Posts Tagged ‘Sergeant’
May 19th, 2009
Up-and-coming Atlanta rapper Dolla was shot and killed in an altercation outside a shopping mall in Los Angeles on Monday, May 18th. He was 21 years old. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Dolla was gunned down while he waited at the Beverly Center’s mall valet with rappers DJ Shabbazz and Scrapp DeLeon. Dolla’s publicist said that before the shooting, a man and woman were trailing the rapper. Police have “two persons of interest” in custody; cops picked up one man at the ticketing area of the Los Angeles International Airport with a gun in his possession. As of this morning, the man in custody, Aubrey Berry, has been charged with murder, TMZ reports.
Dolla was in Los Angeles to continue work on his debut album, A Dolla & A Dream. Born Roderick Anthony Burton II in Chicago, the rapper’s family relocated to Atlanta from L.A. when he was five after his father’s suicide. First a member of the Elektra-signed Da Razkalz Kru, Dolla made his way up the Atlanta hip-hop scene and was eventually recruited by Diddy to be a model for his Sean John fashion line. Around the same time, Dolla hooked up with Akon, who signed Dolla to his Konvict Music Records in 2007, and Dolla recorded the hit “Who the Fuck Is That?” with T-Pain, which reached Number 82. His follow-up single “Feelin’ Myself” was featured on the Step Up soundtrack. “He had a very promising career,” Dolla’s publicist Sue Vannasing said yesterday. “He was being hyped as the next Tupac [Shakur]. He chose music to get off the streets.”
According to TMZ, authorities picked up Aubery Berry at the airport. “As the officers approached the suspect, they asked him ‘Do you know why we’re here?’ ” airport police spokesman Sgt. Jim Holcomb told the AP. “He put his [hands] up in the air and said, ‘Yes, I’ve got a gun in my waistband. Don’t shoot me.’ ” Police recovered a loaded 9mm semiautomatic handgun from Berry, who is reportedly being held on $1 million bail.
“My music is universal,” Dolla wrote on his MySpace page. “I can do street music or pop music. But whatever I do, I attempt to make meaningful songs with substance.”
May 18th, 2009
Photograph by Joshua Prezant for RollingStone.com
Confetti paper butterflies. Giant yellow beach balls (dropped during “Yellow” — get it?). Super high-definition live video. Friday’s opening night of the last leg of Coldplay’s Viva La Vida tour in West Palm Beach was an Olympics-esque spectacle, complete with five orbs dangling over the band’s heads that served as screens for more state-of-the-art camera work.
Coldplay are playing big sheds for this summer stretch — about 16,000 fans filled the Cruzan Amphitheater — and, despite their sad songs, grand gestures suit them. The quartet, dressed in their Sgt. Pepperesque jackets, want nothing more than to please. That’s why they twice made excursions to small ancillary stages in the middle of the venue, to show their “respect for the lawn,” as Chris Martin said in one of his many shiny, hammy comments (someone hire him a script doctor). He then choreographed the audience to hold up their lighted cell phones and perform what he called “the first ever Mexican phone wave,” before leading the band into an acoustic cover of the Monkees’ “I’m a Believer.” Believe.
One doesn’t go to a Coldplay show expecting shock rock or even anything more mildly challenging than having to commiserate with Martin over his bad haircut. With Martin’s piano riffs and falsetto croon, the band stops just shy of being alt-rock’s answer to smooth jazz. Their music is almost unnervingly tight; Jon Buckland’s Edge-walking leads rang out in the kind of perfect stage mix you rarely get at shed shows. They played long — almost two hours — and they played well, hitting all the bright spots of their catalog (though changing the song selection little from their earlier U.S. leg). “The Scientist” has been moved to an encore position, Will Champion’s high-hat fillip creating just the right dramatic tension. The butterflies rained down during “Lovers in Japan.” Gwyneth Paltrow was standing center front (not out in the lawn), singing along with hubby Martin.
Given how eager Coldplay are to please, they made a serious misstep with the distribution of free CDs that they touted would be available after the show. A few people handed out woefully insufficient quantities of LeftRightLeftRightLeft at only one of Cruzan’s exits, causing Coldplay’s heretofore-happy, polite fans to get ugly. (A more raucous crowd would have rioted or at least trampled someone for good measure.) Presumably, the band will have this sorted out at future dates — or they’ll just decide everyone who cares will have downloaded LRLRL already and give up on the idea (which Martin claimed as the band’s own original concept, even though Prince did it years ago).
Pete Yorn played before Coldplay, performing angsty ballads from his recent CD Back and Fourth. While Coldplay are practiced entertainers who know how to play to every corner, Yorn and his five-piece band with their earnest, indie songs sounded dwarfed by the venue. It’s nothing that a million or so bucks in audio and video technology and a movie-star wife couldn’t cure.
Set List:
“Life In Technicolor”
“Violet Hill”
“Clocks”
“In My Place”
“Yellow”
“Glass Of Water”
“Cemeteries Of London”
“42″
“Fix You”
“Strawberry Swing”
“God Put A Smile Upon Your Face”
“Talk”
“The Hardest Part”
“Postcards From Far Away”
“Viva La Vida”
“Lost!”
“Green Eyes”
“Death Will Never Conquer”
“I’m A Believer”
——
“Politik”
“Lovers In Japan”
“Death And All His Friends”
——-
“The Scientist”
“Life in Technicolor 2″
Related Stories:
• Backstage With Coldplay: Exclusive Photos Plus the Secrets Behind Their Live Shows
• Coldplay Reward Fans With Free Live LP LeftRightLeftRightLeft
• Coldplay Drummer Responds to “Viva la Vida” Plagiarism Claims
May 12th, 2009
Actor Mark Landon, eldest son of Little House on the Prairie star Michael Landon, was found dead Monday at his home. He was 60.
