Wednesday 25 June 2008

Miller�s keepsake pyjamas


Sienna Miller has opened up about remembering her late Casanova co-star Heath Ledger, who died in January, usmagazine.com reports.

�Heath and I had this amazing night out in Venice with my mother,� Miller told Britain�s Telegraph Magazine. �It had been pouring with rain. Heath ran out in the middle of St. Mark�s square and we were running around, and I slipped over.�

Miller continued, �We all ran back to his (apartment) and he gave me these dry pyjamas to get home in,� Miller said. Two years later, Miller returned the pyjamas to Ledger. �When he came over to my house last November, and he was having trouble sleeping, I gave them back, to help him sleep,� she said.

But after he died, �I was so sad that I didn�t have these stupid pyjamas anymore, so his father found them to give to me,� Miller revealed.










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Monday 16 June 2008

Javon Walker Had a Little Too Much Fun in Vegas

Cops found Oakland Raider Javon Walker unconscious in Vegas this morning.

FOX5 Las Vegas reports the wide receiver was found around 7:00 AM with an orbital fracture -- basically a busted eye socket. He was taken to a local hospital where he's in fair condition.

Cops refuse to confirm any details about the incident, including where exactly Walker was found.

Norm Clark reports the baller was partying it up at Tryst nightclub at the Wynn Hotel Saturday night, spraying the crowd with multiple bottles of champagne.

Story developing ...



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Billy Harper

Billy Harper   
Artist: Billy Harper

   Genre(s): 
Jazz
   


Discography:


Destiny Is Yours   
 Destiny Is Yours

   Year: 1994   
Tracks: 7


Black Saint   
 Black Saint

   Year: 1993   
Tracks: 1



Billy Harper is one of a generation of Coltrane-influenced tenor saxophonists wHO really built upon the master's work, kind of than just transcript it. Harper is consummately all-round, able-bodied to play convincingly in any setting, from bop to unloosen. His muscular tone, sylphlike juncture, comprehensive harmonic cognition, and unflagging energy define him as a saxophonist. He's too demoniac of an abundant resourcefulness that connects like a shot to his blue devils and gospel roots. Though not as well-known as he mightiness be, Harper is a jazz improviser of meaning stature. Harper grew up in Houston, TX. By the age of basketball team he was singing in church and at various choral events. At age 11 he was tending a sax for Christmas. In the start he was more often than not self-taught, though he was helped on by his uncle Earl Harper, a old herald world Health Organization had gone to school with boP trumpeter Kenny Dorham. Dorham's 1950s work was a formative influence. In his teens Harper played in R&B bands, and at the long time of 14 formed his have quartette. In the early '60s, Harper studied wind at North Texas State University, where he became (at that meter) the only African-American member of the school's esteemed One O'Clock Lab Band. Harper calibrated from NTSU with a Bachelor of Music degree and also did grad student put to work. In 1966 Harper moved to New York. That year, he light-emitting diode an corps de ballet that was featured on an NBC-TV special, "The Big Apple." Within unretentive time after arriving in New York, Harper started playing with well-known bandleaders. In 1967 he began a durable association with bandleader/arranger Gil Evans. Harper has played with some of jazz's sterling drummers; he served with Blakey's Messengers for two age (1968-1970); he played selfsame in brief with Elvin Jones (1970), and was a member of Max Roach's dance band in the late '70s. Harper as well became a regular appendage of the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Big Band. In the '70s, Harper began recording under his have nominate for European labels. His album Black Saint (1975) was the first recording issued by the label of the same cite; his In Europe (1979) inaugurated the Soul Note label. Harper recorded relatively infrequently in the '80s and '90s, although he maintained an active acting career, mostly as a drawing card. He's enjoyed a latitude career as a music pedagogue, pedagogy at Livingston College and Rutgers. He's as well standard multiple grants from various arts agencies, including two from the National Endowment of the Arts. Harper's Smuggled Saint LP was named Jazz Record of the Year -- Voice Grand Prix, by the Modern Jazz League of Tokyo.





