Peter Gabriel Plugs In

New studio effort will deal with "birth and death, with sex in the middle"

Peter Gabriel tends to take a long time between projects. His last release, 2002's Up, took nearly a decade to record. "A mere lightning flash for a snail," quips Gabriel. With a wide array of projects in the works nowadays -- from a live DVD and documentary to the new studio album, I/O -- Gabriel seems to be picking up that pace.

First up is the second DVD to document his 2002-2003 Growing Up World Tour. This new release features an entirely different track listing than the first, 2003's Growing Up Live, including rarities such as "San Jacinto" and the new track "Burn You Up, Burn You Down."

The set also features the documentary Still Growing Up Unwrapped, filmed by his daughter Anna, about Gabriel's life on the road with his two daughters and then-newborn son Isaac. "It took a few weeks for him to get used to having a camera in his face all the time," Anna says of shooting some twenty-eight hours of footage of her father. "It was a very easygoing tour -- I wanted more drama!"

Also in the works is a new album called I/O, which stands for input/output. "At the moment, I'm trying to write principally about birth and death, with the sex in the middle," Gabriel says.

He has been working steadily over the last few months on the new songs with a minimal crew, including longtime engineer Richard Chappel and percussionist Ged Lynch. This time around he's chosen to produce the sessions himself. "My mental process is so slow," he says, "that it's not really fair to take that time out of anyone else's life."

Among the 150 tracks Gabriel has in various stages of gestation is a reworking of the 1986 B side "Curtains," which he decided to revisit after the song received thousands of votes on an online poll to determine his last tour's set list. "I had pretty much forgotten about it," he explains. "So I pulled it out, found stuff I liked and did it again."

In a break from tradition, Gabriel is contemplating taking the new songs on the road before laying down their final versions. "What I've always wanted to do is finish the songs, get them arranged for the band, tour for a month or so, then record them," he says. "That would give me a different type of immediacy -- because sometimes when I work and work on stuff, people feel that it loses some of its flair."

His next tour may be a significantly more stripped-down affair than prior ones: "I would like to try maybe just me and a percussionist, or a percussionist and bass. It's good sometimes to let go of your crutches."

Andy Greene (Posted nov. 03, 2005)

All the world’s a stage show

Pop: All the world’s a stage show

Musician, multimedia magician and family guy, Peter Gabriel is a man without frontiers, says Robin Eggar (The Sunday Times)

How does one describe Peter Gabriel? In Japan, they would probably declare him a national treasure, which would make him curl up in embarrassment.

For ever curious, he is a polymath with the ability to communicate ideas in a musical and visual way that few other artists either try or succeed in doing. There is the musician, whose work evolves in traditional rockbiz cycles: a piece of music (the album Up, released in 2002), followed by a spectacular live show (Growing Up), packed with cutting-edge theatricals such as singing upside down or wearing a suit of lights, is followed by a smaller-scale tour with simpler effects and the emphasis firmly on the music. A DVD of these tours, Still Growing Up, complete with an insightful documentary by his eldest daughter, Anna, is released tomorrow.

For the many who have never got beyond the storming soul-funk of Sledgehammer, Gabriel is an unacquired taste, too clever by half. Popular musicians are supposed to react viscerally, not intellectually. Gabriel can be emotional — Biko, his tribute to the murdered black South African activist, remains powerful 25 years later — and personal. The testosterone-laced Digging in the Dirt was inspired by his journey into therapy, while Come Talk to Me was a plea to his younger daughter Melanie, who sings backing vocals on tour.

“When I got interested in working on myself,” he explains, “I realised that it was part of what I was looking for in the music. With I Grieve (on Up), I was trying to build an emotional tool that could be useful in times of grief. Everybody has tracks that fulfil certain emotional criteria, but while those it resonates with can get to a deeper place, this element of my work probably turns off as many people as it attracts.”

Then there is the other Gabriel, the one beneath the celebrity radar, the composer of film soundtracks, the creator of interactive CD-Roms, the record company boss and cyber-entrepreneur. He employs 70 people, most at the residential studio complex outside Bath that is home to Real World Records, a world-music label, and the administrative hub of the Womad festival, which has been going for more than 20 years.

Gabriel’s latest project is as musical director for the opening ceremony of the 2006 World Cup in Berlin. He will contribute songs, but whether these will include an anthem is undecided. He is working with the multimedia artist Andre Heller and Philippe Decouflé, the French choreographer who masterminded the 1992 Winter Olympics shows in Albertville and, before that, the French revolution bicentennial. “That was fantastic. The government trusted artists,” he says. Having been responsible himself for the Millennium Dome’s musical entertainments, he won’t be drawn into a swipe at our government.

Gabriel is a man of dry wit and old-world charm, overlaid with shyness. He is a collector of arcane knowledge and holds liberal, humanitarian views that he supports with both hard cash and actions. He has spent the past 20 years on a personal search to understand himself. He eschews praise and hates the hard sell. He prefers to talk about the ideas that orbit his head — of individual transport pods, of art hotels and of how, 15 years ago, he predicted that, one day, we would buy music over the telephone. His music and file-sharing service, OD2, which attracted clients such as BT and Microsoft, was sold last year after he and his partners recognised Apple now ruled the industry.

The slush pile of abandoned projects Gabriel has accumulated is huge. His friends include futurologists such as Peter Schwartz, who predicted Al-Qaeda might use an airliner as a living bomb, technologists and philosophers. British to the core, Gabriel gets extremely embarrassed at the mention of the g-word. “I don’t totally reject the term genius — just insofar as it refers to me,” he says.

“I bring stuff to the party, but when I work with Robert Lepage, who designs my live shows, or Stephen Johnson (the video director on Sledgehammer), I think there is a superior intelligence at work.”

Gabriel believes that technology will free society, not bind it, a belief he inherited from his father, Ralph, an electronics engineer. He has always been an early and enthusiastic adopter of new technology, whether it was the Fairlight music computer in the 1980s, or CD-Roms that mixed art and sound in new, interactive paths.

A visual man, who somehow found music as his medium, Gabriel insists that everybody is an artist, and that we can learn creativity like a language. “There is this reverence for talent, this perpetual search for star quality. I hate the term: it’s bullshit. Sure, some people have a facility to do things, but nobody need feel excluded. The other day, I was kicking a ball around in Sardinia (he has a house there) with a few locals, and Gianfranco Zola (the former Chelsea and Italy star) joined in. It was quite clear that he had a totally different level of ability, but it didn’t exclude the rest of us from getting pleasure.”

On the Still Growing Up Tour, Gabriel loved surrounding himself with his family. As well as his grown-up daughters, he has a four-year-old son, Isaac, from his second marriage to the Irish sound engineer Meabh Flynn. He was always a devoted father, but his first marriage was turbulent.

Second time around, he is relaxed and content, with less to prove and more time to do it in. There is always a laptop at the breakfast table, so when Isaac asks where kiwis come from or how space rockets fly, the answer can be Googled, along with pictures, in seconds. “It certainly deals with that parental moment when you have to admit, ‘I don’t really know that one,’” Gabriel says.

Then he adds: “I was talking to the Google guys, and they said the person in my house who knows most about me and my buying habits is my search engine.”

The man is a cult figure, a reluctant star who, despite seven-figure sales, would invest his money in a new DVD (which is why he understands the medium better than most) rather than the more obvious trappings of success. “I’ve been quite shy, the introvert with an extrovert side. I think the entertainment world is full of characters who need to be noticed, who need to project this other thing in order to get some balance internally. I don’t need to take as much succour from fame as I once did. If it was all gone, I’m sure I’d get pissed off if there were restaurants I couldn’t eat at any more.

