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dustedmagazine · 11 days ago

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Satomimagae — Taba (RVNG Intl.)

The music of Tokyo musician Satomimagae is like listening to an aural illusion, at once both alarmingly intimate and soothingly indistinct. An affiliate of the city’s acid-folk scene, she’s been recording solo acoustic-based works at a steady clip for more than a decade now, but her mastery of this mystical, gently treated approach has peaked in the last four years, first with Hanazono and now, here, with Taba.

For someone whose favorite place to play and record is their room, it makes sense that the majority of Satomimagae’s output could be described as polished bedroom folk, hold the acid. Right from the beginning of her earliest available demos dating back to 2009 (though she’s been writing since 2003), the template was set for what would become her signature sound: fried vocals floating somewhere just above a whisper and simple acoustic six-string chords with the occasional sonic flourish, be it synths, horns or some sort of vocal manipulation (double-tracking, counterpoints, delay, etc.). In fact, a relisten to 2012’s full-length debut Awa shows she arrived more or less fully formed; everything hence has been like witnessing a sculptor chip away at a finished statue to reveal something new underneath.

So it continues with Taba. Like Hanazono, there won’t be any great surprises to longtime listeners here, but it does demonstrate a continued willingness to experiment within some pretty strict confines. It succeeds: Though sometimes difficult to make out lyrically, her appreciation for the space a given instrument receives in the mix (as the Fifteen Questions interview reveals, she has a fondness for The American Analog Set and Notwist for exactly this reason) is never in question — you can hear everything even if you can’t hear everything being said.

Cricket chirps and what sounds like the looped static of a radio between frequencies open “Ishi,” where we first hear her ethereal voice enter as if on a breeze, the lightest of touches suddenly swirling around your headphones aided only by a slow guitar strum and what could be Yuya Shito’s clarinet (though it isn’t mentioned for “Ishi,” Shito gets credit for clarinet on “Spells” and was trusted with the album’s mix more broadly). Everything you need to know about Satomimagae’s M.O. is right here, though following track “Many” might be more approachable for English-language audiences given it’s one of the few occasions in which she sings in her non-native tongue (“Tent,” “Metallic Gold” and the possibly bilingual “Nami” are the others). It also offers a window into her lyrical style, which is aphoristic and quietly self-examining; despite how much she does with her vocal range (swooning closer “Kabi” is probably the best display of her range), words are used sparingly for maximum impact. I’m reminded of Colleen, Purple Pilgrims, Grouper and early Yowler in this way, where the phrases that leap out stick with you long after the record’s over.

Though Taba has been presented as a kind of short story collection, its coherence is of such totality that defining it as merely the sum of its parts feels insufficient. At least as good as Hanazono and once again done with minimal fanfare, Taba is another full-length gift from an artist who shouldn’t have to be passed around like a secret. There’s no better time to discover why than right here, right now.

Patrick Masterson

#satoimagae #taba #rvng intl.#patrick masterson #albumreview #dusted magazine #tokyo #ambient #acoustic

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takethistoyourstardust · 1 year ago

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okay so to explain; back in 2019, a show called Kamen Rider Zi-O was airing, and one of the final upgrades for the hero, called Zi-O Trinity, was leaked due to magazine scans, months before the show would even start hinting at a final form.

This wasn’t uncommon in the toku fandom, final forms getting leaked in magazines months before the premier in the show. it’s frowned upon to share them around, yes, (i’m only sharing the og scans because The Show’s Been Over For Five Years) but it happens. a LOT. but you mostly just share it among yourselves and, notably, OUTSIDE OF THE VIEW OF THE SHOWRUNNERS.

so, the producer of the show was answering western fans’ questions, and the question of final forms came up (just asking if the writers for the shows called the final upgrade something specific). someone asked the producer if Zi-O Trinity would fall under that category, to which he replied:

i won’t talk about the fallout/backlash from All Of That any further, i just wanted to give the fob followers context for what i’m saying. though i will show you what Zi-O Trinity looks like:

hideous, no? anyways,

as for all my other followers, here’s the fob side of it - patrick stump (lead singer, rhythm guitarist, and kinda main composer for fall out boy) gave an interview recently, talking about playing deep cuts on their most recent tour, and mentioned a demo named “Legendary”:

the reason we even know about this demo and have it is because one of his band mates (pete wentz, bassist and lyricist) leaked it himself on his blog very briefly before taking it down. it has since been downloaded and reposted a ton of times, hence people being able to know about Legendary.

anyways. that’s all it reminded me of HDKFJDKFJFKFJDKFJF

patrick mentioning people finding out about Legendary and having no idea how they heard it is giving me massive “you’re not supposed to know about trinity form” vibes.

#the Mage rambles #fababoi #IT WON’T LET ME LINK THE FUCKING INTERVIEW

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howaminotinthestrokesyet · 4 years ago

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Behind The Album: In Utero

The third and final studio album from Nirvana was released in September 1993 via DGC records. The band wanted to make a clear departure from how their second album sounded. They felt that their huge hit album, Nevermind, was too polished as a record. The producer of that second LP, Butch Vig, would later note that Kurt Cobain needed to “reclaim his punk ethics or cred.” For his part Cobain would tell Rolling Stone in early 1992 that the record would have elements to it much more raw then found on the second album. However, he did emphasize the fact that the pop sound would not disappear entirely. He had hoped to start working on it l in the middle of 1992, but distance between band members getting together was an issue as they all lived in different cities. Another issue came in the fact that Courtney Love was expecting their first child. DGC was hoping to release a new record by Christmas of the year, but instead they were forced to go with the compilation album of all the early material from Sub Pop, Incesticide. For In Utero, Cobain showed interest in working with former producer of Bleach, Jack Endino and Steve Albini. They brought in Endino to work on a few instrumentals for the record that were eventually re-recorded, and he was never asked to produce in any capacity. The group went back and forth debating whether to hire Albini or not. In January 1993, the group recorded another set of demos while on tour in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. This would later become the track, “Gallons of Rubbing Alcohol Flow Through the Strip,” which originally had the working title of I’ll Take You Down to the Pavement. The latter represented a direct reference to an argument between Cobain and Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards. The band finally decided to go with Albini as a producer despite his reputation of strict discipline within the studio and remaining one of the most opinionated producers out there. He was said to have referred to Nirvana as “REM with a fuzz box, unremarkable Seattle sound.” He would later say that his decision to work with the band came out of sympathy, feeling smaller groups like Nirvana were at the mercy of the record label. This particular statement should be taken with a grain of salt as Nirvana had just released the biggest record since Appetite for Destruction. Cobain had been a fan of the producer based on his work with the Pixies and the Breeders.

