Latest news with #Sain
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Richard Johnson: Warhol's famous Polaroids headed for exhibit in NYC
NEW YORK — Andy Warhol would be amazed and proud that the Polaroid pictures he took — and often handed out for free — are worth $25,000 apiece today. Art dealer Isabelle Bscher of Galerie Gmurzynska is opening a show in Zurich, Switzerland, next month with Warhol's snapshots of Mick Jagger, Grace Jones, Jim Morrison, Lou Reed, Christina Onassis, Keith Haring and Candy Darling. The show, coming to New York in the fall, also features paintings by Ronnie Cutrone, who worked with Warhol for a decade. Cutrone — who painted cartoon characters like Woody the Woodpecker, Bart Simpson and Bugs Bunny — once said, 'New York was elegant and sleazy. Now it's a shopping mall for dot-commers. We need our crime rate back. I want my muggers and hookers back.' Cutrone, who met Warhol when he was only 16, began writing for Warhol's Interview magazine in 1969 about celebrities like Nancy Reagan. **** Chris Sain is giving away $1 million. The former Michigan State football player is a financial educator and author of two bestsellers who has nearly 1 million subscribers on YouTube. Now he's criss-crossing the country handing out $25,000 checks to worthy causes. 'I'm just giving money away,' Sain told me, quoting the Bible: 'To whom much is given, much is required.' Sain said he and his wife, Corinthia, who met in college, are debt-free. 'We were frugal. Instead of going out to dinner, we'd stay home and cook.' When Sain gives a speech, thousands of fans turn out. But he's preparing for even more attention. 'I've got bigger goals,' he said. **** Steve Grillo, a former intern on the Howard Stern radio show, is turning his memoir 'Gorilla Parts' into a musical. His blue-collar upbringing quickly smashes into high-rise Manhattan where Steve is thrust at the tender age of 19 into a world of celebrities and depravity. Grillo was beaten up by Spike Lee's bodyguards, lost his girlfriend to Steve Martin, partied with Ron Jeremy and John Wayne Bobbitt, and saved Stern's life from an enraged fan. Songs include 'Welcome to Canarsie,' where Grillo grew up; 'They're Gonna Put You in the Trunk,' about avoiding a mobbed-up execution; and 'Happy Birthday, I Want a Divorce,' chronicling Steve's marriage that included barf-covered threesomes. 'Gorilla Parts: The Musical' is designed to accommodate a rotating cast of celebrity guests, ensuring no two performances will be alike. **** Claire Danes, Hugh Dancy, Andie MacDowell, Stephanie March, and 'White Lotus' stars Michelle Monaghan and Leslie Bibb were among the celebrities at The Whitney Museum of Art's Spring Gala. The event honored acclaimed painter Amy Sherald, best known for her portrait of former first lady Michelle Obama. 'When I first began painting portraits, I wasn't trying to make history,' said Sherald, whose moving canvases document the contemporary African American experience. 'I just wanted to offer images that looked like the world I came from — ordinary and extraordinary at the same time.' Leading the applause were Chairman of the Board Richard DeMartini, Neil Bluhm and his wife Kimberly Paige Bluhm, Nicky Hilton Rothschild, Jeff Koons, Susan Hess, Laurie Tisch, designer Wes Gordon, architect TC Chou, and Tom Sachs and his wife Sarah Hoover. Whitney curator Barbara Haskell was also honored. The crowd sang along with TLC when they performed their 1994 hit 'Creep.' The museum, celebrating its 10th anniversary, raised a record-breaking $6 million. It was also announced that an additional gift of $1 million from songwriter Judy Hart Angelo would support the museum's free admissions program for visitors 25 and under. **** Katherine Bryan celebrated the publication of her interior decorating book, 'Great Inspiration,' with some friends at her Park Avenue apartment. Bryan, often seen on the arm of George Hamilton, raised a glass with her son George Gurley, Candace Bushnell, Susan Gutfreund and Republican political strategist Ed Rollins. Guests included Jean Doumanian, who produced seven Woody Allen films, Tiffany Dubin and Annette Tapert. No one said it, but I was thinking, 'Living well is the best revenge.' **** Justin Timberlake, Jessica Biel, Drew Barrymore, Vera Wang and 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy' star Thom Filicia are a few of the celebrities who have checked out Iris Dankner's Holiday House Hamptons Designer Showcase, which will open July 12. Christian Siriano, Andrea Stark, Campion Platt and Jean Shafiroff are the design chairs of the benefit. The luxury estate in Water Mill will feature the work of more than 15 top designers. Ticket sales benefit the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. **** Out & About: 'Will & Grace' star Eric McCormack was spotted at Carnegie Diner & Cafe on Eighth Ave. grabbing a quick bite … Darryl Strawberry at Midtown hot spot Hunt & Fish Club with proprietor Nelson Braff and his son, who despite being a huge Yankees fan, was admiring Darryl's '86 Mets World Series ring. _________