“I always liked Joseph Campbell’s ‘Follow your bliss’ idea — if people follow what makes them happy, they’ll often find the right way of making a living and being happy. I think it works for me,” he says, smiling. “I’ve been very lucky. I’ve never had to do a proper job in my life.”

With that, he retreats upstairs to work on some music. It is 7pm. In his hand is a carrier bag, from which protrude the ears of a stuffed animal. Best not to ask.

Still Growing Up — Live and Unwrapped is released on Warner Music Vision tomorrow

Get the SSL Sound For Free

Solid-State-Logic LMC-1 compressor plug-in – given away

LMC-1 did we mention its FREE!

It’s no coincidence that SSL mixing consoles are often the desk of choice for the final mix stage of a recording project. The sound that many producers crave is due in part at least to the Listen Mic Compressor. Originally designed to prevent overloading the return feed from a studio communications (reverse talkback) mic, its fixed attack and release curves are eminently suitable for use on ambient drums mics and so became abused by SSL users for that very purpose.

SSL have modeled the LMC-1 as a plug-in in AU and VST formats (Mac only folks – sorry) and are currently offering it as a free download via their website. Free stuff? Where do I get it? Right here: http://www.solid-state-logic.com/

About SSL Long-time SSL user Hugh Padgham was one of the first to capture this new drum sound on tape,while working with Steve Lilywhite on Peter Gabriel’s ‘Intruder’, he told Mix magazine:*

"On a normal console, you have a button to press to talk to the musicians in the headphones, but you did not have a button to press for us to listen to the musicians. To do that, you'd plug a microphone into a spare channel on the desk and listen to your musicians through that. But the SSL had a reverse talkback button and there was a microphone hanging up in the studio already, a dedicated input into the reverse mic input on the console. And on this microphone, they had the most unbelievably heavy compressor, so you could hear somebody who was over in the corner.

"One day, Phil (Collins) was playing the drums,” Hugh recalls, “and I had the reverse talkback on because he was speaking, and then he started playing the drums. The most unbelievable sound came out because of the heavy compressor. I said, 'My God, this is the most amazing sound! Steve, listen to this.' But the way the reverse talkback was setup, you couldn't record it.

So I had the desk modified that night. I got one of the maintenance guys to take the desk apart and get a split output of this compressor and feed it into a patch point on the jack field so I could then patch it into a channel on the board. From there, we were able to route that to the tape recorder."

Now you can experience the Listen Mic Compressor within the comfort of your own workstation software and see what sounds it’ll lead you to create. If you discover something really great – like a radical new distorted oboe sound then be sure to let us know.

* View the original MIX article: mixonline.com/mag/audio_phil_collins_air/

Live 8 at Eden - Africa Calling DVD details

From Monsters and Critics.com

DVD News

Live 8 at Eden - Africa Calling DVD details
By M&C News

We have added details and some media from the \'Live 8 at Eden - Africa Calling\' DVD.

The event was organized by Peter Gabriel and held at the Eden Project in Cornwall, South West England. It was one of ten concerts that took place around the world as part of Live 8 in support of the campaign to Make Poverty History. Produced in association with WOMAD, the day featured an exclusive line-up of some of Africa’s finest artists, performing in the spectacular setting of Eden. This film is the record of a unique day in celebration of the music and spirit of Africa.

Any profits that arise will be donated to charities nominated by the participating artists.

\'Live 8 at Eden - Africa Calling\' arrives on DVD November 1, 2005 (Out now in UK).

Summary of Live 8 at Eden: Africa Calling

An Extraordinary Line-Up of the Biggest Names in African Music including Performances By Dido and an Introduction By Angelina Jolie, organized by Peter Gabriel for this years’ Massive Live 8 Event.

DVD Features

Songs Performed: Africa Calling Concert MedleySamson (Africa Calling Mix) - ThomasMapfumo and The Blacks UnlimitedKuvarira Mukati (Africa Calling Mix) -Thomas Mapfumo and The BlacksUnlimitedHeesteena (Africa Calling Mix) -Maryam MursalBarco Negro (Africa Calling Mix) - MarizaTaireva (Africa Calling Mix) -Chartwell DuitroLumbul (Africa Calling Mix) -Moudou Diof and O FogumBeyeza (Africa Calling Mix) - ShikishaLapowny (Africa Calling Mix) -Geoffrey OryemaLand Of Anaka (Africa Calling Mix) -Geoffrey Oryema with Peter GabrielMbani (Africa Calling Mix) - SyiyayaSet (Africa Calling Mix) -Youssou N’dour Et Le Super Etoile7 Seconds (Africa Calling Mix) -Youssou N’dour Et Le Super Etoilewith DidoBirima (Africa Calling Mix) -Youssou N’dour Et Le Super EtoileAngelina Jolie Introduces:Namengue (Africa Calling Mix) -Coco MbassiAfirika (Africa Calling Mix) -Angelique KidjoTombo (Africa Calling Mix) -Angelique KidjoWa Winjigo Ero (Africa Calling Mix) -Ayub Ogada And UnoChet Boghassa (Africa Calling Mix) -TinariwenAmidiwan (Africa Calling Mix) - TinariwenAmassakoul (Africa Calling Mix) -TinariwenFontofrom Chant (Africa Calling Mix) -FrititiWallow (Africa Calling Mix) -Kanda Bongo ManBilli (Africa Calling Mix) -Kanda Bongo ManNouzha (Africa Calling Mix) -Akim El SikameyaAiwa (Africa Calling Mix) - Emmanuel JalExodus (Africa Calling Mix) - Daara JMic Check (Africa Calling Mix) - Daara JSunu Mission (Africa Calling Mix) - Daara JFinale - African Anthem

BONUS FEATURES: DVD also includes “Africa Calling at Eden” documentary film.

Not your father's Ramadan

Sengalese superstar Youssou N'Dour, who protested the Iraq war, talks about the beauty of Africa, Sufism and his fight against fundamentalism.

By Larry Blumenfeld

On Sunday evening at Carnegie Hall, Youssou N'Dour was caught between an elderly Senegalese griot and an unhappy soundman. Seems the xalam, a five-stringed Senegalese folk lute, wasn't easy to mike. The opening concert of his four-night series just hours away, N'Dour nonetheless radiated calm.

N'Dour -- the most popular singer in Africa and the archetypal world-music star -- is used to reconciling antiquity with modernity. Besides, he's negotiated trickier divides.

In March 2003, on the eve of the most ambitious American tour of his career, N'Dour simply cancelled. "As a matter of conscience," he wrote in a press statement, "I question the United States government's apparent intention to commence war in Iraq. I believe that coming to America at this time would be perceived in many parts of the world -- rightly or wrongly -- as support for this policy."...

Peter Gabriel: From Genesis to midfield impresario

By Steve James

NEW YORK (Reuters) - He was a progressive rock star in the '70s, an MTV video icon in the '80s and a world music guru for the new millennium. He's also a record producer, songwriter, political activist and musical talent scout. A kind of multi-media artist-rebel -- with many causes. Now Peter Gabriel has a new title -- director of really big sporting extravaganzas.

The world soccer body FIFA has tapped the English musician to organise the opening ceremony for next year's World Cup finals in Germany. The man who only recently became a fan of the game and European champions Liverpool is working on songs for the show in Berlin's Olympic Stadium.

"It's like owning a big playpen and someone else is going to pay for it," Gabriel told Reuters in a recent interview. "I'm not going to be playing (soccer)!" he laughed. "But I was asked to get involved. We're writing some of the music and getting involved in some crazy ideas."

