It’s festival season! But are festivals any good for the environment? This week Chanté chats to Lewis Jamieson of Music Declares Emergency and the Grammy-nominated House DJ Jayda G about how festivals can become more sustainable and why the music industry can be an important voice in the fight for climate justice.
Jayda G’s documentary Blue Carbon can be watched here
Archive – BBC, TikTok (billsvids), CNN, Blue Carbon (WaterBear), Instagram (liamcmusic_), BBC 5Live,
Continue reading...Exclusive: Michigan governor and potential Biden replacement writes in memoir True Gretch of desire for ‘face-to-face’ talks
Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan widely spoken of as a possible Democratic candidate for president should Joe Biden cede to growing pressure and leave the race, wants to meet members of a far-right militia who plotted to kidnap and kill her.
“I asked whether I could meet with one of the handful of plotters who’d pleaded guilty and taken responsibility for their actions, just to talk,” Whitmer writes in a new book, of the plot motivated by resistance to Covid public health measures and revealed with 13 arrests in late 2020.
Continue reading...PM pays tribute to country’s best-known novelist as coffin is covered in national flag and flowers
Thousands of Albanians have gathered in Tirana to pay tribute to their country’s best-known novelist, Ismail Kadare, who died on Monday after a heart attack.
Flags flew at half-mast as the 88-year-old writer and poet’s coffin lay in state in the entrance hall of the Opera and Ballet theatre in Skanderbeg Square, surrounded by National Guard officers.
Continue reading...Lawsuit says student and youth groups hurt after teacher was fired for reading My Shadow is Purple to students
The Southern Poverty Law Center and another group have amended a federal lawsuit against a Georgia school district to include a transgender student and a grassroots youth organization, effectively becoming the “first case challenging anti-LGBTQ book bans” in the state.
The move – done anonymously to protect the student – widens the case’s focus from how teachers are affected by censorship laws and policies in Georgia, to how those same policies affect children.
Continue reading...Chart-topping singer cancels remainder of 2024 tour dates but says she hopes to return next year
Ann Wilson, the lead singer of rock band Heart, has announced that she has been diagnosed with cancer.
The 74-year-old wrote in an Instagram post: “I recently underwent an operation to remove something that, as it turns out, was cancerous. The operation was successful & I’m feeling great but my doctors are now advising me to undergo a course of preventive chemotherapy & I’ve decided to do it. And so my doctors are instructing me to take the rest of the year away from the stage in order to fully recover.”
Continue reading...Insolvency advisers are assessing the business while options for its sale or recapitalisation are explored
Booktopia has entered into voluntary administration, but will continue filling orders and selling to the public under supervision from an insolvency adviser.
Australia’s largest online bookseller announced the move on Wednesday, two weeks after it went into a voluntary suspension of share trading.
Continue reading...The much-anticipated sequel to the director’s 1988 hit Beetlejuice will get its world premiere at the festival in August
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Tim Burton’s sequel to his 1988 hit Beetlejuice, has been selected as the opening film of the Venice film festival. The screening will be the world premiere of the film, which reunites original stars Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder with Burton.
Festival director Alberto Barbera said in a statement that it “marks the long-awaited return of one of the most iconic characters of Tim Burton’s cinema, but also the happy confirmation of the extraordinary visionary talent and the masterly realisation of one of the most fascinating auteurs of his time”.
Continue reading...Much-lauded Praiseworthy joins works by Gregory Day, André Dao, Sanya Rushdi, Jen Craig and Hossein Asgari competing for Australia’s highest literary honour
Alexis Wright continues her dream run with the acclaimed novel Praiseworthy, one of six books announced as the shortlist for the 2024 Miles Franklin literary award, Australia’s highest literary honour.
Announced on Tuesday, the other five books up for the $60,000 prize are Gregory Day’s The Bell of the World, André Dao’s Anam, Sanya Rushdi’s Hospital, Jen Craig’s Wall and Hossein Asgari’s Only Sound Remains.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Veteran actors fast-tracked into venerable London club in wake of men-only rule being jettisoned after 193 years
The Garrick Club has named Judi Dench and Siân Phillips as distinguished members, making them the first women to be allowed to join the club in its 193-year history.
The actors were given fast-tracked membership during the club’s annual general meeting on Monday evening. Until now, no woman had been allowed into the Garrick unless invited in and accompanied around the building by a man.
Continue reading...After festival organisers refused to screen Euros clash, pop singer bought flat screen TV and generator from Argos on Sunday morning and set them up in camping area
Festivalgoers at Glastonbury were given the opportunity to watch England’s Euro 2024 last-16 match against Slovakia by an unlikely figure: former One Direction star Louis Tomlinson, who livestreamed the game in the festival campsite on a flatscreen television he’d bought from Argos earlier in the day.
Glastonbury officials had announced earlier in the week that the match would not be shown at the festival due to clashes with performances on the major stages, forcing fans to find enterprising ways to watch it. Tomlinson was more enterprising than most, purchasing a flat screen TV and generator on Sunday morning and streaming the game using wifi. He said that he had initially intended to watch the game in the hospitality section but was thwarted by spotty reception, so brought the TV to the main festival site instead.
