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Lady Gaga praises Ontario high school student for anti-bullying struggle
Postmedia News
The Fame Monster herself is putting her popularity to good use — Lady Gaga recently acknowledged a Toronto student’s tremendous endeavour to raise awareness and put an end to bullying.
Jacques St. Pierre, 17, was motivated to make a change after being bullied himself growing up. As the student council president of the Etobicoke School of the Arts, he organized a school assembly with an anti-bullying theme.
“I got called the gay kid, the fag, because I liked to be in the school plays,” St. Pierre told CBC. “I lost my best friend because he joined in with the bullies. It’s not fun, I’ve been there, I’ve been bullied. Before that, I didn’t know bullying could affect people so severely.”
Gathering pledges from fellow students and contacting an array of celebrities for their support, St. Pierre was overjoyed and emotional after he received Gaga’s heartfelt video voicing her unconditional support for his actions.
“I just wanted to tell you how proud I am of you for being such a strong advocate of the LGBT community in your school. There should be more little monsters like you,” Gaga said. “It is important that we push the boundaries of love and acceptance. It is important that we spread tolerance and equality for all students.”
St Pierre said Gaga’s high profile will help spread a positive message. “Young or old, people know who Lady Gaga is, because she’s such as character and she does so much to stand up against bullying in any way she can. And someone as inspiring as her, taking 20 minutes out of her day to write down a speech, sit in front of a Teleprompter, get all made up and read it to us directly at our school. It’s fantastic,” he told CBC.
Gaga’s video was revealed at the assembly organized by St. Pierre, which also screened Rick Mercer’s recent anti-bullying rant from October.
Source: vancouversun.com
Bob Dylan Is 70, and Forever Young
James Sullivan
Spinner
When Ben Lee was 18, he heard Bob Dylan‘s song ‘Isis‘ playing on a turntable. It was Christmas Day, and the onetime boy rocker was in California, far from his home in Australia.
Lurching headlong into the “mysterious, terrifying world of adulthood,” the young singer was floored by the mid-period Dylan track — number 34, if you’re counting, on Rolling Stone’s recent list of the 70 greatest Dylan songs in honor of the great Bard’s 70th birthday.
The song, like so many of Dylan’s have been for so many admirers, was precisely right for the moment, Lee tells Spinner: “It summed up everything magical about taking a quest into the unknown.”
Those words are well-chosen. Through 50 years, at least that many official album releases and countless words of analysis about what it all means, Dylan’s career has been a musical quest to rival a medieval knight’s, full of mystery, chivalry, adventure and transformation.
As Lee points out, any songwriter who has stood onstage holding a guitar can’t help but feel Dylan’s influence. Yet the elder statesman’s most important contribution might be something far more elusive.
“He just had chutzpah,” says the singer. “That’s what all artists need — the chutzpah not to conform, to be ourselves.”
Tom Morello, the socially conscious Rage Against the Machine guitarist who performs solo as the Nightwatchman, is partial to Dylan’s first several albums, when our newest septuagenarian set the standard for topical songwriting. An admitted latecomer to the cult of Dylan — he says he discovered the singer’s work moving backwards from Bruce Springsteen‘s ‘Nebraska’ album — Morello was deeply moved by the way Dylan “humanized the political issues of the day — issues of race, class and war — but in a way that was profoundly poetic, and felt like it was world-changing.”
Later moments in Dylan’s sprawling career made believers of other aspiring musicians. Nicole Atkins fell hard for ‘One More Cup of Coffee‘ off Dylan’s ‘Desire’ album, from the fertile mid-’70s run that also produced the potent ‘Blood on the Tracks’ and ‘The Basement Tapes,’ the long-buried woodshedding he recorded with the band that would soon become The Band.
For Atkins, the mournful tone of ‘One More Cup of Coffee’ “is filled with so much passion and a sense of doom. And I always wanted to be just like the girl he was singing about.”
Suzanne Vega, who first emerged from the New York folk scene two decades after Dylan, singles out ‘It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding).’ “I love the flow of words and images,” she says, “the fact that it goes on for eight minutes, the breadth of ideas contained and the intensity of his performance.”
And psych-folkie Alela Diane picks ‘Lay Lady Lay,’ from Dylan’s surprisingly plum-voiced ‘Nashville Skyline’ album (1969), as her own personal favorite.
“It’s the reason I have a brass bed frame,” she says.
