Manu Katché et Jan Garbarek, seigneurs du jazz

LE TOURCOING JAZZ FESTIVAL

Manu Katché et Jan Garbarek, seigneurs du jazz

Qu'est-ce qu'une ouverture heureuse ? Manu Katché (batterie), Jan Garbarek (saxophone), Franck Avitabile (piano) pour les vingt ans du Tourcoing Jazz Festival. Un programme énorme. Une histoire soutenue par la ville. Un théâtre à l'italienne au son parfait. Des musiciens heureux.

Voici une douzaine d'années, le directeur artistique du festival, Patrick Dréhan, propose une carte blanche, en jazz, à Manu Katché. Où ? A Dunkerque. Katché a quitté sa ville de Saint-Maur-des-Fossés pour New York, où, depuis vingt ans, il écume la scène pop-rock : Peter Gabriel, Sting, Axel Bauer. C'est un choix de batteur exact, subtil, formidablement présent et heureux sur scène. Dunkerque le ramène donc au jazz.

Or Jan Garbarek, star norvégienne depuis le free jusqu'à Keith Jarrett, trente-cinq ans de carrière au sommet, inaltérable idole de la jeunesse, a entendu Katché sur trois titres de Sting. Dunkerque les rapproche. Petrucciani est au piano. Depuis, Garbarek reste Garbarek, un son (saxophone ténor) de rasoir nordique, une puissance inégalée, une place essentielle dans l'esthétique du label munichois ECM, un air de jeune homme, un public d'ados.

Manu Katché, cependant, a pris sa place dans le monde du jazz sur le même label (Neibourhood). De la banlieue, il dit simplement : il suffit de bien jouer de la batterie. Tous deux, ils ont des allures de seigneurs, quand ils bavardent avant de jouer. Katché s'est adjoint un jeune pianiste, Franck Avitabile, qui, dans le genre études de haut niveau (la prestigieuse ENS mathématiques de Lyon) va le plus loin dans le piano.

Avitabile, pour le toucher, la main gauche, l'esprit classique et le délié swing, est inégalable. Son trio (Jérôme Regard, contrebasse ; Dré Pallemaerts, batterie), formidable de précision et de douceur. Avitabile, Manu Katché, Garbarek, plus Alex Tassel (bugle) sur la scène de Tourcoing, l'ensemble vit, bouge, remue, sur un fond de perfection remise en jeu.

L'album à succès d'Avitabile (Short Stories, Dreyfus) résume l'esprit de la réunion : plus d'incantations diluviennes, juste des pièces courtes, incisives, enlevées. En face, un public de 20 ans de moyenne d'âge. Le jazz, un truc de vieux ? Sans doute : un truc de vieux joué par des jeunes pour les jeunes. Ce qui n'est d'ailleurs pas la question, mais qui prend nom d'enthousiasme.

"Planètes", Tourcoing Jazz Festival. Divers lieux. Du 12 au 18 novembre. Thomas Dutronc (le 12), Sophie Alour, Aldo Emmanuel (14) ; Renaud Gracia-Fons, Anouar Brahem (15) ; Dee Dee Bridgewater, Daniel Mille, Sébastien Texier (16) ; les Belmondo et Yusef Lateef, Charles Lloyd (17) ; Bona, Sixun, Magma (17) ; J.-J. Milteau (18). Tél. : 03-20-68-54-10. Entrée libre ou de 8 € à 25 € ; formule "pass" 75 €.

Youssou N'Dour to Visit IntraHealth International

World Music Star Youssou N'Dour to Visit North Carolina-based IntraHealth International

CHAPEL HILL, N.C., Oct. 24 (AScribe Newswire) -- On Monday, Oct. 30, Grammy Award winning singer Youssou N'Dour will visit North Carolina-based IntraHealth International to launch the Youssou N'Dour Fund at IntraHealth, a new partnership to promote better health in Africa. To generate fundraising and program-related activities for the Fund, the creation of which was announced at the United Nations this spring, N'Dour will give concerts and sponsor other events.

The Fund is the brainchild of N'Dour and IntraHealth CEO Pape A. Gaye, both natives of Dakar, Senegal. Initiatives developed through the fund will combine N'Dour's passions for working with African youth and promoting malaria prevention with IntraHealth's long track record of successfully implementing health projects in Africa.

About Youssou N'Dour (www.youssou.com) Named "African Artist of the Century" in 2000 by Folk Roots magazine, Youssou N'Dour has been a major influence in the growing international popularity of African music. He burst onto the international scene in the 1980s on a concert tour with Peter Gabriel. A UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador since 1991, N'Dour organized "Africa Live: The Roll Back Malaria Concert," in March 2005 in Dakar to increase public awareness of malaria prevention; a movie of the concert was released this year. N'Dour makes his acting debut in the film Amazing Grace, which premiered at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival.

About IntraHealth (www.intrahealth.org) An independent not-for-profit organization headquartered in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, IntraHealth International has served the public health needs of developing countries since 1979, when it was founded as the Intrah program of the University of North Carolina's School of Medicine. IntraHealth works with health care leaders, health care providers and communities to increase access to good health care for the people most in need. Currently working in 23 countries, IntraHealth has offices in Armenia, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Mali, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania.

Voda pushes phone recycling

Peter Gabriel, left and John Robertson.

Vodafone has joined in a campaign to send unwanted mobile phones to developing countries. Phones 4 Africa hopes to increase the number of handsets that are reused by encouraging thousands of people in Britain to recycle their mobiles. Vodafone has teamed up with Fonebak, a specialist company in recycling and distributing used phones in the developing world, to launch the campaign, while prime minister Tony Blair and singer Peter Gabriel have shown their support.

Blair said: 'Phones 4 Africa is a great idea. It means people in Britain can help thousands of people in Africa use ordinary mobile phones to break out of poverty.' Gabriel joined Vodafone Enterprise Business Unit director Kyle Whitehill and MP John Robertson last week in Westminster to launch the campaign.

***

Musician Peter Gabriel, who launched the 'Phones 4 Africa' campaign in Parliament this week, said:

"Phones 4 Africa is a brilliant idea. Mobiles have been adopted faster in the developing world than in the developed world. They have the capability for improving lives.

""In 2 years mobile phones will have the same capacity as laptops have at the moment and they will transform education in remote locations. I work with the Mandela Foundation which worked with coffee growers in Zimbabwe who were being ripped off by middle men. As soon as they had mobile phones they were able to get commodity prices directly from the Chicago Exchange. This transformed their local economy.

"We have developed a hub on the internet to which anyone can upload images using their mobile phone or video. We believe this has the potential to transform human rights campaigning because when individuals have footage it is easier to get transmission of it. Also it's harder for those who are doing it to deny it. This is the Human Rights Video Hub, part of www.witness.org which I set up."

