Se press Release hd steve Kilbey (The Church) New Zealand tour July 07
Download 1.73 Mb.
|
| But please, please, please don't expect him to get sentimental about his work. ``There was a press release for a show I'm doing at the George and it said `Stephen Cummings is celebrating 21 years as a recording artist'. So I rang the guy up who wrote the release and I said `Look, no offence, I know you're doing a good job and everything but I'm not celebrating anything. It's just another year, it doesn't mean anything, there's nothing to celebrate.' It must be the spirit of John Farnham spreading.''
AN
HD THE CHURCH "Hologram of Baal" Thirsty Ear BY Mark Jenkins WC 228 words PD 9 October 1998 SN The Washington Post SC WP
ED FINAL PG N13
LA English CY Copyright 1998, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved LP The way Peter Koppes's and Marty Willson-Piper's guitars jangled through the '80s, the Church was easily mistaken for a power-pop band, especially during its more upbeat numbers. With their references to dead gods, lost empires and starry voids, however, singer-bassist Steve Kilbey's lyrics were always a little too cosmic for the genre. The Australian quartet has been inconspicuous in recent years -- the group's current tour is its first U.S. jaunt in eight years -- but the new "Hologram of Baal" may well prove the Church timely again. TD Guitars still dominate the band's sound, but such songs as "Anaesthesia" and "Tranquility" incorporate static, electric drones and ambient noise into the mix. Add pensive melodies and slow-glide tempos, and the result sounds like "Eight Miles High" for the electronica generation. "Baal" picks up speed twice, during "No Certainty Attached" and "Another Earth," but most of the songs drift gently. With this disc, the band best known in the United States for "Under the Milky Way" has contrived its own style of space-rock. Appearing Saturday at the 9:30 club with Symposium. To hear a free Sound Bite from the Church, call Post-Haste at 202/334-9000 and press 8123. (Prince William residents, call 690-4110.) CT
http://www.washingtonpost.com IPD Review Music & Concerts AN Document wp00000020010919dua9016cd SE Applause HD INCREASING THE Volumes BY Larry Schwartz WC 1118 words PD 6 December 1998 SN Sunday Age SC SAGE
PG 13 LA English CY (c) 1998 of John Fairfax Group Pty. Ltd. LP
Stephen Cummings's vivid, sometimes melancholic songs, often about faltering romance, move some to wax lyrical when describing his talent. He has a fervent following, ranked among such fine musicians as Paul Kelly or Michael Thomas. The acoustic edge to much of his music, often backed by the adept playing of guitarist Shane O'Mara, may invite comparison with players in a folksier tradition - but Cummings sees himself as a soul singer who's work evokes "something out of reach or the longing for some state ..." "If I'm in the right mood, I can be quite an engaging performer," he says. "I can talk and do various spiels. Be amusing. But when it comes down to it, it's just too tiring to do that. I think I am a soul singer." TD
We'd arranged to meet at a first-floor restaurant in Swanston Walk. He is waiting when I arrive, a silver-haired 44-year-old with a stubby of beer. Though famously good-looking, he has a hesitancy about him, as if not quite certain of himself. It has been a busy year for Cummings. His second son in 13 years was born six months ago and he has been working on his second novel in as many years. Mostly he has lain low, out of the public eye, involved with his literary and musical endeavors. "I've hardly played," says the singer-songwriter who has emerged for a few shows this month at an inner-suburban hotel. "So I just wanted to start playing again and getting familiar with doing it and trying some of the songs out." He was reunited recently with his old band, the Sports, for Mushroom's 25th anniversary concert at the the MCG. "I was doing it more for the others," he says. "It was a matter of us getting together at the last minute. We had hardly seen each other in 15 years." With guitarist Martin Armiger unable to play after breaking a leg, any curiosity that Cummings might have had about performing with the Sports again was satisfied at rehearsals. Did the event live up to the publicity? "Going to the MCG was the excitement," he says. "The rest of it was very disappointing." Formed of members of the old Pelaco Brothers in 1976, the Sports had late-'70s and early-'80s hits with albums (Don't Throw Stones, Suddenly and Sondra) and singles including When You Walk In the Room, Who Listens To The Radio and Strangers On A Train. Cummings achieved most success as a soloist. After the release of his late '80s album, Lovetown, Australian Rolling Stone voted him best male singer