The cause of death was not immediately known, but there was no evidence of foul play, Sgt. David Infante of the Los Angeles County sheriff’s office tells the Associated Press.
See Us’ photo tribute to stars who have gone too soon
Mark starred in three movies, including…
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April 11th, 2009
Photo: Caballero/WireImage
a-ha, “Take on Me” [The Twelves Remix]
Shouldn’t there be a million and a half remixes of this song? Wasn’t everyone born after 1986 played this in the womb? We’re fairly sure this is now Rhode Island’s state song. What gives, Internet? All we’ve been able to find is this revved up Twelves remix and >this endlessly watchable video.
Keri Hilson, “Since U Been Gone” [Kelly Clarkson Cover]
We’re tiptoeing slowly back toward being OK with “Gone” covers. For a while there, every new version of this song seemed about as witty and original as your co-worker who’s still showing off his Borat impression. If you’re
an indie rock band, you should not ever cover this song. If you’re Keri Hilson, and you’re going for a slipper R&B version, we’ll let it slide.
Bjrk, “Nattura” [Switch Remix]
Superproducer Switch has accomplished the impossible: he’s managed to make Björk even weirder. This song sounds like it’s set in some Pixar version of Jamaica, and Bjork is reduced to a jabbering phantom who shows up for a few minutes to speak her mind before vanishing into the local greenery. In other words, this remix is a mind-blower.
Easy Star All Stars ft. Frankie Paul, “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” [Beatles Cover]
The Easy Star All-Stars song-by-song reggae cover of Sgt. Pepper finds the Fab Four’s weird rasta center, and recontextualizes every song in such a way that there can finally no be debate — this time, every song is indeed about drugs.
We Are the World, “Why Can’t I Be You?” [Cure Cover]
We wish this cover was by the group of musicians who recorded the original “We Are the World,” because we’d really love to hear Dan Aykroyd get his pipes around this one.
April 10th, 2009
Photo: Caballero/WireImage
a-ha, “Take on Me” [The Twelves Remix]
Shouldn’t there be a million and a half remixes of this song? Wasn’t everyone born after 1986 played this in the womb? We’re fairly sure this is now Rhode Island’s state song. What gives, Internet? All we’ve been able to find is this revved up Twelves remix and >this endlessly watchable video.
Keri Hilson, “Since U Been Gone” [Kelly Clarkson Cover]
We’re tiptoeing slowly back toward being OK with “Gone” covers. For a while there, every new version of this song seemed about as witty and original as your co-worker who’s still showing off his Borat impression. If you’re
an indie rock band, you should not ever cover this song. If you’re Keri Hilson, and you’re going for a slipper R&B version, we’ll let it slide.
Bjrk, “Nattura” [Switch Remix]
Superproducer Switch has accomplished the impossible: he’s managed to make Björk even weirder. This song sounds like it’s set in some Pixar version of Jamaica, and Bjork is reduced to a jabbering phantom who shows up for a few minutes to speak her mind before vanishing into the local greenery. In other words, this remix is a mind-blower.
Easy Star All Stars ft. Frankie Paul, “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” [Beatles Cover]
The Easy Star All-Stars song-by-song reggae cover of Sgt. Pepper finds the Fab Four’s weird rasta center, and recontextualizes every song in such a way that there can finally no be debate — this time, every song is indeed about drugs.
We Are the World, “Why Can’t I Be You?” [Cure Cover]
We wish this cover was by the group of musicians who recorded the original “We Are the World,” because we’d really love to hear Dan Aykroyd get his pipes around this one.
January 9th, 2009
If you’ve ever heard Of Montreal’s music, seen their album covers or survived that schizophrenic rave they call a concert, you know what to expect out from the band’s music video: Neo-psychedelia with the visuals of a fractured kaleidoscope. Here, we exclusively present the premiere of the band’s Jesse Ewles-directed video for “An Eluardian Instance,” a stand-out from the band’s 2008 LP Skeletal Lamping that hits on everything we love about the Kevin Barnes-fronted band, but adds stop motion animation and kick-ass origami to the equation.
We’d venture a guess about what this video is about, but unfortunately they don’t let us drop acid at work so we’ll try to describe it to the best of our abilities: Girl relaxing and reading a book by some seaside cliff also somehow holds the entire papier-mache university on orbit thanks to some kite string. She’s terrorized by some crazy lamb with horns, forcing her to take refuge in the cliffs, but manages to escape him after he rams his own head into the rocks. She goes back to her book, but unfortunately a passing airplane severs her kite string and the universe is set into chaos. The video — along with the poppy, multi-suite song — make for a pretty awesome audio-visual experience.
Enjoy the days of carefree Of Montreal videos while you can, as Barnes recently told Rock Daily the band’s music might take a different turn on their next album. “What I want to do now is slightly noisier. It’s sort of abstract in my mind, but right now what I’ll create will be mesmeric and kind of physical music,” Barnes said, adding that he wants to make music that makes you “feel queasy but in a totally different level.” So expect less Sgt. Pepper and more Roman Polanski in the band’s next batch of videos.
Related Stories:
• The Surreal Life: Meet Rock’s Newest Damaged Genius
• Of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes Talks Next Album, Live DVD, MGMT Side Project
• Album Review: Skeletal Lamping