We are the robots

Karl Bartos, Muscian with  pioneering influential German electro/techno band Kraftwerk  was born on ths day 31st May in 1952,  In addition Fritz Hilpert who was also a sound engineer with Kraftwerk was also born on May 31st, a few yeaars later in 1956Kraftwerk , (meaning power plant or power station) are an influential electronic music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. The group was formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970, and was fronted by them until Schneider’s departure in 2008.

The signature Kraftwerk sound combines driving, repetitive rhythms with catchy melodies, mainly following a Western Classical style of harmony, with a minimalistic and strictly electronic instrumentation.The group’s simplified lyrics are at times sung through a vocoder or generated by computer-speech software. and they are considered pioneers in the field of electronic music/synthpop and were one of the first groups to popularize electronic music during the 70′s when their distinctive sound was considered revolutionary.

Kraftwerk’s inspirations continue to be contemporary.  They are always revisiting previous songs and revamping and overhauling them in order to keep them sounding fresh. Today Kraftwerk remain as popular as ever and their influence has had a long lasting effect across many genres of modern music and has paved the way for many of todays electro/Techno bands and their influence can often stll be heard in much of today’s music and thanks to the ongoing popularity of  songs like The Robots,Autobahn, Tour De France, Trans Europe Express and Computer Love they still remain relevent todayfrontman Ralf Hütter also revealed recently that they they have almost finished new material and will be releasing a new album “soon”. which will be their first LP since 2003′s Tour de France. Their next LP will be their 11th studio album and their first without Florian Schneider, who left the group three years ago.

Tribute to W.Heath Robinson

Best known for his wonderfully outlandish illustrations of all sorts of wierd & wonderful contraptions, the English cartoonist W. Heath Robinson, was born May 31st 1872 In the UK, the term “Heath Robinson” has entered the language as a description of any unnecessarily complex and implausible contraption, similar to “Rube Goldberg” in the U.S. “Heath Robinson” is perhaps more often used in relation to temporary fixes using ingenuity and whatever is to hand, often string and tape, or unlikely cannibalisations. Its popularity is undoubtedly linked to Second World War Britain’s shortages and the need to “make do and mend”.William Heath Robinson was born into a family of artists His father and brothers (Thomas Heath Robinson and Charles Robinson) all worked as illustrators. His early career involved illustrating books – among others: Hans Christian Andersen’s Danish Fairy Tales and Legends (1897); The Arabian Nights, (1899); Tales From Shakespeare (1902), and Twelfth Night (1908), Andersen’s Fairy Tales (1913), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1914), Charles Kingsley’s The Water-Babies (1915), and Walter de la Mare’s Peacock Pie (1916).   In the course of his work Heath Robinson also wrote and illustrated three children’s books, The Adventures of Uncle Lubin (1902), Bill the Minder (1912) and Peter Quip in Search of a Friend (1922).

Uncle Lubin is regarded as the start of his career in the depiction of unlikely machines. During the First World War he drew large numbers of cartoons, collected as Some “Frightful” War Pictures (1915), Hunlikely! (1916), The Saintly Hun (1917) and Flypapers (1919), depicting ever-more-unlikely secret weapons being used by the combatants.   He also produced a steady stream of humorous drawings for magazines and advertisements. In 1934 he published a collection of his favourites as Absurdities, such as: “The Wart Chair. A simple apparatus for removing a wart from the top of the head”, “Resuscitating stale railway scones for redistribution at the station buffets” and “The multimovement tabby silencer”, which automatically threw water at serenading cats.

Most of his cartoons have since been reprinted many times in multiple collections, and the machines he drew were frequently powered by steam boilers or kettles, heated by candles or a spirit lamp and usually kept running by balding, bespectacled men in overalls. There would be complex pulley arrangements, threaded by lengths of knotted string. Robinson’s cartoons were so popular that in Britain the term “Heath Robinson” is used to refer to an improbable, rickety machine barely kept going by incessant tinkering. (The corresponding term in the U.S. is Rube Goldberg, after an American cartoonist with an equal devotion to odd machinery. Similar “inventions” have been drawn by cartoonists in many countries, with the Danish Storm Petersen being on par with Robinson and Goldberg.) One of his most famous series of illustrations was that which accompanied the Professor Branestawm books by Norman Hunter. The stories told of the eponymous professor who was brilliant, eccentric and forgetful and provided a perfect backdrop for Robinson’s drawings.One of the automatic analysis machines built for Bletchley Park during the Second World War to assist in the decryption of German message traffic was named “Heath Robinson” in his honour. It was a direct predecessor to the Colossus, the world’s first programmable digital electronic computer.

