blog.mp3adrenalin.com

NEW YORK, Oct. 11 /PRNewswire/ — Building on a tradition that’s placed college students front and center for unforgettable live performances from Beck, Death Cab for Cutie, Gym Class Heroes, TV on the Radio, Saul Williams and many others, today mtvU, MTV’s 24-hour college network, confirmed that Amy Winehouse, The Academy Is… and Spank Rock are all set to perform at the 2007 “mtvU Woodie Awards.” The only awards to honor the music voted best by the college audience, the 2007 “mtvU Woodies” will take place November 8th at Roseland Ballroom in New York City and premiere simultaneously on mtvU and mtvU.com November 15th at 8pm ET. An encore performance will follow on MTV2 November 18th at 12:30am ET and MTV will also showcase highlights from show.

In February of this year, Amy Winehouse was named to mtvU’s “Freshmen Five,” a semi-annual list of emerging acts poised to ride college student support to mainstream notoriety, and a few months later she did just that — quickly becoming one of the biggest names in contemporary music. The acclaimed North London songstress will treat students to a rare U.S. performance at the “Woodies,” one of only two scheduled for the remainder of 2007. Also on hand to shake things up will be student favorites The Academy Is…, backed by mtvU since the release of their debut album, Almost Here. Since then the band has rocked mtvU’s “Campus Invasion Music Festival ‘07,” “Spring Break” and registered some of the most highly streamed video premieres in the history of mtvU.com. In addition, The Academy Is… is currently headlining a nearly 60 stop fall tour presented by mtvU and also featuring Armor For Sleep, The Rocket Summer and Sherwood. Philadelphia-bred hip hop group Spank Rock are getting noticed with their breakout first single “Rick Ruben,” off of their experimental debut album YoYoYoYoYo, and with strong student demand, have found themselves in heavy rotation on mtvU. The group’s new release Bangers & Cash EP, released on Downtown Records, hit stores on October 9th.

Top nominees for the 2007 “mtvU Woodie Awards” include The Shins — with nominations in the “Woodie of the Year,” “Alumni Woodie,” and “Viral Woodie” categories — followed by Modest Mouse, Gym Class Heroes, Lily Allen, Justice, Linkin Park and The Academy Is…, with two nods each. Other prominent nominees include headliner Amy Winehouse, Arcade Fire, Lil’ Wayne, Bright Eyes, The Knife, Common, Klaxons, M.I.A., Spoon, CSS, The Rapture, TV on the Radio, Thom Yorke and Paramore. Nearly fifty emerging and influential artists are nominated for the fourth annual “mtvU Woodies.” Additional “Woodies” performers and presenters will be announced in the coming weeks.

Powered by college students from across the country, the fourth annual “mtvU Woodie Awards” will feature students in front of the camera and behind the scenes, as they present, introduce and honor their favorite music and artists. College students have helped establish the “mtvU Woodies” as a crystal ball for the music about to break big, helping their favorite artists “graduate” to MTV2, MTV and wider success — including record sales, sold out tours and accolades at other award shows. Some of the most notable success stories from the past few years include Fall Out Boy, the Killers, Death Cab for Cutie and the Plain White T’s, all of which saw their careers skyrocket after the “Woodies.”

For more on “Woodie”-related programming, ways to win a trip to this year’s show, exclusive interviews with nominated artists and music videos from all of this year’s nominees, please visit mtvU.com. A full line-up of performers, presenters and more will be announced in the coming weeks.

The fourth-annual “mtvU Woodie Awards” is sponsored by Citi, Ford College Student Purchase Program, Garnier Fructis and T-Mobile.

About mtvU

Broadcast to more than 750 colleges across the country, with a combined enrollment of nearly 7.5 million, mtvU is the largest, most comprehensive television network just for college students. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, mtvU can be seen in the dining areas, fitness centers, student lounges and dorm rooms of campuses throughout the U.S. mtvU is dedicated to every aspect of college life, reaching students everywhere they are, through a three pronged approach - on-air, online and on campus. mtvU focuses on content including music videos from emerging artists which can’t be seen anywhere else, news, student life features, events and pro-social initiatives. mtvU is always on campus, with more than 500 events per year, including exclusive concerts, giveaways, shooting mtvU series and more. For more information about mtvU, and for a complete programming schedule, visit www.mtvU.com.

In September 2005, mtvU became the first MTV Networks channel to also be distributed in its entirety online. The network is simulcast and available on demand at mtvU.com 24/7, featuring all of network’s on-air content plus exclusive new music, original series and student-produced programming for college students and music fans everywhere.

mtvU also owns and operates the College Media Network, the largest interactive network of online college newspapers in the US, and RateMyProfessors.com, the Internet’s largest listing of collegiate professor ratings. The College Media Network comprises 514 campus publications that serve institutions including Brown University, the University of Illinois, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas at Austin and Duke University, with a combined enrollment of over 5.5 million students, reaching an average of 5 million unique users each month. RateMyProfessors.com reaches approximately 1.5 million college students each month, via the site’s more than 6.6 million student-generated ratings of over 1,000,000 college professors.