Crazy ideas like the seminal 1987 video "Sledgehammer" that rocketed him to international fame? The video, which won 9 MTV awards, featuring a real-life Gabriel singing his funky homage to the Stax record label, amid a wild 3-D animation landscape of steam trains, bumper cars and singing fruit?

BIG TIME, BIG AUDIENCE

"Well I did have this idea," he said mischievously. "A red curtain across the goal and that would grow to a skirt and we'd attach little tails to footballs so they become like sperm...

"But I don't know if this is an idea that is going to fly!" he grinned, when reminded that NBC fended off complaints last year about the broadcast of the Athens Olympics opening ceremony featuring ancient Greek gods in various stages of undress and simulating naughty acts.

Not to mention the flak CBS took over Janet Jackson's peek-a-boo nipple during the 2004 Superbowl halftime show.

The full-length show the night before the finals begin will be a first for the World Cup, similar to past Olympic extravaganzas, said Gabriel, who is coordinating the event with a French choreographer and a German producer.

"It's a show that anyone who ever won the World Cup is going to be invited to. All the players, (including England's 1966 star) Bobby Charlton, hopefully. Another key element, he said, is that it's in Berlin, "the same stadium where Hitler had the '36 Olympics.

THE LAMB LIES DOWN ON BROADWAY

"It looks different now, but we've had lots of discussions about how much to refer to that," said Gabriel. By "that," he meant Jesse Owens winning four gold medals, Hitler being less than pleased and the foreboding images of Nazi exuberance captured in Leni Riefenstahl's documentary "Olympia."

"I think FIFA just want (to say), 'Anything the Olympics can do, we can do better.' It's a pretty big audience."

Thirty years removed from the gaunt dark-haired singer with the band Genesis, Gabriel, 55, is Yoda-like now, head shaved with a pointy white goatee and piercing blue eyes. Dressed entirely in black, he is sipping tea in a Manhattan hotel suite with his filmmaker daughter Anna, 31.

They are promoting two DVDs: "Still Growing Up -- Peter Gabriel Live and Unwrapped," with songs and behind-the-scenes images from his 2003 European tour and documentary footage that Anna shot and edited. Another daughter, Melanie, 25, was a backup singer on the tour.

Gabriel also talks about another DVD he's releasing: "Live 8 at Eden: Africa Calling," featuring the concert he organised in July in Cornwall, England as part of the Live 8 campaign to end poverty, especially in Africa. The concert was made up entirely of African performers.

But Gabriel was a bit peeved with Live 8 organiser Bob Geldof. "We loved the initiative and the whole Live 8 thing, however, it did feel a little bit like having a party for people and not inviting them," he said of other concerts held around the world with Western rock, pop and hip-hop artists.

GAMES WITHOUT FRONTIERS, WAR WITHOUT TEARS

"We felt there should be more African artists and I called Bob about it and his point was that the principal job was to get the message across to the TV people and the TV eyes watching and any unfamiliar acts, wherever they came from, would mean people switching off."

Gabriel disagreed: "When they had (Nelson) Mandela shows in London the bill was really mixed and I don't think we lost any viewers as a result. African artists are strong, charismatic and compelling, and I think they hold people's attention."

So Gabriel, who marches to his own drummer, organised "Africa Calling" without help or funding from Live 8. Two months later, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund agreed on debt relief for the world's poorest nations.

"(But) There's still a lot to do," said the singer.

Youssou N'Dour brings 'Egypt' to U.S.

by Jim Harrington liveDaily Contributor

Senegalese vocalist Youssou N'Dour will support his Grammy-winning CD "Egypt" with a batch of U.S. dates this fall.

Youssou N'Dour

The singer, who is best known outside of Africa for his work on the Peter Gabriel hit "In Your Eyes," will first perform two nights, Oct. 25-26, at New York's Carnegie Hall. He then moves on to play six gigs in the Northeast, Southeast and Midwest, before heading into California for three concerts. The vocalist finishes the short tour Nov. 13 at Tucson, AZ's Centennial Hall in Tucson, AZ.

"Egypt," N'Dour's 2004 CD that melded the rhythms and melodies of Senegal with the Egyptian and Arabian orchestral arrangements, was awarded a Grammy earlier this year for Best Contemporary World Music Album.

To re-create the sounds of "Egypt" on stage, N'Dour will be accompanied on this tour by both an orchestra and Fathy Salama, the singer's main collaborator on the CD.

Fans should note that N'Dour will not appear with the large "Egypt" ensemble during the first night at Carnegie Hall. For that show, the vocalist will be performing with his longtime band, Super Etoile.

N'Dour, a vocalist of remarkable range and poise, is known for his ability to take traditional Senegalese sounds and run them through a filter of genre-defying pop and rock music. The highly original result has helped the singer earn millions of fans around the globe.

Portrait of the artist as family man

When Peter Gabriel wants to see more of his children, he organises a long tour, invites them along and then makes them work for their passage, he tells Nigel Williamson

MOST rock stars will tell you that being on the road is incompatible with family life and a hectic touring schedule is the surest way to break up the happy home. Second time around, Peter Gabriel has found the exact opposite to be true.

These days when the ex-Genesis singer embarks on a world tour, it's one of the few times his scattered family gets the opportunity to come together. His second wife, Meabh, and their three-year-old son, Isaac, accompany him everywhere he goes. Melanie, his 29-year-old daughter from his first marriage, sings backing vocals in his band. And his oldest daughter, 31-year-old New York-based filmmaker Anna, documents it all with her cameras.

"It's a perfect touring situation for a dad," he enthuses. "When I feel like I need to spend a bit more time with my family, I go on tour. I see much more of them when we're on the road."

Now Anna Gabriel's documentary of the last family outing, the Still Growing Up tour, which chronicles a 30-date trek around the stadiums of Europe during June and July 2004, is about to hit stores as a commercial two-disc DVD. The first film features live footage from the shows. The second is Anna's unique behind-the-scenes account of life on the road with rock'n'roll band and family operating in tandem.

"When we started, it wasn't really planned," says Anna, who has now filmed her father's last two tours.

"It wasn't necessarily that I was going to come and make a film. I just wanted to join the tour because Melanie was singing with my dad, and my little brother Isaac and his mum were coming along, and so all the family was together. Living in America, I don't get the chance to see them much, so I wanted to come along and hang out on the road with them."

The cameras accompanied her as a force of habit but inevitably they were soon rolling. "I relax with her behind the camera in a way I wouldn't with anyone else," Peter Gabriel interjects. "I thought she could get some good material but I didn't know what was going to come out the other end."

What came out was Growing Up on Tour: a Family Portrait, an inventive and intimate film that chronicled Gabriel's in 2002, the first tour in almost a decade. It turned out so well that when Gabriel took to the road again two years later, he invited Anna and her cameras to join him again. "I wanted to make a documentary and I knew she was the perfect person to do it," he says simply.

I meet father and daughter in London on a wet Wednesday lunchtime, Anna having just flown in from New York for a week that is part-work and part-holiday, combining promotion for the DVD with seeing the family. She's staying in Gabriel's London pied-à-terre but is also planning to go down to the family home near Bath to see her brother Isaac and sister Melanie, who lives in Bristol. Sitting next to her on the sofa, her father - whose balding, goateed, rotund figure these days exudes an air of middle-aged contentment - beams with obvious pride.

It seems to be one of those pleasingly happy endings to a story that might have turned out far less felicitously, for although he may now be the benevolent patriarch, Gabriel has led a famously complicated personal life.

After forming Genesis with school friends at Charterhouse in 1967, he and the band took prog-rock to imaginative new heights on albums such as Nursery Cryme, Selling England by the Pound and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. He also became famous for his theatrical stage presence, dressing in outrageous costumes. One song found him decked out as a sunflower. Another found him wearing a huge fox's head. "Fortunately I was way too young to know about that and to be embarrassed," Anna says.