The Blue Nile's Paul Buchanan 2006 UK & Irish Tour

Paul Buchanan, vocalist and songwriter from Glasgows trio The Blue Nile has announced a November UK tour with his brand new band with Robert Bell of The Blue Nile - November 19 London, November 21 Dublin, November 25-26 Edinburgh, November 27 Perth. The concert showcases the ambient folk and electronic pop from Blue Niles magical back catalogue, along with some classic cover songs and exciting new solo material. Blue Nile produced a mere 33 songs in just over two decades. The bands incredible fanbase includes the likes of Annie Lennox, Peter Gabriel, Rickie Lee Jones and Rod Stewart. Often referred to as '4am songs', the lush, atmospheric pop, combined with Buchanan's velvety vocals and minimalist arrangements makes for a combination that is both emotionally sublime and heartfelt.

Buchanan creates songs about the day to day life of pretty much everyone who has ever been in love or who has ever looked out at the rain on a cold winter day or who has ever struggled to work on a bus which gets stuck in traffic, and they sprinkle each song with something special that lifts it out of the ordinary. As singer Paul Buchanan says, "It's always been a documentary of the imagination."

Possessor of one of the finest and most soulful voices produced from these shores over the last 30 years, Paul Buchanan is nothing short of legendary. As lead singer, songwriter and co-founder of The Blue Nile, Paul is one of music's greatest treasures at the same time as being one of its best kept secrets. Over twenty five years, The Blue Nile's output has comprised just four albums - 'A Walk Across The Rooftops' in 1984; 'Hats' in 1989; 'Peace At Last' in 1996, and 2004's 'High' - all critically acclaimed, all rapturously received by an ever growing legion of Nile aficionados, and all still selling as more and more music lovers fall in love with Paul's voice and The Blue Nile's unique music.

Paul, along with friends P J Moore and Robert Bell, started The Blue Nile. At the time they were merely interested in making music that they loved but after the small-scale success of an early single 'I Love This Life', the band were offered the chance to record an album for hi-fi manufacturer, Linn. The result was 'A Walk Across The Rooftops' which was described at the time as "the best debut of the last five years" by U2 producer Steve Lillywhite. Although there was pressure for a follow-up, Paul and the band discarded mountains of material before delivering 'Hats' in 1989 - the album became a huge success charting at No.12. Paul briefly hit the tabloid newspapers during a relationship with Hollywood actress Rosanna Arquette.

After a series of record company misfortunes, a third album 'Peace At Last' emerged in 1996 and became another Top 20 hit album with the usual ecstatic reviews from a the media. After a short tour, Paul and the band returned, it seemed, to the shadows for the best part of a decade until rumours of a new album started to filter out of Glasgow in late 2003. 'High', the first album for new label Sanctuary, became the band's biggest hit album so far - a Top 10 success.

Photo by Simon Murphy

Spiritualized

Joseph Arthur puts his faith in the healing power of art. Plus, the dude can sing.

At the Bowery Ballroom last month, Joseph Arthur had a costume change before his encore and came out wearing a white suit, no shirt, and a big cross dangling around his neck. With tangled hair and a three-day beard, he looked like some mental-ward Evangelist, and then he started singing like one, too. Joined onstage by Michael Stipe, Arthur belted out his signature anthem “In the Sun,” with its rousing hook, “May God’s love be with you, always, always.” The crowd, a typical downtown assortment of 30-year-olds in hoodies and jeans, knew every word and lustily sang along, as if trying to atone for all those Sunday-school classes they blew off.

“I hate religion,” Arthur had told me a few days earlier, when we met at his loft in Dumbo. "But I do believe there’s some intelligence guiding this whole thing. You can call it Jesus or whatever you want.”

Onstage and on record, Arthur exudes a coolness that makes you think he could be world famous. And at one point in his career, he was marked for stardom. The mini-legend of Joseph Arthur goes like this: When he was a 25-year-old nobody working at a guitar shop in Atlanta (“They told me I was the worst employee in the history of the store,” he says), a demo tape of his made its way, via friends of friends, into the hands of Peter Gabriel, who invited him to record at his studio in England. This is, in certain music circles, the equivalent of being summoned to Rome to pray with the pope. Arthur went with proper humility. “There were all these major people there, like Joe Strummer. I thought they’d maybe let me play a little bass. But then Peter asked me to write some lyrics, and the next thing I know, I’m in there singing with him.”...

Réunion de Genesis, Gabriel passe son tour

L’ancien chanteur de Genesis, Peter Gabriel, a dit qu’il ne se joindrait pas à ses ex-équipiers pour une tournée qui les réunira prochainement. Gabriel, 56 ans, est l’un des membres fondateurs de la célèbre formation musicale britannique et il a chanté avec eux jusqu’en 1975, lorsqu’il a quitté le groupe pour poursuivre une carrière en solo.«Nous en avons parlé et j’ai décidé de ne pas y prendre part», a dit Gabriel au réseau BBC News.

Son remplaçant au micro, le batteur Phil Collins, a confirmé son engagement à la tournée qui réunira les quatre musiciens, annoncée plus tôt cette semaine. «Je suis très heureux pour eux», a laissé savoir Gabriel. «Ce n’est pas que je ne ferais jamais une telle chose, seulement que j’ai du nouveau matériel à travailler en ce moment.» Un porte-parole pour Genesis a précisé que des détails spécifiques sur la tournée et des «plans à long terme», incluant la publication possible de nouveau matériel, seraient annoncés dans les prochaines semaines.

Succès culte

Genesis a vendu plus de 130 millions d’albums durant les années 70 et 80, connaissant du succès avec des albums classiques comme Foxtrot, Nursery Crime, Selling England By The Pound et The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. Ils ont livré au départ une musique de style progressive, pour prendre éventuellement un virage pop lorsque Collins à pris en mains le job de chanteur. Le groupe a produit une longue liste de succès qui ont fait le top 40, dont Mama, That's All et In Too Deep.

Collins a quitté le groupe en 1996, et fut remplacé par l’ex-chanteur de Stiltskin, Ray Wilson. Il a enregistré un disque en 1997, Calling All Stations, avec les membres restants Mike Rutherford et Tony Banks, avant que le groupe ne soit éventuellement dissout.

Peter Gabriel speaks out about Genesis reunion

In the New Musical Express :

The singer won't be taking part, but hasn't ruled it out completely. Peter Gabriel has spoken out about his absence from the Genesis reunion. As previously reported the three remaining members of Genesis - Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks - are planning a world tour and hope to record new material.

Speaking about his non-involvement in the project, Gabriel told BBC NEWS: "There were conversations and I decided not to be a part of it. It's not that I've ruled it out, just that I've got some new material that I'll be working on." The singer added he is pleased that his former bandmates are continuing without him, declaring, "I'm very happy for them."

the lowdown on the new WOMAD site

including photograph
Fri 20th Oct 06 WOMAD WOMAD 2007

WOMAD (World of Music, Arts and Dance) held a press launch on Thursday afternoon at its organisational home at the impressive Real World Studios near Bath, to reveal the location of the new festival site for WOMAD 2007 as Charlton Park, near Malmesbury in north Wiltshire.


