May 2003
Also in the news: Lisa Marie Presley on Lisa Watch
- Brighthand more popular than Coke or Pepsi ... or Elvis!
(Brighthand, May 14, 2003)
According to Internet researcher Alexa, Brighthand is more popular than most other handheld sites, including PalmInfocenter, PDA Buzz, Pocket PC Thoughts, and InfoSync Quite an accomplishment. (Still, we highly recommend that you visit those excellent sites as they all have their own unique "personalities.") But we were certainly unprepared to discover that we're also more popular than CocaCola.com and Pepsi.com, and even Elvis.com for that matter! Imagine, more popular than The King! Who'd have ever thunk it! [Note: Tounge planted firmly in cheek. ;) ]
- 'King' grants tax benefit for Strand
By DAN HEATH
(Press Republican, May 13, 2003)
Elvis has left the building, but not before playing four shows to benefit the Strand Theatre this weekend. Around 70 Elvis fans were on hand as former Ticonderoga resident James Cawley performed a matinee Sunday. The crowd was hushed in anticipation as "Thus Spake Zarathustra" reached a crescendo.
Cheers erupted as Cawley, dressed in a sequined blue jumpsuit, ran down the aisle and up on stage. Heads were bopping as he opened with "Blue Suede Shoes." A spirited rendition of "Burning Love" followed, complete with the gyrations that Ed Sullivan originally refused to allow on air.
Cawley has been performing as Elvis Presley for 14 years. "My parents got me into the Elvis thing," he said. "It's been my living for a long time."
- New merger talks emerge in bruised music industry
By Merissa Marr
(reuters, May 12, 2003)
The familiar tune of deal-making swept through the music business on Monday as it emerged that media rivals AOL Time Warner Inc. and Bertelsmann AG have been exploring a music merger in yet another attempt to match two music companies. Facing sliding sales and rampant piracy in the battered industry, AOL Time Warner. AOL and Germany's Bertelsmann have been examining a merger of their recorded music divisions that would bring together artists ranging from pop queen Madonna to Latin rocker Santana, sources familiar with the situation said.
However, several sources cautioned the talks were just one of many discussions taking place in the industry as the world's top five music companies scramble for a solution to their woes. "You have five music companies and more than 25 possibilities. Nevertheless, I would expect to see at least one deal this year," said one banker familiar with the situation.
Most of the world's five music majors have been exploring mergers or outright sales in recent months, as the combination of cash-strapped parent companies and tumbling music sales put pressure on music companies to do something fast. ...
PRESSURE ON EMI
News of the latest talks cast gloom over Britain's EMI Group Plc EMI.L , the world's third-biggest music company, which has lately been in separate talks with both Bertelsmann and AOL. EMI shares fell five percent on concerns it could be left out in the next round of mergers. However, its stock recovered to close 1.2 percent down at 125-1/4 pence. AOL Time Warner shares were 0.8 percent up at $13.12 at 1600 GMT.
Initially reported in the Wall Street Journal, the AOL/ Bertelsmann talks have involved top management, though the paper said issues such as valuation and control remain outstanding.
"Valuation is a big problem in any of these deals. I still think there will be a deal in the industry by this summer and it will likely involve Warner," said consultant Nick Henry-Stolz. Warner Music ranks number four in the world with artists including Linkin Park, while Bertelsmann's BMG ranks five with a roster including the Elvis Presley catalogue. A combination would rival industry giant Universal Music in the U.S. market.
Both AOL Time Warner and Bertelsmann separately came close to merging their music businesses with EMI three years ago, but were confounded by European regulators uncomfortable with the world's five biggest music companies shrinking to four. However, some believe the regulators could now be more open to a deal.
While rumours have focused on EMI, Warner and BMG, the world's biggest music company Universal Music EAUG.PA also recently held talks with Apple Computer Inc. AAPL.O . But sources close to the groups say those talks have since cooled.
- Eminem to Weird Al: "Lose Yourself"
(vsttech.com, May 11, 2003)
Eminem may poke fun at himself in videos, but he doesn't want "Weird Al'' Yankovic doing it. Eminem won't give Yankovic permission to shoot a video for his new song, "Couch Potato,'' a parody of Eminem's Oscar-winning tune ``Lose Yourself,'' Yankovic said. "The only reason I could glean was that making a Weird Al music video would detract from his legacy as a serious hip-hop artist,'' Yankovic said Thursday. "It's very disappointing. This could have been my best video ever.''
