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| Region Zero |
| 12.15.04 (12:30 pm) [edit] |
Personally, as I told many times in the past, I never liked stats. If a Turin habitant eats one chicken per month, and a Milan one three, it's not that each italian eats two per month! Anyways, I'll do an exception and offer you some stats, today. Fact is that Live Licks, a bit like John Kerry, got some appreciation somewhere in the States. So, have a full read of the below, because it's interesting in global terms, and don't forget to comment, if you feel so. Ciao, Chris
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America Says Hit the Road Jack - and Get Me the Soundtrack to That Ray Charles Movie! - Tuesday December 14, 12:47 pm ET
VH1's 3rd Annual Holiday CD Poll Finds 'Ray: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack' and the Beatles On the Top of Music Listeners' Wish Lists This Holiday Season
Men Prefer the Classics; Women Embrace Newer Artists and Younger Adults Love Their Hip-Hop
NEW YORK, Dec. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- The late Ray Charles tops the wish list for music listeners this holiday season, according to a recent VH1 Poll that asked music lovers which artists topped their wish lists this holiday season.
Ray Charles' "Ray: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" ranked at or near the top across all regions and all adult demographics in a telephone poll commissioned by VH1, which surveyed a random national sample of 766 20-49 year-olds who listen to music.
Box set compilations from artists such as the Beatles and Nirvana also rank near the top of the list. In fact, five of the top 10 CDs on the poll are by established acts including The Beatles, Ray Charles, Nirvana, The Rolling Stones and U2.
The Top 10 CDs People Most Want This Holiday Season are:
1. Ray Charles --"Ray: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" 2. Beatles -- "The Capitol Albums Vol. 1: Box Set" 3. Alicia Keys -- "The Diary of Alicia Keys" 4. Tim McGraw -- "Live Like You Were Dying" 5. U2 -- "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb" 6. Nirvana -- "With The Lights Out: Box Set" 7. The Rolling Stones -- "Live Licks" 8. George Strait -- "50 Number Ones" 9. Shania Twain -- "Greatest Hits" 10. Usher -- "Confessions"
Other intriguing findings in the VH1 poll ... .
* Three of the top 10 are Country artists (#4 Tim McGraw's "Live Like You Were Dying," #8 George Strait's "50 Number Ones" and #9 Shania Twain's "Greatest Hits").
* Two of the top 10 are Urban artists (#3 Alicia Keys' "The Diary of Alicia Keys" and #10 Usher's "Confessions").
* The youngest group surveyed (20-29) was the only demographic to place hip-hop and rap acts in their collective top 10.
* Women are more open to newer artists, especially those in hip hop and r&b, while men have a greater interest in the more established acts, particularly rock artists.
The VH1 poll also broke out favorites in four regions of the U.S.: Northeast, Midwest, South and the West. The Northeast wish list is the most diversified. The Midwest is evenly divided between "classics" and Country. The South desired the most urban acts, but was split evenly with "classics" selections too. The West are solid fans of established acts -- eight out of 10 were "classics." Regional breakouts follow below:
Northeast Top 10
1. Ray Charles --"Ray: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" 2. Outkast -- "Speakerboxx-The Love Below" 3. Beatles -- "The Capitol Albums Vol. 1: Box Set" 4. Alicia Keys -- "The Diary of Alicia Keys" 5. Guns N' Roses -- "Greatest Hits" 6. Nirvana -- "With The Lights Out: Box Set" 7. U2 -- "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb" 8. R.E.M -- "Around The Sun" 9. 2Pac -- "Loyal To The Game" 10. Prince -- "Musicology"
Midwest Top 10
1. Ray Charles --"Ray: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" 2. The Rolling Stones -- "Live Licks" 3. Beatles -- "The Capitol Albums Vol. 1: Box Set" 4. Brooks & Dunn -- "Greatest Hits Collection II" 5. Shania Twain -- "Greatest Hits" 6. George Strait -- "50 Number Ones" 7. Toby Keith -- "Greatest Hits Volume 2" 8. Tim McGraw -- "Live Like You Were Dying" 9. Jimmy Buffett -- "License To Chill" 10. Pearl Jam - "Rearviewmirror - Greatest Hits 1993-2004"
South Top 10
1. Ray Charles --"Ray: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" 2. Alicia Keys -- "The Diary of Alicia Keys" 3. Beatles -- "The Capitol Albums Vol. 1: Box Set" 4. Nirvana -- "With The Lights Out: Box Set" 5. Usher -- "Confessions" 6. Tim McGraw -- "Live Like You Were Dying" 7. U2 -- "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb" 8. Destiny's Child -- "Destiny Fulfilled" 9. Prince -- "Musicology" 10. Outkast -- "Speakerboxx-The Love Below"
West Top 10
1. The Rolling Stones -- "Live Licks" 2. Beatles -- "The Capitol Albums Vol. 1: Box Set" 3. Ray Charles --"Ray: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" 4. Shania Twain -- "Greatest Hits" 5. Alicia Keys -- "The Diary of Alicia Keys" 6. U2 -- "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb" 7. Pearl Jam - "Rearviewmirror - Greatest Hits 1993-2004" 8. John Lennon - "Acoustic" 9. Nirvana -- "With The Lights Out: Box Set" 10. Elton John -- "Peachtree Road"
The VH1 poll was conducted by TNS Intersearch. TNS Intersearch (TNS), based outside Philadelphia in Horsham, Pennsylvania, is a division of Taylor Nelson Sofres, the fourth largest marketing information company in the world. With more than 230 offices in 54 countries, Taylor Nelson Sofres provides market information services in more than 100 countries. For more information about TNS, go to http://www.tns-i.com" title="http://www.tns-i.com" target="_blank"http://www.tns-i.com.