Bill Cobham (musician), Paula Henderson (Festival Director), Peter Gabriel (WOMAD co-founder), Thomas Brooman (WOMAD Managing & Artistic Director), Annie Menter (Director, WOMAD Foundation), Johnny Kalsi (musician)
First we were told a little about WOMAD's aims - to bring together and to celebrate many forms of music, arts and dance drawn from countries and cultures all over the world, and were treated to a short video about WOMAD and a great two song performance by Sam Tshabalala and Patrick Bebey.

The first five acts for WOMAD 2007 were confirmed, as well as the details about tickets – on sale now. See here for this news.

Speaking about the new site, Thomas Brooman expressed his excitement at a new chapter for WOMAD Festival in the UK, and with the new site being bigger, there's the opportunity to develop new ideas for the festival.

Leader of North Wilts District Council Carol O'Gorman – herself a WOMAD attendee - was pleased to welcome the diverse and family festival to the area. Although the site is yet to have an entertainments licence granted by the council, the enthusiasm with which many councils now embrace festivals means that the licencing process should run smoothly.

Given the chance to ask some questions, Peter Gabriel was asked if, with it being WOMAD’s 25th year in 2007, he'd be performing. His reply was "I may be playing the fool but I'll be playing in some way". What exactly did he mean by that? I couldn't be sure either way.
There then followed a trip to Charlton Park, to see the new site for ourselves. Owned by The Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire, we were welcomed by Viscount Andover on behalf of Charlton Park.

The site is around five miles north of junction 17 of the M4, and just off the A429 this should mean few problems or queuing delays for those arriving by car. At 280 acres (including the car parking areas), it's around 50% bigger than the previous site in Reading, and with the number of attendees at around the same size (it will be 20,000 in 2007) this means significantly more space.

The site is mostly very flat grass fields with a fair number of trees scattered about, and also includes an arboretum which is likely to be used as a part of the site.

Any possible downsides? With there having been a fair amount of rain recently, it's not surprising that I left the site with mud stuck to my shoes, but this was misleading ... I'd walked over an area that had been fairly newly planted with grass (in readiness for WOMAD), and the grass there was thin and the soil overly soft - it should be better grassed and have firmed up by next summer. Elsewhere there wasn't the same problem, and having been told that the land drains well, it shouldn’t be a nightmare in the event of a summer downpour.


photo 1: the small hanger in the distance is likely to be behind the main stage, with the stage front pointing to the left, so that the crowd would be behind the small clump of trees to the left of the picture (these are about 30 yards from the hanger).
photo 2: having turned about 60 degrees clockwise, Charlton Park House is in the distance - the site extends almost to the house.


photo 3: having turned about a further 60 degrees clockwise, the site extends across two fields to the solid block of trees in the distance - this area is likely to be camping &/or car parking.
photo 4: having turned about a further 90 degrees clockwise, the site extends to the trees in the centre of the photo in the far distance. The arboretum is out of shot to the right. This area is likely to have camping &/or car parking to the left and perhaps at the far end, with a part of the entertainments area more central/in the foreground and to the right.

photo 5: having turned about a further 90 degrees clockwise, the arboretum is out of shot to the left, and the small tree towards the foreground on the right is the other end of the small clump of trees from photo 1. The site extends to the trees on the far of the photo. The area shown between the clump of trees to the right towards the forground and the trees at the far side would be towards the back of the main stage audience area. A tented stage is likely to be sited to the left of the photo close to the trees.

"My decision to invite WOMAD to bring their festival to Charlton Park was an important one, as Charlton Park has always been a private estate with a great community spirit all around. WOMAD came extremely highly commended by everyone to whom I spoke, specifically regarding the impact WOMAD would have on us all, and we trust they will continue their great work here in Wiltshire. I am very excited by this project and look forward to a long and successful relationship between Charlton Park and WOMAD." - Viscount Andover, on behalf of Charlton Park.

"It was wonderful to receive the invitation to Charlton Park at a moment when we and our audience felt we had outgrown our home in Reading. When I visited with Thomas Brooman, it was immediately clear what a perfect venue Charlton Park would be for us and it was also great to have such a warm welcome from Viscount Andover and his team. WOMAD has always worked best as a partnership with a community, and we very much look forward to bringing WOMAD back to the west country, where it began 25 years ago." - Peter Gabriel, WOMAD co-Founder.

"In this special 25th festival anniversary year we are creating a new rural vision and a new life for WOMAD in the United Kingdom. After all these years, Charlton Park is in many ways a fulfilment of our earliest dreams for the festival. WOMAD has always aimed to bring artists and audiences together in an atmosphere of delight, discovery and peace, and at Charlton Park we believe we have found the perfect place to achieve this... a unique cultural experience in a corner of the English countryside at its idyllic, bucolic best." - Thomas Brooman, WOMAD's Artistic Director.










Peter Gabriel, Thomas Brooman, & Viscount Andover

WOMAD Press Conference LIVE stream today

		Join us for a LIVE webcast from The Big Room at Real World Studios at 2.15 today for a WOMAD Press conference with Peter Gabriel, WOMAD Artistic Director Thomas Brooman and special guests, Johnny Kalsi and Bill Cobham with performances by San Tshabalala and Patrick Bebey Requires QuickTime. Watch the Live stream @ www.womad.org/live_broadcast

WOMAD announces first acts and confirms new site location

WOMAD WOMAD 2007

WOMAD (World of Music, Arts and Dance) has revealed that its new location will be Charlton Park, near Malmesbury in Wiltshire.

There's also five artists have also been confirmed to play the festival, which will be held from Friday 27th to Sunday 29th July 2007. The acts are Baaba Maal, Bill Cobham, Sam Tshabalala, Steel Pulse, and Dhol Foundation.

Tickets are already on sale, available at the reduced price of £110 until 31st January 2007 - afterwards they'll be priced at £120. Camping from Friday to Monday is included in the ticket price - if you wish to camp on the Thursday there's an extra charge of £10. Click here to buy.

eFestivals will have full details on the new announcement, including photographs of the new site, online within the next couple of hours.

Wiltshire home for Womad festival

Womad, Britain's biggest world music festival, will take place at a stately home in north Wiltshire next summer. From July 2007 the festival will be held at Charlton Park near Malmesbury, organisers have announced. After 17 years of the event being held at Rivermead in Reading, organisers decided to move sites because its original site was too small.

Womad co-founder Peter Gabriel said: "It just felt there was beginning to be a negative noise about Reading." Gabriel told reporters he recently met a woman who had been going to the festival for 15 years, but had decided not to go again because it was too crowded.

Successful relationship

Organisers ruled out using the nearby home of the Reading rock festival as there is only a four-week gap between the two events. Despite moving to a bigger site though organisers say there are no initial plans to increase the 20,000 daily capacity.

