Happy Birthday ROGER TAYLOR (video)

#rogertaylor #duranduran #arcadia #rockfile 

Roger Andrew Taylor (born 26 April 1960) is an English musician, best known as the drummer of the rock band Duran Duran from their inception until 1985, and again from 2001 onwards, the band selling in excess of 70 million records in the process.

Roger Andrew Taylor was born into a modest family and was brought up in the Shard End area of Birmingham up until the age of 11, and a then a small suburban house in Castle Bromwich (15 Hawthorne Rd). His father worked in the car industry. He began drumming at around the age of twelve, teaching himself by playing along with his favourite records. His first ambition was to be a goalkeeper for English football club Aston Villa, and as a child he was taken to every home match by his father. He would eventually "play" at Villa Park but as Duran Duran's drummer for their 1983 charity concert there. Taylor has cited drummers Paul Thompson of Roxy Music, Charlie Watts of The Rolling Stones and Tony Thompson of Chic as his key musical influences growing up.

Before joining Duran Duran, he performed with several school (Park Hall School in Castle Bromwich, Warwickshire) and local club bands. After being inspired by the punk bands playing at Barbarellas club in Birmingham, he formed the new wave/punk outfit Scent Organs, who became regional finalists in the 'Melody Maker' young band of the year in 1978. After the band split in 1979, he joined Duran Duran and became one of the 'fab five' as they were called in the US. Roger became known as 'the quiet one'.

Taylor became an international star with the other members of Duran Duran as they rose to fame in the early 1980s. Taylor played drums on the band's first three studio albums (Duran Duran, Rio, and Seven and the Ragged Tiger) and the live album Arena. In 1985, the band recorded the theme to the James Bond film A View To A Kill, which became their second US No. 1 hit and the only Bond theme in history to do so. However, the intense schedule of recording and touring, coupled with the pressures of fame, left Taylor unhappy with being in the band. His final performance with the original line-up of Duran Duran was in July 1985 at the Live Aid benefit concert in Philadelphia, which reached a global audience of 2 billion people. Taylor and the band had each picked up two Grammy awards during this period.

Prior to leaving the band, he worked with Duran Duran bandmates Simon Le Bon and Nick Rhodes on the album So Red The Rose for their side project Arcadia in 1985. The album featured Sting, David Gilmour, Herbie Hancock and Grace Jones. Taylor also contributed percussion to the other Duran Duran splinter group Power Station's version of Some Like It Hot from their self-titled album. He then purchased a remote farm estate in the hills of Gloucestershire to live a quiet life away from the music world. The Sun newspaper tracked him down and devoted a whole page to his departure dubbing him 'the hermit of pop'. Initially his hiatus was expected to be for a year, but in 1986 the remaining members of the band issued a statement saying that he was leaving Duran Duran.

In 1994, while visiting a friend in Paris, he temporarily joined Duran Duran to play drums on three tracks for the covers album Thank You (although only two ended up on the album), later appearing in the video for "Perfect Day" and on the band's Top of the Pops performance of the song.

In 1997, Taylor regained his appetite for the music industry. He briefly formed the electro/dance band Freebass, which produced a single, "Love Is Like Oxygen", (a cover of a song by The Sweet) on underground dance label Cleveland City Records. The record reached the top ten of the Music Week UK Dance Chart. Taylor also produced electro house tracks with Freebass member Jake Roberts under the name Funkface. Lost This Feeling and Shine were released on Taylor's own label Rt Music.

In 2001, Taylor rejoined Duran Duran, as all five of the original members reunited to record new material and perform as a quintet again. This culminated in five sold-out nights at Wembley Arena, playing Madison Square Garden again, and signing with Epic Records in New York. The band delivered a worldwide hit single '(Reach Up For The) Sunrise' and a multi-million-selling album Astronaut.

In 2003, he began a long-running DJ residency at London's Met Bar playing a mix of house and hip-hop and he has gone on to become a renowned DJ over recent years, performing sets at Cielo New York and Pacha Ibiza.