Producer Albini wanted to complete recording within a strict two week timeframe. Nirvana paid for the recording sessions themselves on Albini’s suggestion to avoid interference from the record label. The band paid him $24,000 for his services, while he refused any royalties whatsoever, which would have amounted to $500,000. He would continually say that royalties were immoral and a complete insult to the artist. They recorded at Pachyderm Studios in Cannon Falls, Minnesota in February 1993. Krist Novoselic would compare the environment to a gulag. “There was snow outside, we couldn't go anywhere. We just worked." Nirvana during this time emphasized to the record company that they wanted absolutely no interference from them, which meant they did not share anything from these sessions with their A & R representative. For his part, Steve Albini followed suit by only speaking with members of the band. He characterized anyone associated with the group as “pieces of shit.” After a short delay, the band's equipment finally arrived, so the actual recording of the album went very quickly. Each track began with the group playing together as one doing the instrumental aspect of it. For some tracks, Dave Grohl did the drums in the kitchen due to the natural acoustics sounding better. Albini had also surrounded his drums with 30 microphones for each track. They did not remove any take from the album, but instead kept them all. Cobain even added more guitar parts at the end of each day before doing the vocals. Although Albini had a reputation for being opinionated, he let Nirvana decide what to keep. “Generally speaking, [Cobain] knows what he thinks is acceptable and what isn't acceptable [...] He can make concrete steps to improve things that he doesn't think are acceptable." They did all of their musical work in six days, while Cobain said that it was the easiest recording he had ever done. Albini proceeded to mix the album in five days, which actually was slow by his standards because he usually only spent 1 to 2 days on it.

After completion, the band began to send the unmastered tapes to various people including the president of the DGC records. They absolutely hated it saying the songwriting was mediocre, the entire album was unlistenable, and radio would never except Albini’s production. Cobain took the comments personally to mean that the label wanted him to start from scratch and record again with a new producer. He would say, “I should just re-record this record and do the same thing we did last year because we sold out last year—there's no reason to try and redeem ourselves as artists at this point. I can't help myself—I'm just putting out a record I would like to listen to at home." Yet, the group remained dead set on releasing this version of the record as late as April 1993. They had played it for a number of their friends, who had liked it. The singer said, “Of course, they want another Nevermind, but I'd rather die than do that. This is exactly the kind of record I would buy as a fan, that I would enjoy owning." Around this time, some doubts crept up with all members of Nirvana because the mix of In Utero did not sound right. They asked Albini to possibly remix the record, and he flat out refused. “[Cobain] wanted to make a record that he could slam down on the table and say, 'Listen, I know this is good, and I know your concerns about it are meaningless, so go with it.' And I don't think he felt he had that yet ... My problem was that I feared a slippery slope." They took the record to Bob Ludwig for mastering, while at the same time mentioned their issues with the mix to him. Upon completion, Krist Novoselic said he was happy with the result, but Cobain still felt it was not perfect. At this time, Steve Albini gave an interview with the Chicago Tribune, where he doubted whether the record would ever be released. Newsweek would run another article that echoed the comments made by Albini. This caused Nirvana to write a full page letter to the magazine denying the label was putting any undue pressure on them. The same letter would be reproduced as a full page ad in Billboard not long after. The head of Geffen Records, who owned DGC made the unprecedented move of actually calling Newsweek to complain. The band thought about having Andy Wallace remix the release, but once again Albini refused saying they had only agreed to work with him. At the time, the producer also would release any of the tapes that were now in his possession. He only did so after a phone call from Krist Novoselic. The entire album for the most part was not changed at all, except for a remastering. Yet, the producer continually made comments that it was nowhere near the album he recorded in Minnesota. “The record in the stores doesn't sound all that much like the record that was made, though it's still them singing and playing their songs, and the musical quality of it still comes across." He would go on to say that major labels refused to work with him for the next year or so because of In Utero.

As for the music, the producer wanted to go as far away as possible from Nevermind with this record. He felt that the second album made the group look incredibly bad because it had been overproduced at such a level to make it extremely radio friendly. He wanted to create a much more natural sound for the group. The 1993 Nirvana biography, Come As You Are, noted the vision for the band on this record. “The Beatlesque 'Dumb' happily coexists beside the all-out frenzied punk graffiti of 'Milk It,' while 'All Apologies' is worlds away from the apoplectic 'Scentless Apprentice.' It's as if [Cobain] has given up trying to meld his punk and pop instincts into one harmonious whole. Forget it. This is war." If one goes through the track listing, you can count which tracks are over the top punk, and which tracks are more radio friendly pop. The interesting thing is that they correspond equally, 6 to 6. Fans and critics alike would talk about how abrasive In Utero turned out to be, but Cobain and Novoselic really did not see it that way. The bass player had said the band had always had songs as they are found on In Utero. Yet, the group did consciously try to bring fans into the more punk sounding songs by releasing the first two singles that could have realistically been included on Nevermind. Some of the songs found on the record had been written years prior as early as 1990. Cobain used various points of inspiration for the lyrics. The track “Frances Farmer” came from a 1978 biography of the Seattle figure called Shadowland. “Scentless Apprentice” originated from a horror novel that the singer had read by Patrick Suskind. One of the central themes found on the album noted in that same Nirvana biography from 1993 was the fact that every song talked about sickness or disease in some manner. Although Cobain said the lyrics were very impersonal to him, many disagreed with this assessment. Dave Grohl would say this in an interview. “A lot of what he has to say is related to a lot of the shit he's gone through. And it's not so much teen angst anymore. It's a whole different ball game: rock star angst." The singer continued to argue that much of the album had been written years prior to any issues he was going through at the time. For example, “Rape Me” quite possibly could be talking about his frustration with the media in how he has been portrayed over the past couple of years. The track “Serve the Servants” seemed to specifically talk about Cobain’s father and how divorce affected him from a very early age. The Nirvana frontman wanted his father to know that he did not despise him, but he also had no desire to be around him whatsoever. One track, “Gallons of Alcohol Flow Through the Strip,” was actually one of the only improvisational tracks they ever recorded. The song represented a jam session that the group would frequently participate in in during down times at the studio. They had done this quite often, but this would be the first time that it was ever recorded in some form.

