Saturday, March 29, 2014
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Jack Housen
Jack Housen has self-produced 5 cds since 1993. Up until that time he played with a variety of bands ranging from new wave to reggae to jam bands.
During Jack Housen's childhood he performed in various choirs recording albums,performing,and occcasionally touring.
On his latest cd he recorded at Interstellar Sound utilizing Jon Crawford(engineer,drums), John Mcknight(multi-instrumentalist,Fishbone,Ben Harper,) as well as Lauren Chipman(viola) and Hope Easton(cello) whose collaborations in the industry contain a very large list.
Jack Housen wanted to display the variety of different muscial styles that influenced him over the years wanting all the songs to sound connected.
Saturday, March 1, 2014
David Leask
David Leask
Multi-award winning Scottish-Canadian Singer/songwriter David Leask Releases 4th full-length album “Underneath” Getting back to the basic elements of great music often involves a deep look below the surface, a mining of the heart and soul and a time of reflection and rediscovery.
Two-time International Songwriting Competition Winner David Leask has done all of this and more to craft his 4th studio album "Underneath". Leask's first full-length release in over 8 years, "Underneath" ushers in a new artistic era for this musical lifer and multi-award winner who's enjoyed comparisons to such master storytellers as John Prine and John Hiatt.
Co-produced by Leask and Juno-winning multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer Justin Abedin and mixed by Grammy winner Chad Carlson, "Underneath" is a deeply evocative, soul-stirring collection that stands as a high watermark along an adventurous, strongly independent and continually evolving career path.
Following 3 critically acclaimed releases garnering national airplay on radio and CMT, "Underneath" is the rich and robust culmination of thousands of shows played, over 100 songs written, the stellar contributions of over 25 world class musicians, and many inventive days and nights of bringing it all to life in 6 Toronto and Nashville studios.
Still, Leask attributes just one week in 2012 spent immersed in world renowned bass player Victor Wooten's Music and Nature Camp near Nashville with hitting his artistic restart button and bringing him back to the foundations of music making. David recalls "When I left there I felt closer to the core of my musical instincts and had a clearer vision for the kind of record I wanted to make."
From the curiosity-piquing guitar arpeggio that introduces “Words” to the poignant vocal declaration that closes “This Time 'Round”, "Underneath" provides a revealing and relatable view of what's beneath the waves of everyday life, love and the world as we know it. Leask co-wrote 11 of the album's 13 tracks. Songs such as the title track "Underneath", “Photosynthesis” and “One Second Look” shed refreshingly mature perspectives on personal relationships.
Others like “Freedom by the Barrel”, “Ready to Buy” and “Breathing” go even deeper to tackle and examine social conditions such as war mongering, rampant consumerism and the struggle for peace amidst chaos. Leask also recorded two songs penned by celebrated Nashville writers Doug Gill (“Stronger Back”) and Darrell Scott & Beth Neilsen Chapman (“This Time Round”) that thematically and stylistically compliment the collection as a whole.
"I wanted to make the listening experience very much a dynamic journey, almost like the listener is at a great live show", David explains. Long before American Idol brought the excitement of talent competitions into our living rooms, Leask and his band won the BBC-televised National Rock School Competition in his native Scotland and his musical die was cast. Twenty years later, Leask’s polished, yet rootsy, charm-filled performances garnered him the Mississauga Performing Artist of the Year Award. A songwriter's songwriter, Leask has also gathered numerous honours for his songwriting, most recently in the USA Songwriting Competition.
Songwriters Magazine called Leask, "the most consistent Canadian songwriting competition winner." Leask takes his innate ability to connect with an audience into the classroom as well, teaching songwriting in schools as a mentor for the School Alliance of Student Songwriters as well as the Songwriters' Association of Canada. David notes, "It's refreshing and inspiring for me to go into the classroom and experience the exchange of creativity and the unjaded imagination of the kids while I'm teaching."
With "Underneath", Leask has taken his influences from both sides of the Atlantic and forged an album of meticulously-crafted, vigorously road-tested songs. The result is an exhilarating, genre-surfing journey that traverses rhythm and bluegrass, country and soul, roots and rock. David adds, "More than any previous record, people can get a deeper sense of who and where I am. In a sense, they can meet me in the music."
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Daina and the Tribe
This album has an array of jazz masters with studio and LIVE recordings from the "Bottom Line" "CBGB's" and "The Lismar Lounge" playing music written by Daina Shukis as well as co-author Jeremy Steig. Daina plays finger cymbals showing her expertise in the middle eastern venue giving a trance ethnic flavor to some songs.
Her vocals are sensuous, incorporating a clear almost operatic tone in some parts of this musical experience. Percussionist Don Alias and Ray Mantilla are amazing talents whose emotional input ranges from delicate triangle to the fire of congas in the african jungle to the urban street. Jeremy Steig who won the Jazz Forum Top People poll, no 1 for the world in 1982 in the flute category has been preserved in rare vintage audio.
There are too many talents to mention here but I am sure you will enjoy this creative mix of exceptional musicians. Artist Biography Daina Shukis recieved a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Dance/Drama from New york University, as well as studying voice and specialized in writing her own music for her choreography.