The Guardian
13-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Geraint Jarman obituary
Geraint Jarman, who has died aged 74, was an influential figure in the arts in Wales, as a musician, poet, actor and film-maker, as well as a mentor to younger artists. He always performed and wrote in Welsh, his mother tongue, but he brought influences into his work from European poetry, new wave, reggae, country, rock and beyond, keen to demonstrate that Wales was part of a broader cultural world. Starting with Gobaith Mawr Y Ganrif (The Great Hope of the Century, 1976), for which he was shot in denim on the cover, in monochrome, like a hip singer-songwriter, Jarman released nine albums in 10 years on the independent Welsh language record label, Sain, several with his multicultural band, Y Cynganeddwyr (its name a playful reference to an ancient Welsh poetic form, still used in eisteddfod competitions), and eight more over the next 30 years. His singing, and approach to his subjects, could be sweet, spiky or playful. Tracks on Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau (Land of My Fathers, 1978) include a cover of the Welsh national anthem, slathered in feedback by his bandmate, the guitarist Tich Gwilym, as well as Ethiopia Newydd (New Ethiopia), inspired by rastafarianism, and an impish love song, Merch Tŷ Cyngor (Council House Girl). Reggae also features prominently, a genre for which Jarman's passion grew in the 1970s through the Casablanca Club in Cardiff (which he discussed, in a rare English interview, on a 2021 Radio Wales documentary), and later he recorded two all-reggae albums, Cariad Cwantwm (Quantum Love, 2018) and Cwantwm Dub (Quantum Dub, 2020). Jarman influenced Welsh bands, including Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and Ffa Coffi Pawb (members of which formed Super Furry Animals, for whom Jarman directed a documentary of their first global tour, Poptastic, in 1997). Both acts featured on Fideo 9, the music show Jarman co-produced with his TV company Criw Byw (Live Crew) between 1988 and 1992, for the Welsh-language channel S4C. Welsh language bands were paid to make videos for the show, using state-of-the-art equipment, which were then broadcast at prime time on Thursday evenings. Cerys Matthews also sang on Jarman's 1994 cassette release Y Ceubal Y Crossbar A'r Quango (The Ferryboat, the Crossbar and the Quango), shortly before Catatonia's mainstream success. The Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys praised his 'cultural curiosity … he brought a new critical and urban outlook to Welsh-speaking culture.' Born in Denbigh, north Wales, Geraint was the second of three children, and the only son, of Emrys, an accountant and Myfanwy (nee Owen), a primary school teacher. The family moved to Cardiff when he was four, and Geraint went to Ysgol Gynradd Gymraeg Bryntaf, the city's first Welsh language primary school. With his older sister, Tanwen, he sang with the Pontcanna children's choir, and they performed often on the ITV Welsh music programme Gwlad Y Gân (Land of Song). At Cathays high school, he was in the same class as the future football manager Terry Yorath. However, Jarman was often to be found skiving in local cafes, he admitted in a 2015 interview with Wales Online, writing verse inspired by the poets Pablo Neruda and Constantine Cavafy. After leaving school, he met Heather Jones, a singer, and they married in 1969. He wrote songs for her, and with the singer-songwriter Meic Stevens, the couple formed a pastiche folk-rock group Bara Menyn (Bread and Butter). Its name was a reference to their need to make money so they could pursue other projects. They were signed by Lupus Music, alongside T-Rex and Pink Floyd, and released two EPs in 1969. Jarman published a first volume of poetry, Eira Cariad (Snow Love), in 1970, which was followed by Cerddi Alfred St (Alfred Street Poems, 1976) and Cerbyd Cydwybod (Vehicle of Conscience, 2012). The editors of the 2017 Welsh literature anthology The Old Red Tongue, Gwyn Griffiths and Meic Stephens, described his writing as 'freewheeling … both whimsical and enigmatic, [with] a wide range of feeling which gives his work a serious, lyrical and haunted note'. He also co-wrote a folk-rock opera with Stevens about environmental issues, Etifeddiaeth Drwy'r Mwg (Inheritance Through the Smoke), which was broadcast on HTV in 1970 as 'an experiment for St David's Day'. As an actor, he worked in fringe theatre and TV, appearing in 1977 as PC