Friday, April 15, 2011

Kellermensch - Moribund Town



Love, love, love this band. I really like how the instrument tones and production are like a rock band, but the alternate vocals are metal. Really great album, BTW. They also cover Tom Waits and Neil Young.

Fiona + Elvis - I Want You



Oh my baby baby I love you more than I can tell
I don't think I can live without you
And I know that I never will
Oh my baby baby I want you so it scares me to death
I can't say anymore than "I love you"
Everything else is a waste of breath
I want you
You've had your fun you don't get well no more
I want you
Your fingernails go dragging down the wall
Be careful darling you might fall
I want you
I woke up and one of us was crying
I want you
You said "Young man I do believe you're dying"
I want you
If you need a second opinion as you seem to do these days
I want you
You can look in my eyes and you can count the ways
I want you
Did you mean to tell me but seem to forget
I want you
Since when were you so generous and inarticulate
I want you
It's the stupid details that my heart is breaking for
It's the way your shoulders shake and what they're shaking for
it's knowing that he knows you now after only guessing
I want you
It's the thought of him undressing you or you undressing
I want you
He tossed some tattered compliment your way
I want you
And you were fool enough to love it when he said
"I want you"
I want you
The truth can't hurt you it's just like the dark
It scares you witless
But in time you see things clear and stark
I want you
Go on and hurt me then we'll let it drop
I want you
I'm afraid I won't know where to stop
I want you
I'm not ashamed to say I cried for you
I want you
I want to know the things you did that we do too
I want you
I want to hear he pleases you more than I do
I want you
I might as well be useless for all it means to you
I want you
Did you call his name out as he held you down
I want you
Oh no my darling not with that clown
I want you
You've had your fun you don't get well no more
I want you
No-one who wants you could want you more
I want you
Every night when I go off to bed and when I wake up
I want you
I want you
I'm going to say it again 'til I instill it
I know I'm going to feel this way until you kill it
I want you
I want you

Miksha

This Must Be The Place

Lotion

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Oldie but a goodie

Indie Rock + 80's Hair Metal? Yes, please.

The Chariot - David de la Hoz




What's so cool about this is that the group, The Chariot, got their friends, family and other like-minded musicians together to help them shoot this one take video.

You bet we fight, until pressed against six feet of distance and earth.
Yeah, we make mistakes that our fathers have made and my troubles come up from the earth.
My teeth. grit, fierce, and I bed to you, understand. "Grace" is my name. Tongues run amok and fangs will breed on fangs.
So keep your secrets into the mattress and prey they don't escape.
Its the impossible act of building our bridges much faster then they burn.
Stay, Because I cant afford the distance shadowing my heart and what good is a sinner if we haven't got grace.
Save the son. My troubles boulevard across the land. They keep their secrets in the mattress.
Discard. Im trying to keep it in the right hands. Medic, I have given up all my weapons and i have headed home.


(Dan Smith of Listener)
Well I can see the words inside your silence,
but I can't speak about your pain for you
how long can you burn for anyways
turning over and back again with tongues ablaze.

like lions without teeth...hungry...
staring at the forest with flames in our eyes talking with the trees

if we can drift long enough, we'll be home.
sails blown by the fire within pushing me to you
and you can live inside of me, sewn together
breaking and healing, growing and breaking again and again

you are a part of me, you are my home and I'm your home,
but I'm no place you'll want to be
so I'm out here again sparks hid behind my teeth

but won't say a word for fear of failure spreading
it takes some of us longer to get to our dead ends
we have old blood stained with loose living
ran through charcoal hearts to make it red

and we can be on fire again you and I
do you want this? well say what you want....SAY WHAT YOU MEAN!

we can talk lung to closed ear, head inside of hand
turning over again together
cut up for the cheap heat running through our veins

and we can lay brick by broken brick
our ashes pushed in between
and build this road back home to where we want to be
we are not our own, we are the same"


Let fangs give birth to fangs but i cant walk away.
Let them breed
Fangs give birth to fangs but i cant walk away.
Let them breed

Backwater Gospel

The Lost Thing

Eye of the Storm

Friday, April 8, 2011

Arkansas finally comes to it's senses.

http://arkansasnews.com/2011/04/07/state-supreme-court-strikes-down-adoption-ban/

State Supreme Court strikes down adoption ban
Posted on 07 April 2011

By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — A state law banning unmarried, cohabiting couples from adopting children or becoming foster parents is unconstitutional, the Arkansas Supreme Court ruled unanimously today.

The high court upheld a Pulaski County circuit judge’s ruling that the law unconstitutionally burdens fundamental privacy rights.