Charlton Park is home to the Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire. His son, Viscount Andover said: "I am very excited by this project and look forward to a long and successful relationship."

The environmental impact the festival may have has been discussed amongst organisers and North Wiltshire Council. Council leader Carol O'Gorman said: "Until we've gone through the process we won't know about it, but I've talked to the organisers and they put local people and businesses first. "It's a superb opportunity for North Wiltshire," she added.

Next year will be Womad's 25th anniversary and Gabriel will perform along with Baaba Maal, drummer Bill Cobham, the Doll Foundation, Steel Pulse and Sam Tshabalala.

Gabriel passes on Genesis reunion

Former Genesis singer Peter Gabriel says he will not be joining his bandmates for an upcoming reunion tour. Gabriel, 56, was a founding member of the band, singing with them until 1975, when he left to pursue a solo career.

"There were conversations and I decided not to be a part of it," Gabriel told BBC News. His replacement, former drummer Phil Collins, has confirmed he will take part in the reunion tour, which was announced earlier this week.

"I'm very happy for them," said Gabriel."It's not that I've ruled it out, but I've got some new material that I'll be working on."

A spokesman for Genesis said specific details of the tour and "long term plans" including possible new material would be announced in the next few weeks.

Cult success

Genesis sold over 130 million albums during the 1970s and '80s, scoring hits with albums such as Nursery Crime, Selling England By The Pound and Invisible Touch. They started out as a progressive rock band, but took a more commercial direction when Collins took over the vocal duties. The 1980s saw them score a run of top 40 singles, including Mama, That's All and In Too Deep.Collins quit the group in 1996, and was replaced by former Stiltskin singer Ray Wilson. He recorded one album, 1997's Calling All Stations, with remaining members Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks before the band was put on indefinite hiatus.

PETER GABRIEL LAUNCHES INNOVATIVE IPOD SOFTWARE

Peter Gabriel is ushering in the second wave of the digital revolution by backing a new piece of software that the creators claim will change the way we listen to archived music.

Gabriel won the Pioneer Award at the recent Digital Music Awards, and has been at the forefront of musical innovation from his championing of world music and embracing of video technology right up to his current digitial innovations.

“The Filter” is a free piece of downloadable software, which say the makers, will organize your ipod record collection into intuitive playlists at the click of a mouse.

The programme scans your iTunes library using Artificial Intelligence – as it gets better at judging your tastes, it is said it will even playlist according to your mood.

On the new generation of AI software, Peter Gabriel, says, "The first wave of the digital revolution was about the freedom of choice, trying to make everything accessible to anyone, anyplace, anytime. I think the second wave will be about freedom from choice. It will be able to filter and focus so that you get more of what you want.”

“The Filter” is available for Win XP and iTunes at www.thefilter.com
The Mac OS X, WinAMP and WMP versions are to follow soon.

Gabriel Re-Shocks the Monkey Online

The British rock legend holds a Web contest to remix a classic song, draws more than 700 entries, and, in the process, promotes his record label

Ever since music file sharing upended the record business, labels and artists have been doing everything they can to keep copyrighted tunes from ricocheting around the Internet for free. British singer-songwriter Peter Gabriel recently went in totally the opposite direction, posting the musical ingredients of his 1982 classic Shock the Monkey and inviting fans to morph it into something new and original.

The resulting Shock the Monkey remix contest, viewable on www.realworldremixed.com, is one rock musician's solution to the problem faced by nearly everyone in the media business these days: how to stay relevant when consumers are generating so much of their own content on sites such as News Corp.'s (NWS) MySpace and Google's (GOOG) latest acquisition, YouTube.

To kick off the contest, Gabriel did something close to revolutionary for an established musician. Back in March, he posted a so-called sample pack of Shock the Monkey consisting of vocals and other pieces of the original multitrack recording. For most people in the music business, that is the commercial equivalent of hiring kidnappers to babysit.

BIG-TIME LURE. Gabriel already qualifies as something of an Internet trailblazer. In 1999, he was co-founder of On Demand Distribution, or OD2, one of the first commercial digital download services. OD2 later merged with rival Loudeye, which is now owned by Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia (NOK).

For the former Genesis front man, sharing Shock the Monkey was a bold way to generate Web traffic for his record company, Real World. The label, distributed by London-based EMI Group, has an eclectic catalog of artists ranging from Ohio bluesman Skip "Little Axe" McDonald to Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali and Temple of Sound, a group of Pakistanis who mix Sufi mysticism with funk.

"One of the major issues with in-house promotional Web sites is getting enough content," says York Tillyer, interactive director at Real World, which is based in the village of Box in western England. "We were looking around for something that would generate its own momentum and that would reach out beyond our traditional audience."

As the Shock the Monkey remixes came in, users could rate their favorites. There were well over 700 entries, testament to the proliferation of music-processing software and home recording equipment. Gabriel then picked winners from the top dozen chosen by listeners. "I was amazed at the number and quality of remixes," Gabriel says in an e-mail. One remixer managed to credibly combine Gabriel's vocals with music from the opera Carmen. Another dispensed with the vocals altogether and reengineered the tight, high-energy original into New Age mood music. Gabriel, who says he got tired of listening to his own voice while judging contest entries, gave it an honorable mention.

COMMUNITY SNAPSHOT. The effect on site traffic was impressive. In the first two weeks of October alone, the contest generated 33,000 unique users, respectable for a standalone Web site. Some 13,600 people have listened to the winning remix by Multiman, who, according to his MySpace page, is a New York City-area producer (and who won a high-end sound processing console from Real World). Initial indications are that the contest indeed is helping sales of Real World artists, Real World's Tillyer says.

The contest also achieved something else widely sought after in the media/entertainment world these days: It created a "community," generating a lively conversation among remixers and listeners as they debated the technical and musical merits of the top entries. "Wasn't this in the wedding scene of The Godfather?" quipped one commentator, referring to the contribution by an Italian calling himself Filippo Villa. His Spaghetti monkey featuring a jaunty piano backup with accordion highlights, was among the runners-up.

Most of the contest winners did not seem to be the proverbial teenagers tinkering with Apple (AAPL) GarageBand software in their bedrooms, though. Winner Multiman has worked with the Backstreet Boys, according to his Web page. Sound Chateau, named runner-up for a synthesizer-heavy remix that appears to have been recorded aboard the Starship Enterprise, is a Berlin-based production house specializing in music for commercials and TV.

CONTESTS WITHOUT COPYRIGHTS. Sound Chateau's previous work includes a Christmas album featuring songs by people who have appeared in the Big BrotherShock the Monkey

Gabriel is not the only successful recording artist to let fans rework his hits. David Byrne and Brian Eno are currently encouraging listeners to "mutilate" portions of their 1981 collaboration My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, published by Virgin Records Limited and Warner Music Group (WMG). The sample packs, as well as numerous remixes, are available on www.bush-of-ghosts.com. Nine Inch Nails, the metal band from Cleveland, also is encouraging remixers, posting its 2005 single The Hand That Feeds on its official site, www.nin.com.