As a dance accompanist at Skidmore College Daina choreographed and wrote music for their dance group which she brought to her Alma Mater Emma Willard School. She directed the production of the william Butler yeats play "At the Hawks Well" at Skidmore where she met Don Alias, gene Perla and Jeremy steig when they performed with Elvin Jones. Their support of her music and dancing career resulted in the albums and videos presented on the website jazzrockndance.com.
There are now three albums LIVE on Amazon, Itunes and cdbaby, Daina and the Tribe LIVE at Soundscape with Jeremy Steig and "CBGB's" power trio, "On a Jungle Boat Ride" and an instrumental album "Mystic Rendezvous" with Daina playing impressionist pieces on synthesizer, and presenting Jeremy's tunes which were played LIVE prior to her coming on the stage.
Daina performed and choreographed a dance to her own song " Long John Silver, a Pirate " for the Guillot play "Pet for Company" at the La Mama theatre. Her choreographic piece "Tlalocs Forest has been shown on cable TV. She has sung for Sesame Street childrens television and performed with "Daina and the Tribe" in the New York city area at such notable clubs as The Bottom Line (opening two nights for James cotton), The Lone Star Cafe (opening for Jaco Pastorious), CBGB's and many others. She now has a publishing contract with cdbaby.
Album Name: Daina and the Tribe Email Address: dolphinstreet@verizon.net Website Address: http://www.jazzrockndance.com
Monday, February 24, 2014
Paula Deen says she's 'back in the saddle'
Paula Deen says she's 'back in the saddle'
Paula Deen turns cooking demo into public apology, saying she's 'not a quitter'
By j.m. Hirsch, AP Food Editor
1 hour ago
"We have come off of a very hard summer my family and I, my team, my partners," she said to a cheering crowd of several hundred fans. "But you know, I have heard on more than one occasion ... that I've never apologized. So if anybody did not hear me apologize, I would like to apologize to those who did not hear me."
Deen's career has been in shambles following a one-two punch of public relations disasters. In 2012, she was criticized for announcing she had both diabetes and a lucrative endorsement deal for a drug to treat the condition she'd until then hidden.
Then last summer, during a legal dispute with a former employee who accused her of racial discrimination and sexual harassment, she acknowledged having used racial slurs in the past. Most of her endorsement, book and TV deals fell apart within days.
Deen has mostly stayed out of the spotlight since then, even avoiding the Food Network's 20th anniversary party last October. But lately, she has made it clear she wants back. Earlier this month, she announced that private investment firm Najafi Companies is investing $75 million to $100 million to help her make a comeback.
As part of the deal, she's launching an umbrella company, Paula Deen Ventures, that will oversee her restaurants, cookbooks and product endorsements. And Sunday's crowd seemed primed for it all, shouting out to her "You don't need to apologize!" and "We want you back, Paula!"
"Ya'll's cards and letters that I got, helped me get out of bed every day," she replied.
Midway through the demo, Food Network star Robert Irvine joined Deen onstage. Irvine survived his own scandal in in 2008 when the Food Network let him go over discrepancies in claims he'd made over his work experience. He eventually returned to the Network, seemingly unblemished.
"This is a warning to you," Irvine told Deen. "You've apologized. You've eaten crow. You're done. Don't do it anymore. I've been there."
Before a roaring crowd, Irvine then got down on his hands and knees while Deen straddled his back and rode him across the stage, a reenactment of a gimmick they'd done during a previous festival.
"I'm back in the saddle!" she yelled to the crowd.
___
AP Food Editor J.M. Hirsch tweets as @JM_Hirsch and can be emailed at jhirsch@ap.org
For more video related to Paula Deen, click below:
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Hollywood is 'Woefully Out of Touch' with Everyday People
UCLA Diversity Study Blasts Hollywood as 'Woefully Out of Touch'
Onscreen and off, minorities and women are drastically underrepresented — even at a cost to ratings and box office — according to a new report, which targets talent agencies, Oscars and Emmys, among others.
A UCLA study released Wednesday slammed the entertainment industry for its persistent and dramatic underrepresentation of minorities and women onscreen and behind the scenes, with the study’s chief author telling The Hollywood Reporter in an interview that “there are a lot of industries that do a better job than Hollywood” in forging workforces that reflect the nation’s diversity.
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The study, prepared by a team led by Darnell Hunt of UCLA’s Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, found that ethnic minorities were underrepresented as lead actors in films by a factor of more than three-to-one -- that is, they appeared as leads at less than one-third the rate that would be expected based on their proportion of the population, which the study said was about 36 percent. Hunt is director of the center and a professor of sociology.
In broadcast TV comedies and dramas, minorities were underrepresented by a factor of seven-to-one, the study found, while the ratio on cable and in reality programming was two-to-one.
The situation was similar behind the scenes. As film directors, minorities were underrepresented by a factor of three-to-one; as film writers and as creators of comedies and dramas on cable, the ratio was five-to-one; and as creators of broadcast comedies and dramas, nine-to-one.
