Rachel Z at Nighttown in Cleveland

Streaming music : http://www.kataweb.it/community/live/rachel_z/

Contributed by Ronaldo Oregano

After two world tours as the featured pianist and keyboard player in Peter Gabriel's group, Rachel Z has a solo career that is rapidly on the rise. On Saturday, September 24th Ms. Z brings her trio to Nighttown in Cleveland.

Rachel Z has just released her seventh solo recording "Grace," which features several original compositions and is the first CD where she sings. This CD is a combination of originals and unique interpretations of modern pop writers like John Lennon, Kate Bush, and Kurt Cobain. Her previous CD "Everlasting" presented instrumental jazz versions of pop songs by artists ranging from The Beatles and The Rolling Stones to Seal, Sade, Steely Dan, and Kurt Cobain. Prior to that Rachel Z recorded a tribute to Joni Mitchell. Rachel Z is among the vanguard of musicians who are finding the jazz in modern pop music, and realizing its lasting value.

Rachel recorded and toured with saxophonist Wayne Shorter extensively in the late 90's and collaborated with him on the Grammy-winning CD "High Life."

Rachel Z has also played a prominent role in several major groups including those of Al DiMeola, Steps Ahead, Wayne Shorter, Vertu with Lenny White and Stanley Clarke, and most recently as a featured artist with Peter Gabriel's band. Rachel Z is clearly among the elite group of jazz musicians working today. This Summer and Fall, Rachel will be touring again in Europe and North America. For her appearance at Night Town, Rachel will be supported by her current New York trio consisting of drummer Bobby Rae and bassist Chris Luard.

Manhattan-born and raised Rachel Nicolazzo (aka Rachel Z) had music practically ingrained in her genetic code. Groomed to follow in her mother's operatic footsteps, she began voice lessons at two, started classical piano lessons at seven and attended the opera by age nine. "My first dollhouse was a Metropolitan Opera House complete with the stage and dolls which were the performers," she recalls. "Then I heard Miles Smiles when I was 15, started rebelling against the classical by improvising, and played with a band that covered Joni Mitchell and Steely Dan songs."

Listening to Herbie Hancock's harmonies over Wayne Shorter's compositions helped her bridge the gap from her classical training to jazz."The way my jazz chops developed was twofold. I developed acoustic straight ahead and electronic fusion playing equally over time," she says. After launching a quintet called Nardis, she studied with Joanne Brackeen and Richie Beirach.

Don't miss the dynamic sounds of pianist Rachel Z and her Trio live at Nighttown on Saturday September 24th at 9 PM. Nighttown is located at 12387 Cedar Road in Cleveland Heights. For reservations call (216) 795-0550 or fax: (216) 795-0531.

"Rachel Z is a consistently adventurous player. Rachel occasionally reveals traces of influence from McCoy Tyner and Herbie Hancock, but more often she is her own player, voicing her harmonies with a dark, intimate quality." -Don Heckman, The Los Angeles Times

Big Room console for sale

Real World (Peter Gabriel) Solid State Logic console for sale

SSL 4080G G Series Console fitted with 72 mono channels - Total Recall – G Plus computer – additional features - Real World Send Matrix providing four extra sends per channel & Motionworker Synchronizer. The console is in first class technical condition and can be viewed in operation. £85,000 plus VAT if applicable.

Please visit the Peter Gabriel web site http://realworldstudios.com/ the particular console for sale is the one referred to as the 'The Big Room'

Some of the biggest artists in the world have passed through the doors of Real World studios, see below list of just some of the previous clients who have used the 4080G in the Big Room.

Peter Gabriel
New Order
Dandy Warhols
Hope of the States
The Bad Plus
Gomez
Travis
Stina Nordensam
Ed Harcourt
Bonnie Rait
Ocean Colour Scene
Zucchero
Muse
Afro Celt Sound System
Loreena McKennit
Cast
Stereophonics
Beautiful South
Kylie Minogue
Super Furry Animals
Electronic
James
Placebo
Black Grape
Wet Wet Wet
The Guitar Trio
David Sylvian
Therapy?
King Crimson
Nusrat Ali Fateh Khan
Van Morrison
The Levellers
Squeeze
Seal

Some of the producers who have worked in the Big Room

Tchad Blake
Torre Johannssen
John Leckie
Ken Thomas
John Kelly
Guy Chambers
Al Stone
Bird and Bush
Stephen Hague
Vic Coppersmith
John Cale
Owen Morris
Steve Osborne
Brian Eno

Womadshop : Still Growing Up - Live and Unwrapped

Still Growing Up - Live and Unwrapped-Peter Gabriel

£14.99 including postage and packing to France

Available for pre-order, released on: Mon 31 Oct 2005

Order 'Still Growing Up - Live and Unwrapped' today and be one of the first 500 to receive a free Still Growing Up Tour T shirt of your choice.

This offer applies to Still Growing Up Tour T shirts only - Please make your choice from the shop and email your details(colour and size)to merch@womadshop.com Don't forget to include your name and order reference number.

Still Growing Up- Live and Unwrapped

November 2003 saw the release of Peter Gabriel’s ‘Growing Up Live’ DVD, chronicling his World Tour, which was celebrated for its spectacular theatrics. ‘Still Growing Up Live and Unwrapped’ brings Peter Gabriel together again with the award winning director, Hamish Hamilton, capturing

his performances in all sorts of smaller and more intimate venues around Europe for the Live film. It was an opportunity to perform songs which were not part of the original Growing Up Tour White Ashes, San Jacinto, Games Without Frontiers, Tower, Come Talk To Me, Burn You Up, Biko.

The Unwrapped film explores the world behind the songs, with Anna Gabriel taking the Director’s chair with the collaboration of Hamish Hamilton.

> DISC ONE - STILL GROWING UP LIVE
> 1. The Feeling Begins (from Passion)
> 2. Red Rain
> 3. Secret World
> 4. White Ashes
> 5. Games Without Frontiers
> 6. Burn You Up
> 7. The Tower That Ate People
> 8. San Jacinto
> 9. Digging In The Dirt
> 10. Solsbury Hill
> 11. Sledge Hammer
> 12. Come Talk To Me
> 13. Biko
>
> EXTRAS
> Bonus track from Still Growing Up Tour ‘In Your Eyes’
> ‘No Self Control’ from 'P.O.V.'
>
> DISC TWO – STILL GROWING UP UNWRAPPED
> 1. The Feeling Begins (from Passion)
> 2. Red Rain
> 3. Secret World
> 4. White Ashes
> 5. Burn You Up
> 6. San Jacinto
> 7. Digging In The Dirt
> 8. Solsbury Hill
> 9. Sledge Hammer
> 10. The Tower That Ate People
> 11. Come Talk To Me
> 12. Biko
>
> EXTRAS
> Exclusive early studio footage of Peter and the band performing
> ‘Darkness’, ' No Way Out’ and ‘Growing Up’
> Peter Gabriel performing ‘Downside Up’ and ‘Father, Son’ on the BBC
> show 'Later…with Jools Holland'

In the absence of a space elevator

17-Sep-2005

In the absence of a space elevator, we offer a tower to the moon.

Septembers lunar height is upon us and to mark it's arrival we have pulled another demo from Peter's studio archive.

Having spent most of the month working on the new DVD "Still growing Up: Peter Gabriel Live and Unwrapped" - some versions of which are now available for pre-order in WOMADShop with a free tour T-shirt thrown in - it's been amazing to see how this 1998 demo of The Tower evolved through OVO and The Millennium Dome show into the version performed on the recent tour; and now DVD, so powerful 'That Ate People' should rightly be appended to it's name.

The Tower - In The Full Moon Club Downloads section

The new DVD in WOMADshop

Africa Calling - DVD available for pre-order

The new DVD of the Live 8 featuring a host of African musicians, hosted by Peter Gabriel and WOMAD at The Eden Project in Cornwall, is now available for pre-order at WOMADShop.