Upon its release, the record label took a very low key approach to promoting the album. None of the singles would come out commercially in the United States, as they concentrated all of their press releases at media specializing in alternative music. The band remained convinced that there was absolutely no way that In Utero would sell even a quarter of what Nevermind sold. The record would debut at number one on the charts selling 180,000 copies in its first week. They sold this many copies without big retail chains like Kmart and Walmart selling it because officially the demand was not there. The truth was actually these chains feared backlash due to the graphic nature of the artwork accompanying the album. In March 1994, an edited version of the album would be released with new artwork and alternative song titles. The band made this concession saying they wanted fans who could not go to a traditional record store to be able to purchase the LP. Following the death of Cobain. the third single “Pennyroyal Tea” was canceled, as well as any tour plans. Immediately following his death, the popularity of In Utero on the charts increased by 122% from 72 to 27. The album would eventually be certified five times platinum.

Critics were not unanimous in the praise of In Utero. For the most part, rock writers really liked the new sound from Nirvana. Time’s Christopher John Farley noted that once again perhaps the mainstream may need to go to Nirvana, rather than the other way around. David Browne of Entertainment Weekly emphasized the absolute contrasts on the release. “The music is often mesmerizing, cathartic rock & roll, but it is rock & roll without release, because the band is suspicious of the old-school rock clichés such a release would evoke." David Fricke of Rolling Stone would say that the record was both “brilliant and corrosive,” but undoubtedly a “triumph of the will” for Kurt Cobain. NME’s John Mulvey did not share the same sentiment as he observed the album really was not up to par with previous Nirvana standards. The review from Plugged In did not mince words saying it had absolutely no redeeming value whatsoever. Some reviews became quite bittersweet as you are reminded of Cobain’s suicide. Q said this about the record. "If this is how Cobain is going to develop, the future is lighthouse-bright." Ben Thompson of the Independent merely seemed happy that the record did not represent the punk rock nightmare the group had continually threatened to release. In Utero would go on to top several end of the year lists as one of the best albums including Rolling Stone, Village Voice, and the New York Times. The band would even receive a Grammy nomination in 1994 for Best Alternative Album. As time has passed, critics have lavished even more phrase on it seeing their work with Albini as far superior to Nevermind. Charles R. Cross would write in his Cobain biography, “If it is possible for an album that sold four million copies to be overlooked, or underappreciated, then In Utero is that lost pearl." Pitchfork named it the 13th best album of the 1990s, while it even made Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. NME named it number 35 on its greatest albums of all time list creating quite a sense of irony since the periodical did not think too much of the album at the time of its release.

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eovinmygod · 8 years ago

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From www.newstatesman.com By Mehdi Hasan

As a Muslim, I struggle with the idea of homosexuality – but I oppose homophobia

I've made homophobic remarks in the past, writes Mehdi Hasan, but now I’ve grown up — and reconciled my Islamic beliefs with my attitude to gay rights.

’Tis the season of apologies – specifically, grovelling apologies by some of our finest academic brains for homophobic remarks they’ve made in public. The Cambridge University theologian Dr Tim Winter, one of the UK’s leading Islamic scholars, apologised on 2 May after footage emerged showing him calling homosexuality the “ultimate inversion” and an “inexplicable aberration”. “The YouTube clip is at least 15 years old, and does not in any way represent my present views . . . we all have our youthful enthusiasms, and we all move on.”

The Harvard historian Professor Niall Ferguson apologised “unreservedly” on 4 May for “stupid” and “insensitive” comments in which he claimed that the economist John Maynard Keynes hadn’t cared about “the long run” because he was gay and had no intention of having any children.

Dare I add my non-academic, non-intellectual voice to the mix? I want to issue my own apology. Because I’ve made some pretty inappropriate comments in the past, too.

You may or may not be surprised to learn that, as a teenager, I was one of those wannabe-macho kids who crudely deployed “gay” as a mark of abuse; you will probably be shocked to discover that shamefully, even in my twenties, I was still making the odd disparaging remark about homosexuality.

It’s now 2013 and I’m 33 years old. My own “youthful enthusiasm” is thankfully, if belatedly, behind me.

What happened? Well, for a start, I grew up. Bigotry and demonisation of difference are usually the hallmark of immature and childish minds. But, if I’m honest, something else happened, too: I acquired a more nuanced understanding of my Islamic faith, a better appreciation of its morals, values and capacity for tolerance.

Before we go any further, a bit of background – I was attacked heavily a few weeks ago by some of my co-religionists for suggesting in these pages that too many Muslims in this country have a “Jewish problem” and that we blithely “ignore the rampant anti-Semitism in our own backyard”.

I hope I won’t provoke the same shrieks of outrage and denial when I say that many Muslims also have a problem, if not with homosexuals, then with homosexuality. In fact, a 2009 poll by Gallup found that British Muslims have zero tolerance towards homosexuality. “None of the 500 British Muslims interviewed believed that homosexual acts were morally acceptable,” the Guardian reported in May that year.

Some more background. Orthodox Islam, like orthodox interpretations of the other Abrahamic faiths, views homosexuality as sinful and usually defines marriage as only ever a heterosexual union.

This isn’t to say that there is no debate on the subject. In April, the Washington Post profiled Daayiee Abdullah, who is believed to be the only publicly gay imam in the west. “[I]f you have any same-sex marriages,” the Post quotes him as saying, “I’m available.” Meanwhile, the gay Muslim scholar Scott Siraj al-Haqq Kugle, who teaches Islamic studies at Emory University in the United States, says that notions such as “gay” or “lesbian” are not mentioned in the Quran. He blames Islam’s hostility towards homosexuality on a misreading of the texts by ultra-conservative mullahs.

And, in his 2011 book Reading the Quran, the British Muslim intellectual and writer Ziauddin Sardar argues that “there is absolutely no evidence that the Prophet punished anyone for homosexuality”. Sardar says “the demonisation of homosexuality in Muslim history is based largely on fabricated traditions and the unreconstituted prejudice harboured by most Muslim societies”. He highlights verse 31 of chapter 24 of the Quran, in which “we come across ‘men who have no sexual desire’ who can witness the ‘charms’ of women”. I must add here that Abdullah, Kugle and Sardar are in a tiny minority, as are the members of gay Muslim groups such as Imaan. Most mainstream Muslim scholars – even self-identified progressives and moderates such as Imam Hamza Yusuf in the United States and Professor Tariq Ramadan in the UK – consider homosexuality to be a grave sin. The Quran, after all, explicitly condemns the people of Lot for “approach[ing] males” (26:165) and for “lust[ing] on men in preference to women” (7:81), and describes marriage as an institution that is gender-based and procreative.

What about me? Where do I stand on this? For years I’ve been reluctant to answer questions on the subject. I was afraid of the “homophobe” tag. I didn’t want my gay friends and colleagues to look at me with horror, suspicion or disdain.