D.A. Passes On Grass Charges
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Maddy Costa talks to Natasha Khan from Bat for Lashes

The music Natasha Khan makes under the name Bat for Lashes sounds enchanted, as though cauldrons and wands were as instrumental to its making as synthesisers and guitars. So it's no surprise to discover that Khan's home looks quite different from its surroundings - but it's different in disappointing ways. A drab 1960s building, it squats unattractively between elegant Victorian houses. The rooms are neutral in colour and sparsely furnished; pinned to the kitchen noticeboard is a cleaning rota. It's all surprisingly ordinary. But then you spot a tarnished crown in the sitting room, acquired by Khan on a recent trip to the US, and a gauzy, rainbow-hued dress, apparently made of butterfly wings, hanging by the front door, and you think: that's more like it.












The dress, on loan from Alexander McQueen, is one of many signs of Khan's surging popularity since her debut album, Fur and Gold, was nominated for last year's Mercury prize. This month, Bat for Lashes (Khan and a new backing band, the Blue Dreams) are touring Europe on the invitation of Radiohead. When Khan walks through her adopted home town, Brighton, girls sashay into earshot singing her finest, best-known song, What's a Girl to Do: "When you love someone/ But the thrill is gone." Most importantly, success means that the 28-year-old can now leave this rented house and move into her own flat. "I've yearned for that security all my life," she says. "To have somewhere to call my own is all I've ever wanted. Now everything else is a bonus."

Fur and Gold beguiled critics on its release in September 2006. Otherworldly in feel, it carries lyrics loaded with images from Khan's dreams and her reading in Jungian theory, while its dark, sensual sounds evoke everything from 1960s pop to Native American rituals. Despite the positive reviews, however, it went relatively unnoticed by the general public - until the Mercury nominations were announced several months later. Khan is thankful for the slow burn: "It allowed me to get used to the idea of opening your dressing gown in front of lots of people." As a child, she never wished to be famous. "When I was younger, there wasn't that spotlight on celebrity and its workings. When I played piano, I wasn't performing for anyone. I played because it gave me goosebumps all over my body. I was able to express the overwhelming tides of emotion that wanted to come out."

Over the past year, she says, she has felt overwhelmed by emotion again, as she has attempted to deal with the demands of touring - and then, over the winter, the sudden absence of that routine. She played her final Fur and Gold show last October at London's Koko, a magical evening in which the stage was transformed into a glittering forest inhabited by sprites. After that, she spent some time with her family, then with her boyfriend (a musician in the New York band Moon and Moon), and had "a bit of a nervous breakdown. It was the first time in two years where nothing was needed of me. It's as though you're the queen at the top of your tower, and suddenly you're flung out the window. Actually, it was really good for me to just be Natasha for a while, to have an everyday life and slow down. But I can imagine why people in that situation need to get fucked up."

Books pulled her through. She has a pile beside her as we talk: Heroes and Villains, by Angela Carter; We: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love, by the Jungian analyst Robert Johnson; a biography entitled Victor Hugo's Conversations With the Spirit World, about which she is particularly enthused. The French novelist spent three years in exile in Jersey, during which he communed with the spirits of the ocean, rocks, animals, Galileo, Jesus, you name it. The book has tapped into Khan's own beliefs about "the connectedness of all things. It strikes me over and over again how physics and love and creativity and physical birth are all the same thing." She is a self-confessed hippy, "obsessed with Woodstock and running through the California forests. People say it's stupid, but I don't care: people are so cynical nowadays."

Khan has always felt a little bit different. Her mother and aunts mostly do secretarial work (although her mother recently completed a degree in criminal psychology), but the teenage Natasha wanted to be "a painter or a writer", and decided that life experience would serve her better than university. She spent two years working in offices and factories, saving enough to travel to New York, San Francisco, Mexico and Canada. It was then that she realised how important music was to her - something she previously "wasn't cognisant of, even though I was playing piano all the time, and writing poems and books of lyrics".