Africa Calling - Live 8 DVD in WOMADShop

designer of the Peter Gabriel video "Big Time."

Re-creating the 'Buzz'

David Daniels revisits his groundbreaking '80s clay-animation video at the annual short-film festival

By Chris Garcia, american-statesman film writer
Friday, September 16, 2005

David Daniels lives in the cold, scratchy nether-zone of a grand and awful irony, and it troubles him to no end. This is how he sees it: As a young man, he was an artist whose first major work, the clay-animation video "Buzz Box," put him on the fast track to stardom in the mid-1980s. The 15-minute video — a throbbing, dazzling miasma of imagistic excess — was hailed as a savage, funny and groundbreaking blast at modern media run amok.

Daniels went on to animate four seasons of "Pee-Wee's Playhouse" and design the Peter Gabriel video "Big Time." But he decided to forfeit the sacrifice, the shmoozing and the struggle of the artist's myth for a traditional path, that of husband, father and creator of talking M&Ms.

Daniels indeed created the "M&Ms Guys," that famous pair of humanoid candy drops who wear sneakers and gloves and pitch their namesake edibles in animated M&Ms ads. He and his Portland, Ore.-based production company Bent Image Lab have also produced memorable commercials for Kellogg's, NBC, Nabisco, Pepsi and H-P...

Lock up your vegetables!

Measuring up... Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Wallace & Gromit are back - this time battling an evil rabbit beast terrorising their garden. Creator Nick Park tells Stuart Jeffries how Hollywood's millions have helped - and hindered

Friday September 16, 2005
The Guardian

There are no such things as marrows in the United States. Americans call them something else. This may seem an insignificant matter to you, but it became very vexing indeed to Nick Park when he was working on his new Wallace & Gromit film with Hollywood money. "You see, in the film, Gromit is growing his own prize marrow for a giant vegetable competition at Lady Toddington's manor house," says Park...

...1986 The company creates a groundbreaking pop video for Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer. Park contributes the dancing chicken sequence...

"Here Comes The Flood" Pregnant Songs for BushWorld

Posted by anonyMoses on September 14, 2005 12:22 AM

Exposure Robert Fripp Music from E.G. RecordsRelease date: 31 August, 1990

Katrina, as a storm, has passed. Ophelia sits spinning off my coast. Ophelia drowned, right?

Again, Peter Gabriel's, "Here Comes the Flood" floods my mind. A pregnant song. A prescient song. A song that has warned those with ears to hear about the dire results of a ludibund and flippant attitude toward our effect on the natural world, and its harsh rebuke.

I'm too old to rehash an examination of the lyrics of a song that has been around since the 70s, and which has already been analysed quite enough thank you, which I guess either shows the innocuous ineffectiveness of such an activity, or else that the examiners are perhaps a little farther behind the scenes than they might have wished upon themselves, in more ego-laden moments of their evanescent lives.

Mister Gabriel must have been shaking his head even longer than his monkey (or was that shock? But of course!) as he watches the essobees fasten the hoodwinks ever snugly. More ugly still the nightmares unfurling.

More pregnant and prescient still is Robert Fripp's version of the song, with Gabriel on piano and voice, while Robert Frippertronicizes the sonic atmospheres enveloping it. Fripp wisely includes the words of the Gurdjieff scholar/student and mystic, JG Bennett, who talks about the coming floods in great world cities, due to what is euphomistically called "climate change".

Manu Katché au naturel

À la recherche de ses premières amours

Paris, le 13/09/2005

Musicien de jazz avant d'être batteur de rock, Manu Katché a participé à plus de 200 albums, de Francis Cabrel à Sting, en passant par Kassav, Dire Straits. Avec Neighbourhood, il retourne à sa carrière personnelle, fort d'une popularité nouvelle acquise en tant que membre du jury de l'émission hebdomadaire Nouvelle star, diffusée par une chaîne de télévision française.

C'est l'un des batteurs les plus sollicités de la planète. Son répertoire téléphonique serait un trésor pour n'importe quel mordu de musique et de chanson tombant dessus par hasard. Aujourd'hui, Manu Katché arrête ses collaborations tous azimuts. Une mise en parenthèse pour renouer avec le plaisir d'écrire et de jouer du jazz, la première musique à l'avoir fait craquer. Entouré de musiciens de haute volée (Jan Garbarek, saxophone ; Tomasz Stanko, trompette ; Marcin Wasilewski, piano ; Slawomir Kurkiewicz, contrebasse), il sort un album 100% siglé jazz, Neighbourhood.

RFI Musique : Ce disque est-il la confirmation de l'adage qui veut que l'on n'échappe jamais à ses premières amours ?

Manu Katché : On n'échappe jamais à ses origines, surtout. Quand on choisit d'être batteur, donc défini par une omniprésence rythmique, pour faire ses classes, je ne vois pas quel cursus on peut avoir à part commencer par le jazz, évoluer vers la soul music, continuer par le funk et arriver au rock. Même si je joue avec plein de gens qui ne sont pas de formation jazz, ils y passent forcément à un moment donné. J'ai l'impression que dans une expérience de vie musicale, le jazz est vraiment un passage obligé.

Votre premier contact avec lui ?

À l'époque où je fréquentais le Conservatoire national supérieur de musique de Paris, je suivais une formation en percussion classique, mais parallèlement je commençais la batterie et à toucher un petit peu au be-bop. Je n'excellais pas, loin de là. Musicalement, j'ai toujours été attiré par les solistes. J'écoutais Parker, Coltrane, Miles, Monk. Ils m'ont "choqué", dans le bon sens. Je trouvais cela génial. Mon beau-père écoutait pas mal de jazz. Avant que je commence à en jouer, c'est un peu lui qui m'a donné l'envie, par les disques qu'il écoutait quand j'étais môme. Je ne suis pas un grand technicien de jazz mais en tout cas j'ai une approche de coeur énorme et, structurellement, je suis plus proche d'un musicien de jazz que d'un musicien de rock.

Dans quel sens ?

Je suis quelqu'un de très instinctif, qui joue beaucoup en écoutant les autres. Le rock, c'est écrit, assez précis dans les structures. Dès l'instant où il y a un refrain et un couplet, on ne peut pas modifier grand chose. Ce qui a fait ma caractéristique quand je suis arrivé dans ce milieu-là, via Peter Gabriel, en 1986, c'est que j'ai vraiment changé les données d'un batteur de rock. J'ai commencé à utiliser des toms, des cymbales Splash. En fait, j'ai plutôt une approche de la musique rock comme un musicien de jazz - je ne dirais pas "batteur de jazz", car je ne me considère pas comme tel, je suis trop respectueux des batteurs de jazz pour ça. Donc, oui, le jazz, ce sont mes premières amours et, pour moi, c'est une musique dans laquelle les solistes peuvent s'exprimer pleinement.

Pourtant, quand on écoute Neighbourhood, on n'a pas immédiatement l'impression d'écouter l'album d'un batteur. Vous y restez assez en retrait. Je prendrai cette remarque comme un compliment. Cela me rappelle une très belle phrase de Steve Gadd, à qui on demandait au cours d'une interview après un enregistrement avec Paul Simon, quel était l'album sur lequel il avait préféré jouer. Il avait répondu : "Justement, celui-ci, car c'est celui où on m'entend le moins."

