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Buckwheat Zydeco

Stanley Dural Jr. (November 14, 1947 – September 24, 2016), better known by his stage name Buckwheat Zydeco, was an American accordionist and zydeco musician. He was one of the few zydeco artists to achieve mainstream success. His music group was formally billed as Buckwheat Zydeco and Ils Sont Partis Band ("Ils Sont Partis" being French for "They have left," or a race announcer's "And they're off!" ), but they often performed as merely Buckwheat Zydeco.

The New York Times said: "Stanley 'Buckwheat' Dural leads one of the best bands in America. A down-home and high-powered celebration, meaty and muscular with a fine-tuned sense of dynamics…propulsive rhythms, incendiary performances." USA Today called him "a zydeco trailblazer." Buckwheat Zydeco performed with famous musicians such as Eric Clapton (with whom he also recorded), U2 and the Boston Pops. The band performed at the closing ceremonies of the 1996 Summer Olympics to a worldwide audience of three billion people. Buckwheat performed for President Clinton twice, celebrating both of his inaugurations. The band appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, CNN, The Today Show, MTV, NBC News, CBS Morning News, National Public Radio's Mountain Stage, and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

Early life
Dural was born in Lafayette, Louisiana. He was one of 13 children; he had six brothers and six sisters. As a five-year-old boy, he worked on a farm picking cotton. He also worked as a delivery boy and cared for chickens. He acquired his nickname as a youth, because, with his braided hair, he looked like the character Buckwheat from Our Gang/The Little Rascals movies. His father, a farmer, was an accomplished amateur traditional Creole accordion player, but young Dural preferred listening to and playing rhythm and blues.

Career
Dural became proficient at the organ, and by the late 1950s he was backing Joe Tex, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown and many others. As a teenager, he played piano for Little Richard, Fats Domino, and Ray Charles. Two Lafayette-based bands that he played in during his teens and twenties were Sammy and the Untouchables and Lil' Buck and the Top Cats.

In 1971, he founded Buckwheat & the Hitchhikers, a funk band that he led for five years before switching to zydeco. They were a local sensation and found success with the single, "It's Hard To Get", recorded for a local Louisiana-based label.

He began backing Clifton Chenier, one of the most legendary zydeco performers. Though not a traditional zydeco fan when growing up, Buckwheat accepted an invitation in 1976 to join Clifton Chenier's Red Hot Louisiana Band as organist. He quickly discovered the popularity of zydeco music, and noted the effect the music had on the audience. "Everywhere, people young and old just loved zydeco music," Dural says. "I had so much fun playing that first night with Clifton. We played for four hours and I wasn't ready to quit."

Dural's relationship with Chenier led him to take up the accordion in 1978. After practicing for a year, he felt ready to start his own band under the name Buckwheat Zydeco. They debuted with One for the Road in 1979 on the Blues Unlimited label and then recorded for New Orleans' Black Top label. In 1983, they were nominated for a Grammy Award for Turning Point and in 1985 for Waitin' For My Ya Ya after switching to the Rounder Records label. Scott Billington of Rounder wrote that Buckwheat "played the large piano accordion, like Clifton, but delivered his music with the flair of a rhythm and blues star like Joe Tex, and with the precision of James Brown. He performed Creole dance music, but it was also Southern soul music and Louisiana funk, with a Caribbean edge, all in one package."

The band then signed to Island Records, becoming the first zydeco act on a major label, and released On a Night Like This, a critically acclaimed album that was nominated for a Grammy as well. The band appeared in the movie The Big Easy in 1987, which made Zydeco "even trendier" and "gave a huge boost to the interest in all things Cajun and Creole."

In 1988, Eric Clapton invited the band to open his North American tour as well as his 12-night stand at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Buckwheat subsequently shared stages and/or recording with Keith Richards, Robert Plant, Willie Nelson, Mavis Staples, David Hidalgo, Dwight Yoakam, Paul Simon, Ry Cooder, the Cherry Poppin' Daddies and many others, including indie music band Yo La Tengo on the soundtrack of the Bob Dylan bio-pic, I'm Not There. His music has been featured in films including The Waterboy, The Big Easy, Fletch Lives and Hard Target. BET's show Comic View used his live version of “What You Gonna Do?” as theme music for the program's 10th anniversary "Pardi Gras" season. He also wrote and performed the theme music for the PBS television series Pierre Franey's Cooking In America. Buckwheat won an Emmy for his music in the CBS TV movie, Pistol Pete: The Life and Times of Pete Maravich.

Buckwheat Zydeco played many major music festivals, including the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (numerous times), Chicago Blues Festival, Newport Folk Festival, Summerfest, San Diego Street Scene, Bumbershoot, Montreux Jazz Festival, the Voodoo Experience, and countless others.

During the 1990s and early 2000s Buckwheat recorded for his own Tomorrow Recordings label and maintained an extensive touring schedule. Buckwheat Zydeco's last album, Lay Your Burden Down, was released on May 5, 2009 on the Alligator Records label. It was produced by Steve Berlin of Los Lobos and included guest appearances by guitarists Warren Haynes and Sonny Landreth, Trombone Shorty, JJ Grey and Berlin himself. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award. Sonicboomers.com says, "The CD is a vastly entertaining and appealingly diverse package. Bandleader Dural remains an ever-engaging vocalist and a whiz on any keyboard he touches. So, for Buckwheat Zydeco fans, Lay Your Burden Down finds the maestro and his group near the top of their form. For listeners with less interest in the ol' accordion get-down, the collection supplies enough interesting wrinkles to get the good times rolling."

Buckwheat Zydeco's version of the classic "Cryin' in the Streets" appears on the benefit album for Hurricane Katrina recovery, Our New Orleans: A Benefit Album for the Gulf Coast. His version of Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy's "When the Levee Breaks" appeared on 2011's Alligator Records 40th Anniversary Collection. It originally appeared on the 2009 Buckwheat Zydeco album Lay Your Burden Down.

Death
Dural died of lung cancer at age 68 on September 24, 2016, at Our Lady of Lourdes Regional Medical Center. He was funeralized at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Lafayette.

Discography

 * 2010 Bayou Boogie (Music for Little People)
 * 2009 Let the Good Times Roll: Essential Recordings (Rounder Records)
 * 2009 Lay Your Burden Down (Alligator Records)
 * 2006 The Best of Buckwheat Zydeco: 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection (Island Records/UMe)
 * 2005 Jackpot! (Tomorrow Recordings)
 * 2003 Classics (Rounder Records)
 * 2001 Down Home Live (Tomorrow Recordings)
 * 2000 The Ultimate Collection (Hip-O Records)
 * 1999 Buckwheat Zydeco Story: A 20 Year Party (Tomorrow Recordings)
 * 1997 Trouble (Tomorrow Recordings)
 * 1996 The Best of Louisiana Zydeco (AVI Entertainment)
 * 1994 Five Card Stud (Island Records)
 * 1994 Choo Choo Boogaloo (Music For Little People)
 * 1993 Menagerie: The Essential Zydeco Collection (Mango Records)
 * 1992 Buckwheat's Zydeco Party (Rounder Records)
 * 1992 On Track (Atlantic Records)
 * 1990 Where There's Smoke There's Fire (Island Records)
 * 1988 Taking It Home (Island Records)
 * 1987 On a Night Like This (Island Records; reissued on MCA Special Products)
 * 1985 Waitin’ For My Ya Ya (Rounder Records)
 * 1984 Ils Sont Partis (Blues Unlimited Records)
 * 1983 Turning Point (Rounder Records)
 * 1983 100% Fortified Zydeco (Black Top Records; reissued on Shout Factory Records)
 * 1982 People's Choice (Blues Unlimited Records)
 * 1980 Take It Easy, Baby (Blues Unlimited Records)
 * 1979 One for the Road (Blues Unlimited Records; 1991 reissued on Paula Records)

title: Buckwheat Zydeco


text:
Actinolite

Actinolite is an amphibole silicate mineral with the chemical formula Ca2(Mg4.5–2.5Fe2+0.5–2.5)Si8O22(OH)2.

Etymology
The name actinolite is derived from the Greek word aktis (ἀκτίς), meaning "beam" or "ray", because of the mineral's fibrous nature.