She surprised her family by signing up for a degree in music and visual art at Brighton University. "Mum says that, since I was a tiny baby, I've had the most strong-willed and stubborn personality known to man. Although that was a real pain for her, she admired my resolve. It can be frightening to turn your back on what others think is right. But I'm not the same as a lot of people - I'm quite artistic and quite eccentric sometimes. If you honour that, you fit into yourself better - and people accept you for what you are."

It seems she inherited her creativity from her father, Rahmat Khan, a squash player who gave up his career to coach his cousin Jahangir, who for several years was the world No 1. "Dad was an amazing storyteller and illustrator, which he did in his spare time - very inspiring and dramatic." He instilled a wanderlust in Natasha. "I'd travel the world with him and watch him compete. I think that's why I'm really free-spirited: I'd been all over the world by the time I was three."

She's able to talk calmly of the fact that her father abandoned the family when she was just 11, and has rationalised it as "that moment when life becomes serious, and you realise you're a soul on a journey", an experience she believes everyone shares. But she also admits: "I'll always be someone who is frightened of being abandoned, and finds it difficult to trust people."

Her view of human relationships has grown quite cosmic since a visit to the planetarium in New York. "Planets will bask in each other's glory but never quite meet, until at some point they crash and create a whole bunch of other planets. I was thinking about love, how there's a desperate need for us to connect, yet we're all separate - planets that need to circle around each other." Khan and her boyfriend have been together for two and a half years, time she says has been characterised by "a lot of pressures, but a lot of beautiful, inspirational things, too."

It's a tricky time for Khan: she is ready to settle down, yet determined to pursue her wayward career. She longs to have children, yet can't even commit to a pet cat. Children were a big part of her pre-Bat life: after university, she trained as a nursery-school teacher, and spent three years in the job. "I loved it. I'd pile up on bean bags with a load of three-year-olds and tell them stories about witches and gargoyles and thunder dragons, and they would squeal in delight. There's something in me that loves to inspire people: when I'm playing music, I imagine all this sparkly stardust going through everyone. I want to make people come alive."

Her second album is still a work in progress, but Khan says she has changed musically. "Fur and Gold was 'inside Natasha's mind': it was very intimate and personal. This one feels a bit more confident and physical and in the world. It's me balancing out my more masculine side with all my good feminine intuitions and emotions." This is reflected in her new band, too: unlike her all-female first band, it is a mixture of men and women, with real drums instead of programmed beats.

She has mixed emotions about returning to the promotional merry-go-round. "I feel creatively at my strongest, but this is quite a sad, scary time, too. Last night, I spent half an hour writing down all the things I'm grateful for. To be able to put out things that I think will be beneficial, in a world that is transient and difficult, is very rare."

She hasn't yet designed the visual world for the new album (like Alison Goldfrapp, she's a firm believer that image is as important as sound), but has fond memories of creating Bat for Lashes in the first place. "I was really naive and excited. It was like being a child taken up into the loft, and finding 50 million boxes of whatever you could imagine - musical instruments, books, dressing-up clothes." Her earliest promotional photographs are vibrant and a little bonkers, featuring Khan in a boxing ring, bedecked in feathers, with a golden headband that became her trademark. "I was playing and not giving a shit," she says cheerfully. "Looking back on it, I love it still, but I do think: 'Gosh, what are you wearing?'".

· Bat for Lashes support Radiohead at Victoria Park, London E9, on June 24 and 25, and on tour


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Verdict is IN!

We're hearing the R. Kelly jury has reached a verdict!

The judge will read the verdict at 3:00 PM ET.

Stay tuned!





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'Simpsons' snags four Key Art Awards

'Bee Movie,' 'Borat,' 'No Country for Old Men' also earn top awards













The advertising for "The Simpsons Movie" earned four trophies, including best of show in the print category, at the 37th Annual Hollywood Reporter Movie Marketing Key Art Awards. Best of show awards were also presented to "Bee Movie" in the A/V category and "Borat" in home entertainment.


Along with "The Simpsons Movie," marketing materials for "No Country for Old Men" and "300" were big winners, all earning four awards each, Friday night during a ceremony hosted by Jeff Garlin at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza.


"Some people care about baseball...I care about the design and creation of movie marketing materials," Garlin said.


