Category: music

Anti-gay reggae singer pulled from Oakland concert

image    ::: The scheduled appearance in Oakland of a reggae singer whose songs have included calls killing gay men and lesbians has been cancelled, Bay Area Reporter reports. The singer, called Capleton, had been scheduled to perform at the Ragga Muffins Festival at Oakland’s Fox Theater on Saturday, February 20, according to BAR, but an organizer of the concert said in a letter to the paper that Capleton had been “removed from the Festival(s) and will not be performing in Oakland next Saturday. He was also removed from our Long Beach and San Diego events, and my understanding is that now none of his California performances will be happening.” BAR notes that the Stop Murder Music campaign says that Capleton’s lyrics have included lines that translate to “All queers and sodomites should be killed” and “All queers who come around here/This mama earth says none can survive.” Ragga Muffins Festival co-producer Moss Jacobs told BAR, “We didn’t set out to have a show with an artist who is singing these lyrics.” Formerly signed to the influential hip-hop label, Def Jam Records, Capleton had minor hits in the US in the early 1990’s and has retained what Jamaica Gleaner calls “a healthy following in the US east and west coasts.”

Posted by NewsEditor -- 20 Feb 2010 1:27 PM (PT)

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Updated “World” benefits Haitian relief efforts

image The 2010 remake of We Are the World was recorded Monday, February 1 at Henson Studios, the same studio where the original had been recorded 25 years ago.

80 of music’s biggest stars, including Usher, Celine Dion, Kanye West, Pink, Jennifer Hudson, and even Barbara Streisand gathered for the charity recording in support of Haitian earthquake relief.

From MTV:

“I feel like a kid in a candy store,” Wyclef Jean said, speaking to the press about the idea of remaking such an iconic song, which is getting production help from RedOne and Will.I.Am. “What’s bigger than a contribution is that you lend your voice,” the Haitian native said earlier in the day to his peers while trying to inspire them during the session, which began around 3 pm and lasted well into the night.

Donate to We Are The World Foundation

We Are The World Foundation is a newly created not-for-profit organization made up of board members Quincy Jones, Lionel Richie, Wyclef Jean, Paul Haggis, Randy Phillips, and Ambassador Louis Moreno of the Inter-American Development Bank, MTV reports. According to the foundation’s website, it “is dedicated to raising money and to making grants to charitable organizations with meaningful and efficient relief and development programs that are responding to the continuing crisis in Haiti.”

Donations to the foundation are processed through Google Checkout which has waived all processing fees, according to the foundation website.

The song can also be purchased at iTunes, which has waived its share of the proceeds for downloads for the first months of the Foundation’s campaign.

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Posted by NewsEditor -- 14 Feb 2010 11:14 AM (PT)

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SF gay chorus takes its ‘Freedom Tour’ message to red-state California

image Cheers erupt for San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus Saturday night from part of the capacity crowd at Redding’s Cascade Theatre San Francisco Chronicle photo by Lacy Adams

San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus performed this weekend to capacity crowds in both Redding and Chico, California. Redding. Chico.

Those are two small cities at the northern tip of California’s Central Valley. And they’re deeply conservative strongholds. Like most of their Central Valley neighbors to the south, voters in Redding and Chico strongly favored Proposition 8 in 2008. Seventy percent of voters in Shasta County, which includes Redding, voted for Prop. 8. In Butte County, where Chico is located, 56.7 percent of voters favored the measure.

And that’s why the San Francisco chorus was there.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist CW Nevius explains:

Make no mistake, this isn’t a tour. It’s a groundbreaking political action. In the upcoming months, they’ll visit Bakersfield, Fresno, and Tracy, all strongholds for Prop. 8, the measure that banned same-sex marriage. They hope their music will help personalize the fight for gays to marry.

It is more than a small gamble. They could face protests, fights or even worse - complete indifference.

But none of those things happened on the first two stops on what the chorus calls its Freedom Tour. Instead the chorus met its full tour attendance goals during the first two stops, Chico Enterprise Record reports:

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Posted by NewsEditor -- 02 Feb 2010 9:11 AM (PT)

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Sweet Solstice! (and site notes)

I’ve been back in Seattle for a few days from my pre-holiday trip to frozen (and… oh, was it ever cold when I was there) Montana. But I’ve still been slow at getting back into the regular news updates. I’ll get back to it this weekend, but please forgive me for taking a bit more of a Solstice break.

