langfieldent@rogers.com
www.langfieldentertainment.com
Brrrr! It's cold out there!
Put your mittens on folks and stay warm out there!
A new event on the scene - the Aroni Awards - some exciting guests and great night! Again, The Gospel Christmas Project is a must-see show and a must-have CD. Have you purchased
your tickets yet? No? Why not purchase tickets and give to someone
for a gift?
I also have an excellent gift idea about giving back authored by a friend of
mine, Chris Cathcart. What a great idea
during this potentially insatiable season! See details below!
And a special announcement on the social scene, Chef
Anthony Mair joins the crew at
::
Aroni Awards - Sunday,
Get Ready To Inspire
Following a successful launch in 2006, the Aroni
Awards
returns on Sunday, December 9th, 2007 for yet another captivating event, with
the presentation of five AroniMAGE awards to the unsung heroes of our
community. The AroniAwards Education Grants will be presented to three
students who show strong dedication to community service, a positive outlook
and continue to persevere despite socioeconomic hardships and other
obstacles. The Aroni Awards Gala was created in honour of Aron Y. Haile,
an African Canadian and accomplished student, entrepreneur, software developer,
who died in 2003, at the young age of 30.
Get Ready To Be Inspired
Canadian Idol’s favourite judge Farley Flex returns as Master of
Ceremony, with some of Canada’s premier entertainers, presenters such as Cabral
“Cabbie” Richards (
ARONI AWARDS GALA
ATLANTIS (
Tickets: $60 (Includes 3 Course Dinner Catered by Dynamic, Silent Auction,
Cocktail
Purchase tickets at www.aroniawards.com
or by calling
Two Shows, One CD - The Gospel Christmas Project – December 21 (
Source: Andrew Craig
You’re invited to the Christmas musical events of 2007: the Gospel
Christmas Project, live at Ottawa’s National Arts Centre and Toronto’s
Massey Hall! Audiences are calling this show “fabulous”, “amazing”, “thrilling beyond expectation”, “music to God's ears” and “a
wonderfully joyful spiritual evening”.
“The Gospel Christmas Project - LIVE!” is two hours of the world’s greatest
Christmas carols, in all-stunning new arrangements made by musician, producer
and broadcaster Andrew Craig. The songs are rendered by some of our
country’s greatest voices:
Jackie Richardson, Canada’s Queen of Jazz and
Blues,
Alana Bridgewater, “Killer Queen” in the Mirvish
production of “We Will Rock You”
Kellylee Evans, 2007 Canadian Smooth Jazz
Female Vocalist of the Year
Chris Lowe, a tremendous new voice recently-emerged
from the Gospel community
and the Juno-award-winning Sharon Riley and Faith Chorale
“The Gospel Christmas Project” is already a wildly-popular radio
show, a Gemini-nominated TV special, and a brand-new CD, called “The
Gospel Christmas Project”, available in all major retail outlets right now, and
on ITunes as of December 4.
“The Gospel Christmas Project” was originally performed in
And the next night (December 22) The Gospel Christmas Project makes
its
Visit the website: www.gospelxmasproject.com
Purchase CD at
::SCOOP::
Chef Mair Joins Harlem
On Friday,
Situated in the hub of city movement,
The two see the union as a movement in the right direction and perhaps one that
may see the creation of even more restaurants within the downtown core.
Look for the exciting new dinner menu coming soon!
www.Harlemrestaurant.com
::GIFT GIVING TIP::
The Lost Art of Giving Back - Just in Time for the Holidays!
Source: One Diaspora
The Lost Art of Giving
Back, is the
debut book from veteran PR
consultant
and volunteer advocate Christopher Cathcart, and is the perfect Christmas, Kwanzaa, holiday season
gift or a gift for any season.
