Songs of Love and Hate's topics - tribe.net

Cohen World Tour

enigmahare — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 17:03:43 GMT

Hey, anyone awake out there? Leonard is going on tour again. Frankly, I'm a bit worried that he might disappoint as the cameos I've seen of recent performances suggest that the years seem to have taken their toll. But I'm gonna take the leap anyway--got tickets to the June 6 show in TO--Same venue in which I last saw Leonard in '93!

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080312.COHEN12/TPStory/TPEntertainment/Music/

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 1 reply

Cohen makes list of top 10 songwriters!

valentinavonstilt — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 17:49:13 GMT

Paste magazine had a critics and a readers poll of the top 100 living songwriters . THe list is interesting.
10. Prince
9. Joni Mitchell
8. Elvis Costello
7. Brian Wilson (The Beach Boys)
6. Leonard Cohen
5. Paul McCartney (The Beatles, Wings)
4. Tom Waits & Kathleen Brennan
3. Bruce Springsteen
2. Neil Young (Buffalo Sprinfield, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
1. Bob Dylan

http://www.pastemagazine.com/action/article?article_id=3003

enjoy!

V.V.

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 3 replies

A new Leonard Cohen movie!

chantal — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 20:26:42 GMT

I don't know if this is old news, but in Leonard's case, I could hear the same news over and over and still be ecstatic.
------
Amy Phillips reports:
Mel Gibson is a bigger Leonard Cohen fan than you are. Yup, Mel Gibson is such a big Leonard Cohen fan that he executive produced a movie about him: Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, due in theaters June 21. What have you done for Leonard Cohen lately, huh?

Part documentary and part concert film, I'm Your Man centers around a January 2005 Australian tribute concert, "Came So Far for Beauty", organized by producer Hal Willner and featuring performances by Antony, Nick Cave, Jarvis Cocker, Rufus Wainwright, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Martha Wainwright, Beth Orton, Linda Thompson, Teddy Thompson, the Handsome Family, Julie Christensen, and Perla Battala. Cohen himself performs "Tower of Song" with U2.
-------
http://pitchforkmedia.com/news/06-04/24.shtml#leonardcohen

Here's an url to the trailer of the new movie.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/lions_gate/leonardcohenimyourman/

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 3 replies

need gloves?

confetta — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 18:21:46 GMT

http://www.skinover.biz/

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 0 replies

Leonard inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame

chantal — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 22:38:50 GMT

I was bored today and thought I would see if there was any new Leonard news, and I was happy to see that Leonard was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame this Feb 6..
Here's the url to read about it:

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060205/cohen_gala_060205/20060205?hub=TopStories

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 10 replies

Hello Everyone!

paloma — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 06:38:49 GMT

I am a huge fan of Leonard Cohen... Thanks for having this tribe! I just typed in "cohen" in the search and here I be!

I even met him in Montreal a few times when I was younger. I had made friend with Suzanne Verdal (of the famed song) and spent a summer dancing in Old Montreal with her. And she was just like the song describes her to be... So yeah... I met Leonard Cohen at her place once and before that sitting on some steps of a house on a nice spring day... the kind that gets everyone out of their house in Montreal.. we had a chat and I pretended I didn't recognize him and I also used to see him at an all night place on St Laurent called Bagels Etc. He would be writing in a corner and people left him alone... But anyway... I love his words and his voice and his music! So I look forward to posting with you all!

Paloma

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 5 replies

Look

Mon, 06 Feb 2006 06:23:17 GMT

http://entertainment1.sympatico.msn.ca/Music/MusicNews/ContentPosting.aspx?contentid=ade9fb8613b54beb9c6dfb771bad7e47&show=True&number=7&showbyline=False&subtitle=&detect=&abc=abc

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 2 replies

who introduced you?

Ardent — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 06:55:49 GMT

The first Leonard Cohen I heard was at the home of the son of my father's best friend, just going through his tape collection. He had dropped out of seminary and joined the army and then started a successful business. He seemed embarrassed to have the tapes around...they didn't fit in with his happy home and children, he probably thought. I was immediately hooked.

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 11 replies

Quotes from LC...

ferrarabrainpan — Sat, 03 Dec 2005 22:23:40 GMT

I received today an email which consisted of the following quotes from Our Man...

"Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh." Leonard Cohen

"I don't consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel soaked to the skin." Leonard Cohen

"Let judges secretly despair of justice: their verdicts will be more acute. Let generals secretly despair of triumph: killing will be defamed. Let priests secretly despair of faith: their compassion will be true. " Leonard Cohen
"Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. " Leonard Cohen

"Seven to eleven is a huge chunk of life, full of dulling and forgetting. It is fabled that we slowly lose the gift of speech with animals, that birds no longer visit our windowsills to converse. As our eyes grow accustomed to sight they armor themselves against wonder." Leonard Cohen

"There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in." Leonard Cohen

"To every people the land is given on condition. Perceived or not, there is a Covenant, beyond the constitution, beyond sovereign guarantee, beyond the nation's sweetest dreams of itself." Leonard Cohen

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 0 replies

A new Leonard Cohen album !!!

BarrieMoore — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 23:58:33 GMT

from a Tornto gossip column, hope it's true.
"Leonard Cohen debuted his new album at the Spoke Club on Tuesday to a room of record company types and producer Daniel Lanois. They all retired to the private dining room for dinner after, thereby missing Moses Znaimer, Mayor David Miller and Mickey Rourke in the lower rent dining area."
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1133046906719&call_pageid=968867495754&col=969483191630

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 0 replies

Favorite Album?? Typical question..I know!

Fri, 05 Dec 2003 03:26:57 GMT

Well I am happy to see two people have found this tribe so far...I'm curious to know what your favorite album is. I myself can never get enough of Leonard Cohen:Live Songs. Espically the song - Please don't pass me by(A disgrace) recorded live in London 1970.

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 27 replies

Cohen Virgins

holly — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 22:41:48 GMT

I would also love to hear stories of first encounters or memorable encounters of hearing Leonard or a Leonard song for the first time....

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 12 replies

In the Same Vein?

holly — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 22:39:57 GMT

Would love to see some lists of which other artists people feel are in the same category with Leonard Cohen.....

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 6 replies

71

sophistikittenlin — Thu, 22 Sep 2005 23:25:00 GMT

Happy Birthday (yesterday) Leonard!

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 0 replies

Sundance Channel and Leonard Cohen documentary

BarrieMoore — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 00:06:28 GMT

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050613/nym169.html?.v=13
This is a bit of old news, but I didn't see it anywhere else on the tribe.
Thought others may be interested.

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 1 reply

North American Tour - March 2006

BarrieMoore — Fri, 09 Sep 2005 23:42:47 GMT

I saw in a magazine (EW or Rolling Stone) that Leonard is to commence a North American tour starting in March of 2006. No cities or dates mentioned yet. Can't find anything else about it on the net. Has anybody else heard anything about this?

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 1 reply

financial disaster, lawsuits for Cohen

barnaby — Tue, 06 Sep 2005 17:55:37 GMT

The first few paragraphs sound a little sensational, but this winds up as a well-researcherd, sober analysis of Cohen's baffling financial crisis. It is hard to draw any conclusions other than a feeling of deep sorrow for a great artist in the midst of calamity.

from:
http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/finance/article.jsp?content=20050822_110877_110877

A 'devastated' Leonard Cohen

The Canadian music icon is broke and the lawsuits are flying. It's a sordid tale involving allegations of extortion, SWAT teams, forcible confinement, tax troubles and betrayal.

KATHERINE MACKLEM

I said there's been a flood
I said there's nothing left
-- Leonard Cohen, from The Letters, on his album Dear Heather

Take an iconic artist, mix in missing millions, hints of tantric sex, a lawsuit replete with other salacious details, and a ruptured relationship with a long-time, trusted associate, and you've got the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster. Except in the case of Leonard Cohen, it's a true tale, with the bizarre twist of a Tibetan Buddhist suing a Zen Buddhist, Cohen. For the 70-year-old poet, singer and songwriter, it's a nasty, rapidly escalating legal battle that on the one hand accuses him of conspiracy and extortion, and on the other has him accusing both his highly trusted personal manager and long-time financial adviser -- the Tibetan Buddhist -- of gross mismanagement of his financial affairs. The case exposes not only private details of Cohen's finances, but also a dramatic tale of betrayal.

