Welcome to Across The Pond sponsored by Pirates Gold Entertainment.
Across The Pond is a monthly music column dedicated to european artists such as David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Judas Priest, & many many others. This feature is released on the first Tuesday of each month.
Across The Pond’s featured artist of July is: Nightwish.
Nightwish was formed in Tuomas Holopainen’s years of high school where ironically all the original members attended school. In July of 1996 Tuomas started to think of making his own band where he would play keyboard and write the music while he was camping with friends.Thus Nightwish the name was formed from their first song. He asked Tarja Turunen a friend from college to sing lead vocals; of course she immediately said yes along with Emppu Vuorinen who was to be the guitar player to join what was then to be an acoustic project. Soon after their first song came out Tuomas decided that Tarja’s operatic voice was too powerful, so he incorporated heavy metal influences like drums and electric guitars.
Early 1997 Jukka Nevalainen joined making it no longer acoustic but electric. Enforcing the heavy metal elements produced the core of Nightwish’s sound. In May 1997, Nightwish signed a recording contract with Spinefarm for two records. Their first album, Angels Fall First, was internationally released in November of 1997 reaching number 31 on the Finnish album charts. Their first single was “The Carpenter”. They made their first live debut in their hometown, Kitee.
Since they were missing a bass player Samppa Hirvonen joined as a sessional member, soon they were also joined by Mariana Pellinen as a keyboardist and a sessional back vocalist for Tarja. Plans were made to make Hirvonen a permanent number but soon he left to join the Finnish army due from a army conscription.The band then returned to the studio of August the next year as a five-piece, to record their upcoming album.
On October 7th the same year they released their second full-length album Oceanborn it was an instant success in Finland reaching the fifth spot on the Finnish album chart. The album adopted a more technical and progressive tune than the previous album Angels Fall First. Due to the newly made album the band abandoned its folk and ambient elements, with the exception of Moondance. Contrasting to the female vocals of Turunen, the album also featured Tapio Wilska [ex-Fintroll] because Tuomas didn’t want to sing again.
The first single on the CD “Sacrament of Wilderness” hit number one on the Finnish singles chart. The album’s release was originally limited to Finland, but due to the success Spinefarm released Oceanborn internationally in spring of 1999. Following the fantastic international success, the band had the opportunity to be the opening band for Rage’s European Tour of 1999.
In 2000 Nightwishwas accepted in the Finnish Eurovision Song Contest with the song “Sleepwalker” winning second place.
Wishmaster was released in May. This debuted was number one on the Finnish album chart. German magazine Rock Hard proclaimed the album “Album of the Month”’ despite competing with Bon Jovi and Iron Maiden. After the release they embarked on their first world tour, stopping in South America, Canada and Mexico. Also headlining as the first European tour with Sinergy and
Soon after the band had one of the hardest points in its history. The issues were centered around the bassist, Sami Vanska who had started to misbehave not taking the gigs as seriously as the other members and failing to show up at appointments. After a long discussion between the members when things haven’t changed they all stopped caring and tensions grew. After Nightwish's last gig for the Over the Hills and Far Away tour in 2001, Holopainen called Drakkar and Spinefarm, unofficially declaring Nightwish was over.
Holopainen changed his mind and decided some changes were in order. He chose Ewo Pohjola as their new manager, asked Sami Vänskä to leave the band and invited Marco Hietala to join the band in his place, effectively leaving his previous band Sinergy. As well as playing bass guitar, Hietala would also perform male vocals.
Once has sold triple platinum in Finland, platinum in Germany and gold in six other countries. It also reached number 1 in the Greek, Norwegian and German album charts. it was so successful the success of the album allowed them to perform the Once World Tour, taking them to play in many countries the band had never visited before. Nightwish performed at the opening ceremony of the 2005 World Championships in Athletics, held in Helsinki, highlighting the acclaim the band had gained.
In May 2007, former Alyson Avenue, frontwoman, Anette Olzon was revealed as Tarja’s Turunen’s replacement.
Dark Passion Play was released the last week of September of 2007. It was awarded double platinum in Finland the second day after its release and took the number 1 position on the charts of Germany, Finland, Switzerland, Hungary and Croatia and got in top 100 in other 16 countries, including the United States.
On March 6, 2009, Nightwish released a new live MCD/DVD entitled Made in Hong Kong (And in Various Other Places). The eight live tracks were recorded during the “Dark Passion Play World Tour” in 2007 - 2008, and the album also incldues one b-side from the “Bye Bye Beautiful” single, one b-side from the “Amaranth” single, a previously unreleased demo version of “Cadence of Her Last Breath”, and a bonus-DVD with three music videos as well as a 37 minute documentary called “Back in the Day is Now”.
