The Woodstock Festival

By Carlos Casquete, Oriol Sentís and Antón Tendero

The Woodstock Festival was the biggest rock festival in the history. It took place on a farm in Bethel, New York, from 15th to 18th August 1969. Its slogan was “three days of love and peace”.

It brought together 500,000 “hippies”. The local population did not want this event to place there, but it did. There were some problems but it never came to a halt. Important bands like the Who, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker and Carlos Santana played sets. It was so successful that ten years later a second festival was organized, with Bob Dylan and other important bands of the time taking part.

Woodstock stood as a big hippy gathering with nothing more than peace, love, flowers, colored dresses and happiness. One of the most important reasons for holding the festival was the war in Vietnam, which was going on at the same time. The organizers thought that 60,000 people would come to the festival but because of the price of the tickets – they only cost $6 – there were 500,000.

There are a lot of amazing and beautiful stories about the festival and it was an event that changed the lives of thousands of teenagers in the 1970s.

On the evening of the first day, Woodstock began with sets by Richie Havens and other artists, such as the Incredible String Band and Joan Baez, in a peaceful and calm atmosphere. The second day was the most representative day of the entire festival, because Carlos Santana, Janis Joplin, the Who and Jefferson Airplane all played. The last day of the festival was incredible because Jimi Hendrix played for around two hours and improvised a great deal.

Nina by Nina!

By Nina Vanishvili

For me, Nina Simone is one of the best musicians in history. She was a singer, composer and pianist in various styles of music, including jazz, blues and soul. Her nickname was “High Priestess of Soul”.

There is one curious point that not everybody knows: her real name was Eunice Kathleen Waymon, not Nina Simone. She started calling herself Nina Simone in 1954. Nina comes from the Spanish word “niña” and Simone from her favourite artist, Simone Signoret, whom she saw in the film Casque d'Or.

She began playing the piano when she was 3 years old and had a classical training in the Juilliard School in New York for one year. She wanted to attend the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia but she was rejected; she always thought this was because of racism.

She had to start working in bars as a singer because she and her family needed money. After that Nina debuted as a singer but at first she was not successful. She became famous with the song I Love You Porgy and then with one of my favourite songs My Baby Just Cares For Me, which became a big hit in Britain.

In 1970 Nina left the United States on account of racism and other issues, although racism was the foremost. She went to Barbados, where she did little of any significance, merely acting and singing in jazz clubs.

Two important events occurred after she left the United States. On July 24th 1998, Nina Simone was invited to Nelson Mandela’s 80th birthday and on October 7th 1999, she received a prize in Dublin for her lifetime’s artistic achievements.

Her last awards were: In 2000 she received Honorary Citizenship of Atlanta, the Diamond Award for Excellence in Music from the African American Association of Music in Philadelphia and the Honourable Musketeer Award from the Compagnie des Mousquetaires d'Armagnac in France. She died in her sleep in Carry-le-Rouet in 2003.

Who wrote IMAGINE?

By Nina Vanishvili

Imagine, John Lennon's most famous song, was voted Britain's favourite song of all time. It is an idealistic song about peace and the hope for a better world. Imagine all the people living life in peace. The song was a big hit in 1971, and again in 1980 when Lennon was murdered in New York . It become a hit for a third time after the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001. But who really wrote the song? Until recently the answer to this questions was always John Lennon. But on a TV programme Lennon's wife, Yoko Ono, spoke for the first time about how she, in fact, helped to write it. Ono said that the inspiration for Imagine came from some of her poems, which John Lennon was reading at that time. The poems began with the word “Imagine”: Imagine a raindrop, Imagine a goldfish. Ono said: “When I was a child in Japan during the Second World War my brother and I were terribly hungry. I imagined delicious menus for him and he began to smile. If you think something is impossible, you can imagine it and make it happen”. In an interview just before he died, Lennon admitted that Yoko deserved credit for Imagine. He said: “A lot of it – the lyrics and the concept – came from her, from her book of poems, Imagine this, imagine that”. Lennon said that he was too macho to share the credit with her at the time. Ono said that some of the song was written when they were flying across the Atlantic and the rest was written on the piano in their bedroom at their home in England. Ono said: “The song speaks about John's dream for the world. It was something he really wanted to say”. Imagine became a popular song for peace activists everywhere. In March 2002 the airport in his home town of Liverpool was renamed the John Lennon Airport. A sign over the main entrance has a line from Imagine: “Above us only sky”.