MTV Networks, a unit of Viacom , is one of the world’s leading creators of programming and content across all media platforms. MTV Networks, with more than 130 channels worldwide, owns and operates the following television programming services — MTV: MUSIC TELEVISION, MTV2, VH1, mtvU, NICKELODEON, NICK at NITE, COMEDY CENTRAL, TV LAND, SPIKE TV, CMT, NOGGIN, VH1 CLASSIC, LOGO, MTVN INTERNATIONAL and THE DIGITAL SUITE FROM MTV NETWORKS, a package of 13 digital services, all of which are trademarks of MTV Networks. MTV Networks connects with its audiences through its robust consumer products businesses and its more than 200 interactive properties worldwide, including online, broadband, wireless and interactive television services. The network also has licensing agreements, joint ventures, and syndication deals whereby all of its programming services can be seen worldwide.

By Ioannis Gatsiounis
KUALA LUMPUR - This is Visit Malaysia Year
and the government is using the opportunity to
promote the multi-ethnic country as a regional
beacon of diversity and tolerance. But apparently
international performing artists are a little less
welcome than your average tourist. In
August pop star Gwen Stefani was required to dress
“modestly” for her concert here, after the
National Union of Malaysia Muslim Students
protested against the scheduled

performance on the grounds
that she would bring to Malaysia an “American
hegemonic background”, said the group’s president
Hilmi Ramli. Early this month, R&B
singer Beyonce Knowles scrapped her debut concert
in Malaysia slated for November 1 due to what her

agency called “a scheduling conflict”, though
local record industry sources say it was because
the 26-year-old diva thought better of conforming
to Malaysia’s dress stipulations for international
performers. “They have to dress decently … and
behave in a manner appropriate in Malaysia,”
insisted culture, arts and heritage minister Rais
Yatim, days after Beyonce cancelled her show.
Malaysian authorities have long required
local rock stars to cut their hair or forfeit the
opportunity to appear on television or radio, and
frequently remind Malaysians of the consequences
for openly addressing “sensitive” issues like race
and religion. But it wasn’t until 2005 that
foreign performers were asked to join the act.
Guidelines require foreign performers to
cover themselves from shoulder to knees. They also
stipulate no hugging or kissing fellow artists or
audience members, no jumping or shouting, no
cursing and no exchanging objects between audience
and artist. Preventing “moral decay” and
preserving Malaysian values are the reasons
usually cited for the restrictions. But
what exactly are Malaysian values, and who is
defining them? The issue has come to the fore in
this multi-ethnic and multi-religious society, as
religion asserts itself with renewed vigor in the
public and political domain, and Malaysia’s
sizeable non-Muslim communities feel increasingly
marginalized. Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak
recently called Malaysia an “Islamic state”, even
though Malaysia’s governing framework is a secular
constitution that gives Islam special importance.
Mohamad Akram Laldin of the International
Islamic University in Malaysia says the government
curbs on artistic freedom are in the interest of
all Malaysians. “When the government takes a
decision, they know that … a big majority of the
people will not be happy if such a thing is
allowed. That is the reason why they have put [in
place] certain restrictions [for performers].”
Razlan Ahmad Razali, chairman of Pineapple
Concerts, which was to organize Beyonce’s
performance here, finds such reasoning specious.
He says the dress of performers never becomes an
issue until a vocal religious minority makes an
issue of it. “Look, compared to 10,000 people who
want to watch Gwen Stefani and 100 or 50 or so
people doing the protests - you’re willing to cave
into those people?” US rock stars Linkin
Park and Mariah Carey are notable acts to have
complied with Malaysia’s dress restrictions.
(Carey coincidentally is now appearing in a print
ad for a local radio station wearing a short
slinky dress with her derriere facing the camera
next to the tag line, “Turn me on.”) The
government and the Muslim groups it often stands
accused of pandering to tend to conflate Islamic
values into Malaysian values, and Asian values
more broadly, to rationalize giving Islam primacy
in a society where non-Muslims account for 40% of
the population. But a look around Malaysia reveals
that Malaysian values (like Asian values) are
neither static nor homogenous. Even within
Malaysia’s Muslim community there is considerable
plurality. Indeed, many of those who frequent
nightclubs dressed in form-fitting, flesh-baring
clothing also happen to be Muslim. A tourism
campaign sponsored by the Culture Ministry deems
Malaysia “Truly Asia”, as in, “With a sparkling
and lively melting pot of races and religious
[sic] where Malays, Chinese, Indians and the many
ethnic groups of Sabah and Sarawak live together
in peace and harmony, Malaysia is truly a country
that epitomizes Asia.”But then Malaysia finds itself
standing alone among Asian neighbors in its
handling of international pop stars. On Beyonce’s
scheduled Malaysian date, she will instead play in
neighboring Indonesia, where some 85% of the
population is Muslim. She will also perform in
Thailand, India, and China. None of those
countries have asked Beyonce to censor herself or
be anyone other than herself. Indonesian
concert promoter Nia Zulkarnaen was quoted as
saying, “I expect Indonesians to see this in a
positive light. She is a great singer and her
stage act is entertaining. Why should we say no to
the way she dresses?” The Malaysian
government is standing firm, however. After
Beyonce’s cancellation, Rais said his ministry
will set up a committee to vet foreign performers
and ensure they dress and behave in a way that is
respectful to Malaysia as defined by the
government. No one can deny Malaysia the right to
act on its own terms, a point the government has
not been shy to stress. Former prime
minister Mahathir Mohamad was famous for his
anti-Western and anti-Semitic diatribes. Ministers
relish dismissing international calls for Malaysia
to show greater respect for human rights and
dignity. International trade minister Rafidah Aziz
called a speech by then US vice president Al Gore
during the peak of the reformasi era, which
echoed the Malaysian 

Want to know about Annie Lennox? Just study the titles of her solo albums – 1992’s Diva, 1995’s Medusa, 2003’s Bare and the just-released Songs of Mass Destruction.