The studios for "The Simpsons Movie" and "No Country," 20th Century Fox and MIramax respectively, snagged four awards each, the most for any single studio, BLT & Associates, Crew Creative Advertising and Mojo were the top winners on the vendor side, earning three trophies each.


The "Simpsons" best of show awarded was presented on the strength of a theatrical standee from Drissi Advertising and Idea Planet for Fox. The title also won awards for best website design, new media (special recognition) and theatrical standees.


The "Bee Movie" best of show honor was selected for a trailer from The Ant Farm/Sameth A.D.V. for Dreamworks Animation/Paramount Pictures. Best of Show in home entertainment went to a TV spot from CMP Home Entertainment and Fox Home Entertainment.


"No Country" and its studio Miramax won awards in the newly-created best campaign category, as well as for drama trailer, motion graphics and A/V (special recognition). "300" was honored for its trailer (action adventure/horror), international A/V (trailers and TV spots), new media (home entertainment) and print (special recognition).


Mojo was honored for its work on the "300" trailer, international A/V and print (special recognition). BLT was recognized on the strength of its "Grindhouse" print (action adventure/horror), "Juno" print (comedy), and "Transformers" outdoor print advertising.


Crew Creative took home awards for international print for "Knocked Up," festival/market print for LA Shorts Fest, and best copy line for "The TV Set."


Print winners included "Premonition" for drama, "Taxi to the Dark Side" for documentary, "Ratatouille" for family.


In the theatrical trailers categories, winners included "Superbad" for comedy and "Bee Movie" for family.


Judd Apatow received the Visionary Award, recognizing a filmmaker who inspires movie marketers, during the presentation.


"I'd like to thank everyone here who has done such amazing work. I've enjoyed my interactions with everybody," Apatow joked onstage. "It's one of the most fun parts of the process. This award brings me full circle because I started out thinking you were all f***ing a**holes."


A total of 1,335 submissions were judged this year. The Hollywood Reporter sister company Nielsen Research Group administered and tabulated the ballots, and also determined the winners in each category.


Bob Israel, chairman of the Key Art Awards Advisory Board, executive produced the show for the eighth consecutive year. Mike Greenfeld, former chairman and co-founder of The Ant Farm and managing partner of Anticipation, Tim Nett, executive creative director of Trailer Park, and Terry Curtin, CEO and creative director, Intralink Film Graphics Design, co-executive produced the show.


Scott Mauro Entertainment produced, and Sameth A.D.V.'s David Sameth served as the show's creative consultant .


This year's Key Art Awards sponsors include the Los Angeles Times, Crew Creative, Menagerie Creative and Weston/Mason Entertainment Advertising.




A full list of winners follows on the next page.







BEST CAMPAIGN

-- No Country for Old Men, Miramax



BEST OF SHOW-- AUDIOVISUAL

-- Bee Movie, The Ant Farm/Sameth A.D.V., Dreamworks Animation/Paramount Pictures



BEST OF SHOW -- PRINT

-- The Simpsons Movie, Drissi Advertising, Inc., Idea Planet, LP, Twentieth Century Fox



BEST OF SHOW -- HOME ENTERTAINMENT

-- Borat, CMP Home Entertainment, & Fox Home Entertainment



ACTION ADVENTURE/HORROR TRAILERS -- FIRST PLACE

-- 300, Mojo, LLC, Warner Bros.



