Interference Interuption:

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Television - the Drug of the Nation was a great part of the pre-show build up. I remember seeing Disposable Heroes live at ZOO TV Outside Broadcast Saratoga Springs and they were a great support act.

Of course back the world was emerging from Gulf War I - the first war that was (selectively) broadcast real-time to the world and their armchairs 24hrs a day and set the path for the news network coverage from the likes of CNN that we are still seeing from Iraq.

If this aspect of the world seemed a bit twisted then it is doubly so now - definitely still a relevant song and theme for the show. Now we have internet to some extent replacing or at least feeding television as this wild medium is used, in its most ugly form, to show the execution of hostages etc. You see so many dead bodies on news bulletins now that you just wouldn't have seen back in '92. It makes me in this respect that life is getting cheap and we're slipping back to the Dark Ages.

On a brighter note... can't wait for the next tour! Some of the ideas posted here are really imaginative. And I echo the sentiments of PowerSurge back on pg 4 of this thread when s/he said "PLEASE make this tour be more than just the music....make it more...please....I don't care how you package it, or how it sounds, this is the eye of the hurricane, many bad things are on the horizon please use this tour as a megaphone for those who barely are a whisper in this world of static and chaos."
 
P.S. I think though that the focus shouldn;t be just on the Iraq situation which is covered so widely every day. A lot of us are sick of hearing nightly propaganda bulletins on "The War On Terror"

Africa I guess will be the "theme" next year with the G8 initiatives and so on.

Anyway good to see you back Edge! and best wishes to you all for the launch of the new album - its great to see Vertigo breaking musical download limits - now that is a good use for the internet.

:wave:
 
Had it's time. Move on..... There's better things to be written about the internet than that.
 
cheers to filo pharnsworth. jeers to david sarnoff.

:up:
excellent tune. a salient example of how music can put forth an effort to effect change.

re: the internet delivering us from the 'wasteland' that television has become, for lack of a better phrase. this is true to a limited extent. while the internet offers interactivity, such as this forum, many of its innovations are co-opted by the same corporate or societal forces that retarded the development of past technological innovations.

as with many communications technologies before them, both television and the internet bring about a incremental change-not revolution. perhaps the closest to revolution was gutenberg's printing press.
 
I remember when I signed up for broadband, switching from a 56k dial up, I was on the phone to the company and had to wait 2 weeks for the broadband connection to be made so I told the guy on the phone
"can you keep my 56k connection open till my broadband is ready? I can't live without the internet for 2 weeks"

guy on the phone "so what did you do before internet came along?"

I was speechless! I just couldn't answer! lol anyone else feel they could live without it? what do you reckon...if you had to choose between giving up TV or internet? I think it would have to be TV as internet is more interactive as we know!
 
Hawk269 said:

So true. The Internet is Zoo TV on steroids. Except channels are now websites, blogs, chatrooms, message boards, and video conferences, among other things.

As a society, we are being bombarded by information like never before. Makes the early to mid 90's seem tame in comparison. The Internet has replaced the tube as society's drug of choice. So many people now have the power of seemingly infinite knowledge and communication at their fingertips.
AJ

Indeed, and to take it a step further I would have to say Zoo TV with the Internet would be information overload on steroids. You have to remember that Zoo TV was put together before the Internet was as big as it is now. Hell, I never heard of the Internet in '92, '93. Could you imagine Zoo TV now? In addition to the TV shows, you would have screens running some U2 chat room for the entire show, transmitting the shows online, making song requests to the stage in Madison Square Garden from your home in Des Moines, Iowa. Bono could send a mass email to all the world leaders at the same time instead of just one call to George and order pizzas for all of us!

Oh gawd, the whole idea of an Internet connected Zoo TV makes my mind spin.
 
The internet is a great source of information. Only it also allows bad people to get information to harm people.

I saw a CNN story about how they found a disk in Iraq with US school information. Scary!
 
I think the text is still relevant in today's mindless media production/consumption. Although i agree with doctorwho that the net and personal computers has another dimension that TV doesn't have (in it's current form), interaction.

Just look at what we are doing now... we are interacting with one of the most famous people in the world. Wouldn't happen on a U2-special on TV, would it? :)

With internet, as with TV, you gotta stop and ask yourself: what does this give me? Is it worth watching/surfing another hour, or should i go out and do something else?
 
