AIMEE MANN - @#%&*! Smilers Rating ****1/2
AIMEE MANN has arrived in the UK and is having phone trouble.
"I hired a cell phone. It’s the worst phone," complains the
American singer. "It’s from, like, 1979! It does nothing."
I quickly discover that the woman behind some of the most gorgeous and languid
vocals imaginable is also highly passionate.
She’s here to discuss seventh album @#%&*! Smilers, a high point in
a career littered with high points.
From the easy West Coast glide of Freeway to the countrified Phoenix and on to
the unsettling Little Tornado, it’s an album of exquisite mini-dramas, quite
a departure from 2005’s concept album The Forgotten Arm.
Here Aimee, 47, tells SIMON COSYNS about the album, why she’s gone
it alone with her own record label and assesses the current state of the
record industry.DO you find it liberating to release records on your label?
I do. I found it very frustrating and kind of absurd to answer artistically to
other people.
I was always fine, saying, "If you don’t want to put out the record,
don’t put it out". But then they go: "We want to put it out.
We want to keep you. But we want you to change." I never got that.
It’s quite brave to go your own way.
I didn’t do it out of bravery. I’m fairly agreeable and I want to please
people but I can’t think with someone else’s brain.
What do the expletives mean in your album title?
It’s supposed to be the curse word of your choice, basically like cartoon
cursing.
How did you approach these songs?
I was really in the mood for some different sounds which is how we wound up
with a lot of Moog, analogue synths and Wurlitzers.
Freeway takes you back to the West Coast sound of the Seventies. Was that
your intention?
I wanted to write a song that had a simple little riff. Songs that reference
cars and roadways are always classic Americana, aren’t they?
Is Stranger Into Starman about the cult of celebrity?
It’s more about the general idea of elevating people in your estimation that
don’t deserve it, based on how they appear rather than how they are. You
could call it narcissism.
You bassist Paul Bryan produces the album. What did he bring to it?
I started to realise how great Paul was when we started to play trio shows
together, just me, Paul and the keyboard player — just how connected he was
to music in a way that I didn’t see in other people.
He has that quality of really getting inside a song.
You are vociferous about piracy in music. How do you feel about the
industry in 2008?
I’m very conflicted about discussing it because it’s not that appealing to
have an artist talking about business and money. Part of doing an interview
is to make yourself likeable.
People don’t want to hear you moaning "How am I going to pay the
pool guy?"
But the record business is completely falling apart what with downloading and
people burning CDs for each other.
It’s like global warming. The business is the melting iceberg and I’m the
polar bear. I’m not super-happy about it but there’s nothing I can do.
I don’t make my living through shows because I pay the band, pay for hotel
rooms and the food.
For people of my level, it’s break even. I don’t sell T-shirts or have a
perfume line. I make money selling records and if you don’t buy the record
then I don’t make money.
What will happen in the future?
It probably comes down to putting out a song every couple of months, internet
release only. No beautiful packages, which is a shame to me because I love
packages and the artists who create them.
Tuesday 24 June 2008
Sunday 15 June 2008
Sarah Jessica Parker won’t turn to Botox
Sex and The City star Sarah Jessica Parker says she won’t turn to Botox in order to beat the aging process.
The 43-year-old actress — who plays newspaper journalist Carrie Bradshaw in the hit HBO television series and upcoming move — says that despite the entertainment industry being a hard place to age, she won’t resort to the anti-aging injections.
She says, “I believe in aging gracefully—and of course, buying as many anti-aging creams as possible!”
The 43-year-old actress — who plays newspaper journalist Carrie Bradshaw in the hit HBO television series and upcoming move — says that despite the entertainment industry being a hard place to age, she won’t resort to the anti-aging injections.
She says, “I believe in aging gracefully—and of course, buying as many anti-aging creams as possible!”
