Nov 10, 2005 New York Times

By ALAN LIGHT
“It’s just the same three guys, playing the same three chords, and we’ve been doing this for 35 years.”

That’s the explanation Billy F. Gibbons, ZZ Top’s lead guitarist, offers onstage to explain his band’s success. When asked about this bare-bones description of the bewhiskered, blues-powered “Little Ol’ Band from Texas,” Mr. Gibbons chuckled. “As trite as that is, it’s the tried-and-true formula for us,” he said over the phone from Phoenix, before heading to a gig at the Arizona State Fair.

“I’ve seen our fair drummer, Mr. Beard – the man with no beard – madly tapping into his calculator, and each time he ends up with the same figures. We’ve been in this band longer than school, longer than marriage, longer than anything else we’ve ever done.”

With Mr. Gibbons’s searing fretwork, the lock-step rhythm section of the beardless Frank Beard and the bassist Dusty Hill, and the two guitarists’ cartoon-style, foot-long facial hair, ZZ Top built itself up into a stadium-filling powerhouse in the 1970’s. Its 1983 album “Eliminator” tightened up the songs, added electronic rhythms, and – with a series of silly, sexy videos – shot the band into MTV icon status.

Tonight and tomorrow night the band will wrap up its latest six-month jaunt at the Beacon Theater, its first appearance in New York City in a decade. “We’re seeing the end of a lengthy, successful tour,” Mr. Gibbons said, “and we decided we’d land it right smack dab at the center of the universe.”

But ZZ Top hasn’t released a new album since “Mescalero” in 2003. (It plans to return to the studio early next year.) The musicians’ sound has never varied much from their signature Southern boogie, described by the singer and songwriter Lucinda Williams, a longtime fan, as “hot, sweaty, grungy, sexy rock music that stays true to the blues.” So how are they able to keep things interesting onstage?

“The rigors of the road are grinding,” said the soft-spoken Mr. Gibbons, 56, “but the longstanding friendship between the three of us has brought us to just short of mind reading. It’s become a real expeditious endeavor on any given night, in terms of anticipating who might do what onstage, so we can turn the corner and avoid the train wreck.”

More specifically, Mr. Gibbons clarified, they keep themselves on their toes by leaving their set lists open each night. “There’s a couple slots in the middle of the show which are reserved for somebody’s spot call,” he said. “The other night, Dusty pulled one out of the ZZ Top bag that we haven’t played in two decades,” the Muddy Waters tune “Two Trains.” “I grinned and said ‘Man, you’re really testing us, aren’t you?’ ”

According to Mr. Gibbons, continually experimenting with equipment keeps the band’s juices flowing. “The novelty of new gear helps to lubricate those pitfalls,” he said. “Frequently, a new setting on an amplifier, a new guitar – that’s enough to keep things energetic. Just tonight, I got a call from Dusty, and he’s all excited, he’s got a new bass. I asked, ‘What have you got?’ and he said, ‘I don’t know, but it’s red!’ ”

For the first time, Mr. Gibbons has started turning up on albums outside the confines of ZZ Top, adding his inimitable touch to albums by such younger rockers as Kid Rock and Nickelback. He singled out the new-school metal band Queens of the Stone Age as his favorite collaboration. “It’s a pretty tight-knit group of pals,” he said. “They have a rather handsome amount of time behind them, and they’re really good players. And as a bonus, they’ve got some real exotic gear – like, they had Watkins Dominator amps. They haven’t made those since 1963, you can’t find them, and they had two of them!”

If Mr. Gibbons’s fascination with equipment sounds a little obsessive – well, it is. “In an attempt to find something else with the remarkable power of ‘Pearly Gates,’ that first Les Paul I acquired, I kept stacking up guitar after guitar,” he said. “It started morphing into these myriad other sounds, and one day I looked up and there was a warehouse full of instruments.”

In addition to the hundreds of guitars he has acquired, Mr. Gibbons has a celebrated stable of hot rods and custom cars, the most famous being the red 1933 Ford “Eliminator Coupe,” the true star of those unforgettable videos. Both collections are chronicled in the just-published “Rock & Roll Gearhead” (Motorbooks). It’s a combination memoir, band scrapbook and catalog of his favorite autos (including the “CadZZilla” and the “Slampala”) and six-strings (like the cowhide-covered Fender and the Gibson in the shape of Texas).

“Rock ‘n’ roll and automobiles have always had this synergistic connection,” Mr. Gibbons said. (He will be signing copies of the book on Monday from 1 to 2:30 p.m. at the Barnes & Noble store at 555 Fifth Avenue, at 47th Street.) “You get a guitar, you learn how to play music, and then you’ve got to have a car to get to the show!” he said. “It all boils down to just that.”