So, until then, allow me to move as close as I’m likely come to a Christmas tune on this site.

It’s a Pet Shop Boys tune that might seem untimely in the Midwest where folks are preparing for what forecasters say will be a mighty winter storm. But it is, at least, appropriate here in (currently) sunny Seattle:

Oh… and for the mistletoe (but only if you really want to shock the aunts and uncles):

I hope you enjoyed a sweet solstice, and have a happy week with all that other holiday stuff, too.

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By the way, those links are also part of an explanation of what I’ve been doing rather than searching through the day’s news:

One of the things that’s been gobbling up my time is a site that’s been around for awhile, but one that I just discovered, LaLa.com. It’s a music site. You can buy mp3’s just like at dozens of other sites, but it’s also possible to hear a full song (one time only) online. And if you want to hear it some more, but don’t need a local copy for your music player of computer list, you can buy a “web song” version for a dime. It’s pretty cool. (Unfortunately, the site was just bought out by Apple, so it might not be long for this world in its current form.)

If you'd like to look around, just use this link to set up a free account with them: LaLa Free membership.

Posted by Robin Evans -- 23 Dec 2009 4:40 PM (PT)

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Anti-gay singer Buju Banton arrested on drug charges

image Buju Banton via LATimes

   ::: Jamaican reggae artist Buju Banton, who has drawn protests because of violently anti-gay lyrics in some of his songs, was arrested Thursday on federal charges of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine, NBC Miami reports. The charge stems from a case out of the US Attorney’s office in Tampa, where Banton, whose real name is Mark Anthony Myrie, will be transferred. If convicted of the charge, he faces as many as 20 years in prison. The lyrics of Banton’s 1993 dance-hall hit “Boom Bye Bye”, which advocated killing gays, sparked outrage in the United States and Europe. Because of protests, Banton concerts have been cancelled in several cities, and an active boycott of his appearances continued through a recent US tour. Banton was also charged with helping beat six gay men in Jamaica in 2004, but a judge dismissed the case for lack of evidence. According to Jamaica Gleaner—a paper that generally dismisses anti-gay activites—Banton changed his tune after the protests, “largely focusing on conscious issue-oriented commentaries”, but he’s never apologized for the song, although he agreed to drop it from his concert repertoire. LA Times Ministry of Gossip blog points out that Banton met in October near San Francisco with several gay activists, who nonetheless advocated continued boycotts after the meeting.  Banton’s latest album, Rasta Got Soul, was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Reggae Album category on December 2. The Grammy nod stirred heavy opposition from the groups Gay Men of African Descent, National Black Justice Coalition, and the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

Posted by NewsEditor -- 13 Dec 2009 8:38 PM (PT)

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'What do you want from me?' and other Glambertana from Early Show

So, after all the pixels of virtual ink (and some of the real oil-based stuff, too) that’s been spilled since Adam Lambert’s American Music Awards performance, this seems the best response: Lambert singing “Whataya Want from Me” on the Early Show:

CBS Early Show video

Watch CBS News Videos Online

[After the break: The Early Show interview]

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Posted by NewsEditor -- 25 Nov 2009 11:28 PM (PT)

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Glambert’s official video, with unsolicited history

image We doubt that this will satisfy Elizabeth Hasselbeck from ABC’s The View, but Adam Lambert released this official video for his album’s title track, “For Your Entertainment”.

Yesterday, Hasselbeck (who appears to know nothing of rock’n’roll history) offered wholly unsolicited career advice to Lambert after his American Music Awards appearance. “Does anybody know what song he sang?” she asked, rhetorically, not waiting for the resounding response of “Yes”. “Does anybody know what he sounded like? Because—let me tell you this—this is the mistake that Adam Lambert will make time and time again: We will not remember him as a performer or someone with a voice, if he continues to do things like this. So smarten up and sing,” she commanded.