Wednesday 11 June 2008
Bob Dylan: Obama is redefining us politics
Bob Dylan believes Barack Obama is redefining politics in the United States and could deliver change to a nation in upheaval, according to a British newspaper interview.In an interview with the Times of London, the musician is quoted as saying that Obama has changed politics in the US, though Dylan does not specifically endorse the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee"Well, you know right now America is in a state of upheaval. Poverty is demoralising. You can't expect people to have the virtue of purity when they are poor," Dylan is quoted as saying."But we've got this guy out there now who is redefining the nature of politics from the ground up ... Barack Obama," he was quoted as saying. "He's redefining what a politician is, so we'll have to see how things play out. Am I hopeful? Yes, I'm hopeful that things might change. Some things are going to have to."The newspaper said the interview took place in Denmark during Dylan's current tour of Scandinavia.
"You should always take the best from the past, leave the worst back there and go forward into the future," Dylan said, apparently referring to Obama's campaign.The 67-year-old singer has an exhibition of his art work opening in London next week.- AP
"You should always take the best from the past, leave the worst back there and go forward into the future," Dylan said, apparently referring to Obama's campaign.The 67-year-old singer has an exhibition of his art work opening in London next week.- AP
Max Roach
Artist: Max Roach
Genre(s):
Jazz
Avantgarde
Discography:
Jazz at Massey Hall
Year: 1991
Tracks: 6
M'Boom
Year: 1980
Tracks: 6
Parisian Sketches
Year: 1960
Tracks: 5
Deeds Not Words
Year: 1958
Tracks: 8
Brown and Roach Incorporated
Year: 1954
Tracks: 7
In a profession star-crossed by early deaths -- especially the bebop division -- Max Roach was long a sheeny survivor, one of the last giants from the parturition of bop. He and Kenny Clarke instigated a gyration in jazz drumming that persisted for decades; or else of the swing approach of spelling out the pulsation with the bass drumfish, Roach shifted the accent to the ride cymbal. The issue was a flatboat, far more than flexile texture, giving drummers more freedom to explore the possibilities of their drumfish kits and drop random "bombs" on the snare drum, piece allowing federal Bureau of Prisons virtuosos on the battlefront lines to play at faster speeds. To this base, Roach added sterling qualities of his own -- a savage drive, the ability to dally a solo with a definite plot line, mix up pitches and timbres, the dexterous role of silence, the sleight to purpose the brushes as bright as the sticks. He would use of goods and services cymbals as gongs and play spellbinding solos on the tom-toms, creating ambience as easily as keeping the groove pushing forward.
But Roach didn't stop thither, unlike other jazz pioneers world Health Organization changed the world when they were lester Willis Young even became put in their shipway as they grew aged. Throughout his carer, he had the wonder and the willingness to develop as a player and as a man, moving beyond bebop into new compositional structures, unusual musical instrument lineups, unusual time signatures, atonalism, medicine for Broadway musicals, television set, plastic film and the philharmonic hall, regular working with a rapper intimately ahead of the jazz/hip-hop amalgamation. An vocal piece, he became a fervid supporter of civil rights and racial equality, and that no question suffer his career at several junctures. At one point in his militant period in 1961, he disrupted a Miles Davis/Gil Evans concert in Carnegie Hall by marching to the edge of the leg holding a "Freedom Now" placard protesting the Africa Relief Foundation (for which the event was a benefit). When Miles' autobiography came kO'd in 1989, Roach decried the book's inaccuracies, even sledding so far as to suggest that Miles was getting doddery (despite the jumpy patches, their friendly relationship nevertheless lasted until Miles' last). Roach as well received a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant; as an say reader on jazz, he taught at the Lenox School of Jazz and was a prof of medicine at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Roach's mother was a gospel isaac Merrit Singer, and that early immersion in the church had a persistent gist on his musical direction. He started performing the drums at age ten and undertook formal musical studies at the Manhattan School of Music. By the time he was 18, Roach was already immersed in proto-bop chock up roger Huntington Sessions at Minton's Playhouse and Monroe's Uptown House (where he was the house drummer) with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, hearing to Kenny Clarke and riveting his influence. He made his recorded debut in 1943 with the progressive-minded Coleman Hawkins on the Apollo label, and played with Benny Carter's orchestra in California and Gillespie's fivesome, as well as briefly with Duke Ellington in 1944. By 1945, Roach was red-hot in jazz circles, and he linked Parker's grouping that class for the first-class honours degree of a series of sporadic periods (1945, 1947-49, 1951-53). He participated in many of bop's originative recordings (including Parker's incendiary "Ko-Ko" of 1945 and Miles' Nativity of the Cool recordings of 1949-50), although he would non pb his have studio session until 1953. Even so, Roach would non be forced into a narrow box, for he too played with R&B/jazz lead Louis Jordan and Dixieland's Henry "Red" Allen. With Charles Mingus, Roach co-founded Debut Records in 1952, though he was on the road too ofttimes to do a great deal minding of the shop. But Roach later on aforementioned that Debut gave his life history a jumping-off point -- and so, Debut released his first sitting as a leader, as well as the memorable Massey Hall concert in which Roach played with Parker, Gillespie, Mingus and Bud Powell.
