Archives for August 2010

Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield became the center of attention on Friday, July 30, when hundreds lined up as early as 6 a.m. to see six-time Grammy Award winning alternative hip hop band, the Black Eyed Peas. The band took part in Good Morning America’s free summer concert series. The cheering fans (who call themselves pea bodies) filled the park chanting “Black Eyed Peas! Black Eyed Peas!” and taking enough photos to make the crowd feel like there was paparazzi everywhere.

 In the short 30-minutes set, The Peas performed three songs from their latest album, “The E.N.D,” which stands for Energy Never Dies. The songs, “Boom Boom Pow,” “Rock That Body” and “I Gotta Feeling” were crowd pleasers and will probably be played at every concert on the band’s current world tour. The Black Eyed Peas full house concert brought spark to Central Park that even Will.i.am, the band’s head rapper felt. He told GMA’s Tonya Rivero that “it felt awesome” to play in Central Park.

 The performance was full of uplifting danceable music and creativity. The back up dancers sported robot-looking outfits during “Rock that Body.” The artists were fearless, joining their back up dancers during some choreographed routines and at other times letting loose.

 Coming to a live concert, like this one, gives fans a more real way to experience the music and the Peas brought enough energy to match the audience’s excitement.

 During the after-show interview that aired as part of Good Morning America, the multi-platinum recording artists were told that their song “I Gotta Feeling” was the first track to have six million downloads, returning the bolt of joy that the band is best known for giving its audience.

 Good Morning America’s next concerts feature the Jonas Brothers (Aug. 13) and Rihanna (Aug. 20).  

A battle between two rookies was the main event at World Wide Boxing Gym in the Bronx on Aug. 6. Two fighters entered their champion-size ring as (0-0) but one left as (1-0).

Jose Lopez faced off with Anthony Drayton. Jose, 17, has an in-boxing style and a specialty for using a one-two combo, which is a straight and a jab combined.

Anthony, 17, who started boxing about four months ago is a brawler-style boxer and is known for his signature haymaker, a powerful straight that he carries in his toolbox.

Jose had somewhat of an advantage since he is an in-boxer. In-boxers usually try to close the gap between themselves and their opponents, so Jose might not let Anthony get a chance to counter. On the other hand Anthony is a brawler, which is a boxer who just throws a barrage of punches at his opponent.

The rules of the game are very simple. There are about five ten-minute rounds. The first person to get knocked down three times or KO’d (knocked out) loses. Both boxers have the same Ever Last gear on with the red shorts so no one could cheat.

Right off the bat, Anthony threw jabs as if he was trying to drown Jose in a sea of punches. Jose tried to back up in the turtle, which is a blocking move, but Anthony’s onslaught of jabs was putting him off balance. Jose could not counter and took a jab to the face. And with that he went down. It only took the referee to count to five before Jose popped up just like a daisy in the desert.

Anthony continued to throw quick jabs to get Jose in a barrage of fists. But this time Jose bobbed all of Anthony’s jabs so that he could get into his zone of range. Once Jose was in his zone, he quickly capitalized on Anthony with a fury of jabs to the ribs. After getting a couple of hits on Anthony, the bell rang and round 1 was over.

The damage had already been done to both boxers. Jose had taken quite a lot of damage to his head while Anthony had taken just as much pain to his ribs.

The second round did not last as long as the first round. Jose surprised everyone by getting a one-two combo on Anthony’s face. The crowd was shocked when Anthony was still standing after the blow he took. He surprised everyone more when he KO Jose by hitting him with a haymaker to the face.

Now Jose did his best and got a lot of good hits in, but Anthony just ate them all like candy. Both boxers put up a good first fight. One thing that was very memorable about this match was that even though Jose lost, when he woke up from the KO he spit the blood out of his mouth and went over to shake Anthony’s hand. It was great sportsmanship, the type that you only see in a book.

In his latest album, Cut Chemist experiments with African beats, incorporating them into his usual hip hop music to produce a surprisingly interesting combination.

Lucas “Cut Chemist” MacFadden is a Los Angeles DJ, recognized for his distorted music that brings together various elements from different genres and time periods. His brilliant work comes from listening to old records he collected. He takes old beats that people forgot and revolutionizes them in to his own swag.

Working with turntablist DJ Shadow, Cut creates a series of ingenious songs on his latest album, “Sound of the Police.”

All the songs on his new album are used a single turntable, a mixer, a Boss RC-50 loop pedal, and a particular interest in Ethiopian and Afro-Brazilian tunes. In the first half of the album, he produces a unique texture of slow Ethio-jazz, and Sudanese music. In the first song “Jungle Beat,” Cut gives a smooth beat of drums, while at the same time he splashes in the tunes of legendary Ethiopian musician Mulatu Astatk.

Cut makes the mix more dense and complicated as he goes deeper into the album. By placing slugs on the turntable to repeat different beats, he speeds up the tempo transcending the beat into another time period about 20 minutes in to the album. He plays Sudanese music and then goes straight into hip hop or an instrument that flows with the beat he’s playing.

Mixing the African music with hip hop is something Cut has never done before, but the mixture is successful and the beats flow together.

The final song, “Adidas to Addis” highlights the blend of hip hop with African culture. The song is a mixture of Ethiopian jazz and electro programming. Cut bangs the hip pop in with long lasting scratches on the mixer to let the singer’s voice ring out at the end of the song.

This level of combination is what Cut has been looking for and he expressed to his audience that he has achieved that.

Deeper in to the album, listeners may feel as if they are traveling through the regents of these countries. For now, “Sound of the Police” is showing that the DJ industry is stepping forward from their limitation of modern music to crafting a unique art of themselves.

The president of Pakistan just returned home from his tour from England. Just a couple of days ago, Pakistan was hit hard by floodings that killed nearly 1600 people and nearly 13.8 million people were affected by it. While he was away in England, the government failed to help the people. The president received harsh criticism from his people for the lack of interest while his country was hard hit by one of the worst natural disasters.

The president is an unpopular figure in Pakistan and this issue is going to hurt his political career. There were reports that said that the president took off for a visit in France and Britain. What made it worse was that there were several reports that said that he visited his family’s elegant chateau in France. The president is fearful of coming out in the public because he is afraid of being assassinated.

The president is planning to go to Islamabad today and propose a rehabilitation program that will help the people. Unfortunately, his work of restoring the nation came days after the disaster.

This action should have been taken seriously and much earlier. He could have saved many more lives if he had been in the country and gave orders to his Cabinet members. But the president is unfaithful to his people and his trip showed his lack of interest for the Pakistani people.

People are dying and the president is in England preparing for his son’s political career and enjoying time with his family. The president should be responsible knowing that they took a huge task in protecting the people. Such action of the president should not be tolerated and should be condemned by the people. People have gathered in thousands and demonstrated their frustration towards the president.

If Pakistan wants to restore its city back to norm, people have to realize that this president is doing more harm then good. He should be thrown out of office. He is irresponsible and corrupt. They should put someone in power who is trustworthy and one who will not be corrupt like Zardari.

I will never forget the level of intimidation I felt, going into my boxing gym for the first time signing up. The people I saw there were so strong and powerful. Even the girls were making me nervous to the point were I almost did not want to start boxing at all.

My mom took one look at me and said are you ok? I simply said yeah its just I have never felt this weak before. She asked me one more time if I wanted to back out and all I could say was not at all in a quivering voice.

In my head though, I was thinking what am I doing here. I am not a fighter at all, so why am I here to sign up for boxing. I have never taken a fist to the face or been hit really hard. I have had only one real fight in my life so why am I trying to become a fighter. I was really just figuring out that I was weak. I’ve had never felt weak before going into that gym. It was almost like a brick wall was blocking my way and I was trying to move it but it just would not budge. At that moment, you really feel useless.

It was a good thing that I went through that experience though. Ever since that day I have been practicing to get just as good as the fighters in my gym. That intimidation I felt was really a backbone for me training hard. It gave me goal to become the best in my gym. Without fear and intimidation, you really can never progress.

Don’t let the funky and calming grooves on “To The Sea,” Jack Johnson’s latest album, fool you; he cares about the issues he sees all around him and makes the best of a “world that’s not always fair,” as he says in “From the Clouds,” the sixth track on the album.

Johnson’s music seeks to spread the message of love and peace, without taking blows at the government, a quality not often found in artists.

Johnson ventures into new territory here, as he gives plenty of room for his backing band, Merlo Podlewski (bass), Zach Gill (keyboards), and Adam Topol (drums) to flourish and groove right alongside him. Rather than rely more on his words to carry the messages, as he’s done in his previous albums, Johnson uses his band’s power to its fullest extent.

The music carries his words to new heights, while still showcasing Johnson’s voice. The band knows when to fall back and let Johnson be heard and when to come in with full force, underscoring the messages Johnson conveys.

In “The Upsetter,” Johnson falls back on the style he knows well, using conga drums and soft guitars, all the while creating a sense of environmental urgency, pleading, “Stop upsetting this world that you’re standing on,” a call to everybody, not just the liberals usually seen as Johnson’s fans.

There are moments where the album drags, with the downright annoying “Pictures of People Taking Pictures” and when Johnson delves into his personal troubles, as in “No Good With Faces,” where he admits he is “too tired to try,” but even those tracks don’t get in the way of the sense of urgency and the feel-good mood he is offering to his listeners.

It’s a compliment to Johnson’s songwriting abilities that he is able to convey these messages about love and the environment with lyrical urgency, while keeping with the calming musical style he’s known for.

Currently on her worldwide Monster Ball tour, Lady Gaga has managed to bang out another hit album straight from her tour bus. “Lady Gaga–The Remix” provides clubs around America with 10 more Gaga songs to blast through the speaker.

Combining songs from her previous two multi-platinum albums, Gaga hits all the notes she should, while bringing her loyal fans more of the same — which is probably what she was aiming for in the first place. 

The American version of the album contains a measly 10 songs to the international’s 17, leaving many stones unturned for Gaga’s U.S. fans â€” the ones unwilling to venture onto YouTube anyway.

Marilyn Manson collaborates with Gaga on “Lovegame,” making for one of the more remarkable remixes on the album. Despite the odd twist on the song, the two oddballs bring a much-needed change to the album that seemed to be doomed to the fate of boring. “Lovegame” incorporates the best one can expect from a remix of an already successful song. The reintroduction of Manson lives up to the hype of this highly anticipated collaboration.

The remixes of “Eh Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)” and “Telephone” are less impressive; Gaga’s voice comes off more electronic and automated than ever, almost sounding like a creepy answering machine’s voice. The remix of “The Fame” is much simpler than one would expect from the always extravagant and over-the-top Lady Gaga, compiling the original song with a few more beats overlaid, but no surprising changes are made to the hit.

A standout and favorite of the album slows things down quite a bit, lending a refreshing change to Gaga’s usual dance floor classics: “Alejandro” is both well done and sounds accurate to Gaga’s voice, but will most likely go unnoticed by casual listeners; its sound is somewhat similar to the original. The worst of the album unfortunately comes at the close of it. Gaga’s most recent smash hit single, “Dance In The Dark,” employs a lengthy intro that is simply boring, in a spot on the album where a new and attention-grabbing remix is most needed. It is the longest song on the album, dragging on for over six minutes. Perhaps if it were shorter, the finale of the U.S. version of the album would be more appreciated by critics and fans alike. 

On July 23, Avenged Sevenfold, a heavy metal/hard rock band from Huntington Beach, Calif., put out its first new album, “Nightmare,” since the death of its drummer, Johnny “The Rev” Sullivan last December. After a year of mourning his death (an overdose of medication and alcohol was found during the autopsy of the 28 year old), the band is moving on.

The album reveals the band’s fears. From being in a straitjacket to going to hell, the members of the band – M. Shadows (lead singer), Zacky Vengeance (rhythm guitar), Johnny Christ (bass guitar) and Synyster Gates (lead guitar, backing vocals) – express their personal nightmares. This album displays what state of mind they are in after the loss of a close friend and band member and is an announcement that death doesn’t rule their lives.

Compared to previous work, this album is slower paced. Unlike “City of Evil,” the third album, which was fast and loud and was about what they believed in, the recent release looks death in the face and says, “we’re still here no matter what.” The emotion in that music makes this release stronger than previous albums.

“The eeriest thing about it is there is a song on the album called “Fiction” (a nickname The Rev gave himself),” said Matthew “M. shadows” Sanders in an interview with HardDrive, a radio show. “[It] was the last song The Rev wrote for the album, and when he handed it in, he said, that’s it, that’s the last song for this record. And then three days later he died.”

“Fiction,” the 10th track on the album and “Afterlife,” the fourth track from their fourth album, are similar in their talk of death. The band’s view of death has not changed since their first album, “Sounding The Seventh Trumpet.” Some songs have the same message but since the emotion in “Nightmare” is so strong, it resuscitates the music from being just lyrics and beats into fresh entertainment. While slower than previous albums, fans will still want to follow along.

It’s dark. You can’t speak. You can’t move. You can see. You can hear. It doesn’t feel like a dream, but you know it is. It’s sleep paralysis.

During the weekend that just passed, there has been a shooting in Harlem that started after a fight broke out at a crowded party. It started in a park and from there it erupted onto the streets on Sunday morning. There were a total of 50 bullets that were shot. One man was dead and six others were wounded.