The News Review:
- Ska Musician Brought Humor Energy to His Art
- Journeys: Eastern Europe; This Summer It’s Rock Around the Bloc
- A Guide to Summer
- Wayne Coyne: Pop star politics
- How would Jesus rock these days?
- The Big Gig’s Schedule
Ska Musician Brought Humor Energy to His Art
Washington Post – Jun 24, 2007
a small company that became Washington’s central clearinghouse for all things related to ska music. (Ska is the bouncy horn-driven music that originated in Jamaica in the early 1960s and became an element of British punk and New Wave music of the ’70s and ’80s. )Hess and Chin found each other through ska and with perseverance personality and unceasing energy built an audience for the music they loved. — the name derives from "rude boy" a Jamaican term for a street tough that came to be applied to ska aficionados — Hess and Chin promoted concerts and made T-shirts buttons canvas patches and other merchandise for dozens of local bands.
Journeys: Eastern Europe; This Summer It’s Rock Around the Bloc
nytimes.com – Jun 24, 2007
” Above & Beyond will have to wait until July 7 to feel the love at Creamfields Poland in Wroclaw where they will perform with the Prodigy Vitalic and a slew of other dance and electronic acts. But this week Poland kicks off its festival season on June 29 with pen’er a three-day party featuring noise-rockers Sonic Youth neo new-wavers Bloc Party and two sets (one instrumental) from the Beastie Boys all happening at the Baltic Sea port of Gdynia. Electronic or rock are hardly the only options: ther concerts around the region this summer include folk funk punk and a whole lot of world music — in short pretty much everything. I attended my first post-Velvet Revolution music festival in 2005 paying the last-minute equivalent of $20 for a ticket to a concert series in pastoral southern Bohemia about 90 minutes from Prague. There joining a group of friends I relaxed in an old and wrinkled but sturdy Communist-era tent we had taken with us (camping fee: $0) before checking out a six-hour show that began with head-banging Metallica covers from the Finnish cello quartet Apocalyptica and culminated with a barrage of psychotic karate kicks from the moody rocker Nick Cave. Somewhere in the middle were Czech electroclash and punk bands two immense stages separate techno and hip-hop tents hair-styling salons tattoo and piercing artists and tons of food vendors. More notable there was a very friendly feel wherever you turned.
A Guide to Summer
New York Times – Jun 24, 2007
Massengill is just one of many performers scheduled. Music ranges from punk to pop to blues and folk and includes Quintus the Brooklyn-based Damnwells and My Dad’s Truck an acoustic group from Danbury. Refreshments are equally eclectic: Think locally brewed beer. Those too young for such beverages can enjoy their own entertainment in the Kids Activities Area. Parkway Field in Pleasantville two blocks from the Metro-North stop. Gates open at 11 a.
Wayne Coyne: Pop star politics
The Independent – Independent – Jun 24, 2007
The loss of homes for millions of men women and children. “Two million people have been displaced 200000 killed and many more are now in imminent danger as the rainy season threatens to bring floods and turn the vast refugee camps of eastern Chad into impassable disease-ridden oceans of mud. So the most liberal and concerned artists in music have got together to do something about this terrible situation. What exactly? Sing the songs of John Lennon. You buy an album of Lennon songs and somehow you can go home like you’ve helped starving kids” says the dry laconic Coyne in his klahoma drawl… ‘”Coyne’s quiet version of “(Just Like) Starting ver” recorded at a bandmate’s house brings out the vulnerability in the lyrics. Instead of praising Lennon he calls some of his peacenik songs “wonderfully ridiculous” which is almost treason when you’re promoting a record like this. Imagine all the people living life in peace? Poppy pseudo-punk Avril Lavigne also sings on the album. “I’m lucky” says Coyne “my voice sounds vaguely sincere. When I heard her sing ‘You may say I’m a dreamer’ it struck me: Avril I’ve never thought of you as a dreamer. “Instant Karma is a pragmatic project: it is happening because Yoko no has donated royalties from the Lennon catalogue to Amnesty.
How would Jesus rock these days?
Chicago Sun-Times – Jun 24, 2007
jpg_20070624_18_15_05_193-116-165. These days it rivals major festivals like Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza. But don’t expect clean-cut Sunday morning worship music here. For that sort of fare there’s always the much larger Creation Festival held each summer in Pennsylvania which emphasizes mainstream pop acts such as Casting Crowns and Barlow Girl… During one scene protagonist Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping exorcise cash registers along the Magnificent Mile to the profound befuddlement of the consuming elite. A Cornerstone rookie VanAlkemade imagines (fairly accurately) the festival will be “a smaller Burning Man festival without the nudity and drugs and probably with better music. ” In the beginningIn 1984 the Cornerstone Festival’s debut featured pioneering acts of the Christian alternative music scene such as the Seventy-Sevens (who mixed Elvis Costello’s observational bite with British New Wave and blues-based rock) alongside Undercover’s punk rock and The Choir’s ethereal chime. Some of the old guard continue to perform today albeit in different configurations. In 1991 Seventy-Sevens guitarist Mike Roe joined the frontmen of The Choir Daniel Amos and Adam Again to form the Lost Dogs which was often compared to the Traveling Wilburys in concept and style. The group which performs at the festival on Friday has since evolved into a credible and crowd-pleasing alt-country act with nine albums. In 2007 Roe and company remain a reliable draw but he remembers the days when they were decidedly hip.
The Big Gig’s Schedule
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (subscription… – Jun 24, 2007
Thursday: 2007 marks the silver anniversary – 25 years that is – of the Violent Femmes not merely a Summerfest regular but the single most famous Wisconsin musical export after Les Paul. The trio’s acoustic punk remains effectively jittery and adolescently iconic… next Sunday: Pleasant acoustic songs like “All For You” gave Sister Hazel success in the mid-1990s. A lower 21st-century profile hasn’t stopped the Florida-bred band and last year’s “Absolutely” keeps its music as pleasant as ever. July 2: Sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson remain the core of Heart which was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year. Songs from its 1970s heyday – “Barracuda” “Magic Man” “Crazy on You” – were probably more responsible for this than hits from the 1980s pop-oriented comeback.