Tribute to John Bonham (Led Zeppelin)

Best remembered as the drummer of Led Zeppelin, who are widely considered to be one of the most successful, innovative and influential rock groups in the history of music The late great Jon Bonham was born 31st May 1948. Led Zeppelin were formed in 1968 after former Yardbirds Guitarist  Jimmy Page recruited vocalist Robert Plant, drummer John Bonham, and John Paul Jones. The name  Led Zeppelin stemmed from an old joke by Keith Moon and John Entwistle, of “The Who”, and Page stuck with that name to use for his new band. The name was subsequently changed to “Led Zeppelin”, to avoid a mispronunciation of “eed Zeppelin.”Page had a very specific idea in mind as to what he wanted Led Zeppelin to be, and wanted to add acoustic textures. Zeppelin’s sound became a marriage of blues, hard rock and acoustic music topped with heavy choruses – a combination that had never been done back in the 1960′s. Led Zeppelin’s sound has since become a prototype for countless rock bands ever since, and was one of the major driving forces behind the rock sound of the 1970′s.Led Zeppelin released relatively few singles, preferring their albums to be viewed as indivisible, whole listening experiences, helping to promote the concept of album-orientated rock.

Their first two albums, with their heavy, guitar-driven blues rock sound, led to Led Zeppelin being regularly cited as one of the progenitors of heavy metal and hard rock, even though the band’s individualistic style drew from varied sources and transcends any single music genre. Their next two albums incorporated wider musical influences, particularly from folk music;  the tracks “Stairway to Heaven“, and “Kashmir” are among the most popular and influential works in rock music, and cemented the status of the group as “superstars”.Led Zeppelin broke up in 1980 following the death of drummer John Bonham,

Throughout their career, Led Zeppelin collected many honours and awards. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2006. Among the band’s awards are an American Music Award in 2005, and the Polar Music Prize in 2006. Led Zeppelin were the recipient of a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005, and four of their recordings have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. They have been awarded five Diamond albums, as well as fourteen Multi-Platinum albums, four Platinum albums and one Gold album in the United States, while in the UK they have five Multi-Platinum albums, six Platinum albums, one Gold album and four Silver albums.Jimmy Page was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in recognition of his charity work in 2005 and Robert Plant was honoured as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to popular music in 2009. The band are ranked number one on VH1′s 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock and Classic Rock’s “50 Best Live Acts of All Time”. They were awarded an Ivor Novello Award for “Outstanding Contribution to British Music” in 1977, as well as a “Lifetime Achievement Award” at the 42nd Annual Ivor Novello awards ceremony in 1997. The band were honoured with the “Best Live Act” prize for their one-off reunion at MOJO Awards 2008, where they were described as the “greatest rock and roll band of all time”.

Tribute to Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens

Valuable paintings by German-born Flemish Baroque painter’Sir Peter Paul Rubens have recently been discovered in Oxford. Rubens was a major seventeenth century artist who has a special significance for Britain because he undertook several commissions including a decorative ceiling for the Banqueting House at Whitehall.’This particular drawing has a fascinating history. It belongs to a group of portrait drawings of Marie de Médicis made circa 1622  in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Louvre, and the Albertina, Vienna, all of which were studies for twenty-one life size paintings representing Marie’s life from her girlhood, coronation as Queen of Henry IV of France, to old age and exile.The drawing was acquired by an Oxford collector Henry Wellesly who bought drawings for the Ashmolean, and who was the illegitimate son of the Duke of Wellington. The university then acquired the sketch for teaching purposes in the 1950s for the modest sum of no more than £50.Professor Anna Gruetzner Robins, from the University of Reading’s Department of Art, said: ‘It was very exciting indeed. A Rubens in the cupboard! It is not what you expect to find.’The drawing’s true identity was unveiled when a benefactor recently agreed to pay for its conservation, revealing a hidden collector’s stamp that showed the work was owned in the 18th century by Jonathan Richardson, one of the first collectors of Rubens drawings in the countrksketches of master painter Sir Peter Paul Rubens hang in some of the most prominent and distinguished art galleries and museums in the world.But the latest work of the renowned Flemish artist to be discovered was found in a slightly humbler location – a cupboard at the University of Reading.The 17th century drawing, just 10.8cm by 8.9cm, is worth £75,000 and shows a profile view of the head of Marie de Medicis, Queen of France and the second wife of King Henry IV of France’and the paintings are currently in the Louvre.’

