Will third time be the charm for Uma Thurman?
The actress is engaged to her millionaire boyfriend, Arpad Busson, the New York Daily News confirms.
Uma showed off her new sparkler -- described as so big "she can't fit it through the sleeve of her coat" -- Thursday evening at Elton John's 10th White tie and Tiara benefit.
Arpad, nicknamed "Arki," and Uma, 38, have been dating for a year after meeting at a dinner party hosted by Gianni Versace and Tony Blair in Milan. It will be his first marriage and her third.
The Swiss financier was once engaged to supermodel Elle Macpherson, with whom he has two sons, Arpad Flynn Alexander, 10, and Aurelius Cy Andrea, 5.
Uma, who dated hotelier Andre Balazs for three years before meeting Arpad, was married to Gary Oldman for two years in the early 90s and to Ethan Hawke from 1998-2004. She and Ethan share custody of their children, Maya, 9, and Levon, 6.
See Also
Friday, 27 June 2008
Uma Thurman Engaged to Arpad Busson
Monday, 23 June 2008
Soul Sirkus
Artist: Soul Sirkus
Genre(s):
Rock: Hard-Rock
Discography:
World Play
Year: 2005
Tracks: 16
Long Riders, The (1980) [Western]
Monday, 16 June 2008
Review: Coldplay's 'Viva La Vida'
Capitol
*** (three stars)
Have you ever picked up a self-help book from the display table in a big-box bookstore and opened it to find a phrase that exactly applied to your life? The most pedestrian insight can sometimes hit surprisingly hard.
Banality might not elevate the intellect, but it helps in a tired, over-wired culture. We're all so distracted that we need to be reminded of the obvious, again and again. This helps explain the popularity of Coldplay, a group that disgusts sophisticates, although (or because) 10 million or so people seem to prefer its music to Radiohead's.
Artsy aspirations intensify the aha moments offered by Coldplay's chief deep thinker, Chris Martin, and his band -- never more so than on its fourth studio album and official leap toward greatness.
I want to believe that "Viva Et Cetera" is Brian Eno’s little trick on Coldplay. The well-meaning rockers wanted to improve their game, so they brought in the producer who's given growth hormones to David Byrne and U2 as well as Microsoft. (Did you know that Eno designed the startup sound for Windows 95?)
Eno let the lovely Londoners believe they were making classic art-rock when, in fact, his intention was to make shiny new product. Product as art, that is: Eno's always muddied the distinction between the two, wearing the mask of a "non-musician" to better avoid traditionalist traps and coining the term "ambient" to refer to music that has effect even while you're ignoring it.
That kind of music, which shares many qualities with Coldplay's current offering, also has been called "mood" or "background" or even "advertising jingle." But Eno, who values the effect of creative work over its makers' original intent, wouldn't go for such prejudicial terms. The sleekly nonspecific quality of "La Vida" -- it's full of evocations without settling on any one reference point -- lends power to Martin's lyrics, making them seem more like common wisdom than clichés.
You can just see Coldplay and Eno in the studio, the musicians happily borrowing ideas from avant-popsters like My Bloody Valentine and Arcade Fire, and Eno, smiling, making it all sound like what you hear in a really great car commercial.
The album starts with an instrumental (Martin, possibly joking, told MTV.com that the band meant to "do a great ring tone"), and when Martin's words do come, they're beefed up or buried within extremely canny arrangements that nod toward electronica, Latin and Celtic folk traditions, and the edge of modern classical music that intersects with film scoring.
Coldplay made its fortune on Martin's hypnotic roundelays, songs that bore simple titles like "Clocks" and "Fix You" and invoked comforting styles like the hymn and the lullaby. Eno pushes the band toward other forms based in circularity -- the ambient music of the marketplace, the video game and the movie trailer -- to make those warm little tunes even more marketable. Are they more memorable too? That depends on whether you like your chicken soup mild or spicy.
