Happy Hump day, folks. Today’s featured artists are:Nu Shooz, Human League, and Rick Astley.
Nu Shooz is an American Freestyle-R&B-Dance group fronted by husband-and-wife team of John Smith and Valerie Day, based in Portland, Oregon. The Shooz released four albums in the U.S. during the 1980s, and it was its third album, Poolside, that brought the group’s sound to a wider audience.
Nu Shooz formed in 1979 in a lineup that originally featured 12 members. This incarnation of the group released its debut album, Can’t Turn It Off, in 1982. Although the album saw limited success, the band continued on, paring its lineup down to seven members over the next several years.
Nu Shooz originally released the single “I Can’t Wait” in Portland in April 1985 on Poolside Records. The original recording was done at Cascade Recording in Portland in the fall of 1984 and was also featured on the band’s sparsely distributed second album, Tha’s Right, in 1985.[1] “I Can’t Wait” was a big hit on Portland radio stations at the time, but they were turned down by every major label. A copy of the song made it to the Netherlands, where it was remixed by Peter Slaghuis. This version is known as the ‘Dutch Mix.’ The remix came back into the United States as an import on Dutch label Injection Records. It was this version that got the attention of Atlantic Records, which signed the band to a contract in January 1986.
Nu Shooz scored two major pop/R&B/dance hits. “I Can’t Wait” climbed to #2 on the R&B charts and #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in June 1986 and spent 15 weeks in the Top 40, and it also hit #1 on the Hot Dance Club Play chart earlier that year. Its follow-up, “Point of No Return,” was remixed by Shep Pettibone and also topped the dance chart in September 1986; the song peaked at #28 on the Hot 100 and #35 on the R&B charts. Both singles were on the album Poolside, which charted on Billboard’s 200 chart at #27, and sold a half million copies in the U.S., garnering gold record RIAA certification on October 2, 1986.
Nu-Shooz-I Can’t Wait
The Human League
The Human League, formed over 33 years ago in Sheffield, have made a new album, their 10th, and their first since 2001’s Secrets. It’s called Credo, and it’s produced by younger, fresher Sheffield technicians I Monster, and released on the erratically adventurous Wall of Sound label. What you think about this will depend on whether you think of the Human League like Wall of Sound do, as one of the great pioneering electronic acts whose sound and aesthetic has had a positive impact on successive generations of liquid modern dance pop, or like I do, as one of the most brilliant and strangest acts of all time, or as a tired, faded and mostly irrelevant group who never made it beyond a gaudy, defective 1980s.
If you think of the Human League as stuck in the 80s, occasionally enacting some kind of futile comeback, a new album will not be much of an event. If it knowingly updates their sound so that it fits in with the stylised electronic pop soundscape they helped influence, one that stretches from Madonna to Black Eyed Peas, from Pet Shop Boys to La Roux, from Trevor Horn to Xenomania, then that will merely seem desperate. If it faithfully reflects their original sound, an experimental English form of fantasist sonic engineering, which at the time, immediately post-Kraftwerk/Roxy/Bowie/glam/punk/disco, was irresistibly new and inventive, then it will seem at best quaint. It will, perhaps, sound like an affectionate, technically deft I Monster interpretation of an ideal Human League sound: for electropop specialists, fastidious geeks and ageing experts only.
The Human League – Don’t You Want Me
I’m Only Human
C’mon now, ya’ll know ya’ll got down with Rick Astley!
Richard Paul “Rick” Astley (/ˈrɪk ˈæstli/; born 6 February 1966) is an English singer-songwriter, musician, and radio personality. He is known for his 1987 song, “Never Gonna Give You Up”, which was a No. 1 hit single in 25 countries. Astley holds the record for being the only male solo artist to have his first 8 singles reach the Top 10 in the UK and by retirement in 1993 had sold approximately 40 million records worldwide.
After retiring from the music industry in 1993, Astley made a comeback in 2007 when he became an Internet phenomenon, as his video for “Never Gonna Give You Up” became part of a popular Internet meme known as “rickrolling”. Astley was voted “Best Act Ever” by Internet users at the MTV Europe Music Awards 2008.
“Never gonna give you up, never gonna let down, never gonna run around and desert you. Never gonna make you cry, never gonna say goodbye, never gonna tell a lie and hurt you.” Gone Rick!
Cry for Help” is the title of the first single taken from British dance-pop singer Rick Astley’s third studio album, Free. It was written by Rick Astley and Rob Fisher.
Released as a single in January 1991, “Cry for Help” reached the Top 10 on both the UK Singles Chart in the United Kingdom as well as the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart, where the song peaked at No. 7 on both sides of the Atlantic.[1][2] It reached No. 3 in Canada, and it was a No. 1 hit on the U.S. adult contemporary chart.[3] The song’s No. 7 UK chart placing meant that Astley became the first male solo artist to have his first eight singles reach the British Top 10.