So let me be clear: yes, I’m a progressive who supports a secular society in which you don’t impose your faith on others – and in which the government, no matter how big or small, must always stay out of the bedroom. But I am also (to Richard Dawkins’s continuing disappointment) a believing Muslim. And, as a result, I really do struggle with this issue of homosexuality. As a supporter of secularism, I am willing to accept same-sex weddings in a state-sanctioned register office, on grounds of equity. As a believer in Islam, however, I insist that no mosque be forced to hold one against its wishes.

If you’re gay, that doesn’t mean I want to discriminate against you, belittle or bully you, abuse or offend you. Not at all. I don’t want to go back to the dark days of criminalisation and the imprisonment of gay men and women; of Section 28 and legalised discrimination. I’m disgusted by the violent repression and persecution of gay people across the Muslim-majority world.

I cringe as I watch footage of the buffoonish Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claiming: “In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals . . . we do not have this phenomenon.” I feel sick to my stomach when I read accounts of how, in the late 1990s, the Taliban in Afghanistan buried gay men alive and then toppled brick walls on top of them.

Nor is this an issue only in the Middle East and south Asia. In March, a Muslim caller to a radio station in New York stunned the host after suggesting, live on air, that gay Americans should be beheaded in line with “sharia law”. Here in the UK, in February, Muslim MPs who voted in favour of the same-sex marriage bill – such as the shadow justice secretary, Sadiq Khan – faced death threats and accusations of apostasy from a handful of Muslim extremists. And last year, a homophobic campaign launched by puffed-up Islamist gangs in east London featured ludicrous and offensive stickers declaring the area a “gay-free zone”.

I know it might be hard to believe, but Islam is not a religion of violence, hate or intolerance – despite the best efforts of a minority of reactionaries and radicals to argue (and behave) otherwise. Out of the 114 chapters of the Quran, 113 begin by introducing the God of Islam as a God of mercy and compassion. The Prophet Muhammad himself is referred to as “a mercy for all creation”. This mercy applies to everyone, whether heterosexual or homosexual. As Tariq Ramadan has put it: “I may disagree with what you are doing because it’s not in accordance with my belief but I respect who are you are.” He rightly notes that this is “a question of respect and mutual understanding”.

I should also point out here that most British Muslims oppose the persecution of homosexuals. A 2011 poll for the think tank Demos found that fewer than one in four British Muslims disagreed with the statement “I am proud of how Britain treats gay people”.

There is much to be proud of, but still much to be done. Homophobic bullying is rife in our schools. Nine out of ten gay or lesbian teenagers report being bullied at school over their sexual orientation. LGBT teens are two to three times more likely to commit suicide than their heterosexual peers.

Despite the recent slight fall in “sexual orientation hate crimes”, in 2012 there were still 4,252 such crimes in England and Wales, four out of every five of which involved “violence against the person”. In March, for instance, a man was jailed for killing a gay teenager by setting him on fire; the killer scrawled homophobic insults across 18-year-old Steven Simpson’s face, forearm and stomach.

Regular readers will know that I spend much of my time speaking out against Islamophobic bigotry: from the crude stereotyping of Muslims in the media and discrimination against Muslims in the workplace to attacks on Muslim homes, businesses and places of worship.

The truth is that Islamophobia and homophobia have much in common: they are both, in the words of the (gay) journalist Patrick Strudwick, “at least partly fuelled by fear. Fear of the unknown . . .” Muslims and gay people alike are victims of this fear – especially when it translates into hate speech or physical attacks. We need to stand side by side against the bigots and hate-mongers, whether of the Islamist or the far-right variety, rather than turn on one another or allow ourselves to be pitted against each other, “Muslims v gays”.

We must avoid stereotyping and demonising each other at all costs. “The biggest question we have as a society,” says a Muslim MP who prefers to remain anonymous, “is how we accommodate difference.”

Remember also that negative attitudes to homosexuality are not the exclusive preserve of Muslims. In 2010, the British Social Attitudes survey showed that 36 per cent of the public regarded same-sex relations as “always” or “mostly wrong”.

A Muslim MP who voted in favour of the same-sex marriage bill tells me that most of the letters of protest that they received in response were from evangelical Christians, not Muslims. And, of course, it wasn’t a Muslim who took the life of poor Steven Simpson.

Yet ultimately I didn’t set out to write this piece to try to bridge the gap between Islam and homosexuality. I am not a theologian. Nor am I writing this in response to the ongoing parliamentary debate about the pros and cons of same-sex marriage. I am not a politician.

I am writing this because I want to live in a society in which all minorities – Jews, Muslims, gay people and others – are protected from violence and abuse, from demonisation and discrimination. And because I want to apologise for any hurt or offence that I may have caused to my gay brothers and lesbian sisters.

And yes, whatever our differences – straight or gay, religious or atheist, male or female – we are all brothers and sisters. As the great Muslim leader of the 7th century and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, Ali ibn Abi Talib, once declared: “Remember that people are of two kinds; they are either your brothers in religion or your brothers in mankind.”

Mehdi Hasan is a contributing writer for the New Statesman and the political director of the Huffington Post UK, where this article is crossposted

Mehdi Hasan is a contributing writer for the New Statesman and the co-author of Ed: The Milibands and the Making of a Labour Leader. He was the New Statesman's senior editor (politics) from 2009-12.

#homosexuality #society #religion #tolerance #love #lgbt #homophobia #love is love #gay rights #muslim