Gordon Hughes in the BBC Wales police station comedy-drama Glas Y Dorlan (Kingfisher), and as a student in the 1978 BBC drama Off To Philadelphia in the Morning. He was also the voice of Superted in the original Welsh language version of the children's cartoon. His autobiography, Twrw Jarman (Jarman's Noise) was published in 2011. In 2017, he won a special contribution award from the Welsh music magazine Y Selar. He collaborated widely through the years, working with the experimental dub/hip hop group Llwybr Llaethog, the folk singer Gareth Bonello, and his three daughters, as singers, both live and on record. His marriage to Jones ended in divorce. He is survived by his second wife, Nia Caron, whom he married in 1987, and their daughters, Hanna and Mared; by his daughter Lisa, from his first marriage; and by his sisters, Tanwen and Catrin. Geraint Rhys Maldwyn Jarman, musician, writer, actor and film-maker, born 17 August 1950; died 3 March 2025
The Guardian
04-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Together in creativity for peace!' Sain, the indie label pushing Welsh music forward for 56 years
One of the oldest indie labels in Britain sits down a muddy lane on an old RAF site, less than a mile from the sea, half an hour from the mountains of Eryri. Founded in 1969, Sain – meaning sound in Welsh, pronounced (in English) like 'sign' – is an unusual label, host to a remarkable treasure trove of music. And now it is on a drive to explore its past, present and future. It has recently launched a new anthology series, Stafell Sbâr Sain (Sain's Spare Room), which gets up-and-coming Welsh musicians to record in its vintage analogue studio. Tyrchu Sain (Digging Sain) is a new album by Don Leisure (AKA producer Aly Jamal) which remixes the label's 56-year-old catalogue into mesmerising new shapes. Meanwhile the label's archive of Welsh-language music – more than 3,000 albums of pop, psych, prog, punk, funk, folk, opera, choral music and other genres on vinyl and cassette – is being digitised, so it can be released on streaming services for the first time and archived in the National Library of Wales. I visit the HQ outside the village of Llandwrog in Gwynedd with Kev Tame as my tour guide. A former member of electronic collective Acid Casuals and rock band Big Leaves (who were signed to Sain's 80s-00s pop imprint Crai, which also released early singles by Catatonia), he is part of a generation who are keen to preserve and revive Welsh music history. He runs the Welsh music prize with 6 Music DJ Huw Stephens, and leads the Sain archive and development project. 'Sain is a very unofficial institution in terms of Welsh music – like an annoying younger sister or brother to others that exist, like BBC Radio Cymru and S4C,' he says. The HQ is a quirky place. Past its purple-painted reception run by the formidable Rhian Eleri, artworks from the label's 2019 50th birthday celebrations line its corridors, using Sain's early DIY collage aesthetic as inspiration, with the work of musician and poet Geraint Jarman (who died this week) who mixed rock, reggae and pop and played with Welsh poetic forms, being especially prominent. That frisky, hands-on creativity crackles elsewhere. It's there in the huge, modernist studio built in the space of the demolished RAF lorry garage and decorated in stone and wood. (Before 1980, Sain was based in a nearby factory canteen and a cowshed, having begun life in a Cardiff front room.) 'The stones apparently came from the farm down the road in a wheelbarrow,' says Aled Wyn Hughes, one of the studio's three managers, who is today producing the lush debut single by new bilingual country artist Martha. (Hughes also plays in the acclaimed folk-rock band Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog.) Folk musician and researcher Gwenan Gibbard works here, too, helping to administer the digitisation of the archive, a project which is funded by Arfor, a partnership between the Welsh government, Plaid Cymru and North Walian councils to protect and promote the Welsh language. 'Even going back to the 1960s, people were making music in every genre in Welsh,' she points out. 