Category Archives: Music

Israel says it will not allow in activists planning to ‘disturb’ Eurovision

Posted on by

Protests expected at song contest over country’s treatment of Palestinians

Israel has said it will block activists who plan to disrupt the Eurovision Song Contest from entering the country, as anxiety mounts that the event, watched by a global TV audience, will become a focus for protests against the country’s treatment of the Palestinians.

The world’s longest-running televised song competition will take place on 14-18 May in the coastal city of Tel Aviv. Contestants have begun to arrive, stage lights have been hung and fresh grass has been laid for a massive party on the seafront.

Continue reading...

Teknival: 30 suffer hypothermia after snow hits French music festival

Posted on by

Red Cross steps in after temperatures drop below zero at unauthorised electronic music festival

About 30 people have been treated for hypothermia at an outdoor techno music festival in France after unexpected snowfall left many sheltering under survival blankets distributed by the Red Cross.

About 10,000 people attended the unauthorised Teknival 2019 festival in the central Creuse region at the weekend, where temperatures dropped to -3C over Saturday night.

Continue reading...

Woodstock 50 thrown into doubt after backer ‘cancels’ festival

Posted on by

Lead investor pulls funding but organisers say event will go ahead and will be ‘a blast’

There are conflicting reports as to whether a planned three-day concert to mark the 50th anniversary of the Woodstock festival has been cancelled or not.

Woodstock 50 was scheduled to take place on 16 to 18 August in Watkins Glen in upstate New York state with a lineup including the rapper Jay-Z, the singer Miley Cyrus and the rockers the Killers.

Continue reading...

Celebrities denounce proposed boycott of Eurovision in Israel

Posted on by

Stephen Fry, Marina Abramović and Sharon Osbourne among stars describing the boycott movement as ‘an affront to both Palestinians and Israelis’

Public figures including Stephen Fry, Sharon Osbourne, Marina Abramović and pop mogul Scooter Braun have signed a letter speaking out against a proposed boycott of this year’s Eurovision song contest, which is to be held in Tel Aviv in May.

Their letter states that Eurovision’s “spirit of togetherness” across the continent is “under attack by those calling to boycott Eurovision 2019 because it is being held in Israel, subverting the spirit of the contest and turning it from a tool of unity into a weapon of division”.

Continue reading...

Why we need to pause before claiming cultural appropriation | Ash Sarkar

Posted on by
The debate, tied up with racial oppression and exploitation, is a difficult one. Yet not every interloper is a colonialist in disguise

Is Gordon Ramsay allowed to cook Chinese food ? Is it OK to dress up as Disney’s Moana? Can Jamie Oliver cook jollof rice despite plainly not knowing what it is? Exactly what is cultural appropriation? To take a glance at Good Morning Britain, the ITV show that never takes its finger off the pulse of Middle England’s clogged arteries, you’d think it’s a question of white people seeking permission to have fun. And in return, new media outlets have guaranteed traffic from anxious millennials by listing things that fall into the category of problematic when white people adopt them (blaccents, bindis and box braids).

Related: Gordon Ramsay defends new restaurant in cultural appropriation row

Continue reading...

A love song for Europe: the couple who drove 20,000 miles to record 731 tunes

Posted on by

They put a recording studio in a rickety motorhome and crossed 33 countries – asking strangers to knock out a tearjerker

‘People asked us, ‘Are you crackers?’” says Gemma Paintin. She can see why. Along with fellow Bristol artist James Stenhouse, Paintin spent half of 2018 travelling around Europe in an old motorhome, recording love songs. Their epic trek took in almost 20,000 miles, 33 countries, 46 languages and 731 songs – each sung in their battered mobile studio, mostly by random strangers.

These ranged from a seven-year-old Greek boy singing the Kiss song I Was Made for Lovin’ You (“even the guitar parts”) to MEP Peter Simon, who laid down a German folksong. There was a singing security guard in Madrid and some lads in Leeds who bawled through Robbie Williams’s Angels. This, says Paintin, was “exactly how you’d expect a lad version of Angels to sound”.

Continue reading...

Beyoncé rocks, but so did Woodstock | Brief letters

Posted on by
Roger Waters | Rock concerts | Use-by dates | Exercise | Smartphones

Regarding Jeremy Beecham’s thoughts on Roger Waters (Letters, 19 April), I think we can take it as read Waters would not encourage Madonna to support the Assad regime by playing Damascus.
John Warburton
Edinburgh

• You failed to mention the two most important filmed rock concerts (Homecoming review – Beyoncé documentary is a triumphant celebration, 19 April): Monterey Pop and Woodstock. To write about seminal filmed rock gigs without mentioning them is like writing about influential 60s groups without mentioning the Beatles or the Stones.
Jon Ingram
Ilkley, West Yorkshire

Continue reading...