VH1 connects viewers to the music, artists, and pop culture that matter to them most with series, specials, live events, exclusive online content, and public affairs initiatives. VH1 is available in 84 million households in the U.S. VH1 also has an array of digital services including VH1 Classic, VH1 Soul, VH Uno, VH1 Mega Hits, and VH1 Country. Connect with VH1 at http://www.VH1.com" title="http://www.VH1.com" target="_blank"http://www.VH1.com.
VH1 is a registered trademark of MTV Networks, a unit of Viacom International Inc. MTV Networks also operates and offers joint ventures, licensing agreements, and syndication deals whereby its programming can be seen worldwide.
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| Mick around the Globe |
| 12.14.04 (11:49 am) [edit] |
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Ladies and Gentlemen, if the below (courtesy of IORR - link on the left) will evolve as I stated before, when you'll see signs telling "Mick Jagger aka 'Oscar'", please remember where you read it first. Furthermore, I still remain convinced that his Jaggerness deserves credit for the work with Dave A. Stewart on Alfie. Be sincere: have you heard lately a soundtrack able to remain on its feet without the movie simultaneously being played on the big screen? As far as I'm concerned, the answer is no. And I think the same applies for Academy Awards members... Ciao, Chris
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Mick and Dave Stewart received a Golden Globe nomination today for their "Alfie" tune "Old Habits Die Hard." The Globes, which are often considered a key barometer of Oscar success, will take place in Los Angeles on Jan. 16. Oscar nominations will be announced on Jan. 25. The other nominees in the Golden Globes' Best Original Song - Motion Picture category are tunes from "Shrek 2," "The Polar Express," The Phantom of the Opera" and "Hotel Rwanda."
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| Sparks are flying |
| 12.11.04 (3:11 pm) [edit] |
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Well, well, it looks like sparks are flying (in France). It's positive. Let's stop to this judgement, so far. Are you about to ask yours truly if he drove crazy? The news everyone waits since 1997 surfaces and all what I seem able to speak is "positive"? No, I'm not crazy. Yes, it's all that I'm able to speak. Why? Well, first of all remember Stones, and their mighty entourage, doesn't need lessons in putting up a media strategy. Second, remember the only judge, in music, are your ears, not your eyes. Third, can you ask for more to a band who put its name on Beggars Banquet / Let It Bleed / Exile On Main Street and Sticky Fingers? No, if you're honest, you can't, and you should also make a reason out of it! You know where stands the truth in the below article? In the place which many wouldn't care about. In the passage where Don Was (and if coherence is still a value, having him as a producer should quite be worrying to many readers, because it's the same person who produced Live Licks, which a vast majority of fans elegantly bashed for weeks) states "it's not still done... there are still a thousand ways to fuck it up". That's honest. Not something so usual from a producer. That's why we have to have faith in an album able to show everyone why the Stones are the greatest on earth. Not because Mick played drums or Keith bass. This could be interesting, but only if we were able to see it, not to read. Reading such stuff should remember us that paper allows itself to be written! This is my first Stone throw on this. Be sure we'll speak again about this. Ciao, Chris
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December 09, 2004, 2:45 PM ET Rolling Stones Recording With Don Was
By Christopher Walsh, N.Y.
