X-Men Origins: Wolverine

This is a prequel to the X-Men saga which started some years and ended with the "Last Stand", the third part of the series, which I consider one of my most favorite movies - the only setback to it was the total time of the movie that would fit into two 45 minutes episode.

On this movie, Hugh Jackman appears again as the mighty mutant Logan, or known as Wolverine, and as with classic Marvel stories, there will be other mutant and super power characters on it.

The media coverage of this movie is execulsive, posters on almost every bus/tram station here in Amsterdam, different websites (even these nothing to do with Sci-Fi) are putting adverts of the movie.

The trick if this movie would stand up against the much anticipated next franchise of Star Trek.

Below is the trailer of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which starts like the intro of Queensryche's 1989 album, Operation Mindcrime, with "I remember now...."

Evening Glow

Image by loish

Response To Joe Lynn Turner

Joe Lynn Turner, known for being the main singer of Rainbow and one year singer of Deep Purple (I call him Ritchie Blackmore's baby boy), said during an interview that Coverdale is Miming in concert. Below is the response of Coverdale:

Response To Joe Lynn Turner’s Interview Remarks About My Supposed ‘Miming In Concert’ ************* I am shocked, very disappointed & surprised by Mr Turners misleading & completely untrue observations he felt it necessary to discuss in a recent interview. Whatever his motives, they are disturbing, to say the least. I do not ‘mime’ in concert. I never have & I never will. I am David Coverdale.

My career spans almost 40 successful years & I have worked with some of the finest musicians in contemporary music & in all that time I have never ‘pretended’ to sing to tapes when I am performing in front of a paying crowd. I have no idea how anyone who has seen me working live in concert, or is remotely connected to the music business can even suggest such an odious thing.

I have seen the purported video of me supposedly ‘miming’ & all I can say is he & anyone else who believes this nonsense should look more closely. It is obvious that I am holding the microphone out to the crowd & inviting the audience to participate, as I do during every show, & have done since the beginning of Whitesnake while my background singers keep the songs vocal momentum. It is hugely important to me that the audience feel completely part of the Whitesnake show & participate with me from the beginning to the end. They are called the ‘Whitesnake Choir’ for that reason. Please know, as most sensible people do, that I am especially blessed in this band with two very powerful singers in guitarist Reb Beach & keyboardist, Timothy Drury & also two very capable background singers in bassist Uriah Duffy & guitarist Doug Aldrich, & when I am working the crowd, these guys hold the songs for me exceptionally well, as most sensible people can see & hear.

There are no vocal backing tapes...Everything you see & hear is being performed live by the musicians & vocalists on stage.

I have no idea why Mr Turner has launched this foolishness, but, I ask that it stop now. It has no merit, serves no purpose & is a total waste of precious time. No apology is necessary as I have no desire in any way, shape or form to have any communication with him.

He should know better. Next he’ll be accusing me of wearing a wig on stage.

******* David Coverdale

Lake Tahoe April 2009

Source: Whitesnake.com


The last thing I would expect is to have David Coverdale accused of miming during live performance.

I have seen David Coverdale with Whitesnake on stage last year. I had my remarks on his singing from their last album only, but I am positive 100% when I say that "he still able to crack the floor of the stage beneath his band members with his voice." This is fact, shared with everyone around me, except for those I talked about earlier who didn't have any taste in any of the bands played during that festival.

But that's another story.

Joe Lynn Turner did well, and loved his work with Blackmore on Rainbow, and his work with the great Glenn Hughes, but bashing other legendary musicians like that is nonsense.

It reminds me of an old friend of mine back in 1995 when Ozzy Osbourne's album Ozzmoses came out, he told me the same and that Ozzy has someone behind stage singing while the main singer was just miming!

Joe Lynn Turner should focus on making good music, he is known and admired by many, so the crap by bashing others won't bring fame, as some singers nowadays seek fame in doing so.

Someone miming on stage won't be able to do that... check the video below

The Devil of Heaven and Hell

The waiting is over, two days in a row listening to this album. I already pre-ordered my copy of this album (release 28 April), but I managed to get a copy of it.

I heard the new single "Black Bible" a couple of weeks ago, however since I put the CD in my car the decision to ignore any other music genre was taken.

Anyone want to learn how to make the best heavy metal music, he or she should listen to this album. Anyone want to know how a really heavy metal album sounds like, this album is a living proof, by no other than the masters of the genre. I am not talking about speed or technique, I am not talking about extremely heavy riffs backed up by heavy bass guitar and powerful drumming.


"The Devil You Know" is no disappointment to fans of Iommi, Dio or even Black Sabbath, and for sure it will top my list of one of the best (if not the best) heavy metal album for 2009.

I thought I have mentioned that "the man who would not die" by Blaze Bayley was my favorite heavy metal album of 2008

I would love to hear "Fear", "Double the Pain" and "Breaking into Heaven" live. Other songs do match to the previous, songs like the opener "Atom & Evil" or "The Turn Of The Screw" are also great songs from this album, they are just stunningly powerful that I love to listen to.

