the morals

Now, as you probably know, it isn't often that the Morals will abuse the impact they can have over young tastemakers by using their influence as a sort of musical/blogical soapbox for an overtly political cause. (The preceeding sentence, in addition to being a grammatical minefield, is not, strictly speaking, true.)

But, really, anything the Christian Coalition and MoveOn agree on is too crazy not to mention here.

Those of you who are tech-savvy (MumFORD!) already know this, but for the rest of you, listen up:

The big cable and telecom companies (read: AT&T, Comcast, etc), which have become the only ISPs in the market any more, want to be able to charge content providers for access to their customers. This would mean a huge company like Microsoft could buy access and would load at the speeds you are used to. Other content providers who can't or won't pony up -- news services like IMC, awesome web comix like Questionable Content, small businesses like Made Electric, or even web sites you absolutely cannot live without like craigslist, and yes, even pr0n -- will be relegated to a sort of e-ghetto of slow loading and poor connections. We cannot allow this to happen.

One of the things that has made the internet the (mostly) beautiful, democratic, and lively place that it is is the levelness of the playing field. With a bit of work, I can make a web page that looks just as good, or better, than, say Oregon Representative Greg Walden (incidentally, a major asshole who voted against Net Neutrality TWICE). I can register a domain name (like, say, www.gregwaldenisatotaldouche.com) for a few bucks and host my site for free or cheap hundreds of places. Or, now, I can host it from my home computer. The only difference, as things stand, between my page and Greg (douchebag) Walden's is contextual -- his page is, at first at least, more deeply embedded in the web as a whole. Other people link to his website, and thus it appears higher on search sites.

Letting the telecom companies take over would ruin democracy on the internet, and commodify what is becoming, sadly, the last bastion of truly free speech.

Don't let this happen

MoveOn has a Petition (which is probably largely ineffective), and a link to call your congresspeople (which is hella effective)

Also, we're putting this badge
on this page. You can get one for yourself!

tiny fest is saturday, may 27th. at the tiny tavern. it's the morals glorious return to eugene, and we're bringing all our friends with us. it's a press feeding-frenzy waiting to happen!

If the lord above looked down on the morals, took pity on our souls, and booked us a perfect show- it would be with Seattle's Roy. Well, the Lord's name is Conrad (he works at Berbati's Pan), and the Morals are playing with Roy on June 12th. The list of bands Roy has toured with is a who's who of Morals influences and loves: "The Weakerthans, Constantines, Onelinedrawing, Decibully, Okkervil River, and Rocky Votolato." Better yet, Roy themselves fucking rule! They are un-googleable, but i found their website: www.roytheband.org. Check this, though, for a bio and mp3s: Roy's label website complete with mp3s.
These guys have a similar story to us, they played/play in louder rock bands (ex members of botch/harkonen, current member of these arms are snakes) and now they play sad, country-inspired heart-rock.
Monday, June 12th. Berbati's Pan. With Some By Sea (also awesome). I'm so excited that my heart is going to explode.

i found this morals press photo on our old friendster site. pretty fucking sweet, huh? amy sly took it, and she has more from this series. when she comes to visit (from new york where she is a bigshot) she's gonna take a grip more photos, though i won't have those unbelievable sideburns in the next series. man, that soda was good. we are the gayest non-gay band in portland.

From the AP
Portland, Ore.
-excerpt-
"We were really inspired by Sufjan Stevens' albums, and the concept he had, releasing an album for every state," says Casey Moral. "We wanted to approach a project like that, but we also wanted to add a little more depth."
After some deep-soul-searching, the Morals decided on "The Universe Series," wherein they will record a single for every planet in the universe, starting with the first single, "Sing me a (nep)Tune," scheduled for release in June.
"It's high-time," Ben Moral says "for a project like this. We were going to wait for Steven Hawking to die, you know, to make the releases timely. But then we thought 'dude- it's the universe, and we are totally floating in it.'"
Critics have warn that the series will be humanly impossible to finish.
"The observable universe alone contains about 5 × 10(To the 22nd Power) stars," says Mitch Fieldler of MIT. "Organized in about 140 billion galaxies. It is fucking unfathomable that two people could accomplish this project in their lifetime."
The Morals remain undaunted. "That's what they told the Who while they were writing 'Tommy,'" Casey Moral says. "It's just record-industry talking heads trying to keep down independent music, and we're really sick of it."
The Morals say they see infinite possibilities for their universe project. The fact that they would even attempt such a feat speaks to the stellar ability of man to make a big bang and expand the definition of what is and isn't possible. That, the band says, is truly "far out."

Nathan L. is this week's "Morals Fan of the Week"TM. His non-Morals interests include showing his ass to total strangers.