2008 - For Axl Rose, it’s bad times. A week ago, his much-anticipated album Chinese Democracy debuted to less-than-stellar chart showings – in the UK it was handily beat by The Killers’ Day & Age, and in the US it did even worse, coming in at Number 3 behind Kanye West and Taylor Swift.
And now it appears that the raging apathy of once-fervent Guns N’ Roses fans continues.
Final sales figures are still coming in, but in the UK, Chinese Democracy dropped off the Top 10 and slid to Number 11. And in the US the story is even grimmer, where the record nosedived to Number 17 – a 78 percent drop-off from its first-week sales.
2008 – GUNS N’ ROSES: ‘Chinese Democracy’ Track Listing Slightly Revised – Oct. 17, 2008
A slightly revised track listing for the new GUNS N’ ROSES album, “Chinese Democracy”, has now been posted at BestBuy.com, which will exclusively carry the album in the U.S. starting on November 23. A pre-order page for the long-delayed release was posted at the site on Wednesday (October 15), although the pre-order option was later taken off. The page lists 14 song titles for the record, 11 of which have either been played live or leaked online over the past few years. The Pulse of Radio reports that one of those, “Street of Dreams”, was previously known as “The Blues”, while three titles, “Scraped”, “Sorry” and “Prostitute”, have not been heard anywhere.
According to Billboard.com, sources who have heard the album say that it opens with a “blood-curdling Axl Rose scream.”
Two different covers will apparently be available, along with CD and vinyl versions. What appears to be one of the covers has been posted at the Best Buy site, showing what seems to be a bicycle with a basket perched on it.
There has still not been an official announcement regarding the November 23 arrival date for the record.
“Chinese Democracy” has been in the works since the mid-’90s, with speculation and mystery surrounding the album’s 13-year journey, ever-changing roster of players and spiraling recording costs.
Revised “Chinese Democracy” track listing:
01. Chinese Democracy
02. Shackler’s Revenge
03. Better
04. Street Of Dreams
05. If The World
06. There Was A Time
07. Catcher N’ The Rye
08. Scraped
09. Riad N’ The Bedouins
10. Sorry
11. I.R.S.
12. Madagascar
13. This I Love
14. Prostitute
Abstract:
Marking the 40th Anniversary of the release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Geoff Emerick, the Beatles engineer on the original recording was commissioned by the BBC to re-record the entire album on the original vintage equipment using contemporary musicians for a unique TV program.
Celebrating its own anniversary, the APRS is proud to present for a select AES audience, this unique project featuring recorded performances by young UK and US artists including the Kaiser Chiefs, The Fray, Travis, Razorlight, the Stereophonics, the Magic Numbers, and a few more—and one older Canadian, Bryan Adams.
These vibrant, fresh talents recorded the original arrangements and orchestrations of the Sgt. Pepper album using the original microphones, desks, and hard-learned techniques directed and mixed in mono by the Beatles own engineering maestro, Geoff Emerick.
Hear how it was done, how it should be done, and how many of the new artists want to do it in the future. Geoff will be available to answer a few questions about the recording of each track and, of course, more general questions regarding the recording processes and the innovative contribution he and other Abbey Road wizards made to the best ever album.
APRS, The Association of Professional Recording Services, promotes the highest standards of professionalism and quality within the audio industry. Its members are recording studios, postproduction houses, mastering, replication, pressing and duplicating facilities, and providers of education and training, as well as record producers, audio engineers, manufacturers, suppliers, and consultants. Its primary aim is to develop and maintain excellence at all levels within the UK’s audio industry.
2008 – Behold, the video for AC/DC’s “Rock N’ Roll Train.” It has all the ingredients of an AC/DC video: Angus Young in a schoolboy outfit, fire, sweat and Brian Johnson wearing a vest, with footage of train crashes added for thematic continuity. “Rock N’ Roll Train” is the first single from the band’s upcoming Black Ice, due out in Wal-Marts on October 21st. The album will be followed by a tour, with AC/DC implementing the new paperless ticketing technology for select seats. The paperless tickets will “help ensure fan club members and fans purchasing designated seats will be able to secure tickets at face value,” Ticketmaster said in a statement. Both Tom Waits and Metallica have embraced the new ticketing program, which requires buyers to show identification when arriving at the venue.
