Tag: Music
iPod, iPhone Plug-ins Coming to International United Flights
by Jim Benning | 06.17.08 | 11:20 AM ET
In first and business classes, you’ll be able to charge the devices and watch videos on your in-flight entertainment screen, the airline announced. The first flight with the service—Washington, D.C., to Zurich—departed yesterday; the technology will be rolled out to other wide-body jets over the next two years. You still won’t be able to make calls.
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Yahoo! Buzz10 Wanderlust-Inducing Summer Concerts
by Ben Keene | 06.16.08 | 2:56 PM ET
Call it world music or global pop or the sound of the world hum. Ben Keene reveals 10 acts on tour that are sure to transport you. Plus videos.
Europe’s Top World Music Venues
by Jim Benning | 06.11.08 | 12:18 PM ET
Very handy list in the Guardian.
Rufus Wainwright’s Least Favorite City?
by Eva Holland | 06.10.08 | 11:31 AM ET
“Toronto. I can’t stand it—the place drives me mad. I’m allowed to say this because I’m Canadian. ... It’s trying to be the New York of the Midwest.” The singer-songwriter also reveals some of his more positive travel experiences and more in this Q&A with The Observer.
Back to the Garden: Woodstock Museum Opens Today
by Eva Holland | 06.02.08 | 4:14 PM ET
From time to time in high school, I used to throw my dad’s old vinyl copy of the Woodstock album (complete with crowd chants and warnings about the brown acid) on the record player, crank the volume, sit back and try to pretend that I, too, was at Max Yasgur’s farm (pictured) on a wet August weekend in 1969. Seems I’m not the only one keen to re-create the event. The Museum at Bethel Woods opens today on the site of the original concert in upstate New York, and it sounds groovy.
Celebrity Travel Watch: Chris de Burgh in Iran
by Michael Yessis | 05.30.08 | 2:09 PM ET
Chris who? You probably know his syrupy song “The Lady in Red.” (Video below.) It was huge in the mid-‘80s. Turns out the British singer is still huge in Iran, where, for almost three decades, most Western music has been forbidden by the ruling Shiite Muslim clergy. De Burgh’s songs circulated on illegally copied tapes there, and he became rock-star popular. So much so that, in an apparent lifting of the Western music ban, de Burgh recently became the first Western pop musician to visit Iran since the 1979 revolution.
Hard Rock Park Opens to ‘Awesome’ Reviews
by Eva Holland | 05.15.08 | 1:00 PM ET
Photo by scmikeburton via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
It’s hard to believe it’s taken this long for the United States to get a rock ‘n’ roll theme park. After all, aren’t rock and roller coasters two of the things America does best? (And I say this as a Canadian.) But at long last, Hard Rock Park has opened in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and according to Myrtle Beach Online, “awesome” was the word of the day at the park’s recent “soft” opening. Since then, rave reviews have continued to pour in.
Eighth-Grade Science Projects and the ‘Calypso King of Barbados’
by Eva Holland | 05.07.08 | 9:24 AM ET
Remember that papier-mache volcano that some kid (or, more accurately, his parents) built every year for the junior high science fair? It never did manage to teach me how volcanoes work—later, I’d only recall the bubble and hiss of the Sprite mixture foaming out the top. But recently, while trying to get a handle on the local music scene in Barbados, I came across something similar: this educational volcano video, set to a hit soca track by Barbadian calypso legend Red Plastic Bag. Maybe something like this would have helped me pay closer attention in science class. Then again, maybe I would have only remembered the song. It’s plenty catchy.
Happy Cinco de Mayo
by Jim Benning | 05.05.08 | 1:07 PM ET
It’s White-People’s-Excuse-to-Let-Loose Day! (Or, if you’re NPR, it’s your excuse to go completely loco and play some Nortec Collective.)
