The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Apple
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Obama
blowing a sax and leading a charge by Hank Paulson, Lloyd Blankfein and Ben Bernanke to make you pay for their fuck up.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be brought to you by iTunes and will not star Scarlett Johansson and Jessica Biel or SpongeBob or SquarePants .
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.

There will be no pictures of you and Rodney King
Being beaten to a pulp on the highway,
or trying to buy shit you don’t need to impress people you don’t like with money you don’t have.
Fox News will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no pictures of pigs pepper spraying Wall Street Occupyers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of pigs pepper spraying Wall Street Occupyers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of innocent citizens being
run out of Guantanamo Bay on a rail with a brand new process.
There will be no slow motion or still life of Naomi Klein reading from ‘The Shock Doctrine’ in Zuccotti Park.

True Blood, Breaking Bad, and Dexter will no longer be so damned relevant, and
women will not care if Ross finally gets down with
Rachel on Friends because the 99 percent
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no highlights on the eleven o’clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
and Carla Bruni blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Elton John,
Tom York, nor sung by Lady Gaga, Rhianna, Britney Spears, Amy Winehouse, or U fucking 2.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be right back after a message
about Iraqi democracy, Afghan women, or Russian elections.
You will not have to worry about a nuclear power plant in your
backyard, a run on your bank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Pepsi.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver’s seat.

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.

U is nog steeds verontwaardigd over het interview van Roger Vangheluwe, meer zelfs dan over de feiten die hij heeft gepleegd. Maar ontdoopt, nee, dat nog niet, nee. Volgende week moet de kleinsten zijn Plechtige Communie doen. En ‘t is te hopen dat de dochter voor de Kerk trouwt, want wat zou de familie anders wel moeten denken. Uiteraard heeft uw geloof niks met het instituut Kerk te maken, u heeft een ‘eigen interpretatie’. Maar laten we voor de parade toch nog maar efkes meelopen. En trouwens, den pastoor op de parochie is nen toffe pee, veel beter dan die vorigen die na een paar jaar zijn kap over de haag smeet om met zijn vriendin te gaan samen wonen.

Kernenergie, bwah, nee, da moeten ze niet direct afschaffen. Want zo’n aardbeving als in Japan, nee, die komt er hier toch niet. ‘t Is al een paar weken nie meer op ‘t nieuws, dus zo erg zal’t nie zijn. En trouwens, het splitsen van atoomkernen is bij lange niet zo gevaarlijk als het splitsen van kieskringen. Niet dat u ervan wakker ligt dat de vorige (en de volgende) verkiezingen ongrondwettelijk zijn. U zou liever in uw nest blijven liggen op zondag, ‘t zijn toch allemaal dezelfde. Behalve De Wever, das nen toffen, hij is zo grappig op televisie. Maar hij kan het niet, hé. Neen, dan liever Leterme, die bewijst tenminste al die tijd al dat hij het WEL kan. Want het land draait nog altijd, hé, meneer. Van die crisis hebt u nog nie veel gevoeld. Er is altijd werk voor diegene die willen werken.

U is wel voor hernieuwbare energie, maar wil liefst geen windmolens in uw achtertuin. Nee, die laatste bouwaanvraag van Ecopower, die is u toch even gaan aanklagen bij de Bestendige Deputatie van uw provincie. U vindt trouwens dat de provincies moeten worden afgeschaft, maar dat ze even wachten tot u slaagt waar Don Quichote uiteindelijk faalde. En uw buurman die zonnepanelen heeft, dat is pas een klootzak. Daardoor moet u 72 euro meer betalen voor uw groene-stroom-abonnement bij Electrabel, dat terwijl uw dertiende maand in jaren niet is geindexeerd.

‘t Is trouwens erg hé, die olieramp in de Golf van Mexico. Maar ondertussen kost het toch al vlotjes 50 euro om uw Golf te vullen aan den Texaco. De schuld van de Groene – met of zonder uitroepteken – , ze zouden willen dat we alles met onze velo doen, meneer. En de prijzen van het vliegtuig gaan ze ook opslaan, ge zult wel zien: straks is’t gedaan om voor 100 euro over en weer naar Urgada te vliegen. Ambetant trouwens, die revoluties daar. En volgens de CM zijn we ook niet verzekerd in Tunesië. In ons hotel is er nochtans weinig te zien van die revolutie.

