A-Ha & other: June 2008

Friday, 27 June 2008

Claire Fitch

Artist: Claire Fitch

   Genre(s):
New Age

Discography:

Ambiancellist

Year: 2003
Tracks: 10

Bollywood Producer To Make Movie In Hollywood

Bollywood film producer Sajid Nadiadwala says his next film will be shot at Universal Studios in Hollywood and that he has signed Sylvester Stallone to appear in it as himself, according to published reports in India. Nadiadwala said earlier that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Beyonce had also agreed to appear in the film, Kambakkth Ishq. The film stars Akshay Kumar as a body-double and stuntman in Hollywood films.

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Cillian Murphy - Murphy Blasts Knightley Paparazzi

Irish actor CILLIAN MURPHY has slammed the paparazzi for stalking his co-stars KEIRA KNIGHTLEY and SIENNA MILLER on the U.K. set of their forthcoming movie THE EDGE OF LOVE.

The star claims the actresses were harassed daily by the British press - and admits watching the photographers' behaviour made him feel uncomfortable.

He tells Britain's Harper's Bazaar magazine, "It's not a pleasant thing to witness happening to such cool girls, and it makes it very hard for them to concentrate on their job.

"I totally admire them for putting up with it - if I walked out of my house every morning and there were 15 men waiting to photograph me, I couldn't do it."

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Vampire Weekend play to huge crowd at Glastonbury

Vampire Weekend played to a packed crowd on Glastonbury's Other Stage this afternoon (June 27).

The New York band were one of the first acts rumoured to be playing at the 2008 festival after playing the London new talent night Holy Cow, run by some of the festival's organisers.

"I can't believe how many people we're looking at," declared frontman Erza Koenig. "It's such a beautiful site, we're really honoured to be back in your country."

Playing songs from their self-titled debut album, Koenig introduced 'Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa' by declaring: "We want to play a couple songs about Massachusetts, this is the first one.

"We need to warm up a little, I think this one will get you in the festival mood," the frontman explained later before playing a new, still untitled, song.

He then encouraged the crowd to dance for 'A-Punk', promising that they would "do a bit of dancing too".

Afterwards, Koenig praised the crowd's efforts, declaring: "That's pretty good dancing, we really appreciate that.

"One little tradition we have is that we get the audience to sing with us," the singer then explained before 'One (Blake's Got A New Face)'.

"So as we're here, we think it would be good to keep that up. Even if you don't know which band you're watching, you might enjoy singing with us."

The band then got the crowd to shout back the "Blake's got a new face" chorus along with them.

"We're really honoured to be playing here," repeated Koenig before recent single 'Oxford Comma'. "The first time we ever played this song we were in a room as big as a prison cell! This is an incredible experience, you guys have got a good thing going on here."

Vampire Weekend played:

'Mansard Roof'
'Campus'
'Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa'
'M79'
'(Untitled New Song)'
'A-Punk'
'I Stand Corrected'
'Bryn'
'One (Blake's Got A New Face)'
'The Kids Don't Stand A Chance'
'Oxford Comma'
'Walcott'

The band are set to play Glastonbury again tomorrow, this time on the John Peel Stage.

Keep up with all the action from Glastonbury this weekend (June 27-29) as it happens on NME.COM. For news, pictures and blogs keep checking the NME.COM's Glastonbury Festival page. Plus make sure you get next week's issue of NME � on UK newsstands from July 2 � for the ultimate Glastonbury review.

Slipknot - New Slipknot Album Due In August

SLIPKNOT have announced their fourth album ALL HOPE IS GONE is scheduled for release on August 26th.

Frontman Corey Taylor told Billboard that the forthcoming album is "very dark", combining elements of earlier records VOL 3 and IOWA.

"It's a controlled chaos that hits you right out of the gate," he said.

Asked about the lyrical content of the album, he commented: "Instead of bitching about what went wrong in my life, I'm bitching about what's wrong in life, period.

"I got to the point where I was tired of pretending that I couldn't sing every time I made a Slipknot album, so this time I'm going all out."

Up until this point, the masked metallers had been ominously silent, with no new material since the 2004 release of VOL 3.

Psychosocial, the first official single, is set to be released digitally on June 20th, reports NME.

The 30-date Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem tour in the US will see a headline slot from the band in July.

