Amazing plan to drain dock for pop spectacular

 

by Catherine Jones, Liverpool Echo

A LIVERPOOL dock could be drained to create the city’s biggest concert venue for 2008. The Salthouse Dock would seat 25,000 people, more than twice the capacity of the Liverpool ECHO Arena. The dock is the open-air venue of choice for the Liverpool Sound concert, one of the major highlights of Capital of Culture year. The scheme involves draining the dock, which is between the Albert Dock and Wapping, and then building a stage and tiers of seating.

Event organisers hope to then refill the basin so the stage appears to be floating on the water. Culture Company chief executive Jason Harborow said: “We want to make this one of the key events of 2008.

“It will be a once-in-a-lifetime occasion celebrating the music of Liverpool in a unique location.”

Negotiations with a host of organisations are still going on to turn the proposals into a reality. Full details are not likely to be revealed before the announcement of the full 2008 programme this autumn. Capital of Culture officials were also remaining tight-lipped about the concert’s line-up.

They hope the showcase event next May will attract global coverage, and Sir Paul McCartney has been widely touted as the headline act.

But the rumours have so far been denied by a spokesman for the former Beatle. The music legend was also approached to perform at the Liverpool Number One Project concert in the Liverpool ECHO Arena on January 19, but has not yet confirmed whether he will play at either event.

Dock stars – 10 acts who could play on the water

1. Paul McCartney
2. Mel Sea
3. Cod Stewart
4. Tangerine Bream
5 Paul Anchor
6. Tina Tuna
7. Chub Checker
8. Squids from Fame
9. Coral King
10. The Krillers

Are marketers soiling the Beatles' image?

Help! Some Beatles fans are feeling down about the latest use of a Fab Four song in a commercial — the 1967 peace anthem “All You Need Is Love” highlights a new disposable diaper campaign. “I just cannot see a Beatles song being used for trivial things … not Beatles songs!!!!” fan Andy Bonnell said by e-mail from Liverpool, England, the Beatles’ home base. Such sentiments represent something of a lost cause. A version of their song “Help!” was used in a car commercial in 1985, and the many appearances since then include the late John Lennon’s son Julian’s 2002 cover of “When I’m Sixty-Four” for insurer Allstate Corp. and current Target Corp. store commercials that use a version of “Hello Goodbye” — “Goodbuy” in the ads.

Paul McCartney to VSD: "Retirement, No way!"

In a recent interview to the French magazine VSD, the everlasting young sir Paul McCartney, answers jovially to the questions amid personal sentimental turmoil following his divorce with Heather. The “young” icon still amazes with his extraordinary shape and quick mindedness, and accepted to meet the journalist in his posh Londoners office. To a question in relation to his song “the end of the end”, in which he described the way he wanted his funerals to be, he said “It sounds like request ain’t ? Actually, I wanted to talk about the matter that’s all. Generally speaking, we sing about dance or love, this time I wanted to see whether I could find a way to treat the theme of death through music , so I imagined my funerals, I’m not quite sure that my family would appreciate to fulfill all my wishes”.

 more: http://www.echoroukonline.com/english/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7012

It's 2007 And The Beatles Still Matter

This summer Paul McCartney turned 65 and “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” turned 40. Both events got a lot of media attention. The Beatles broke up in 1970 and two of the Fab Four have passed away — and yet Beatlemania never completely subsides.

more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/07/29/sunday/main3108111.shtml

Patti Smith looks under the covers

Patti Smith says she was first attracted to several of the dozen cover songs that make up her latest disc, ”Twelve,” because they have both a social and spiritual component. But it becomes evident even during a brief phone conversation from New York that the veteran musician and newly minted Rock and Roll Hall of Famer (she was inducted in March) is uncovering other reasons for recording the songs by Hendrix, Dylan, Kurt Cobain, Neil Young, Paul Simon and Jim Morrison, among others. For example, Smith suggests another link between such seemingly well-known but disparate material as ”Within You Without You,” George Harrison’s spiritual, sitar-driven
meditation on the Beatles’ ”Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” and the Rolling Stones’ incendiary warning of an apocalypse-in-the-offing, ”Gimme Shelter.”

 more: http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-pattismith.5965912jul29%2C0%2C6086903.story

Memory Almost Full

SIR Paul McCartney has really been through a lot in his 65 years. From the formation of the Beatles to the death of his wife Linda and now a bitter divorce from Heather Mills, McCartney has lived many lives! Perhaps that’s what he was thinking of when he came up with the title for his new album, Memory Almost Full. A new album with 13 songs, I can’t help but have mixed feelings about it. It was as if McCartney was feeling unsure of being able to produce another hit. Worse, it was as if he was trying a tad too hard to
be accepted by a new generation of listeners.

McCartney appears at graduation celebration

I have attended many many graduations.  I cannot say that I have really ever seen a graduation speaker that lit a spark in me.  Those
speeches always seemed a little canned, and by no means were any of them memorable.  I haven’t been lucky enough to catch a celebrity or politician at a commencement address.  I would love to.

I would never imagine hearing a Beatle, though, giving a commencement address.  That would be too cool. I know that LIPA holds a special place in Paul’s heart.  It’s quite awesome that he still haunts the old school and cherishes it so much.  That must have been really special for the graduates

Nicely done Paul.

Source: http://www.daventrytoday.co.uk/latest-entertainment-news?articleid=3067461>

Let thy Wilbury done!

Do you have a favorite super group?  We do, we have several favorite supergroups.  The Traveling Wilburys, though, are the super(est), sorry I just had to phrase it that way, of super groups.  They didn’t take themselves too seriously, and that is why, folks, to me, it worked so well.

They produced some simple fun rock and roll tunes for the sake of making music together.  Ego was completely set aside, and fun was of the highest order with The Traveling Wilburys.  It doesn’t get more simple than that.

Here’s a question for you then, we know that you guys do listen to more than just The Beatles sometimes.

  – Who would comprise your personal hand-picked supergroup.  The band   line-up would be a five-piece (Lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass,   drum, keyboards).  Let us know in the comments below.

Source : Economic Times
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Art_/Let_thy_Wilbury_done/articleshow/2240117.cms

Robbie Dale: A conversation with John Lennon and Yoko Ono

http://www.hansknot.com/lennon.htm

May Pang additional notes

Music Review: The Raspberries – Live On Sunset Strip (Deluxe Version: 2CD
With Bonus DVD)
Written by Glen Boyd

There are certain songs you hear as you go through life, and time simply
stands still.