The book is a brief (only 54 pages!), engaging read, and discusses how we all
can discover the joys and sense of empowerment found through volunteering and
giving back. It reviews such topics as finding time to volunteer, being
creative in the process, and involving our workplaces, among other
points. Lost Art also profiles the volunteer efforts of such
notable individuals as PR maven and noted author
Information on the Lost Art of Giving Back can be found on Cathcart’s
website
(www.onediaspora.com),
and signed copies can be purchased there as well; standard copies can be
purchased via www.amazon.ca
(
For more information, please contact Chris directly at Chris@OneDG.com. This
season, why not give the gift that celebrates giving?
::TOP STORIES::
Love Affair With Measha
Brueggergosman Has Only Just Begun
Excerpt
from www.thestar.com - Classical Music Critic
(
And you can bet that anyone who wasn't smitten by soprano Measha Brueggergosman before
attending her solo recital at Roy Thomson Hall yesterday afternoon left the
auditorium with their pulse racing.
She may have only just turned 30, but there are only a handful of pros around
the world who can match the
As she breezed through cabaret-flavoured 20th-century art songs from England
(Benjamin Britten), France (Francis Poulenc and Erik Satie), Germany (Arnold
Schoenberg) and the United States (by living composers Ned Rorem and William
Bolcom), it would be easy to underestimate the force of artistry needed to make
this program work.
Most of these songs were meant to be sung in a salon, not in a concrete-lined
2,500-seat concert hall.
These pieces demand finesse to properly shape exquisite stories or jokes in
music without the benefit of an orchestra or amplification.
Brueggergosman and ever-elegant piano accompanist Roger Vignoles not only
jumped these hurdles but added pirouettes before each graceful landing. The
soprano convinced us that she wouldn't be happier anywhere else but right
there, onstage, doing her best to please our eyes and ears.
The recital was broadcast live on
The program itself was clever, mixing more serious songs with lighter ones –
most from Brueggergosman's new album, Surprise.
Unlike most classical singers, this soprano has built a beginning to what will
hopefully be a great, long career on recitals and concert performances with
orchestras, rather than in opera. But that will change for us soon.
Her most captivating performances yesterday were in the songs by Britten and
Bolcom, with which she created bookends in songs about love.
But the real love was the one she is igniting between artist and audience
wherever she performs.
King Of Calypso Still Packs A Punch
Excerpt
from www.globeandmail.com - Gayle Macdonald
(November 26, 2007) Harry Belafonte might be hobbling on
crutches these days, but he doesn't take a misstep when asked what led to his
right foot being put in a cast.
"I was having a heated discussion with Condoleezza Rice," quips the
80-year-old singer, actor, outspoken human rights activist, and vocal critic of
U.S. President George W. Bush and his entire administration, including the 66th
Secretary of State.
In truth, the man known as the King of Calypso (a name that stuck in the
fifties after the raspy tenor belted out "Day-O!" in The Banana
Boat Song), sustained the injury after hitting his instep against furniture
while horsing around with one of his five grandchildren. "I thought I'd
just bruised it, only to find out six weeks later, I'd broken it," says
Belafonte, still a thin, handsome man whose sly wit and sharp tongue has made
him a number of political enemies but far more humanitarian fans.
In an interview in
But he slammed Democratic presidential-hopeful Hillary Clinton, what he calls
ineptitude of the mainstream media, and his No. 1 nemesis, Bush, whose invasion
of
Belafonte's never met Bush, but he has run into Hillary Clinton at many
functions, where he says the presidential-hopeful studiously continues to snub
him. (Apparently, Clinton's chill started after Belafonte met with Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez in early 2006, and was quoted saying, "No matter
what the greatest tyrant in the world, the greatest terrorist in the world,
George W. Bush says, we're here to tell you: Not hundreds, not thousands, but
millions of the American people ... support your revolution.)
How does it make him feel? "It tells me much about her," shrugs
Belafonte. "And it validates what I'm doing is right."
Belafonte credits being born, in poverty, to parents of colour, for instilling
a lifelong ambition to fight for civic and human rights issues. "I've
always found poverty a painful and cruel place to have to exist. I found racism
so crippling. So early on, I developed a passion for changing it.
