The Star Online: Entertainment: Music
The Star Online: Entertainment: Music |
| Posted: Urbanscapes returns with Franz Ferdinand, Two Door Cinema Club and more. IT'S that time of the year again to put on your Native American headdress, pasar malam rainboots and most tattered-looking Pagoda brand T-shirt for the return of Urbanscapes! All kidding aside, though, the country's longest-running creative arts festival is back and set to take place on Nov 23 and 24 at a brand new venue – the spacious Malaysia Agro Exposition Park Serdang in Selangor. For two days, the festival dubbed "Big Weekend" will feature international and local performing acts, fashion retailers, art installation pieces and even comedians in action. This year's edition of Urbanscapes will be headlined by Scottish band Franz Ferdinand. Formed in 2002, the band consists of frontman Alex Kapranos, bassist Bob Hardy, guitarist Nick Rhythm and drummer Paul Thomson. The Grammy-nominated band is set to release its fourth studio album Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action later this month.  Explosions In The Sky will be playing at KL Live as part of Urbanscapes' Satellite Show. In an interview with The Scotsman, Kapranos talked about what makes this album different from the band's previous release. "With the last record we went into the studio and worked on beats and jams – it feels so embarrassing to say that word – but this time we would sit around and talk about ideas, saying 'I've got this postcard, we should write a song about this', so you had idea, then lyrics, melody, song, and then recording." One can possibly expect to hear the band rock the stage with some familiar tunes like Take Me Out, The Dark Of The Matinee and Do You Want To, as well as new singles Right Action and Love Illumination at Urbanscapes. Other confirmed performers in the line-up for Urbanscapes so far include Northern Irish band Two Door Cinema Club, as well as local rock outfits Oh Chentaku!, Kyoto Protocol and They Will Kill Us All. There will also be appearances by comedians Pierre Hollins and Kuah Jenhan, and artwork by ALLTHATISSOLID. Apart from the Big Weekend, Urbanscapes presents exclusive Satellite Shows in Kuala Lumpur, too. On Oct 31, head out for a spectacular double-bill showcase featuring American post-rock outfit Explosions In The Sky and Danish alternative rock band Mew. Then on Dec 3, Canadian New Wave band Metric is set to rock the house with hit singles Gimme Sympathy and Sick Muse. Both Satellite Shows will be held at KL Live in Jalan Sultan Ismail, KL. Please note that Satellite Shows is for those aged 18 and above only. There are more goodies in store. From now till Aug 25, the good folks behind Urbanscapes are giving you the chance to win "All-Access Passes" worth RM397 to the Big Weekend and Satellite Shows. All you have to do is follow @Urbanscapes on Twitter and Instagram or check for updates regularly on www.facebook.com/Urbanscapes to get clues on the locations of hidden QR codes around the Klang Valley. Once you've located the codes, scan them and be the first to tweet the answers to win the coveted passes. Only one winner will be chosen each day! Other tickets to Urbanscapes Big Weekend (Nov 23-24) are priced at RM187 (limited early bird weekend pass), RM227 (pre-sale) and RM247 (regular sale). Tickets for the Satellite Shows are priced at RM177 (per show). Head to TicketPro (www.ticketpro.com.my) or Urbanscapes website (http://urbanscapes.com.my) for more information on other places tickets are sold. |
| Posted: In France and Quebec, Canada, stars do not come much bigger than Johnny Hallyday, the so-called "French Elvis". But the 70-year-old rocker, veteran of more than 180 tours, 70-plus albums – 18 of which went platinum – and 110 million record sales, has never cracked the English-speaking world. Now the man once billed in Las Vegas, Nevada as "the biggest rock star you've never heard of" is hoping to woo Anglophone music fans with an album of duets in what the French refer to as the language of Shakespeare. "I shall be working on the record in Los Angeles. I'm hoping for duos with Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Bon Jovi and others," he told Le Parisien newspaper. "The album is aimed at the United States and England, but it will come out in France too." Hallyday's last album, L'Attente, was released in France last November and has sold 450,000 copies. He splits his time between homes in Paris and LA where he lives with his fourth wife and two adopted Vietnamese daughters. More a national institution than a star these days, in recent years he has threatened to retire or die. He has done neither, despite battling colon cancer in 2009 and being put into a three-week medically induced coma after a back operation later the same year. Last October Hallyday played the first British concerts of his 52-year career. The audience was almost all French, apart from a handful of British music critics. Shortly after crossing the Channel, Hallyday told the Guardian that he could not understand why the British remained stubbornly resistant to his talents. "I dunno ... maybe because of the language," he said. "When I do songs for French people, you have to adapt yourself to their taste. Even if I sing rock 'n' roll, it's not exactly what I would do if I was going to do an album for the US or Britain. It's less variety than for France, less middle-class." – Guardian News & Media |