Continue reading...In the shadow culture minister’s seat, there is a degree of hope a Labour government might bring change
“I felt like Bristol was one of the best places in the country to make theatre,” says writer and performer Amy Mason, who’s lived in Bristol for most of her life. “It was quite punk. It was this very well organised, inclusive and active system of getting work on stage. People could make a living out of theatre.”
Mason left school at 16 and worked in retail, but a community theatre project not far from the colourful house we’re sitting in on the edge of the city offered her the chance to attend a playwright workshop and put on a small show. “They liked it, they gave me a commission, I was like: Oh my God, I could be a writer!” From there, she started writing short stories, went on to stage three shows with Bristol Old Vic, and has grown a career as a TV writer and standup comedian.
Continue reading...Music festival eschews football screening out of respect for headliners, but people wheel out portable TVs
As the Glastonbury festival filled up on Sunday, there was an incongruous mix of England football shirts and cowgirl get-ups among the crowds.
England’s Euro 2024 football match against Slovakia kicked off at 5pm on Sunday, immediately after Shania Twain’s Legends slot and shortly before Avril Lavigne took to the Other stage at 6pm.
Continue reading...Political allies are also surprised at move, which cancels nearly entirety of state’s funding and will affect economy
Ron DeSantis stripped more than $32m in arts and culture funding from Florida’s state budget over his hatred of a popular fringe festival that he accused of being “a sexual event”, critics of the rightwing governor say.
DeSantis justified his unprecedented, wide-ranging veto of grants to almost 700 groups and organizations by saying it was “inappropriate” for $7,369 of state money to be allocated to Tampa fringe, a 10-day festival that took place earlier this month with a strong message of inclusivity, and its sister event in Orlando.
Continue reading...The voice of Gaelic football and hurling for half a century, RTÉ Radio commentator’s wry, deadpan remarks were sporting folkore
When the time came for Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh to leave the field and discover if there are Gaelic Games in the afterlife, Ireland mourned a radio broadcaster who for half a century had been the voice of sport.
Sadness at news of his death on Tuesday at the age of 93 swiftly alchemised into a celebration of a singular ability to paint pictures with words, lyricism and wisecracks that made the nation laugh and entered folklore.
Continue reading...Dominique Boutonnat to step down from French industry champion CNC, and will serve sentence at home
Dominique Boutonnat, the head of France’s powerful National Centre for Cinema and the Moving Image (CNC), was on Friday given a three-year prison sentence, including two years suspended, after being convicted of sexually assaulting his godson in 2020.
In a statement released immediately after the ruling, Boutonnat announced he would step down as head of the CNC, a government agency whose role includes overseeing measures to curb sexual violence in the industry.
Continue reading...Court filing details how the King of Pop was in financial straits as he was preparing to embark on his This Is It tour
Michael Jackson had accumulated more than half a billion dollars of debt when he died in 2009, new court documents reveal.
A 21 June court filing by the executors of his estate provided some of the most complete details yet about the strained finances with which the 13-time Grammy winner was grappling at the time of his death.
Continue reading...Claimants, backed by composer’s estate, lose claim of co-authorship, described as ‘historical fiction’
A French court has ruled that Boléro, one of the best-known works of classical music in the world, was written by Maurice Ravel alone, in a verdict on a case with big financial stakes that could have taken the work out of the public domain.
Ravel first performed Boléro at the Paris Opera in 1928 and it was an immediate sensation. He died 10 years later and his heirs were paid millions of dollars until the copyright ran out in 2016.
Continue reading...Youth groups from Serbia and Kosovo who organise the Mirëdita Dobar Dan cultural event accuse Serbia’s interior ministry of failing to protect them from intimidation
Organisers of a festival designed to promote cultural exchange between Kosovo and Serbia say Belgrade authorities have caved in to pressure from hooligan groups by banning this year’s event.
In a statement released on Thursday afternoon, Belgrade police cited security concerns as the reason to cancel the event Mirëdita Dobar Dan (meaning “Good day” in Albanian and Serbian), which was due to start in the Serbian capital yesterday.
Continue reading...Singer wore footwear on and off stage during 1950s before giving them to a friend when called up to US army
Well it’s one for the money … a lot of money actually.
The blue suede shoes worn by Elvis Presley during the early part of his career are expected to fetch £120,000 at auction on Friday.
Continue reading...Presenter forced to improvise after track cuts out because of computer system failure
“Please don’t stop the music,” Rihanna once sang. On Thursday, producers at BBC Radio 2 scrambled to oblige as Vernon Kay was forced to use CDs to play music on the station after its digital system failed.
The radio presenter, 50, was playing Won’t Get Fooled Again by The Who towards the end of his show when the issue occurred. At about 11.30am, the track cut out and he came back on air laughing. He said: “This has never happened to me, where the computer system has just failed.”
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