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fybillielourd · 8 years ago

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Sarah Paulson talks to THR about interviewing Town & Country cover star Billie Lourd: "What was evident in the article is the very disparate ways in which she was raised...in a way that was exposed and also private. I didn't want to get in front of that or dictate what that was going to be. I wanted to follow her lead." Billie Lourd was the first to leave her own party Sunday night, but for good reason.With a 6 a.m. call time ticking toward her, Lourd did something that could come as a surprise considering that she hails from a demo dubbed "Young Hollywood," its members famous more for irresponsibility than manners. This 25-year-old ingenue, however, got out of her seat inside a private dining room at Hotel Bel-Air just after 9 p.m., thanked each of the 20 guests in attendance for celebrating her Town & Country cover, and rushed home in favor of a decent night's sleep before shooting American Horror Story: Cult. There was also this: Lourd joked about the intensity of Monday morning's scene, a revelation that had everyone in the room gasping or laughing, maybe both. No spoilers here, however. (You're welcome, Ryan Murphy.) To be fair, though, Lourd is less like her late-night-loving peers and more like a seen-it-all Hollywood veteran thanks to her real pedigree. Lourd's father, CAA power agent Bryan Lourd, would surely want her to be on time for work, while her mother, the late icon Carrie Fisher, would applaud the ease with which Lourd's provocative aside could captivate the room and leave them wanting more just as she bid adieu. "She's not curated. She's not studied. She's very authentic," Sarah Paulson told The Hollywood Reporter moments later when the room was empty save for her close friend, actor Pedro Pascal, and T&C Editor-in-Chief Stellene Volandes. (Other guests included celebrity florist Eric Buterbaugh, Irena Medavoy, Lesley M.M. Blume, Lourd's rep and longtime family friend Simon Halls, and power couples like Eric and Lisa Eisner, movie producer John Goldwyn and his hotelier partner Jeff Klein, interior designer Michael S. Smith and former ambassador James Costos.) "It's a testament to both of her parents — to the beautiful alchemy of the DNA that produced a person of real unique integrity." That person was on full display in the pages of T&C, Lourd's first major magazine cover and her first sit-down interview since the tragic passing of both her mother and grandmother, Debbie Reynolds, in December. Paulson handled the interview with care, and Lourd made sure to mention that fact when, before her fond and final farewell, she stood and addressed the room — voluntarily. "I was really nervous about doing my first press thing after my mom died, and honestly, I could not have asked for a better photo shoot and interview team," gushed Lourd, who was photographed by someone who understands legacy, Victor Demarchelier, the youngest son of iconic lensman Patrick. "It turned out better than I could've ever imagined. It was so comfortable and so me, and I really want to thank you for that so much. I've been dreading it." Paulson was preparing for it. (Volandes, too, who admitted that she had been trying to land Lourd for a cover for the better part of two years. "I don't remember the last time we had such an overwhelmingly positive, strong reaction to someone on the cover," she said. Mission accomplished.) "I didn't want to make her feel exposed in any other way than she wanted to be," said Emmy winner Paulson, in a black lace Elie Saab, who first met then-10-year-old Lourd in 2002. "What was evident in the article is the very disparate ways in which she was raised...in a way that was exposed and also private. I didn't want to get in front of that or dictate what that was going to be. I wanted to follow her lead." Lourd led in a conversation Paulson describes as "very easy." They met up at Bryan Lourd's house and sat barefoot on the sofa. "We talked for two hours. We kept asking ourselves, 'Should we run the tape back and delete that part of the conversation?' But we talked like people and we've known each other long enough that it was able to happen in a way that felt organic. She felt safe and I felt a natural protective feeling at the same time.... Billie, as you can see tonight, is humorous and emotionally available; she's such a beautiful amalgamation of both her mother and her father, and yet completely individual." And it's clear she's borrowed from them both, as she will admit. In T&C, Lourd said that her mother often scolded her if she strayed from authenticity. "Looking back and watching her interviews, I try to model what I do after her. She was so good at it," she told the mag. "She would get so annoyed with me if I ever did a fake interview. She’d say, 'Tell the real story.' " Here's a real story: After Fisher's death, Paulson says she couldn't shake a vicious tweet. "Someone had taken a picture of Billie and I hugging at a particular moment at a memorial service for her mother, and this person posted it and wrote that I had no business being there. They made some comment about me being a self- serving person, and then they tweeted it at me to let me know. And I thought, they don't have any idea that I've known Billie since she was really young. Her mother had been an enormous influence on my life and a stabilizing influence on my life." The lessons she learned run deep, she added. When they first met (after leaving a party, Paulson found herself driving on Coldwater Canyon next to Fisher's car when Fisher stuck her head out and invited her to a party, one that happened to be "Gore Vidal's make-out party" — more on that later), Paulson was struggling to find her footing in Hollywood. "I wasn't feeling seen as an actress at all, and the great thing about Carrie is that she just didn't care. She said, 'I see you as a person, and that other stuff has no value. What matters is that you will come over here and I will make you dinner and we can talk about real things that matter.' It would inform the way I would approach my work and my life as a person. You have to be a person before you're an actor." She added: "You can't do anything in your work if you've got nothing behind it, no life lived or thoughts had or principles held. She was sort of inviting me to experience life as a human being and not experience my personal value as being dictated by employment." Speaking of life experience, the one juicy anecdote that many of those at Sunday's dinner party, including Volandes and her T&C colleagues, wanted to know more about was the "Gore Vidal make-out party." "Our lips are sealed!" exclaimed Paulson and Lourd, almost in unison when queried by Volandes with the attention of the entire table. Aside from beauty sleep and a happy AHS boss, one of the major benefits of leaving early: one never risks saying too much.

#billie lourd #sarah paulson #town & country mag #carrie fisher #bryan lourd #news #interview

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reeses-picks · 6 years ago

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EXO’s Don’t Mess Up My Tempo is polished to a fault

EXO is back on familiar ground: their fifth album proper Don’t Mess Up My Tempo is a polished yet middling mishmash of brawny electropop and mid-tempo R&B, accompanied by vocal performances so polished they sometimes border on insentient. The best moments of the album reveal brief glimpses of a human touch, but they are few and far between.

★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆

As sad as it is to say, EXO and their fans are no stranger to drama, especially surrounding the makeup of their group. A turbulent 2014 (ironically, the year after their breakthrough) saw two of their four Chinese members sue their management -- megacorporation SM Entertainment -- and their resultant exits from the group; the following year, a third one would leave as well. Coupled with the fandom’s growing distrust with the agency, it is no wonder that EXO-Ls smelled blood in the water when it was announced that Lay -- the only Chinese member left -- would not be participating in the production of and promotion for their fourth album, The War. Also unsurprising is their relief once rumors started swirling that he would return for their 2018 comeback, Don’t Mess Up My Tempo.

What eventually materialized is probably the biggest let-down in recent K-pop history. Lay’s part in the comeback amounted to a split-second cameo in the music video for “Tempo” (he fares better in the Chinese version, but not by much) and a total of five lines on the entire album. Unlike EXO’s previous release, which saw the group embrace the spirit of grand experimentation to varying success, Don’t Mess Up My Tempo bears more resemblance, musically and aesthetically, to their last release with Lay, their third studio album Ex’Act. But while that album saw the boy group settling into their newly mature sound, this attempt feels a lot safer, not to mention a bit dated (which makes sense considering the majority of the songs here were formulated in a writing camp two years ago, right around the time Ex’Act was released).

