Sunday, December 30, 2007
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Eric Clapton
Performers: Jeff Beck, Doyle Bramhall II, Eric Clapton, Sheryl Crow, Robert Cray, Vince Gill, Buddy Guy, BB King, Sonny Landreth, Albert Lee, Los Lobos, John Mayer, John McLaughlin, Willie Nelson, Robert Randolph and the Family Band, Robbie Robertson, Hubert Sumlin, The Derek Trucks Band, Jimmie Vaughan, Johnny Winter, Steve Winwood, Bill Murray
Studio: Rhino DVD R2 352124
Video: 4:3 full screen color
Audio: DTS 5.1, PCM stereo
Extras: Crossroads Village Stage - edited performances of various artists
Length: DVD 1: 2 hrs. 16 min.; DVD 2: 2 hrs. 12 min.
Rating: *****
http://www.audaud.com/article.php?ArticleID=3617
Friday, December 21, 2007
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Living on the edge -- and living to tell
Eric Clapton's book, which he wrote himself, has sold more than a half-million copies.
There are fresh sounds from Eric Clapton, Sting, Genesis, Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones, Velvet Revolver guitarist Slash and Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx.
There's just one twist: None are on CD racks.
All are on bookshelves -- part of an unusual flurry of autobiographies out this winter by aging rockers with some hair-raising stories.
Clapton's self-titled autobiography is already a hit, having sold 525,000 copies. Joining him on best-seller lists is "Slash," "Ronnie" and Sixx's "The Heroin Diaries."
Why would rockers -- those near-mythical gods of sex, drugs and general excess -- turn to that most stodgy of storytelling modes, the written word?
"I think there are a couple of motivations: One, they've lived their lives and it's time to look back on them -- the lived life is worth examining," says Broadway Books Executive Editor Charlie Conrad, who worked on Clapton's book.
"And also, from the standpoint of the public, rock figures are out there on the cutting edge -- the knife edge. They live life to its extreme. And if they survived, they have a good story to tell."
Those stories include tales of love, loss and friendship, but also nasty bouts with venereal diseases, scary strippers and mountains of controlled substances.
Clapton, who pushed aside a ghost writer in favor of penning his own book, discusses the death of his son Conor, his various addictions, and his love triangle with Pattie Boyd and George Harrison, a topic already broached in Boyd's recent tell-all "Wonderful Tonight."
Wood, who offers his own night bedding Boyd, also delves into his years freebasing cocaine and the time he had an armed face-off with Keith Richards, with both pointing guns at each other.
The original lineup of Genesis -- including Peter Gabriel -- collaborated for the first time in over 20 years for "Genesis: Chapter and Verse," which offers polite first-person account and photos.
Sixx's diary is a tad darker -- an unvarnished look at his life on the road in 1987, when he struggled with addictions and depression. There's the time he woke up during an earthquake and ran outside, naked and clutching a crack pipe. In another entry, he writes: "This morning I woke up with my shotgun in bed with me."
Not to be outdone, Slash, a founding member of Guns N' Roses who makes several wicked cameos in Sixx's book, has his own accounts of debauchery, delivered in a straightforward, often amusing way.
He tells of one night being kicked out of a Canadian hotel, drunk and soaked in his own urine. But to his surprise, he's not as frozen as he feared: "That's a wonderful side effect of leather pants: when you pee yourself in them, they're more forgiving than jeans," he writes.
Publishers say the warts-and-all profiles that emerge from these books are crucial for their success. In an Internet-fed and reality-TV soaked world, book buyers already consider themselves insiders, and successful authors can't just phone it in.
"I'm sure they're not telling every single crevice of their darkest soul, but they are giving you some real stuff. I think that's a real difference," says Elizabeth Beier, executive editor of St. Martin's Press, which published the Wood and Genesis books.
For the less squeamish reader, there's always "Mosaic: Pieces of My Life So Far" by Amy Grant, which includes the singer's lyrics, poetry and vignettes -- all of a decidedly uplifting variety.
And Sting has published a book of his lyrics, complete with his more highbrow observations. Of the song "Synchronicity II," he writes: "I was trying to dramatize Jung's theory of meaningful coincidence."
Publishers say the current crop of rock tell-alls owes much to the success of Bob Dylan's 2004 autobiography "Chronicles: Volume One," which sold 425,000 hardcover copies.
"The Dylan book coming out and being so well received kind of showed people, 'Your regular recording and performing career doesn't have to be over for you to do your memoir. You don't have to wait until the whole story is utterly completed and you're in your dotage,' " says Beier.
"We're just starting to see the first fruit of that and there are some more coming. It's just a category that seems to be very interesting."
