NEW ORLEANS – The Essence Music
Festival will call New Orleans home
through 2014, organizers and city
officials announced Wednesday, in
a deal they said would continue the
boom in visitors and spending the
city sees each summer.
Michelle Ebanks, president of
Essence Communications, and New
Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu on
Wednesday announced a four-year
deal that keeps the festival where
it began 16 years ago.
"We are just overjoyed," Ebanks
said at a news conference. "The city
of New Orleans is the natural home
for the Essence Music Festival,
which has grown into an
experience that is of a size and
scope that was never foreseen."
Staged over the Fourth of July
weekend, it regularly draws
hundreds of thousands of fans. In
July, more than 400,000 people
attended events held over a three-
day period at the Ernest N. Morial
Convention Center and the
Louisiana Superdome.
The 2011 festival is set for July 1-3.
It started in 1995 to mark the 25th
anniversary of Essence magazine
and has since grown into a major
national venue celebrating black
music and culture.
"We are pleased to say that the
Essence Music Festival is now one
of the top destinations in the
country," Ebanks said. "But not only
are they coming for the festival,
folks are coming to New Orleans for
its food, charm and culture, and it
doesn't get much better than that."
Terms of the new contract were not
released, but Landrieu's office said
getting the deal was good for the
city and the state.
"We found out what it was like not
to have the Essence Music Festival,"
Landrieu said, recalling 2006 when
the festival moved to Houston
while renovations were completed
on the Louisiana Superdome and
Ernest N. Morial Convention Center
following Hurricane Katrina.
"When the festival was here, the
hotels were 97 percent filled. When
it wasn't here, the rooms were
empty. That type of data gave us
a really good baseline to gauge the
economic impact," the mayor said.
According to studies conducted by
the University of New Orleans
Hospitality Research Center, on
average, the festival generates
more than $5.2 million in city taxes
and $7.9 million in state taxes, with
$47.6 million of earnings for area
residents. It also showed that the
average attendee spends more
than $280 per day, with over $90
million in primary spending and
another $82 million in secondary
spending, the mayor's office said.
"The importance of the festival to
our culture, our festival calendar
and our economy cannot be
overstated," Landrieu said. "This is
the kind of success we can have
when we work together."
Ebanks said the deal "is a pretty
long horizon."
"It gives us the perfect time frame
for planning and coming together
to maximize all of our resources,"
she said.
Ebanks said other cities have
courted the festival but she
wouldn't name them. "They have
wonderful venues but New Orleans
is our home," she said.
Asked whether the festival had
chosen any headliners for next
year's celebration, Ebanks
remained mum.
"We are committed to being bigger
and better than we've ever been,"
she said, smiling. "We are working
around the clock on this experience
and all I'm saying is don't miss it!
Jumat, 01 Oktober 2010
new fans come with new sound for linkin park
The day after Linkin
Park's latest album was released,
its lead singer, Chester Bennington,
logged on to iTunes to check some
of the reviews. Though the
responses weren't all positive, he
liked what he read.
"This time around it's like they
either love it and it's five-stars
across the board or they hate the
record so much that ... if they could
they would throw it at us,"
Bennington said. "And I think that's
great."
While there's still heavy metal-
fused hip-hop on "A Thousand
Suns," there's also psychedelic,
instrumental moments that are a
departure for the Los Angeles-
based rap-rockers.
Mike Shinoda says "Suns" is an
album that "asks a lot of attention
from people."
"It's more of a 48-minute
experience than it is just a
collection of singles," said Shinoda,
the group's lead lyricist.
"We really tried to make an album
that took you out of your head a
little bit ... and we wanted to take
people on this journey," Bennington
added. "It's a musical drug type of
thing."
The new sound wasn't intentional
for the guys. They say while
creating 2007's "Minutes to
Midnight," they decided to head in
a direction different from their first
two albums: The 2003
multiplatinum effort "Meteora" and
their 10 million-selling debut, 2000's
"Hybrid Theory."
But before creating "Suns," the six-
member band got busy working on
music for their video game "Linkin
Park Revenge," an app for iPhones.
Rick Rubin, who co-produced the
new album and also "Minutes to
Midnight," says making music for
the game was the "initial thrust" for
the band's latest sound.
"It was interesting the way it came
about because originally they didn't
know that they were starting the
album ... and it just like kind of took
on a life of its own," Rubin said.
"Then we talked about well maybe
(if) this is the music that you're
passionate about making, maybe
this is where it's supposed to go."
The veteran music producer says
taking a new approach was best for
the band.
"They came out sort at the tail end
of the wave of the rap-rock
movement ... and then when sort
of the world of alternative music
changed away from that kind of
music, they were in kind of a
dangerous spot," Rubin said. "They
could have continued making music
like that, which they had great
success doing, but ... I think it would
have been a very short-term
game."
Though some fans may not
appreciate the new disc, others
have. "Suns" debuted at No. 1 on
the Billboard Top 200 album charts
this month; it also hit the top spot
in Europe and Canada.
Bennington says because of the
sound the band is known for — a
mix of rap and heavy metal — it's
virtually impossible to satisfy their
many kinds of fans.
"As artists (making music is) a
completely selfish endeavor," he
said. "We're making music for us,
that we like. We're not making
music for other people ... We're not
thinking, 'Let's make a pie-graph of
all our fans and find out how many
people fit in whatever category
and then make the perfect album
for them.' Like, that would be
absolutely ridiculous."
Bennington says the band is more
interested in growing creatively:
"We like putting (ourselves) on the
line so to speak and really take
chances with the music that we're
making and we're becoming more
and more comfortable doing that."