Some fast facts:

•The Scottish-born, London-educated artist isn’t prolific. She parlayed her successful run as half of the Eurythmics into a mere four CDs in 15 years.•She has a flair for the serious and the dramatic. Diva, Medusa, Bare and Songs of Mass Destruction are not lightweight material.•Ms. Lennox is fiercely personal and introspective. With the exception of Medusa, which is a collection of cover tunes, the discs are all self-written.

So even a 15-minute phone interview with the 52-year-old mother of two daughters, Lola and Tali, quickly morphs into a heavy conversation. Bare, for instance, is an intense examination of her intimate emotions after the dissolution of her marriage to Uri Fruchtmann. Songs of Mass Destruction delves into her psyche once again, but this time she pairs her inward reach with an outward grasp. Two tracks in particular, "Womankind" and "Sing," find her in socially conscious mode.

Introspection is an inherent part of Ms. Lennox’s artistry. But does it make her feel more vulnerable or infinitely stronger?

"We are always going to have to take a moment to be introspective," she says from New York. "It’s about the clarity of the introspection and the conclusion you reach through that process. And it’s a very individual task. Each person introspects in their own way. They are drawn to what appeals to them. There is some kind of incredible connection through music. It’s almost matter of fact. It is one of the ways that human beings can access one spiritual dimension of their existence.

"Music is very abstract, but it’s something very essential, too," she says. "Sounds, rhythms, melodic lines, chord progressions, lyrics … we understand each other that way."

Naturally Ms. Lennox, who performs Sunday night at Southern Methodist University’s McFarlin Auditorium, wishes to communicate through song. She also uses music as part of her social crusade.

A vehement supporter of former South African president and anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela, Ms. Lennox traveled to Africa 2 1/2 years ago to help launch Mr. Mandela’s AIDS foundation. There she learned of the rise in AIDS-stricken pregnant women who pass along the virus to their unborn children.

It inspired her to write "Sing," an anthem for the victims who suffer silently. With the help of a 23-member female choir, all recognizable names such as Madonna, Faith Hill, Fergie, Joss Stone, Melissa Etheridge, Pink and others, she sings: "Let your voice be heard/What won’t kill you will make you strong."

"It struck me as tragic that Mandela was saying, ‘Look we fought this battle against apartheid, and we won. But there is this genocide of AIDS across the country.’ I thought, ‘Oh my goodness. How come I didn’t know about this?’ There must be genocide or else Nelson Mandela would not be saying this. It floored me," Ms. Lennox says.

"I understood as a woman that this disease is rising in mothers. They are giving birth to children who contract the virus in the womb," she says. "As a mother this appealed to me deeply. Prevention is ideal – abstinence, condom – but we need treatment."

Strong women themes have been a part of Ms. Lennox’s work since her days with the Eurythmics. Back then she sang "Who’s That Girl?" and "Sisters Are Doing It for Themselves," a duet with Aretha Franklin. Her first two solo efforts, Diva and Medusa, are female homages by title alone. On Songs of Mass Destruction, she penned "Womankind," a funk-fortified R&B jam that features a too-cool rap by Nadirah X.

Does Ms. Lennox feel like a spokeswoman for the sisters of the world?

"I’m here by proxy," she simply says. "We need to speak up, take that responsibility."

It certainly helps to have the podium. With four Grammy Awards, an Oscar, international respect and acclaim, Ms. Lennox has transcended the pop artist tag.

"I feel responsibility to my children and as a human being that has privileges. I have tremendous privileges," she says. "So I need to contribute, to give back, to help empower those that need it.

"Otherwise it’s just entertainment, and that’s fine but it’s kind of limited. I want to do something that has benefits, that means more."

From 1999 to 2002, Eve was on a roll. One of hip-hop’s most bankable female MCs, her first three albums sold 4 million copies and spawned five Top 40 hits, including well-received collaborations with Gwen Stefani (”Let Me Blow Ya Mind”) and Alicia Keys (”Gangsta Lovin”’). But after a four-year detour into TV, film, and fashion, the Grammy winner has run into some snags while trying to revive her music career. Her forthcoming CD, Here I Am, was initially due in August but has now been delayed until 2008. Meanwhile, her first two singles off the record have struggled to connect with listeners: ”Tambourine” peaked at No. 10 on Billboard’s Hot Rap Tracks chart on July 14, while its follow-up, ”Give It to You,” hadn’t charted at press time. But despite those setbacks, Eve, 28, tells EW she’s still got more skills than a lot of male MC’s tallying up record sales in the ”testosterone-driven” rap game, and that she’s going to wait until she’s 100 percent confident in her new CD before she lets it drop.

No, I’m not completely starting over. I’m definitely gonna keep some of the records that I had because I love a lot of the stuff that I did. So I’m keeping a lot of it. I’m just going back in to kinda make it a well-rounded album. I think what kind of delayed us this time was that I went in and did two records that sound a lot like the Pharrell record — the singing record…. I don’t think the movement was right and I’d rather put out an album and feel 100 percent connected to it than just to put out an album, especially the way music is right now.

What do you mean by saying you put out two records that sound like Pharrell? Are you going in a different direction with the new music you’re recording for the album?I guess you can call it that, but I don’t know because it’s hard to kinda say that too, because some of the records that I’m keeping, like the rap records, are on that level, so it’s kinda hard to say in any way…. I felt like it just wasn’t a cohesive record. I felt like I needed to go back in and just make everything match.

