Monthly Archives: May 2010

Guns ‘n’ Roses Storms Back To Relevance With ‘Chinese Democracy’

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First the bad news: Chinese Democracy is not the heavy metal sonic assault suggested by the early release of the title track. On the other hand, it very well may be the best album of the year.

After a rock band becomes a major success, they’re really in a ‘no win’ position. If they try to break new artistic ground, exploring different sounds or influences, they’ll invariably hear complaints that they were better the way they ‘used to be’. If they keep doing things the same way, a band risks losing any sort of artistic relevance and becoming a ‘nostalgia act’. KISS is a good example–a lot of purists hated it when they took off their makeup and became another 80′s ‘hair metal’ band, but they deserved respect for doing something different and trying to forge a new artistic path. On the other hand, there’s KISS now: Gene Simmons eventually made the calculated, slightly cynical decision that commerce trumped art. Hes now giving fans the best representation of KISS that their nostalgic desires long for”to the extent of dressing a new guitarist and drummer up like Ace Frehley and Peter Criss. Not exactly a high water mark in artistic creativity, but a highly lucrative enterprise that reportedly nets Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley a cool half million bucks per concert.

Axl Rose could have taken the same route with Guns n Roses. Patch things up with former lead guitarist Slash and they could have toured forever playing the old songs for nostalgic fans and made a ridiculous amount of money. To some extent, Slash has chosen this route with his band Velvet Revolver. They play similar blues based hard rock to vintage GnR, and brought in former Stone Temple Pilots vocalist Scott Weiland on vocals (who sounded almost just like Axl on a number of the early STP songs)

Axl refused to play the nostalgia game. Hes a very talented guy, but he doesnt have much of a knack for self promotion or media spin. While he worked on putting together a new version of the band and recording Chinese Democracy he let a variety of interests”not the least of which were his old bandmates”control the media spin. As a result, people had been brainwashed into thinking that the album was a stinker before it was even finished.

In many ways, its reminiscent of the Use Your Illusion releases in its depth and complexity. Many albums are fairly straightforward and are easy to figure out with a couple of listens”this song rocks, this is the power ballad, this song is filler and so forth. Others evolve and change with repeated listening”different songs become your favorites, you notice new things about ones you thought you knew well and most significantly songs that you glossed over the first time around start to grow on you.

On Chinese Democracy that’s definitely the case”the best example being the song Better. It doesn’t really impress on first listen, but quickly becomes a favorite. Axl claims that he doesn’t try to write hit singles and that’s probably the case, but in addition to being an impressive tour de force for Robin Finck on guitar it may be the catchiest pop song since The Killers first album.

One of the real triumphs of Chinese Democracy is the difficulty that a listener has in pigeonholing the songs. There’s definitely a lot of the piano based material first heard on the ‘Use Your Illusion’ releases but overall its evident that the band is breaking entirely new musical ground and even they don’t really know where they’ll end up. It’s very unpredictable and can be hard for a long time fan to wrap their head around, but once that happens its a very exciting sound.

Unfortunately, ‘Chinese Democracy’ is occasionally plagued by overproduction”biggest case in point Madagascar which the band has been playing live for the better part of this decade. The album version doesnt quite have the edge or raw emotion that was on display when played live. This really isn’t surprising for an album that has taken so long to make and has gone through a number of producers.

Still, that’s a very minor caveat about what is overall an amazing piece of work. Hopefully those who have bought in to all of the negative media hype can put their prejudices aside and give ‘Chinese Democracy’ about it. They’ll hear the powerful sound of a great band charting new musical frontiers which is what rock music is supposed to be about.

Ross Everett is a experienced freelance writer who covers travel, poker and sports handicapping. He is a consulting handicapper for Anatta Sports where he is responsible for providing daily free sports picks. In his spare time he enjoys fine dining, falconry and deep sea diving. He lives in Las Vegas with four dogs and a pet coyote.

Boy Bands In Music

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The Choirboys: The original line-up of the group was made of Patrick Aspbury (born 9 January 1993) of Chelmsford, Eskircke Francis Benedict “Ben” Inman (born 19 March 1993) from Yorkshire and Charles John “CJ” Porter-Thaw (born 11 December 1994) from Sheffield. Both Aspbury and Porter-Thaw were members of Ely Cathedral choir and Inman was a member of the Southwell Minster choir. In the Summer of 2005, they were selected from cathedral choristers around the UK for a recording contract with Universal Classics and Jazz, and released their self-titled first album in November of that same year. After an intensive promotional tour of TV and radio stations, they performed at several events, including the Southwell Minster St. Cecilia Concert, the Ely Cathedral May Day Concert and charity concerts in major London venues such as the Royal Albert Hall. Over time the boy’s voices chaged and they had to be replaced in order to keep the right sound. The first trio have since moved on and retired from being trebles at their respective cathedrals.