In 1975 he left the group and embarked on a solo career that has marked him out as one of rock music's more cerebral and adventurous figures. But by then, he already had a young family, having married his first wife, Jill Moore, when they were teenage sweethearts. Anna was born in 1974 and her sister two years later.

Gabriel and his first wife separated in the late 1980s and he set up home with the American actress Roseanna Arquette. They were together for six years and he then went on to romance Sinéad O'Connor. Three years ago, he married Meabh Flynn, a music technician and costume designer who worked at his Real World recording studios in Wiltshire.

"I'm not going to be touring as much while Isaac is growing up as I may have done in the past. At this age I've had a lot of career and I'm less concerned about my worldly success. I want to be a good father and to be present in Isaac's life in a way that I wasn't before. Looking back at those years, there were two or three when I was away touring when the girls were growing up. I was very busy when they were young and I've had much more time to play with Isaac. It's like having a second chance."

Anna claims to have been largely unaware of her father's celebrity until she was 12. "We went to a little village school in the middle of the country and I knew he went to work and did music," she recalls. "But that was all I knew really until 'Sledgehammer' came out."

Released in 1986, the song topped the American charts, and its parent album So went to number one around the world. The track was accompanied by a groundbreaking video that, almost 20 years later, remains MTV's most-shown clip. At the time, it scooped best video at the Brit Awards and won in 10 different categories at MTV's own awards. If you owned a TV, it was virtually impossible to escape.

"Suddenly kids of my age knew who he was and so that affected me at school," Anna says. "That was when it changed for me."

Potentially even more destabilising was that, around the same time, Gabriel's marriage to Jill was unravelling. He admits to fearing he would lose contact with his daughters. "The divorce and the loss of family was the hardest thing in my life," he says.

"But I think that was when we started seeing you the most," Anna interrupts him.

He doesn't seem convinced. "But that desperate dad mode isn't great," he says. "I see these poor guys in the park or at McDonald's on Saturday visiting hours. There isn't time to go through the normal things of childhood and get through the tantrums and come out on the other side of it. The desperate dad has to be nice to keep his limited access hours in a positive place."

Anna feels it was only after the divorce that she got to know her parents properly. "They were very careful to keep any fighting away from me and my sister and we really didn't see much of it," she says. "But it was the best thing for them to divorce. After the divorce my mum seemed a very different person from the one I'd known in my childhood and I'm very happy to know that person."

At 18, Anna moved to New York to go to college, first studying dance and then enrolling on a photography course, where she also got into video and set up a small production company with Adria Petty, daughter of American rocker Tom Petty. I wonder if she ever considered a musical career?

"I think Mel and I always wanted to sing. But I got interested in photography and the visual medium rather than music. It was hard for me to watch Mel on the last tour because I was quite jealous. Part of me wanted to be doing it too."

At this, the proud father feels compelled to interject. "She has music in the blood," he insists. "She was doing singing lessons for a while and when she gets up on stage she's like a duck to water. She could do it very easily."

Anna blushes. "Mel worked really hard and I didn't have the tenacity to go for it," she says quietly. "It's hard for her to try and make it in music. Much harder than it is for me to make it working in a different field to dad. There's such a lot to live up to."

Anna says her father proved far easier than any of the other artists with whom she has made music videos. "No temper tantrums and star nonsense." And if there were, she could turn round and say, "Don't be an arse, dad." Whereas with other clients she'd have to be more diplomatic? "Exactly. It was freer creatively because we didn't have to worry about any of that."

They make it sound so cosy. Were there no reservations about working so closely together? "Not from my side," says Gabriel. "Not at first," says Anna more cautiously. "But now I definitely feel it's time to move on. It can get to be repetitive after a while if you work with the same person all the time."

"Wonderful though they are," adds a proud, paternal voice. And father and daughter both laugh.

The two-disc DVD, Still Growing Up: Live and Unwrapped, is released on Warner Music Vision on October 31

Songlines sept/oct 05

Music and Media

The excellent British world music magazine Songlines continues to pound away at the absurdity of the organizers of Live 8 presenting a series of concerts on behalf of Africa, yet only inviting one African artists (Youssou ‘N Dour) to participate.

The current issue (September/October) includes comments from Andy Kershaw, Peter Gabriel, Thomas Brooman, Damon Albarn, and Baaba Maal addressing this situation, while Bob Geldof defends the selection process on the basis of popular appeal.

“You have to really pick and be careful about what is going to get you the biggest mass audience where you could talk about the conditions of the poor people in Africa,” Geldof told the magazine. “That’s what we’re doing. If you can suggest to me British blacks acts that should be one, that sell in the same quantities as the bands we’ve got, fine.”

Geldof certainly deserves high praise for his efforts in this arena, but it also can’t be disputed that it’s a bit lame to hold events designed to increase interest in and awareness of Africans, then leave them out of the mix. Hopefully, that won’t happen again when or if there’s another series of similar events.

Les baguettes magiques de Manu Katché

Après avoir joué pour la crème de la pop, le batteur retrouve Jan Garbarek et le jazz

Paris/Fabrice Gottraux

Il figure parmi les batteurs les plus demandés de la planète pop. Peter Gabriel, Sting, Stephan Eicher, ­Cabrel, Tori Amos... Impossible de citer ici toutes ses contributions (plus de 200 albums!). A 47 ans, Manu Katché est au sommet de son art et s'improvise une popularité grâce à son rôle d'expert dans l'émission de variété Nouvelle Star, sur M6.

Il y a deux semaines à l'Arena, le batteur français offrait une rythmique de rêve pour le concert à caractère humanitaire Fight Against Malaria avec Youssou N'Dour. Et le voici qui renoue avec son jardin secret, le jazz. En compagnie du saxophoniste Jan Garbarek et du trompettiste Tomasz Stanko - deux piliers du label allemand ECM -, Manu Katché signe son second album personnel, Neighbourhood, «voisinage»...

Pourquoi ce retour au jazz?

Je ne me considère pas comme batteur de jazz, même si j'ai une tendance à l'attitude du jazzman. Ma musique est instrumentale. C'est ce qui me définit le mieux. Ceci dit, John Coltrane ou Miles Davis ont toujours fait partie de mon environnement. C'est une musique extrêmement agréable et jouissive, qui me donne beaucoup de plaisir à l'écoute. Plus que le classique, que j'ai étudié au Conservatoire, le jazz me permet de voyager au gré des personnalités de chaque musicien. L'imaginaire que suggère cette musique, voilà ce que j'aime.

Vous-même voyagez d'un musicien, d'un style à un autre...

Du Brésil à la Nouvelle-Zélande, de la country à Gloria Estefan, ça reste moi. Je suis très diversifié. Ce que j'exporte, ce n'est pas mon savoir, mais mes impressions.

Vous avez un héritage afro?

J'ai reçu une éducation française, académique avec le piano classique. Mais dans mes gènes africains, je ressens quelque chose de particulier. En grandissant à Paris, dans les années septante, c'était exceptionnel. On pouvait écouter des musiques africaines, j'ai joué des musiques kabyles, de la soul, de la pop... Ce qui me permet de me conduire de façon différente selon les cas. Que ce soit avec un Croate ou un Macédonien, j'amène ma personnalité, une synthèse des musiques qui m'ont marqué. Et le côté «roots» africain, même si je ne joue pas de djembé ou de talking drums, me permet d'avoir un style particulier.

Votre album ne révolutionne pas le jazz...

