Wednesday 10 September 2008

Baldplay

CHRIS MARTIN is no longer COLDPLAY�s mane man after lopping off his
locks.


The singer shed his curls during the band�s global tour, which they
off-and-on for a BBC performance of their biggest hits.


Chris told the STEVE LAMACQ BBC 6Music radio show that Coldplay would
release EP Prospects March around Christmas and confirmed they DO have
an album planned for December 2009 which, along with a Greatest Hits CD,
would complete their commitments to record tag EMI ? as I told
you last month.


Chris said: �Then we�ll be gone ? like Keyser S�ze
in The Usual Suspects.�




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Sunday 31 August 2008

Brett Ratner Wants to Make a Guitar Hero Movie

Photo-illustration: Everett Bogue; Photos: Getty Images




Through the Fire and Flames: In an interview with MTV News about his Best Director nomination (for Miley Cyrus's "7 Things"!), Brett Ratner revealed that he'd "love to do a Guitar Hero movie, if Activision would ever let [him]." Don't worry, it's not like he wants to tell some lame story about "a kid from a small town who dreams of being a rock star and he wins the Guitar Hero competition." (We're pretty sure those bases have been covered, both in real life and cartoons.) Either way, could somebody please put this on Ratner's IMDb memorable quotes page: "I'm trying to convince them, but why would you have a movie screw up such a huge franchise? Not that I would make a bad movie." [MTV]



Fox and WB Become Millionaires: Fox Searchlight and Warner Bros. will join forces to release Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire, written by The Full Monty's Simon Beaufoy, based on Q&A by Vikas Swarup. Story follows Jamal Malik, an 18-year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai who's one question away from winning 20 million rupees on India's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, until the police arrest him for cheating because they're like, "WTF? How could an orphan know this stuff?" The kid tells them his life story, and each chapter of the novel reveals the key to the answer to one of the game show's questions. His travels explains how he knew the first answer, for 100 rupees, when Indian Regis Philbin asked, "Which country shares a border with India: (a) Nepal, (b) Thailand, (c) Greenland , or (d) Disneyland."

[ComingSoon]



Portrait of the Artist As a Young Lennon: First-time feature director and visual artist Sam Taylor Wood will direct Nowhere Boy, a biopic of young John Lennon to be written by Matt Greenhalgh (Control) and filmed on the streets of Liverpool. In 1886, Lennon's father, Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov, died of a cerebral hemorrhage, and, in May 1887, when Lennon was 17 years old, his eldest brother Alexander was arrested and hanged for participating in a terrorist bomb plot threatening the life of Czar Alexander III. Later, he met Paul McCartney, and history was changed forever. [HR]






Perelman Heads Toward the Light?: Maybe, just maybe, House of Sand and Fog's Vadim Perelman is in talks to direct MGM's Poltergeist remake, according to an unconfirmed story at Bloody Disgusting. Verified or not, the movie's mere existence constitutes a major victory in Hollywood's War Against Original Ideas, one that makes us proud to be Americans. [Bloody Disgusting]



Some Guy to Direct Voltron: First, put on some lovesick music, then read our love letter out loud: "Dearest Voltron, Our love for you overflows like sexy rainwater from some kind of love bucket. Even though New Regency put you into turnaround, even though Relativity wants to cut your budget, and even now that you've got a random TV guy attached to direct you. Oh, Voltron, please oh please, tell us you don't really love director Max Makowski, a man who thinks he can tame your five robot lions just because he tamed five gay guys directing Queer Eye for the Straight Guy? Our heart weeps like a million baby seals with shampoo in their eyes. Love always, Vulture." [Latino Review]






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Monday 11 August 2008

Britney Appears In VMAs Video With Russell Brand & LL Cool J

Britney Spears has recorded a new video to promote her two nominations at the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) this year.


The video sees the singer joined by VMAs host Russell Brand, as well as rapper LL Cool J and Pete Wentz - bassist with Fall Out Boy.


Spears is nominated for Best Female and Best Pop Video for her single 'Piece Of Me'. It's not known if the 'Toxic' star will perform at the event, as held on September 7.




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Wednesday 6 August 2008

Washington Post Series Examines Experiences Of U.S. Low-Wage Workers


The Washington Post on Sunday launched a serial publication of reports examining the "lives of low-wage workers" based on a survey by the Post, the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University. "Many struggle to pay off for life's basics -- housing, food and health care -- and well-nigh report having virtually no financial shock should they stumble," the Post reports.