In 1954, non long later recording with Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse All-Stars, Roach formed a quintet in Los Angeles to get hold of out on the route at the suggestion of Gene Norman. This grouping included peerless Clifford Brown, wHO had been recommended to Roach by Dizzy several eld before. The Brown/Roach quintet made a stack of of the essence recordings for EmArcy that almost defined the gruelling federal Bureau of Prisons of the '50s, and though Brown's demise in a 1956 machine accident utterly devastated Roach, he kept the quintet unitedly with Kenny Dorham and Sonny Rollins as the leading horns. For the remainder of the '50s, he would continue to enjoyment major talents like Booker Little, George Coleman and Hank Mobley in his pocket-sized groups, dropping the pianoforte totally now and and so.
Heavily affected by the burgeoning civil rights movement and his relationship with militant vocalist Abbey Lincoln (to whom he would be married from 1962 to 1970), Roach recorded We Insist! Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite, a seven-part quislingism with Oscar Brown, Jr., in 1960, and he would go on to compose works that used solo and chorale voices. Throughout the 1960s, Roach was a committed political social reformer, and that, along with the general slump of sake in wind, reduced his musical profile, although he continued to record periodically for Impulse! and Atlantic. In 1970, Roach took some other circular and formed M'Boom, a ten-piece pleximetry ensemble that borrowed languages and timbres from classic contemporary medicine and continued to do well into the '90s. Interested in the vanguard, Roach recorded with the likes of Anthony Braxton, Archie Shepp and Cecil Taylor in the late '70s, though the results were mostly issued on erratically distributed foreign labels. In the 1980s, he began to experiment with a forked quadruplet (with Odean Pope, Cecil Bridgewater and Tyrone Brown) -- his veritable jazz quaternity combined with the partly improvising Uptown String Quartet (which includes his girl Maxine on viola).
The late '80s and '90s constitute Roach entry extra projects care a double-CD twosome concert with a sadly faded Dizzy Gillespie, the much more successful To the Max, which combined several of Roach's various groups and idioms, and a huge, uneven concerto for metal drum soloist and symphony orchestra orchestra, "Festival Journey." He toured with his quartette into the 2000s, and continued to record or compose until a few age ahead his death in 2007. Roach was outside the cognisance of most wind historians since the 1960s, and refused to be bound or secured into some miserly short recess of history. That made him a rarefied, unclassifiable, treasurable engender of cat.
