Latest news with #JohnnyCash
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Rock Band Rips Kristi Noem's DHS For Using Its Song With NSFW 3-Word Demand
The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club issued a blistering condemnation of the Kristi Noem-led Department of Homeland Security, alleging the unauthorized use of its recording of 'God's Gonna Cut You Down' in a government-produced video. The rock band told the DHS to 'go f... yourselves.' The track, a folk-gospel song popularized by Johnny Cash, was featured in what the San Francisco rock band slammed as a 'propaganda video.' In a scathing public statement directed at the DHS, the band wrote on social media: 'It has come to our attention that the Department of Homeland Security is improperly using our recording of 'God's Gonna Cut You Down' in your latest propaganda video. It's obvious that you don't respect Copyright Law and Artist Rights any more than you respect Habeas Corpus and Due Process rights, not to mention the separation of Church and State per the U.S. Constitution.' The group continued: 'For the record, we hereby order @DHSgov to cease and desist the use of our recording and demand that you immediately pull down your video.' And it witheringly concluded: 'Oh, and go f... yourselves.' For the record, we hereby order @DHSgov to cease and desist the use of our recording and demand that you immediately pull down your video. Oh, and go f... yourselves,-BRMC — BRMCofficial (@BRMCofficial) July 10, 2025 The band joins a growing list of musicians who have pushed back against the unauthorized use of their music, especially by Donald Trump and his White House, ranging from Adele to The Rolling Stones. Paul Krugman Exposes The Flaw At The Heart Of Trump's Cruelest Policy Chelsea's Photo After Trump Gate-Crash Is Being Read As A Master Class In Subtle Shade Fox News Star Hits Trump With A Cold Truth About His Relationship With Putin
Irish Independent
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Mayo man fronts London's newest rock and roll band, The Properness
As a boy, Eric Conlon spent nearly all his pocket money on singles in Hot Shot Records in Ballina's Pearse Street. 'I used to be obsessed with the charts when I was younger. I knew every tune that'd come through,' Eric tells the Irish Independent from London, where he works for an international development organisation by day. His earliest influences were multiple and varied. Everything from Johnny Cash to Linkin Park to Alien Ant Farm. In 2002, when he was just seven years old, his mother brought him to Stereophonics in Slane. He remembers 'a surprising amount' of what unfolded, despite being among the youngest of 60,000 who came for a gig which also featured Nickelback, Counting Crows, Ocean Color Scene, Doves, The Revs and The Charlatans. 'Everyone was very drunk and we had to leave halfway through Stereophonics,' he recalls, 'because it was getting too lively. My mum was like 'Here, you are going to get trampled here'.' He later picked up a guitar, starting with 'Mary Had A Little Lamb' in lessons before taking on Oasis and Johnny Cash in his bedroom. There, he'd sing and strum his favourite tunes to himself. Eventually, he started to pen his own songs. 'I've always loved playing guitar. It's something that I do in my spare time regardless,' says the 30-year-old. 'No more than I'd pick up my phone and scroll through reels or whatever, I'd pick up the guitar just as fast. That's how I relax and that's kind of how I always have relaxed. 'The band thing just came as an afterthought to that.' Indeed, it wasn't until the tail end of the pandemic that Eric really started playing in a band. Now in his mid-20s, with the pubs just having reopened after lockdown, himself and two other lads started to jam at his house and at house parties. 'It was a great time. We all just started playing. I kind of got the real hunger for it and it taught me an awful lot,' smiles Eric. 'It's different, you are kind of more accountable when you are in that kind of setting. It's not like just playing quietly in your room hoping that nobody hears in the next room. You are kind of putting yourself out there a little bit more and there's a great buzz off it when it really clicks with a full band.' Imbued with a musical buzz, Eric was determined to get another band going over in London. But it wasn't that simple. He met the bass player, Tommo Wilshere, at a Bohemians game where they didn't speak a word about music. By pure chance, he met him again at an Amyl and The Sniffers gig over in Hackney. 'Laura [Wilson], my girlfriend, was like, 'Oh, that's the fella you were talking about football to for five minutes in the local last month'. We got talking, ended up hitting it off, went for a few pints and were like 'Do you want to start playing?'' So they did, for over a year, bouncing riffs and bass lines off each other at least once a week. But they had nobody to keep the beat. Surely they'd find a half-decent drummer in a city of nearly nine million people? 'Christ above, they are hard come by,' says Eric. 'We asked friends of friends of friends, but what we kept on running into was that you either found somebody who was class and in about five or six bands already or somebody who couldn't really play at all.' So they tried to imitate Royal Blood by trying their hands as a two-piece at local open mic, with Eric on guitar and vocals and Tommo on bass. 'It was a bit of a disaster, it was kind of stop-start, like falling all over the place,' Eric recalls. 'We got talking to a few musicians from there and he told us about another open mic which was in the area. We went and played that the following week and before it started we were talking to this other musician who said he might know a drummer. 