ACTION ADVENTURE/HORROR TV SPOTS -- FIRST PLACE

-- War, Ocean, Lions Gate



ACTION/ADVENTURE/HORROR PRINT -- FIRST PLACE

-- Grindhouse, BLT & Associates, Inc., The Weinstein Co. / Dimension



AV TRAILERS - HOME ENTERTAINMENT -- FIRST PLACE

-- Blade Runner, Skip Film, Warner Brothers Home Entertainment



BEST COPY LINE-(ALL MEDIA) -- FIRST PLACE

-- The TV Set, Crew Creative, Think Film



BEST WEBSITE DESIGN -- FIRST PLACE

-- The Simpsons Movie, 65 Media, 20th Century Fox



COMEDY PRINT -- FIRST PLACE

-- Juno, BLT & Associates, Inc., Fox Searchlight



COMEDY TRAILERS -- FIRST PLACE

-- Superbad, Ignition Creative, Sony



COMEDY TV SPOTS -- FIRST PLACE

-- Juno, Seismic Productions, Fox Searchlight



DOCUMENTARY A/V TRAILERS & TV SPOTS -- FIRST PLACE

-- God Grew Tired of Us, Trailer Park, New Market Films



DOCUMENTARY PRINT -- FIRST PLACE

-- Taxi to the Dark Side, Cold Open, ThinkFilm



DRAMA PRINT -- FIRST PLACE

-- Premonition, Ignition Print, Sony Screen Gems



DRAMA TRAILERS -- FIRST PLACE

-- No Country For Old Men, Giaronomo Productions, Inc., Miramax Films



DRAMA TV SPOTS -- FIRST PLACE

-- There Will Be Blood, The Pant Farm, Paramount Vantage



DVD PACKAGING-HOME ENTERTAINMENT -- FIRST PLACE

-- Saturday Night Fever 30th Anniversary Special Collector's Edition, SR3 Solutions, Paramount Home Entertainment



FAMILY PRINT -- FIRST PLACE

-- Ratatouille, Animation Creative Services, The Walt Disney Studios/Pixar Animation Studios



FAMILY TRAILERS -- FIRST PLACE

-- Bee Movie, The Ant Farm/Sameth A.D.V., Dreamworks Animation/Paramount Pictures



FAMILY TV SPOTS -- FIRST PLACE

-- Ratatouille, Craig Murray Productions, The Walt Disney Studios



FESTIVAL/MARKET PRINT -- FIRST PLACE

-- LA Shorts Fest, Crew Creative, LA Shorts Fest



HOME ENTERTAINMENT - SPECIAL RECOGNITION -- FIRST PLACE

-- All Harry Potter Films, 30sixty Advertising+Design, Inc., Warner Home



INTERNATIONAL A/V TRAILERS & TV SPOTS -- FIRST PLACE

-- 300, Mojo, LLC, Warner Bros. International



INTERNATIONAL PRINT -- FIRST PLACE

-- Knocked Up, Crew Creative, Universal Pictures



MOTION GRAPHICS -- FIRST PLACE

-- No Country For Old Men, Matthew Cohen Creative, Buddha Jones, Miramax



NEW MEDIA-HOME ENTERTAINMENT -- FIRST PLACE

-- 300, Hybrid Studio, a Division of The Visionaire Group, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment



OUTDOOR ADVERTISING PRINT -- FIRST PLACE

-- Transformers, BLT & Associates, Inc., Dreamworks SKG / Paramount Pictures



SPECIAL RECOGNITION AUDIOVISUAL

-- No Country For Old Men, Matthew Cohen Creative, Buddha Jones, & Miramax



SPECIAL RECOGNITION NEW MEDIA

-- The Simpsons Movie, 65 Media, 20th Century Fox



SPECIAL RECOGNITION PRINT

-- 300, Mojo, LLC, Warner Bros. International



THEATRICAL STANDEES PRINT -- FIRST PLACE

-- The Simpsons Movie, Drissi Advertising, Inc., Idea Planet, LP, Twentieth Century Fox



TV SPOTS-HOME ENTERTAINMENT -- FIRST PLACE

-- Borat, CMP Home Entertainment, Fox Home Entertainment



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Aurosonic

Aurosonic   
Artist: Aurosonic

   Genre(s): 
Trance
   


Discography:


Starfall   
 Starfall

   Year: 2007   
Tracks: 8


Rainbow EP   
 Rainbow EP

   Year: 2007   
Tracks: 5


Underwater WEB   
 Underwater WEB

   Year: 2006   
Tracks: 1


Underwater   
 Underwater

   Year: 2006   
Tracks: 1


Missing You   
 Missing You

   Year: 2006   
Tracks: 3


Missing Outsiders   
 Missing Outsiders

   Year: 2006   
Tracks: 1


Memories WEB   
 Memories WEB

   Year: 2006   
Tracks: 1


Hawai   
 Hawai

   Year: 2006   
Tracks: 1



 






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Jimmy Eat World threaten to 'sacrifice goats' at Download

Jimmy Eat World threatened to sacrifice goats at Download Festival today (June 15).