Grammys set a date
Fire Town
Artist: Fire Town
Genre(s):
Rock
Discography:
Good Life
Year: 2007
Tracks: 10
Madison, WI's Fire Town is chiefly remembered because of the band's relation to Garbage. Comprised of Duke Erikson (vocals, guitar), Phil Davis (vocals, guitar), and Butch Vig (drums, percussion, mount vocals), Fire Town's light, jangly crop up fed college wireless with some other dose of tintinnabulation guitars and folk-rock harmonies in the later '80s. Vig and Erikson were previously in the radical Spooner. After Spooner broke up, Davis, Vig, and Steve Marker (guitars) formed the passing First Person in 1986. A class later, Davis, Vig, and Erikson collaborated again as Fire Town, cathartic the LP In the Heart of the Heart Country. The album received praise from Rolling Stone magazine; however, it was as well tame regular for pre-grunge alternative wireless. The television for "Carry the Torch" concisely snared MTV's care, just Fire Town was baffled in a soaker of similar-sounding artists. Fire Town recorded some other album, 1989's Good Life, before calling it quits. In the early '90s, Vig's production work on albums from Nirvana, the Smashing Pumpkins, and L7 heightened his status within the alternative rock-and-roll community. Vig reunited with Erikson and Marker in the toughie band Rectal Drip, essentially a fill out mathematical group for canceled gigs. The iII became Garbage in 1993, adding vocalizer Shirley Manson in 1994.
Fergie's mother denies pregnancy reports
Paris Hilton 'Desperate To Marry' Benji Madden
Paris Hilton is desperate to marry new beau Benji Madden - because the Good Charlotte rocker has changed her life for the better.
The pair has denied rumours they'll be exchanging nuptials anytime soon, but Hilton admits the birth of her on/off best friend Nicole Richie's daughter Harlow in January, with Benji's twin brother Joel, has made her broody and eager to settle down.
She says, "It's actually perfect. (Nicole and I) are like sisters, and they're twins so it works out well. We do talk about (marriage). I'm so happy. I'm so in love. And I know I want to spend the rest of my life with him.”
The couple has been plagued by rumours their romance is merely a publicity stunt since they began dating earlier this year, but Hilton insists their affection is genuine: "If you saw us together you'd understand. He's my boyfriend and my best friend.
"We've been friends for over six years now and when (Nicole Richie) had Harlow I started going over to the house and we just got a little crush on each other and totally fell in love. He's hot."
Hilton, who joined Good Charlotte on their European and South African tours last month, will again be joining the band when they tour America this summer.
She adds, "He's not like (a typical musician) at all. He's the most loyal, honest and incredible person in the world. I feel just blessed to have found him. He's changed my life."
See Also
Ten-Year Anniversary of KCRW's World Festival at the Hollywood Bowl Kicks Off June 22!
Featuring Gnarls Barkley, Feist, Devendra Banhart, Gilberto Gil,
Thievery Corporation
SANTA MONICA, Calif., June 9 -- KCRW's World Festival
returns to the Hollywood Bowl this June, celebrating a decade-long
partnership with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association that features
fresh talent alongside the hottest and most recognized names at the
legendary venue. The 2008 season offers one of the strongest line ups yet,
with appearances by Gnarls Barkley, Feist, Devendra Banhart, Thievery
Corporation, UB40, Ozomatli and more. (see below for full schedule)
Over the last ten years, KCRW (89.9 FM and KCRW.com) built the World
Festival from a small series to a blockbuster hit at the Bowl, and one of
the few series to ever sell out all season performances.
"KCRW and the L.A. Philharmonic have enjoyed an enduring and successful
partnership. Since 2000, the KCRW World Festival has enjoyed sold-out shows
repeatedly, and is considered the hottest - and coolest - ticket of the
summer," said KCRW DJ Tom Schnabel, who is also the Program Advisor of
World Music at the Hollywood Bowl and Walt Disney Concert Hall.
KCRW's eclectic approach to radio programming can also be seen in the
line-ups for the six-show series, which showcase sounds from around the
globe and pair the best of the best from a variety of genres and formats.
KCRW's World Festival kicks off on June 22 with a full band performance
by Thievery Corporation featuring special guest Seu Jorge, and Bebel
Gilberto, Los Amigos Invisibles, and Argentine singer-songwriter Federico
Abuele.