"The idea came from my mother, that I should use
all resources at my disposal to try to make a difference in the world in the
way we find it, and in the way in which we should leave it. She was a woman
with no tangible possessions or means, but she had great dignity and enormous
intelligence, even though she had no formal education."
Belafonte's life is remarkable for its diversity. Born in the
After honourable discharge, he started taking acting classes in the late 1940s
alongside the likes of Marlon Brando, Tony Curtis, Walter Matthau and Sidney
Poitier. On the side, he worked as a club singer to pay for the theatre
classes.
For several years, Belafonte juggled both careers, landing roles in films such
as Carmen Jones and Island in the Sun. But by the early fifties,
he was focusing on singing, signing with RCA, when his album Calypso
made him the first artist in industry history to sell more than one million
LPs.
His life took another sharp turn about the same time he met the young Martin
Luther King. He was swept up by the civil rights movement, which set him on a
course to fight apartheid, poverty in
"I have been privileged to have been friends with Martin Luther King,
Eleanor Roosevelt, [singer and activist] Paul Robeson, and [activist, writer,
historian] W.E.B. Du Bois. I have met the powerful thinkers of our time,
including Nelson Mandela. I've been here in
He says he's seen great atrocities but also great acts of kindness. One that
sticks happened on a visit to
Redskins Will Honour Fallen Teammate
Excerpt from www.thestar.com - Matt
Sedensky, Associated Press
(November 28, 2007) MIAMI–Pro Bowl safety Sean
Taylor died of a gunshot wound yesterday, leaving the Washington
Redskins in mourning for a teammate who seemed to have reordered his life since
becoming a father.
The 24-year-old player died at the hospital where he had been airlifted after
the shooting by an intruder in his home early Monday.
"It is with deep regret that a young man had to come to his end so
soon," his father, Pedro Taylor, said in a statement on behalf of the
family. "Many of his fans loved him because of the way he played football.
Many of his opponents feared him the way he approached the game. Others
misunderstood him, many appreciated him and his family loved him."
A string of mourners, including
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said the league will honour
"This is a terrible tragedy involving the loss of a young man who leaves
behind many people struggling to understand it," he said in a statement.
Redskins coach Joe Gibbs said what he would remember
most about
"God made him to play football," Gibbs said. "To me, he just
loved and thrived on the competition part of it. ... Sean, he loved football.
He loved these guys here."
Gibbs acknowledged it will be hard to concentrate on football this week.
"I don't know how we'll deal with it, except we'll all do it
together," he said.
"This is a terrible, terrible tragedy," said Redskins owner Daniel
Snyder, who added that the team would honour
Redskins teammate Clinton Portis also played with
"It's hard to expect a man to grow up overnight," Portis said. ``But
ever since he had his child, it was like a new Sean and everybody around here
knew it. He was always smiling, always happy, always talking about his
child."
Doctors had been encouraged late Monday when
"Maybe he was trying to say goodbye or something," Sharpstein said.
Trauma experts said a serious wound to this large artery, leading from the
abdomen through the upper thigh, is among the most difficult to fix and can
quickly drain the body of blood. Too much blood loss prevents oxygen from
reaching the brain and vital organs.
"According to a preliminary investigation, it appears that the victim was
shot inside the home by an intruder,"
The attack came eight days after an intruder was reported at
Sharpstein said
::MUSIC NEWS::
The Acorn Doesn't Fall Far From The Tree
Excerpt
from www.globeandmail.com - Brad Wheeler
(
"Interesting" is one of the words for Glory
Hope Mountain, the recently released album
from the Acorn, an Ottawa-based indie band
led by singer and multi-instrumentalist Rolf Klausener. It was Klausener,
disenchanted with traditional sources of inspiration and tired of first-person
songwriting, who decided to base an album's material on interviews with his
mother, Gloria Esperanza Montoya, a half-Mayan Honduran emigrant whose
childhood memories are of dirt floors, flooding rivers and orphanages, not
hopscotch, puppy dogs and pigtails.
Special audio: The Acorn's album
Another word for the album of fluid, atmospheric folk-rock would be
"elaborate," though Klausener himself doesn't see it that way.