Effectivement, un batteur, ça peut être vite envahissant, car la batterie est un instrument qui a tendance à être très démonstratif dans son volume sonore. J'aime favoriser la mélodie des harmonies, néanmoins, dans Neighbourhood, il y a une vraie tension rythmique en dessous, même si elle est jouée avec des nuances. Ce n'est pas quelque chose de complètement free, ouvert et "atempo" de A à Z. Je ne suis pas a priori un batteur démonstratif et, a fortiori en écrivant un album pour moi, je n'avais pas envie tout à coup de le devenir. Comme d'ailleurs pour celui que j'avais fait en 1991 (It's About Time, ndr), qui était un album chanté, dans lequel j'avais voulu volontairement appuyer sur les mélodies, les textes et les arrangements plutôt que de faire une démonstration de batterie. La démonstration peut avoir sa raison d'être dès l'instant où l'on est sur scène, parce que là on a une interactivité directe avec le public, et puis il y a un plaisir du moment.

Vous avez de fait une approche très mélodique de la batterie.

Mon premier instrument était le piano (commencé à l'âge de sept ans, ndr), donc j'ai une vraie sensibilité mélodique, de climats, d'ambiances. Je considère la batterie plus souvent comme un instrument mélodique que rythmique. Si l'on écoute tous les disques sur lesquels j'ai joué - pas loin de 300 je crois -, on va rarement pouvoir repérer un truc particulier que j'aurais fait à la batterie. Ce n'est pas ma carte de visite, j'ai plutôt tendance à construire quelque chose de sous-tendu par rapport à une rythmique, à une mélodie, qui fait que tout à coup ça crée quelque chose d'original.

Manu Katché Neighbourhood (ECM/Universal) 2005

Concerts : le 4 octobre à Paris à La Cigale : avec Jan Garbarek, Tomasz Stanko, Marcin Wasilewski, Slawomir Kurkiewicz.

En tournée avec Franck Avitabile (piano), Alex Tassel (trompette), Gildas Boclé (contrebasse).

Manu Katché "Neighbourhood"

Manu Katché chez ECM. On le connaissait déjà en sideman (chez Jan Garbarek par exemple, avec qui il enregistre depuis l'album "I took up the runes" en 1990), mais en leader, voilà qui a de quoi surprendre. Surtout que ces derniers temps, Manu, qu'on a vu derrière les fûts chez Peter Gabriel, Sting ou Stephan Eicher et même sur la bande originale d'"Un indien dans la ville" (dans trio qui comportait aussi Geoffrey Oryema et Tonton David), s'est fait connaître comme juré dans l'émission de télévision "A la recherche de la nouvelle star"....

Jean-Marc Grosdemouge, M-la-Musique

ELBOW Leaders of the Free World (V2)

ELBOW Leaders of the Free World

You'll need the help of Job when listening to Elbow's new album for the first time. Leaders of the Free World, the group's third record, is the slowest of slow-burners - with maybe half a dozen plays required before it eventually hits the spot. But it is well worth persisting.

An initial reaction of Athlete-like blandness makes way for little nuggets of quirky charm and an adventure story-book excitement - as the songs unfold one by one revealing a cluster of warm textured sounds and lush, on the whole, understated arrangements.

The material, which in the group's own words is "prog rock without the solos", is perfectly suited to Guy Garvey's haunting Peter Gabriel-esque vocals. Like Gabriel, Garvey can carry a tune even when the music is stripped down - sparse even.

Songs over four minutes long won't be everyone's cup of tea - particularly when there's a pervading sense of doom and gloom in around half of them. But Leaders of The Free World does pack a punch among all the poignancy and depths of despair. Mexican Standoff and the stirring opener Station Approach are two of the more boisterous numbers - and also the best on show.

---------
BBC Collective* :

Coldplay by candlelight.

While Coldplay translated a similarly expansive sound into mega-sales, Elbow can take consolation in critical kudos. Fixed on the pop ley-line that links XTC’s pastoral epic Skylarking to Robert Wyatt’s serene Rock Bottom, their third album nails Guy Garvey’s blend of poignancy and pathos perfectly. Opener Station Approach sets a lusciously understated tone as Leaders Of The Free World unfurls as a bombast-free alternative to stadium rock. A big noise perhaps, but a pleasantly cuddly one, too.

watch video : forget myself ; listen to FULL track: forget myself

Peter Gabriel à l'ONU

Manu Katché :

"Je jouerai aussi pour une manifestation de l'ONU à Genève, le 7 et 8 octobre, avec P. Gabriel, Youssou N'Dour, Gilberto Gil, Neneh Cherry, Axelle Red, Angun et Cheb Mami, c'est un concert caritatif pour le paludisme, pour pouvoir acheter des moustiquaires."

Selon une source anonyme : on annonce un duo Peter Gabriel-Angunn au concert du 8 octobre. Le 7 octobre Peter participerait à un concert privé.

We're All Hip-Hoppers Now

Posted by Ed Driscoll on September 08, 2005 07:17 PM

Filed under: Music,
Books: Nonfiction,
Music: Home Recording

Making Music with Samples : Tips, Techniques, and 600+ Ready-to-Use Samples
Daniel Duffell

Book from Backbeat Books
Release date: 09 January, 2005

In the late 1970s, Brian Eno once said:

'Til about the late '40s, recording was simply regarded as a device for transmitting a performance to an unknown audience, and the whole accent of recording technique was on making what was called a "more faithful" transmission of that experience. It began very simply, because the only control over the relative levels of sounds that went onto the machine was how far they were from the microphone - like device. The accent was on the performance, and the recording was a more or less perfect transmitter of that, through the cylinder and wax disc recording stages, until tape became the medium by which people were recording things.

The move to tape was very important, because as soon as something's on tape, it becomes a substance which is malleable and mutable and cuttable and reversible in ways that discs aren't. It's hard to do anything very interesting with a disc - all you can do is play it at a different speed, probably; you can't actually cut a groove out and make a little loop of it. The effect of tape was that it really put music in a spatial dimension, making it possible to squeeze the music, or expand it.

In the mid-1980s, sampling was thought to be largely the realm of hip-hoppers, who took snippets of previously recorded songs, and integrated them into new recordings. For a while, it seemed like every drum riff on the radio was either from James Brown's drummers, or John Bonham's intro to Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks".

But these days, digital recording (especially when done via a hard disk-based recorder) is nothing but samples, as individual tracks of vocals and instruments are typically sliced up, moved around, speeded up, slowed down, and turned into loops. When William S. Burroughs and his fellow Beat artists invented the "cut-up" method of writing, surely they had no idea that, taken to its logical extreme with digital audio, it would become the basis of hard-disk recording.

This wouldn't haven't happened without the pioneering efforts of both musicians willing to experiment, and hardware and software designers inventing the tools that allow them to do.

Early Sampling Experiments

As Daniel Duffell explains in his surprisingly thorough 2005 book, Making Music With Samples, the first sampling instrument was the Mellotron of the 1960s, which allowed prerecorded audio tapes of strings, flutes, voices, and other instruments to be triggered by a musician playing an otherwise standard-looking musical keyboard.

For many years, the Mellotron was a bit of a one-off design, as Dr. Moog's analog synthesizer and its digital successors ruled the recording world. But in the 1980s though, sampling technology really took off.

In Peter Gabriel's 2004 DVD collection collection of music videos, there's a behind-the-scenes clip of Gabriel in an automobile junkyard with a tape recorder, smashing car windshields to create sounds to input into his then brand new (and fabulously expensive) Fairlight CMI synthesizer. Once sampled, such a sound could then be triggered via its musical keyboard, just like any other musical instrument. Kate Bush, who has credited Gabriel with her own exploration of sampling instruments, featured several songs (such as "Babushka" and "Mother Stands For Comfort") in the mid-1980s with samples of smashing glass as percussion. And of course, lots of real instruments were sampled, such as the Fairlight's pan flute samples, which Jan Hammer used to great effect in his Miami Vice TV soundtrack work....

New playlist for Still Growing Up: Live And Unwrapped

Peter Gabriel - Still Growing Up: Live And Unwrapped (2 Discs)

Will only play on European Region 2 or multi-region DVD players.

