Urmila Devi Goenka & other: June 2008

Erick Gallun

Artist: Erick Gallun

   Genre(s):
Indie

Discography:

Sound Field Furrows

Year: 2004
Tracks: 12

Pops get Dolled up: Amanda Palmer looks to kill

If you think Amanda Palmer, half of Boston’s cabaret-punk goliath the Dresden Dolls, was an obvious choice to perform with the Boston Pops for its annual EdgeFest concert series, she agrees. In fact, it was her idea.
“I pestered them for two years about doing this,” she said over the phone shortly after her breakfast at Charlie’s Sandwich Shoppe. “When I saw they had the EdgeFest programming (where the Pops perform with contemporary rock musicians), I thought it would be perfect for me or the Dresden Dolls, so I put the bug in their ear.”
It goes to show that it helps to know singer/pianist Ben Folds, who performed with the Pops last year. Folds, not coincidentally, produced Palmer’s soon-to-be-released solo debut album, “Who Killed Amanda Palmer.”

Despite how often the Dolls’ music has been described as orchestral, it wasn’t easy choosing which songs to rework for Palmer’s Pops performances Thursday and Friday.
“Something very dangerous about playing with a big orchestra is you want to do a lot of fast, hard, dramatic stuff,” she said. “Because of (Symphony Hall’s) acoustics, that’s not a good idea. However temping it is to play some of the harder rock ’n’ roll stuff arranged for huge timpani and strings and whatnot, I tried to be conservative so it wouldn’t all sound like a big blur.”
It turned out to be a blessing in disguise that Palmer wasn’t tapped for EdgeFest earlier in her career. The Dresden Dolls have always been a trim voice/piano/drums operation, but the production on “Who Killed Amanda Palmer” is much more elaborate. Strings, esoteric percussion, synthesizers, choirs and plenty of other sounds were brought into the mix. With the Pops, several of her new songs will be played in their grand instrumental magnitude for the first time live.
“It’s like the difference between seeing an off-off-Broadway production of a great play, and a total Broadway spectacular,” Palmer said. “You can’t really compare them. It depends on what you’re in the mood for.”
The show also will include some Dolls tunes, of course, as well as a handful of covers, Palmer’s signature theatricality and wacky hijinks from the surprisingly willing-to-be-silly orchestra.
Meanwhile, Palmer has been breaking other forms of creative ground. Her new song, “Guitar Hero,” is a rare example of art imitating life imitating art imitating life.
“A couple of years ago, we were on tour with a band who had become overnight megastars,” she explained. “They were constantly playing ‘Guitar Hero,’ and there was this weird, hall of mirrors effect. They had become the real embodiment of that fantasy, yet they were rushing offstage from playing in front of thousands of people back to the bus to re-create it. I found that so touching, weird and funny that it inspired the song.”
Boston Pops EdgeFest presents Amanda Palmer, at Symphony Hall, Thursday and Friday. Tickets: $10-$55; 888-266-1200.

SAG To Get "Last, Best, And Final Offer"

The major film studios and TV networks are planning to make the Screen Actors Guild "a last, best and final offer" as early as next week, Daily Variety reported today (Friday), citing no sources. If the guild refuses to accept it or does not back off from demands for higher DVD and Internet residuals than those agreed to by the DGA, WGA and AFTRA, production will halt at the end of June, the expiration of the current agreement, the trade publication said. Such a situation would inevitably result in delaying the start of the fall TV season, industry observers noted, a situation that has not occurred since the writers' strike of 1988.

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Maximo Park announce Irish dates

Maximo Park have announced two intimate Irish shows ahead of playing the Marley Park Festival in Dublin.

The band will play on the Lovebox day of the event in the Irish capital on August 23, but will play the following gigs beforehand:

Galway Rosin Dubh (August 21)
Cork The Savoy (22)

To check the availability of Maximo Park tickets and get all the latest listings, go to NME.COM/GIGS now, or call 0871 230 1094.

That Was the Week That Was

Entertainment highlights during the week of June 22-28:

1951: The first commercial color telecast took place as CBS transmitted a one-hour special from New York to four other cities.

1969: Actress Judy Garland died of a drug overdose. She was 47.

1977: Elvis Presley performed his last concert, in Indianapolis.

1984: Prince released his "Purple Rain" album.

1987: Dancer Fred Astaire died at the age of 88.

1990: Joan Rivers won her first Daytime Emmy Award as a talk show host.

1992: Billy Joel received his high school diploma. Twenty-five years earlier, he had overslept and missed his English and gym finals.

1993: Actress Julia Roberts married singer Lyle Lovett. They divorced in 1995.

1995: Actor Hugh Grant was arrested for engaging in "lewd conduct" with a prostitute in a rented BMW in Los Angeles.

1997: Actor Jim Carrey and actress Lauren Holly split up. They had been married for 10 months.

