The Darkness & other: June 2008

Monday, 30 June 2008

Siniaia Ptica

Artist: Siniaia Ptica

   Genre(s):
Retro

Discography:

Grand Collection

Year: 2000
Tracks: 17

Benoit Freeman

Artist: Benoit Freeman

   Genre(s):
Instrumental

Discography:

Freeman Project

Year: 2004
Tracks: 10

Ethnic - Various Artists

Sunday, 29 June 2008

Jessy

Artist: Jessy

   Genre(s):
Dance

Discography:

Rain

Year: 2005
Tracks: 13

Powergod

Saturday, 28 June 2008

Tana Ramsay: 'I Don't Want To Look Like Victoria Beckham'

Tana Ramsay and Victoria Beckham Gordon Ramsay's wife Tana says she has no intention of slimming down to look like pal Victoria Beckham.

Gordon and Tana are close friends with Victoria and her soccer star husband David and regularly enjoy lunch together when both couples are in Los Angeles, but 34-year old mum of four Ramsay insists she isn't intimidated by the former Spice Girls' size zero body.

She tells Britain's Closer magazine, "I don�t think 'I wish I looked like that.'

"I never really think about her weight because she�s so normal and she�s a mate. She�s very petite, but that�s just her."

She added, "Gordon tends to nag me if I lose weight. He much prefers it when there�s something to hold on to."

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Black Lips Talk About Touring With Raconteurs -- And What They're Not Allowed To Do Onstage

"This has been very, very different. I mean, we've only played in festivals to crowds of this many people." That's Black Lips' Jared Swilley, talking about the band's latest gig, one that finds them in unfamiliar territory — playing venues that hold several thousand people, as the opening act for some certifiable six-figure-selling rock stars, the Raconteurs.

I must admit: It was a bit disconcerting to see, of all bands, the lovably lecherous "bad kids" with the "dirty hands" from Atlanta in the support slot last Friday night (and all weekend long) at Manhattan's Terminal 5, a dance-turned-rock club that still has its black-and-chrome motif, fancy bars and disco ball in place. With weird sight lines and sound spots, and zero of the grit that's synonymous with the Lips, I'm still not sure Terminal 5 ought to be hosting rock bands. Mind you, the scruffy ATL-ers aren't complaining.

"We absolutely appreciate the Raconteurs taking us on tour with them — they've been great," said guitarist Ian St. Pé. Though he added they did receive an unexpected welcome to the tour a couple of weeks back, one with which they were unaccustomed. "They gave us a list of things we couldn't do — no setting guitars on fire, no touching the monitors, no spitting." Whoa. No spitting? Hard to believe that was not a deal-breaker for the Black Lips, especially for that salivating little rascal, guitarist Cole Alexander, whose hock-and-spit routine long ago became a trademark. No problem, said Cole. "Yeah, I just have to wipe up my spit. I don't want 'em to slip on it."

No such expectoration restrictions on Monday night in Hoboken, New Jersey, where the Lips were taking advantage of an off-night from the Raconteurs' trek to play their own show at the much more reasonably sized Maxwell's — a show attended, by the way, by Mr. Jack White himself. It was also a chance to play a more-than-40-minute set, and more songs from the Lips' last album, Good Bad Not Evil. Released nine months ago, the record is ridiculously deep in potential singles, and in fact, they've just released another. After somehow turning a song about a natural disaster into a good-time garage jam ("O Katrina!"), and their bluesy musings on hegemony ("Veni Vidi Vici"), the guys have returned with a track about a subject a little closer to home: Atlanta strippers. "It Feels Alright" — and its accompanying black-and-white video — serves up an homage to the boys' hometown and, as St. Pé explained, to a particular night spot known as Magic City. "It's an all-black strip club, where they'll showcase all the new rap songs that come out. They'll play 'em in the club for the girls to dance. It's a famous joint."