Disc 1:

1. Passion: The Feeling Begins
2. Red Rain
3. Secret World
4. White Ashes
5. Games Without Frontiers
6. Burn You Up
7. The Tower That Ate People
8. San Jacinto
9. Digging In The Dirt
10. Solesbury Hill
11. Sledge Hammer
12. Come Talk To Me
13. Biko
14. In Your Eyes

Disc 2:

-Still Growing Up Unwrapped' documentary film (83 mins). Peter's daughter Anna Gabriel takes over the director's chair with the collaboration of Hamish Hamilton to create a film which explores the world behind the music.

-Exclusive early studio footage of Peter and the band performing tracks 'More Than This', 'Darkness', 'Sledgehammer', 'No Way Out' and 'Growing Up'.

-Live concert footage of 'No Self Control' from the 'This Way Up' 1988 World Tour.

-Peter Gabriel performing 'Downside Up' and 'Father, Son' on the BBC's Jools Holland show.

Technical Details

Actors : Peter Gabriel

Certificate : Exempt from Classification

Languages English - Dolby Digital (5.1) Surround Sound ; DTS ; Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo

Honte à vous !

A l'attention des artistes africains et de Bush

mercredi 7 septembre 2005, par Falila Gbadamassi

Car les artistes musiciens américains n'ont pas mis plus de quelques jours à passer à l'action. Alors qu'on attend encore les chanteurs africains, exception faite de ceux qui ont tenté, en août dernier, à Niamey, sous la houlette de la Première Dame nigérienne, Laraba Tandja et sous la pluie d'apporter leur modeste contribution à la lutte contre la famine au Niger.

Paroles, paroles et paroles

Ceux-là même qui s'étaient dit exclus de l'initiative 'Live 8'. Une initiative pour les Africains sans les Africains. Youssou N'Dour (Youssou, si tu nous lis...) avait même trouvé dommage d'avoir été, de prime abord, le seul artiste africain invité à se produire durant le concert caritatif de juillet dernier. Pour parer à la critique, Peter Gabriel avait du organiser son 'Africa Calling' comme pour venir au secours de Bob Geldof, à qui l'on doit cette louable initiative contre la pauvreté. La presse anglaise avait même parlé de Ghetto.

Soit ! Mais il n'en demeure pas moins que les artistes africains sont aujourd'hui aux abonnés absents face au drame que connaît le Niger. C'est d'autant plus regrettable que le Programme Alimentaire Mondial (PAM) vient encore de faire un appel de fonds pour aider les 12 millions de personnes victimes de la famine au Niger.

Qu'attendez-vous ? Bob Geldof ? Pour encore le critiquer. Alors qu'il est possible, par exemple, à l'initiative de notre actuelle vedette internationale, Youssou N'Dour (encore lui, n'y voyez là aucun acharnement) de faire quelque chose ! En d'autres termes, au lieu de critiquer, vous feriez mieux de vous bouger et d'éviter de parler pour ne rien dire. Surtout quand vous n'êtes pas en mesure de faire. Le Niger est 'l'occasion rêvée' - façon de parler - de passer des critiques aux actes. Et de devenir véritablement des 'artistes engagés'. Car l'engagement est ici -au Niger- et maintenant !

S'il s'agit d'une question de moyens, je pense que la chose peut se faire assez facilement. Un stade, celui de Dakar ou celui d'une grande ville dans chaque région de l'Afrique conviendrait. Au nord, Casablanca ou Tripoli (le Guide éclairé de la révolution libyenne pourrait être un mécène
enthousiaste), à l'Ouest, Dakar, Addis Abeba (l'Union africaine pourrait apporter son soutien logistique) ou Nairobi pour l'Est, Brazzaville, qui bénéficie de l'expérience du Fespam, pour le centre.

Et enfin Johannesbourg, qui a accueilli plusieurs grands concerts, pour le Sud. D'autant plus que Nelson Mandela n'est pas loin et son aura suffirait à donner une envergure internationale à cette de série de concerts en Afrique. Pour ce qui est du transport, toutes ses grandes villes sont très bien desservies et toutes les compagnies aériennes, notamment africaines, seraient heureuses d'associer leur image à une cause. Enfin tous les grands médias audio-visuels du continent ainsi que TV5, RFI, la BBC auraient été heureux de coopérer, devenant ainsi des porte-voix très efficaces.

Non-assisstance à personne en danger

Quant à l'argent, le nerf de la guerre, on le trouve facilement quand on le veut pour la bonne cause. Côté donation, même si la majorité des Africains n'en n'ont pas beaucoup, ils sont prêts à aider. Le succès du mobile et du sms dans nos pays peut permettre de collecter des fonds avec une surtaxe. L'occasion de faire contribuer la planète aussi. Les réseaux mobiles africains seraient évidemment partants.

Ce qui est certain, c'est que les Chefs d'Etats africains mettront au moins la main à la poche au nom de leurs populations. Ils l'ont bien fait pour le tsunami, ils sont donc en mesure de le refaire pour un tsunami encore plus proche. Enfin pour collecter tout cet argent, on pourrait faire appel à l'une des agences des Nations Unies. Par exemple, le Programme des Nations Unies pour le développement (Pnud), lOrganisation des Nations Unis pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture (Fao) ou, pourquoi pas, la Banque Africaine de Développement (Bad). Tout ceci pour dire que la chose est humainement possible.

Tout comme d'éviter à des milliers de personnes de mourir de faim en Louisiane. Car pour le coup, on se croirait vraiment dans un pays africain et pas dans l'un des 51 Etats de la première puissance mondiale. Au moins sur le continent, on peut avancer qu'on est vraiment trop pauvres pour prévenir les catastrophes de ce type. Mais chez l'Uncle Sam... Même moi de Paris, je savais qu'il fallait évacuer.

Et puis je ne comprends pas que l'armée n'ait pas évacué de force les récalcitrants, les nécessiteux et les plus démunis - ce qu'elle est prête à faire aujourd'hui - puisqu'il y avait urgence. Au lieu de les envoyer après coup pour tuer des pillards qui ont sûrement raison de chercher de la nourriture. Passe encore que cela n'ait pas été fait, une cellule d'urgence aurait pu se tenir prête pour intervenir juste après le passage de Katrina pour éviter à des gens de mourir de faim dans un pays où l'on brûle les surplus d'une agriculture subventionnée au détriment de la libre concurrence internationale et surtout du continent africain.

A croire qu'être Noir est une malédiction !

Si j'étais paranoïaque, je dirais que c'est parce que ce sont des Noirs pauvres - double tare - que le gouvernement fédéral ne s'est pas rapidement mobilisé pour soutenir un Etat incapable de gérer cette situation de crise (d'autres comme la Floride ont prouvé qu'ils pouvait faire face à ce type d'évènement). A noter qu'il est de notoriété publique que la Louisiane est pauvre et que la Nouvelle-Orleans très sinistrée est peuplée à majorité de Noirs.

Il est clair que tout ceci n'est pas signe de grande clairvoyance, cher George W. Bush. Je doutais déjà du fait que tu en ais une once, aujourd'hui, j'en ai la confirmation. Quand c'est pour aller embêter les Irakiens pour un pétrole pour lequel les Etats-Unis ne seront jamais autosuffisants, Bush fils et ta clique vous êtes les premiers à vouloir guerroyer. Histoire de démontrer que vous êtes les policiers du monde ! Mais la police n'est-elle pas censée protéger les gens chez eux ?

Les Etats-Unis ont donc largement manqué à leur devoir en Louisiane. C'est un sacré revers pour la grande Amérique et plus particulièrement pour celui qui lui fait office de Président. Que tous les chrétiens conservateurs qui ont voté pour le réélire n'oublient pas de lui dire que la compassion fait partie de la vie d'un vrai chrétien ! Il n'en a pas beaucoup manifesté en ne
rendant pas visite, la première fois, à la majorité des habitants de la Nouvelle-Orleans qui se trouvaient dans les principaux lieux de rassemblement prévus à cet effet.