Oh, I loved it. I think [they] did great. I think, honestly, although the Sean Paul record didn’t get as big as we would like it to, the initial response to it was great. So I think that helps. ”Tambourine” absolutely got the sickest response, so I’m happy with that.

No, it actually hasn’t been that bad. I mean, the response that I’ve been getting mostly from people is, ”We’re happy you’re back in music. I’m happy you’re back in music.” But I can’t front and not say that there is a new movement of music the way a lot of the music is right now. But no, I think I’ve been received pretty well. And especially at radio stations and stuff like that, I’m really happy for just the love that I’ve been getting, the support that I’ve been getting from radio stations and TV stations that are like, ”Yo, we wanna help you out with this record.” So that’s a good thing.

Speaking of a new musical movement, how do you feel about re-entering a musical landscape that’s getting overloaded with female vocalists in an era with virtually no successful female rappers?In some ways, it’s hard. But in other ways, it almost is like I kinda feel like it was when I first came out. Even though there were two females that were in the forefront, but at the same time, there was nobody I felt, in my opinion, like me that came out, so I feel like I’m starting all over. I feel like a new artist again.

It’s a lot. It’s different. There was a time when you could put out a single and then put your record out five weeks after and you knew if the single did well at radio that told you how your album was gonna do. Nowadays, a single could play for weeks and weeks and weeks on the radio, it could be the biggest single, and the album sales don’t match up. So, you know, it’s a different format, and I don’t even think that anybody has the formula to it now. So it’s totally different. You definitely have to go about it a different way. You definitely have to take your time and think and come up with a good strategy, and that aspect is really different.

Has the success of artists like Fergie and Gwen Stefani made it harder for female rappers because they’ve come in and created a new, pop-friendly mix of pop, hip-hop, and R&B sounds?I think what makes that hard for us is that they’re not hip-hop, period. I’ll never, ever be able to give Fergie or Gwen that title. I love them. I think they’re dope. I think they make good music. But they’re not hip-hop. They emulate hip-hop in certain things that they do, but they’re not hip-hop. And I think that hurts hip-hop in a way because it’s confusing the lines. I also must admit that hip-hop is the new pop. Like hip-hop five years ago, Soulja Boy couldn’t get played on the same station that Fergie was playing on or that the Black Eyed Peas were playing on or that Justin was playing on. Or Justin couldn’t be on an urban station five years ago. But now, all the lines have blurred. But at the same time, calling Fergie and Gwen hip-hop hurts females, I think. It hurts the female MCs.

The idea that the musical avant garde irrevocably separated itself from the general listening public some time in the early years of the last century is long established and persuasive. Persuasive that is, until you apply it to the career of Philip Glass. In the early part of his career in the 1960s and 70s, Glass’s music was so esoteric that it was rarely played in music venues - art galleries took him in - and he earned virtually no money. Today , his work if not ubiquitous - although sometimes his astonishing fecundity can give that impression - has very few doors closed to it. Last week his new opera, Appomatox, about the American civil war, was premiered in San Francisco. Such was the demand that an extra performance has been added to the run. A few weeks before that his music reached an even larger audience when it featured in the soundtrack of the Catherine Zeta-Jones Hollywood romantic comedy No Reservations.

It is easy to assume that Glass must have somehow gone soft in making his music seemingly appeal to allcomers. But his new work, whatever the intended audience, is recognisably part of the same project he embarked on half a century ago. The hypnotically pulsing rhythms and endless repetitions in which the tiniest variations acquire maximum impact - branded “minimalism”, to Glass’s increasing irritation - remain defiantly intact. Even the corny musician’s jokes that attached themselves from the beginning - “Knock-knock. Who’s there? Philip Glass. Philip Glass. Philip Glass. Philip Glass . . .” - still work as well, or as badly, as they ever did.

“When I was a young boy I worked in my father’s store where he sold records,” says Glass by way of explanation. “I listened to a lot of music and liked nearly all of it. People forgot to tell me that some stuff was better than others.” He was exposed to Mozart and Schubert, but also to Hindemith and Bartok. There was jazz and popular dance music and later folk and rock. “So when I started playing the flute and classical music, you could tell that I also liked popular music. I never saw it as slumming.”

This eclectic approach has been reflected throughout his career in a string of collaborations with musicians ranging from the classical world to the more thoughtful end of pop - David Byrne, David Bowie, Brian Eno - as well as novelists - Doris Lessing and JM Coetzee - poets, theatre directors, choreographers, and visual artists. “I always liked poetry and dance, film and different types of music,” he explains, “but I couldn’t do too many of them, so working with these people was a way of bringing me closer to their work.”

Glass was 70 earlier this year and the long celebration comes to the UK next week with him in performance at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff and then at a festival at the Barbican. Glassworks includes his song cycle based on the poetry of Leonard Cohen, The Book of Longing, a concert with Patti Smith celebrating former collaborator Allen Ginsberg, and a rare performance of his epic Music in 12 Parts, the early-70s four-hour work that established his reputation as one of the leading composers of his generation.

“I’m not a great worshipper of the past,” he says. “And even this year I’ve been too busy to look back, although people seem to want me to. But I do like to play the old music. It has a lot of energy and it keeps the band fresh. When we started playing Music in 12 parts in 1971 we found it difficult. The good thing is we can actually play it better now, but we still have to work at it.”