The Rolling Stones recently concluded recording sessions for a new album in Paris with producer Don Was. The band will reconvene in the New Year for additional sessions for an album tentatively due in summer 2005, Was tells Billboard.com.
Was describes the Stones' new music as considerably different from their recent releases. "Mick [Jagger] and Keith [Richards] are writing songs together in a collaborative fashion that probably hasn't been seen since the late '60s," he says. "I would say that longtime fans of the Rolling Stones will be thrilled with these results, and new fans will understand why they're the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world."
Was recalls sessions in which Jagger and Richards composed spontaneously, sometimes with Richards playing bass and Jagger on drums. "He's a great drummer," Was confides. "He's also playing a lot of guitar, and he's a really good guitar player. He's been playing bass on some things, [and] Keith is playing bass on some things. They're just great -- there's a reason that they've been the Rolling Stones for so long.
"And they can do it four times a day, every day," Was says of the pair's writing sessions, "and they're really good songs. I've never seen anything like it."
Drummer Charlie Watts, who was recently treated for throat cancer, also attended the Paris sessions and is in excellent health, Was says. "And he's playing like a lion," he adds.
In 2002, the Stones recorded at Studios Guillaume Tell, also in Paris, with Was and engineer Ed Cherney. Four of the songs recorded there are featured on the 2-disc "40 Licks" compilation released in 2002. Additional material recorded at those sessions may appear on the Stones' next album, says Was, "but this all seems to be of a piece so far, and is substantially different than anything I've worked on with them. It's really collaborative.
"It's not done," Was adds. "We can still f*** it up a thousand different ways, you know? But what I'm hearing now is very much in the great Stones tradition."
Was has been active throughout 2004, producing the Stones' two-disc "Live Licks" set released last month, as well as upcoming albums by Solomon Burke, Jessie Coulter and Kris Kristofferson, the latter recorded specifically for release in a surround-sound format.
Meanwhile Don has regrouped with David Was to lead their R&B project Was (Not Was) through a 12-city tour launching Dec. 27 at House of Blues in Anaheim, Calif. The tour will mark the first performance of the group in 13 years.
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| You can't always get... |
| 12.11.04 (1:44 pm) [edit] |
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...what you want, but if you try, sometimes, you may get what you need! That said, I'll add that the below is taken from Rocks Off. Take a peek there (link is on the left), it's one of the boards to be! Ciao, Chris
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Live Licks was certified SILVER in UK for shipments of 60,000 copies, but the real number is 30,000 copies because it's a double album. That's good news because No Security never reached certifications worldwide.
The worldwide chart run for Live Licks is this:
Argentina: *1*-3-5 (5,000 copies) Germany: *9*-35-46-71 Greece: *9*-9-14-25 Austria: *13*-23-24-39-47 Sweden: *16*-31-52 Holand: *19*-19-31-48-49 Eurochart Top 100: *19*-31-42-91 Japan: *19*-45-74-117 (20,000) Swiss: *21*-27-39-60-87 Worldwide chart: *24*-40 (+300,000) Portugal: *27* Italy: 36-*34*-49 England: *38*-68-89-132-195 (SILVER AWARD - 60,000 copies) France: *38*-47-64-83-93 Norway: *38* Denmark: *42*-68 Belgium (Flanders): *47*-48 Belgium (Wallony): *49* USA: *50*-144 (45,000) Spain: *52*-65-73-96 Canada: *80*-111-166
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| Marianne - An update |
| 12.08.04 (2:57 am) [edit] |
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Got the below during the night (taken from ISL public relations - =http://www.islpr.com/ href="http://www.islpr.com/"http://www.islpr.com" title="http://www.islpr.com" target="_blank"http://www.islpr.com). It updates what happened in Italy to Marianne Faithfull, and her tour. Let's wait for march so, but meanwhile don't forget to send good vibes to the woman. Saw her, the other night, in the Rock'n'Roll Circus DVD (more, on this, later) and, boy, how gentle and powerful she looks at the same time! A mix providing for a true muse and a sixties starring character. Enough to acknowledge her all the credit she deserves. See you soon, Marianne. Ciao, Chris
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Ailing Faithfull Cancels European Tour - Edited By Barry A. Jeckell. December 07, 2004, 3:45 PM ET

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Marianne Faithfull has canceled a European tour after collapsing before a show in Italy last week. A spokesperson for the artist says doctors told the singer that she has chronic exhaustion and ordered her to rest for three months.