For a lot of artists, Dylan built the whole house they live in. Philadelphia’s G. Love freely admits that “a lot of my songs are straight Dylan. Even in my hip-hop and blues writing, the stamp that Bob has made on me runs deep.”
“It seems as if he has always been purely creative on his own terms,” says the singer. “Almost all of the great artists from the ’60s have made some questionable records, but Dylan never made a record that was overproduced or trying to be something he was not… To see Dylan on the road year after year lets me know that I might get old, but I’m never gonna retire.”
And Matt Costa, who, like G. Love, is often associated with Jack Johnson, might have the simplest explanation of all for the power of Dylan’s songwriting.
“It makes me want to put down the guitar,” he says, “and pick up the pen.”
Grammy Awards Drop More Than 30 Categories
Gil Kaufman
mtv.com
If you got all worked up this year when “Wayne’s World” actress Tia Carrere won the Grammy for Best Hawaiian Music Album over hotly tipped nominee Amy Hanaiali’i, well, your days of fretting are over. After seven years as an official, stand-alone Grammy category, the Hawaiian award is going away, along with 30 other award categories in one of the most radical revamps in Grammy history.
The Recording Academy announced Wednesday (April 6) that it is going on a little-golden-man diet, trimming the field from 109 to 78 categories beginning next year. The bottom line is that male and female pop, country and R&B artists will be going head-to-head in their genres for the first time in recent memory instead of vying for their own trophies.
At the same time, the minimum number of artist entries in each category was bumped up from 25 to at least 40. Under the new rules, if only 25 to 39 entries are considered for a certain award, only three recordings will be nominated; and if there are fewer than 25 entries, that category will go on hiatus for a year. If the same shortfall happens for three consecutive years, the award will be discontinued.
The biggest changes come in the many breakout awards within certain fields. For instance, instead of separate male and female pop-vocal awards, there will be a single Best Pop Solo Performance category; and the Best Pop Instrumental Performance, Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals will be consolidated into Best Pop Duo/Group Performance.
The “big four” – Record, Album and Song of the Year and Best New Artist – will remain the same.
“Every year, we diligently examine our Awards structure to develop an overall guiding vision and ensure that it remains a balanced and viable process,” Grammy President and CEO Neil Portnow said in a statement. “After careful and extensive review and analysis of all Categories and Fields, it was objectively determined that our Grammy categories be restructured to the continued competition and prestige of the highest and only peer-recognized award in music. Our Board of Trustees continues to demonstrate its dedication to keeping The Recording Academy a pertinent and responsive organization in our dynamic music community.”
In the rock field, the Best Rock Instrumental Performance and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals will go away, while the Best Hard Rock and Best Metal Performance awards will be consolidated into one trophy. Similar trimming was done to the R&B and rap fields, where the separate male, female and duo or group awards were merged into Best R&B Performance, while with Best Urban/Alternative Performance and Best Contemporary R&B Album were done away with. The rap field merged the Best Rap Solo Performance and Performance by a Duo or Group into Best Rap Performance.
Similar changes were made in the country, jazz, gospel, Latin, American roots, world and classical genres, while Best Native American, Zydeco or Cajun and Hawaiian will compete in a larger field under Best Regional Roots Music Album.
Source: mtv.ca
ECMA gala goes online-only – Artists regret lack of national televised audience
The East Coast Music Awards will be handed out on Sunday night in Sydney, N.S., but anyone interested in watching the gala will have to cozy up with their computer.
The annual celebration of East Coast musicians will not be broadcast on television this year — instead it will be streamed online.
The decision to offer only online coverage of the gala event has some artists regretting the lack of national exposure that would come with a televised event.
In years past, ECMA nominees were able to perform on a national television broadcast or at least get their names mentioned during the event which would be broadcast across the country.
Steve MacDougall, a member of Slow Coaster and the musical director for the gala, said the decision is a loss for the ECMAs.
“Well, I mean, obviously it’s just less exposure to the common Canadian,” MacDougall said.
“Usually, sitting down in a farm in Winnipeg this time of year, people would turn it on.”
Cost-saving move – or sign of the times
Television broadcasts are expensive and CBC said last year’s ECMA ratings weren’t great.
However, Su Hutchison, the ECMAs’ executive director, said those two factors didn’t play a huge role in the decision.
She said the switch to a webcast is more a sign of the times.
“It made sense to us that [the internet] is where the community is going to get their content,” Hutchison said.
“That content is in an online world. It gives you the complete flexibility to curate your own experience, which television just isn’t able to do anymore for us.”