One main artistic departure for the
band on "Suns" is the use of
political speeches. There are
interludes that take from an
interview with physicist J. Robert
Oppenheimer regarding the
Manhattan Project and another
from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s
1967 anti-war speech "Beyond
Vietnam: A Time for Breaking
Silence."
"They're hearing hope, they're
hearing anger, they're hearing stuff
about, you know, humanity
destroying itself," Shinoda said of
the album's messages. "You talk to
your friends, you see things on the
news, you read things online and all
this stuff just happens, and we
wanted to find a way to kind of put
all that stuff together."
Shinoda says because of the digital
turn music has taken in the last
decade, most fans expect to hear a
singles' album, not an album's
album. He said he wanted to make
sure Linkin Park didn't fall into that
lane.
Quoting the band's bass player,
Phoenix, Shinoda explained: "I just
feel like the music that's out there
in the mainstream for the most
part, there's so much candy. It's
good for a short taste, it's good for
a little short burst of whatever and
then there's no substance to it, and
you can't eat a lot of it or you'll get
a stomachache."
"I want something that has some
substance — some sustenance,"
Shinoda continued. "(But) we're
finding that a lot of fans are having
a hard time even wrapping their
heads around it, much less
explaining what it is that they're
checking out."
But Rubin says fans will get on
board, in due time.
"I played it for some people who
don't like Linkin Park, or never liked
Linkin Park, and they love it," he
told. "It's going to take a minute for
the people who are going to like
this to know that they like it. It'll be
the open-minded fans who have
kind of grown up with the band and
grow with them.
Park's latest album was released,
its lead singer, Chester Bennington,
logged on to iTunes to check some
of the reviews. Though the
responses weren't all positive, he
liked what he read.
"This time around it's like they
either love it and it's five-stars
across the board or they hate the
record so much that ... if they could
they would throw it at us,"
Bennington said. "And I think that's
great."
While there's still heavy metal-
fused hip-hop on "A Thousand
Suns," there's also psychedelic,
instrumental moments that are a
departure for the Los Angeles-
based rap-rockers.
Mike Shinoda says "Suns" is an
album that "asks a lot of attention
from people."
"It's more of a 48-minute
experience than it is just a
collection of singles," said Shinoda,
the group's lead lyricist.
"We really tried to make an album
that took you out of your head a
little bit ... and we wanted to take
people on this journey," Bennington
added. "It's a musical drug type of
thing."
The new sound wasn't intentional
for the guys. They say while
creating 2007's "Minutes to
Midnight," they decided to head in
a direction different from their first
two albums: The 2003
multiplatinum effort "Meteora" and
their 10 million-selling debut, 2000's
"Hybrid Theory."
But before creating "Suns," the six-
member band got busy working on
music for their video game "Linkin
Park Revenge," an app for iPhones.
Rick Rubin, who co-produced the
new album and also "Minutes to
Midnight," says making music for
the game was the "initial thrust" for
the band's latest sound.
"It was interesting the way it came
about because originally they didn't
know that they were starting the
album ... and it just like kind of took
on a life of its own," Rubin said.
"Then we talked about well maybe
(if) this is the music that you're
passionate about making, maybe
this is where it's supposed to go."
The veteran music producer says
taking a new approach was best for
the band.
"They came out sort at the tail end
of the wave of the rap-rock
movement ... and then when sort
of the world of alternative music
changed away from that kind of
music, they were in kind of a
dangerous spot," Rubin said. "They
could have continued making music
like that, which they had great
success doing, but ... I think it would
have been a very short-term
game."
Though some fans may not
appreciate the new disc, others
have. "Suns" debuted at No. 1 on
the Billboard Top 200 album charts
this month; it also hit the top spot
in Europe and Canada.
Bennington says because of the
sound the band is known for — a
mix of rap and heavy metal — it's
virtually impossible to satisfy their
many kinds of fans.
"As artists (making music is) a
completely selfish endeavor," he
said. "We're making music for us,
that we like. We're not making
music for other people ... We're not
thinking, 'Let's make a pie-graph of
all our fans and find out how many
people fit in whatever category
and then make the perfect album
for them.' Like, that would be
absolutely ridiculous."
Bennington says the band is more
interested in growing creatively:
"We like putting (ourselves) on the
line so to speak and really take
chances with the music that we're
making and we're becoming more
and more comfortable doing that."
One main artistic departure for the
band on "Suns" is the use of
political speeches. There are
interludes that take from an
interview with physicist J. Robert
Oppenheimer regarding the
Manhattan Project and another
from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s
1967 anti-war speech "Beyond
Vietnam: A Time for Breaking
Silence."
"They're hearing hope, they're
hearing anger, they're hearing stuff
about, you know, humanity
destroying itself," Shinoda said of
the album's messages. "You talk to
your friends, you see things on the
news, you read things online and all
this stuff just happens, and we
wanted to find a way to kind of put
all that stuff together."
Shinoda says because of the digital
turn music has taken in the last
decade, most fans expect to hear a
singles' album, not an album's
album. He said he wanted to make
sure Linkin Park didn't fall into that
lane.
Quoting the band's bass player,
Phoenix, Shinoda explained: "I just
feel like the music that's out there
in the mainstream for the most
part, there's so much candy. It's
good for a short taste, it's good for
a little short burst of whatever and
then there's no substance to it, and
you can't eat a lot of it or you'll get
a stomachache."
"I want something that has some
substance — some sustenance,"
Shinoda continued. "(But) we're
finding that a lot of fans are having
a hard time even wrapping their
heads around it, much less
explaining what it is that they're
checking out."
But Rubin says fans will get on
board, in due time.
"I played it for some people who
don't like Linkin Park, or never liked
Linkin Park, and they love it," he
told. "It's going to take a minute for
the people who are going to like
this to know that they like it. It'll be
the open-minded fans who have
kind of grown up with the band and
grow with them.
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