'He goes 'Oh ya, I do know somebody'. And he turned around – quite literally – and tapped some lad on the shoulder and goes, 'These lads are looking for a drummer'. And he goes 'Do you want me to play with you now?' We were like 'Yeah, 100pc. We've been waiting ages for a drummer. Go on, up you get'.' They had finally found a drummer – and a bloody good one at that – but he quit after landing an acting gig in Liverpool. Feet planted firmly back at square one, Eric and Tommo pondered their next move. Having made several attempts to find a drummer through friends of friends, they finally found their man through a friend of Eric's – Tom Exton, an Australian Red Hot Chilli Peppers fanatic who moulded The Properness to his beat. 'He's brilliant, like,' Eric says. 'And we've been on the go together since October now, still playing every week together. Playing lots of gigs, like playing nearly two gigs a month.' Their music is a fast, punky marriage of Black Sabbath, Liam Gallagher, Rory Gallagher, The Libertines and loads in between. The band's name is an interesting one. 'The Properness' was originally meant to be the name of a song, but they stuck it on the band instead. 'It's something me and a few pals used to say. It's a bit like 'The world is kind of getting harder and harder. Housing prices are going up, it's getting harder and harder to settle down and raise a family and all this. But there is still kind of rules to life. You've still got to follow the properness,' says Eric. 'You've still got to make sure you've got that done and you've got that checked off, even though the external environment and the world around you is making it more and more hard. That's kind of what we call it, The Properness, is basically the rule to life.' Oasis, Gun 'N' Roses, Foo Fighters and other bands of their generations are still selling out stadia. But where is the next great rock band? How then does a band like The Properness find its target market when so many are buying from bands that built their legacy in bygone decades? 'Carving out an audience is just difficult anyway,' admits Eric. 'The people who come tend to follow. We've picked up a few good people along the way who have been very loyal to the music. Now saying that, we could probably playing a different style of music and probably picking up a lot more people, but is that really what we want to be doing? The love would soon fall out of it. We are kind of trusting the process. 'In a sense, rock and roll doesn't really lend itself to modern-day methods. So everything is very social media-driven now at the minute. It's very about making TikToks, doing dances, which doesn't really lend itself to rock and roll. 'Where we have put our energy into in terms of building this into something that people want to listen to, we all constantly go to gigs and are really ingrained in rock and roll music over here. 'We have lots and lots of friends who are into the same kind of music as us. We are playing very word of mouth rather than selling people very corporate emails or doing something really cut to fit on social media, we are going out there. 'We are giving out beer mats which are like our business card, we are getting talking to people who are already doing things themselves who are playing the gigs we want to play and kind of learning off them and seeing what they did right.' There's a good start.
Yahoo
08-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Rare Footage of Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash Recording Duet in 1969 Has Fans Reeling
Rare Footage of Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash Recording Duet in 1969 Has Fans Reeling originally appeared on Parade. When it comes to iconic musical partnerships, it doesn't get much better than Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash. Not only did the legendary musicians have a decades-long friendship — they started out as pen pals — Dylan and Cash collaborated multiple times, a fact some fans are just learning now. In 1969, Cash joined Dylan in the recording studio during his Nashville Skyline sessions on a number of tracks, though only one — "Girl From the North Country" — would go on to be included on the album, as ScreenRant reported. Years later, Dylan would release the remaining tunes on 2019's The Bootleg Series Vol. 15: Travelin' Thru, 1967-1969, including a version of "One Too Many Mornings" (from Dylan's 1964 album The Times They Are a-Changin'). After a clip of Dylan and Cash recording "One Too Many Mornings" resurfaced this week on Instagram, fans were quick to express their amazement. "Never heard Dylan sing like that. Wild footage," one person wrote, with a second saying, "I wish I could have been there." "MAGIC," declared someone else, as another declared, "This a banger if you know you know." Later that year, Dylan and Cash were reunited when the former made an appearance on The Johnny Cash Show, where he sang "I Threw It All Away" and the pair reprised their "Girl From the North Country" duet. Following Cash's death in 2003, Dylan paid tribute to his friend and creative partner in a eulogy for Rolling Stone. 'I think we can have recollections of him, but we can't define him any more than we can define a fountain of truth, light and beauty," he wrote, adding, 'If we want to know what it means to be mortal, we need look no further than the man in black."Rare Footage of Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash Recording Duet in 1969 Has Fans Reeling first appeared on Parade on Jul 4, 2025 This story was originally reported by Parade on Jul 4, 2025, where it first appeared.