Influential Brazilian artist Gilberto Gil and Venezuela-raised
world-folk savant Devendra Banhart share the stage on June 29, along with
The Album Leaf, featuring Mike Heron from The Incredible String Band.
Three KCRW favorites make their Hollywood Bowl debut on the same night.
Canadian songstress Feist joins the soulful Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings,
with the eclectic global pop of Pacifika starting off the show on July 20.
Grammy winners Gnarls Barkley also make their debut Hollywood Bowl,
sharing the bill with Senegalese superstar Youssou N'Dour, who was selected
as one of the world's 100 most influential people by Time magazine in 2007.
Purveyors of experimental noise-pop, Deerhoof, will open the show on July
27.
The seventh annual Reggae Night features the Bowl debut appearance of
the U.K.'s pioneering pop reggae band UB40 with legendary singer/ producer
Beres Hammond and renowned dancehall singer Barrington Levy on August 3.
Ozomatli return to the Hollywood Bowl for the final night of the series
on September 11, with its socially-conscious mash-ups of hip-hop, salsa,
cumbia, dub, and Middle Eastern funk. Michael Franti & Spearhead, Mexican
singer Lila Downs and Tijuana's electronica leaders Nortec Collective,
performing with a mariachi band, round out the bill.
Tickets ($10 - 96) are on sale now at the Hollywood Bowl Box Office,
via Ticketmaster, or online at HollywoodBowl.com. For more info, call
323.850.2000.
KCRW's WORLD FESTIVAL AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL
SUNDAYS, 7 PM
JUNE 22
Thievery Corporation (full live show featuring special guest Seu
Jorge), Bebel Gilberto, Los Amigos Invisibles, Federico Abuele. Hosted by
Jason Bentley
JUNE 29
Gilberto Gil, Devendra Banhart, The Album Leaf (featuring Mike Heron
from The Incredible String Band). Hosted by Anne Litt
JULY 20
Feist, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Pacifika. Hosted by Nic Harcourt
JULY 27
Gnarls Barkley, Youssou N'Dour, Deerhoof. Hosted by Garth Trinidad
AUGUST 3
Reggae Night: UB40, Beres Hammond, Barrington Levy. Hosted by Tom
Schnabel
SEPTEMBER 21
Ozomatli, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Lila Downs, Nortec Collective.
Hosted by Raul Campos
See Also
Thievery Corporation
SANTA MONICA, Calif., June 9 -- KCRW's World Festival
returns to the Hollywood Bowl this June, celebrating a decade-long
partnership with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association that features
fresh talent alongside the hottest and most recognized names at the
legendary venue. The 2008 season offers one of the strongest line ups yet,
with appearances by Gnarls Barkley, Feist, Devendra Banhart, Thievery
Corporation, UB40, Ozomatli and more. (see below for full schedule)
Over the last ten years, KCRW (89.9 FM and KCRW.com) built the World
Festival from a small series to a blockbuster hit at the Bowl, and one of
the few series to ever sell out all season performances.
"KCRW and the L.A. Philharmonic have enjoyed an enduring and successful
partnership. Since 2000, the KCRW World Festival has enjoyed sold-out shows
repeatedly, and is considered the hottest - and coolest - ticket of the
summer," said KCRW DJ Tom Schnabel, who is also the Program Advisor of
World Music at the Hollywood Bowl and Walt Disney Concert Hall.
KCRW's eclectic approach to radio programming can also be seen in the
line-ups for the six-show series, which showcase sounds from around the
globe and pair the best of the best from a variety of genres and formats.
KCRW's World Festival kicks off on June 22 with a full band performance
by Thievery Corporation featuring special guest Seu Jorge, and Bebel
Gilberto, Los Amigos Invisibles, and Argentine singer-songwriter Federico
Abuele.
Influential Brazilian artist Gilberto Gil and Venezuela-raised
world-folk savant Devendra Banhart share the stage on June 29, along with
The Album Leaf, featuring Mike Heron from The Incredible String Band.