Neighbourhood est un projet musical assez lisible, avec des références claires à l'album Birth of the Cool de Miles Davis. C'est aussi la réunion de deux entités. Jan Garbarek et moi-même jouons ensemble depuis dix ans. Tomasz Stanko a emmené ses jeunes musiciens, le pianiste Marcin Wasilewski et le contrebassiste Slawomir ­Kurkiewicz. Lorsqu'on a réalisé un casting avec Manfred Eicher (ndlr: directeur du label ECM), le jeu de Tomasz m'a captivé. C'est aussi une première: ­Tomasz et Jan n'avaient jamais joué ensemble.

Quel intérêt à participer à l'émission «Nouvelle Star»?

La popularité n'entache pas la musicalité. En donnant des conseils dans une émission populaire, je suis content d'apporter la petite pièce à un édifice plus vaste, qui donne à voir de nouveaux talents. Cela a son importance, au vu du marasme ambiant. J'amène aussi un crédit supplémentaire grâce à mon métier. Mais pas question d'être complaisant. Les albums produits par Nouvelle Star sont ce qu'ils sont! Au-delà, ça m'a médiatisé, bien sûr, au point de susciter des vocations de batteur chez les jeunes. J'ai reçu beaucoup de courrier, comme cette mère qui m'explique avoir inscrit son fils dans une école de musique... L'émission m'a aussi permis d'être présent à Paris pour développer ma carrière jazz.

Du jazz à la variété télé, un fossé irréductible?

N'oublions pas que le jazz, après-guerre, était une musique à danser! Personnellement, je suis contre l'élitisme. En France, il n'y a que deux radios pour écouter du jazz. C'est pauvre! Voir un batteur jouant du jazz à la téloche, voilà qui donne accès à un genre que beaucoup n'auraient pu entendre autrement. C'est ce qui manque à la musique instrumentale: la visibilité. Imaginez si l'on pouvait montrer des jam-sessions à la télévision. Ça serait génial!

Le monde a changé. On est dans la consommation rapide. Au XXIe siècle, nous n'avons plus le choix: si on veut se faire entendre, il faut faire avec la télévision. Et de plus, je suis métis, dans un pays où la prétendue intégration n'existe pas! Montrer qu'on peut y arriver avec un discours pas trop con, qu'on est Français comme les autres: cela me tient à cœur.

Manu Katché, «Neighbourhood», CD ECM/Phonag.

SATIS 2005

FISM à TF1 Rencontres avec Coline Serreau,Peter Gabriel...

>>Téléchargez le programme (pdf)

Vendredi 21 octobre - Après-Midi

14 h 00 : la musique au format DVD par Peter Gabriel et son ingénieur du son, Richard Chappell, Extraits de son dernier DVD "Still Growing Up Live"

Abigail Washburn

Song of the Traveling Clawhammer

Banjo Player [21 October 2005]

Twenty-seven-year-old Abigail Washburn is something of a contemporary troubadour, a musical traveler on a fascinating voyage of self-discovery. She reflects on the two worlds that inform her art with PopMatters.

(...)

Asked -- somewhat unfairly -- to describe her own music in just one word, the best Washburn can do is "Alternative folk. But that's two words." So we agree to hyphenate, and then she ponders the appropriateness of the label.

"For one word, one hyphenated word, I think alternative-folk is the best I can do. My style is very much based in the old-time American music, like the Appalachian traditions and the blues. A love of the music from the '20s and '30s inspired a lot of the music on the record. But so did a lot of my experience living in China and studying the culture and the language so maybe some people will see it as interesting hybrid.

"I'm not quite sure [what] world music is or how I would fit into it, so I don't know if that's a good descriptor, but I would certainly like to be seen as an artist or have a career where I'm involved in an international community of musicians."

When I mentioned that I could certainly see Washburn involved in something like the WOMAD festival, she confessed ignorance of the WOMAD phenomenon so I explained a little about the now truly international World Of Music And Dance organization founded by Peter Gabriel in the early '80s.

"How cool! That's exactly the sort thing that I would like to be participating in. I would really like to be part of the larger musical dialogue that's going on between musicians who do consider themselves international and are interested in collaborating with people around the world. I think that's a really exciting new frontier and I'd like to be a part of that."....

Chernov’s choice

By Sergey Chernov , Staff Writer

Moloko, a leading local underground club that is closing at its current location, will say goodbye with concerts by popular bands Tequilajazzz (Friday) and Markscheider Kunst (Saturday).

Sunday will be an all-day farewell party. The club will open at 11 a.m. to hold a table football tournament in the afternoon and a concert by dub band Samosad Bend. Entrance is free.

Two international prog-rock giants will perform in the city this week. The Tony Levin Band was formed by the legendary bass player Tony Levin. Levin, who released three solo albums and one as the Tony Levin Band, is better known as member of King Crimson and Peter Gabriel’s band. His playing can be also heard on many classic albums, including Lou Reed’s “Berlin” (1973), Paul Simon’s “Still Crazy After All These Years” (1975), John Lennon’s “Double Fantasy” (1980), Tom Waits’ “Rain Dogs” (1985), Brian Ferry’s “Boys and Girls” (1985) and David Bowie’s “Heathen” (2002).

The Tony Levin Band concert is part of the so-called “King Crimson Festival,” a series of British prog-rock related events launched by Moscow promoter Alexander Cheparukhin after he brought King Crimson to Russia in July 2003. The previous three concerts were by the duo TU consisting of the band’s members Trey Gunn and Pat Mastelotto in April 2004, Bill Bruford Earthworks in May 2004 and Quodia, a project from Gunn and Joe Mendelson, in October 2004.

The Tony Levin Band perform at the Center for Contemporary Art (formerly Priboi film theater) on Friday.

Also due is the comeback tour of Van der Graaf Generator, the seminal prog-rock band from the 1960s and 1970s, which reformed earlier this year. Van der Graaf Generator will play at the Music Hall on Tuesday....

Jorane, en parfaite harmonie

Premier contact avec Jorane : Festival d'été 1998, Café des arts. Encore inconnue, la jeune femme inscrite à la programmation Vol de nuit envoûtait de son archet magique tous les noctambules réunis.

Quelques années et réussites plus tard, elle nous revenait hier, au Petit Champlain, pour la première d'un spectacle intime rappelant étrangement la chaleureuse rencontre de l'époque. Si, depuis, l'étonnement a laissé la place à l'admiration, le coup de cœur, lui, est demeuré le même.

En apparence, la Jorane qui s'est présentée au public de Québec, hier, les pommettes roses et l'œil pétillant, n'a pas beaucoup changé en sept ans : même sourire dévastateur, même exubérance, même brûlante passion pour son inséparable violoncelle.

Force est toutefois de constater que la jeune fille un peu brouillonne de l'époque qui, sur scène, n'avait pas encore maîtrisé l'art de l'intervention entre les chansons, n'est plus qu'un vain souvenir.

Car c'est à une artiste de scène aguerrie, cumulant cinq nominations en vue du prochain gala de l'ADISQ, à laquelle on a eu droit, hier. Avec toute l'assurance, le savoir-faire et la liberté que l'expérience et le succès peuvent apporter. Elle avait tout ça, hier, Jorane, et peut-être plus. Question de confiance en ses moyens, probablement.

Il en faut pour assurer soi-même sa première partie en proposant une pièce improvisée d'une bonne vingtaine de minutes se concluant sur Pour Gabrielle, magnifique mélodie tirée du non moins magnifique album 16 mm (2000). Un coup digne de la grande séduction, qui a littéralement subjugué un public attentif et complice.

Cette entrée en matière réussie, inspirée de l'événement Riopelle auquel Jorane a pris part au Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec en septembre 2002, a également eu l'heur de mettre en lumière l'évolution qu'a connue la démarche artistique de l'artiste en quelques années à peine.

