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langfieldent@rogers.com
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LE NEWSLETTER
March 27, 2008
The
end of March and April is full of the hope of spring! Now as many of you know,
I’ve had ongoing web issues – mostly related to Frontpage – PLEASE feel free to
share your FP horror stories with me! In any case, this week’s newsletter
looks a little different and I didn't get to load all pages. I’m so sorry
but I just am at the mercy of those trying to fix it right now. For now
you’ll just have to link to the pages that interest you …
If you ever need to email me, please remember to only
me at langfieldent@rogers.com.
Thanks!
Last week I was fortunate enough to attend
the SOS Band’s concert at the Capitol
Event Theatre here in Toronto. Check out pics in my PHOTO GALLERY! What a show and what
a mega-talented band these musicians are … goes to show why they’ve been around
so long … and still selling out venues and putting crowds into a frenzy!
For the amount of crazed fans, I really thought that I was at the concert of a
new and hot up-and-coming band – but it was so refreshing on a couple of fronts
– one; to see a Toronto audience go so nuts period; and two; to have a Toronto
audience go so nuts for a legendary band serving up old skool music.
Thanks so much to Shamakah Ali
(former SOS band drummer!) and Cindy Wilson
for the hook up that night!
Scroll
down and find out what interests you - take your time and take a walk into your
weekly entertainment news!
::TOP STORIES::
Remembering A Dread Who Took Control
Excerpt from Jamaica Gleaner
(March 18, 2008) MICHAEL 'Mikey Dread' Campbell,
the maverick
broadcaster who introduced underground reggae to mainstream radio in the late
1970s through his Dread At The Controls programme, died last Saturday in the
United States.
Campbell, who was 54 years old, died six months after he was diagnosed with a brain tumour. A posting on his website,
dreadatthecontrols.com, said he passed away at his sister's home in
Connecticut.
Dread At The Controls aired for two years on the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC) where Campbell began working
as a transmitter engineer in 1976.
Cutting-edge music
He played the cutting-edge music of producers King Tubby and Augustus Pablo and
dancehall singers like Linval Thompson.
In a 2003 interview, the Portland-born Campbell listed Dread At The Controls as
one of his biggest achievements.
"Before that show come along, people at the JBC wanted to play classical
music which had no relevance to Jamaican people," he said.
Campbell joined the JBC at a time when the hot jocks were the established Errol
'E.T.' Thompson and a rising Barry 'Barry G' Gordon. He said he was given the
go-ahead to start Dread At The Controls in 1977 by Ossie Harvey and Rupert
Linton who were senior members of the JBC production department.
The show's time slot was a novelty. It started at midnight on Sundays and ran
for four and a half hours; before Dread At The Controls, the JBC signed off at
midnight.
Two years later, Campbell and the JBC parted ways after the station declined
his request to give Dread At The Controls a prime time slot. He went into
record production full time, working with the influential British punk band The
Clash and later Guns 'N' Roses guitarist Izzy Stradlin.
Michael Campbell is the second noted Jamaican music personality to die in three
weeks. Producer Joe Gibbs died on February 21.
Dreader than dread
Michael Campbell was also a respected artiste and producer. As 'Mikey Dread',
he recorded hit songs such as Barber Saloon and African Map.
He produced fellow JBC worker Edi Fitzroy's Miss Molly and The Gun and Imperial
Majesty by Rod Taylor.
Disc jockey Barry'Barry G' Gordon once described IRIE FM as a 24-hour version
of Dread At The Controls.
Attended Titchfield High School.
Campbell boasted that he broke Althea and Donna's big hit Uptown Top Ranking
and Gregory Isaacs' Soon Forward on Dread At The Controls.
Eric Peterson - He's A Rascally National Treasure – But Don't
Tell Him That
Excerpt from www.globenandmail.com
- R.M. Vaughan
(March 14, 2008) Eric Peterson would like you to
know ... well, rather a lot of things.
Recently awarded ACTRA Toronto's Excellence
Prize (a lifetime achievement-style award for actors still spry enough
to use it), the beloved Canadian theatre and film stalwart, and self-described
"old fart," shows no sign of going gently into that good night,
evening or even midafternoon. Peterson is nothing if not energetic, even fiery,
especially when the topic turns to the state of Canadian cultural production
(and he will steer the conversation to that perennial puzzlement whether you ask
him to or not).
These days, Peterson is best known as the rascally Oscar on CTV's hit sitcom
Corner Gas. But Oscar is merely the latest in a long line of popular,
emblematic Canadian characters played by Peterson.
Starting with his portrayal of First World War hero Billy Bishop (in a play,
and later a film, he co-wrote), and, most recently, of medicare founder Tommy
Douglas - with stints on Street Legal, Traders and every other
popular Canadian show you can name - Peterson has embedded himself in our
national consciousness, become "that Canadian actor" who's in
everything because he looks and sounds typically Canadian. Indeed, friends of
mine who were not born in Canada have told me Peterson reminds them of the first
boss they worked for when they came to this country, or their first good
Canadian teacher, or the wise-cracking neighbour who gently teased them through
their first winter. In Japan, a man of Peterson's stature would be declared a
Living National Treasure, and granted a bountiful stipend. Write your MP today.
I'm sure you're very grateful and honoured and all that to get the Excellence
Award, but part of you must be thinking, 'It's about G-D time!'
Oh, no, no, no, no!
C'mon.
I mean, probably like many people, I work out of a deep swamp of self-doubt. So
part of me is thinking ACTRA's mistaken me for somebody else! It's a clerical
error! When I think of the people who've been honoured by this award, these are
huge heroes of mine. Acknowledgment by your peers is not like a regular
nomination, a contest you've never entered. This is an honorary award. [A
local screenwriter approaches, interrupts our conversation, and engages
Peterson in a long chat about a potential new project. Apparently, this happens
to the actor every day. He knows everyone.]
That moment just proves my next observation: You have literally worked with
everybody in Canada at least three times, and therefore done hundreds of
interviews. Is there anything you've ever wanted to say but didn't? Such as,
'That bastard so and so' ...
Ha! Ha! No, I don't think so! I totally leave it up to the interviewer to take
me places.
But you are an éminence grise.
Literally, that's for sure! But, as with everyone, inside and outside opinions
differ. I don't feel that, for all the prestige you want to present to me, that
I have any more security than when I first started, because I'm a Canadian
actor.
How is that possible?
Well, it's possible because I have watched, as a theatre actor and a film and
television actor, over the years of my career, the salaries drop. It's partly
because the country has changed. The model of having a cultural formula, where
we had state money supporting theatre and film, in order to keep them healthy,
has been replaced by a global marketing formula which is detrimental to
indigenous work. So, my livelihood as an actor is always in question. I have
long periods when I don't have work.
But you're always on TV.
That's because television is like Styrofoam. It's never thrown away, and it
will never be destroyed. And Corner Gas is on television every day, so
there's a perception that people are always working. Corner Gas got me a
house, so I'm very lucky for an actor. I made a decision to stay in this
country and all my theatre work has been new work, Canadian work, and my
television has been the same. But I've seen a shift in the cultural aesthetic.
