4VF News – Daily News Channel

Prince William has revealed his surprising music taste when he made a royal visit to Goole High School in East Yorkshire, England.

When asked what bands he likes, William told a group of young children that he “really likes” Coldplay and Linkin Park.

Yes, you read that right: Linkin Park, aka the band that you were embarrassingly really into back in 2001.

Couldn’t music fan Prince Harry make a Spotify playlist for William to introduce him to more current bands Or at least Harry could take him along the next time he drops by the Glastonbury Music Festival.

This isn’t the first time William has opened up about his personal music taste.

During his tour of Australia in April, the prince told a young rapper at a youth centre about his favourite genres.

“I quite like house music,” William said. “I like my house music. I like a bit of rock and roll, a bit of R&B. I’m not a big heavy metal fan. I’d like to be, but I’m not.”

-PopSugar

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New Zealand band Blacklistt consists of four of the original five members of Blindspott. This month they are touring supporting their latest single Always. Blacklistt’s self-titled album debuted at No 1 on the New Zealand music charts in September 2013 and includes the hit single Home, alongside Burn and Worth Fighting For.

A Blacklistt gig is not complete without playing the classic tracks from their birth, the anthemic Phlex and fan favourite Nil By Mouth. Vicki Anderson caught up with band member

The fault lies squarely with the mohawk sported by centrepiece of the Clash, Joe Strummer.

Since releasing Rattlesnakes with the Commotions in 1984 and going solo in 1990, British singer/songwriter Lloyd Cole has released many albums and completed numerous tours, but says he feels he has found rock ‘n roll again with his latest album, Standards.

“I thought I’d finished making records like that,” Cole says. “I thought I was going to be making quiet records for the rest of my life. To be honest, I thought a bit too much about what was appropriate for a gentleman of a certain age to make. I was horrified when Joe Strummer got his mohawk too late. It was one of the worst things that ever happened in rock’n’roll. Someone who helped invent punk rock all of a sudden looked like a member of Crass or something.”

Cole confesses he has always been frightened of committing such a crime.

But when asked to review Bob Dylan’s album Tempest for a British magazine last year, he changed his tune.

“I listened to it on repeat for a day. It made me cry about three times. But what really struck me is that Bob Dylan doesn’t have any idea how old he is.

“I worried so much about the Joe Strummer mohawk that I didn’t make rock’n’roll music, even though I’m quite good at it, for a long time. I thought ‘what would happen if I didn’t worry about how old I was’ Standards is what happened.”

He went to his attic room, sat down at his desk and wrote for 8-10 hours a day for 10 weeks.

“It was a break from the way I have been working in previous years. I had led myself to believe that working in that fashion was the kind of thing that jingle writers do,” Cole says.

“Rather than waiting for a muse to appear, I sat down and wrote it. I knew it was good, I knew it wasn’t rubbish and I knew I had to produce it.”

When these songs “hinted” that they “might want to be recorded with a rock’n’roll ensemble”, Cole turned to his favourite rhythm section, the people who played on his first two solo albums, drummer Fred Maher and bassist Matthew Sweet.

“They both live in Los Angeles and both said yes but the window of opportunity was small which is why I had 10 weeks to write the album.”

It was recorded in a week.

“There are no mirrors in the room and you’re doing what you’re doing. After a few hours it felt the same, we’re all quite a lot older but what we’re doing is exactly the same. It just might be that we’re better at it now, 25 years later.”

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Cole then travelled to Bochum, Germany, in the depths of a grey winter to have the album mixed by a “mad scientist”.

“He made the record sound quite vibrant.”

Blue Like Mars is the result of Cole “trying to write a space song aged 51”, although he says it’s normally the thing to write a space song in your 20s. His son, William, 21, played guitar on the track.

“He’s been doing his own music and with his band for the last few years, he’s great. He offers an aesthetic different to mine which is important. He brings the record alive in a way we insiders couldn’t.”

