Fair Use: The Story of the Letter U and the Numeral 2 | ||||
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Studio album by Negativland | ||||
Released | November 1995 | |||
Recorded | Summer 1992–fall 1994 | |||
Genre | Experimental, plunderphonics | |||
Length | 1:12:22 | |||
Label | Seeland (Seeland 013) | |||
Producer | Negativland | |||
Negativland chronology | ||||
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Fair Use: The Story of the Letter U and the Numeral 2 is a 270-page book and ten track CD released in 1995 by Negativland detailing their lawsuits with U2's record label Island Records for their EP U2 , including many legal documents and correspondences.
This book includes the text from the original magazine The Letter U and the Numeral 2 which caused Negativland's record label SST Records to sue Negativland for publishing financial information on SST and the story of how they were being treated by SST.
Sources appearing on "Dead Dog Records":
ABC, NBC, CBS, CBC, PBS, NPR, FOX, ABS, Wiseguy, Casey Kasem, A Real Dog, the Shangri-La's, Usha Uthup, Wild Bill Hickok, Jingles P. Jones, Elizabeth Claire Prophet, David Ross, Big Daddy, the Edge, XTC, Captain Beefheart, the Chipmunks, Slim Whitman, Holger Hiller, Lightnin' Hopkins, Chumbawamba, Muddy Waters, the Rolling Stones, James Gabbert, Ray Rienhardt, Scott Beach, Led Zeppelin, Jim Bohannon, Perry & Kingsley, Johann Strauss, Little Roger and the Goosebumps, Tom Waits, Marilyn Quayle, David Byrne, the Code, The Little Mermaid , Dean Martin, Danny O'Day and Farfel, Black Flag, the Weatherman, Byram Abbott, James Snothed, Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, Jeff Koons, the History of Radio, Nina Totenberg, Linda Wortheimer, 2 Live Crew, Roy Orbison, Alan M. Turk, Perez Prado, Brian Robertson, the Jerky Boys, Dan Lynch, Ewan Hughes, Merle Travis, U2, Art Rogers, the Pretenders, Stupidland, TM Productions, Rush Limbaugh, MTV Music Video Awards, B.P. Fallon, Zoo Radio Transmit, De La Soul, Flo and Eddie, Mike Oldfield, Zoo T.V., Crime Photographer, Radioactive Goldfish, Bob Basanich, Tibetan Monks, Bono, Taco Bell, Dana Carvey, Spy Plane Sound Effects Record, Larry King, the Evolution Control Committee, Mark Hamill, Batman, George David Weis, Alan Dershowitz, Bernard Herrmann, Charles Ferris, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Sammy Davis Jr., Jerry Spence, Brian Eno, Bing Crosby, Wendy Carlos, the Andrews Sisters, Dick Haymes, Ethel Merman, Xerox Technology and many original sounds made and played by Negativland.
SST Records is an American independent record label formed in 1978 in Long Beach, California by musician Greg Ginn. The company was first founded in 1966 by Ginn at age 12 as Solid State Transmitters, a small business through which he sold electronics equipment. Ginn repurposed the company as a record label to release material by his band Black Flag.
Nervous Breakdown is the debut EP by the American hardcore punk band Black Flag, released in January 1979 by SST Records. It was the label's first release, and the only non-compilation release to feature Keith Morris on vocals.
Achtung Baby is the seventh studio album by the Irish rock band U2. It was produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, and was released on 18 November 1991 by Island Records. After criticism of their 1988 release Rattle and Hum, U2 shifted their direction to incorporate influences from alternative rock, industrial music, and electronic dance music into their sound. Thematically, Achtung Baby is darker, more introspective, and at times more flippant than their previous work. For his lyrics, lead vocalist Bono was partly inspired by the marital issues of guitarist the Edge.
Escape from Noise is the fourth studio album by Negativland. It marked the band's first release on an established independent record label, SST Records. The album continued to develop the band's experimental style, though it also featured shorter, more melodic songs than their previous material. The track "Christianity Is Stupid", a track featuring samples of evangelist Estus Pirkle from his film If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do?, proved to be an enduring signature song. Negativland gained media attention a year later after issuing a press release falsely implying that murderer David Brom had been motivated by the song; this would inspire their subsequent album Helter Stupid.
Helter Stupid is Negativland's fifth studio album, released in 1989. It is a concept album focused on the media coverage of a hoax formulated by the band claiming that "Christianity Is Stupid" from their previous album, Escape from Noise, had inspired David Brom to murder his family in Rochester, Minnesota, as well as other moral panics related to popular music.
Pastor Dick: Muriel's Purse Fund was the second volume in the Over the Edge series, which distills the best moments from Negativland's radio program Over the Edge, broadcast on KPFA. This album was edited together from several different broadcasts recorded between 1982 and 1986.
The Weatherman's Dumb Stupid Come-Out Line was the third volume in the Over the Edge series, which distills the best material from Negativland's radio program Over the Edge, broadcast on KPFA. This album was edited together from several different broadcasts recorded between 1982 and 1984.
No Business is the tenth album by the sound collage band Negativland. While the songs encompass a variety of topics, the overarching theme of the album is copyright issues, especially those pertaining to peer-to-peer file sharing. Although the title track and especially the track "Downloading" are the only ones that explicitly relate to this topic, the rest of the album can technically be considered so, because they consist entirely of samples, unlike Negativland's other albums.
