Un album acoustique pour Vulgaires Machins
Le 6 septembre prochain, le groupe Vulgaires Machins fera paraître, en version numérique et sous la formule “payez ce que vous voulez”, un album acoustique réalisé par Gus Van Go et Werner F. Le groupe réinterprètera donc, en version acoustique, des pièces de leurs albums précédents, en plus de trois nouvelles chansons inédites. L’album physique sera quant à lui en magasin dès le 13 septembre.
Suite à la parution de cet album, le groupe donnera quelques spectacles acoustiques un peu partout au Québec, dont un à Granby le 5 avril, pour ensuite se rendre à Québec (le 6), à Alma (le 7), Gatineau (le 12), à Montréal (le 20) et, finalement, à Sherbrooke (le 27). D’autres dates devraient être annoncées sous peu.
Une des trois pièces inédites, aux accents country-folk, peut être écoutée dès maintenant sur le site d’Indica.
Source: voir.ca
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.”
Lady Gaga Talks Eggs, Eats Paper On ‘Late Show With David Letterman’
Gil Kaufman
Mtv
If there’s one thing Lady Gaga is great at, it’s making an impression. And the singer clearly did that on Monday night when she stopped by “Late Show With David Letterman” to chat it up on the day her Born This Way album was released.
Wearing a black mask, barely there black boy shorts, knee-high lace-up leather boots, a black jacket over a black rubber bra, and another of her Morticia Addams-style black and blonde wigs, Gaga clearly put the late-night legend on edge with her odd behavior. She began by reaching out and complimenting his orange tie while stroking it, prompting the unflappable Letterman to quip, “Why stop?”
But Dave, who is used to being provoked by everyone from Madonna to Joaquin Phoenix and Courtney Love, took it all in stride and asked Mother Monster to explain why she came out wearing a mask. “You have a mask on. Does this represent something or we don’t care what this represents?” he asked her.
“I’m Batman,” Gaga shot back, humming a bit of the Dark Knight’s old-school TV theme. “What are you wearing, I mean, what aren’t you wearing, I mean it’s great, don’t get me wrong,” he stammered when asking about her revealing get-up. Gaga explained that she only liked the jacket, so that’s the part she chose to wear. “You and I are very different in that way,” Letterman responded. “I have never thought to myself, ‘I’m just going to wear my underpants.’ ”
“Why not, I’m sure you’d look nice,” Gaga said, taking off her mask. “You’d be surprised,” she added, to which he cracked, “Yes, I’d be very surprised … and you’d be surprised also … and so would the local authorities.”
Later in the interview, Gaga claimed that she found the outfit in the garbage on her way into the studio.
The pair continued their friendly banter, talking about Gaga’s days as a bad waitress (she flirted too much with guys who were on dates), which progressed to Gaga shamelessly flirting with the host while trying to avoid answering a question about whether she currently has a boyfriend. She revealed that she spent the previous night chatting with fans on Twitter and drinking a bottle of wine to celebrate the midnight release of the album.
When conversation turned to Gaga’s famous egg, which she busted out of again on “Saturday Night Live” this past weekend, she wondered what it would be like to get the funnyman in one of her oval creations. “I don’t think I’d fit,” Letterman demurred. “Maybe we could get in together,” she replied. “You could be the yolk.”
The infamous egg, which made its debut in February at the Grammys, is a spiritual place, the singer said. “How much time do you spend in it? Is it tough to get insurance?” Letterman wondered.
“Well, no, because for me, it’s a place where I can meditate and experience rebirth,” Gaga explained. “So I just get inside of it and close it and then when I feel that I have been reborn spiritually, I just, woo, come out.”
In keeping with the regeneration theme of the album, when asked how long this rebirthing process takes, Gaga said, “It depends. … I just really believe that you can be reborn over and over and over again until you find that part of you that is the best you that you can be, so I encourage everyone to be that way. I wonder what would happen if I put you in an egg?”