Glass was born in Baltimore in 1937 and was quickly identified as something of a musical and academic prodigy. He studied flute at the prestigious Peabody Institute in the city before moving, aged only 15, to read maths and philosophy in an accelerated programme at the University of Chicago, where he also came into contact with the work of contemporary American composers Charles Ives and Aaron Copland. He then got on the composition course at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, where he met fellow minimalist Steve Reich, before moving to Paris to study with the legendary Nadia Boulanger.

Glass says it is widely assumed he “rejected” the leading composers of the time - Boulez, Berio, Stockhausen, Xenakis - but that was not quite the case. “That generation wanted disciples and as we didn’t join up it was taken to mean that we hated the music, which wasn’t true. We’d studied them at Juilliard and knew their music. How on earth can you reject Berio? Those early works of Stockhausen are still beautiful. But there was just no point in attempting to do their music better than they did and so we started somewhere else.”

More important influences were the Parisian theatre, which included new works by Beckett; films from Jean-Luc Godard; and, most strikingly, encountering Indian musician Ravi Shankar when Glass was asked to transcribe his music for western musicians. Shankar’s structured approach to rhythm and repetition fed into Glass’s own music and led him to explore wider non-western musical traditions. And Glass was with Shankar in India in 1967 when he was working with The Beatles - “Although Ravi and George Harrison were in the Taj Mahal hotel and I was two blocks away in the Salvation Army hostel. But that was fine. I never made a dime before I was 40 and never really expected to.”

Glass returned to New York the same year and found inspiration from people “who didn’t quite fit in. Remember Moondog? He was this blind street musician” who Glass later invited to conduct the Brooklyn Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra. He was “a fantastic character and musically very interesting. He’d sit outside Birdland and duet with the jazz players inside. They didn’t know he was there, but he was playing with them anyway. And I got to know John Cage. He wasn’t mad about my music and always said there are too many notes and it’s too busy. But he was very friendly and kind to me and I did admire him.”

Glass formed an ensemble and performed in the art galleries springing up in the emergent downtown scene. “I had no problem getting my work performed, but it didn’t bring in any money. New York was a much easier place to live then. My first loft in SoHo cost me $30 a month. Any sort of job will cover that.” Glass loaded trucks, drove cabs and took plumbing jobs. There is a famous story of him being sent to an apartment to install a dishwasher. The customer was the art critic Robert Hughes, who was aware of Glass’s work and was incredulous at his situation. “But it was a more benign environment, artistically and economically. The culture was a bit more open. For my first record we borrowed John Lennon’s recording truck. He probably only vaguely knew who we were but we parked up, ran a few cables, recorded all night and gave it back to him. Those things seemed possible then.”

But Glass is wary of looking back on a golden age. “SoHo is now a shopping centre. And so is Paris. You wouldn’t go to Paris to learn anything about music or movies in the way I did. You’d go there to shop. But if you stand at the Port Authority bus terminal in New York even today, you will see many young people coming in every hour. They’re going to be dancers or songwriters or artists. They can’t afford to go to SoHo like we did. But back then SoHo was a working neighbourhood, very cheap and not that desirable. And there’s always somewhere like that.”

In New York, Glass was a regular at rock venue Fillmore East where he was struck by the possibilities of amplification. “I got onto a sound engineer and began building equipment for my own ensemble and while we weren’t a rock band, we looked like one because there were synthesisers and saxophones. And a lot of the same people were interested in my music.” He says it was no coincidence that when he first played in London in the early 70s he was put on at rock venues like the Roundhouse. “There was this whole mish-mash of art, serious music and rock music. That’s when I first met people like Brian [Eno] and David [Bowie] who were both from art schools. When I first met David he spoke as if he was an artist who did some music. So that integration between worlds was always there and then I discovered that by working with different people the music would come out different. I needed something different for Leonard Cohen than I did for Allen Ginsberg and I learned that collaboration was the engine of change in my music.”

He says the creation of Music in 12 Parts - which is being re-released on iTunes, one part per month throughout his 70th year - between 1971 and 74 was only a significant breakthrough in hindsight. “The first concert of the complete work was in a 300-seat house which we only just filled. But by 1976 I was doing Einstein on the Beach at the Met and by then things were really moving on.” Glass and director Robert Wilson’s five-hour, no-interval meditation on Einstein, which allowed for the audience to drift in and out of the performances, was not intentionally the assault on the operatic form or the modern opera house it was subsequently cast as. “We were just trying to get this piece done which needed a proscenium stage and an orchestra pit and a fly. The only place it would fit was an opera house, but oddly enough Bob and I took a while to figure that out. But then people said, ‘this is an opera’, so we said, ‘why not?’.” Since then Glass has written Satyagraha, about Gandhi, which recently enjoyed an acclaimed revival at ENO, and Akhnaten, about the Egyptian pharaoh, to complete what has become known as The Portrait Trilogy

There have been another 17 operas, eight symphonies, concertos, string quartets, piano and organ works as well as the film scores and stage pieces. But he brushes off his productivity and points out that it is a wonderful time to be composing. “As far as I can see serious music is in terrific shape. The borders in my time were non-western music, technology and experimentation. Each one of those was dangerous and now they are right in the mainstream.

“When you ask someone what they’re writing now they hardly know how to describe it. That’s a great thing. And it’s not about style or schools, and things like race, gender, age or education matter much less. It’s talent that counts and there is a lot of it about. When we were young my generation were interested in changing the direction of music. We were faced by these fantastic composers and what a bunch of snotty kids we must have been to even attempt it. But much to our surprise, we seem to have done it.”