Eminem parodies himself and other celebrities in some of his most famous videos, including ``Without Me,'' where he depicts himself as a fat Elvis Presley.
- 'Elvis' to perform in Malta
By Josanne Cassar
(Malta Independent Daily, May 9, 2003)
After Abba, Queen and The Beatles, here comes Elvis, or rather, Steve Preston - a renowned Elvis impersonator, who will be entertaining the crowds at the Mediterranean Conference Centre between 6-8 June.
The tribute concert entitled It's Now or Never is being brought to Malta from the West End by Production & Event Services (Pres), who specialise in these types of tribute bands and entertainers. Following the well-received Beatles tribute last year Pres, in collaboration with Simons Farsons Cisk, have managed to book the top Elvis impersonator in the world who allows audiences to relive the magic and charm of an Elvis Presley concert.
Launching the event yesterday, the organisers pointed out that this promises to be an even bigger event, with special lighting effects and a party atmosphere which is aimed at the young and the not-so-young alike. With Elvis' music still topping the charts as it did in 2002 with the dance track re-mix by JXL of A Little less Conversation, even the younger crowd is guaranteed to have a good time at the concert.
... This tribute concert will definitely go down well in Malta where Elvis fans are numerous, and where his recently released "most popular hits" is doing well in the charts.
- Soup is better than Elvis
By Mark Solomons
(This is London / Evening Standard, May 8, 2003)
Des Lynam, Kevin Spacey, Liverpool FC, yoga and Tate Modern all have something in common - and it is not being cool or trendy.
According to style gurus they are all seriously overrated, as is Elvis, Prozac, air travel, massages and baked beans. But The Monkees, chicken soup, Glasgow, instant coffee, Princess Margaret and Teletext are underrated.
How do we know? They are in lists of the 100 most overrated and 100 most underrated things on the planet. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the exhaustive lists are in a publication aimed at men: the new issue of Esquire tells us that Pringles beat Twiglets, and Picasso is not all he was cracked up to be.
- Elvis Lives
(Anorak, May 7, 2003)
THERE is sensation aplenty in Hello!ville as it is reported on the magazine's front page that Elvis is alive. To give full throat to the magazine's headline story, the joyous news reads: "Lisa Marie Presley steps out of her father's shadow."
To cast a shadow, we can deduce that The Pelvis is a) alive; b) a ghost; or c) lying in state in Lisa's front room, pickled in burger fat and cheese slices. Whichever it is, given the girth of the singer when he "died" all those years ago, Lisa Marie has done well to battle free of his mighty shadow.
And now breathing the rich oxygen of publicity, Lisa Marie wants to sing about it. And you can hear her do just that on her debut album, To Whom It may Concern. "You want to know who I am and what I am," says the scion of the Presley clan. "It's in here." One imagines she taps the case of her CD as she says this. "This is how either crazy I am, deranged or stupid or whatever you want to call it."
Whatever you call it, do not call it music or talent. Although the duet with an unnamed man with a strangely familiar voice is a pleasant enough tune...
Comments to: editor@anorak.co.uk
- Thief is all shook up in Elvis-style giveaway
(Edinburgh Evening News Online, May 7, 2003)
A STRESSED out thief gave away more than £2000 worth of stolen mobile phones and almost £5000 worth of jewellery in an Elvis Presley-style giveaway to strangers in the street.
They were part of a £40,000 haul from an Argos store in Bathgate, West Lothian, where William Poole worked as a stock manager. He helped himself to £24,000 in cash, £11,000 worth of jewellery, the mobile phones, top-up cards, electrical goods and travel bags. He fled to Brighton leaving his wife and four children behind.
Depute fiscal Gavin Dawson told Linlithgow Sheriff Court yesterday that Poole, 39, had left his workmates in a pub one night last August and returned to the shop where he helped himself to the stock and cash.
Mr Dawson added: "Eleven days later he presented himself at Brighton Police Station. It would appear that £8000 or so of the cash was spent on hotels, food, alcohol and entertainment." Mr Dawson added: "Much of the missing stuff seems to have been given away to people in the street. It was an act of astonishing generosity to the people of Brighton more suited to Memphis when Elvis was around."