After a series of inane questions, including one about whether it’s true she relaxes by fly fishing and whether it’s true she once ate a Barbie doll’s head during a concert (actually, she said, it happens “all the time”), Gaga grabbed Letterman’s sheet of notes and ripped it up. “I’m just so fed up with all of this,” she grumped before handing back on half of the sheet and stuffing the other in her mouth to chew up.
Source: mtv.com
Lindsay Lohan — Oops, My Boob Fell Out Again
For the 2nd time in less than a week … Lindsay Lohan‘s right breast escaped its holster and hung out in Miami.
Once Lohan got a hold of the situation, she flashed another piece of her anatomy to photographers … her middle finger.
Source: tmz.com
Avril Lavigne concert set
CANADIAN pop-punk singer Avril Lavigne will perform in Shanghai on May 2 at Shanghai Grand Stage.
Tickets for the Shanghai concert will cost from 180 yuan (US$28) to 1,280 yuan.
Earlier this year, Lavigne released her fourth album “Goodbye Lullaby” that features the lead single “What the Hell.”
She is expected to sing the hit tune along with other favorites such as “Complicated,” “I’m With You,” “My Happy Ending” and “Girlfriend.”
By 2009, Lavigne had sold 16 million albums worldwide. Her success has continued with “Goodbye Lullaby,” which has reached top 10 lists in both the United States and the United Kingdom. It was also her third No. 1 album in both Japan and Australia.
The 27-year-old singer has said in the past that she likes rock music because it’s radical and fun, but now that she’s a little older, she hopes “Goodbye Lullaby” will show her mature side.
The album took more than 2 1/2 years to complete and its release date had been pushed back several times. “I write my own music and therefore it takes longer because I have to live my life to get inspiration,” Lavigne told the Kingston Herald newspaper in Canada last August.
“I know my fans look up to me and that’s why I make my songs so personal; it’s all about things I’ve experienced and things I like or hate. I write for myself and hope that my fans like what I have to say,”
Source: eastday.com
Hayley Williams On Cosmo Cover: ‘Sexy Is Whatever You Want It To Be’
James Montgomery
mtv
Hayley Williams can currently be seen on the cover of the May issue of Cosmopolitan magazine and, somewhat understandably, she’s excited (“really excited”) about that fact.
But rather than just let the photos speak for themselves, the Paramore singer has decided to talk about them — and her decision to do the cover shoot in the first place — in a new blog post on her band’s LiveJournal page.
“I wanna talk about the Cosmo cover. It’s a little more than a big deal to me,” she wrote. “To the general public, Cosmo is either a) a woman’s obsession, or b) a woman’s demise … Honestly, either of the two options equal out to be the same damn thing. It’s easy to let all the images of all these Godlike-looking women whisper to us how we think we’re supposed to look. It’s like, ‘Here, look at my boobs! Don’t you wish you had these?’
“And you know what? It’s never gonna change,” she continued. “As much as I tell myself I don’t care and I wear whatever I want, there will always be those moments when I’m at the checkout line at Target and I see some gorgeous person on the cover of any ol’ rag, and I’m like, ‘Ugh, is that how it’s gotta be?’ Only to realize that, next month, that girl on the cover is gonna be me.”
Williams then goes on to explain why she agreed to do the Cosmo cover, and how it fits into not only her role within Paramore, but her new outlook on life, as well.
“My #1 goal when the band began was to make myself invisible. Not only did I not want to be the focal point, I wanted to be unseen! And honestly, it never made a difference,” she wrote. “It never made people focus on me any less … so this time I’m taking a different approach. All three of us in Paramore have our own roles, and finally I will accept mine. I’m going to be okay with being a ‘powerful female.’ And if that’s what it is, I’m going to use that role to make a difference.