As standard practice for SM Entertainment artists since the turn of the decade, Don’t Mess Up My Tempo is the product of a collaboration between the Korean artists and a diverse team of international musicians (the agency arguably pioneered this practice). As a result, the influences present on the record are predictably omnivorous. “Ooh La La La,” probably the most obviously trend-chasing track here, takes cues from Latin pop, while “Gravity” gets its futuristic feel from Daft Punk’s soundtrack to Tron: Legacy, although it sounds more like what the past thinks the future would sound like than the future itself. This extends to the three additional tracks on the repackaged edition, the best of which, “Trauma,” is inspired by the sound of Maroon 5’s inoffensively sounding yet unfortunately named Red Pill Blues. Aside from external influences, some tracks also draw from EXO’s own collection: “Gravity” includes some of the sound effects on the crowd-pleasing, Olympic stadium-filling “Power,” and “Sign” and “Damage” recall a similarly aggressive cut on Ex’Act, “Can’t Bring Me Down.”

Sonically, Don’t Mess Up My Tempo is split between the kind of brawny electropop that EXO is known for and mid-tempo R&B with a few surprising touches that do not quite land, the former of which is evidently stronger. Title track “Tempo” follows in the genre-blending spirit of post-2013, combining elements of R&B, funk, and house; despite this, the end result sounds far more cohesive than its radically disjointed predecessor. Meanwhile, “Ooh La La La” deftly navigates Latin pop over an understated flamenco guitar but does not stray too far from EXO’s musical wheelhouse, which is more than their juniors NCT 127 can say with “Regular” (also their most conspicuous trend-chaser) -- both songs raise questions about cultural appropriation and ownership, on which K-pop does not have a particularly great record. This forceful approach has its limits, however. “Damage” turns up the aggressiveness dial to a 10, and it is here that EXO’s usually superb vocalists falter: Baekhyun particularly struggles to match the energy of the production, but pretty much all of the singing members fail to catch up with the song’s pace.

On the other hand, the R&B half of the album contains some of its weakest songs. On “With You,” the vocals move leisurely on a garage beat that goes at least twice as fast, but the two never reconcile; ironically, when the rappers finally pick up the pace to match the beat in the bridge, the beat disappears. “24/7” reaches for an effortless mood not unlike “Ooh La La La,” but without an effective low end like the flamenco guitar, the track just floats without a discernible climax and might find a place among the 148 indistinguishable songs on Spotify’s Chill Vibes playlist. Still, none of this quite prepares you for the snoozefest that is “Smile on My Face,” the token ballad of the album, whose thesis statement -- “I did it all with a smile on my face” -- feels akin to equally empty attempts at authenticity, like Charlie Puth’s “Through It All,” and whose soft-touch production sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of the LP.

As usual, the vocal performances on this record are near-perfect. Main vocalists Baekhyun, Chen, and D.O. remain the ones to beat when it comes to vocal technique and continue to be at the forefront of these tracks, but other members are getting their moment in the spotlight too, especially Kai, who has always been more appreciated for his dancing than his singing, but whose unmistakable timbre is now prominent on virtually every cut. All of the voices on EXO are very individual, but they also work incredibly well in harmony, and they are almost peerless in this respect; it is precisely what made the hook of “Call Me Baby” such a delightful listen, and what now makes the acapella section of “Tempo” virtually inimitable. However exceptional their vocals, there is still no getting around the utter lack of personality that looms over the record. On many occasions, the songs sound like extremely polished demos, their voices merely a stand-in or a guide for others; at worst, they amount to little more than disembodied voices. EXO’s stunning vocals, among other factors, have always served as a sort of personal stamp, ensuring that EXO songs are instantly recognizable as EXO, but that is less certain for the lesser cuts on this album: Monsta X would have been a far better choice for “Damage,” and “With You”’s garage beat could similarly find a more fitting companion. It certainly does not help that the songwriting here feels particularly uninspired: the guy-gets-girl, guy-leaves-girl (or vice versa) motifs start to get exhausting three tracks in, let alone three albums in, yet that is what almost all of EXO’s songs have been about since Ex’Act, and the trend continues here to increasingly dull effect.

The few, brief glimpses of a human touch coincidentally (or not) appear on the strongest tracks of the LP. “Oasis,” the album’s closing track, features the members essentially singing to one another about moving forward no matter the difficulties (something they obviously have experience with): “And we go even further / On this road with a long way to go / Runnin', I'm runnin', chasing the sun.” Here we can actually feel the members reach further down than surface level, and they sound noticeably more earnest than they will ever do on the record, especially Baekhyun, who presents a career-best performance in the bridge. But the only truly memorable track on Don’t Mess Up My Tempo is “Bad Dream,” which begins and ends with a soft guitar riff, but whose main musical character is ordinarily horrendous Chainsmokers-esque synthesizers that work surprisingly well here. Rounding out the middle section, the song possesses the richest imagery of the album, evoking a sense of helplessness and even claustrophobia -- “I’m trapped in you as you rage around me” -- and its swooshing synths help depict the raging hurricane in the main character’s mind.

In an interview with Billboard breaking down the songs on Don’t Mess Up My Tempo (and its repackage Love Shot), Patrick “J.Que” Smith, who composed and arranged “Sign,” compared EXO to Clark Kent and Superman -- polite and mild-mannered young men who become titanic performers on stage -- and felt compelled to write songs for the latter. I might not be very well-versed in superhero canons, but it has long been common knowledge that things are a lot more complex than that; from the quintessential superhero story of Clark Kent and Superman to the recently critically acclaimed Logan, the best superhero stories have always been informed, at least in part, by their personhood, and its struggle with their powers. There would be no Iron Man without Tony Stark, no Captain America without Steve Rogers. It is a lesson that EXO and SM Entertainment would do well to absorb.

#exo #don't mess up my tempo #power #call me baby #the war #ex'act #exodus #tempo #music reccs #music review #album review #can't bring me down

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click2watch · 6 years ago

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Overstock Delays E-Commerce Business Sale, Deferring Cash for Crypto Ventures

Overstock has put off plans to sell its flagship retail business, delaying a large cash infusion that it was hoping to get for its portfolio of blockchain ventures.

The company had originally aimed to sell the e-commerce business by the end of February, but on a conference call to discuss fourth-quarter results Monday, CEO Patrick Byrne indicated it no longer had a firm timeline, telling shareholders:

“It’s like preparing a souffle, and a souffle is ready when it’s ready.”

Indeed, Byrne talked as if Overstock was expecting to hold on to its original business for a while, saying he expected “a year of explosive growth” for the retail unit, which will “spit out cash” while the company continues to build the blockchain ventures.

Byrne had previously hinted at this change in priorities in an interview last month with CoinDesk, when he said he was managing the retail business “as if I’m going to own it forever.”

Keeping the unit, for now, means Overstock will not become a pure-play blockchain company as soon as it previously envisioned. Jonathan Johnson, the president of Medici Ventures, the company’s blockchain investment arm, said last year that the sale of the retail business would leave Overstock with Medici, its assets and a “bag of cash.”