Just look at what we are doing now... we are interacting with one of the most famous people in the world. Wouldn't happen on a U2-special on TV, would it?

Are you sure that's what you're doing though? I love the internet before anyone starts, but there's a lot of crap on it too. Even on here.
 
Tizer said:


Are you sure that's what you're doing though? I love the internet before anyone starts, but there's a lot of crap on it too. Even on here.

Do you mean that this is not a real interaction, or that it isn't really Edge we are interacting with?

Of course there is crap on the internet, but there is crap everywhere, crap books, crap music, crap university courses... you always have to screen.
 
Hey Edge,

Ya gave us a lot to think about.
There are a lot of parallels, comparing the Zoo TV era with the era we live in now.
The ZooTv era was very impressive then, and gave lots of matters to think about. Subjets have changed in 10 years, now we have the era after 9/11 we have Irak and we have Africa, we live in the century of the internet, with all its site (negative and positive).....etc.......(not to forget this blue crack :wink:)
This items and the ones you've mentioned are all "atomic bombs" in our world, I WOULD LIKE TO LEARN HOW TO DISMANTLE THEM !!! Would be the key to solutions I guess...
:scratch:
Everything you know is wrong..........isn't it, no one moves and nobody gets hurt.....It's your world you can change it......
All from ZooTV but still true !!!

But from the way you talk Edge, I can feel that it is not clear at all how the tour/stage is going to look ??!!:hmm:
See ya, Edge:hug:
 
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The Edge said:
The band and I were discussing past tours and ideas we had used. We came to talking about ZooTV and I thought a song we used in the pre-set has become more.. if not... at least as relevant now as it was at the time. This is probably for those with long memories or who are just getting on....:wink:
In this century it can probably be applied to the personal computer and I am as guilty as the next.....

:eyebrow:

The writing style of the title and the initial post in this thread is oddly similar to that of a certain staff member, misspellings, lack of proper punctuation, two little dots and a space between two sentences which are also not capitalized.. sure looks familiar.. this person is also a poet.. :hmm: :eyebrow: :censored:
 
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im a staff member. i dont capitalize and i rarely engage in punctuation.

U2Kitten said:
:eyebrow:

The writing style of the title and the initial post in this thread is oddly similar to that of a certain staff member, misspellings, lack of proper punctuation, two little dots and a space between two sentences which are also not capitalized.. sure looks familiar.. this person is also a poet.. :hmm: :eyebrow: :censored:

do you really think the Edge is a staff member now?
that would be so wickedcool!
 
U2Kitten said:
:eyebrow:

The writing style of the title and the initial post in this thread is oddly similar to that of a certain staff member, misspellings, lack of proper punctuation, two little dots and a space between two sentences which are also not capitalized.. sure looks familiar.. this person is also a poet.. :hmm: :eyebrow: :censored:

Ooh, Kitty, you're going all forensic on us!
I love your stylistic analysis, actually. Good one.:wave:
 
some words by Gil Scott Heron:

You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.

There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run,
or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance.
NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being
run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process.
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy
Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.

Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be right back after a message
bbout a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat.

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.
 
biff said:


Ooh, Kitty, you're going all forensic on us!
I love your stylistic analysis, actually. Good one.:wave:

Thanks :) It was brook's post in Don't expect, suggest that got me thinking, mmm bad writing, :hmm: it was like that Simpsons episode, "big shoes to fill, big shoes to fill", bingo! I was suspicious anyway but after rereading the first post here I was sure.



Now a certain Steely Dan album title is coming to mind :sexywink:
 
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oh! good stuff Death. I remember hearing a recording of that in college and would recommend you all find it.
 
I have been a U2 fan since ATYCLB so about ZooTv I know what it is and what it had as messge underneath it but I don't know what i ment or felt at the time so what i am giong to say is just about what edge has posted.
It remins alot of how America acted before nine eleven and how the war Iraq(Gulf)) has been reported in press and media(Kenneth Bigley's family must go through a hell now because not only they have lostt him but this also getting a big media coverage)and also about celevrity ,I know it is normal when you're famous thay you are giong to be followed by paparazzi but why take pictures of any celbrity when they are on holiday what do we win with that ?
Sometimes it is good that the press excits it keeps us awake about what is happinging but mostly it is in overloads(what Zootv was about)and then you get really numb for what you see and alot of shows now are just not bringing anything to our society(for example Big Brother)it just shows people in their bad selfs so so for me it isn't weird that kids get really wrond ideas about how our world works iuf you're been fed up with these kind of things and probably the society isn't giong to change in a while with their egocentristic ideas but yeah what are we giong to do about it?
 