"I didn't set out to be ambitious," he says from
The research involved an investigation into Central American folk rhythms as
well as discussions with his mother about her often perilous early years. Those
recollections inform the surreal, poetic narrative of Glory Hope Mountain
(the album's title is a literal translation of the words of his mother's name):
A baby is born struggling ("Your rosy lungs were empty"), a surge in
the river almost sweeps children away ( Flood
Pt. 1 and Flood Pt. 2) and a young girl runs away from an abusive
father ("as far as these crooked legs will take me").
The lyrics, some addressed to his mother and some in his mother's voice, are
image-laden and fanciful — "Lift your head from wild and wicked sleep,
where seven-headed serpents hiss soliloquies." And although it was
Klausener's boredom with self-centered songwriting that triggered the album's
concept, he isn't disdainful when it comes to more confessional works. "I
don't think this album's any more valid than somebody's breakup record,"
he says. "I was just pretty tired of the soul-searching that comes on when
you start writing songs about yourself. I've done of it plenty of times myself,
and I've loved the results."
The Acorn, in a nutshell, began as a solo electro-acoustic vehicle of
Klausener's in 2002. As albums came out (2004's The Pink Ghosts and
2005's Blankets!), the project picked up members and moved from Ottawa's
Kelp Records to Toronto's Paper Bag Records, which issued the EP Tin Fist earlier
this year. The band now has six members.
The new disc isn't the only recent Canadian album inspired by a songwriter's
parent, but it's unique in that the parent was an active participant. While
Greg Keelor's Seven Songs for Jim and Emily Haines's What Is Free to
a Good Home? are tributes to deceased fathers,
Klausener's mother is able to listen to a record based, in the most part, on
the early years of her life.
"Proud, just amazingly proud," is how she feels about Glory Hope
Mountain. "For him to be able to write about my life, and then make it
into music is just wonderful."
As her son listens on the phone line, an upbeat Montoya speaks in broken
English, richly rolling her "R's" as she recounts some of the more
harrowing events that made their way lyrically into songs.
She lived in an orphanage until the age of 6, when her white father retrieved
her, taking her back to a farm outside the Honduran capital city of
The album's closing track, Lulla by (Mountain), sung by Ohbijou's Casey
Mecija in the voice of Montoya, is sweeter, with lines about a mother's blood
running through a child's heart with every beat. Because young sons are not
always the most communicative when it comes to their feelings towards their
mothers, the tender song was a revelation. "Very deeply," Montoya
says, when asked how it affected her. "I cannot explain how happy it makes
me, that Rolfie has been able to show how much he loves me."
Ironically, Klausener says, his attempt to avoid introspection in making the
album became intensely personal anyway. "A lot of these songs ended up
relating back to my own life," he says. "You end up reflecting on
choices you've made, and choices your family made, and how they affected
you."
One choice Klausener had initial regrets about was the album's title. He
considered Glory Hope Mountain too literal, too bucolic, "too Will
Oldham."
But in the end, "You can't really change it," he says, quite rightly.
"It takes on a life of its own. It's like trying to rename a child after
they've lived with the name for a few years."
The Acorn performs
Alt-Folk/Jazz Creator Gregory
Hoskins Is Back But At His Own Pace
Excerpt
from www.thestar.com - Entertainment
Columnist
(November 25, 2007) "There's the craft
and there's the calling ... I've
never been drawn to the former, much to the chagrin of my bank manager," Gregory Hoskins says, his grey eyes
reflecting the sombre light of Toronto's first snowy day this fall.
He takes a sip of cappuccino, and stares out the front window of his west-end
home. His three favourite instruments – his vintage Washburn jazz guitar with
modified humbucking pickups and a Bigsby-Gretsch twang bar, a trumpet, and a
well-loved, hand-made acoustic guitar that has seen better days – are lined up
beside him in the sparsely furnished living room.
The setting implies there's not much in Hoskins' life other than music. But
like his songs, it contains hints of the complex life of an artist whose
stock-in-trade is the heartbreaking, soul-wracking effort of relentless self-examination.
