Kemet & other: 2008

Monday 1 September 2008

New Kids (and Same Old Groupies) on the Block

The New Kids on the Block went to a Burbank Best Buy last night -- and not to work the late shift.
New Kids: Click to watch

The boys from Beantown still managed to pull a big crowd, despite not having a Top 10 single since 1990.

More info

Friday 22 August 2008

PINK

�So What� (Zomba): B+

So much for amicable breakups. Since visiting Splitsville with hubby/motocross star topology Carey Hart, Pink has taken the high road in the press, simply in real life she�s laughing all the way to the studio.

The leading single turned her fifth album is almost whole directed at Hart and teeters 'tween self-empowerment and schoolyard parody, from the opening chants of �na na na na na na na� to the icy chorus, �So, so what?/I�m motionless a rock star/I got my rock'n'roll moves/and I don�t demand you/And infer what?/I�m having more fun/and now that we�re done/I�m gonna show you tonight/I�m alright, I�m just fine/and you�re a tool/so, so what?�

Perhaps the lady doth protest too much, as hints of loneliness and absent-husband syndrome creep in. Regardless, breakups, attitude and guitar riffs sure make for fun music.

More info

Tuesday 12 August 2008

When music barely pays the bills

Tim Eckert's job requires a light touch and a mensuration of heavy lifting.

As a routine classical musician, he lugs a 40-pound double bass from business district Los Angeles to Century City to Azusa and points in between.

"In the most reductionist price, I am paid to come in with my bass and play these notes," he said, transactions before descending, tuxedo-clad, into the orchestra pit at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. "We ar the laborers."

Eckert's quotidian illustrates how the business of producing beautiful sounds can

Wednesday 6 August 2008

Fatal

Artist: Fatal

   Genre(s):
Drum & Bass

Discography:

Transparent (TPT011)

Year: 2005
Tracks: 2

Rapper Fatal first surfaced as a appendage of the Outlaws, a collective organized by Tupac Shakur during his 1994 immurement in an upstate New York prison house mobile telephone set. Also including rapper Khadafi, the Outlaws made their recorded debut on Shakur's All Eyez on Me album; however, afterward Shakur and Khadafi were both murdered in separate 1996 incidents, Fatal was forced to go it solitary, signing with the Relativity label to release his solo debut In the Line of Fire.

Nathan Lane - Lane Becomes An Addams

AKA Tenth Birthday, London

AKA Bar, WC1, Thu

Rob Stevenson to be president of Virgin US

Will begin Aug. 15

EMI Music has appointed Rob Stevenson to president of Virgin US, effective Aug. 15. He will be based in the company's New York office and report to Nick Gatfield, president of A&R for North America, U.K. and Ireland at EMI Music.

Most late, Stevenson was executive VP of A&R at Island Def Jam Music Group in the United States. In that role, he signed and helped develop such artists as Fall Out Boy, the Killers, the Bravery, Sum 41, Lady Sovereign, Saliva and Thrice, among others.

In addition to his A&R persona, Stevenson also served as president of Stolen Transmission, a joint venture imprint label with Island Def Jam Music Group. Prior to that, he held various older A&R positions at Universal Music Group.

Thursday 3 July 2008

Deemi

Artist: Deemi

   Genre(s):
Soundtrack

Discography:

Soundtracks of my life

Year: 2005
Tracks: 20

R&B vocalist Deemi, hailing from Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant neighbourhood, took tattle severely as early as heights school, attention Manhattan's Talent Unlimited High School. In 1998, she crossed paths with producers Chris Styles and Bruce Waynne. The two helped her craft a demo, but she later realized that she should sing more roughly her possess life story (including physical ill-use at the men of her father, as well as organism the mother of deuce children prior to turning 21) than simply interpret common relationship themes. Eventually sign to Atlantic through a partnership 'tween organizations run by Styles and Waynne (the latter is one half of Midi Mafia), Deemi was mark to release her first album, The Soundtrack of My Life, in 2007.

Chingo Bling

Artist: Chingo Bling

   Genre(s):
Folk
   Rap: Hip-Hop

Discography:

El Mero Chingon

Year: 2006
Tracks: 21

Tamale Kingpin

Year: 2005
Tracks: 16

Chingo Bling 4 Presedent

Year: 2005
Tracks: 35

By selling mixtapes and CDs straight verboten the tree trunk of his railcar, Houston knocker Pedro Herrera III rose to bump in the Southwest and among Latin rap fans doubling as the Mexican/Chicano self-parodying interpolate ego Chingo Bling. Donning the stereotypical getup of a buckaroo (Latino fieldhand) -- puncher struthio camelus boots and outsized belted ammunition buckles -- Chingo personifies his fun-filled, Spanglish lyrics and rap medicine jokes, sporting aliases like the Ghetto Vaquero and the Tamale Kingpin. Herrera's family emigrated from Valle Hermoso, Tamaulipas, Mexico, to Houston, TX, where Herrera was natural. To keep him away from the city's tumultuous metropolis life, his parents sent him aside to the esteemed Peddie School, a private boarding schooling in New Jersey, on a scholarship. He returned to Texas to go to Trinity University in San Antonio, majoring in marketing and business sector presidency. While at Trinity, he starting time concocted the Chingo Bling theatrical role as role of an on air function for his phonograph recording jockey gig at the KRTU pupil radio station.