of 1988. But the broad appeal that might have seemed inevitable has eluded him in the past decade. His most commercial move may well prove to be the advertising jingle he once did for Medibank Private. "My girlfriend always says, 'Why don't you write a sporting song or something like that?' A thing that touches a whole lot of people," he says. "But I just can't do that kind of thing. It has to come naturally." Still, he is largely contented with his lot. "l'm sort of happy where I'm at," he says. "But I could be doing it better. I'd like it to sell one more level of record which would mean that instead of playing the Commercial or the Continental I could probably play the National Theatre. But I wouldn't like it any bigger than that because the music that I do doesn't function above those sizes." Polydor last year released a best-of compilation; Cummings has since switched labels and the new album, Wishing Machine, is due from Festival in February. Steve Kilbey, of the Church, produced his last two records, but Cummings has reverted to taking this role himself. O'Mara and Jeff Burstin, with whom he's playing live gigs this month, are on guitar. Rebecca Barnard is among the backing vocalists. Others involved include Bruce Haymes and David Bridie on keyboards. Music is still Cummings's "main thing" although he has been preoccupied with another kind of writing in recent years. "It's not a very good second job because its really badly paid," he says of novel-writing. "It's a bit of a bad career choice." The fiction reveals more of the man than the songwriting does. "The books are more me," he says. "I think with the music sometimes I paint myself into a corner that I'm kind of a world-weary old guy. Actually I'm not like that at all. It's not really me. So the books I look at as more a reflection of me." The loosely autobiographical Wonder Boy was published in 1996. It enjoyed an encouraging response from critics and healthy sales. His next, Stay Away From Lightning Girl, he describes as being in "a light, humorous vein". "It's based loosely around the music business," he says, outlining a plot that involves a Melbourne songwriter who settles in Vancouver, Canada, but returns after his mother has a heart attack. Determined to stay away from the music industry, he meets up with a young woman Cummings refers to as Lightning Girl and "gets sucked back into music". "I decided to write the book when I was at a friend's house," he says. "My friend was talking about her sister. She was angry at her sister, saying, 'She's so lucky. She should be in the Guinness Book Of Records. She's been hit by lightning three times and nothing's ever happened to her.'" He's seen enough of the literary world to appreciate the kind of camaraderie enjoyed by musicians who frequently work together in more than one band and appreciate each other's precarious existence. "The book business is a lot nastier," he says. "There's more people going for a smaller pie and so they're more piranha-like and nasty. I was quite surprised at that." Now that another book has been written, he looks forward to the music again. "I've been doing this for 20 years," he says, "and being able to keep doing it is a victory of sorts over inertia or despair or anything like that. If you keep doing it, you come back to the reasons you started in the first place. You go back to doing it because it's something mysterious and you love it and you get something from it. When it works it's really good." Stephen Cummings performs at the Commercial Hotel, Yarraville, on 12 and 19 December. AN
Document sage000020010920duc600372 SE ENTERTAINMENT HD Church preaches to the converted BY By Ben Rayner TORONTO STAR WC 758 words PD 1 October 1998 SN The Toronto Star SC TOR
ED MET PG K2
LA English CY Copyright (c) 1998 The Toronto Star LP The Church's congregation has always been faithful, even if it never amassed the numbers necessary to mount a full-blown crusade. Nearly 20 years into a run that's always existed on mass culture's periphery, though, the Australian-born guitar band is content with its small corner of the rock universe. TD