U2 is a withdrawn EP by Negativland, released on SST Records in 1991. The EP and the band gained notoriety when lawyers representing Island Records sued Negativland over the EP's unauthorized sampling of the U2 song "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and misleading artwork. The EP's two tracks and related material were later collected on the compilation These Guys Are from England and Who Gives a Shit.
JAMCON '84 was the first volume in the Over the Edge series, which distills portions of Negativland's radio program Over the Edge, broadcast on KPFA. This album was edited together from at least three different broadcasts recorded between January and July 1985.
Antediluvian Rocking Horse (ARH), formed 1994 St. Kilda, Australia, is an audio project maintained by two core artists credited as DJ2 and DJ3. DJ2 is Paul Wain, a sculptor and graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts. DJ3 is Susan King, a collage artist, writer and anti-copyright advocate. The composer Ollie Olsen was also a member. The project produces music and soundscapes that are entirely recycled from other recorded works.
Our Favorite Things is a compilation DVD by the band Negativland, released on November 27, 2007. The original release date on October 23 was skipped due to a pressing error in the DVDs and the bonus CD, a collection of Negativland covers done by an a cappella doo-wop group. It contains 20 of the band's greatest "hits" animated by 20 different artists from all over the United States. The cover parodies the artwork of the film The Sound of Music as well as title of the film's song "My Favorite Things". The front features a "review" from the character Goofy saying, "It's goofy". The people on the cover are dolls.
Negativ(e)land: Live on Tour is a 1997 live album, released by SST Records. It was released against the wishes of the band, who had left SST following the U2 Scandal. It was released to compete with Dispepsi, a Negativland album.
These Guys Are from England and Who Gives a Shit is a 2001 compilation album by Negativland. It contains the two tracks from the band's 1991 EP U2 alongside related recordings from the band's Over the Edge radio show and tracks recorded live at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. As the U2 EP had been withdrawn due to a legal dispute with Island Records, the album is billed as a bootleg and ostensibly released under "Seelard Records", a misspelling of the band's Seeland Records. Several of the live tracks sample the same Casey Kasem outtakes that had appeared on U2, including a spoken portion quoting "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction". Other tracks reference the band's struggles with their former label SST Records and the 1960 U-2 incident.
Guns is the name of the 1992 EP by the experimental music and sound collage band Negativland. It was released as a replacement for their deleted/withdrawn EP "U2". The cover art reuses that which appears on "U2". The album is about the appeal of guns and their place in American history. "Then" includes samples from western movies and radio shows of the 1940s and 1950s, mixed with audio from the film Son of the Morning Star. "Now" samples 1980s and 1990s commercials which marketed guns to women, mixed with the original radio reports from the John F. Kennedy assassination and Robert F. Kennedy assassination.
The Letter U and the Numeral 2 is a 96-page magazine and 25-minute CD by Negativland detailing their conflict with the band U2, over Negativland's EP of the same name. It was released in 1992 as a limited edition of 4000 copies. Two months after its release, SST Records blocked its distribution with a lawsuit claiming, among other things, copyright infringement based on reproductions of press releases sent to the press by SST; "in essence, suing the band for printing (their) threat to sue the band". SST's lawsuit is similar to the "Streisand effect".
Negativconcertland is a 1993 recording of a live concert by Negativland. It is a bootleg recorded from the audience. At the time of its release, Negativland had never officially released a live album. SST later put out "Negativ(e)land: Live On Tour" against their wishes to compete with Seeland's Dispepsi album. In 2006, they released an official live recording, It's All In Your Head FM, made on the tour of the same name.
The Starting Line is composed of two program presentations, both of which are highly edited versions of shows that were originally broadcast on KPFA's Over the Edge radio show, hosted by Don Joyce weekly and featuring members of Negativland. The first program, "The Starting Line," is Tracks 1-5, and features a mock call-in radio show focusing on various aspects of cars, hosted by a character named Dick Goodbody. The second program, "The Rototiller Singalong," takes up Tracks 6 - 9, and is hosted by two people claiming not to be involved with Over the Edge, but are in fact David Wills & Richard Lyons. The program features a recording of a Rototiller, and over-the-phone "karaoke," where callers provide the vocal parts for music being played in the studio.
Dick Vaughn's Moribund Music Of The '70s is a collection of recordings edited from a wealth of material broadcast on KPFA's Over the Edge radio show, hosted by Don Joyce weekly and featuring members of Negativland, as well as material recorded at a Live Negativland show just after the "U2 Scandal." The recordings are broken up into two discs, and within that contain bits and pieces of many different Over The Edge Shows.
Negativland is an American experimental music band that originated in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1970s. The core of the band consists of Mark Hosler, David Wills, Peter Conheim and Jon Leidecker. Negativland has released a number of albums ranging from pure sound collage to more musical expositions. These have mostly been released on their own label, Seeland Records. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, they produced several recordings for SST Records, most notably Escape from Noise, Helter Stupid and U2. Negativland were sued by the band U2's record label, Island Records, and by SST Records, which brought them widespread publicity and notoriety. The band is also part of the Church of the SubGenius parody religion. Negativland coined the term culture jamming in 1984. Don Joyce added it to the album JamCon '84 in the form of "culture jammer". The band took their name from a Neu! track, with their record label Seeland Records also being named after another Neu! track.