisan" solution.
But, especially for the Republicans, it isn't acceptable to ask the bankers who cost Americans trillions of dollars – and walked away wealthy – to spend millions to prevent another trillion-dollar crisis.
After all, they might have to spend one million dollars.
© 2013 Campaign for America's Future


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Rather than higher inflation, tumbling oil prices point to reduced price pressure and more room for manoeuvre for central bankers.
It was a manoeuvre, and there would be an attempt to rescue, after all.
This manoeuvre enabled him to gain some distance as he started off in the new direction.
It was clear that the she-tiger knew this manoeuvre of her mate's.
Nothing could withstand the tremendous impetus of that manoeuvre.
The trolley swung round at a right angle (up Avenue A) and the last block of 86th Street showed the benefit of this manoeuvre.
Of course every manoeuvre was executed with all the silence and caution I could observe.
Johnston understood this manoeuvre, and moved westward to meet it.
To counter this manoeuvre, therefore, Dyer gave the order "Ready about!"
Ere the aeroplane has completed the second manoeuvre the German guns ring out.
"planned movement of troops or warship," 1758, from French manoeuvre "manipulation, maneuver," from Old French manovre "manual labor" 13c.), from Medieval Latin manuopera (source of Spanish maniobra, Italian manovra), from manuoperare "work with the hands," from Latin manu operari, from manu, ablative of manus "hand" (see manual (adj.)) + operari "to work, operate" (see operation). The same word had been borrowed from French into Middle English in a sense "hand-labor" (late 15c.). General meaning "artful plan, adroit movement" is from 1774. Related: Maneuvers.
1777, from maneuver (n.), or else from French manœurvrer "work, work with one's hands; carry out, prepare" (12c.), from Medieval Latin manuoperare. Originally in a military sense. Figurative use from 1801. Related: Maneuvered; maneuvering.
maneuver ma·neu·ver (mə-nōō'vər, -nyōō'-)
A movement or procedure involving skill and dexterity. v. ma·neu·vered, ma·neu·ver·ing, ma·neu·vers
To manipulate into a desired position or toward a predetermined goal.

subset: commoncrawl


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Very cute, same litter?
Northern Shiverpeaks
Sorrow's Furnace
Crystal Desert
Very cute, same litter?
Fod Sparta los wuth, ahrk okaaz gekenlok kruziik himdah, dinok fent kos rozol do daan wah jer do Samos. Ahrk haar do Heracles fent motaad, fah strunmah vonun fent yolein ko yol.
I would definitely join a MMO-Champ guild.
When I was in college I lived with a bunch of other guys for a year and one of them had a shepherd puppy, Zeke. I miss the shit outta that dog, he would always hang out in my room while I listened to metal.
Well, it started with me stealing the 1,000th post. Was claimed evil so I told I use asura to silence them, then baby pictures, then baby meme's, then animal meme's then people's pets.
EDIT: As I said Snow White, only way you can beat my dogs is if you have a beagle puppy.
Same with me tbh. I've grown up with a golden retriever, followed by a chow chow, followed by some kind of chow/lab mix we found in a ditch and rescued from parvo, followed by a toy poodle, with my brother getting a chocolate lab for himself.
The problem is that, now that we've got the poodle, I find myself greatly preferring small dogs over big ones. I wonder if there's such a thing as a toy Husky?
I hope you haven't forgotten my role in this little story. I'm the leading man. You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies.
If you give in to your impulses in this world, the price is that it changes your personality in the real world. The player and character are one and the same.
You're in luck!


text:
Graphics Cards Guide
Launch SRP US$379
Galaxy GeForce GTX 470 GC Version
The Galaxy GeForce GTX 470 GC Version is one of the first non-reference GeForce GTX 470 cards in the world. It boasts a customized cooler with a "flip fan" for easy maintenance and comes factory-overclocked for greater performance.
HWZ's Overall Rating: 8.5
Custom cooler is funky and makes maintenance easy
Much cooler than a stock card
Attractively priced
Clock speeds too conservative
Custom cooler is slightly noisier


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The ACT Government provides both on-leash and off-leash opportunities to exercise your dog. Much of Canberra's open space is designated as 'dog exercise areas'. To ensure greater accessibility to the general public, the Dog Control Areas are clearly defined on maps (available at the link below).
Nearby Parks
- Downer Neighbourhood Oval - approx. 161m away
- Hawdon St Oval - approx. 301m away
- Watson Neighbourhood Oval - approx. 1.33km away
- Hackett Neighbourhood Oval - approx. 1.35km away
- Fisher Park - approx. 1.58km away
More Information
For additional information please visit the Department of Territory & Municipal Services website.
Note: While Doggo aims to provide the most up-to-date information, councils and/or park authorities may change their regulations regarding dog exercise areas at any time. We suggest checking with the relevant park management for the latest information.
Last Updated: January 2, 2009 - Does this listing need updating? Let us know


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Posts Tagged 'HUG'
Blanketing for Your Breed
No two horses are built alike, and some breeds just don't fit the average horse mold! We compiled information from our vendors, our personal experience, and the experiences of our customers to help you choose the best blanket for your horse's breed/build. Warmbloods/Drafts/Shires: For our biggest horse breeds, just finding a the a big enough…
Read More


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Inspiration Wednesday! Church Websites That Rock | AlteredAdvice - Freelance Graphics Design Community
Show Summary | Posted by ever-re 2946 days ago | Category: Web Design
Web design for Churches has come a long way in recent years.
Media Companies are now providing Churches with hot usable layouts with clear navigation for things like pod casting message blog and church events calender.


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Lettuce recall: latest sign of listeria
Lettuce recall involves 90 cartons of chopped romaine lettuce in at least three western states with use by date of Sept. 29. California farm initiated lettuce recall after random check found listeria.
SALINAS, Calif. — A California farm said Thursday it was voluntarily recalling bags of chopped romainelettuce because of possible contamination with listeria, though no illnesses have been reported.
True Leaf Farms of Salinas announced the recall of 90 cartons that were shipped to an Oregon food service distributor. From the distributor, it might have gone to at least two other states, Washington and Idaho.
The Food and Drug Administration notified the company that a sample from one bag taken as part of a random check tested positive for listeria.
Federal health officials say they've gotten better at detecting the germs that cause food poisoning, so they are seeing them in produce more often.
The lettuce recall covers product with a use by date of Sept. 29. The bag and box code is B256-46438-8.
California health officials are looking into the contamination, said Ken August, spokesman for the California Department of Public Health, but have not yet determined how the lettuce became contaminated.
"Anytime there is a contaminated food product, we are concerned and take steps so that it's removed from shelves as quickly as possible and to notify consumers," he said.
Listeria rarely shows up in produce, but an outbreak linked to cantaloupe from a Colorado farm has caused at least 72 illnesses, including up to 16 deaths, in 18 states.
August said the state is working with the company to verify the distribution of the produce being recalled. Most of the lettuce was sold to California institutions such as restaurants and cafeterias, he said, and only a small amount went to retail in other states, August said.
The Salinas Valley is known as the "Salad Bowl of the World" for its production of lettuce and numerous other crops.
Lettuce currently picked at the farm is safe to eat, said Steve Church, CEO of Church Brothers, which sells and markets the farm's produce. The company is working with the FDA, Church said, to determine if there are any problems at the farm and is taking more time to sanitize its produce.


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Sweet and Spicy Sausage Ragu Nachos with Pickled Onions
A New Take on Nachos
Try these tasty nachos from chef Anne Burrell.
Cooking Directions
For the ragu: Put the garlic, celery, onions and fennel in a food processor and puree to a coarse paste.
Coat a wide, deep pan with olive oil. Add the pureed veggies, season with salt and bring to medium-high heat. Cook the veggies until all the liquid has evaporated and they begin to stick to the pan - you want to brown the crap out of these guys until crud starts to form on the bottom of the pan. Stir occasionally to scrape up the brown bits, and then let the crud form again. Be patient here and don't rush it, this is where the big flavor develops; it will take up to 30 minutes.
When the lovely brown crud has formed and been scraped down a couple of times, add the tomato paste, stirring to combine. Let it start to brown a little and continue stirring for 2 to 3 minutes. There's not much liquid at this point to keep things from burning, so be careful and move fast. Add the wine, stir to combine and scrape up any remaining brown bits. Cook until about half the wine has evaporated, 4 to 5 minutes.
Add both the spicy and sweet sausage and, using a spoon to break it up, cook until the meat is brown (this is where another round of big brown flavors is formed, so take your time), 10 to 15 minutes.
Add enough water to the pan to cover the meat by about 1/2-inch. Stir to combine well, and then add the bay leaves and thyme bundle. Taste, season with salt and taste again; it's by no means done, but it should taste good. Bring the sauce to a boil (BTB) and reduce to a simmer (RTS). Continue cooking, checking occasionally, for 3 hours, tasting, seasoning and adding more water as needed.
For the pickled onions: In a medium bowl, combine the red wine vinegar with 1/2 cup cold tap water. Stir in the sugar, salt and hot sauce. Add the sliced onions and let sit for at least 1 hour. To assemble: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. On a large platter, spread out a layer of tortilla chips. Spoon a layer of the ragu over the chips. Cover with a layer of Parmigianino and fontina cheeses. Place in the oven until the cheese melts, 5 to 10 minutes.
Remove from the oven, sprinkle a layer of arugula over the top and finish with a large dollop of mascarpone cheese. A gooey cheesy treat. Delish.
Recipe courtesy Anne Burrell.
This recipe was styled by chef Karen Pickus for Good Morning America.
Recipe Summary
Main Ingredients: fennel, garlic, celery, red wine, tomato paste
Course: Party Platter


