" ~~~ U2 ~~~ "

QUEENSRYCHE COVERS U2
August 27, 2007


Billboard reports that Queensryche will include a cover of "Bullet the
Blue Sky" on their upcoming covers album called Take Cover. It's due in
stores on November 13th.

read the full article at Billboard.com >>

http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?
vnu_content_id=1003631740

AppleInsider
August 29, 2007
iPod shuffle refresh to go (RED)

By Kasper Jade

With much of the excitement lately surrounding anticipated evolutions
of Apple's video iPod and iPod nano families, little has been said
about an upcoming refresh to the company's diminutive iPod shuffle
line, an expansion of which is likely to include a new (RED) model.

People often familiar with Apple's future product plans say the
company is preparing to add a red-colored model to the line of petite
clip-on players, possibly as early as next week. Any such model would
presumably join or replace the electronics maker's existing (PRODUCT)
RED offerings that include (RED) iPod nanos and iTunes gift cards.

(PRODUCT) RED products such as the (RED) nano help benefit the (RED)
charity created by Bobby Shriver and U2 front-man Bono, which
encourages big businesses to help fight against AIDS in Africa through
donations. In addition to Apple, (RED) has so far garnered the support
of several other big names that include the Gap, Motorola, American
Express, and Converse.

A predetermined portion of the proceeds from each (RED) product sale
are donated directly to the charity. For instance, Apple currently
spares $10 from the sale of each (RED) iPod nano and 10 percent from
the sale of each $25 (RED) iTunes gift card.

Unlike the aging video iPod and iPod nano families -- which are
expected to receive the royal Mac OS treatment and hefty industrial
design overhauls -- the iPod shuffle is arguably the freshest of
Apple's digital media players. It received a completely new form
factor just last fall and there has been little to no evidence to
suggest a second evolution is in the cards for '07.

Outside of going the iPod Picano route, Apple's options for advancing
the shuffle appear limited to capacity increases, price reductions,
and new software-driven features. At the same time, the cost of the
shuffle's components -- such as the NAND flash used for media storage
-- have fallen sharply over the past year. Significant price
reductions notwithstanding, Apple should make more off the sale of
each shuffle this year than it did last.

iPod shuffle (RED)Few changes and fatter margins would also lend
support to source reports of an impending iPod shuffle (RED), given
that Apple would be in a better position this year to hand-off a
percentage of each sale to charity without significantly pinching profits.

Yesterday afternoon, Apple issued formal invitations to a special
product launch event next Wednesday at San Francisco's Moscone West
convention center. The gathering of analysts and members of the media
is an undeniable sign that new iPods are in the cards, as the company
has historically used media events in the early weeks of fall to
unveil its holiday media and music player offerings.

© AppleInsider, 2007.

g under p wrote:

It was the best 4 song concert ever though.

Peace

dude

that f'n sucks but that line you typed made me lol.








more on Lanois :

Billboard
August 24, 2007
By Johnathan Cohen

Lanois Dabbles in Film, Writes With U2/Eno

Daniel Lanois has helped the biggest of the big translate their music
to the masses (Bob Dylan, U2, Willie Nelson), but now he's turning the
spotlight on himself. After years of being asked by friends, fans and
media outlets to reveal his studio methods, the Canadian
producer/artist did exactly that with the self-financed film "Here Is
What Is."

The movie, which Lanois co-directed with Adam Samuels and Adam
Vollick, premieres Sept. 9 at the Toronto International Film Festival.

"At first, I thought we could at least make an educational film that
would be useful to somebody interested in this line of work-just to
see how the interactions happen between people in the studio," Lanois
tells Billboard, noting the film is not structured like a standard
documentary. "But Vollick captured some actual performances on camera,
and it's even interesting to me as he walks around and shows the
cables, the wires and the equipment."

"Here Is What Is" also features reflections from fellow U2
collaborator Brian Eno and a glimpse at studio sessions for Lanois'
next album, which will feature the Band's Garth Hudson on four songs.
The goal, Lanois says, is for the film to be picked up by a
distributor and hit theaters early next year, in tandem with live
performances in select cities and the release of the aforementioned album.