Mineralogy
Actinolite is an intermediate member in a solid-solution series between magnesium-rich tremolite, Ca2(Mg5.0-4.5Fe2+0.0-0.5)Si8O22(OH)2, and iron-rich ferro-actinolite, ☐Ca2(Mg2.5-0.0Fe2+2.5-5.0)Si8O22(OH)2. Mg and Fe ions can be freely exchanged in the crystal structure. Like tremolite, asbestiform actinolite is regulated as asbestos.

Occurrence
Actinolite is commonly found in metamorphic rocks, such as contact aureoles surrounding cooled intrusive igneous rocks. It also occurs as a product of metamorphism of magnesium-rich limestones.

The old mineral name uralite is at times applied to an alteration product of primary pyroxene by a mixture composed largely of actinolite. The metamorphosed gabbro or diabase rock bodies, referred to as epidiorite, contain a considerable amount of this uralitic alteration.

Fibrous actinolite is one of the six recognised types of asbestos, the fibres being so small that they can enter the lungs and damage the alveoli. Actinolite asbestos was once mined along Jones Creek at Gundagai, Australia.

Gemology
Some forms of actinolite are used as gemstones. One is nephrite, one of the two types of jade (the other being jadeite, a variety of pyroxene).

Another gem variety is the chatoyant form known as cat's-eye actinolite. This stone is translucent to opaque, and green to yellowish green color. This variety has had the misnomer jade cat's-eye. Transparent actinolite is rare and is faceted for gem collectors. Major sources for these forms of actinolite are Taiwan and Canada. Other sources are Madagascar, Tanzania, and the United States.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Actinolite


text:
Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial

Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial, or, a Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns lately found in Norfolk is a work by Sir Thomas Browne, published in 1658 as the first part of a two-part work that concludes with The Garden of Cyrus.

The title is Greek for "urn burial": A hydria (ὑδρία) is a large Greek pot, and taphos (τάφος) means "tomb".

Its nominal subject was the discovery of some 40 to 50 Anglo-Saxon pots in Norfolk. The discovery of these remains prompts Browne to deliver, first, a description of the antiquities found, and then a survey of most of the burial and funerary customs, ancient and current, of which his era was aware.

The most famous part of the work is the apotheosis of the fifth chapter, where Browne declaims: "But man is a Noble Animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing Nativities and Deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting Ceremonies of bravery, in the infamy of his nature. Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible Sun within us."

George Saintsbury, in the Cambridge History of English Literature (1911), calls the totality of Chapter V "the longest piece, perhaps, of absolutely sublime rhetoric to be found in the prose literature of the world."

Influence
Urn Burial has been admired by Charles Lamb, Samuel Johnson, John Cowper Powys, James Joyce, and Herman Melville, while Ralph Waldo Emerson said that it "smells in every word of the sepulchre".

Browne's text is discussed in W. G. Sebald's novel The Rings of Saturn.

The English composer William Alwyn wrote his Symphony No. 5, subtitled Hydriotaphia, in homage to Browne's imagery and rhythmic prose.

The American composer Douglas J. Cuomo's The Fate of His Ashes: Requiem for Victims of Power for chorus and organ takes its text from Urn Burial.

Eric Ambler excerpts a passage from chapter 5 ("But the iniquity of oblivion blindely scattereth her poppy...") as the epigram for the novel The Mask of Dimitrios.

Derek Walcott uses an excerpt as the epigraph to his poem "Ruins of a Great House", while Edgar Allan Poe quotes the Urn Burial in the epigraph of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue".

Kevin Powers uses an excerpt from the fifth chapter ("To be ignorant of evils to come, and forgetfull of evils past...") as one of the epigraphs for his novel "The Yellow Birds".

Alain de Botton references the work in his book Status Anxiety.

Borges refers to it in the final line of his short story "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius".

It also appears in the novel Sanshirō, written by Natsume Sōseki; Hirota-sensei lent the book to Sanshirō.

American nonfiction writer Colin Dickey compares some of Browne's writing on death in Urn Burial to the fate of Browne's skull in his book Cranioklepty: Grave Robbing and the Search for Genius.

title: Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial


text:
Cocteau Twins

Cocteau Twins were a Scottish rock band active from 1979 to 1997. They were formed in Grangemouth by Robin Guthrie (guitars, drum machine) and Will Heggie (bass), adding Elizabeth Fraser (vocals) in 1981 and replacing Heggie with multi-instrumentalist Simon Raymonde in 1983. The group earned critical praise for their ethereal, effects-laden sound and the soprano vocals of Fraser, whose lyrics often eschew any recognisable language. Fraser's vocals included unknown words she found in foreign language books, adding to the band's dreamy ambience. They pioneered the 1980s alternative subgenre of dream pop and helped define what would become shoegaze.

They signed with the record label 4AD in 1982 and released their debut album Garlands. The addition of Raymonde in 1983 solidified their final lineup, which produced their biggest hit in the UK, "Pearly-Dewdrops' Drops", peaking at No. 29 on the UK Singles Chart. In 1988 Cocteau Twins signed with Capitol Records in the United States, distributing their fifth album, Blue Bell Knoll, through a major label in the country. After the 1990 release of their most commercially successful album, Heaven or Las Vegas, the band left 4AD for Fontana Records, where they released their final two albums.

After nearly 20 years together, the group disbanded in 1997 in part due to issues stemming from the disintegration of Fraser and Guthrie's romantic relationship. In 2005 the band announced that they would reunite to headline Coachella Festival and embark on a world tour but the reunion was cancelled a month later after Fraser "couldn’t bring herself to work with Guthrie". In a 2021 interview, Raymonde claimed that Cocteau Twins "will never reform".

1979–1983: Early years
Guthrie and Heggie, both from Grangemouth, Scotland, formed the band in 1979. They met the 17-year-old Fraser in 1981 at a local disco, The Hotel International, where Guthrie was DJing, and she became the group's vocalist.

Doctor Who actor Peter Capaldi recalls that the Cocteau Twins were the support act for his band The Dream Boys at a gig at a hotel in Grangemouth, for which he did a runner and failed to pay them because the door takings did not cover the cost of his van hire.

Prior to releasing their debut album, the band recorded a four track session for John Peel in June 1982, including "Wax and Wane" and "Garlands". Their debut LP Garlands, released through 4AD in July 1982, was a sales success, peaking at number 14 in the indie albums chart in the UK. Sounds wrote that the style of the band was "mixing strong Siouxsie and the Banshees and Joy Division influences". NME's Don Watson compared it to gothic rock bands such as Gene Loves Jezebel and Xmal Deutschland, while Spin magazine's Sue Cummings compared it in 1986 to Siouxsie and the Banshees and Bauhaus. It was followed by the EP Lullabies in October. In April 1983 the band released a second EP, Peppermint Pig.

Cocteau Twins' sound on their first three recordings relied on the combination of Heggie's rhythmic basslines, Guthrie's minimalist guitar melodies, and Fraser's voice. The band's next full-length LP record, Head over Heels, relied solely on the latter two, following Heggie's amicable departure after the tour that followed the release of Peppermint Pig (he would later join Lowlife). This led to the characteristic Cocteau Twins sound: Fraser's voice, by turns ethereal and operatic, combined with increasingly effects-heavy guitar playing by Guthrie (who has often said that he is far more interested in the way the guitar is recorded than in the actual notes being played, though he later admitted that his reliance on effects and layering was initially due to his own technical limitations).

In 1983 the band participated in 4AD's This Mortal Coil project, which spawned a cover version of Tim Buckley's "Song to the Siren" (performed by Guthrie and Fraser). Despite appearing under the This Mortal Coil name, the cover has subsequently become one of the best-known Cocteau Twins tracks. During the TMC sessions, Guthrie and Fraser became acquainted with another project contributor, multi-instrumentalist Simon Raymonde (formerly a member of Drowning Craze), who joined Cocteau Twins later that year.

1984–1989: Rise to fame

With Raymonde, the band released a series of critically acclaimed albums and EPs that explored their new style. These included The Spangle Maker (1984), Treasure (1984), Aikea-Guinea (1985), Tiny Dynamine (1985), Echoes in a Shallow Bay (1985), and Love's Easy Tears (1986). Raymonde, who was called in to work on the second album by This Mortal Coil, did not participate in the recording of the fourth Cocteau Twins LP, Victorialand (1986), a predominantly acoustic record which featured only Guthrie and Fraser. Raymonde returned to the group for The Moon and the Melodies (1986), a collaboration with ambient composer Harold Budd, which was not released under the Cocteau Twins name, instead being credited to all four participating musicians alphabetically.

In 1985 4AD signed an agreement with Relativity Records for distribution of Cocteau Twins releases in the US and other territories. To commemorate the event, the compilation The Pink Opaque (1985) was released as a way of introducing the new, broader audience to the band's back catalogue.

While remaining a 4AD band internationally, Cocteau Twins finally signed a major-label contract with Capitol Records in 1988 for distribution in the United States, and released their fifth album, Blue Bell Knoll, in September of that year. The US promotional only single "Carolyn's Fingers" was heavily played on the U.S. radio stations, peaking at No. 2 on Billboard's Alternative Songs chart.

1990–1994: Mainstream success
The group released Heaven or Las Vegas in early 1990. The most commercially successful of their many recordings, the album reached number seven in the UK Albums Chart immediately after its release. Despite the success of the record and the subsequent concert tours, not everything was well with the band. They parted ways with 4AD following Heaven or Las Vegas partly because of conflicts with the label's founder Ivo Watts-Russell, and were close to breaking up over internal problems due in large part to Guthrie's substance abuse.

While on their international tour supporting Heaven or Las Vegas, the group signed a new recording contract with Mercury Records subsidiary Fontana for the UK and elsewhere, while retaining their US relationship with Capitol. They added several live musicians to their touring band during this era, to better replicate the layered sound of their studio albums. In 1991 4AD and Capitol released a box set that compiled the band's EPs from 1982 to 1990, and also included a bonus disc of rare and previously unreleased material.

Fraser and Guthrie had a daughter, Lucy Belle, born in 1989. The couple ended their 13-year relationship in 1993. The band's seventh LP, Four-Calendar Café, their first since Fraser and Guthrie's separation, was released in late 1993. The band explained that Four-Calendar Café was a response to the turmoil that had engulfed them in the intervening years, with Guthrie entering rehab and quitting alcohol and drugs, and Fraser undergoing psychotherapy.

1995–1997: Milk & Kisses and break-up
1995 saw the release of two new EPs: Twinlights and Otherness. Some of the tracks on Twinlights and Otherness were versions of songs from the band's eighth album, Milk & Kisses (1996). The record saw the return of more heavily layered guitars, and Fraser began once again to obscure her lyrics, though not entirely. Two singles were taken from the album: "Tishbite" and "Violaine"; both exist in two CD versions, with different B-sides included on each. The band, augmented by an extra guitarist and a drummer, toured extensively to support the album, their last for Mercury/Fontana. A new song, "Touch Upon Touch", which debuted during the live shows and was recorded later in 1996 was also one of the two songs written and arranged by Fraser, Guthrie and Raymonde for Chinese pop singer Faye Wong for her Mandarin album Fuzao released in June 1996, the other being "Tranquil Eye" from Violaine released in October 1996.

In 1997 while recording what was to have been their ninth LP, the trio disbanded over irreconcilable differences in part related to the breakup of Guthrie and Fraser. While a number of songs were partially recorded and possibly completed, the band has stated that they will likely never be finished or released in any form.

1998–present: Post-breakup
In 1999 Bella Union, the record label founded by Guthrie and Raymonde, released a double-CD Cocteau Twins compilation entitled BBC Sessions. The collection is a complete record of the band's appearances on UK radio programs from 1982 to 1996, with rare and unreleased material included. In 2000 4AD released Stars and Topsoil, a compilation of selected songs picked by the band members that had been released during their years with 4AD; all recordings had been digitally remastered by Guthrie. In 2003 4AD followed Stars and Topsoil with the release of digitally remastered versions of the first six Cocteau Twins LPs.

In January 2005 Cocteau Twins announced that they would be reforming to perform at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on 30 April 2005, and later indicated that additional tour dates would be added. However, on 16 March, the reunion was cancelled after Fraser announced that she would not take part. In a 2009 interview Fraser said she could not go through the pain of sharing the stage with her former lover Guthrie, the issue behind the band's 1997 breakup. Raymonde revealed that the band had also booked a 55-date world tour, which would have paid him £1.5 million. Later in 2005 4AD released a worldwide limited edition of 10,000 compilation box set titled Lullabies to Violaine, a 4-disc set that details every single and EP released from 1982 to 1996. This was shortly followed up by two 2-disc sets of the same names, known as Volume 1 and Volume 2.

Since March 2007 the band has started podcasts of exclusive material. On 6 October 2008 Cocteau Twins were awarded the Q Awards Inspiration Award, which they accepted in a rare collective live appearance.

In 2022 Fraser, Guthrie and Raymonde were awarded with the Visionary Award by The Ivors Academy. Fraser and Guthrie attended the award ceremony in London in May 2022 in a rare public appearance since the band's disbandment in 1997.

Solo work
The former members of Cocteau Twins have remained active musically in the years since the band's demise. In addition to forming Bella Union, Guthrie and Raymonde have produced releases from new bands signed to that label.

Raymonde released the solo album Blame Someone Else as the first release on Bella Union. He also co-produced the posthumous album by Billy Mackenzie from the Associates, then went on to produce several Domino Records artists like James Yorkston, Archie Bronson Outfit (whom he later managed) and Clearlake. More recently he has produced the UK band the Duke Spirit, London-based duo Helene, former Golden Virgins frontman Lucas Renney and has mixed the Mercury Prize nominated album The End of History by Fionn Regan. In his role running Bella Union, he has discovered such artists as Laura Veirs, Fleet Foxes, Midlake, Lift to Experience, the Low Anthem, I Break Horses, the Czars and John Grant. The label is renowned for its long-term relationships with its artists, such as Beach House who released the first four of their albums with Bella Union, as have Dirty Three, Midlake etc. Raymonde picked up the Independent Record Company of the Year award at the Music Week Awards (as voted by UK independent retailers) in 2010, 2012 and 2014.

Guthrie has released six solo albums – Imperial, Continental, Carousel, Emeralds, Fortune, and Pearldiving– and eight EPs. He toured extensively with his band Violet Indiana, which included ex-Cocteau Twins guitarist Mitsuo Tate in the line-up. He has also scored the music for three movies — Gregg Araki's Mysterious Skin (in collaboration with Harold Budd), Dany Saadia's 3:19 Nada Es Casualidad (a Mexican/Spanish production), and again with Gregg Araki and Harold Budd on the score and the soundtrack of White Bird in a Blizzard. He reunited with Budd to collaborate on two companion albums, Before the Day Breaks and After the Night Falls, and the albums Bordeaux, Winter Garden (a collaboration that included Italian electronica artist Eraldo Bernocchi), and Another Flower, which was released after Budd's passing in 2020. In 2006 Guthrie produced three songs on Mahogany's Connectivity. He also produced and played guitar on Apollo Heights debut album, White Music for Black People.

Fraser provided guest vocals on the Future Sound of London's single "Lifeforms" (1993), vocals for three songs on Massive Attack's Mezzanine in 1998 (as well as touring with them several times), and for other musical projects and groups. She wrote the lyrics and sang the vocals for "Teardrop" by Massive Attack which was released as a single in 1998 and reached number 10 in the UK singles chart. Fraser provided the vocals for "Lament for Gandalf" on The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack. In 2000 she sang with Peter Gabriel on Ovo (The Millennium Show). In 2005 she worked with Breton musician Yann Tiersen on two songs for his album Les retrouvailles. In 2009 she released the single "Moses" on Rough Trade.

Musical style and influences
Cocteau Twins' early recordings were classified in the gothic rock   and post-punk genres. The band's influences at the time they formed included The Birthday Party (drummer Phill Calvert encouraged the group to sign to 4AD), Sex Pistols, Kate Bush and Siouxsie and the Banshees (Fraser had Siouxsie tattoos on her arms for several years). The band was named after the early Simple Minds song "The Cocteau Twins" (later rewritten as "No Cure"). As the band's sound developed, their subsequent music was classified as dream pop, darkwave and ethereal wave.

Cocteau Twins' music has influenced numerous artists in different genres, including Slowdive, Quicksand, Deftones, the Weeknd, Napalm Death, John Grant, and Prince.