Born 28th June 1577 he was a proponent of extravagant Baroque style that emphasised movement, colour, and sensuality, who was known for his Counter Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintingso mythological and allegorial sujects.In addition to running a lare studio in Antwerp that produced paintings popular with nobility and art collectors throughout Europe, Rubens was a classically educatdhumanist scholar and diplomat who was knighted by both Philip IV, King of  Spain, andChares I, King of England was raised as a Catholic. Religion figured prominently in much of his work and Rubens later became one of the leading voices of the Catholic Counter-Reformation style of painting (he had said “My passion omes from the heavens, no from earthly musings”).In Antwerp, Rubens received ahumanist education, studying Latin and classical literature. By fourteen he began his artistic apprenticeship with Tobias Verhaeght. Subsequently, he studied under two of the city’s leading painters of the time the late Mannerist artists Adam van Noort and Otto van een.Much of his earliest training involved copying earlier artists’ wrks, such aswoodcuts by Hans Holbein the Younger and Marcantonio Raimondi’s engravings after Raphael. Rubens completed his education in 1598, at which time he entered the Guild of S. Luke as an independent masterIn 1600, Rubens travelled to Italy. He stopped first in Venice, where he saw paintings by Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto, before settling in Mantua at the court of Duke Vincenzo I Gonzaga. The coloring and compositions of Veronese and Tintoretto had an immediate effect on Rubens’s painting, and his later, mature style was profoundly influenced by Titian.

With financial support from the Duke, Rubens travelled to Rome by way of Florence in 1601. There, he studied classical Greek and Roman art and copied works of the Italian masters, the Hellenistic sculpture Laocoön and his Sons was especially influential on him, as was the art of Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci and Caravaggio. He later made a copy of that artist’s Entombment of Christ, recommended that his patron, the Duke of Mantua, purchase The Death of the Virgin(Louvre), and was instrumental in the acquisition of The Madonna of the Rosary  (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) for the Dominican church in Antwerp. During this first stay in Rome, Rubens completed his first altarpiece commission, St. Helena with the True Cross for the Roman church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.Rubens travelled to Spain on a diplomatic mission in 1603, delivering gifts from the Gonzagas to the court of Philip III. While there, he studied the extensive collections of Raphael and Titian that had been collected by Philip II. He also painted an equestrian portrait of the Duke of Lerma during his stay (Prado, Madrid) that demonstrates the influence of works like Titian’s Charles V at Mühlberg (1548; Prado, Madrid). This journey marked the first of many during his career that combined art and diplomacy.He returned to Italy in 1604, where he remained for the next four years, first in Mantua and then in Genoa and Rome. In Genoa, Rubens painted numerous portraits, such as the Marchesa Brigida Spinola-Doria (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), and the portrait of Maria di Antonio Serra Pallavicini, in a style that influenced later paintings by Anthony van Dyck, Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough. He also began a book illustrating the palaces in the city, which was published in 1622 as Palazzi di Genova. From 1606 to 1608, he was mostly in Rome.

Rubens returned to Antwerp in 1608 and His return coincided with a period of renewed prosperity in the city, he was appointed as court painter by Albert VII, Archduke of Austria and Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia of Spain, sovereigns of the Low Countries. In 1610, Rubens moved into a new house and studio that he designed. Now the Rubenshuis Museum, in the centre of Antwerp, it accommodated his workshop and made the most of his extensive collection of paintings, and his personal art collection and library,. During this time he  created.Altarpieces such as The Raising of the Cross (1610) and The Descent from the Cross (1611–1614) for the Cathedral of Our Lady which were particularly important in establishing Rubens as Flanders’ leading painter . The Raising of the Cross also demonstrates the artist’s synthesis of Tintoretto’s Crucifixion for the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice, Michelangelo’s dynamic figures, and Rubens’s own personal style. The Spanish Habsburg rulers also entrusted Rubens with a number of diplomatic missions, Between 1627 and 1630, Rubens’s diplomatic career was particularly active, and he moved between the courts of Spain and England in an attempt to bring peace between the Spanish Netherlands and the United Provinces. He also made several trips to the northern Netherlands as both an artist and a diplomat. It was during this period that Rubens was twice knighted, first by Philip IV of Spain in 1624, and then by Charles I of England in 1630. He was awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree fromCambridge University in 1629.