Three KCRW favorites make their Hollywood Bowl debut on the same night.
Canadian songstress Feist joins the soulful Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings,
with the eclectic global pop of Pacifika starting off the show on July 20.
Grammy winners Gnarls Barkley also make their debut Hollywood Bowl,
sharing the bill with Senegalese superstar Youssou N'Dour, who was selected
as one of the world's 100 most influential people by Time magazine in 2007.
Purveyors of experimental noise-pop, Deerhoof, will open the show on July
27.
The seventh annual Reggae Night features the Bowl debut appearance of
the U.K.'s pioneering pop reggae band UB40 with legendary singer/ producer
Beres Hammond and renowned dancehall singer Barrington Levy on August 3.
Ozomatli return to the Hollywood Bowl for the final night of the series
on September 11, with its socially-conscious mash-ups of hip-hop, salsa,
cumbia, dub, and Middle Eastern funk. Michael Franti & Spearhead, Mexican
singer Lila Downs and Tijuana's electronica leaders Nortec Collective,
performing with a mariachi band, round out the bill.
Tickets ($10 - 96) are on sale now at the Hollywood Bowl Box Office,
via Ticketmaster, or online at HollywoodBowl.com. For more info, call
323.850.2000.
KCRW's WORLD FESTIVAL AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL
SUNDAYS, 7 PM
JUNE 22
Thievery Corporation (full live show featuring special guest Seu
Jorge), Bebel Gilberto, Los Amigos Invisibles, Federico Abuele. Hosted by
Jason Bentley
JUNE 29
Gilberto Gil, Devendra Banhart, The Album Leaf (featuring Mike Heron
from The Incredible String Band). Hosted by Anne Litt
JULY 20
Feist, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Pacifika. Hosted by Nic Harcourt
JULY 27
Gnarls Barkley, Youssou N'Dour, Deerhoof. Hosted by Garth Trinidad
AUGUST 3
Reggae Night: UB40, Beres Hammond, Barrington Levy. Hosted by Tom
Schnabel
SEPTEMBER 21
Ozomatli, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Lila Downs, Nortec Collective.
Hosted by Raul Campos
See Also
Kenny Chesney - Chesney Im Not Engaged
Country star KENNY CHESNEY has denied reports he is engaged.
The singer - who recently said he enjoys being a bachelor - says he is stunned by the reports in the American press.
A spokesman for the star tells People.com, "Kenny Chesney is not getting married. He's not engaged. He's not planning on being engaged any time in the near future.
"In fact, he was surprised by the news and isn't sure how or why anyone would've gotten that idea."
Chesney, 40, divorced actress Renee Zellweger in 2005.
See Also
SoCal Songbook: Randy Newman's 'I Love L.A.'
RANDY NEWMAN has made a career out of melodic skepticism and deadpan rhythm, but he sounded genuinely stunned the other day when he was told that this year is the 25th anniversary of "I Love L.A." "What is that? I don't believe it. I can't believe it. Can it really be a quarter of a century?"
There are few songs that echo in L.A. quite like Newman's winking civic anthem, which manages to be both sunny and subversive at the same time with its "big nasty redhead" cruising the boulevard. "Hey," Newman protested, "I meant 'nasty' in the very best sense of the word."
The song's small moments are sardonic, but the big ones are pure fun: It towers with 1980s ballpark synthesizers and then thumps its chest with a shout-along in the chorus: "I love L.A.! WE LOVE IT!" Like Newman's earlier hit "Short People," it remains a career- defining anthem no matter how big or deep his sophisticated songbook gets.
"I've tried at times to get rid of it, but I always take it back," the 64-year-old composer said. "There are other songs I have done that I think are more meaningful to me, but, hey, I'll take it. And I think people do get the irony of the song. Maybe not when they're driving 70 miles an hour down the freeway in a convertible or singing it at a playoff game. But they get the tone. People are smiling when they sing it, and I think they're smiling for the right reasons."
