Antonino D'Ambrosio's documentary Let Fury Have the Hour opens at the Balboa Theatre (3630 Balboa St., San Francisco) on January 18th, 2013. It's a one-week-only exclusive engagement, so you won't want to miss it! Plus, opening night features a live performance by Sean Hayes and a Q&A with Hayes and director Antonino D'Ambrosio after the 7:15pm show. The following night's screening (Saturday, Jan 19th) features a Q&A with director Antonino D'Ambrosio and Boots Riley after the 7:15pm show.

Featuring interviews with Shepard Fairey, Chuck D, John Sayles, Lewis Black, Eve Ensler, Tom Morello, Ian MacKaye, Billy Bragg, Edwidge Danticat, and Suheir Hamma, Let Fury Have the Hour is a charged journey into the heart of the creative counter-culture in 2012. In a time of global challenges, big questions and by-the-numbers politics, this upbeat, outspoken film tracks the story of the artists, writers, thinkers, and musicians who have gone underground to re-imagine the world.

Writer/director Antonino D'Ambrosio unites 50 powerful, of-the-moment voices who share personal and powerful tales of how they transformed anger and angst into provocative art and ideas. Mix-mastered with historical footage, animation, and performances, D’Ambrosio presents a visceral portrait of a generation looking to re-jigger a system that has failed to address the most pressing problems of our times . . . or human potential.

In advance of tomorrow's lecture at Cogswell College by Daniel Nazer on copyright law and Fair Use, the organizers at the Bay Area college pose this copyright law scenario:  "Could you put a real person--say Bill Gates--in a computer game? How about a comic book? In both cases, it would be risky to do so without permission from Gates. But what if you transformed Bill Gates into a half man/half worm creature? Strangely, you could probably do that without paying Gates a penny. This doesn't make much sense. Why should transforming Bill Gates into a worm creature make the difference? This weird rule is the result of a test from copyright law--transformation--colonizing other areas of the law."

Titled "Transformation, Copyright, and the Right of Publicity in the Digital Age" the lecture promises to address issues surrounding the all important topic of fair use in this digital age where so information is freely passed around by so many. According to Dr. Alexander Sigman (Adjunct Professor of Digital Audio Technology and Digital Entrepreneurship), who is event organizer & instructor of the course associated with the lecture series. at Cogswell , "In copyright law, something is more likely to be fair use if it somehow "transforms" the original work. Similarly, in right of publicity cases, courts are increasingly looking to whether the depiction of a celebrity is somehow "transformative."" Sigman says that in his lecture Nazer will argue that this transformation test is applied in a way that threatens free speech in the digital age.

POP/ROX (Noise Pop + Roxie Theater) present a screening of the rockumentary N.A.S.A.:The Spirit of Apollo at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco on November 16th at 7:30pm and again at 9:30pm.

The filmmakers and the band will be there in person for a post-show party DJ-ed by N.A.S.A.!!! 

A look behind the making of N.A.S.A.’s globetrotting debut album, The Spirit of Apollo, featuring a truly staggering array of talent: David Byrne, Karen O, Tom Waits, Kool Keith, Nick Zinner, Lykke Li, M.I.A., Kanye West, George Clinton, Chuck D, Seu Jorge, and the RZA. The movie features design and animation collaborations by Syd Garon, Shepard Fairey, Splunny, Sage Vaughn, Marcel Dzama, The Date Farmers, Logan, Didiu Rio Branco, Three Legged Legs and Lorenzo Fonda.

In this entry of the Los Angeles neighborhood blog, we will cover Elysian Valley. To vote for a neighborhood, go here. To vote for a Los Angeles County community go here. To vote for Orange County communities, go here.

 
Pendersleigh & Sons' Official Maps of the Mideast Side and Elysian Valley

Elysian Valley is a small working class neighborhood in LA's Mideast Side, bordered by Fletcher to the north, the 5 freeway to the west and south, and the LA river to the east and south. It's surrounded by Elysian Park, Silver Lake, and Elysian Heights and, across the river, Atwater Village, Glassell Park and Cypress Park.

127 Bands, 5 Stages, 3 Days and 1 Mean Sunburn.

"Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival - April 17-19th, 2009 or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Find 30 Reasons To Love a Weekend in the Desert."

- By Scott Butterworth

Artists 26-30: No Age, TRAV$DJ-AM, Throbbing Gristle, Mastodon and Shepard Fairey

Ladies and gentleman, we are on the eve of my favorite weekend of the year, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. If the past twenty five days of my Coachella blog and the following video hasn't convinced you to go to Coachella...then I'm not sure what will. But I hope you've at least found something you liked along the way. If you haven't read the last 25 band features, then you've got some homework to do, but for the last five band profiles of this 30 Coachella Bands in 30 Days blog, I'm going to throwback to an old college tradition...the "cram session." So grab a Redbull...and let's do this!


Artist #26 -  No Age:

No Age, another band from the Sup Pop mafia, the Seattle label that's throwing its weight (and talent) around this year's Coachella festival, is one my most anticipated performances of the weekend. Their debut album Nouns was, without a doubt, in my top three albums of 2008. No Age is a lo-fi fuzz/art rock duo, with one member on guitar, one on drums. But don't expect the White Stripes...They sound more like Sonic Youth. If you want to be able to say to the kids, "...I was there when (insert legendary band and time/place) happened....", buy this album now and go see them play live...anywhere!