Faithfull, 57, had been due to perform in cities including London; Glasgow, Scotland; Dublin; Barcelona; Amsterdam; and Vienna. She collapsed shortly before she was to go onstage in Milan last Wednesday (Dec. 1).
"I'm sorry to have let my fans down but I will be back," Faithfull said in a statement. The spokesperson said Faithfull plans to reschedule the dates for next year.
Faithfull gained fame in the 1960s as the girlfriend of rocker Mick Jagger and as the pure-voiced singer of "As Tears Go By." After battling drug addiction, she re-emerged in 1979 with the raw album "Broken English" and has since found a new audience as a sophisticated chanteuse.
Last summer she starred in Robert Wilson's play "The Black Rider" in London and San Francisco.
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| Every cop is... |
| 12.03.04 (7:41 pm) [edit] |
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Well, why attending film festivals, with screenings of movies you have on home format and that you've seen so many times? It's not just for the big screen, trust me. Usually, when an "old" (or have I to better say "classic") rock movie is the dish of the day, director or some starring character is there. Usually he says something new, or unknown, maybe answering to the audience questions. It's a bit like it happened me in 2000, in Paris, when Bill Wyman was at "La Cité de la musique" between "L&G" and "Let's Spend The Night Together". A sparkle can always fly. Recent Amsterdam documentary festival made no exception. Check the below and see that every cop is no longer a criminal. Ciao, Chris
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Geoffrey Macnab Thursday December 2, 2004 The Guardian
The San Francisco Police department has asked to see footage from the film Gimme Shelter as it reopens investigations into a death at the Rolling Stones' Altamont concert in 1969. During the concert, at which Hell's Angels notoriously provided the security, an 18-year-old black man called Meredith Hunter was attacked and killed. Documentary-makers Albert Maysles and his brother David recorded the concert and released it as a film, Gimme Shelter, in 1970. Speaking at the International Documentary festival in Amsterdam last week, 74-year-old Albert Maysles revealed that he would be making the movie available to the San Francisco police as soon as possible.
The police, he said, "want to see some of the out-takes of all that stuff at the time of the crime - if it was a crime. An argument could be made that it was an act of self-defence."
The precise circumstances of Hunter's death have never been established. "In almost every newspaper you read, the victim was a black guy holding a knife," said Maysles. "Black guys hold knives - that was the stereotype. But the film showed otherwise."
Maysles argues today that the Altamont disaster was "a perfect argument for legalising drugs. If drugs were legal, then [the concert organisers] would have had a proper security force. It wouldn't have been the Hell's Angels. And if a governmental agency had been policing, then it would have been OK. There wouldn't have been the killing."
At the Amsterdam festival, Maysles also unveiled a new copy of the brothers' 1965 documentary, Meet Marlon Brando. The film has been out of circulation for nearly 40 years: Brando, who called it "too much of a word salad", didn't allow them show it. Now, though, Albert is planning a DVD release that will include footage he filmed at the recent memorial service for Brando, who died in July.
Meet Marlon Brando was shot during the actor's promotional tour for Morituri, a second world war thriller co-starring Yul Brynner. Albert and David (who died in 1987) honed in on Brando as he met TV journalists from all over the US.
The film shows the star, bombarded with a series of ever more inane questions from interviewers who have not even seen his movie, responding in bravura fashion. He throws their questions back at them, flirts outrageously with the female journalists, holds forth on the plight of the Native American peoples and even enlists a pretty young passer-by to answer questions about the artist's responsibility to "speak out" on social issues.
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| No Marianne, no party |
| 12.01.04 (12:43 pm) [edit] |
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Pay attention to these lines if you have a ticket for a Marianne Faithfull gig scheduled for the next days. Her show due tonight at Milan's Rolling Stone club has just been deleted. I heard from a friend who was there. Everything was going well, light rehearsal took place, they had the photographers settle down between the stage and front row, then the room went dark and... a guy on stage told "we learnt right now the artist is ill, so the gig won't take place". Tickets got immediatly refunded, although they kept pre-sale fee for them. Audience was poor enough (some 200 people in a room able of 1000), so someone started to wonder about the real reason of the cancellation. However, a guy who was with my friend phoned to someone who met Marianne the night before and got told that, by last numbers of previous show, she was very ill. Nothing that looks worst than a flu, but if you have tickets for a concert planned this week, you'd better contact local organizer in order to get a confirmation of the show regularly taking place. Be aware! Italy starts to get used to this kind of thing, but it's never a nice surprise... Ciao, Chris
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