In 1621, the Queen Mother of France, Marie de’ Medici, commissioned Rubens to paint two large allegorical cycles celebrating her life and the life of her late husband, Henry IV, for theLuxembourg Palace in Paris. The Marie de’ Medici cycle (now in the Louvre) was installed in 1625,  While Rubens’s international reputation with collectors and nobility abroad continued to grow during this decade, he and his workshop also continued to paint monumental paintings for local patrons in Antwerp. The Assumption of the Virgin Mary (1625–6) for the Cathedral of Antwerp is one prominent example. Rubens’s last decade was spent in and around Antwerp. Major works for foreign patrons still occupied him, such as the ceiling paintings for the Banqueting House at Inigo Jones’s Palace of Whitehall. In 1630,  the 53-year-old painter married 16-year-old Hélène Fourment who inspired the voluptuous figures in many of his paintings from the 1630s, including The Feast of Venus (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), The Three Graces and The Judgment of Paris (both Prado, Madrid). In the latter painting, which was made for the Spanish court, the artist’s young wife was recognized by viewers in the figure of Venus. In an intimate portrait of her, Hélène Fourment in a Fur Wrap, also known as Het Pelsken  Rubens’s wife is even partially modelled after classical sculptures of the Venus Pudica, such as theMedici Venus. In 1635, Rubens bought an estate outside of Antwerp, the Steen, where he spent much of his time. Landscapes, such as his Château de Steen with Hunter (National Gallery, London) and Farmers Returning from the Fields (Pitti Gallery, Florence), reflect the more personal nature of many of his later works. He also drew upon the Netherlandish traditions of Pieter Bruegel the Elder for inspiration in later works like Flemish Kermis (c. 1630; Louvre, Paris)

Sadly.Rubens died from heart failure, which was a result of his chronic gout on 30 May 1640. He was interred in Saint Jacob’s church, Antwerp. The artist had eight children, three with Isabella and five with Hélène; his youngest child was born eight months after his death.Rubens was a prolific artist. His commissioned works were mostly religious subjects, “history” paintings, which included mythological subjects, and hunt scenes. He painted portraits, especially of friends, and self-portraits, and in later life painted several landscapes. Rubens designed tapestries and prints, as well as his own house. He also oversaw theephemeral decorations of the Joyous Entry into Antwerp by the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand in 1635.His drawings are mostly extremely forceful but not detailed; he also made great use of oil sketches as preparatory studies. He was one of the last major artists to make consistent use of wooden panels as a support medium, even for very large works, but he used canvas as well, especially when the work needed to be sent a long distance. For altarpieces he sometimes painted on slate to reduce reflection problems.His fondness of painting full-figured women gave rise to the terms ‘Rubensian’ or ‘Rubenesque’ for plus-sized women.Rubens was a great admirer of Leonardo da Vinci’s work. Using an engraving done 50 years after Leonardo started his project on the Battle of Anghiari, Rubens did a masterly drawing of the Battle which is now in the Louvre in Paris.

Tim Burgess (The Charlatans)

Tim Burgess, English singer with English alternative rock band The Charlatans was Born 30th May 1967. The band’s line-up currently comprises Tim Burgess (vocals), Mark Collins (guitar), Martin Blunt (bass), Tony Rogers (keyboards) and Jon Brookes (drums and percussion). In the UK, all of the band’s eleven studio albums have charted in the Top 40 in the UK Albums Chart, three of them being number ones. They have also achieved seventeen Top 30 singles, and four Top 10 hits in the UK Singles Chart.The original members of the Charlatans were located in the West Midlands, however many sources state that they formed in Northwich, Cheshire. This is because the band relocated to the home town of new lead singer Tim Burgess (who lived in Northwich) before the 1990 release of The Charlatans’ debut single “Indian Rope”, on the band’s own Dead Dead Good Records label. This means that, based on the definition of the hometown used by Guinness World Records, the band formed in Northwich and consequently, Northwich is recorded as their home town in such publications as British Hit Singles & Albums.The debut single, “Indian Rope” proved an indie hit and the group soon found a major label, Beggars Banquet off-shoot Situation Two, in time for the release of “The Only One I Know” which reached the Top 10 in the UK Singles Chart. A further single, “Then”, and debut album Some Friendly, were released later that year.

