Gary Moore (born April 4, 1952 as Robert William Gary Moore in Belfast, Northern Ireland; died February 6, 2011 in Malaga, Spain) is acknowledged as one of the finest guitarists to have originated in Ireland. In a career dating back to the 1960s he has played with bands including Thin Lizzy, Colosseum II, Greg Lake and Skid Row as well as having a successful solo career.

Moore started performing from a young age and got his first good guitar at the age of 14. In a career lasting over 30 years he has demonstrated that he is a fine musician, and his unique style of playing has adapted to very different music genres.
He is considered one of the best guitarists to date.

For blues fans, Moore’s best recorded, live performance on video is “LIVE BLUES” recorded in a small night club in London and was released in 1992 on VHS. It is now available on DVD as well. “LIVE BLUES” also features two songs with B.B. King appearing on stage with Moore. “The Thrill Is Gone” on this recording is probably the best version of this, complete with More’s Midnight Horns, female backup singers and dueling guitars. Many of Moore’s standard songs are on this 90 minute show and were mixed better than most of the studio versions of the same tunes for a very rich and full sound. Even Moore’s voice sounds better than it usually does in the studio. Moore does not seem interested in touring the United States.

Connection with Peter Green

According to numerous interviews he has given to guitar magazines, he was the protege of British Blues pioneer Peter Green, whom he had always admired ever since the Bluesbreakers days. When Green quit Fleetwood Mac and the entire music scene, he sold his famous nasal-sounding 1959 Gibson Les Paul to Moore for the same price that Moore had managed to sell his then guitar (a Gibson SG) for. The nasal sound of the neck pickup on Green’s guitar was not, as used to be believed, the result of the pickup having been turned backwards, but instead its two coils had been – perhaps accidentally – reconnected in parallel and out of phase, as per the “in between” positions of a Fender Stratocaster. Moore has used this guitar in the recordings of some songs of his albums Still Got The Blues, After Hours and Blues For Greeny. Green and Moore also reportedly had a disagreement regarding what guitar the former was playing in the song “Albatross”. Moore insists it was the Les Paul, because the guitar tone was particularly warm and rich in the bass, while Peter Green maintains he was using a Strat, as the vibrato in that song was not finger vibrato, but subtle tremolo arm vibrato. Up to this day, Green and Moore remain good friends.

Guitars used

Over the years Gary has used numerous guitars. These include: Peter Green’s 1959 Gibson Les Paul, Peter Green’s 1961 Fender Stratocaster and 1950s Gibson Les Paul Junior. He has also used guitars from Charvel, Ibanez, Hamer, Jackson and Heritage. Amplification has generally come form Marshall, though Soldanos and Fender have also been used, as well as transistor-driven Dean Markley units (especially in the studio). He also has used numerous effects over the years. these include; Delay units such as the Echoplex, Overdrive/Booster units such as the Boss DS-1, Ibanez Tubescreamer variants, Marshall Bluesbreaker and Guv’nor pedals as well as Wah-Wah pedals such as the Vox Wah. He appears nowadays to favour Gibson and Fender Guitars through Marshall amps with any of the above Overdrive pedals and Wah pedals to make his sound.

Solo career

In 1973 he released his first solo album as the Gary Moore Band. In 1979 his solo career started again with help from Phil Lynott, the combination of Gary’s blues based guitar and Phil’s voice produced “Parisenne Walkways” which reached the UK Top Ten in April 1979 and the no.2 album ‘Black Rose’. After a series of powerful rock records Gary returned to blues music with Still Got the Blues, with contributions from B. B. King, Albert King and Albert Collins the album was well received by fans and a huge success. Gary stayed with the blues format until 1997 when he decided to experiment with modern dance beats in Dark Days In Paradise; this left many fans as well as the music press confused. Back to the Blues saw Gary return to the tried and tested blues format.

Albums

* Grinding Stone, 1973
* Parisienne Walkways, 1977
* Back on the Streets, 1978
* Corridors of Power, 1982
* Live at the Marquee, 1983
* Rockin’ Every Night – Live in Japan, 1983
* Victims of the Future, 1983
* Dirty Fingers, 1984
* We Want Moore, 1984
* Run for Cover, 1985
* Wild Frontier, 1987
* After the War, 1989
* Still Got the Blues, 1990
* After Hours, 1992
* Blues Alive, 1993
* Ballads & Blues 1982-1994, 1994
* Blues For Greeny, 1995
* Dark Days in Paradise, 1997
* Out in the Fields – The Very Best of Part 1, 1998
* Blood of Emeralds – The Very Best of Part 2, 1999
* A Different Beat, 1999
* Back to the Blues, 2001
* Power Of The Blues, 2004
* Old New Ballads Blues, 2006
* Bad For You Baby, 2008

The sky is red, I don’t understand,
Past midnight I still see the land.
People are sayin’ the woman is damned,
She makes you burn with a wave of her hand.
The city’s a blaze, the town’s on fire.
The woman’s flames are reaching higher.
We were fools, we called her liar.
All I hear is “Burn!”

