Fishbone and the Familyhood Nextperience & other: June 2008

Monday, 23 June 2008

Jaia

Artist: Jaia

   Genre(s):
Trance: Psychedelic
   Electronic

Discography:

Fiction

Year: 2005
Tracks: 1

Unreleased

Year: 2000
Tracks: 9

Time Machine (Ep)

Year: 1998
Tracks: 4

Blue Energy

Year: 1998
Tracks: 8

Wednesday, 18 June 2008

TMZ TV Tonite - Hot Receivers

Tonight on TMZ TV -- Hollywood suits up for game day! Ryan Seacrest plays QB, Hulk Hogan gives his new girlfriend the home field advantage and Heather Locklear's in full blitz mode.

Check your local listings.

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Monday, 16 June 2008

Tatum O'Neal Is the Nicest Crackhead Ever

For a woman who just got busted for crack, Tatum O'Neal was incredibly friendly and forthcoming with the paparazzi on the streets of New York today.
Tatum O'Neal: Click to watch

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Seattle's PWRFL Power is in demand, in control

As Seattle's summer music festivals roll around, there's one name you'll repeatedly see on the lineups: PWRFL Power. The artist, 23-year-old Kaz Nomura, is playing the Georgetown Music Festival, the Capitol Hill Block Party and Bumbershoot.

In fact, the Seattleite (originally from Japan) has gotten so popular locally, he's setting his sights on a bigger arena — Brooklyn, N.Y. In the last year and a half, as PWRFL Power, he's played more than 200 Seattle-area shows.

Last year, he won the Esurance-sponsored "Block Star" contest at the Capitol Hill Block Party, winning him a spot in one of its commercials. They liked his "quirky style."

We talked to the rising local:

Q: Why are you moving to Brooklyn?

A: I just feel like it's time to move to a bigger city and check it out, play to a bigger audience.

Q: Your sound is so low-key and whimsical. How would you describe it?

A: I think my singing ability is not that great. It's kind of like conversational and sometimes off-key. And also my vocabulary in the language is not sufficient. ... On the other hand, the guitar work is pretty good. ... That kind of contrast — fluent guitar work and my singing style — is something that defines PWRFL Power's music.

Q: Your lyrics are quite funny. How do you come up with them?

A: Some of them are diaries; some of them are fictional. I don't try to write anything. It's more like I sit down in a cafe and start writing.

Q: What's the meaning behind your stage name, PWRFL Power?

A: It's something I came up with for this performing-arts group I was in back in 2006. They didn't use this name, so I was like, if you don't use it, I'm going to just use it myself. I took out the vowels from the first word, so I could Google easily.

Q: How was the Esurance commercial experience?

A: I was really excited because everyone dreams of being on TV, or of getting exposed to the public in general. I was really looking forward to it. But once it hit the air, I started getting both good and bad responses from random people. Like, I got some hate mail from people in Florida, who didn't get the money they thought they deserved from Esurance. ... People who hated Esurance started to hate me, too. ... But at the same time, every day, I keep getting messages and friends requests on MySpace from people I wouldn't normally reach out to.

Q: You have some lyrics in Japanese — do you feel that your culture and background are something you have to reflect?

A: I thought it would be fun to mix the two together because I've never heard a song in two languages in that way.

Q: You're not signed to a label?

A: I have a few CDs to a few different labels, but I'm not signed to any label right now. ... I think the whole music industry is changing right now. I think it'll be nice to have label support, like from bigger labels. ... [But] musicians can make everything from just touring and not just selling music, but playing shows, and I already have a really good agent and PR company, so I'm not too worried about it. But it will be great if it happens.

Q: What's next for you?

A: I'm starting a new project, just guitar and instruments ... I already have a name for it — "Half Yogurt." ... I just thought it was an interesting image — like, what's the other half?

Marian Liu: 206-464-3825 or mliu@seattletimes.com

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Levi Chen

Artist: Levi Chen

   Genre(s):
New Age

Discography:

Liquid Gardens

Year: 1999
Tracks: 11

Levi Chen -- composer, guitarist and founder of the trio Celtic Zen (with harpist Lisa Franco and cembalist Michael Masley) -- is a first-generation Chinese-American world Health Organization, though born and brocaded in the Midwest, has lived in countries as divers as Taiwan, France, Italy, and Switzerland. Chen speaks v languages.