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I love to take wildlife photos too. I have many pictures of deer and birds and such.
Hiking in the canyons when the water is running shortly after the monsoon rains. I feel so alive and one with nature
We have no canyons in Florida, but I do love our afternoon thunderstorms! The air is charged both literally and figuratively!
© 2017 Atheist Nexus. All rights reserved. Admin: Richard Haynes. Powered by


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As expected, the competition among finalists on "The Voice" was tough, as nearly all of the final four contestants were already seasoned pros.
Each of the final four – Dia Frampton, Beverly McClellan, Javier Colon, and Vicci Martinez – have major label record deals, released independent albums, and/or spent considerable time touring prior to getting a new chance at stardom on the NBC show.
Each of the final four can sing, perform, and work the crowd.
And each of the final four kicked serious butt on Tuesday's performance show.
And the winner is…watch it again.
[iframe http://xfinitytv.comcast.net/tv/The-Voice/141730/2033151109/And-The-Winner-Is…/embed 580 476]
So which one of the four did just a bit better than the rest to take home the title of "The Voice," along with the $100,000 prize and recording contract with Universal Republic?
America has voted and the winner is…
***Spoiler Alert***
"The voting was extremely close. it was so close in fact that the top two were within only two percent of each other," said host Carson Daly. The two artists with the most votes were Dia Frampton, to which Beverly yelled, "I told ya baby!" and…wait for it… Javier Colon.
And the winner is… Javier Colon, whose song was No. 2 on iTunes last night (Dia's was No. 1).
"Wow, um, thank you. I don't even know where to begin other than to say the three women being here are awesome," said Javier. "I want to thank everybody at home who believed in me and voted for me. Thank you all, and my family. Yeah. Woo! Ahh!"
The four finalists reflect on favorite moments.
[iframe http://xfinitytv.comcast.net/tv/The-Voice/141730/2033397033/The-Top-Four-Reflect-On-Their-Final-Performances/embed 580 476]
Other notable moments of the finale included:
*Vicci Martinez and Train lead singer Pat Monahan's duet of Train's "Drops of Jupiter" was a match made in Heaven. 'Nuff said.
*Javier Colon – the only contestant who got all four coaches to turn their chairs around in the blind auditions, by the way – and Stevie Nicks wasn't the pairing I expected. But once the pairing was announced, it was the song I expected – "Landslide." Ugh. I'm sorry, but this is a song Nicks pulls out way too often. Case in point: She performed it on both "American Idol" and "Dancing with the Stars" most recent seasons. And, she let "Glee" use it this past season as well. What about giving "Leather and Lace" a shot? That said, it was a moving rendition, even bringing Adam Levine to declare, "That's one of the most beautiful duets I've ever heard in my life."
*Beverly McClellan and OneRepublic's Ryan Tedder teaming up on "Good Life" was a bit awkward in look, sound, and feel. Was it me or did Ryan sound out-of-breath? Watch it back and try to argue.
*Miranda Lambert and Dia Frampton's performance of Mrs. Blake Shelton's "The House That Built Me" was precious, heartfelt, and chilling. And Dia's coach Blake gave her the best compliment of the season: "Dia reminds me of my wife Miranda. They are both mold-breakers. There is no one else like them," he said. True dat.


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Rutger Hauer Autographed Rare Dutch ''TV Film'' Magazine! Description: Here we have a rare original issue of the Dutch magazine 'TV Film' with a marvellous 'thudding' close-up! It is the issue #4, dated May 15, 1993. Rutger is appearing on the cover, with the title 'Rutger Hauer blijft de meest geliefde engerd van Hollywood'.
Here are the scanned pages with many color photos, from the inside article entitled 'De Grootste Engerd van Hollywood': This magazine measures (closed) approx. 11" x 9" (29 cms x 23 cms). Rutger has autographed the cover of the magazine in golden permanent ink. Thank you for your support to Rutger's Starfish! The Rutger Hauer Starfish Association is the real source for Rutger's autographed items. Fans and autograph collectors can find here the widest choice of original autographed materials, all coming directly from Rutger's own archives: |


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Music for your inner 17-year old.
<-- Previous playlist | Back to Martha playlists | Next playlist -->
Listener comments! | |
Sun. 1/9/11 9:05pm
Richard from Venezuela:
Hi Martha | |
Sun. 1/9/11 9:06pm
minnesota Jeff:
Martha, Hi | |
Sun. 1/9/11 9:09pm
Hi Richard! Hi Jeff! | |
Sun. 1/9/11 9:13pm
greetings from Chicago land.. | |
Sun. 1/9/11 9:16pm
tear my heart out.. why don't ya.. | |
Sun. 1/9/11 9:19pm
Greetings from the edge of Jersey City - | |
Sun. 1/9/11 9:22pm
the Jersey girls.. | |
Sun. 1/9/11 9:22pm
Fistula guys were lambasted on their local news for having an album/song named after local serial killer (Sowell)... Oh, so dumb... Great show Martha. Frequent listener. | |
Sun. 1/9/11 9:23pm
Richard from Venezuela:
Monica and Martha. Terrific duo in the night of WFMU. | |
Sun. 1/9/11 9:25pm
minnesota Jeff:
It would be great to hear anything by an SST band tonight. Meat Puppets? Minutemen? Black Flag? | |
Sun. 1/9/11 9:28pm
Sowell - yep, that's the one I played - thought it was a weird deliberate misspelling but now I know why - thanks for the info - and thanks all for the good words - we will see what happens as the night progresses... | |
Sun. 1/9/11 9:46pm
Hello from Sheffield, UK! Glad to hear some good tunes after listening to some pretty disturbing religious mantra on UBUweb radio | |
Sun. 1/9/11 9:48pm
We are mantra free here - thank Christ - | |
Sun. 1/9/11 9:53pm
might be a Great Mandala in there somewhere.. | |
Sun. 1/9/11 10:03pm
Minnesota Scott:
I just ordered the FM-BX Society Tape Vol. 1 LP from SS. Many thanks for the tip, Martha. Loved the Unit 4 track. SST? Bah. More SS! | |
Sun. 1/9/11 10:05pm
Hey - great, my pleasure to spread the music - but S-S, SST - very diff, good in their own ways - | |
Sun. 1/9/11 10:07pm
Richard from Venezuela:
I don't knew the work of Architeuthis Walks on Land. Great track. | |
Sun. 1/9/11 10:11pm
sounds so industrial.. | |
Sun. 1/9/11 10:12pm
Richard from Venezuela:
didn't knew. Sorry for my poorly english, hahaha. | |
Sun. 1/9/11 10:16pm
No apologies nec. - I do my best and still mangle the mother tongue - and interesting you think Arch... sounds industrial, will have to re-listen - | |
Sun. 1/9/11 10:25pm
Richard from Venezuela:
A friend of mine Recommend me the album of Richard A. Ingram - Consolamentum. Anyone hear that album?. Richard is one of the Oceansize's guitar players. | |
Sun. 1/9/11 10:31pm
Listening in Chicago area.Just discovered this! Wonderful! | |
Sun. 1/9/11 10:35pm
Marmalade Kitty:
Hello Martha my dear :) This track sounds very mischievous.. | |
Sun. 1/9/11 10:43pm
skip cardoza:
Martha---I think it was your show last week that I first heard Gog. Damn they are great. I want to thank you for making that introduction (making assumption it was you.....) | |
Sun. 1/9/11 10:44pm
minnesota Jeff:
Sun. 1/9/11 10:46pm
Marmalade Kitty:
I thought thisaws Henry Rollins!!!! This is the firt time I heard the Pink Fairies.. original..? | |
Sun. 1/9/11 10:47pm
minnesota Jeff:
Yeah, the Rollins Band version is a cover of this version. | |
Sun. 1/9/11 10:47pm
minnesota Jeff:
"This version" being the original. | |
Sun. 1/9/11 10:49pm
Marmalade Kitty:
ooopsie, drunken typing.. good stuff! I saw Henry in the flesh, or half nudie! | |
Sun. 1/9/11 10:54pm
Hey all - thanks for checking in - I didn't even know that H. Rollins covered 'Do It'! - I actually don't know that much about the PFs except a great friend of mine made me a mixed tape w/ a track of theirs on it haven't found since - yes, GOG - if it doesn't sound too corny, I totally heart GOG - glad you like them too - | |
Sun. 1/9/11 11:00pm
Marmalade Kitty:
Have you heard the Nardwuar the Human Serviette interview with Mr H.Rollins? Really funny :) | |
Sun. 1/9/11 11:05pm
minnesota Jeff:
Tom Scharpling opened his show with the Rollins Band version of "Do It" for like 10 months straight in 2010. | |
Sun. 1/9/11 11:19pm
Marmalade Kitty:
Just reading back comments.. MJeff, your request for Black flag came inadvertently close.. you should keep trying! | |
Sun. 1/9/11 11:24pm
minnesota Jeff:
Yeah, I assumed she played that as some sort of weird round-a-bout request fulfillment. I guess not! Still would love to hear some SST. Meat Puppets! Minutemen! | |
Sun. 1/9/11 11:28pm
Why is the pop-up player not working. | |
Sun. 1/9/11 11:29pm
minnesota Jeff:
Rory, they explain why on the Homepage. | |
Sun. 1/9/11 11:29pm
Thank you Jeff | |
Sun. 1/9/11 11:37pm
Thank you all - I had no idea it wasn't working - | |
Sun. 1/9/11 11:51pm
Marmalade Kitty:
my sinclair spectrum 48k is understanding this "I" track very well! unfortunately it does not compute with my I pod.. | |
Sun. 1/9/11 11:54pm
oops! | |
Mon. 1/10/11 12:00am
Thanks all for checking and giving me the facts and also the good words - both are much appreciated - | |
Mon. 1/10/11 12:00am
Marmalade Kitty:
R - Tape Loading Error.. | |
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In January 2008, a precociously-talented fast bowler mesmerised the world with the spell that stunned one of the legends in the game, who was made to sweat for every run as he fought to anchor a fourth innings run-chase. The ball raced off the pitch at good pace, and the subtle movements off the seam had him in all sorts of trouble. He was hit — battered and bruised — playing and missing time and again until an edge to first-slip put an end to his agony. The young and unknown Ishant Sharma announced his arrival on the world stage with that remarkable spell to the great Ricky Ponting as India believed they had found their pace sensation.
Fast forward to the present, Ishant is yet to live up to expectations after the splendid display at Perth. With 49 Tests under his belt, he isn't a "senior bowler" by his own admission — a statement that defied common sense. The bowler who looked threatening early in his career doesn't seem to have the zing and the wickets column has suffered as a result. His career figures do not make a very good reading and reveal the extent of the inconsistency:
T | W | Ave | BBI | BBM | 5WI | 10WM |
49 | 138 | 38.52 | 6-55 | 10-108 | 3 | 1 |
For a strike bowler, who is on the cusp of playing his 50th Test, these numbers are unacceptable. An average of 38.52 is on the higher side and he has only taken three five-wicket hauls. Interestingly, two of those fifers came against the West Indies in 2011. He carried that form into the first two Tests in the series against England that followed, but the graph has gone downhill.
For specialist bowlers [not all-rounders], who have taken a minimum of 100 Test wickets in 49 games, Ishant has the worst average. According to statistician Mohandas Menon, the worst averages after the stipulated number of games are:
Bowler | Ave |
Ishant Sharma | 38.53 |
Ashley Giles | 38.11 |
Fidel Edwards | 36.71 |
S Venkatraghavan | 33.85 |
John Emburey | 33.66 |
Phil Edmonds | 33.46 |
Zaheer Khan | 33.39 |
(only specialist bowlers who have played 49 Tests)
Ishant's purple patch was a short affair — the series against the West Indies in 2011. Initially there was a lot of promise, but he had never dominated as such until that tour. That performance raised hopes that he would build on his promise. However, since the Birmingham Test against England in August 2011, he has failed to take more than three wickets in a Test. Here are his shocking numbers since that game:
T | W | Ave | BBI | BBM |
13 | 17 | 77.88 | 3-49 | 3-91 |
If one of your main bowlers averages over 70 in 13 Tests, it is worrying, to say the least, particularly when you consider India's bleak fast bowling resources. India's spearhead, Zaheer Khan lost his place in the side recently owing to poor form, and the promising Umesh Yadav is sidelined by injury. Then there is the enigmatic Ishant, who has scalped only 17 wickets in 13 games. How does one justify his place in the side? Is promise alone the criteria for keeping him in the scheme of things?
The conundrum has baffled the best in business as one fails to understand why the talented Ishant hasn't delivered results. There have been occasions where he has been unlucky, but one cannot pin the blame on fate alone as it is a prolonged run of poor form. Clearly, there is something wrong with the way he operates and team management better figure it out.
The two turners at Chennai and Hyderabad did not help the pacers a lot, but Bhuvneshwar Kumar (2nd Test) and James Pattinson (1st Test) showed that the fast-bowlers could make a difference. Ishant would hope for more assistance from the usually lively Mohali wicket as he needs to make a mark soon.
With the axing of Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir, the selectors have sent a clear message — perform or perish. Ishant call ill-afford to take it easy as the heat is on him.
(Nishad Pai Vaidya is a Correspondent with CricketCountry and an analyst, anchor and voice-over artist for the site's YouTube Channel. He shot to fame by spotting a wrong replay during IPL4 which resulted in Sachin Tendulkar's dismissal. His insights on the game have come in for high praise from cerebral former cricketers. He has also participated on live TV talk-shows on cricket. Nishad can be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/nishad_44)


