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Howard Gray
Howard Gray (born 15 July 1962) is an English musician, sound engineer, programmer, composer, re-mixer and producer who has worked with Public Image Ltd, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Kirsty MacColl, the Armoury Show, the Pale Fountains, Japan, the Stranglers, Simple Minds, the Pretenders, XTC, UB40, Scritti Politti, Cherubs, Terence Trent D'Arby, Jean Michel Jarre, the Cure, Manic Street Preachers, U2, Puff Daddy & Jimmy Page, Tom Jones and Van Morrison. He is a founding member of the dance/rock group Apollo 440. Early years Howard James Gray was born in Sydney, Australia, shortly after his parents emigrated from their native Liverpool. The family returned to Liverpool when Gray was six months old, and the city played its role in forming the young Gray's musical passions. An early interest in music and sound recording led to the formation of his first band at the age of 15, Alvin the Aardvark and the Fuzzy Ants, with his brother, Trevor Gray, and fellow schoolfr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sydney
Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountains to the west, Hawkesbury to the north, the Royal National Park to the south and Macarthur to the south-west. Sydney is made up of 658 suburbs, spread across 33 local government areas. Residents of the city are known as "Sydneysiders". The 2021 census recorded the population of Greater Sydney as 5,231,150, meaning the city is home to approximately 66% of the state's population. Estimated resident population, 30 June 2017. Nicknames of the city include the 'Emerald City' and the 'Harbour City'. Aboriginal Australians have inhabited the Greater Sydney region for at least 30,000 years, and Aboriginal engravings and cultural sites are common throughout Greater Sydney. The traditional custodians of the land on which modern Sydney stands are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Cure
The Cure are an English Rock music, rock band formed in 1978 in Crawley, Crawley, West Sussex. Throughout numerous lineup changes since the band's formation, guitarist, lead vocalist, and songwriter Robert Smith (musician), Robert Smith has remained the only constant member. The band's debut album, ''Three Imaginary Boys'' (1979), along with several early singles, placed the band in the post-punk and New wave music, new wave movements that had sprung up in the United Kingdom. Beginning with their second album, ''Seventeen Seconds'' (1980), the band adopted a new, increasingly dark and tormented style, which, together with Smith's stage look, had a strong influence on the emerging genre of gothic rock as well as gothic subculture, the subculture that eventually formed around the genre. After the release of the band's fourth album, ''Pornography (album), Pornography'' (1982), Smith introduced a greater Pop music, pop sensibility into the band's music, and they subsequently garner ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Townhouse Studios
The Town House (also known as Townhouse Studios) was a recording studio located at 150 Goldhawk Road, Shepherd's Bush in London, built in 1978 under the direction of Richard Branson for Virgin Records. The studios changed ownership and eventually ceased operation in 2008, with luxury apartments now in its place. Artists that recorded at The Town House included Elton John, Queen, Phil Collins, Philip Bailey, The Jam, Asia, Bryan Ferry, Coldplay, Muse, Duran Duran, Jamiroquai, Kylie Minogue, Oasis, XTC, Robbie Williams, Peter Gabriel, and Joan Armatrading. Studio Two's "Stone Room" was an especially popular place to record drum sounds during the 1980s, directly as a result of producer Hugh Padgham's treatment of the drums on Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight". History The Town House was originally managed by Barbara Jeffries as part of the Virgin Studios Group. The Goldhawk Road facility had three recording rooms, numbered One, Two, and Four, with the Townhouse Three designation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manor Studio
The Manor Studio (a.k.a. The Manor) was a recording studio in the manor house at the village of Shipton-on-Cherwell in Oxfordshire, England, north of the city of Oxford. Overview The Manor and its outbuildings are listed Grade II on the National Heritage List for England. The Manor was the third residential recording studio in the United Kingdom. The first being Ascot Sound Studios built between 1970 and 1971 by John Lennon in an addition to his Tittenhurst Park mansion, where he recorded his ''Imagine'' album. The second being Rockfield Studios in Monmouthshire. The concept was pioneered in 1969 by French musician Michel Magne in the Château d'Hérouville. The manor house was owned by Richard Branson and used as a recording studio for Virgin Records, although artists signed to other labels also used the studios. Tom Newman and Simon Heyworth assisted in its construction and worked on various albums at the studio. The first officially released album to be recorded there, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Branson
Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is a British billionaire, entrepreneur, and business magnate. In the 1970s he founded the Virgin Group, which today controls more than 400 companies in various fields. Branson expressed his desire to become an entrepreneur at a young age. His first business venture, at the age of 16, was a magazine called ''Student''. In 1970, he set up a mail-order record business. He opened a chain of record stores, Virgin Records—later known as Virgin Megastores—in 1972. Branson's Virgin brand grew rapidly during the 1980s, as he started Virgin Atlantic airline and expanded the Virgin Records music label. In 1997, Branson founded the Virgin Rail Group to bid for passenger rail franchises during the privatisation of British Rail. The Virgin Trains brand operated the InterCity West Coast franchise from 1997 to 2019, the InterCity CrossCountry franchise from 1997 to 2007, and the InterCity East Coast franchise from 2015 to 2018. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Noko