Mille visites supplémentaires n'y changeront rien ! Le mal est déjà fait. 'Shame on you' George Junior ! Et j'ajoute, cela vaut tout aussi bien pour toi que pour les artistes musiciens africains. Arrêtez de faire beaucoup de bruit pour rien et apprenez 'à balayer devant votre porte'. L'orgueil quittera alors votre coeur pour faire place à plus l'humilité.

Jammin' for human rights

Music Notes

IT HAPPENED TODAY . . . 08 septembre

1988 Some 81,000 people jammed a stadium in Budapest for an Amnesty International concert featuring Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel and Sting.

Gabriel spoke to the crowd in Hungarian, urging then-Communist Romania to respect the rights of ethnic Hungarians.

see : http://www.sting.hu/doc/sajto/human-popcorn.htm (Hungarian)

Q&A: Ryan Adams

On the cysts in his head and writing under the influence

By Austin Scaggs

...

You're working on a soundtrack. What songs work perfectly in movies?

I love that Peter Gabriel song ["In Your Eyes"] in Say Anything. Paul Westerberg had that song "Dyslexic Heart" in Singles. I read somewhere that the producers needed him to give them a song and he said, "Cool. Gimme a guitar and a hotel room," and he wrote it in twenty minutes. Maybe we should get him more guitars and more hotel rooms...

Basse : un modèle OLP signature Tony Levin

La marque OLP a conçu sous licence Music Man une basse cinq cordes signée Tony Levin

Bassiste aux multiples facettes, présent sur d’innombrables galettes réalisées avec les plus grands (King Crimson, Peter Gabriel, David Bowie, California Guitar Trio, Alice Cooper et bien d’autres), le talentueux Tony Levin s’est associé à OLP pour un modèle basse à son nom.

Il s’agit d’un modèle Stingray, conçu sous marque OLP en reprenant les licences Ernie Ball Music Man. Equipée de cinq cordes (pas de version 4 cordes, allons, vous marchez sur les pas de Tony Levin !), l’instrument est équipé d’un micro humbucker actif. Le travail sur le son s’effectue avec quatre potentiomètres : volume, graves, médiums, aigus.

La basse existe en coloris pêche et naturel vieilli. Le prix public recommandé : environ 650 euros TTC. Le site de Tony Levin : http://www.tonylevin.com/ Le site du distributeur HTD : http://www.htd.fr

Leaders Of the Free World

Elbow

Leaders Of the Free World

Released: 12/09/2005

New single Forget Myself - with its Peter Gabriel-esque jolly video and marching beats - might have fooled you into thinking we're getting a more upbeat Elbow.

But you're never going to get an easy emotional ride with these Mancunian boys. The heartbroken-o-meter is in danger of self-combustion as Guy Garvey wraps his gravely tones round a fine selection of slices of torment on Leaders Of The Free World.

While many musicians addicted to writing about their own pain and confusion can produce the musical equivalent of nails down a blackboard, this bagful of anguish is a delight. If that's the right way to put it.

Tracks like The Stops and Station Approaching are bound to become tunes that get stuck on the stereo late in the evening when you need to listen to someone who's had as crap day as you. Cathartic ain't the word.

Jools Long

Perfect Harmony

When in Prague, Peter Gabriel and Seal call the Aria Hotel home. If you're musically inclined, this boutique haven, tucked beneath the castle, offers a symphony of delights. From The Beatles to Bach to Bossa Nova there's a themed room to suit your style. My favourite is the Mozart suite overlooking Vrtbovska Gardens. Rates start at about $500 but amenities include courtesy chauffeur service from the airport, made-to-order breakfast, fitness centre, private screening room, and comprehensive music library. You'll "Czech" out with a song in your heart. Visit ariahotel.net for more.

La voix de l'autre Amérique

Tracy Chapman, 41 ans, chanteuse. Les mélodies aussi douces qu'engagées de cette timide en font comme malgré elle une des îcones de l'opposition à Bush.

La voix de l'autre Amérique

Par Alexandra SCHWARTZBROD, lundi 05 septembre 2005

Elle fait partie de ces personnages que l'on croit connaître sans rien savoir d'eux, ou presque. Voix singulière, rauque et chaude. Silhouette uniforme esquissée sur une pochette de disque. Rengaine lancinante, emblème d'une époque, cette fin de siècle qui donnait envie d'abattre les murs plutôt que de les édifier.

Familière donc. Et pourtant inconnue, cela saute aux yeux dès la première rencontre. Car ce que l'on n'a jamais dit de Tracy Chapman, ou très peu, c'est qu'elle est incroyablement belle. D'une beauté émouvante. Pas de celle qui électrise. De celle qui apaise. Passer une heure avec elle dans un Paris baigné de soleil procure le même doux plaisir qu'un de ses disques écouté à la tombée du jour, quand on attend la nuit.

Assise droite sur sa chaise, dreadlocks nouées en queue de cheval, chemise blanche boutonnée au plus près du cou, montre d'homme au poignet, anneaux d'argent sur ses mains d'adolescente, attentive, elle réfléchit longuement avant de répondre, cherche ses mots, parle sans hâte, boit de l'eau à petites gorgées, sourit. Douce, chuchotante. A l'image de sa musique.

C'est peut-être qu'elle n'a pas abdiqué, qualité rare. Dix-sept ans après son premier disque, Talkin' about a revolution qui l'avait propulsée en quelques semaines au sommet des hit-parades, elle revient avec un nouvel album, "Where you Live" aux mots comme des couperets.

A 41 ans, épanouie, à l'abri du besoin, miss Chapman pourrait se contenter de chanter l'amour et la beauté de la région de San Francisco, son lieu d'adoption, où elle aime faire du vélo et de la randonnée, mais non : elle continue à chanter sa révolte contre l'injustice, la guerre, le racisme et à se battre pour le droit à l'homosexualité.

Certes, ses mélodies ne varient guère ­ que celui ou celle qui se montre capable de distinguer un album d'un autre sans écouter les paroles me jette la première pierre ­ mais elles fonctionnent toujours. Et sur toutes les générations. «Ses chansons nous emportent et surtout elle a pas l'air conne, on la kiffe trop !» s'emballe Samara, 18 ans, lycéenne.

Tracy Chapman, c'est une «success story» comme l'Amérique aime à en produire, avec des rebondissements dignes des meilleurs ­ ou des pires ­ scénarios hollywoodiens. Elle est née dans l'Ohio, à Cleveland, dans une famille très modeste. Avec sa soeur, elle est élevée par sa mère, le père ayant quitté très vite le domicile familial.

Souffrait-il d'une dépendance à l'alcool ? Une strophe de la célèbre chanson Fast Car pourrait le laisser penser. «Mon vieux a un problème, il vit avec sa bouteille, il dit que son corps est trop âgé pour travailler...» Difficile à savoir. Elle se ferme à la moindre évocation des moments sombres de sa jeunesse.

Préfère évoquer ­ brièvement, avec une certaine gêne ­ les plus doux, déjà entrés dans la légende : ces dimanches où sa mère chantait le gospel à l'église, la guitare reçue en cadeau à l'âge de 8 ans ; cette soirée glaciale et neigeuse de Thanksgiving, à Boston, durant laquelle elle a chanté dans la rue pour la première fois afin de gagner un dîner chaud ; ses études de biologie («Je voulais être vétérinaire, j'adore les animaux, j'ai trois chiens chez moi, dont deux de 17 ans») puis d'anthropologie et de musique ; et surtout cet ami d'université qui l'introduisit auprès de son producteur de père lequel, séduit par sa voix, lui offrit la possibilité de faire son premier disque...