Gabriel and Real World are already expanding on the remix idea. Sample packs for several other Real World artists, including the Mexican band Los de Abajo, are already online. Gabriel is planning to post another of his own songs for remixing, though he hasn't yet decided which one. "Much of the music on labels like Real World is easily bypassed by traditional media outlets," says Tillyer. "This gets people talking about the work."

Speaking of traditional media, is there a lesson here for them? Maybe just this: that adjusting to Web 2.0 might require them to loosen their grip on copyrights ever so slightly. reality show as well as several CDs by children's cartoon character Schnappi the Crocodile. Doghouse Riley, another runner-up, which turned into a brassy roadhouse tune, is a California-based band.

Vivre de sa musique

Peter Gabriel

"Si elle ne s'arrête pas, la piraterie par Internet va finir par faire du mal à tous ceux qui aiment faire de la musique. Beaucoup de jeunes artistes et musiciens avec lesquels je travaille tirent l'essentiel de leurs revenus des ventes de disques. Si celles-ci disparaissent, beaucoup vont devoir trouver un autre travail.

Beaucoup de gens essaient aujourd'hui de construire des services légaux qui donnent accès à de la musique sur le net à des prix tout à fait raisonnables. Je soutiens l'initiative Pro-music France pour encourager le public à aller voir par lui-même ce qui est accessible légalement sur le net et à décider s'il pense que le prix à payer est justifié ou non."

Keep Control

Gabriel, 56, warned new artists to keep control over their names -- and stop the record labels from muscling in. "I would say to artists, at the beginning of your careers in this business, own your name, own your Web site, own your rights," he said.

"There's a future when the record business becomes a service industry but not owners of talent.

"It's only if we're smart, something we have never been, then there's a future," added Gabriel.

The BT Digital Music Awards, now in its fifth year, has rapidly grown in stature as the download revolution gains pace and the record industry has seen the importance of the Internet in breaking new bands, such as Arctic Monkeys or Lily Allen.

In the year to date, there have been 35 million singles downloads -- half of all singles sales in Britain. At the ceremony -- which featured performances by Plan B, Nate James and Lil' Chris -- Lily Allen was named best pop artist, while Muse took the best rock artist gong and Lemar was named best urban act.

WOMAD comes to Wiltshire

THE WOMAD music festival will be coming home to north Wiltshire next year, 25 years after it was conceived here.Musician Peter Gabriel came up with the idea for the festival - The World of Music, Arts and Dance - in 1980 at his Real World studios in Box.

The first WOMAD event was held two years later in Somerset and since then it has travelled across the country, and has spent the last 17 years in Reading, Berkshire. The organisers have decided the festival has outgrown the Reading site and have decided to try and bring it back to the place it was created.

The organisers are not disclosing the location of the new festival site but the Chippenham News understands that Charlton Park, near Malmesbury, has been approached to host the event. The three-day music event is the UK's biggest festival of international music and regularly draws crowds of up to 40,000 people to the Reading area It is expected to take place from July 27-29 next year.

Organisers at WOMAD's head office at Gabriel's studios in Box say the festival had outgrown the Reading site and they were delighted to have found a new home in Wiltshire near to their headquarters.They added that they were proud of their achievements at Reading but felt they needed to move in order to protect its long-term future and audience appeal.

North Wiltshire District Council has held a meeting with the organisers to discuss the proposed move to Charlton Park next summer. A spokesman said: "We have had a preliminary discussion with the organisers and understand it could involve up to 45,000 people in attendance."An event safety group meeting has been organised for later this month and we anticipate a premises licence application later in this year."If this goes ahead it will be the largest event ever to be held in north Wiltshire."

Leader of the council Carol O'Gorman said: "It is wonderful news for north Wiltshire."This will encourage people to come and stay and share north Wiltshire with us and will help our economy and bring people in."I can't wait for it to go ahead." She deflected claims that the festival would be a nightmare for health and safety and would bring traffic problems, adding: "We have got a brilliant team at North Wilts, an expert team of officers, who will be looking in to that and will sort it out."We have to be up for it, and we will be."

Rock star's global festival heads for village

Villagers in Charlton, near Malmesbury, have been left stunned at the news that Peter Gabriel's giant world music festival could be moving to Charlton Park next year. Womad is described as the UK's biggest festival of international music and attracts crowds of up to 45,000. It has been based in Reading for the last 17 years, but has outgrown its Rivermead venue. Held over a three-day weekend in July, Womad this year featured 80 artists from 40 countries.
continued...

Independent financial adviser Brian Pickering, of St John's Way, said he doubted the village could cope. "It's rather startling," he said. "All we've got here is a pub, two bus stops and a telephone box. "I don't think we will be able to cope with that many people. You also don't know whether it would cause any security problems for the village."

Colin Legge, of Bullocks Horn, also doubted the village could cope with so many people at once.
But Margaret Langley, 58, of Park Street, who lives near the entrance to the park, said she would welcome the festival.

"It sounds like quite an impressive event and it's only for one weekend," she said."It's got to be good for the village to have an event like that, so it doesn't worry me."If it gets too noisy I'll just have to close the windows. Mrs Langley added she would be interested to go and watch the festival. Reuben Waller, general manager of the Horse and Groom Inn, The Street, said it could be beneficial."We will have three or four rooms for visitors by the time the festival comes," he said."I cannot imagine too many traders will be unhappy and, even if they are, it's only for a weekend."The Rev Richard East, of St John the Baptist Church, said everyone should make the most of the festival."It sounds fine by me and we will have to make plans to embrace it," he said.

It's enough to make you cry

The duduk, with its mournful tones, is a rising Hollywood star.

If red is the color of passion and chocolate the food of love, then the duduk has surreptitiously become the sound of sadness. Most of us can't name the instrument, but we've heard it so often that if we were paying attention, it might almost border on cliché. Almost.

The duduk (pronounced doo-dook), is an ancient instrument from the Caucasus that looks a bit like a recorder. No longer than a forearm and with a range of just an octave, it sounds like a voice crying or wind howling across a mountaintop, its tone fleshy and pulpy, deep and haunting. Anyone who has watched a tear-jerker has probably heard the duduk's mournful echoes. Peter Gabriel's score in "The Last Temptation of Christ" introduced us to it almost 20 years ago — music on which Djivan Gasparian, the duduk's best-known ambassador, played.

Like a Hollywood star, the instrument then took a sabbatical, showing up only in an occasional film or a pilot that never made it. In the last 10 years, however, it has made a very steady showing and is now an expected guest at all the right parties.

Its evocative sound surfaces again Friday night when the new season of Sci Fi Channel's "Battlestar Galactica" begins, featuring a soundtrack adorned with what its composer, Bear McCreary, calls "a simple wooden pipe [that] emotes generations of sadness." A duduk solo, with text sung in Armenian, is featured in a McCreary song that follows the first episode's main title Friday.