Are you referring to the large number of American productions made in Canada?
Absolutely. I'm also talking about the amount of American product that comes to
us directly from Canadian companies, and the use of public money, via tax
credits and direct incentives, to subsidize the U.S. industry, the largest,
healthiest entertainment industry in the world. I'm interested in keeping alive
work that is done by Canadians for Canadians. I view that as being the
wellspring of my own creativity and I view that as how one makes art that is
worthy of being enjoyed by the rest of the world. Film in this country is so
hard because there's so little of it - we're always trying to hit the home run,
but we only have one bat. And that situation is the same situation I came into
as a young actor.
With this interview, Mr. Tommy Douglas, your CIA file just got one page
thicker.
Ha! You should see my CSIS file!
Particulars
BORN
Oct. 2, 1946, Indian Head, Sask.
THE EARLY YEARS
Studied acting at the University of Saskatchewan and then in England before
moving to Vancouver.
LIFTOFF
Co-founded Tamahnous Theatre in Vancouver with John MacLachlan Gray and there
in 1978 he originated the role of Billy Bishop in Gray's one-man revue Billy
Bishop Goes to War. The show moved first to Toronto and then toured
extensively for three more years. Peterson won awards from critics for his
performance on Broadway and in the West End.
FAMILY BUSINESS
Wife Annie Kidder, is an outspoken activist and head of the group People For
Education - but Kidder had a previous career as a stage and TV actress and a
director. (Her sister is the actress Margot Kidder.) The couple has two
daughters; the eldest, Molly, studies theatre at Concordia University.
Susan L. Taylor: All About Love
Excerpt from www.essence.com – by Audrey Edwards
In her new book, All About
Love, Essence Editorial Director Susan L. Taylor
expands on invaluable life lessons from her beloved In the Spirit columns over the
past two decades. AUDREY EDWARDS recently talked with our favourite wise woman
about embracing love and finding the courage to live fearlessly, especially in
these challenging times.
If there is one word that defines the spirit of Susan L. Taylor, it is love.
It’s how she branded a magazine: first as editor-in-chief of ESSENCE for 19
years and then as its editorial director, making the publication you hold in
your hands not only a must-read for Black women but also a guiding light for a
people still too often stumbling in the dark. She instinctively understands
love’s transforming power—that love affirms and motivates; it heals and is
redemptive. In the Spirit, Susan’s monthly column, is filled with this power.
In this space, Susan has never been afraid to tell us her own stories—of
struggle, of uncertainty, of tripping before she found her way to higher
ground. True love, Susan has said repeatedly, begins with the love of self.
This is the God love, the supreme love from which all other love will flow,
natural and healthy. Love marks her personal style of humility.
In her fourth book, All About Love: Favourite Selections From In the Spirit
on Living Fearlessly (Urban Books, $19.95), being released this month,
Susan continues the love lessons she began imparting to us nearly 30 years ago.
Wise and warm, honest and provocative, this collection of essays explores
spiritually empowering subjects ranging from finding harmony to building
wealth, committing to social and political change, staying in good health,
shedding anger, and finding real love in all our relationships.
We caught up with the fearless warrior woman at three o’clock one recent
morning. In this interview she tells why, after all these years, she continues
to run on love.
ESSENCE: You have already published three books: In the Spirit, Lessons in
Living and Confirmation, with your husband, Khephra Burns. So why now, when
many people would rest on their laurels, have you decided to write this fourth
book?
Susan L. Taylor: The overarching focus, and why I expanded or revisited
some of these ideas, is to offer a deeper understanding of our power and
completeness and our responsibility during this most critical stage in our
history. We don’t have time to waste. Our communities are crumbling; our
children are under siege. Failing schools and a for-profit prison industrial
complex are sucking the life out of Black homes and communities. We are not
going down like this!
ESSENCE: What do you think still keeps Black women from living our best
lives —from activating the supreme God love from within?
S.L.T.: We haven’t healed from the residuals of slavery. We don’t trust one
another or work as well together as we must. We need potent messages addressing
these issues to be spoken within our churches and mosques. We need a new order
of ministers to stand in pulpits. It’s not enough to sing and praise God in
worship services. Any religion that doesn’t encourage us to work together to
end the needless suffering all around us is godless. God is Goodness, the
energy or force that’s holding everything together in this amazing universe.
ESSENCE: How have the messages you impart through In the Spirit changed over
these past two decades, and what does the column mean to you now?
S.L.T.: The column has always been something of a public diary. My second
column, “Coming to Faith,” published in July 1981, set the tone for the
intimacy and honesty my writing would take. At that time, no popular
mass-market magazine had spiritual content. I wanted to say why I was writing
about God, so I looked back at the time my first marriage fell to pieces,
devastating me. I wrote about going to a New York City hospital emergency room
at age 24 as a single mother, thinking I was having a heart attack. The doctor
said it was an anxiety attack. Walking back home to the Bronx because I had no
money for public transportation, I passed Reverend Ike’s church and felt pulled
by a force to go inside. I heard a sermon that would change my life. “God is
alive in you,” said the visiting minister, Reverend Alfred Miller. This was new
to me, and it transformed my thinking.
Ten years later I realized all the circumstances surrounding that frightening
and then enlightening day had saved my life. But I had never spoken about or
even really looked at this before I took the time to be introspective and then
write about it. So the column became a place where I could look in the mirror
and encourage others to do the same. Over the years it has evolved into
writings about the transformative power of love. And recent writings, still
often personal, extend to talking about the collective commitment to our
community that we able, stable Black folks must make.
ESSENCE: What do you feel are the issues that Black women should be
concerned about right now? And what can we do to move ourselves and community
forward?
S.L.T.: I know that to be saved, the earth needs our feminine sensibility
and regenerative love. I know we must believe in the power of love, and not
just talk about self-love and self-worth or loving God and having faith. We
must learn how to live in the space of inner peace in our everyday lives. This
takes consistent, conscious effort because I know so many Black women are
hurting and sad, and we don’t easily express our heartache or show our wounds.
I know we must stop hurting one another and declare peace as fervently as this
nation has declared war.
I know that we must make healthy choices in everything from food to lovers, and
must take care of ourselves rather than always being anxious about the response
of others. I know we must feel comfortable in our skin, no matter what shade it
is, and teach our sons and daughters to revere our ancestral beauty—our pure
unadulterated Blackness—because anything less is holding on to the self-hatred
we have internalized over the centuries.
ESSENCE: You seem to come as close as any modern, progressive leader to
being truly self-actualized, yet you say you still have struggles. What are
your greatest, continuing challenges? Who is the Susan L. Taylor readers don’t
know?
S.L.T.: I still have to work hard at fighting feelings of fear—and I don’t
win every day. Fear that I’m not enough. Not good enough, not smart enough. I’m
my own worst critic. My challenge is extending love and generosity to myself
all the time, even when I don’t hit the mark or mess up. As for the Susan L.
Taylor readers don’t know, there is so much of me that I don’t yet know either.
