The B52’s, London Roundhouse

Wade Crawley is back with a great B52 concert review! If you remember, Wade wrote for us Punk music in the late seventies. Now read his new exclusive article for ManuelMarino.com!

The B52’s, London Roundhouse

It was on a hot and very sweaty summer night in London’s trendy Camden and a packed audience of all ages and types gathered at the re-opened Roundhouse. They were all there to see that perennial party band, still together for over 30 years, the B52’s. It was ridiculously hot with many people standing and sweating profusely, but this didn’t diminish the anticipation of the crowd one bit. This became evident before the band even came out with many of them singing along vociferously to Talking Head’s ‘Psycho Killer’ when played by the club’s DJ. Then the lights went down and the words “Hello London, we’re the B52’s” was greeted by a loud roar as the band walked out onto the stage.

Touring to promote their first album in 16 years Funplex, the B52’s showed the sell-out crowd they still have the ability to turn out superbly crafted pop songs. The line up of Fred Schneider, Cindy Wilson, Kate Pierson and Keith Strickland have proved over the years they are masters of the art of catchy, pop songwriting and they treated the crowd to all of their hits and more in their uniquely frivolous and eccentric manner. The B52’s have crafted and honed their electro-beat, new wave, dance sound over 30 years and it’s still impossible to categorise.

Backed up by three backing musicians, the B52’s were in fine form. The soaring harmonies of Wilson and Pierson sounded as good as ever, while the wonderfully camp interjections of Schneider made sure everybody in the audience had a smile on their face for the duration. Along with the more humorous and wacky songs like ‘Private Idaho’ and ‘Party Out Of Bounds,’ with ‘Give Me Back My Man’ and current single ‘Juliet Of The Spirits,’ the B52’s proved they can also do serious and soulful. Their set consisted of the obligatory songs from the current album such as ‘Funplex’ and ‘Pump,’ interspersed with many of the old favourites like ‘Strobe Light,’ and ‘Mesopotamia.’

Judging by the enthusiastic reaction to the older material, it was obvious that the audience consisted of many of their older, long-term fans but there was also a surprising amount of young fans, many of whom were perched up high on their father’s shoulders. To the audience’s delight, the hits came thick and fast with Wilson and Pierson’s sixties style dance routines, Schneider’s deadpan but camp delivery and Strickland’s choppy and distorted ‘rock style’ guitar. What with their wild and wacky image it’s easy to overlook, but make no mistake, these guys are all excellent musicians in their own right.

The harmonies of the two ladies are as good as you’ll find anywhere in popular music, whereas one time drummer Strickland now stands at the front of the stage, giving us all the classic ‘rock’ guitar style poses. Schneider isn’t as animated as he used to be but the B52’s wouldn’t be the same without his perfectly timed ‘camp as they come’ vocals.

To the crowd’s delight, they inevitably get to their most well loved song ‘Love Shack.’ It is one of those songs that always gets everybody dancing at parties and wedding receptions. Where everybody from the youngest children to the oldest grannies knows the words and the Roundhouse crowd were no different. “The whole shack shimmied” barks Schneider and the crowd sing along as one. Personally, I was surprised they didn’t save ‘Love Shack’ for the encore but the crowd didn’t seem to care.

We eventually got two encores. ‘Rock Lobster’ which was the first B52’s song I ever heard as a teenager in 1980 and ‘Planet Claire’ with it’s 1960’s secret agent movie vibe. The sweat soaked crowd were on their last legs by then. The Roundhouse management obviously thought that the English summer wasn’t long enough to justify installing air conditioning, but many were ready to feint at the end. This wasn’t enough, however, to stop most of the crowd from leaving with large grins on their faces. It left many of us feeling that the world is a more fun place with the B52’s in it.

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Stop jogging and listen to some new music

I’m a big fan of 80s music. Yes, the decade that gave the world the sound of pop, the memorable 80s! I’m talking about Madonna, Michael Jackson, Huey Lewis, Cyndi Lauper, George Michael and many others. Well, let’s focus on Madonna, eleven albums, an impressive career.

Stop jogging and listen to some new music

Madonna, the world’s tastiest sweetheart, has announced more non-stop treats for her legions of legendary and devoted fans. Following the latest news that “Hard Candy” has debuted at Number 1 around the globe, it has been confirmed that Madonna’s “Sticky and Sweet Tour” will begin (hip) hopping around the world on August 23rd in Cardiff, Wales with stops in major European markets through September including London (11-September) and Paris (20-September).