2008 – Gilmour’s tribute to Floyd star Roger Waters, Nick Mason, Syd Barrett and Richard Wright
Gilmour said Wright (right) was “gentle, unassuming and private”.
Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour has praised late bandmate Richard Wright for his “vitality, spark and humour”.
Writing on his website, Gilmour said he had “never played with anyone quite like” the keyboardist, who has died from cancer at the age of 65.
“In my view, all the greatest Pink Floyd moments are the ones where he is in full flow,” Gilmour added.
He hailed Wright for his songwriting talent, including on two tracks from 1973′s Dark Side of the Moon album.
Gilmour joined the band in 1968 – a year after the group’s first album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn.
In the welter of arguments about who or what was Pink Floyd, Rick’s enormous input was frequently forgotten
David Gilmour
“No-one can replace Richard Wright – he was my musical partner and my friend,” Gilmour said.
“In the welter of arguments about who or what was Pink Floyd, Rick’s enormous input was frequently forgotten.
“He was gentle, unassuming and private but his soulful voice and playing were vital, magical components of our most recognised Pink Floyd sound.”
Gilmour said the blend of his and Wright’s voices, together with their “musical telepathy, reached their first major flowering” on 1971 track Echoes, which took up the whole of the second side of album Meddle.
Gilmour, Waters, Mason and Wright in 2005
The band performed together at Live 8 in 2005 for the first time in 24 years
Released in 1973, The Dark Side of the Moon went on to become one of the best-selling and most influential albums in rock history.
Wright helped write much of the album, but was responsible for two songs in particular, Gilmour said.
He added: “After all, without Us and Them, and The Great Gig in the Sky – both of which he wrote – what would The Dark Side Of The Moon have been?”
Gilmour has now pulled out of the premiere of a concert film, David Gilmour Live In Gdansk, in London on Tuesday.
But the guitarist has asked for the event to go ahead without him in memory of Wright, his spokesman said.
Joe Boyd, who produced the band’s early records, said Wright’s keyboards were “an integral part of the Pink Floyd sound”.
“He was a very nice and easy going person,” he said. “It’s very sad to hear of his untimely passing.”
‘Influential musician’
Neil Portnow, president of The Recording Academy, which organises the Grammy Awards in the US, added his tribute.
“Richard Wright was an exceptional instrumentalist, whose distinctive keyboard style was essential to the musicality of this world-renowned band,” he said.
“He also scored films and recorded his own instrumental compositions and solo albums.
“Our deepest sympathies go out to his family and fans at this difficult time, as we remember this influential musician.”
The group played at the Live 8 event in Hyde Park in London in 2005, when Roger Waters rejoined his bandmates for a one-off, more than two decades after they fell out.
The four musicians all also played at a tribute concert for Syd Barrett in 2007, with Waters playing a solo set and Wright, Gilmour and Nick Mason making a separate appearance.
Wright’s death was announced in a statement by his spokesman on Monday.
The spokesman said Wright died after “a short struggle with cancer” but declined to give further details.
2008 – In just a three-day sales window, Metallica’s “Death Magnetic” skates close to the half million mark and will lead The Billboard 200 when Nielsen SoundScan releases its charts tomorrow morning (Sept. 17).
The band’s first studio album since 2003 moved 490,000 copies in its abbreviated frame, scheduled off-cycle on a Friday to accommodate a worldwide release date.
It marks the biggest number the chart has seen since five weeks ago, when the Jonas Brothers’ “A Little Bit Longer” scaled the list with 525,000 copies with a traditional Tuesday release date.
The total for Metallica’s first Warner Bros. album after spending its career with Elektra outdistances the opening sum of its last studio set, “St. Anger,” which sold 418,000 copies in a similarly shorter-than-normal window.
Originally set for a Tuesday release, “Anger” was rush released to an off-cycle Thursday start amid concerns over Internet leaks. The last Metallica album to stage a larger opener than “Magnetic” was 1996′s “Load,” which rolled 680,000 units in its first frame.
