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The Penguin Cafe Orchestra
The Penguin Cafe Orchestra (PCO) were an avant-pop band led by English guitarist Simon Jeffes. Co-founded with cellist Helen Liebmann, it toured extensively during the 1980s and 1990s. The band's sound is not easily categorized, having elements of exuberant folk music and a minimalist aesthetic occasionally reminiscent of composers such as Philip Glass. The group recorded and performed for 24 years until Jeffes died of an inoperable brain tumour in 1997. Several members of the original group reunited for three concerts in 2007. Since then, five original members have continued to play concerts of PCO's music, initially as The Anteaters, then as The Orchestra That Fell to Earth. In 2009, Jeffes' son Arthur founded a successor band simply called Penguin Cafe. Although it includes no original PCO members, the band features many PCO pieces in its live repertoire, and records and performs new music written by Arthur. History After becoming disillusioned with the rigid structures of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight. The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Paleolithic period, but takes its name from the Angles, a Germanic tribe deriving its name from the Anglia peninsula, who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in the 10th century and has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century. The English language, the Anglican Church, and Engli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Encyclopedia Of Popular Music
''The Encyclopedia of Popular Music'' is an encyclopedia created in 1989 by Colin Larkin. It is the "modern man's" equivalent of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music'', which Larkin describes in less than flattering terms.''The Times'', ''The Knowledge'', Christmas edition, 22 December 2007- 4 January 2008. It was described by ''The Times'' as "the standard against which all others must be judged". History of the encyclopedia Larkin believed that rock music and popular music were at least as significant historically as classical music, and as such, should be given definitive treatment and properly documented. ''The Encyclopedia of Popular Music'' is the result. In 1989, Larkin sold his half of the publishing company Scorpion Books to finance his ambition to publish an encyclopedia of popular music. Aided by a team of initially 70 contributors, he set about compiling the data in a pre-internet age, "relying instead on information gleaned from music magazines, individual expertise ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jennifer Maidman
Jennifer Maidman (formerly Ian Maidman, born 24 January 1958) is a British musician, singer, producer, songwriter, actor and author who has collaborated extensively with many internationally well known groups and artists. Her work appears on hundreds of recordings from 1976 onwards and she has received numerous awards, including a platinum award from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for the album 'Hormonally Yours', on which she worked as part of the band Shakespears Sister. She was a core member of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra from 1984 until 2007. She is best known as a bass guitarist but also sings and plays guitar, keyboards, drums, percussion, ukulele, cuatro and Chapman Stick. In June 2016 her website announced that she was working on a solo album in Woodstock, New York featuring amongst others, Jerry Marotta (ex Peter Gabriel), Annie Whitehead, and David Torn. The album, entitled 'Dreamland' was released on 1 August 2017 and features Marotta, Torn and Whitehead, wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melody Maker
''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. It was founded in 1926, largely as a magazine for dance band musicians, by Leicester-born composer, publisher Lawrence Wright; the first editor was Edgar Jackson. In January 2001, it was merged into "long-standing rival" (and IPC Media sister publication) ''New Musical Express''. 1950s–1960s Originally the ''Melody Maker'' (''MM'') concentrated on jazz, and had Max Jones, one of the leading British proselytizers for that music, on its staff for many years. It was slow to cover rock and roll and lost ground to the ''New Musical Express'' (''NME''), which had begun in 1952. ''MM'' launched its own weekly singles chart (a top 20) on 7 April 1956, and an LPs charts in November 1958, two years after the ''Record Mirror'' had published the first UK Albums Chart. From 1964, the paper led its rival publications in terms of approac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cuatro (instrument)
The cuatro is a family of Latin American string instruments played in Puerto Rico, Venezuela and other Latin American countries. It is derived from the Spanish guitar. Although some have viola-like shapes, most cuatros resemble a small to mid-sized classical guitar. In Puerto Rico and Venezuela, the cuatro is an ensemble instrument for secular and religious music, and is played at parties and traditional gatherings. Cuatro means ''four'' in Spanish; the instrument's 15th century predecessors were the Spanish vihuela and the Portuguese cavaquinho, the latter having four strings like the cuatro. Modern cuatros come a variety of sizes and shapes, and number of strings. Cuatros can either have single-strings, like a guitar, or double- or triple-coursed strings like a mandolin, and vary in size from a large mandolin or small guitar, to the size of a full-size guitar. Depending on their particular stringing, cuatros are part of the guitar or mandolin subfamilies of the lute fa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geoffrey Richardson (musician)
Peter Geoffrey Richardson (born 15 July 1950), is a British viola player and multi-instrumentalist best known for his work with Caravan, Murray Head and the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. Career Richardson's father was a semi-pro musician. Richardson himself studied at Winchester School of Art. Richardson joined Spirogyra in 1972, but the band broke up shortly after and he joined Caravan on viola. In the mid-1970s, he diversified into session work, including with Kevin Ayers, Café Jacques, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, and The Buzzcocks. He left Caravan in 1978, but returned in 1980, playing on ''The Album''. Later in his career, he toured with Murray Head, Penguin Cafe Orchestra and Bob Geldof. He has also recorded with Murray Head, including ''Between Us'' (1979), ''Innocence'' (1993) and ''Pipe Dreams'' (1996). He released a solo album, ''Viola Mon Amour'', in 1993, followed by three albums with fellow Caravan band member Jim Leverton Jim Leverton (born 1946, Dover, Kent, England ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The South Bank Show