-- Ann Powers
Sunday, 15 June 2008
Hammergun
Artist: Hammergun
Genre(s):
Metal
Discography:
Texas
Year:
Tracks: 6
Salt Lake City's puzzling doom/stoner rock candy ensemble Hammergun consists of vocalizer Adam Sherlock, guitarists Levi Lebo and Damon Smith, bassist Sean McClaugherty, and drummer Tyler Smith (allegedly). Formed in the yr 2000, they made their recorded debut with the even more cryptically entitled Lone-Star State album in 2003.
Stackridge
Artist: Stackridge
Genre(s):
Rock
Retro
Discography:
The Man in the Bowler Hat
Year: 2007
Tracks: 13
Mr. Mick
Year: 2007
Tracks: 7
Stackridge
Year: 2006
Tracks: 9
Friendliness Plus
Year: 1996
Tracks: 14
Stackridge, one of the to the highest degree singular rock and roll bands that grew up in the stain sown and enriched by the British Invasion of the '60s, amalgamated in late 1969. Andy Davis and Jim "Crun" Walter were playing together in the Bristol blue devils lot Griptight Thynne when Davis began seeking new ring couple. Mike Tobin (wHO became Stackridge's first managing director) introduced Davis to Mike "Murmuring" Slater, then playing in the phratry duet Mick & Mutter. James Warren answered a newspaper ad, connected very advantageously with Davis, and they began authorship songs together. Billy Bent showed up, listened to them developing "Dora, the Female Explora," and invited them to pattern at his plate studio apartment, and they invited him to drumfish. Mike Evans was playing fiddle with traditional lay groups in Bristol (the Westlanders and the Moonshiners). On Davis' 21st birthday, the ring was celebrating at a pothouse when Mike Evans walked in. He was invited to join, as Davis knew him slenderly and Walter in agreement that a fiddle would fill kO'd their well-grounded. Meanwhile, Walter had proposed the a la mode absurd ring name, Stackridge Lemon, which was promptly shortened to Stackridge.
The gigs were thin at number one, and Walter left. Tobin affected to London and began securing more plentiful bookings, spell around Bristol, Stackridge began developing their eclecticist, capricious repertory, a given with stated influences and preferences surrounding Zappa, the Beach Boys, Flanders & Swann, Syd Barrett, Igor Stravinsky, the Marx Brothers, J.S. Bach and identical significantly, the 1965-1966 Beatles. Their rummage sales event stagewear, Slater's extravagant, witty spiel (and his development of trash barrel lids as a pleximetry instrument), Warren's wry, straggly story/introductions (contemporaneous with Peter Gabriel's evolution of same with Genesis) and the nigh alone (in a sway mathematical group) inclusion of both a flautist and violinist light-emitting diode Stackridge to develop an enthusiastic, patriotic next.
They signed to MCA and with Fritz Fryer producing, they recorded Stackridge in the springtime of 1971, communion Martin Birch as locomotive engineer with Deep Purple. Warren wrote four songs alone and ternion with Davis, establishing him as the group's main lyrical voice. Stackridge was highlighted by the boisterous "Dora, the Female Explorer," "Sir Henry Percy the Penguin" (the first of their laments for misunderstood animals) and a 12-minute-plus interpretation of live dearie "Slark," a mythic beast that scoops the piteous teller kO'd of his cable car and flies him "beyond the william Claude Dukenfield we recognize." Walter was persuaded to return on bass, allowing Warren to move to guitar permanently, piece Davis continued to electrical switch between guitar and keyboards.