Self-discovery is thrilling. My goal is to keep hitting a higher and higher
octave, to keep learning and sharing.
ESSENCE: In branding a magazine, you’ve also branded yourself. As a result,
many people have now come to equate you with ESSENCE. How do you define who you
are separately from what ESSENCE is?
S.L.T.: ESSENCE is the vehicle I work through. It’s where I give love to
our people and community. It’s where I have rank and title. It has given me
resources and popularity, but I am none of those things. I’m a doer, a worker.
What’s important to me is my integrity, contributing to the larger good and my
family and to moving our people forward. When I look in the mirror, I don’t see
ESSENCE. ESSENCE: What’s great about being a Black woman at this point in
our history?
S.L.T.: We are living at a time when the most difficult work and the
cruellest aspects of our history are behind us. Historically, Black women have
suffered tremendously, but today’s Black women are the triumph. We have
choices, and that’s what freedom is all about: having the power to choose.
ESSENCE: You have raised a loving daughter, have a lovely granddaughter, and
have been in a successful marriage to Khephra for almost 20 years. What do you
think is the key to happy, long-lasting relationships?
S.L.T.: Tenderness, humility and respect for personal differences. Without
these a union suffers and dies. The spiritual purpose of partnership is
self-revelation and sharing soul to soul. This is how we come to know who we
are fully. We have to learn to love goodness, not good looks, good sex or what
someone can give us. And we have to make time for our relationships. We
schedule time for everything else, from food shopping to salon appointments. We
need to schedule time for love. Beyond procreation, the main purpose of coming
together in a love relationship is to learn how to give, trust, forgive, live
in harmony with another person and deepen our relationship with God. As my
beloved Khephra always says, “Love isn’t passive. It’s active.” We both love
our young people and dedicate our lives to nurturing them. There’s nothing more
nurturing and binding to a relationship than partners working together for a
purpose greater than one that just benefits them.
Audrey Edwards, an ESSENCE contributing writer, lives in Paris, where she is
fulfilling her dream to reside in the City of Lights.
Jerome Awards Honour Role Models
Excerpt from www.thestar.com - Joanna
Smith, Staff Reporter
(March 26, 2008) Growing up in one of the city's
toughest neighbourhoods inspired Vera Manu's dream to become a lawyer.
"I want to effect change in my community," said Manu, who is in
second year at Osgoode Hall Law School.
"I live in Jane and Finch and that inspired me to go to law school. With a
law degree, I know I can make more changes."
The 24-year-old was among 13 recipients of Harry Jerome Awards announced
yesterday by the Black Business and Professional Association to celebrate
excellence in the African-Canadian community.
"It's very important to me because it's recognizing that my efforts have
not been in vain," said Manu, who will receive the honour at an April 26
gala dinner in Toronto.
The awards bear the name of Harry Jerome, who won the bronze medal for Canada
in the 100-metre dash at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics despite having severed a
quadriceps muscle two years earlier.
Jerome, who died in 1982, used his athletic stature to criticize the
misrepresentation of blacks in Canadian television, fight wage discrimination
and lobby to improve perceptions of his community.
The Jerome awards are meant to spotlight similar role models, such as Manu, who
had to repeat first grade and take ESL classes as a youngster.
She later won a scholarship to York University and got an undergraduate degree
before entering law school.
She has worked with a local mentoring group set up to help aspiring black
women.
The father of another winner was at the awards preview held yesterday, standing
in for Anne Ogundele, goaltender for the women's soccer team at University of
Kentucky.
"It's a good reward for a job well done," said Gabriel Ogundele on
behalf of his Mississauga daughter.
Another 2008 recipient is Roger Rowe – a role model for Manu's career path as a
lawyer and activist committed to the Jane-Finch community. Rowe litigated a
landmark 1999 case that established a new standard for administrative fairness
in deportation cases.
Also honoured is Calgary author and filmmaker Cheryl Foggo, whose 1990 book Pourin'
Down Rain chronicled her forbearers' trip from Africa to America and onward
to pioneer days Western Canada.
New Brunswick-born Willie O'Ree, who joined Boston Bruins in 1958 to become the
first black in the National Hockey League, is receiving a lifetime achievement
award. He played parts of three NHL seasons while concealing the fact he was
blind in one eye.
The Winners
This year's Harry Jerome Awards will be presented April 26 by the
Black Business and Professional Association at the Toronto Congress Centre.
The recipients:
• lawyer Roger Rowe
• author Cheryl Foggo
• actor-singer Anthony Sherwood
• University of Toronto professor Njoki Nathani Wane
• aviation physician Stephen Blizzard
• NHL pioneer Willie O'Ree
• sickle cell anaemia activist Charles Ofori-Attah
• Canada AM anchor Marci Ien
• high school principal Chris Spence
• software developer Warren Salmon
• pharmaceutical educator Alex MacGregor
• University of Kentucky soccer goalie Anne Ogundele
• law student Vera Manu
Black Women and Depression
Source: www.essence.com
Superstar PR agent Terrie
Williams first
revealed her battle with depression in Essence more than two
years ago. Now she’s releasing Black Pain: It Just Looks Like We’re Not
Hurting, which delves even deeper into the souls of Black folks
ESSENCE: What made you write Black Pain: It Just Looks Like We’re Not
Hurting (Scribner)?
Terrie Williams: My love for Black people. I received thousands of letters
and e-mails after my ESSENCE article appeared. These people’s best friends
didn’t know they were in pain. Their families didn’t know. How do you tell
someone, “I feel like I’m dying inside, and I don’t know what to do about it”?
People didn’t know how to begin the conversation. This book can help them do
that. The other part of it is that so many of us have no idea that we’re in so
much pain. We don’t know what our pain looks like, sounds like, or feels like.
ESSENCE: So what does depression sound like for Black people? Which phrases
resonate most with women? 
T.W.: “I’m tired.” “I’m really not a people person.” “I don’t feel like
it.” “Can you supersize that?” “Nothing good ever happens to me.”
ESSENCE: Why don’t we realize we’re in pain?
T.W.: Because we’re moving so quickly in our lives that we don’t take the
time to process what happens to us. That you have to work ten times harder than
your White counterparts. That someone clutched her purse when you got on the
elevator. That you’re underappreciated by your family. I also believe we all
harbour deep-seated scars from our childhood. When we don’t talk about any of
that stuff and don’t process it, it sits inside and festers. And when it does
come out, it’s uncontrolled rage, the violence we witness every day,
self-medication, working 24/7, shopping, gambling. Those are the ways our pain
manifests itself. Even those who achieve great things in corporate
America—their spirits or souls may be dead because so many people drain their
lives.
ESSENCE: What’s the most common reason women hide their pain?
T.W.: I think it’s that we’re afraid to seem weak. We’re afraid to show a
chink in the armour. Some of us think, I’m already coming in the door perhaps
not as valued as I should be, so to show a chink in the armour would be death.
What’s interesting to me is that the person right next to you is more than
likely dealing with the same thing.
ESSENCE: What’s the best way to help someone who’s depressed?
T.W.: Say in a caring, gentle way, “You don’t seem like yourself lately.”