The conflict, which Cohen and others have tried to keep out of public view, has left him virtually broke -- he's had to take out a mortgage on his house to pay legal costs -- and facing a multi-million-dollar tax bill. But the artist, who is soon to release a new album with his collaborator -- and current girlfriend -- Anjani Thomas, is today remarkably calm about the potentially embarrassing conflict. Still, when he discovered last fall that his retirement funds, which he had thought amounted to more than $5 million (all figures U.S.), had been reduced to $150,000, he wasn't so sanguine. "I was devastated," Cohen says. "You know, God gave me a strong inner core, so I wasn't shattered. But I was deeply concerned."

So far, only one formal court filing involving Cohen has been made. In June, Boulder, Colo.-based Neal Greenberg, Cohen's investment adviser of almost a decade, launched a hyperbole-laden claim in Colorado against Cohen, who lives in both Los Angeles and Montreal. The suit accuses Kelley Lynch, who was Cohen's manager and is also named in the suit, of siphoning money from the songwriter. It also accuses Cohen and his lawyer Robert Kory of conspiracy, extortion and defamation. It alleges the two, in an attempt to recover at least some of Cohen's lost money, threatened to besmirch Greenberg's reputation and concocted a plan to force Greenberg to give Cohen millions of dollars.

The suit paints an almost preposterous picture of Cohen as an artist who led a lavish celebrity lifestyle and then turned bitter and vindictive when he discovered the money had run out. For example, the suit quotes Lynch describing how Cohen demanded she discuss business matters while he soaked in a bubble bath, and how later he was somehow involved in calling a SWAT team to her home, where she was handcuffed and forcibly taken to a psychiatric ward while in her bathing suit.

None of the allegations have been proven in court. Cohen is expected to file a countersuit this week. More lawsuits are likely to join the fray. And Lynch, who has sent turgid, raw and wrathful emails hither and yon, is threatening to sue just about everyone.

The conflict was triggered last fall when Cohen was tipped off by an insider that a lot of money was missing from his accounts. All that remained of his retirement savings was the $150,000, funds that today he can't get at as a result of the tangled legal web he finds himself in. Greenberg's suit portrays the soulful songwriter as an artist who paid little attention to his financial affairs and so was easily duped by a conniving personal manager. Cohen says he tried quietly, and confidentially, to find out from his various managers where the money had gone. Cohen calls the case "a tragedy," suggesting he was exploited by trusted advisers. He uses words like "greed, concealment, and reckless disregard," and says firmly he did nothing wrong. "I can assure you, within reason, I took every precaution except to question the fidelity of my closest associates."

Untoil Cohen fired her last fall, Kelley Lynch had been his personal manager for almost 17 years. Back in 1988, she'd been working as an assistant to his then-manager, who died that year. Because she was knowledgeable about Cohen's business affairs and recording contracts, he had her take over. Over the years, the two developed a personal and professional relationship. Fifteen years ago, they had a brief affair. "It was a casual sexual arrangement. It was mutually enjoyed and terminated," he says. "I never spent the night." The end of the affair didn't affect their bond. "We were very, very close friends," Cohen says today. "I liked her immensely. Our families were close -- she was helpful when I was raising my daughter; I employed her father." He even named her in his living will, giving her the power to decide, in certain circumstances, if he would live or die. He handed her vast powers of attorney. He trusted her implicitly. And he believed the relationship was mutual. "She wrote dozens of emails to me, thanking me for my help. We used to correspond regularly, relentlessly." He says that in 2004, while he was recording his most recent album, Dear Heather, with a small team at his home-recording studio, Lynch would come by almost daily. "People were very tight. Kelley was taking care of business, I was producing the album. It was all taking place in this little duplex and the garage that was converted into a studio. Kelley would come over, and I would generally prepare lunch for everyone."

The cosy arrangement was shattered one day last October when a young man, the boyfriend of a casual employee of Lynch, spoke to Cohen's daughter, Lorca, who owns an art deco furniture store and who lives downstairs from her father in the L.A. duplex he owns. "Your father really ought to look into his accounts, because he might be surprised at what he finds," he said. Lorca told him that her father trusted everyone involved and that besides, "he's about to retire, anyway." As Cohen senior tells the story, the young man replied, "He won't be able to retire."