"The job is the craft, and the craft is to entertain," he continues.
"The calling is to illuminate. I am not good at entertaining ... but I've
learned how to engage an audience."
That's largely thanks to the quality of the musicians the Montreal-raised
songwriter has managed to gather around him – primo bassist George Koller and
drummer Gary Craig, guitarist Kurt Swinghammer, horn player Phil Dwyer and
pianist Jon Goldsmith – in the decade and a half since Hoskins first gained
serious critical attention fronting the long-gone but well remembered Toronto
alt-folk/jazz ensemble The Stick People, and recorded two memorable albums, Moon
Come Up and Raids on the Unspeakable, on the True North label,
recordings that "bands play on tour buses late at night, and seem to
impress filmmakers," he says.
These are the musicians who will perform with Hoskins, in a rare concert and
recording, Thursday night at the Glenn Gould Studio in
"They elevate my songs," he explains quietly. "Because they're
so good, I have so much freedom. In days gone by it was all about playing the
parts. Now it's about issuing an open invitation to the audience ... asking
them to come inside the music with us. It's about having fun."
Liberated from band bonds, and after a mysterious six-year withdrawal from the
music business – "not a bid for enigma or an overdeveloped sense of
privacy, as I feel (the answers) are all there in the songs anyway, but an
attempt to honour the people in my life, and the transitions that life
brings," he says by way of explaining – Hoskins re-emerged in 2001 with
the remarkable solo CD, The King of Good Intentions, praised by critics
for its "quiet soul," the singer's "haunting voice" and
"lyrics (that) speak of the hard lessons he has obviously learned over the
last decade."
At 43 and the father of three teens, Hoskins, known among peers as a reclusive,
even reluctant artist, is learning to enjoy performing for the first time, and
as a latecomer to indie music-marketing, he's eager to take responsibility for
his art in the commercial world he has so far managed to avoid. He runs his own
website, raises finances for his own recordings and performances – Thursday's
show is underwritten by his brother Ralph's media
company – and does his own bookings.
Determined to focus on live performance "for the next five years,"
Hoskins long ago abandoned notions of conventional success. "I don't even
know what that means. All the rules have changed, the
landscape is nothing like it was when I had a record deal. I have no choice but
to make it up as I go along.
"How do you measure success? You measure it in small moments, like when a
woman came up to me after a show recently with eyes wide open and just said,
`That last song ...' "
He's happy enough to be able to write when the urge overcomes him – "I'm
not prolific, I never turn up for a session with 30 new songs, and I spend a lot
of time with my head stuck up my own ass," he chuckles – and to play with
a small ensemble of intuitive musicians.
"And I'm very happy with the last two records. They didn't break any
rules, they didn't break new ground, but the songs are doing what I hoped
they'd do – they've become a brief and meaningful part of someone else's life.
"I'm just hitting my stride, according to my
brother ... I'm just getting interesting."
Just the facts:
WHO: Gregory Hoskins
WHEN: Thursday,
WHERE: Glenn Gould Studio,
TICKETS: $45-$70 at 905-471-7802 and at www.gregoryhoskins.com
Rossi Brought Back Down To
Earth
Excerpt
from www.thestar.com - Pop
Music Critic
(November 25, 2007) Lukas Rossi will be ringing in 2008 in
much
more modest style than he did in 2007.
As a dwindling number of you might recall, last New Year's Eve marked the live
debut of the star-powered band
Since the original line-up featured almighty Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee,
ex-Guns `n' Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke and former Metallica bassist Jason
Newsted – replaced before touring could begin by the Black Crowes' Johnny Colt
when he suffered a shoulder injury – and the show was a major hit, there was a
certain smugness within the music industry that Supernova, the band, couldn't
fail.
Fail it did, though.
While sales of the Rock
Star Supernova album hit the platinum mark here in Rossi's home
nation, it peaked at a relatively dismal No. 101 on Billboard's
And when a Supernova tour of packed houses all over the planet (including
Massey Hall) commenced last January, critics savaged the tour, too.