Forbes
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Relive Johnny Cash At Folsom And San Quentin In Photographs
"The Prison Concerts: Folsom And San Quentin (Jim Marshall's Photographs of Johnny Cash)," installation view at the Momentary in Bentonville, AR. Jared Sorrells for the Momentary Johnny Cash was a protest singer. The genre was country, but the message was protest. America's mistreatment of Native Americans, veterans, working people, poor people. Most famously, America's mistreatment of incarcerated people. Songs including 'Folsom Prison Blues,' 'I Got Stripes,' 'Jacob Green,' 'Man in Black,' 'The Wall,' 'Starkville City Jail,' and 'San Quentin' all showed empathy for inmates in a country that has almost none. Cash spent a couple nights in jail, but never did prison time. As an artist, as an empath, he didn't need to to understand how barbaric caging people was. 'San Quentin, what good do you think you do? Do you think I'll be different when you're through? You bent my heart and mind and you warp my soul And your stone walls turn my blood a little cold.' 'Jacob Green' offers an even fiercer indictment of the prison system. A young man busted for the simple offense of possession is humiliated and abused by his guards resulting suicide. America's worst-in-the-free-world prison system would become dramatically worse following the height of Cash's prison advocacy and chart popularity in the 1960s and 1970s. The nation's so-called 'war on drugs' and 'get tough on crime' hysteria fostered during the Nixon Administration and accelerated under Ronald Reagan did nothing to abate drug use or reduce crime, but prison populations exploded as petty criminals and drug users were locked away. Today, America imprisons more people than any other democracy on earth by a wide margin. A disproportionate percentage of these inmates were and are Black and poor. America's system of 'criminal justice' from policing to prosecution to punishment has always been rigged against poor people and minorities. Cash saw this 50-plus years ago. He was awake to the injustice. Woke. The singer testified before Congress and met with Nixon in 1972 to discuss prison reform. Still a patriot through and through, despite it all, Cash exposed the stupidity of the old right-wing saw, 'love it or leave it.' Cash loved it and wanted to use his songs to make it better. He knew America wasn't perfect. That obvious conclusion didn't mean he didn't love it. Johnny Cash At Folsom And San Quentin "The Prison Concerts: Folsom And San Quentin (Jim Marshall's Photographs of Johnny Cash)," installation view at the Momentary in Bentonville, AR. Jared Sorrells photography for the Momentary. Cash first played at Folsom in 1966. He wrote 'Folsom Prison Blues' way back in 1953, his first big hit. The song came to him after watching 'Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison' (1951) while serving in the Air Force in West Germany. In 1968, Johnny Cash was spiraling personally and professionally. An idea he pitched to his record label many years prior of performing live at the notorious state prison in Folsom, CA was finally approved after a leadership shakeup at Columbia Records. The company's hopes were not high. Conventional wisdom held that country music's ultra-conservative, Bible-thumping, 'law and order,' fan base wouldn't be interested in hearing Cash sing to and dignify criminals. On January 13, 1968, Johnny Cash showed up at Folsom for the show along with June Carter–the duo would marry two weeks later–his band, the Tennessee Three, and opening acts and background singers the Statler Brothers and Carl Perkins. Then history happened. Cash turned in a fully engaged performance for the ages. When the album was released later that spring, the public went wild. Number one album. Number one single. Grammy award. Cash actually played two separate shows that day, assuring the album would have enough quality recorded material to choose from. The first take was nearly perfect. Cash was back, off the strength of a live album recorded in a maximum-security prison to an audience most country music fans would recommend be executed, not entertained. Such is the power of music. The following year, he gave a similarly lauded in-person, in prison performance at San Quentin. He performed for inmates multiple times. Jim Marshall Johnny, June, and the band were joined by music photographer Jim Marshall at the Folsom and San Quentin concerts. Requested personally by Cash, Marshall was the only official photographer present at the concerts and granted unlimited access. Twenty-five photographs documenting the two concerts, including candid and performance images helping solidify Cash as an outlaw king can be seen through October 12, 2025, at The Momentary, an art exhibition and live music space, in Bentonville, AR, Cash's home state. 