For the telephony survey, 1,350 at random selected low-wage workers were polled betwixt June 18 and July 7. Low-wage workers were defined as adults ages 18 to 64 working at least 30 hours per week, not freelance and earning $27,000 or less in 2007. According to the Post, nearly twenty-five percent of all U.S. adults meet the survey's conditions.

The survey plant that most low-wage workers have difficulties affording health care and housing. According to the survey, trey in 10 low-wage workers are employed by companies that do not offer health policy, and about four in 10 low-wage workers ar employed by companies that do non offer sick days. More than half of low-wage workers aforementioned they take postponed necessary medical or dental care to trim back expenses, the survey launch. About half of low-wage workers aforementioned they took the Earned Income Tax Credit utmost year, and about half of those with children said they received health care for their children through Medicaid or SCHIP (Fletcher/Cohen, Washington Post, 8/3).

While many express no ruling about whether presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) or presumptive Republican campaigner Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) would do more to improve the economy or health care, "Obama has the pass edge among those wHO picked a favorite on these center issues," the Post reports. Overall, Obama holds a 2 to 1 bound over McCain in the poll among low-wage workers.

Seven in 10 low-wage workers said the federal government should focus on serving them get more affordable health maintenance coverage, a "core component of Obama's campaign," according to the Post (Shear/Cohen, Washington Post, 8/4).

The survey is available online.


Reprinted with kind permission from hypertext transfer protocol://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email saving at hypertext transfer protocol://www.kaisernetwork.

Thursday 26 June 2008

Fightstar finally welcomed by rock world at Download

Fightstar kicked off the final day on Download's Main Stage today (June 15).

Graduating to the festival's top table, the Britrockers were the first major act to play what is being referred to by some of the crowd as "emo day" � with sets to come from Jimmy Eat World and Lostprophets.

Now firmly embedded in the rock fraternity, the show was a far cry from the band�s early days, when former boyband star Charlie Simpson was regularly pelted with bottles when appearing at festivals.

Moreover, before the final track, 'Deathcar', Simpson implored the crowd to form the festival's traditional 'circle-pit', and they enthusiastically responded.

Download has been a family affair for Simpson with his brother Will's band Brigade playing yesterday on the Gibson Stage.

Fightstar played:

'Palaniuk's Laughter'
'Grand Unification'
'Tannhauser'
'I Am The Message'
'Paint Your Target'
'Build An Army'
'Deathcar'

Keep up with this weekend's (June 13-15) festival action as it happens on NME.COM. For news, pictures and blogs keep checking the NME.COM's Isle Of Wight Festival page and NME.COM's Download Festival page for live coverage from both sites.

Wednesday 25 June 2008

Joe Zawinul

Joe Zawinul   
Artist: Joe Zawinul

   Genre(s): 
Jazz
   Pop
   Folk
   



Discography:


Brown Street   
 Brown Street

   Year: 2007   
Tracks: 10


My People   
 My People

   Year: 2006   
Tracks: 11


Faces and Places   
 Faces and Places

   Year: 2002   
Tracks: 13


Dialects   
 Dialects

   Year: 2002   
Tracks: 7


Stories of the Danube   
 Stories of the Danube

   Year: 1996   
Tracks: 10


The Rise and Fall of the Third Stream-Money in the Pocket   
 The Rise and Fall of the Third Stream-Money in the Pocket

   Year: 1994   
Tracks: 15


Zawinul   
 Zawinul

   Year: 1990   
Tracks: 5


World Tour Zawinul Syndicate   
 World Tour Zawinul Syndicate

   Year:    
Tracks: 15




Joe Zawinul belongs in a category unto himself -- a European from the heartland of the classical music custom (Capital of Austria) wHO knowing to swing as freely as whatever American jazzer, and whose appetency for increase and variety remains unsatiable. Zawinul's wonder and receptiveness to all kinds of sounds made him unrivalled of the driving forces behind the electronic jazz-rock revolution of the late '60s and '70s -- and afterward, he would be nigh alone in exploring fusions between jazz-rock and cultural music from all over the ball. He is one of a bare handful of synthesizer players wHO really knowing how to meet the instrumental role, to get it an expressive, swinging role of his arsenal. Prior to the conception of the portable synthesizer, Zawinul's example helped land the Wurlitzer and Fender Rhodes electric pianos into the jazz mainstream. Zawinul likewise has became a significant composer, ranging (like his beau ideal Duke Ellington) from soulful hit tunes to large-scale symphonic nothingness canvases. Yet despite his classical background knowledge, he now prefers to extemporise compositions spontaneously onto tape measure, not write them out on newspaper.