Around this time The Charlatans were forced to add UK to their name for an American tour due to competing claims by a 1960s rock band also known as The Charlatans.Baker left the band after 1991′s “Over Rising” single to be replaced by Mark Collins (no relation to Rob), and the band brought in producer Flood for their second album Between 10th and 11th (named after the address of the New York Marque, site of the group’s first US concert). Released in early 1992, the album failed to reach the Top 20 in the UK Albums Chart. However, the Top 20 success of the lead single “Weirdo” and a double weekend of gigs (‘Daytripper’) in Blackpool and Brighton with Ride kept them in the public eye.The follow-up album, Up To Our Hips (1994) reached number 8 in the UK Albums Chart. In 1995 the band’s self-titled fourth album saw them become major UK stars again, topping the UK albums chart and spawning the Top 20 single “Just When You’re Thinkin’ Things Over”.The fifth album Tellin’ Stories was released in 1997 and contained the singles “One to Another”, “North Country Boy” and “How High”. In 1998 they released the career-spanning compilation Melting Pot. The band also helped put “The B-sides collection Songs From The Other Side” and DVD “Just Lookin’ 1990 – 1997″ togetherFollowing the album Us And Us Only,The band released their ninth full-length album on 10 April 2006. Titled Simpatico, it was a reggae and dub tinged album and featured tracks like the fan favourite “NYC (There’s No Need to Stop)” and “Blackened Blue Eyes”.

Their follow-up to Simpatico was another career-spanning singles compilation entitled Forever: The Singles which was released on CD and DVD on 13 November 2006. In an October 2007 issue of the NME, the band contributed the song “Blank Heart, Blank Mind” to the magazine’s free Love Music, Hate Racism compilation CD. Later the same month, the new single “You Cross My Path” was released as a free download exclusively through the XFM website. On the 3 March 2008, The Charlatans teamed up with Xfm again to become the first UK band to release an album completely free to download via a radio station. This was preceded a week earlier by the second single from the album, “Oh! Vanity”. The album, titled You Cross My Path, is The Charlatans’ tenth studio album and received a physical CD/LP release on 19 May 2008. Their eleventh studio album, Who We Touch, was released on 6 September 2010 and The first single release was “Love Is Ending”.On March 28th 2011 Universal Music re-released a deluxe edition of the band’s Us & Us Only album, originally released in 1999, featuring a collection of bonus tracks including B-sides, live recordings, radio sessions and rare remixes. In March/April 2011 Tim Burgess and Mark Collins played an acoustic tour of the UK. To coincide with the acoustic tour the band released Warm Sounds EP. Featuring six stripped-down and reworked versions of Charlatans tracks including “North Country Boy”, “The Only One I Know” and “Smash The System”. It was available to download from iTunes and The Charlatans website.

Simon Jones (The Verve & The Shining)

Best known as being a member of The Verve and Theshining, the English Singer-Songwritet Simon Jones was born 29th May 1972. The Verve were an English alternative rock band formed in Wigan in 1989 by lead vocalist Richard Ashcroft, guitarist Nick McCabe, bass guitarist Simon Jones and drummer Peter Salisbury. The guitarist and keyboard player Simon Tong became a member at a later date. Beginning with a psychedelic sound, by the mid-1990s the band had released several EPs and three albums.The founding members of Verve met at Winstanley Sixth Form College, in Wigan, Greater Manchester. The band’s first gig was at the Honeysuckle Pub, in Wigan, on 15 August 1990.Most of the band’s early material was created through extensive jam sessions.Fronted by singer Richard Ashcroft, the band caused a buzz in early 1991 for its ability to captivate audiences with its musical textures and avant-garde sensibilities.The group was signed by Hut Records in 1991 and their first studio releases in 1992, “All in the Mind”, “She’s a Superstar”, and “Gravity Grave” (along with the December 1992 Verve) saw the band become a critical success, making an impression with freeform guitar work by McCabe and unpredictable vocals by Ashcroft. Those first 3 singles reached the first spot in the UK Indie charts, and “She’s a Superstar” did enter the UK Top 75 Singles Chart. The band saw some support from these early days in the United States in some music scenes in big cities like New York connected with psychedelic music.