Tony Iommi is my all time favorite guitarist, but with this album he proved again that the title "the master of riffs" won't be hand over to another guitarist ever.


"The Devil You Know" Track Listing
============================
01. Atom And Evil (5:15)
02. Fear (4:48)
03. Bible Black (6:29)
04. Double The Pain (5:25)
05. Rock And Roll Angel (6:25)
06. The Turn Of The Screw (5:02)
07. Eating The Cannibals (3:37)
08. Follow The Tears (6:12)
09. Neverwhere (4:35)
10. Breaking Into Heaven (7:03)

Below is a video of the band talking about the making of this album

24 TV

One of the best websites I have been browsing is 24 TV.

The Variety is from fun to politics, artistic pictures, weird stuff, you name it

The website is flash orientated, which interact on some of the pages with the mouse move.

Enjoy

Another Shoe Throwing Incident

This time in India... A bit softer than that of Muntadhar's...



According to Nauman ka Pakistan Palaniappan Chidambaram, Indian Interior minister was speaking in Delhi about 1984 riots in which hundreds of Sikhs were killed.

The minister leaned back to avoid the hurled shoe which narrowly missed him.

The reporter was identified by local television channels as Jarnail Singh (not the leader of the famous Sikh religious group), a veteran correspondent with one of India's largest newspapers, the Hindi daily Dainik Jagran.

He was taken away by plainclothes police who tried to stop him from speaking to other journalists. It is not clear whether he has been formally arrested.

Soon afterwards, Mr Singh told TV news reporters that he regretted throwing the shoe but he felt that Mr Chidambaram was dodging the question.

"I just wanted to ask him how justice will be done, but he was not interested in answering the questions," he told CNN-IBN during a telephone interview from police custody.

"I don't think it was the right way, what I have done, but the issue is right."

Arabian / Persian Gulf

I didn’t pay attention until last month when I found out about a group on Facebook that support Google’s Earth decision to put Arabian Gulf instead of Persian Gulf on the water bed separating Iran and Gulf states.

The name has always been contentious between the Arabs and Iranians – this is matter of strengthening identity upon land and sea – more to that, it is about pride and nationalism through history.

Yet, such a dispute on naming was of no importance to the west (or any where else in the world): for centuries, western civilization has its reference to this issue based on their ancient philosopher’s writings, where historic documents, maps (even treaties) used Persian Gulf as the official name. In addition, many important Muslim geographers in early Islam used in their documents two terms: Bahr Faris (Arabic for Persian Sea) or Khalij Faris (Persian Gulf). This has been referred to by many of history and geography books, which indicated that the name in fact came from Arabic/Muslim books. One main reason was that ancient written sources used that name due to the importance and the power that the Persian Empire on many lands used to have on each side of the Gulf, including Iraq and some of what now consists of the Gulf states. With the decline of power of that mighty empire and then its fall to the hands of the Muslim army, there were some focus on the name and by many historians who saw the need to change the name of the gulf to carry instead the name of that of the victorious party i.e. The Arabs.

I won’t go into details about attempts by many powers and countries to change the name to other than the two disputed ones, but I give examples of such attemptes: “Britain Sea” when British forces attempted to take control of the region in late 18 century; the attempt of Iran itself to change the name to “Islamic Gulf” after Khomeini's Islamic revolution – some sort of divertion to the common knowledge, and that a new power is born on the remains of ancient Persia; and there are who simply called it “the Gulf”, as heard by people on street, without attaching it to certain nationality or language or an ethnic group.

Time has went by, the rise of Arab nationalism in mid 1960’s calls by Arab countries to change the name to Arabian Gulf, or Arab Gulf, became louder than ever. With the oil booming in the region and businesses became the core engine behind interests from east and west - that gave some countries to feel the power and control of the region with such economic weapon, the dispute over the name reached a higher level, each side write the desired name in their dealings with other countries.

That did not force the non-Arabic speaking countries or written books to change the name.

The dramatic change in modern history Iran, and since the 1979 Khomeini revolution, the country was considered the ultimate enemy of the western civilization

Forget about Bush’s axis of evil, we know the story and what was planned

Iran became the biggest threat to the interests of the west in the region, especially the Unites States (because Germany and France, for example, did good business after the change of the regime in Iran).

To some extent, Iran’s influence diminished – or was only propaganda? This was achieved when a mad man called Saddam Hussain launched a bloody and very costly war that lasted for 8 long years. The west was backing Saddam with everything, militarily and propaganda wise.

Yet, the name of that bed of water did not change on the maps and books of history in Europe and else where.

Back to Facebook group: One of the members on that group neglected what is written in most of modern history books all around the world, and said "who cares what history books else where would say. Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine, this is a known fact, however, this has never been mentioned or written in history books published else where!"

Valid argument, isn't it?