2008 – Portuguese metal band PAINSTRUCK will release its third album, “Hell’s Wrath in God’s Fury”, in October. The CD was recorded at In/Out studios in Portugal with producer Nuno Loureiro (the band’s lead guitarist/vocalist).
“Hell’s Wrath in God’s Fury” track listing:
01. Thundering Roars Of Things To Come
02. Moment Of Bliss
03. Proof Of Betrayal
04. A Bullet For Each Other
05. True Face Of The Underground
06. Crack The White Knuckle
07. Seeds Of Distress
08. Slain Animal
09. Splitting Core
10. 24th Boulder
11. Last Gasp
12. Room To Excel
2008 – Associated Press – LONDON – Richard Wright, a founding member of the rock group Pink Floyd, died today… this day in rock! He was 65.
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Pink Floyd’s spokesman Doug Wright, who is not related to the artist, said Wright died after a battle with cancer at his home in Britain. He says the band member’s family did not want to give more details about his death.
Wright met Pink Floyd members Roger Waters and Nick Mason in college and joined their early band, Sigma 6. Along with the late Syd Barrett, the four formed Pink Floyd in 1965.
The group’s jazz-infused rock and drug-laced multimedia “happenings” made them darlings of the London psychedelic scene, and their 1967 album, “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn,” was a hit.
In the early days of Pink Floyd, Wright, along with Barrett, was seen as the group’s dominant musical force. The London-born musician and son of a biochemist wrote songs and sang.
The band released a series of commercially and critically successful albums including 1973′s “Dark Side of the Moon,” which has sold more than 40 million copies. Wright wrote “The Great Gig In The Sky” and “Us And Them” for that album, and later worked on the group’s epic compositions such as “Atom Heart Mother,” “Echoes” and “Shine On You Crazy Diamond.”
But tensions grew between Waters, Wright and fellow band member David Gilmour. The tensions came to a head during the making of “The Wall” when Waters insisted Wright be fired. As a result, Wright was relegated to the status of session musician on the tour of “The Wall,” and did not perform on Pink Floyd’s 1983 album “The Final Cut.”
Wright formed a new band Zee with Dave Harris, from the band Fashion, and released one album, “Identity,” with Atlantic Records.
Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985 and Wright began recording with Mason and Gilmour again, releasing the albums “The Division Bell” and “A Momentary Lapse of Reason” as Pink Floyd. Wright also released the solo albums “Wet Dream” (1978) and “Broken China” (1996).
In July 2005, Wright, Waters, Mason and Gilmour reunited to perform at the “Live 8″ charity concert in London — the first time in 25 years they had been onstage together.
Wright also worked on Gilmour’s solo projects, most recently playing on the 2006 album “On An Island” and the accompanying world tour.
Richard William Wright (28 July 1943 – 15 September 2008) was a self-taught pianist and keyboardist best known for his long career with Pink Floyd. Though not as prolific a songwriter as his bandmates Syd Barrett, Roger Waters and David Gilmour, he did write significant parts of the music for classic albums such as Meddle, Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here, as well as for Pink Floyd’s final studio album The Division Bell. Wright’s richly textured keyboard layers have been a vital ingredient and a distinctive characteristic of Pink Floyd’s sound. In addition, Wright frequently sang background and occasionally lead vocals onstage and in the studio with Pink Floyd (most notably on the songs “Time,” “Echoes,” and on the Syd Barrett composition “Astronomy Domine”). Wright died on 15 September 2008, following a short battle with cancer.
Biography
Pink Floyd career
Wright was educated at the Haberdashers’ Aske’s School and the Regent Street Polytechnic College of Architecture, where he met fellow band members Roger Waters and Nick Mason. He was a founding member of The Pink Floyd Sound (as they were then called) in 1965, and also participated in its previous incarnations, Sigma 6 and The (Screaming) Abdabs.