Hard Candy features collaborations with Timbaland and Justin Timberlake. The main themes are love, music and sex and sometimes seems that Madonna repeats herself. Not bad, considering that this album is a great example of the best american pop music.

To be more clear, we can define it unforgettable pop with wonderful choruses. The style is more urban-oriented, than the past disco tracks, and Madonna’s best eighties are back, creating a unique cocktail of different genres.

This is Madonna eleventh and final album for longtime label Warner Bros and it surely represents another mark on current pop culture.

About the Tour, it will feature a lot of past favorites as well as focusing on Madonna’s Hard Candy. She will be supported onstage by different famous artists, as example Paul Oakenfold in London, and Bob Sinclair in Paris.

More than one million tickets have been sold, means about 90% of the total, so better to run as soon as possible to get your ticket!

At the same time, I would recommend to check also Coldplay events. Chris Martin is taking his band back on the road for what promises to be their biggest tour to date to celebrate their hugely anticipated new album ‘Viva la Vida’ and hit single ‘Violet Hill’.

- Madonna Tickets
- Coldplay Tickets

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How Has the Internet Affected the Music Industry?

This article is written by web designer Josh Gutteridge who runs Skyte Media. Skyte Media is based in the Midlands (England) and is a professional web design company that specialises in web design and development. Josh would like to receive comments about this article on his blog. But of course you can comment it also here, on ManuelMarino.com!

How Has the Internet Affected the Music Industry?

Music has always been something that has inspired mankind. Sir Thomas Beecham once said ‘a musicologist is a man who can read music but can’t hear it’. The pure beauty of music is that we can all listen to the same notes played by many different instruments, yet make our own individual conclusions with regards to what the music means to us; and nobody can argue.

It is not in the nature of this post to go in depth on musical history. Nonetheless, music has developed rapidly through the ages with the vinyl when it was first really used in 1948 by Columbia Records. Since then the music industry has seen the use of the Audio-Cassette and Compact Disc (CD).

Consequently, since the internet became more widely available it has made music more easily accessed by such means as Online Music Stores. There are thousands of these stores online including three of the most famous: iTunes, Napster and Rhapsody (US only). Let’s focus in on iTunes; an offshoot of the Apple Company.

I refer to iTunes as the ‘pied piper of the 21st century’ lulling people into easily downloading content with minimal hassle. iTunes is a free piece of software developed by the Apple company at Macworld Expo in San Francisco. This allows you to download digital music, music videos, television shows, iPod games, audio books, various pod casts and in the USA feature length films, and ringtones. Downloaded content can then be used to create your own play lists and personalised albums to burn to CD. It can also be transferred onto various different types of iPod including the new iPhone making music more accessible and easy to get hold of.

How does this affect the ordinary person who enjoys listening to their preferred genre(s) of music?

In this case, music has never been so easily manipulated and accessible. We live in a convenience obsessed world with personalised portals such as Last FM where you can listen to any artist known to mankind, you can listen to personalised internet radio with Pandora and also listen to all the music and view the videos on YouTube. It doesn’t take much effort to rip music (ripping is the term for digital audio extraction). The cost of downloading an album from the net is generally cheaper than an album brought in the shops, after all, downloads should cost less as there are less overheads for the record label to pay for: CD sleeve, CD case, CD cost, copying equipment etc.

How does this affect the music industry?

Some artists find the concept of the internet hard to adapt to; however, as they are forced into the mould of technology modern artists tend to embrace the internet as a friend rather than a foe. They view it as a ‘creative and inspiration-enhancing workspace where they can communicate, collaborate, and promote their work’ - Mary Madden (Research Specialist) in her project ‘Artists, Musicians and the Internet’. Sites such as MySpace have helped Artists and Musicians address their target audience rousing more interest in their style of music.

But let’s face it; there will always be people that are looking to find a loophole. I’m talking about those who engage in illegal music downloading. Experts admit that illegal downloads will never be stopped. This messes up the system and makes it unfair for both the artist and the people who are paying for downloads. The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has joined forces with the Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI) to take legal action against internet file-sharers.

How will illegal downloader’s effect record labels? A record label makes, distributes and markets sound recordings; basically at the end of the day they’re out there to make money. The music industry produce mainly alums…how many albums have you brought just because you like one song? I have! We’re forced to buy albums to get the songs we love. As sales figures are falling record labels will be forced to look at the logic. Are people going to buy a whole album or just download one song? What effects do you think this will bring? Might we see a rise in the cost of internet downloads?