text:
An ongoing series of articles on songs & performances of the early Grateful Dead.
September 7, 2010
The Velvets and the Dead
The story isn't so simple, though. In some strange ways, the two bands were like flip sides to each other. As Richie Unterberger says, "Both were once known as the Warlocks; both have made their music heavily associated with the ingestion of drugs; and both were prone to performing lengthy improvisations onstage that are comparable to those of few other bands."
Lou Reed:
"Once when we were playing on a bill with the Grateful Dead, some reporter from the Daily News asked me what was the difference between us and the Dead. With a perfectly straight face, I told him, 'The difference is that they take the kids backstage and turn them on – but we shoot 'em up!' Don't you know, he actually believed me and printed that."
Despite a totally different style and sensibility, their musical approach is closer than seems obvious at first. The Velvets were consistent in using songs as jumping-off places for extended improvs – Lou Reed was as much a fan of Coltrane and jazz horn players as the Dead were, though he favored the noisy 'skronk' style of Ornette Coleman & Albert Ayler. "When I started out I was inspired by people like Ornette Coleman. He was always a great influence." He's said that 'European Son' was his way of imitating Coleman with guitars.
Reed: "I had been listening to a lot of Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman, and wanted to get something like that with a rock & roll feeling. And I think we were successful, but I also think we carried that about as far as we could, for our abilities as a basically rock & roll band. Later we continued to play that kind of music, and I was really experimenting a lot with guitar, but most of the audiences in the clubs just weren't receptive to it at all."
(The Dead's admiration of Ornette was a quiet one, but acknowledged when he played with them in the '90s. Garcia said after working on one of Coleman's albums, "When I hear his playing, I hear something that I always wish would be in mine – a kind of joy and beauty.")
Both bands liked to take simple modal patterns of one or two chords and spin them out into long jams, though they took these in different directions. Both the Velvets and the Dead were innovators in using feedback as a meaningful musical statement (of course they weren't alone - the Who and Hendrix among others were doing the same – feedback was an exciting new thing in those days). If you've heard the Velvets' early soundtracks for Warhol films, they're freaky ambient noise not far removed from the Dead's later 'spaces'.
The Velvets were one of few rock bands I know of to do half-hour freeform improvisations in 1966. Rock music was stretching out and solos were getting wilder, but not many instrumentals had gone to such monstrous lengths yet. (The list of 20-minute live rock jams is a short one that year – there's Moby Grape, 'Dark Magic' – Butterfield Blues Band, 'East/West' – Pink Floyd, 'Interstellar Overdrive' – readers can probably think of a few more.)
Improvisation is very much a live art, though, and was frowned upon in studio recordings of the time - as was any tune longer than three minutes. (A couple rare instances of rock album tracks over ten minutes in '66 are Love's 'Revelations', the Stones' 'Goin' Home', and the Blues Project's 'Two Trains Running'. Even on Cream's first album, the longest track is six minutes!) As a result, there are many bands who were known for their exciting long jams onstage (like, later on in the '60s, Buffalo Springfield or Fairport Convention), who confined themselves to short pop material on their records – their live sound was never caught on tape. So people were probably hearing more live jamming in '66 than we can recover today.
One recommended Velvets show is from October '66, a complete two-hour show (in poor sound, as usual) where they play no less than TWO half-hour improvs (called "The Nothing Song" and "Melody Laughter"), which don't sound quite like anything else. (Nico moans over the music, kind of like Donna...)
Then by '68, with Sister Ray they had a piece that could be transformed into something different each time they played it, and they were happy to stretch it out to thirty, forty minutes or more. There's one famous show from April '68 where just the INTRO to Sister Ray is a forty-minute quiet trance drone!
Other songs could sprout ten-minute guitar solos as well, depending on the band's mood; long jams would develop in the sets and then disappear. (One example is the otherwise unheard, rambling 'Follow the Leader' on the Quine Tapes set.) And practically none of these were recorded by the band – just a few instances were captured by audience tapers.
And while the Dead had Phil Lesh to give them that avant-garde dissonant edge (especially apparent on Anthem), the early Velvets had John Cale who brought a quite different avant-garde slant from his previous noise/drone experiments. In much the same way as Lesh came to the Dead fresh from absorbing Luciano Berio and Stockhausen, John Cale had studied with LaMonte Young and brought that strong influence into their music. There's a 1965 recording from the Dream Syndicate (with Young & Tony Conrad) which is just ONE NOTE (on two or three violas) sustained for about a half-hour. Now that's a serious drone! (Cale has also released a 3-CD set of some of the noise/minimalist experiments he was doing in the '60s outside the Velvets.)
One thing about the Dead's music is that they did not like repetition too much in the jams - the music is always busy, restless. Lesh is not one to be pinned down to a single bassline for too long – and Garcia will often find some beautiful phrase, repeat it a couple times....and then drop it to do something else, never to be heard again. So, in spite of the Indian music they liked, we almost never get drones in their jams or 'trance Dead'.
The Velvets, of course, were sworn enemies of the Dead's music.
In '71 Maureen Tucker called the Dead the most boring band she'd ever heard. Sterling Morrison also loathed them, and despised San Francisco music in general. (But he did make an exception for Quicksilver Messenger Service, saying they sounded great and John Cipollina was a really good guitar player.) Lou Reed also had harsh things to say (although he did like the first Moby Grape album; and they were fans of LA bands Buffalo Springfield and the Byrds.)
Reed and Doug Yule, in a 1970 interview:
LOU: We had vast objections to the whole San Francisco scene. It's just tedious, a lie, and untalented. They can't play and they certainly can't write. The Airplane, the Dead, all of them...
DOUG: They lose track of where the music comes from - they start thinking it instead of playing it. Especially the Dead. Now I saw the Dead when they just started, and they were a bunch of scuzzy kids just having a ball playing rock & roll - they were a lot of fun. But then they started thinking about what they were doing too much.
LOU: I can get off understanding the kick it was to play Lovelight.... But they're amateur...they can't play. Jerry's not a good guitar player. It's a joke, and the Airplane is even worse, if that's possible.
DOUG: Jerry, he'll play the same solo for a half hour, but if he'd done it for just two minutes....he plays the same notes over and over again.
LOU: You listen to the Beatles, or you listen to 'Gimme Shelter' by the Stones, and Keith isn't playing many notes, but the notes he's playing are so thought out, so perfect...
Q: But don't you think a lot of people get off on something like the Dead because it's so loose?
LOU: It's what people are settling for....they're getting third-hand blues. It's a fad.... People like Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, all those people are the most untalented bores that have ever lived. Just look at them - can you take Grace Slick seriously? It's a joke. And the whole thing is, the kids are being hyped this on FM radio. Well, now finally it's dead, the whole San Francisco thing is dead.
The Velvets had first come to San Francisco in May '66 - they played the Fillmore with the Mothers of Invention, and developed an instant mutual dislike for Bill Graham. (They also hated Frank Zappa – Lou Reed later called Zappa "the single most untalented person I've heard in my life – he's two-bit, pretentious, academic, and he can't play his way out of anything. He can't play rock & roll." Reportedly Reed also hated the Jefferson Airplane's music so much that he refused to share a bill with them.)
Cale admitted that on this first San Francisco trip, "No one liked us much." Audiences met them with bewilderment – one witness remembers, "they had this weird stuff onstage with some chick getting whipped, and I went, 'Oh wow, this is music?'" Ralph Gleason wrote a very hostile review of their 'sick, campy, dull, joyless, non-artistic' show – "a bad condensation of all the bum trips of the Trips Festival… Opening night was really crowded, even though hippies were continually walking out shaking their heads and saying 'Wow!' in wonder that such a bore could be."
The Velvets ended a Fillmore show by putting their guitars against the amps and letting the feedback howl as they left the stage. Bill Graham couldn't stand this, or the rest of their stage act – he called them perverted, sickening, and negative, "the worst piece of entertainment I've ever seen in my life" - and they all agreed that the Velvets would never play any Fillmore show again. (The police in Los Angeles that month also found the Velvets' show so offensive they shut down the club they were playing in!)
The Velvets later believed that Bill Graham had even stolen the idea of their light show – they found the Fillmore's current light-shows laughable. Doug Yule said this was "one of Sterling's rants…they felt that when they showed up with the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, that Graham was doing kindergarten-level light shows, and they opened his eyes and then he ripped 'em off, took all their ideas and put that out as his own."
In any case, the Velvets didn't return to California for two years. As Sterling said in his usual manner, "We left California alone for two years, because they're so determined to do their own thing, their own San Francisco music. We were just rocking the boat – they don't want to know about that. 'There's only one music, and we all know what that is…it's what the Grateful Dead play. That's the very best rock & roll can ever get…' We said, 'You're full of shit, your city, your state, and everything else.'"
But they did come back. In fact, in '68/69, they played San Francisco more often than anywhere else except for Boston, playing numerous shows at the Avalon, Family Dog, and Matrix. One reason was that by then, the audience had caught up with them, and loud hard rock was the order of the day, so the Velvets were now well-received by enthusiastic fans. Peter Abrams liked them enough to record hours of their Matrix performances ("I wanted to get as many recordings of them as I could"), and Robert Quine was one fan who'd recently discovered the Velvets and also taped as many shows as he could. (Both of them, though, had to erase most of their recordings and keep only highlight reels, since they couldn't afford all that tape.) But ironically, most of the Velvets' live releases come from San Francisco!
One audience member saw a show with the Velvets and Quicksilver Messenger Service in '68, and noted the Velvets' "depressing drug-type songs, very heavy, very dark, very heroin, with a dangerous underground feel…while Quicksilver was light and color and acid and mind-wandering."
Some California newspaper reviewers tried to describe the Velvets' sound in their shows:
"The band makes a sound that can only be compared to a railroad shunting yard, metal wheels screeching to a halt on the tracks. It's music to go out of your mind to."
"In the middle of Sister Ray, they created this harmonic that sounded like the roof of the building was cracking open! It was just wild; it went on for a long time. It was really the ultimate in trance music, even beyond what La Monte Young was doing, because it was so loud and there were so many instruments."
"The Underground played an extremely involving two-hour set which completely destroyed the audience, left limp at its conclusion. The music was earthy with a heavy beat and moderate use of electronics and feedback. The sound it created was all-enveloping. Catharsis was particularly strong in Heroin and the 45-minute concluding number, which included electronic viola and organ as well as the guitars…they're a heavy group."
Doug Yule admits, "I don't think I've ever heard a recording that gives you the feeling that the group put out live. It was a locomotive."
The Velvets and the Dead played together a couple times in 1969.
One remarkable night at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh, February 7, the Fugs, the Velvets, and the Dead all played. One newspaper reviewer wrote, "Such a collection of freaks could hardly lead anywhere but up. The Velvet Underground…opened up the festivities with Heroin, one of their religious songs." The Dead offered two typically intense hard-jamming sets.
They shared a bill again just a couple months later, at Chicago's Electric Theater, April 25 & 26. (Detroit band SRC was the third band on the bill.) By then, the Dead's live approach was much sloppier, with many new songs in the set.
It's commonly believed among Dead fans that on the 25th, the Velvets opened and played a very long set, leaving the Dead only a short time to play. In revenge, when they switched and the Dead opened on the 26th, the Dead played for almost three hours, making the Velvets wait through their 40-minute wall-of-feedback encore.
This story is wrong, though! If you listen to the end of the Dead's short set on the 25th, it's clear that they were the opening act that night – when the audience cries for more, Weir says, "We're gonna come back and do a second set in a little while, and we're gonna bring on two other real good bands, and they'll blow your minds anyway; so we'll be back in just a short while." (Which obviously raises the question, is there a whole second set from April 25 that we've never heard?)
Doug Yule reports that the first night "the Dead opened for us – we opened for them the next night so that no one could say they were the openers. As you know, the Grateful Dead play very long sets, and they were supposed to only play for an hour. We were up in the dressing room and they were playing for an hour and a half, an hour and 45 minutes. So the next day when we were opening for them, Lou says, 'Watch this.' We did Sister Ray for like an hour, and then a whole other show."
(The entire tape we have of April 25, though, is only about an hour, and it sounds like the complete set. Did the Dead really open the show with two sets in a row? Or perhaps the Velvets found the Dead so awful their set just seemed to last forever!)
Apparently the theater had no time restrictions, so the Dead seem to have been encouraged by the Velvets' long noisy set on the 26th to play for even longer! My theory is that listening to that long Sister Ray is what gave them the idea to close with a huge Viola Lee going into fifteen minutes of feedback mixed with What's Become Of The Baby….they certainly didn't do anything like this at any other '69 shows!
One audience member says of this famous show, "I believe the Velvet Underground played first…then the Grateful Dead came out and played til about 2 or 3 in the morning. And literally, the only people left in attendance when the Dead were through playing were people that were laying on the floor. Eighty percent of the crowd had gone, and the Dead just kept on playing." (What he doesn't mention is that he must have lingered through the whole show, too! At one point he tried to talk to Owsley by the soundboard, but "the whole thing was up so loud that we couldn't hear each other. We just looked at each other and shrugged.")
It's not known whether Bear taped the Velvets' shows. But even if he did – between Bear hanging for life onto his journal tapes and never authorizing releases, and the Velvets also refusing to release any more live shows, we'd probably never hear them.
I'll conclude with a quote from this interesting book review:
"When you look at the state of both bands at their founding moments in 1965-66, you find that the Velvet Underground and the Grateful Dead started out, in an odd way, as basically the same band. In fact, both bands started with the same name in 1965: the Warlocks. And both were quickly taken up by other cultural movements and artists from other genres to furnish 'house bands' for collective projects.
On the West Coast, Ken Kesey hired the Dead to provide music for his acid tests... The Palo Alto acid test, the first to involve a real stage, took place in December 1965… In New York, meanwhile, Warhol took up the Velvets as a vehicle for his Factory events and a featured role in the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, which had various incarnations between January 1966 and its first broad public invitation in April, each of which also involved some combination of Warhol's dancing fools, slide-projector gels, light shows, silent films and chaos. (Warhol took first billing in all advertisements, above the Velvets, though presumably he just stood around and watched.)
Both bands' music depended on a tight association with drugs – LSD for the Dead, heroin for the Velvets (plus amphetamines) – but the musicians drew fewer distinctions in their personal lives...
Each band's early development was paid for by benefactors from the scenes of communal presentation: the Velvets had Warhol; the Dead had Owsley Stanley, supplier of LSD for the acid tests…
Like the Grateful Dead, the Velvet Underground started out as a platform for extremely long, wandering, repetitive live improvisations, appropriate to multimedia events…. The Velvets' principals insist in interviews that they were far better as a live band than in anything captured on record… Morrison, Reed and Tucker all complained about the failure to capture their live work… The Dead cultivated a 'taping' culture of audiophiles who recorded each and every performance…and, at the far extreme, created a unique audience of people willing to listen to forty performances of 'Dark Star' to find the passages of improvisational transcendence in each… Imagine that there could have been an alternate world in which people would have listened to forty versions of 'Sister Ray' for similar moments of transcendence, or to thirty-minute improvisations like 'Melody Laughter'…made up of feedback, guitar, organ and vocals from Nico. But the Velvets had few tapers...
Both bands originally imagined themselves as the 'Warlocks' essentially because each had a vision of enchantment, underlaid with darkness. (They both had to choose a different name because it turned out that a third band had already put out a record as the Warlocks.) Cale says that the 'aim of the band on the whole was to hypnotise audiences so that their subconscious would take over… It was an attempt to control the unconscious with the hypnotic.' This accounts for the drone, and the songs built on long vamps of two chords… 'We thought that the solution lay in providing hard drugs for everyone,' Cale said, but 'there is already a very strong psychedelic element in sustained sound, which is what we had … so we thought that putting viola [drones] behind guitars and echo was one way of creating this enormous space … which was itself a psychedelic experience.'
While both groups initially aimed to hypnotise with their music, lyrically they were worlds apart."
40 comments:
- AnonymousSeptember 18, 2010 at 4:14 PM
Bravo ! LiA you have made me happy , happy , happy .
I agree that in many odd and 'circumstantial' ways "... the two bands are flip sides of each other . "
Two of the sources from which all modern American music flows . Add your particular necessity here ____ .
A difference b/t GD and VU was this by Cale , " It was an attempt to control the unconscious with the hypnotic . "
One of the aspects most admired by me was Garcia's respect for the audience and not to use the microphone outside of singing . That fascist thingy . It was not about control but release , though at times to a hard place .
I did not want to hear them talk. Play !
And man, woman and child did they .
Totally different feel with VU . They talked all the time . From The Quine Tapes , Reed is introducing Femme Fatale with these endearing words for Edie Sedgwick who was still alive , though two years from her death .
" So anyways she paid for it 'cause she got put away . She got put away when she came out here ( CAL ) too . So maybe it had nuthin' to do with environment . So this is a song about her . As Andy said , why don't you write a song about Edie . So we did . It's called Femme Fatale . Edie's a superstar . Was a superstar . "
