London Baroque & other: June 2008

Monday, 23 June 2008

Geden Choeling Nunnery P.o. Mcleod Ganj Dharamsala

Artist: Geden Choeling Nunnery P.o. Mcleod Ganj Dharamsala

   Genre(s):
Other

Discography:

Tibetan Buddhism, Chant of Nuns Vol. 1

Year:
Tracks: 2

You’re Not the Only One Hoping ‘The Love Guru’ Flops

Saturday, 14 June 2008

Mike Stern

Artist: Mike Stern

   Genre(s):
Jazz

Discography:

Between the Lines

Year: 2006
Tracks: 10

VOICES

Year: 2004
Tracks: 9

These Times

Year: 2004
Tracks: 11

Neesh

Year: 2004
Tracks: 7

Play

Year: 1999
Tracks: 10

Give and Take

Year: 1997
Tracks: 11

Is What It Is

Year: 1994
Tracks: 9

Standards (and Other Songs)

Year: 1992
Tracks: 11

Upside Downside

Year: 1990
Tracks: 9

Time in Place

Year: 1990
Tracks: 7

Recognized as one of the finest guitarists among his peers, Mike Stern was born on January 10, 1953, in Boston, MA, just grew up in Washington, D.C., in front returning to Boston to work at the Berklee School of Music. Stern was only 22 when he joined Blood, Sweat & Tears, for whom he played trey years in front signing on with Billy Cobham's jazz fusion outfit, which light-emitting diode to Stern's large breakthrough when Miles Davis enlisted him as guitar player for Davis' give back from a five-year musical hiatus in 1981. Stern played and recorded with Davis until 1983, when Stern toured with Jaco Pastorius, just he rejoined Davis in 1985, which also brought about Stern's debut release as a leader, the warmly received Neesh. This time, Stern remained with Davis for a year, after which he cycled through projects by David Sanborn and Steps Ahead patch simultaneously recording his follow-up to Neesh, coroneted Upside Downside, which marked his low gear release for Atlantic Records' jazz class. Stern continued a steady twine of releases for Atlantic over the next few years patch chronic to play with several other projects, including Michael Brecker and the reunited Brecker Brothers, finally scoring his first Grammy nomination with the release of Is What It Is in 1994, then garnering some other nominating speech for his 1996 followup, Betwixt the Lines. Stern standard his third Grammy nod for his 2001 release Voices, which was Stern's first recording with vocals -- albeit tongueless vocalese -- and likewise marked the goal of his tenure with Atlantic. Stern issued his debut album for ESC in early 2004, and two years later, with a disgorge of impressive financial backing musicians (Richard Bona, Me'Shell NdegÃ©Ocello, Roy Hargrove, and Kim Thompson, among others), World Health Organization Let the Cats Out was released.

Charlie Bartlett - 6/24/2008

A hot-ticket item at last year's Tribeca Film Festival and subsequently picked up by the Weinstein Company, Jon Poll's plodding Charlie Bartlett has the gumption to suggest, and then confirm the fact, that rich people, especially rich white kids under 18, have all the answers, and that it is quite foolish to think otherwise.

Kicked out of his latest boarding school for entrepreneurial ingenuity (he made fake IDs), Charlie Bartlett (Anton Yelchin) finally makes his way to public school. His mother (Hope Davis), medicated into oblivion, thinks it will be a perfect outlet for his creativity. As if it weren't written on the wall, Bartlett can only find friends on the short bus and other clique-less annals of the teenage population. That is until he finds the blessings of prescription narcotics and the passivity of modern adults towards their children's problems.

Embraced by the school's alt-hottie (Kat Dennings), in cahoots with the school bully (Tyler Hilton), and despised by the suicidal principal (an unconvincingly-restrained Robert Downey Jr.), Bartlett becomes a hero for all the disillusioned youth of America. This is all well and good until (knowledge is power) a kid tries to overdose on the pills he scored from Charlie. Then Bartlett suddenly becomes a champion of self-confidence and self-enlightenment.

There is a moment of interest in Bartlett's rambling, mundane narrative that caught me as witty but was so fleeting that I dismissed it: the honest-to-God truth that most of today's youth are happier stoned or gonzoed-out on uppers and downers, but that drugs as a suburban escape stop working as soon as a kid tries to commit suicide. Note to screenwriter Gustin Nash: Suicides at school, attempted or fulfilled, tend to lead to more drugs, not less.

