Etiketter

onsdag den 24. august 2011

Remembering Aaliyah, 10 years later

Angel Laws is the editor in chief and creator of ConcreteLoop.com. August 25 marks the tenth anniversary of the death of singer and actress, Aaliyah.

(CNN) -- It's been a decade since the tragic death of R&B star and budding actress Aaliyah Dana Haughton.

Just 22 years old at the time of her death, she was in the Bahamas heading back to the States after wrapping up her 2001 music video, "Rock The Boat."

The twin-engine plane crashed shortly after takeoff. Aboard were Aaliyah and eight others -- including her hair stylist, Eric Forman, makeup artists Anthony Dodd and Christopher Maldonado, security guard Scott Gallin, video producer Douglas Kratz, Blackground Records employees Keith Wallace and Gina Smith, and the pilot, Luis Morales III. In an instant their lives and Aaliyah's promising career were gone.

Born in Brooklyn and raised in Detroit, she quickly garnered a fan base in the early '90s with her original take on R&B music. Working with industry greats like Missy Elliott, Timbaland, R. Kelly and more, she topped the charts with a slew of hits, including "Back & Forth," "Age Ain't Nothin' But a Number," "Are You That Somebody" and "We Need A Resolution".

Aaliyah's standout fashion sense made her a hot commodity among the fashion crowd: She modeled for Tommy Hilfiger, who showcased her tomboy appeal -- baggy jeans and a tight-fitting shirt -- and was featured on the covers of many magazines with that trendsetting hair swoop over her left eye.

Her influence on the music game is still relevant today. She has inspired artists from singer-rapper Drake to pop superstar Beyonce. Ciara, who is best known for her singing and dancing moves, has an Aaliyah-inspired stage presence and dressing style.

Singer-songwriter Tank, who worked closely with Aaliyah on her last two albums, spoke with Concrete Loop earlier this year about where she would be right now if she were alive. "She would be at the top and there would probably be a few people who wouldn't have careers," he said.

If you think about it, she was already on top. At the time of her death, she had three top-selling albums under her belt, many nominations and awards and was slated to have a big role in "The Matrix Reloaded" and "Matrix Revolution" movies.

She had just completed her work on the film, "Queen of The Damned" and was already being sought after for other movie roles. Not to mention, she had a solid and loyal fan base. However, the rest of her journey to superstardom just wasn't meant to be.

A month before her untimely death, Aaliyah granted MTV's show "Diary" behind-the-scenes access to her fast-paced life and said, "I am truly blessed to wake up every morning to do something that I love; there is nothing better than that."

She continued, "Everything is worth it -- the hard work, the times when you're tired, the times when you are a bit sad. In the end, it's all worth it because it really makes me happy. I wouldn't trade it for anything else in the world. I've got good friends, a beautiful family and I've got a career. I thank God for his blessings every single chance I get."

So, on August 25, blast Aaliyah's timeless music loud and remember her for being a trendsetting force in fashion and for helping to redefine and take R&B music to another level.

torsdag den 18. august 2011

Deadly storm strikes Belgium's Pukkelpop festival

The storm knocked down stage rigging

At least four people have been killed at the Pukkelpop music festival in Belgium after a sudden storm caused two stages to collapse, reports say.

Television pictures from the scene, about 65km (40 miles) east of Brussels, showed fallen stage rigging and people scrambling for cover.

Initial reports in the Belgian media said four people had been killed.

About 60,000 people were believed to be at the event, one of Europe's largest outdoor festivals.

The mayor of the town of Hasselt, where Pukkelpop is held, said 40 people were injured, AP news agency reported.

The TV images showed rain-soaked festival-goers bracing against strong winds. Fallen gantries and rigging could be seen on the ground.

Belgian media reported that trees were uprooted by the violent storm and smashed into the stage, bringing it down.

Some festival-goers said on the Twitter website that a tornado had struck.

The BBC's Matthew Cole, in Brussels, said the storms swept across Belgium in the early evening, turning the sky dark.

Five people were killed last week at a festival in the US state of Indiana when a stage collapsed in high winds.