The All You Need Is Now album was released on 21 December 2010 to worldwide critical acclaim. It immediately reached the number 1 spot on the iTunes pop chart in 15 different countries. Duran Duran commenced a supporting tour running well into 2012 reaching far and wide across the world. The band also played to an audience of 70,000 people in Hyde Park to coincide with the opening of the 2012 London Olympic Games. Taylor is currently working with his bandmates on the 14th Duran Duran album with producers Mark Ronson, Ben Hudson & Nile Rodgers. Described by John Taylor as an 'epic'. Due for release in spring 2015

source: wikipedia

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Happy Birthday GIORGIO MORODER (video)

#giorgiomoroder #rockfile

Giovanni Giorgio Moroder (born 26 April 1940 in Urtijëi) is an Italian record producer, songwriter, performer and DJ. Moroder is frequently credited with pioneering synth disco and electronic dance music.

When in Munich in the 1970s, he started his own record label called Oasis Records, which several years later became a subdivision of Casablanca Records. He produced huge hits for Donna Summer during the late-1970s disco era, including "Bad Girls", "Last Dance", "Love to Love You Baby", "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)", "Dim All the Lights", "MacArthur Park", "Hot Stuff", "On the Radio", and "I Feel Love", and is the founder of the former Musicland Studios in Munich, a recording studio used by many renowned artists including Electric Light Orchestra, Led Zeppelin, Queen and Elton John.

In addition to producing several hits with Donna Summer, Moroder produced a number of electronic disco hits for The Three Degrees, two albums for Sparks, a handful of songs on Bonnie Tyler's album Bitterblue as well as her 1985 single "Here She Comes". Moroder also created a score of songs for performers including David Bowie, Kylie Minogue, Irene Cara, Madleen Kane, Melissa Manchester, Blondie, Japan, and France Joli.

source: wikipedia

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Happy Birthday ROBERT SMITH (video)

#robertsmith #thecure #rockfile

Robert James Smith (born 21 April 1959) is an English musician. He is the lead singer, guitar player and principal songwriter of the rock band The Cure, and its only constant member since its formation in 1976. NY Rock describes him as "pop culture's unkempt poster child of doom and gloom," and asserts that some of his songs are a "somber introspection over lush, brooding guitars." Smith's guitar-playing and use of flanging, chorusing and phasing effects put him among the forefront of the goth and New Wave genres. He also played guitar in the band Siouxsie and the Banshees. Smith is a multi-instrumentalist, known for his unique stage look, such as teased hair and smudged makeup, and his distinctive voice.

Smith began sporting his trademark and cult style of smeared red lipstick, eye-liner, pale complexion, artfully dishevelled black hair, black clothes and trainers in the early 1980s, around the same time as the Goth subculture took off. However, Smith denies any credit for this trend and claims it is a coincidence that the styles are similar, stating that he wore make-up since he was young and further saying: "It's so pitiful when 'Goth' is still tagged onto the name The Cure."

His songwriting for the band's early albums centered around themes of depression, loneliness, and isolation. The sombre mood of these early albums, along with Smith's on-stage persona, cemented the band's "gothic" image.

The band's aesthetic went from gloomy to psychedelic beginning with the album The Top. In 1986, Smith altered his image by appearing on-stage and in press photos sporting short spiky hair and polo shirts (this can be seen in The Cure in Orange, a concert in the south of France released on video in 1987). This new haircut made the headlines on MTV news.

Although Smith's public persona could be deemed to portray a depressed image, he has claimed that his songs do not convey how he feels all, or even most of the time:

    "At the time we wrote Disintegration ... it's just about what I was doing really, how I felt. But I'm not like that all the time. That's the difficulty of writing songs that are a bit depressing. People think you're like that all the time, but I don't think that. I just usually write when I'm depressed."

Smith's songwriting has developed a range of styles and themes throughout his career. Some songs incorporate literary paraphrase, such as Camus' novel L'Etranger in "Killing an Arab" (1978)), and "How Beautiful You Are" (1987), based on a poem by Baudelaire. Others involve punk metafiction ("So What"), surrealism ("Accuracy"), straightforward rock/pop ("Boys Don't Cry", "I'm Cold"), and poetic mood pieces ("Another Day" and "Fire in Cairo"). In subsequent decades, Smith explored more poetic moods, which accorded with New Order and other bands of that genre.

Smith's songwriting has sometimes been pop-oriented, for example "Love Cats" and "Catch". However, even Smith's seemingly upbeat tunes invariably contain dark themes; for example, "In Between Days" contrasts a bouncy pop-rock beat with lyrics about sadness and heartbreak.