Rita Sklar, executive director of the ACLU of Arkansas, said the ruling is a relief to more than 1,600 children in the state who are in need of a permanent family.

“This ban wouldn’t even allow a relative — gay or straight — to foster or adopt a child with whom they had a close relationship, so long as that relative was unmarried and living with a partner,” Sklar said. “The court clearly saw that this ban violated the constitutional rights of our clients and thousands of other Arkansans.”

Jerry Cox, president of the Christian conservative Family Council, said the decision “is the worst ever handed down by the Arkansas Supreme Court.”

“This is a classic example of judicial tyranny,” Cox said. “Unfortunately (Thursday’s) ruling puts the rights of adults ahead of the rights of children and their welfare.”

Cox said his group is considering asking voters to adopt the measure as a constitutional amendment.

The law, known as Act 1, was proposed to voters as a ballot initiative by the Family Council in November 2008 and passed with 57 percent of the vote. The Family Council proposed the initiative after Arkansas’ highest court ruled that a state policy against allowing same-sex couples to adopt or foster children was unconstitutional.

In December 2008, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit challenging the law on behalf of a group of Arkansas residents. The group included unmarried adults who wanted to adopt or foster children, parents who wanted to choose who would adopt their children in the event of their incapacitation or death, and the children of those parents.

The Family Council later intervened as an additional party in the suit.

In an April 2010 ruling, Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza said the law significantly burdens a fundamental privacy right, and therefore to pass constitutional muster it must be narrowly tailored to accomplish a compelling state interest and must do so by the least restrictive method available. The law does not meet that standard and instead cast “an unreasonably broad net,” he ruled.

The state and the Family Council argued on appeal that adopting or fostering children is a privilege bestowed by state law and not a fundamental right.

The Supreme Court said the problem with the argument is that the right to engage in private, consensual sexual activity, free from investigation by the state, is a fundamental right, and under Act 1 that right is conditioned on foregoing the privilege of adopting or fostering children.

Cohabiting sexual partners “must choose either to lead a life of private, sexual intimacy with a partner without the opportunity to adopt or foster children, or forego sexual cohabitation and, thereby, attain eligibility to adopt or foster,” Justice Robert Brown wrote in the opinion.

The state and the Family Council also argued that Act 1 is no more an invasion of privacy rights than the non-cohabitation agreements that sometimes are included in court orders in child custody cases.

The Supreme Court said non-cohabitation orders are different because they are based on a case-by-case analysis in which the courts and state agencies look at many different factors and make a determination of what is best for the child.

“Act 1’s blanket ban provides for no such individualized consideration or case-by-case analysis … and makes the assumption that in all cases where adoption or foster care is the issue it is always against the best interest of the child to be placed in a home where an individual is cohabiting with a sexual partner outside of marriage,” the court said in the opinion.

The high court also agreed with Piazza that the law is not narrowly tailored to accomplish a compelling state interest and does not do so by the least restrictive method available.

“We conclude that the individualized assessments by DHS and our trial courts are effective in addressing issues such as relationship instability, abuse, lack of social support and other factors that could potentially create a risk to the child or otherwise render the applicant unsuitable to be a foster or adoptive parent,” the court said in the opinion.

“By imposing a categorical ban on all persons who cohabit with a sexual partner, Act 1 removes the ability of the state and our courts to conduct these individualized assessments on the individuals, many of whom could qualify and be entirely suitable foster or adoptive parents.”

Gov. Mike Beebe, who opposed Act 1 when it was on the ballot, said Thursday that DHS would continue to carefully consider each foster care and adoption application with the best interest of the child its foremost concern.

“By expanding the pool of potential applicants, (Thursday’s) Supreme Court decision will create more opportunities to match children with loving and supportive homes,” the governor said.

Aaron Sadler, a spokesman for Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, said, “We defended the act, and the court has spoken. Now it will be up to DHS to promulgate rules in accordance with the decision.”

Writing new rules may take a few months, but during the process DHS can go ahead and place children in homes that would not have been able to take children under Act 1, agency spokeswoman Julie Munsell said.

Munsell said she is aware of just one case before DHS that has been affected by Act 1. She said that following Piazza’s ruling, the couple involved in that case was allowed to proceed with the application process with the understanding that, even if the application was approved, no placement could happen until the lawsuit was resolved.

Wendy Rickman, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit who previously adopted a special-needs foster child with her partner of 11 years, Stephanie Huffman, said in a statement, “We look forward to the opportunity to go through the adoption process once more and to welcome another child into our family.”

——-
Reporter Rob Moritz contributed to this report