Members
Touring contributors:
 * Elizabeth Fraser – vocals (1981–1997)
 * Robin Guthrie – guitars, bass, production, drum machine (1979–1997)
 * Will Heggie – bass (1979–1983)
 * Simon Raymonde – bass, guitars, piano (1983–1997)
 * Ben Blakeman – additional guitars (1990–1994)
 * Mitsuo Tate – additional guitars (1989–1996)
 * Benny Di Massa – drums (1994–1996)
 * David Palfreeman – percussion (1993–1996)

Discography

 * Garlands (1982)
 * Head over Heels (1983)
 * Treasure (1984)
 * Victorialand (1986)
 * The Moon and the Melodies (1986, with Harold Budd)
 * Blue Bell Knoll (1988)
 * Heaven or Las Vegas (1990)
 * Four-Calendar Café (1993)
 * Milk & Kisses (1996)

title: Cocteau Twins


text:
Talk:V-2 rocket

Naming
It is not called "V-2" but "V2" in any war and post war documents. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.33.214.177 (talk) 03:35, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

"modest damage"
I removed the inaccurate and insulting: ''caused modest damage near Porte d'Italie. '' The blast killed seven person and wounded thirty-six other much more than the other V2 attack did the same day. It was at Maisons-Alfort in Paris suburbs, far from Porte d'Italie.

AMERICAN ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY - AAS History Series, Volume 21 - Chapter 5 - France and the Peenemünde legacy - ISBN 0-87703-439-7

some site http://www.armes-v.com/?p=984 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.229.182.176 (talk) 02:40, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

3 casualties per launch?
"Beginning in September 1944, over 3,000 V-2s were launched by the German Wehrmacht against Allied targets, first London and later Antwerp and Liège. According to a 2011 BBC documentary,[6] the attacks from V-2s resulted in the deaths of an estimated 9,000 civilians and military personnel, …" This implies to me that the 3000 V-2s (each 50-100 thousand RM) only caused 3 deaths on average? One of the numbers might be wrong. Torzsmokus (talk) 14:51, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

 * The numbers are even less: about 1 enemy death per launch. and 2 POWs worked to death.
 * IF a V2 would strike its target the result of 1 ton explosives was devastating. But in general it failed to hit a target the size of London.
 * With a guesstimate of 150 kills on hit, one gets a hit rate of 40 in 5200. This is where Freeman Dyson's evaluation springs from. The V2 programme was worse than useless. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.173.226.152 (talk) 08:53, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

rear (bottom) view of the V2 showing fins
Here is a picture of the rear view (bottom if on a launch pad) view, showing the steering fins and engine exhaust port: In case anyone wants to add it to the article. Gah4 (talk) 09:24, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

V2 control logic
This one shows the control logic of the V2: Gah4 (talk) 09:29, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

Assessment
Are the figures for the cost correct??? 'The rocket and the Reich' page 273 claims 'about half a billion WWII vintage dollars. By way of comparison, the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb cost the United States about 2 billion 1940s' dollars.' — Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.174.178.117 (talk) 15:57, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

++++

I think that Michael Neufeld's "The Rocket and the Reich" figures (i.e. roughly $500 million) are more believable, whereas the other estimates of "$2 billion" or (even worse) "50% more than the Manhattan Project" (i.e. ~$3-3.3 billion) that you see floating around out there on the interwebs are hyperbolic rubbish that do not pass the smell test. I intend to change the Wikipedia V-2 article accordingly. Neufeld at least provides something of a breakdown of costs: 150 million Marks annually to operate Peenemunde; Mittelwerk's receiving 450 million Marks for finished missiles; other unspecified sums for LOX plants, Zeppelin, Schlier, Zement, etc. and concludes that "Thus 2 billion marks would appear to be a reasonable, even conservative estimate. If those marks are converted according to the gold standard of that era (4.2 marks to the dollar--a problematic assumption), this amount equals about half a billion U.S. dollars of World War II vintage..." What Neufeld is alluding to with "problematic," though, is that the German Mark was "funny money," and not freely convertible since about the late 1930s on. I strongly suspect that had it been convertible, it would have been badly devalued by the middle of the war relative to USD, which would tend to drive the real cost of the V-2 down still further. But setting that aside, I will broadly buy Neufeld's figure of $500 million. $2-3 billion, though, I absolutely will not, for the following reasons:

Smell Test #1: relative size of economies. Per Mark Harrison's "The Economics of World War II," (p. 10) the size of the U.S. economy in 1943-44 (i.e. the time period of peak expenditures for both projects) was $1,399 billion, and $1,499 billion respectively, vs. $426 billion and $437 billion for the Reich (these are 1990 dollars, btw). In other words, Germany's economy was 30% the size of the U.S. Per Neufeld, a $500 million price tag meant that "the Army rocket program imposed a burden on the Third Reich roughly equivalent to that of Manhattan on the United States." That's fair, as it would have represented a relative load on the German economy of about three quarters the same magnitude as the American Manhattan Project (i.e. $500 million divided by 30% (the size of the German economy) would equate to about ~$1.7 billion of load if the Americans were running a similarly-sized project.) The Manhattan Project's final price tag (per the U.S. Department of Energy history "The Manhattan Project--Making the Atomic Bomb", p. 20) was $2.2 billion. So, a $1.7 billion project is 77% of that. From a smell-test perspective, gauging the rough effort level, I'll buy that. However, I will not buy that the Reich was somehow magically capable of shouldering a production effort whose relative burden would have been *300-450%* of the Manhattan Project (i.e., something in the $2 - $3.3 billion range in absolute terms). The German war economy was focused overwhelmingly on short-term weapons production needs, such as aircraft and tanks. That is one of the reasons that the German atomic bomb program was shelved in mid-1942--it could produce no return in the timeframe needed (Speer, "Inside the Third Reich," pp. 226-9). Put another way, there was a lot less "fat" in the German military budget to be sunk into highly speculative weapons projects that might or might not work. Even given Germany's fetishistic approach to wunderwaffe, a project like this just wasn't in the cards, particularly given the fact that V-2 didn't win top priority until mid-1943. Which brings us to...

Smell Test #2: Project priorities. Even after the highly successful test flight in October 1942, followed by Hitler's visit to Peenemunde in July 1943, he only specified that the program be placed on par with tank production (Speer. 368). Neufeld's book also talks in great detail about how, even after Hitler embraced the V-2, its priority status yo-yo'ed around, which had a direct effect on resources. Meanwhile, from the time Leslie Groves took over Manhattan in September 1942, it had a AAA Priority (the highest) from the War Production Board. So, how do you propose to out-spend Manhattan on the basis of a smaller national economy, and with a project that for the first years of its life has to navigate the Reich's capricious priority systems and various competing economic satrapies, and only becomes the Reich's highest priority by the summer of 1943? By that time, Manhattan has a solid year of high-volume spending under its belt, meaning V-2 would have had to have dramatically outspent Manhattan during its final year or so of operation before things fall apart in the Reich in mid-1944. Uh uh. Not happening. The rates of capital investment would have been prohibitive (see James Lacey "Keep From All Thoughtful Men" for a good overview of why you can't simply ramp up project spending to fantastic new levels overnight--it's impossible to absorb huge influxes of capital without having laid the basework of raw material extraction, processing capacity, and other plant and equipment first. It doesn't matter how much money you may want to throw at the problem--there's only so much you actually can.)

Smell Test #3: relative size of work forces involved. Per the U.S. Army official history ("Manhattan—The Army and the Atomic Bomb," p. 344), at peak employment in 1944, the Manhattan Project was utilizing 129,000 workers. From what I can gather, the V-2 workforce was 1) the Peenemunde staff (several thousand), 2) about 60,000 slave laborers at Mittelwerke for manufacturing, 3) some number of Todt Organization construction workers, and 4) various at Zeppelin, etc. We don't have hard numbers for any but #2, but we *do* know that it was Himmler's intent to have substantially *all* of the labor force be slaves. Per Speer (p. 369) "All industry would have to furnish would be the management and the engineers." It seems clear that slave laborers accounted for the bulk of the V-2 work force. If that is true, then, what? 80,000 workers, maybe? But American workers were the highest-paid in the world *by far*. German per capita income for factory workers was vastly lower (see Adam Tooze, "The Wages of Destruction," pp. 138-144, which points out that the standard of living enjoyed by the average American worker in the mid-1930s (a multi-room flat, a radio, a refrigerator, maybe even a car) was fantastically beyond the reach of all but upper-end white collar workers in the Reich). And of course labor costs for concentration camp slaves (which were not zero, in that they consumed food, and needed guarding, etc.) were certainly substantially lower than even that. Likewise, it is a truism in economics that, broadly speaking, all costs are labor costs. By corollary, then, with a smaller total work force, and a *much* less well-paid work force at that, how would Germany have had any ability to actually spend *more* on the V-2 than the U.S. would have spent while utilizing a much larger, better-paid American work force? Answer: not possible.