Although Smith is the main songwriter with The Cure, songwriting credits are usually shared with the band's contemporary line-up.

In an interview in 2000, Smith said that "there is one particular kind of music, an atmospheric type of music, that I enjoy making with The Cure. I enjoy it a lot more than any other kind of sound". When Smith was asked about the 'sound' of his songwriting, Smith said that he did not "think there is such a thing as a typical Cure sound. I think there are various Cure sounds from different periods and different line-ups."

me and Robert, 1996

source: wikipedia

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Happy Birthday PETER GARRETT (video)

#petergarrett #midnightoil #rockfileradio

Peter Robert Garrett AM (born 16 April 1953) is an Australian musician, environmentalist, activist and former politician.

Garrett was lead singer of the rock band Midnight Oil from 1973 until its disbanding in 2002. He served as President of the Australian Conservation Foundation for ten years and, in 2003, was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for his contribution to the environment and music industry.

He was the Australian Labor Party member of the House of Representatives for the seat of Kingsford Smith, New South Wales, from October 2004 to September 2013. After the Labor Party won in the November 2007 election, Garrett was appointed Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. On 8 March 2010, his portfolio title was changed to Environment Protection, Heritage and the Arts. He continued in this role in Julia Gillard's first Ministry. He was re-elected at the 2010 election and was appointed Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth by Prime Minister Julia Gillard. He was sworn into this portfolio on 14 September 2010 as a member of the Second Gillard Ministry, and following a leadership spill in the Australian Labor Party, Garrett resigned his position as Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth and moved to the backbench. He later announced that he would not be contesting his seat at the next federal election.

Garrett became a Member of the Order of Australia in 2003 "For service to the community as a prominent advocate for environmental conservation and protection, and to the music industry."

In 2009, the French Government appointed Garrett an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters. In 2010, the World Wide Fund for Nature presented him with their Leaders for a Living Planet award.

source: wikipedia

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Happy Birthday CHRISTIAN ÄLVESTAM (video)

#christianalvestam #scarsymmetry #solution45 #rockfile

Gunnar Christian Älvestam (Born April 14, 1976 in Sweden) is a vocalist, lyricist, guitarist, bassist and drummer for several bands from Sweden. He is, however, best known as the former vocalist for the Swedish metal band Scar Symmetry. He currently performs with several bands, including Solution .45 and Miseration, and has made several guest appearances for other music bands. He is most known in the metal community for possessing both an extreme clean singing range and an ability to growl.

In late 2007 Jani Stefanovic formed Solution .45, with Christian Älvestam (who at this time was still with Scar Symmetry) joining as one of its last members. Jani stresses that despite Christian's presence in the band, it will not be a Scar Symmetry clone and that songs had been ready for some time before his arrival.

Miseration is a Swedish death metal band formed in 2006, and signed to the label Lifeforce. The band is one out of a collection of collaborations with both Jani Stefanovic and Christian Älvestam, who provides vocals.

In addition to his current bands, Christian has also released an EP called Self 2.0, written and produced completely by him. Unlike his traditional work, the album consists entirely of clean vocals. In more detail, Christian explains

"It's not exactly a secret that I have a weak spot for more pop-oriented stuff - especially in the vein of the sound of the '80s," he says. "In fact, I have always been listening to softer music, alongside the heavier stuff, which is probably why my own music so often, unintentionally, tend to end up being a mixture of the two. I simply can't help myself when it comes to merging the aforesaid styles together, it seems. I'd like to call it unavoidable influence, as a direct result of having been indoctrinated with both, from childhood upwards. With that said, fighting against it is not an easy thing, whether you want to or not. At the same time, some would call it a mixed blessing, I guess. Anyhow, I have wanted to do something a bit different from what I usually do for a long time now and that is to make an all-stripped-down and laid-back album, where I use my clean vocals only. You who have followed me since the early days know I've made brief digressions, musically, of that sort before, like the 'Final State' trilogy (UNMOORED) and 'Lethean Tears' (SOLUTION .45), to name a few, so it's not like 'Self 2.0' is me heading out into completely unexplored territory. I've been there before, grubbing in its periphery. Then again, I guess you could see 'Self 2.0' as me going all the way for the first time, if you like!

The album was released on October 19th, 2012.

source: wikipedia

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