1027 | ICT magazine

Posts Tagged ‘1027’

Keppel raised to Outperform by Daiwa; with $10.27 target

August 11th, 2010 | No Comments

Daiwa has upgraded Keppel Corp. (BN4.SG) to Outperform from Underperform, lifts sum-of-parts target price to $10.27 from $8.15, on view company will win rig contracts from Brazil’s Petrobras, which may unveil outcome of its 28-rig tender some time this month, says Dow Jones

“(We) see it as the natural first place of inquiry for outsourced construction jobs from independent drillers because it is one of the only yards in Brazil that has any experience in building deep-water vessels,” says Daiwa.

Expects Keppel to clinch contracts to build 4 drillships, 2 semi-submersible rigs.

Shares off 0.8% at $8.94.

{jcomments on}

Sunset Rubdown | 10.27 | Los Angeles

November 10th, 2009 | No Comments

By: Ryan Torok

Sunset Rubdown :: 10.27.09 :: The Troubadour :: Los Angeles, CA

Sunset Rubdown

Back in 2005, Spencer Krug, arguably the hardest-working man in indie rock – he is the vocalist, pianist and guitarist of four different bands: Sunset Rubdown, Wolf Parade, Frog Eyes, and Swan Lake – gave the world a great song. It was called “I’ll Believe in Anything.” It first appeared on Sunset Rubdown’s debut LP, Snake’s Got a Leg. A few months later, it re-surfaced in a different version on Wolf Parade’s first full-length album, Apologizes to the Queen Mary. The song, in a word, soared. Raw, powerful drumming backed by Krug’s intense, melodic yelp yielded results that were passionate, dramatic, and touching in ways impossible for a songwriter to plan. It was the kind of song that made you either want to weep or stand up in the passenger seat of a moving car with half your body out the open sun-roof, while you closed your eyes, threw your hands to the sky, tilted your head back, and smiled because you were finally confident in your place in the world. Somehow, one line, the song’s recurring lyric – “Nobody knows you and nobody gives a damn!” – encapsulated every wild emotion every teenager has ever felt – all the pain, love, confusion, remorse, regret, and hope. More than anything else, “I’ll Believe in Anything” demonstrated Krug’s ability to make chaos beautiful.

Unfortunately, nothing Krug has done since comes close. Anything he is involved in is doomed to be a letdown, including live shows.

All summer long, Krug and Sunset Rubdown – comprised of Camilla Wynne Ingr (back-up vocals, percussion, keys), Michael Doerksen (guitar, bass, synthesizers, drums), Jordan Robson-Cramer (drums, guitar, keys), and newest member Mark Nicol (bass, drums) – toured in support of their latest album, Dragonslayer (released June 23 on Jagjaguar), a sprawling, ambitious saga whose eight songs enjoy an average length of over five minutes. On October 27, Rubdown played their final North American date to an almost sold out club of mostly early twenty-somethings at The Troubadour, a small club in West Hollywood. Expectedly, the 75-minute set, including one encore, continued Krug’s post-”I’ll Believe in Anything” streak of fine but not great music. The band comfortably executed “You Go on Ahead (Trumpet Trumpet II)” and “Idiot Heart,” two of the stronger songs from Dragonslayer. They unveiled a brand new song, which Krug clarified was about getting drunk and forcing your friends to take care of you (he then dedicated the song to his tour manager), and older material like “The Mending of the Gown,” which was driven by the weaving together of a proggy guitar riff with Krug’s brief, redundant, ’80s pop piano notes, and “The Empty Threats of Little Lord,” during which Krug repeatedly cried, “No, I am not that kind of whore!” These selections represented how consistently the band, throughout its half-decade career, has managed to create complex but accessible arrangements. Nothing, however, stood out. It was a show devoid of highs and even lows. The show was just fine.

Sunset Rubdown

“Idiot Heart” was perhaps the closest thing to a highlight. The song demonstrated one of the ways Sunset Rubdown is unique; they are one of the few bands that allow the lyrics to dictate the sound of the music, rather than vice versa. After Krug sang, “I was never much of a dancer, but I know enough to know you gotta move,” Robson-Cramer sped up on the hi-hat, creating a synergy between lyric and music hard to find in any genre. The crowd erupted, letting loose into a semi-dance party.