"It's like Nick Cave, isn't it, or Julian Cope," remarks guitarist Marty Willson-Piper, on the phone from a hotel room in Portland, Ore. "We've sort of got a cult following, and the reason we're still together and that people still follow us is we make good music. "The reason there isn't 20,000 people at every gig is we're not a hit-making band. Being a hit-maker has absolutely nothing to do with how you sustain your career. You sustain your career because you love making music." Since forming in Sydney in late 1980, The Church has weathered the rise and fall of numerous musical movements, the departures of several drummers (and, briefly, founding guitarist Peter Koppes) and ill-fated dealings with a succession of record labels. But all the while the band has stuck to variations on the hazy twin-guitar sound it espoused since the beginning. The Church hit commercial paydirt in 1988 with its sixth album, Starfish (home of the hit single, "Under The Milky Way"). But that brush with platinum proved fleeting. Four successive records found The Church dipping ever further back to cult status, even as other acts dealing in similarly droning, dreamy sound rose to prominence during the late '80s and early '90s explosion of "shoegazer" bands. Still, says Willson-Piper, though it's never made The Church a household name, the band's allegiance to its artistic impulses is what allowed it to keep going so long. "People told us it was all over when New Romantic came in, when Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet started having hits," he says. "Then they told us it was all over when grunge came in, and when rap and dance came in. And it was all over when Brit-pop came in. It's always been all over for us . . . . "You've got to be able to make music that doesn't fit in anywhere if you want to be in it for the long run. As soon as you start making music that fits in, it's going to fit out before you blink." True to form, The Church's solid new album, Hologram Of Baal, makes no concessions to fashion - although it does stand a better chance of being heard on these shores than their last, 1996's independently released Magician Among The Spirits, which was left high and dry when its American distributor went bankrupt. Hologram harks back to "classic" Church territory, as it marks the official return of Koppes to the fold after five years away. "I was always able to play the guitars and do things without him, but I can't be him," says Willson-Piper of his prodigal bandmate. "And that thing that he gives to the band has to be him. I can never try to do what he does. I can make a record and play the other guitar track, but I can't be him." With a new drummer in Tim Powles and the signature two-guitar sound intact once more, The Church has hit the road for its first genuine North American tour in eight years (Willson-Piper and singer/bassist Steve Kilbey did a brief acoustic tour as a duo in 1995). The band arrives at The Guvernment (132 Queen's Quay E.) Monday night. No longer receiving tour support from a major record label, The Church is counting on its flock to turn out at tour dates, says Willson-Piper. Otherwise, it could be another eight years before there's a repeat visit. "People say 'Where've you been?' or 'Are you back together?' " he says. "Well, we never split up, we never went away. That's what people have to understand: When you're a band like us, you can't sit in your house and wait for us to come to you. We're not that kind of group. "What do you think we are, Madonna? We don't have $80 million and a marketing machine and the most well-known singer in the world. We can't come to you. You have to come to us." IPD
Pop Notes music AN Document tor0000020011206dua1013al CLM ALBUM REVIEWS | ALTERNATIVE SE ENTERTAINMENT HD ALBUM REVIEWS | ALTERNATIVE BY JAMES HEBERT WC 186 words PD 24 September 1998 SN The San Diego Union-Tribune SC SDU ED 1,2,3,5,6,7,8 PG NIGHT & DAY-26 LA English CY (c) 1998 San Diego Union Tribune Publishing Company. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All Rights Reserved. LP
HOLOGRAM OF BAAL THE CHURCH Thirsty Ear * * * TD
As a band that's been in the grips of a nearly 10-year swoon, the Church knows the meaning of the big sleep. So it's fitting that a song called "Anesthesia" opens what is the group's strongest album since 1988's breakthrough "Starfish." It's a disc without obvious hits; there's nothing here quite so accessible as "Under the Milky Way," the song that (briefly) made the Church famous 10 years ago. But get beyond the pretentious title, and "Hologram" is a compelling, atmospheric work that gathers the listener in its graceful embrace. Far more focused than 1994's "Sometime Anywhere," and more consistently listenable than 1992's "Priest=Aura," the album hits dreamy high notes with "Tranquility" and the beautiful "Glow-Worm," a song that's the very definition of "shimmering." Singer-bassist Steve Kilbey's still-elliptical lyrics complement the songs' dense textures, while the guitars of Marty Willson-Piper and the recently returned Peter Koppes trade intricate riffs over Tim Powles' understated drumming. NS