3Deep: a soul-pop music boy band composed of American actors Eddie Cibrian (Third Watch) and Joshua Morrow (Young and the Restless), and Canadian singer CJ Huyer. Their success was mostly limited to Canada, Europe and Asia. Their record label did not release their debut album in the United States. Their first album Yes yes yes…no no no was released in 1999 and featured their biggest hit, the soulful single “Into You”, a top-10 hit on the Canadian charts. Their second album Can’t Get Over You was released in 2001. Among the artists they collaborated with was Michie Mee on a track from their first album and with Howie Dorough on a track from their second.

98 Degrees: Taking a series of jobs including landscaping, working as club security officers, and delivering take-out food, the band continued to refine its harmonies and presentation, looking to groups such as Boyz II Men, Take 6, and Jodeci for inspiration. The new group also made the rounds of auditions in Los Angeles and gradually built up its contacts in the music industry. Fortunately, the group’s wait for a manager and a recording contract would not take long, as they seized an opportunity to perform during a radio broadcast of a Boys II Men concert, which they had attended in the hope of passing a demo tape to the band. Paris D’Jon, the manager of hip-hop singer Montell Jordan, heard the group during the broadcast and quickly arranged for 98 Degrees to open for Jordan on his tour. D’Jon also became the band’s manager, and they were signed to Motown Records by the time they finished the tour.

Blue: An English boy band, featuring four singers: Simon Webbe, Lee Ryan, Duncan James and Anthony Costa. The band has had success in both the United Kingdom and international arena, with about 15 million records sold world-wide. The group originally formed in 2001 before splitting in 2005. In April 2009, the group reunited and a Best of Blue Tour was announced.

Blackstreet: An American R and B group founded in 1991 by Thomas R. Taliaferro Jr. and Teddy Riley, the inventor of New Jack Swing known for his work as a member of Guy. Chauncey Hannibal and Levon Little were signed under contract with Thomas Taliaferro and were merged into what became Blackstreet with Joseph Stonestreet featuring Teddy Riley. The current members are, Teddy Riley, Chauncey Hannibal, Dave Hollister, Mark Middleton, and Eric Williams. The first original members of BLACKstreet were Teddy Riley, Chauncey Hannibal, Levi Little, and Joseph Stonestreet. The original lineup released their first single in 1993 on the soundtrack to the movie CB4 starring Chris Rock titled “Baby Be Mine” featuring Joseph Stonestreet on lead and produced by Teddy Riley and written by Teddy Riley and Joseph Stonestreet. Stonestreet however left the group shortly after the single was released due to personal differences with Riley and was replaced by Dave Hollister.

183 Club: 183 Club is a Taiwanese boyband managed by Jungiery. In other words, 183 Club is part of J-Star. Originally they were called “183 Yu Le Bu,” meaning “183 Entertainment Group,” but it was later decided that the name should be shortened to what it is now: 183 Club. The average height of the original five members combined together is roughly 183cm, hence the group name 183 Club. However, it is true that only one member is actually 183cm tall: Johnny Yan, the former leader of 183 Club.

Michie Morrow; a music lover and artist on his way. Michie has been able to put together his own music thanks to music maker software available online. And, you can do the same.

Boy Bands Now And Then

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NYC: A Japanese boy band formed by three members of NYC Boys (stylized NYC boys) in 2010. NYC Boys was formed on June 7, 2009, to promote the FIVB World Grand Prix 2009, an event that began on July 31 and ended on August 23, 2009. They performed the theme song “NYC” in Tokyo and Osaka before each game.

Take 5: Take 5 was one of the many groups whose formulation and promotion were due to the machinations of promoter Lou Pearlman, and all of the members had had prior experience in the entertainment industries. Member TJ Christofore had won Star Search in 1995 and had appeared on Broadway in Les Misrables. Stevie Schulthorpe was previously a model, commercial actor, and theater performer; brothers Ryan and Clay Goodell were both trained pianists and also had experience in commercials and theater. Tilky Jones had played drums in a ska punk group called User Friendly and Ryan Christopher who replaced Stevie Schulthorpe later on.