- Coaches behaving badly
By Steve Czaban
(onmilwaukee.com, May 6, 2003)
Have you ever seen that cheesy painting in the mall, with James Dean, Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe all sitting around an empty corner bar. The title is something equally sappy like "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" -- as if you didn't get that all three pop-icons had died far too young.
I want a painting of Larry Eustachy, Mike Price and George O'Leary sitting around a campus pub. The title could be "Avenue of Idiots." I mean seriously. Have you ever seen such a rash of stupidity in just a few short weeks? (OK, so O'Leary happened a year ago, but work with me!) Eustachy gets caught in an on-campus bender, hugging a Natural Light in one hand, and Missouri co-eds in the other.
- Serving the King
By Paul Taylor
(Manchester Online, May 6, 2003)
UP on stage, the huge screens flash images of the lithe, jumpsuited Elvis Presley of 30 years ago, rattling through the greatest hits, never growing a moment older.
Below him, following his every cue, stepping forward to take their bows at Elvis' command, the TCB Band are still, as those initials suggest, taking care of business. But, like the picture in Dorian Gray' attic, they grow older and greyer while the screen images of their30-years-younger selves, alongside Elvis, remain frozen in time.
... When the Elvis 2000 tour arrived in the UK three years ago (making up for the fact that Presley never managed to play her during his lifetime) it was, according to the Guinness Book of Records, "the first live tour by a person no longer living". Three years on, the virtual Elvis is still packing them in.
"We figured we had done strange things before and this would be a challenge," explains Elvis' lead guitarist James Burton, from his home in California. None of The King's band hesitated to jump aboard the posthumous tour. "It worked out great. The technical stuff worked and it all came together. Elvis was still directing us on screen. We captured pretty much everything you would want to see in a show. It's all there." Some even said that Elvis "notoriously spontaneous and improvisational in concert", was easier to work with dead than alive.
"He certainly enjoyed having fun and clowning around," agrees Burton, aged 63. Not only do Elvis' old band manage to play along with the disembodied voice and image of their old boss. They do it so spookily well that, within minutes, you forget that this is not, in every respect, a live performance.
So what kind of a friend and colleague was Elvis? "He was a wonderful guy. Such a down to earth person and yet such a great showman and entertainer,"says Burton. "The charisma was unbelievable. He was such a nice looking man that the girls went crazy." ...
- Geeks fail to sway e-Bay site
By Fran Spencer
(West Australian, May 6, 2003)
AAAH, eBay - is there anything it can't provide? We've had small desert towns, vials of Elvis' sweat, Eminem's childhood home and chocolate bars half eaten by Ben Affleck.
Now, it appears, the online auction house has turned its hand to helping out the lovelorn, with the appearance last week of a lot offering "a DATE with 4 complete and utter geeks" from Oxford, England. ...
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- Evlis' band plays (with stand-in King)
(Indianapolis Star / Associated Press, May 5, 2003)
All the King's men were back -- without Elvis. Presley's guitar players Scotty Moore and James Burton and drummer D.J. Fontana got together last week, assisted by Paul Burlison, Kim Curtis and others. They were among 75 musicians at the Ponderosa Stomp, part of the fringe festival that has sprung up around the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
Standing in on vocals for Presley was Big Sandy, a singer from Southern California whose Fly-Rite Boys travel the country in a yellow school bus and play rockabilly, Western swing and mariachi classics. They played before 700 people, packed into the Mid-City Bowling Lanes.
"If someone had told me that tonight, or anytime, that I would end up with Elvis' guitar players and drummer on stage, I wouldn't have believed it in a million years," Big Sandy said. ...
- A certain craggy charm
By LAEL LOEWENSTEIN
(New York Daily News, May 4, 2003)
His craggy face and weathered hands betray a life on the fringe. The image appears in "The Man on the Train," and the man's face has a nagging familiarity, although the actor playing him, Johnny Hallyday, may not mean much to American moviegoers.
Hallyday, in fact, is French rock 'n' roll royalty, having sold more than 100 million albums since 1960. He may be known as "the French Elvis" (a moniker he owes to the American and British press), but the title is misleading, and he's not sure how he feels about it.