Afterwards releasing two singles in support of the low gear LP (including a single version of "Slark" and the hot implemental dearie "Purple Spaceships over Yatton") and touring with Wishbone Ash, the six returned to the studio in August 1972 to record Friendliness, perchance the graeco-Roman Stackridge album. It was recorded in hardly 70 hours of off-peak studio clock time, with 30 more hours of admixture. There were five-spot songs (including the bipartite title of respect cart track) from Warren, a pianoforte instrumental from flautist Slater, trinity Walter/Davis compositions (including "Syracuse the Elephant" and "Celebrate on Clucking," preceding animal rights activism by at least a decennium) and the possibility instrumental galloper "Lummy Days." MCA released Friendliness Stateside as well (unlike the number one album), merely without promo or performances. Despite modest gross sales (over again), Stackridge had throw away the "knickknack point" tag and created, as reader Chas Keep put it in 1996, "A sort of children's favorites with posture; a compendium of tuneful melodies performed without the at present dated excesses of [their] generation." The outlet of Friendliness in November 1972 was followed by a duty tour with friends the Pigsty Hill Orchestra, and a new single, "Do the Stanley" b/w "C'est La Vie," in February 1973. Despite its beingness a catchy and an easygoing singalong individual, DJs failed to plunk up on "Stanley" and the BBC hierarchy restricted its airplay due to a lyric reference to the Queen. Conversely, since 1971, Radio One and the Beeb had been recording and broadcast medium Stackridge in session and in concert, as they dependably did with rock and pop acts of all stripes. (Some of these recordings finally emerged on CD in the '90s.)
When a third LP was planned, Stackridge standard a boost. George Martin's son had played Friendliness for his fabled father, and colleagues at Air Studios had annoyed him to work with the band. Reluctant, until he heard some demo tapes for the new album, Harrison agreed to produce what became The Man in the Bowler Hat, well Stackridge's virtually financially successful and long-familiar album. Reviewer Chas Keep reveals that Martin worked on the melodic and rhythmical patterns (especially the vocal harmonies), supervised the instrumentation and even contributed piano on "Abasement." Andy Mackay of Roxy Music added sax to "Dangerous Bacon," an infectious tip-o'-the-hat to the Beatles. "1st Baron Verulam" was passed over for number one individual vent in favour of "The Galloping Gaucho," a magnificent jab at sparkle rockers and the ridiculousness of "being cool." Yet "Gaucho" reinforced the public's perception of Stackridge as an peculiarity, a peasant rock company with dancehall leanings. They were warm when the populace wanted cool, intricate when brash was praised, enlightening when obscurity was in vogue. The Man in the Bowler Hat contained some of the finest hybrid rock music always. Most of the lyrics were grouping efforts (under the unlikely playpen name of Smegmakovitch), patch composition fell principally to Davis, Slater and Warren, in that order. "God Speed the Plough," the remarkable instrumental finisher, is attributed to Wabadaw Sleeve (over again, a full mathematical group elbow grease). The band's musicianship and creative talents were brilliantly showcased, and the fact that "Hat" failed to win over record book buyers plausibly contributed to the looseness of Stackridge.
Observation Martin at exploit, Slater despised the idea of trying to procreate the album onstage, and further felt Stackridge was scarcely dabbling in music. Wanting to sketch music in earnest and non engender sucked into the commercial aspect of it all, he resign. Billy Sparkle left besides and became Martin's personal supporter for several years, as well as a professional lensman. Davis' fidget was abated temporarily by recruiting Keith Gemmell (erstwhile with Audience) on sax, flute and clarinet, and Rod Bowkett on keyboards, which allowed Davis to switch to drums. This new lineup toured during the 1973-74 wintertime with new material as well as songs from The Man in the Bowler Hat, which wasn't released until February 1974. Within a few months, Warren and Walter were both asked to leave behind. Gordon Haskell, world Health Organization had contributed vocals and bass to King Crimson's Lizard, coupled for a duet weeks then exited amicably, departure the ring with the song "(No One's More Important Than) The Earthworm." Paul Karas replaced him. Rod Bowkett composed some splendid instrumentals and both he and Gemmell began to move Stackridge into jazzier territory. Mike Evans, constantly an outsider, besides left wing, going away Davis in charge at last. Roy Morgan was added on drums, with Davis returning to guitar. Thus, it was a very different Stackridge that recorded Extravaganza in tardy 1974 for Elton John's Rocket Records. Released in January 1975, the one-fourth album had fine songs ("The Volunteer," "Spin 'Round the Room," "Dew worm" and "Happy in the Lord") and apt instrumentals ("Who's That up There with Bill Stokes?," "Scoop Billiards"), only the essence of Stackridge was foregone.