New Kids on the Block: An American boy band that enjoyed success in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a boy band which went on to sell 80 million records worldwide. Assembled in Boston in 1984 by producer Maurice Starr, the members consist of brothers Jordan and Jonathan Knight, Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg, and Danny Wood. They won two American Music Awards in 1990 for Favorite Pop/Rock Band, Duo, or Group and Favorite Pop/Rock Album. After having disbanded in 1994, several attempts were made to get the group back together, all of them unsuccessful. After secretly reuniting in 2007 and recording a new CD, the group released that new album and embarked on a concert tour in 2008. The album, entitled The Block was released on September 2, 2008.

Imajin: An American R and B boy band that is known for their hit “Shorty (You Keep Playing With My Mind)” featuring Keith Murray. The group also made a version of this song with (rapper) Mr. Cheeks of the rap group The Lost Boyz. This single peaked at number 25 on the Billboard Hot 100, number 20 on Billboard’s Hot R and B/Hip-Hop Songs chart and number 22 in the UK Singles Chart in 1998. The band was originally put together by record producer Bert Price and inspired by past boy bands such as Jackson 5, New Edition, Hi-Five, Immature, and Mint Condition.

Take That: A BRIT award-winning English pop band consisting of Gary Barlow, Mark Owen, Howard Donald, and Jason Orange. Barlow acts as the group’s main songwriter. Each member primarily performs vocals, though each has some instrumental/songwriting capability. In the early to mid 1990s, the band achieved major success as a five person boyband act with Robbie Williams. The current lineup reformed without Williams in 2005 and achieved new success as a four-piece man version of the band. Formed in Manchester in 1990, Take That sold more than 25 million records between 1991-96.

The Moffatts: A Canadian pop/rock band, composed of brothers Scott, Clint, Bob and Dave Moffatt. Eldest brother Scott was born on March 30, 1983 in Whitehorse, Yukon. Less than a year later, on March 8, 1984, triplets Bob, Clint and Dave were born in Vancouver, British Columbia. Although born on the same date, Bob and Clint are identical twins while Dave is a fraternal triplet.

Michie Morrow; a music lover and artist on his way. Michie has been able to put together his own music thanks to music maker software available online. And, you can do the same.

Worldwide Boy Bands

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Big Four: A Cantopop musical group formed by Andy Hui, Dicky Cheung, William So, and Edmond Leung. They released their first self-titled single in 2009; the song topped most of Hong Kong’s music charts. Their next single, “Unable to Help” in 2010, which also topped charts and received consistent airplay for many weeks. Big Four held their first concert, The Big Four Concert, for five days in the Hong Kong Coliseum from March 11 to 15.

F4: A popular Taiwanese boy band. The group began in the Taiwanese drama Meteor Garden as F4 with members Jerry Yan, Vanness Wu, Ken Chu, and Vic Chou. They have also attained popularity in other part of Asia, such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and in the Philippines. They also became popular in Europe and the U.S as the hottest and most successful Asian boy band in history.

Dry: A Cantopop music duo that formed between 1997 and 1998 with Mark Lui and Stephen Fung as bandmates. The group was formed when Mark decided to create a band with himself and another person. After meeting Stephen through friends introductions, they agreed to start a music duo with Universal Music. A year after they formed, they decided to part ways to pursue different career paths. Mark continued as songwriter to many cantopop artists such as Leon Lai and Miriam Yeung. While Stephen started his career in acting and later shift toward to directing and producing Hong Kong films such as Enter the Phoenix.

Caught in the Act: Their first hit was in 1995, Love is Everywhere, which reached number 8 in Switzerland. Not enormously successful in the Netherlands, the band were extremely popular in Germany where they appeared on the soap opera Gute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten. They also had successes in Scandinavia, Australia, South Africa, Japan and South-East Asia.

East 17: An English pop boy band formed in 1992. The group have achieved eighteen Top 20 singles and four Top 10 albums, and were one of the UK’s most popular boy bands during the early to mid-1990s. They occasionally blended rap and pop in songs such as “House of Love”, “Steam” and “Let It Rain”, attaining popularity as a result of the group’s songwriter Tony Mortimer and lead vocalist Brian Harvey.