Partie de la chanson à la limite réaliste (Vent fou), Jorane a plongé tête baissée dans sa période bleue (16 mm), avant de finalement reprendre contact avec une réalité plus... concrète, se frottant néanmoins constamment avec le cinéma (Évapore, The You and the Now).

En compagnie du guitariste Jean-François Beaudet (lap steel, acoustique, effets), elle a refait, sous des éclairages soignés, le même trajet à travers le temps, hier. Chorégraphiant avec adresse une danse captivante entre sa voix aérienne empreinte de féminité et son violoncelle, plus viril, avec ses sonorités graves et sombres, elle a revisité ses premières créations comme la débridée Vent fou, servie façon Led Zeppelin hier, et la charmante Dit-elle, parfait « au revoir » au rappel, mais aussi ses titres les plus récents comme l'excellente Stay, probablement l'une de ses meilleures compositions à ce jour.

Faisant corps avec son instrument, elle ne s'en est détachée qu'à une occasion, le temps de livrer trois chansons à la guitare, dont la magnifique Pour ton sourire, le « cadeau de Daniel Lanois », et une reprise de Sinéad O'Connor, Black Boys.

En fin de parcours, la communion était totale entre le public et l'artiste. Tant et si bien que c'est ensemble qu'ils ont interprété les dernières lignes chantées du spectacle. En parfaite harmonie.

Kathleen Lavoie
Le Soleil
Québec

All Things Youssou

A four-night celebration at Carnegie Hall this month displays the range, depth, and diversity of Africa’s brightest star.

One song composed by Youssou N'Dour, "Wiri Wiri," contains this line: "If you don't know where you're heading anymore, go back to where you came from."

Now 45, Youssou N'Dour has been a star at home, in Dakar, Senegal, for more than half his life. He has traveled widely during the past two decades, earning acclaim in Europe and the United States. But N'Dour always returns to Dakar. He continues to live there. And his music, however far and wide it has ranged in style and in reach, still speaks first and foremost of home.

This month, Carnegie Hall's Perspectives will showcase the voice and the vision of N'Dour in unprecedented fashion--with four concerts that shed light on how N'Dour's music has drawn from Senegalese tradition and how it has sparked new innovations by younger artists.

N'Dour's father is an auto mechanic, his mother descended from a line of griots, the traditional singers and storytellers who have long served as the culture's oral historians. Ever since N'Dour's rise to musical prominence--first through local religious ceremonies and by hustling gigs outside popular Dakar dance clubs, then on radio amateur hours, and finally, on the world stage--he has developed a strikingly original sound that still communicates the stories of his heritage.

N'Dour's sinewy tenor, his dazzling vocal melismas, and his urgent, engaging lyrics (mostly concerning social responsibility and cultural memory) have become the face of mbalax, the popular Senegalese music that blends centuries-old praise-singing tradition and percussion, Afro-Cuban arrangements, and guitar-based Western pop. The band N'Dour has led since 1979, The Super Étoile, has held sway over Senegalese fans since its formation. They are widely considered to be the most exciting African band to hear in concert--a blend of rhythm and voice that can be appreciated without translation.

Originally, N'Dour had been churning out cassettes on Jololi, his Dakar-specific label, consistently wowing the home crowd. Soon he captured the ear of a much broader audience, in part due to his singing on Peter Gabriel's hit "In Your Eyes." N'Dour's 1990 release, Set, had some folks talking about N'Dour as the "next Bob Marley," a purveyor of the next roots music to sweep across the globe. Others saw him as the good-looking poster boy for a nascent "world music" wave. In fact, he was neither.

"My music is like a spinning ball," N'Dour says. "It can turn in one direction, and then it comes back to its origins." ....

Catch up with Peter in his Full Moon update

I have to report that tonight a very large yellowish moon appears to be rising above the studios at an astounding rate - it brings to mind questions about the relative nature of perception, and as I'm hoping our speed of planetary rotation is within 'normal' operating parameters, there must be some other explanation....

"As animals get bigger, from tiny shrew to huge blue whale, pulse rates slow down and life spans stretch out longer, conspiring so that the number of heartbeats during an average stay on Earth tends to be roughly the same, around a billion. A mouse just uses them up more quickly than an elephant.

Mysteriously, these and a large variety of other phenomena change with body size according to a precise mathematical principle called quarter-power scaling. A cat, 100 times more massive than a mouse, lives about 100 to the one-quarter power, or about three times, longer. (To calculate this number take the square root of 100, which is 10 and then take the square root of 10, which is 3.2.) Heartbeat scales to mass to the minus one-quarter power. The cat's heart thus beats a third as fast as a mouse's." (see link below)

I'm not quite sure that this explains the moon's apparent haste, as I'm roughly the same size as last month, but as a link to this months 'Full Moon Club' update there's possibly a tenuous thread through elephants to 'Africa' and from 'our stay on earth' to 'Still Growing Up", both of which are to be found in this months video offering...the moon's not full forever!

Watch the video in The Full Moon Club
Of Mice and Elephants: A Matter of Scale
'Africa Calling' and 'Still Growing UP' in our store

Grand multicultural music-making

AN ISRAELI IN DREADLOCKS played the organ for a Touareg artist. A male Indian dancer gave Bollywood dance lessons to Brit and Chinese girls, while a funky Singaporean group whipped the crowd into a dancing frenzy with their Brazilian samba music fused with Afro-Latin beats.

Five stages, 18 artists from 12 countries and five continents, one ultimate goal. This was the Womad arts festival in Singapore, an event that celebrated music, arts and dance drawn from a mishmash of cultures all over the world to bring the message of unity through arts.

Womad, or World of Music, Arts and Dance, kicked off in England in 1982 from English musician Peter Gabriel's vision of "introducing an international audience to many talented artists." The festival is akin to the hippie-counterculture Woodstock event and France's Fete de la Musique. Since then, 145 festivals have been presented in 22 countries and islands.

New Zealand, Spain, Sicily and the United Kingdom. Singapore hosted the eighth leg of the tour in August. Far from the stiff, high-brow image usually associated with the progressive island, Singapore has been hosting the annual gig for eight years now. It was awarded the Best Experience at the 19th Singapore Tourism Awards. This year's three-day jam at Fort Canning Park saw multicultural audiences in three outdoor stages, a gallery where artists gave bite-size workshops and a tunnel for the party crowd. There was also a bazaar-like Global Village that exhibited international crafts and foodstuff, from Sri Lankan puppets to Turkish ice cream.

Intimate gig

While about 20 percent of the crowd were tourists, and the artists themselves spoke different languages, festival director for Asia Sarah Martin said communication was hardly a problem because the artists could simply jam and play. "The beauty of Womad is to put people and culture together on one platform through a beautiful, peaceful process," she said. Around 7,000 people, mostly in their teens and 20s, popped up on the warm, bustling Saturday night of the event. Martin said they quickly ran out of tickets. "We're not here for the money, we want everyone to enjoy. We're trying to make it self-contained, intimate," she said.

Each artist was handpicked from a roster of aspirants. Martin and the UK team go through tons and tons of CDs each year to choose who would play in the event. This is a regular job for her. After the three-day gig in Singapore, she and her team will start planning for the next one.

Not just world music

American master drummer Bill Cobham topbilled this year's performers. A consummate percussionist for over 30 years now, he has worked with the likes of jazz giant Miles Davis. "We need your support. We don't play for ourselves, we play for the audience. If we have more people interested in the arts, it means we have more brains. We think," he said. Cobham awed the crowd with his ambidextrous skills as he pounded on the drums with his eyes closed.