In the early days of Pink Floyd, Wright was seen as a dominant musical force in the group (though not as much of one as Syd Barrett, the band’s chief songwriter and front man at the time) and he wrote and sang several songs of his own during 1967–68. While not credited as a singer on The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, he sung lead on Barrett-penned songs like “Astronomy Domine” and “Matilda Mother,” as well as notable harmonies on “Scarecrow” and “Chapter 24.” Examples of his early compositions include “Remember a Day”, “Paintbox” and “It Would Be So Nice”. As the sound and the goals of the band evolved, Wright became less interested in songwriting and focused primarily on contributing his distinctive style to extended instrumental compositions such as “Interstellar Overdrive”, “A Saucerful of Secrets”, “Careful with That Axe, Eugene”, “One Of These Days” and to musical themes for film scores (More, Zabriskie Point and Obscured by Clouds). He also made essential contributions to Pink Floyd’s long, epic compositions such as “Atom Heart Mother”, “Echoes” and “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”. His most commercially popular compositions are “The Great Gig in the Sky” and “Us and Them” from 1973′s The Dark Side of the Moon. He also contributed significantly to other mid-period Floyd classics like “Breathe” and “Time”.
Wright recorded his first solo project, Wet Dream, and released it in September 1978 with little fanfare. However, the album is regarded with some acclaim among Pink Floyd fans. Battling both personal problems and an increasingly rocky relationship with Roger Waters, he was forced to resign from Pink Floyd during The Wall sessions by Roger Waters, who threatened to pull the plug on the album’s tapes if Wright did not leave the band. However, he was retained as a salaried session musician during the subsequent live concerts to promote that album in 1980 and 1981. Ironically, Wright became the only member of Pink Floyd to profit from those hugely spectacular shows, since the net financial loss had to be borne by the three remaining “full-time” members. He was the only member of the band not to attend the 1982 première of the film version of The Wall. In 1983, Pink Floyd released the only album on which Wright does not appear with The Final Cut.
During 1984, Wright formed a new musical duo with Dave Harris (from the band Fashion) called Zee. They signed a record deal with Atlantic Records and released only one album, Identity, which was a commercial and critical flop. Wright rejoined Pink Floyd following Waters’ departure. Because of legal and contractual issues from his “hired gun” status during The Wall world tour, Wright’s photo was not included in the 1987 album A Momentary Lapse of Reason and his name was listed in smaller letters than Mason and Gilmour. By the time of the Momentary Lapse world tour and the 1988 live album The Delicate Sound of Thunder, Wright was contractually a member of Pink Floyd once again. In 1994, he co-wrote five songs and sang lead vocals on one song (“Wearing the Inside Out”) for the next Pink Floyd album, The Division Bell. This recording provided material for the double live album and video release P*U*L*S*E in 1995. Wright, like Nick Mason, has performed on every Pink Floyd tour.
Modern days
In 1996, inspired by his successful input into The Division Bell, Wright released his second solo album, Broken China, including contributions from Sinéad O’Connor on vocals, Pino Palladino on bass, Manu Katché on drums, Dominic Miller (known from his guitar work with Sting) and Tim Renwick, another Pink Floyd associate, on electric guitar. Broken China was considered to be a more focused and artistically successful work than Wet Dream and marked a new phase in Richard Wright’s modus operandi, with extensive use of computer-based recording and production techniques, assisted by Anthony Moore with whom he co-wrote the album’s lyrics.
On 2 July 2005, Wright, Gilmour, Mason were joined by Waters on stage for the first time since the Wall concerts for a short set at the Live 8 concert in London. Wright underwent eye surgery for cataracts in November 2005, preventing him from attending Pink Floyd’s induction into the UK Music Hall of Fame. Roger Waters, who was also unable to attend the band’s induction due to rehearsals for the opening of his opera Ça Ira in Rome, appeared in video link and stated, tongue-in-cheek:
“ Rick actually hasn’t had an eye operation, he and I have eloped to Rome and we’re living happily in a small apartment off the Via Venuti! ”
Wright contributed keyboards and background vocals to David Gilmour’s most recent solo album, On an Island, and performed with Gilmour’s touring band for over two dozen shows in Europe and North America in 2006 . On stage with Gilmour he performed piano, electric piano and synth leads with his Kurzweil K2600 workstation, Hammond organ and even his long-inactive Farfisa organ, which was resurrected especially for performing “Echoes” and a couple of Pink Floyd’s and Syd Barrett’s older numbers that Gilmour chose to revisit in his recent concerts. He also provided backing vocals and lead vocals (notably on “Echoes”, “Time”, “Comfortably Numb”, “Wearing the Inside Out” “Astronomy Domine” and “Arnold Layne” – the latter released as a live single). He declined an offer to join Roger Waters and Nick Mason on Waters’ The Dark Side of the Moon Live tour in order to spend more time working on an upcoming solo project (which may be an instrumental album released in 2008).