Vu dealt with subject matter that GD never did and in such a direct way . Both bands had songs about suicide but China Doll is hidden in Hunter's imagery , while the epic Heroin is clear on the matter . Sadomasochism , frank / explicit sexuality , hatred , anger , powdery drugs/syringes were some of the ingredients in the VU stew pot . They were not unclear about what the song was about . In that context I can see LR's point .
micah6vs8 - AnonymousSeptember 27, 2010 at 12:12 PM
Thanks for posting this insightful essay. I've got nothing against the Velvets or Lou Reed, but to read things like:
"But they're amateur...they can't play. Jerry's not a good guitar player. It's a joke, and the Airplane is even worse, if that's possible."
is kind of laughable. I mean, come on, if even your 45 minute one note drones are out of tune, you might want to refrain criticizing other musicians.
Excellent blog, and thank you for sharing with us! - AnonymousApril 24, 2011 at 8:11 PM
Funny how time makes us fickle.
Here you get Lou Reed "inducting" Zappa and making it sound like they were great chums!Replies- AnonymousAugust 9, 2012 at 3:26 PM
Amen. My thoughts exactly. I remember watching this and thinking "Lou Reed is the last person to induct Zappa"
Delete - AnonymousApril 22, 2014 at 6:57 PM
I agree with both of you. I've met Lou and honestly, he never deserved any praise from anybody after all that he said about other musicians. Only non-musicians make comments like that.
Delete The Dead-dissing quote by Lou is from 1970/71 for God's sake. People evolve, musicians in particular evolve considerably. Also, the VU was probably speaking pridefully so soon after having been shunned by the San Francisco scene despite a better reception their second stint there (68/69). I can appreciate and respect Lou Reed's evolving perspective on Frank Zappa and growing out of his youthful dismissiveness of other artists.
Hello, I'm not sure I mentioned this here before, but I put together a two-part video about comparing/contrasting The Velvets and Dead.
And I quote (and credit!) this blog at the end of one of the videos.
Hope you enjoy them:
http://wheresthatsoundcomingfrom.blogspot.com/2012/01/warlock-east-warlock-west-well-hello.htmlFrom another article on the Dead:
"The Dead seemed more like a group of ex-folkies just dabbling in distortion (as their albums eventually bore out)," proto-punk critic Lester Bangs wrote in Creem in 1970. "It seems likely that The Velvet Underground were definitely eclipsing the Dead from the start when it came to a new experimental music," he declared, delineating an early branching point in how rock would develop after the '60s.
Where both Lou Reed's Velvets and the Dead took Bob Dylan as a primary influence, the Velvets loosened it into drone-punk and the Dead tightened it into dance music.
http://www.jambands.com/news/2011/08/01/indie-rockers-celebrate-jerry-garcia-on-jerry-dayI found the full Lester Bangs article on the Stooges, where he goes into a little history of free noise in rock:
"Rumblings were beginning to be heard almost simultaneously on both coasts: Ken Kesey embarked the acid tests with the Grateful Dead in Frisco, and Andy Warhol left New York to tour the nation with his Exploding Plastic Inevitable shock show...and the Velvet Underground. Both groups on both coasts claimed to be utilizing the possibilities of feedback and distortion, and both claimed to be the avatars of the psychedelic multimedia trend. Who got the jump on who between Kesey and Warhol is insignificant, but it seems likely that the Velvet Underground were definitely eclipsing the Dead from the start when it came to a new experimental music. The Velvets, for all the seeming crudity of their music, were interested in the possibilities of noise right from the start, and had John Cale's extensive conservatory training to help shape their experiments, while the Dead seemed more like a group of ex-folkies just dabbling in distortion (as their albums eventually bore out)."
While Bangs was a fan of the simple & noisy (hence, not a likely admirer of the Dead), it should be noted that he wrote a surprisingly positive review of their 1971 live album.
He did like Airplane's album After Bathing at Baxter's somewhat, but thought Anthem of the Sun was crap. He probably liked the Airplane more since they rocked harder & had a heavier sound...I think it's extremely difficult for people to really remember exactly what was what and who was who and how it all felt and seemed in 1966 thru 1969. Things were evolving at a frantic pace and where it was by 1970 was far different from '66. The places the various players ended up vastly colors how people view those times.
I was not particularly aware of the details of their relationship in the early days but for years I really thought the GD should have covered "Rock and Roll" with Bob doing the vocals.- AnonymousOctober 14, 2012 at 5:32 PM
Per Wikipedia, TAWOTWS was from 1972. Shakedown stream had a podcast that featured incomplete sets that had a jam with playing that sounds like what became "Franklin's Tower.". I think it dated from 1970 or 1971, maybe from a NY show?
ReplyDelete - AnonymousOctober 16, 2012 at 11:31 AM
It was 5/6/70 MIT that had a brief passage that sounded (to me at least) like Franklin's.
ReplyDelete - jerlouvisMay 21, 2013 at 4:58 PM
I was wondering if anymore information has surfaced on Owsley taping those Chicago Velvet Underground shows.They would probably be some of the highest quality recordings of the VU's live performances.If there are any tapes I would hope that whoever handles Owsley's affairs would see fit to turn the tapes over to Lou and Maureen and let them sort it out.
ReplyDeleteRepliesI've heard nothing more about the Owsley tapes. However, if there are Velvets shows within, they couldn't be released without the permission & financial control of Lou & co./Universal, who are not likely to give the Owsley family label any rights. So turning over the tapes may be the only option, but I don't think it would result in release, at least within Lou's lifetime. The Velvets Bootleg Series vol. 1 got released 12 years ago, and there's no indication that there will ever be a vol. 2.
Per wikipedia, "A studio demo of the unreleased track "Miss Joanie Lee" had been planned for inclusion on the [2002 first album deluxe edition], but a dispute over royalties between the band and Universal canceled these plans. This contractual dispute apparently also led to the cancellation of further installments of the band's official Bootleg Series."
However, the inclusion of rehearsal tracks and a full 1966 show on last year's deluxe box set suggests that maybe the financial disputes have been resolved. I'm not holding my breath for more live releases, though.
The only reason we got the Gymnasium '67 show was because it was leaked from Cale's tape (perhaps he made a copy for someone that slipped out) - supposedly that was meant to be vol. 2. There's no telling what other tapes Cale may have; maybe boxes full. There are 4-track SBD tapes of the Velvets' Nov '69 Matrix shows (largely duplicated by the lesser-quality "Live 1969" album and Quine's tapes), but they're in limbo since the owner would neither give them to Universal nor put them into 'unoffical' circulation, though a short sampler tape came out. And so it goes...
Live Velvet Underground fans dwell in their own particular hell!By the way, a few tracks from the Matrix sampler are on youtube -
Peter Abram (Matrix owner/taper) spoke with Richie Unterberger about his 4 hours of tapes in the White Light book (p.259). I think Abram also has numerous tapes of various bands at the Matrix through the late '60s, few of which have been released. (I think the Doors are the only band that've had Matrix tapes released recently.) It's a distressing situation.
- AnonymousNovember 6, 2013 at 3:04 AM
"at least within Lou's lifetime?" well, there's a opening now...
ReplyDeleteRepliesYeah, I thought about that. Maybe Lou's estate will be happier to open the door to more VU releases - time will tell. To some extent, the Bootleg Series seems to have been replaced by the deluxe-editions they've been doing lately, with extra tracks & live shows. (For instance, next month they're releasing a White Light/White Heat deluxe edition with the Gymnasium '67 set and a couple never-heard-before tracks with Cale... They're finally doing this stuff properly! I believe one of the last things Lou did was an interview with Cale for the booklet.)
- jerlouvisNovember 6, 2013 at 10:49 AM
Hope Maureen,Laurie and whoever else is involved is more open to releasing whatever VU material becomes available.
ReplyDelete Picasso could paint a scene exactly as most of us see it, but he chose to paint it with his unique imagination engaged. Miles Davis could have played first trumpet in the world's most snobbish philharmonics, but he created something uniquely his own instead. Then there is Lou Reed, who absolutely could not sing yet sang anyway, basically telling us the ability to hit the note you're looking to hit is vastly overrated.
ReplyDeleteListening to the Gymnasium show on the new White Light/White Heat edition, there is an occasional point of similarity with the Dead's music in 1967, despite the vast difference between the hard-edged Velvets and the gentle Dead - for instance, their use of feedback and distortion. (The Velvets had preceded the Dead in this territory; on the other hand the Dead were already more adept at complex improvisations.) The episode in the 9/3/67 Midnight Hour from about 12-15 minutes, or a Caution>Feedback, is not too far removed from many points in the Gymnasium show's Sister Ray or Gift.
ReplyDeleteEd Sanders' book Fug You recalls his days with the Fugs, and briefly mentions this 1969 show:
"On February 7 we performed with the Velvet Underground and the Grateful Dead at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh. We used the Grateful Dead's sound system, and I was determined that the words to Fugs tunes be heard, so I kissed the microphone very closely. There was a party at the Grateful Dead's various rooms at the hotel afterwards, although after a few initial elevators full of partyers, the hotel called a halt to further fans."
I wonder if any of the Velvets joined in the festivities... It's also interesting that the Fugs used the Dead's sound system, which indicates that Owsley would very likely have taped their set (and possibly the Velvets' as well).
From all indications, Owsley generally taped the other bands playing with the Dead that year if he was acting as soundman (for instance, the Flying Burrito Brothers at the April Avalon run, and also the Allmans at the Fillmore East in Feb '70, the only released examples I recall).
One member of the band Amber Whine, which opened for the Dead at the Dream Bowl on Feb. 21-22, has said, "I would like to hear our set. One of my bandmates talked to the guy recording the Dead and said yes the whole show was recorded."RepliesOne Archive reviewer for 2/7/69 also went to the show:
"The opening act was the Velvet Underground (who were great!), followed by the Fugs (who were great!). Paul Krassner was the MC. The light show was overly repetitious. I still can hear because someone near me brought extra cotton balls. The Dead came on last, and, due to our youth (I went with my best friend, and we were both "only' 14), we had to leave before the Dead were finished."
Another comment on setlists.net adds, "The Fugs were hilarious."
(There's another 2/7/69 review by "Duane2" who claims to have met the bands & brought them back to his commune for an acid party & hung out with Pigpen, etc; however his review has so many questionable/false details it looks extremely unreliable, though perhaps based on very hazy "memories.")
One reviewer on dead.net went to the 4/26/69 Electric Theater show, and gives some interesting details:
"Three bands on the bill played an hour (?) each, with two rounds. Velvet Underground was 1st(?), GD 3rd - don't remember who was 2nd... [It was SRC.]
The Dead played their first set - began w/ acoustic AOXOMOXOA.
Not crowded - you could get really close, and I got a good look at the tie-dyed Fender amps, and Phil's Guild bass...
The Dead set was going long, so Lou Reed came out, asked GD to vacate the stage so VU 2nd set could commence.
Pigpen stuck his middle finger in Lou's face, and w/no objection from the crowd, GD continued, ending w/ Lovelight. Electric Theater impresario Aaron Russo came out and yelled "More!" w/the crowd - "There's only one Grateful Dead!"
Jerry asked us what we wanted to hear, and I and another guy yelled "Alligator," but the consensus seemed to be Viola Lee, which they did."
This looks like it may be an accurate account (he remembers the setlist details). As he says, the normal routine was for each band to play about an hour, going round twice in two separate sets, which seems to be what happened on the 25th. It looks like on the 26th though, the Dead just played one long immense set instead, while the opening Velvets (and poor forgotten SRC) waited impatiently for their second turn.
Another dead.net reviewer adds the odd detail (which could be from the 25th), "There was no backstage behind the stage. The band had to step into the crowd to get to their dressing room. I remember walking up to Pigpen and starting to rap with him, but then the Velvets started off and it got so loud and dissonant that Pig looked scared and split for who knows where?"
Judging by Pigpen's reported reaction here, and Doug Yule's account of the Dead forcing the Velvets to wait, there does seem to have been some antagonism between the two bands!
Another distant Velvets/Dead connection has come to light.
From Richie Unterberger's book White Light/White Heat: The Velvet Underground Day By Day -
Around March 21, 1968, "The wedding of Angus MacLise and Hetty McGee took place in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park as part of a spring solstice celebration arranged by beat poet Diana di Prima, with Timothy Leary in attendance and The Grateful Dead serving as witnesses. McGee comes originally from Wales, but is well connected on the San Francisco scene. She worked in the art department of the famed underground newspaper the Oracle; briefly dated the Dead's Pigpen; and, according to an interview she once conducted with Bananafish magazine, plays tambura on the group's 1968 45 version of 'Dark Star.'" (p.183)
She then moved back to New York with Angus MacLise (the Velvet Underground's original drummer), and recorded "psychedelic drone trance music with an Indian flavor" with him in a group called the Universal Mutant Repertory Company, playing mostly organ & tanpura:
In the Bananafish interview, she talks about playing on one track with the Dead:
"It was in a recording studio, and it was for their first 45 that was put out, with 'Dark Star' on one side. Bobby Weir tuned it to a very un-tampura kind of tuning, but it worked, and I had to sit in this octagonal box and drone away, which I didn't like very much, 'cause I couldn't see anybody. That's what I did. I played with them in other ways, but not musically... For a while I was Pigpen's squeeze... He was a darling."
She had a blog in which she wrote about her time living in San Francisco from '65 to '68, taking tanpura lessons, hanging out with the Dead, having run-ins with Owsley, working at the Oracle, and meeting Angus:
(It's a difficult read, she jumps around a lot.) According to her, she stayed with the Dead at Watts, Olompali, Lagunitas & 710 Ashbury in '66, which is when she & Pigpen got together. But there isn't really a straight narrative, or many details on the Dead - '67 flashes by in a blur, and the recording session isn't mentioned.Replies- AnonymousJuly 9, 2015 at 10:48 AM
that would explain that buzzing sound on the 'dark star' single.
I-) ihor
- AnonymousJuly 10, 2015 at 1:55 PM
I have long thought that Side 2 of Loaded sounds a bit like the Dead.
ReplyDeleteRepliesThey have similar sonic qualities because Loaded was recorded at the same studio that the Grateful Dead also record at. I think it was for the Workingman's Dead record.
DeleteNot really. The VU recorded Loaded at Atlantic Studios in New York, which the Dead never set foot in. Offhand, I don't recall the Dead ever using a New York recording studio after Anthem of the Sun in Dec '67/spring '68 (and that was brief, possibly not even used on Anthem).
Another diligent researcher has found an alternate account of 4/26/69, suggesting that the reason the Dead played so long was because Lou Reed got dosed and couldn't play!
Scott Richardson was the singer in SRC (the Michigan band also on the bill for that show), and he told his story in Steve Miller's 2013 oral history "Detroit Rock City":
"We played the Kinetic Playground in Chicago. Here's the bill: the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service [sic], the Velvet Underground, SRC. Lou Reed and I are standing backstage drinking beer. It was the first time I saw that super backstage concert layout of food... Some girls would always have stuff for you, brownies, and everything was laced. I turned around and saw someone spraying the food...with Listerine bottles filled with liquid LSD. And Lou Reed, well, keep in mind that the Velvet Underground were not a psychedelic band. This was a band that got up in the morning and took Valium. His eyes are going counter-clockwise in his head and he's going, 'Scott, you've got to get me to the hospital.' Everybody's on acid, everybody, and he's freaking out. We went out and got in a cab and took him to a hospital. Sterling Morrison got him a Thorazine shot. They couldn't go back to the ballroom; they couldn't take it. They canceled."
There are doubts as to whether this is a reliable tale (it doesn't match the other accounts), but it's here for the record!Doug Yule gives another account of the 4/25-26/69 Kinetic Playground, Chicago shows in the new Complete Matrix Tapes booklet, which says that "the Dead played first on the 25th but went twice over their allotted hour."
Yule: "That devolved to a war of set length... Lou was fuming. He was really pissed when we finally got on. The next night, we were up first. For Lou, this was payback time. We played a really long set. Sister Ray went for like 40 minutes."
I doubt Yule's memory here. We have the Dead's opening set from the 25th and it's only about an hour. Per deadlists, "According to Ron Ramsey, who attended the show...the Velvet Underground played a very long set and as a result the Dead only got to play one set on this date. According to Ramsey the Dead did the same thing to the Velvet Underground the next night."
Another witness quoted above (in the 3/4/15 comment) agreed that on the 26th, after the Velvets opened, the Dead just wouldn't end their set so the Velvets could play a second set. I think this is what the Velvets had done on the 25th and Yule's twisted it around to make it sound like Lou's revenge on the Dead; but the Dead got the last word.It's worth mentioning a couple of things here:
1. After Lou Reed left the band in August 1970, the band was taken over by Doug Yule. Doug was probably a bigger Dead fan than we have been led to believe, since by late 1971 the band was incorporating "Lovelight" into their setlists. By the time of the band's final incarnation in 1973, they had shifted their sound considerably -- original songs like "Let It Shine" could easily have been minor-league Dead tunes.
Also, Moe Tucker once told me a funny story about the VU's arrival in San Francisco in 1966: apparently, when they got into their taxi from the airport, the first song they heard on the radio was the recent Mamas & Papas hit "Monday Monday". "A cold chill went down our spines" she said, as they realized that they were now in what she called "hippie country".RepliesHa! A spine-chilling introduction to California, to be sure.
Doug wasn't as anti-Dead as Lou - he made some qualified comments about the Dead in the 1970 interview quoted in the post...basically saying they were originally "a lot of fun" but had over-intellectualized their music. His complaint that Garcia's solos were too long & repetitive is ironic, considering the Velvets were no strangers to 30/40-minute jams themselves.
I'm not sure picking up Lovelight would have been a nod to the Dead, since lots of bands did Lovelight. Even Lou Reed liked Lovelight (it was one of his 100 favorite singles) - just not the Dead's version!
And the Dead's sound shifted by 1971, too, as they went into a 'back-to-the-roots' phase - the Skullfuck band was tighter & simpler than the band that had played with the Velvets. Garcia came to agree with Yule, in a way: "We were doing something that was forced, it wasn't really natural. We were doing music that was self-consciously weird."


