Bad Times, Big Crimes

Garland Jeffreys employed a studio full of high-priced session musicians on his last album, 1978's One-Eyed Jack, but the disc failed to capitalize on the breakthrough represented by its predecessor, 1977's Ghost Writer, which had employed much the same group of players. A year-and-a-half later, on American Boy & Girl, Jeffreys is accompanied by his stage band, A&M Records apparently cutting the recording budget or finally realizing that it's Jeffreys' songs more than his musicians that matter. This collection is a good representation of his street poet persona, in which he sings feelingly of the challenges faced by lower class urban youth in their struggle to escape their upbringing. "City Kids" puts the matter in stark terms, the lyrics a first-person account from one of the "Delinquents and reprieves/Orphans and the City Kids" who survive on the street committing crimes "for a thrill" and, as Jeffreys repeats 12 times in a mid-song mantra, "Shootin' dope."

30 years on from it's original release, British Rock band FM have decided to record a modern-day version of their now classic debut album, "Indiscreet". The band was asked many times to consider re-recording some of these tracks using today's modern technology and recording techniques to give the songs a makeover and now that wish has finally been granted. In addition to the re-recording of the original album, "Indiscreet 30" also features seven bonus tracks including brand new song "Running On Empty" and a new recording of "Let Love Be The Leader".

An invitation from Inc. 500 entrepreneur & metaphysical explorer Amish Shah to the spiritually liberated person who wants to make a bigger impact: COULD THESE DORMANT HUMAN POWERS & ANCIENT TECHNOLOGIES TURN YOU INTO A REALITY-BENDING SUPERHUMAN? Read on to discover the secrets buried in a 12,000-year-old ancient symbol: harnessed by the world's most successful people to bend time and space, master the deepest truths of the universe, & overcome monumental challenges

Classical archaeology—the excavation and analysis of ancient Greek and Roman sites—was born on Wednesday, October 22, 1738. On that day, Roque Joaquín Alcubierre, an engineer in the army of the Bourbon royal family in Naples, was lowered by ropes down a square well shaft cut through volcanic material that had formed on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius.

On October 17, 2005, the 40 greatest magazine covers of the last 40 years were unveiled at the 2005 American Magazine Conference (AMC) in Puerto Rico, by Mark Whitaker, Editor of Newsweek and President of American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME), and AMC Chairman Evan Smith, Editor of Texas Monthly.

The scars that have devolved on succeeding generations from the Japanese Imperial Army’s “Rape of Nanking” on the eve of World War II have gained prominence in the news of recent years. We recall how the Japanese government has only been able to go so far in recognizing a national culpability. A book of that title written by Iris Chang came into prominence three times at least – the first time upon publication in 1997, on the suicide of its author in 2004, and again at the release of an incendiary documentary inspired by her book in 2007, the year that it was at last published in a Japanese translation. Given raw feelings are on both sides 70 years after the destruction of the city, the prospect of a mainstream feature film dealing with that period is likely to be met with concern and trepidation. The wonder is that director Lu Chuan finds humanity in the suffering on both sides, and has made a film both impossible to watch and yet hypnotically seductive.

This absorbing project finds Australian composer Brett Dean and Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür drawing inspiration in very different ways from the music, life and times of Carlo Gesualdo and juxtaposes these reflections with Gesualdo’s own music. The music of Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa (1566-1613) has exerted a powerful influence on composers down the ages. His highly-charged, mannerist, idiosyncratic vocal music constitutes “a gallery of dramatically-lit portraits of human emotions with a heavy emphasis on the extremes of joy and despair” (to quote former Hilliard Ensemble singer Gordon Jones).