George Michael: 'I'm too old for pop' & other: June 2008

Friday 27 June 2008

Man cleared of taking payoff to drop assault complaint against Winehouse husband

LONDON - A British court has acquitted a former pub manager of taking a bribe to drop assault charges against the husband of singer Amy Winehouse.

A jury deliberated for three hours Wednesday before finding James King not guilty of trying to pervert the course of justice.

Winehouse's husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, has admitted beating up King in a barroom fight in 2006 and then offering him US$400,000 to keep quiet about it.

King, who suffered a broken cheekbone, said he was intimidated into withdrawing the assault claim.

Three other men also pleaded guilty to involvement in the plot.

They and Fielder-Civil all face jail terms when they are sentenced later.

Winehouse, 25, and Fielder-Civil, 26, married in Miami in May 2007 - he was arrested in November and has been in jail ever since.

Winehouse has become an international star since she released the Grammy-winning album "Back to Black" in 2006.

But her music has been overshadowed by reports of drug use, her run-ins with the law and tempestuous relationship with Fielder-Civil.

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Terry Evans

Artist: Terry Evans

   Genre(s):
Blues
   Rock

Discography:

Mississippi Magic

Year: 2001
Tracks: 10

Walk That Walk

Year: 2000
Tracks: 9

Come to the River

Year: 1997
Tracks: 10

Puttin' It Down

Year: 1995
Tracks: 10

Blues For Thought

Year: 1994
Tracks: 10

Terry Evans has turn a soulful, gospel-flavored vocalizer fronting a band, only his calling took many steps to reach out that tiptop. Like many blues artists, his first base vulnerability to music was in christian church, where he american ginseng in the junior choir. As is often the case, his parents allowed him to sing simply gospel singing, but on the pinch, he listened to vapours artists such as Elmore James, Little Walter, Albert King, and B.B. King.

His first break in was as a appendage of a Southern vocal chemical group, the Knights. From thither, he stirred to Southern California and began picking up guitar and writing songs. Among the songs he wrote were "Sexual love Is a Precious Thing," which was recorded by Pops Staples, and "Hop, Skip, and Jump," recorded by Louie Jordan.

In the '70s, he performed as a duo with Bobby King, playing on the chitlin electric circuit to provision their brand of Stax-styled soul and gospel. A industrious performer, Evans continued with King piece at the same fourth dimension working as a scope vocalist for Ry Cooder, both on Cooder's albums and in the touring ring. Evans' breakthrough came during the movie Hamlet, where he american ginseng lede on "Low in Mississippi" and the title piece during the film.

In 1993, Evans released his first solo album, Blues for Thought, on Pointblank. While providing support vocal tracks for Lloyd Jones' Trouble Monkey, he attracted the attention of criminal record manufacturer Joe Harley, wHO then signed Evans to Audioquest. Evans recorded deuce fine albums with Harley, Puttin' It Down and Come to the River. Walk That Walk followed in early 2000; MS Magic was issued a year by and by.

Smurf Movie Coming, But Who Will Star?

Crap, Now Everyone Has to Start Watching ‘Mad Men’

We can't be the only ones who had that reaction upon seeing the Times Magazine's splashy Mad Men cover story, declaring the AMC series, heading into its second season next month, "the smartest show on television." We shamefully haven't caught the first season of the show — by the time Nussbaum and Sternbergh starting telling us how good it was, in unison, last summer, we just had fallen too far behind and were secretly hoping it would tank so we wouldn't have to catch up. But thanks to the stupid New York Times Magazine, we can't put it off any longer. Now we have to (sigh) go buy the DVDs of season one when they come out on July 7, and (sigh) sit down in front of our TV, and (long sigh) watch all thirteen hours of it. And then we have to watch the new season too! We're sure it'll be great, but jeez, that's a lot of hours.

Alex Witchel's cover story doesn't do that much to get us excited, by the way. As usual with coverage of Mad Men, the article focuses heavily on the show's fetishistic attention to period detail (down to rejecting one actress due to collagen in her lips), HBO's chumpitude in rejecting the series, and creator Matthew Weiner's bristly genius. "For 41 of [Weiner's] 42 years he has not been a star, and he is not used to presenting himself as a brand — and hallelujah for that," Witchel writes. But of course the cynic's view is that this non-persona is itself a persona, one that — employed intentionally or not — makes him and his show seem like TV ingénues, ready for anointing by the culture gurus at the Times Magazine as the Next Big Thing.

Which apparently it is. Let the Wire-esque praise escalation begin!

Mad Men's Moment [NYTM]
Related: Reasons to Love New York: Because ‘Mad Men’ Saturates Us in the Retro Glamour So Many of Us Came Here for in the First Place [NYM]

Thursday 26 June 2008

Jackson and His Computer Band

Artist: Jackson and His Computer Band

   Genre(s):
Indie

Discography:

Smash

Year:
Tracks: 14

EU and Vera

Artist: EU and Vera

   Genre(s):
Experimental

Discography:

Tanatan

Year: 2001
Tracks: 14

High School, Emo, and Faeries: Exclusive Comics Excerpt From 'Suburban Glamour'

It's tough enough being the weird, smart emo girl in a suburban Scottish high school. So when
Astrid Johnson starts having dreams of supernatural creatures and conversations with her childhood invisible friends, that doesn't make things any better. In Jamie McKelvie's new graphic novel, Suburban Glamour, Astrid learns the hard way that there's a whole world — or worlds — outside the go-nowhere town she grew up in.

Suburban Glamour is out now from Image.

Suburban Glamour, by Jamie McKelvie

Britney Spears avoids charges in car accident

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Officials said on Monday they will not file charges against pop star Britney Spears over a photographer's claim she ran over his foot as she backed up her car in a crush of paparazzi.

A photographer filed a police report about six months after the incident in November. But prosecutors said the only way the paparazzo's foot could have been where the video showed it to be was if he himself had put it there.

Joseph Shidler, deputy district attorney, noted in a report that Spears' car was surrounded by photographers, and that a voice on the video told her to back up.

"We have no evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the suspect was aware that the victim's foot had been struck by the car," Shidler wrote. "There was much commotion and noise at the time and there is no proof that the suspect was aware of what had happened."

Prosecutors said the video, which circulated on the Internet, does not show the photographer's foot being run over. But Shidler added that, "the only way the victim's foot could have been where the video indicates it to be was by the victim placing it in that location."

(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

(please visit our entertainment blog via www.reuters.com or on blogs.reuters.com/fanfare/)

Snoop Dogg - Dr Dre Completes First Album In Nine Years

SNOOP DOGG has confirmed his pal DR. DRE's long-awaited new album DETOX is complete, after helping to add the finishing touches.

And the Gin N' Juice hitmaker is convinced the rap mogul's first new release in nine years will put him back at the top of the hip-hop game.

Snoop reveals Dre is currently selecting tracks for the album, adding, "That record is real, it's coming... I was starting to doubt it myself and then I went up in there and he played so much music for me it knocked my head off. I see what he got them waiting for. It's on and poppin'. He got records, he got heat."

Since the release of his album 2001 in 1999, Dr. Dre has dedicated his time to launching and helping the careers of other rappers like Eminem, The Game and 50 Cent.

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Paramount Earns 1 Billion

Paramount received both good and bad news on Monday from its box-office researchers. The bad news was that its latest release, The Love Guru, flopped over the weekend with just $13.92 million. The good news was that the movie nevertheless helped push total revenue for all of the studio's films past the $1-billion mark in domestic ticket sales in record time. Last week the studio said that it had passed that mark overseas.

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