Barnes & Noble Inc. buyer Kim Corradini is seeing better-than-projected sales of rock books. The chain plans special displays for Christmas and has placed larger-than-usual orders.
"So far, all of the music biographies, autobiographies and memoirs are selling even better than expected," she told The Associated Press in an e-mail interview. "Unlike two years ago when all of the big releases were on the Beatles, this year we have a diverse selection of books on very popular artists from various musical eras."
Lisa Gallagher, publisher of William Morrow and HarperEntertainment, says she was impressed by the multigenerational audience at a recent Slash book signing on Long Island. Sales for his book have exceeded the 100,000-copy mark.
"At the signings, when you're looking at the line, it is both people who you could imagine bought 'Appetite for Destruction' back in the day and it's also younger people as well," she says. "I think this is a very broad audience."
Books mining the seamier side of rock are nothing new, of course. Notable titles include Anthony Kiedis' "Scar Tissue"; "Hammer of the Gods," about Led Zeppelin; "No One Here Gets Out Alive" on The Doors; and Motley Crue's "The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band."
What seems new now is a renewed push for autobiography, publishers say. They point to the overall strong demand for memoirs as a reason more musicians are putting down their instruments and picking up pens. They also note a slip in overall album sales.
"You have to wonder if they're looking to books as a kind of exciting medium as the traditional record medium kind of goes to hell," Conrad says. "Maybe they're suddenly noticing there's business to be done and advances to be paid."
Sixx has taken that one step further. His book came out the same time his new band, Sixx: A.M., released a sort of soundtrack to the memoir, with each song tied to a book chapter. Some 200,000 copies of the book have been sold.
"The cross-promotion there just really worked well. We've benefited from the success of the CD and they've benefited from the success of our book," says Anthony Ziccardi, vice president and deputy publisher of Pocket Books, which put out the Sixx book.
"We're definitely talking to a number of people about doing something similar or just telling their story for the first time. I think there's definitely a renewed interest in that."
Other rock books available this winter include a biography on Gram Parsons by David N. Meyer, and an upcoming unauthorized bio of Guns N' Roses front man Axl Rose, by Mick Wall.
The next big rock autobiographies on the horizon? One by Pete Townshend, and one by another Rolling Stone -- Keith Richards, who was reportedly paid more than $7 million by Little, Brown & Company for his drug-fueled memories.
That may be a risky prospect. Conrad recalls band mate Mick Jagger also being under contract to write his autobiography many years ago, only for him to back out.
"There's a great story about how he was signed up for all this money and then he just couldn't remember anything," says Conrad. "And if he can't remember, what about Keith? Let's just hope his collaborator can do a lot of interviews."Source:
CNN.com
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Rockers Led Zeppelin back rockin'
VIDEO LEGENDARY band Led Zeppelin have taken to the stage in London for their first performance in nearly 20 years.Source:
Herald Sun
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Alicia Keys
Just Asking: Alicia Keys December 1, 2007; Page W2
With the release of her third studio album, "As I Am," singer and songwriter Alicia Keys got an early Christmas present. The album went to No. 1 on the Billboard charts and sold 742,000 copies in its first week, the second-biggest first-week sales of 2007 so far (behind Kanye West) -- and a career high for Ms. Keys. From the emotional lead single "No One" to anthems like "Superwoman," the album features carefully crafted pop songs embedded with vintage touches, such as keyboard sounds reminiscent of Stevie Wonder. We asked Ms. Keys, 27, about her influences, her fans and the music industry.
Your album sold more than 700,000 copies in a week, a rare feat these days. Did that figure surprise you at all?I'm still bugging about it. But I could definitely feel the energy behind the album. The people around me -- the managers, the label people -- they all talk about possible numbers, but I never do that. It's something you can never quite bank on.
You recently turned up to support the Hollywood writers on strike by performing on the picket line. Why?
I think it's really important to stand up for what's right ... And, as a writer, I thought it was the right thing to do.
But by disrupting the TV schedule, hasn't the strike put a dent in your plans to promote your new album?
We had to cancel a lot of shows actually, but it's cool. Some days I was done by 2 p.m. It was the most amazing week for me.What kind of music were you listening to when you wrote and recorded "As I Am"?
A lot of different styles. Marvin Gaye. Nina Simone had me a lot on this album. A lot of Jimi Hendrix in the beginning. [Hendrix's album] "Band of Gypsies" just started talking to me. There's a real intensity to it. I was running a lot and it really gave me the aggression I needed. And Janis Joplin. There's a version of her doing "Summertime." If you haven't heard it, go online and get it now.