“Silver Moons,” also from Dragonslayer, should have been great. On record, when Krug and Ingr harmonize during the bridge, the sweet and child-like sound of Ingr’s pipes gorgeously complement Krug’s rough, fractured whimpers, essentially creating a third voice. Live, however, they didn’t pull it off; it sounded like two people competing to be heard. Krug had a head cold, so that might have been the reason. At one point, he even apologized to the crowd that his voice sounded “fucked up.” Other than that, he was his usual shy self and kept stage banter to a minimum, even ignoring the fan who kept yelling out, “It’s always sunny with Sunset!”

The only surprise of the night was the opening band, Tune-Yards. Led by talented female vocalist Merrill Garbus, this three-piece, which included a touring bassist and guitarist, commanded the stage for a fast half-hour set. Garbus beat the hell out of a snare and a tom drum, strummed and fingerpicked a ukulele, scatted and yodeled, recording sounds on the spot and then looping them to create beats. She sang over these literally fresh beats as well as over funky bass lines in a vocal style that conjured influences as wide-ranging and perplexing as Aretha Franklin AND Alanis Morissette. The initial reaction of some was, “WTF?” but the music was angry, sexual, a lot of fun, and won the crowd over by the end. Sunset Rubdown should have been taking notes.

JamBase | California
Go See Live Music!

Mastodon/Dethklok | 10.27 | Boston

November 4th, 2009 | No Comments

Words by: Andrew Bruss | Images by: Steve Klise

Mastodon/Dethklok :: 10.27.09 :: House of Blues :: Boston, MA

Brann Dailor – Mastodon :: 10.27 :: Boston

Mastodon came through Boston’s House of Blues, performing the entirety of 2009′s Crack The Skye, effectively fucking the eardrums of their fans for the first of a two-night, sold out run.

Touring alongside Dethklok, the fictional cartoon metal band staring on Cartoon Network’s Metalocalypse, Mastodon had their work cut out for them. Although the Atlanta-based quartet had the longest set of the two acts, the bearded, tattooed members of Mastodon found themselves performing to a crowd of greasy haired high school kids who came to support their favorite cartoon. For as many Mastodon fans as there were in the house, those in attendance for Dethklok seemed to have minimal background on the ever-intense nature of one of the most progressive metal bands in the world.

To Mastodon’s credit, they sold out the venue the last time they came through Beantown, without the assistance of Dethklok. Following their performance, while stagehands set up the massive screen that Dethklok performed under, Mastodon’s Brann Dailor (drums) told JamBase, “It was pretty much just as packed as the last time [we played here], but I think Dethklok is awesome. We’re all huge fans of the show.” He added, “The crowd seemed awesome, and I think they’re going to go fucking ballistic for Dethklok.”

Attendees proved responsive to Dethklok, but from the opening licks of “Oblivion,” the entire crowd was eating out of Mastodon’s palm. With devil horns in the air, the group’s crowd moshed and head banged along to every intricate rhythm that boomed out of the house PA.

Troy Sanders – Mastodon :: 10.27

As video projections of Rasputin filled the back of the stage, Troy Sanders (bass) and Brent Hinds (guitar) traded vocal duties, the former covering the low end and the latter forcing a higher-pitch, Ozzy Osbourne-esque tone through his embattled larynx.

When the group went into the instrumental segments of their carefully crafted compositions, Sanders, holding down center stage, had a tendency to rock out towards the back by the drum kit, while Hinds and Bill Kelliher (guitar) flanked both sides of the stage as they powered through the intricate, multi-layered six-string components they’ve trademarked.

Mastodon has developed a reputation as one of the fiercest, tightest acts known to man. But if there was one member who stood out as the leader, it was Dailor. You don’t see a lot of drummers who can take care of vocal responsibilities from behind their kit, and amongst those who can, Dailor put the Don Henleys of the world to shame. When describing Dailor’s method, the words ‘power’ and ‘speed’ cannot be used lightly. For the entirety of their set, it seemed as though Dailor was plowing through nonstop drum rolls with the explosive energy of a frag grenade.

