PARIS:
One of Britain's spinning top rare vino merchants and nuclear scientists in France have
jointly unveiled a 21st-century tool for unmasking counterfeit time of origin
wines.
The technique consists
of zapping bottles with ion beams generated by a particle accelerator. The beams
are directed at the spyglass, not the wine, and can severalise how old the bottles
are and, roughly, where they
start.
"We compare the
suspect bottles with those that we know come from the chateaux," explained Herve
Guegan, a researcher at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in
Bordeaux.
"The chemical
composing of glass used to make bottles changed over time and was different
from place to plaza," he aforesaid.
To forbid counterfeiters from
filling veritable old bottles with ordinary plonk, Williams intends to combine
the ion beam test with another established method that checks for levels of a
radioactive isotope, cs 137, in the wine-coloured
itself.
This technique,
however, is simply effective in identifying wines made in the epoch of heavy atomic
weapons testing in the by and by half of the 20th
century.
The ion irradiation
technology depends on comparison with actual
bottles.
While the new test tush
verify the age of the bottleful, it cannot guarantee the quality of the
wine-colored.
Other technologies
developed in the last few age to fighting fine vino fraud include water simon Marks
and holograms on labels-much like those used on bank notes - on with bAR
codes and UV-sensitive markings.
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Tuesday, 9 September 2008
Saturday, 30 August 2008
Adverse Reactions To Antibiotics Send Thousands Of Patients To The ER
�Adverse events from antibiotics cause an estimated 142,000 emergency department visits per class in the United States, according to a study published in the September 15, 2008 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases.
"This number is an important reminder for physicians and patients that antibiotics fanny have serious side effects and should only be taken when necessary," aforementioned study writer Daniel Budnitz, M.D., at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Prior to this report, detailed data on the scope and burden of antibiotic adverse events in the U.S. were not available. This investigation is the number one to economic consumption timely, across the country representative surveillance data to estimate and compare the numbers and rates of adverse events from systemic antibiotics by class, drug, and issue type.
Half of the visits were for reactions to penicillins and the other half were from reactions to other antibiotics used to treat a wide diverseness of bacterial infections. After accounting for how much antibiotics were prescribed, children less than one year old were found to have the highest pace of adverse drug events.
Almost 80 percent of all antibiotic adverse events in the study were allergic reactions, ranging from rash to anaphylaxis, and the left over 20 per centum were caused by errors and overdoses. Unlike errors and overdoses from other drugs, sensitized reactions to antibiotics typically can entirely be prevented by avoiding exposure to the do drugs in the first place.
The study draws from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System-Cooperative Adverse Drug Event Surveillance (NEISS-CADES) project, a sample of 63 hospitals in the United States and its territories. NEISS-CADES is a joint effort of the CDC, the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the Food and Drug Administration.
Previous studies experience suggested that half of the estimated 100 meg antibiotic prescriptions written in the community setting each year for respiratory tract infections may be unneeded. "For conditions in which antibiotics have questionable benefit, such as many mild upper respiratory tract infections, weighing the benefits of antibiotics with the risks of a serious contrary event testament be especially important," aforementioned Budnitz. "Because antibiotics are frequently used, both befittingly and inappropriately, if doctors would reduce the number of antibiotics they order to their patients by even a small pct, we could significantly lose weight the number of emergency visits for antibiotic adverse events. Physicians need to communicate to their patients that antibiotics are not harmless," he added.
The researchers ground that only 6 percent of the patients wHO experienced adverse events required hospitalization. The others were all treated and released. However, the study only reflected emergency brake department admissions. Unreported cases and visits to a physician's office could not be taken into account statement.
Additional Resources: CDC has resources for both clinicians and patients on set aside use of antibiotics for upper respiratory infections. Visit the Get Smart: Know When Antibiotics Work hunting expedition website at: http://www.cdc.gov/getsmart.
Founded in 1979, Clinical Infectious Diseases publishes clinical articles twice monthly in a variety of areas of infectious disease, and is one of the most highly regarded journals in this specialty. It is published under the auspices of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA). Based in Arlington, Virginia, IDSA is a professional society representing more than than 8,000 physicians and scientists who specialise in infectious diseases. For more information, visit hTTP://www.idsociety.org.