Alarmed, Lorca called her father, who was in Montreal. Within a couple of days, he returned to Los Angeles and immediately went to his bank. There he discovered, as he puts it, "improprieties." Lynch had linked her American Express bill directly to his personal chequing account, he says, and just days before his visit to the bank, he'd paid a $75,000 Amex bill on her behalf. He never learned what purchases the card had been used for, but says the credit card company reimbursed him. Cohen immediately removed Lynch's signing powers on the accounts. The next day, Cohen told Lynch she no longer had access to the bank accounts and he fired her. That afternoon, Cohen says the bank notified him that Lynch went to a different branch and attempted to withdraw $40,000 from one of his accounts. He then called a lawyer and brought in a forensic accounting firm, Moss-Adams, which, in an investigation of all of Cohen's holdings, discovered "massive improprieties." In all, the accountants discovered about $8.4 million had over time disappeared from his holdings, Cohen says. His retirement funds had been virtually depleted.

Neal Greenberg, a banker with a thriving investment firm, had been brought in by Lynch to manage Cohen's money in 1996, two years after Cohen went up Mount Baldy to study to be a Rinzai Zen Buddhist monk. But now, he was worried. Over two decades, Greenberg had built a successful company, the Agile Group, and managed more than half-a-billion dollars of other people's money. He enjoyed, as he says in his suit, a "spotless professional reputation." And suddenly, here was Leonard Cohen, not just a prized client but one with a high profile, suggesting that Greenberg was party to the disappearance of Cohen's retirement savings.

Over the years, he says, he warned Cohen that his funds were being rapidly depleted, but it seemed the artist paid no heed. And now, Cohen and his lawyer, Kory, claims the Greenberg suit, were threatening "that Cohen would go out on tour to promote his new album and give interviews to reporters in which he would insinuate that he was touring because he had been bankrupted by improprieties by Greenberg and other financial advisers." Greenberg must have envisioned his business and his career in absolute tatters. He sued.

Greenberg's lawsuit lays out the business background to the dispute. Cohen's success as a singer and songwriter generated millions in royalties, the suit says, and in the 1990s, Lynch, as Cohen's trusted personal manager, began to investigate auctioning his intellectual properties, including copyrights to his song catalogue and continuing royalties for his songs. Lynch, along with a tax consultant named Richard Westin, arranged two deals for Cohen's properties. The transactions were eventually completed, one in 1997, the other in 2001, with Sony Music. From the first sale, about $5 million was transferred to trusts that Greenberg had been enlisted to manage and that would protect Cohen from an upfront tax hit. Greenberg says he invested the proceeds wisely, making lots of money for the trusts. But Greenberg also claims that Cohen's "consistent and prolific spending" to support "his extravagant 'celebrity' lifestyle" eroded the gains he had made on his client's behalf.

The second sale of Cohen's intellectual property, in 2001, was for $8 million. With Westin, Lynch put that money into a newly formed company named Traditional Holdings LLC that also was intended to shield Cohen's earnings from a major tax hit. Lynch was named as owner of 99.5 per cent of the company, leaving Cohen holding just 0.5 per cent. Greenberg alleges that Cohen, well aware of the structure and its dangers, signed off on it. Westin had explained to Cohen, the suit says, that "the plan would only work if Cohen and Lynch maintained (as they had in the past) a long-term relationship of personal and professional trust." Traditional Holdings could also issue loans to its owners, Lynch and Cohen.

As soon as the new company was in place, "Greenberg was immediately alarmed by Cohen's desire and tendency to treat this company [Traditional Holdings] like his personal piggy bank," the lawsuit alleges. It goes on to claim Cohen took a $1-million advance on the second sale of assets to Sony, Lynch took a commission of $1.1 million, and fees for lawyers and accountants ate up another $714,000. And then, over the next few years, Lynch regularly borrowed money from the Traditional Holdings account in amounts of tens of thousands of dollars, sometimes for herself, sometimes acting for Cohen. The lawsuit claims that while Greenberg sent a monthly email statement to Cohen, it was always Lynch who told Greenberg to release the loans.

The Greenberg suit claims Lynch, always acting as Cohen's agent, told Greenberg what to do regarding the funds. For instance, Lynch instructed Greenberg to send Cohen the monthly email status reports, but Greenberg says she directed him to leave out day-to-day activities and the status of Traditional Holdings loans. Because the loans were to be repaid, Greenberg included them in the statements as assets, which meant that it appeared as though nothing had been taken out.

Greenberg, who declined to comment for this article, claims in his suit he repeatedly stressed to Cohen that his spending was seriously draining his investments. In one warning letter, Greenberg told Cohen that Traditional Holdings had only $2.1 million left. Considering how quickly the money was leaving the account, Greenberg wrote, "I think you should consider your situation quite desperate." It's not clear if Cohen ever received this letter. On this, Cohen and Greenberg agree: they say many of Greenberg's attempted communications with Cohen were intercepted by Lynch.