Roger Waters is too simplistic on Israel | Letters

Posted on by
Readers share their views on the musician’s call for other artists to stay away from Israel over its human rights record

Roger Waters’ mother imploring her son to “decide for yourself” and execute the “right thing to do” was no doubt in reference to the juvenile politics of the playground (If you believe in human rights, Madonna, don’t play Tel Aviv, 17 April). Unfortunately, these simple values can not be transposed to the labyrinthine issues of the Middle East in general and the Arab-Israeli conflict in particular.

Sadly “bad stuff” occurs in all conflicts, which are not as clearcut as Waters would suggest: baddie Israelis (“apartheid”, “ethnic cleansing”, “slaughter”) versus goodie Palestinians (“fortitude”, “grace”, “heads high”).

Continue reading...

Bill Drummond to lead Irish border poll and hand out hot cross buns

Posted on by

The KLF founder will ask citizens if they agree with a clause he proposes adding to the Good Friday agreement

His best-known actions include burning £1m, firing blanks at the 1992 Brit awards and dropping a dead sheep on the red carpet of a luxury hotel as a member of the KLF. But Bill Drummond’s latest public display is more sedate: on Good Friday, he will stand on the Irish border, handing out homemade hot cross buns and conducting an informal referendum.

Between 10am and 12pm on 19 April, Drummond will ask the first 40 people who cross the border between Derry and Donegal whether they agree or disagree with adding a clause of his creation to the Good Friday agreement:

Continue reading...

Who polices the cultural appropriation gatekeepers? | Kenan Malik

Posted on by

Indigenous musicians in Canada are at one another’s throats over the Cree artist Cikwes’s use of a traditional Inuit singing technique

Another week, another row over cultural appropriation. But this one is different. It’s not a white artist being accused of appropriating the cultural forms of a minority community but an Indigenous Canadian artist being condemned for using the musical style of another Indigenous community.

Connie LeGrande, who performs under the name Cikwes, was nominated at the Canadian Indigenous Music awards in the best folk album category. LeGrande is a Nehiyaw, or Cree, one of Canada’s First Nations. On her album Isko, she uses katajjaq, a style of throat singing culturally and historically linked to Inuit groups. First Nations are Indigenous groups south of the Arctic Circle, Inuits those who live in the Arctic.

Continue reading...

Nipsey Hussle: Snoop Dogg and Stevie Wonder pay respects as memorial draws 21,000

Posted on by

Friends, family and fans gather in Los Angeles as blogger reads letter from Barack Obama to crowd

Nipsey Hussle’s legacy as a persistent rapper, community activist, uniter, doting father, protective sibling and loving son were underscored at his public memorial service on Thursday, with deeply personal testimonies from those closest to the rapper, including his fiancee, Lauren London; collaborator and dear friend Snoop Dogg; and his mother, who said she was at peace with the death of her “superhero” son.

Beyoncé and Jay-Z were among the celebrities who attended the three-hour event in Los Angeles at the Staples Center. The last celebrity funeral held at the concert arena was Michael Jackson’s in 2009.

Continue reading...

Stormzy pulls out of Austrian festival citing ‘racial profiling’

Posted on by

Rapper cancels headline slot at Snowbombing hours before he was due to go on stage

Stormzy has pulled out of his headline slot at Snowbombing festival just hours before he was due to perform, after accusing its staff of racially profiling his manager.

The Brit award-winning rapper, 25, said his friends had been targeted by security at the event in Mayrhofen, Austria, on Thursday looking for someone carrying a weapon, “despite no one [in their party] fitting the description”.

Continue reading...

The 50 best songs about Europe – ranked!

Posted on by

Brexit is delayed – so voyager avec nous on a trans-European tour of music, from Paris to Berlin via Finistère. Tout le monde à bord!

Poor old Lloyd went to Amsterdam and all he got was double pneumonia in a single room. And, by the sounds of it, his love life is going horribly wrong. Just don’t ask him about the price of medicine (obviously he didn’t get his European health insurance card). It’s enough to make anyone go No Deal, really.

Continue reading...