Read also: FOUR DEAD AFTER STAGE Collapses At Sugarland Show in Indiana


tirsdag den 16. august 2011

Record Industry Braces for Artists’ Battles Over Song Rights

(nytimes.com) Since their release in 1978, hit albums like Bruce Springsteen’s “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” Billy Joel’s “52nd Street,” the Doobie Brothers’ “Minute by Minute,” Kenny Rogers’s “Gambler” and Funkadelic’s “One Nation Under a Groove” have generated tens of millions of dollars for record companies. But thanks to a little-noted provision in United States copyright law, those artists — and thousands more — now have the right to reclaim ownership of their recordings, potentially leaving the labels out in the cold.


When copyright law was revised in the mid-1970s, musicians, like creators of other works of art, were granted “termination rights,” which allow them to regain control of their work after 35 years, so long as they apply at least two years in advance. Recordings from 1978 are the first to fall under the purview of the law, but in a matter of months, hits from 1979, like “The Long Run” by the Eagles and “Bad Girls” by Donna Summer, will be in the same situation — and then, as the calendar advances, every other master recording once it reaches the 35-year mark.


The provision also permits songwriters to reclaim ownership of qualifying songs. Bob Dylan has already filed to regain some of his compositions, as have other rock, pop and country performers like Tom Petty, Bryan Adams, Loretta Lynn, Kris Kristofferson, Tom Waits and Charlie Daniels, according to records on file at the United States Copyright Office.


“In terms of all those big acts you name, the recording industry has made a gazillion dollars on those masters, more than the artists have,” said Don Henley, a founder both of the Eagles and the Recording Artists Coalition, which seeks to protect performers’ legal rights. “So there’s an issue of parity here, of fairness. This is a bone of contention, and it’s going to get more contentious in the next couple of years.”


With the recording industry already reeling from plummeting sales, termination rights claims could be another serious financial blow. Sales plunged to about $6.3 billion from $14.6 billion over the decade ending in 2009, in large part because of unauthorized downloading of music on the Internet, especially of new releases, which has left record labels disproportionately dependent on sales of older recordings in their catalogs.


“This is a life-threatening change for them, the legal equivalent of Internet technology,” said Kenneth J. Abdo, a lawyer who leads a termination rights working group for the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and has filed claims for some of his clients, who include Kool and the Gang. As a result the four major record companies — Universal, Sony BMG, EMI and Warner — have made it clear that they will not relinquish recordings they consider their property without a fight.


“We believe the termination right doesn’t apply to most sound recordings,” said Steven Marks, general counsel for the Recording Industry Association of America, a lobbying group in Washington that represents the interests of record labels. As the record companies see it, the master recordings belong to them in perpetuity, rather than to the artists who wrote and recorded the songs, because, the labels argue, the records are “works for hire,” compilations created not by independent performers but by musicians who are, in essence, their employees.


Independent copyright experts, however, find that argument unconvincing. Not only have recording artists traditionally paid for the making of their records themselves, with advances from the record companies that are then charged against royalties, they are also exempted from both the obligations and benefits an employee typically expects.


“This is a situation where you have to use your own common sense,” said June M. Besek, executive director of the Kernochan Center for Law, Media and the Arts at the Columbia University School of Law. “Where do they work? Do you pay Social Security for them? Do you withdraw taxes from a paycheck? Under those kinds of definitions it seems pretty clear that your standard kind of recording artist from the ’70s or ’80s is not an employee but an independent contractor.”


Daryl Friedman, the Washington representative of the recording academy, which administers the Grammy Awards and is allied with the artists’ position, expressed hope that negotiations could lead to a “broad consensus in the artistic community, so there don’t have to be 100 lawsuits.” But with no such talks under way, lawyers predict that the termination rights dispute will have to be resolved in court.


“My gut feeling is that the issue could even make it to the Supreme Court,” said Lita Rosario, an entertainment lawyer specializing in soul, funk and rap artists who has filed termination claims on behalf of clients, whom she declined to name. “Some lawyers and managers see this as an opportunity to go in and renegotiate a new and better deal. But I think there are going to be some artists who feel so strongly about this that they are not going to want to settle, and will insist on getting all their rights back.”


So far the only significant ruling on the issue has been one in the record labels’ favor. In that suit heirs of Jamaican reggae star Bob Marley, who died in 1981, sued Universal Music to regain control of and collect additional royalties on five of his albums, which included hits like “Get Up, Stand Up” and “One Love.”