1993’s A Storm in Heaven was the band’s full-length debut, produced by record producer John Leckie (of Radiohead, The Stone Roses,XTC and The Fall fame). “Blue” was released as the lead single and again managed to enter in the UK Top 75 at No. 69 and reached No. 2 in the Indie charts. The album was a critical success, but was only a moderate commercial success, reaching No. 27 in the UK album chart that summer. The second single from the album, “Slide Away”, topped the UK indie rock charts. During this period the band played a number of gigs with Oasis who, at the time, were relatively unknown.]In 1994, the band released the album No Come Down, a compilation of b-sides plus a live version of “Gravity Grave” performed atGlastonbury Festival in 1993. It was the band’s first release under the name The Verve, following legal difficulties with the jazz labelVerve Records. The band then played on the travelling U.S. alternative rock festival, Lollapalooza, in the summer of 1994. A new mix of “Blue” was released in the U.S. to promote the band.

For the band’s second album, 1995’s A Northern Soul,  They departed from the experimental psychedelic sounds of A Storm in Heaven and focused more on conventional alternative rock, with Ashcroft’s vocals taking a more prominent role in the songs, although reminiscent of some of the early work. Around this period, Oasis guitarist and friend of Ashcroft, Noel Gallagher, dedicated the song “Cast No Shadow” on the album (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? to Ashcroft, and Ashcroft returned the gesture by dedicating the song “A Northern Soul” to Noel.The band released the album’s first single “This Is Music” in May, and it reached No. 35, their first single to reach the Top 40. It was followed by “On Your Own” in June which performed even better, reaching No. 28. This single was particularly new for The Verve as it was a soulful ballad. The album reached the UK Top 20 upon its release in July, but Ashcroft broke up the band three months later, just before the release of the third single “History”, which reached No. 24 in September. Ashcroft reunited with Jones and Salisbury just a few weeks after the break-up, but McCabe did not rejoin them. The new band hired former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler, but he spent only a couple of days with the band. The band then chose Simon Tong, a school friend credited with originally teaching Ashcroft and Jones to play guitar. The band made no live appearances for all of 1996, apart from a solo performance from Ashcroft supporting Oasis in New York. The rest of the year was spent playing and recording songs for a new album.

The band’s commercial breakthrough was the 1997 album Urban Hymns, one of the best-selling albums in UK Chart history, and the single “Bitter Sweet Symphony”, which became a worldwide hit. In 1998, the band won two Brit Awards—winning Best British Group, appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in March, and in February 1999, “Bitter Sweet Symphony” was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Rock Song.Soon after this commercial peak, The Verve broke up in April 1999, citing internal conflicts.According to Billboard magazine, “the group’s rise was the culmination of a long, arduous journey that began at the dawn of the decade and went on to encompass a major breakup, multiple lawsuits, and an extensive diet of narcotics”. During an eight-year split, Ashcroft dismissed talk of a reunion, saying: “You’re more likely to get all four Beatles on stage.”The band’s original line-up reunited in June 2007, embarking on a tour later that year and releasing the album Forth in August 2008. In 2009, the band broke up for the third time.

Tribute to G.K.Chesterton

English writer G.K Chesterton was born 29th May 1874, so I thought I would pay tribute to him. He published works on philosophy, ontology, poetry, plays, journalism, public lectures and debates, literary and art criticism, biography, Christian apologetics, and fiction, including fantasy and detective fiction. Chesterton has been called the “prince of paradox”. Time magazine, in a review of a biography of Chesterton, observed of his writing style: “Whenever possible Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories— first carefully turning them inside out.” For example, Chesterton wrote “Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.”Chesterton is well known for his reasoned apologetics and even some of those who disagree with him have recognized the universal appeal of such works as Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man.