The Arizona emo stars were the final warm-up on the Main Stage before headliners Lostprophets.

Hitting the metal fest for the first time, the band wowed the sizeable crowd with tracks from current album 'Chase This Light' alongside old favourites 'The Middle', 'Pain', and 'Salt Sweat Sugar'.

Fully aware of their position at the poppier end of the line-up, frontman Jim Adkins told NME.COM: "It looks pretty gnarly! It's really early in the day and the Main Stage is packed, It should be a really rocking time."

However drummer Zach Lind reckoned they were up to the challenge: "When Jim and I first started playing together, we were in junior high and we used to play Metallica songs, so I guess we�ve got a little bit of metal in us

"We're gonna play some old songs, then we're gonna sacrifice goats, and then we're gonna play the new songs. And then we drink the blood!"

Keep up with this weekend's (June 13-15) festival action as it happens on NME.COM. For news, pictures and blogs keep checking the NME.COM's Isle Of Wight Festival page and NME.COM's Download Festival page for live coverage from both sites.

You can watch our video interview with Jimmy Eat World below.

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Bruce Johnston

Bruce Johnston   
Artist: Bruce Johnston

   Genre(s): 
Other
   


Discography:


Bruce Johnston - Going Public   
 Bruce Johnston - Going Public

   Year: 1977   
Tracks: 9



While never a household name, Bruce Johnston enjoyed one of the longest and most challenging careers in pop music, most notably as a member of the Beach Boys. Born June 27, 1942, in Peoria, IL, he was raised in Beverly Hills, CA, attending school with young man aspirant musicians Kim Fowley and Sandy Nelson and now and then playing with them in the chemical group the Sleepwalkers. Though still in high school, Johnston became a well-regarded performing artist on the West Coast circuit and played on a numeral of studio apartment dates. Best known as a guitarist and keyboard musician, he likewise handled bass duties on the Teddy Bears' chart-topping 1958 come to "To Know Him Is to Love Him" and drummed for Ritchie Valens' unrecorded band. While attending UCLA, Johnston formed a band called Surf Stompers, in 1963 recording Surfin' Around the World as good as the hot LP Surfers' Pajama Party, cut at a Sigmi Pi sodality bash; at the Del-Fi label, he was too a producer for acts of the Apostles including Ron Holden, and lED the Rip Chords and the Hot Doggers with Terry Melcher. In late 1964, Johnston was tapped to join the Beach Boys' touring circle after Brian Wilson proclaimed his retirement from live performances; in 1965, he played piano on the group's impinge on "CA Girls" and later on remained an on-again, off-again member of their ranks for decades to amount, most notably appearance on the 1966 masterpiece Pet Sounds. Johnston left the band during the mid-'70s, recording a solo LP, 1977's Exit Public, and becoming the impinge on songster behind smashes like Barry Manilow's "I Write the Songs." By the end of the decennium, however, he was over again producing the Beach Boys and continued to tour with them well into the 1990s.





Minnie Driver expecting her first child
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Newsman Tim Russert Dead At 58

One of the most recognized faces of U.S. television news, Tim Russert, has died of a suspected heart attack while preparing his weekly show, aged 58.

The newsman, most noted for his NBC show ‘Meet The Press’, was the network’s Washington Bureau chief. Time magazine had named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world this year.
According to a report on NBC’s website, Russert collapsed while recording voiceovers for his Sunday show, and was rushed to Sibley Memorial Hosptial in Washington.
His physician, Michael Newman, said that resuscitation efforts were unsuccessful, and that the actual cause of death is not yet known.
President Bush issued a statement immediately saying that Russert was "an institution in both news and politics for more than two decades.”
He is survived by his wife Maureen Orth and their son Luke.
NEXT: R. Kelly Found Not Guilt Of Child Porn
Photo courtesy of NBC.


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