plus 3, Hypnotist bringing risque act to Bucks - Argus Leader |
- Hypnotist bringing risque act to Bucks - Argus Leader
- Going for Grammy - Times Colonist
- Long Beach Band Civet got an early start on its music career - Record
- Jukebox Jury: Big Red Edition - Cornell Daily Sun
| Hypnotist bringing risque act to Bucks - Argus Leader Posted: 27 Jan 2010 11:46 PM PST Damian the Hypnotist enjoyed doing a show recently at the Playboy Mansion in Beverly Hills. "It was a lot of fun - it was just crazy," he says by phone from his Los Angeles home. Asked what happened, he chuckles. "Well, we had full, free rein there, so let's just say that we had quite an evening," he says. "It was just great." His show at Borrowed Bucks Roadhouse on Wednesday may not get as crazy - participants probably will leave their clothes on - but still, it's not intended for youngsters. "The Sioux Falls show will definitely be R-rated," he says. Part of the skits by volunteers on stage include a suggestion that they love their chairs, and then perform mock love-making with the furniture. The mind is an amazing thing, says Damian, who just goes by his first name. Hypnotized people who are told that it's freezing cold have physical and mental reactions to the cold. And it's always funny when a big guy is told he is Britney Spears then performs as if he is really the pop star. "We push the envelope, but we don't cross the line," he says. Certified proThe 35-year-old performer is a certified master hypnotherapist. He used to help people quit smoking, lose weight, get over fear of flying and more. But that takes several sessions, and usually at a clinic, which became hard to do has his road show schedule increased. Damian holds several certifications. He's a member of the oldest continuing and the most prestigious hypnosis organization in the world, The British Association of Therapeutical Hypnotists. He's also associated with the American, Canadian and Australian Associations of Hypnotherapy. "I do shows in five countries a year, so I found that it is good to be certified and licensed in these other countries, for my reputation and for credibility reasons," he says. Just for funPeople shouldn't be afraid to come out to the show, he says. He invites 15 to 20 volunteers to come up on stage to be hypnotized, and to perform different skits "I never pick people from the crowd. They just come on their own free will," he says. "I've been coming to Sioux Falls for the past eight years, and many of the same people come up. Being hypnotized for an hour feels like you got eight hours sleep. It gives your mind that much rest." Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Going for Grammy - Times Colonist Posted: 28 Jan 2010 12:15 AM PST 5. Best Dance Recording: Boom Boom Pow (the Black Eyed Peas), When Love Takes Over (David Guetta and Kelly Rowland), Poker Face (Lady Gaga), Celebration (Madonna), Womanizer (Britney Spears). Potential for diva drama -- huge. Probability of a win by Madonna or Britney Spears -- less than zero. The category has some flair to it, thanks to red-hot French club maestro David Guetta, whose collaboration with Kelly Rowland of Destiny's Child could very well swipe the trophy from the ice cold clutches of Lady Gaga. It's a longshot, but not an impossibility. Will win: Poker Face. Should win: When Love Takes Over. 6. Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group: Can't Find My Way Home (Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood), Life in Technicolor II (Coldplay), 21 Guns (Green Day), Use Somebody (Kings of Leon), I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight (U2). In any other year, the battle between these A-list rockers would be too close to call. But it's arrival time for Kings of Leon, who have to be considered a lock for the win. Then again, this is a performance award -- and their competition is full of longtime Grammy faves. All bets are off. Will win: Can't Find My Way Home. Should win: Use Somebody. 7. Best Rock Song: The Fixer (Pearl Jam), I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight (U2), 21 Guns (Green Day), Use Somebody (Kings of Leon), Working on a Dream (Bruce Springsteen). Playing the averages, Kings of Leon will score this songwriting award for a song deemed by Grammy voters worthy of four nominations. The Kings will be in tough, but Springsteen is perhaps the only one capable of an upset. Will win: Use Somebody. Should win: Use Somebody. 8. Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group: Too Many Rappers (Beastie Boys and Nas), Crack a Bottle (Eminem, Dr. Dre and 50 Cent), Money Goes, Honey Stay (Fabolous and Jay-Z), Make Her Say (Kid Cudi, Kanye West and Common), Amazing (Kanye West and Young Jeezy). From a viewership perspective, the Grammy brass would be smart to run this category live on air. Given the assembly of nuts up for Best Rap Performance -- most of whom hate each other with a passion -- how could this not produce a headline-friendly acceptance speech? Will win: Crack a Bottle. Should win: Make Her Say. 9. Best Female Country Vocal Performance: Dead Flowers (Miranda Lambert), I Just Call You Mine (Martina McBride), White Horse (Taylor Swift), Just a Dream (Carrie Underwood), Solitary Thinkin' (Lee Ann Womack). Given the focus so often placed on Taylor Swift, it was a nice treat to see critics shower Miranda Lambert's Revolution with the love it so richly deserved. Strong-willed country queens don't come any better than her. Will win: White Horse. Should win: Dead Flowers. 