‘t Is trouwens een goeie zaak dat ze daar nu democratie zullen hebben. Anders komen die allemaal naar hier en dan nog liever ne windmolen dan een moskee in mijn achtertuin. Trouwens, ze komen alleen maar ons werk afpakken. Al is het wel jammer van Kadhafi, dat was toch een beetje een icoon. Zoals Tatcher of Michael Jackson in de jaren tachtig. Wie had trouwens kunnen voorzien dat hij zo een gek was? Vorig jaar stond hij nog met Sarkozy op de foto en leek het ne heel aimabele mens (Kadhafi, niet Sarkozy). En hebben we gelachen toen hij een paar jaar geleden de VN-veiligheidsraad op zijn kop zette. Ne sloeber, die Kadhafi, een olijkaard! Gelukkig stuurt De Crem toch een aantal van onze soldaten, lopende zaken of niet. Ah ja, ze mogen toch iets doen onze boefers, é.

En bonussen voor uw bankier: een levende schande! Zoveel miljoenen, maar op een spaarrekeningske geven ze met moeite een percent. Dat hebt u toch eens goed gezegd aan uw private banker. Nu, u bent nog steeds klant bij Dexia/KBC/Fortis, want dat waren uw ouders ook. En ‘t is trouwens Natacha aan ‘t loket, een tof madamke, en een vriendelijke, dus ‘t zal wel goed zijn wat ze u verkoopt. En Dexia is trouwens sponsor van Club Brugge.

En België moet blijven bestaan. Zeker weten. Dat het ons wat geld kost, is minder belangrijk. Maar Albert heeft toch al veel gedaan voor het land. Zonder hem zouden de regeringsonderhandelingen nie vooruit gaan. Maar Laurent, die moeten we zijn dotatie afpakken. Schande om naar Congo te gaan en met Libiërs te onderhandelen. Al stonden er wel schone foto’s van zijn Claire in TV Story.

Let’s face it: u zit liever als een baron met uw obese derrière in uw IKEA-driezit, dan dat u echt de straat opgaat om van uw oren te maken. En als u dat dan doet, dan is het om frieten te eten of wereldrecords te vieren. Want er mag toch al eens gelachen worden. ‘t is dat of de ogen uit onze kop janken. En laat nu mijne kop gerust: der is koers op TV.

The Opiates by Anywhen was first released in 2001. It started as a band effort, but during the recording process, the band fell apart. Thomas Feiner finished it, giving it the richly produced sound that we will try and sell to you in the minutes to come. Strangely, the album wasn’t picked up by the public. Until one David Sylvian lay his hands on it and re-released the album on his Samadhisound label.

The album opens with a comforting canapé of strings, dragging you into what is an absolute gem of a love song: The Siren Songs. What if love is the greatest damn liar of all, would you trust me with your life?

This is classical pop. This is a love song, so dark, so sad, so intoxicating, so bewildering, so enwrapping, so disarming. This is Scott Walker, this is David Sylvian who grew some hair on his balls. I want to drown in her precious arms, I want to listen to the siren songs.

The whole album is drenched in classical orchestration, although this ship is just the vehicle for the absolute star: Feiners voice. Be it the haunting crooning on Dinah and the beautiful blue – originaly released in a far more rockier version on Anywhens sophomore album, or the gentle pleading on Scars and glasses, where the orchestra takes five and yields the spotlight to piano and guitar.

Postcard is Portishead as Portishead should sound, the pizzicato crepuscule only hunted away by the woodwinds halfway the song. All this tripedy hopedy clinky clanky magic opens up to a choir and a distorted guitar battling it out with a muted trumpet and the Warsaw Radio Symphony Orchestra at full strenght. The winding paths of this musical Oz will blow the wind right out of your lungs and I must confess it’s been a while since I’ve been left so bemused by a song. Just a postcard from ground level and below.

Next up Yonderhead slows things right down and hypnotizes you with an intro carpeted with piano, strings and woodwinds. Until Feiner deep baritone breaks the enchantment. Pick me up, animate me. Hook me up, and ignite me.