'The Prison Concerts: Folsom and San Quentin (Jim Marshall's Photographs of Johnny Cash)' showcases the powerful snapshots of a legendary musician by a legendary photographer. The presentation is free to the public. 'The godfather of music photography,' Marshall (1936–2010) maintained a 50-year career that resulted in more than 500 album covers, an abundance of magazine covers, and some of the most celebrated images in blues, jazz, country, and rock and roll, including those from Cash's Folsom and San Quentin prison concerts. Tall. Lean. Pompadour. Cash is dressed in his trademark black although 'the Man in Black' moniker wouldn't come formally until the early 70s, in part resulting from his stark outfits at the prison concerts. His 1971 hit 'Man in Black' explains 'why you never see bright colors on my back.' It was a wardrobe of protest from a protest singer. 'I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down Living in the hopeless, hungry side of town I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime But is there because he's a victim of the time.' Cash was in his late 30s when he gave the performances. He looks at least 10 years older. Growing up poor and hard living always made Cash appear much older than he actually was. Marshall's Folsom photos show the deep lines on the singer's face. The weight of the world seemingly on his shoulders. Cash is serious, resolute, commanding. He's going to work. Cash isn't nervous, certainly not afraid, but there's a hint of self-doubt in his countenance and posture. 'This might not work,' he seems to think to himself. The prison's stone façade looks positively medieval. A photo of Cash lighting a cigarette with a more hopeful looking June Carter in the foreground looks so much like Joaquin Phoenix, the actor who played him in the biopic, it forces a doubletake. Tragically, Folsom State Prison continues housing inmates today despite opening in 1880. Only San Quentin is older in California. More From Forbes Forbes Historic New Orleans Collection Explores Human Tragedy Of Mass Incarceration In Louisiana By Chadd Scott Forbes Sherrill Roland Correctional Identification Numbers Portraits Humanize The Wrongfully Incarcerated By Chadd Scott Forbes Exhibition Of Paño Arte Highlights Creativity Under Mass Incarceration By Chadd Scott
Wall Street Journal
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Wall Street Journal
Countdown to America's 250th Birthday
Fifty years ago, the U.S. was anticipating a major national anniversary only 12 months away: the bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence. The road to 1976 was rocky. Americans endured a decade of disorienting social change and tumult ranging from political violence to urban riots. They lost thousands of young men in a traumatic and unsuccessful war. A generational economic boom was over. Social optimism had degenerated into suspicion and bitterness. An American president resigned after a coverup failed to conceal what many had long suspected. The nation had good reason to eye the bicentennial with caution. But Billboard's No. 1 song on July 4, 1975, was Captain & Tennille's 'Love Will Keep Us Together,' and a year later, the country got itself together to stage a memorable celebration. On July 4, 1976, tall ships and other vessels from dozens of nations filled New York Harbor. Arthur Fiedler conducted the Boston Pops in a concert before a record-breaking audience of more than 400,000 on the Charles River Esplanade. In Washington, grand marshal Johnny Cash marched at the head of a massive parade down Constitution Avenue. Los Angeles staged its own great procession on Wilshire Boulevard. States, cities and towns devised their own spirited tributes, having largely ignored, in true federalist fashion, earlier efforts to nationalize events. St. Louis readied a massive party around its Gateway Arch, including an air show with a wing walker and parachute jumpers. Chicago planned to swear in 1,776 new citizens. Baltimore prepared a 90-foot-long cake in the shape of the U.S. Ontario, Calif., set up a 2-mile-long picnic table. Depending on where you were across the country, there would be hog-calling contests, tractor pulls, pancake breakfasts, dog shows, pony rides, concerts, parades and fireworks—always fireworks. For 21 months, from April 1, 1975, through the last day of 1976, the 26-car Freedom Train, pulled by a steam locomotive, visited all 48 contiguous states, bearing artifacts of American history. Some Americans, their party affiliations not recorded, sent homemade gifts marking the bicentennial to President Gerald Ford.