February 10, 2011 the band declared the new title of their latest album would be Imaginaerum. They also stated that they have been preparing a movie based around the album. On August 22, 2011 declared that the album would be out by the end of the year. So my conclusion is that through their many hurdles they became even greater in many ways and are still holding the fort down.
(Portions of this article was brought to you by Wikipedia.)
Nightwish Official Site
Nightwish @ Amazon.com | Nightwish @ Facebook | Nightwish @ Myspace | Nightwish on YouTube
Welcome to Across The Pond sponsored by Pirates Gold Entertainment.
Across The Pond is a monthly music column dedicated to european artists such as David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Judas Priest, & many many others. This feature is released on the first Tuesday of each month.
Across The Pond’s featured artist of July is: The Cure.
The Cure is a British alternative rock band formed in Crawley, West Sussex in the 70’s. Throughout their long history together they have had several changes over the years with the line-up with members but Robert Smith; the frontman, guitarist, vocalist and main songwriter has been one of the original members. They first started releasing music in the late 70’s with their first album Three Imaginary Boys; this and other earlier singles placed the band as being in the post-punk and New Wave movements that had blossomed in the punk rock revolution in the United Kingdom. However, during the early 80’s due to the band’s dark and tormented music helped give birth to the gothic rock genre.
The first making of what became The Cure was The Obelisk; a band formed by students at Notre Dame Middle School in Crawley, Sussex. The band made their public debut in a one-off performance in April 1973, and featured Robert Smith (piano), Michael "Mick" Dempsey (guitar), Laurence "Lol" Tolhurst (percussion), Marc Ceccagno (lead guitar) and Alan Hill (bass guitar). In January 1976 the band took a more substantial form of what would be when Ceccagno formed Malice with Smith and Dempsey along with two other classmates from St. Wilfrid's Catholic Comprehensive School, with Ceccagno on lead, Smith on guitar, and Dempsey switching to bass. Ceccagno soon left, however, to form a jazz-rock fusion band called Amulet. Increasingly influenced by the emergence of punk rock, Malice's remaining members became known as Easy Cure in January 1977. By this time, Smith and Dempsey had been joined by Lol Tolhurst from The Obelisk on drums, and new lead guitarist Porl Thompson. Both Malice and Easy Cure auditioned several vocalists before Smith finally assumed the role of Easy Cure's frontman in September 1977.
The Cure released their debut album Three Imaginary Boys in May 1979. Because of the band's inexperience in the studio, Parry and engineer Mike Hedges took control of the recording.The band's second single "Boys Don't Cry" was released in June. The Cure then embarked as the support band for Siouxsie and the Banshees' Join Hands promotional tour of England, Northern Ireland, and Wales between August and October. The tour saw Smith pull double duty each night by performing with The Cure and as the guitarist with The Banshees when John McKay quit the group. That musical experience had a strong impact on him: "On stage that first night with the Banshees, I was blown away by how powerful I felt playing that kind of music. It was so different to what we were doing with The Cure. Before that, I'd wanted us to be like The Buzzcocks or Elvis Costello, the punk Beatles. Being a Banshee really changed my attitude to what I was doing."
Due to the band’s lack of creative rhythm on the first album, Smith had an epiphany resulting with greater influence for his second album Seventeen Seconds which he co-produced with Mike Hedges. It was later released in 1980 hitting number 20 on the UK charts. One of the singles from the album; “A Forest” became the band’s first UK hit single. The album was a leave for the The Cure’s sound up to that point, with Hedges describing it as “macabre, atmospheric and very different to Three Imaginary Boys.” In its review of Seventeen Seconds the NME said, "For a group as young as The Cure, it seems amazing that they have covered so much territory in such a brief time." At the end of the tour, Matthieu Hartley left the band. Hartley said, "I realised that the group was heading towards suicidal, sombre music—the sort of thing that didn't interest me at all."
In 1984, The Cure released The Top, a generally hypnotic album on which Smith played all the instruments except the drums—played by Anderson—and the saxophone—played by returnee Porl Thompson. The album was a Top 10 hit in the UK, and was their first studio album to break the Billboard 200 in the U.S., reaching number 180. Anderson and Thompson left or was fired due to destruction to property or wanting to be solo. The bassist slot was not vacant long, for a Cure roadie named Gary Biddles had brokered a reunion between Smith and former bassist Simon Gallup, who had been playing in the band Fools Dance. Soon after reconciling, Smith asked Gallup to rejoin the band. Smith was ecstatic about Gallup's return and declared to Melody Maker, "It's a group again."