10. Best Female Pop Vocal Performance: Hometown Glory (Adele), Halo (Beyoncé), Hot N Cold (Katy Perry), Sober (Pink), You Belong With Me (Taylor Swift). Adele's record is too old, Katy Perry's too fluffy and Pink's too redundant. Lo and behold, we're down, once again, to a battle between Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, who have 18 nominations between them this year. By this point, do we even care who adds to their haul? Will win: Halo. Should win: Halo. mdevlin@tc.canwest.com The Grammy Awards air at 8 p.m. Sunday on Global and CBS. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Long Beach Band Civet got an early start on its music career - Record Posted: 28 Jan 2010 12:00 AM PST Liza Graves started a punk-rock band before she even knew how to play a guitar. She definitely knew the name of her music-less group, though. In junior high school. "I was just kind of at school one day looking through a dictionary," said Graves, who plays guitar and sings very loudly and aggressively in Civet, an all-woman Long Beach band that's on a hard-rock mission. "And I thought, 'If I ever have a band, I'd call it Civet.' We got stuck with it, and it works. When we're in Europe, though, people tell us it means a lot of different things in different languages, like Slavic ones. Some of them not so good." CivetWith: Black Horde, Asiago, Los Punks del Norte When: 8 p.m. Where: Plea for Peace Center, 630 E. Weber Ave., Stockton Admission: $8 Information: www.myspace.com/ plea4peacestockton Graves and Civet, which includes her younger sister, Suzi, will be in Stockton on Friday night, roaring out aggressive punk rock at the Plea for Peace Center. A word of French derivation (but not pronunciation), two of its dictionary definitions are "the civet cat" and "its fur." Graves, 26, is similarly satisfied with what "all-woman" or "all-girl" - tattoos included - might stereotypically imply. They call their ferocious, rough-edged music "femme fatale punk rock." Its toughness is filling a gender "void." "It's only in the fact you just don't see that many," she said of all-female groups surviving in male-dominated punk and hard rock. "It's never gonna be equal, at least in my lifetime. "We meet other girl bands and encourage them. 'Do you consider yourselves a girl band or just a band?' We're a girl band. We're girls. Too many bands try to deny they're a girl band. Girl-band standards are kind of set lower. Graves said - very precisely and enthusiastically - during a recent phone conversation that Civet's musical attack makes it a great band. That's also what she and her sister, guitarist Suzi Homewrecker, 20; bass player Jacqui Valentine, 25; and drummer Roxie Darling, 24, do on "Hell Hath No Fury" (2008), their fourth album since 2001 and first for Hellcat Records, co-owned by Tim Armstrong of Rancid, the pioneering Berkeley punk rockers. Sadly, Ms. Liza Graves (that's her musical pseudonym) is very protective of the group's birth names: "You know? The Internet and stalkers and all that." They'll begin recording their fifth album in May, the continuing fulfillment of Graves' teenage imagination and ambition. "I was 13 or 14 when I kind of decided I wanted to play rock and be in a band," said Graves, who was born at Hahn Air Force Base in Germany and lived in Castro Valley, Hayward and San Jose and "bounced around a lot up there (Northern California)" before her family settled in Long Beach. Despite her lack of musical training - not uncommon with many young punk-garage bands - she didn't back down, encouraging her reluctant sister to join her: "It took her awhile to come around from being a cheerleader (at Long Beach's Millikan High School) to being in a rock band." Graves, who's earned a "ridiculous amount of credits" at Long Beach City College, "definitely was inspired" by Bikini Kill, Courtney Love, L7 and the Runaways (led by Joan Jett), among others. "They were a big part of my musical upbringing," she said. "Also AC/DC and the Beatles. Weird stuff like that. My parents (her mother earned two psychology degrees from Long Beach State) definitely were rock 'n' rollers. My stepdad always had a drum set in the house." After she decided to start Civet, "one of the very first groups" Graves saw perform (at 17 or 18) was the Donnas - an all-female punk-pop band from Palo Alto - at Los Angeles' Troubadour. She remembered thinking they didn't seem edgy enough. "Honestly, I wasn't that impressed," Graves said. "I appreciate them now. I remember I really wanted them to sound younger and louder. Really, now, I think, 'Wow, they were really crazy.' " She still enjoys lots of "crazy" stuff. "I listen to everything from super-pop and Britney Spears to Lady Gaga, but my heart is in punk," Graves said with a giggle. "Punk-rock kids give me demos that are, like, the nastiest, worst punk rock, and I even like that. I'm pretty open. I can listen to almost anything." After the group's first three albums were issued on