Smell Test #4: rare materials involved. There was nothing particularly exotic about the V-2 in terms of the rare materials that went into it. Aluminum and steel and liquid oxygen and TNT. It wasn't like the nozzles were gold-plated iridium, or something like that. Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond, the Americans are utilizing cyclotrons in enormous production facilities to first refine and then enrich incredibly rare Uranium isotopes, produce Plutonium, and so on. Now to an extent, all of these "rare materials" costs are just labor costs in themselves, in that the reason U-238 was so freakin' expensive is that you had to sink the labor and steel into building great big muthah plants and cyclotrons to do all that stuff. But I just don't see anything in a V-2 that is even remotely comparable in terms of raw materials challenges that needed overcoming. You just needed a lotta lox, propellant, and stuff that went kaboom. Indeed, what you get out of a reading of Neufeld is that steel bottlenecks (which were endemic to every wartime economy, even America's, and were *by far* the most important constraint in the German economy from the moment the Nazis came to power (see Tooze, pp. 231-2, 239-40, 302-3, and in particular 571-6) were a real problem. Meanwhile, the guidance systems for the V-2 were by far the most intricate technical bottleneck. Sorry, but that's not even remotely in the same league with the stuff Manhattan was having to overcome, *and which it ultimately did overcome by throwing mountains of cash at allocating the steel and workers to building the production assets needed to make the problems go away.*

Summary Analysis: the "$2 billion" price tag (or more) often accorded the V-2 program does not compute. It's rubbish. It is either another example of Nazi fan-boy fetishism around the supposed superiority of German wunderwaffe programs, and the German war effort in general, OR someone back in the 1970s simply saw a price of "2 billion marks" and forgot that 2 billion marks is hella less than 2 billion greenbacks. I dunno. But I am extremely confident that Neufeld is closer to the truth than those other numbers, and I intend to amend the article accordingly.Jparshall (talk) 19:22, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Taking it to GA
I think the most glaring issue with this otherwise pretty decent piece is the first section, which is more a biography of Von Braun than a history of the V-2. A more general section on rocketry in Germany in the 20s and 30s (Dornberger's book is a good reference) would be more appropriate.

--Neopeius (talk) 04:59, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

Maximum ascent speed
The supersonic impact speed was presumably obtained by the free fall under gravitational acceleration from the apogee. The powered ascent speed needn't be anything like this, all it needs to do is get the rocket to the requisite height, it could take quite a long time. The article makes clear that the range was determined by the engine cut out 'at a certain (ascent) speed', but it doesn't say what that speed was - this is surely a vital piece of information. I very much doubt the engine could propel the rocket to 3,300 mph, which is what is commonly claimed. Wolstan Dixie (talk) 10:17, 24 September 2021 (UTC)
 * A quick web search found a few articles with no mention of speed. Then this one says: maximum:5,760 km/h (3,580 mph), at impact: 2,880 km/h (1,790 mph). Gah4 (talk) 06:17, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
 * A quick web search found a few articles with no mention of speed. Then this one says: maximum:5,760 km/h (3,580 mph), at impact: 2,880 km/h (1,790 mph). Gah4 (talk) 06:17, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Supersonic wind tunnel dimensions
In the technical details section, it claims a wind tunnel with a 40 square centimeter chamber was used to measure the A-4's aerodynamic characteristics. However, a researchgate publication, whose authorship is accredited to Rudolf Hermann, states the chamber had a 40cmx40cm cross-section i.e., a 1600 square centimeter chamber. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/300995361_THE_SUPERSONIC_WIND_TUNNEL_INSTALLATIONS_AT_PEENEMUNDE_AND_KOCHEL_AND_THEIR_CONTRIBUTIONS_TO_THE_AERODYNAMICS_OF_ROCKET-POWERED_VEHICLES Roisswiki (talk) 06:44, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Update to Development history section
@Wbm1058, suggest the first paragraph of “Development history” be replaced with the following:

 * During the late 1920s, a young Wernher von Braun bought a copy of Hermann Oberth's book, Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (The Rocket into Interplanetary Spaces). In 1928 a Raketenrummel or "Rocket Rumble" fad in the poular media was initiated by Fritz von Opel and Max Valier, a collaborator of Oberth, by experimenting with rockets, including public demonstrations of manned rocket cars and rocket planes. The “Rocket Rumble” was highly influential on von Braun as a teenage space enthusiast. He was so enthusiastic after seeing one of the public Opel-RAK rocket car demonstrations, that he constructed and launched his own homemade toy rocket car in a crowded sidewalk and was later taken in for questioning by the local police, until released to his father for disciplinary action.

Ilenart626 (talk) 13:09, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

 * Have now updated the section Ilenart626 (talk) 00:59, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:V-2 rocket


text:
Tikal National Park

Tikal National Park is a national park located in Guatemala, in the northern region of the Petén Department. Stretching across 57,600 hectares, it contains the ancient Mayan city of Tikal and the surrounding tropical forests, savannas, and wetlands. In 1979, Tikal National Park was declared as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, because of the outstanding Mesoamerican ruins at Tikal and the unique ecology of the surrounding landscape.

History
"Project Tikal", as it was named at the time, was first proposed by the University of Pennsylvania in 1949. Founded on May 26, 1955, Tikal National Park was established under government decree by the Ministry of Education, via the Instituto de Antropología e Historia, advised by Dr. Adolfo Molina Orantes and under the government of Carlos Castillo Armas. Once established, the University of Pennsylvania played a role in the park's cleaning, maintenance, excavation and restoration of the site from 1956 to 1969.

Today, Tikal National Park's main tourist attraction is the classical, Mayan city Tikal, which is surrounded by a dense, lush forest.

Ecology
Tikal National Park makes up part of the global Man and the Biosphere Programme, within the Maya Biosphere Reserve. Because of its lush and varied ecosystem, many species of plants and animals thrive within the park boundaries. Five species of cats reside within the park, including the jaguar and puma, along with several species of monkeys and anteaters. In addition, more than 300 species of birds are found in the park, including the crane hawk and the ocellated turkey.

title: Tikal National Park


text:
Andalusite

Andalusite is an aluminium nesosilicate mineral with the chemical formula Al2SiO5. This mineral was called andalousite by Delamétehrie, who thought it came from Andalusia, Spain. It soon became clear that it was a locality error, and that the specimens studied were actually from El Cardoso de la Sierra, in the Spanish province of Guadalajara, not Andalusia.

Andalusite is trimorphic with kyanite and sillimanite, being the lower pressure mid temperature polymorph. At higher temperatures and pressures, andalusite may convert to sillimanite. Thus, as with its other polymorphs, andalusite is an aluminosilicate index mineral, providing clues to depth and pressures involved in producing the host rock.

Varieties
The variety chiastolite commonly contains dark inclusions of carbon or clay which form a cruciform pattern when shown in cross-section. This stone was known at least from the sixteenth century, being taken to many European countries, as a souvenir, by pilgrims returning from Santiago de Compostela.

Viridine is a green variety of andalusite in which manganese 3+ substitutes for aluminium, the same change is also responsible for the colour. Kanonaite is a greenish-black mineral related to andalusite and having the approximate composition (Mn0.76Al0.23Fe0.02)AlSiO5.

A clear variety found in Brazil and Sri-Lanka can be cut into a gemstone. Faceted andalusite stones give a play of red, green, and yellow colors that resembles a muted form of iridescence, although the colors are actually the result of unusually strong pleochroism.

Occurrence
Andalusite is a common metamorphic mineral which forms under low pressure and low to high temperatures. The minerals kyanite and sillimanite are polymorphs of andalusite, each occurring under different temperature-pressure regimes and are therefore rarely found together in the same rock. Because of this the three minerals are a useful tool to help identify the pressure-temperature paths of the host rock in which they are found. It is particularly associated with pelitic metamorphic rocks such as mica schist.