At vI, Josef Erich Zawinul started to represent the squeeze box in his aboriginal Austria, and studies in classical forte-piano and constitution at the Vienna Conservatory soon followed. His interest in jazz pianoforte, ab initio influenced by George Shearing and Erroll Garner, light-emitting diode to jobs with Austrian saxophonist Hans Koller in 1952 and gigs with his possess trio in France and Germany. He emigrated to the United States in late 1958 later on winning a scholarship to Berklee, yet later on barely unrivalled hebdomad in division, he left to join Maynard Ferguson's ring for eight months, where Miles Davis first base took card of him. Following a brief stay with Slide Hampton, Zawinul became Dinah Washington's pianist from 1959 to 1961, and then spent a month with Harry "Sweets" Edison before Cannonball Adderley picked him to make full the forte-piano president in his fivesome. There Zawinul stayed and blossomed for iX years, conducive several compositions to the Adderley ring account book -- among them the major pop slay "Mercifulness, Mercy, Mercy," "Walk Tall," and "Country Preacher" -- and at last serving to steer the Adderley group into the electronic geological era. While with Adderley, Zawinul evolved from a severe boP piano player to a soul-jazz performing artist hard steeped in the blues, and at last a jazz-rock explorer on the electric forte-piano. Toward the goal of his Adderley gig (1969-1970), he was correct in the thick of the new jazz-rock scene, recording various pioneering records with Miles Davis, contributory the claim tune of Davis' In a Silent Way album.


Later on transcription a self-titled solo record album, Zawinul left Adderley to phase Weather Report with Wayne Shorter and Czech bassist Miroslav Vitous in November 1970. Weather Report gave the more and more self-confident Zawinul a platform to evolve regular farther as his pursuit in propulsive grooves and music from Africa and the Middle East kindled and highly-developed. He step by step dropped the electric pianoforte in favour of a series of ever so more sophisticated synthesizers, which he down to levels ne'er thought possible by those world Health Organization derided the instruments as sterile, unfeeling machines. Weather Report finally became a popular radical that appealed to audiences beyond nothingness and progressive rock, thanks in no small character to Zawinul's pip song "Birdland."


When Zawinul and Shorter finally came to a leave of shipway in 1985, Zawinul started to tour all by himself, encircled by keyboards and rhythm method of birth control machines, but resurfaced the undermentioned class with a ephemeral extension of Weather Report called Weather Update (which did not go out whatever recordings). Weather Update chop-chop evolved into some other radical, the Zawinul Syndicate, which over the span of a decennary atilt more and more toward groove-oriented public music influences. Zawinul has showed renewed stake in his European roots, collaborating with fellow Viennese classic pianist Friedrich Gulda from 1987 to 1994, producing a matured classically based symphony, Stories of the Danube, in 1993, and following the near-disastrous Malibu fires of 1994, moving from California to New York City in monastic order to be closer to Europe. In 2002 he released Faces & Places, his first-class honours degree studio record album in several years and 1 that boasted an international roster of encouraging musicians. Since that clip he has released a handful of albums including Midnight Jam in 2005 and John Brown Street in 2007.


Though he continues to research new musical paths at an age when most jazzers are long set in their ways, Zawinul's influence upon jazz has waned in recent years referable to the jazz mainstream's retreat from electronics second to acoustic post-bop. But Zawinul's uplifting, still-invigorating later music may make him a prophet again if orbicular music infiltrates the jazz worldly concern.






The Rolling Stones 'not signing to Madonna and Jay-Z's label'

The Rolling Stones, whose contract with record label EMI expired in February this year, have denied that they are set to sign a multi-million pound record deal with concert promoter Live Nation.

Rumours that The Rolling Stones were set to sign with Live Nation � with whom the likes of Madonna and Jay-Z have lucrative contracts � were circulating on Sunday (June 15).

However, the band have since issued a statement denying they have had any contact with the company.

The statement read: "We are not in talks with Live Nation in connection with any record deal".