Beatlemania Celebrated With New Capsule Collection
Credit: Bernard Gotfryd
The Beatles and Capitol Records are celebrating their 60-year partnership and Beatlemania with an exclusive capsule collection from Online Ceramics. The collection comes alongside The Beatles: 1964 U.S. Albums in Mono vinyl box set and the Beatles ’64 documentary produced by Martin Scorsese and directed by David Tedeschi, which is streaming now exclusively on Disney+. On February 7, 1964, The Beatles arrived in the United States at John F. Kennedy International Airport to scores of screaming fans. Two nights later, they made their official American debut with a performance on the Ed Sullian Show, which was seen by 73 million viewers and millions more in Canada. They returned later that year for a month-long tour of North America comprising 32 shows. Beatlemania had taken over their native U.K. and was spreading to the United States. Capitol Records released their debut album, Meet The Beatles! on January 20th in a deal with EMI. Serious fans know that the first Beatles album was the 1963 release Please Please Me released in the UK, but Meet The Beatles! was their first release via Capitol Records in America.
By the end of 1964, The Beatles had sold 15 million records in the United States, seven Top 40 singles, six number ones, six Top 10 albums, and had the blockbuster film Hard Day’s Night. The capsule collection has incorporated original handwritten notes and tracklists from the original production master of A Hard Day’s Night and promotional photos from their first North American Tour and Ed Sullivan Show appearance. Hoodies, T-shirts, the vinyl box set, and more are available from The Beatles’ official store. Their US debut is not the only thing celebrated, as the band has two Grammy nominations for Now and Then.
Public Enemy, De La Soul, Cypress Hill & More To Perform At Hip-Hop 101: New York To The Bay Concert
Public Enemy, De La Soul, Cypress Hill, and more are scheduled to perform at Hip-Hop 101: From New York To The Bay, a one-day concert at Oakland Arena. The show takes its name from the role the artists played in hip-hop’s Golden Era. Dilated Peoples, Mistah F.A.B., and Too $hort are also slated to perform at the event, which takes place November 9th. Tickets are on sale now via Ticketmaster and there is a special four-pack for $120, including fees. Public Enemy co-founder Flavor Flav B-Real of Cypress Hill made a statement about the show in a press release.
“I’m hyped for Public Enemy to come back to the Bay and bring the noise and everything we got for this legendary lineup of hip hop history. In just one day, people will get to see how far hip hop has come and how unlimited its artistry can be,” added PE co-founder Chuck D. “Prepare for minds to be blown by how every act on that stage will be bringing something different to the mix. But the common denominator is that we’re all going to rock the house,” he continued. B-Real of Cypress Hill declared, “We’re comin’ atcha, Oakland! The Hill and all of our brothers about to come through and smash the whole city up. Don’t miss this!”
Hip-Hop 101: New York To The Bay will take place on Saturday, November 9 at the Oakland Arena. Doors open at 5:30. In addition to the $120 four-pack offer, individual tickets start at $52. Please go to Ticketmaster for more information.
Third Man Hardware & Reverb Present La Grotte Guitar Pedal
Jack White’s Third Man Hardware and Reverb have created the Anasounds La Grotte reverb pedal. White is known for his guitar playing, most famously his “Seven Nation Army” riff that utilized a pitch effect. He used that same invention when he imagined the La Grotte. He says,
“It’s been a lifetime of searching for a small real spring reverb effect unit that could be used as a stomp box on stage or in the studio. The hang up is that you normally have to use really long springs to get a good sound, making the unit too large. With the La Grotte pedal, it was the addition of the third spring that really brought this sound alive and gave us the ability to have that long decay from a real spring in a small box. In addition, the built-in drive/boost feature you get from the “dry” knob is very impressive in how it elevates the signal you are sending to the springs.”
Pre-order limited edition yellow exclusively on Reverb, and the standard black now on ThirdManRecords.com. UK based customers can pre-order both black and special edition yellow on ThirdManRecords.co.uk. Jack White posted a video of him using the pedal to Instagram.
The details of the pedal were included in a press release, such as it being analog and having a two band EQ. Pedal stats:
La Grotte includes new tonal sounds pulled from the Anasounds element pedal and le bon pedal in one single box.
100% analog and mechanic
Dry/Wet setting
2 band EQ
includes an embedded preamp based on Tampco’s Tone Oven.
High quality spring tanks from Accutronics/Belton in Korea
A gain control is available inside to crunch even more or even less.