Uses
Andalusite is used as a refractory in furnaces, kilns and other industrial processes. South Africa possesses by far the largest portion of the world's known andalusite deposits.

title: Andalusite


text:
Waterway

A waterway is any navigable body of water. Broad distinctions are useful to avoid ambiguity, and disambiguation will be of varying importance depending on the nuance of the equivalent word in other ways. A first distinction is necessary between maritime shipping routes and waterways used by inland water craft. Maritime shipping routes cross oceans and seas, and some lakes, where navigability is assumed, and no engineering is required, except to provide the draft for deep-sea shipping to approach seaports (channels), or to provide a short cut across an isthmus; this is the function of ship canals. Dredged channels in the sea are not usually described as waterways. There is an exception to this initial distinction, essentially for legal purposes, see under international waters.

Where seaports are located inland, they are approached through a waterway that could be termed "inland" but in practice is generally referred to as a "maritime waterway" (examples Seine Maritime, Loire Maritime, Seeschiffahrtsstraße Elbe). The term "inland waterway" refers to navigable rivers and canals designed to be used by inland waterway craft only, implicitly of much smaller dimensions than seagoing ships.

In order for a waterway to be navigable, it must meet several criteria:

 * it must be deep enough to accommodate vessels loading to the design draft;
 * it must be wide enough to allow passage of the vessels with the design width or beam;
 * it must be free of obstacles to navigation such as waterfalls and rapids, or offer a way around them (such as canal locks or boat lifts);
 * its current must be mild enough to allow vessels to make headway upstream without undue difficulty;
 * the wave height (on lakes) must not exceed the value for which the class of vessel is designed.

Vessels using waterways vary from small animal-drawn barges to immense ocean tankers and ocean liners, such as cruise ships.

In order to increase the importance of inland waterway transport, the European Commission presented a 35-point action plan in June 2021. The main goals are to increase the amount of goods moved through Europe's rivers and canals and to speed up the switch to zero-emission barges by 2050. This is in accordance with the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy and the European Green Deal, which set the target of boosting inland canal and short-sea shipping by 25% by 2030 and by 50% by 2050.

History
Waterways have been an important part of human activity since prehistoric times and navigability has allowed watercraft and canals to pass through every body of water. The Grand Canal (China), a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the oldest known waterway system in the world, is considered to be one of the world's largest and most extensive project of engineering.

Example of classification of inland waterways
The European Conference of Ministers of Transport established in 1953 a classification of waterways that was later expanded to take into account the development of push-towing. Europe is a continent with a great variety of waterway characteristics, which makes this classification valuable to appreciate the different classes in waterway. There is also a remarkable variety of waterway characteristics in many countries of Asia, but there has not been any equivalent international drive for uniformity. This classification is provided by the UN Economic Commission for Europe, Inland Transport Committee, Working Party on Inland Water Transport. A low resolution version of that map is shown here.

Major waterways

 * Suez Canal
 * Panama Canal
 * Great Lakes Waterway
 * Saint Lawrence Seaway

title: Waterway


text:
W.A.S.P. (band)

W.A.S.P. is an American heavy metal band formed in 1982. They emerged from the early 1980s Los Angeles heavy metal scene. The band's popularity peaked that decade, yet they continue to record and tour. W.A.S.P. gained notoriety for their shock rock-themed image, lyrics and live performances. They have sold over twelve million records worldwide, with their first two albums, W.A.S.P. (1984) and The Last Command (1985), being certified as gold by the RIAA.

W.A.S.P. was a target in the mid-1980s of the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), an organization that pushed for warning labels on recorded music. The band immortalized its fight with the PMRC on the song "Harder, Faster" from their 1987 live album, Live... in the Raw. Their most well-known songs include "Animal (F**k Like a Beast)", "I Wanna Be Somebody", "L.O.V.E. Machine", "Wild Child", "Blind in Texas", "Forever Free", "The Headless Children", "Chainsaw Charlie (Murders in the New Morgue)" and "The Idol", as well as their cover versions of Ray Charles' "I Don't Need No Doctor" and The Who's "The Real Me". The band's most recent studio album, Golgotha, was released in 2015 and they have been working on new material.

Early years and rise to fame (1982–1985)
W.A.S.P. began following the demise of Circus Circus, a Los Angeles-based band featuring Blackie Lawless and Randy Piper. The original lineup of W.A.S.P. was formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1982 by Lawless, Piper, Rik Fox, and Tony Richards. The band became notorious for its raunchy and, at times, shocking live shows. Lawless was known to tie semi-naked models to a torture rack, and to also hurl raw meat into the audience. The band's debut single, entitled "Animal (F**k Like a Beast)", and its cover were equally controversial.

The first lineup did not last for long, as Rik Fox was let go and went on to join the band Steeler with vocalist Ron Keel and guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen. He was replaced by Don Costa, the bassist in Richards' former band, Dante Fox (which later evolved into Great White). Shortly afterward, Costa also left the band and his position on the bass was filled by Brayden Parker. At the same time, guitarist Chris Holmes joined the band.

W.A.S.P. signed to Capitol Records for their debut album, W.A.S.P., released on August 17, 1984. The debut was at one time planned for release with the title Winged Assassins. The band's first single, "Animal (F**k Like a Beast)", was omitted from the album in the United States to prevent it from being banned from major chain stores. W.A.S.P. was accompanied by the band's first world tour, performing with numerous bands such as Kiss, Iron Maiden, Dokken, Krokus, Helix, Quiet Riot, Armored Saint, and a then-relatively unknown Metallica.

Shortly afterwards, the band made an appearance in the 1984 film The Dungeonmaster and on the soundtrack to Ghost Warrior with the song "Tormentor".

"L.O.V.E. Machine" and "I Wanna Be Somebody" helped the album sell, and set the band up for "Blind in Texas", a song written in St. Paul, Minnesota, by Lawless. The song was included on their next album The Last Command in September 1985. The Last Command remains W.A.S.P.'s highest-charting album, peaking at No. 47 on the Billboard album chart. "Blind in Texas" is perhaps their best known song, more than three decades after its release. The Last Command was also the first album with new drummer Steve Riley (formerly of Keel), who had replaced Richards at the beginning of the 1984-1985 tour. W.A.S.P. supported the album by participating in two arena tours, opening for Kiss on their Asylum tour, and, along with a then-unknown Anthrax, they supported Black Sabbath on their Seventh Star tour.

After The Last Command tour, Piper departed the band. Former King Kobra bassist Johnny Rod joined W.A.S.P. as Lawless went back to playing rhythm guitar. Around this time, W.A.S.P. became a very prominent target of the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), an organization led by Tipper Gore and dedicated to opposing music with lyrics deemed violent or overtly sexual in content. This lowered the band's reputation to such a degree that concert halls were getting bomb threats, band members were receiving death threats by the hundreds, and Lawless was shot at twice (though not hit). The controversy generated valuable publicity for the band.

Mainstream success (1986–1989)
With the lineup changes made, they recorded their third album, titled Inside the Electric Circus. It was released in October 1986, and a near year-long world tour in support of the album followed, including supporting Iron Maiden on their Somewhere in Time tour in Europe, and a headlining North American tour with Slayer, Raven and Saxon. Inside the Electric Circus received a mixed reaction from the music press: it was considered a big hit with W.A.S.P. fans, while critics, on the other hand, dismissed it as "7th-grader rock". Songs like "Shoot From The Hip" and the minor hit single "95-N.A.S.T.Y." helped the band live up to the reputation of one of the possible meanings of their band name, "We Are Sexual Perverts". However, Blackie Lawless himself, known to be a harsh critic of his own work, cited in the album's re-release liner notes that Inside the Electric Circus was "[a] tired record by a tired band." Ultimately it was an unfavorable critical review of the single "95-N.A.S.T.Y." that convinced Lawless to take some time off and reconsider the band's creative direction.

In 1987, W.A.S.P. had their song "Scream Until You Like It" included on the soundtrack of the movie Ghoulies 2. The same year, a few dates during the Inside the Electric Circus tour were recorded and on November 27, 1987, the Long Beach arena concert was released as the Live... in the Raw album. By this time, Riley had left W.A.S.P. to join L.A. Guns, and was replaced by local drummer Chad Nelson. Then-eighteen-year-old Glenn Soderling, who had recorded an album in 1983 with the band Pandemonium, then joined the band, but did not play any shows due to Holmes' illness. Soderling left during rehearsals and was replaced by Kelly Martella for their Donington appearance and a Top of the Pops performance of "Scream Until You Like It" on the BBC. Martella went on to join the band Silent Rage (Simmons Records) in 1988. Soderling later surfaced under the name "Tripp Holland" in the band Engines of Aggression with former Tomorrow's Child members Rik Schaffer and Craig Dollinger, and is currently making music for TV shows as staff writer with Supersonic Noise.

