The Daily Telegraph | Arts | Shanghai: Art Deco capital - for now

Say Art Deco and everyone knows what you mean: sharp geometry, cool curves, an effortless marriage of style and function. Where to find it, though, is a different matter.

Shanghai sprawl: Greg Girard's Shanghai Falling #1, Neighbourhood Demolition:

Dotted around London and New York are palaces of 1920s and 1930s modernism - such as Senate House in Bloomsbury and the Chrysler building on Lexington Avenue - their straight lines and sweeping curves dominating their historic sites or looking almost quaint amid the higher, newer skyscrapers now surrounding them.

But London and New York are not Art Deco cities. The 1930s, the movement's peak decade, were not great years for the West, and while apartment blocks from the period still punctuate the suburbs, they suffered from the Second World War and post-industrial decay. Too often, they look shabby and forgotten beside the sturdier homes of previous eras and the bright convenience of the present.

Continued ...

Shanghai: Art Deco capital - for now - Telegraph:

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Founder of US punk club CBGB dies

Hilly Kristal, founder of the New York punk club CBGB which is credited with discovering Patti Smith and The Ramones, has died at the age of 75.

His daughter, Lisa, said he died from complications arising from lung cancer.

Kristal founded the club in 1973. The venue lost its lease last year after a dispute over rising rents.
In a statement, Marky Ramone of The Ramones, said Kristal was an "integral part" of the punk scene, and was always "supportive" of the genre.

"In an era when disco was the mainstream, Hilly took a chance and gambled. The gamble paid off for both him and for us. We are all grateful to him and will miss him," he added.

Born in 1932, Kristal became a concert violinist at the age of nine. He went on to manage New York jazz club, the Village Vanguard, before opening CBGB in a derelict bar in East Village in 1973.

The venue, whose full title CBGB OMFUG stood for 'country, bluegrass, blues and other music for uplifting gourmandisers', was originally launched to showcase country music.

Instead the club became a breeding ground for punk rock.

Johnny Rzeznik of the Goo Goo Dolls, who first played CBGB in the late 1980s, said: "So many bands would have never have made records unless they came to CBGB."

The club's final shows, in October last year, featured Patti Smith and Blondie's Debbie Harry.

Lenny Kaye, a longtime member of the Patti Smith Group said: "He created a club that started on a small, out-of-the-way skid row, and saw it go around the world."

"Everywhere you travel around the world, you saw somebody wearing a CBGB T-shirt," he said.
"He wanted the club to survive him," his daughter Lisa Kristal Burgman said. "He is survived by the fans and bands that played there."

A private memorial service is planned, with a public memorial service expected sometime in the future.

BBC NEWS Entertainment Founder of US punk club CBGB dies

YouTube - Dancin Dubya

YouTube - Dancin Dubya

NME | Arctic Monkeys frontman to record surprise album this month

Alex Turner teams up with old friend for new project

Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner and The Rascals' Miles Kane are set to record an album together later this month.

The pair became friends when Kane's first band The Little Flames supported Arctic Monkeys on their early tour.Kane contributed guitar to Arctic Monkeys' second album 'Favourite Worst Nightmare' and has joined the Sheffield band live frequently this summer to play '505' with them, including at the weekend's Old Trafford gigs (July 28-29).

Now the pair are set to head to France to record an album together in mid-August."We're there for two weeks and we're going to try to get the majority of it done," Kane told NME.COM. "James Ford is producing it and is going to play drums, he's a really boss drummer.

Me and Al will do all the bass and guitar and vocals, and try to the get the bulk of it done in two weeks. We're going to record it quite live to tape I think. Then whenever we've got weekends off at the same time we'd like to get some strings on it and probably do all that back home.

That's the plan anyway."The singer added that the pair were still trying to work out what their project will be called. "We were thinking Turner & Kane but everyone says it doesn't sound too serious," he explained. Kane is currently recording The Rascals debut EP in London - due out in October - with Blur and Elbow producer Ben Hiller.

He expects the pair's album to come out in the first half of 2008, after The Rascals have released their debut album."We want to have a bit of everything on there," said Kane of his own band's forthcoming album. "Some of the tunes do the same job, if you know what I mean, so we'll only have a couple of them on. So when we do it we will have everything."


Arctic Monkeys frontman to record surprise album this month News NME.COM

“The Simpsons Movie” | Dysfunctional family on the move | Economist.com

AFTER 18 years on prime-time television, “The Simpsons Movie” brings to the big screen all the qualities that have made the Simpson family superstars. That should reassure pundits who have been fretting over the question Homer Simpson poses at the beginning of the film, after viewing an especially Aesopian episode of “The Itchy & Scratchy Show”, Bart Simpson's favourite ultraviolent cartoon-within-a-cartoon: “Who's going to pay for something they've been getting for free?”

The answer is another question: how many smart, satirical, uproariously witty comedies did Hollywood make this year? “The Simpsons Movie” fills a niche in the major studios' release schedules that has lately become a void.

Critics were shown the film just before it opened to keep the audience's enjoyment of the rococo plot twists from being spiked by internet killjoys, a policy deserving of support. Briefly, an ecological disaster befalls the town of Springfield, brought about by Homer's involvement with a new love and his weakness for doughnuts.

The dysfunctional cohesion of the Simpson family is put to the test. Bart starts wishing he had a father like Ned Flanders next door, who practises family values with a wise serenity that is horribly off-putting. Marge doubts her love for Homer. Lisa meets a musician named Colin whose green politics is matched by his lilting brogue. And baby Maggie breaks 18 years of silence by speaking her first word, which audiences will have to stay through the final credits to hear.

But it is Homer who really evolves, after an Inuit medicine woman teaches him his “throat-song” and sends him on a spirit journey to an epiphany about human interconnectedness based on enlightened self-interest. Strangely, we come to care deeply about all of them.

“The Simpsons Movie” Dysfunctional family on the move Economist.com

The Hair - Disco/Retro | Single | Record Box

The Hair have been making big waves in Leeds for well over a year now building a strong following and wowing crowds with a number of brilliant support slots, before recently stepping out at The Faversham as headliners themselves for the launch of debut single Ghosts.

As with Ghosts their follow up single Disco / Retro is an ultra limited edition 7” release and download only, so you’d be advised to move quickly to get hold of one as these four Yorkshiremen are likley to be hot property over the coming months.

Disco / Retro is a a four minute salvo of electro dance hooks mixed with indie guitar and vocals that remind you of why you fell in love with The Rapture when they released House Of Jealous Lovers. Also worth checking out is Sidney Betts on the b-side, again it’s another punk funker, which is if anything even more raucous than the a-side.

The single is out on the 23rd July through Louder Than Bombs Records.

The Hair - Disco/Retro Single Record Box

http://www.hairmusic.co.uk/pressCuts/

This year's dozen best albums? - Telegraph

The 12 acts on the shortlist for this year's Mercury Prize were revealed this week. Neil McCormick assesses their chances ...


A leading contender of course being these lads:


Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare - Melody, wit and rhythm again prove an unstoppable force. Last year's winners, the acerbically cynical Sheffield quartet consolidated their position as band of a generation with this more muscular, energetically syncopated and passionate follow-up. Even music-biz prizes, multi-million sales and Gordon Brown's endorsement can't dent their counter-cultural cachet.

Watch interviews with the nominated artists



This year's dozen best albums? - Telegraph