Independent Online Edition > The Indpendent
US forces ‘used chemical weapons’ during assault on city of Fallujah

By Peter Popham

Published:†08 November 2005

Powerful new evidence emerged yesterday that the United States dropped massive quantities of white phosphorus on the Iraqi city of Fallujah during the attack on the city in November 2004, killing insurgents and civilians with the appalling burns that are the signature of this weapon.

Ever since the assault, which went unreported by any Western journalists, rumours have swirled that the Americans used chemical weapons on the city.

On 10 November last year, the Islam Online website wrote: “US troops are reportedly using chemical weapons and poisonous gas in its large-scale offensive on the Iraqi resistance bastion of Fallujah, a grim reminder of Saddam Hussein’s alleged gassing of the Kurds in 1988.”

The website quoted insurgent sources as saying: “The US occupation troops are gassing resistance fighters and confronting them with internationally banned chemical weapons.”

In December the US government formally denied the reports, describing them as “widespread myths”. “Some news accounts have claimed that US forces have used ‘outlawed’ phosphorus shells in Fallujah,” the USinfo website said. “Phosphorus shells are not outlawed. US forces have used them very sparingly in Fallujah, for illumination purposes.

“They were fired into the air to illuminate enemy positions at night, not at enemy fighters.”

But now new information has surfaced, including hideous photographs and videos and interviews with American soldiers who took part in the Fallujah attack, which provides graphic proof that phosphorus shells were widely deployed in the city as a weapon.

In a documentary to be broadcast by RAI, the Italian state broadcaster, this morning, a former American soldier who fought at Fallujah says: “I heard the order to pay attention because they were going to use white phosphorus on Fallujah. In military jargon it’s known as Willy Pete.

“Phosphorus burns bodies, in fact it melts the flesh all the way down to the bone … I saw the burned bodies of women and children. Phosphorus explodes and forms a cloud. Anyone within a radius of 150 metres is done for.”

Photographs on the website of RaiTG24, the broadcaster’s 24-hours news channel, http://www.rainews24.it, show exactly what the former soldier means. Provided by the Studies Centre of Human Rights in Fallujah, dozens of high-quality, colour close-ups show bodies of Fallujah residents, some still in their beds, whose clothes remain largely intact but whose skin has been dissolved or caramelised or turned the consistency of leather by the shells.

A biologist in Fallujah, Mohamad Tareq, interviewed for the film, says: “A rain of fire fell on the city, the people struck by this multi-coloured substance started to burn, we found people dead with strange wounds, the bodies burned but the clothes intact.”

The documentary, entitled Fallujah: the Hidden Massacre, also provides what it claims is clinching evidence that incendiary bombs known as Mark 77, a new, improved form of napalm, was used in the attack on Fallujah, in breach of the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons of 1980, which only allows its use against military targets.

About New Albion Records:

“As Sir Francis Drake, noted explorer and pirate, discovered California for the Elizabethan world, New Albion discovers new musical territories for the modern world. Then as now there are savages, pagans, exotic flora and fauna.

“New Albion resembles a small ship on the ocean, a small press or an art gallery; we employ the ancient art of blind navigation. With composers and performers we develop, record and release about a dozen titles a year, always looking for works that are jewel-like objects of curiosity, beauty and wonder.

“The kind of music we are seeking is central to our post-classical century: borders have widened; the electronic and digital revolutions have shrunk time and space so that streams of influence comingle the medieval with the modern, the primitive with the cosmopolitan, and the search through it all is for music that leads an aware listener into the living moment.

“Our logo is the triangle and the spiral, a compound symbol of strength and motion, of pitch and time, of being here and going there…it has virtually no meaning. Once we decided to create an imaginary roadsign which we painted and drove to Rte. 50 in the middle of Nevada. There it became our postcard, our place in time, where our ship moors between passages.

Sunday Times of London

November 06, 2005

Iraq battle stress worse than WWII
MICHAEL SMITH

SENIOR army doctors have warned that troops in Iraq are suffering levels of battle stress not experienced since the second world war because of fears that if they shoot an insurgent, they will end up in court.

The two senior Royal Army Medical Corps officers, one of whom is a psychologist, have recently returned from Basra, where they said they counselled young soldiers who feared a military police investigation as much as they did the insurgents.

The revelations follow the collapse last week of the court martial of seven paratroopers accused of murdering an Iraqi who died near al- Amarah just after the war and amid signs of a dramatic drop in morale among frontline infantry soldiers.