On 4 July 2006, Wright joined Gilmour and Mason for the official screening of the P•U•L•S•E DVD. Inevitably, Live 8 surfaced as a subject in an interview. When asked about performing again, Wright replied he would be happy on stage anywhere. He explained that his plan is to “meander” along and said about playing live:
“ …and whenever Dave wants me to play with him, I’m really happy to play with him. And you’ll play with me, right? ”
However, Wright stated that he had no desire to perform as part of an officially-reformed ‘Pink Floyd’ again, saying that the Live 8 concert was nice as a “one off.”
Wright had the lowest profile of any member of a band known for their lack of individual attention seeking. Unlike the three other surviving band members who have emerged as public figures, Wright rarely spoke in public. Wright was very rarely seen in the live footage from the Live 8 reunion performance; with a few exceptions he was only shown in wide shots. Some have suggested that the director of the broadcast did not know which musician was the fourth member of Pink Floyd until the very end when they got together for a group shot.
Personal
He married his first wife, Juliette Gale, in 1964 and they divorced in 1982 after having two children. He married his second wife Franka in 1984 and they divorced in 1994. Wright married his third wife Millie (to whom he dedicated his second solo album Broken China) in 1996; their one child is named Ben.
In 1996 Wright’s daughter Gala married Guy Pratt, a session musician who has played bass for Pink Floyd since Roger Waters’ exit.
Wright died on 15 September 2008 after a battle with cancer.
Influence
Wright’s style fuses jazz and neoclassical influences that complemented the simple harmonic structures of the more blues and folk-based songs written by Roger Waters and David Gilmour. As a keyboardist, he is more interested in complementing each piece with organ or synthesizer layers and tasteful piano or electric piano passages. Unlike his contemporaries Rick Wakeman, Tony Banks or Keith Emerson, only occasionally did he opt for solo playing, notably in “Atom Heart Mother”, “Echoes”, “Any Colour You Like”, “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” Parts 1-5 and 6-9, “Welcome to the Machine”, “Dogs”, “Run Like Hell” and “Keep Talking”. Another notable solo is the first solo in Syd Barrett’s song “Love Song”. Wright is known for his ghostly atmospheric textures such as the Leslie piano arpeggios at the beginning of “Echoes”, the echoed Farfisa Organ in the live versions of “Careful with That Axe, Eugene” and “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun”, the distinctive Minimoog solos in “Any Colour You Like” and, more famously, “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” and the jazzy electric piano passages in “Money”, “Time” and “Sheep”. In “A Saucerful of Secrets” and “Sysyphus” he experimented with ‘treated piano’. “Sysyphus” also made extensive use of Mellotron sounds, something of a rarity in the Pink Floyd canon. Wright also used Indian modal scales in “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” and “Matilda Mother”. Although he is not often mentioned among the ‘synthesizer greats’, it is widely acknowledged that Wright’s inventive use of keyboards and synthesizers with Pink Floyd has been pioneering.
Equipment
In the early days of the band, Wright dabbled with brass before settling on the Farfisa organ as his main instrument onstage (in addition to piano and Hammond Organ in the studio). For a brief period in 1969, Wright played vibraphone on several of the band’s songs and in some live shows, and he even played trombone on “Biding My Time” (also dating from this experimental period). During the formative years of Pink Floyd with Syd Barrett, Wright relied heavily on his Farfisa organ, fed through a Binson Echorec platter echo, to achieve distinctive sounds that helped the band gain their “psychedelic rock” edge. He started using a Hammond organ regularly onstage thereafter, and a grand piano later became part of his usual live concert setup when “Echoes” was added to Pink Floyd’s regular set-list. For tours in the 1970s centering around The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall, the Farfisa was dropped (although it was brought back when Wright toured with David Gilmour on his On An Island tour), and an array of other instruments were added to the lineup, such as: Fender Rhodes, Wurlitzer and Hohner electric pianos, VCS 3, Minimoog, ARP String Ensemble and Prophet 5 synthesizers. Since 1987 Wright favoured Kurzweil digital synthesisers for reproducing his analogue synthesiser sounds, even though he still used his favourite Hammond C-3 organ. However, the one that he used with Pink Floyd at Live 8 and with David Gilmour was a “chopped” version (being stripped down of unnecessary weight and put into a more compact casing).