Groping a big problem at gigs, say promoters and campaigners

Posted on by

Calls for venues to have better sexual assault policies as punk duo tweet about fan being groped

Sexual harassment and groping remains a big problem at live music events, promoters and venue owners have warned, after the duo Sleaford Mods said a female fan had been assaulted during one of their shows.

The punk band spoke out after a gig in Bristol on Saturday night, saying on Twitter that they had “had a report of a female fan being groped in the crowd”, and adding: “Touching anyone without their consent is not acceptable no matter how you dress it up.”

Continue reading...

Solange pulls out of Coachella 2019 due to ‘production delays’

Posted on by

R&B star was due to do two Saturday performances at the Californian music festival

Solange has cancelled her Coachella performance a week out from the Californian festival due to “major production delays”, organisers say.

The R&B star was slated for two Saturday performances at the festival – on 13 and 20 April – but on Sunday night it was confirmed both would be cancelled.

Continue reading...

White Porgy and Bess cast ‘asked to say they identify as African-American’

Posted on by

Hungarian singers allegedly signed paper to bypass stipulation of all-black cast

The Hungarian State Opera has come up with a dubious way around a stipulation that George Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess be performed by an all-black cast: it is allegedly asking its white, Hungarian singers to sign a paper saying they identify as African-American.

The company first put on the opera a year ago, leading to a spat with the Gershwin estate, which stipulates the opera should only be performed by a black cast.

Continue reading...

Troye Sivan: ‘I have to get comfortable with being effeminate’

Posted on by

The former YouTuber turned musician and actor talks about sudden stardom, queer pride and life as a showman

Troye Sivan is posing in full view of the street, delighting the small groups of teenagers who stop outside the photo studio to gawp. Some of them know who he is. The rest can tell he must be Someone. The South African-born Australian, 23, is as luminous as a cherub and has no qualms about giving it his best Rodin: foot perched on a starry plinth, trousers gaping around his slim frame.

Sivan has been preparing to be looked at since before puberty. As of last year, he is a pop star – not quite a household name, but big enough to command an invitation from Taylor Swift to duet on her recent US tour, and a guest spot from old friend Ariana Grande on his 2018 album Bloom. Critics compared Bloom’s euphoric synth-pop to cult Swedish pop star Robyn (the ecstatic My My My!) and 4AD goths This Mortal Coil (The Good Side, a spectral break-up ballad). He’s also an actor, recently lauded for his supporting role in the gay conversion therapy drama Boy Erased, with Nicole Kidman and Lucas Hedges.

Continue reading...

The $500m Shed: inside New York’s quilted handbag on wheels

Posted on by

This puffed-up cultural citadel was meant to be an endlessly evolving, telescopic arts complex. But the glistening billionaires’ playground rising up beside it had other plans

It seems fitting that the cultural centre of New York’s latest luxury private development should look like a quilted Chanel handbag. Rearing up at the northern end of the High Line on Manhattan’s reborn West Side, the Shed presents a 10-storey wrapping of puffed-up diamond cushions to passersby, standing as the gaudy gateway to Hudson Yards – the most expensive real estate project in US history.

While it might fit in with the gilt-edged world of Swiss watch boutiques and Michelin-starred chefs that awaits in this $25bn private enclave, it is an unlikely costume for what the project’s architect and originator, Liz Diller, insists is “simply a piece of infrastructure” to support whatever artists want to do. “It’s not precious,” she says of the $500m building. “It’s muscular and industrial, just meat and bones.”

Continue reading...

The Guardian view on Brunei and stoning: don’t leave it to celebrities to act | Editorial

Posted on by
Brunei’s shocking new penal code must be challenged – through deeds as well as words. Britain’s responsibilities are clear

Brunei’s introduction of new laws allowing stoning for adultery and sex between men has sparked international outrage. Elton John and George Clooney’s calls for a boycott of luxury hotels owned by the tiny south-east Asian kingdom have grabbed the spotlight. The United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet has condemned the “cruel and inhuman” measures, as have the EU, Australia and others.

The punishment is only one of many horrifying changes in a penal code which also covers apostasy, amputation as a punishment for theft and flogging for abortions. Lesbian sex is punishable by 40 strokes of the cane as well as jail. In some cases children who have reached puberty are subject to the same penalties as adults; younger ones may be flogged. The sharia code was first introduced in 2013, and was supposed to be enacted gradually; following an outcry the government did not bring forward its harshest elements until now. Many suspect that the impact of declining oil revenues on public spending has left Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, one of the longest-ruling absolute monarchs, keen to bolster support among conservative elements.

Continue reading...