The duduk's rising star owes a debt to the half-million Armenians that call Los Angeles home. This large Armenian community — the largest in the world outside of Armenia — has provided a steady base of musicians, teachers, instrument makers and, not least of all, fans that helped the duduk transition from ethnic enclave to mainstream culture.

On a trip to Los Angeles to visit his two daughters and their families — as well as to record the scores for "Syriana" and "The Da Vinci Code" — Gasparian, now 76, still seemed surprised by his fame as a master of a once-obscure instrument. "Many years ago, a Russian journalist asked me if I had made the duduk famous or if the duduk had made me famous," Gasparian says. "I still don't have an answer."

How and why did a simple shepherd's flute move from an ethnic curiosity to a staple in the Hollywood composer's arsenal? "I don't think there's anything that sounds as close to the human voice, and there's nothing as compelling to the human ear as the human voice," explains Jon Ehrlich, whose credits include now-defunct TV shows "Invasion" and "The Agency," and who composed a piece for the duduk for his own wedding.

It's a great dramatic tool for composers, Ehrlich points out. "With the duduk, you're pointing to a moment you want to keep alive, making a static moment breathe and be alive," he says.

"Battlestar Galactica" composer McCreary attributes the duduk's rise to "a current trend in films and television to branch away from the traditional orchestral score, which opens the door for unusual instruments and non-Western musical influences."

His roots led him to the instrument. "I first introduced the sound of the duduk mainly as background color in my orchestration, simply as a way to represent my Armenian heritage," says McCreary, who first heard the duduk while researching and writing an opera based on his grandmother's exodus from Turkey after the 1915 Armenian genocide. "I was instantly struck by the haunting, vocal quality.

"However, as the scoring process for 'Galactica' went on, I found it more useful than I had originally imagined, and the producers responded to the intimacy and power of the sound. It was not long before a mournful duduk wailed over the main title."

Although the show last season saw some changes, the duduk remained. "Set against the heavy percussion in the 'Battlestar Galactica' score, the duduk has an even more powerful impact," McCreary says. "During the most dramatic scenes, a melodic instrument will always resonate more with viewers."There is the danger, of course, of going to the well too often. "It seems like composers are getting tired of the duduk or at least they're afraid it will get overused," says Chris Bleth, Gasparian's first American student and a professional duduk player who has worked with Ehrlich and McCreary. "I get asked, 'What's like the duduk but isn't?' "
Yet the duduk's sound is so ephemeral it has yet to be synthesized successfully.

"The depth of perception — the stirring mournfulness that comes from so many years of suffering — at some level we can all relate to that," says Pedro Eustache, a woodwind musician and ethnic instrument disciple who played the duduk in scores for "The Passion of the Christ" and "Munich," among others. But, he adds, "I will not let movies define the duduk. The duduk is the antidote to desensitization."

"It's slowly become part of the musical landscape," Ehrlich says of the instrument. "That's staying power."

THE BUSINESS OF CHANGING THE WORLD

Twenty Global Leaders Discuss Integrated Philanthropy in Marc Benioff's Latest Book - THE BUSINESS OF CHANGING THE WORLD

Michael Dell, Craig Barrett, Michael Milken, Steve Case as Well as Musician Peter Gabriel and World Economic Forum Founder Klaus Schwab Discuss the Value of Integrated Philanthropy

(...)With the mission to educate corporations of all sizes on the potential to give back, Benioff gathered together twenty outstanding global leaders, including Michael Dell and Kevin Rollins of Dell, Craig Barrett from Intel , Steve Case, founder of AOL, Revolution, and The Case Foundation, musician and human rights activist Peter Gabriel, Alan Hassenfeld of Hasbro , Steve Burd of Safeway , Jim Donald of Starbucks , John Morgridge of Cisco , Michael Milken of The Milken Institute, Mike Eskew of UPS , Phil Marineau of Levi Strauss, Akinobu Kanasugi of NEC , Jeffrey Swartz of Timberland , Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum, Jean-Pierre Garnier of GlaxoSmithKline , Larry Fish of Citizens Financial Group, Marilyn Carlson Nelson of the Carlson Companies, and Laura Scher of Working Assets. Charles H. Moore of the Committee to Encourage Corporate Philanthropy contributed the forward to the book, rounding out the group of leaders. (...)

Digital music awards honours MySpace influence

(...)The 2006 BT Digital Music Awards didn't showcase an industry "coming of age" as The Guardian has it. Digital music's pubescence is long behind it as far as the public is concerned. It's more like a confused late-20 something now, torn between settling down, getting fat, and going to dinner parties with rich buddies, and its heritage as an agitator, grinding the cutting edge. A sharpness was detectable at times last night, thankfully.

Accepting an award for pioneering online music, Peter Gabriel alluded to the continuing conciousness struggle. He said there was still ample opportunity for artists to assume control of their own careers, which is precisely what the music business is scrambling to stymie. The biggest cheers from the assembled crowd of record company and marketing suits went up whenever an artist or campaign was mentioned which had pulled a fast one on the public. Ex-Bedales public schoolgirl Lily Allen's internet-spearheaded coronation as an "edgy" yet ubiquitous pop princess amused them immensely. (...)

Peter Gabriel awarded the 'Pioneer' Award by the BT Digital Music Awards

"The event is called the BT Digital Music Awards, which is taking place this year on October 3rd at the Roundhouse. It's the first music awards show to go into the Roundhouse since it's been refurbished and we're really looking forward to hosting a show with live music in there.The Digital Music Awards is in its sixth year now, and celebrates UK music artists, projects and services across digital platforms. The awards are either voted for by professional panels, or the public, or a combination of both. Last year's event at the Hammersmith Palais featured live performances from Magic Numbers, Turin Brakes, Roots Manuva, The Crimea, Mew and Goldie Lookin' Chain in collaboration with the Philharmonia. A specially-commissioned TV programme was then aired on Channel 4 the following night, which included pre-recorded features on digital music, interviews with more artists as well as the live performances and interviews from the awards show. Since "digital" is such big news these days, we felt it was important to give an award this year to remind people of some of the early work that was done to get us to where we are now. We want to call this the Pioneer Award and we'd like the very first one to go to Peter" A specially-commissioned TV programme has been made for Channel 4. This will be going out twice. Once on the 7th October, which will be a 15 minute round up of the awards and will feature Peter. The full programme goes out on the 21st October - currently at 11.30/midnight, but check listings in case this changes The Digital Music Awards site Channel 4

Undiscovered Countries

(cliquez sur l'image / click on the picture)
Durée : 5'52"
Titre : More Than This
Artiste : Peter Gabriel
Format : XviD
Taille : 81.4 Mo
Créateurs : WalterScott



Clip en hommage à deux figures de la culture nippone, Kenji Miyazawa, auteur pour enfant et poète, et Osamu Tezuka, qu'il n'est plus besoin de présenter. Les sources : Phoenix (Hi no Tori) concernant Tezuka, Night on the Galactic Railroad et Spring & Chaos (deux films avec des chats si vous voulez les reconnaître dans ce clip) concernant Miyazawa. Ce clip a gagné dans les catégories Best Dramatic, Best Sentimental et Grand Prix à l'AWA 2006 Pro contest, le concours Pro de la convention Anime Weekend Atlanta de cette année. Envoutant, c'est le mot qui décrit peut-être le mieux cette video. La chanson de Peter Gabriel combinée aux images de ces différents animes plutôt méconnus vous convie à un voyage chargé d'émotions. Superbe.