"Supernova wasn't close to super." "Rock Star Supernova crashes
and burns in
Newsted was long gone. Rumours swirled that Clarke was quitting. Tommy Lee took
up deejay-ing and feuding in court with the rest of Mötley Crüe. Supernova was,
for all intents and purposes, over by the spring, and Rossi – previously the
living embodiment of "cocky" – was forced to choke down a large
amount of humble pie.
"It takes a chunk out of you, man. I'm not gonna lie," says the
30-year-old singer from a recent
"I thought it was gonna go on longer. I think my ego got blown a little
out of proportion after it was all said and done, and coming back down to earth
is obviously where I belong. Coming off that tour, it was like: `Where's all
the glory?' But I like it where I am right now. If I have to pay my dues until
I die, that's the way God wants it to be."
And where is Rossi right now? Weaving his way across the
country on a small-venue acoustic tour that brings him to Lee's Palace tonight.
His high-powered Supernova bandmates have been replaced by keyboardist Lou
Dawson, the luxury tour bus by a car steered by his wife, Kendra. Which, for
Rossi – who spent years knocking around
"It's not really an adjustment," he says. "I've always been a
really hard worker. In my other bands, no one did s--- for us. It's just as
hard on my wife as it is on me. I failed my driver's test four times so,
unfortunately, she's been having to do all the
driving.
"She basically tour-manages and handles all the crazy people and so forth
that I can't. ... She's good support. We get hard on each other sometimes –
it's pretty gruelling, driving and playing, driving and playing, especially in
the winter. I'm sick now and I have 10 shows in a row to do.
"But the fans are waiting, man, so it's my pleasure to do it."
Rossi's fondness for his fans does seem sincere.
He maintains personal contact with hundreds of them through his website, www.LukasRossiOnline.com,
and some of them have become "friends for life." He hosts regular
online chats and auctions off lunch dates to admirers on eBay in each town
where he plays, donating the money to various charities. The last of these such occasions, he says, consisted of going out
drinking and gambling with the highest bidder and was "a great time."
Because of the TV show, he says, "people assume they know me. I guess they
feel like I'm approachable. And that's cool, because I am."
Fans will, however, have to wait a while longer for new music from Rossi.
He has a new project, Stars Down – featuring his current tourmate
As for Supernova, which has never officially announced its demise, Rossi isn't
holding his breath for a comeback.
"It actually felt like a real band. I thought it was gonna go on much
longer," he says.
"But at the end of the tour, everyone just kind of went off and started
deejay-ing or whatever. I don't know what that's about, but let 'em do what
they want. I'd just started to fire. I'm ready to start rockin'. I'm just
getting my feet wet and I've got no time to relax. I don't have time to make
pit stops. I'm not a deejay.
"All these shows in
Ambassador Of The Sax Was
Beloved Worldwide
Excerpt
from www.thestar.com - Classical Music Critic
(
He died on Monday at
The "Ambassador of the Saxophone," as his 2000 autobiography is
titled, was born in
After graduation, he moved to
He made his
Brodie's international fame came as both a soloist and a member of the Paul
Brodie Saxophone Quartet. Their mix of classics and more popular pieces
resonated with audiences around the world, including the
His efforts helped bring about the first World Saxophone Congress in 1968 – an
event that soon took on a life of its own.
Among his 56 albums, he made
"There isn't even an instruction book in Chinese," he recalled in a Star
interview. "I gave seven master classes to over 500 saxophonists from as
far away as
Brodie's musical legacy includes a number of instructional manuals for budding
saxophone players, and a diaspora of students who have inspired younger
generations with a love for the versatile woodwind.
The musician leaves behind wife Rima and daughter Claire.
According to his wishes, there will be no funeral or memorial services. His
ashes will be scattered in the woods at
Slash: Welcome to His (Drug-Free) Jungle
Excerpt from www.globeandmail.com -
Brad Wheeler
(
I wouldn't have it any other way, though, even though I'm an avid non-smoker.