The doctorsí warnings came in post-operational reports submitted by senior officers to their formation commanders after serving in a battle zone. They are exceptional because of their content.

One source said: ìThere doesnít appear to be any overt consideration or understanding of the pressures that our soldiers are under.

ìThe unpopularity of the war at home and a belief that firing their rifles in virtually any circumstances is likely to see them end up in court are sapping morale.î

One corporal said that troops arriving in Basra were confronted by warnings from the Royal Military Police. ìThey make it clear that any and every incident will be investigated. It is also made clear that if you shoot someone, you will face an inquiry that could take up to a year.

ìThe faces of the young lads straight out of training drop as the fear of being investigated strikes home and many ask whose side the RMP are on.î

Although the levels of fighting in Iraq are nowhere near those of some of the bloodiest battles of the second world war, such as the battle of the bulge or Kohima, the much more complex situation that the British troops face is pushing up stress levels just as far.

The combination of knowing that death might come at any time from a roadside bomb and that shooting back at Iraqis who attack them might result in their being court-martialled is putting immense pressure on young soldiers.

The doctors described morale in some units as very low with soldiers cynically suggesting they needed a solicitor with them before they shot back at any Iraqi who attacked them.

Many frontline infantry soldiers were in survival mode and had the impression that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is not supporting them and nobody in the UK cares about what is happening in Iraq, the officers said.

This weekend senior MoD officials sought to counter the damage done to morale after the collapse of the court martial by revealing that John Reid, the defence secretary, had ordered an urgent review of whether the MoD is fulfilling its duty of care to soldiers facing legal action.

There are signs that it is already too late, with more than 5,370 infantry soldiers buying themselves out of the army in the past three years rather than be posted back to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Divorce rates have soared. The wives of soldiers who return from Iraq complain that their husbands are suffering from exhaustion and stress but refuse to seek medical help for fear that it will blight their promotion prospects.

The wife of one officer based in Germany told friends he was ìan aggressive wreckî after returning from Iraq, shouting at the children and suffering from what she thought was a nervous disorder. He declined medical help and a month after returning from Basra was sent to Kabul.

Not least among the concerns within the army is the fact that cases are taking so long to come to court martial. Three members of the Irish Guards and a Coldstream Guard who stand accused of the manslaughter of an Iraqi who allegedly drowned in a canal in May 2003 will not stand trial until May next year.

Corporal Scott Evans, 32, the most senior of the paratroopers acquitted last week, said that they felt betrayed by the army: ìWeíve been badly hung out to dry.

ìThe army is your family, isnít it? You expect your
family to look after you through thick and thin, but they betrayed us. It seems that in the armyís eyes you are guilty until proven innocent.î

One army officer said Evans was ìjust summing up what everybody feels. No one seems to care. We feel like weíve lost public sympathy because of all these allegationsî

http://www.vgmerchandise.com/misc.html

“…Mr. Gallo maintains the right to refuse sale of his sperm to those of extremely dark complexions. Though a fan of Franco Harris, Derek Jeter, Lenny Kravitz and Lena Horne, Mr. Gallo does not want to be part of that type of integration. In fact, for the next 30 days, he is offering a $50,000 discount to any potential female purchaser who can prove she has naturally blonde hair and blue eyes. Anyone who can prove a direct family link to any of the German soldiers of the mid-century will also receive this discount. Under the laws of the Jewish faith, a Jewish mother would qualify a baby to be deemed a member of the Jewish religion. This would be added incentive for Mr. Gallo to sell his sperm to a Jew mother, his reasoning being with the slim chance that his child moved into the profession of motion picture acting or became a musical performer, this connection to the Jewish faith would guarantee his offspring a better chance at good reviews and maybe even a prize at the Sundance Film Festival or an Oscar… “

Thursday November 3, 2005 – The Guardian

Chris McGreal in Gaza

Israel is deploying a terrifying new tactic against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip by letting loose deafening “sound bombs” that cause widespread fear, induce miscarriages and traumatise children.

The removal of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip opened the way for the military to use air force jets to create dozens of sonic booms by breaking the sound barrier at low altitude, sending shockwaves across the territory, often at night. Palestinians liken the sound to an earthquake or huge bomb. They describe the effect as being hit by a wall of air that is painful on the ears, sometimes causing nosebleeds and “leaving you shaking inside”.

The Palestinian health ministry says the sonic booms have led to miscarriages and heart problems. The United Nations has demanded an end to the tactic, saying it causes panic attacks in children. The shockwaves have also damaged buildings by cracking walls and smashing thousands of windows.