Discography
Further information: Pink Floyd discography
Solo albums
* Wet Dream – 15 September 1978
* Broken China – 26 November 1996
Zee albums
* Identity – 9 April 1984
With David Gilmour
* David Gilmour in Concert (DVD) – October, 2002
o Appears on two tracks: “Breakthrough” (Keyboard / Vocals) & “Comfortably Numb (With Bob Geldof)” (Keyboard)
* On an Island – 6 March 2006
o Appears on two tracks: “On an Island” (Hammond organ) & “The Blue” (Keyboards / Vocals)
* Remember That Night (DVD) – September, 2007
With Syd Barrett
* The Madcap Laughs – 3 January 1970
* Barrett – 14 November 1970
2008 – Metallica have just premiered the video for their single “The Day That Never Comes” on their MySpace page. The epic clip was directed by Danish director Thomas Vinterberg and filmed this past July in southern California.
On working with the acclaimed filmmaker, Hetfield explained to MTV.com, “That’s the beauty, I think, of writing vague but powerful lyrics — that someone like a movie director can interpret it in his own way and obviously, someone creative is able to take the metaphors and apply them to whatever he needs in his own life.” Go Watch The Video
The band have also just unveiled another song from their upcoming album Death Magnetic. The hard-charging track, “Cyanide” is now available for sale on iTunes.
The leak: Seems some diehard fans got their hands on the album early and it’s all good with Lars. Blabbermouth has a little on that: Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich has commented on the premature release of the band’s new album, “Death Magnetic”, via a French record store. A shop in Paris reportedly sold a number of copies of the CD this morning well ahead of its official September 12 worldwide release date with illegal “Death Magnetic” MP3 files making their way online by this afternoon.
During a guest appearance earlier today on “The Woody Show” on the San Francisco, California radio station Live 105 (KITS 105.3 FM), Ulrich stated about the French leak, “Listen, we’re ten days from release. I mean, from here, we’re golden. If this thing leaks all over the world today or tomorrow, happy days. Happy days. Trust me. Ten days out and it hasn’t quote-unquote fallen off the truck yet? Everybody’s happy. It’s 2008 and it’s part of how it is these days, so it’s fine. We’re happy.”
2008 – Coldplay announced plans to release a new EP and album.
Chris Martin said the band are planning two further releases including the full-length follow up to Viva La Vida, by the end of 2009.
He told BBC 6 Music: “We’re going to put an EP out at Christmas called Prospects March and we’re going to release an album next December to end the decade.”
The band played a one-off show at the BBC Radio Theatre at the weekend.
New material
Martin also said that the EP is recorded but they are still to work on their next album.
The singer also joked his band might disappear from the public eye after the release of their fifth LP.
He added: “And then we’re gonna be ‘Whooosh! Where’ve they gone?’, just like [The Usual Suspects' mythical film villain] Keyser Soze.”
The band will embark on a UK tour later this year visiting London, Manchester and Glasgow.
They are currently offering a free new song, Death Will Never Conquer, available to download from their website.
Coldplay have also been nominated for the best special effects award for Violet Hill at this year’s MTV VMA awards.
Russell Brand will host the event which is due to be held at LA’s Paramount Pictures Studios on 7 September.
2008 – PR reports: Metallica have just released the first single off their upcoming album, Death Magnetic.
The epic track is entitled “The Day That Never Comes” and it’s now available through iTunes and is streaming on the band’s site.
The band recently filmed a video for the track with Danish film director Thomas Vinterberg which will premiere soon. Check out the track which is now streaming on – Metallica.com
2006 – Gnarls Barkley top the U.K. singles chart for a staggering ninth week with “Crazy.” The top album is Red Hot Chili Peppers with Stadium Arcadium.
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