But last September a federal district court in New York ruled that “each of the agreements provided that the sound recordings were the ‘absolute property’ ” of the record company, and not Marley or his estate. That decision, however, applies only to Marley’s pre-1978 recordings, which are governed by an earlier law that envisaged termination rights only in specific circumstances after 56 years, and it is being appealed.


Congress passed the copyright law in 1976, specifying that it would go into effect on Jan. 1, 1978, meaning that the earliest any recording can be reclaimed is Jan. 1, 2013. But artists must file termination notices at least two years before the date they want to recoup their work, and once a song or recording qualifies for termination, its authors have five years in which to file a claim; if they fail to act in that time, their right to reclaim the work lapses.


The legislation, however, fails to address several important issues. Do record producers, session musicians and studio engineers also qualify as “authors” of a recording, entitled to a share of the rights after they revert? Can British groups like Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, and Dire Straits exercise termination rights on their American recordings, even if their original contract was signed in Britain? These issues too are also an important part of the quiet, behind-the-scenes struggle that is now going on.


Given the potentially huge amounts of money at stake and the delicacy of the issues, both record companies, and recording artists and their managers have been reticent in talking about termination rights. The four major record companies either declined to discuss the issue or did not respond to requests for comment, referring the matter to the industry association.


But a recording industry executive involved in the issue, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak for the labels, said that significant differences of opinion exist not only between the majors and smaller independent companies, but also among the big four, which has prevented them from taking a unified position. Some of the major labels, he said, favor a court battle, no matter how long or costly it might be, while others worry that taking an unyielding position could backfire if the case is lost, since musicians and songwriters would be so deeply alienated that they would refuse to negotiate new deals and insist on total control of all their recordings.


As for artists it is not clear how many have already filed claims to regain ownership of their recordings. Both Mr. Springsteen and Mr. Joel, who had two of the biggest hit albums of 1978, as well as their managers and legal advisers, declined to comment on their plans, and the United States Copyright Office said that, because termination rights claims are initially processed manually rather than electronically, its database is incomplete.


Songwriters, who in the past typically have had to share their rights with publishing companies, some of which are owned by or affiliated with record labels, have been more outspoken on the issue. As small independent operators to whom the work for hire argument is hard to apply, the balance of power seems to have tilted in their favor, especially if they are authors of songs that still have licensing potential for use on film and television soundtracks, as ringtones, or in commercials and video games.


“I’ve had the date circled in red for 35 years, and now it’s time to move,” said Rick Carnes, who is president of the Songwriters Guild of America and has written hits for country artists like Reba McEntire and Garth Brooks. “Year after year after year you are going to see more and more songs coming back to songwriters and having more and more influence on the market. We will own that music, and it’s still valuable.”


In the absence of a definitive court ruling, some recording artists and their lawyers are talking about simply exercising their rights and daring the record companies to stop them. They complain that the labels in some cases are not responding to termination rights notices and predict that once 2013 arrives, a conflict that is now mostly hidden from view is likely to erupt in public.


“Right now this is kind of like a game of chicken, but with a shot clock,” said Casey Rae-Hunter, deputy director of the Future of Music Coalition, which advocates for musicians and consumers. “Everyone is adopting a wait-and-see posture. But that can only be maintained for so long, because the clock is ticking.”


søndag den 14. august 2011

FOUR DEAD AFTER STAGE Collapses At Sugarland Show in Indiana

Youtube link:

Four people are dead and reportedly 24 more injured after a stage collapsed tonight at the Indiana State Fair before the country band Sugarland was to perform.

High winds were believed to have been the cause.

A reporter for
WANE-TV in Indiana was in the crowd at the time and described what happened like this: "The wind just picked up and the stage just caught and the roof just caught and it went up like a sail and then it crashed forward into the people standing in the front. There were people trapped underneath and everyone was running and screaming. They were asking any medics or nurses not to leave."

Gavin DeGraw Attacked Outside His Club

Gavin DeGraw, the hook-savvy singer and songwriter, was recovering from a broken nose at Bellevue Hospital Center on Tuesday which he said he suffered when a group of men assaulted him on the Lower East Side, his publicist said.

Mr. DeGraw, 34, was taken to Bellevue hospital at 4:15 a.m. Monday, where he told the police as many as three men had attacked him shortly after he left "The National Underground", a bar at 159 East Houston Street, a law enforcement official said.

The publicist, Fran Curtis, said the singer not only had a broken nose, but had suffered a concussion, as well as cuts and bruises.