In 1975, Bowkett gave way to Dave Lawson (ex-Greenslade) and Pete Van Hooke replaced Roy Morgan. Slater had rejoined slightly earlier, freeing Gemmell to focus on saxophone and clarinet, and connection Davis in the vocals once over again. Finally, Walter was asked to rejoin, replacing Karas on bass. This final lineup created Stackridge's only dead on target construct album, Mr. Mick, released in March 1976. Unfortunately, the released interpretation was a far weep from what Stackridge submitted. Davis recalled, 20 long time later, that "Skyrocket hacked the tapes to pieces, rendered the whole thing unintelligible, and precipitated the bands dying." Mr. Mick wasn't very popular with concert reviewers either, world Health Organization either couldn't follow the story (narrated by Slater), yearned for the excessive antics of yore, or both. Despite a improbable cover of the Beatles' "Hold Me Tight," two remarkable instrumentals composed by Slater ("The Slater's Waltz" and "Coniston Water"), and good Walter/Davis corporeal, Stackridge disbanded.
Do the Stanley, a fond retrospective issued in tardy 1976, gathered all the non-LP tracks, the hot shirk fest, "Let There Be Lids" and a few signature record album tracks. Stackridge's practice session of melding clever, often sympathetic lyrics, and building complex just hummable melodies with innovational mixes and crispy arrangements paved the way into the pop rock 'n' roll charts in the '70s for the likes of Queen, 10 CC and Sparks; in the '80s for Split Enz, Squeeze, They Might Be Giants and Prefab Sprout; and in the '90s for Bare Naked Ladies, Trashcan Sinatras, the Bats and Divine Comedy. Davis and Warren returned to mainstream music in 1979 as the Korgis. Finally, they achieved the singles winner they'd sought in Stackridge with "If I Had You" from their debut LP, The Korgis (number 13 U.K.), and especially "Everyone's Got to Learn Sometime" (number five U.K., number 18 in the U.S.) from the followup, Dumbwaiters. After two more LPs (Embarrassing George and This World's for Everyone) escaped notice, they over again parted slipway. Davis released a solo LP, Clevedon Pier in 1989, and has remained active in both performance (with the Andy Davis Band, which made an eponymic, limited edition CD in 1994, and a triad with Stuart Gordon (Korgis) and Peter Allerhand, named Los Caballeros) and production through 1998. Warren released a solo LP in 1986, just was seldom heard from musically, for many age.
Rootage in 1992, with the issue of Stackridge: BBC Radio 1 Live In Concert, interestingness in the stripe was rekindled. By 1997, everything was usable on CD, including Radio 1 Sessions, a minute BBC live offering. Warren and Walter, noting this and the lively interest group coalescing on the Internet, thought peradventure the existence was ready for Stackridge once again. Warren set up together a four-track demo called Stackridge: More in Late '98, featuring three songs he wrote or co-wrote, plus ane by old ally Roger Cook, with Andy West. According to Mike Evans' married woman Jennie, now their line of work manager, all original band members were approached by Warren and invited to "do it once again." Slater, Sparkle and Davis declined for variable reasons, only Evans, wHO remained active in folks music after going Stackridge, came back on board. The young Stackridge uncut CD, tentatively titled Sex and Flags, is slated for passing in the bounce of 1999, and the converted group has agreed to be the opening dissemble on the kinfolk stage at the annual Glastonbury Festival in June 1999.
Dennis Wilson, Pacific Ocean Blue
Molly Sims - Sims Run-in With Caan
MOLLY SIMS credits JAMES CAAN with making her a better actress, after they initially clashed on the set of U.S. TV drama LAS VEGAS.
The former model played Caan's daughter for four seasons of the show, which was cancelled in February (08).
And she has confessed they didn't see eye to eye at first, until a bust-up brought them together.
Sims reveals, "The first two seasons were extremely intimidating. Then we had a battle and then things were OK.