Pamela Anderson’s ex and musician Kid Rock is trying to get the focus back onto his music, after a spate of recent tabloid appearances.

The 36 year old has sold millions of records and secured several hits, but has become more well known for his short marriage to the former Baywatch star.

After recently accusing her of manipulating him and lying to him, he infamously punched Anderson’s other ex, Tommy Lee, at the recent MTV Music Video Awards.

Rock is hoping his sixth album, Rock n Roll Jesus, will put the focus back on his music.

He said: The personal antics have overshadowed the music. I never wanted that but I knew what I was getting into when I got into everything I got into. The stove was hot and I wanted to touch it. I touched it and it burnt the hell out of me.

I’m thankful that I proved myself in music which is my first love, my first passion before I got involved in this media, whatever you want to call it. I am hoping to bring it back to the music now.

NO REGRETS: D.L. Hughley doesn’t shy away from edgy humor in his stand-up act

October 11, 2007

BY JULIE HINDS

FREE PRESS POP CULTURE WRITER

Comedy means never having to say you’re sorry. Just ask D. L. Hughley, whose “Unapologetic” tour lands Friday night at the Royal Oak Music Theatre.

The older he gets, the more the 44-year-old funnyman sees the irony in the world at large, a perspective that’s good for edgy humor.

In conversation, as in his current stand-up act, he strides confidently through a potential minefield of touchy topics, finding the funny in don’t-go-there places like the Michael Vick dog-fighting scandal and the campaign to clean up rap lyrics.

“I don’t think people should have to apologize for feeling how they feel, even if it’s outside what the mainstream population thinks they should feel,” he says, elaborating on the title of his tour.

When he surveys the current climate of free expression, Hughley senses a cold front of caution.

“I think now we’re kind of this homogenized society where everybody says what they believe is politically correct and nothing more,” he muses.

This, of course, comes from a man who’s comfortable joking about politics, race, immigration and global warming along with the standard territory of marriage, sex and families.

His latest HBO special, also called “Unapologetic,” debuted last month. It’s a fast-paced, profanity-laced hour that tells it like he sees it, whether he’s riffing on the Don Imus incident or his wife’s rules on guest towels.

By speaking hilarious, occasionally uncomfortable truths, Hughley has achieved success on several fronts, from his star turn in the hit Spike Lee documentary “Original Kings of Comedy” to having his own sitcom, “The Hughleys,” which ran from 1998 to 2000 on ABC before moving for a few seasons to UPN.

This summer, he hosted BET’s “S.O.B.: Socially Offensive Behavior,” a “Candid Camera” of sorts that tested how much offensive or crazy behavior people would tolerate.

Last year, he was part of the ensemble of NBC’s “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” the highly touted Aaron Sorkin followup to “The West Wing” that started off with glowing reviews, then died out as buzz and ratings declined.

He has a blunt assessment of what went wrong. “When I read that script and when we did the pilot, it was truly the best television I’d ever seen or certainly been part of, on any level. I thought it was genius, the first episode,” he recalls. “And that was the best of it. There were 21 other episodes, but they were all kind of diminishing returns. We set the bar so high, there was no way we could live up to it. We embraced the idea of being this show that was going to change things and we crumbled under the weight of everybody’s expectations and our own hubris.”

Hughley muses with the same frankness on the presidential race. “We have a black man, a woman and a Mormon running for president. It sounds like I’m getting ready to tell a bar joke,” he says. “The qualifications for president aren’t really real. You don’t have to be smart. You don’t have to have effective solutions. You have to be good on TV and loyal to a constituency.”

On the subject of protests against rap lyrics, he talks about stores where “you can’t buy the new 50 Cent album but you can get a .357. It’s like, ‘You’re not going to use that gun you just bought in a rap video, are you?’ “

He also has some thoughts about Michael Vick that include a Detroit reference. “And he plays for the Falcons?” he says. “If that same rule applies, how come he didn’t drown his wide receiver? It’s a good thing those dogs can’t talk because they’d say, ‘Yeah, I lost a fight, but you lost to the Lions.’ “

Hughley’s promise to audiences is clear. You come to the show. He’ll push himself to be as honest as he can.

“Comedy has to be about the individual artist’s truth,” he says, “regardless of how anybody else may feel about that.”