'Which didn't always happen in some other minority languages, like Gaelic.' A touring culture based around clubs, miners' institutes and local theatres has helped, as has the popularity of regional and national eisteddfod festivals, which still thrive today. Sain's roots are political. In 1969, Dafydd Iwan had just released Carlo, a single satirising that summer's investiture of the new Prince of Wales, on an older Welsh-language label, Welsh Teldisc. But he was frustrated by the lack of access to quality recording studios or equipment in Wales. He co-founded Sain with protest singer Huw Jones, who released the first single on the label later that year: the fabulous, soulful Dŵr, about a man returning to his village to find it flooded, echoing the fate of Capel Celyn, which was flooded in 1965 to make a reservoir for Liverpool. Now 81, Iwan lives only 10 minutes from Sain, near Caernarfon. He has become well-known in Wales in recent years since his 1983 song Yma O Hyd (Still Here), famously sung on the picket lines during the miners' strike, was adopted by the Wales football team, and covered by bilingual drill artist Sage Todz for the 2022 World Cup. He reflects on global politics at the time he founded the label: 'Civil rights, the student riots on the continent, the campaigns against the Vietnam war – we got this feeling that the world had to change, and that feeling translated into our peculiar situation in Wales.' The 1967 Welsh Language Act had allowed Welsh to be used in legal proceedings again, for the first time since the 16th century, and Iwan and his friends were driven to make it 'a fully modern language', he says. 'That meant doing everything in Welsh – theatre, films, recording albums. Unlike now, there was very little Welsh on television and radio, and the recording industry in our country was a pretty amateur affair. Sain grew out of that era – of thinking we should get things moving.' Co-founder Jones ensured Sain's early success, Iwan says. 'He was a pretty screwed-on kind of chap. He never risked anything. We got to the beginning of the 80s, when we bought the RAF mess and built a good studio, by just selling records and saving money.' Iwan sees Sain's mission now as 'co-working' with others, he says, including on a very local level. They are opening a co-working space within the headquarters this month, and collaborating on a community pub and music venue project in the village in which they've been based for over half a century. Iwan is also delighted with Aly Jamal's 'very exciting' Tyrchu Sain remix album. Iwan performs on its last track, Diolch a Nos Da (Thank You and Good Night), during which he thanks, inclusively, 'all who have been a part of creating the exciting world of Welsh music, yn Gymraeg [in Welsh], in English, and other languages'. He ends the track like a Celtic Sun Ra: 'Together in creativity for peace!' Jamal loved meeting Iwan, too, he says, when we chat two days later in Cardiff. 'Dafydd's a super sharp guy – very welcoming about what Welsh culture is, and what it could be.' Jamal's introduction to Sain were its tracks on the 2006 compilation Welsh Rare Beat, put together by Gruff Rhys, Andy Votel and others for Finders Keepers Records. It featured acid-folk-flavoured female groups Sidan and Y Diliau, and twisted, funky tracks by Meic Stevens and rock band Brân. 'It felt like outsider music to me in the same way as old Turkish psych.' Jamal says. This music's roots in the Welsh language shook him. He was taught Welsh at primary and secondary school – but it had a 'real afterthought vibe to it, like it wasn't that important'. Hearing the language in this musical context also made him consider his Welsh identity alongside his family's roots in India and east Africa. 'Wales was the first colony of the British empire. It made me think about the efforts the powers that be go to, to dilute other languages and cultures.' While digging, Jamal fell in love with the music of Delwyn Sion, and since finding out that he was from Aberdare, too they've become friends. Jamal sampled Sion's track Aros yn Dy Gwmni (Stay in Your Company) for a single, Tyrchu, that features Gruff Rhys on vocals. Another track, Tad a Mab (Father and Son), mixes the drum playing of a friend, Dafydd Brynmor Davies, with the music of his late father, John Davies, who played with rock band Eliffant. 'That was really special,' says Jamal. Elsewhere on the album contemporary artists such as the tropicalia-loving Carwyn Ellis, indie band Boy Azooga and jazz harpist Amanda Whiting inventively connect Wales's past and present. It astonishes Iwan how differently the Welsh language is thought of now. 'The attitude towards it has changed completely,' he says. 'All the political parties in the Senedd are for the language, to various degrees, so the Welsh language is no longer a political issue in terms of its status. There's always a danger of sliding away from the language, because of all the English influences – but that's the same in all small countries.' Jamal says he was moved to see Iwan's reaction to his album on an episode of the S4C arts show, Curadur (Curator, available on BBC iPlayer with subtitles). 'He was really teary-eyed. He appreciates the fact that it's not just the music we're celebrating, but the politics of expression and pride in the language and culture. It's cool for him. It's cool for all of us.' Tyrchu Sain is out now on Sain Records