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Chennai: Mar 6, 2014
Tamil Nadu's CB-CID police which has enlarged its ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) betting probe to alleged match-fixing is likely to question Gurunath Meiyappan, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) official and son in law of Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) President N Srinivasan "anytime now."
Crime Branch CID has completed interrogation of hotelier Vikram Agarwal again based on "certain emerging inputs on match fixing allegations," police sources said on Thursday.
The widening of the probe to alleged match fixing involving bookies besides others came after the Mudgal Committee told the Supreme Court that the angle was not properly probed by the Tamil Nadu Police despite indications pointing to it.
The committee, in its report submitted in February, had indicted Meiyappan for betting and passing of team information during IPL matches, but said allegations of fixing against him require further investigation.
Suspended Superintendent of Police G Sampath Kumar, who earlier investigated the case, had alleged in his deposition before the panel that the match fixing angle was not "pursued" by the CB-CID owing to alleged vested interests.
Against this background, summons had been issued to Meiyappan, sources declining to be quoted said adding his interrogation could happen anytime now.
Top CB-CID officials, however, remained tight lipped on the issue.
Asked why the match-fixing angle was not probed and if Meiyappan was likely to be quizzed following issuance of summons, CB-CID chief Narinder Pal Singh declined to comment.
During earlier questioning, Meiyappan had told the CB-CID sleuths that he was not "officially involved in the CSK" as everything had to go through his wife as she was a whole time director in India Cements which owned the team.