But in the risk factors section of its annual report with the Securities and Exchange Commission, released Monday in conjunction with quarterly results, Overstock warned that if it did sell the retail business at this stage, its revenues would shrink “to an insignificant amount,” adding:

“Our retail business is a relatively mature and predictable business compared to our Medici initiatives, which have a short history, minimal revenues, significant expenses, significant losses and significant uncertainties, and conduct business in a new and rapidly changing industry.”

Further, such a sale would make Overstock “a much smaller company,” the filing said.

Both tZERO and the retail business of Overstock posted pre-tax losses in Q4: $12.6 million and $27.7 million, respectively — and both net loss numbers were significantly higher than a year earlier.

Crypto trading at tZERO

Overstock also said Monday that tZERO, its security token trading platform, would add cryptocurrency trading in June, though it did not provide further details.

An executive on the conference call reiterated that Overstock is expecting tZERO to see a “spike” in volume in August when the regulatory lock-up period for the native TZEROP tokens expires and retail investors will be let onto the platform. So far, the trading volume has been low with the price of the token falling sharply during the first months of trading.

There are also some changes in the C-suite: tZERO has recruited an executive from its partner brokerage Dinosaur Financial Group, which is currently the sole broker-dealer supporting trading on the platform. Dinosaur’s former managing director Elliot Grossman has become CEO of retail business development at tZERO, the company announced.

tZERO’s alternative trading system (ATS) was launched January 25 only for the accredited investors that participated in tZERO Preferred (TZEROP) security token offering. So far only TZEROP is traded at the platform, though Byrne is expecting more companies to issue their tokens using tZERO’s tech. The first of them might be a mini-car manufacturer Elio Motors, Byrne earlier told CoinDesk.

The onboarding of a new token is expected by August, an executive said during Monday’s call, though he didn’t name the company.

SEC probe ongoing

The annual report from Overstock also disclosed that the SEC had sent a follow-up request for information in December about tZERO’s $250 million token sale, as part of a previously reported investigation by the regulator.

The filing warned that this ongoing probe, which began in February 2018, could be a drain on management resources.

“We are cooperating fully with the SEC in connection with its investigation, which will require the time and attention of tZERO and our personnel and may have an adverse effect on our ability to focus attention on our businesses and our ability to raise capital,” not to mention bad publicity, the filing said.

Despite such distractions, tZERO is also in the process of getting an in-house retail broker-dealer and partnering with another brokerage company, according to the presentation slides from the call. As announced earlier, a security token exchange for publicly traded companies called BSTX, in partnership with the Boston Options Exchange, is also due to launch later this year.

Byrne didn’t spend much time on the Monday call talking about the collapsed deal with the Chinese private equity GSR Capital that had been expected to invest around $404 million in Overstock and tZERO.

After the deadline for the deal expired on Feb. 28, Overstock disclosed that the deal hadn’t been completed, but a new memorandum of understanding had been signed with GSR and a third partner, the Singapore company Macara Capital, for a much smaller investment of $100 million.

Overstock is “really encouraged” about the partnership with Macara, an executive said during the call.

Summing up the current sentiment and plans for his company, Byrne said:

“We are going to return retail to spitting out cash and we have a full position in the blockchain revolution.”

Image of Patrick Byrne by Anna Baydakova for CoinDesk

This news post is collected from CoinDesk

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legit-scam-review · 7 years ago

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CFTC Shows Force Against Crypto Scammers, but Maintains ‘Do No Harm’ Approach

This week, a United States federal district judge ruled that an allegedly fraudulent crypto token meets the definition of a commodity. That brought the case under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) purview, which has long argued that virtual currencies constitute commodities. Here what it means — and how the watchdog has been supporting its stance on cryptocurrencies’ legal status.

Are cryptocurrencies commodities or securities? Well, they can be both

The regulatory approach to cryptocurrencies in the U.S. is complex. While the Congress holds supreme power over federal regulatory agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the CFTC, it has not issued any guidelines on the matter to date.

Because there’s no definitive set of rules that all agencies can abide by, every regulator takes its own approach, even if it clashes with other perspectives. Namely, the SEC views cryptocurrencies as securities while the CFTC treats them as commodities, and both watchdogs have attempted to secure their viewpoints in court.

However, those different approaches actually seem to coexist. As CFTC Commissioner Brian Quintenz explained to Bloomberg in October 2017, “Crypto-tokens offered in a presale can transform. They may start their life as a security regulated under the SEC from a capital-raising perspective but then at some point — maybe possibly quickly or even immediately — turn into a commodity.” In February 2018, the agencies held a joint session on their roles in the crypto industry, where they mentioned they were willing to work together to create a regulatory framework.

Further, in May 2018, CFTC Commissioner Rostin Behnam delivered a speech that further stressed the increasing collaboration between his agency and the SEC:

“I spoke about my position on the CFTC and the SEC efforts to harmonize rules. Given the large number of dually registered market participants and overlapping policy, there is a real opportunity for the CFTC and SEC to harmonize redundant rules and leave both market participants and regulators in a stronger position.”

Soon after that, in June, the SEC Corporation Finance Director William Hinman clarified that his agency doesn’t view either Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH) as securities, because they have become largely decentralized “in their present state,” and that it would focus instead on Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs).

The CFTC, in turn, has been arguing that virtual currencies are a commodity covered by the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) since 2015. Citing the document, the agency states that cryptocurrencies are closer to gold than to conventional currencies or securities, as they are not backed by the government and don’t have liabilities attached to them.

In July 2017, the CFTC first granted approval to trade Bitcoin futures. The agency cleared an institutional Bitcoin derivatives trading and clearing platform Ledgerx as a fully regulated Bitcoin options exchange and clearinghouse under the CEA:

“By a unanimous vote of the Commission, it has issued an order granting Ledgerx, LLC (Ledgerx) registration as a derivatives clearing organization under the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) […] Under the order, Ledgerx will be authorized to provide clearing services for fully collateralized digital currency swaps.”

CFTC vs. crypto fraudsters

On Sept. 26, Judge Rya W. Zobel of the Massachusetts District Court denied a motion to dismiss a case against Randall Crater and his company My Big Coin Pay Inc. That secured yet another win for the CFTC’s perspective that cryptocurrencies are commodities.

The CFTC argued that Crater’s Nevada-based company My Big Coin Pay was a crypto scheme in which they offered the sale of a “fully functioning” virtual currency named “My Big Coin” (MBC). According to the details of the case, the defendants lured customers to buy MBC by making false statements. Specifically, they lied that MBC was “backed by gold,” could be used anywhere Mastercard was accepted, and was being “actively traded” on various exchanges. That violated the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA), the regulator argued.