Many agree that the decision by Google Earth by putting "Arabian Gulf" instead of "Persian Gulf" is politically motivated i.e. something to do with the ongoing tension between the United States and Iran - one way of “punishing” Iran.

I, for one, used to hear the word “Persian Gulf” in ALL movies I have seen in my life. The first time I heard the word "Arabian Gulf" in a Hollywood movie was in “Transformers” (2007), when a military official disclosed information about an attack (by un-identified object) on “military base in Qatar” located on “the Arabian Gulf”.

Short Insight On Tehran

Maartje Nevejan from Couscous Global came back from Tehran with great footage from a country that many westerners perceive the people there not living or experiencing as the rest of the people on this planet - thanks to the media for that.

The footage they made is an eye opening to many things that usual media circutes do not show




There is more on Couscous Global website on the same topic, Iran, including a number of interviews with Iranians from different aspects of life.

Another insight on Tehran is illustrated by an artist named Arash Manouchehri, who published a number of photos of Tehran on the "I love Tehran" facebook group... Stunning!

Below is an example of such pictures

Ramadan Mabrouk Abu El Alamain Hamouda

I was there, in spite of sickness last week, I couldn't let such an opportunity let go.



This is the first time in the history of this country that an Egyptian movie on premier - not part of a festival like the annual one taking place every year or every two years where different countries participate.

One thing to note that Turkish (I think Indian movies too) have precedence regarding such a move in the Netherlands

The movie is one of Mohamed Heneidy's best movies. It tells the story of a very strict Arabic literature teacher living among careless, hip-hop, pop-style orientated secondary school students.

Anyone would like to enjoy a semi cartoonish characters, which is a typical Heneidy style (check "the great beans of China") type of movie, I recommend it.

At the moment the movies is playing on 4 halls at the pathe Arena and Pathe de Kuip, both in Amsterdam.

Below are the official posters of the movie.

White lightning

This is the longest song by Def Leppard, I think - more than 7 minutes, and it is one of the darkest songs ever written in rock music.

To me, White Lightening is the best song ever written by this great band. The song is from their debut 1992 album "Adrenalize".

This song has special meaning to me. First time I listened to it when the album came out in 1992. It was a dark period for me too, so it matched my mood then. I won't forget that moment, I was in my beautiful room, sitting on my bed, a white cassette in my hand written on it Def Leppard. I put it on and there it is... it was the first song. I won't forget the feeling I got when listening to the eerie guitar on the intro of the song... then the riffing by the great Phil Collen (who did all the guitar parts during the recordings of the album "Adrenalize"), the changing melodies, the main and backing vocals (the lyrics), and the solo...... wow.... what a solo!! all haunted me since... until now.

Knowing that the song was originally written as a tribute to late guitarist Steve Clark, who died during the recording sessions of the album which that song came from, knowing that, while listening to the song, it just give me the shiver

I saw Def Leppard last year and I wished they played that song, I was disappointed because they didn't do that.

No promises, no guarantees
When you come down here
Youre already on your knees
You wanna ride white lightnin
Then sign your name
If you wanna dance with the devil
You gotta play his way, play the game

You gotta taste that sweetness
Cause you cant say no
But are you ready for the nightmare
When you cant let go
Like a soldier of fortune
When the money runs dry
You got rivers of bitter tears in your eyes

You wanna leave but you cant let go
You wanna stop but you cant say no
Youll never laugh about it
You just cant live without it
You had enough but you just want more
You never get what youre lookin for
Youll never laugh about it, never

You got both ends burning
Youre like a moth to a flame
Youre going off the rails
Like a runaway train
Its a no win situation
And theres no way out
And no one will ever hear you scream and shout

You wanna leave but you cant let go
You wanna stop but you cant say no
Youll never laugh about it
You just cant live without it
You had enough but you just want more
You never get what youre lookin for
Youll never laugh about it, never

Run - hes coming to claim you
Run - nowhere to hide away
Run - you dance with danger
Run - oh, you gotta ride the...

White lightnin - on a dead end street
White lightnin - where the deadbeats meet
White lightnin - its a one-way ride
White lightnin - oh, theres nowhere to hide

Such a lonely road you ride
Its not easy when you dont know why
Such a heavy load you hide
You never leave no matter how you try

Run - hes coming to claim you
Run - nowhere to hide away
Run - oh, you dance with danger
Run - oh, you gotta ride the...

White lightnin - on a dead end street
White lightnin - where the deadbeats meet
White lightnin - its a one-way ride
White lightnin - oh, theres nowhere to hide

White lightning - can you feel it, can you feel it?
White lightning - its so dangerous
White lightning - no promises, no guarantees
White lightning - cause when you come down here, boy
Youre already on your knees
White lightnin - both ends burnin, like a moth to a flame

I didn't find any video of that song. I found a live footage from the band performance in Sweden, 1992 tour. I also found on youtube a video of how the solo of "white lightening" is played... one of the best solos ever, applause for defleputube for his stunning work