2003: Actor Adam Sandler married longtime girlfriend Jackie Titone.

2006: Nicole Kidman married Keith Urban in Sydney, Australia.

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Blood Fine

Artist: Blood Fine

   Genre(s):
Other

Discography:

Lost Mind

Year: 2004
Tracks: 3

Carmen Electra - Electra Launches Stripper Pole Range

J.Lo performs at elementary school graduation

NEW YORK —

Students at a Staten Island, New York, elementary school for autistic children sure like the way Jennifer Lopez moves.

Teacher Kathy Amati and a paraprofessional showed the video for Lopez's "Let's Get Loud" to the students at P.S. 37. The children liked it so much, they wanted to watch it every day.

They learned the lyrics and the dance moves from the video.

With their teacher's encouragement, they wrote to Lopez, hoping for pictures or an autograph. Instead, she asked to come to their graduation.

On Tuesday, the singer-actress performed "Let's Get Loud" for a group of eight 10- and 11-year-olds at their graduation ceremony.

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Freddy Fender

Artist: Freddy Fender

   Genre(s):
Country
   Rock
   Reggae
   Other

Discography:

Unforgettable Classics

Year: 2006
Tracks: 19

Uforglemmelige Klassikere

Year: 2006
Tracks: 19

The Great Freddy Fender

Year: 2004
Tracks: 14

Baldemar Huerta: El Rey Del Tex - Mex

Year: 2004
Tracks: 20

Freddy Fender was one of the few Hispanic stars in country music, a vocaliser and ballad maker whose lick was defined largely by its hard Latin sensibility. Born Baldemar Huerta to a family of migrant laborers in San Benito, TX, on June 4, 1937, Fender began playing guitar early in his childhood. After falling out of school at the age of 16 to join the Marine Corps, he released his number one Spanish-language recordings under his tending constitute in 1958.

Patch his initial sides were successful with listeners in Texas and Mexico, in 1959 he decided to adopt his stage refer, along with a stronger rockabilly feel, in order to attract "gringo" audiences. The following class, he released the self-penned "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights," his to the highest degree successful single still. But in May of 1960, Fender was convicted of cannabis sativa possession, and was sentenced to little Phoebe years in Louisiana's ill-famed Angola State Prison (the same correctional installation which once held vapors legend Leadbelly). After helping trey eld, he was paroled thanks to the efforts of Louisiana governor Jimmie Davis, on the term that upon Fender's release he ride out away from the pestiferous influences of the music scene. After his parole all over, Fender tested to reignite his vocation, merely with the exception of a few unconnected nightspot gigs in the New Orleans country, he ground small success, and finally returned to San Benito.

In Texas, he spent several eld working as an auto mechanic, and fifty-fifty returned to school to pursue a arcdegree in sociology. In 1974, he met Huey P. Meaux, the proprietor of the Houston-based Crazy Cajun tag; after agreeing on a recording deal, it was Meaux wHO convinced Fender to manoeuvre in the direction of country & western spell maintaining his music's Hispanic roots. After Fender's number one Meaux-produced single, "In front the Next Teardrop Falls," failed to attract the attention of a major label, it was released on Crazy Cajun; in the number one weeks of 1975, the birdcall hit the peak of both the country and protrude charts, and Fender became an overnight whizz. For the follow-up, he re-recorded his early single, "Otiose Days and Wasted Nights," and jaggy his minute unbent routine one country hit. Before the year complete, he had released in time another chart-topper in "Secluded Love," and also issued deuce LPs, Since I Met You Baby and a self-titled exertion.

Passim the oddment of the '70s, Fender's success continued, to the highest degree notably with the number deuce single "Living It Down" in 1976. That same year, he released two more albums, Your Cheatin' Heart and Rock candy 'N' Country. In 1977, he also issued a holiday record, Merry Christmas/Feliz Navidad. As the eighties dawned, however, his popularity began slipping; after his final chart hit, 1983's "Chokin' Kind," he focused on an acting life history, highlighted by an appearance in the 1988 Robert Redford film The Milagro Beanfield War. He remained largely silent as a musician until 1990, when he formed the Tex-Mex supergroup Texas Tornados with Doug Sahm, Flaco Jimenez, and Augie Meyers. After trey albums, the group disbanded, and Fender again resumed his solo life history.

Fetal Decay

Artist: Fetal Decay

   Genre(s):
Metal: Death,Black

Discography:

Your Enemy Is You

Year: 2006
Tracks: 8

Hilary Duff's Expanding Breasts: Plastic Surgery Or Push-Up Bra?

Jessica Alba - The Things They Say 8299

"Before this it was coffee in the morning, yogurt for lunch, and the only meal was dinner." Pregnant star JESSICA ALBA has been forced to change her sparse diet - and has gained 300 pounds.

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