En juin 1988, une simple apparition à un concert de soutien à Nelson Mandela, en fait une star. L'événement ­ les 70 ans du leader sud-africain ­ est retransmis sur les chaînes de télévision. La jeune femme, que personne n'a encore jamais vue, chante Talkin' about a revolution. Le lendemain, ses disques s'arrachent, elle en vend 12 000 en deux jours. Trois mois plus tard, elle participe à un roadshow de six semaines en faveur d'Amnesty International aux côtés de Peter Gabriel, Bruce Springsteen, Sting et Youssou N'Dour.

«On était à São Paulo, au Brésil, avec Peter et Sting, on passait en revue les artistes qui pourraient nous rejoindre pour la tournée d'Amnesty. Et on a pensé à Tracy. Elle était encore peu connue, mais elle nous avait vraiment épatés au cours du Mandela show, se souvient Youssou N'Dour. A l'époque, il y avait beaucoup de musique technique et arrangée, de synthétiseurs. Elle nous avait réconciliés avec la simplicité.»

A partir de cet automne 1988, Tracy Chapman n'arrête plus, multiplie les célébrations : Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, Martin Luther King... rien que des «right guys». Forcément, ça ne laisse pas indifférent. Elle devient «la Dylan noire». Et peine soudain à assumer le rôle. Passage à vide. «Je l'ai revue à ce moment-là, raconte Youssou N'Dour. Elle était fragile, effrayée par ce qui lui arrivait.»

C'est sans doute son engagement politique qui lui permet de tenir le choc. Pour elle, la réussite ne se mesure pas seulement au nombre d'albums vendus, elle passe aussi par la fierté éprouvée chaque matin à se regarder dans la glace. «Mes chansons, pour moi, c'est une sorte de responsabilité civique. Grâce à elles, je peux avoir accès aux gens et aux médias...», explique-t-elle.

Elle aime trop l'Amérique pour la laisser aux mains d'un George Bush prêt à tout pour garder le pouvoir. «Je suis déçue et attristée par ce qui se passe dans le monde aujourd'hui, c'est peut-être le moment le pire depuis que je suis née», dit-elle en pesant chaque mot. «Les autorités américaines font preuve d'un tel abus de pouvoir, d'une telle intolérance... Face à ça, on ne peut pas se soumettre. Je suis sûre que chacun peut essayer de faire bouger les choses, à son niveau.»

D'où America, un des principaux titres de son nouvel album, martelé comme un chant guerrier : «Tu parlais de paix mais tu as fait la guerre pour conquérir l'Amérique, il y avait des terres à prendre et des gens à tuer pour conquérir l'Amérique, tu as servi tes propres intérêts au nom de Dieu pour conquérir l'Amérique, (...) nous sommes malades, affamés et pauvres car tu cherches toujours à conquérir l'Amérique...».

Elle insiste, soudain volubile. «Il est de plus en plus important que les habitants de ce pays s'impliquent, notamment en votant.» Tracy Chapman a ainsi participé, avant les dernières élections américaines, à une vaste campagne d'information pour encourager la population à voter. «J'ai essayé de faire quelque chose pour promouvoir l'équipe en laquelle je croyais» dit-elle.

Peine perdue. «Les conservateurs et les républicains ont fait du très bon boulot, reconnaît-elle. En face, les démocrates n'avaient pas le bon candidat. Mais je suis sûre que les dirigeants actuels ne représentent plus la population, nous aurons peut-être une chance aux prochaines élections.»

Avec Hillary Clinton ? Elle hausse un sourcil, surprise par cette question d'Européenne. «Non. Même si elle a gagné le respect en tant que sénatrice, je ne suis pas sûre qu'elle parvienne à effacer la perception que les gens avaient d'elle quand elle était l'épouse du Président.»

Et l'amour, qu'elle chante presque autant que la politique ? Elle marque un temps d'arrêt. Sourit. «Il y a des cycles dans la vie. L'amour, oui, c'est très important.» Elle en a dit assez. Miss Chapman s'est déjà levée. Plus tout à fait inconnue. Peut-être moins familière.

Tracy Chapman en 5 dates - 1964: Naissance à Cleveland (Ohio). - 1986: Un ami étudiant la recommande à son père, célèbre producteur. - 1988: Elle chante pour les 70 ans de Nelson Mandela, à Wembley. Talkin' about a revolution devient un tube planétaire. - 13 septembre 2005 :Sortie de son nouvel album, Where you Live (WEA). - Novembre à décembre 2005 : Tournée en France (Lyon, Dijon, Paris, Toulon, Toulouse, Lille et Metz).

World of friends

MUSIC: World of friends

Tan Hee Hui

Sept 5

ANOTHER successful WOMAD (World of Music, Arts and Dance) festival was organised in Singapore last week.

Held at the Fort Canning Park, the three-day festival drew about 3,000 people on the first night, 4,000 on the second and 2,000 on the last night. With the main showcases and workshops held simultaneously at any one time, one could only catch either.The main showcases, held at the Fort Green Stage, the main performance area, were the crowd-pullers. Some sat on the spacious lawn while others stood, ready for some full-on dancing.

Most of the acts’ showmanship blazed the stage, aptly supported by the sophisticated stage lighting that razzled and dazzled the crowd. Despite almost being blinded at times, one could appreciate the acts’ earnestness to impress, even captivate the audience, comprising a good mix of locals, expats and tourists.Most of them made merry on the spacious grounds, boozing and simply dancing with joyous abandon. They had every reason to...

More power to Elbow

What's in a name: Elbow thought up the Leaders of the Free World album title during the G8 but, despite having a few strong views on the Iraq war, Garvey insists they have no political agenda.

THE opening song on Elbow's new album is called 'Station Approach' - a celebration of the band's Manchester homecoming via the train to Piccadilly. It also heralds the return of a major international talent with nothing to declare but breathtaking originality and heart-on-the-sleeve lyrics.

Singer Guy Garvey is remarkably sanguine when it comes to the tiresome Coldplay comparisons which still occasionally and inexplicably plague the quintet. "If somebody who can finance you says, 'I see you guys as the next Coldplay,' then you go, yeah, whatever you want, fine." He laughs with the recollection of feeling beyond patronised when their song publisher pronounced them as being "Radiohead for girls". "I just said what a great title that would make for our second album," says Garvey...

...Listening to him sing is to wonder how Peter Gabriel might have sounded had he gone to a Lancashire comprehensive rather than Charterhouse public school.

There is an intelligence at work in Elbow's songs that is honest and perceptive, even putting a new spin on that common currency of the pop song, lost love...

Web Recording Site Draws Top Music Talent

By K.C. Jones, TechWeb News

Recording artists will soon have a place on the Internet to record and scout for people who have worked with Peter Gabriel, Paul McCartney and other big names in music.

“People who have always aspired to work with these musicians, but didn’t know how to contact them, or didn’t know that they could get them, will gain access to players they’ve always admired,” co-founder Kevin Killen said in an interview Friday. “It may be the catalyst for their careers. The next John Mayer is out there. There are a lot of up-and-coming artists, who don’t know -- with the way the industry has changed over the past few years -- which way to turn.”

Killen, an engineer and producer whose long list of collaborators includes U2, Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, will launch eSession.com with Gina Fant-Saez in October. Fant-Saez has been praised in Billboard Magazine for her role in bringing musicians in Austin, Texas into the digital age.

World-renowned bass player Tony Levin, who has worked with John Lennon and Peter Gabriel, will be one of the featured session artists.

“I think this is a superb move in the direction that recording is going,” Levin said in an interview. “More and more albums are being done by passing files around the world and this site seems to be the first serious attempt to organize that technique and open it up to the general public.”

The site will debut at the Audio Engineering Society Convention, which begins Oct. 7, in New York City. With the mere outline of a song, an artist in London will be able to work with a musician anywhere in the world. Killen and Fant-Saez compared their site to the glass partition in a traditional studio.

eSession.com will allow musicians to research each others’ histories, negotiate deals and record new albums. Though other sites bring players together, what sets eSession apart is the level of talent it has attracted and its broad reach. The pair, which worked with New York City-based Coolbirth to create the site, is targeting accomplished artists and those who are just getting started. The site is under construction and has already drawn more than 100 musicians who play a wide variety of instruments.