Lanois is a "free agent," having most recently recorded for Anti-. But
he's open to working with that label again for the new project. "I may
ask [Anti- head] Andy [Kaulkin] if he's interested in putting out one
more record," he says. "But I'll finish the record first. Whoever is
excited about being onboard, it will be an interesting journey."

In the midst of finishing "Here Is What Is," Lanois has been writing
songs for the next U2 album with Eno and the band in France and
Morocco, a process documented in the film. Although the two producers
have worked separately with U2 for years, this is the first time both
men are collaborating with the band simultaneously.

"It feels like the 'Achtung Baby' period, when everybody was really
hungry to do something fresh," Lanois says of the material so far.
"They have everything, and they've done everything. But the thing they
should never assume they still own is the ability to be original and
invent something that's never been heard before.

"I'm not coming in with new flavors of the month or waving a magic
wand," he continues. "I don't have an abbreviated name. But my eyes
are burning a hole through their hearts, and I'm inviting them to come
to where I come from."

© Nielsen Business Media, 2007.

He sees the music
By Robert Everett-Green

Daniel Lanois lounged on an ivory leather sofa in his loft studio in
Toronto, dressed all in black, with eight silk-covered buttons
marching up his sleeve. A few feet away, in a soft pool of light,
stood an enormous mixing board, just arrived from England. Lanois, who
has often manned such a board for Bob Dylan, U2 and many others, spoke
of his new acquisition with pleasure, but also with a sense that
anything he could tell me about it would be beside the point. He can
talk audio gear with more authority than most, but in the end the
circuits that really matter to him are the balky, surprising conduits
that lead to the heart.

"The application is just the vehicle for dragging something out of
somebody," he said. "What you want is the heart and soul of the people
in the room. The sounds and how you build the thing are only ever a
canvas, or an invitation for the soul to jump out."

Invite the soul to jump out. That's a pretty concise description of
what a good music producer does, but how does it happen in the real
world, with actual musicians trying to find the right shape for
something that maybe didn't exist before they entered the room?

The short answer is that it probably happens in a different way every
time, depending on the personalities and the moment and a million
other variables. The 90-minute answer is Here Is What Is, Lanois's
debut film about music and the art of making records, coming soon to
the Toronto International Film Festival.

It's a highly personal film, focused on Lanois and people he has
worked with ever since he began trying to coax interesting sounds from
cheap equipment in his mother's basement in Hamilton. Brian Eno, Garth
Hudson, U2 and Sinead O'Connor all appear, speaking or performing or
just groping their way toward that soul-jumping moment.

Lanois appears in every scene, as the poser of questions and the
person who enables partial answers. Sitting in a medina in Morocco, he
tells Eno he's making a film "about the source of the art, instead of
everything that surrounds the art."

That means no concert footage, no shots of screaming crowds, no clips
from million-dollar music videos. Lanois's subjects sit in functional
rooms, strum guitars with headphones clamped to their ears, or try to
figure out how to enlarge what has already been recorded.

The constant theme is that these denuded spaces contain everything
that's needed, as a matter of principle. You never see more players
being called in, or extra filters and gizmos being ordered, because
Lanois doesn't work that way and never has.

"My heroes were always the people in the room," he told me after we'd
watched the film together. "Maybe that's why I managed to pull it off
on records. At the moment, I believe in the magic of the people around
me. I never doubt them, and that's maybe where the power of belief
becomes contagious, because people feel that."

In one vivid scene, Lanois asks Brian Blade, a gifted jazz drummer
with whom he has worked on several projects, to play on top of a track
by New Orleans drummer Willie Green. Lanois explains that doubling the
drums will help him take the song to a different place harmonically.
You can see Blade trying to absorb the concept and get past the
audacity of the request, and then he dives in, laughing. It's a
touching display of trust, and of a willingness to follow the power of
belief in a totally unexpected direction.

Later in the film, Lanois gives Blade a verbal sketch of a new song,
acting out with his voice and body the way he wants the arrangement to
feel. The scene is intercut with bits of the song as it eventually
came out in the studio. For another song, Lanois sits at a board doing
a live mix, telling us what he's doing with those faders and why. His
torso bends and weaves as he makes subtle but telling changes, riding
the board as if it were a wave on a sea of sound.

The opening of the film gets close to the source in another way,
through a long keyboard-level shot of Garth Hudson's hands, as the
Band's pianist plays an improvised introduction to Lanois's song
Lovechild. The camera gets even closer to Lanois's hands as they glide
over the pedal steel guitar a few minutes later.

These sequences are shot in beautiful black and white by the young
Ontario photographer Adam Vollick, whose portrait orientation, vivid
angles and rich textures feel analogous to the way Lanois approaches
music. The graphic style of Vollick's video processing gives the
impression we're seeing an X-ray of the performers and their music,
and when he uses colour it feels like flares of emotional energy.

These effects don't ultimately tell us much about what Lanois says
he's up to, just as a musician's hands moving in close-up are not "the
source of the art," however engrossing they may be to watch. But like
most serious investigations into mysterious subjects, Here Is What Is
succeeds mainly by raising the questions in a compelling way. The
mystery remains, powerfully resisting a solution. It's no digression
when Blade, a preacher's son, says that everything he plays is a form
of praise, or when Lanois refers to his pedal steel as a "church in a
suitcase."

Blade also says he can't separate the sacred from the secular, and
that comment seems doubly apt in a film whose unstated second theme is
seduction. The gorgeous sound and imagery are custom-made to win you
over, as Lanois muses on the details that make a listener revisit a
song. A few red-hot sequences with salsa dancer Carolina Cerisola
state the theme loud and clear.

Here Is What Is will be useful as a promotional vehicle for Lanois's
next solo album, due next spring, which he coyly says "might" have the
same title. By then he'll have done a fourth session with Eno on the
next U2 album, which he said is turning out to be "very exotic" and
eastern-sounding, though not derivative of any particular tradition.

But first, the film needs to be sold, which is one big reason it has
been entered at TIFF. No doubt when the lights go down, with potential
distributors nestled in their seats, Lanois will be even more than
usually ready for a sign that the power of belief and the people in
the room can carry the day.

© CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc., 2007.

September 05, 2007

If you've been wondering how Bono measures-up as a singing anti-war activist
in Julie Taymor's new film 'Across the Universe', here's your first chance
to check-out some of his performance.

NBC's Extra program aired an interview with Bono and a clip from the film on
Friday (August 31, 2007). And you can check it out thanks to YouTube.

Thirty Beatles songs feature on the soundtrack, including Bono singing 'Lucy
in the Sky with Diamonds' and 'I am the Walrus', accompanied by The Secret
Machines.

The film is set for a limited North American release on September 14, with a
full release following on September 21.

September 10, 2007


To celebrate the upcoming 50-year anniversary of the GRAMMY® Awards,
the recording academy is hosting a special night of GRAMMY® moments,
as voted on by viewers.

Voting is free at the mynightatthegrammys Web site, and you can vote
for up to five performances (the top 25 overall will be broadcast). The site will also automatically create a mash-up widget of your votes, once you're done.

U2's "Beautiful Day" from 2001 is nominated, as is the tsunami relief
rendition of "Across the Universe" from 2005, which featured Bono.

Voting ends October 7, follow this link to cast yours:

http://www.mynightatthegrammys.com/

September 13, 2007


Although the film is getting...mixed reviews, it can be safely stated
that Bono's role as Dr. Robert in ACROSS THE UNIVERSE is getting some
positive buzz.

Spinner.com posted a clip earlier today of Bono singing the classic
Beatles tune "I Am The Walrus." See it by following the link below,
and when you're done watching, discuss whether or not you'll go to the
movie in our forum.

Watch the clip:

http://www.spinner.com/2007/09/13/bono-plays-doctor-in-across-the-universe/

http://www.wnbc.com/entertainment/14226866/detail.html


Bono Awarded Humanitarian Medal
U2 Rocker Honored With Liberty Medal Philadelphia

POSTED: 10:51 am EDT September 28, 2007


PHILADELPHIA -- Irish rocker and activist Bono was awarded the Liberty Medal in Philadelphia Thursday night for his humanitarian work in Africa.

During the event at the National Constitution Center, the U2 singer implored Americans to keep working to solve the world's problems and spoke of those who are without freedom.

He said that that range from people who continue to be trapped by poverty to the Burmese monks marching in protest against their government this week.