So in conclusion we have seen that the music industry has created stronger ties with new technology over the past decades and now can only go forward. We have seen that internet music downloads can be both an advantage and a disadvantage as we see the battle between the illegal downloader and the record companies continues. However, it is safe to conclude people – adapt or die!

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The industry of Do-what’s-already-done

This is a post I’ve received from Julien Bernier-Haineault and he is a music producer from Quebec, Canada. He made several songs for a lot of bands that never really got appreciated to their real value.

He said me: It’s countless hours, in fact I could count it as months, I’ve put into this industry for very low results in the end. This is my first attempt at writing articles and I hope people gets the point across that this art is reserved to an elite and that you must obey to some fixed rules to get into their circle. I hope to help people understand what are those traps and guide them to avoid those.

Julien, your voice can be heard now, thanks to ManuelMarino.com!

The industry of Do-what’s-already-done

Lately I’ve questioned myself why was there so much newcomers in the music industry that didn’t grab my attention. Soul less recordings, heavy thumping bass, yells and screams is all I hear these days. Where is the hear candy? You know that kind of song you listen once and you’re not sure you like until you give it more listens. The kind of lyric that hooks you and makes you want to change something about you, or even the world. The strange feeling of nostalgia, of fear or faith. That is all gone since the music industry is now all about money and none about feelings. What people want these days are instant rewards, premature orgasms while what we need from the music industry is more like a long term relationship. Don’t get me wrong; I understand why people want it that way, but there’s one kind of songs that’ll eventually fade in history while the other one will be there to stay. I think music needs a second chance, a change in the way of thinking, a split for newcomers that don’t want to fit in the prefabricated mold that today’s industry is.

Maybe I’m wrong a little bit though, since so much people are going to Justin’s or Britney’ shows. As they say “sex sells” and this can’t be truer. A lot of artists are betting on this to make their stash bigger. Think Janet Jackson at the superbowl. Publicity, marketing and word of mouth are what is important now, no matter what you do to get it. Good or bad, talk about it, heh? That’s what they want… And it works! What’s sure though is that good rock music has left its place to rap, screaming rock and pop music this decade and I can only hope it will be back for the next.

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Splendid E-zine

Another beautiful review I had (with my pseudonym Vanethian) is this one at Splendid E-zine:

If you’ve ever caught yourself getting into the soundtracks that play in the background of sci-fi fantasy games, you might enjoy Futures Past. Unassuming synthesizers create a circumambient musical flow, taking you first to the distant and icy plains of Pluto, then back in time, where you’ll mingle with the shoguns of Japan and explore England’s age of chivalry. Born in Palermo, Manuel Marino, the man behind the music, started out playing solfeggio-style fingerpicking and jazz guitar. Marino’s heavy interest in role-playing games is evident on Futures Past; he takes his own personal enjoyment and translates it sonically through MIDI sequencing into breathtaking soundscapes that take the listener left of heaven into the World of Dreams. Taking Korgs, Rolands and Moogs to the next level, Marino remains modestly mindful of old masters Rick Wakeman and Alan Parsons when evoking his own brand of medieval methodology. From intergalactic battles to dystopian visions of society, infinite space is the only limit for Marino and his music.

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Wind and Wire Magazine

I’ve been asked why there is no Reviews section. Well, if you search my name on Google.com, you’ll find many pages (in English and Italian languages) that talk about my music works. So, I don’t want to put a complete list of the links, but anyway I’ll post parts of the most beautiful reviews. I’ll begin with the one written by Bill Binkelman (Wind and Wire Magazine).

Here’s a part of the Review:

“Manuel Marino, a.k.a. Vanethian, records some of the best “pure” melodic synthesizer music around. He composes and performs in the same musical style as Larry Fast (Synergy). Manuel’s music is overtly electronic and yet rooted in pop-music sensibility (repeated motifs, refrains, and bridges); he (Manuel) has few (if any) contemporaries in this regard. Frankly, I’m always impressed with how good his music sounds.”

“Sophisticated listeners may hear Manuel’s (Vanethian’s) music and only discern overly slick pop EM. Myself, I’m a sucker for the hooks and expert musicianship that, in my opinion, Manuel excels at. As with the last album of his I reviewed, I make no apologies for how much I love his music. It’s chromium candy - polished, yummy, and never upsetting to my stomach, no matter what mood I’m in. I can see why this guy gets a shitload of videogame and computer game music work - he’s a wiz when it comes to hooks and he’s an EM engineering professional.”

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