On other points, Cohen disagrees. He was vitally interested in his financial affairs, he says. "It wasn't that I wasn't involved -- on the contrary, I took great pains to pay these professionals well and to solicit their advice and to follow it," he insists. "And, I was receiving a report every month from Neal Greenberg indicating that my retirement savings were safe." Cohen insists he was not made aware that Lynch had been named the majority owner of Traditional Holdings; instead, he says that in an early description of the company's structure, he had been told that his two children, Lorca and Adam, would be its principal owners. He says he was shocked to learn that Lynch had almost complete ownership. The mistake Cohen admits to is that "I paid close attention to everything except the possibility that my closest associate would embrace any irregularities in the discharge of her duties."

Cohen also says he learned only recently that the two sales of his intellectual property to Sony were unnecessary. He understands now that those properties earned roughly $400,000 a year, before taxes. That was plenty for him to support what he calls his modest lifestyle. Cohen accuses Lynch of creating the deals in order to boost her own income. He paid her 15 per cent of his income, which generally earned her $90,000 a year, he says. With the sales of his intellectual property bringing in revenue in the millions, it boosted her income to seven figures.

Greenberg's lawsuit becomes more disturbing as it describes what happened after Cohen realized he'd lost millions of dollars. Greenberg says Cohen pressured him to go after his firm's insurance company for the money to repay him. "Be a man," Cohen told Greenberg, the suit says. By threatening his reputation, it appeared to Greenberg that Cohen, on Kory's advice, had decided to target Greenberg's and his insurance company's deep pockets. Then, alleges the lawsuit, Cohen and Kory began to pressure Lynch to join them in "their extortion scheme." From November 2004 to April 2005, the lawsuit says, Kory repeatedly let Lynch know, sometimes directly, sometimes through friends or other intermediaries, that Cohen was ready to "forgive" Lynch's obligations to him, and that she in fact could receive a hefty cut of "whatever funds could be extorted from Greenberg and other advisers with her co-operation."

Greenberg's suit alleges that when Lynch refused to participate, Kory and Cohen vowed to "crush her." It goes on to say their "tactics to terrorize, silence, or disparage Lynch" included threatening her that she would go to jail, and "paying two paroled convicts to make statements that they had observed Lynch's older son brandishing a gun and threatening to kill someone."

Lynch's response, to all of this has been bitter, scattered and in some cases difficult to comprehend. In a rambling exchange of emails with Maclean's last week, she denied any wrongdoing. She also declined to discuss the Agile Group's lawsuit, describing it as "bogus" and "slanderous," while promising to file her own complaints against Cohen and other principal players in the case. She added her phone had been disconnected because she lacked money to pay the bills.

In the meantime, she's been showering Cohen and others with invective-laden emails that alternately voice misery and hurl accusations at friends and former colleagues. Many of these lament losing custody of her 12-year-old son, Ray, to his father, music producer Steve Lindsay. A few devolve into the outrightly bizarre. One missive, sent July 17 and obtained by Maclean's, invites Greenberg in highly explicit terms to Lynch's home for an evening of tantric sex. "First I want to study the inner channels with you," it says. "Why not -- let's see who is better at tantric sex -- you or me."

So troubling have the messages become that several people who know Lynch fear she's become unhinged. "I'm afraid she's suicidal," says Lindsay, her ex-husband, adding that in his judgment she's been acting erratically for the better part of a year. Cohen too sent Lynch a message last fall spelling out his concern in verse: You can't tell the difference between a threat / and a helping hand, he wrote. You can't tell the difference between a threat / and a solemn warning / from one of the few people / who still cares about you and your family.

Lynch's apparent troubles have had punishing legal consequences. Lindsay has obtained a temporary restraining order that prevents her from visiting her son. Tara Cooper, a former employee of a greeting card company Lynch started while still in Cohen's employ, has taken out a similar order after alleging that Lynch sent threatening emails and harassed her by phone. And two of her creditors -- upscale department stores Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman -- have filed collections claims against her in Los Angeles Superior Court.