Eastyle: A Taiwanese Boy Band that does street dancing, Hip hop and R&B. They were first heard on the radio with the song ‘You are My Most Loved Person’, which was written by the composer – Yong Bang, but was sung a cappella. They were first in a group called Beggars with other friends that all had a passion for street dancing. After stopping for about a year, they came up with a new name for their group consisting of 4 members – Eastyle.

Michie Morrow is not only a music lover, he is also a self an artist. Thanks to music maker software available online, Michie has been able to create music to call his own and invites you to do the same.

TV Series Character : Benjamin Linus From Lost

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Benjamin Linus is the villain that we love to hate.  Brilliantly played by actor Michael Emerson, who won an Emmy for the role, Ben, with his bulging eyes and murderous ways, seems – or at least seemed, at first – like the embodiment of pure evil.

But is he truly evil?  As I write this, during the hiatus between Season 5 and the final Season 6, we don’t yet know all that we will know about Ben in the end.  But we have seen some things, especially in Season 5, that raise doubts about whether Ben is as one-dimensionally evil as he seemed when he first appeared on the scene.  Here are some aspects of Ben’s character that raise questions about what he is really like:

* Ben is involved in some sort of an epic struggle against his arch-enemy Charles Widmore.  If it turns out that it’s Widmore who is really the evil one, then Ben’s actions might seem justified, or at least more understandable, in retrospect.

* In Season 5, we saw Ben rescue Alex, Rousseau’s child.  He didn’t have to do that, and in fact it was a risky thing for him to do.  Does Ben have a soft spot for children?  And how does that tie in with the larger question of the survival of children on the island?

* Ben, like most of the characters on the show, has his own daddy issues.  Even among the parade of bad fathers on the show, Ben’s father sticks out as being particularly horrid, possibly coming in second only after Locke’s father on the awfulness scale.  Seeing what Little Ben had to live through does make him a more sympathetic character.

* In the early seasons of the show, Ben appeared all-powerful.  But by Season 5, his power had diminished, being eclipsed by that of Locke (or, rather, notLocke).

* In the Season 5 finale, Ben’s daddy issues came to the fore when he killed Jacob, apparently enraged that Jacob had not been the good father-figure Ben had been seeking.  This was another side of Ben that we hadn’t seen before.  Whether, in the end, killing Jacob was an act of good or an act of evil – or even whether Jacob is *really* dead – remains to be seen.

Michael Emerson has said in interviews that he likes to play up the ambiguity of his character, and he refuses to give simple yes-or-no answers to questions about whether Ben is truly evil.  Combine that nuanced acting with the subtlety of the scripts – in Lost, characters are often not who they seem to be at first – and what we have is a character who is going to keep us guessing until the end.

TV Series Character : Michael Dawson, from Lost

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Michael Dawson is a passionate and likable character from the hit ABC television show lost. He has an undying dedication to his son, Walt, and is determined to escape the island, with his son, alive. If you are unfamiliar with the ABC television show Lost, it takes place on an uncharted island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. An Oceanic airplane flying from Sydney, Australia to Los Angeles, United States, hit sudden turbulence and was sent plummeting onto an island. The survivors of the crash were filled with confusion. They had no idea where they were, both of the pilots of the plane were dead from the collision, and they had no way of communicating with the outside world. The only people that they had were each other. To add to the peril of the situation, the castaways learn that the island is filled with a great amount of mystery. Led by Jack Shephard, a doctor from the United States, they agree that the only way that they will be able to survive is if they survive as a group, because they will not be able to survive alone.

One of the prime reasons that Lost is such a hit is because of the wide range of unique characters. Michael Dawson is no exception. It seems like almost every character on the island has had a troubling past, but are determined to turn their lives around. Each episode generally follows the lives of the castaways on the island, and it also frequently cuts to flashbacks of the character’s pasts. With each flashback, you learn more about each character, and you are able to piece together the plot. Michael is one of the featured characters in the first couple seasons, and he is very determined to escape the island with his son.

Overall, Michael Dawson is a very likable and interesting character from Lost. He is determined to escape the island with his son, and will stop at nothing to do it. Although he had a tough past, he desires to change his life around. He also knows that he needs to become closer to his son, Walt, and views what happened on the island as a blessing instead of a curse. Each character has their own views about the island. Some are pessimistic, some optimistic, some believe it is fate, and others are just along for the ride. Michael focuses on only one thing: escaping the island with his son. In all, Michael Dawson is a determined and passionate character from Lost, with a dedication to his sun and a drive to escape the island.