Take a seat and enjoy Stewart Copeland's dinner tales!
This section includes also exclusive interviews with musicians, producers and collaborators who worked with Stewart Copeland, telling anecdotes and in-depth details about their works.
Maddalena Calderoni leaves her native city on Lake Maggiore, north of Italy, at a very young age in order to follow her artistic ambition. Her career begins performing in operas followed by concerts in Europe and all over the world, including Japan, USA, Argentina, Egypt, Kazakistan and Ukraine. In 2007 a new challenge is on its way and Maddalena’s visionary attitude brings her to where no one else dares: the landscapes made of quarries and stones in the area of Verbano and Ossola, where she grew up, can be turne...
Bill Belknap, American musician, producer and sound engineer, worked with Stewart Copeland in the making of 'Rumblefish', the soundtrack commissioned by Francis Ford Coppola. Bill's tales and anecdotes give and in-depth view on how they worked together one of the most acclaimed works in Stewart Copeland's career as film composer. By Giovanni Pollastri / StewartCopeland.net SC.NET Tell us something about your job in the music business as producer and engineer. When ...
WARDROBE One fine morning, I step out of the shower, peer into my wardrobe and realise that my life is over. I’m looking at an exotic collection of leather pants, hostile shirts and pointy shoes. Problem is, I’m a forty-something father of four and I’m feeling kind of mellow. I’m not angry about anything and as a tax-paying, property-owning, investment-holding, lotus-eater; I am in disagreement with what my clothes are saying to the world. The thrill has gone from frightening the natives. I c...
CONGO July 14, 1984 JP, the mad Belgian explorer is shouting at me through the clattering drums and chanting natives. The jungle is alive with music. “Go with the Shaman!” He’s pointing to a dark hut across the clearing. I scramble through the dancing frenzy of the massed Pygmies and duck into the tribal Holy of Holies. The Shaman is there, suiting up for the big party. Outside the hut, two or three hundred Pygmies are cutting it up on the dance floor, singing their sw...
4:00 AM July 17, 2004 Milan The roar of the show takes about two hours to subside. After the last encore when I run off the stage back to the dressing room, there is still a lot of ritual to perform before the day’s work is done. Shower is crucial immediately. Soaking wet T-shirt turns to ice within seconds of departing the hot stage lights. That’s why your correspondent can sometimes be seen sprinting through the halls backstage in a mad dash to the dressing room to yank the clothes off,...
This mysterious Napoleonic palindrome This mysterious Napoleonic palindrome rattles around my head as I gaze out from the terrace over looking the harbour of Portoferraio. Jutting out into the bay is the castle where we will play our concert, and behind me is the Teatro di Vigilante, in which my new band GIZMO will be rehearsing for the next ten days. When Napoleon was first defeated and given this Mediterranean island in exchange for Europe, he noisily put down roots and engaged in public works, giving every im...
Anjelica Huston, photographed at home, Central Valley, California, 2010 - Photo by Paul Jasmin Warning: This report isn’t as exiting as some of my previous ones. This is, after all, my day job, but some of you may be interested in the seamy underside of film music. It’s usually more of a breeze than it was on this occasion! This gig had the added unstated threat that if I didn’t get it right Anjelica would turn me into a rat. Anyone remember THE WITCHES? Scoring With Anjelica&nb...
BAKE-OFF IN FORT WORTH 1990 HOLY BLOOD AND THE CRESCENT MOON is going up again in Fort Worth. Opera is an expensive hobby for any city and part of the funding comes from gala events at which the burghers, oligarchs and grand matrons can be snobbed into making larger contributions than each other. To support our production, the opera community is throwing a black tie bake-off. The contestants are: the Mayor, the owner of the football team, one of the players, the director of the Fort Worth Opera, a telegenicly...
Judge Hard Place & the BBC (nice version) Today's mission is a trip to London to be a judge for the BBC on one of those Pop Idol type TV shows. Life often throws up strange opportunities like this. Many are the invitations that I get, to participate in media events of one kind or another, some of which are naff and some cool. Some are cool but onerous. Some are naff but fun. This one is very much the latter. To partake of some Kinetic Ritual of this kind, in the company of millions of TV viewers, is i...
The gig is actually called “The KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas” and there are eleven bands playing tonight. At the sound-check this afternoon, twelve drum-sets and a hundred tons of amplification are being hustled around the stage by black clad gangs of tattooed roadies. It’s all very professional and good-natured but I still want to run home, rifle through the kid’s toys and see if I can find me some tattoos. Maybe some Polly Pockets or a big Sponge Bob right over my jugular. The drums and a...
FOO FLYING WITH THE FLY FOOS June 12, 2005 I feel like the winner of an MTV prize. Here is my itinerary: Whisked by limousine from my home to an airport in Van Nuys, where I will meet the Foo Fighters. We board their Gulf Stream IV jet, which will take us to San Francisco to attend a concert there before flying to New York to participate in an MTV special event. Duration of adventure: thirty hours. Professional obligations: none (almost). Now look at the itinerary of these young professionals ...
December 13, 2004 Los Angeles Out of the blue comes an Email from brother Miles saying: “All confirmed. Rehearsals are next Friday, and your show with Andy Summers and INCUBUS at the KROQ weenie roast will be on Sunday.” Whaaaat? I dimly remember Miles mentioning something about this, months ago. At the time I said “Wow cool” and then forgot about it. So I’m thinking about it now (a little panicked) and figure, what the heck? They’re a cool group,...