Chesterton, as a political thinker, cast aspersions on both progressivism and conservatism, saying, “The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.” Chesterton routinely referred to himself as an “orthodox” Christian, and came to identify such a position more and more with Catholicism, eventually converting to Roman Catholicism from High Church Anglicanism. George Bernard Shaw, Chesterton’s “friendly enemy” according to Time, said of him, “He was a man of colossal genius”. Biographers have identified him as a successor to such Victorian authors as Matthew Arnold, Thomas Carlyle, John Henry Cardinal Newman, and John Ruskin.Among his best known works are The Napoleon of Notting Hill, Heretics, Charles Dickens: A Critical Study, The Man Who Was Thursday, Orthodoxy, Manalive, Father Brown short stories (detective fiction), Eugenics and Other Evils, Saint Francis of Assisi (1923), Doubleday, The Everlasting Man & Saint Thomas Aquinas. A lot of these can also be found on the Project Gutenberg Website.

Happy Birthday Noel Gallagher

English musician and singer-songwriter Noel Gallagher was born 29 May 1967. Formerly the lead guitarist, occasional lead singer and principal songwriter of the rock band Oasis. He is currently fronting his solo project, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. Raised in Burnage, Manchester with Liam, Noel began learning guitar at the age of thirteen. After a series of odd jobs in construction, he worked for local Manchester band Inspiral Carpets as a roadie and technician in 1988.Whilst touring with them, he learned that Liam had formed a band of his own, known as The Rain, which eventually took on the name Oasis. After Gallagher returned to England, he was invited by his brother to join Oasis as songwriter and guitarist.

Oasis’ debut album, Definitely Maybe (1994), marked the beginning of the band’s rise to fame as head of the Britpop movement. Oasis’ second album, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?, reached the top of the album charts in many countries and their third studio album, Be Here Now, became the fastest-selling album in UK chart history. Britpop eventually declined in popularity and Oasis’ next two albums failed to revive it. However, the band’s final two albums, Don’t Believe the Truth (2005) and Dig Out Your Soul (2008), were hailed as its best efforts in over a decade and found renewed success. On 28 August 2009, following an altercation with Liam prior to a gig in Paris, Gallagher announced his departure from Oasis and on 23 October 2009, he confirmed he would embark on a solo career and is currently performing with Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds.

Gallagher’s run with Oasis was marked by turbulence, especially during the peak of Britpop, during which he was involved in several disputes with Liam, and the brothers’ fights and wild lifestyles regularly made headlines in British tabloid newspapers. Gallagher (along with Oasis) also shared a personal rivalry with fellow Britpop band Blur. However, Gallagher was often regarded as the spear-head of the Britpop movement, and at one point of time, NME termed a number of Britpop bands (including Kula Shaker, Ocean Colour Scene and Cast) as “Noelrock”, citing Gallagher’s influence on their success. Many have praised Gallagher’s songwriting, with George Martin claiming Noel to be ‘the finest songwriter of his generation’.

Francis Rossi (Status Quo)

Best known for being a co-founder of the English rock band Status Quo , British singer and Guitarist Francis  Rossi, OBE was born 29th May 1949. Status Quo were orignially called The Spectres & were founded by schoolboys Francis Rossi and Alan Lancaster in 1962. After a number of lineup changes, the band became “The Status Quo” in late 1967, finally settling on the name “Status Quo” in 1969. They have recorded over 60 chart hits in the UK, more than any other rock group. 22 of these have reached the UK Top Ten. The origins of Status Quo were in the rock and roll freakbeat band “The Spectres” formed in 1962.Rossi and Lancaster played their first gig at the Samuel Jones Sports Club in Dulwich, London. In 1963 they added drummer John Coghlan.

They began writing their own material and after a year met Rick Parfitt who was playing with a cabaret band called The Highlights. By the end of 1965 Rossi and Parfitt, who had become close friends, made a commitment to continue working together. On 18 July 1966 The Spectres signed a five-year deal with Piccadilly Records, releasing two singles that year, “I (Who Have Nothing)” and “Hurdy Gurdy Man” (written by Alan Lancaster), and one the next year called “(We Ain’t Got) Nothin’ Yet”By 1967, the group had discovered psychedelia At this time the line-up also included organist Roy Lynes. They released another single “Almost But Not Quite There” which was also a flop. In late 1967 the band became The Status Quo, and in January 1968 they released the psychedelic-flavoured “Pictures of Matchstick Men”.Rick Parfitt was invited to join the band just as the song hit the UK Singles Chart, reaching Number 7. “Matchstick Men” also became their only Top 40 hit single in the United States. Though the follow-up was the unsuccessful single, “Black Veils of Melancholy”, they had a hit again the same year with the poppy, Marty Wilde penned “Ice in the Sun”, which climbed to Number 8.After their second album Spare Parts failed to impact commercially, the band, disillusioned with their musical direction, abandoned pop psychedelia and Carnaby Street fashions in favour of a hard rock/boogie sound, faded denims and T-shirts, an image which was to become their trademark throughout the 1970s.