“I have never heard such a loud explosion. I thought it was right over the top of my building,” said the owner, Tareq Dayyeh. “Sometimes you hear the rockets the Israelis fire but this was different. I felt like I was in the middle of a bomb. When I ran out the door I thought I might find the rest of the street was gone.”

Over the past week, Israeli jets created 28 sonic booms by flying at high speed and low altitude over the Gaza Strip, sometimes as little as an hour apart through the night. During five days in late September, the air force caused 29 sonic booms.

A senior Israeli army intelligence source, who the military would not permit to be named, said the tactic is intended to break civilian support for armed Palestinian groups. “We are trying to send a message in a way that doesn’t harm people. We want to encourage the Palestinian public to do something about the terror situation,” he said. “What are the alternatives? We are not like the terrorists who shoot civilians. We are cautious. We make sure nobody is really hurt.”

Yesterday, two medical human rights groups asked the Tel Aviv high court to outlaw the use of sound bombs on the grounds it amounts to illegal collective punishment and is detrimental to health.

“The stress is phenomenal,” said Eyad El Sarraj, a psychologist and director of Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, one of the groups filing the petition. “The Israelis do it after midnight and then every one or two hours. You try to go to sleep and then there’s another one. When it happens night after night you become exhausted. You get a heightened sense of alert, waiting continuously for it to happen. People suffer hypertension, fatigue, sleeplessness.

“For children, the loud noise means danger. Adults may know it’s only a sound but small children feel threatened. They are crying and clinging to their parents. Afterwards they are dazed and fearful, waiting for something to happen.”

The UN Palestinian refugee agency said a majority of the patients seen at its clinics as a result of the sonic booms were under 16 and suffering from symptoms such as anxiety attacks, bedwetting, muscle spasms, temporary loss of hearing and breathing difficulties.

Although the Israelis say the shockwaves do not cause casualties, doctors at Gaza’s Shifa hospital said the overflights had forced women to miscarry. The number of miscarriages had increased by 40%, according to Jumaa Saqqa, a surgeon and hospital spokesman. “There were no other symptoms and the rise happened after the sonic booms. We can see no other explanation. The number of patients admitted to the cardiac care unit doubled. Some of them proved to have suffered serious harm.”

Dr Saqqa said one overflight occurred while he was operating. The Palestinian health ministry estimates the sonic booms have caused at least 20 miscarriages.

The UN’s Middle East envoy, Alvaro de Soto, wrote to the Israeli high command this week saying he was “deeply concerned at the impact on children, particularly infants, of the use of sonic booms”.

Mr de Soto said he did not accept that the tactic was a legitimate response to Islamic Jihad and Hamas firing rockets into Israeli towns. “Sonic booms are an indiscriminate instrument, the use of which punishes the population collectively. We ask therefore that their use be stopped without delay,” the letter said.

The military was forced to apologise after one sonic boom was unintentionally heard hundreds of kilometres inside Israel last week. Maariv newspaper described it as sounding “like a heavy bombardment. The noise that shook the Israeli skies was frightening. Thousands of citizens leapt in panic from their beds, and many of them placed worried calls to the police and the fire department. The Tel Aviv and central district police switchboards crashed.”

LINK COURTESY MATT GREENE!

“In the year 3000 on a far off star, some aliens had a party in a nasty little bar. The DJ was a Klingon, unfonky to the max, so they called on ROGER for some BAD ASS TRACKS !” Welcome to Roger’s MySpace…

Biography: The Rogerlution Will Not Be Televised: Roger

And So..After years of watching the fonkless frenzy of the un-rock Unhumanoids, Roger decided it was time to come down from the Kingdom Of Roger, And so begins one of the greatest stories never told. Bigger, Badder and More Violent than the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, Rogers “This Is The Sh*t” is finally here. Its the opening statement from a band who’s mission is to bring The Jams to the Un-humanoids using the combined power of Marshall Stacks, Crusty Beats and Fonky Riffs to free the minds of mankind..Formed in the year 3000 near a far off star, the various freaks and fonk lords who make up the ROGER band met when one fateful night when they were abducted by a fleet of Flying V shaped spacecraft and woke up on the mountain of the chosen ones dressed in only loincloths.