"I think he did it to encourage me to have more confidence and stand up for myself.
"It was a face to face (fight) and I held my own. He came back and said, 'We're good, right?'"
And she insists the confrontation has helped her: "He is fantastic. I would not be where I am without him. He's amazing, he's such a talent."
See Also
Thompson almost quit filming over weight issue
25-year-old Atwell said: "I went round to Emma's one night and she was getting very angry that I wasn't eating all the food she was giving me. I told her why and she hit the roof."
Contactmusic.com reports that the two-time Oscar winner was so outraged when she found out that she demanded Miramax producers accept Atwell's size or she'd resign.
TV review: Tucked up for a holiday with the Queen
The TV Week said the documentary screening at 2pm on TV One on Queen's Birthday Monday was Ten Days That Made the Queen.
There was nothing for it then but to break out the jewellery box, and sling on the pearls, even though, strictly speaking, they are not supposed to be worn before 5pm.
Made to celebrate the Queen's 80th birthday, the documentary was a little out of date, but just the ticket for screening on the afternoon of a cold public holiday.
Any excuse to draw the curtains on a grey day, and, after all, this was the monarch, so gathering together on the couch was the least a loyal subject could do.
Having had a weekend of queening it up, with Liz's predecessor, Elizabeth I, featuring on both Friday and Sunday nights, "one" could have easily reasoned that "one" would have had a gutsful of British sovereignty.
However, this two-hour-long look at 10 days of significance pertaining to the 50-year reign of Liz II was remarkably watchable.
Black and white footage of a teenage Elizabeth Windsor showed her to be the embodiment of the perfect Christian girl that the Windsors, reeling from the impropriety of Edward's VIII's abdication and marriage to Mrs Simpson, wanted to project.
The narrator suggested that the King and Mrs S had enjoyed a sado-masochistic relationship, that he revelled in her kicks and disdain for pomp and circumstance, and was happy to give it all up, even though, as one commentator said: "Suicide is to a man what abdication is to a king."
However, Edward's indulgence in pursuing personal happiness had a profound effect on Elizabeth, who was, from an early age, obsessed with a grinding sense of duty.
She met Philip Mountbatten, her future husband, when she was only 13 and he, a blonde Adonis (confirmed by the still photographs) only five years her senior.
Lord Louis Mountbatten had his heart set on Philip marrying the next in line and was thrilled when the union took place, but furious, as was his nephew, when Elizabeth broke with precedent and refused to change her married name to Mountbatten.
"What do they think I am? An amoeba," he was heard to utter in disgust.
Quite right too, viewing feminists would have nodded as they watched Philip, forever after, keep a respectful two steps behind.
Footage of the coronation of Elizabeth II looked the worse for wear, but it was brought back into sharp focus by the hilarious commentary of Lady Pamela Hicks, a bridesmaid, and Countess Mountbatten, who remembered the day as being a very long one for the peers, who had the foresight to tuck emergency rations of sandwiches under their coronets.
The pluty-voiced, now ancient aristocrats vividly remembered how Queen Juliana from the Netherlands was less than impressed with the lustre of the royal diamonds, brought out from the cobwebs, and was heard to be audibly derisive of "the dirty jewellery".
When the Queen was anointed with the holy oil, which "set her apart from the people", a huge canopy was erected over that moment in the ceremony as it was considered too sacred to be televised. Deeply religious, the Queen from that moment on dedicated her life to her subjects, but the cost of living a blameless life, and of meeting expectations from within the firm, was immense.
Her sister Princess Margaret, who would say that her sister was "God's representative on Earth", would have remembered those cold words of comfort when God's rep prevented her from marrying Group Captain Peter Townsend because he was a divorcee.
It was then that the idea that the Queen was a cold fish and had, as one journalist said, "Placed her sister's happiness very low in the pecking order", would have first formed in the public's mind.