Moreover, the accused were also alleged to have “arbitrarily” manipulated the value of MBC to imitate the price fluctuations of a proper cryptocurrency. Investors could view their account balance on the website, but “could not trade their MBC or withdraw funds.” My Big Coin Pay affiliates obtained more than $6 million from a total of 28 investors as a result of these actions.

Crater’s lawyers tried to dismiss the CFTC’s case, arguing that the token was neither a tangible good nor service on which futures contracts are based and hence should escape the regulator’s purview. They also allegedly compared the token to Bitcoin in the process.

Zobel ruled in favor of categorizing both MBC and BTC as virtual currencies in which “contracts for future delivery are […] presently dealt in.” Essentially, Zobel granted the CFTC’s argument that, for the purposes of the CEA, a “commodity” is broader than any particular type or brand of that commodity, also pointing to the existence of Bitcoin futures contracts:

“Here, the amended complaint alleges that My Big Coin is a virtual currency and it is undisputed that there is futures trading in virtual currencies (specifically involving Bitcoin). That is sufficient, especially at the pleading stage, for plaintiff to allege that My Big Coin is a ‘commodity’ under the Act.”

The CFTC has proven that virtual commodities are already commodities

As mentioned above, it wasn’t the first case when the CFTC proved that it could directly oversee the crypto market via the CEA. Importantly, Zobel referenced the preceding ruling in the case as a precedent.

Thus, in March 2018, U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein of the New York Eastern District Court oversaw the CFTC case against Patrick McDonnell and his company Coin Drop Markets (CDM). According to the agency’s claim, CDM’s customers never received the financial advice they paid for, as well as the fact that CDM was never registered with the CFTC.

Weinstein agreed with the CFTC that virtual currencies are commodities under the CEA, and, hence, the CFTC could take action against McDonnell and his company over virtual currency fraud. More specifically, the judge upheld that determination by arguing that it was supported by the plain meaning of the word “commodity” and that the CFTC had “broad leeway” to interpret the federal law.

In August, the CFTC won the court order to permanently ban another crypto-related firm run by Patrick McDonnell called CabbageTech Corp. for “bold and vicious fraud.” Similar to the Massachusetts case, McDonnell argued that the CFTC did not have the authority to regulate his commercial operations. The judge rejected that claim and ordered the defendant to pay $290,429 in restitution and $871,287 in penalties.

Will the CFTC regulate more in the near future?

Despite securing a couple of crucial wins in court, the CFTC still approaches crypto fraudsters on a case-by-case basis. It seems that the regulator still lacks the power to massively detect and ban questionable outlets, but it is also important to note that the CFTC has been handling cryptocurrencies with care. Indeed, in a September interview with CNBC, the CFTC Chairman Christopher Giancarlo stressed that crypto needs a “do no harm” approach from regulators to flourish:

“I’m advocating the same approach to cryptocurrencies and all things having to do with this new digital revolution of markets, and of currencies, and of asset classes.”

Nonetheless, Giancarlo distinguished between the CFTC’s short-term approach of tackling criminal activity on the crypto market and the watchdog’s longer-term decisions on policy making for the industry:

“When it comes to fraud and manipulation, we need to be strong. When it comes to policy making, I think we need to be slow and deliberate and well informed.”

The CFTC’s recent actions are seen as part of a more general trend of U.S. regulators extending their purview within the crypto industry during past months. Still, there is no sign of comprehensive crypto legislation coming anytime soon. In May, Giancarlo stated that he doesn’t see such a framework coming from the federal level in the near future, pointing out that the statutes by which the CFTC is operating were written in 1935, and embracing something “as new and as innovative” as Bitcoin within such terms will take time.

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click2watch · 6 years ago

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Overstock Delays E-Commerce Business Sale, Deferring Cash for Crypto Ventures

Overstock has put off plans to sell its flagship retail business, delaying a large cash infusion that it was hoping to get for its portfolio of blockchain ventures.

“It’s like preparing a souffle, and a souffle is ready when it’s ready.”

Byrne had previously hinted at this change in priorities in an interview last month with CoinDesk, when he said he was managing the retail business “as if I’m going to own it forever.”

Further, such a sale would make Overstock “a much smaller company,” the filing said.

Both tZERO and the retail business of Overstock posted pre-tax losses in Q4: $12.6 million and $27.7 million, respectively — and both net loss numbers were significantly higher than a year earlier.

Crypto trading at tZERO

Overstock also said Monday that tZERO, its security token trading platform, would add cryptocurrency trading in June, though it did not provide further details.

The onboarding of a new token is expected by August, an executive said during Monday’s call, though he didn’t name the company.

SEC probe ongoing

The filing warned that this ongoing probe, which began in February 2018, could be a drain on management resources.

Overstock is “really encouraged” about the partnership with Macara, an executive said during the call.

Summing up the current sentiment and plans for his company, Byrne said:

“We are going to return retail to spitting out cash and we have a full position in the blockchain revolution.”

Image of Patrick Byrne by Anna Baydakova for CoinDesk

This news post is collected from CoinDesk

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click2watch · 6 years ago

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Overstock Delays E-Commerce Business Sale, Deferring Cash for Crypto Ventures

Overstock has put off plans to sell its flagship retail business, delaying a large cash infusion that it was hoping to get for its portfolio of blockchain ventures.

“It’s like preparing a souffle, and a souffle is ready when it’s ready.”

Byrne had previously hinted at this change in priorities in an interview last month with CoinDesk, when he said he was managing the retail business “as if I’m going to own it forever.”

Further, such a sale would make Overstock “a much smaller company,” the filing said.

Both tZERO and the retail business of Overstock posted pre-tax losses in Q4: $12.6 million and $27.7 million, respectively — and both net loss numbers were significantly higher than a year earlier.

Crypto trading at tZERO

Overstock also said Monday that tZERO, its security token trading platform, would add cryptocurrency trading in June, though it did not provide further details.

The onboarding of a new token is expected by August, an executive said during Monday’s call, though he didn’t name the company.

SEC probe ongoing

The filing warned that this ongoing probe, which began in February 2018, could be a drain on management resources.

Overstock is “really encouraged” about the partnership with Macara, an executive said during the call.

Summing up the current sentiment and plans for his company, Byrne said:

“We are going to return retail to spitting out cash and we have a full position in the blockchain revolution.”

Image of Patrick Byrne by Anna Baydakova for CoinDesk

This news post is collected from CoinDesk

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