''The South Bank Show'' is a British television arts magazine series originally produced by London Weekend Television and broadcast on ITV between 1978 and 2010. A new version of the series began 27 May 2012 on Sky Arts. Conceived, written, and presented by former BBC arts broadcaster Melvyn Bragg, the show aims to bring both high art and popular culture to a mass audience. History ITV (1978–2010) The programme was a replacement for ''Aquarius'', the arts series which had been running since 1970. Presenter Melvyn Bragg was already well known for his arts broadcasting on BBC television, notably ''Monitor'' and BBC Two's ''The Lively Arts''. It first aired on 14 January 1978, covering many subjects, including Germaine Greer, Gerald Scarfe and Paul McCartney. It is the longest continuously running arts programme on UK television. From the beginning the series' intent was to mix high art and popular culture. This has remained, and the programme has always focused predominan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ITV Network
ITV is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network. It was launched in 1955 as Independent Television to provide competition to BBC Television (established in 1936). ITV is the oldest commercial network in the UK. Since the passing of the Broadcasting Act 1990, it has been legally known as Channel 3 to distinguish it from the other analogue channels at the time, BBC1, BBC2 and Channel 4. ITV was for four decades a network of separate companies which provided regional television services and also shared programmes between each other to be shown on the entire network. Each franchise was originally owned by a different company. After several mergers, the fifteen regional franchises are now held by two companies: ITV plc, which runs the ITV1 channel, and STV Group, which runs the STV channel. The ITV network is a separate entity from ITV plc, the company that resulted from the merger of Granada plc and Carlton Communications in 2004. ITV plc holds the Channel 3 b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Bank
The South Bank is an entertainment and commercial district in central London, next to the River Thames opposite the City of Westminster. It forms a narrow strip of riverside land within the London Borough of Lambeth (where it adjoins Albert Embankment) and the London Borough of Southwark, (where it adjoins Bankside). As such, the South Bank may be regarded as somewhat akin to the riverside part of an area known previously as Lambeth Marsh and North Lambeth. While the South Bank is not formally defined, it is generally understood to bounded by Westminster Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge, and to be centred approximately half a mile (800 metres) south-east of Charing Cross. The name South Bank was first widely used in 1951 during the Festival of Britain. The area's long list of attractions includes the County Hall complex, the Sea Life London Aquarium, the London Dungeon, Jubilee Gardens and the London Eye, the Southbank Centre, Royal Festival Hall, National Theatre, an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Roundhouse
The Roundhouse is a performing arts and concert venue situated at the Grade II* listed former railway engine shed in Chalk Farm, London, England. The building was erected in 1846–1847 by the London & North Western Railway as a roundhouse, a circular building containing a railway turntable, but was used for that purpose for only about a decade. After being used as a warehouse for a number of years, the building fell into disuse just before World War II. It was first made a listed building in 1954. It reopened after 25 years, in 1964, as a performing arts venue, when the playwright Arnold Wesker established the Centre 42 Theatre Company and adapted the building as a theatre. The large circular structure has hosted various promotions, such as the launch of the underground paper ''International Times'' in 1966, one of only two UK appearances by The Doors with Jim Morrison in 1968, and the Greasy Truckers Party in 1972. The Greater London Council ceded control of the building t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kraftwerk
Kraftwerk (, "power station") is a German band formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk were among the first successful acts to popularize the genre. The group began as part of West Germany's experimental krautrock scene in the early 1970s before fully embracing electronic instrumentation, including synthesizers, drum machines, and vocoders. Wolfgang Flür joined the band in 1974 and Karl Bartos in 1975, expanding the band to a quartet. On commercially successful albums such as ''Autobahn'' (1974), '' Trans-Europe Express'' (1977), ''The Man-Machine'' (1978), and ''Computer World'' (1981), Kraftwerk developed a self-described "robot pop" style that combined electronic music with pop melodies, sparse arrangements, and repetitive rhythms, while adopting a stylized image including matching suits. Following the release of '' Electric Café'' (1986), Flür left the group in 1987, f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Penguin Cafe Orchestra (album)
''Penguin Cafe Orchestra'' is the self-titled second studio album by the Penguin Cafe Orchestra, released in 1981, and recorded between 1977 and 1980. By this album, the line-up for the band had expanded greatly, with contribution including Simon Jeffes, Helen Leibmann, Steve Nye, Gavyn Wright of the original quartet, as well as Geoff Richardson, Peter Veitch, Braco, Giles Leamna, Julio Segovia and Neil Rennie. All pieces were composed by Simon Jeffes except for "Paul's Dance" (Jeffes and Nye), "Cutting Branches" (traditional), and "Walk Don't Run" (by Johnny Smith). The cover painting is by Emily Young. "Cutting Branches for a Temporary Shelter" is based on the traditional Zimbabwean song " Nhemamusasa", a field recording of which can be heard played on mbira on the Nonesuch Records album '' The Soul of the Mbira''. In 2021, ''Penguin Cafe Orchestra'' was named among the fifty best albums of 1981 by Spin. Track listing All tracks composed by Simon Jeffes; except where indic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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