A -10dB pad is available inside to plug any line input easily
You can activate or deactivate it internally
The EQ has a low cut of 700Hz and a high cut of 1.6kHz
Tons of headroom available.
The bypass has 2 modes : True bypass or buffered bypass
You can select them with a toggle switch in side.
On buffered bypass, when you bypass the pedal, we leave the tails die with elegance.
On true bypass, when you bypass it, you shut down everything abruptly.
Input impedance is very high and output impedance is very low which makes the system not sensitive to any other pedals. Then you can plug it anywhere in the signal chain, which is uncommon for such a vintage effect.
The La Grotte pedal can be pre-ordered now, and it ships out on September 30th.
The West Hollywood Plummer Park Community Center Hosted Event To Revive Jamaican Jonkonnu Artistic Tradition
Jeffrey Anderson Gunter and Marie Kellier
The City of West Hollywood Community Center in Plummer Park came alive with history, culture and heritage on Saturday, August 10th, when International Eye LA presented ‘Two Faces of Jonkonnu: Resistance and Joy.’ The event was part of an ongoing project by Jamaican artist Marie Kellier to support revival of Jamaica’s Jonkonnu tradition. It was funded by a grant to International Eye LA from the City of West Hollywood Arts Division.
International Eye LA empowers individuals and communities by activating safe spaces with creative, multicultural and healing activities in arts, culture, business, education and humanities.
The almost capacity audience for ‘Two Faces of Jonkonnu: Resistance and Joy’ was enraptured as artist Marie Kellier presented an evening devoted to the history, heritage and socio-cultural context of Jamaica’s Jonkonnu tradition, which she presented through a contemporary and creative lens. The room was beautifully framed with several 8-foot banners reproduced from a series of lithographs by Jamaican artist Isaac Mendes Belisario, who captured and presented first person accounts of Jonkonnu performances, accompanied by paintings of the elaborate costumes they wore in the 1700’s. The lithographs, which Kellier said initiated her investigation into the status of the tradition, were first published in Jamaica between 1837 and 1838 and more recently by the Jamaica Gleaner to shed light on the almost total disappearance of the tradition. Additional paintings of Jonkonnu images by Jamaican artist Bernard Stanley Hoyes rounded out the display and helped to represent a modern interpretation of the practice.
Jankano Supporting Belly Woman
Master of Ceremonies Jeffrey Anderson Gunter officiated the evening’s activities and helped to welcome Jonkonnu characters Queen, Belly Woman, Pitchy Patchy, Actor Boy, Jack in the Green and Devil to the red carpet. Original music composed by Ricardo Wilson, M.D. provided the rhythm to which each character walked the red carpet, wearing beautiful Jonkonnu costumes designed and fabricated by Kellier. Each character was highlighted and their history and purpose shared with the intrigued audience.
In presenting excerpts from her ongoing research, Kellier described Jonkonnu as a performance masquerade that was developed and used as a tool for resistance, survival and celebration among enslaved Africans in Jamaica in the 1700’s. For those unfamiliar with the tradition, she went on to comment that “Amidst the toil, confinement and rigors of enslavement, artists, musicians, dancers and other creatives from diverse African communities gathered the materials and supplies they needed, found ways to communicate with each other, carved out time to develop characters, fabricate costumes and present this unique and iconic art form with dance, pantomime and music. Research into Jonkonnu practice she shared, indicated that Jonkonnu performers were feared by plantation owners both because they did not understand it and because Jonkonnus were always suspected of being involved in ‘subversive behavior’ while ‘jonkoonooing.’
A dramatic interpretation of the the Belly Woman character in relation to slave owners during ‘Two Faces of Jonkonnu: Resistance and Joy’ explored origins of the ‘Belly Woman’ character in the context of cultural retention, creative resistance, freedom and the human ability to survive and thrive in the face of unspeakable acts of oppression.
Upcoming development of her work on the Jonkonnu tradition, Kellier revealed, included fabricating additional original costumes for the characters King, Horse Head, Cow Head, and House Jonkonnu. She is currently seeking more funding sources while preparing a manuscript, a website, and a feature length film.
The evening concluded with acknowledgement of some of the organizations and individuals who have been instrumental in supporting the work and a photo op session with the Jonkonnu characters. International Eye Los Angeles is additionally supported by grants from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, Alliance for California Traditional Arts (ACTA) and Office of Supervisor Holly Mitchell, with organizational support from LA County Department of Arts and Culture and California Arts Council.