Lyrically, Cole is pleased to have completed a song called Women’s Studies 20 years after it first hit his notebook.

“That song and Kids Today are the lyrics I’m happiest with.”

New Zealand’s appreciation for Cole reaches back 30 years to early Lloyd Cole and the Commotions albums like Rattlesnakes and Easy Pieces and songs like Lost Weekend, Perfect Skin and Jennifer She Said.

Los Angeles-based Kiwi Greg Johnson will play a rare solo set alongside Cole on this tour, celebrating the release of Some Other Place, Some Other Time – The Greg Johnson Anthology on Universal Records.

Cole is looking forward to familiarising himself with Johnson’s songs.

The last time Cole performed in Christchurch was a week before the 2011 earthquake, when he was touring his album Broken Record.

“It was weird to think that happened so soon after we left. I have no idea what to expect when I’m back but I am intrigued and excited to see the Cardboard Cathedral.

“Hopefully we won’t make a mess of it.”

THE DETAILS:

Lloyd Cole and special guest Greg Johnson perform at the Cardboard Cathedral, 8pm tonight. Full details of the New Zealand tour here.

Hollie Fullbrook is still wearing the coat she bought for her first tour three years ago.

But life has altered drastically since then for Fullbrook, who performs as Tiny Ruins. Last week she opened for Neil Finn on his European tour.

“I found myself on stage thinking, ‘Wow this is great, I’m playing Four Seasons In One Day with Neil Finn’ to a sold-out beautiful crowd in Glasgow,” she says.

This week she is racing around New Zealand, touring her own album, Brightly Painted One.

The second album from Tiny Ruins is their first since signing with British indie record label Bella Union, after label founder Simon Raymonde, himself a well known musician from the band Cocteau Twins, witnessed a performance in Auckland last September.

Bella Union is home to indie music royalty Beach House, Fleet Foxes and The Flaming Lips.

“We had finished the album and we were planning on releasing it in New Zealand last November,” Fullbrook recalls. “But in September, before we went on the United States tour with Calexico we played a show in Auckland. Simon was in the audience. He was impressed and said he’d like to work with us.”

When Fullbrook performed at the CMJ Festival in New York, Raymonde was in the audience again.

“That cemented the deal, I guess. He’s been a really genuine person to work with. He has definitely helped our profile over in Europe a lot.”

In Australia and New Zealand, Tiny Ruins are still with Spunk Records and also the Arch Hill label.

Back when Fullbrook bought that coat, it was 2011 and she was about to tour her debut album, Some Were Meant for Sea, which included a performance at the Wunderbar.

Then the quake happened and the Wunderbar was closed.

“It feels cyclical to be coming back to Christchurch now and playing at the Wunderbar, finally.”

Formed as a solo project in 2009 by Fullbrook, the band now includes bassist Cass Basil and drummer Alexander Freer. While continuing to be based in New Zealand, Tiny Ruins has spent much of the past three years touring throughout Australia, Europe and the US, opening for artists such as Beach House, Joanna Newsom, Fleet Foxes, Father John Misty, The Handsome Family and Calexico.

Touring so much has often thrown her into strange places with strange people, she says. A lot of touring is banal. It is tiring and musicians generally do not get to have the magical experiences offered to tourists.

“You’re not free to run loose on the town wherever you go. I always tell people that it’s like the Amazing Race but you’re not on TV and there’s no prize.”

But she finds enjoyment in the performance. It’s the 5 per cent of the day where magic can happen.

Brightly Painted One was recorded with engineer Tom Healy over several months in the underground warren of passageways and small rooms at Auckland studios The Lab.

This time around she took the approach of taking her time and embracing complete freedom to record how she wanted.

“I knew I wanted to record at home with a group of friends I’ve been playing music with for a while so it felt a little bit more up to us. We did it really locally, close to where we live, at The Lab.

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“I wanted to tell the stories of the songs as much as possible. I think it’s a slow grower like the first album. When people first listen to it it’s a bit hard to get under its skin at first but it opens itself up to you over time.”

Songs collect, she says, and suddenly, almost accidentally, there is a group of them.

“With this album it suddenly seemed there was an overarching story. The songs connected to each other in a way my first album didn’t.”

Fullbrook writes with a point in mind.

“It’s important not to waste any words. I think songwriting should be about something.”

Landing in the middle of this album, she describes her songs She’ll Be Coming ‘Round and Straw Into Gold as “hinges” from which songs Me at the Museum, You in the Wintergardens, Carriages and Reasonable Man hang. “To me those two songs are what the album is about, finding strength and perseverance through some kind of challenge or journey. Straw Into Gold is about that in all kinds of context, trying to make the best of what you have.”

The songs roughly follow in the traditions of folk and blues that Fullbrook has drawn on in the past, but Brightly Painted One follows a journey and is shaped with layers of percussion, brass and strings.

Her music has been used to accompany the dramatised TV series Hope & Wire, about the Christchurch earthquakes, to screen next month, and there’s a project with Hamish Kilgour (the Clean) in the mix, too.

“My hope would be to start working on another album as soon as possible. I have a funny collection of songs which may well end up on an EP.

“I recorded a couple of songs with Hamish Kilgour in New York when I was over there. I’d quite like to do some more with him and release that as a special little project.”

But that coat has life in it still.

“I think with this album I’ll be touring until at least the end of the year.

“Often I don’t know what life holds for me in the near future, I just go along with what opens up.”

THE DETAILS:

Tiny Ruins at Wunderbar, Christchurch, tonight, with Aldous Harding. Tickets $15 from utr.co.nz – $20 door.

Full tour details here at Under the Radar.

When American Chick Corea plays Wellington tonight, it really will be an opportunity to see one of the world’s best jazz pianists.

Corea, nominated for 59 Grammy Awards and winner of 20, is that good. For the concert he will perform as a duet with vibraphonist Gary Burton. Burton is arguably as proficient with his instrument as Corea is with his, and they have played together since 1972.

“Gary always plays his heart out on stage,” says Corea, 72. “We hope to bring our music and create some smiles at the festival.”

Corea’s professional career began while still a teenager in the mid 1950s, but his diverse approach to jazz means he’s still most often associated with jazz fusion – where it incorporates the likes of rock, funk and R&B.

One reason was Corea playing on two of Miles Davis’ ground-breaking albums – 1969’s In a Silent Way and 1970’s Bitches Brew, and live offshoots Live-Evil and Live at the Fillmore East. They marked Davis’ “electric” period and incorporation of rock.

Corea says it was a significant change in direction for him. “Before joining Miles, I had been pretty much a purist in my tastes. I loved Miles and John Coltrane and all the musicians that surround them. But I didn’t look much further into rock or pop,” he says.

“When Miles began to experiment, I became aware of rock bands and the energy. It was a different vibe and more my generation. It got me interested in communicating that way – people were standing because they were emotionally caught up in what they were hearing. I related to that.

“When I was in Miles’ band I became aware that jazz was changing and that this thing called fusion was emerging. He allowed us to experiment and for me, I learned how to be a band leader.”

Corea’s earliest influence was his father, a jazz trumpeter. But Corea chose the piano by accident. “I was playing drums in a band during high school and one night the piano player didn’t show up so I ended up playing piano as my band mates felt pretty strongly that that’s where I belonged.”

“I’ve just always like playing the piano and have continued to like it the best except maybe the drums – both are percussive instruments – so that’s probably the attraction.”

His first professional gig was with legendary singer and bandleader Cab Calloway. “I was about 16 years old – I was called to do a gig with Cab’s band for a week at the Boston’s Mayfair Hotel. That was my first real stepping-out. I was stunned,” he says.

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“All of a sudden I had to wear a tuxedo and it was like a big show with lights on the stage. Kind of scary, you know It was a little daunting but Cab was cool and he was a lot of fun. After a little while I got into the swing of it and started really loving being out on my own like that.”