Postcards from East Oceanside: Greatest Hits

PAULA COLE

Postcards from East Oceanside: Greatest Hits

Paula Cole’s ‘Postcards from East Oceanside: Greatest Hits’ offers a delightful taste of her music career which has spanned the past decade.

Following in the footsteps of Kate Bush and Tori Amos, the starkly autobiographical elements of some Cole songs are tempered by her more "pop" orientated songs like ‘I Don’t Want to Wait’.

After graduating from the esteemed Berklee College of Music in 1990, the Massachusetts born singer/songwriter landed the job of backing vocalist on Peter Gabriel's Secret World tour of '93 and '94.

Coming off the road she released her debut album for Imago Records, ‘Harbinger’, which is represented by four tracks on the 'Greatest Hits' collection: most notably the more autobiographical tracks ‘I Am So Ordinary’ and ‘Bethlehem’ which deal with adolescent alienation and ‘Happy Home’ which examines the façade of family felicity.

Imago Records went out of business and Cole signed with Warner Brothers for her second album, ‘This Fire’ (1996), which won her a Grammy Award for the best new artist. The hits ‘Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?’ and the (hugely overplayed) theme song‘Dawson’s Creek’ ‘I Don’t Want to Wait’ propelled Cole into mainstream stardom.

Unsurprisingly the album they came from is the most represented on the collection. The six tracks featured here also include ‘Greatest Hits’‘Me’, which is in many ways similar to ‘I Am So Ordinary’; the more upbeat ‘Feelin’ Love’; the love song ‘Carmen’; and the hauntingly beautiful duet with Peter Gabriel ‘Hush, Hush, Hush’, which was written for a friend who died of Aids.

Cole’s third album, ‘Amen’ (1999) took on a slightly more esoteric note, with songs like the title track and ‘God is Watching’ questioning the destruction of earth and the violence of mankind. Both are featured here as well as the more pop orientated ‘I Believe in Love’.

‘Greatest Hits’ also includes Cole’s cover of Johnny Mercer’s ‘Autumn Leaves’ from the soundtrack of the movie ‘Midnight Garden of Good and Evil’. This jazzy track adds further depth to the collection and highlights Cole’s versatility as a singer.

So do the two previously unreleased tracks — ‘Tomorrow I Will Be Yours’ and the title track ‘Postcards from East Oceanside’. The former, which harks back to the autobiographical/narrative style of ‘Harbinger’, tells the story of lost childhood love and the intimacy of this ‘personal’ account is Cole at her best.

She lets you in to share her misery and inadequacies and takes you with her as she soars to great heights. Her strong voice has an amazing range and each song is carefully crafted and polished.
‘Postcards from East Oceanside’ isn't quite as accomplished. With Cole exploring the innocence of girlhood, the high-pitched whispery vocal does little to mask the fact that it's probably the least noteworthy track on the album.

So if you already own her first three albums, ‘Postcards from East Oceanside: Greatest Hits’ is probably not worth getting, but if not, it offers a comprehensive taste of everything that is great about Paula Cole.

Rebekah Kendal
Tue, 03 Oct 2006

WOMAD to move to new site

from Berkshire to Wiltshire

WOMAD WOMAD 2007

WOMAD - a World Of Music, Arts, and Dance - is to move to a new home in 2007, after being based at Rivermead, Reading since 1990.

WOMAD is intensely proud of its achievement at Rivermead together with Reading Borough Council and appreciates the support and endorsement of both the Council and the people of Reading. They feel honoured to have experienced a unique, creative and truly valuable partnership with Reading Borough Council during our years of working together.

However, after seventeenth festivals at Rivermead, it's felt that WOMAD has now outgrown the available land, and so a decision has been made to move to protect the long-term future and audience appeal.

Audience feedback after WOMAD Rivermead in 2005 included strong criticism of the site as a whole, and a feeling of overcrowding in particular. In order to alleviate these problems, WOMAD implemented substantial changes to the festival site in 2006, but despite these improvements a perception of overcrowding remains.

As a result, the WOMAD festival team felt there was no alternative than to seek a new venue in which to present the WOMAD Festival in future years. Thomas Brooman - Managing and Artistic Director, WOMAD - said "We are keen to express our sincere goodwill towards Reading Borough Council and our support for every element of our working partnership in producing the WOMAD Festival each year at Rivermead."

A new site has already been found in Wiltshire. Full details of the new festival site will be announced on Wednesday 1st November, and tickets for the 2007 festival - taking place from Friday 27th until Sunday 29th July - will be put on sale on that date.

Ali Farka Touré : L'HOMMAGE AU GUITAR-HERO

Ali Farka Touré : L'HOMMAGE AU GUITAR-HERO

l'Essor n°15799 du - 2006-10-02 08:00:00

Le comité préparatoire des journées d'hommage à Ali Farka Touré, prévues les 6, 7 et 8 mars 2007 à Bamako et Niafunké, est à pied d'oeuvre.

Il vient de rencontrer la presse à l'hôtel Nord-Sud pour lui exposer de l'état des préparatifs et les enjeux de cet événement désigné sous le vocable peulh "Jammal poï". Les anciens ministres Moustapha Dicko et Aminata Dramane Traoré sont les parrains du comité. La fête sera placée sous le haut patronage du président de la République, Amadou Toumani Touré.

Selon Temo Tamboura, le parcours d'Ali Farka Touré sera revisité au cours de ses journées d'hommage dont l'objectif est de sensibiliser l'opinion nationale et internationale sur la nécessité d'assurer la conservation des oeuvres léguées par le célèbre artiste. Ce patrimoine va répondre à des besoins d'exploitation universitaire, radiophonique et culturelle.

Le programme d'activités prévoit des conférences-débats, un méga concert organisé au stade Modibo Keita et animé par des stars de la musique malienne, africaine et mondiale. Les mélomanes devraient déguster le meilleur de Toumani Diabaté, Oumou Sangaré, Manu Dibango, Youssou Ndour, Alpha Blondy, du Bembeya Jazz, de Ry Cooder, Marcus James, Boni Wright et Peter Gabriel. Les plus hautes autorités rendront également hommage à la mémoire du virtuose disparu. Le voyage de recueillement à Niafunké sur la tombe de Ali Farka Touré bouclera les manifestations.