| Posted: No mid-life crisis for 47-year-old Shah Rukh Khan. The Bollywood actor wants to be a heartthrob for life. Reports that Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan, two of Bollywood's biggest names, will make a movie together are greatly exaggerated, says the former. After the two were photographed hugging each other at a party last month following a five-year feud, all signs pointed to the pair finally moving on from the spat that caused their fall-out in 2008. Reportedly, Shah Rukh had made inappropriate comments about Salman's former flame, actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. But in a telephone interview recently, Shah Rukh vehemently declined to comment on the issue, saying that these are "personal relationships" that he will never speak about. "My personal relationships and friendships that I've formed – these are things that I've never ever spoken about publicly and talked about. Whether I have a relationship problem or happiness, I don't talk about it and I keep it like that," says Shah Rukh, 47. "There are certain things that you give dignity by not talking about it, and relationships are one of them. The amazing thing with this is that the world has already jumped the gun and is saying that we're going to be doing movies together."  Off limits: Shah Rukh Khan prefers to keep his personal relationships and friendships private. (Above) Shah Rukh and co-star Deepika Padukone's hair is perfectly coiffed for the premiere of Chennai Express in London. He was fielding media queries to promote his latest movie Chennai Express, an action-comedy that is playing in cinemas now. He also produced the movie, under his production company Red Chillies Entertainment. Shah Rukh, who is married to film producer and interior designer Gauri Khan, also made headlines recently for the controversy surrounding the birth of their third child, which they had through a surrogate. There was talk that the couple knew they were going to have a son because they had a pre-natal gender test, which is illegal in India. Shah Rukh, whose elder son is 16 and daughter is 13, has since openly denied such reports. "I let people analyse and figure it out, and let the tabloids have a field day on the connotations about what is to be and what is not," he says. In Chennai Express, directed by Rohit Shetty, he plays a North Indian man who meets and falls in love with Meena (Deepika Padukone), the daughter of a crime boss in South India. It is a professional reunion for the two leads, who had starred in the hit 2007 romantic movie Om Shanti Om. As soon as Deepika's name is mentioned, Shah Rukh lavishes praise on her: "Deepika is really beautiful and talented, and all that a movie star should be. You know, there is a special quality to her and we're just very comfortable with each other. "We had always talked about the chance to work on something else again since our last one, but we were always waiting for good characters to come along. "When I came across this script, I called her up and said, hey, this is really sweet and something different. So it's just very nice that we got to work together again." He was also happy to be doing a comedy again, after a string of serious roles over the past few years in the films Jab Tak Hai Jaan (As Long As I Live, 2012), Don 2: The Chase Continues (2012), Ra. One (2011) and My Name Is Khan (2010). "With every role that you do, you take away some of that film with you. Some of my recent roles like in Ra. One were physically challenging and I was injured. "So I was in the state of mind where I really wanted to do a family entertainment movie, something fun and over-the-top. And with a director like Rohit Shetty, you know that's what you'll get." According to him, the 40-year-old director, who has made such hit films as Golmaal: Fun Unlimited (2006) and Bol Bachchan (2012), is "known for films that are very big-looking and all-out entertaining, and packed with a lot of action and comedy". He adds: "He's also a good guy and I think this is the first film I've worked on where the girls on set find the director more attractive than me." If that sounds like Shah Rukh is suffering a mid-life crisis of confidence, rest assured he is not. He thinks he still has the makings of a heart-throb, even at his age. That is why he says there is no problem making his onscreen romances with young actresses such as Deepika, who is 27, convincing. "If you were to ask me how long I think I can be a heart-throb, I'd say for the rest of my life. I hope I can still go to my daughter's parties and be considered a heart-throb by her friends. I still feel young." — The Straits Times, Singapore/Asia News Network > Chennai Express is playing in selected cinemas nationwide. |
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