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I don't think I want to be enlightened on that score, although I'm sure that there is a bakery in Greenwich (The) Village selling phallic doughnuts. I never found the need to shop for anatomical baked goods, so I didn't look In reply to Re^4: Using the Large Hadron Collider is likely to produce ...
by swampyankee


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Tom Ross
Tom Ross' column appears in Steamboat Today. Contact him at 970-871-4205 or firstname.lastname@example.com.
Find more columns by Tom here.
Steamboat Springs I've delivered pizzas in the state capital of Wisconsin, where I've joined in protest marches. But I never delivered pepperoni pizzas to protesters inside the Capitol in Madison.
So it came as a surprise Monday to learn from Politico that people from all across the globe are ordering deluxe pizzas from Ian's Pizza parlor in Mad Town and having them delivered to the protesters in a show of cheesy solidarity. The rabble-rousers object to provisions in Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's budget repair bill that they say are certain to end the right of public employees to bargain for the terms of their employment.
Politico reported that after one patron called to donate $200 to help feed the protesters maintaining vigil at the state Capitol, the pizza joint used Twitter and Facebook to spread the word.
Soon, orders began coming in from all across the world, even from Egypt. In all, Ian's distributed more than 1,000 free slices and sent 300 pizzas to the Capitol.
Madison is a city in a state with a long history of political movements and feisty newspapers that stick up for public workers. It all goes back to the beginning of the 20th century and progressive Republican Gov. Robert Lafollette. But that's a history book.
Today, the state faces budget shortfalls of between $2 billion and $3 billion depending on whom you consult. Gov. Walker apparently has decided that the unions for public employees are too influential and contributing to the state budget crisis.
A June 2010 story in the Wisconsin State Journal that reported that three bus drivers were among the 25 highest paid employees of the city of Madison may have contributed to the perception that public employees are over-represented in the badger state.
The State Journal obtained the city's earnings database and concluded that city workers were paid $15 million in extra earnings, including $7.3 million in overtime in 2009.
It also came as a surprise to read last year that one city transit driver in Madison knocked down more than $150,000 in salary. Really? A bus driver earning 150 large in salary and OT?
One senior transit driver, the newspaper reported, earned $49,366 in straight time and $78,571 in overtime plus about another $20,000 realized by cashing out sick leave and vacation time, arriving at a grand total of $159,258.
Two more bus drivers' compensation records told similar stories.
Why would bus drivers forego so much sick leave and vacation time? Perhaps because they knew their future pensions would be based on their three highest years of annual compensation, including all of the extras.
Do ya think some of the newspaper's readers were incensed, eh?
When Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz expressed displeasure with the extra compensation that went to the bus drivers, The Capital Times newspaper (the two newspapers in Wisconsin's capital city are conjoined at a Web page, www.madison.com) published an editorial telling hizzhonor to stop whining, and laid much of the responsibility for the large paychecks to mismanagement of the transit system.
"A bus driver who works hundreds of overtime hours and earns more than $150,000 a year is not ripping the city off," The Capital Times wrote. "He or she is working hard to deliver a necessary service."
Of course, there are many different types of hard-working public employees in the great state of Wisconsin, many of whom accept significant danger in their working lives. I'm not saying they don't deserve to bargain for wages, benefits and working conditions. And the state's fiscal crisis is complicated way beyond my understanding.
I'm just offering some insight into some of the factors behind this brouhaha that has captured the national news.
Top my proletarian pizza pie with sausage, mushroom and a sprinkling of tolerance.
— To reach Tom Ross, call 970-871-4205 or e-mail email@example.com