Heck, if the guitarist had asked me if it was cool to smoke, I would
have replied with astonishment: "Is it cool for you to smoke? Are you
joking? Dude, it would be so totally cool if you did smoke."
If he didn't believe me, I could have walked him over to the other room, where
a cardboard box full of copies of his new autobiography sat on a table. The
cover art is a headshot, with the former Guns N' Roses member in classic
depraved rock-star pose, iconic cigarette on his bottom lip, dangling like a
participle. The nose ring, the hair in the eyes, the hazy stare, the crazy top hat - it's all there.
In the flesh, the Mad Hatter-like lid is replaced by a backwards ball cap. He's
calm, drinking coffee (not Jack Daniels), and the room is rather untrashed. His
book, co-written by Anthony Bozza (author of bios on Tommy Lee and Eminem),
chronicles a chaotic history of extreme behaviour and drug and alcohol use.
But, by the end of 457 pages, Slash is sober. He still is - for 18 months now.
"I kind of had to just burn out on it," the surprisingly fit-looking
42-year-old says, referring to numerous attempts at cleaning up that didn't
take in the past.
Sobriety hasn't altered his look at all - leather pants, shades, skull ring,
bracelets and black cowboy boots announce him as rock star. Slash, the
stereotypical stoned rocker, says he has never played up to the image.
"I'm just a guitar player who likes rock 'n' roll and the life that goes
with it. It's a life I've always led."
When asked if you can have sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll without the drugs,
Slash, who survived a heroin-related near-death experience in the early 1990s,
laughs a bit. "Yeah, definitely you can," he replies, before adding,
"But it was a big part of it."
Heroin, cocaine and drink may be in the past, but the divorced father of two
didn't make it out unscathed. His book opens with the admission that doctors
gave him six weeks to live when he was 35, his body beaten up by years of
debauchery. Since then, a three-inch implanted defibrillator keeps his heart
pumping.
Slash, born Saul Hudson, is not an invalid; he certainly looks up to the nerdy
challenges of the rec-room rockers that test him relentlessly on the popular
video game Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. In real life, there is some
question about his status: While he isn't among Rolling Stone magazine's 2003
list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time, a 2004 Internet poll conducted
by Guitar World magazine slotted him 15th.
Asked if he thinks of himself as a guitar hero, Slash is demure. "No, not
really," he answers, amused. He has played the video game, but hasn't
faced himself as a contestant. "I'm a practising guitarist," he
continues. "It's one of those things you work at your entire life and you
never master."
That's a stock answer, isn't it? "It's hard to put on airs unless you have
this kind of mentality where you think you're a hero before you even learn how
to play, and that was what you were striving for. There are some very arrogant
players like that, but I don't fall into that category. I have good moments,
but I'm not consistent enough to be able to walk around like that."
That he's able to walk around at all is something of an accomplishment. He was
born in
"I remember my dad even told me, back in the day," Slash says on the
subject of his former bandmate. "He said, 'Don't go down with the ship,
because that's where Axl seems to be taking you all the time.' "
Rose was volatile and young Slash didn't need his father to tell him so. Once,
after the singer was abusive to Slash's grandmother, the guitarist confronted
him about it while driving along
"He's different," Slash says, "simply put."
In print, the guitarist comes off as the peacemaker of the unruly group,
handling Rose with kid gloves. Slash left the band in 1996, but he still hasn't
taken those gloves off. The book is not an anti-Rose manifesto.
"Everybody's looking for that," Slash says. "Everybody loves to
have some dirt, some negativity. They thrive on it, and I didn't want to feed
that. That's not what it was all about."
Although the pair were not particularly close - Slash
describes them as like fishing buddies who have nothing to talk about if the
talk isn't about fishing - the guitarist is charitable when speaking of Rose.
"He can be a really endearing, charming, sweet guy who's a good guy to
have in your company," Slash says. "But there's another side of Axl
that is very self-sabotaging. So, even though he's a perfectionist, extremely
talented and will work to no end to achieve a goal, he will tear it down in a
split second."