Although “The Czar” runs at the core of the album’s Rasputin/Space Travel theme, the title track seemed to elicit the strongest response from the crowd. “Crack The Skye,” written in memory of Dailor’s late sister, opens on a mellower note, but in no time had the crowd stampeding in circles harder than they had for any other tune.

After the albums closer, “The Last Baron,” Mastodon left the stage before an encore consisting of tunes from their other albums, 2006′s Blood Mountain, and 2004′s Leviathan.

Dethklok :: 10.27 :: Boston

Dethklok came out cloaked in black, under dim lighting that allowed Metalocalypse‘s behind-the-scenes masterminds to keep a low profile. Cartoon projections took the place of any effective showmanship, and as the group tore into the show’s theme song, cheers erupted, although a reasonable chunk of the crowd left following Mastodon’s performance.

For men whose primary job is the creation of a cartoon, Metalocalypse creators Brendon Small and Tommy Blacha deserve massive props for writing technically proficient metal tunes that can share the stage with an act like Mastodon. But unlike Mastodon, Dethklok’s biggest problem lies in their authenticity. Rather than converting Mastodon fans with guitar-shredding credentials, they played to a crowd of existing fans who saw a performance that, more than anything, came across as a caricature of acts like Mastodon.

Given the lopsided nature of the bill’s authenticity, in hindsight it would have been more appropriate to have Mastodon follow Dethklok, but given the finances that EA Games’ Brutal Legend put into promotions, the reasoning behind the order was obvious. Regardless, even with a less-than-perfect schedule, anyone who bought a ticket to see Mastodon got to witness something they probably wouldn’t have seen otherwise. And the folks in attendance who came for Dethklok likely walked away with a new appreciation of what metal can truly be.

Mastodon and Dethklok are on tour now; dates available here.

And for more on Mastodon, check our exclusive feature/interview here.

Continue reading for more images of Mastodon and Dethklok in Boston…

Mastodon
Mastodon
Mastodon
Mastodon
Mastodon
Mastodon
Mastodon
Mastodon
Mastodon
Mastodon
Mastodon
Mastodon
Dethklok
Dethklok
Dethklok
Dethklok
Dethklok
Dethklok

JamBase | Throwing The Horns
Go See Live Music!

Mickey Hart Talks Space Sounds On History Channel 10/27

October 21st, 2009 | No Comments

Mickey Hart Discusses Sounds From Space

“The Universe: Pulsars & Quasars” Scheduled to air on THE HISTORY CHANNEL

Tuesday, October 27 at 09:00 P.M.

Mickey Hart

During The Dead‘s Spring Tour, Mickey Hart debuted the “UNIVERSE OF SOUND.” Each night of the Tour Hart connected audiences with the universe’s most celestial vibrations from the Big Bang to the rings of Saturn to the Black Hole. Hart said, “The idea was to take our audience on a nightly tour of some part of our universe during our ‘space concerto’ section. The next day we put it up on our website so the kids could follow it.” This got the interest of the folks at the History Channel who produce the acclaimed “The Universe” series. They came out to Hart’s studio and spent an afternoon doing interviews for the segment being produced on Pulsars and Quasars.

Hart is known for his high quality recordings of music from around the globe and his collaborations with the world’s great percussionists. His Grammy Award-winning Planet Drum (1991 Best World Music) and Global Drum Project (2008 Best Contemporary World Music) featured the finest acoustic percussion, enhanced with the latest audio processing and editing technologies. As he begins to record his next project, the frontier of space inspires Hart’s compositions and he is thrilled to be collaborating with a number of the world’s leading astronomers and astrophysicists along with his Global Drum Project bandmates, Zakir Hussain, Giovanni Hidalgo and Sikiru Adepoju in creating other worldly music emanating from a universe of sound.

Connecting the arts and sciences is another piece of Hart’s latest works. Mickey hopes to inspire the next generations and feels it is essential that young people understand the science of their times. He strongly supports the Obama administration’s STEM initiatives to prepare the next generation in science, technology, engineering, and math. Mickey has been a pioneer in supporting engineering for the arts including the development of field recording systems, loudspeaker arrays, and has made various appearances at AES (Audio Engineering Society) conventions.

Please find a brief of the show on THE HISTORY CHANNEL WEBSITE.