Admitting his brand of jazz was not that popular (compared to the likes of Michael Bublè's and Norah Jones') especially among the younger pop crowd, the animated Cobham explained: "Jazz is selfish. It is a highly intellectual platform." "Music is all about learning, it's never about being comfortable. It's the thing that you like to do. It is to be cunning," said the indie artist. "When I play the drums, I always think of what I want to do. But everything has a price. You've got to have a lot of patience."

Would he recommend working as a musician, though?

"No," he answered, laughing. "But it's the only thing I know how to do, it's the only thing I wanna do."

Another crowd favorite was the Idan Rachiel Project, a group of eight from Israel that played ambient-like Israeli-Ethiopian folk songs with loads of percussions and chants. Each member had mastered his instrument and could be a stand-alone performer. Frontman Idan Rachiel might not look like your usual pop star in his all-black boho ensemble, turban, dreadlocks and piercing eyes, but the 28-year-old musician had a huge following in Israel.

The Idan Rachiel Project is not a band, he said, but a music company. Rachiel, an all-around musician who had been working with Israeli pop and rock stars for some time, scouted for artists and asked them to work with him. A virtual unknown, he had a pool of 70 artists for his first album, "Idan Rachiel's Project," which shot up to No. 1 on the Israeli music charts. His fame, he said, was not intentional. "It's not our job to make it commercial," he said. "I don't regard myself as an icon."

It would be easy to classify the Project's sounds under "world," but Rachiel would rather call it "Israeli music." It has raw and moving bursts of energy with fast riffs and drum loops, fusing rural and urban, traditional and modern Middle Eastern sounds. In Womad, he performed with Wogderass Avi Wassa, who did fast songs; Cabra Kasaisings, who chanted in Hebrew; and Maya Abraham, who exhibited notable Arabic influences. Rachiel said some of the songs might be dealing with politics, "but at the end of the day, it's all about being alone, and the subject is about love. It is to see the world from the outside."

Wicked lineup

Crowd favorite Wicked Aura Batucada played batucada music fused with local ethnic rhythms with intense power. Nomadic "roots rock rebels" Tinariwen from the Republic of Mali, meanwhile, rendered some African blues-influenced pieces. The Dhol Foundation of London bounced onto the stage with their large wooden drums. Algerian Akim El Sikameya played Arabic-Andalusian music. Indian artist Sheema Mukherjee strummed classical sitar pieces. Coming from Sri Lanka with their Kandyan dance and drumming was Ravibhandu Vidyapathy. The French group Les Yeux Noirs demonstrated Gypsy music. Malaysia's "jazz queen," Sheila Majid, provided smooth jazz and RnB sounds.

UK's first mainstream Asian DJ Apache Indian rocked the park with Anglo-Asian mixes. Yes, he's the same artist who performed the '90s hit "Boomshackalak." Other performers were Singaporean hip-hop artist DJ r-H, Cuban band Asere, Australian singer-songwriter Lior and vintage reggae/funk group Future World Funk. Sri Lankan puppeteer Sri Anura and Singaporean visual artist Sun Yu-Li also exhibited their works.

Martin said they would keep each year's festival fresh by mixing traditional, New Age and fusion music, by finding artists with different styles and looking for new materials and approaches.

Or, as Gabriel put it, "Music is a universal language. It draws people together and proves, as well as anything, the stupidity of racism." The nomadic music fest did just that, and proved that passion for music and the arts could bring a multicultural society swaying and headbangin' for a common cause.

Visit www.womadsingapore.com and www.stb.com.sg.

The genesis of a guitarist

Steve Hackett expands on his early work with well-known band

By Jeff Miers, News Pop Music Critic, 10/14/2005

Countless guitarists claim Steve Hackett as an influence; still more progressive rock fans flock to watch tribute bands re-create Hackett's guitar parts note for note. Most listeners probably assumed it was a keyboard they were hearing.

After all, the early music of Genesis had an otherworldly quality and suggested some sort of dream state in which reality had been suspended. You never really tried to break it all down to the individual performances, preferring instead to passively let the music wash over you. This, after all, was the stuff which urged the christening of the term "headphone rock."

Steve Hackett's job in Genesis was to complement the classical harmonic structure of the music with crisp, taut, melodic figures, and to augment the music's dreamy drama with volume swells, arpeggios and crystalline legato phrases. He did the job so well that he all but disappeared into the gauzy fabric of mellotron, piano and organ that dominated the band's sound.

That is, until he broke loose with one of his complex, angular guitar solos, which suggested the aural equivalent of a swarm of bees gone mad in a Marshall amplifier factory. Bizarre and fascinating, Hackett's work with Genesis was the stuff of rock dreams. Countless guitarists claim the man as an influence; still more unvanquished '70s-era progressive rock fans flock to watch tribute bands recreate Hackett's guitar parts note for note, in clubs and concert halls from Buffalo to Bristol.

It's telling that Hackett's tenure with Genesis - which ended in 1977, when, after six years with the band, he embarked on a solo career - is still a matter of concern among serious musicians the world over. He's been a solo artist for more three times as long as he played with Genesis, but to this day, the bits of his live shows that draw the most enthusiastic responses from crowds involve instrumental recapitulations of famous Genesis melodies.

These days, Hackett is primarily an acoustic guitarist, with an emphasis on nylon string classical work. When he comes to the Town Ballroom at 7 tonight, he'll be performing largely solo, with augmentation from flute and keyboards during roughly half of the set.

Hackett won't be drawing material from his recently released classical album "Metamorpheus" - that album is fully orchestrated and would require a much larger ensemble. He will dig into his past for earlier solo tunes and Genesis nuggets, however. So you'll get an overview of the whole canon.

In preparation for the show, I've been rifling through my Hackett collection to compile a list of what I feel are his defining moments. Here's what I came up with.

"The Musical Box," from Genesis' "Nursery Crime" album (1971). This tells you almost all you need to know about Hackett, as he moves nimbly between 12-string acoustic beauty and electric mayhem, perfectly mirroring Peter Gabriel's bizarre tale of a young man trapped in an old man's body. As brilliant as it is weird.

"Supper's Ready," from Genesis' "Foxtrot" album (1972). Here, Hackett engages in what is essentially a fugue, as intricate parts are interwoven and build dramatically toward . . . well, we're never really sure what. But the journey is a bloody brilliant one. Musical storytelling at its finest.

"Los Endos," from Genesis' "A Trick of the Tail" album (1976). After Peter Gabriel's departure, Hackett remained in the fold for "Wind and Wuthering" and "Trick of the Tail," making himself as invaluable as ever. On "Los Endos," he gives new meaning to the phrase "lyrical guitar playing." Gorgeous.

"Carpet Crawlers," from Genesis' "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" album (1974). Again, Hackett offers otherworldly playing that perfectly complements Gabriel 's breathy, immaculate chorus, "You've gotta get in to get out." So subtle, and yet, so essential to the overall success of the composition. Hackett makes high art of underplaying.

Genesis, "Seconds Out," entire album (1977). Hackett peaked as a member of Genesis on this live set. My understanding is that this is actually a live recording, free of overdubs of any sort. I'll hazard a guess and say that, between eighth and 12th grade, I listened to this album in the area of 1,000 times. I was never able to spot Hackett making a mistake. And this stuff is close to impossible to play.

"Voyage of the Acolyte," Steve Hackett (1975). Hackett's solo debut is still his strongest record, and has withstood the test of time. In fact, this is the most Genesis-like of his solo efforts, probably because Mike Rutherford and Phil Collins helped out on its recording.

"Metamorpheus," Steve Hackett (2005). A pensive, graceful collection of meticulously performed musical vignettes.

