International

Fantastic, tabloid style photo and headline in this piece. Due to the bizarre, "e-paper" nature of the article's website it's difficult to present the text here, but you can click here to read it.

It's the second link from the top, in the list.

The Reverend Billy and his 'Life After Shopping' Gospel choir from New York were busy in London today on their 2009 UK Shopocalypse Tour.

I met them at Downing St, where they gave a brief performance, although unfortunately Gordon Brown wasn't at home. The police at this high security site, now hidden behind tall gates with armed guards, obviously didn't quite know how to handle the holy activists, and the officer who stopped the Reverend to question him failed to make much progress - other than being diagnosed by Billy as having a "shopping problem."

Click the link for a 5 megabyte mp3. Get surreal on the radio!

HALLELUJAH! There is help at hand for those who feel we are living in a profit-driven, wicked and dirty world — a world that is rife with advertising, supermarket domination, packaging and global warming.

The saviour for people who think we are suffering from shopping overload is Reverend Billy and his Gospel Choir of Stop Shopping.

Even the most hardened devotee of the shopping culture cannot fail to be persuaded as Reverend Billy and his choir sing, preach, charm, berate, seduce and rescue men, women and children — all in one evening.

Rule one for interviewers: know who you are interviewing. But today, that's complicated. Am I speaking to former playwright and actor Bill Talen, the man behind the spoof preacher and anti-capitalist figurehead Reverend Billy? Or am I interviewing - well, Reverend Billy himself? Talen, like many character comics, seems to no longer know where the actor stops and the faux-evangelist begins. "I can't keep track of the integration of myself and this character," says Billy, in that southern drawl he uses to terrorise Disney stores across America.

To some, Reverend Billy is a messenger of the revealed word. To others, he’s a simple blasphemer. The preacher, otherwise known as Bill Talen, 59, hails from South Dakota and Minnesota, smack dab in America’s heartland. He’s a dead-ringer for the actor Kurt Russell, albeit with a towering bleach-blond pompadour and a penchant for electric-blue leisure suits.

Spektakuläre Auftritte: Spiritualized errichteten Soundkathedralen, Reverend Billy ritterte mit Gospels gegen Konsum und Ausbeutung - auch in Wien

Schöner Lärm von „Spiritualized“ und Anti-Konsumismus-Prediger Reverend Billy in Krems. Angeheizt von der dynamischen Pianistin Katrina Lewis folgte der stimmgewaltige Chor dem Reverend noch in gewagteste Sermone.

Click here for video

A few days after a Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death by a crowd of over-eager bargain shoppers last month, a candlelight vigil was held outside the store to remember the man and to raise public awareness about the perils of excessive consumption and materialism in everyday life.

The vigil was led by a charismatic performance artist named Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping, a long-running bit of political and education performance art let by New York City actor Bill Talen.

Bill and Savitri on the air! Live credit card cutting! Also, Santa Clause is from Finland and he's the Devil.

YleX Tänäänin viikon vieraana Lopettakaa shoppailu -kirkon pastori Billy ja tämän vaimo Savitri D. Performanssiryhmä on saarnanut shoppailun vastaista sanomaansa ympäri Yhdysvaltoja. Suomessa pari vierailee Helsingin Lens Politica -festareilla, missä esitetään heistä kertovat dokumentti What Would Jesus Buy?

YleX Tänäänissä pastori mm. manasi saatanaa Marjan luottokortista.