gent : Arts/Entertainment | gmusic : Music | nrvw : Review | gcat : Political/General News | ncat : Content Types | nfact : Factiva Filters | nfce : FC&E Exclusion Filter RE usca : United States - California | namz : North American Countries/Regions | usa : United States | usw : Western U.S. IPD REVIEW ARTS/ENTERTAINMENT/THEATER The Church, Hologram of Baal PUB Union-Tribune Publishing Company AN Document SDU0000020070616du9o005wg HD SPINS FROM THE SOUNDTRACK BY By - Michael Crawford. WC 560 words PD 13 August 1998 SN Daily Telegraph SC DAITEL PG 54
LA English CY (c) 1998 Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd LP FOLLOW THE LEADER Korn (Sony) TD Korn are back with more beanies, tattoos and profanity than Life Is Peachy. The ear-splitting bass, staccato percussion and meaty riffs that gave them pop hardcore credibility is still present, but this time some songs sound too contrived and too slick. That*s direction for you. Some tracks are off-key and disjointed, slow and laced with machismo, just as you'd expect. Others are more studio slick with the boogie side of Korn shining through on moments like Got The Life. Ice Cube guests and shows his dark side on Children Of The Korn while Tre from Pharcyde lends his rhymes on Cameltosis. Lyrically, Follow The Leader sees Korn take a slice out of Middle America by using subjects such as incest, macho posturing (theirs and others), Hanson, personal angst and sex, sex and more sex to colour the canvas. Rating: 7/10 THE SOUND OF GRAN TURISMO Various Artists (EMI) Is this the end of the world? Nearly. A soundtrack based on a TV game. Music marketing reaches a new peak. Anyone who's been bitten by the Gran Turismo bug will be more than familiar with the game's two highlight tracks, Garbage's As Heaven Is Wide and Ash's Lose Control. How many times have you heard Shirley Manson*s voice softly purring away as you lose the backend of your '67 Corvette around Deep Forest? Claiming to be 'the ultimate driving album', there's little rhyme or reason to the rest of the songlist which fills out this disc. It seems so random. Old Bowie (Scary Monsters) next to new Dandy Warhols (Last Junkie), Supergrass followed by Bentley Rhythm Ace. Great game, pity the record is nowhere near as imaginative. Rating: 6/10 COUNTER CLOCKWISE Autohaze (Summershine/MDS) Out Brit-popping the Brits, Melbourne's Autohaze could stake a fair claim to being this country's most under-appreciated rockers. As their debut Magneto already proved back in 1995, head 'Haze man Tim Jackson has the ability to pen perfect guitar pop tunes at a whim. Big harmonies, big choruses and clean fuzz guitar define their purpose. As with their former labelmates the Earthmen, there's always an uncomfortable undercurrent to Jackson's pretty prose. But if you can find anything more uplifting than the chorus to Please Don't Ask Me, bottle it and flog it as a cure to all ills. Rating: 8/10 TASTE Margot Smith (Immersion/Phantom) From the opening few moments of the opener Hope, the effortless beauty of Margot Smith's music and voice becomes overwhelming, other-worldly. Surrounded by what is essentially the Church in no-name mode (Steve Kilbey has co-writing credits on ten tracks and Peter Koppes' weightless guitar is unmistakable), Smith's tream-of-consciousness whispering and controlled wailing has her occasionally reminding you of Kate Bush, sometimes Shirley Manson, sometimes - naturally - like the Church with a female vocalist (not that that's a bad thing to these ears). What makes this recording all the more extraordinary is that everything was apparently composed as the tape was rolling, lyrics included. That's a bit hard to believe - it just all seems so whole, so consciously designed for maximum beauty and atmosphere. Rating: 8/10. (c) Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd, 1998. NS
GCAT : Political/General News | GENT : Arts/Entertainment RE AUSNZ : Australia and New Zealand | AUSTR : Australia AN Document daitel0020010922du8d0077m HD Fresh following for former Guru. BY By JODY SCOTT. WC 849 words PD 26 August 1997 SN The Australian SC AUSTLN PG 16
LA English CY (c) 1997 Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd LP NOW that the Hoodoo Gurus have decided to call it a day after nearly 20 years, lead singer Dave Faulkner is scouting around for a new career in music. Faulkner recently wrote the music for the films Hayride to Hell, The Sum of Us and Broken Highway. Now he has decided to turn his hand to writing plays and has composed material for a black comedy, Pikers, by Sydney-based actor and playwright John McNeill. The play opens at Sydney's Stables Theatre on September 24. But before Faulkner completely settles into his new career, the Gurus will do a three-month national farewell tour and release a two-CD "best of" collection. TD o o o POLITICALLY active popster Sinead O'Connor says turning 30 has mellowed her. "I always wanted to be 30," the mother of two said in a phone interview from her London home. "The 20s were