Corea studied music at Columbia University and Julliard and by the early 1960s was playing with jazz giants including Herbie Mann and Stan Getz.

“That was part of my musical ‘schooling’. I feel very fortunate to have had those experiences which developed my own style.”

As the 60s progressed he became a band leader, recorded his debut album and worked with singers including Sarah Vaughan. “The voice is like another musical instrument in a band; you accompany each other in an instrumental band – same with vocals.”

But Davis also changed Corea’s approach to his instrument, telling him play a Fender Rhodes electric piano.

“I got to mixing my instruments more and more. Like Miles, I wanted to communicate to a broader audience incorporating electric instruments with rock/jazz.”

He’s released experimental albums, founded bands and a record label.

“It was part of my desire to want to help other musicians. It was a way for me to help them get their music more in the public eye.”

He’s also got to explore classical, including composing a piano concerto and performing with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

“I have always been an admirer of Mozart’s music as well as Bartok [and] I had performed the music of Mozart with several orchestras as well as Bartok’s music on solo piano concerts,” he says.

“When I admire other music or learn from other musicians it all kind of gets understood and filed somewhere – or nowhere – and it all helps to create a particular taste.”

THE DETAILS Chick Corea & Gary Burton Duet, Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington, tonight, 8.30pm.

– Wellington

The rumours seem to be true: Cameron Diaz and Benji Madden are dating.

Diaz, 41, was spotted kissing Madden, 35, while having breakfast in New York City.

Rumours that the pair were more than acquaintances began circulating after they were photographed together at a Los Angeles gym.

Word is that Nicole Ritchie, Madden’s sister-in-law, set them up. But when Sydney radio station Kiis 1065 quizzed the Good Charlotte rocker on air, he was reluctant to talk about his private life.

Australian Shock jock Kyle Sandilands asked: “Apparently, Nicole’s been matching you up with Cameron Diaz, what’s happening there”

Madden said: “Oh Kyle and Jackie O, you know what, I’ll talk about it when I see you next week.”

In response to the gym photos, Madden said: “I love the gym, I do a lot of curls.”

While Madden kept mum on his status to the radio jocks, there was no hiding his feelings in photos that emerged over the weekend.

An eye-witness spotted Diaz and Madden having breakfast at Manhattan’s ABC Kitchen.

“Throughout the entire meal, Cameron and Benji couldn’t keep their hands off each other,” the source told The Star.

“They were whispering to each other and laughing, just having the best time together.”

Despite being out with a group of six people,

French screen siren Eva Green has hit back after her Sin City 2 poster was doctored because it was deemed too risque.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) took issue with the noir-inspired promotional poster for Sin City 2: A Dame to Kill For.

In it, Green, a one-time Bond girl, appears as Ava Lord, a sultry femme fatale, dressed in little more than a sheer dressing gown.a

The MPAA argued because the curve of her breast was visible through the gown, Green was essentially nude, forcing a reimaging of the poster.

But the Dark Shadows actress thinks it was all a storm in a teacup.

“I find it a bit odd,” she told Vanity Fair.

“It seems like it’s all just publicity – a lot of noise for nothing.”

She said she found the original poster “really sexy” – and hardly offensive when considered alongside violence so often shown on screen.

“You have so many more violent things in the movie business,” Green argued.

The Sin City films are adapted from Frank Miller’s graphic, highly stylised and often brutually violent novels of the same name.

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– AAP

Staff at Radio New Zealand have been called to a series of meetings today regarding a proposal to restructure the senior management team.

It is understood staff at the public broadcaster received an email this morning calling them to the meetings.

Radio NZ communications manager John Barr said the restructure was “only a proposal” and no further comment would be made until staff had been consulted.

He would not say if redundancies were part of the proposal that is understood to not affect front-line staff.

Last month Radio NZ chief executive Paul Thompson told the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association