The News Review:
- … – Rob Walker – Marketing and Advertising – Music – Recording…
- For the country’s most successful high school girls’ lacrosse…
- Yesterday’s rocker takes a new stage and finds the kids are all…
- REMG Entertainment & Embrace Productions Present The Rogers…
- The Sydney Morning Herald and the cultural life of Sydney
- Wainwright at his most accessible; Bad Brains still smart
… – Rob Walker – Marketing and Advertising – Music – Recording…
New York Times – Jul 29, 2007
Inside is a chip containing nine digitally encoded music loops. The button allows the listener to switch from one to another but that’s the extent of user control over the experience leading some observers to refer to the thing as the anti-iPod. A native of Omaha Neb. Virant moved to China in the 1980s to study music and Chinese culture. He had been playing in punk bands but was already interested in the loops and rhythmic cycles explored by composers like.
For the country’s most successful high school girls’ lacrosse…
Washington Post – Jul 29, 2007
They wore sleek white jerseys over black long-sleeve spandex shirts. Unlike most lacrosse teams which still play in skirts Hebron wore black shorts that cut off just above the knee. At home games the Vikings ran through warm-ups to the beat of rap and punk music that blasted through stadium speakers. By the time Hebron walked to midfield for the opening face-off its opponent usually looked Brooke said "like they just saw a 2000-pound gorilla. "On April 14 West Genesee refused to be intimidated. The team from suburban.
Yesterday’s rocker takes a new stage and finds the kids are all…
International Herald Tribune – Jul 29, 2007
“Schoolhouse Rock” tucked between Saturday morning cartoons left you humming. Records like “Free to Be You and Me” bring back memories. But something's happened in kids' music over the last few years that has no precedent. Maybe it was a backlash against Barney or a search for meaning that The Wiggles could not fulfill. Maybe it's just that rockers grew up. “All of a sudden being cool or hip is not that big a thing when you find yourself out on a park bench changing a diaper” says Zanes whose daughter is 12. Whatever the explanation there's an explosion of bands cranking out kid-friendly pop rock folk and punk that even an adult could — gulp — enjoy… Maybe it's just that rockers grew up. “All of a sudden being cool or hip is not that big a thing when you find yourself out on a park bench changing a diaper” says Zanes whose daughter is 12. Whatever the explanation there's an explosion of bands cranking out kid-friendly pop rock folk and punk that even an adult could — gulp — enjoy. “It's music for kids that won't make parents want to gouge their ears out” says Bill Childs a law professor who spins two hours of these tunes every Saturday morning on a public radio station in Northampton Massachusetts. “Our generation of parents is approaching music and media and all of that for our kids a little differently” says Amy Davis an Ohio mom who authors a popular blog about the new wave of what some have dubbed kindie rock. “We want to enjoy it with them. We don't want to turn it on and leave the room.
REMG Entertainment & Embrace Productions Present The Rogers…
Canada NewsWire – Canada NewsWire (press release) – Jul 29, 2007
The Rogers Picnic will also play host to a recently reunited Bad Brains. The founders of hardcore punk will be gracing Toronto with one of a few selectsummer festival plays. Their influential cross of punk reggae and dub can beheard in the music of both The Roots and Bedouin Soundclash with bassistDarryl Jenifer producing the latter’s last two records. Rounding out the lineup are underground hip-hop darlings Little Brotherand hometown indie-rock favourites Apostle of Hustle. Stay tuned for additional artists to compliment an already diverse lineupof independent sounds. For additional information on ticket sales and newline-up announcements visit www.
The Sydney Morning Herald and the cultural life of Sydney
PopMatters – Jul 29, 2007
I had what I’m now starting to suspect is a quaint notion that media properties are anchored to particular places and their mission is to reflect upon and inform us about our shared world. In transit I encountered nothing but narratives wrapped around generally broad marketing opportunities: tourism advertorial videos on the airport bus “Barney the Dinosaur” playing on the television screens in the departure lounge at the airport pay television on my seat back in the airplane convenience food identified by brand logo’s offered for sale as the in flight meal and when I’m staying in hotels I’m drawn like a moth to a flame to vapid television programs that are exercises in brand-building for example “Victoria Beckham: Coming to America. ”I don’t doubt that I’m part of a culture that needs to be more mindful about the role of art to warn nourish and tickle the soul. When I think of the word “media” the image that comes to mind is of a Sunday edition of the New York Times—online or the paper edition—with its long thought-provoking essays… This reflective depth and insight was missing from the small individual reviews of each of these shows in the Sydney Morning Herald. I feel as if I’ve come full circle. The last time I lived in Sydney was at the end of the punk rock era before I moved to New York and then Los Angeles when the social observations of the local punk rock musicians weren’t anything society broadly wanted to hear or the commercial music industry wanted to support and the musicians were in some cases literally run out of town. Yet the Sydney Morning Herald and its sister newspaper Melbourne’s Age were publishing meaningful stories about these bands and the film-makers writers designers and artists who were part of their world by writers who were part of that world. I was one of them writing stories that were almost bibliographies mostly concerned with the books that the musicians were reading. The Go Betweens song “Darlinghurst Nights” from their 2005 album “Oceans Away” looks back to that time in Sydney when some of the Saints had a band called the Laughing Clowns who played shows in Darlinghurst pubs with colored carnival lights strung across the front of the stage that had been organized by Ken West who is now the owner of the hugely successful Big Day Out Festival. The song mentions that the gathering point for the musicians was the house of the writer Clinton Walker who is something of a social anthropolgist and cultural historian who reflects upon music as the common language that united a set of people with incredibly diverse interests and references.
Wainwright at his most accessible; Bad Brains still smart
Providence Journal – Jul 29, 2007
Festooned with orchestral strings horn sections harp arpeggios standard drums bass and guitars Release the Stars is anything but simple and stark. With a veritable symphony at his disposal Wainwright has crafted his most accessible album. The often-beautiful music never feels overstuffed even if on the opening “Do I Disappoint You” the swelling instrumentation at its climax sounds like a cruise-ship whistle beckoning passengers at a port of call. Prior to recording Wainwright who produced the CD with oversight from Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant re-created the legendary 1961 Judy Garland Carnegie Hall concert live and though the ornate pop music here owes little to those standards Wainwright learned a lot about vocal clarity and diction from the experience. His odd tenor always an acquired taste has never sounded better. —Howard CohenMcClatchy NewspapersBAD BRAINS Build a NationMegaforceAlmost 30 years ago Bad Brains was the tightest fastest and strangest quartet on the planet a Rastapunk juggernaut from Washington D… ” But that’s all there is to the track stretched over 6½ minutes. The first single “Do It Again” borrows the stomping faux-disco beat from Daft Punk’s “Da Funk. ”Some songs live up to the Chemical Brothers’ standards: The fluffy fun “Das Spiegel” though instrumental is one of the few tracks that approaches a real melody and the warmth of some of their older hits like “Where Do I Begin” “Out of Control” and “Star Guitar. ” “A Modern Midnight Conversation” resurrects old-school freestyle with spacey female vocals adding a lush touch. And “The Pills Won’t Help You Now” closes with a down tempo beautifully bleak vocal by Tim Smith of the band Midlake.