W.A.S.P.'s fourth studio album, The Headless Children, was released on April 15, 1989, and was their first album without any overtly sexually explicit songs. The album reached the band's highest chart position with No. 48 on the Billboard 200 before falling off the charts in 13 weeks. However, it was W.A.S.P.'s most critically acclaimed work up to that point and, according to a recent Lawless interview, it is now the highest-selling W.A.S.P. album to date. The drumming duties for the album were handled by former Quiet Riot drummer Frankie Banali. It features two of the band's most highly acclaimed songs, the power ballad "Forever Free" and a cover of The Who's "The Real Me". W.A.S.P. went on tour in the United States with Accept and Metal Church to support The Headless Children, playing at smaller venues such as clubs and theaters, as opposed to the arenas and stadiums that had propelled the band into success.

Post-Chris Holmes period (1989–1995)
Chris Holmes left the band in August 1989, stating that he wanted to "have fun, you know." Lawless responded with a caustic remark about the fact that "some guys want to stay at home and wear aprons," hinting at the nature of Chris Holmes' relationship with his new wife Lita Ford. The band effectively disbanded a few months later, with Blackie Lawless embarking on a short lived solo career. Lawless was originally slated to play the T-1000 terminator in the movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day, but was later replaced by Robert Patrick after Arnold Schwarzenegger deemed Lawless "too tall" (1.93m). Blackie commenced work on his solo project, but under pressure from both promoters and fans, he released it as a W.A.S.P. album. Ironically, many critics feel that the resulting concept album, The Crimson Idol, has been the best W.A.S.P. output so far.

The follow-up to The Crimson Idol was Still Not Black Enough (1995), a collection of dark, introspective tunes that extended the Crimson Idol mythology. This time, rather than "hiding behind" alter ego Jonathan Steele, Lawless spoke directly to the audience about his own feelings (as stated in the liner notes). While the album lacked the cohesiveness of its predecessor, the lyrics still explored similar topics to Crimson Idol: being an outcast and misfit, the pressures of fame and society, and the search for love. Still Not Black Enough also included cover songs as "bonus tracks". The initial European edition included a different track listing from the American version and a subsequent American re-issue featured yet a different track listing. No version to date includes all the various tracks on one disc.

Reunion with Chris Holmes (1996–2001)
Chris Holmes returned to W.A.S.P. in 1996 and together they released Kill.Fuck.Die (1997) and Helldorado (1999). They also recorded two live albums from these tours, Double Live Assassins and The Sting respectively. The Sting CD and DVD were taken directly from an experimental webcast that Lawless claims to have had no control over. This release angered him as he was unhappy with the sound and picture quality.

The band continued with the album Unholy Terror in 2001. Holmes left the band once again that year, stating that he wanted to "play the blues". He hooked up with fellow ex-W.A.S.P. member Randy Piper's band Animal, but soon dropped out of that project also. Holmes, for his part, has claimed he never played on Unholy Terror.

Dying for the World and the Neon God albums (2002–2005)
Dying for the World, released in 2002, was written and recorded in less than a year which is very fast by Lawless' perfectionist standards. Its liner notes feature one of Lawless' strongest statements about political correctness, inspired by the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

In April 2004, W.A.S.P. released the first part of The Neon God, subtitled The Rise, a conceptual album about an abused and orphaned boy who finds that he has the ability to read and manipulate people. The second part, The Demise, was released in September 2004.

In 2005, W.A.S.P. headlined American Metal Blast. A video shoot for the track "Never Say Die" was planned with Ward Boult, a fetish photographer, directing. To this day, there has been no news as to whether the shoot resulted in anything concrete. It would have been the first W.A.S.P. promo video in ten years, the last being 1995's "Black Forever".

Dominator and Babylon (2006–2014)
Early 2006 saw the seemingly stable lineup fall apart. Long-time session and tour drummer Stet Howland left first (on amicable terms), promising more specific information about the reasons for the split to be posted on his website. Larry Howe of Vicious Rumors was considered as a replacement. In May, the departure of guitarist Darrell Roberts, who went on to join the band Five Finger Death Punch, was announced and new guitar player Mark Zavon was brought in several days before the first tour date. The same press release confirmed Mike Dupke, and not Howe, would be the new drummer. Furthermore, two days later, Zavon was out of the picture as well, seeing Doug Blair step in on guitar.

A new album, Dominator was planned for release in October 2006, according to a statement made by Blackie Lawless at a tour stop in Kavarna. He then went on to play a new song from the album, entitled Mercy. A few weeks later, the release of the album was postponed until April 2007, with the band recording two news songs and dropping two cover songs, to be used instead as bonus tracks. In October 2007, W.A.S.P. embarked on The Crimson Idol Tour, to celebrate that album's 15th anniversary. It was the first time that the album, often regarded to be among the band's finest work, was performed in full from start to finish. The tour kicked off in Greece, in Thessaloniki at the Principal Club Theater on October 26, 2007.

The release of the Dominator album was finalized for April 16 in the UK, April 20 in Scandinavia with the rest of mainland Europe following on April 27. The release dates for South America and Russia followed in early May.

Dominator reached No. 72 on the charts in Germany.

W.A.S.P. canceled their North American tour due to their record label's loss of a distributor. They were going to finish up their shows in Europe and then reschedule their shows in the United States. They were unable to finish the shows in Europe because of a "family illness that needed immediate attention" which forced the band to return to Los Angeles right away. They were originally going to perform at Rocklahoma. As the tour was canceled, W.A.S.P. was not able to perform at Rocklahoma and was replaced by Queensrÿche.

W.A.S.P. announced a European tour which included dates in Scotland, England and other places throughout Europe in late October 2007.

W.A.S.P. released their fourteenth studio album, entitled Babylon in late 2009, via Demolition Records.

Shortly after the release of Babylon, Blackie Lawless declared that he was never going to play the song "Animal (Fuck Like A Beast)" live again, due to his religious beliefs. These beliefs are what have allegedly been behind Blackie Lawless' self-censorship of his own lyrics during the "Babylon World Tour", most notably during the performance of "Chainsaw Charlie (Murders In The New Morgue)".

On The Beast of Babylon Tour, Blackie canceled two shows within a week of each other. The first cancellation came about at the Gramercy Theater in New York City after the band discovered that the venue had been selling V.I.P. meet and greet tickets for twice the amount of the general admission price. The band made a statement claiming, "We have never charged a fan for an autograph and will never charge any fans for an autograph." The second cancellation occurred when the Crocodile Rock venue in Allentown, Pennsylvania wanted 50% of all of the band's profit, according to Lawless.

On September 21, 2012, the band celebrated the 30th anniversary of their first ever live show by kicking off a world tour at The Forum in London. The set for the tour was split into three sections: songs from the first four albums, a cut-down rendition of the Crimson Idol performance and a final segment for newer material.

Golgotha, 25th anniversary of The Crimson Idol and next album (2015–present)
W.A.S.P.'s fifteenth studio album, Golgotha, was released on October 2, 2015. The album took four years to materialize.

W.A.S.P. toured in 2017 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the release of The Crimson Idol. To coincide with this anniversary, the band released Reidolized (The Soundtrack to the Crimson Idol) on February 2, 2018, which came with the original The Crimson Idol movie on DVD and Blu-ray, and includes six tracks that were originally intended to be part of the original version of the album.

In December 2017, it was reported that W.A.S.P. had been working on new material for the follow-up to Golgotha. No news on the album had surfaced for more than three years, until December 2020 when Loudwire listed it as one of the 88 "Most Anticipated Rock + Metal Albums" of 2021. Progress on a new album had continued to be slow by January 2022, when frontman Blackie Lawless stated in an interview with Eddie Trunk that the band has "quite a bit of material that [they've] been working on diligently actually." He reiterated the album's slow progress in July 2024.

Former W.A.S.P. drummer Frankie Banali died of pancreatic cancer on August 20, 2020, making him the second deceased member of The Crimson Idol-era lineup, following Bob Kulick who had died three months earlier.