Contact

Before country singer Dierks Bentley made his mom and dad proud, he made them crazy. With worry.Bentley - a Grammy nominee, singer of a current No. 1 hit, “Free and Easy,” and nominee for country album of the year - will perform at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Bismarck Civic Center. He said his social activities in his teen years resulted in his parents taking a drastic measure.”I had good leadership skills, but I used them the wrong way,”he said in a recent interview.He said the kids he hung out with growing up in Arizona were the ones who “wanted to do everything first, take it to the extreme.”There was some underage drinking, and being out until 2 or 3 a.m., and “being in places I shouldn’t have been in,”he said.His parents eventually would decide the solution was to send the 17-year-old away, far away from his crowd, to Lawrenceville, an elite private school in Princeton, N.J.”It was traumatic,”he said. “I wanted to run away … a friend’s parent offered to let me stay with them.”But his parents won that one. He ended up in Lawrenceville.”I was very lonely, a long ways from home,”he said. “It was sobering, my childhood was over.”But there would be a moment in his Lawrenceville dorm room that would change his life - when a friend told him he had to “check out this guy,” and played for him a Hank Williams Jr. song.”Everything in me lined up,”Bentley said. “I knew exactly what I wanted to do.”It was to become a country musician - and from that point on, tinkering with other music genres ended.Bentley, son of a banker and homemaker in Arizona, had grown up in a house with an unused piano.”The only thing it did was hold pictures,”he said.But he said he loved listening to music, all kinds. At 13, he became enamored with a friend’s electric guitar, realizing that he could be more than a music fan.”I could actually make (music),”he said.The teen taught himself the guitar, played rock music, and then in Lawrenceville, away from all of his Arizona friends, “music became my best friend.”"I always had a guitar and amp in my room, spent a lot of hours playing,”he said. “I was just trying to figure out my path, but I hadn’t found any (music)at that point to hit me perfectly.”He experimented with the blues, heavy metal, rock, but it wasn’t until he heard Williams’ song that he knew for sure what to do.After graduating from Lawrenceville, he wanted to be in Nashville, Tenn., but knew he couldn’t get a recording deal right away and needed to “buy some time.”So he enrolled in Vanderbilt University there, majoring in English, and while the English teachers talked, he was in the back of the classroom writing. They might have thought he was taking notes, but he was actually writing country songs.By 19, he had about 10 songs.He also had become a student of country music history and performances through a job he got at the Nashville Network. Bentley said he was a researcher, assigned to find such things as footage of, say, an old George Jones performance. That meant he got to watch historic performances from the 1940s to 1980s, and he filled binders with hand-written notes about the songs and performances.In the late 1990s, he got his first gig at Springwater Supper Club & Lounge, Nashville’s oldest bar, and got paid in beer.His take-home pay and life has changed a bit since then.When Bentley returned to the Springwater earlier this year for a photo shoot, the bar was still the same.Craig Smith, 32, manager, said Tuesday that things haven’t changed much there in the bar that was recently named for the seventh year in a row as Nashville’s best dive bar. The bar has been the Springwater since the 1970s, but the building has operated as a tavern since 1900, was a speakeasy during Prohibition, and was a bar that, in the 1960s, union boss Jimmy Hoffa would spend time in.The bar that paid Bentley in beer still serves only beer, no liquor.”If we served liquor, this bar would be a smoking hole within two weeks,”Smith said.Meaning:Adding liquor to the mix of the bar’s already rowdy crowd would be like throwing a lighted match where a lighted match shouldn’t be.So the bar’s the same; Bentley’s life isn’t.Bentley has moved up from beer pay.”He’s a nice guy, but it was kind of funny to see,”Smith said.Smith said at the photo shoot there were about 15 people with Bentley doing such duties as “fussing with his hair.”Bentley and his hair, and his songs, described as contemporary but leaning-toward-traditional country music, has hit the tour trail.His Bud Light-sponsored 30-city “Throttle Wide Open” tour began on Oct. 4 in Georgia.Also touring with Bentley is multi-platinum singer and songwriter Jack Ingram, whose hits included “Wherever You Are” and “Measure of a Man.”Doors open at the Bismarck Civic Center at 6:30 p.m. Thursday for the 7:30 p.m. concert.Tickets are $36.50 and $29.50 and are available at the Bismarck Civic Center Box Office and all Ticketmaster outlets.For more information, call 222-2121.(Reach reporter Virginia Grantier at 250-8254 or at virginia.grantier@;bismarcktribune.com.)

Recently, we drove down to Virginia to visit sons Scott and John. It was a long drive, made longer by numerous stretches of road work.I don't mind having them work on the road. In much of the country, the highways have gotten into such deplorable condition that they should be taken up and whole new roads laid down. Oddly, this is true even of the Ohio and Pennsylvania turnpikes, which usually are in pretty good shape.

What I find hard to endure, however, are the miles and miles of highway that are marked “Work Area” when there is nothing at all going on. Repeatedly, we came to signs calling for reduced speed and announcing road work ahead only to find no one working, no machines standing around and no sign of anything having been done to the road for decades. We dutifully slowed down until another sign announced, “End Road Work.”Sometimes, they would announce a reduced speed and signal coming road work and then cover up all the rest of the little red signs to show that nobody was doing anything. Presumably, the only reason they wanted you to slow down was so that you wouldn't hit the traffic cones places every few feet throughout the area.After going through that sort of thing a number of times, you tend to get jaded and not slow down as much at the next signs. It is like the boy who cried wolf too often and then was eaten by a coyote because nobody paid attention to him any more. This was unfortunate when it turned out there was a work crew present and it was, as nearly as one could tell at a quick glance, doing some kind of work.It is hard to tell whether there is work going on because there are so many people gathered around. Sometimes, one will be shoveling something while three or four others watch. Either that or all the work will be stopped while a small group of men, apparently supervisors, studies the plans.The busiest people on the project often are those who handle the flags. They don't really have flags. The tend poles with signs on them, one side saying “Stop” and the other saying “Slow.” I've always wondered why it says “Slow” on the other side as if “Slow” were the opposite of “Stop.” Logically, it should say “Drive” or just “Go” but I suppose “Slow” makes the point and adds a note of caution that can't hurt.In many cases, they don't need to tell you to go slow. Where there is really serious construction going on, they re-route you so that you are driving with at least two wheels on the shoulder. They squeeze six lanes of traffic down to one lane going each way and caution you to take it easy. I is impossible to go more than -40 mph without tearing your car apart. In one such arrangement, they had mistakenly left up the 65 mph sign but nobody was able to drive that fast.I have never understood why they have to spread a work area over 25 miles when all they are doing at the moment is fixing a bridge. I don't know whether it is to show that they have the money and eventually are going to work on the whole area or it is because they have all those traffic cones and want to make good use of them.As I said, I am not against road work as such. It is just that I think they close down too much of the highway to do it. If they are going to do that, they might better shut down that part of the whole road and route people some other way. When you think about it, it probably wouldn't be any slower to take secondary roads than to creep along through a construction site.A better solution would be to roll up a short stretch of road and take it off somewhere to be resurfaced and then return it to use when it was done. You probably could take up 100 feet at a time and return it within the hour.Bruce D. Callander spent 33 years writing and editing for Air Force Times. He now is a freelance writer who lives in Cheboygan.