There have been Matzah crackers that show more excitement than perennial teen workhorse Anton Yelchin, but you can blame neither him nor the rest of the cast for the deeply-rooted flaws here. Aesthetically, there's nothing remotely interesting about Poll's film and Nash's script, a monolith of faulty teenage stereotypes, which leaves his characters severely lacking without even a note of honesty. You find me one teenager who would feel better about getting beat up at school as long as it was videotaped and sold for ten dollars a pop, and I will single-handedly raise the Lusitania.

If one needed further proof that Ferris Bueller is dead, Bartlett closes the case but good. How is it that almost every film about teenagers is either sanitized to the point of fetidity (Hilary Duff) or so overbearingly crass that it borders on leering (Larry Clarke)? Fear not: Gus Van Sant returns to the hallways with Paranoid Park, one of the indisputable masterpieces of this year, in two weeks. It won't take nearly that long for a throwaway like Bartlett to clear the American mindset.

The DVD includes three (why?) commentary tracks and one making-of featurette.

Teenage suicide. Don't do it.

See Also

Dave Stewart

Artist: Dave Stewart

   Genre(s):
Jazz
   Rock
   Soundtrack

Discography:

Cookie's Fortune

Year: 1999
Tracks: 15

SlyFi

Year: 1998
Tracks: 10

Greetings from the Gutter

Year: 1994
Tracks: 11

Dave Stewart and The Spiritual Cowboys

Year: 1990
Tracks: 14

Lily Was Here

Year: 1989
Tracks: 16

Cookie's Fortune

Year:
Tracks: 15

Ensiferum

Heigl named 'Most Desirable Woman'

'Grey's Anatomy' and 'Knocked Up' star Katherine Heigl has been named the 'Most Desirable Woman of 2008' in an online poll.
The 29-year-old actress topped a list of 99 women chosen by members of the public on the website AskMen.com.
People were asked to vote for women who best embody the qualities of an ideal girlfriend or wife, as judged by intelligence, humour, charisma and ambition.
AskMen.com's Editor-in-Chief, James Bassil said: "This year's list really goes to show who (our users) relate with and find beautiful, charming and personable."
Model Alessandra Ambrosio was placed second on the list, with actresses Kate Beckinsale and Eva Mendes coming third and fourth respectively.
Jessica Alba, Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Biel, Rihanna, Marisa Miller and Adriana Lima all made the Top 10 of the Most Desirable Women list.

Intelligentsia Network

Artist: Intelligentsia Network

   Genre(s):
New Age

Discography:

World Wide Kind

Year: 2000
Tracks: 18

New York rapper Intelligent Hoodlum (born Percy Chapman) served 20 months at Elmira Correctional Facility in Bing Hampton, NY for robbery in 1988, victimization the go through to absorb himself in industrial plant on African-American cultivation and the theological system of the Nation of Islam. That combination underscores all of his work and makes his songs radiate with righteousness, choler, indignation, and defeat. It doesn't hurt that aCE manufacturer Marley Marl supplies the undergirding as well.

Judi Dench - Fascinating Fact 5391

DAME JUDI DENCH and British actress HONOR BLACKMAN make up the perfect female voice, according to a new study. The research, conducted by linguistics at Sheffield University, England, claims the most appealing male voice is made from a combination of actors ALAN RICKMAN, JEREMY IRONS and MICHAEL GAMBON's tones.

See Also

Cativo

Artist: Cativo

   Genre(s):
Drum & Bass

Discography:

3 Seconds Is Now (2000)

Year: 2000
Tracks: 5

Sergio Contreras

R&B star R. Kelly porn trial goes to Chicago jury

CHICAGO (Reuters) - R&B star R. Kelly's child pornography trial went to the jury on Thursday with prosecutors calling him a sexual predator and his attorneys saying he is wrongly accused and possibly the victim of an extortion plot.

In closing arguments to the 12-person jury, Cook County Prosecutor Robert Heilingoetter said Kelly preyed on young girls and was clearly the man on a videotape exploiting a teenage protege as young as 13.

"The opportunity to hold him (Kelly) responsible ... will never come again," he told jurors.

Heilingoetter once more showed jurors the videotape at the heart of the case, which features oral sex, masturbation and other explicit acts.

Kelly is charged with 14 counts of videotaping, producing or soliciting child pornography. If convicted of all charges, the 41-year-old Grammy Award winner, whose given name is Robert Kelly, could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison.

In three weeks of testimony, jurors were told the girl, now 23, has denied it was her on the tape, though she did not testify for either side.

Kelly has denied being the man on the tape, and his attorneys said the widely sold tape may have been doctored by the girl's relatives to extort money from him.

The absence of the girl, Roshona Landfair, has been seen as a potential weakness for the prosecution and the defense, but both claimed the high ground for not having her testify.