Infectious Diseases Society of America
More information
"This number is an important reminder for physicians and patients that antibiotics fanny have serious side effects and should only be taken when necessary," aforementioned study writer Daniel Budnitz, M.D., at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Prior to this report, detailed data on the scope and burden of antibiotic adverse events in the U.S. were not available. This investigation is the number one to economic consumption timely, across the country representative surveillance data to estimate and compare the numbers and rates of adverse events from systemic antibiotics by class, drug, and issue type.
Half of the visits were for reactions to penicillins and the other half were from reactions to other antibiotics used to treat a wide diverseness of bacterial infections. After accounting for how much antibiotics were prescribed, children less than one year old were found to have the highest pace of adverse drug events.
Almost 80 percent of all antibiotic adverse events in the study were allergic reactions, ranging from rash to anaphylaxis, and the left over 20 per centum were caused by errors and overdoses. Unlike errors and overdoses from other drugs, sensitized reactions to antibiotics typically can entirely be prevented by avoiding exposure to the do drugs in the first place.
The study draws from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System-Cooperative Adverse Drug Event Surveillance (NEISS-CADES) project, a sample of 63 hospitals in the United States and its territories. NEISS-CADES is a joint effort of the CDC, the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the Food and Drug Administration.
Previous studies experience suggested that half of the estimated 100 meg antibiotic prescriptions written in the community setting each year for respiratory tract infections may be unneeded. "For conditions in which antibiotics have questionable benefit, such as many mild upper respiratory tract infections, weighing the benefits of antibiotics with the risks of a serious contrary event testament be especially important," aforementioned Budnitz. "Because antibiotics are frequently used, both befittingly and inappropriately, if doctors would reduce the number of antibiotics they order to their patients by even a small pct, we could significantly lose weight the number of emergency visits for antibiotic adverse events. Physicians need to communicate to their patients that antibiotics are not harmless," he added.
The researchers ground that only 6 percent of the patients wHO experienced adverse events required hospitalization. The others were all treated and released. However, the study only reflected emergency brake department admissions. Unreported cases and visits to a physician's office could not be taken into account statement.
Additional Resources: CDC has resources for both clinicians and patients on set aside use of antibiotics for upper respiratory infections. Visit the Get Smart: Know When Antibiotics Work hunting expedition website at: http://www.cdc.gov/getsmart.
Founded in 1979, Clinical Infectious Diseases publishes clinical articles twice monthly in a variety of areas of infectious disease, and is one of the most highly regarded journals in this specialty. It is published under the auspices of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA). Based in Arlington, Virginia, IDSA is a professional society representing more than than 8,000 physicians and scientists who specialise in infectious diseases. For more information, visit hTTP://www.idsociety.org.
Infectious Diseases Society of America
More information
Wednesday, 20 August 2008
OK! Exclusive: Carnie Wilson�??s Weight Loss Rebound
Carnie Wilson has lost closely 40 pounds since she started a strict diet and exercise program this spring, after she topped out at 208 pounds. The 5-foot-3 singer is now 20 pounds forth from her weight-loss goal. Carnie is determined to reach one hundred fifty pounds by October and then start up trying to have a second baby with hubby Rob Bonfiglio.
OK! caught up with Carnie, 40, at Will Rogers State Beach in Santa Monica, Calif., where she talked about her weight-loss travel and those baby plans.
CLICK HERE for OK!'s exclusive photoshoot with the slimming singer!
You look great! How do you feel?
I feel sexier, energetic, young, healthier, more agile, more flexible and stronger. I feel so inspired to keep going. I�m in the home stretch!
Has your diet changed since we last saw you in June?
No. I�m not allowing myself anything that�s cancelled my regimen: no wampum, no carbs, no dairy farm, no red meat, no flour of any tolerant. It�s very strict, but I like how it feels. I�m eating blueberries, turkey bacon, egg whites and heaps of raw vegetable salads. I make my have salad dressing with apple cider acetum. My exclusively fat is coming from olive crude. No persea Americana, no roasted nuts � just raw almonds. When I get under one's skin hungry at night, I take a tablespoon of almond butter and that satisfies my craving. The only sugary thing is berries. When I ate that dirt sugar food, I mat like shit. It�s incredible what feeding all these vegetables is doing for me.
What�s your motivational strategy?
My modern thing is cooking comfortableness food for others � like wampum puddings and banana staff of life � simply not eating it myself. I do a peck of tasting and expectoration out!
Have you tried whatsoever new workouts?
Yoga. I bide in these poses for three to five transactions at a time. It�s lengthening me, and sweat is approach out everywhere.
Do you still make your trainer?
Oh, yeah! He�s coming ternion days a week. I�m trying to build up strength in my arms and my core because they ar very weak.
What has your married man said about your new look?
He always says, �Keep it up, baby!� He�s very proud. He�s seen me go up and down. He just wants me to be healthy.
Would you consider plastic surgical procedure after you lose the weight?
It�s a possibility. I think I�m going to wind up having my arms done. They�re really saggy.
Have you bought new clothes?
I went to Neiman Marcus and did some in force damage last month. I�m trying not to splurge because I�m not at the finish yet.
Tell us about your fresh clothing blood for plus-sized women.
It�s likely the most exciting affair I�m always going to be involved in. I know what it�s like to be all sizes, and I have some really great things up my sleeve � no pun intended!
What are your baby plans?
We�re going to start nerve-wracking in October. I�m going to climb my hubby! [laughs] I have friends who are pregnant, and I want to be pregnant so badly. Two more months to go � it can�t come soon enough. We want a baby in my tummy right away.
How volition that sham your weight loss?
My ob-gyn said when you�re eating this way, you�ll have minimal weight gain. It was selfsame difficult having Lola. I just unbroken gaining. I�m going to feel better in my next pregnancy. I take this weird feeling I�m going to have twins. My sis just had twins. My grandmother was a twin. It�s a serious possibility!
CLICK HERE for OK!'s exclusive photoshoot with the slimming singer!
�
More info
Sunday, 10 August 2008
C.S.S.O
Artist: C.S.S.O
Genre(s):
Metal
Discography:
Are You Excrements?
Year: 2000
Tracks: 6
Nagro Lauxes VIII
Year: 1995
Tracks: 19
Gemma Hayes - The Hollow of Morning
Tuesday, 1 July 2008
Nearly the Living End
THE LIVING End nearly imploded when vocalist Chris Cheney quit the band. Two years on and with a new album to air, he explains why he had to go away to come back.
Friday, October 6, 2006, was the night the music died -- at least for the Living End's vocalist/guitarist Chris Cheney. That was the fateful night he decided to quit the chart-topping band. The Living End were playing on the Gold Coast and were three-quarters through their set when Cheney had an on-stage epiphany. ‘‘I thought ‘I don't want to be here','' Cheney says. ‘‘It hit me like a lightning bolt: 2000 people, a massive show and I didn't want to be doing it. ‘‘I ploughed through the songs but I was disgusted with myself that it had come to that. ‘‘But there was a reason and it was staring me right in the face. ‘‘I had to get out of the situation, get away from it, fix it. I was ready to get on a plane and go home.'' The next morning Cheney rounded up his bandmates Scott Owen and Andy Strachan and quit the Living End, the band he had formed as a 17-year-old schoolkid in 1992. ‘‘I gave my notice, I said ‘I'm done, I'm out','' Cheney says. ‘‘I felt horrible. I never wanted to be in the position where I don't want to be doing it. I want to be doing it for all the right reasons. I felt burnt out. I was done with the Living End. Done with touring, done with the whole thing.'' It got worse. The months of touring caught up with Cheney; he obsessively replayed history in his mind. ‘‘I realised I hadn't done anything else with my life since high school apart from this band. I started to think about what else there was in life, what else I had and it dawned on me, ‘F---, I don't know how to do anything else'. I only knew how to be the guy from the Living End and I wasn't feeling it. ‘‘I was depressed about the whole thing. The idea of making another Living End album couldn't have been further from my mind.'' After he had told his bandmates face to face the morning after his fright night, Cheney called his long-term manager Rae Harvey and left the band over the phone. ‘‘He resigned,'' Harvey says. ‘‘I said ‘You can't do that, you're the singer-songwriter!' We kept it very quiet.'' Harvey had a battle plan. The band would finish their touring commitments (‘‘I had to persevere, stick it out for the guys in the band and the people who bought their tickets,'' Cheney says) and then fall off the radar. ‘‘I sent him away for a couple of months,'' Harvey says. ‘‘Nobody was allowed to call him. Not me, not the band. We weren't allowed to send him mail. ‘‘We were offered a headlining tour through Europe which I turned down. It was very serious.'' So serious that a ‘‘farewell tour'' of Australia was discussed and for the first time in five years Harvey started managing another band -- Children Collide. ‘‘I started thinking ‘Oh my God, I have to think about my future','' Harvey says. ‘‘I spoke to Andy and Scott a lot over those few months about how this (band) might not be around any more.'' Touring over, Cheney was free of the Living End for the first time. ‘‘I wasn't coping,'' he says. ‘‘I knew it was absurd. The idea of getting up on stage playing music you've written that has been relatively successful should be something that makes anyone on the planet happy. You should be celebrating that, so I knew ‘This isn't right'. ‘‘The other guys in the band were very understanding. I was probably a very nasty person to be around leading up to that point, not a very nice bloke. The only way I could contemplate making another record was if I didn't have to think about making another record.'' The fierce drive within Cheney that had made the Living End one of the most successful working bands in Australia -- more than 800,000 album sales and years of sold-out shows -- had taken its toll. ‘‘I pushed myself to a point where I got fed up with just being in the band. That tour was nine weeks around Australia and it just came to a head,'' Cheney says. ‘‘I was playing almost every night, I lost my voice twice. We hadn't stopped for two years. The recording process for (2006 album) State of Emergency was extremely full-on, I got shingles at the end of it. It had stopped being fun. ‘‘I'd brought it on myself. If you don't do anything else, if you have a one-track mind you're going to turn around and realise there's nothing else there.'' At first during Cheney's break he moved into autopilot and started writing songs. Unfortunately, he hated them. ‘‘I didn't want to churn out a crap album just to capitalise on the success of State of Emergency,'' he says. ‘‘I wrote some songs but I wasn't feeling it. I had strong writers' block. I told the band I'd get in contact when I had better songs. I had to approach my creativity in a different way.'' Enter yoga. Yes, really. The VB-swilling, spiky-haired Cheney switched leather jackets and guitar picks for a yoga mat. When he wasn't saluting the sun, he had taken up painting and spending time with the baby daughter he had missed during a gruelling touring schedule overseas. ‘‘My daughter (Charlie) was born and then we went away (with State Of Emergency) -- did that even happen; did I even have a child?'' Cheney muses. Harvey says: ‘‘Chris missed her whole first year. That didn't help.'' During his yoga period, Cheney managed to switch off from music for the first time in more than 10 years. ‘‘I didn't realise how amazing it is for the mind, and for focus and creativity,'' Cheney says of yoga. ‘‘I was a bit naive, I didn't realise the minute you do something else is when inspiration hits.'' It hit him like a train -- the same way that monstrous opening riff from How Do We Know hits listeners when it leaps out of the speakers. A proud Cheney played it to the band. ‘‘I thought ‘F--- yeah!' That's what we should be doing -- it's exciting, it's heavy, it's not just meathead rock. It has a certain flair. I took it to the guys and they said ‘That's the direction, write another 12 of those'. That was the epiphany, the riff that kick-started the record. ‘‘I started coming up with more tunes. It felt a hell of a lot stronger lyrically and musically it was deeper, there was more power. I was back on track. It was the turmoil that had to happen.'' From there the Living End were back in business. Harvey had scored the band a lucrative deal with EMI in 1998 on the back of the success of the independently released Prisoner of Society/Second Solution EP. Harvey would license the band's albums to EMI on a record-by-record basis. ‘‘After the release of every single album, they were an unsigned act,'' Harvey says. ‘‘We just didn't advertise it. It wasn't about starting bidding wars, it was about control.'' But the band's camp felt State of Emergency wasn't as big as it should have been and the mixed corporate fortunes of EMI weren't helping. Harvey began negotiating a new deal with Dew Process, run by Powderfinger's manager Paul Piticco and home to the Panics, the Grates and Sarah Blasko. Harvey mentioned the new deal in her first meeting with a post-yoga Cheney. He soon swapped zen for rock. ‘‘I told him I'd turned down the European tour and he was mortified,'' Harvey says. ‘‘I think that drove something home to him, that he'd missed out on something big. But it made him realise what he was giving up. The Dew Process deal was ready, but I said we weren't signing it if he wasn't committed to the band.'' With How Do We Know under his belt, the Living End were out of traction and back in action. They signed their first multiple-album deal. ‘‘We wanted to give Dew Process some ownership over it,'' Harvey says. The label suggested producer John Agnello (Sonic Youth) for their fifth album White Noise, and Harvey wanted Brendan O'Brien (Pearl Jam) to mix it. Both men were secured; White Noise was recorded in New Jersey in April for a fast-turnaround release next month. Harvey had her own motives for O'Brien -- feeling the previous producers never captured the band's intense live sound. O'Brien came to the Living End the day after finishing producing the new AC/DC album. ‘‘In the past I'd love the demos and go ‘OK, now they're going to record the same bland piece of crap they've recorded every single time that doesn't represent how they sound live no matter what we do','' Harvey says. ‘‘And this time they didn't. And it blew me away. ‘‘Every other album has had the life drained out of it because of the perfectionism in the band.'' Cheney agrees White Noise is as close as they've ever come to replicating their live sound inside a studio. ‘‘We would never make a record that sounds exactly like we do live because I'd never allow it, it'd be too rough,'' he says. ‘‘But we wanted to catch the edge, the sweat, some of the happy accidents and spontaneity. When you're making a record everything's so calculated you squeeze all that stuff out to make it sound smooth and perfect. We realised what sounds right is when we're playing fast and it sounds real, there's character to it. ‘‘Every single song on this album has a few great moments we were determined to capture, pushing ourselves to the extreme like we would live -- when the throat cracks or when your fingers slip off the strings.'' The revitalised band reactivated their alter-ego -- the Longnecks -- for a series of regional shows in February this year. They'd road-test solely new material written for White Noise, before returning for a handful of hits as the encore. One was missing -- Prisoner of Society. ‘‘That was a turning point -- I feel like we'd outgrown the stigma of Prisoner,'' Cheney says. ‘‘We haven't even been playing it on the past few shows. It really wasn't missed. It's that double-edged sword, it put us on the map, but I've been trying to prove my worth as a songwriter ever since. Perhaps it was the best thing that ever happened.'' So intense is their fanbase that at one Longnecks show a fan handed the band notes he had taken on the new songs. ‘‘I felt for the first time what it must be like to be on Australian Idol and get judged,'' Cheney says with a laugh. ‘‘We have really good fans like that, they're immensely dedicated to the band. When people stop caring, that's when we're in trouble.'' The frontman is also quick to point out he's got back the passion for the Living End that temporarily left him. ‘‘The Longnecks shows were imperative to that,'' he says. ‘‘They boosted the confidence of the band in an enormous way. We realised what we were doing not only sounded great to us but was being conveyed to an audience. ‘‘I've learnt a very valuable lesson. Nothing pays off like hard work and I'm insanely proud of what we ended up with on this record, especially considering the circumstances.'' The band remain signed to Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong's record label Adeline in the US; Dew Process will handle them in Europe. ‘‘We know we can go to the US and play to a few thousand people a night, but it's now about getting a song on the radio over there,'' Cheney says. ‘‘We're going to focus on Australia first. I still feel like we have something to prove. I hope we always feel that way.'' White Noise (Dew Process/Universal) out July 19. The Living End, Queensbridge, October 2. On sale July 10, Ticketek.
Friday, October 6, 2006, was the night the music died -- at least for the Living End's vocalist/guitarist Chris Cheney. That was the fateful night he decided to quit the chart-topping band. The Living End were playing on the Gold Coast and were three-quarters through their set when Cheney had an on-stage epiphany. ‘‘I thought ‘I don't want to be here','' Cheney says. ‘‘It hit me like a lightning bolt: 2000 people, a massive show and I didn't want to be doing it. ‘‘I ploughed through the songs but I was disgusted with myself that it had come to that. ‘‘But there was a reason and it was staring me right in the face. ‘‘I had to get out of the situation, get away from it, fix it. I was ready to get on a plane and go home.'' The next morning Cheney rounded up his bandmates Scott Owen and Andy Strachan and quit the Living End, the band he had formed as a 17-year-old schoolkid in 1992. ‘‘I gave my notice, I said ‘I'm done, I'm out','' Cheney says. ‘‘I felt horrible. I never wanted to be in the position where I don't want to be doing it. I want to be doing it for all the right reasons. I felt burnt out. I was done with the Living End. Done with touring, done with the whole thing.'' It got worse. The months of touring caught up with Cheney; he obsessively replayed history in his mind. ‘‘I realised I hadn't done anything else with my life since high school apart from this band. I started to think about what else there was in life, what else I had and it dawned on me, ‘F---, I don't know how to do anything else'. I only knew how to be the guy from the Living End and I wasn't feeling it. ‘‘I was depressed about the whole thing. The idea of making another Living End album couldn't have been further from my mind.'' After he had told his bandmates face to face the morning after his fright night, Cheney called his long-term manager Rae Harvey and left the band over the phone. ‘‘He resigned,'' Harvey says. ‘‘I said ‘You can't do that, you're the singer-songwriter!' We kept it very quiet.'' Harvey had a battle plan. The band would finish their touring commitments (‘‘I had to persevere, stick it out for the guys in the band and the people who bought their tickets,'' Cheney says) and then fall off the radar. ‘‘I sent him away for a couple of months,'' Harvey says. ‘‘Nobody was allowed to call him. Not me, not the band. We weren't allowed to send him mail. ‘‘We were offered a headlining tour through Europe which I turned down. It was very serious.'' So serious that a ‘‘farewell tour'' of Australia was discussed and for the first time in five years Harvey started managing another band -- Children Collide. ‘‘I started thinking ‘Oh my God, I have to think about my future','' Harvey says. ‘‘I spoke to Andy and Scott a lot over those few months about how this (band) might not be around any more.'' Touring over, Cheney was free of the Living End for the first time. ‘‘I wasn't coping,'' he says. ‘‘I knew it was absurd. The idea of getting up on stage playing music you've written that has been relatively successful should be something that makes anyone on the planet happy. You should be celebrating that, so I knew ‘This isn't right'. ‘‘The other guys in the band were very understanding. I was probably a very nasty person to be around leading up to that point, not a very nice bloke. The only way I could contemplate making another record was if I didn't have to think about making another record.'' The fierce drive within Cheney that had made the Living End one of the most successful working bands in Australia -- more than 800,000 album sales and years of sold-out shows -- had taken its toll. ‘‘I pushed myself to a point where I got fed up with just being in the band. That tour was nine weeks around Australia and it just came to a head,'' Cheney says. ‘‘I was playing almost every night, I lost my voice twice. We hadn't stopped for two years. The recording process for (2006 album) State of Emergency was extremely full-on, I got shingles at the end of it. It had stopped being fun. ‘‘I'd brought it on myself. If you don't do anything else, if you have a one-track mind you're going to turn around and realise there's nothing else there.'' At first during Cheney's break he moved into autopilot and started writing songs. Unfortunately, he hated them. ‘‘I didn't want to churn out a crap album just to capitalise on the success of State of Emergency,'' he says. ‘‘I wrote some songs but I wasn't feeling it. I had strong writers' block. I told the band I'd get in contact when I had better songs. I had to approach my creativity in a different way.'' Enter yoga. Yes, really. The VB-swilling, spiky-haired Cheney switched leather jackets and guitar picks for a yoga mat. When he wasn't saluting the sun, he had taken up painting and spending time with the baby daughter he had missed during a gruelling touring schedule overseas. ‘‘My daughter (Charlie) was born and then we went away (with State Of Emergency) -- did that even happen; did I even have a child?'' Cheney muses. Harvey says: ‘‘Chris missed her whole first year. That didn't help.'' During his yoga period, Cheney managed to switch off from music for the first time in more than 10 years. ‘‘I didn't realise how amazing it is for the mind, and for focus and creativity,'' Cheney says of yoga. ‘‘I was a bit naive, I didn't realise the minute you do something else is when inspiration hits.'' It hit him like a train -- the same way that monstrous opening riff from How Do We Know hits listeners when it leaps out of the speakers. A proud Cheney played it to the band. ‘‘I thought ‘F--- yeah!' That's what we should be doing -- it's exciting, it's heavy, it's not just meathead rock. It has a certain flair. I took it to the guys and they said ‘That's the direction, write another 12 of those'. That was the epiphany, the riff that kick-started the record. ‘‘I started coming up with more tunes. It felt a hell of a lot stronger lyrically and musically it was deeper, there was more power. I was back on track. It was the turmoil that had to happen.'' From there the Living End were back in business. Harvey had scored the band a lucrative deal with EMI in 1998 on the back of the success of the independently released Prisoner of Society/Second Solution EP. Harvey would license the band's albums to EMI on a record-by-record basis. ‘‘After the release of every single album, they were an unsigned act,'' Harvey says. ‘‘We just didn't advertise it. It wasn't about starting bidding wars, it was about control.'' But the band's camp felt State of Emergency wasn't as big as it should have been and the mixed corporate fortunes of EMI weren't helping. Harvey began negotiating a new deal with Dew Process, run by Powderfinger's manager Paul Piticco and home to the Panics, the Grates and Sarah Blasko. Harvey mentioned the new deal in her first meeting with a post-yoga Cheney. He soon swapped zen for rock. ‘‘I told him I'd turned down the European tour and he was mortified,'' Harvey says. ‘‘I think that drove something home to him, that he'd missed out on something big. But it made him realise what he was giving up. The Dew Process deal was ready, but I said we weren't signing it if he wasn't committed to the band.'' With How Do We Know under his belt, the Living End were out of traction and back in action. They signed their first multiple-album deal. ‘‘We wanted to give Dew Process some ownership over it,'' Harvey says. The label suggested producer John Agnello (Sonic Youth) for their fifth album White Noise, and Harvey wanted Brendan O'Brien (Pearl Jam) to mix it. Both men were secured; White Noise was recorded in New Jersey in April for a fast-turnaround release next month. Harvey had her own motives for O'Brien -- feeling the previous producers never captured the band's intense live sound. O'Brien came to the Living End the day after finishing producing the new AC/DC album. ‘‘In the past I'd love the demos and go ‘OK, now they're going to record the same bland piece of crap they've recorded every single time that doesn't represent how they sound live no matter what we do','' Harvey says. ‘‘And this time they didn't. And it blew me away. ‘‘Every other album has had the life drained out of it because of the perfectionism in the band.'' Cheney agrees White Noise is as close as they've ever come to replicating their live sound inside a studio. ‘‘We would never make a record that sounds exactly like we do live because I'd never allow it, it'd be too rough,'' he says. ‘‘But we wanted to catch the edge, the sweat, some of the happy accidents and spontaneity. When you're making a record everything's so calculated you squeeze all that stuff out to make it sound smooth and perfect. We realised what sounds right is when we're playing fast and it sounds real, there's character to it. ‘‘Every single song on this album has a few great moments we were determined to capture, pushing ourselves to the extreme like we would live -- when the throat cracks or when your fingers slip off the strings.'' The revitalised band reactivated their alter-ego -- the Longnecks -- for a series of regional shows in February this year. They'd road-test solely new material written for White Noise, before returning for a handful of hits as the encore. One was missing -- Prisoner of Society. ‘‘That was a turning point -- I feel like we'd outgrown the stigma of Prisoner,'' Cheney says. ‘‘We haven't even been playing it on the past few shows. It really wasn't missed. It's that double-edged sword, it put us on the map, but I've been trying to prove my worth as a songwriter ever since. Perhaps it was the best thing that ever happened.'' So intense is their fanbase that at one Longnecks show a fan handed the band notes he had taken on the new songs. ‘‘I felt for the first time what it must be like to be on Australian Idol and get judged,'' Cheney says with a laugh. ‘‘We have really good fans like that, they're immensely dedicated to the band. When people stop caring, that's when we're in trouble.'' The frontman is also quick to point out he's got back the passion for the Living End that temporarily left him. ‘‘The Longnecks shows were imperative to that,'' he says. ‘‘They boosted the confidence of the band in an enormous way. We realised what we were doing not only sounded great to us but was being conveyed to an audience. ‘‘I've learnt a very valuable lesson. Nothing pays off like hard work and I'm insanely proud of what we ended up with on this record, especially considering the circumstances.'' The band remain signed to Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong's record label Adeline in the US; Dew Process will handle them in Europe. ‘‘We know we can go to the US and play to a few thousand people a night, but it's now about getting a song on the radio over there,'' Cheney says. ‘‘We're going to focus on Australia first. I still feel like we have something to prove. I hope we always feel that way.'' White Noise (Dew Process/Universal) out July 19. The Living End, Queensbridge, October 2. On sale July 10, Ticketek.
Thursday, 19 June 2008
Rihanna, Jennifer Hudson, Jill Scott and Ne-Yo Join BET Awards Line Up
BET revealed the addition of Rihanna, Ne-Yo, and Jennifer Hudson to the line up of performers for the networks upcoming BET Awards Thursday.
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Thursday, 12 June 2008
Pete Tong and Armand van Helden
Artist: Pete Tong and Armand van Helden
Genre(s):
Trance
Discography:
In The Music We Trust
Year: 2007
Tracks: 1
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