Saint John’s Jessica Rhaye said the switch away from a televised awards ceremony is unfortunate, but she said she sees an opportunity for artists too.
“It’s really a matter of the artists getting out there and promoting the show,” Rhaye said.
“Maybe put a splash on your website saying go to this link and watch this award show.”
As far as the buzz on the ground, Rhaye said, the event is as exciting as ever.
Source: cbc.ca
Iron Maiden Cdn tour announced
Darryl Sterdan
QMI Agency
Run to the hills, haters — Iron Maiden are headed back to Canada this summer.
The British metal sextet will play seven shows from Vancouver to Quebec on their Final Frontier 2010 North American tour, the band announced Thursday. The tour is named after the band’s 15th studio album Final Frontier, expected to be released after the tour.
“We really wanted to get out and play some shows before the release of the new album later this year, so we thought what better way to kick off the tour than by going back to Canada,” vocalist Bruce Dickinson said in a statement. “This time ’round, we will be playing a few more cities we haven’t visited for some time.
“We’re still working on the set list for these summer shows, but this time it will cover the whole history of the band, and I can hint that we will be playing a taster from the new album,” he continued. “This summer tour will be a bit of a preview for the fans.”
Tickets for the Canadian shows go on sale to the public on Sat., March 13 at 10 a.m. at the usual outlets. Iron Maiden fan club members can access tickets on March 11. Prog-rockers Dream Theatre are slated to open all the concerts, with the exception of the Winnipeg date. An opening act for that show hasn’t been named. For more information, go to www.ironmaiden.com.
Iron Maiden Final Frontier Canadian Tour Dates June 24 | Vancouver | GM Place June 26 | Edmonton | Rexall Place June 29 | Saskatoon | Credit Union Centre June 30 | Winnipeg | MTS Centre July 3 | Toronto | Molson Amphitheatre July 7 | Montreal | Bell Centre July 9 | Quebec City | International Summer Festival
Source: torontosun.com
Neil Young, Avril Lavigne and more play Olympics closer
Robert Thompson
A wide-ranging group of Canadian performers headlined the closing ceremonies of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games, including a surprise appearance by Neil Young, as well as songs from the likes of Michael Buble and Avril Lavigne.
The performers had been kept as a closely guarded secret until the show, which followed the conclusion of the games, but some names, including Canadian rockers Nickelback, and hip-hop act k-os, had leaked out prior to the show at BC Place in Vancouver last night (Feb. 28).
Nickelback performed its song “Burn It To the Ground” at the show. Young, whose work was celebrated during the games as part of the Cultural Olympiad by acts like Lou Reed and Mark Kozelek, sang “Long May You Run,” as the Olympic flame was extinguished.
Among those spotlighted were Nikki Yanofsky, whose “I Believe” was the theme for television network CTV. Buble, who hails from Vancouver, dressed as a Mountie to open his performance.
Other Canadian acts who played at the show included Alanis Morissette, who sang “Wunderkind,” while Lavigne sang her hit “Girlfriend.” Artists rounding out the show included Montreal’s Simple Plan, Winnipeg’s Inward Eye, Quebec singer Marie Mai, and Vancouver band Hedley.
Source: montrealgazette.com
Pickle is more popular than Nickelback on Facebook
Lee Ferguson
Wednesday night, as Canucks across the country were watching the Canadian men’s hockey team emerge victorious from its Olympic quarter-final match against Russia, there was an equally nail-biting Canadian competition unfolding online.
I’m talking about the Facebook-inspired showdown between Canadian rockers Nickelback and… a pickle. And, as of late last night, it’s looking like the pickle has trounced the wildly successful hard rock band.
Started as a bit of a lark by Facebook member Coral Anne on February 3, the Facebook group entitled, “Can this pickle get more fans than Nickelback?” has become a hit of How You Remind Me proportions, picking up unexpected momentum in the last three weeks, until the plucky little dill finally surpassed Chad Kroeger and co. late yesterday. At last count, the pickle has more supporters (1,489,737) than the Nickelback fan page (1,422,984 members strong) has acquired in its existence on the popular social networking site.
No word yet on what the band thinks of the online upset, but the founder of the pickle-inspired Facebook fan group has weighed in on the outcome, taking pains to say the page was always meant to be funny and her intent “was pro-pickle, more than anti-Nickelback.”
Source: cbc.ca
Horror rockers scare up a tour – Zombie, Cooper will haunt Rexall on April 28
The “gruesome twosome,” a.k.a. Rob Zombie and Alice Cooper, promise to rattle cages in Edmonton this spring with their ghoulish night of horror and hard rock.