Mesmerene is a jumpy, nervy demonic incantation, vaguely reminiscent of Crime and the city solutions The Adversary. If I could do more than hold you, If I could do more than watch your tears. I wish we could name this place: ‘Oblivion’ and then be on our way.

Toy starts of with another neo-classical intro, with hobo and clarinet taking the spotlight, while For Now, a Feiner solo effort included on this re-issue, is a piano lament on par with Jacques Brels ‘Voir un ami pleurer’. The album closes with All that numbs you, a quintessential Feiner flagship, hovering above the common ground where Scott Walker, Nick Cave, classical music and jazz meet. I cannot praise this album enough. Get it!

If you think this might be a bit too highbrow for you, go back to your www.waynerooneyisagod.aargh or your www.pamelaandersonhasthenicesttitsever.cum. If you think the lyrics on this one might be a bit too pessimistic for you, get up, walk to your window and look outside. Anymore questions? Didn’t think so.

The voice behind Get well soon is Konstantin Gropper. His timbre has been compared to that of Tom Yorke. I couldn’t tell you, because every time Tom Yorkes voice echoes through the confines of my apartment, it’s being overpowered by the rolling thunder of my barfing. Gropper first caught our attention with his cover of Born Slippy. Konstantin didn’t put as much effort into his songtitles this time as he did on his previous album. What to think of the brilliant(ly named) Witches! Witches! Rest Now In The Fire, a song that would have sounded perfect on Hooverphonic’s Jacky Cane (you remember, those times long gone when we used to care what Alex Callier had come up with).

This second installment does continue in the same feel though. Seneca’s silence starts of with marimbas, before a Teutonian hord of Walkyres casts out the mariachi band. I’ll bring the poison, will you bring the knife? Very Sufjan Stevens if you ask me.

And then there’s A voice in the Louvre. An orchestral production that makes you wish Rufus Wainwright would brokebackmountain this German, so he can finally deliver that magnum opus we’ve all been yearning for. Not the happiest of tunes, lamenting: Deep in the swarm, hold on, mother, to these shaky hands. In open water, save me, father, from the rising flood. But what about that sweeping chorus, urged forward by a battalion of violins, marching to the sound of the Glöckenspiel, culminating in a grand outro you wished would never end. If only I wasn’t so afraid.

Werner Herzog gets shot is the strange tale of German film producer Werner Herzog… getting shot. Aureate! starts of with a harpsichord, before being interrupted by break beats, leading the way for the orchestra to take over. Angry young man delivers all it promises, before the album finishes of with We are the Roman Empire, an eulogy for so-called western civilisation. Top ten of the year? Elementary, my dear Watson.

Don’t flatter yourself, girl. It’s not you. It’s this tooth filling, a piece of a molar the size of Larsen B that’s broken off, leaving the nerve as exposed as a virgin on her wedding night.

If Scott Walker is the voice of God, then David Sylvian must surely be that of the Son and the Holy Ghost. Ever since Japan, the angelic murmurs of Sylvian have been able to sooth us after a day of mayhem. Secrets of the Beehive and Dead bees on a cake were just two of the very bright pearls Sylvian cast into a pitch dark sea of pop music. Unfortunately, David thought less was more and his two last efforts were a bit too minimal to our taste.

Sleepwalkers is a compilation of rare collaborations spanning the last decade. A sort of best of with a twist. The title track springs into life with some noisy distortion, until Sylvian comes down from the heavens to preach to us: “Wake up from your cultural slumber, you fucking sleepwalkers.” A slow incantation that nestles itselfs in the back of your mind. Money for all starts in a trip hoppy kind of way, like Portishead on a summer holiday, until it evolves into a gospely singsong. Some of the tracks on this album were written with former Japan drummer Steve Jansen. Ballad of a deadman sees Policewoman Joan Wasser join their ranks, to make a country-folk ballad that slowly rides into the sunset.

Never shy of an experiment, Sylvian lends his voice to a bit of spoken-word next, before we bump into an old acquaintance: Ryuichi Sakamoto, World Citizen par exellence. Five lines, a sort of contorted piece of chamber music, brings us to another Nine Horses song The day the earth stole heaven. I’m optimistically inclined, Given time she’ll change her mind…

Playground Martyrs is a little musical fingerling with Steve Jansen, swimming up a gentle river of piano and strings, before reaching eastern shores again with Exit/delete. This gentle guitar ballad on lost love, is a collaboration with multi instrumentalist Takagi Masakatsu.