Linkin Park

By Daniel Belvis

Linkin Park is a music band formed in Agoura Hills in Los Angeles, California. Their style is somewhere between nu metal and rap metal, but on their album Minutes to Midnight their sound turns into alternative rock, while their newest album, A Thousand Suns, feels more experimental.

The band has sold more than 500 million CDs and has already won two Grammy awards. Linkin Park became famous with their Hybrid Theory album, which has sold more than 30 million copies, becoming the second highest selling album of the 21st century.

Their second album, Meteora, furthered their success, selling 800,000 copies in the first week after its release and more than three million copies in 2003. Their third album, Collision Course, was a mixture of their songs and songs by the rapper Jay-Z, with good results, such as Numb/Encore and Lying From You/Dirt Off Your Shoulder.

Their fourth record, Minutes to Midnight, was highly critiziced but, in my opinion, it is really worth a listen, at least in part. Their latest album, A Thousand Suns, is a bit more experimental but has been a real success.

Members:

Chester Bennington (vocals)

Mike Shinoda (vocals (MC); Keyboard/piano)

Brad Delson (guitar)

Joe Hahn (synthesizer, DJ, sampler)

Rob Bourdon (battery, percussion)

Dave Farrell (bass)

Discography:

Hybrid Theory (2000)

Meteora (2003)

Collision Course (2004)

Minutes to Midnight (2007)

A Thousand Suns (2010)

Songs I Recommend:

Hybrid Theory:

Papercut, One Step Closer, Crawling, In the End, A Place For My Head

Meteora:

Somewhere I Belong, Lying From You, Easier To Run, Faint, Breaking the Habit, From The Inside, Numb

Minutes to Midnight:

Given Up, Leave Out All The Rest, Bleed It Out, Shadow Of The Day, What I've Done, In Pieces

A Thousand Suns:

Burning In The Skies, Waiting For The End, The Catalyst Blackout, Wretches And Kings.

PS: If you saw the movie Transformers, it features a song from Linkin Park called New Divide, a song that I also recommend listening to.

Iron Maiden

By Kyle Pearson

Iron Maiden is a legend of heavy metal, a music style based on making a lot of noise, putting a lot of distortion on the guitar and placing great emphasis on the drums.

The name comes from a medieval torture, or way to kill somebody, that consisted in putting a person in a coffin with nails and closing it.

Iron Maiden as a band began in 1975 in Leyton (East London). The band members are:

-Bruce Dickinson (lead vocals), Dave Murray (guitar), Adrian Smith (guitar backing vocals), Janick Gers (guitar), Steve Harris (bass, backing vocals and studio keybords), Nicko McBrian.

Their influences include Queen, King Crimson, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Judas Priest, Cream and the Who.

Over 30 years they have sold more than 80 million records, and they have made close to 2,000 live performances.

After playing for three years they recorded their first EP (The Soundhouse Tape), which launched them to fame, although their big success arrived in 1982 with the record The Number of the Beast. They have been playing non-stop since then. Their latest album is called the Final Frontier.

They are considered one of the best heavy metal bands in the history of music and certainly one of the pioneers in this style of music.

A lot of other bands have tried to copy them but, obviously, without a doubt, they are unique.

Pete Doherty & The Libertines

By Alex Font

Pete Doherty was born on March 12th 1979. He is an English musician, writer and artist. He was the singer for the Libertines and Babyshambles.

He enrolled at the University of London to study English literature, but he abandoned his studies in the first year. After leaving university, he moved to London with his friend, the musician Carl Barât, a classmate of Doherty's older sister.

In the 90s Doherty and Barât formed a band called the Libertines. In 2002 they began to be successful, after releasing their first album Up the Bracket.

In 2004 Doherty was asked to leave the band after the release of their second album, due to his drug addiction. The group split up after Doherty's departure.

Doherty and Barât disclosed on 29 March 2010 that the Libertines would play together again at the Reading and Leeds festivals the following August.

The pianist Maria Canals dies

By Èlia Ramoneda

In August 2010 the international pianist Maria Canals died in Barcelona. She was born in Barcelona in 1913 and studied piano at the Barcelona Municipal School of Music. She was also a specialist in music teaching.

Maria Canals and her husband founded the Maria Canals International Music Competition in 1954. This music competition, declared to be of public importance in 1996, takes place every year in the Palau de la Música in Barcelona, with musicians from the all over the world taking part in it. Various artists (including Joan Miró and Antoni Tàpies) have designed posters to advertise it.