You could use the book or the ESSENCE article to get them talking. Depression
is something that’s treatable through diet, exercise, medication, strengthening
your relationship with God, getting toxic people out of your life. It’s
something you can master on many levels.
ESSENCE: What about people who get frustrated trying to find a good doctor
to talk to?
T.W.: I’ve heard people say, “I tried a therapist once.” But when you go to
the shoe store to find a pair of shoes, if the first one doesn’t fit, you keep
trying until you find one that works, right?
ESSENCE: What else should we know about depression?
T.W.: We all have challenges that we go through. They exist so we can come
out on the other side and share the experience with someone else, so people
don’t think they’re standing on a ledge by themselves. Some of us have had
very, very difficult lives. But there’s glory and joy on the other side—
there’s no question about that.
::TRAVEL NEWS::
Nevis - Tiny Island Has A Big Love For Musical Heritage
Excerpt from www.thestar.com
- Jo Matyas And Craig Jones, Special To The Star
(February 28, 2008) CHARLESTOWN, NEVIS–"You comin'
to the funeral on
Sunday?" tour guide Devon Liburd asks as he steers our minivan around this
tiny island.
His tone of voice makes it clear this is more than a suggestion: if you're on
the island on Sunday, you're expected to attend the four-hour outdoor service
to show respect.
It doesn't matter that we're tourists. It doesn't even matter that we've never
met the deceased, one of the island's musical icons.
Music is such a rich part of the culture and heritage here, that the tribute
performances by local bands and choirs are considered a must-attend event.
So, sitting in the packed, sun-scorched bleachers of the cultural complex in
Charlestown – the only collection of buildings large enough to be labelled a
town on this island of 9,000 people – turns out to be an excellent window into
why soca, reggae and calypso are enjoying a revival on island.
It's taken effort to keep the traditions alive.
"We have several specific music teachers who move from school to school on
the island," says Crefton "King Meeko" Warner, an award-winning
calypso performer who designs music programs for Nevis' schools. "They
start the kids on simple
rhythms using guitars, shakers and drums. We focus on how the music is part of
their heritage – everything from Big Drum music to colourful masquerade troupes,
both of which are rooted in our African traditions."
While Nevis' compact size (it would take days of circling the island to burn up
one tank of fuel) is a draw for those searching for something a little more
isolated, it has also created challenges for the live music scene.
"Nevis is not large enough to have live music more than one place any
night of the week," says marine biologist and snorkelling tour operator
Barbara Whitman. "So, they rotate. Thursday is a live band at the beach
bar at Nisbet Beach. Tuesday is the Oualie Beach. Wednesday is Eddy's."
It seems like a good idea to pair food with music – and that's what the Oualie
Beach Resort has done with the Tuesday evening West Indian buffet.
As guests enjoy fresh fish, lobster and pork cooked on beachside grills,
guitarist "Snowflake" strums background music. After dinner, he moves
to the beachfront bar with his mates, the Oualie Beach Boys and the Band. For
the past 10 years, Tuesday nights have been jam sessions attracting locals who
bring guitars, tambourines, washtub bass. Everyone drains bottles of Carib
beer, dances, and plays long into the night.
"If you're not a member of the band, you're still welcome to join in, and
by the time the night is over you'll be considered an official band member,"
says Tim, the restaurant's maitre d'. One night later, the Golden Rock
Plantation Inn hosts the Honey Bees, the oldest of Nevis' string bands. String
band music, which originated in the 1920s and is also known as a scratch band,
is a collective of guitars, mandolin, a bass pipe made from bamboo or PVC and
percussion (maracas, triangle), with a fife carrying the melody. Students learn
to play as part of the school program, and some string bands have young members
to keep the tradition alive.
"This type of Caribbean rhythm is like a collective," Patterson
Fleming, maitre d' of the Coconut Beach Bar at the Nisbet Plantation Beach
Club, says on a starlit Thursday night as he points out how drummers,
guitarists, keyboard players and vocalists rotate in and out of position.
It's a small island, but with a big heart for music. And it doesn't beat any
stronger than on our last night. A church in Charlestown is the site for a
medical benefit concert, with a lineup ranging from choral groups to
instrumentalists.
The highlight is an 8-year-old boy who beats beautiful music from a collection
of steel pans, yet another part of the school program.
The performance may not have been an official part of the funeral that morning,
but it's hard to miss the connection. The teachers who bring music into the
schools are strengthening the island's musical heritage. Even after the sadness
of death, the music lives on.
Jo Matyas is a freelance writer and Craig Jones is a writer and musician
from Kingston, Ont. Their trip was subsidized by Nevis Tourism and Cheryl
Andrews Marketing.
::MUSIC NEWS::
Carole Pope Confidential
Excerpt from www.thesar.com
- Richard Ouzounian, Theatre Critic
(March 20, 2008) If you think the passing of time might have
turned Carole Pope
all warm and fuzzy, then think again.
She's coming back to Buddies in Bad Times Saturday and Sunday night along with
guest comic Elvira Kurt and in her own inimitable words, "There will be
acoustic, there will be jokes, there will be blood."
The woman dubbed "The Raunch Queen" in her heyday with Rough Trade 30
years ago is still capable of lobbing a conversational grenade into the room
with the best of them.
"Just when you think human sexuality is wide open," she begins from
her home in Los Angeles, "you realize we're still back in the Dark Ages.
We're all controlled by a bunch of old white guys and I really wish they'd die
off."
Then she laughs with that dark, throaty sound of hers that could give Beelzebub
bad dreams.
"And I just can't get enough of Republicans caught being gay."
You don't intend to bring every conversation with Pope around to sex, but
somehow it just happens that way. Maybe it's because when she broke onto the
Toronto music scene with Kevan Staples in the mid-1970s they were unlike
anything the city had ever seen.
"I was just going to do what I was going to do," is how Pope
diffidently explains the mixture of dominatrix gear, X-rated lyrics, driving
music and blatant sexuality she used to set the city ablaze.
"A lot of people didn't understand that Kevan and I were doing sexual
parodies and sending it all up sky high. They used to tell me they got turned
on by my songs and I'd be all `Like yuck!'"
Ask Pope what she thinks it would have been like if Rough Trade had launched
today and her answer is immediate.
"It would be a lot harder, because everybody's got a gimmick these days.
You can be a boozed-up Brit chick and have a big hit just singing about getting
beat up by your boyfriend."
She sighs. "But, you know, I think the younger audience today would get
what we were trying to do. They're very big on irony these days."
In fact, some of the kids of today have turned on to Pope, thanks in part to
her music appearing on television soundtracks from The L Word to The
Trailer Park Boys. She even recorded a new version of her anthem of
horniness, "High School Confidential," for Queer as Folk.
"Oh yeah," agrees Pope dryly. "That's where I got all the
15-year-old boys who want to be my friend on MySpace."
She loves having young audiences, but at the same time, she gets oddly
puritanical about one thing. "Having sex at a really young age is totally
screwed up, because that way you lose your childhood."