Thanks It was brook's post in Don't expect, suggest that got me thinking, mmm bad writing, it was like that Simpsons episode, "big shoes to fill, big shoes to fill", bingo! I was suspicious anyway but after rereading the first post here I was sure. Now a certain Steely Dan album title is coming to mind

Thanks this gave me a great chuckle today...:laugh:

but Steely Dan did happen to spell my name wrong on that album.darn him
 
Oh Edge, how happy am I to see that you are again thinking of the very cool Mr Michael Franti. Television, the drug of the nation, is a great song, very relevant and to the point. I sometimes wish that Michael would bring it out these days, but he dosnt- so have you seen Michael Franti and Spearhead live at all??

I saw them live last year and they played the last ever gig at Brisbane's Festival Hall (the hall being demolished to make way for residential units!!!!!!) and the gig was, well the only way to describe it is like a religious experience. The man played for three hours non-stop and the positivity in the room was just awe inspiring- a very beautiful man with great words:heart:
 
PowerSurge said:
Edge,
please tell the band that this next tour has to really send a message.

There are people getting killed everyday in Iraq, Genocide in The Sudan, Terrorists on the loose, people in the U.S. are dangerously close to losing their privacy because of the Patriot Act, a current president that is poisoning the earth and force feeding god and jesus to the american people....

PLEASE make this tour be more than just the music....make it more...please....I don't care how you package it, or how it sounds, this is the eye of the hurricane, many bad things are on the horizon please use this tour as a megaphone for those who barely are a whisper in this world of static and chaos.


thanks
PS

I agree. While I do realize that it is not U2's responsibility to save the world, U2 can definitely make some noise on these issues that the mainstream media will hear.

At the same time, though, with Bono seeking bi-partisan support for debt relief and AIDS funding, I don't see how U2 could make a stand against platforms of one of the political parties without harming the chances for that party's support on Africa's health emergency. By that reasoning, the best solution would be to stick to the music.

Definitely not the ideal situation, in my opinion.

AJ
 
After just listening to the song again, it really does hit you and I just thought about something that I didnt post earlier.

I like the line in the song where it talks about tv being the reason why so many dont read. As someone who is a huge reader and not much of a tv watcher, I hate the fact that so many people my age and younger and older have never read a novel. I hate the way that Tv is a baby sitter for so many children and is mindless background fodder for so many people. I'm studying to be an adult literacy teacher and I believe so much in being able to read and write, so at least with the net, whilst it can be full of dribble it can be infomative and at least people have to be able to read and write to some extent to use it. However I do understand what is being said. I always say to people that if you just halved the amount of time you spend watching TV with something else like either exercising or reading, well you would benefit from it greatly. I guess the same could be said of me with the net too, well just with interference I guess.....it is a great thing that gets in the way of what you should really be doing....

Like right now, I really gotta go- I'm off to give out 'how to vote flyers' for the Australian Greens party for our federal election today- should be fun:scratch:
 
Hawk269 said:


I agree. While I do realize that it is not U2's responsibility to save the world, U2 can definitely make some noise on these issues that the mainstream media will hear.

At the same time, though, with Bono seeking bi-partisan support for debt relief and AIDS funding, I don't see how U2 could make a stand against platforms of one of the political parties without harming the chances for that party's support on Africa's health emergency. By that reasoning, the best solution would be to stick to the music.

Definitely not the ideal situation, in my opinion.

AJ

I agree with you in everything but "taking a stand" hurting Bono's plight in Africa. Genocide in The Sudan IS in Africa, and Iraq is nearby enough for them to bring it to light. I don't know if they'll want to wander into the problems here in the U.S. but those other problems are still very mentionable.
 
MissMoo said:
I loved the opening of those concerts. It made you think and pumped you up at the same time. But isn't that what your best songs do? I think so. Thanks for the reminder!

agreed
 
Bono needs to and will stand firm about Africa. These people are imploding and nobody is doing enough to help them....this isn't a party issue, it's an emergency. What's sad is that if we (and by we I'm not saying you guys personally) all thought of Africans as our equals this would not have been going on for as long as it has.
 
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