The cool house music band Tortured Soul is coming to Charlotte's Visulite Theater on March 25.
If you've never heard the group, let me explain the band's sound: it's house music created using live instruments, not computers.
I recently played a track by the band on my podcast, Audiofloss. Here's a link to that episode: http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/audiofloss/2007/11/28/the-all-house-music-edition/Â
In addition, I wrote a story about them a few years ago for the Atlanta edition of Creative Loafing. Here's the text from that story:
The escort at the center of the New York governor controversy is gaining popularity on MySpace.
Ashley Alexandra Dupre's MySpace page has more than 6 million hits and her song has been played more than 275,000 times.
Have you listened to the song? I'm sure people are listening out of curiosity and not because it's a good song. It's pop drivel along the lines of Britney Spears. No one would by this woman's CD — judging by the lone track that's online.
It's another one that'll wind up next to Kevin Federline's in the $1 bin at Wal-Mart.
A few days ago, I posted a video by a new artist named Estelle, and I mentioned that she may be coming to Charlotte soon. Well, I just got a press release from local promoter Michael Kitchen and it reads:
I have two hot shows for the month of April, and I'm only gonna tell you about one. Baileys presents Estelle hosted by Grammy Award winning singer John Legend. That's right John Legend. If you haven't heard of Estelle, you will. In my opinion she is a mixture between Lauryn Hill and Mary J. Blige. She is the first artist on John Legend's label Homeschool Records. Not only will you get a hot new artist but you get to see John Legend and who knows what he will do. Yes, she is performing with a band. If you never been to a Baileys/The Sol Kitchen event, then you need to be at this one. Tickets will go on sale next week. As of now, you can go to my site - www.thesolkitchen.com to pick up tickets. I will have them in other locations as well. SAVE THE DATE - Wednesday, April 16, 2008 @ Amos Southend - 1423 S. Tryon St. Charlotte, NC. Doors open at 8 pm. Baileys present Homeschool Records/Atlantic Records artist ESTELLE hosted by Grammy Award Winning Singer John Legend brought to you by The Sol Kitchen.
Here's a look at her video again, in case you missed it:
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By Chris Faraone, Boston's Weekly Dig
Wednesday started innocent enough with two Bloody Marys (or whatever the plural of that is), three 16-ounce Lone Star brews and a joint thicker than your mother’s tampon. My man Bill at the Jackalope (which is named after some sort of odd hybrid creature that patrols the southern landscape) makes the cruelest bloody that I’ve ever slugged, complete with red-hot chili pepper sprinkled on the rim.
Speaking of spicy rim jobs, my second to last party of the night was Ron Jeremy’s birthday bash at The Music Gym — a fly new joint on Sixth Street owned by a white dreaded Bostonian named Rob. The only problem is Mr. Jeremy was a no-show at his own affair, which, in addition to being downright rude (people went through a lot of trouble prepping the party hats and nail the tail on the donkey games) was also disappointing. Luckily, the porn crazed post-adolescents who rolled up for a glimpse of the Hedgehog’s pole had a sweet and sexy two-time AVN award-winner named Pennny Flame to ogle and sign autographs. Oh yeah — Lovewhip and Audible Mainframe rocked the spot.
Coming this Friday (March 14) to the CLog is Charlotte’s first-ever 24-Hour Blog-o-thon!
What exactly is a 24-Hour Blog-o-thon? Well, the event’s name is pretty self-explanatory: The editorial department here at Creative Loafing will post several blog entries every damn hour for 24 straight hours.
That’s right; that wasn’t a typo — 24 straight hours.
The fun starts this Friday at 6 a.m. and continues until 6 a.m. Saturday. The entire edit team at CL will be posting all kinds of content — text, audio, video, photos — about all kinds of subjects — news, film, music, arts and more. And, really, by 2 a.m., you never know what kind of weird crap we’ll be throwing up on the Internet.
This is sure to be one hell of a train wreck.
So, this Friday log on to: www.theclogblog.com and enjoy!
By Chris Faraone, Boston's Weekly Dig
Every time I hit the road for this type of trip I’m reminded of Bloodsport — my favorite Jean-Claude Van Damme film that is also reputed for catapulting Forest Whitaker’s career into the Oscar realm. The movie begins with fighters from around the world practicing with their masters before traveling to Kumite (pronounced Koo-mi-tay) — an underground marital arts Olympics in which there are only three ways to defeat opponents: 1 – to throw him off the mat; 2 – to make him say the local equivalent to “uncle;” or 3 – to straight up murder him.
Here's a shot of soul/rock vocalist Alice Smith in concert last night at the Evening Muse. The show rocked ass, by the way. Photo by Jasiatic.
Last night, the Top 12 contestants on America's largest karaoke contest performed songs by The Beatles.
Here's my contestant-by-contestant thoughts on what went down:
Justin Timberlake is not a comedian... His induction speech was not funny, though he tried. Madonna also gave a snoozer of an acceptance speech.
The highlight — I heard it on the radio this morning, but haven't been able to locate it online — was Billy Joel's speech about John Mellencamp.
It was hard-hitting, honest and humorous — the way Timberlake wishes his was. Joel told Mellencamp to be proud for outliving the music industry which is dead. He talked about VH1 being more fun when it played videos, and the Hall of Fame inductions were more fun before they were worried about selling commercials.
Part of the speech, thanks to Atomic Pop:
“…don’t let this club membership change you, John. Stay ornery, stay mean. We need you to be pissed off, and restless, because no matter what they tell us - we know, this country is going to hell in a handcart. This country’s been hijacked. You know it and i know it. People are worried. People are scared and people are angry. People need to hear a voice like yours that’s out there to echo the discontent that’s out there in the heartland. They need to hear stories about it. They need to hear stories about frustration, alienation and desperation. They need to know that somewhere out there somebody feels they way that they do. In the small towns and in the big cities. They need to hear it. And it doesn’t matter if they hear it on a jukebox in the local gin mill, or in a goddamn truck commercial, because they ain’t gonna hear it on the radio anymore. They don’t care how they hear it, as long as they hear it good and loud and clear the way you’ve always been saying it all along. You’re right john, this is still our country…”
A live concert is currently being broadcast on MySpace live from Kuwait. The show, dubbed Operation MySpace, started at 2 p.m. today and stars bands like Disturbed, Jessica Simpson, The Pussycat Dolls and Filter, among others. And it's hosted by Carlos Mencia. Weird lineup, but the picture and sound quality is great.
Check it out: http://www.myspace.com/operationmyspace