Palestinian/Tunisian/French electro outfit Checkpoint 303 will be appearing (for free) in Rome on Sunday May 31 as part of the “Finding Palestine” event, featuring traditional and contemporary arts. They will also be appearing at the Venice Biennale. Click “read more” for further details.
No matter who gets elected, the world will feel the impact of the next American president. So although politicians around the world are remaining very diplomatic, artists are coming out in support of Obama - particularly in Africa. Kenya’s Kenge Kenge have recorded one of the sweetest tracks a gentle tribute, which opens with a very laidback groove and then picks up. Neat. This track was featured on their European tour.
Shantel, the pioneer of Balkan dancefloor grooves, is touring Europe between October and January. The former DJ combines Balkan and Turkish music with dance grooves, creating a sound which is pretty much irresistible. His music offers a bold, colourful challenge to the wall-to-wall House/Lounge sounds of most clubs, provoking hysteria in more than one venue. He will be touring with an 8-piece band. Check out the album “Disko Partizani” and click through for the full tour dates.
Since he left the band, Boy George has been highly critical of the members of Culture Club. Since they announced that they were re-forming for a 20th anniversary tour, he stepped up the criticisms after refusing to take part. But the band is hitting back. The limit was reached when Boy George accepted an award from Q Music for the song “Karma Chameleon”. Interviewed by the BBC, bassist Mikey Craig was hurt: “We should have been there,” said Craig. “George wasn’t the sole writer of the song. We wrote collectively. At the end of the day, Culture Club was very much ours as well as George’s. He was the visual impact that everyone got, but there was a hell of a lot behind it,” he said.
Boy George, meanwhile, is continuing his career as DJ after a spell in New York and a noted run-in with the police for possession of cocaine. Check here to listen to the recent single “Look Pon U”.
Few artists are revered in the French-speaking worlds as Georges Brassens. His gentle songs about country life, accompanied by acoustic guitar, have been a staple of chanson française since the fifties. Yet his latest tribute comes from an unlikely source: Africa. Singer Kristo Numpuby is currently touring with a show called “Brassens en Afrique”. It “recreates the atmosphere of bars in black Africa after independance”. After concerts in France, Belgium and Switzerland, Numpuby was recently invited by the French TV channel France 2 for an interview. To view it, click here.
UPDATE DEC 14: The CD has just been released and is available on Brassens en Afrique.
Ask yourself how much can a notebook be worth? In the case of one of country music’s best-known songwriters, the answer is quite a lot. $250,000, in fact. Music publisher Sony/ATV has filed a lawsuit against a pair of collectors after reading that Stephen Shutts and Robert Reynolds (the Honky Tonk Hall of Fame) had acquired a notebook containing lyrics and notes by the late Hank Williams (the writer of “Your Cheatin’ Heart” and “Cold Cold Heart”) from a lady in Nashville. Sony/ATV claim it was stolen and would like the notebook back. For more details, visit A-Lyric.com.