Pope feels the whole notion of what is or isn't sexy has been debased by many
entertainers today. "Let's not lay it all out, people. Let's be a bit
discreet. Don't throw it all in my face. I want some mystery. I want some
intellect.
"Paris Hilton? Get me out of here. She's just Miss Chock Full of Sperm.
What kind of a role model is that?"
Pope may have been lower profile in recent years, but she still produced three
solo albums and an autobiography, Anti Diva, in 2000. Her recent solo
music has more of a techno edge, though her lyrics still possess a political
and sexual punch.
Yet for all her mystique, it took Pope a depressing two years to get her last
album, Transcend, distributed.
"Why? Because I'm not in my 20s," she sneers. "I have a whole
new album written, but I don't know if I have the energy to go through the
whole agony of trying to get it recorded and released again.
"Yeah, I could go the whole garage-band route, but don't you think I'm
just a little old for that?" asks the woman who turns 58 in August.
Pope seemed to flaunt her debauchery and self-indulgence back in her early
days, but she seems remarkably grounded today.
"I've been taking care of myself since the '80s," she admits,
"because it just seemed the wisest thing to do."
But how did she avoid crashing and burning in her youth like the Lindsay Lohans
and Amy Winehouses do today?
"I just didn't have an addictive personality," she says after a
pause. "It's not that I didn't do my share of booze and drugs, but with
me, ultimately, it was always about making music."
Pope hasn't appeared at Buddies since her 1996 show Carole Pope & A
Bunch of People She's Slept With, but she's looking forward to her gig this
weekend. She promises a "mash" of her early Rough Trade songs
"to get them out of the way."
Although she's just a bit anxious about what Kurt will do. "Elvira's going
to mock me, I just know it, so I guess I better prepare to mock her back."
Or as Pope herself said earlier, "There will be acoustic, there will be
jokes, there will be blood."
And no one drinks her milkshake.
Just the facts
WHO: Carole Pope with Elvira Kurt
WHEN: Saturday and Sunday, doors at 8 p.m.
WHERE: Buddies in Bad Times, 12 Alexander St.
TICKETS: $20 at artsexy.ca
or 416-975-8555; $25 at the door
It's No Accident: Crystal Castles Is Toronto's Hottest New Band
Excerpt from www.thestar.com
- Ben Rayner, Pop Music Critic
(March 23, 2008) The word "accidental" has already
appeared so much in Crystal
Castles lore that it
seems a rather bitter irony that an actual, real-life accident has now thrust
itself into what is, arguably, the Toronto duo's first crucial North American
tour.
Five shows into the pair's current five-week road swing – timed to give Crystal
Castles' eponymous debut album a little pre-release juicing at Austin's
all-important South by Southwest festival the weekend before its official
arrival in stores last Tuesday – pixieish singer Alice Glass wandered off from
a gig in Chicago early this month and wound up breaking a couple of ribs when
the car she was riding in collided with another vehicle.
"After the show, she went for a drive with a friend and someone smashed
into them. We didn't even know," says keyboard maestro and beatmaker Ethan
Kath, who stages a homecoming gig with Glass this Friday at Circa. "We
were at the venue waiting for her till, like, seven in the morning. We didn't
know what was going on."
Despite her doctor's advice to take five or six weeks off, Glass – a diminutive
banshee who is nevertheless so shy offstage that she's rumoured to burst into
tears before shows – was back at it for the band's March 14 SXSW date at
storied Austin venue Emo's.
A painful move, but no doubt a beneficial one, since there was a line-up
snaking
down 6th Avenue well before the doors opened, waiting expressly
for Crystal Castles to kick off the evening's line-up. So if the hugely hyped
performance wound up proving necessarily brisk, at least Glass and Kath
observed a golden rule of show business by curtly walking offstage after about
20 minutes while a packed, thoroughly wound-up houseful of admirers gasped for
more.
"That was the first show Alice did with her broken ribs, so we played four
songs and she was, like, `That's it,'" says Kath. "You need your ribs
to sing. Every time she coughs, she's holding her stomach in pain. And she has
a really bad cough."
Yikes. Take care of yourselves, Crystal Castles, because this is most
definitely your moment.
Blog-age notoriety has accrued so quickly and so furiously for the twosome that
it was being hyperbolized overseas last year as "the most exciting and
original band in the world right now" based largely upon the momentum
gained from a single tune, "Alice Practice," that was, as legend has
it, surreptitiously created – "by accident," if you will – when the
engineer presiding over Crystal Castles' first demo sessions in April of 2005
hit "record" while Glass wailed her way through a preparatory
microphone check.
Kath posted the tune online merely as a means of proving to his friends that he
was, in fact, still alive after vanishing into the studio for months with Glass
on a shared whim to build a noise-rock band in the vein of Toronto's Sick
Lipstick or Montreal's AIDS Wolf that substituted mutilated, analogue keyboard
sounds for guitars.
Suddenly, though, he was fielding frantic offers from three separate labels to
release it as a single. And so Crystal Castles subsequently agreed to issue
"Alice Practice" as just the second seven-inch released by upstart
U.K. label Merok Records, an imprint launched by the roommate of a then-unknown
British band called the Klaxons.
By the time Kath and Glass accepted an invite from Merok to tour the U.K., both
their single and its predecessor by those same Klaxons – who would go on to win
the 2007 Mercury Prize the following year for their album Myths of the Near
Future – had sold out completely.
"We flew to the U.K. to discover that the Klaxons had just got a record
deal. You know what happened with them, right? At the time, that was just all
new things happening," says Kath. "We got there and a week later
they'd signed to Polydor. We were just excited that our seven-inches had sold
out, just happy about that alone."
Within a year, Crystal Castles had graduated from touring the States via
Greyhound bus to headlining status in the U.K., landing remix duties for Bloc
Party, Liars and their pals, the Klaxons. CC also sparked a mini-riot among
rabid fans moved to trash a Rough Trade record shop after a rowdy in-store
performance in London, all the while remaining oddly distanced from the
internationally renowned Canadian indie scene from whence they sprang.
Toronto's slow-to-come recognition of the latest budding pop exports in its
midst might stem, in part, from Kath's previous association with a mightily
underrated but fatally un-trendy local rock band that he'd prefer not to
mention these days for fear of "confusing electronic-music fans."
That band – which I won't name because I like Kath too much to betray his trust
– was nothing to be ashamed of. But, for the record, the fact that the guy's
attained this sort of success by letting slip the New Order fetish previously
hidden behind a metal heart proves he's a much more three-dimensional
songwriter than anyone in this town thought.
And while we're at it, if the recent Internet scuttlebutt over the fact that
Ethan isn't his real name has touched a nerve, it might be useful to remind
yourself that no one is born Sting.
There's nothing careerist about Crystal Castles' rise, unless Kath and Glass
initially set themselves on a mission to reach the meagre commercial heights
set by such cult forebears as X-Ray Specs, Adult. and the Sugarcubes. Hell,
they've even done their best to piss off the U.K. tastemakers who elevated them
to this level in the first place.