19/06/2008 12:52:48

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Slapshock

Artist: Slapshock

   Genre(s):
Alternative

Discography:

Silence

Year: 2006
Tracks: 13

Slapshock produces medicine as loud and violent as its make. Slapshock is commonly compared to Korn, Limp Bizkit, and Slipknot, as the band combines hip-hop and sonorous metal to feed the market's appetency for roughshod, in-your-face rap-rock. Slapshock formed in Manila, Philippines, on February 14, 1996, with vocaliser Reynold Munsayac, bassist Lee Nadela, guitarists Leandro Ansing and Jerry Basco, and drummer Chi Evora. Nadela, Ansing, and Munsayac met at college; they were all attending UP Diliman in the Philippines. Wanting to castrate their sound, the mathematical group dropped Munsayac and replaced him with Basco's full cousin, Jamir Garcia, wHO had only returned from the U.S. While in America, Garcia had a band called Bruce Lee's Curse and was familiar with the East Coast hardcore rap scene; his background signal greatly contributed to the counseling Slapshock would quick take. The chemical group reinforced up a next in Manila's underground clubs. The band was quickly lumped in with deuce other virtually exchangeable Filipino acts of the Apostles -- Cheese and Greyhoundz -- world Health Organization pounded listeners into submission Ã la their foreign counterparts. When Slapshock open for the alternative metal mathematical group Wolfgang during its Serve in Silence enlistment, the band generated excitement amongst angst-ridden teens in the Philippines as well as disdain from conservatives wHO felt such dim, blisteringly noisy medicine was a risky influence on early days. Older fans world Health Organization believed they were blazing bandwagon-jumpers ridiculed them. Nevertheless, Slapshock's 1999 debut record album, 4th Degree, did well. On August 30, 2002, the band performed at the Folk Arts Theater in Manila and became the first gear rap-metal move to sell kayoed all 8,000 seating room in the venue. The band's songs continued to dominate new rock radiocommunication in the Philippines as its third base full-length, Picture 11-41, was released that year. Contrive 11-41 displayed some sense of melody, only a issue of critics felt that the chemical group was placid to a fault differential coefficient to be taken seriously. Despite that, Project 11-41 was one of 2002's well-nigh commercially successful albums in the Philippines, and Slapshock was voted Artist/Band of the Year at the NU-107 Rock Awards.

BIG BROTHER: Alex Targeted By Vandals

Anne Dudly and Jaz Coleman

Artist: Anne Dudly and Jaz Coleman

   Genre(s):
Retro

Discography:

Songs from the victorious city

Year: 1991
Tracks: 10

Big Chief

Artist: Big Chief

   Genre(s):
Rock

Discography:

Mack Avenue Skullgame

Year: 1993
Tracks: 18

Not so much dirt as they were high-energy fetishists, and non so much funk-rock as they scarce happened to be funky, Ann Arbor, Michigan's Big Chief were slenderly ahead of their time in a number of slipway. Not only were they updating the sound of Detroit '69 prior to the grunge sweepstakes of the early '90s, only they step by step corporate their fanboy obsessions with funk and Blaxploitation flicks well earlier the revivals caught on with the people. Most of the groups that followed these stylistic hybrids in the mid to late '90s probably never heard the banding that was honing this style a few But Big Chief were more about qualification playfulness records, rather than adding a generous measure of forced revolt for marketing value. They were hardly original, only they were a couple bases ahead of the platinum acts of the Apostles that followed. Credit timing, bungled furtherance, want of headline-worthy epitome, and geographic positioning for their inability to gain further notice.

Prior to knowing what to call themselves, singer Barry Henssler (ex-Necros), drummer Mike Danner (ex-Laughing Hyenas), bassist Matt O'Brien, and guitarists Mark Dancey and Phil Durr were fielding offers from While they could accept immediately signed up with a major, they adhered to their working class ethics and built their visibility in self-sustaining, little stairs. Sub Pop's Bruce Pavitt knew about the members' former ring involvements, and since the band was actually from the Motor City area, they'd be the ideal ring to have on his label, one that built its sound on dusting sour the Stooges and the MC5 as He offered the banding enough cash to criminal record a single for his label's Singles Club, and the banding duty-bound.