The song is a moving soul ballad, unlike many of Astley’s other more famous dance-oriented hit singles (“Never Gonna Give You Up”). It was co-written by British singer-songwriter Rob Fisher, formerly one half of the 1980s pop group Naked Eyes and Climie Fisher. To date, the song was Astley’s last appearance in the Top 10 in either the U.S. or U.K.
The song has been sung by Rick Astley in duet with Soren Sko and covered by Thomas Anders (ex-Modern Talking).
Cry For Help
“Why must we hide emotion? Why must we never breakdown and cry for help? All that I need is to cry for help. Somebody please hear me cry for help. all I can do is cry for help.”
https://twitter.com/wusa9/status/560530963189735425/photo/1
https://twitter.com/scATX/status/560510622983389184/photo/1
Republicans keep their ACA repeal crusade going
01/28/15 12:45 PM—UPDATED 01/28/15 01:41 PM
facebook twitter 2 save share group 24
By Steve Benen
Last week, Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), one of Congress’ less-conservative members, shared his frustrations about his party’s direction.
“Week one, we had a Speaker election that did not go as well as a lot of us would have liked,” Dent told reporters. “Week two, we got into a big fight over deporting children, something that a lot of us didn’t want to have a discussion about. Week three, we are now talking about rape and incest and reportable rapes and incest for minors…. I just can’t wait for week four.”
If Dent is waiting for the Republican majority to get serious about its governing responsibilities, I’m afraid the Pennsylvania congressman will just have to be patient – “week four” will feature more nonsense.
The House will vote next week on a bill to undermine the 2010 healthcare overhaul in what will be close to the 60th time over the last four years.
Next week’s vote will be the first in this Congress to repeal ObamaCare in full, leadership aides said. The House has already voted three times to modify the healthcare law this month, including to establish a full-time workweek as 40 hours instead of 30. The vote will allow new House GOP freshmen who campaigned on repealing ObamaCare to put their pledges to a vote.
When I was a kid, I used to pass by a McDonald’s on the way home from school, and it had one of those big signs out front that read, “Over __ Billion Served.” Periodically, as I recall, someone would actually change the number to show that the chain has cleared another threshold, but after a while, they were replaced with less specific signs. “Billions and Billions Served,” the new signs read.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/republicans-keep-their-aca-repeal-crusade-going
These muthaphuckas think somebody is playing with them
…………….
Victor Blackwell CNN ✔ @VictorCNN
CNN: Seven relatives of #KendrickJohnson, including parents, found GUILTY of misdemeanor charge related to 2013 protest. Sentencing soon.
SAY.IT.AIN’TSO.
https://twitter.com/AbdullahSaylam/status/560407627692507137/photo/1
Has anyone besides me noticed that the 2016 GOP Clown Car is filling up mighty fast and the Democrats are only talking about Hillary Clinton? Maybe there are other potential candidates who are not making the corporate news but I haven’t heard of any. Are the Democrats going to be like it’s Hillary and no one else better show up?
I dunno. Seems like a bad plan.
Well, look at this. Found one. Maybe.
https://twitter.com/skepticalbrotha/status/560350638811660288
Jan 28, 11:05 AM EST
FAMED SC CIVIL RIGHTS PROTESTERS HAVE CONVICTIONS ERASED
BY MITCH WEISS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ROCK HILL, S.C. (AP) — The convictions of nine South Carolina black men who integrated a whites-only lunch counter during the height of the civil rights movement were tossed out Wednesday during an emotional hearing before a packed courtroom.
“We cannot rewrite history, but we can right history,” Judge Mark Hayes said as he made the ruling for the men known as the Friendship 9, and those in court clapped and cheered.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_FRIENDSHIP_NINE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
I loved it. They can all kick rocks, as far as I’m concerned.
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Michelle Obama forgoes a headscarf and sparks a backlash in Saudi Arabia
The Washington Post
Adam Taylor
Barack Obama was in Riyadh on Tuesday to pay his respects to the late Saudi King Abdullah. His visit, for which he cut short a much-hyped trip to India, underscores how important the U.S.-Saudi relationship remains to the American leadership. On social media, however, much of the attention has focused on something else: His wife’s attire.
As noted by the Associated Press, Michelle Obama did not wear a headscarf or veil Tuesday. In Saudi Arabia, that’s unusual: The country is one of the few on Earth where women are expected to cover their heads, and most Saudi women wear niqabs.
Exceptions are made for foreigners, however, and Michelle — who did wear loose clothing that fully covered her arms — appears to have been one of them. In photographs from the official events, other foreign female guests are also shown not wearing headscarves.