Chen was already a universe traveler (his home visited grandparents in Taiwan) by the clock time he began poring over guitar at long time decade. In 1981, the rebellious teenage Chen was sent to a boarding schooltime in Switzerland for his junior year. This, he says, turned his life around and expanded his horizons. Encouraged, he returned to the United States to look Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he studied graphic arts, architecture, and music with musicologist Roland Wiggins. In 1984, Chen exhausted 11 months attendance the Syracuse University Abroad in Florence, Italy. Here, he erudite to talk Italian and began to play music as a minstrel in the Piazza Signoria. In 1987, Chen stirred to Boston, where he got a chore at E.U. Wurlitzer Music & Pro Audio; this chore afforded him the opportunity to interact with music students from the Berklee School of Music and to acquire the technical side of music. In March of 1989, Chen returned to Taiwan for several months to pursue a dream of becoming the Chinese Jimi Hendrix; it was a unsatisfying chew the fat, disposed the timbre of the Asian pop scene. His following be active took him to the s of France where he played in a band called the Immigrants.

In 1990, Chen touched for good to Los Angeles. He founded his own judge, Yin Yang Records, in 1993. His first album in 1994 was Liquid Gardens: Tao for solo acoustic and galvanising guitar. Liquid Gardens: Haiki Moon featured Chen on the guitar, fretless bass, Chapman stick, and gu zheng. 1995's Meditation of My Soul showcased Chen's guitar/gu zheng duets. In 1997, Chen released Celtic Zen, likewise the name of the mathematical group which includes harper Lisa Franco and Michael Masley on cymbalom. Ten guest musicians helped contribute to the album's unique wakeless -- all acoustic leave off for the Stratocaster guitar.

Chen's two main instruments ar the Fender Stratocaster guitar (circa 1976) and the gu zheng, a Chinese tool similar to the Japanese koto, just having steel strings. Through long time of experimentation, Chen has managed to mimicker the gu zheng sound on the guitar and vice versa; through use of delayed echoes, he tin can play both instruments at once in a call-and-response style. Chen canful also create other sounds on his guitar: whales and dolphins, cello, erhu (Chinese fiddle), and other synthesizer sounds. Chen is likewise proficient on Chapman stick, acoustic guitar, fretted and fretless bass, synthesist, and pianissimo.

With his long, flowing black hair, Chen resembles Kitaro in appearance. Chen silent performs long hours as a street player and considers music-making his signifier of meditation. As to his unearthly beliefs, Chen comments, "I believe in LIFE, truth, beaut, peace, God, and zilch. I'm a Romantic Zen Taoist Rasta."

Jade Goody & Jack Tweed split up

Tank Girl - Tank Girl Makes Her Directorial Debut With Gritty Life Story

TANK GIRL star LORI PETTY has turned her tough Iowa upbringing into a new movie, and cast SELMA BLAIR as her mother.

Petty wrote and directed The Poker House, staging a lengthy casting call to find the newcomer who would play her as a child, Jennifer Lawrence - and called on the Hellboy star to play her mum.

Perry's autobiographical directorial debut, about her poverty-stricken teenage years, will premiere at the upcoming Los Angeles Film Festival.

A film insider says, "It's a ravishing portrait of poor, small town life in Iowa, circa 1976 - Marvin Gaye, seedy bars, and the ever present allure of illicit activities and substances."

Blair plays a mum of three daughters in the film. Her eldest, Agnes, is inspired by Lori herself.

The film includes Petty's "pimp father figure, and a memorable assortment of dangerous yet colourful gamblers, thieves and johns."

Petty says, "This is a movie that had to be made, so it showed up uninvited as my adolescence. The movie is the eldest daughter, me, realising between a heartbeat, that things may happen to you, but they don't happen to you forever unless you let them."

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Blue October

Artist: Blue October

   Genre(s):
Rock
   Pop
   Other

Discography:

Foiled

Year: 2006
Tracks: 13

History for Sale

Year: 2003
Tracks: 12

Preaching Lies To The Righteous

Year: 2001
Tracks: 12

The Answers

Year: 1999
Tracks: 13

Believe MCD

Year: 1999
Tracks: 5

The Texas indie careen fin Blue October came together in the previous '90s with vocalist/guitarist Justin Furstenfeld, drummer Jeremy Furstenfeld, fiddler Ryan Delahoussaye, bassist Matt Noveskey, and lead story guitar player Brant Coulter. In 1998, Blue October independently released their debut record album, The Answers. The band's tricky modern alternate rock lED to 5,000 copies sold in their native Houston alone. Two old age later, Blue October made their major-label debut on Universal with Consent to Treatment.