The following years saw them perfecting some of the biggest baddest jams ever jammed in the history of anything, and creating The Kingdom Of Roger, a righteous and regal place where fonk and riffs collided, and freaks from every corner of the galaxy convened to dance, party and teach in the ways of righteousness.The Roger band is led by visionary axe man Randy Apostle, universally acclaimed to be the greatest guitar player who ever lived, who played his way out of the Philadelphia slums to join the live circuit and quickly discovered that city of brotherly love it ain’t. Before his abduction on that fateful night, Randy was about to settle in the UK county of Berkshire, having decided to skip the drugs, drink, groupies and fame and cut straight to the bit where he opens his own trout farm. Fortunately the gods refused to let this immense talent go to waste, and his true destiny was fulfilled. Joining Randy in the quest to bring the Jamms to the Un-humanoids and adding an extra pattie to the Fonk burger is the aristocratic and stylish Mohammed Ali of bass, Astley Le Jasper. Astley was originally born and raised in the suburbs of Hampshire. A shy and retiring child who’s first words were “Uh! Good God!”. Astley found solace in the depth and simplicity of the bass, and it was on the eve of his tenth birthday, whilst composing his one note concerto for bass & drum with a torch under the covers when he was snatched by the Flying V’s to take his place in the Kingdom Of Roger at Randy’s side.

Thus, one of the most prolific and exciting musical partnerships ever dreamed of was formed. Adding the black cloud to Randy & Astleys Fonk light is J Edgar Hoova. Originally chosen to be the lead vocalist in Roger, but gradually edged out thru the blossoming song writing partnership of Apostle & Le Jasper, J Edgar embraced his position as the Brian Jones of Roger and went on drug fuelled rampage, turning himself into the archetypal ego driven British rock star of old. J Edgar still plays with the Roger band, despite his protestations that Roger should play glammed up stoogerock, and the rest of the band live in fear of his inevitable take over at Roger gigs, where J Edgars band, The Body Removers invade the stage and launch into one of their stoogerock classics. Among the cast of freaks adding spice to the fonkin’ stew are: The Docktor, born and bred in the UK but believing himself to be Swedish, the Docktors skills are many, but he’s never usually allowed near a microphone due to the strange effect it has on him, as displayed in his sole lead vocal performance on This Is The Sh*t’s “Motherfocker”, The General, A thick-necked ex-dwarf responsible for marshalling the joint armed forces of FONK, Special Needs, the supaheavyweight champion of Drumm and Sindy X, backing vocalist extraordinaire.

The first fruits of the bands labour is This Is The Sh*t,released on Julian Cope’s Head Heritage label, and compiled from the twenty tracks recorded one afternoon in the Kingdom of Roger. Featuring nine incredible tracks, ranging from the operatic groove alliegence of Overture via the 12 minute dirge fonk of Ramm It Home the glorious party vibes of Fonk Hammer, Roger Loves U and Hot Fudge and the apocalyptic fonk Opera of Fonk Wars, It is truly a landmark album. The world domination of Roger will continue with forthcoming live dates planned, and sessions for the bands second album Backing Off Is For The Other Band. Its the dawning of a new age – prepare to be royally fonked

JUNE 1, 2005
A New Dawn

AND SO I awoke blind, naked, bleeding and Flying V-less. I spent days crawling through the gutters and back alleys of the streets of the city I managed to identify by the chimes of Big Ben as London, England. I begged at record shop after record shop for shelter only to be rejected time and time again and after seven days and seven nights was finally be taken in by a strangely stuck on looking goatee bearded kindly vinyl shop keeper clad entirely in black, who explained that a great evil in the form of a new Jamiroquai album had taken hold of the world. In a hushed voice he explained a small glimmer of hope did exist…

The shopkeeper went to his basement and retrieved a dusty package wrapped in rags with a single faded label on which in my own barely legible handwriting was written; îFunk Defensor, This Is Thy Badass Weaponî. In this package was a gleaming white Parker Fly, and an ancient manuscript on which a prophesy had been written that a large-hatted devil would appear in the night like a rubber-legged pied piper of Hamlyn and steal the Roger band from the Kingdom Of Roger and enslave them into non-fonky activities so that he may reign supreme for 1000 years. It was at this point I realised the terrible truth..I had been cast out of the Garden Of Fonk.

AND SO it was written that I must alone work tirelessly on a new LP so booty shakingly fonky and badass that the righteous balance shall be restored and the members of Roger shall be freed from the evil spell that they have been placed under. This album shall be called ìRandy Apostleís Apocalyptic Visionsî and it shall be FONKY.

Fear Not, Dear Unhumanoids. The Fonk is with you.