Their all-ages concert happens Wednesday, April 28 at Rexall Place. Tickets range from $45 to $59.50 plus service charges at all Ticketmaster outlets. They go on sale Friday at 10 a.m.
Zombie and Cooper are travelling across North America with their Gruesome Twosome Tour, something they’ve been talking about for 15 years. Cooper calls the show Dracula vs. Frankenstein; Zombie says the dream/nightmare is finally coming true.
Zombie, who founded the heavy metal band White Zombie, is touring with his latest album, Hellybilly Deluxe 2. The record recently debuted in position eight on the Billboard Top 200 Album chart.
Zombie is also known as a horror film director, with credits including The Devil’s Rejects (2005), the 2007 remake of Halloween and its 2009 sequel.
Cooper is an American rock icon whose career spans more than four decades. His musical and famously gory performance innovations have earned him the status of legend and pioneer. Cooper’s most recent solo album, Along Came a Spider, was released in 2008, and the singer will be performing the Theatre of Death Tour show from that album.
Both Zombie and Cooper have been nominated for several Grammy Awards.
Source: edmontonjournal.com
More is less from Clapton and Beck
Robert Everett-Green
Eric Clapton & Jeff Beck
- At the Air Canada Centre
- In Toronto on Sunday
Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck played in the same band (the Yardbirds), but not together. In some people’s minds, that fact has stood like a promissory note, demanding payoff in some kind of joint project by these guitar heroes.
Never mind that they are dissimilar in almost every way.
On second thought, let’s take careful stock of those differences, which may explain why Sunday’s Beck-Clapton matchup was such a gigantic fizzle.
The kid: That was Beck, looking just like he did in ’68 but wrinklier, playing his solo set as if it were his first big gig. He opened with a virtuoso jam that put me in mind of the proverbial kitchen sink, and returned frequently to high-dazzle mode. I don’t recall so much bluster during his Massey Hall gig of some years ago. On the other hand, it doesn’t hurt to play as if you have something to prove, when you consider the alternative.
The codger: Clapton, who at 64 is the younger of the two, began his set on a kitchen chair, chugging out old-time blues numbers much as he did during his Robert Johnson tribute tour six years ago. Haggard and owlish behind his big dark frames, he looked as if he’d been roused off his front porch after years of inactivity. That really happened to Mississippi John Hurt and Son House, but they both came back with an element of grit that has been washed clean out of Clapton. He played the blues like the very best student in the class, everything careful and neat.
The sound: As usual, there seemed to be no limit to the sounds Beck could extract bare-handed from his guitar, which turned quite skronky during a few crunchy numbers that were to rock music as bebop is to jazz. Clapton was more inclined to stick to a single sweet option, both on acoustic and electric guitars.
Left hand versus right: Clapton’s bent notes and vibrato all came from the left hand. Beck did all that with his whammy bar, which was hardly ever still. Clapton’s technique was the more physically demanding: You have to do a lot of yanking and flailing to get those sounds on the fretboard. But, somehow, they didn’t deliver a lot of punch. Beck’s more subtle manipulations of his bar could be quite raw in effect, as for example in the mind-bending middle section of his cover of the Beatles’s A Day in the Life.
The singing tone: When he wasn’t tearing up the fretboard, Beck played beautiful long melodies, again relying on his whammy bar to give the tone the slight variances typical of a singing voice. Unfortunately, his showpieces in this line were Puccini’s Nessun dorma and Henry Mancini’s Moon River, both played with orchestra, both sounding like abrupt left turns that brought him smack into the middle of the road.
The leap of faith: That’s what you needed to hear any urgency or hunger in Clapton’s sauntering acoustic version of Layla, his biggest hit. “You’ve got me on my knees,” he sang quite listlessly, as if that position were available only in theory.
The big match-up: There’s a reason most bands have only one lead guitar, and Clapton saw the logic, moving into rhythm-guitar mode for most of his joint set with Beck.
In return, Beck subdued his proggish tendencies and played blues rock for the rest of the night (except for Moon River). Muddy Waters’s You Need Love drew into sharp focus everything that was wrong with this picture: the blandness of Clapton’s singing, the recreational quality of the alternating solos from both men, and the feeling that the people on stage were thinking about the clock.
The show was nearly three hours old before Beck and Clapton attempted a real duet, and that was over in less than a minute. I guess they just weren’t into it and, by then, neither was I.
Source: theglobeandmail.com