In order to register, the musicians must have 15 credits with major record labels. Discographies, biographies and samples will be available for those seeking instrumentalists.

The site will charge $25 for work request submissions. The session musicians do not pay a fee and can exempt clients by placing them on a preferred customer list. Once a work request has been submitted, rates will be negotiated. The musicians agree on a fee and eSession will charge a percentage. If the performers can’t agree, they’re not under any obligation.

Players can record their parts at their home studios. eSession, with a proprietary plug-in, will transfer the files across a variety of platforms, including ProTools and Logic. The musicians will need a high-speed connection, a workstation that meets professional standards and computer skills.

“They won’t be limited to any program,” Fant-Saez said. “As long as they can put their songs on the website, it doesn’t matter.”

Genesis Platinum Collection

09/02/05

(Press Release) On September 13th, Rhino Records will release the 3 CD career-spanning 'Genesis Platinum Collection' and 'Genesis Video Show' as well as a new album and a hits collection from the side project Mike + The Mechanics.

'Genesis Platinum Collection' is the first and only retrospective to cover both Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins eras. The four hours of music on three CDS is the most comprehensive collection to date featuring everything from earlier Gabriel-era favorites like "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway" to Top 40 hits like "Hold On My Heart" and Billboard Top 10 chart smashes "Invisible Touch". "Follow You Follow Me" and "Counting Out Time" are a few of the 24 newly remixed tracks. A twenty page booklet with liner notes by Hugh Fielder accompany the discs.

Founded in the late '60s in Surrey, England, Genesis rose out of the ashes of earlier bands formed by schoolmates Peter Gabriel, Tony Banks, Michael Rutherford, and Anthony Phillips (who departed after 1969's Trespass, the album providing the final track on this stellar retrospective). Guitarist Steve Hackett soon signed on, as did drummer/vocalist Phil Collins, who'd later emerge (as would Gabriel) as a solo superstar. Following Gabriel's 1975 departure, Genesis grew from a progressive art-rock outfit into one of the biggest arena rock acts ever, with a long string of platinum-sellers and chart smashes.

Additionally, all of the Genesis promo videos will be released for the first time on DVD with 'Genesis Video Show'. The digitally remastered videos include MTV staples "Land of Confusion", "Invisible Touch", and "I Can't Dance" as well as the 1999 version of "Carpet Crawlers" featuring Gabriel. Rare BBC footage of "Paperlate" is also included.

Simultaneously, Genesis bassist/guitarist Rutherford reunites with Paul Carrack for the first Mike + The Mechanics album since 1999, 'Rewired'. 'Rewired' finds Mike + The Mechanics in top form with nine powerful new original songs including the driving electronic track "One Left Standing (Version A)," the sublime ballad "If I Were You," and the adventurous title track. Re-mastered versions of Top 10 singles "Silent Running" and "All I Need Is A Miracle" are two of the 13 favorite tracks on another new disc 'Hits'.

'Genesis Platinum Collection' Track Listing:

DISC 1
No Son Of Mine
I Can't Dance
Jesus He Knows Me
Hold On My Heart
Invisible Touch
Throwing It All Away
Tonight Tonight Tonight (Edit)
Land Of Confusion
In Too Deep
Mama
That's All
Home By The Sea
Second Home By The Sea I
llegal Alien *
Paperlate *
Calling All Stations

DISC 2
Abacab *
Keep It Dark *
Turn It On Again *
Behind The Lines Duchess *
Misunderstanding *
Many Too Many *
Follow You Follow Me *
Undertow *
In That Quiet Earth *
Afterglow *
Your Own Special Way
A Trick Of The Tail *
Ripples *
Los Endos *


DISC 3
The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway *
Counting Out Time *
Carpet Crawlers *
Firth Of Fifth *
The Cinema Show *
I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe) *
Supper's Ready
The Musical Box *
The Knife *

Starter Kit For Activists

Wednesday August 31, 2005 @ 10:30 AM

By: ChartAttack.com Staff

I first learned about Greenpeace when I saw a clip of U2 performing to protest against the Sellafield nuclear plant and it's potential to be a worse catastrophe than Chernobyl.

I learned about Stephen Biko, Africa and his crusade against apartheid from Peter Gabriel and the song by the same name. I wasn't an alter boy, but I did spend eight catholic years at All Saints elementary school in Toronto and I praised Sinead O'Connor when she ripped up the picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live.

Taking a stand for change is nothing new. Social and political activism is healthy in these paranoid times and it seems logical to want to be a part of this counter-culture, however, the membership card does not come without criticism.

Our Lady Peace

During the Seattle riots in 1999 one of the protesters responsible for kicking in the windows of the massive Niketown was caught on tape wearing, what else, Nikes. The peace-loving hippies from the 1960s ultimately became the yuppies in the 1990s and are considered the driving force behind the environmentally unfriendly SUV craze. Many think U2's outspoken frontman Bono needs to shut his rich ass the F#@$ up.

Roger & Me and Fahrenheit 911 director Michael Moore has been criticized for being as big a bully as the corporate CEOs he chases. World-renowned "culture jamming" magazine Adbusters aren't always as anti-consumerism and anti-capitalism as they lead to believe.

Their line of foreign-made blackspot anti-sneakers is growing and poised to become a "brand," no different than all the sneaker brands they beat up on.

Interestingly enough, I was a huge fan and supporter of Adbusters and approached them to be a part of Our Lady Peace's Summersault Festival in 2000. Adbuster president Kalle Lasn wouldn't do it. He said he needed to get paid. Strange? Greenpeace, Amnesty and all the local charities didn't want money. They welcomed the opportunity to set up booths in our "cultural stimuli village" and reach out to the over quarter of a million Canadian kids who came to the concerts that summer.

I guess the bottom line is that in the gigantic task of trying to right the wrongs of society, we are all hypocrites to some degree. I'm sure I've been guilty of crossing that fine line between activist and asshole more than once.

The risk of self-righteousness and social elitism are more than worth it though. There is an entire movement of people fed up with everything from the growth hormones put in our food to the bias and propaganda within our news sources to the amount of ritalin prescribed to children to the illegal wars being waged overseas. I can see how some people may be intimidated by the seriousness of such stands against society. It is understandable that they may need some easing into the culture.

I've found just the thing and it targets society at it's most evil. It's a kind of "social activist starter kit." The TV BeGone remote. It costs only $15 and is available, ironically enough, on the Adbuster's website. The TV BeGone remote can turn off television sets in bars, airports, homes and offices. This genius device takes all the pretense and seriousness out of social and political activism. It's selling point is that it "reclaim's public space."

When you're feeling like society has turned into one giant live plasmascreen advertisement, TV BeGone to the rescue. It can free you from the mind-numbing obsession with celebrity. It has the power to aggravate all the sociopath corporate whores who meet at your local bar after work reveling in their greed.

It can even spare you from having to sit through another 30 second news piece on some self-consumed actor or singer promoting his or her latest cause. The TV BeGone remote is the perfect unbiased starter kit for the counter-culture. It takes the serious out of the seriousness of our world if only until someone reaches up and turns the damn TV back on.

— Raine Maida

Bush Breaking 12-Year Album Drought

By Jonathan Cohen, N.Y. and Lars Brandle, N.Y.

Pianist/songwriter Kate Bush will break a 12-year album drought this fall with the double-disc set "Aerial." The album will arrive Nov. 7 in Europe via EMI and a day later in North America via Columbia. First single "King of the Mountain" will be available Sept. 27 at a host of digital download sites.

