This is the coolest story we’ve read in a while. From The Guardian:

There’s a hand lying on the blanket on Matt Nagle’s desk and he’s staring at it intently, thinking “Close, close,” as the scientists gathered around him look on. To their delight, the hand twitches and its outstretched fingers close around the open palm, clenching to a fist.
In that moment, Nagle made history. Paralysed from the neck down after a vicious knife attack four years ago, he is the first person to have controlled an artificial limb using a device chronically implanted into his brain.

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Bush puppet, Colin Powell, speaks out 2 years too late.

(AP) – Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said the Bush administration was sometimes “too blustery” in its rhetoric during the buildup to the Iraq war, but he still believed toppling Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do, according to a German magazine interview published Wednesday.
Powell also was quoted by Stern magazine as saying that the ongoing insurgency in Iraq is “much bigger” than anticipated. The magazine published the interview in its German translation and could not immediately offer the English version.
“I suppose we sometimes were too loud, too direct, maybe too blustery,” Powell was quoted as saying. “That must have had the Europeans shuddering quite a few times.”

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From Rolling Stone:

Rick Rubin is hoping to do for Neil Diamond what he did for Johnny Cash. The producer — who revived the Man in Black’s career in the Nineties with the Grammy-winning American Recordings series — has revealed to Rolling Stone that he is producing Diamond’s next album, the follow-up to 2001′s Three Chord Opera.
The record will mark a slight change in direction for Diamond, moving away from his recent, lavishly arranged crooner material to his stripped-down singer-songwriter style of the late Sixties. “This is more of a songwriter’s album than a singer’s album,” says Rubin

From Pitchfork:

What’s it been, like five weeks since we reported that creepily-pale blues exploders Jack and Meg White had just begun recording duties for their fifth studio album? Well, you can reset your egg timer, as according to an email from the band’s label, V2 Records, the latest LP from the White Stripes has been given a release date of June 14.
The album, which was produced by singer/guitarist/thespian Jack White, doesn’t seem to have an album title or tracklist yet, but their PR company notes that unlike the Stripes’ previous release, 2003′s Elephant, no guest artists appear on the disc. And considering Jack’s recent crossover success with Loretta Lynn’s Van Lear Rose, you know our good friend Kenny Rogers is somewhere sulking in his chicken bucket right now.

Terri Schiavo’s father, Robert Schindler
From NY Times:
The parents of Terri Schiavo have authorized a conservative direct-mailing firm to sell a list of their financial supporters, making it likely that thousands of strangers moved by her plight will receive a steady stream of solicitations from anti-abortion and conservative groups.
“These compassionate pro-lifers donated toward Bob Schindler’s legal battle to keep Terri’s estranged husband from removing the feeding tube from Terri,” says a description of the list on the Web site of the firm, Response Unlimited, which is asking $150 a month for 6,000 names and $500 a month for 4,000 e-mail addresses of people who responded last month to an e-mail plea from Ms. Schiavo’s father. “These individuals are passionate about the way they value human life, adamantly oppose euthanasia and are pro-life in every sense of the word!”
Privacy experts said the sale of the list was legal and even predictable, if ghoulish.
“I think it’s amusing,” said Robert Gellman, a privacy and information policy consultant. “I think it’s absolutely classic America. Everything is for sale in America, every type of personal information.”

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Sincerely
Peek-A-Boo Records
Review by Monte Holman

Remember that party you went to in east Austin during SXSW that didn’t really get started until two a.m.? The one at that decrepit house on the trashy lot even the vagrants had vacated prior to this lightless gathering of sweaty-ass hip kids doing coke off record dust jackets? And remember that band delivering an hour (or was it three days?) of mellow rock and roll?
Ok, yeah. That was Black Lipstick. Sure it was impossibly stuffy in that house, and there was only one light in the whole place emitting a depressing orange incandescence, but admit it: that trancelike repetitious rock made you feel cool.
With Sincerely, the band’s second LP, Black Lipstick once again litter the air with their dark and dirty brand of rock and roll. Their incarnation of party rock offers more than the typical three chords and poppy bounce. Songs ease into and out of themselves. The band smears warm distortion all over the recording and languidly toys with dissonance, both vocally and instrumentally. Themes of drugs, death, religion, and love lost uphold a consistent tone, a bleary-eyed dedication to the self-destructive rock myth.

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click here for the full Terry Schivo collection.

From AP

WILTON, New Hampshire (AP) — Guitarist Rod Price, founding member of the blues boogie band Foghat, died Tuesday after falling down a stairway at his home, a family friend said. He was 57.
The London native’s solos drove Foghat to three platinum and eight gold records during the band’s quarter-century career.

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So much has already been said about Bloc Party, from the early clamor around “She’s Hearing Voices” right up through today’s release of Silent Alarm. All that hype is tough to live up to, but Silent Alarm definitely delivers. It’s one of the best things we’ve heard this year, and we can’t wait for Bloc Party’s sold-out appearances at the Bowery Ballroom on April 7 and 8. Needless to say, we were pretty excited to sit down and chat with guitarist/lead singer Kele Obereke and drummer Matt Tong a few weeks ago. Fresh off of performing at the Motherf*cker party, they stepped away from VH1 Classic for a few minutes to talk to us. This interview was done in conjunction with our friends at OneLouder.
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Are you surprised by the reaction you’re getting in New York?
Your shows were sold out well before the album’s release date.
Matt Tong: It’s the downloading that’s going on.
Does that bother you?
M: I remember the people who are singing the words
[laughter] and we meet them afterwards.
Kele Obereke: We get the roadies to go out and shut
those people down. We give them the shakedown. [laughs]
Is there any concern from you or your label about downloading? Some artists are worried about losing sales, but you’ve sold out two shows at the Bowery Ballroom.
M: Complaining about downloading really seems to be the province of people like Metallica; immensely successful people who want more, more, more.
K: I read somewhere that Madonna was really worried she wouldn’t be able to give her kids an education because of people
downloading her records. It’s really ridiculous.

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I suppose I should be at PS1′s Greater New York congratulating my friend D about his ascension into the ranks of the emerged artist. Instead, I find myself alone with a wretched hangover and a bucket of cynicism. I’m soaking my feet in it to soothe the bitterness that washes over me as I read over the list of artists that have emerged since the 2000 exhibit. The sad thing about this one is that instead of going out and finding artists that haven’t quite emerged, they went looking for people that already had.

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