Look at that mountain
Look at those trees
Look at that bum over there, man
He's down on his knees
The L.A. native wrote it as an answer to historical smugness toward the West Coast. "There was this whole New York glamour thing -- you know, leaning against a lamppost singing 'This Town.' I kind of hate that stuff." So in the early 1980s, when pal Don Henley suggested he write an L.A. song, Newman decided to turn the tables.
"It started forming in my head, really, as an answer to 'The Lady Is a Tramp' " -- at that point, Newman, who was sitting at his piano, played a few notes from the Rodgers and Hart standard -- "There's the line, 'She hates California, it's cold and it's damp,' and I just flipped it around for the opening lines."
Hate New York City
It's cold and it's damp
And all the people dressed like monkeys
Let's leave Chicago to the Eskimos
"The song is basically saying that this not a bad place to live. If I wrote it now, I think it would pretty much be the same. I might add some lines about the traffic. It's so much worse now. I'd still be in the convertible, but I wouldn't moving as fast."
There are few songs that echo in L.A. quite like Newman's winking civic anthem, which manages to be both sunny and subversive at the same time with its "big nasty redhead" cruising the boulevard. "Hey," Newman protested, "I meant 'nasty' in the very best sense of the word."
The song's small moments are sardonic, but the big ones are pure fun: It towers with 1980s ballpark synthesizers and then thumps its chest with a shout-along in the chorus: "I love L.A.! WE LOVE IT!" Like Newman's earlier hit "Short People," it remains a career- defining anthem no matter how big or deep his sophisticated songbook gets.
"I've tried at times to get rid of it, but I always take it back," the 64-year-old composer said. "There are other songs I have done that I think are more meaningful to me, but, hey, I'll take it. And I think people do get the irony of the song. Maybe not when they're driving 70 miles an hour down the freeway in a convertible or singing it at a playoff game. But they get the tone. People are smiling when they sing it, and I think they're smiling for the right reasons."
Look at that mountain
Look at those trees
Look at that bum over there, man
He's down on his knees
The L.A. native wrote it as an answer to historical smugness toward the West Coast. "There was this whole New York glamour thing -- you know, leaning against a lamppost singing 'This Town.' I kind of hate that stuff." So in the early 1980s, when pal Don Henley suggested he write an L.A. song, Newman decided to turn the tables.
"It started forming in my head, really, as an answer to 'The Lady Is a Tramp' " -- at that point, Newman, who was sitting at his piano, played a few notes from the Rodgers and Hart standard -- "There's the line, 'She hates California, it's cold and it's damp,' and I just flipped it around for the opening lines."
Hate New York City
It's cold and it's damp
And all the people dressed like monkeys
Let's leave Chicago to the Eskimos
"The song is basically saying that this not a bad place to live. If I wrote it now, I think it would pretty much be the same. I might add some lines about the traffic. It's so much worse now. I'd still be in the convertible, but I wouldn't moving as fast."
Mariah Carey - Carey Told Snoops Wedding Was Just A Video Shoot
MARIAH CAREY managed to keep her wedding plans a secret from even her closest friends by convincing them all her trip to the Bahamas with then-boyfriend NICK CANNON was all part of her video plans.
Cannon plays the singer's love interest in her new promo for Bye Bye and Carey convinced everyone the couple were just shooting extra scenes when they jetted off to her Windermere home with select pals.
But the couple had already decided to wed there.
Carey tells People magazine, "We only told people who had to know... If we brought a million people with us, it would've been obvious we weren't shooting a video.
"Only about four people knew we were going down there to get married."
The couple flew boxes of Maine lobster and cases of Dom Perignon champagne over to the island, and Carey reportedly picked up the wedding cake herself and discreetly carried it with her.
Carey's best pal, rapper Da Brat, helped organise a last-minute bachelorette party before the singer became Mrs. Cannon.
Carey and Cannon exchanged vows on the patio of the singer's island retreat on 30 April (08).
See Also
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