And then there's the matter of Black Lips' feature-film debut in director Roger Rawlings' "Let It Be," a fictional account of a band called the Renegades, reportedly loosely inspired by the Replacements, who "almost make it" in the formative years of indie music, the 1980s. While the guys say their taste in '80s music generally runs more toward hardcore bands like the Butthole Surfers, the Replacements and Hüsker Dü, they said they're up for the challenge of playing musicians, in a naturalistic way. "They purposely didn't want professional actors," explained Swilley. "They just wanted a real band. So it seems easy to just be ourselves in front of the camera."

First announced last winter, "Let It Be" has had some delays, but the Lips say it's still on track — though shooting may have to be pushed back to early next year because the boys' main order of business for the latter half of the summer (besides Swilley's impending wedding) will be situating themselves at a rented space in Atlanta and recording a new album. Though Alexander says they've only written "a couple of demos" so far, and drummer Joe Bradley says he's got "four or five" songs at different levels of completion in his head, they add that they are four independent writers and ideas come to them readily. St. Pé's not worried: "We'll be able to pump the album out, no problem."

On the live front, the band is looking forward to England's Glastonbury Festival at the end of June; August dates at Lollapalooza in Chicago and at Brooklyn's McCarren Park Pool with pals Deerhunter and King Khan; shows later in the year in India, Brazil and China; and maybe somewhere even more exotic. Black Lips' label, Vice Records, and its parent magazine have long had a reputation for guerrilla journalism in extreme locales. Last year, with their VBS.tv cameras in tow, the band played street gigs in Israel and Palestine, and Alexander said a show in Iraq has even been discussed. "We have a friend whose father is Iraqi and he smuggles people in the country. Or we could go in the Green Zone and play a U.S.O. show." Of course, that would be the safer option, but frankly, Red Zone is more Black Lips. "Like a guerrilla show," Cole reckoned. "They told me you can hire a militia, you go in with 'em, they start blasting guns, everybody freezes and you can, you know, play a show." Yikes.

If that all sounds like a pretty nonstop, breakneck schedule, that's nothing new. The old cliché "road warriors" certainly applies to Black Lips, and that's OK with them. After all, it wasn't that long ago that they were busting their asses for far less. As Swilley said: "Other jobs suck way worse." And finally, the Black Lips want you to give them a call on their hotline. The number is (949) 836-7407 (or TEN-SH0P). No joke.

"One of us will answer, for real, if we are on tour in America," St. Pé said. "Give us a call, and you will make our long-ass drives more fun."

See much more of my conversation with Black Lips at Rhapsody.com.

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Black Cross

Artist: Black Cross

   Genre(s):
Metal: Death,Black

Discography:

Hysteria

Year: 2004
Tracks: 6

Following the demise of '90s straight edge heroes By the Grace of God, vocaliser Rob Pennington and drummer Thommy Browne decided to get going a new chapter in 2001 with the Louisville, Kentucky-based Black Widows. But later on mechanical drawing brothers Ryan (guitar) and Evan Patterson (bass) from National Acrobat, and releasing 2002's Stops a Beating Heart E.P., they were forced to drop their nominate and thusly Black Cross was born. Their start exploit as such, 2003's Artistic creation Offensive, carried on with their established hardcore direction, and the following year's Widows Bloody Widows gathered whatsoever songs were left from their Black Widows' years, and introduced new drummer Sean Johnson, to boot.

Ravi Shankar and George Fenton

Artist: Ravi Shankar and George Fenton

   Genre(s):
Classical

Discography:

Gandhi

Year:
Tracks: 2

Russell: How Much Do You Love Your Kids?

They say you can never put a price on love: how's $480,000 a year sound?

TMZ has obtained documents in the Russell and Kimora Lee Simmons divorce case. The docs, filed yesterday in LA Superior Court, say the hip-hip pioneer has to shell out $20k a month -- per daughter!!! -- in child support to Kimora.

And he's got to keep doing so until 2019 for Ming Lee and 2022 for Aoki.

Documents to follow ...

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Jay-z Rules Out Career In Politics

Hip-hop mogul SHAWN JAY ZCARTER has laughed off any talk of entering politics - insisting he'd be assassinated if he ever tried to run for president.