The video—made for heavy rotation on the few hours of MTV when they still show videos—isn’t quite as outrageous as the AMA performance. That’s not surprising. Lambert demonstrated during Idol that he’s a professional who can tailor a performance for the venue. The video helps show that again.

AdamOfficial.com video

After the break: A couple of random examples of the rock history within which Lambert plies his oh-so-self-aware craft.

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Posted by Robin Evans -- 24 Nov 2009 5:11 PM (PT)

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Lambert cancelled by ABC show; Twitterverse outraged

image   ::: A scheduled appearance by Adam Lambert on the ABC News morning show, Good Morning America (GMA) was cancelled this morning. He will, instead appear tomorrow on the competing CBS News show, The Early Show, a Lambert spokesman told Us magazine. News of the GMA cancellation prompted a flurry of complaints on the show’s website, and even more on Twitter. An ABC spokeswoman said GMA producers were concerned that Lambert wouldn’t be able to tailor his appearance for their morning audience. “Given his controversial American Music Awards performance, we were concerned about airing a similar concert so early in the morning,” the spokeswoman said, according to Us magazine. Twitter users exploded in outrage and discussion following the announcement that was first made by a spokesman for Lambert. Many commented using the identifying tag #GMAfail or #ShameOnYouABC. (Click the links to see current comments even if you’re not a Twitter user.)  

Source: News – Rep: Adam Lambert's GMA Act Nixed After "Controversial" AMA Performance – Movies, TV & Music – UsMagazine.com

Posted by NewsEditor -- 24 Nov 2009 10:19 AM (PT)

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Shock value of Glambert’s AMA performance well-planned

image ‘The Kiss’ from Adam Lambert’s AMA performance via CNN

If there was any doubt that Adam Lambert’s provocative performance at last night’s American Music Awards show was well planned, then this report by Associated Press entertainment writer Derrik J. Lang should set them to rest.

This is what Lang describes from a rehearsal last week:

At one point, he thrusts a leather-clad male backup dancer's face toward his crotch, and later flashes a knowing smile as he strokes the same dancer's cheek after plowing through a door that swings both ways.

This is not your typical award show routine.

Last night, Lambert told CNN that his kiss to the keyboard player was an “in the moment” ad-lib. But the general outlines of the performance were well rehearsed.

But because it was well-rehearsed, it’s a routine that ABC can’t say took them by surprise. The network seems to have run the entire performance for its tape-delayed west-coast feed without making any additional edits. (The network did edit out the fall that Jennifer Lopez took during her performance earlier in the evening, but all of Lambert’s own tumble was broadcast for the late feed—even the clunk from his live microphone.)

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Posted by Robin Evans -- 23 Nov 2009 4:38 PM (PT)

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Adam Lambert’s kiss at AMA show gets tongues wagging

image ‘The Kiss’ from Adam Lambert’s AMA performance via CNN

Some might wondered why the singer was kissing a chick near the conclusion of Adam Lambert's performance of "For Your Entertainment" at last night's American Music Awards. It turns out that the androgynous keyboardist with whom Lambert shared a quick, but apparently passionate lip-lock is a guy. And that fact wasn’t lost on many viewers of the show who quickly expressed shock (I tell you, “shocked!”) about it all. [Examples after the jump. See the kiss at the 3:30 mark in the performance clip (if you can find it, but be careful).]

In the media lineup after the performance, Lambert didn’t directly answer a question from CNN’s reporter about whether the kiss and other sexually dance moves had been planned beforehand, but suggested that some of it was spontaneous improvisation:

“Part of what I love about being a live performer is that sometimes you just are in the moment and sometimes things just happen,” he said. “Adrenaline is a crazy, crazy, crazy feeling. Some of the things I love most about performing is when you're up there and all of the sudden you just have these feelings, this rush that comes over you.”

(A popular YouTube clip of a rehearsal for the performance demonstrates that many of the moves that are being criticized were choreographed.)

CNN video

The performance has certainly been noticed, if nothing else. It’s one of today’s most-searched topics on both Google and Twitter.

[Clips of the performance previously available on YouTube have now been removed.]

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Posted by NewsEditor -- 23 Nov 2009 7:19 AM (PT)

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