Le budget de l'organisation s'élève à plus 90 millions de Fcfa et sera constitué de dons et subventions. A cet effet, une opération de quête et de sponsoring est lancée et les fonds collectés seront déposés sur le compte bancaire de la Fondation Ali Farka.

Le défi est d'importance et la cause noble. Le guitariste a apporté une touche particulière à la "World music" en l'enrichissant de son style particulier. L'artiste a également laissé à la postérité, un héritage artistique riche de sept albums de notoriété internationale. Il a hissé la musique malienne sur la plus haute marche de la notoriété. Deux Grammy Awards music ont ainsi récompensé l'inspiration et la maestria d'Ali Farka à travers l'album "Timbuktu" en 1995. Le bluesman est sorti de scène en beauté. Le CD "In the heart of the moon" enregistré en duo avec Toumani Diabaté en 2005, berce les âmes et auréole le souvenir du disparu.

M. KONATÉ

Genesis Will Reform Next Year For Tour

But without Peter Gabriel...

Genesis’ long-mooted reunion will go ahead next year – but without original member Peter Gabriel.

Gabriel had said he would rejoin the band for the first time in decades for a reunion tour – but his schedule wouldn’t allow anything to happen until 2008.

In now appears Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks – who had a string of hits in the eighties - will now go ahead without him, undertaking a money-spinning tour of America and Europe themselves.

According to a report in the Sunday Mirror, Collins is particularly keen to get on with it after kicking his feels following his split from his third wife earlier this year.

Realworld News

1-Oct-2006

I can't take any more! So that's it for entries in the Shock The Monkey Remix Competition. We must apologize for our minimal Hot Picks in the final batch, there were many great mixes, but we just didn't have time to engage our ears and minds for long enough to filter the content - as you might have noticed these picks are pretty random, just an inital reaction as we listen for approval - it's your top ten lists that count (and the ratings for other non-competition packs on the site) Just to clarify, some of you have been playing fast and loose with the PG catalogue in your mixes, and we've let that slip through, but obviously we couldn't do this when other people's music was involved. Right up to this last night of submissions the music has been amazing, so thanks to everyone who's been involved - it looks like around 740 mixes of Shock The Monkey have made it into the competition (is this a record?) so please help us out by filling in your top ten (but only do it once! we're looking out for odd voting patterns) We've all got lot's of listening to do. If we've made and mistakes in what we have approved,denied and replaced, let us know and we'll get it sorted (but not tonight!) Hopefully the mixes will keep coming, and as we said in our last post, new Sample Packs are on their way (more on this later in the week) We'll keep you posted on developments in the run up to next Saturdays announcement of the winner in this little game. More to come, but from the early hours of October all we can say is keep mixing, keep the votes and comments flowing and thanks for the music! Listen vote and comment at realworldremixed.com

We love... Thomas Dolby

Some people have all the luck. You'll probably remember Thomas Dolby for two songs from the '80s that brought a smile to your lips: She Blinded Me With Science, and Hyperactive!

Along with a career as musician and producer of the likes of David Bowie, George Clinton, Peter Gabriel, Herbie Hancock, Def Leppard, the Thompson Twins and Stevie Wonder, he also married a Hollywood actress, Kathleen Beller, who is best remembered as Kirby Colby in Dynasty.

Not content with that, Dolby went on to found electronics company Beatnik, Inc. It, in turn, created the polyphonic ringtone, currently in use in more than 100 million mobile telephones across the world.

Dolby was born Thomas Morgan Robertson in 1958 in London, the son of professor of Greek history, and he spent his childhood living in Mediterranean countries like Greece, Italy and France.

He was nicknamed Dolby by friends after he began building his own synthesisers when he was 18 years old. However, when he released a song under the moniker Dolby's Cube, he incurred the wrath of Dolby Laboratories, which sued him for using its name. The case was settled when he agreed never to use the word other than with Thomas.

Riding on the crest of new electronic music that sprang up in the wake of the New Romantic movement, Dolby earned an eccentric boffin reputation for his music, not least for his first hit, She Blinded Me With Science, which featured the enormously popular TV scientist Magnus Pyke, shouting the song's title over a quirky synth melody.

The song was included on his debut album, The Golden Age of Wireless, released in 1982. Perversely, it sold far better in the US than at home (although that was second time round, after She Blinded Me With Science became a top five hit there), probably to Americans drawn by the Englishness of Dolby's music.

Those that didn't buy it missed out on a series of classic songs, like Airwaves, Windpower, Europa and the Pirate Twins, One of Our Submarines, and Cloudburst on Main Street.
He followed it up with The Flat Earth in 1984. In typical Dolby style, he wrong-footed everyone's expectations by releasing what was his biggest UK hit to date, Hyperactive! A frenetic, funny pop song that could well be frowned upon today with it's not-quite-respectful view of mental illness, it remains hugely popular, even if it wasn't the huge hit that everyone thinks it was.

Dolby became tied up in producing other people's work for most of the rest of the '80s, writing film scores (including, bizarrely, Howard the Duck). He was also the keyboard player on Def Leppard's 1983 Pyromania album, credited as Booker T Boffin, and performed the same job at Live Aid in 1985 in David Bowie's band.

His third album, Aliens Ate My Buick, came out in 1988, but was poorly received, despite containing the hits Airhead, Hot Sauce and May the Cube Be With You.

Along with a final album, Astronauts and Heretics, in 1992, Dolby became increasingly involved in scoring music for cinema, and also founded a music software company called Headspace. He moved from that to founding Beatnik, Inc. After relinquishing his position as CEO, he founded Retro Ringtones in 2002, and has continued to create hundreds of digital polyphonic ring tones, including the polyphonic version of the Nokia signature theme.

After a 25-year break from solo performing, Dolby returned to the road with a surprise gig in San Francisco at the start of this year. He is currently touring the US.

Essential Thomas Dolby

While hard to find in many record shops today, much of Thomas Dolby's work can be downloaded over the internet.

Here's a few of our favourites.

From The Golden Age of Wireless:

Airwaves: Beautiful atmospheric tune featuring guitars and strings, and proving that Dolby's music is as much European as English;
She Blinded Me With Science: Reportedly hated by Dolby, but one of the funniest and most original pop songs ever written;

One of Our Submarines: Excellent and well-timed use of samples give this a wonderful Cold War era feel;
Cloudburst on Main Street: Like a memory of a happy, sun-filled, childhood holiday, somewhere in Britain;

From The Flat Earth:

Dissidents: Another Iron Curtain evocation;

Screen Kiss: Beautiful love song with disturbing lyrics about Tinseltown;

I Scare Myself: Surprising soft jazz disguises a dark heart, and the trademark humour's not far away, either;

Hyperactive!: You all love it - a headlong rush through an outsider's battle with an authority that fails to understand him

Sep 25 2006

Duncan Higgitt, Western Mail