"In France we don't make comparisons," says the gravel-voiced Hallyday in French-accented English. "I'm not Elvis, and I don't want to be. There is only one Elvis - for me, he will always be the King." Still, Hallyday admits that Elvis was an early inspiration. After seeing Presley's sophomore film, "Loving You," the teenaged Jean-Philippe Smet decided rock 'n' roll was his destiny. Having studied albums by Presley, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent and Chuck Berry, he picked up a guitar and began to build a singing career. ...
- Better than a 'nanner sandwich
By JAY CRIDLIN
(St. Petersburg Times, May 4, 2003)
It is 5:55 p.m., and Billy Lindsey is singing to no one. His stage is Pat's Place, a tiny diner buried in a Sun City Center strip mall, where he comes to sing oldies each Wednesday night for a house full of septuagenarians. Lindsey's set is good, but with no band, it's just karaoke. The crowd is polite and appreciative, but keeps right on eating and talking. This, says server Diana Fox as she pours coffee at the bar, will not last for long.
"Wait'll he does his Elvis," she says, as Lindsey wraps up his opening set and heads backstage. Twenty minutes later, the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey kicks in. All eyes turn toward the kitchen. There, standing in the doorway, wearing a rhinestone-studded full-body jumpsuit and clutching a microphone, is Lindsey. The music segues into a rollicking That's All Right, Mama, and Lindsey steps forward. Elvis has left the kitchen.
Lindsey is no stranger in Citrus County. He frequently performs at the Marguerita Grill in Homosassa and is the "Official Elvis" for WRGO-FM 102.7 in Crystal River.
But at Pat's Place, where he has been performing just seven months, Lindsey has become a legend. ... During his 45-minute set, Lindsey is the King incarnate, a sweaty cyclone of quivering lips and swiveling hips. He meanders through the audience, crooning Elvis tunes and giving every woman a kiss and a cheap plastic lei. Then comes what can only be described as a lap dance. He swings one leg over the lap of every seated woman, crouching till he's almost seated, as friends howl and snap photos. Some women scream, some gaze into his eyes and sing along, and some, who can't help themselves, grab hold of his thighs.
The crowd eats it up. Especially the ladies, for whom Lindsey, 46, represents the ultimate hunka hunka burning love. "We've had women grab his butt, unzip his jumpsuit," says Nancy Taber, the owner of Pat's Place. "These older women go crazy. Some things shock me." As Lindsey straddles a frail-looking woman, gyrating to the strains of his sultry Never Been to Spain, Fox shakes her head and laughs. "It beats bingo, I guess," she sighs. ...
- The King Rides Mattress To Victory
By Tim Cook
(The Day [Pawtuck], May 4, 2003)
Band members from the Big Nazo Puppets of Providence entertain the crowd at Mystic's annual May Day celebration on Saturday.
They hoisted the bedpan above their heads like a trophy, parading through the Handle Bar Cafe on a victory lap Saturday afternoon to hoots, hollers, hand-clapping and raised bottles of beer. Painted gold and festooned with pink, green and yellow ribbons and white roll of toilet paper, the bedpan was a trophy, first prize in the Mystic Chamber of Commerce's 7th Annual May Day Bed Race.
Finally, after years of finishing second best, the boys from the Handle Bar brought the cherished "Chamber Pot" home. All it took was an Elvis impersonator from Stonington, three fleet-footed Handle Bar patrons, and a secret weapon 17-year-old Maurice McClellan, a football running back and track star at Stonington High School. Still, in this smoky bar, there was never a doubt.
"They want to win, that made the difference," said Frank Serrano, 36, who steered the winning mattress to victory. Donning oversized sunglasses, a black wig and a white, open-chested, bell-bottomed suit, Serrano masqueraded as a skinny Elvis Presley to celebrate the day.
... After a few heats, team Handle Bar advanced to the final round. In the finale, the team cruised the tenth of a mile course in 16.93 seconds, inching out the bed from Medtronic Merocol/Trium team by 0.04 seconds. Serrano, arms raised in victory as he sat on top of his team's mattress, treated the crowd to his best Elvis twang: "Thank you. Thank you very much." At a celebration barbeque back at the Handle Bar, the pieces came together. Serrano had dressed as Elvis as a wedding present; team sponsor and Handle Bar owner Besty Mitchell-Cipriano got married Tuesday by an Elvis impersonator in Las Vegas. ...