JULY 1, 2005 UPDATE
Wham Bam Studio Tan Tan

Ahh…Summerís here dear Unhumanoids, and as everyone knows itís time to work on yer studio tan, alienate your friends and generally miss the entire experience, only to look back dazed & confused at the fruit of your fonkly loins around Christmas time after several delays at an Eastern European pressing plant..No matter ñ itís all paying off – Apocalyptic Visions is sounding BADASS, 5 yes 5 tracks are now mixed for the new RÿGER album, and just this week Iíve been gettingí paranormal in the West Country working with Julian on ìDark Orgasmî – and even played a teeny, tiny bit of fonk geetar which youíll hear on a hidden track on side 6. Maybe ?

J Edgar brought his NEW Body Removers into the studio; fer those off ya who DONíT KNOW, the ìonce & future king of rock & rollî has recruited Tito Apostle and Naste Le Jasper as his new henchpeoples and those boys are deeply UNFONKY !! Also, his best pals John Leslie and Uri Gellar dropped by with a bevvy of bimbos, spilled mystery substances on the damn mixiní desk, talked jibber jabber to alien beings and generally snarled ní drooled like ex celebs gone bad done do.

As a result of yet more painful vault trawling of the by now mythical ìWherever…î tapes (at 140db), it looks like the ever popular crowd pleasers (so J Edgar tells me) ìIím Going To Hellî and ìRelease The Houndsî will be on the record WHENEVER it finally arrives…on that and ALL related whenís-the-record-out-mofo type questions – I donít know when itís dropping..things are takiní forever round here. Luckily, technically weíve GOT forever seeiní as normal time/space whatnots do not apply in the Kingdom ! Unggh !

Lastly, at the insistence of THE KIDS thereís a RÿGER myspace up at MYSPACE where thereís some streaminí goodies..including something u may not have heard before ñ whoah ! check it out & say hello, mothersuckas !

AUGUST 19, 2005 UPDATE
What’s In The Bag, B*tch ?

Not much work has been happening on the new ROGER albums, Iím afraid due to other commitments, namely working on other peopleís shit to earn a living now I’ve been cast out of the Kingdom Of Roger n’ all..Now by shit, dear Unhumanoids, I donít mean shit..I mean shiiiit ñ you guys like these peoples shiiiit, trust me – even if they ainít ROGER and it gots ta be done ! And when itís done, it shall be done as they say. Apart from my new regime of training underwater going very well (unlike, despite photographic evidence – Mohammed Ali, who couldnít actually swim but was himself quite badass on fuzzbass ) the other good news is that after the recent mildly successful G8 summit, the Roger F8 summit also began – ensconced in a London watering hole, dodging random bus shrapnel and using a secure channel on the rogerphone unbeknownst to The Rubber Legged Large Hatted One we sorted out a few things which have been holding up progress/the unshackling of the rest of The Roger Band from their unfonky bonds. Sheesh… Now – some folks REALLY need to get the FONK in their asses and cut that kind of crazy bombing shit out ! Now, all you Unhumanoids know Roger is a non-denominational Kool-Aid free kinda do your own thing thang and weíve got enough with Georgie Porgie riding his donkey into the sunset all guns blazing.. Yíall remember we will deliver Five Shots Of Fonk To Your Body Mass and will be cominí right back atcha with a brand new topical Roger Jam entitled ìWhatís In The Bag, Bitch ?î no doubt soon to become a firm, uhh… ìunderground favouriteî with commuters of a fonkier disposition AS SOON AS WE CAN !! Sorry ñ back to the normal programme.. We may well begin rehearsals for the Paard Van Troye show soon if we get a (jail)break, and maybe see some of you there, otherwise people will be utterly freaked out as we destroy all in our path with the power of fonk and have no friends there to see it !

October 12, 2005 UPDATE:
U Wanted It U Got It

Hey hey hey! What! Astley Le Jasper here, hip aristocat and purveyor of general good taste. I’m more excited than Kate Moss on a flight to Colombia at the moment and you know why? It’s cos the ROGER band have been in rehearsals so we can bring you groovy people the long overdue ROGER live experience, and let me tell you it’s starting to sound BADASS!!

We’ve been layin’ down and kickin’ out some serious jams in a secret London location and we’re all buzzin! By the time we play in the new year we will be ready to tear the roof of the sucka I’m sure. We’ve been playing about half of ‘This Is The Shit’ as well as lots of tasty new treats for you including ‘Nasty Dogg’, ‘Rawwer Than Raww’, ‘This Is Serious’, ‘Bring The Badboy Bass’ and J. Edgars Detroit headfuck opus’s ‘Take Your Dead Ass Home’ & ‘D.F.W.R’, all of which will be featuring on the new album.