smaller, independent labels, Civet moved up to Los Angeles-based Hellcat Records - gaining visibility by touring with Social Distortion, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones and Dropkick Murphys as well as doing shows in Europe and Japan. "We did really well, which was awesome," Graves said. "Now, we hopefully just want to write a (great) record. We're very excited. Our sound is a lot better. We've grown a lot the last few years. We're a lot bigger and louder." The new record is nameless. So far. "But we're taking suggestions," Graves said with a laugh. They get a lot of good ones from the supportive people at their new label. "Hellcat's a bigger company, and they handle the really big stuff," Graves said. "We're pretty much self-managed. It actually works better. We felt like we were outsourcing and losing personal connections in the industry. You don't want to do that. It's great. It's really like family. We don't ever worry about being dropped." Though they live in different Southern California communities (Laguna Niguel, Rancho Cucamonga, Redondo Beach, Hollywood), the Civet "family" gathers at a downtown Los Angeles rehearsal space to practice and hang out. "It became clear right away that this is exactly what we were supposed to be doing," Graves said of Civet's inspiration. "We wanted to fill the void we saw, because tough, all-girl bands were few and far between. "Civet became not only a band but a way to travel, meet lots of amazing people, get our message across and show people girls can be real and play rock 'n' roll. It's not all about acoustic girl's night. It's about rock 'n' roll, dressing how you want, saying what you want, doing what you want and being a role model. We feel that when we play." That role modeling won't extend to parenthood just yet. "No one's tied the knot, but my bass payer (Valentine) is engaged," said Graves, whose non-band career interest is psychology. "Nope. No babies allowed in this band right now." Just girls - who can play their instruments. Contact Tony Sauro at (209) 546-8267 or tsauro@recordnet.com. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Jukebox Jury: Big Red Edition - Cornell Daily Sun Posted: 27 Jan 2010 11:03 PM PST Sun Staff Writer John Taechin Lee sat down with Cornell Concert Commission's current Executive Director Douglas DuRant 11 and last year's Executive Director (and Sun columnist) Justine Fields 09 to get their take on 2009s pop music hits. Beyoncé, "Single Ladies" Though first released in the fall of 2008, "Single Ladies" became the eighth biggest song of 2009 according to Billboard and still sat in the Top 40 in 2010. Justine: I wouldn't be surprised if you knew the whole dance. Lady Gaga, "Poker Face" The infectious dance single was also one of those monster songs that gained momentum in 2009, establishing Lady Gaga as the princess of pop. Douglas: Around this time, my feelings for Lady Gaga were very negative. She kept on trying to cast herself as a very strange, huge pop star that was breaking the mold. Black Eyed Peas, "I Gotta Feeling" The Black Eyed Peas ruled this year with two major singles. This feel-good song began the group's reign over 2009 and earned them a Record of the Year nomination for the 2010 Grammy's. Justine: I particularly love this song when they do the "Mazel Tov" shout-out. It's a great song. It can't be denied. Kings of Leon, "Use Somebody" Kings of Leon was one of very few rock bands that had insanely popular songs this year, and "Use Somebody" helped them become one of Rolling Stone's Top Artists of the Decade. Douglas: So it seems like it's a sad rock ballad but it's really just about exploiting an ex-lover, right? Drake, "Best I Ever Had" Nominated for Best Rap Song at the Grammy's, this gave listeners the heads up that there was a new player in town and he may the be best we ever had. Justine: The song is a little inappropriate. Who didn't love Degrassi though? Flo Rida featuring Ke$ha, "Right Round" Containing a sample from Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)," Flo Rida's infectious radio hit became the sixth most popular song of 2009. Douglas: I think that it took me about six months of knowing who Flo Rida was to realize it meant "Florida." Britney Spears, "Circus" After a public meltdown, Spears released "Circus," proving that after all these years, she was still the pop star whom everybody fell in love with. Douglas: I'm a huge fan of Britney, but I only became a huge fan after she became a freakshow. After she shaved her head off, had multiple marriages, had kids, and was caught flashing her … Taylor Swift, "You Belong With Me" Taylor Swift had the two most played songs on radio this year, with "Love Story" and the more recent "You Belong With Me." Douglas: When Kanye ruined the most important moment of her life, Justine was convinced it was all a media ploy between Beyonce, Kanye and Taylor. Miley Cyrus, "Party in the USA" In a song that defined the younger generation, "Party in the USA" defined America in less than four minutes and became one of the biggest pop songs of 2009. Douglas: Yes! The music video that made statutory rape okay! Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
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