Hunt is pessimistic that the situation will change anytime soon. “There are a lot of white males in positions in the industry who are not in a rush to do things differently,” he says. “There’s a self-fulfilling prophecy at work, a vicious cycle,” he added, when minorities and women are passed over for opportunities.
Women appeared as leading actors in about 52 percent of broadcast comedies and dramas studied, a proportionate share. But they were underrepresented by a factor of twelve-to-one as film directors and three-to-one as film writers. In the other film and TV categories studied, they were represented at only 50 percent to 70 percent the expected rate.
Ironically, the study also found that greater diversity onscreen actually helps the bottom line. Hunt tells THR that ratings and box office peak when the cast is 30 to 40 percent minority. “That’s the sweet spot,” he says. “When you reflect the diversity of the American scene, you do better.”
The study took aim at talent agencies as well. The three major agencies represented more than two-thirds of the writers, directors and lead actors in the 172 leading films in 2011. Yet less than 10 percent of this talent was minority, according to the study. In broadcast television, the same three agencies represented more than two-thirds of show creators and more than half of the leads. Yet minorities accounted for only 1.4 percent of these creators and 5.5 percent of these leads during the 201112 broadcast season. In cable, the three agencies represented more than two-thirds of show creators and nearly half of all leads, but only 6.1 percent of these creators and 13 percent of these leads were minorities.
“There are certain major projects that you just don’t get to be part of unless you have a connection with one of these top agencies,” says Ana-Cristina Ramon, co-author of the study and the assistant director of the Bunche Center. “Or maybe you get to be a part of it, but you’re not going to be the lead. So the tendency of top agencies to pack their talent rosters with whites really restricts access to opportunities for underrepresented groups.”
The study also criticized industry awards. No minority-directed film from 2011 won an Oscar, and no film with a minority lead actor won an Oscar, the study shows. More than 90 percent of the Oscar-winning films in 2011 had male directors, and more than 80 percent of Oscar-winning films featured male leads.
Only 5 percent of Emmy-winning comedies and dramas on broadcast TV from 2011-12 were minority-created, and a single show — Shonda Rhimes’ Grey’s Anatomy — accounted for that entire share. On cable TV, no minority-created comedies or dramas won Emmy awards.
Programming created by women fared only slightly better. Of the Emmy-winning broadcast comedies and dramas, 20 percent were created by women; about 7 percent of the Emmy-winning cable programs were created by women.
The study, titled “2014 Hollywood Diversity Report: Making Sense of the Disconnect,” focused on the top 172 American-made movies from 2011 and more than 1,000 television shows that aired on 68 cable and broadcast networks during the 2011-12 season. Future studies will take more-current data into account, but there will always be a lag, says Hunt, because of the large size of the database and the complexity of analysis. The intent is to track trends in diversity over time and to identify best practices for widening the pipeline for underrepresented groups.
The findings come at a time of increasing diversity in the U.S., with minorities outpacing whites as consumers of entertainment. Even though minorities account for 36.3 percent of the overall U.S. population, they represent 44.1 percent of frequent moviegoers and tend to watch more hours of television each week than white viewers, according to the study’s authors.
“The report paints a picture of an industry that is woefully out of touch with an emerging America, an America that’s becoming more diverse by the day,” says Hunt. “The situation is better than it was in the 1950s, but Hollywood is falling further and further behind. America is infinitely more diverse than it was. So the gap has gotten bigger between where America is going and where the industry is going.”
Hunt is the author of the "Hollywood Writers Report,” an ongoing analysis for the WGA focusing on employment, access and earnings among television and film writers. He was also the principal investigator on “The African American Television Report,” released by SAG in 2000. In 1993, he served as a media researcher for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights hearings on diversity in Hollywood.
Told that the DGA had recently achieved contract language that requires each major television studio to establish a formal diversity program by July 1, 2014, Hunt said that “there may be some positive change there [but] we’ll have to wait and see.” He added that he hoped the WGA (now in negotiations) and SAG-AFTRA (with negotiations upcoming) would be able to add additional diversity language as well. He also praised the efforts of diversity offices at each of the guilds.
Zachary Price, the holder of a recent doctorate in theater from UC Santa Barbara, worked on the project, as did four UCLA graduate students. Support for the report was provided by the Bunche Center’s Hollywood Advancement Project. Hunt added that support was also provided by donors who wished to remain anonymous, given the sensitivity of the issue in Hollywood.
Bookmark The Hollywood Reporter’s Labor Page for the most in-depth coverage of entertainment unions and guilds.
E-mail: jhandel99 at gmail dot com
Twitter: @jhandel
Twitter: @jhandel
Saturday, February 1, 2014
Shakira debuted her sexy new video on Thursday featuring Rihanna,"Can't Remember To Forget You,
Quick Hits: Shakira, Rihanna
January 31, 2014
Shakira debuted her sexy new video on Thursday featuring Rihanna,"Can't Remember To Forget You," and it's sure creating quite a buzz! The ladies make for a sizzling combination on the first single from Shakira's 10th album, Why Wait. It's already shaping up to be one of the hottest videos of 2014 with more than 10 million views and counting.
View the video below:
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