Djembe & other

Friday, 30 May 2008

UK's Goldfrapp ambivalent about hip-hop, Madonna

NEW YORK (Reuters) - They are credited with influencing the fashion style of Madonna but British electronica band Goldfrapp don't have much time for the pop diva or other big acts they will be playing with this summer.

Grammy-nominated Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory, whose fourth album "Seventh Tree" hit No. 2 in Britain in February, will share the big stages at two outdoor British music festivals with hip-hop mogul Jay-Z and Madonna.

"I think her fearlessness is amazing but I don't have particularly any admiration for her work," Goldfrapp, dressed in tight blue jeans, a shirt and sunglasses that were never removed, told Reuters in a recent interview.

On Sunday, the group -- acclaimed for their breadth of musical styles that canvas anything from pop to dance to glam rock -- kick off a tour of European concerts and summer festivals starting at BBC's Radio 1 music festival, where Madonna is also performing.

The straight-talking Goldfrapp will also be mixing with Jay-Z at Glastonbury, which has been criticized for straying from its roots by featuring the rapper as one of its top acts.

"People don't want it to become Americanized or kind of different, where you can't just wander around any more sort of half-naked with mud over you. I can see, understand that," Goldfrapp said about world's biggest open-air music and arts festival, which she dubbed "an English institution."

"I understand why people might start getting nervous that it will slowly wipe out the eccentric hippies ... Hip-hop is really conventional, I think," she said. "It's quite flashy, it's a lot about money, money."

Gregory, who hails from Bristol, England -- famed for breeding other electronic groups such as Massive Attack and Portishead -- said hip-hop was "about being wealthy, wearing a lot of jewelry" and was likely taken on due to Glastonbury's ever-growing reach.

Sunday, 18 May 2008

Blanchett delivers eulogy at Ledger funeral

Actress Cate Blanchett delivered a moving eulogy at a monument table service in Perth, Australia for Heath Ledger on Sat.
Over 600 crime syndicate members, friends and fans gathered to conjure farewell to the 28-year-old principal, as Blanchett - wHO starred in 'I'm Not There' with Ledger - gave a touch eulogium about their time spent together.
Ledger's ex-partner Michelle Williams was besides in attending, just she did not bring the former couple's two-year-old horse daughter Matilda to the service at Penrhos College, a common soldier girls' school.
After the service, 10 family members attended a common soldier funeral at Fremantle Burying ground, where the body was cremated.
Mourners then gathered at a eating place overlooking Perth's Cottesloe beach, one of Ledger's favourite musca volitans, for a sunset wake.
Loads of family and friends then threw off close to of their dress and ran into the water, where they hugged and cheered to celebrate Ledger's life, according to various reports.
Earlier Ledger's don Kim asked the media for seclusion. He said to reporters: "It's a fairly sad time and we're determination it difficult to cope by ourselves, let solely cope with everybody around the world."
He continued: "Having said that we do really prize the barrage and the emotional documentation from whole all over the globe, which, serve to say, we're luckier than most families, most families that are in our perspective, our grieving placement, don't receive that form of support. So give thanks you wholly very much. That's entirely I've got to say.''
Daybook was launch dead at his New York apartment on 22 January. Toxicology results released last week revealed he was killed by an accidental overdose of prescription medication.

Thompson almost quit filming over weight issue

Thursday, 24 April 2008

Patrick Ball

Artist: Patrick Ball

   Genre(s):
Celtic

Discography:

Celtic Harp III: Secret Isles

Year: 1985
Tracks: 12

The melodious sounds of the wire-strung Irish harmonica give been revived by San Francisco-born harpist Patrick Ball. Performing on a harmonica based on an antediluvian Celtic instrument and built by skipper harp detergent builder Jay Wircher of Houlton, Maine, Ball has become i of the leading interpreters of the medicine of Turlough O'Carolan, an 18th-century Irish harpist and composer. Although Irish music is the heart of Ball's repertory, his albums and performances give besides included traditional songs from Scotland, Wales, the Isle of Man, Brittany, Belgium and England.

The son of an lawyer, Ball was bucked up to follow in his father's footsteps. Although he studied forte-piano and guitar as a tiddler, he continued to study law at college. His attention, however, became increasingly distrait by a development sake in the work out of Irish poets, songwriters and novelists. When his father died, Ball was freed from his debt instrument to become a attorney. Leaving school, he traveled to Ireland to feel the country's oral tradition. While there, he became hypnotised with the Irish harmonica.

Afterwards reverting to the United States, Ball enrolled at Dominican College in California, where he earned a master's level in story. Upon his graduation, however, he ascertained that at that place were few jobs usable in the field of Irish history. Hitchhiking around the United States, he landed at the Penland School of Crafts in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. He remained at the school for iI long time, working as a groundsman.

Following a moment trip to Ireland, Ball returned to California and sought out a jehovah of the wire-strung Celtic harmonica. After education himself to play, he launched his career as a instrumentalist.

Divine by the storytelling tradition of Ireland and the Appalachian Mountain region of the United States, Ball has systematically full-grown as a tale weaver. His vocable debut, Storyteller/Gwilan's Harp and Other Celtic Tales, standard a prestigious National Association of Independent Record Distributors' prize as the charles Herbert Best independently released spoken word recording of 1995. Two days later, Ball provided musical complement for Cher's narration of the children's story, The Ugly Duckling. In 1997, Ball released the twofold CD Finnegan's Wake, featuring his interpretation from James Joyce's 1939 novel accompanied by his Irish harmonica. Ball's up-to-the-minute project is a solo theatre piece, O'Carolan's Farewell to Music. The play was premiered in November/December 1997 at the Studio Theater in Sarasota, Florida and the Theatre Company in Wilmington, Delaware.