By the time Blue October had prepped for their tierce album, 2003's Account for Sale, guitar player Coulter had left wing the mathematical group and CB Hudson (guitar/vocals) had been added. They had besides left hand Universal for Brando Records. Their number one exclusive, "Career You," was a lead slay in and around the suburbs of Dallas thanks to its comprehension on the American Wedding soundtrack. Such impulse impressed Universal, therefore supporting Blue October to give up with the judge once more. The live CD/DVD parcel Indicate with a Tree was released in February 2005, undermentioned 18 months of touring. Noveskey briefly left hand the band, but returned in time to record Blue October's number one studio record album in three years, Disappointed, which was issued in April 2006. Before the band went on tour with Yellowcard in September 2007, Universal Motown Records released Thwarted for the Last Time, a two-disc set consisting of a total version of Disappointed on with 14 new recorded songs performed live and several alternative remixes.

Robert Downey Jr - Downey Jr Finds Salvation With Fast Food

Fans Brand Radiohead Opening European Tour Shows 'Terrible'

The opening nights of Radiohead's European tour have been branded “terrible” by a number of Gigwise readers.

Gigwise has been inundated by fans following the bands shows at Malahide Castle in Dublin last Friday (June 6th) and Saturday (June 7th).

Radiohead played two very different set lists at both concerts – preferring a more hit laden set on Friday compared to Saturday's show.

This, and the fact that the band chose to play so much of their latest album 'In Rainbows', has angered a number of fans.

Contacting Gigwise, Lee, who saw the band on Saturday, wrote: “I think it was terrible, they may as well have played in the castle to themselves, no crowd interaction at all.

“They could have rocked the place by putting in a few of their older songs to the set.”

Another reader, John, was upset with Friday's set. He said: “I have been to 4 Radiohead concerts before the Malahide one on the Friday. I have to say that it was terrible. No interaction with the crowd, poor selection of songs.

“I appreciate the band wants to do their new material but there was a need for balance. When they did play a couple of classics the crowd fired up quickly, but they followed this with obscure songs from the new album.

"There was no attempt to respond to the crowd. Never again”

Despite a number of critical comments, a number of Radiohead fans voiced their support for the band.

Peter said “it was truly amazing to see a band at their best”, while Andy said that he “can't stop thinking” about Saturday's gig.

"Please come back Radiohead. I'll never forget that performance," he added.

Gigwise was in attendance at Saturday's show. To read what we though and see a video of Thom Yorke premiering the band's new song, 'Super Collider', click here.

What did you think of their song choices? Let us know by posting your thoughts. If you sign up your comments will be automatically approved.

You can also see a selection of our photos from the opening night below...

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Album Review: Martha Wainwright, "I Know You're Married But I've Got Feelings Too" (Zoe Records)

It's a Wainwright family trait--turning life's ups and downs into blatant, emotional songs that air the singer/songwriter's dirty laundry without hesitation. Martha Wainwright [ tickets ]'s folk-musician parents, Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III, both did it, crooning about affairs, their children, and other personal subjects the average person might not comfortably mention in conversation.Growing up around this type of candid behavior influenced Martha's own writing style, particularly apparent on her 2005 self-titled debut album, which includes the cut "Bloody Mother F---ing A--hole," an angry tribute to her and brother Rufus Wainwright's often-absent father.Her second album, the almost embarrassingly frank titled "I Know You're Married But I've Got Feelings Too," feels less woeful despite track names suggesting otherwise. The opening song, "Bleeding All Over You," showcases her signature soft and occasionally whiny voice as she wails about a doomed relationship with a married father, though not in a depressed way, while "You Cheated Me" could easily fit Top 40 airwaves with its poppy tempo and sing-along chorus. Wainwright hits the high notes on "The Tower," a slower track riddled with dramatic strings that create a theatrical sonic depth, which seems appropriate given the piece's anti-war sentiment. She also tackles the black cloud of death with "In the Middle of the Night," a gloomy ballad inspired by her mother's breast cancer scare.Like her debut effort, Wainwright's latest creation is made up of provocative subjects and forthright emotions, held together with her strong, feminine vocals and the help of several skilled musicians, including The Who's Pete Townshend, Steely Dan's Donald Fagen and The Band's Garth Hudson, as well as several family members. Her perspective, however, is what's different. Rather than play the victim and wallow in a load of depressing memories and reflections, Wainwright has turned a new, perhaps happier, leaf, still covering controversial topics but with a contented survivor attitude.