No one had been arrested in the assault and the motive remained unclear, the police said. None of his belongings were taken.

Mr. DeGraw told investigators the men had attacked him after he left the club, which he owns with his brother, Joey DeGraw, who is also a musician. He told the police he had spent the night drinking with friends, the official said.

Mr. DeGraw did not call the police immediately after the attack, the official said. Instead he walked across the East Village, heading up First Avenue to 19th Street, where a southbound taxi knocked him over as he stood in the middle of the avenue, his shirt ripped and his face bloodied. Although he did not sustain serious injuries from his encounter with the taxi, a passerby saw the accident and called an ambulance and the medics took him to the hospital.

Investigators do not know precisely where the attack occurred, and they were seeking a second interview with Mr. DeGraw to get a clearer account, the official said.

Detectives have tried to reconstruct Mr. DeGraw’s movements with footage from surveillance cameras, the official said. One video captured Mr. DeGraw at 3:26 a.m. on Monday as he walked alone from the bar near Allen and Houston Streets. He wore a ripped shirt but did not appear to be bleeding. At 3:48 a.m. a second camera filmed him as he walked on First Avenue, between Third and Fourth Streets. Then at 4:01 a.m. he appeared to be bloodied and injured when a camera filmed him walking on the west side of First Avenue, near Seventh Street.

Mr. DeGraw became a pop-rock star in 2003, when his debut album Chariot (J Records) yielded several hit singles, among them “I Don’t Want to Be,” which reached the No. 1 on the Billboard Mainstream Top 40 chart and later became the theme song for the television show “One Tree Hill.” His new album, “Sweeter,” is due out on Sept. 20.

Still hospitalized on Tuesday afternoon, Mr. DeGraw canceled a concert at the performing arts center in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., but he had not yet called off a performance at Jones Beach on Friday.

mandag den 8. august 2011

John Mayer Quits Twitter to Focus on Recording


(rolling stone) The guitarist, who had 3.7 million followers, abruptly cancels his account in order to 'return to the studio.' But he is still posting to Tumblr

John Mayer — who has entertained 3.7 million followers with barrages of Tweets like, "I just woke up from a dream about drinking water. When you get to live your dreams, your actual dreams are boring as shit" — unceremoniously deleted his Twitter account yesterday. A rep for Mayer tells Rolling Stone that Mayer quit the service because "a return to the studio is planned," presumably to record a follow-up his 2009 album Battle Studies.

Mayer isn't leaving social networking entirely. In fact, he now seems focused on Tumblr. Last week, he took to his account there to explain the new habit: “I had 3.3 million Twitter followers back in April when I announced that I'd be predominantly posting on Tumblr ... Five months later I have just passed 50,000 followers, a fraction of my Twitter base ... I will leave the opining up to you, but I think I made the right move. I now have an even larger Tumblr addiction but it's sort of like a book addiction, or a gambling addiction where you always walk away with the casino's money ... it’s one of those things you do all the time but isn't all that bad for you.”

mandag den 1. august 2011

Has been dead for five years - not yet buried

Nearly five years after he`s death, the corpse of the American soul legend James Brown is still stored in one of his daughters. And while the lawyers rip each other to bleed, disappear worth half a billion - one dollar at a time.

James Brown's seven children got a bit of a shock when his father's will just before New Year in 2006 was read.

Total capital of 100 million dollars (half a billion dollars) was supposed to go to various orphanages in the American South as Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama and they (the children and Brown's fourth wife) got nothing.

The decision made ​​both children and wife so offended that this day is still trying to get James Brown's will ​​invalid.

That also means that the poor children who stood James Brown's heart close, yet have not received a single cent. And another unfortunate side effect is that James Brown's equal is still stored in a temporary mausuleum in one of his daughters, Deanna Brown.

In his will ask James Brown himself to be buried at his house in the state of South Carolina. But so long as the various appeals in progress (total 19), can not quarrel or corpse laid to rest.

While Soul-king was still alive, was the relationship with their children anything but good. In the last years of his father's life, they were forced to make an appointment than his secretary, to be admitted.

And to his lawyer struck Brown, repeatedly stated that they would not benefit from his hard work when he died.

Now it is instead only the lawyers who benefit from the millions hit songs as "I Feel Good" and "Poppa's Got a Brand New Bag" earned.