“Here’s my course of action,” she continued. “I will be myself. I will grow up. And I most definitely will find the time in my own life to be sexy if I feel like it. Who wrote the rules? Who said that a girl that lives in this same T-shirt and jeans nearly every day won’t wanna wear pumps and a short skirt tomorrow. And I’m hoping by seeing my crazy mug on a magazine cover, some girl who’s having a not-particularly-liberated day will think to herself that the May cover looks just a little different than the usual Cosmo cover and hopefully they can even be inspired. No, I don’t think I’m some kind of saving grace … but I do know that I never thought of myself as conventionally beautiful nor sexy. … I’m hoping that the more a magazine will take a chance on a girl like me, the more a girl will have a frickin’ chance in hell to be unique, powerful, strong in her weaknesses, confident in her flaws. Because that’s who I’m trying to become.”
She closed by telling her fans that “sexy is whatever you want it to be … it’s up to you,” and then backed up that assertion by poking fun at the rather unfortunate cover line (“75 Sex Moves Men Crave”) that accompanied her image.
“For the record, I really was hoping one of the headlines would be ’69 Ways to 69,’ but I guess it was a no go,” she wrote. “Honestly, I don’t think they could come up with that many.”
Source: mtv.com
Green Day Defeat Paramore In Musical March Madness Championship
James Montgomery
mtv
It’s all over but the shouting (and there’s still plenty of that): Green Day are the champions of MTV’s 2011 Musical March Madness tournament, knocking off an upset-minded Paramore in Monday’s title game to claim the crown.
In a contest that was waaay more thrilling — and higher scoring — than the actual NCAA basketball championship game, the guys in Green Day jumped out to an early lead, then held on for dear life as Hayley Williams and company staged a furious second-half comeback … one that, ultimately, fell short as polls closed at midnight. All in all, more than 120,000 votes were cast in the matchup, and Green Day ended up winning by fewer than 2,500. It was a nail-biter, a squeaker, and it came down to the wire. In other words, it was everything you could possibly want in a title game.
And, in Green Day, we have everything we could possibly want in a champion. After an ugly opening-round loss in last year’s MMM tournament, the pop-punk veterans committed themselves to redemption, and tipped off the 2011 competition by blasting Adam Lambert in round one. Focused, Green Day then took out their frustrations on fellow heavyweights U2 and Blink-182, before surviving scares from Panic! at the Disco in the Elite Eight and Disturbed in the Final Four. And now, having bested Paramore, they stand atop the MMM mountain … battle tested, redeemed and, ultimately, triumphant.
So congratulations to Billie Joe, Tré and Mike, who join last year’s champs, Coheed and Cambria, in the annals of Musical March Madness history. Your trophy is being engraved as you read this. And congrats are also in order for Paramore, who showed grit and determination on their road to the championship game — besting foes like My Chemical Romance, Tokio Hotel and Linkin Park — but just didn’t have enough left in the tank to take the title.
In fact, congratulations, and our sincere thanks, to all the fans and all the bands who took part in our Musical March Madness tournament. Your votes, comments, tweets and Facebook campaigns not only helped MMM shatter records, but genuinely impressed us, too. If there were a trophy to give all of you, we’d gladly pay to have it engraved.
So, that’s a wrap on the 2011 Musical March Madness tournament … it’s been quite a ride, filled with thrilling highs and crushing lows, shocking upsets and last-second heroics. And, after millions of votes, thousands of arguments, 63 matchups, six rounds and three weeks, it’s Green Day who reign supreme. And if your favorite band fell short, well, there’s always next year, right?
Source: mtv.com
Lady Gaga to get Glee tribute episode
Vicky Allison
splash news
US TV show Glee is going Gaga with an expanded 90-minute episode paying tribute to the pop superstar.
The hit musical-comedy will expand by a half-hour for the episode which pays tribute to the 25-year-old singer.
In the 90-minute episode, which is set to air on April 26, the New Directions high school glee club perform her current hit Born This Way and learn a lesson about self-acceptance.
source: monstersandcritics.com
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
Pregnant stars not afraid to bare bumps
Mom-to-be Mariah Carey strategically covers her, ahem, assets, with locks of honey-colored hair on the latest cover of Life & Style magazine, but it’s clear she’s following in the footsteps of some other famous women who showed the beauty of pregnancy in the buff on major magazine covers.
Source: usatoday.com