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Well. Just a week after Mark Nelson wrote about how technological advances and the rise of voice recognition could leave deaf people behind – in his 'Peak Deaf Access' theory, this story appears in the Metro.
Apparently, a portable sign language translator app has been invented, that will allow deaf people "to talk to everyone."
The article says that "sign language can be used in front of a camera built into a laptop, tablet or phone and the app will instantly translate gestures into text on the screen."
("Gestures"? Surely they mean "signs.")
The app will be available in late 2013 and is said to be affordable. The makers claim the app has a customisation tool and can cater for regional variations.
Sounds amazing – I'd love to hear from anyone who has tried this out.
The big question for deaf people will be 'how well will it actually work?'
Bearing in mind the complexity of sign language, taking in facial expressions, hand movements and body language (for starters), plus the difficulty companies have had in the past of creating equivalent systems, this statement from the article: "It will work on all types of phones – no matter how cheap they are, as long as they have a camera" doesn't fill me with confidence.
But I'm ready to be proved wrong.
Update: this BBC news article offers further background on the development of the App
By Charlie Swinbourne, Editor


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Grubb & Ellis report points to positive signs for U.S. logistics real estate market
While the logistics real estate market finished 2010 on a strong note, various factors—such as high oil and gas prices, debt issues in the U.S. and abroad, the earthquake and tsunami in Japan contributed to the very real possibility that the first half of 2011 would not be as fortunate.
in the News
European Logistics Update: The Glass is Half Full Environmental executive order poses questions for supply chain and logistics green efforts Synchronizing the Ocean Supply Chain for Terminals and Carriers Put in Spotlight at Navis World 2017 Partnering for Supply Chain Success with FRAM Group and True Value Top 50 Trucking Companies: Staffing changes in trucking sector More NewsWhile the logistics real estate market finished 2010 on a strong note, various factors—such as high oil and gas prices, debt issues in the U.S. and abroad, the earthquake and tsunami in Japan contributed to the very real possibility that the first half of 2011 would not be as fortunate. Another factor was slow GDP growth, which was 1.28 percent and 0.36 percent, respectively, for the first and second quarters of 2011.
But that possibility was quelled somewhat based on data in a new report from commercial real estate firm Grubb & Ellis, entitled "Logistics Market Trends United States First Half 2011."
According to the report, the U.S. logistics market had 32.7 million square feet absorbed, which Grubb & Ellis pointed out is a level that has not been reached since 2007. Of that 32.7 million square feet, it was more heavily weighted towards the second quarter, which had a quarterly net absorption of 18.1 million square feet.
And of the 28 markets tracked by Grubb & Ellis, 21 had positive demand and ten saw an increase in total vacant square feet. The report noted that the top six U.S. logistics markets—Inland Empire at 11.2 million square feet; Dallas at 4.5 million square feet; Atlanta at 4.0 million square feet; Chicago at 2.6 million square feet, Northern New Jersey at 2.6 million square feet; and Central Pennsylvania at 2.2 million square feet—represent 85 percent to the total net absorption in the market.
"It is key to realize that national market numbers are only an average, whereas individual markets are different and often tell a story that differs from what is happening on a national basis," said Tim Feemster, Grubb & Ellis Sr. Vice President, Director Global Logistics.
The report also explained that new supply for logistics space is still "extremely constrained," with 5.4 million square feet of completions over the first half of the year and 10 logistics buildings completed in during that period.
Another factor behind the low number of completions of that many shippers and logistics services providers are focused on cost-cutting and supply chain reconfigurations, according to Rene Circ, Grubb & Ellis Vice President, National Director of Research, Industrial. And Circ and Feemster both said that as business levels drop, inventory levels tend to rise, which can force shippers to occupy more space.
Looking at Class A logistics space, Circ said it has never seen even one quarter of negative demand during the peak of the Great Recession in 2009, even when every other sector went through negative absorption.
"As supply chains get reconfigured and companies move from one mode to multiple modes sometimes they actually need to add space to make their supply chains more efficient," said Circ.
He said this is especially relevant in areas which rely on containerized import and export activity like the Inland Empire in Southern California, which currently account for about 25 percent of total logistics market demand, due to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
The national vacancy rate, which Grubb & Ellis considers the best measure of the market, declined from 12.8 percent in the second half of 2010 to 11.8 in the first half of 2011. This is down 200 basis points from the peak during the fourth quarter of 2009.
"This rate of decline is very positive," said Circ. "A huge component of it is the lack of speculative new construction and the rate at which that is declining is unprecedented. The vacancy rate is still elevated. The rate for Class A logistics buildings tends not to go below ten percent. There is a propensity to keep adding to the base, as opposed to adding to vacancy, because in good times most buildings being built are speculative and not built to suit. That said it is very hard for logistics spaces to be meaningfully below ten percent…which is usually the rule of thumb in terms of who has pricing power as it varies by market."
According to the report, third-party logistics (3PL) service providers comprised the most active segment of the market over the first half of 2011, with retailers gaining more traction in the section quarter. Class A, Class B, and Class C vacancy rates are at roughly 17.4 percent, 11.7 percent, and 11.1 percent, respectively. 3PL tenants, said Grubb & Ellis, target modern Class A logistics buildings that have the most rapid vacancy rate. And the firm said that large, modern blocks of space are becoming scarce in the U.S., which could lead to increased new deliveries in 2012.
Grubb & Ellis expects new completions to rise during the second half of 2011, explaining that there is currently more than 7 million square feet of logistics space in the U.S. that is currently under construction, coupled with 3.7 million square feet under construction that is expected to be completed in 2012.
About the Author
Jeff Berman, Group News Editor Jeff Berman is Group News Editor for Logistics Management, Modern Materials Handling, and Supply Chain Management Review. Jeff works and lives in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, where he covers all aspects of the supply chain, logistics, freight transportation, and materials handling sectors on a daily basis. Contact Jeff BermanSubscribe to Modern Materials Handling Magazine!
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Jul 17, 2014 at 10:33 am
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Damage estimates from widespread flooding in Minnesota have continued to rise.
Minnesota's deputy director of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, Joe Kelly, says last month's excessive rainfall led to a unique disaster. The entire state was affected by flooding, and communities are in different states of recovery.
Flash floods in southwestern Minnesota washed out roads, bridges and railroad tracks. They also damaged a power plant and a dam.
At least 51 of the state's 87 counties have reported flood damage.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has designated Rock County a primary disaster zone. That's where storms damaged about 100,000 acres of farmland. Under federal regulations, counties bordering the primary disaster zone also qualify, allowing farmers in Murray, Nobles and Pipestone counties to seek federal assistance.
Temp: 40°F (4°C)
Dewpoint: 38
Wind: Calm N
Weather: mist