The band embarked on their first North American tour in over a decade from October to December 2022, with support from Armored Saint, and on selected dates, Michael Schenker. While on their North American tour, Lawless stated that he and the band use backing tracks in their live performances during a Q&A session. Additional tours, including in Europe and North America, were rescheduled to spring 2023 and again to 2024 due to the pandemic situation in Europe as well as Lawless' "extensive back injuries".

Band name meaning
There has been much speculation over the origin of the band's name, and whether it actually stands for anything, since it is written as an acronym. One possible interpretation is "White Anglo-Saxon Protestants", being the original meaning of the acronym. The song "Show No Mercy", the B-side of the band's first single "Animal", contains the repeated lyric, "White Anglo-Saxon / A violent reaction".

The original U.S. release of the band's debut album W.A.S.P. had the words "We Are Sexual Perverts" inscribed on both sides around the label in the center, while "Winged Assassins" is inscribed on the spine of the first vinyl pressing. When asked about the band's name, Lawless has avoided giving a straight answer. In one interview he answered, "We Ain't Sure, Pal."

In a February 2010 interview, Lawless stated the main reason for the name was the periods. He claimed no band had ever used them before and, in essence, the periods created a "question mark of uncertainty" to make W.A.S.P. stand out more. He then went on to say, "Look where we are: it did!"

In an interview published on YouTube in 2020, former bassist Rik Fox explained that the name came about after an incident outside Lawless' home, in which Fox happened across a hornet and tried to kill it before it could sting him. The sight of the insect's throbbing stinger brought to mind the image of the Green Hornet logo. According to Fox, this happened while the band was still under the moniker of "Sister" and Lawless was looking for a new name. When Fox explained what happened to Lawless, the band's leader liked the idea and ultimately adopted it. Fox's story has been corroborated by former guitarist Randy Piper, who while agreeing with him, did acknowledge Lawless as being the one who came up with the idea of the band's name being written as an acronym.

Band members
Current members
 * Blackie Lawless – lead vocals, rhythm guitar, keyboards, percussion (1982–present)
 * Mike Duda – bass, backing vocals (1995–present)
 * Doug Blair – lead guitar, backing vocals (2006–present; touring 1992 and 2001)
 * Aquiles Priester – drums (2017–present)

Discography

 * W.A.S.P. (1984)
 * The Last Command (1985)
 * Inside the Electric Circus (1986)
 * The Headless Children (1989)
 * The Crimson Idol (1992)
 * Still Not Black Enough (1995)
 * Kill Fuck Die (1997)
 * Helldorado (1999)
 * Unholy Terror (2001)
 * Dying for the World (2002)
 * The Neon God: Part 1 – The Rise (2004)
 * The Neon God: Part 2 – The Demise (2004)
 * Dominator (2007)
 * Babylon (2009)
 * Golgotha (2015)
 * Reidolized: The Soundtrack to The Crimson Idol (2018)

title: W.A.S.P. (band)


text:
Null-move heuristic

In computer chess programs, the null-move heuristic is a heuristic technique used to enhance the speed of the alpha–beta pruning algorithm.

Rationale
Alpha–beta pruning speeds the minimax algorithm by identifying cutoffs, points in the game tree where the current position is so good for the side to move that best play by the other side would have avoided it. Since such positions could not have resulted from best play, they and all branches of the game tree stemming from them can be ignored. The faster the program produces cutoffs, the faster the search runs. The null-move heuristic is designed to guess cutoffs with less effort than would otherwise be required, whilst retaining a reasonable level of accuracy.

The null-move heuristic is based on the fact that most reasonable chess moves improve the position for the side that played them. So, if the player whose turn it is to move can forfeit the right to move (or make a null move – an illegal action in chess) and still have a position strong enough to produce a cutoff, then the current position would almost certainly produce a cutoff if the current player actually moved.

Implementation
In employing the null-move heuristic, the computer program first forfeits the turn of the side whose turn it is to move, and then performs an alpha–beta search on the resulting position to a shallower depth than it would have searched the current position had it not used the null move heuristic. If this shallow search produces a cutoff, it assumes the full-depth search in the absence of a forfeited turn would also have produced a cutoff. Because a shallow search is faster than deeper search, the cutoff is found faster, accelerating the computer chess program. If the shallow search fails to produce a cutoff, then the program must make the full-depth search.

This approach makes two assumptions. First, it assumes that the disadvantage of forfeiting one's turn is greater than the disadvantage of performing a shallower search. Provided the shallower search is not too much shallower (in practical implementation, the null-move search is usually 2 or 3 plies shallower than the full search would have been), this is usually true. Second, it assumes that the null-move search will produce a cutoff frequently enough to justify the time spent performing null-move searches instead of full searches. In practice, this is also usually true.

Problems with the null-move heuristic
There are a class of chess positions where employing the null-move heuristic can result in severe tactical blunders. In these zugzwang (German for "forced to move") positions, the player whose turn it is to move has only bad moves as their legal choices, and so would actually be better off if allowed to forfeit the right to move. In these positions, the null-move heuristic may produce a cutoff where a full search would not have found one, causing the program to assume the position is very good for a side when it may in fact be very bad for them.

To avoid using the null-move heuristic in zugzwang positions, most chess-playing programs that use the null-move heuristic put restrictions on its use. Such restrictions often include not using the null-move heuristic if
 * the side to move is in check
 * the side to move has only its king and pawns remaining
 * the side to move has a small number of pieces remaining
 * the previous move in the search was also a null move.

Verified null-move pruning
Another heuristic for dealing with the zugzwang problem is Omid David and Nathan Netanyahu's verified null-move pruning. In verified null-move pruning, whenever the shallow null-move search indicates a fail-high, instead of cutting off the search from the current node, the search is continued with reduced depth.

title: Null-move heuristic


text:
Valeriy Brumel

Valeriy Nikolayevich Brumel (Валерий Николаевич Брумель; 14 April 1942 – 26 January 2003) was a Soviet-Russian high jumper. The 1964 Olympic champion and multiple world record holder, he is regarded as one of the greatest athletes ever to compete in the high jump. His international career was ended by a motorcycle crash in 1965.

Early life and education
Brumel was born in a far eastern Siberian village to a family of geologists exploring the region. They later moved to Luhansk and taught at a local university.

Athletic career
Brumel took up the high jump at age 12 in Lugansk, coached by P. S. Shtein. Aged 16 he cleared 2 m using the then dominant straight-leg straddle technique. He improved his skills under the coaching of V. M. Dyachkov in Moscow. In 1960 he broke the USSR record, 2.17 m, and was selected to the Olympic team. At the 1960 Summer Olympics, he cleared the same height as the winner Robert Shavlakadze, but made more attempts and thus was awarded a silver medal.

In 1961–1963 he broke his own world record in the high jump six times, improving it from 2.23 m to 2.28 m. He also won the high jump at the 1961 and 1963 Universiade, 1962 European Championships, the 1964 Summer Olympics and the USSR Championships of 1961–1963.

After going undefeated during the 1965 season, Brumel suffered a multiple fracture in his right foot in a motorcycle crash, and faced an amputation. He was operated on successfully by professor Gavriil Ilizarov with a new leg-lengthening procedure using his external fixator. Yet even after 29 surgeries, he could not fully recover. He retired in 1970 after jumping 2.06 m at local competitions.

Retirement from athletics
In retirement Brumel turned to acting and writing. He starred in the film Sport, Sport, Sport (1970) and wrote the script for Pravo na pryzhok (The right on a jump, 1973). He also wrote numerous novels and plays, including the novel Don't Change Yourself (1979), which was translated into seven languages, and the libretto to Rauf Hajiyev's operetta Golden Caravel (Золотая каравелла).

Personal life
Brumel had two brothers, Oleg (1944–2005) and Igor, a Russian politician born in 1952 in Rostov. Brumel was married three times. His first wife, Marina, was a gymnastics instructor. She left him with a son in 1965, when Brumel was recovering from his motorcycle crash. In 1973 Brumel married Yelena Petushkova, an equestrian and 1972 Olympic champion in dressage. The couple divorced 18 months later, citing irreconcilable differences. They had a daughter, Vlada Petushkova, born in 1974, who was raised by her mother. In 1992 Brumel married Svetlana Belousova, who later founded and managed the Valeriy Brumel Fund. They had a son Viktor.

title: Valeriy Brumel