"We're headlining an NME tour in May with three opening bands I've never
heard of," says Kath. "In September of 2007, we were the opening DJ
set when Klaxons headlined the tour and we didn't even end up going. We f---ed
that up. We sent our drummer to DJ. And it's funny, because we're friends with
Klaxons and they said we could share their tour bus but we sent our drummer and
they were, like, `Who the f--- is this guy?' I'm surprised NME forgave us for
that stunt. Now, they have us headlining a tour, when really they should have
just never talked to us again after that."
Daniel MacMaster, 39
Excerpt from www.globeandmail.com
- Lindsay
Lafraugh, The Canadian Press
(March 20, 2008) THUNDER BAY, ONT. — The former
lead singer of British hard
rock band Bonham has died at Thunder
Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre of a Group A streptococcus infection at the
age of 39.
Daniel MacMaster had been living in
this northwestern Ontario city for the past eight years with his partner Tina
McCallum.
MacMaster had been working as a long-haul trucker.
McCallum said Wednesday that MacMaster's death on Sunday was unexpected and
sudden.
MacMaster thought he had a cold and by the time the doctors realized what it
was, it was too late, McCallum said.
“(It is) something most people fight off naturally, or if it is caught results
in strep throat,” said McCallum.
“For some freaky reason it got into his bloodstream . . . once that happens
there is not a lot that they can do,” she said.
Experiencing the life of a rock star at a young age, MacMaster released two
albums before the age of 25 with Bonham, a band named after its drummer Jason
Bonham, son of late Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham.
The band's first album, “The Disregard of Timekeeping”, was released in 1989
and made it onto the Top 40 charts, with the single “Wait For You” being the
most successful.
It wasn't long after the release of “Mad Hatter”, the band's second album, in
1992, that the members went separate ways.
After Bonham was over, MacMaster, who was raised in Barrie, Ont., returned to
Toronto where his music career had started years before when he was lead singer
for the band Scorcher.
While in Toronto, MacMaster met McCallum. She said that by the time the pair
got together he was done with the rock ‘n' roll lifestyle.
“In the end he didn't want to tour ... he didn't want the fame and the fortune,
he just wanted his music to be heard.”
MacMaster continued to write music and played with a local hobby band, Oh My
Blues Band.
McCallum said MacMaster was a family man and the proud father of Kaleb, 8, and
Aryanna, 6.
“He was a devoted father” and “a funny guy. Everybody has a funny Dan story,”
she said.
Funeral services for MacMaster are being held Thursday in Thunder Bay.
Ms. Kelly Rowland, Digital Diva
Source: brian@thinktankmktg.com
(March 21, 2008) The Grammy winning R&B/pop
superstar Kelly Rowland is
back with her new studio album, Ms. Kelly: Diva Deluxe, a groundbreaking digital-only
collection of new songs and scorching remixes available exclusively through all
major online digital music providers on Tuesday, March 25.
Ms. Kelly: Diva Deluxe premieres five new Kelly Rowland tracks as well as
remixes of Kelly's co-compositions "Come Back" (Karmatronics Remix)
and "Like This" featuring Eve, a Redline Remix of Kelly's
international smash and #1 Billboard Hot Dance Club Play recording.
"The tracks on Diva Deluxe are too hot to hold onto," said Kelly
Rowland, "so I decided to release them digitally so my fans could get into
them as soon as possible. I hope everyone enjoys the new songs as much as I did
recording them."
Kelly Rowland is currently enjoying the mounting international success of her
latest single, "Work," which is the #9 Top Digital Single across
Europe and is charting in the UK (#8, #1 TV Airplay), Ireland (#12),
France(#11), Germany (#1 Club Record), Switzerland, Sweden (#3 Video Chart),
Denmark (Top 20 Dance) and Australia (#2 Most Added at radio). "Work"
will be released as an extended play of dance mixes to US digital music
providers on February 26 with an extended play of dance mixes of Kelly's new
single, "Daylight," going to US digital music providers on March 4.
Ms. Kelly: Diva Deluxe is Kelly's first new collection of songs since June 2007
when Ms. Kelly, her second solo album, entered the Billboard Top 200 at #6,
giving Kelly her first Top 10 album as a solo artist, while debuting on the
Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart at #2.
Ms. Kelly was the long-awaited successor to Rowland's best-selling 2002
gold-certified solo debut album, Simply Deep, which has sold more than two
million copies worldwide. Peaking at #1 in the UK, #3 on the Billboard
R&B/Hip-Hop Album chart, and #12 on the Billboard Top 200, Simply Deep
included the smash hit, "Dilemma," Kelly's duet with the rapper
Nelly, which earned the Grammy for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration in 2003 and
spent 10 weeks at #1 on the Hot 100.
One of the vocal superstars, and founding member, of Destiny's Child, the
top-selling female group of all time, Kelly Rowland proved a major contributing
force as the trio racked up sales of more than 60 million records worldwide
while earning two Grammy Awards in the Best R&B Performance By A Duo Or
Group With Vocals category (2000: "Say My Name";
2001: "Survivor").
Kelly's natural charm and charisma have opened up the doors to roles in movies
and on television. Her big screen acting credits include starring roles in the
2003 horror blockbuster, "Freddy vs. Jason," and 2004's comedy
romance, "The Seat Filler," executive produced by Will Smith and Jada
Pinkett Smith. Among her television appearances, she has appeared as
"Carly" in three episodes of "The Hughleys" and as
"Martha Reeves" (of Martha & the Vandellas) on "American
Dreams." She has performed on "Saturday Night Live" and as a
guest host on "The View."
Kelly Rowland has appeared as celebrity spokesperson for the "Dark &
Lovely" hair product line from Soft Sheen-Carson (consumer products
division of L'Oreal USA, Inc.)
Ms. Kelly: Diva Deluxe - tracklisting
1. Daylight (featuring Travis McCoy of Gym Class Heroes) - 3:30 2. Broken -
3:24 3. Come Back (Karmatronics Remix) - 6:20 4. Like This (Redline Remix) -
2:48 5. Love Again - 3:50 6. Unity - 3:51 7. No Man No Cry - 3:28
Daylight (Remix EP)
1. Hex Hector Remix
2. Maurice Joshua NuSoul Remix
3. Karmatronics Remix
4. Lost Daze Remix
5. Dan McKie Remix
Work (Remix EP) - timings forthcoming
1. Freemasons Club Mix
2. Freemasons Dub Mix
3. Steve Pitron& Max Sanna Radio Edit
4. Steve Pitron& Max Sanna Extended Remix
* * * * *
www.kellyrowland.com
www.welovekelly.com
www.myspace.com/kellyrowland
www.musicworldentertainment.com
www.columbiarecords.com
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The Cult Of Leonard Cohen
Excerpt from www.thestar.com
- Francine Kopun, Feature Writer
(March 23, 2008) A guitar. A creaky voice. Poetry, black suits and
a mournful
expression.
If you guessed Leonard Cohen, you are a longtime fan, or you've been watching American Idol,
where a young man in dreadlocks sang "Hallelujah" two weeks ago,
making the song a bestselling single in cyberspace 24 years after it was first
recorded.
