The News Review:
- Renegade fiddler MacIsaac gets married
- Fiddler Ashley MacIsaac marries at ECMA show
- Hammerheads play chicken on the cliff
- The Police – Music – New York Times
- Playlist – Music – Review – New York Times
Renegade fiddler MacIsaac gets married
Edmonton Sun – Feb 18, 2007
The Daily News said Nova Scotia Premier Rodney MacDonald a noted Celtic fiddler in his own right was among those who sent their congratulations to MacIsaac and Stokes. fctAdTag(“bigbox”MyGenericTagVar1);A spokesperson for the East Coast Music Awards confirmed Sunday that the wedding had taken place during the concert. After breaking onto the musical scene in the 1990s with his unique brand of hard-driving Celtic punk music MacIsaac has made headlines more recently for his off-stage exploits. The 31-year-old Nova Scotia native who now lives in Toronto considered running for the leadership of the federal Liberal party last year. He has also staged stunts in the past by calling up media outlets to offer news tips about his life including telling a Calgary newspaper in 2004 that he planned to have a gay wedding in Alberta. The wedding never took place. MacIsaac was scheduled to perform at Sunday night’s East Coast Music Awards in a tribute to Nova Scotia musicians John Allan Cameron and Dutch Mason who died last year.
Fiddler Ashley MacIsaac marries at ECMA show
CTV.ca – Feb 18, 2007
A spokesperson for the awards show confirmed today that the wedding took place at a Halifax hotel. MacIsaac and Stokes were pictured on the front-page of the Halifax Daily News today kissing before the wedding took place sometime after midnight. After breaking onto the musical scene in the 1990s with his own unique brand of hard-driving Celtic punk music MacIsaac has made headlines recently for more than just his music. MacIsaac who was born in Nova Scotia but now lives in Toronto considered running for the leadership of the federal Liberal party last year. The 31-year-old has also staged stunts in the past by calling up media outlets to offer news tips about his life including telling a Calgary newspaper in 2004 that he planned to have a gay wedding in Alberta. The wedding never took place. MacIsaac was scheduled to perform at Sunday night’s ECMA awards in Halifax in a tribute to Nova Scotia musicians John Allan Cameron and Dutch Mason who died last year.
Hammerheads play chicken on the cliff
Telegraph.co.uk – Feb 18, 2007
ne of those firmly in the anti camp was Robin Banks a Clash roadie. Taking exception to Pearlman’s presence in the dressing room Banks took what he considered the only course of action open to him: he hit Pearlman. This incident encapsulates the whole punk era: there’s the obsession with creating a sort of year zero in which only certain forms of music were deemed acceptable and everything else was bourgeois deviationism; there’s the factionalism the schisms the fallings-out; there’s the terror that by making records that people might actually want to buy bands would be “selling out” on their core principles (though there was always deep confusion as to what those core principles were); and of course there’s the violence. This was a time when bands fans and music journalists seemed to expend as much energy on fighting as they did on making or writing about or watching music. Those who were there will remember gigs being routinely blighted by fights: this was a predominantly white male working-class phenomenon a demographic that made the brawls and the bottle-throwing an inevitability. All this and a very great deal more is anatomised in obsessive detail in Heylin’s brick-sized book.
The Police – Music – New York Times
New York Times – Feb 18, 2007
Copeland is voluble and extroverted Sting earnest and pensive and Mr. Summers looks happiest talking about chord changes and guitar gizmos. What connected them was the music that they fought over most determinedly of all. “We didn’t go to school together” Sting said. “We didn’t grow up in the same neighborhood. We were never a tribe. There was friction for the right reasons… “They were so happy and excited but very very very very surprised. ” The Vancouver rehearsal studio where they eventually reunited was a long way from the Police’s do-it-yourself beginnings in punk-era London. A film crew was on hand to make the inevitable documentary with bright lights makeup for the band members and a camera on semicircular tracks rolling around their setup. A caterer served lobster for dinner. For pre- and post-rehearsal workouts there was a Pilates trainer who brought along with her a machine called coincidentally a Group Reformer. A beat-up guitar that Mr.
Playlist – Music – Review – New York Times
New York Times – Feb 18, 2007
This collaboration with the drummer Ted Parsons revels in long tracks and slow tempos; guitars playing stirring almost folk-rock chord changes through a lot of digital filters; cathedral-huge keyboard sounds; crisp drums; good pop singing; and a cloud of distortion that envelops the music. “Conqueror” (Hydra Head) is the band’s second full-length album in three years (there’s been an EP as well) and the music is growing more and more beautiful despite the harsh surfaces. Jorge Drexler”12 Secundos de scuridad” (Warner Music Latina) is the eighth record of literary pop songs from Mr. Drexler a Uruguayan singer-songwriter. In the past he has sung realistically about national and racial and cultural identity and here in a Spanish translation of the song “Disneylandia” written by the Brazilian songwriter Arnaldo Antunes he does so again. His verses race almost furtively over an acoustic bass and an electronic rhythm: Naturalized Armenians in Chile look for relatives in EthiopiaCanadian pre-fabricated houses made with Colombian woodJapanese multinationals establish businesses in Hong Kong and manufacture with raw materialsFrom Brazil to compete in the American market. And on he goes relaying between global reference points with the final image of Iraqi children wanting to go to… Love of DiagramsIntertwining staccato rhythmic patterns by overdriven guitars and basses the kind of thing that makes rock critics say “angular” in their sleep used to be merely a sign of semi-competence; now it’s a trademark post-punk device with 30 years of formidable history. What’s nice about the young Australian band Love of Diagrams is that it plays this way as if the musicians are coming to it fresh. The trio’s first American release is a self-titled four-song EP on Matador and these songs jump with smart irritability and ringing guitars. (A full album “Mosaic” featuring two of these tracks “Pace or the Patience” and “Pyramid” will be issued in April. ) Not long ago a friend and I heard it in a record store; we guessed at when it came out.