- Tonesmen to perform tribute to Elvis Presley
(San Angelo Standard Times, May 3, 2003)
The Twin Mountain Tonesmen, San Angelo's award-winning men's chorus, will present its 24th annual show ''All Shook Up,'' a tribute to Elvis Presley, at 7:59 p.m. today at the San Angelo City Auditorium. David Wagner from KLST-TV will emcee the event.
- Elvis' original backup band reunites in New Orleans
By CAIN BURDEAU
(Louisiana News, May 2, 2003)
All the King's men are back -- absent Elvis. Elvis' longtime musicians got together in a down-home bowling alley/music hall this week as part of the Ponderosa Stomp, a fringe festival that has sprung up around the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. It was a who's who of the guys who backed Elvis Presley throughout his turbulent and revolutionary career from the gig circuit in Memphis in 1950s to worldwide fame.
Wednesday night, the King's guitar players Scotty Moore and James Burton -- legends in their own right -- and longtime Elvis drummer D.J. Fontana played Elvis classics, assisted by Paul Burlison, Kim Curtis and others. Standing in on vocals for the ducktailed boy from Tupelo was Big Sandy, a Southern California singer whose Fly-Rite Boys travel the country in a yellow school bus playing rockabilly, Western swing and mariachi classics.
It was the closest that 700 mortals, packed into the Mid-City Bowling Lanes, a music hall known as Rock 'N' Bowl, could get to witnessing the smoldering volcano of rock's revolution. "If someone had told me that tonight, or anytime, that I would end up with Elvis' guitar players and drummer on stage, I wouldn't have believed it in a million years," said Big Sandy, who was asked out of the blue to accompany the aging legends on vocals.
"In a way it's like a family reunion," said Moore, 71, who has also been a successful music producer in Nashville.
In the summer of 1954, Moore met Elvis, an aspiring singer, and the two unknowingly changed the course of music history when they and bassist Bill Black recorded Elvis' first hit, the blues song "That's All Right Mama," in the studio of Sun records in Memphis. "He's as popular being dead 25 years as he was when he was alive. Explain that to me?" Moore said. "I go to Europe and in the autograph lines there are grandparents, people my age, with their grandchildren, and they'll have an Elvis record under their arm wanting to be signed," Moore said.
Moore was recently inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame and he has a Gibson guitar named after him, modeled after the original ES-295 that he played in the old days.
- Elvis Goes Under The Hammer At Charity Auction
(Hexham Courant, May 2, 2003)
Elvis wall-hanging, antique garden tools and 20 round bales of straw are just some of the lots to bid for during a charity auction ...
- Elvis and Jesus hang out in NoDa gallery
By MEG FREEMAN WHALEN
(Charlotte Observer, May 2, 2003)
New Sanctuary Art Studio features classic art and quirkier fare.
At Jerry Kirk's new Sanctuary Art Studio and Galleries, Elvis and Jesus share a table at a sports bar, take a ride in a pink Cadillac and pick up a few things at the grocery store.
Kirk's "Two Kings Series," clear, bold paintings that he describes as "narrative expressionism," will share space with works by six other painters and two photographers when he opens for the first time during today's gallery crawl.
"This show is to introduce these artists to the public," said Kirk earlier this week as he put final touches on his new place. "In the fall we'll begin solo shows." ...
- Charting a new course
By ANDREW Z. GALARNEAU
(Buffalo News, May 1, 2003)
Maid of the Mist Capt. Jerry Fletcher says most of the millions of passengers on his estimated 96,237 voyages were ordinary people. Retirement will allow him and his wife to take their first summer vacation. Capt. Jerry Fletcher has spent 35 years steering the Maid of the Mist through the Niagara Falls basin, enough time to recall the Horseshoe Falls before erosion chipped off 50 yards.
He has seen Elvis Presley surrounded by his security guards, Princess Di with her sons and Burt Reynolds incognito.
He has also seen a doomed kayaker who thought he could jump the cataract, and more bodies of suicide victims than he can count. But as he headed into retirement Wednesday, he said the memories that stuck with him would be the pleasant ones ...
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