This is the mess that Leonard Cohen -- a man many believe floats a few inches above the ground -- finds himself in. These days, he's Zen-like. In the course of a long interview by phone from his home in Los Angeles, the man sometimes called the poet laureate of pessimism sounded almost bemused. "What can I do?" he asks. "I had to go to work. I have no money left. I'm not saying it's bad; I have enough of an understanding of the way the world works to understand that these things happen."

His first choice of action when he learned his money was gone, he says, was to not do anything. Aware of how painful litigation could be, he says he wanted no part of it. "I said, 'I can walk away with nothing.' I said, 'Let me start again. Let me start fresh at 70. I can cobble together a little nest egg again.' " But he ran into a glaring, immediate problem: had he done nothing, he would have legally been responsible for the funds that had gone missing. And on that money, he'd owe millions in taxes, a sum he no longer had.

His next step, "his second-best choice," was to negotiate with his advisers about the missing money. He approached Lynch, asking her to open her books. "She resolutely and unconditionally refused to open her books to any scrutiny whatsoever and instead began a bizarre email campaign to discredit me in some kind of way, which has gone all over the place," Cohen says, adding that he's launching a lawsuit this week with great reluctance. "I don't want anybody hurt. It's not my nature to pursue and to contend with people that way." Cohen says all he wants is to find out where the money went. "I'm not accusing her of theft," he says of Lynch. Still, his countersuit will likely describe how money was removed from his accounts.

Cohen appears to have been blindsided by Greenberg's lawsuit. He insists that he and Kory were in the midst of mediation with Greenberg when the financial adviser's lawsuit was suddenly and unexpectedly filed. He says the mediation had been confidential, at Greenberg's urging, as he feared for his reputation. In an email to Greenberg, Cohen urges him to make good. "Dear Neal, I believed in you. I depended on you," Cohen wrote in November 2004. "When things went wrong, does it make any sense that you would make your warnings available to the only person in the cosmos who had an interest in deceiving me? A single, simple email informing me that my accounts were being emptied would have been enough. I answered EVERY SINGLE EMAIL you ever sent me. Fortunately, I have them all.

"Face up to it, Neal," the email continues, "and square your shoulders: You were the trusted guardian of my assets, and you let them slip away . . . Restore what you lost, and sleep well." In his sign-off, Cohen delivered as much a piece of advice as his own philosophy: "Put this behind you and it will dissolve." There's an irony here, that a man who has struggled much of his life to distance himself from the material world now, at 70, finds himself in an intense battle with it. Still, he's not defeated. "This has propelled us into incessant work," he says of himself and Thomas. He exudes optimism about their new CD. "It's one of the best albums I've heard." It's not closing time quite yet.

With CHARLIE GILLIS and BRIAN D. JOHNSON

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 0 replies

CBC Archives

sophistikittenlin — Wed, 31 Aug 2005 21:53:41 GMT

For anyone interested in seeing and hearing some clips, check out the CBC Archives. Sometimes the site works poorly, so thought I should mention that!

http://archives.cbc.ca/IDD-1-68-93/arts_entertainment/leonard_cohen/

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 0 replies

Hello

astridlbailey7 — Sat, 20 Aug 2005 16:32:46 GMT

Just wanted to introduce myself and say hello to everyone. The first time I heard Leonard Cohen was when I was 14 years old...on a radio station called 'The Midnight Sun"...The dj played 'The Master Song'...and I was in love. After that I called up the station every night for weeks and requested it....which eventually led to discussions between the dj and myself...and more...LOL

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 0 replies

Boogie Street

ninjad — Sat, 20 Aug 2005 00:33:25 GMT

My new recent favorite Leonard Cohen song.

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 2 replies

Nick Cave and others

barnaby — Wed, 06 Apr 2005 05:29:31 GMT

In addition to being a gigantic Leonard Cohen, I'm also a gigantic Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds fan. He's one of the few musicians I have heard who is remotely in Cohen's league in the lyrics department.

For any restless LC fans looking for something new, if you haven't heard them, I highly recommmend checking out The Boatman's Call, and/or his new album Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus.

I'm also on my way to becoming a big Iron and Wine fan:

God, there is gold buried deep in the ground
God, there's a hangman that wants to come round
How we rise when we're born like the ravens in the corn
On their wings on our knees crawling careless from the sea,
God, give us love in the time that we have.

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 9 replies

30-member accapella group dedicated to Leonard Cohen songs???

politikat — Mon, 02 May 2005 00:21:59 GMT

freakish but true! could such a thing exist???

http://www.conspiracyofbeards.com/

They're playing at the Counterpulse grand opening tonight. Its short notice, but I'm going to check them out. hopefully they will rock my world.