Aboriginal Musician Rocks iTunes
by Joanna Kakissis | 04.30.08 | 12:36 PM ET
Australians are snapping up new music from Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, an Aborginal musician who sings some of his songs in his native language, Yolngu. According to the International Herald Tribune, his first solo album, “Gurrumul,” released earlier this year, “jumped to No. 1 on the iTunes Australia roots music chart (it is currently No. 3)” and “is running strong in the mainstream iTunes music chart, above such international heavy hitters as Mariah Carey.” His MySpace page touts it as “One of the most important and beautiful Indigenous albums yet recorded.” Here’s a video clip from a recent show:
Communing with Kerouac: Ben Gibbard in Big Sur
by Michael Yessis | 04.16.08 | 10:19 AM ET
The singer and songwriter for Death Cab For Cutie wrote songs for the band’s upcoming album, Narrow Stairs, at a cabin in Big Sur—the same spot Jack Kerouac wrote his book “Big Sur.” For its most recent issue, Paste magazine sent Gibbard back to the cabin, where he filed a cover story about his love for Kerouac and the impact of the writer on his life, particularly his book “On the Road.”
Jazz Great Brubeck Honored as Traveling Diplomat
by Julia Ross | 04.07.08 | 3:25 PM ET
Jazz musician Dave Brubeck, best known for his classic “Take Five,” is in Washington, D.C., this week to receive a State Department Benjamin Franklin Award for “civilian service to international cooperation.” It turns out, according to a fascinating Washington Post story, that Brubeck is one of the country’s longest serving public diplomats, a role he first embraced in 1958 on a nine-country musical tour that included Poland, East Germany, Iran and Iraq.
Hard Rock Park and the Led Zeppelin Roller Coaster
by Jim Benning | 04.02.08 | 1:10 PM ET
It’s been nearly a year since we noted the coming Myrtle Beach Hard Rock amusement park, and particularly its centerpiece roller coaster honoring Led Zeppelin. If he were dead, I wrote back then, Jimmy Page would be rolling over in his grave. Well, Jimmy Page is still with us, and the truth is, he not only picked out the song that plays on the ride, “Whole Lotta Love,” but he’s billed as being instrumental in the ride’s creation. (All that while also apparently gathering quite a collection of Pre-Raphaelite art.)
Travel Headline of the Day: ‘Kanye West Launches Travel Website’
by Jim Benning | 04.02.08 | 10:17 AM ET
Some celebrities have clothing lines, some dabble in perfume. Why not travel?
R.I.P. Cachao
by Jim Benning | 03.24.08 | 10:25 AM ET
Burning, Burning, Burning, and Nothing Can Cool Me?
by Eva Holland | 03.19.08 | 10:17 AM ET
Photo of parking sign at Graceland RV Park by Eva Holland.
I spent the better part of last week literally at the end of Lonely Street, in an RV park across the street from Graceland. Competition was stiff, but my verdict is in: The most hilarious Elvis-related play on words came courtesy of the Heartbreak Hotel’s Jungle Room Restaurant, where the “Hunk a Burning Tenders” are on offer every day from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. The only downside? They really weren’t that spicy.
‘Do Right Woman’: ‘Worth the 160-Mile Detour From Nashville’
by Eva Holland | 03.18.08 | 2:03 PM ET
Photo by micampe via Flickr (Creative Commons)
I’ve often felt frustrated that most of my favorite music was recorded years before I was born, and that instead of going to live shows, I have to visit museums. Not much of a substitute, right? But this week, one music history museum came close to filling that void.
No James Brown Museum in Augusta? Get up Offa That Thing!
by Eva Holland | 03.10.08 | 12:08 PM ET
I rolled into Augusta, Georgia last week admittedly unprepared. I hadn’t done any research, hadn’t checked out the city’s Web site—I had simply assumed that James Brown’s hometown would have a museum dedicated to the hardest working man in show business. Silly me. Turns out there’s a statue in a plaza, and a street was re-named for him in 1993. But a museum?
‘Once’ and the Art of Busking
by Michael Yessis | 02.28.08 | 9:34 AM ET
Louis Vuitton Channels ‘Babel’ in ‘Journey’ Spot
by Jim Benning | 02.21.08 | 12:45 PM ET
At least that's my take on the 90-second commercial popping up on TV these days celebrating travel -- and, yes, at the very end, designer handbags (the company got its start making travel trunks more than a century ago). The haunting music is by composer Gustavo Santaolalla, who's behind the soundtracks for "Amores Perros," "Babel," "Brokeback Mountain" and "The Motorcycle Diaries." (I confess to having a "Gustavo" playlist on my iPod; I love his stuff.) According to The New York Times, the spot was shot in Japan, France, Spain and India. It's not exactly "Babel," which I loved, but it's pretty mesmerizing. Here it is: