This past week saw what would have been Hunter S. Thompson’s 75th birthday. Born July 18, 1937, the writer committed suicide in 2005 after suffering from poor health.

Novelist, sports columnist, political commentator, drug addict: as far as writers go, he was quite rare, able to keep up with his writing as he lived a life that would have destroyed others. In fact, it was his rampant alcohol and drug use that gave him material for his writings, which have proven to be profoundly influential.

His most famous work, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, is a “roman a clef” of him and his friend traveling to Las Vegas to compose a report on a car race that ultimately would not be written. The two instead take heavy drugs, ruminate on American culture, and go looking for the American dream. Nothing is taboo here: rape and kidnapping play a part in the story, and Thompson himself knows that he is not above the people he satirizes. Terry Gilliam adapted it into a film in 1998, starring Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro.

The novel is probably the most well-known example of gonzo journalism, a style of journalism that Thompson popularized and was itself a part of the New Journalism movement of the 70s. Other writers who took part in this movement include the acclaimed Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer and Truman Capote. While traditional journalism is more about simply the facts, gonzo journalism is about first-person narratives; more about telling a story than reporting something. Thompson frequently wrote for Rolling Stone, and many of his articles were in that style, including his first, entitled “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved,” which can be found here online.

Thompson also wrote about politics. Much of this stemmed from his own personal interests. In 1970, he ran for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado. In 1972, he followed the election campaigns of Richard Nixon and George McGovern and wrote a series of article which were later collected in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72. He also wrote a book, Kingdom of Fear, featuring detailed essays and stories about rebelling against authority in a post-9/11 world.

Although toward the end of his life Thompson’s work consisted mainly of potboilers and collections of material he had done in his prime, he remained a figure to be reckoned with. He is, in a sense, much like Henry Miller. Although Thompson did not face censorship issues like Miller did, both pushed the envelope of what was considered acceptable for publication. Miller wrote about sex, Thompson drugs and madness and politics, often blending them together to create works that had a political commentary. Most times, it would have been impossible to create the same effect through other means.

Last year his novel The Rum Diary, which he had written during his twenties but which was only published in the 90s, was made into a feature film starring Johnny Depp. Although it received a mixed reception and failed at the box office, it proves that Thompson is still remembered. And with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas still widely read, it seems we will be in the shadow of Hunter S. Thompson for some time yet.

Image Courtesy of   MDCarchives (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons

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NEW YORK, US – One of underground rock’s most unusual stories of the 1970s, the tale of an obscure debut LP by a Detroit singer-songwriter named Rodriguez becoming a source of hope and inspiration to the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa, is the basis for the thought-provoking new film, Searching For Sugar Man.

The original motion picture soundtrack album will be available starting July 24, 2012 through Legacy Recordings, a division of Sony Music Entertainment. The vinyl version of the soundtrack will be released by Light In The Attic Records.

Searching For Sugar Man, a Red Box Films & Passion Pictures Production in association with Canfield Pictures & The Documentary Company, distributed by Sony Pictures Classics, premiered in New York on April 24, 2012 at the Tribeca Film Festival. The film opens in New York and Los Angeles on July 27, 2012 and will open in other markets throughout the month of August.

Directed by Malik Bendjelloul, Searching For Sugar Man tells a story that begins with the 1970 release of Rodriguez’s debut album, Cold Fact. In its Reissues Of The Year tally for 2008, Rolling Stone magazine called the album “A remarkable artifact of Michigan hippie soul by singer-songwriter Sixto Diaz Rodriguez.” The soundtrack album on Legacy will compile tracks from Cold Fact and its follow-up LP of 1971, Coming From Reality, reissued to critical acclaim in 2008 and 2009, respectively.

Celebrated Motor City producers Dennis Coffey and Mike Theodore discovered Rodriguez in the late 1960s in a local bar and were struck by his Dylanesque songwriting. A charismatic and mysterious artist behind his shades, Rodriguez had built a strong local following, a true folk hero in the purest sense.

Cold Fact was a fusion of gritty funk with “street-tough lyricism and psychedelic folk arrangements,” in the words of Doug Freeman of the Austin Chronicle. The album’s politically-charged “topical lyrics and druggy avant-garde arrangements” “folk-soul weirdness” and “lysergic gutter poetry” were unique even in the ’70s.

Nevertheless, the album did not succeed commercially, and despite the release of a second LP, Rodriguez drifted into obscurity. Rumors of his fate were widely and wildly exaggerated, ranging from reports of escalating depression to a sensationally gruesome suicide onstage, involving self-immolation.

Meanwhile, the LP had made its way around the world to South Africa, where it was banned by a repressive government. Copies were bootlegged and circulated, and Rodriguez inadvertently became the soundtrack of an emerging liberal African youth, whose resistance movement adopted Cold Fact as its rallying cry. Over the next two decades, Rodriguez became a household name in the country, where the number of copies of Cold Fact would have earned it platinum sales status.

Both sides of the story, Rodriguez’s life in Detroit and the subsequent impact of his music in the smoldering Apartheid era, pre-Nelson Mandela, proved fascinating to Stockholm-based documentary filmmaker Malik Bendjelloul. His subjects have included Kraftwerk, Bjork, Sting, Elton John, Rod Stewart, Madonna, Mariah Carey, U2, Kylie Minogue, Prince, and others.

His short documentary films for Swedish Television’s international cultural weekly show Kobra became the basis for such films as Men Who Stare At Goats (George Clooney) and The Terminal (Tom Hanks). The evolution of the financing, production, and filming of Searching For Sugar Man is as fascinating and complex as the life of Rodriguez himself.

“I describe myself as ‘musico-politico’,” Rodriguez said recently. “I was born and bred in Detroit, four blocks from the city center. Back then, I was influenced by the urban sounds that were going on around me all the time. Music is art and art is a cultural force. As far as my work from Detroit comparing to the South African Apartheid, the similarities echo. The placards of the 1970s in the United States read things like: We Want Jobs and Stop the War – I was looking at the music from a working class.

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When it comes to Grammy-winning singer/songwriter P!nk, Rolling Stone critic Robert Sheffield has said it best:

This is a prolific pop artist who is sometimes famous and successful, sometimes obscure, who nonetheless keeps making her own kind of music. Every few years, the spotlight comes back around to her — but her fans can trust that when the spotlight moves along, Pink will keep on writing Pink songs.

P!nk is a global superstar. This much is obvious. She has broken touring records in Australia more than once, she has gone platinum with her records in just about every country with a flag, and when she returned home to the U.S. after a mammoth two-year world tour, she topped the Billboard Pop Songs chart with two consecutive singles from her greatest hits compilation CD with almost zero promotion.

P!nk has won two Grammys, collaborated with Eminem and John Legend, written for Adam Lambert, contributed her vocals to several motion picture soundtracks, toured the world several times over, and yet remains a self-confessed ‘underdog’.

Like the Rolling Stone critic says, the spotlight comes back around her way every few years. For example, in 2006 she released ‘Stupid Girls’, a song which along with its accompanying music video satirised vain celebrity culture, and which led to P!nk appearing on ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’ to discuss the representation of women in the media.

Then, in 2008 she underwent a high-profile separation from her husband Carey Hart, resulting in the song ‘So What’ becoming the first U.S. Hot 100 single of her career. In late 2010, P!nk announced her pregnancy and she quickly became a target of tabloid fascination, with the singer revealing in November that “there was a $250,000 bounty on her [daughter Willow's] head for the first photo“.

Yet, aside from these few-and-far-between events, P!nk has maintained a relatively low profile since her debut record was released in early 2000.

The likely reason for this can be explained by P!nk herself, who was once quoted as saying:

Instead of going and becoming a cover girl and endorsement girl and popular girl and having #1s, I kind of just hit the road and pounded the pavement … and became a touring artist … You don’t have to be popular when you’re a touring artist, you just have to be good.

And so, P!nk has maintained a successful career and transitioned into a well-respected artist in her own right, as well as an acknowledged humanitarian. At the Human Rights Campaign’s National Dinner in 2010, P!nk was presented with the Ally for Equality award for her work with PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), her advocation for marriage equality, and for many other organisations which she actively supports.

Meanwhile, at this year’s Grammy Awards, MTV reported that a replay of P!nk’s aerial performance of ‘Glitter in the Air’ at the 2010 ceremony “captivated the audience so much that when they cut back to the show, the entire crowd groaned.”

After the actual performance two years earlier, P!nk received a standing ovation from the entire audience which included Celine Dion, Sheryl Crow, Rihanna, and Jon Bon Jovi, while the song – which was never intended to be a single – charted at number 18 on the Hot 100 based on the strength of the Grammy performance alone.

This year, P!nk is back in the studio recording her sixth album and is reportedly working with Dan Wilson, who worked heavily on Adele’s record-breaking LP ’21′. She also has a film role coming up in the ensemble comedy ‘Thanks for Sharing’, which stars Mark Ruffalo and Gwyneth Paltrow, and she was rumoured to have been wooed by ‘The X Factor USA’ chiefs to join its judging panel.

All of these developments would point toward the spotlight once again coming back around to her as Rolling Stone predicted it would, yet, it would seem that P!nk has never been in a stronger nor more established position in her career as she finds herself right now. It is for this reason then that P!nk, in her 13th year in the business, is one of the most important and relevant solo performers of her generation.

Image Courtesy of   http://www.pinkspage.com

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Beyonce’s sold-out four nights at New York’s famed Roseland Ballroom back in August was a resounding success with the first night’s tickets selling out in a record 22 seconds. “4 Intimate Nights With Beyonce” was a fan and critical favorite with Rolling Stone Magazine declaring that the club had turned into a coliseum with Beyonce’s “rafter-rattling force.”

The energy and the magic of those nights were captured forever and released last month as “Live At Roseland: The Elements Of 4″ deluxe package, a two-disc DVD concert film executive produced by Beyonce for her own Parkwood Entertainment company, in association with Columbia Records.

The global entertainer partnered with Treemo Labs to create the “Beyonce: Live At Roseland” App, which is available now. http://bit.ly/Beyonce_Roseland. This marks an alternative distribution model for long-form content that was previously only available on DVD.

The “Beyonce: Live At Roseland” App is a unique, immersive experience for Beyonce’s fans with music, concert footage and incredible photographs that tell the story of what it was like to be on stage and backstage with Beyonce during her performances at the Roseland Ballroom.

“Offering all of these materials in an App represents an industry first and demonstrates again why Beyonce is a music and entertainment industry visionary,” said Brent Brookler, CEO and founder, Treemo Labs. “We’re extremely fortunate to have been able to work with her and her team on this project.”

The App, available for iPhones and iPads, features the full Roseland concert and a photo gallery containing over 25 photos with pinch and zoom capabilities, all of which do not require an Internet connection to view. Additionally, the app enables fans to download the bonus video content — “Behind The Stage” from Roseland and “Behind The Camera” from Beyonce’s music videos. Fans can also share photos and the concert app with friends via social media or email.

Track listing for “Beyonce: Live At Roseland” App:

The Journey B “4″…

1. Intro
2. I Wanna Be Where You Are
3. No, No, No Part 1
4. No, No, No Part 2
5. Bug A Boo
6. Bills, Bills, Bills
7. Say My Name
8. Jumpin’ Jumpin’
9. Independent Women Part 1
10. Bootylicious
11. Survivor
12. Bonnie And Clyde
13. Crazy In Love
14. Dreamgirls
15. Irreplaceable
16. Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)

“4″

1. I Care
2. I Miss You
3. Run the World (Girls)
4. 1+1
5. Party
6. Love on Top
7. Best Thing I Never Had
8. Countdown
9. Rather Die Young
10. End of Time
11. I Was Here

“Live At Roseland” concert film was directed by Beyonce, Ed Burke and Anthony Green, and executive produced by Beyonce for Parkwood Entertainment, in association with Columbia Records.

Image Courtesy of  https://www.facebook.com/beyonce

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