a very fearful time and I figured that when I got to be 30, I'd acquire a certain serenity - and that's how it turned out. Fame is a curse ... I think we all have to go through that dark night of the soul and I'm just grateful I got mine over with when I was young." O'Connor achieved chart success in 1990 with Nothing Compares 2 U before her career took a dive two years later with a string of unsuccessful singles. She was booed off the stage at a Bob Dylan tribute concert days after she had torn up a picture of Pope John Paul II during a TV appearance. She recently cancelled a concert in Jerusalem after supporting Palestinian claims to East Jerusalem. o o o AFTER vehemently denying rumours of a reunion and conducting clandestine rehearsals at the Opera House for months, Cold Chisel have finally come clean. It's now official: the group have definitely reunited and have signed a deal with Jimmy Barnes's (pictured) record company, Mushroom Records, for a one-off album. Must be something in the air; have also announced they will get back together for a show at Sydney's Metro on October 17. The re-formed group, featuring Steve Kilbey, Peter Koppes and Tim Powles, will also release a reunion album on October 18. o o o OASIS star Liam Gallagher, continuing to air his family's unwashed linen, recently announced that he hasn't forgiven his father for domestic violence. "If he died tomorrow, I wouldn't go to his funeral," Gallagher told London's Daily Telegraph last week. Gallagher claims one of his most vivid memories as a child was seeing his father hit his mother on the head with a hammer. "I stopped believing in God because of what happened to me mam," said the 24-year-old singer, who was 11 when his mother moved him and his two brothers to another apartment and started a new life in Manchester. "He kicked our Bod's (eldest brother Paul's) head in, too. He hasn't tried to make up with him because he's not famous. He hasn't got the money." Meanwhile, dad Tommy Gallagher has compared Liam and his Oasis sibling Noel with a pair of singing pig puppets on British children's TV. "Noel and Liam are the Pinky and Perky of pop music - they have other people pulling the strings." o o o FOLLOWING the release of their new album Chin Chin, Skunkhour have announced they will team up with Australian rock legends Midnight Oil for a series of shows. o o o LOCAL singer-actor Robyn Loau (pictured) is determined to shake off her teenage career with lightweight pop group Girlfriend. Loau has been rediscovering her Polynesian roots by working with producer Anthony Copping on Siva Pacific, an album featuring the sounds of the South Pacific. She also recently starred alongside Ben Mendelsohn and Jeremy Sims in the black comedy Idiot Box. Now she is about to release an album titled Malaria, which has also been produced by Copping. She describes it as, "darker, more urban, with a slight Polynesian flavour. I want to be daring and to create something with an earthy edge and substance, as opposed to light dance ditties, while still remaining pop." o o o A MUSICIAN who says he met Trent Reznor on the Internet, accuses the Nine Inch Nails singer of stealing six of his songs. Mark Nicholas Onofrio has begun court proceedings against the band, alleging their Downward Spiral album contains five songs that are similar to songs he submitted to Reznor and a sixth, Burn, which appeared on the Natural Born Killers soundtrack, is "strikingly similar" to one he wrote. He says he met Reznor through an online chat room and asked if Reznor would listen to some of his songs. The complaint says Reznor agreed and the music was mailed to Reznor's Los Angeles home. A publicist for Nine Inch Nails, Sue Zimmerman, says she had no knowledge of Onofrio's complaint. (c) Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd, 1997. NS
GCAT : Political/General News | GENT : Arts/Entertainment RE AUSNZ : Australia and New Zealand | AUSTR : Australia AN Document austln0020010929dt8q009bc HD ACCESS ALL AREAS. BY By DINO SCATENA, CAROLINE CHISHOLM, TEZ. Directory: files -> 2008 2008 -> Preparedness for the Health Consequences of Climate Change as a Potential Influence on Public Health Law and Policy 2008 -> Darryl Heller Dissertation Proposal Draft April 7, 2008 Law, Labor, and Politics: Street Railways in Brooklyn and New York, 1884-1904 2008 -> Anna Palladino Professor Calvert 2008 -> Jails replace schools in the mountain region of guerrero 2008 -> University of Arkansas at Little Rock Plan No 2008 -> This is a list of search engines we (Polson Enterprises) have found helpful from time to time 2008 -> Rnib centre for Accessible Information (cai) Literature review #2 2008 -> Anne louise cohen 2008 -> Time race# Download 1.73 Mb. Share with your friends:
|