Randy, Farnsworth & Mr G-Lover are playin’ and singing their asses off, even J. Edgar managed a smile before punching Farnsworth and smashing up one of my basses. It will be the biggest, baddest party ever, and I cannot WAIT to play for you.

More updates on live and the new album very shortly, but until then, stay beautiful. ROGER LOVES YOU!

BACKING OFF IS FOR THE OTHER BAND
Attention Unhumanoids ! There’s news and there’s news..and then there’s NEWS ! The long awaited follow-up LP to ROGER’s “This Is The Sh*t” has finally obtained clearance to land on planet earth, bypass the air defences and set the the sub-bass safety switch to UNSAFE before dropping 12 new fonk bombs on u-know-who…

The new album, entitled “Backing Off Is For The Other Band” is being mastered RIGHT NOW on your planet in a obscure yet picturesque country called “Wales.” An hour-long epic which picks up right where we left off..the year 2020. Catchier than bird-flu, the record contains never-before heard future-fonk jams such as “Rawer Than Raw”… reworkings of classic lost space disco stompers such as “This Is Serious” …to positively terrifying 10 minute fuzz bass solos proving that indeed – BACKING OFF IS FOR THE OTHER BAND !

WHATT !

Sunday October 30, 2005 New York Times

To believe that the Bush-Cheney scandals will be behind us anytime soon you’d have to believe that the Nixon-Agnew scandals peaked when G. Gordon Liddy and his bumbling band were nailed for the Watergate break-in. But Watergate played out for nearly two years after the gang that burglarized Democratic headquarters was indicted by a federal grand jury; it even dragged on for more than a year after Nixon took “responsibility” for the scandal, sacrificed his two top aides and weathered the indictments of two first-term cabinet members. In those ensuing months, America would come to see that the original petty crime was merely the leading edge of thematically related but wildly disparate abuses of power that Nixon’s attorney general, John Mitchell, would name “the White House horrors.”

In our current imperial presidency, as in its antecedent, what may look like a narrow case involving a second banana with a child’s name contains the DNA of the White House, and that DNA offers a road map to the duplicitous culture of the whole. The coming prosecution of Lewis (Scooter) Libby in the Wilson affair is hardly the end of the story. That “Cheney’s Cheney,” as Mr. Libby is known, would allegedly go to such lengths to obscure his role in punishing a man who challenged the administration’s W.M.D. propaganda is just one very big window into the genesis of the smoke screen (or, more accurately, mushroom cloud) that the White House used to sell the war in Iraq.

After the heat of last week’s drama, we can forget just how effective the administration’s cover-up of that con job had been until very recently. Before Patrick Fitzgerald’s leak investigation, there were two separate official investigations into the failure of prewar intelligence. With great fanfare and to great acclaim, both found that our information about Saddam’s W.M.D.’s was dead wrong. But wittingly or unwittingly, both of these supposedly thorough inquiries actually protected the White House by avoiding, in Watergate lingo, “the big enchilada.”

The 601-page report from the special presidential commission led by Laurence Silberman and Charles Robb, hailed at its March release as a “sharp critique” by Mr. Bush, contains only a passing mention of Dick Cheney. It has no mention whatsoever of Mr. Libby or Karl Rove or their semicovert propaganda operation (the White House Iraq Group, or WHIG) created to push all that dead-wrong intel. Nor does it mention Douglas Feith, the first-term under secretary of defense for policy, whose rogue intelligence operation in the Pentagon supplied the vice president with the disinformation that bamboozled the nation.

The other investigation into prewar intelligence, by the Senate Intelligence Committee, is a scandal in its own right. After the release of its initial findings in July 2004, the committee’s Republican chairman, Pat Roberts, promised that a Phase 2 to determine whether the White House had misled the public would arrive after the presidential election. It still hasn’t, and no wonder: Murray Waas reported Thursday in The National Journal that Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby had refused to provide the committee with “crucial documents,” including the Libby-written passages in early drafts of Colin Powell’s notorious presentation of W.M.D. “evidence” to the U.N. on the eve of war.

Along the way, Mr. Fitzgerald’s investigation has prompted the revelation of much of what these previous investigations left out. But even so, the trigger for the Wilson affair – the administration’s fierce effort to protect its hype of Saddam’s uranium – is only one piece of the larger puzzle of post- and pre-9/11 White House subterfuge. We’re a long way from putting together the full history of a self-described “war presidency” that bungled the war in Iraq and, in doing so, may be losing the war against radical Islamic terrorism as well.