Phil the Greek put in his respectful second place, and coronation completed, but three short years into her reign, the Queen was cut down to size when, as commander in chief of the armed forces, it is believed she wasn't even consulted over the Suez crisis and the dark British, French and Israeli plot to surreptitiously take possession of the Suez Canal.
United States President Dwight Eisenhower and his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, would not put up with that and after the crisis the Queen's constitutional powers were considerably downsized.
Britain joining the EEC further effectively made it just another small European country where, as one commentator said, World War I and II allies such as New Zealand and Australia from then on had to queue in a separate customs lane while Germans and Italians swept through in the European lines.
The Queen and family had become no more than a tourist curiosity.
How the mighty had fallen and how hard it would be to hold on to their specialness in the years to come when her children became all too human in the public eye.
In 1979, when the boat carrying Mountbatten and members of his family was blown up by the IRA in Donegal Harbour, his daughter Countess Mountbatten was plucked from the water where she was lying face down, a breath away from death. Now an antique, the countess remembered being rescued and taken off to Sligo hospital, "where they stuck me back together again".
The interviewer interrupted her matter-of-fact account of events with an admiring, "I say, you are amazing", to which she replied with customary stiff upper lip: "Well, there was no way round it. You had to go through it."
When Windsor Castle caught fire on the Queen's wedding anniversary in 1992, at a time when three of her children were going through messy divorces, she declared it an annus horribilis.
But the public, in pro-Diana fury, fumed that the royals had failed to pay insurance on the castle, and did not show their monarch any sympathy.
Shortly afterward, she took on board the mood of the crowd and volunteered to pay taxes on some of her assets to show mere mortal solidarity with her subjects.
Fortunately the documentary did not indulge too much in raking over the coals of the devastating effect of the Diana years – but it was noted how the royals failed to exhibit appropriate sympathy at her tragic death and weep the obligatory crocodile tears, even though the princess had been an active campaigner against them.
We were spared HRH's fondness for the royal corgis but watched a normally unemotional Queen shed a tear over a transport crisis when the family floating caravan and holiday home, the Royal Yacht Britannia, was decommissioned.
One wondered what mode of transport Prince Charles, the heir to the throne, might be allowed in future. Perhaps the environmentally conscious Charles would be given a - by royal appointment - scooter to get around upon.
The carbon-conscious King wouldn't care less and nor would Camilla his consort, for she is never happier than when astride her horses wearing her alleged filthy underwear.
See Also
Arctic Monkeys' Alex Turner to appear on Tony Christie album
Dj Heretic Feat Buju Banton
Artist: Dj Heretic Feat Buju Banton
Genre(s):
Drum & Bass
Discography:
Champion RBP003 Vinyl
Year: 2004
Tracks: 1
Rupert Everett - Everett Attacks British Army Wimps
Outspoken actor RUPERT EVERETT has sparked fury from British soldiers after branding them "whining wimps" who are "pathetic" compared to recruits in the days of Victorian Britain.
The Stardust actor, whose own father was a major in the British Army, made the controversial comments in a documentary he has filmed for the U.K.'s Channel 4 about 19th century soldier Sir Richard Burton.
The star compares modern day soldiers to old fashioned recruits, insisting British fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan constantly "whine" about facing the risk of death.
And the 49-year-old insists soldiers have no right to complain, as enlisting to the Army is the same as having a death wish.
He says, "The whole point of being in the Army is wanting to get killed, wanting to test yourself to the limits. Now you have to fly 15,000 feet above the war zone to avoid getting hit.
"I don't think there is any point in having wars if that's how you're going to behave. It's pathetic. All this whining!"
And the star doesn't only blast the state of the British Army, he also attacks the U.S. and their cultural identity following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York in 2001, branding the country as a "blobby" nation.
He adds, "I'm totally off the States now. The reaction to 9/11 and then George Bush - really, they've got very blobby as a nation.
"Now they are whiny victims whose language is entirely taken from two TV shows - Friends and Sex And The City - and there's nothing sexy about them any more.
"And that kind of semi-blindness about the rest of the world, which was attractive when America was exciting, is really unattractive now."
See Also