With only Smith and Bamonte present sessions began in 1994 including Gallop who was recovering from health problems and O’ Donnell. They were asked to rejoin at the end of 1994. They performed “Burn” one of the songs from the movie The Crow and the theme song for Judge Dredd.
There was only one album left to do in their contract and with response with Wild Mood Swings and the Galore compilation, Smith started considering again that the end for The Cure might be coming sooner than he wanted. Due to this thought he informed the band that they should make an album focusing around the serious side of the band. Bloodflowers the Grammy-nominated album was finally released in 2000 after a delay in 1998.
The Cure signed with Geffen Records in 2003. In 2004 they released a 4-disc box set titled Join the Dots: B-sides and Rarities, 1978-2001 [The Fiction Years]. in 2004 they released their twelfth album The Cure on Geffen. Which was produced by Ross Robinson. July 24th to August 29th, the band headlined the Curiosa concert tour, even with audience numbers lower than normal, the tour was one of the more successful American tours of 2004. The same year the band was honored with a MTV Icon award given to them by Marilyn Manson.
Roger O’Donnell and Perry Bamonte were fired in May 2005. O’Donnell claimed Smith was making the band a three-piece. Later that year the band recorded a cover of John Lennon’s Love for Amnesty International’s charity album Make Some Noise.
The band began writing and recording material for their thirteenth album in 2006. The Cure was giving the 2009 Shockwaves NME Award for Godlike Genius. (Wikipedia)
So the overall thought on this band is through thick and thin and all the changes the band held on to its dignity and kept on going on the road. Maybe The Cure is the cure for all music? Who will ever know.
The Cure Official Site
The Cure @ Amazon.com | The Cure @ Myspace
Welcome to Across The Pond sponsored by Pirates Gold Entertainment.
Across The Pond is a brand new monthly music column dedicated to european artists such as David Bowie, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Judas Priest, & many many others. This new feature is released on the first Tuesday of each month.
Across The Pond’s featured artist of October is: David Bowie.
David Bowie ( /ˈboʊ.iː/ BOH-ee born David Robert Jones on 8 January 1947) is an English musician, actor, record producer andarranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s, and is known for his distinctive voice and the originality of his work.
Bowie first caught the eye and ear of the public in July 1969, when his song "Space Oddity" reached the top five of the UK Singles Chart. After a three-year period of experimentation he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with the flamboyant, androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust, spearheaded by the hit single "Starman" and the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Bowie's impact at that time, as described by biographer David Buckley, "challenged the core belief of the rock music of its day" and "created perhaps the biggest cult in popular culture." The relatively short-lived Ziggy persona proved merely one facet of a career marked by continual reinvention, musical innovation and striking visual presentation.
In 1975, Bowie achieved his first major American crossover success with the number-one single "Fame" and the hit album Young Americans, which the singer characterised as "plastic soul". The sound constituted a radical shift in style that initially alienated many of his UK devotees. He then confounded the expectations of both his record label and his American audiences by recording theminimalist album Low (1977)—the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno over the next two years. The so-called "Berlin Trilogy" albums all reached the UK top five and garnered lasting critical praise.
After uneven commercial success in the late 1970s, Bowie had UK number ones with the 1980 single "Ashes to Ashes" and its parent album, Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps). He paired with Queen for the 1981 UK chart-topping single "Under Pressure", then reached a new commercial peak in 1983 with the album Let's Dance, which yielded the hit singles "Let's Dance", "China Girl", and "Modern Love". Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Bowie continued to experiment with musical styles, including blue-eyed soul, industrial, adult contemporary, and jungle. His last recorded album was Reality (2003), which was supported by the 2003–2004 Reality Tour.
Biographer David Buckley says of Bowie: "His influence has been unique in popular culture—he has permeated and altered more lives than any comparable figure." In the BBC's 2002 poll of the 100 Greatest Britons, Bowie was placed at number 29. Throughout his career, he has sold an estimated 140 million albums. In the United Kingdom, he has been awarded nine Platinum album certifications, 11 Gold and eight Silver, and in the United States, five Platinum and seven Gold certifications. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him 39th on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time", and 23rd on their list of the best singers of all-time.(Wikipedia)
David Bowie Official Site
David Bowie @ Amazon.com | David Bowie @ Myspace | David Bowie on YouTube
Please use the comment feature below and let me know what you think of our first edition of Across The Pond. Thanks for being a member of Pirates Gold Entertainment!
Over the past month or so I have been trying to grow the amount of content that we have here at Pirates Gold Entertainment by creating the Music Video of The Week column in Our Community. A month ago we launched the Thursday Night Movie Review, and a couple of weeks ago we finally launched Boot Scootin' Monday Nights.
