(Vocal/instrumental group, 1983–present) A longstanding antithesis to manufactured pop, the current incarnation of Oklahoma’s The Flaming Lips – Wayne Coyne (vocals), Michael Ivins (bass) and Steven Drozd (drums) – plough a decidedly odd furrow, at odds with their more ‘traditional’ alternative rock past. Now famed for their live performances, which can feature aliens, giant animals, ...
(Trumpet, vocals, 1908–54) Oran Thaddeus Page surfaced in the Bennie Moten Band as a powerful blues player, often using a plunger mute. He was with the as-yet unknown Count Basie in 1936 and might soon have left Kansas City as one of that fabled band of brothers had he not been approached by Joe Glaser. Glaser was Louis ...
‘Sea Of Love’, 1959 Phillips has always remained a mysterious figure, despite having an almost accidental hit with his self-penned ‘Sea Of Love’. A bellhop, he had written it after the dissolution of his vocal group, The Gateway Quartet, and it reached No. 2 in the US. It was subsequently kept alive, thanks to covers by ...
(Vocal/instrumental group, 2003–present) Born when Charlie Simpson, lead singer of popular UK boy band Busted, decided to pursue the music he was passionate about: heavy guitar-rock. Fightstar eventually gained both commercial and critical acclaim. With second and third albums One Day Son, This Will All Be Yours (2007) and Be Human (2009) both reaching the UK Top ...
While more and more of the mainstream is occupied by heavily manufactured and stylized rock, pop and R&B acts, the emergence of less-demonstrative artists – often from a self-financing small-scale independent background – represents a quiet form of rebellion from the pop norm. The success of mavericks such as Björk and Sinéad O’Connor in the 1990s continues to foster ...
Spring Green Day Leave Lookout! Despite their love of pot and good times, Green Day took their music seriously and handed over the day-to-day running of their affairs to Elliot Cahn and Jeff Saltzman of Cahn-Man Management whose track record included The Melvins and Mudhoney. The first item upon an agreed agenda was to upgrade their record label. Despite ...
May Townshend Wins BMI Award The CSI TV franchise provided good exposure and a whole new outlet for Pete Townshend’s music, and all three shows used his compositions for their title tracks. As a result, from 2001, he was consistently awarded BMI (Broadcast Music Inc.) Awards in recognition of that body of work. The 2008 BMI Annual ...
Bugle Best known in its military guise, the bugle is one of the simplest of brass instruments in terms of construction, but it is very difficult to play. The single tube of metal has no valves to help create different notes, so players have to do all the work by changing their embouchure – a combination of the ...
The cornett of European Renaissance art music is a longer finger-hole horn made of wood. A precursor to the modern brass horns, it should not be confused with the valved – and much later developed – cornet. Construction and Playing Technique The cornett is a long tube, usually around 60 cm (20 in) in length. It is normally curved ...
Instantly recognizable, the crumhorn (also known as the krummhorn or cromorne) was made out of wood – usually boxwood – that had been bent rather than carved. The bell turned dramatically upwards like a hook, and the narrow cylindrical body flared only slightly, making the instrument lower in pitch than one with a conical bore of the same ...
The crumhorn is a double-reed wind-cap instrument. This means that the two reeds are enclosed in a rigid cap. The player blows through a hole in one end of the cap, which makes the reed vibrate unimpeded, since there is no direct contact with the lips. The crumhorn is a cylindrically bored instrument, normally made of maple with ...
A small free-reed instrument, the harmonica, or mouth organ, is placed between the lips and moved to and fro to reach the rows of channels which house vibrating reeds, played by blowing into it. The arrival of the Chinese sheng in Europe in the eighteenth century encouraged a great deal of experimentation with free-reed instruments. In 1821 ...
The term ‘horn’ is generally used to refer to the orchestral horn, also known as the French horn. Although it is used in jazz slang to indicate any wind instrument played by a soloist, the name here refers to the orchestral horn. History The early history of the horn is bound intimately to that of the trumpet. Both instruments ...
The pocket-sized instruments known in English as jew’s harps (or in some periods of history trumps, and in French guimbardes), have no connection with Judaism – nor are they harps. A strip of bamboo or metal, in a frame of the same material, is twanged, and the oral cavity acts as an amplifying soundbox whose capacity can ...
Of the woodwind instruments, the oboe has experienced perhaps the most organic development. There is no single, revolutionary moment at which the oboe became a modern instrument, and it retains strong links with the past both in sound and design. Shawm The modern oboe is a direct descendant of the shawm and the hautboy. The shawm was a ...
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An extensive music information resource, bringing together the talents and expertise of a wide range of editors and musicologists, including Stanley Sadie, Charles Wilson, Paul Du Noyer, Tony Byworth, Bob Allen, Howard Mandel, Cliff Douse, William Schafer, John Wilson...
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Classical, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Country and more. Flame Tree has been making encyclopaedias and guides about music for over 20 years. Now Flame Tree Pro brings together a huge canon of carefully curated information on genres, styles, artists and instruments. It's a perfect tool for study, and entertaining too, a great companion to our music books.
David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
his life, music, art and movies, with a
sweep of incredible photographs.