Under those circumstances, the band that broke big in 1988 with the album
prophetically titled Appetite for Destruction could hardly have been
expected to last - not with a singer who provoked riots by walking off stages
early (St. Louis, 1991, and Montreal, 1992) and a drug-and-booze-addled lead
guitarist as main attractions.
While Rose continues to lead an otherwise anonymous Guns N' Roses, Slash now
records and tours with Velvet Revolver, a hard-rock outfit that includes
combustible singer Scott Weiland as well as two former members of GNR.
Every journalist who has spoken to the guitarist since he split with Rose has
asked him about a possible reunion, and I see no reason to break the string.
So, Slash? "I don't see it happening," he says, not riled at the
tired question. "It's not happening now, and it's not going to happen any
time in the near future. But you never know - crazy things happen."
They sure do, crazy things. You could write a book
full of them.
Excerpt from www.thestar.com - Ashante
Infantry, Pop & Jazz Critic
(
In a year that has seen reunion tours by The Police, Van Halen and the Spice
Girls, Jermaine Jackson is floating the idea of a 2008 outing with his
brothers, who range in age from 46 to 56.
"We feel we have to do it one more time," the singer/guitarist told
BBC 6 Music yesterday.
The Gary, Ind.-born group, which began as the
By the time they hit the road for the 1984 Victory Tour, they had left Motown
for Epic Records, been joined by a sixth brother, Randy, and seen Michael score
a multi-million-selling sophomore solo smash with Thriller.
They recorded 1989's
The key to a successful
"Michael will be involved," said Jermaine, who indicated that his
infamous brother has attended organizational meetings at which concert dates
were tabled.
He also told the BBC the long-rumoured reunion was delayed by Michael's 2005
sex abuse trial.
Though evidently the inspiration of young superstars such as Usher and Justin
Timberlake, the entertainer's cat-and-mouse games with the public, absence from
record charts, implausible plastic surgeries and controversial relationships
with young boys have transformed him from music icon to punchline.
Being part of a family tour "could add something positive" to
Michael's legacy, said Flow 93.5 program director Wayne Williams.
"It would be good for him and his career. And regardless of Michael's
goings-on, there's definitely an appetite to see him along with all his
brothers onstage one more time."
Jermaine also told the BBC that the band was "in the studio at the
moment," hinting at work on new material.
Michael, who has long been supposed to be working on a new record, says in the
current issue of Ebony magazine: "I'm writing a lot of stuff right
now. I'm in the studio, like, every day."
However, the 49-year-old entertainer, who is featured on the cover to
commemorate Thriller's 25th anniversary, is evasive on the subject of
touring, primarily noting "I don't like long tours."
Homegrown Quartet's Not Just Another Male Supergroup
Excerpt from www.thestar.com - Richard
Ouzounian, Theatre Critic
(November 27, 2007) Does the world really need another
tenor supergroup, wearing too-tight tuxedos and singing "Unchained
Melody" in Italian?
You might say no, until you meet the Canadian
Tenors.
These four guys, who are about to have their official Toronto debut Friday at
the Winter Garden Theatre, have talent to burn and a love of music that's positively
electric.
What they don't have is attitude. Sitting around the west-end church where they
like to rehearse, wearing toques and sweaters, they could be any group of young
men shooting the breeze ... if they also happened to have killer singing voices.
Torontonian Jamie McKnight is the youngest, the one who joined most recently,
plucked from the chorus of the
"Sure, I've been in musical comedy for the last few years," grins McKnight, "but I used to be a member of the
Canadian Children's Opera Chorus as a kid and once that style gets ingrained in
you, you never forget it."
Victor Micallef, also from
Fraser Walters is probably the one with the most diverse career. He was a
member of the Grammy Award-winning a cappella ensemble Chanticleer as well as a
survivor of the musical The Lord of the Rings in
"As soon as I realized this group could be something different and not
just a clone of all the others," he says, "they had me hooked."
The same sentiment comes from
"I was worried we'd just be one tenor group too many," admits