With much thought and a very late night last night I am making several changes as well as additions to our in-house content. Because of the numerous changes that I am making, tonight's Boot Scootin' Monday Night column, Thursday night Movie Review, & Friday's Music Video of The Week will be not be happening this week.
Starting October 1st, 2011 Music Video of The Week will be posted on Saturdays.
Sundays are the days to relax & unwind, before our busy schedule starts back up on Mondays. So here at Pirates Gold Entertainment we're turning Sundays into Smooth Sundays with "The Sunday Live Show" at 12 PM EST (Pirates Entertainment) & The Sunday Jazz Picnic at 4PM EST.
Boot Scootin' Monday Nights is moving to Thursday nights. This change was necessary because Monday nights is now becoming Monday Night Blues. Monday Night Blues is a new weekly column that'll be posted around 10PM EST showcasing the greatest artists / talents of the Blues.
Lights, Camera, Action. Wednesday nights are heating up so grab that popcorn because Thursday Night Movie Review is moving to Wednesday nights.
Dust off those cowboy boots, grab your girl, and let's do the two-step on the dance floor, Thursday nights is now the new home for Boot Scootin' Thursday Nights!
Friday nights are all about going out, having a great time, and tearing up that dance floor. So each and every Friday night we're turning Pirates Gold Entertainment into your Friday Night Dance Party. This new weekly content will take place about 10PM EST.
In addition to the new content that you've just read above I am currently in negotiations with a friend to write a Monthly Gaming Review column.
If all goes well the column will come out on the first Sunday of each month.
In addition I will also be debuting two new monthly columns. The first new column is entitled Across The Pond. Here you'll get short bios, & videos of European artists. This new column will come out on the first Tuesday of each month.
The second new column will come out the first Friday of each month I will be writing about a different club within the state of Colorado. There is also a good chance you'll get to see pictures as well... (title being working on)
I hope you enjoy all of the new content I am working on bringing everyone!
I would everyone to welcome two of our new sponsors: The Karaoke Channel, & Fairshare Music. You will see their logos & banners on the site in the next couple of days. When you see them, please help us by clicking and checking out their site. Thanks!
Coming Soon! well maybe I should say VERY SOON!
October 19th starts off our 13 Days of Halloween here at Pirates Gold Entertainment! Each day we will be posting different Halloween-esque music video, a Halloween Movie of the day, more!
Halloween is coming! Are you ready?
Thanks everyone for being a member of Pirates Gold Entertainment!
Danielle @ Pirates Gold Entertainment
This news is a few days old... So I apologize for my delay in announcing it.
I am saddened to announce that as of Friday morning (September 16th, 2011) the Cumulus / Citadel Broadcasting closed.
This now makes Cumulus Media the largest pure-play radio broadcaster in the United States.
Even though I just found out about this last night because I've been pretty busy Cumulus has already taken to the offensive and changed the Citadel Broadcasting logo on all of the stations' websites. In addition all of the sites that have emails posted have been changed to cumulus.com.
For Citadel Broadcasting this means the end of their financial problems, but their financial problems were only a drop in the bucket compared to what I expect to begin happening over the next 6 months to 1 year.
From my own personal experiences with Cumulus Media they have been a very aggressive & offensive player in the radio market in the last 10 years practically bull dozing over radio stations across the country in the name of the all mighty dollar. (Please don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with wanting to make money.)
Running a radio station is very difficult & highly expensive, but radio stations regardless of the number in a market are personalized for whatever market their in. Cumulus has a track history of "corporate-tising" their stations. The best example I can come up with to describe what I'm talking about is "big box" stores like Walmart versus small "mom & pop" stores that carry more products local & in demand to the area.
I and many others have written our officials at the DOJ & FCC, signed petitions, and voiced our concerns over this merger for months now. Shame on you FCC for this allowing it to happen.
I understand that due to Citadel's financial problems the company was in danger of shutting down and stations all over the country could have been shut down, but a merger this big should have been investigated better. In addition and in my own personal opinion Citadel Broadcasting should have:
Citadel did not do enough to satisfy other companies in previous deals and the FCC should have noticed this when previous deals did not result in the sell of Citadel Broadcasting to another company. Again in my opinion the FCC should have:
With this bad news, I highly encourage everyone who is now forced to listen to your newly re-branded Cumulus station to monitor it and to complain at every opportunity when Cumulus begins making changes that negatively affect your enjoyment. Only together do we have the power to keep the new larger Cumulus in check.
Please head over to Our Community (forum) -> General -> Off Topic and post your thoughts on this disaster. I look forward to reading all of your posts. In addition you are more than welcome to post your thoughts as well on our Facebook page.
Have a great weekend!
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