After two well-received but relatively poor selling albums in 1970 and 1971, their major breakthrough came when they signed with the heavy rock and progressive label Vertigo. Their first album for Vertigo, Piledriver was released in 1972, and heralded an even heavier, self-produced sound. This album was essentially the stylistic template for each album they released up until Blue for You in 1976. During this period, and throughout the rest of the 1970s, they became one of the UK’s leading rock bands, gaining a faithful following due to their relentless touring and energetic live gigs. Quo’s more popular songs from this era include “Paper Plane”, “Caroline”, “Down Down”, “Rain”, “Rockin’ All Over the World” and “Whatever You Want”. “Down Down” topped the UK Singles Chart in January 1975, becoming their only UK number one single to date . In 1976, they signed a pioneering sponsorship deal with Levi’s. To date Quo have sold approximately 128 million records worldwide and Furthermore the current Quo line up plan to release a new album in 2013.

Kylie Minogue

Australian singer, recording artist, songwriter and actress Kylie Ann Minogue, OBE  was born 28 May 1968), often known simply asKylie . After beginning her career as a child actress on Australian television, she achieved recognition through her role in the television soap opera Neighbours, before commencing her career as a recording artist in 1987.Minogue has achieved worldwide record sales of more than 68 million, and has received notable music awards, including multiple ARIA and Brit Awards and a Grammy Award. She has mounted several successful and critically acclaimed concert world tours and received a Mo Award for “Australian Entertainer of the Year” for her live performances. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2008 “for services to music”. In the same year she was appointed by the French Government as a Chevalier (knight) of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the junior grade of France’s highest cultural honour, for her contribution to the enrichment of French culture. In 2011 her hit single “I Should Be So Lucky” was added to the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia’s Sounds of Australia registry. The same year, Minogue was awarded an honorary Doctor of Health Science (D.H.Sc.) degree by Anglia Ruskin University in the United Kingdom of for her work in raising awareness for breast cancer. In November 2011, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the ARIA Music Awards, Minogue was inducted by theAustralian Recording Industry Association into the ARIA Hall of Fame.Her first single, “The Loco-Motion”, spent seven weeks at number one on the Australian singles chart and became the highest-selling single of the decade. This led to a contract with songwriters and producers Stock, Aitken & Waterman.( I met Pete Waterman down at the Severn Valley Railway a few years ago, however I Digress). Her debut album, Kylie (1988), and the single “I Should Be So Lucky”, both performed well on international charts, particularly in Australia and the United Kingdom.

Initially presented as a “girl next door”, Minogue attempted to convey a more mature style in her music and public image. Her singles were well received, but after four albums her sales were declining, and she left Stock, Aitken & Waterman in 1992 to establish herself as an independent performer. Her next single, “Confide in Me”, reached number one in Australia and was a hit in several European countries in 1994, and a duet with Nick Cave, “Where the Wild Roses Grow”, brought Minogue a greater degree of artistic credibility. Drawing inspiration from a range of musical styles and artists, Minogue took creative control over the songwriting for her next album, Impossible Princess (1997). Minogue returned to prominence in 2000 with the single “Spinning Around” and the dance-oriented album Light Years, and she performed during the closing ceremonies of the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Her music videos showed a more sexually provocative and flirtatious personality and several hit singles followed. “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” reached number one in more than 40 countries, and the album Fever (2001) was a hit in many countries, including the US, a market in which Minogue had previously received little recognition. In 2005, in the middle of a concert tour, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, forcing her to cancel the tour. After treatment, she resumed her career in 2006 with the Showgirl: The Homecoming Tour. In 2009, she embarked upon her For You, For Me tour, her first concert tour of the US and Canada.