posted Sep 26, 2009, 9:43 PM by Vu Nguyen
From funrama
My newest MICROPHONE portrait is Louise Wener from the band Sleeper. Wait... Who from the What Now? Sleeper. It was a band.
Primarily, I did this to investigate if Manga Studio Debut will be
appropriate for the production of The New York Four 2. Hence, all the
dots. I think Manga Studio will suffice.
All these musician portraits are for pure experimentation. I still have
to do Terry Hall, Snoop Dogg, Tricky, M.I.A, Siouxsie Sioux, Robert
Smith and David Byrne and maybe Johnny Cash. Any requests ?!?
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posted Aug 1, 2009, 6:44 PM by Vu Nguyen
From www.guardian.co.uk
Krissie Murissan, editor of New Musical Express (NME), 2009. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe/Eamonn McCabe
Women are making inroads in pop. But men still call the tune
Anushka Asthana - The Observer, Sunday 2 August 2009
As
the New Musical Express appoints its first female editor, the music
business is starting to shed its misogynist image. But for many women,
from performers to publicists and record label executives, the glass
ceiling is still very much in place
Camden,
north London, 1993. Hundreds of people were thronging the streets,
streaming past rows of brightly painted buildings, buying food from
market stalls by the canal and bartering with traders.
Sitting in
a noisy pub, Louise Wener, the lead singer of a then little-known band
called Sleeper, clutched a pint and waited excitedly for a journalist
to arrive. "It was our first interview with NME," she recalls. "This
guy walked in with a big jacket - I remember he was bald. He sat down
at the table, took one look at me and then turned to speak to the other
guys. I was the main singer and writing the songs, but he did not ask
me a single question."
Wener, who is now a novelist, says that is
what music journalism was like then, a "boys' club" - where it was
acceptable for writers to ask her lurid and patronising questions and
for photographers to leer as they told her to undo another button of
her blouse. "It was creepy."
So it came as something of a
surprise to learn last week that the magazine she once found so
"hideous" - that staffed its offices and filled its pages mainly with
men - had appointed Krissi Murison as its first female editor. "I
almost fell off my chair," says Wener, laughing.
[ Read more Women are making inroads in pop. But men still call the tune ]
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posted Jun 21, 2009, 1:39 AM by Vu Nguyen
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updated Jun 21, 2009, 1:49 AM
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From guardian.co.uk
The gospel according to Luke Haines
Louise Wener
The Observer, Sunday 18 January 2009
Bad Vibes:
Britpop and My Part in Its Downfall
by
Luke Haines
pp256,
Heinemann,
£12.99
The
self-styled bad boy of Britpop hasn't a good word to say for anyone,
least of all Blur, but is there any substance behind the bile? asks Louise Wener
Someone was bound to do it sooner or later. And who better than Luke Haines, rock music's
perennial underachiever, its king curmudgeon, to pen Britpop's very own
misery memoir? Over 256 agreeably spite-filled pages, he spins a series
of tall tales involving personal ignominy, drug psychosis, commercial
failure and profound physical self-harm. He is a self-confessed
misanthrope, a bad seed who hates everyone and everything and, to begin
with, I couldn't help but love him for it.
It shouldn't be so. Haines and I are matter and anti-matter. Dark
and light. Had we run into each other in the mid-90s - if we did, I
don't recall - it's likely we would have cancelled one another out.
Haines was a grim-faced art-rocker who wrote lyrics about French
girlfriends and 70s terrorists. I was a doe-eyed siren who sang with my
band Sleeper about sex and suburban angst. While Haines feigned
contempt for the Britpop circus that cast him to its margins, I clung
to the greasy pole of its merry-go-round and rode it for all it was
worth.
Haines's pet peeve, the fuel that stokes his "biblical
desire for revenge", is that he should have been more successful. As
the 1990s got into their stride, his ascent to glory seemed assured. He
was "the new girl in town that everyone wants to fuck". His band, the
Auteurs, were feted by the press and nominated for the Mercury Music
Prize, an event he describes, with winning disdain, as a "feeble-minded
sports day for the music biz".
[ Read more The gospel according to Luke Haines ]
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posted Jun 19, 2009, 11:56 AM by Vu Nguyen
[
updated Jun 19, 2009, 12:02 PM
]
From weheartmusic.vox.com
Hey guys, I
just got back from a vacation to the North Shores for the Memorial
weekend holiday. I have been up there several times, mostly for hiking
purposes. This time around, we spent a chunk of the day in Duluth,
which has this small touristy section (exit 256B), which may turn
around that my opinion that Duluth has nothing to offer (other than the
band Low and Bob Dylan).
Anyway, although fun and exciting, I'm an old man and will be
recovering from my trip - so I actually have no reviews prepared. So,
you know what that means? News and gossips!
KATE MOSS TO WRITE NOVEL
Whoa, supermodel Kate Moss is literate? Well, she won't be doing
all the writing, she's hiring Louise Wener (ex singer/songwriter of my
favorite band Sleeper) as ghost writer. All this was first reported by the "highly reputable" the Sun.
As soon as the story was published in late Monday (May 25, 2009 at 6:17
PM), the story was picked up by a ton of "newspapers", including the NME, which Christopher said was "the musical equivalent of the sun".
Talking to Jon Stewart (Sleeper's guitarist), he basically could not
confirm (or deny!) this, so in my opinion this gossip sounds legit.