Big Chief merrily took Sub Pop's money and budgeted wisely, delivering the promised songs and victimisation the leftover amount to record a handful of singles for other independents. Those awful singles were finally compiled for 1991's Drive It Off, released on the independent Get Hip. The piledriving nature continued on the slightly cleaner Look, their debut LP that was released later in the year (merely not released until May of 1992 in the U.S.). Officially signed to Sub Pop, the record was released a small to a fault early to catch the wave provided by Nirvana's Nevermind, the record that set their label on the mainstream map. Since Big Chief weren't from Seattle, they didn't However, an extensive opening least sandpiper during the Beastie Boys' Train Your Head hitch took them around the States, particularly the West Coast and Southwest.

At the same time, Nirvana replicants were around to clog the airwaves and record store bins. Forecasting this, Big Chief widened their range for Face's follow-up. This conscious decision was a smart artistic move, since they could no yearner be seen plainly as a guitar circle. Unfortunately, odds were that the commercial pack of cards would be curvaceous against them; support from their judge left much to be desired, specially on the statistical distribution front man. Furthermore, whatever levelheaded that can't be immediately pigeonholed is looked upon with scrutiny. No thirster just sampling talks from Blaxploitation flicks, Mack Avenue Skull Game was conceived as an homage to the genre, a smart, ballsy, and accomplished record that felled seam prey to none of the possible furnishing of such a conception. Balancing sharp parodic mentality with earnest gratitude, it was the band's brightest second, dexterously pull cancelled the numerous strains of rock and casimir Funk as well as their former touring mates.

Thwarted with the statistical distribution and promotion gaffes that held them back, Big Chief sign-language with Capitol for 1994's Pt Jive, some other varied and realized crusade that upped the parody factor in its liner notes by billing itself as a hits compilation spanning trey decades. While getting their presence in the bins of Omaha record stores became less of a problem, the less-than-supportive regimen that was ushered in at Capitol short after their sign language became a divisor that outshined whatsoever former stumbling blocks.

Satisfied with having made trey solid records and disappointed with the vagaries of the industry, the band opted to break up. For a period, they continued their collective efforts with the sporadically-published Motorbooty fanzine, which perpetually plant modern slipway to skewer each prospect of pop polish, never forgetting to occupy aim at the music industriousness. Dancey -- whose illustrations decorated Big Chief's records, the fanzine, and other multimedia outlets -- continued to growth his notoriety as a graphic artist, receiving exposure in numerous magazines and art galleries. Danner went into venue management, serving range Detroit's St. Andrew's Hall; Durr became a foreign voice communication teacher; O'Brien joined the Numbers; Henssler resettled to Chicago, spinning records as DJ Chamberweed and in operation a label.

Casiopea

The Smashing Pumpkins Gish Box Set Coming This Year

The Smashing Pumpkins are planning to release an expanded special edition of their 1991 debut album 'Gish'.

The news came via a message posted by frontman Billy Corgan on the band's official website, which reveals the box set edition will surface later on this year.

Although it would seem details are far from being decided, as Corgan explains: "What is to be included on here, no one knows for sure."

There are also talks of the Smashing Pumpkins embarking on a 'Gish' tour to coincide with both the box and to celebrate their 20th anniversary this year.

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Anjali

Artist: Anjali

   Genre(s):
Pop

Discography:

Sacred Offering

Year:
Tracks: 10

WIth inspirations ranging from the intense sounds of alternative pop to funk, Anjali's creations combine the features of electronic and club/dance with the power of her magisterial voice, buoyed by control and superior output options. Presenting exotic and notable ideas, largely sustained with Asian-inspired electronica, Anjali portrays a typical way inside the modern work over grounds. However, and regardless of her present-day and electronic style well-grounded preferences, Anjali Bathia commencement started her career in the music man as singer and main songster of the public violence grrrl dance band Voodoo Queens in the other '90s. After the vent of respective records with the feminine strong-armer crew, Anjali decided to part following her possess track, releasing a serial of tetrad EPs: Maharani, Ju Ju, Aquila, and Feline Woman, all of which were assembled on Sheer Witchery, a digest record released through the Wiiija Records mark. Anjali's put to work began establishing original foundations inside the electronic music view, granting her with the necessary conditions to attempt regular more impressive good experimentations. The British vocalizer and then distinct to link efforts with Spykid, an experimental DJ and manufacturer whose credits included work with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Mojave 3's Neil Halstead. Following the handout of the single Lazy Lagoon, Anjali delivered her first base and self-titled album in November of 2000 in the U.K. Anjali received positively charged reviews from the media and herald from the public.