Noko (born Norman Fisher-Jones, 1 February 1962, in Bootle, Lancashire, England) is an English musician, multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer, has formed and/or played with a number of bands primarily as a guitarist or bassist. In chronological order they were: Alvin the Aardvark and the Fuzzy Ants, the Umbrella, the Pete Shelley Group, the Cure, Luxuria, Apollo 440, Stealth Sonic Soul, Fast, Maximum Roach, James Maker and Noko 440 (also known as Frankenstein), Magazine, Raw Chimp, Levyathan, SCISM, Am I Dead Yet? and Buzzcocks (at the Pete Shelley Memorial concert at London's Royal Albert Hall in 2019). Biography In 1980, he formed his first band called Alvin the Aardvark & the Fuzzy Ants, who played their first gig on 16 January 1981 on '' After All That…This'', a Granada TV show presented by Nick Turnbull. Despite the DJ John Peel being a fan of their music, they never released any material, recording only an unreleased single at Open Eye Studios, in Liverpool and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Gardner (musician)
James Gardner (born 1 June 1962) is an English born New Zealand musician and composer. Gardner was born in Liverpool, England. He was a school friend of Noko and Howard Gray, with whom he later formed the band Apollo 440, Gardner spent much of the 1980s in London playing and programming keyboards and synthesizers for a variety of artists. During this time he also formed the short-lived band The Umbrella (which included Noko), where the influence of John Barry can be seen. Later, Gardner was involved with Luxuria, the band formed by Noko and Howard Devoto. In 1990, Gardner along with Noko, Howard Gray, and Trevor Gray, co-founded Apollo 440, an electronic music group. In 1993, Gardner left Apollo 440 in order to concentrate on composition, which had been a parallel interest, and he moved to New Zealand in 1994 with his (now) wife Glenda Keam, becoming a citizen of the country in 2001. In 1996, he set up the contemporary music ensemble 175 East, of which he was until recently di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kumo (musician)
Kumo is a British musician and composer, the pseudonym of Jono Podmore who was born in 1965. Biography Kumo came into existence in 1994 when composer, producer, engineer and arranger Jono Podmore began work at Watershed Studios, London and with Plink Plonk records, founding two sister labels to Plink Plonk: Autoi and Psychomat. He began to play the theremin, developing new techniques for live performance of electronic music. After a string of singles, remixes, live dates and international DJ commitments as Kumo, March 1997 saw the release of his first album ''Kaminari'' to significant critical acclaim. 1997 was also the year that Kumo moved temporarily to France to work with Irmin Schmidt (of Can) on his opera ''Gormenghast'', which premiered in 1998 and was re-staged in 2004. A selection from the opera recorded and mixed by Jono was released on Spoon/Mute records in 2000. October 2000 saw the release of the second Kumo album ''1+1=1'' on Spoon Records. In 2001, after extensi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.24 million. On the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary, Liverpool historically lay within the ancient hundred of West Derby in the county of Lancashire. It became a borough in 1207, a city in 1880, and a county borough independent of the newly-created Lancashire County Council in 1889. Its growth as a major port was paralleled by the expansion of the city throughout the Industrial Revolution. Along with general cargo, freight, and raw materials such as coal and cotton, merchants were involved in the slave trade. In the 19th century, Liverpool was a major port of departure for English and Irish emigrants to North America. It was also home to both the Cunard and White Star Lines, and was the port of registry of the ocean li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apollo 440
Apollo 440 (also known as Apollo Four Forty or @440) are a British electronic music group formed in Liverpool in 1990. The group has written, recorded, and produced five studio albums, collaborated with and produced other artists, remixed as Apollo 440 and as ambient cinematic alter-ego Stealth Sonic Orchestra, and created music for film, television, advertisements and multimedia. They notched up ten UK top 40 singles with three top-tens, and had a chart presence worldwide. Its name comes from the Apollo program and the frequency of concert pitch — the A note at 440 Hz, often denoted as "A440", and the Sequential Circuits sampler/sequencer, the Studio 440. They changed the writing of their name from Apollo 440 to Apollo Four Forty in 1996, though they switched back for their latest album. To date, Apollo 440's remixes range from U2, P. Diddy/ Jimmy Page, Jean-Michel Jarre and Ennio Morricone. Among their Stealth Sonic Orchestra remixes are a series of Manic Street Preac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Van Morrison
Sir George Ivan Morrison (born 31 August 1945), known professionally as Van Morrison, is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose recording career spans seven decades. He has won two Grammy Awards. As a teenager in the late 1950s, he played a variety of instruments such as guitar, harmonica, keyboards and saxophone for several Irish showbands, covering the popular hits of that time. Known as "Van the Man" to his fans, Morrison rose to prominence in the mid 1960s as the lead singer of the Northern Irish R&B and rock band Them. With Them, he recorded the garage band classic " Gloria". Under the pop-oriented guidance of Bert Berns, Morrison's solo career began in 1967 with the release of the hit single "Brown Eyed Girl". After Berns's death, Warner Bros. Records bought out Morrison's contract and allowed him three sessions to record ''Astral Weeks'' (1968). While initially a poor seller, the album has become regarded as a classic. ''Moondance'' (1970) e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tom Jones (singer)
Sir Thomas Jones Woodward (born 7 June 1940), known professionally as Tom Jones, is a Welsh singer. His career began with a string of top-ten hits in the mid-1960s. He has toured regularly, with appearances in Las Vegas (1967–2011). Jones's voice has been described by AllMusic as a "full-throated, robust baritone". His performing range has included pop, R&B, show tunes, country, dance, soul and gospel. In 2008, the ''New York Times'' called Jones a musical "shape shifter", who could "slide from soulful rasp to pop croon, with a voice as husky as it was pretty". Jones has sold over 100 million records, with 36 Top 40 hits in the UK and 19 in the US, including "It's Not Unusual", "What's New Pussycat?", the theme song for the 1965 James Bond film '' Thunderball'', "Green, Green Grass of Home", "Delilah", "She's a Lady", "Kiss" and " Sex Bomb". Jones has also occasionally dabbled in acting, first making his acting debut playing the lead role in the 1979 television film ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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