So where are they now? Last month, Q Magazine,
ran a story on Sleeper - lots of new details, including the elusive
Diid Osman. I knew a lot of post-Sleeper split stories, but I'm not
sure if it was public knowledge.
In addition to Stewart's jokingly regretful cover of Blondie's
"Atomic" and working at the Brighton Institute of Music, his latest
project is as the musical supervisor for the movie Telstar the Movie.
THE PIRATE BAY THEME SONG
Swedish "pirates" from the Pirate Bay
was recently found guilty for, er, piracy and plunder. Although they
have appealed the case, I don't think it will end in their favor.
Anyway, I got news from respected Swedish record label, Hybrism that Montt Mardié ( monttmardie.com/ myspace) have written an anthem for the Pirate Bay. You can torrent the song from thepiratebay.org/special (if you don't have bittorrent, you can find it online!)
An artist has got to make a living just like everybody
else, there's no doubt about it. And these are tough times, believe me
I know. The thing is though, if I were to go back in time, 10 years or
so, and tell the 15-year-old version of myself that over a night, 60
000 people had heard one of my songs, the first question I'd throw back
at myself wouldn't be "how much money did I make?".
Don't get me wrong, I love money and I want to make a lot of
it. Bathe in it just like Uncle Scrooge. But money isn't the main
reason why I write songs. First and foremost I want people to hear
them.
Times are so strange at the moment and a lot of people are
angry and upset. Still, for each day that goes by I get more and more
convinced that we shouldn't try to fight the future, we should embrace
it. Try to see opportunities instead of catastrophys.
I've written a song. I call it "We're All The Pirate Bay".
It's free and nobody will ever have to pay for it, though if you incist
you are welcome to make a donation!
Take care, Monty
Ironically, the theme song doesn't sound like it was stolen from anywhere else.
05/26/2009 11:36:14 ♥ vu ( )
♥weheartmusic.com♥podcast.weheartmusic.com♥news.weheartmusic.com
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posted Jun 19, 2009, 10:54 AM by Vu Nguyen
[
updated Jun 19, 2009, 11:19 AM
]
From www.lovereading.co.uk
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May 2009 Book of the Month.
A lovely book full of nostalgia and warmth. Jessie’s story is set in
the 1970’s and finds her coping with a family life that is breaking
down around her. In the letters she finds from Edith, a female explorer
in the 1930’s we find another life, very different from Jessie’s, but
still coping with the same worries and relationship problems. This will
make you laugh and cry and laugh a bit more. Thoroughly enjoyable.
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Synopsis
'Edith's house interested us from the beginning'
Mysterious
and inviting, Jessie and Margaret are drawn to their reclusive
neighbour's house. It offers an escape from the dreary summer of 1977
and their fragile family life, into a world they can only dream about.
When the house suddenly burns down at the same time as their mother
moves out to live with her new boyfriend, and their father develops an
unhealthy crush on a woman in their street, life seems bleak for the
girls.
Escaping the claustrophobia of family life isn't easy, until the
story of an eccentric and beautiful female explorer from the 1930s
unfolds in a series of letters. In these letters she tells stories of
far-flung places, secrets, doomed love and adventure. Her determination
to live life to the full, risking everything cares about, holds untold
consequences for all of them.
About the Author
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Louise Wener
was born and raised in Ilford, East London. In the mid nineties, after
years of singing into hair brushes and working in dead end jobs, she
found fame as lead singer with the pop band Sleeper and went on to
record three top ten albums and eight top forty singles. She is now a
full time author and mother of two.
Photograph © Debra Hurford Brown
Below is a Q & A with this author.
What's the first book you remember reading : The Snow Queen
by Hans Christian Anderson. I rented it from the library every week for
months when I was about six. I remember finding it scary each time I
read it but loving it just the same. The imagery is quite creepy and
claustrophobic and for as long as I can remember, I've always hated the
snow. I think it must be partly down to this fairy tale.
Where do you write?
At home at the kitchen table, or on the sofa with laptop balanced on my
knee. We have an attic room in our house that was meant to be a work
room for me, but I'm married to a drummer who owns three drum kits.
They take up all available work space.
What's your "writing day" like?
It really varies. Before I had kids I used to be very relaxed about it.
I'd wander down to the local coffee shop around ten, buy a latte and a
paper, come back, open the computer, answer email, Google for a bit,
then write for the afternoon as soon as I was into the flow. These days
I start writing the minute I'm kid free and barely look up from the
computer until they're back. Time is much more precious now and I have
to be able to switch into work mode right away. I wrote a lot of Worldwide Adventures while my youngest was napping. The one rule I've always stuck to is to try and write 1000 words a day.
Writing
songs and writing novels are very different, do you prefer one to the
other? Songwriting comes in sharp bursts and can be incredibly quick
from start to finish. We had hit songs that took less than an hour to
write and I always felt that the best songs came when I didn't over
think them. Writing a novel it's a much slower burn and the refinement
process is very much longer. I can't pick between them. It's thrilling
to write a good tune but coming to the end of a novel feels like you've
climbed a small mountain.
Who do you most admire and why? Tyra Banks for giving America's Next Top Model to the world.
If your house was burning down what would you save?
Apart from husband kids and cat, not much. Photos, perhaps, or the
guitar I always played in Sleeper. I'm insanely sentimental, but more
about places than mementos and material things. On reflection it would
probably have to be my daughter's Peppa Pig tea set. It's her favourite
toy.
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