The artist, now 47, exploded onto the British singles chart with her debut 1978 hit "Wuthering Heights," which held the top spot for four weeks and went on to become an international breakthrough. She went on to have a string of hits with "Babooshka," "Running Up That Hill" and "Don't Give Up", a duet with Peter Gabriel.

But she disappeared from the spotlight following her 1993 album "The Red Shoes," which debuted at No. 2 in the United Kingdom and No. 28 on The Billboard 200. Since then, the next phase of Bush's recording career has been the focus of routine speculation, while her influence was clearly heard in the music of Tori Amos, PJ Harvey and Bjork.

In October 2001, the artist whet the appetite of her devoted fanbase during a presentation at the annual Q Awards in London. While delivering her acceptance speech after winning the publication's accolade in the classic songwriter category, she told the audience, "I am actually making an album, [but] it's just taking longer than I thought," she said.

Three of the artist’s albums -- "Never For Ever," "Hounds Of Love" and "The Whole Story" -- have reached No. 1 in the United Kingdom.

Midnight Oil

Peter Gabriel 'Still Growing Up Live and Unwrapped', the new double DVD is beginning to form an exciting whole in front of our eyes...or is that a hole... Anyway, it's late and we've seen it on Amazon already, which is somewhere between exciting and worrying when your still trying to make the thing...Can these two tracklistings be correct....what does it all mean?

STILL GROWING UP LIVE

1. The Feeling Begins
2. Red Rain
3. Secret World
4. White Ashes
5. Games Without Frontiers
6. Burn You Up, Burn You Down
7. The Tower That Ate People
8. San Jacinto
9. Digging In The Dirt
10. Solsbury Hill
11. Sledgehammer
12. Come Talk To Me
13. Biko

STILL GROWING UP UNWRAPPED

1. The Feeling Begins
2. Red Rain
3. Secret World
4. White Ashes
5. Burn You Up, Burn You Down
6. San Jacinto
7. Digging In The Dirt
8. Solsbury Hill
9. Sledgehammer
10. The Tower That Ate People
11. Come Talk To Me
12. Biko

Peter Gabriel, Sons sans Frontières

Livre Italien

Alfredo Marziano
Peter Gabriel Sons sans Frontières
(Auditorium, 160 pagg. - 8.00 euro) mise à jour 2005

Ce Peter Gabriel une des figures les plus polyédriques de la musique contemporaine : transformiste des loges, expérimentateur dans les disques et dans les usages des media, activiste politique, importateur en occident des musiques ethniques et, de fait, fondateur du world music avec son label Real World.

Le livre d'Alfredo Marziano reconstruit l'histoire de cet artiste qui semble insaisissable, depuis les exordes avec Genesis jusqu'aux dévelopements de sa carrière solo. Il ferme le volume une description détaillée de la production de Gabriel, sur disque mais aussi en video et sur ordinateur, au-delà de la bibliographie et des rapports des principaux témoins sur lui.


Alfredo Marziano
Peter Gabriel. Suoni senza Frontiere
(Auditorium, 160 pagg. – 8,00 euro)

Quella di Peter Gabriel è una delle figure più poliedriche della musica contemporanea: trasformista sul palco, sperimentatore nei dischi e nell’uso dei media, attivista politico, importatore in occidente delle musiche etniche e, di fatto, fondatore della world music con la sua etichetta Real World.

Il volume di Alfredo Marziano ricostruisce la storia di questo artista che pare inafferrabile, fin dagli esordi con i Genesis fino agli sviluppi della carriera solista. Chiude il volume una dettagliata descrizione della produzione di Gabriel, su disco ma anche in Video e su computer, oltre ad una bibliografia che riporta i principali testi scritti su di lui.

Peter, Elvis, the hamster and Womad

Elvis powered mobile phone gains recognition

Helps British lad pass exam

By Tony Dennis: samedi 27 août 2005, 12:03

A British youth, Peter Ash, has been able to pass his science exams with a little help from Elvis. The lad, from Lawford in Somerset spent 13 months perfecting a way for Elvis to recharge the batteries in a couple of mobile phones.

The project formed part of Ash's GSCE science exam which he finally passed last week. Elvis is, of course, a hamster belonging to Peter's sister. What Peter was able to prove is that energy expended by the hamster pounding his treadmill can be successfully harnessed to replenish the batteries in standard Motorola and Nokia mobile phones.

Ash has, of course, discovered a renewable energy source which could be deployed at 'green' music festivals such as Womad and Glastonbury where large numbers of attendees seek alternative ways to recharge their handsets.

So will Michael Eavis book Elvis to appear at the next Glastonbury in 2007, the INQ wonders?

Peter Gabriel - Still Growing Up - Live And Unwrapped

Peter Gabriel - Still Growing Up - Live And Unwrapped

Release date: October 31, 2005. Not yet available.

Edition Details:

• Region 2 encoding (Europe, Japan, South Africa and the Middle East including Egypt). Read more about DVD formats.
• PAL
• ASIN: B000AYQJ38

Come … to the Casbah

Diane Patterson & Quawwali Music play along with the Fanna-Fi-Allah Quawwali and Sufi Ensemble Sept. 2 at the Teahouse festival at the Wellsprings.

Come … to the Casbah

Teahouse caravan settles at the Jackson Wellsprings through Sept. 5, bringing exotic food, music, dance and atmosphere

The Casbah Teahouse will adorn the Garden Stage at Jackson Wellsprings (formerly Jackson Hot Springs) with its open-air Bedouin tent, Persian carpets, savory chai tea and world beat music between this Friday and Sept. 5.

Concluding its summer Pacific Northwest food and music tour, members of the Casbah caravan will recuperate in the healing waters of the Wellsprings before making the long migration south to their winter home in Tucson. For almost two decades the Tucson Casbah Teahouse has been an anchor and magnet to musicians, rising superstars and recording artists alike. Over the last eight years the summer gypsy caravan stage has traveled the Pacific Northwest, lending color to venues including Trinity Tribal Stomp, Hornings Hideout, Vashon Island Earth Fair, Seattle Hemp Fest, Health and Harmony, and Faerie World Fest.

I Will Presents has invited musicians from the magical state of Jefferson, Hawaii and Figi to perform at the Wellsprings’ two-weekend extravaganza. Shimshai will open the Casbah music series on Friday evening with his eclectic blend of heart-and-soul reggae and jazz, with a world beat influence. Shimshai is known for his solid, rhytmic grooves layered with angelic harmonies and uplifting, spirited lyrics. Over the last four years Shimshai and the Natural Mystiquensemble have established a devoted following from Seattle to San Diego to Hawaii, and in Europe from London to Amsterdam. Shimshai has appeared on stage with Jai Uttal and the Pagan Love Orchestra, Ram Dass, and Cannon and the Lion of Judah Band.

Jah Levi and the Higher Reasoning will light up the Casbah on Sunday evening. With more than 20 albums and 25 years of worldwide performances, Jah Levi will deliver to the Wellsprings Garden Stage his charismatic blend of heart-and-soul reggae and spiritually uplifting world fusion. Jah Levi has shared the same stage with reggae, folk and popular superstars including Ziggy Marley, Israel Vibration, The Itals, Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel, Andrew Tosh, The Wailers, and Lost at Last.

The Bedouin tent will come alive with the heartfelt, penetrating sound of Human and the Evolution on Tuesday, Kirtan Music led by Prema Mayi and friends, on Wednesday, and Devine Names Zikr and Sufi Heart Circle, led by Kalil Elliot, on Sept. 1.

Casbah’s Magic Carpet Ride will continue into the Labor Day weekend with another three enjoyable days of music, swimming and hot-water soaking. Sept. 2 will witness the mesmerizing harmonies of Fanna-Fi-Allah Quawwali Ensemble presenting ecstatic sufi devotional music. Scott Huckabay will close the Wellsprings Casbah Music Fest on Sept. 4. Saturday’s events to be announced.