May 1st, 10 to 20 dollar sliding scale
1310 Mission @9th st
Beards to perform around 8:30

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 1 reply

Competition?

diogeneslantern — Tue, 25 Jan 2005 22:14:00 GMT

Has anyone ever gotten the feeling that their lover's love for Leonard Cohen somehow sabotaged their relationship? He's a tough man to compete with, even when he's just eight or nine silicon discs lying around the house...

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 5 replies

Dear Heather

barnaby — Wed, 10 Nov 2004 03:24:55 GMT

New album:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/002-1266166-2464820

Has anyone heard it?

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 8 replies

New Leonard album!!

chantal — Wed, 26 May 2004 21:22:48 GMT

BRIGHTON, England (CNN) -- Canada's finest singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen celebrates his 70th birthday later this year, but his influence shows no sign of waning.

Fans even have the prospect of a new album in store. Tribute Web sites are currently buzzing with news that Cohen is recording new material after spending several years living as a Zen monk in California.

There are no indications that Cohen will tour in the near future though, so the only way of hearing his remarkable music live is when others perform it.

Could it be?!! I hope so.
For the whole article go here:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Music/05/26/cohen/index.html

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 4 replies

Cohen..who else out there!

Sat, 29 Nov 2003 02:21:31 GMT

Its been a long week and I'm listening to Cohen. could not find a tribe for the man, so I made one..lets see who shows up!

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 2 replies

conspiracy of beards

banjolismo — Sun, 29 Aug 2004 21:12:32 GMT

is a men's choir dedicated to the music of leonard cohen which plays around the bay area. they are awsome

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 1 reply

Leonard Cohen is God

AllanO' — Tue, 27 Jul 2004 17:12:31 GMT

...or, at least, a Buddha...

Was about to start a Leonard Cohen tribe, but found this one on a search. And glad to be here.

Cohen is a poet, a Buddhist and a Canadian. How couldn't I love him?! (I'm an artist/writer, a Buddhist and a Canuck). Been a fan of his since he was a poet, only, in Montreal back in the 60s. (Yes, I'm THAT old.) When he began to sing and record, I was in heaven (er.. Nirvana).

Hi everyone!

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 3 replies

hi there

Sun, 07 Mar 2004 06:04:04 GMT

Dunno what I'd say about favorite album. I don't have all of them. I think I have some best of type stuff and one album and of course the tribute album full of other artists performing Cohen's music. But I couldn't live without "Hallelujah," "Suzanne," "Everybody Knows" and that Chelsea Hotel song. I love the way Cohen can mix poetic imagery and romantic description with cynicism and grit. I've read some of his poetry, too, and loved it, though it's less accessible than his lyrics. That seems to be the way, though, with songwriters' poems. I felt much the same way about Bob Dylan's and Jim Morrison's poems.

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 0 replies

Interview Excerpt

barnaby — Sun, 08 Feb 2004 22:18:06 GMT

From the outrageously good "Book of Changes" by Kristine McKenna:

KM: Several critics have made the observation that one of the central themes in your work is defeat: do you think that's accurate?

LC: Anybody who's been wiped out - and that includes most people - understands this theme. And the wipe-out specific to our particular culture is of the self. We exist in a continual process of establishing a personality that works for a while, then finally disintegrates under the abrasive activity of maintaining it. When it falls we're resurrected through the creation of a new self. Don't forget that the central myth of our culture, crucifiction, also involves a resurrection, and that is what we're constantly doing; the personality we create gets crucified because it isn't any good. It doesn't work, it's inappropriate, it's fictitious, so it gets crucified and hung up there for everybody to see. We call that failure and it goes on right to the end, until finally you don't have to do it.

KM: So there's no such thing as a personality that works?

LC: It's not supposed to work and you're not supposed to hang onto it. It works for a while, and when it stops working you're the first one to know because you start making a lot of mistakes based on the fixed image you have about yourself that you have to guard and protect. When the burden of maintenance becomes too excessive you have to let it fall, and when it falls it's painful.

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 2 replies

Live

Wed, 04 Feb 2004 19:03:31 GMT

Anyone seen the man live? If so where and when. I have never had the chance to, but I havent given up.

posted in Songs of Love and Hate - 3 replies