Cohen is back, again. At 73, he's on tour for the first time in 15 years. His
three shows – one of which was added to fulfill demand – at the Sony Centre
June 6-8 are sold out. Premium orchestra seats are being auctioned at
ticketmaster.ca. Bidding starts at $310.
Rumours abound more shows may be added in other Southern Ontario cities.
Cohen may be working because he has to – his former business manager allegedly
siphoned $5 million from his personal accounts and investments, leaving him about
$150,000 – but the reunion is no less sweet to longtime fans because of it.
Aficionados like Anne Mitchell, 36, a University of Toronto administrator, have
bought tickets to multiple shows. She plans to see him twice in Toronto and
once in Montreal.
"He seems to get the emotional truth down to me," she says by way of
explaining her lifelong interest in Cohen's work.
Cohen inspires devotion among people one doesn't typically associate with
fandom – doctors and accountants, prison guards and high school principals.
He works at it. Cohen donates unpublished poems, poems-in-progress, drawings
and archival material – like his old student passport – to the Finnish
accountant who runs a popular Leonard Cohen fan site on the Web.
"This is his way to show some appreciation maybe, of all his loyal and
longtime fans," says Jarkko Arjatsalo, founder of www.leonardcohenfiles.com.
Cohen gave him the news of his tour and tour dates before he gave it to the
press, so Arjatsalo could break the news on his website. Since then, traffic to
the site has jumped from 1,000 to 10,000 visitors a day.
Cohen first contacted Arjatsalo in 1997, two years after Arjatsalo launched
leonardcohenfiles.com. At the time, Cohen was living at a Zen monastery, on
Mount Baldy near Los Angeles, which had just got an Internet connection, says
Arjatsalo. Cohen offered to contribute to the website. In 1999, he invited
Arjatsalo and his wife and son to Los Angeles for a visit.
"It was really exciting, of course. We were surprised to see how nice he
is in real life. He's a very humble, friendly guy who wants to listen to what
you have to say," says Arjatsalo.
Cohen also met with the organizer of an annual Edmonton celebration of Cohen's
September birthday, University of Alberta physician Kim Solez, 61.
"He has the most interesting thoughts in the world," says Solez, who
has had his own share of interesting thoughts – Solez established the standard
by which kidney transplant biopsies are interpreted. A fan since coming to
Canada in 1987 from Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Solez is also organizing the
bi-annual International Leonard Cohen fan event in Edmonton this summer – it
has so far been held in Montreal, New York City, Berlin and Hydra, the Greek
island where Cohen often lived.
It is this kind of devotion that may help explain how the Montreal-born Cohen
can spend years out of the spotlight, go years without releasing any new material,
and still return to acclaim and honours.
It helps, of course, that he has Dustin Hoffman-like looks, and his poems and
songs so often deal with love and desire, half-mad women in rags and feathers
enchanting men with oranges and tea; sex in the Chelsea Hotel.
A year after news of his financial difficulty broke, he published a book of
poems called Book of Longing. In March, 2006, Indigo Books president
Heather Reisman declared it the No. 1 bestseller in the country, the first book
of poetry in Canadian history to do so.
In March, Cohen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – his songs
have been recorded by everyone from Bono to Billy Joel; "Hallelujah"
has been on soundtracks including Shrek and the television series House.
"He's our Bob Dylan, in a way," says Bryn Davies, 59, a retired high
school principal in Burlington who is moved to tears at the thought of the
excitement the concerts have generated among young fans who have never before
seen Cohen perform.
Davies plans to attend all three shows with his wife, Susan Eaton-Davies, 58,
also a retired principal, who has her own reasons for attending.
"He'll be a sexy 74-year-old," she says, laughing.
Correctional officer Vernon Silver, 53, a married father of two stepchildren,
will travel from Sault Ste. Marie to see Cohen this June.
Silver has been a fan since he was 17 for this simple reason: "Leonard
says the things I wish I could say when I talk to women."
Pacifika's Worldly Sound
Excerpt from www.thestar.com
- Raju Mudhar, Entertainment Reporter
(March 23, 2008) It is a perverse compliment that Pacifika's smooth-sounding
mix
of silky vocals, sweet guitar and classy beats on their new album Asunción could
come from anywhere.
Highly stylized, world-y sounding hipster-pop, it fits in the vein of the
Thievery Corporation and Bebel Gilberto.
Signed to San Francisco's Six Degrees label, one of the pre-eminent purveyors
of this particular sound, the three members of the group – Adam Popowitz,
Silvana Kane and Toby Peter – are all Vancouver-based with long and varied
careers in the music biz. The trio is riding high on this sweet collection of
songs that will see them leave the West Coast on tour, with a date at the Lula
Lounge Wednesday evening.
The sound has a natural feel, which is a result of how they work and also the
reason why Kane, the chief lyricist, says that many of the songs ended up in
Spanish.
"The way the three of us work is really organic in that we all sit
together in the studio and put on an old-fashioned ghetto blaster and put in an
old-fashioned tape and we just record," she says. "For me, lyrically
or melodically, that's the way the best work always comes, when we're just
relaxed and enjoying the process, and so as it happened, everything mostly came
out in Spanish. It wasn't planned to be that way, but it did continue to
happen, so it just sort of fit. It was also really enjoyable for me to sing in
my mother tongue."
These three aren't new to the biz – Kane was part of girl group West End Girls,
Peter has backed up k-os, while Popowitz has recorded and produced other bands.
"Because we've been doing music for so long, I think we all know what we
like and what we don't like and what needs to be in place and what can be
discarded," says Peter. "I think we all bring our experience in to
this group, which just makes us more solid. We all have a good depth of
experience to draw from."
The three-piece augments their line-up with an extra percussionist, and because
of the genre hopping and Spanish vocals, this is another group that cagily
treads around the world-music-but-not-quite label.
"Well, in the sense that the global spectre has been so much more
interactive than it has been, in the sense that many of us are global citizens,
more than we ever were before, and seeing as music seems to have to be
categorized, I would say that because of what we're up to, it is most likely
world, or world-pop, perhaps. Maybe world music-inspired fits," says Kane.
"But really, I guess whatever people term it is fine by us."
Pacifika plays the Lula Lounge, 1585 Dundas St. W., on Wednesday. Tickets
are $15 and doors open at 9 p.m.
It's Not Just About Having Fun Now For Sheryl Crow
Excerpt from www.thesar.com
- Ben Rayner, Pop Music Critic
(March 21, 2008) Sheryl Crow has, of late, been forced to take a long, hard look at
– to borrow a phrase from the late Douglas Adams – life, the universe and
everything, and she doesn't like what she sees.
During the three years that have passed since her last album, Wildflower,
the Missouri-born singer/songwriter suffered through the nasty one-two wallop
of a heartbreaking split with her fiancé, cyclist Lance Armstrong, conducted
beneath the full glare of the media's attention, followed mere days later by
the news she had been diagnosed with breast cancer.
A lesser rock chick might have crumbled, but Crow – who euphemistically refers
to her recent trials as a "trouble spot" – is made of sterner stuff.