There are many other mysteries to be cracked, from the catastrophic, almost willful failure of the Pentagon to plan for the occupation of Iraq to the utter ineptitude of the huge and costly Department of Homeland Security that was revealed in all its bankruptcy by Katrina. There are countless riddles, large and small. Why have the official reports on detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guant·namo spared all but a single officer in the chain of command? Why does Halliburton continue to receive lucrative government contracts even after it’s been the focus of multiple federal inquiries into accusations of bid-rigging, overcharging and fraud? Why did it take five weeks for Pat Tillman’s parents to be told that their son had been killed by friendly fire, and who ordered up the fake story of his death that was sold relentlessly on TV before then?

These questions are just a representative sampling. It won’t be easy to get honest answers because this administration, like Nixon’s, practices obsessive secrecy even as it erects an alternative reality built on spin and outright lies.

Mr. Cheney is a particularly shameless master of these black arts. Long before he played semantics on “Meet the Press” with his knowledge of Joseph Wilson in the leak case, he repeatedly fictionalized crucial matters of national security. As far back as May 8, 2001, he appeared on CNN to promote his new assignment, announced that day by Mr. Bush, to direct a governmentwide review of U.S. “consequence management” in the event of a terrorist attack. As we would learn only in the recriminatory aftermath of 9/11 (from Barton Gellman of The Washington Post), Mr. Cheney never did so.

That stunt was a preview of Mr. Cheney’s unreliable pronouncements about the war, from his early prediction that American troops would be “greeted as liberators” in Iraq to this summer’s declaration that the insurgency was in its “last throes.” Even before he began inflating Saddam’s nuclear capabilities, he went on “Meet the Press” in December 2001 to peddle the notion that “it’s been pretty well confirmed” that there was a direct pre-9/11 link between Mohammed Atta and Iraqi intelligence. When the Atta-Saddam link was disproved later, Gloria Borger, interviewing the vice president on CNBC, confronted him about his earlier claim, and Mr. Cheney told her three times that he had never said it had been “pretty well confirmed.” When a man thinks he can get away with denying his own words even though there are millions of witnesses and a video record, he clearly believes he can get away with murder.

Mr. Bush is only slightly less brazen. His own false claims about Iraq’s W.M.D.’s (“We found the weapons of mass destruction,” he said in May 2003) are, if anything, exceeded by his repeated boasts of capturing various bin Laden and Zarqawi deputies and beating back Al Qaeda. His speech this month announcing the foiling of 10 Qaeda plots is typical; as USA Today reported last week, at least 6 of the 10 on the president’s list “involved preliminary ideas about potential attacks, not terrorist operations that were about to be carried out.” In June, Mr. Bush stood beside his attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, and similarly claimed that “federal terrorism investigations have resulted in charges against more than 400 suspects” and that “more than half” of those had been convicted. A Washington Post investigation found that only 39 of those convictions had involved terrorism or national security (as opposed to, say, immigration violations). That sum could yet be exceeded by the combined number of convictions in the Jack Abramoff-Tom DeLay scandals.

The hyping of post-9/11 threats indeed reflects the same DNA as the hyping of Saddam’s uranium: in both cases, national security scares are trumpeted to advance the White House’s political goals. Keith Olbermann of MSNBC recently compiled 13 “coincidences” in which “a political downturn for the administration,” from revelations of ignored pre-9/11 terror warnings to fresh news of detainee abuses, is “followed by a ‘terror event’ – a change in alert status, an arrest, a warning.” To switch the national subject from the fallout of the televised testimony of the F.B.I. whistle-blower Coleen Rowley in 2002, John Ashcroft went so far as to broadcast a frantic announcement, via satellite from Russia, that the government had “disrupted an unfolding terrorist plot” to explode a dirty bomb. What he was actually referring to was the arrest of a single suspect, Jose Padilla, for allegedly exploring such a plan – an arrest that had taken place a month earlier.

For now, it’s conventional wisdom in Washington that the Bush White House’s infractions are nowhere near those of the Nixon administration, as David Gergen put it on MSNBC on Friday morning. But Watergate’s dirty tricks were mainly prompted by the ruthless desire to crush the political competition at any cost. That’s a powerful element in the Bush scandals, too, but this administration has upped the ante by playing dirty tricks with war. Back on July 6, 2003, when the American casualty toll in Iraq stood at 169 and Mr. Wilson had just published his fateful Op-Ed, Robert Novak, yet to write his column outing Mr. Wilson’s wife, declared that “weapons of mass destruction or uranium from Niger” were “little elitist issues that don’t bother most of the people.” That’s what Nixon administration defenders first said about the “third-rate burglary” at Watergate, too.