Herrera first gear began merchandising Chingo mixtapes around 2001 at local stores, flea markets, and wherever else in Texas he could chance an audience. His big break came when he seized the chance to appear on Power 106's Pocos Pero Locos record in Los Angeles. The syndicated record got his music played passim the Southwest on Chicano rap forums. Self-released on his have Big Chile Enterprises label, his number one album, 2004's The Tamale Kingpin, was heavily anticipated, merely by the departure of his second album, the following year's 4 President, Chingo had go a regional star. His record gross sales did non bill up to breakthrough artists on major labels, just his comedic invoke garnered far-flung attention, including features on MTV and Telemundo as well as in several rap publications. Some of the attention, however, came from critics wHO intellection of him as just now a Latino version of a black Sambo, a racist caricature of Mexican/Chicano culture. And it didn't assist that Herrera's Big Chile imprint was too producing products like Chingo bobblehead dolls and hot sauce. Nonetheless, the local plug over Chingo translated into a het up condense bid war among major labels like Bad Boy, Universal, Capitol, and Atlantic. Asylum/Warner won out, signing Big Chile to an $80 meg distribution deal in 2006.

Amidst the rising tension concerning the influx of undocumented Latino and Latina immigrants in the late 2000s, Herrera switched the statute title of his 2007 Asylum debut from Welcome to the Border to They Can't Deport Us All. His cooperative promotional effort (which included erection a hoarding of the record album claim in Houston) john Drew out all types of backlash from national conservative pundits and local citizens alike. In increase to receiving several death threats, his father's tamale motortruck, brandishing the album promotional ad, was vandalized, injection at, illegally towed, and then, in the end, stolen. They Can't Deport Us All debuted at 11 on the rap charts, containing features from Baby Bash, Pitbull, Paul Wall, and Mistah F.A.B.

Kenny Barron

Artist: Kenny Barron

   Genre(s):
Jazz

Discography:

Live at Bradley's

Year: 2002
Tracks: 1

Spirit Song

Year: 2000
Tracks: 1

Invitation

Year: 1997
Tracks: 8

Moment

Year: 1994
Tracks: 9

Scratch

Year: 1985
Tracks: 7

Kenny Barron has been recognized as one of the giants of modern mainstream piano. The jr. brother of the late saxophonist Bill Barron (wHO was 16 years older), he started on piano when he was 12 and played with Mel Melvin's R&B band in 1957. Barron touched to New York in 1961 where he worked briefly with James Moody, Lee Morgan, Roy Haynes, and Lou Donaldson. Most significant were his four-spot age (1962-1966) playacting and recording with Dizzy Gillespie. Barron followed that of import association with periods in the groups of Freddie Hubbard (1966-1970), Yusef Lateef (1970-1975), and Ron Carter's two-bass quaternity (1976-1980). Barron was a co-leader of the grouping Sphere in the 1980s, and went on to more often than not be the leader of his have trios. The piano player was on Stan Getz's terminal session (a series of bright duets) and has recorded many dates as a leader. In the 1990s, Barron received long overdue realisation for his talents.

Mineral

Artist: Mineral

   Genre(s):
Rock

Discography:

EndSerenading

Year: 1999
Tracks: 10

When Mineral skint up in 1998, they had been together for only four years and released only two full-lengths, yet their shaping of the indie careen landscape cannot be overstated. The Austin four-spot got together in 1994 and otiose no time in blanketing the land and cranking out 7"s, ab initio hook with the label of tourmates Christy Front Drive, The Audio Concept, and Caulfield Records. A zine editor program in Colorado, impressed with Mineral's groundbreaking blend of exponent and emotion, sent a 7" to the top dog of fledgeling Crank! Records, Jeff Matlow. The stripe standard perennial speech sound calls that twenty-four hours from Matlow, and so began a wedlock that would launch both label and band into tube fame. Mineral's number 1 full-length, The Power of Failing, was a powerful success and divine a fanatical following among scenesters. The young band's hold of dynamics and thoughtful lyrics about coming of age as well influenced indie stone bands everywhere, as their sound still permeates across the subway system. End Serenading turned out to be the end for Mineral, which had agreed to do its succeeding record with Interscope, a record that never happened. Still only in their other twenties, bandmembers affected onto new projects: singer/guitarist Chris Simpson and bassist Jeremy Gomez began the Gloria Record and drummer Gabe Wiley linked Pop Unknown.

Krishna Das and Mitchell Markus