She beat her illness, put her relationship woes behind her and, perspective
gained, took on the responsibility of motherhood by adopting a baby boy named
Wyatt. Now, she's hellbent on making sure her 10-month-old pride and joy gets
to grow up in a slightly more sensible and less suicidal world than the one
we've got now.
Yes, the gorgeous Southern gal previously known for singing the virtues of
"a good beer buzz early in the morning" and soaking up the sun has
reinvented herself as a mild species of protest singer on her new album, Detours.
She takes aim at such topics as U.S. government corruption, the war in Iraq,
cultural xenophobia, the looming oil crisis and the shameful aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina in a manner uncommonly direct for contemporary Top 40 artists
of her stature.
"I don't think it's ever been as bad politically as it has been the last
couple of years. It seems almost difficult to write about anything else,"
says Crow, 46, hosting a day of interviews in a Yorkville hotel room.
"When I hear goofy boy/girl songs on the radio, I think, `Wow.' I mean,
there's room for entertainment everywhere, but isn't somebody going to talk
about what's happening?
"We typically tend to distract ourselves from feeling anything – not only
as who we are, but as a people. And not only in America. It's happening
everywhere.
"We're at the height of materialism and tabloid-ism and we're being
distracted, so the government gets away with a lot of crazy things like taking
us to a war. I feel hopeful there's going to be a surge of people waking up.
Certainly, what I went through woke me up to writing about the truth and being
very fearless about addressing what's really happening."
Much of Detours was written after late-night feeding sessions,
"baby on the hip and pen in hand," while new mom Crow grappled with
the sad realities of the planet we're leaving to our children.
Her adoption came on the heels of completing a tour to raise awareness about
global warming, she says, but Wyatt's arrival in her life really hit home about
"how dire things are becoming."
"Having a little baby and knowing what he's going to inherit, it became a
personal affront to me that (the Bush) administration has not only been so
reticent but really lacked leadership regarding the environment.
"It makes me angry, you know, that we already know that a third of all
species are going to be gone in his lifetime. They're making it even more
difficult for people to install solar panels and to invest in wind power. And
with a war going on, he's going to inherit a very unstable planet. It just
becomes egregious at the most deeply personal level."
While she braces for a right-wing backlash and a retaliatory IRS audit, mind
you, Crow hasn't forgotten her rock 'n' roll duties.
An international tour – complete with "crib on the bus" for her son –
launches in May, with her first real coast-to-coast, cross-Canada run since she
scored an opening slot on a Crowded House tour during the mid-'90s. It's
slotted for September.
There are also rumours Crow will soon hook up with Fleetwood Mac for an
unspecified project, but she's playing coy about the situation for now.
"We're just talking and kinda dreaming about what we could do,
collaboration-wise. Could we tour? Could we collaborate in a recording
studio?" she says.
"We're not really sure what we're doing yet, but it's great fun to think
about. As a kid, I pored over those records and I had my hair cut like Stevie
Nicks."
Yundi Li,- He Fills Halls And Sells Cds, But Marketing Has
Triumphed Over Music
Excerpt from www.globeandmail.com
- Ken
Winters
Yundi Li, piano
At
Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto on Tuesday
(March 20, 2008) The recital Tuesday night by
the young Chinese pianist Yundi Li
was a marketing rather than a musical phenomenon. Roy Thomson Hall was packed
to the rafters with more young people, than I have ever before seen at a
Toronto concert. When Li stepped onto the platform - neat, handsome,
beautifully tailored - you could feel the crowd's appreciation of this popular
cultural icon, an enormous superstar in his home country and an obviously
highly marketable quantity both there and abroad. The venerable Deutsche
Grammophon records him. Critics on both sides of the Atlantic have lauded him.
It was only when he played, alas, that we heard what a fragile hold he has on
musical reality.
He opened the slender first half of his program with Chopin's most shopworn Nocturne,
the one in E flat, Op. 9, No. 2, and played it very badly indeed. His
rubatos - those subtle fluctuations of tempo that are part of the elastic
vitality of the Chopin "singing line" - were far from subtle, and the
elegant ornamental arabesques which increase as the piece advances were, in
this case, crabbed and noticeably unlyrical.
Chopin's Four Mazurkas, Op. 33 suffered the same insensitivities of
style, with the addition of a failure to grasp the characteristic rhythm of the
vigorous Polish dance form. Only the third of the four had any simplicity and
command. All of these were accompanied by the subliminal but distinct sound of
Arthur Rubenstein spinning in his grave.
We then had what the printed program told us would be three Chinese pieces
announced from the stage. In fact we had seven of these frail pieces, not
three, inaudibly announced by Li himself, and they were pretty but very much
alike, highly decorated with finger work but harmonically unadventurous.
After these we had Liszt's piano transcription of the great Schumann song, Widmung
(Dedication). The one thing immediately obvious in Li's performance was that he
appeared to have never listened to it in its original song form. He played the
melody in a manner no singer could have followed.
The first half ended with Chopin's Andante Spianato and Grande
Polonaise Brillante. This had had more practice and more thought put into
it and was generally more polished, but the Andante fell short of the
trance-like beauty we expect of it, and the Polonaise was superficial in
its brilliance.
After intermission, wearing a different suit, Li gave us Mussorgsky's Pictures
at an Exhibition, his best shot on this occasion. Even here, however, he
designed his effects crudely, with much banging of chords and octaves and no
grip on the interior life of the delicately varied reiterations of the
Promenade between the Pictures.
Even so, after he crashed his way through The Great Gate of Kiev movement, his
audience cheered him and stood to clap. The market had triumphed. Yundi Li will
continue to play when and how he likes so long as he fills halls and sells CDs.
Everything will profit except the music.
Special to The Globe and Mail
Acid Funk Never Sounded Sweeter
Excerpt from www.thestar.com
- Ashante Infantry, Pop & Jazz Critic
(March 23, 2008) Better known as a writer and
cultural critic, former Village Voice scribe Greg Tate has been equally
prolific on the bandstand.
He's the musical director of the improvisational acid-funk band Burnt Sugar: The Arkestra
Chamber, which makes its Toronto debut at Lula Lounge this Thursday as part of
Small World Jazz Series II. (Visit smallworldmusic.com for more info.)
A self-taught guitarist, the Dayton, Ohio-born Tate played in R&B bands in
his early teens, but put aside musical ambitions to focus on radio broadcasting
and deejaying, complemented by his studies in film and journalism at Howard
University.
"After I moved to New York in 1982 I started hanging out with all these
great guitar players – Vernon Reid, James "Blood" Ulmer – and I just
got inspired by seeing them play to pick up the axe again and started jamming
with different cats," recalled Tate, who co-founded the Black Rock
Coalition in 1985.
"I started to slowly work my way back to the stage and in 1991 I put
together a band called Women In Love (with Me'Shell Ndegeocello on bass). We
were together five years and I pretty much have had a band ever since."
The desire to update jazz trumpeter Miles Davis' '70s forays into rock and funk
prompted Tate to launch Burnt Sugar in 1999.
"I was interested in th