She first made her mark as the “Queen of Hip-Hop,” becoming the first female rapper to notch a gold record, while opening the door for a generation of female rappers to follow.

But these days, Queen Latifah is making an entirely different kind of music, having now released two albums in succession — ” The Dana Owens Album” and “Trav’lin’ Light”– in which she sings standards from the jazz, soul, blues and “Great American Songbook” realms.

She’ll play a sold-out show at the Rehoboth Beach Convention Center on Friday as part of the 18th annual Rehoboth Beach Autumn Jazz Festival, followed by a concert Wednesday at the Grand Opera House in Wilmingotn.

She suddenly sees a musical future for herself that few would have envisioned when she arrived on the scene with her debut CD, 1989’s “All Hail the Queen.” “I’ve always envisioned that I could sing songs like this for the rest of my life,” said Latifah, who lives in Colts Neck, N.J. “It would be mighty cool to be like Tony Bennett.”

Actually, considering the success Latifah has enjoyed with acting and as a talk-show host (”The Queen Latifah Show”) … it’s hard to envision her devoting all her efforts toward a single pursuit such as singing. “I looked at this as part of me growing up, that I could sort of release this side of myself,” said Latifah during a recent telephone interview. “I just always feel like the more I go on through my career that I’ll be able to explore different sides of my talents and abilities and be able to share that with the world. That’s always my hope. Sometimes things work and sometimes they don’t. But I’m always on the optimistic side.”

As Latifah’s star continued to rise during the 1990s, she grew to be seen as a role model for women. She unabashedly embraced being a plus-size beauty who could exude confidence at every turn. “I was raised to believe that beauty comes from the inside out,” Latifah said.

Latifah’s career as an actress may actually be at a new peak now. She’s been in several highly successful films in recent years, including “The Bone Collector,” “Bringing Down the House,” “Chicago” (for which she received an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress) and, just this past summer, “Hairspray.”

But this fall, she’s jazzing it up on the road.

The tour focuses on material from “The Dana Owens Album” and “Trav’lin Light.”

She sees the two CDs as being very closely related musically.

“I think the main things that separate this album and the last album is I really wanted to do some big band on the last album, and I really didn’t get to, some big band swing kind of stuff,” Latifah said. “So I did get to do two (songs) on this album in that vein.”

Latifah said she is feeling more confident than ever about performing songs from these CDs live.

“I did 25 dates (in 2005) with Erykah Badu and Jill Scott on the Sugarwater Festival, and I did a bunch of dates last summer,” she said. “So I think I just started to feel more comfortable singing live, entire shows, whereas I had never really done that before.”

When it comes to her career, there actually haven’t been many setbacks for the woman who was born in Newark in 1970 as Dana Owens.

She began rapping when she was in high school, and in college got involved with Afrika Bambaataa’s “Native Tongues” collective, which favored a more positive, Afro-centric brand of hip-hop. A demo she recorded during this period landed Latifah a contract with Tommy Boy Records. She made an immediate impact with “All Hail the Queen,” which yielded the hit single “Ladies First.”

But it wasn’t until her third CD, “Black Reign,” that Latifah truly broke through. A single from that 1993 album, “U.N.I.T.Y.,” went Top 10 on the R&B chart, and it won her a Grammy for best solo rap performance.

In those early years, Latifah had to focus on immediate goals, but she already knew this was just the first stage for her career.

“First of all, I had to become a rapper,” Latifah said. “I had to establish myself as a female. I had to establish myself as a business person running (my) own management company … and even push forward rap music in general, because back then people were still calling it a trend that’s going to die out. It won’t last. People probably behaved that same way toward rock ‘n’ roll. But rock ‘n’ roll lasted and so did hip-hop. We always knew it would, but we had to sort of prove that to the masses that just did not want to accept that we were here. So that’s a lot of what we contended with back then. But I always saw the future, I felt like it could go on and on and expand.”

Actually, even as “Black Reign” was going gold and establishing Latifah as the legitimate female rap star, she already had begun pursuing acting, with roles in the movies “Jungle Fever,” “House Party 2″ and “Juice” and an appearance on the TV series “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” among her earliest credits.

A big break came in 1993, when she landed a co-starring role in the Fox television series “Living Single.” From this point on, Latifah became known as much for her acting as for music.

“Living Single” enjoyed a four-year run before being canceled in 1997, and it wasn’t until the next year that she returned to music, releasing the CD “Order in the Court.” This time, Latifah shifted her sound more toward R&B, and made her singing a focus on the album (with duets with Faith Evans and Pras from the Fugees).

But acting still was a priority. In 1998, she had roles in the movies “Sphere” and “Living Out Loud.” In the latter, she sang several jazz standards, a hint of the direction her music would take six years later with “The Dana Owens Album.”