More than 1,500 tweets using the hashtag #ميشيل_أوباما_سفور (roughly, #Michelle_Obama_immodesty) were sent Tuesday, many of which criticized the first lady. Some users pointed out that on a recent trip to Indonesia, Michelle had worn a headscarf. Why not in Saudi Arabia?
واشناراه وادويشاه #ميشيل_أوباما_سفور في بلد التوحيد وفي أندونيسيا بحجابها الله أكبر والعزةلله @mshanarm @s_a_aldweesh pic.twitter.com/KvGTO2hgG9
The response wasn’t entirely negative — Ahram Online notes that some Twitter users said Michelle shouldn’t be criticized too much, it being a short, impromptu trip and all. Saudi state television did show images of Michelle and her uncovered head, despite some claims that they had digitally obscured her (a widely circulated video with the first lady entirely blurred seems to have been an amateur production).
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/michelle-obama-forgoes-a-headscarf-and-sparks-a-backlash-in-saudi-arabia/ar-AA8EwPx?ocid=HPCDHP
Neither Laura Bush or Hillary Clinton wore head scarfs.
THE FUCKING END.
http://youtu.be/8z_ifDgElFw
Good Morning 3Chics,
I graduated HS with Nu Shooz bass player Gary Fountaine’s brother Tim. Their rehearsal’s were dope.
Fascination is my cut by HL:
http://youtu.be/6jULqnwsekk
Hi Tyren. Too cool! thanks for the video drop from HL
Loved the music of the 80’s.
https://twitter.com/mmfa/status/560244652930904064/photo/1
Testifying? Why?
UGH, These folks are despicable. Especially Jonathan Turley. He looks and acts like he’s been constipated for half a century.
I’m with you Liza. What do these rightwing nuts have to testify for?
Mr. NFTG @Kennymack1971
Sorry but whining about “Political Correctness” always reads like White folks having a sad they can’t say racist, sexist BS without pushback
https://twitter.com/stephendec2/status/560333421202137088/photo/1
Carrie Johnson ✔ @johnson_carrie
AG nominee Loretta Lynch to be joined by her father & brother in Senate. She’ll have the Navy Seal pin of her late brother who served there.
Good, he needs to be ‘ on edge’.
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Cuomo ‘on edge’ as federal corruption probe continues
By Fredric U. Dicker
January 26, 2015 | 1:48am
Gov . Cuomo is “freaked-out and furious” over the bombshell criminal charges dropped on Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver last week — and “obsessed with fear’’ because of the ongoing federal corruption probe.
One source described Cuomo as “doubly enraged’’ by hard-driving Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara’s decision to bring the five criminal corruption charges against Silver just hours after the governor delivered his State of the State address — and then, less than 24 hours after that, to indict Albany’s “three men in a room’’ culture in which Cuomo is the lead player.
“Cuomo feels Preet just walked all over him,’’ said the source.
Knowledgeable insiders, including law-enforcement experts, said it wasn’t accidental that Bharara brought the charges against Silver just hours after Cuomo’s State of the State.
“Prosecutors have a lot of discretion, and when they time a high-profile arrest in a way that steps all over Cuomo’s speech, that’s the use of discretion for a purpose,’’ a former federal prosecutor told The Post.
http://nypost.com/2015/01/26/cuomo-on-edge-as-federal-corruption-probe-continues/
Andrew Cuomo Gets Kicked in the Nuts
by brendan
Tue Jan 27th, 2015 at 03:06:13 PM EST
I had already planned to write a little bit about Andrew Cuomo, who has been reliably reported to be a major dickhead (via Atrios, check out how Cuomo fucked New York City by shutting down the subway yesterday). We all know how Mario’s idiot bastard son has given the republicans de facto control of the state senate, and Daily Kos has relentlessly hammered the Working Families Party for buying his promises. We have also learned plenty about Andy’s ethics when he shut down his own ethics commission the minute it started looking at Hizzoner himself.
But in the wake of Sheldon Silver’s arrest for corruption, US Attorney Preet Bharara had a warning for Albany:
[T]he charges “in our view go to the very core of what ails Albany: lack of transparency, lack of accountability and lack of principle — joined with overabundance of greed, cronyism and self-dealing. But we will keep at it.”
“As our unfinished fight against public corruption continues, you should stay tuned.”
But when pressed for more details, Bharara demurred.
“We have a number of public corruption investigations going on,” he said. “I’m not going to tell you which people we’re looking at.”
…and THAT, my friends, has made Andy Angry:
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2015/1/27/15613/2864
More from that WaPo article about the problems in Prince George’s County
…………………
Swamped by an underwater home
After the housing collapse derails the American Dream, a
cloud of uncertainty hangs over the Boateng family
In a cold Sunday afternoon 10 years ago, Comfort and Kofi Boateng stood
with Comfort’s mother and their three children before a quarter-acre parcel in a
brand-new subdivision in the center of Prince George’s County.