The 99 Problems star has expanded his business empire to include music publishing, clothing and alcohol - as well as owning shares in basketball team the New Jersey Nets.

But he has dismissed the idea of turning his attentions to politics and the state of America, because he would face heavy criticism over his personal life and criminal history.

And he compares it to the backlash U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama experienced when his pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, was forced to step down from his White House campaign after making several controversial comments about 9/11 and Black America earlier this year (08).

Asked by London's Time Out magazine whether he'd ever stand for office, the rapper jokes, "No, they'll kill me in 30 seconds. 'S**t! This guy's in!' Bang! Ha ha! I won't make it past the primaries!

"They talk about Obama's priest - imagine what they'd do to me!"

Jay-Z has a criminal record from an incident in 1999, when he was accused of stabbing record executive Lance 'Un' Rivera. He denied the charge and reached a plea with prosecutors, which resulted in the star pleading guilty to a misdemeanour and sentenced to three years' probation.

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Miley Cyrus Debuts 7 Things Music Video

Disney star Miley Cyrus has debuted the new music video for her latest single ‘7 Things’ taken from her forthcoming album ‘breakout’. Watch the video by clicking ‘read more.’

Photo courtesy of Vanity Fair. Taken by Annie Lebowitz.

305 - 7/8/2008

The 2006 blockbuster 300 was neither good nor bad enough to merit a parody. And yet 2008 brought us not just one but two movies poking fun at the legend of King Leonidas and the Spartan army. There's even a third parody that starts shooting at the end of the year. Attention, filmmakers: Spoofing a box office winner does not mean your movie will top the charts, too. 305 is a good example: An unlucky few (including myself) will see this painfully unfunny mockumentary in theaters before it goes straight to the DVD shelf (literally next week), where it belongs and will hopefully disappear after no one rents it.

305 is one of those movies that'll make you wonder how such a horrible piece of work even made it past the planning stages. The 5 in the title refers to the five main characters in the film, who are apparently the out-of-shape, inadequate Spartans assigned to guard a goat path. Har, har. One day, these five decide they want to leave the goat path to join King Leonidas in the war against the Persians. What could go wrong? Nobody cares about the goat path, right? Wrong. Leaving the goat path unguarded apparently allows the Persians to break through King Leonidas' army's defenses, ultimately leading to the deaths of all 300 Spartans. Whoops.

What's sadder than this half-baked premise is the repeated, feeble attempts the movie's script makes at humor. There's a character named Testicles, pronounced testiclees (Brandon Tyra). Hyuck, hyuck. There's a four-eyed dweeb named Darryl (David Schultz) who blatantly tries to steal the personality of Dwight from The Office -- and fails miserably. The other three aren't worth mentioning, because there isn't anything noteworthy about their names or idiosyncrasies. Wooing Testicles is a hot chick named Aurillia (Heaven Peabody), some eye candy to distract you from the movie's idiotically drab humor.

I wanted to laugh at this movie, but I couldn't. Even if the directors were in the audience, I couldn't give them a pity giggle. It's really just depressing, because the movie and its actors try so hard. And as horrible as the script is, these actors, all amateurs, aren't going to go on a power trip and start improvising their own lines to make the movie better. You can't help but feel sorry for them.

Remember A Clockwork Orange? The painfulness of watching 305 brings back memories of that scene in Orange where Alex's eyes are forced open with metal prongs, and he sits through hours of watching horrible films -- as part of a program to cure him of evil. If someone remade Orange today, 305 would be the movie Alex has to watch over and over. Except to give this remake a new angle, Alex would be a horrible filmmaker rather than an evil criminal. And after watching 305 over and over again with his eyes pried open, he'd walk out a new man aspiring to make movies with more original, less stupid ideas.

We've got another 300 spoof coming our way in 2009 titled 301: The Legend of Awesomest Maximus Wallace Leonidas. Judging from the title alone, you can tell this is going to be another stinker. We can only pray that after the slew of negative reviews of Meet the Spartans and 305 that someone will give 301 the axe... before it's too late.

Reviewed at the 2008 Another Hole in the Head festival.

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