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Since I was a child I've always liked garage sales.
I can't really explain why, other than I really like a good deal and I'm a bit of a snoop.
Let me explain that last part.
Rummaging through other's peoples garage sale items – those old rollers skates, that cat print sweatshirt, a ThighMaster caked in dust – is a bit like being a detective sifting through evidence. It's a glimpse into the psyche of a person. You can tell a lot about a person by what they sell and how much they sell it for.
Driving around Pacific Junction Friday, watching the sandbaggers and railroad contractors preparing for the predicted flood waters, I was reminded of the eerie feeling I had back in the summer of 1979 while completing some National Guard training at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Miss.
I didn't have a television in my dorm room on the base, probably not even a radio, and certainly not a computer or cell phone. I was two weeks away from completing a hot summer of training and anxious to return home to Nebraska.
President's Day is Monday. We observe this day in February because it happens to be the birth month of George Washington, our first president, and Abraham Lincoln, the man many historians regard as our greatest president ever.
The latest numbers released by the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) only validates something we already knew - Iowans like to volunteer their time and give back to their local communities.
According to the CNCS' Volunteering in America report, Iowans rank No. 2 in the nation when it comes to volunteering their time. Approximately 39 percent of Iowans did something in 2009 to help others.
Approximately 50 people came to the Glenwood Community High School auditorium Thursday night to offer input on the school district's search for a new superintendent.
The forum was moderated by Dr. Thomas Jacobson, a member of the consulting team hired by the district to help in the recruitment of the potential superintendent candidates.
Audience members were asked to share their thoughts and input on three specific questions. I'm paraphrasing here, but the three questions went something like this:
I'm going out on a limb and saying that the Glenwood Community School District's vote for an instructional support levy next Tuesday won't end up in a 434-434 tie like it did last year.
Will the levy get the votes needed for passage this year? Your guess is as good as mine.
The way the 2009 election and post-election unfolded is still one of the most unusual stories I've ever covered. Pass or fail, I expect things to unfold in a more conventional way this time around.
* * *
Just like everyone else in the room, I fully expected Frank Overhue to have a last word or two before formally relinquishing his seat on the Glenwood Board of Education.
Frank didn't disappoint.
Overhue said his good-byes before stepping down during the school board's transitional meeting on Monday, Sept. 14. The 38-minute presentation made for one of the most unorthodox school board meetings you'll ever see. But, then again, it was vintage Frank Overhue.
OK, I know it wasn't supposed to open this way.
I know it's a year behind schedule and I know it's not going to be totally finished until the auditorium gets put together later this year.
One school board candidate told me last week that the high school construction project has become "a joke." I don't dispute his assertion. I've been a part of the coffee shop chatter and have thrown out a sarcastic one-liner or two myself.
One of the most memorable experiences I've had as a journalist was the Honor Flight trip I took last September to Washington, D.C., with 100-plus World War II veterans from southwest Iowa.
It was a privilege for me to accompany these special men and women to our nation's capital to get a first-hand look at the memorial that's been erected in their honor.
It's been a a year since a team from the Iowa Department of Economic Development (IDED) came to Glenwood to conduct a Downtown Assessment.
The assessment included interviews with dozens of citizens who were asked to share their likes and dislikes about living in Glenwood. Interviews were conducted with Glenwood-area residents of all ages from all walks of life. At the conclusion of their visit, IDED team members presented their analysis of the interviews and their own outsider thoughts on Glenwood.
At last month's Betterment and Beautification Awards dinner, employees at the Mills County Public Health Office were recognized with the Glenwood Area Chamber of Commerce's award for Outstanding Customer Service. The award is presented annually to the Glenwood-area business or public agency that goes above and beyond when it comes to meeting the needs of its customers.
The recognition is well-deserved.
Let me see a show of hands. How many of you out there can say that you've hosted the vice president of the United States in the living room of your home?
Kelly Johnson and her family will be able to say they did once Joe Biden takes his oath of office as our next vice president on Inauguration Day in January.
Oh poor Steve King.
On a weekend when America was celebrating the historic and inspiring inauguration of its first African-American President, what was the honorable representative from Iowa's Dist. 5 doing?
Sticking his foot in his "provacative" mouth once again and seeking out any media outlet he could to disparage an individual who has achieved the highest office in the land, based not on idealogical or political gamesmanship, but rather, Barack Obama's middle name, Hussein, which King apparently finds offensive.
As I sat in front of the TV late Wednesday night watching the final seconds of 2008 tick away in Times Square, it was very evident that Americans were eager to ring in a new year.
Maybe more so than any other year in a long, long time.
No doubt about it, 2008 was a rough year for many people, for many different reasons, and most people were ready to put the year to rest.
With the new year comes a breath of fresh air and the hope that America and the world will be a better place to live in 2009.


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Comfort & Joy
Table Talk Food Awards Judges Jodi Henriques AND Matthew Hogarth unearth Comfort and Joy
Hidden beside a nail salon through a locked gate next to a hair salon is the obscure and cosy salad bar operated by Joy Henry, who is the chef.
Henry cooks dishes she would want to eat, mainly soups, salads and wraps, but if she's in the mood on the weekends she'll do cooked food, curry goat and chicken with all the trimmings.
The atmosphere inside is very warm, friendly yet familiar, as Henry ensures that all customers feel welcomed.
My sister Traci and I chatted with other diners, and the latest gossip was exchanged as more customers came in for the daily special. At one point I inadvertently called Joy mum as she asked for the millionth time "sure you okay, sweetie?"
The chicken soup was delicious, served however you like it: lots of food, likkle food, thick and tasty. For the main I tried the feta and chicken salad. The portion was large and full of surprises. Feta, different types of greens, and almonds. Yum!
I had to return, this time with fellow judge Matthew Hogarth, who wanted to check it out himself.
We sat at the bar and chatted with Joy as we munched on homemade tamarind balls. Matthew looked around and said, "I feel like
I'm in the sitcom Cheers." A regular walked in and was not amused that Matthew was in her seat; Henry quickly quashed all squabbles by presenting her with lunch, which was ready and waiting.
Matthew and I each ordered a goat soup, chicken wrap and a chicken sandwich and, of course, we both had the bread pudding. Everything was tasty, the soup especially, (I'm sure by now you know how I feel about my soup). The wrap was warm, crispy with great flavours inside.
The sandwich was fat, filled with everything save the kitchen sink! Joy uses a great pepper jelly called Digo's, made by her friend, which she also sells.
Comfort & Joy has been opened two years now and both Matthew and I are glad that Henry decided to close down her antique store and open a café.
Total bill, which included two soups, chicken wrap, chicken sandwich, two slices of bread pudding, tamarind balls and a Snapple, all for — $2,000.
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If you were searching to see if Caspian is coming to Newport, then you're in luck! For their latest tour, Caspian will indeed hold a concert in Newport. Have an awesome concert experience when you go to see Caspian in Newport. Get your Caspian tickets Newport and join fellow fans for a concert to remember!