Do you have an especially strong music memory from your childhood, a moment or a phase you went through that stamped your sound?
I think there's something about studying classical music that really contributed to the sound that I have today. A song like "Fallin' " with that 3/4 time. That's all that Bach and Beethoven. I never thought of it before I got on the road. So much of my playing came from the way that I studied, the way it was about practice and fingering and dexterity.
What's the most personal song on the album?
"Tell You Something," for sure. That represents something that I dealt with upon the whole creation of the album. It's dedicated to my grandmother, who I lost this year. She showed me so much and the process that I went through showed me even more.
WSJ: If you could change something about the music business or your place in it, what would it be?
I definitely wouldn't change my place in it. With the right mentality I can influence it in a positive way. But from the business side of it, people are real tired of being jerked around. This is the result of people being way too greedy and that's had an impact on the quality of the music coming out. If you're a dealer and you sell people a bad car, they're not going to come back to you for a car. And that should be the mentality for any business.
WSJ: You worked with a lot of people on this album, from songwriters to musicians like John Mayer. What's your strategy when it comes to collaborations, especially with someone you don't know?
With this record I just decided to give it a shot. If I didn't know them very well, there was some reason why I wanted to get them. First we talk on the phone and then we get together. Usually you have three days, but I only let the person know about two. If the second day goes great, then I've got the third. But if not, then I am out of there. It was incredible working with everyone on the album. People like [songwriter and producer] Linda Perry -- the way we just sat down, both at pianos, and played through chord ideas. The first time we met we wrote "The Thing About Love," and it just got better from there
WSJ: How did you draw on other musical influences in the studio?
It creeps in in ways you don't realize until later. In "Superwoman," those chords progressions are a little Beatles-ish. It was great experimenting with different sounds, like using the Mellotron [keyboard]. That was a hell of a lot of fun. And harpsichord. I might do that again. That's why the Beatles were so fly -- they were so experimental.
WSJ: Who do you think of when you picture your fans? Are they maturing with you?
The only reason I really know this is that on tour, it really shows you who comes to the shows. I've been awestruck that when I look out in the audience there are literally 4-year-olds on their dads' shoulders. There are lovers and teenagers and grandmothers. The spectrum of who is there will blow your mind. Interestingly enough, the people who are growing up with me, my age group and younger, I know that we're all trying to find out where we're going. I think about the variety of things we shift through to find a place of truth. Everything's so surface, and I think that's affecting us.
WSJ: Is being a 27-year-old in show-business all that different from being a typical 27-year-old?
I have no idea, but I think that there's a decent amount of speedy knowledge that you need to get to survive, to not fall in the damn traps that are set for you. Like being a drug addict and an anti-depressant taker and a person who gets lost in the bubble of all this. It gives you a crash course in everything. In that way you definitely mature quicker. But on the other side, how you deal with it depends on who you are as a person. I've been fortunate to have a handful of incredible people in my world who have an open ear. My mother is an example of that. She showed me how to be a woman and what that means. She's a person who is always honest. Brutally honest at times.
WSJ: How much time will you spend touring with this album?
I've been saying to the people around me, 'We're not going to be on the road as long this time, right?' And they just laugh. When you go on the road, it's going to be the next three years. I'm one body trying to get all over the world. It's very, very hard, but it's also fun and incredible to be somewhere like Kuala Lumpur. This time, I really want to make sure I'm implementing different processes because it really took it out of me last time. This time I want build in a lot of rejuvenation vacations.
Write to John Jurgensen at john.jurgensen@wsj.com
Source:The highest sells of all is Jimi Hendrix memorabilia
A copy of Hendrix's "Axis: Bold as Love" album from 1968 — inscribed "Thanks for everything" and accompanied by three color photos of the rock star — sold for double its pre-sale estimate of $10,000. Three cardboard posters for Hendrix concerts in 1968 and 1969 fetched $10,625, $16,250 and $18,750.
The limited edition, long-sleeved sweater designed to promote the Stones' 1973 "Goat's Head Soup" album sold for $4,750. Only about a dozen of them were produced.
Of the T-shirts, a Yardbirds shirt worn by rock journalist Greg Shaw to the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival brought $3,000 while a maroon Led Zeppelin 1973 shirt fetched $1,625.
A short-sleeved white shirt with green sleeves with the words "War is over! If you want it" from the John Lennon song "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)," sold for $1,875, just below its $2,000 estimate.
The auction house said all the T-shirts were bought by U.S. private collectors except for the John Lennon one, which was acquired by an institution it wouldn't name.
The prices included the buyer's premium.
Source: