REYKJAVIK (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice may have attended just four rock concerts in her life, but the rock band Kiss apparently thinks she is pretty cool.
After a day-long international conference on Iraq, Rice was dining Thursday evening with Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt at a 19th-century villa when a call came in that Kiss was in the Nordic capital on a tour and wanted to see her, aides said.
The U.S. group had heard Rice was in town.
"It was really fun to meet Kiss and Gene Simmons," Rice told reporters on her plane en route to Iceland on Friday.
Simmons, who sings and plays bass, is famed for posing while wagging his long tongue.
Rice and her entourage returned to their hotel and gathered with the rock stars in a conference room where photos were taken of the occasion -- without the band members wearing their trademark black-and-white facial make-up.
Rice, who plays the piano and considered a career in music before turning to Soviet studies, told reporters she enjoyed "the whole range of music" but had only been to four rock concerts. She proceeded to list them.
At age 10, she saw Paul Revere and the Raiders. At age 16, on her first date with an Air Force cadet, she saw Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.
Later Rice saw Earth Wind and Fire, and she said she has also been to a U2 concert.
(Reporting by Susan Cornwell via Stockholm newsroom, editing by Mary Gabriel)
Tuesday, 3 June 2008
'Grand Theft Auto IV' Guest Star Ricky Gervais Pokes Fun At The Overweight
With the immense success of "Grand Theft Auto IV," it's clear that players are having a great time wreaking havoc throughout Liberty City. But if you'd like to take a break from the action, well, enjoy some dry British humor via funnyman Ricky Gervais, who makes a cameo in the game doing standup in the Liberty City Comedy Club.
The "Office" and "Extras" creator surprisingly needed a bit of convincing to be part of the GTA world.
"Well, they called up my agent, and like [I say for] most things, I went, 'Nahhh,' " the comic revealed recently to MTV News. "And then they said, 'Are you mad? This is the biggest thing in the world. You're crazy.' "
I went to New York and they put me in Lycra for the day. ... I assume that was necessary [and not] them just having a laugh. They put little things over me," he said, gesturing to his body. "[The designers] showed me what it would look like, and it was incredible. They made me thinner.
"And it did about $20 billion on its opening minute," he laughed in amazement. "People queuing around the block. Some of them don't even have anything to play it on! Some of them don't even live in houses!"
For the few minutes of material Gervais performs in the video game he decided on a controversial target: the overweight. "I suppose it had to be sort of quite out there — it's not, like, prime-time TV, so I chose some of the, uh, more offensive bits," Gervais said.
"It had to be sort of, like, quite universal, because it's played all around the world. So, no parochial cultural references, so, uh ... fat people. Got 'em everywhere, haven't you? Got fat people everywhere. [The UK's] got some ... America's got a lot — I saw one on 'The Jerry Springer Show' and he was about 1,000 pounds, which was incredible. They had to take the side of his house off to get him to the hospital. Which is fine, and I felt sorry for him, but my first thought was, when he got to, say, 500 pounds, didn't he go, 'That's ... a lot, isn't it? For a human.' Didn't he then go, 'You know what, I'm only going to have eight breakfasts today.' "
See Also
Motel Connection
Artist: Motel Connection
Genre(s):
Ethnic
Soundtrack
Discography:
Do I Have a Life?
Year: 2006
Tracks: 12
My Darkside
Year: 2005
Tracks: 3
Santa Maradona Ost
Year: 2002
Tracks: 12
P Samuel-Krakatoa Torino
Year:
Tracks: 1
Andata e Ritorno (cd2)
Year:
Tracks: 10
Andata e Ritorno (cd1)
Year:
Tracks: 11
Motel Connection are an Italian electronica and house jazz band from Torino, formed in 2000 by DJ Pisti and Subsonica's singer and bassist, Samuel Romano and Pierpaolo "Pierfunk" Peretti Griva. Motel Connection effectively kicked off their life history when director Marco Ponti asked them to compose the music for his 2001 make film Santa Maradona. The following year they released their number one album, Give Me a Good Reason to Wake Up, featuring eight-spot remixes from the film's soundtrack addition deuce fresh tracks, all sung in English. Among these was the arrive at single "Two," whose tV received all-encompassing airplay during 2002-2003. After a new soundtrack for some other Ponti film, 2004's A/R Andata + Ritorno, Motel Connection's irregular album appeared in 2006, under the title Do I Have a Life?
Acrostichon
Artist: Acrostichon
Genre(s):
Metal: Death,Black
Rock
Discography:
Sentenced
Year: 1995
Tracks: 9
Engraved In Black
Year: 1993
Tracks: 9
Good Angel, Bad Angel at the Opera Factory
A touring production of Lyell Cresswell's Good Angel, Bad Angel revealed just what can be achieved with a cast of three, a quartet of instrumentalists and a minimal set.Wellington's Not in My Back Yard company has come up with a workable alternative to big-budget opera in the grand style. Adapted from Robert Louis Stevenson, this grim Yuletide tale involves the murder of a jeweller and its even grimmer consequences.Cresswell writes with precision and economy; there is a no excess fat on this score. Key moments, such as the villain's singing of a rosier future to come and the daughter lamenting her father's death, are unaccompanied. Craig Beardsworth and Frances Moore enhanced them with a combination of impeccable vocal technique and theatrical instinct.Accompaniments are ingeniously evocative, carefully moulded by conductor Justus Rozemond. Hadleigh Adams' jeweller contemplated his wealth over pizzicato strings, with mercurial descant from Tui Clark's bass clarinet.
The traditional Coventry Carol laces the score in various guises and instrumentalists often have to convey a character's emotional state - violinist Sanyuri Ando and cellist Paul Mitchell shone here.Ron Butlin's libretto is loosely based on Stevenson, but Cresswell finds inspiration in the original story Markheim, with Stevenson's "intricate chorus of [clock] tickings" caught in various scorings for pizzicato strings.The sure hand of director David Lawrence showed in the sustained intensity of the various character confrontations.Musically, Good Angel, Bad Angel offers approachability without compromise. The carol theme and a revellers' jig are frankly tonal; the jagged lines and metres of Moore's first aria not so far from Bartok. Throughout, the composer extracts a full range of emotional colours from insinuating chromatic lines.Vocally this production was unswervingly professional. Moore introduced the opera with caustic cynicism ("Christmas Day, my getting-the-hell-out-of-here day") flowering in her later coloratura. Craig Beardsworth had Markheim spring to life through the baritone's attention to nuance and detail. The rich-voiced Adams, though physically far removed from Stevenson's "little pale, round-shouldered dealer", made the eerie Visitant into the sort of chap nobody would want knocking at their door.
The traditional Coventry Carol laces the score in various guises and instrumentalists often have to convey a character's emotional state - violinist Sanyuri Ando and cellist Paul Mitchell shone here.Ron Butlin's libretto is loosely based on Stevenson, but Cresswell finds inspiration in the original story Markheim, with Stevenson's "intricate chorus of [clock] tickings" caught in various scorings for pizzicato strings.The sure hand of director David Lawrence showed in the sustained intensity of the various character confrontations.Musically, Good Angel, Bad Angel offers approachability without compromise. The carol theme and a revellers' jig are frankly tonal; the jagged lines and metres of Moore's first aria not so far from Bartok. Throughout, the composer extracts a full range of emotional colours from insinuating chromatic lines.Vocally this production was unswervingly professional. Moore introduced the opera with caustic cynicism ("Christmas Day, my getting-the-hell-out-of-here day") flowering in her later coloratura. Craig Beardsworth had Markheim spring to life through the baritone's attention to nuance and detail. The rich-voiced Adams, though physically far removed from Stevenson's "little pale, round-shouldered dealer", made the eerie Visitant into the sort of chap nobody would want knocking at their door.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)