Funky fingers

By Sergey Chernov for St. Petersburg Times

Legendary bassist Tony Levin (second from the right) with the Tony Levin Band which makes its first trip to the land of his forebears this month.

Tony Levin, the long-time bassist with Peter Gabriel and King Crimson, has also worked on many seminal rock albums by such artists as Lou Reed, Paul Simon and John Lennon. Now he steps into the spotlight with his own combo, the Tony Levin Band, with concerts in St. Petersburg and Moscow this month.

“First of all, I want to say how excited we are to be coming, finally, to Russia. I have wanted to play there, with Peter Gabriel, or King Crimson, for many years,” wrote Levin in an email interview with The St. Petersburg Times last week. “That it is finally happening, and with my own band, is a very special thing for me.”

There is another reason why Levin is excited about the tour because his mother came from Berdichev, a once-predominantly Jewish town in Ukraine. In an online diary Levin mentions that he and his brother, Peter, who is on tour with him as a keyboard player/programmer, have sought a way to travel to Ukraine and Belarus to visit the hometown of their mother and grandparents.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, in June 1946, Levin began playing double bass at age 10. Five years later he played at the White House with a youth orchestra for John and Jackie Kennedy. Later, he attended the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and played in the Rochester Philharmonic. Introduced to jazz and rock by now-renowned drummer Steve Gadd, who was also at the school, Levin moved to New York in 1970 where after a brief stint with a rock band he began working as a session musician playing bass with such diverse artists as Carly Simon, Don McLean, Alice Cooper, and Ringo Starr. He also performed at John Lennon ’s final studio sessions which yielded “Double Fantasy” in 1980 and the posthumous album “Milk and Honey” in 1984.

According to Levin, his way of playing with any artist largely depends on what he hears in studio. “What I listen to is the music itself — I do not have a bass ‘agenda’ that I need to bring with me. If the lyrics are the focus (as with Paul Simon’s great songs), it feels to me the bass should pretty much stay out of the way. But maybe there’s a little need somewhere to do something a bit special. John Lennon’s songs have a rock feel, so a catchy bassline will always fit in. In some music, like Peter Gabriel's, there is often room for some new technique or sound on the bass... I greatly admire players, on all instruments, who consistently find just the right notes to play — what a special thing that is.”

Apart from the Levin brothers, the Tony Levin Band, now on its first European tour, features Jerry Marotta on drums, vocals and guitars, Larry Fast on synthesizers and electronic effects and Jesse Gress on guitars. “What we will perform is a product of the musicians in the band,” wrote Levin. “I have a history with Peter Gabriel and King Crimson, of progressive music. We will do some of the material from the 4 or 5 albums I have put out. But there is much more to the band than just me. Three of us (Larry Fast, Jerry Marotta and I) played together for many years in Peter’s band — so there is a tightness, and friendliness among us, that the audience can see. And we do a little of the old Peter Gabriel material that we know so well, each night. “Then, I can’t resist doing a little King Crimson material, just for fun. We also like to jam a bit, and maybe will do a song or two everyone knows — lately [Led Zeppelin’s] ‘Black Dog’ has been our favorite — that we can open up on.”

An innovative musician, Levin helped to popularize the Chapman Stick, the instrument that combines bass and guitar strings. He wrote that he will use it in his Russian concerts alongside the five-string electric bass and a fretless bass guitar. “I play [the Chapman Stick] mostly as a bass and I like the tonal change it gives me — more percussive than a bass, and with it’s unusual tuning (fifth, and strung low to high) it helps me break away from the same old bass lines. I’ve especially used it a lot with Peter Gabriel and King Crimson. (We’ll probably play ‘Elephant Talk,’ which has, I guess, the most famous Stick line.)”

To broaden the possibilities of bass Levin developed Funk Fingers, a technique of playing the instrument with a pair of chopped-off drum sticks, first used on the track “Big Time” on Gabriel’s 1986 album “So.”

Performing with Gabriel and King Crimson poses different challenges for a bass player, according to Levin. “Those two situations are very different,” he wrote. “Peter’s vision is exceptional, and he expresses it through his songs — then lets his band join in and add the eclectic feel that it wants. His shows are theatrical, big productions, and a lot of fun. “[King Crimson leader] Robert Fripp’s vision is also an exceptional musical one, and I have a lot of faith in what he deems right for the band. But it is not an easy process, and he must review all ideas, let different mixtures of radical ideas go through their necessary days, and then see if it’s appropriate for the band. “The result, in simple language, is that we try out a lot of wild ideas that are awful sounding, but we don’t give up on them quickly. It makes for quite tortured work sessions. Add to this that Robert does not love touring, and that we are always pushing ourselves to play, individually, different than we have before, and you have... not an easy process. It’s worth the work, of course, and if there’s suffering... well... it’s King Crimson.”

“Prog rock,” the term used to describe what such musicians as Levin do, is accepted for the lack of a better term for music innovation in rock, he wrote. “I often run into different understandings of what prog rock is. We in King Crimson keep trying to break the boundaries, and do things we (and others) haven’t done before. That is a giant challenge — more so after you have succeeded on an album (I think we did, with the ‘Discipline’ album) because there is a temptation to keep doing that style. “So, bands that play in the style of progressive groups from the ‘70s are called Prog. But then there is no new term for those who try to do things nobody ever heard. “Now, I think great things are being done, all over the planet, by many musicians and bands. It’s a great time for music, and so much is being shared, even though it’s becoming a very hard time to make a living from your music, and get attention for it, with so much out there from so many places.”

Having started out as a classical musician who then switched to jazz, Levin wrote that rock music gave him more opportunities for free expression.

“Classical music has always been my love, and probably will be my favorite for life. But I didn’t enjoy playing in an orchestra, and I also love challenges, and life in an orchestra was too stagnant for me,” he wrote. “Jazz is great music, but I found myself out of sync, always wanting to try new ideas and sounds, in a genre which, at least at that time, was supposed to sound a classic way. “So rock provided me with the best outlet — especially progressive rock.”

However, Levin’s classical background still echoes in his music. “I laugh to think that at the end of Peter Gabriel’s song ‘On the Air,’ I played a strong bass line, borrowed from a Shostakovich symphony. I don’t think many people in live audiences through the years noticed that, but probably the listeners in Russia would be aware of it. Hey, maybe we will do that song!”

Tony Levin Band performs at the Center for Contemporary Art (formerly Priboi film theater) on Oct. 21.

www.tonylevin.com

New Live 2DVD Review from german genesis fan club

UP The Amazon, UP the Nile… Once that was an idea of Peter’s for remixing his new album UP.

In the end, he went on tour and then he toured and toured… and toured…and toured. In a way, it was up the Mississippi, up the Rhine, up the Thames, up the Seine – who would have thought that Peter would tour some two years on end?

The first version of his sophisticated show was released in 2003. Growing Up Live consisted of an almost full concert. Gabriel did not stop half-way through, though, so that Growing Up Live was much more than a couple of images with a concert.

In the end he enjoyed it so much that he was Still Growing Up the year after. Still Growing Up delighted the Europeans. There were even some open air shows with a smaller stage on festivals. In 2002 Gabriel kicked off the Up shows with an unexpected open air performance in Munich, Germany.

Some two years later, it ended not quite as scheduled with another open air show on Kaiserslautern’s Stiftsplatz. Hamish Hamilton recorded the last open air shows as well as the longest indoor gig (Brussels 2004) and Anna Gabriel kept her camera running, too. In the end things went they way they had to: Peter Gabriel now releases a second live DVD of his marathon tour. A fine package with lots of Gabriel in it. What about new stuff?... http://www.genesis-fanclub.de/