Pure Genius, teams Sylvian up with Chris Vrenna, former Nine Inch Nail producer. Dark and eerie, a shining anachronism amidst soft treading jazzy efforts like Wonderful World, that is shattered to pieces by the brittle voice of Stina Nordenstam.

Transit is a return to the minimalism of Sylvians latest albums, thanks to Austrian button tweaker Fennesz. Next up The world is everything, a piece of chamber music like Playground Martyrs sets the stage for Thermal, the spoken word piece for Arve Henriksens Cartography. Sugarfuel is an itchy, nervous, luscious, drum and bass driven ballad that leads us to the Trauma of goodbye, that last one a throbbing of gentle, yet discomforting noises, leaving you startled and vulnerable after a journey through the many faced garden of Sylvians world.

Unsurprisingly, some of the usual suspects made the cut. David Sylvian, an all time favorite, with his latest effort, Sleepwalkers was the first one to join me. Sleepwalkers offers a panoply of collaborations and hides little gems like the gospely Ballad of a deadman, featuring Joan as a Police Woman and former Japan partner in crime Steve Jansen or Wonderful World, that’s been haunted by Stina Nordenstam. An early live album by Tom Waits came a close second. And when Loudon Wainwright III and Joe Henry team up, do I really stand a chance? To warm things up a bit, I finally bought Jamie Lidells Compass. And I will never ever walk away from a Neil Hannon who’s going cheap in the sales, especially since the Emerald Isle is in such dire straits.

The weather outside pointing my compass firmly North, some new shores were to be beached upon. So new to my audio cabinet: German Get well soon, who made the perfect winter version of my drunken adolescence soundtrack Born Slippy. Since the music man was all out of Wendys, I got me two Lisas. Lisa Germano and her Magic Neighbor and Lisa Gerrard, of former Dead can Dance-fame, teaming up with Patrick Cassidy for Salem’s Lot soundtrack, Immortal Memory. And to round things of a bit of jazz. Nik Bärtsch’s Ronin must be one of the most inspiring jazz bands around since the untimely death of Esbjörn Svensson. It might not last ’till spring, but it might just get me through a few snow packed nights.

First up is Thanksgiving. Probably the most sarcastic holiday ever invented. It’s the day the Americans say thanks to the Indians for welcoming the Pilgrims and sharing their turkey. Not many Indians are known to be very fond of that tradition. Actually, not many Indians are known to be, point final (most turkeys aren’t very fond of Thanksgiving either). It’s like the English would thank the Irish for the invention of potato blight. Or Israel having its national holiday on the birthday of the chemist who came up with Zyklon B.

And of course the big whammy is Christmas, previously known as the Winter Solstice. We’re celebrating the birth of a little Jew in a stable, just outside Bethlehem. He went on to say some pretty amazing shit (my theory is that he got infected with Creutzfeld-Jacob, what with that ox breathing down his neck just after he was born). He was also the first man to prove time travel is actually possible. He traveled to the seventies, contacted the marketeer who did the Beegees’ image building, took him to the Middle Ages and re-branded his whole franchise. And with some success: his book outsold Harry Potter. One of the most important things he said, was: Love thy neighbour as thyself. We must all have pretty low self esteem, judging by the way we treat our neighbours.

And the week after that we celebrate the New Year. Actually, the new year is to be celebrated right about Christmas (solstice remember) and January historically isn’t the start of the new year at all. The Romans started the year with March. January is named after two faced deity Janus (and not Harvey Dent, of Batman fame, as one might think). Most people are indeed very two faced around that time of year, promising to stop drinking, smoking of stuffing themselves and forgetting all about that promise by the end of the month.

In fact the whole holiday season is aimed at you consuming as much as you can, buying the most preposterous presents you can come up with. Not me. This holiday season I will give you my eternal friendship, my undying love, my shoulder to cry on. I might even lend you my ear. Not because I want to get back in touch with the real spirit of Christmas. No, it’s just I’m a stingy bastard.