……..
A decade ago, Comfort and Kofi were at the apex of an astonishing journey they had made from Ghana in 1997, when they had won a visa lottery to come to America. They did not know it at the time, but they were also at the midpoint in their odyssey from American Dream to American Nightmare.
Today, they struggle under nearly $1 million in debt that they will never be able to repay on the 3,292-square-foot, six-bedroom, red-brick Colonial they bought for $617,055 in 2005. The Boatengs have not made a mortgage payment in 2,322 days — more than six years — according to their most recent mortgage statement. Their plight illustrates how some of the people swallowed up by the
easy credit era of the previous decade have yet to reemerge years
later.
When they moved into the house in November 2005, Kofi was earning $82,740 as an IT consultant for a government contractor, and Comfort, then 43, was making $30,000 as an administrative assistant. But in the overheated mortgage market of
the time, they said everyone told them that they could buy a $600,000 house.
They made a $60,000 down payment and all their mortgage payments for more than 2½ years — through September 2008. But the house was financed with subprime loans, which reset to higher rates after short time periods, creating what are known as “shock payments.” The Boatengs said they could not make their new
higher payment, and, in the middle of the 2008 mortgage crisis, they could not refinance.
…………
They came from a Ghanaian culture where credit is scarce and people built their houses with cash and lived in them for generations. Deeply religious, they found their real estate agent and mortgage broker at their church, Agape Life Ministries in Laurel. When their money got tight, they borrowed more and refinanced to take on more debt. Caught up in the mind-set of the time, they said, they thought they would be able to continue to refinance.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/01/26/distressed-family-swamped-by-an-underwater-home/
hee hee hee
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Rick Perry loses second request to dismiss case against him
3:17 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2015
A judge denied a second and more substantial request Tuesday by former Gov. Rick Perry to dismiss the indictment against him prior to trial, likely extending his criminal case for the next several months as Perry continues mounting a possible presidential campaign.
The ruling by Judge Bert Richardson, a San Antonio Republican, comes five months after Perry’s attorneys filed the writ of habeas corpus, a sign of the slow speed at which the case is churning through the criminal justice system. Immediately after the ruling, Perry’s attorneys filed formal documents appealing the ruling to the Austin-based 3rd Court of Appeals, a process that could take several months and stall possible resolution of the case.
A Travis County grand jury Aug. 15 indicted the former governor on charges of abuse of official capacity and coercion of a public official — two felonies — arising from his June 2013 demand to District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg to resign or lose a two-year, $7.5 million allocation to the state’s Public Integrity Unit after her DWI conviction.
http://www.statesman.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/rick-perry-loses-second-request-to-dismiss-case-ag/njx5y/
LMAO!
I honestly didn’t know turtles could move this fast
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http://youtu.be/81720bVYf9Q
https://twitter.com/nycjim/status/560415624791621633/photo/1
I use to crush on Sly Stone!
you anti-vaccination people are to blame for this
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California measles outbreak is up to 87 cases in 7 states, Mexico
Los Angeles Times
Rosanna Xia 4 hrs ago
LOS ANGELES — Officials have now confirmed at least 87 cases of measles in seven states and Mexico, as the outbreak centered in California continues to spread.
The California Department of Public Health said Monday there were now 73 cases in the state, of which 50 can be linked directly to Disneyland. Some people who were contagious visited in January as well as December.
Officials also reported four new measles patients in Arizona who visited Disneyland, bringing Arizona’s total number of Disneyland-related patients to five. Cases connected to Disneyland also have been confirmed in Utah (3), Washington state (2), Oregon (1), Colorado (1), Nebraska (1) and Mexico (1).
The measles outbreak has also expanded beyond those who visited Disneyland in December and January and is infecting people in the broader community.
Nine counties in California have confirmed measles cases: Alameda, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Ventura.
Orange County now has 23 confirmed cases. Los Angeles County follows with 15 cases and San Diego County with 13.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/california-measles-outbreak-is-up-to-87-cases-in-7-states-mexico/ar-AA8CkOx?ocid=HPCDHP
Only In Boston @OnlyInBOS 10h10 hours ago
This is how the principal of @MosesBrown in Rhode Island announced there was no school today. #BlizzardOf2015
http://youtu.be/OjE72Q8s8wo
https://twitter.com/NerdyWonka/status/560430602256535552/photo/1
EMPIRE FANS, for you:
http://youtu.be/SRC6NEdSLIA
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Happy HUMP day, Everyone! C’mon SG2, where’s that dancing gif? LOL