I didn’t believe she was devil’s sperm.
She said, “Curse you all, you’ll never learn!
When I leave there’s no return.”
The people laughed till she said, “Burn!”
Warning came, no one cared.
Earth was shakin’, we stood and stared.
When it came no one was spared.
Still I hear “Burn!”

You know we had no time,
we could not even try.
You know we had no time.

You know we had no time,
we could not even try.
You know we had no time.

The sky is red, I don’t understand,
Past midnight I still see the land.
People are sayin’ the woman is damned,
She makes you burn with a wave of her hand.
Warning came, no one cared.
Earth was shakin, we stood and stared.
When it came no one was spared.
Still I hear “Burn!”

I remember Paris in ’49.
The Champs Elysee, San Michelle
And old Beauolais wine.
And I recall that you were mine
In those Parisienne days.

Looking back at the photographs.
Those summerdays spent outside corner cafes.
Oh, I could write you paragraphs,
About my old Parisienne days.

This hotel bar is full of people,
The piano man is really laying it down,
The old bartender is as high as a steeple,
So why tonight should I wear a frown?
The joint is jumpin’ all around me,
And my mood is really not in style,
Right now the blues flock to surround me,
But I’ll break out after a while.

Yes I’m a million miles away,
I’m a million miles away,
I’m sailing like a driftwood,
On a windy bay,
On a windy bay.

I’m a million miles away,
I’m a million miles away,
But I’m sailing like a driftwood,
On a windy bay,
On a windy bay.

Why ask how I feel,
Well, how does it look to you?
I fell hook, line and sinker,
Lost my captain and my crew.

I’m standing on the landing,
There’s no one there but me,
That’s where you’ll find me,
Looking out on the deep blue sea.

There’s a song on the lips of everybody,
There’s a smile all around the room,
There’s conversation overflowing,
But I sit here with the blues.

This hotel bar has lost all its people,
The piano man has caught the last bus home,
The old bartender just collapsed in the corner,
Why I’m still here, I just don’t know,
I don’t know.

I’m a million miles away,
A million miles away,
I’m sailing like a driftwood on a windy bay,
On a windy bay.

I’m a million miles away,
A million miles away,
I’m sailing like a driftwood on a windy bay,
Send me away…

Armen Movsessian (Armenian: Արմեն Մովսեսյան, born in Yerevan, Armenia) is a violin player. His formal training as a musician began as a child. He received his high school diploma from the Tchaikovsky’sSchool of Music for the musically gifted, and earned his B.A. and Master’s from the Yerevan Conservatory named after Komitas. He was one of only fifty-four violinists worldwide to be invited to compete in the International Competition of Violinists in Indianapolis in 1990. This is when he decided to move to the United States and has since been named Concertmaster for the Panama National Symphony in Panama City, Panama, and for the New Hampshire Symphony Orchestra. Movsessian was an instructor of violin, viola, and chamber music at Clark University and an instructor of violin at the Longy School of Music, both in Massachusetts. He has performed during the 2003 and 2004 Ethnicity world tours with Yanni, as well as the 2005 Yanni Live! The Concert Event, and Yanni Voices tours.

Source: Wikipedia

Yanni live concert in Greece.

Duduk: Pedro Eustache (Venezuela),

Violin: Samvel Yervinyan (Armenia),

Violin: Armen Movsessian (Armenia),

Violin: Sayaka Katsuki (Japan)

Yanni (real name: Γιάννης Χρυσομάλλης / Yiannis Hrysomallis) born in November 14, 1954 in Kalamata, Greece, is a Greek self-taught pianist, keyboardist, and composer.

Although many fans and critics call his music new age, Yanni himself has distanced himself from that label. In his autobiography, Yanni devotes an entire chapter to the subject, stating that he prefers to call his music contemporary instrumental.

Alfred Brendel (born January 5, 1931) is an Austrian pianist, born in Czechoslovakia. He is widely regarded as one of the great classical pianists of the second half of the 20th century.

Brendel was born in Vízmberk, Czechoslovakia, now Loučná nad Desnou Czech Republic, to a non-musical family. They moved to Zagreb when Brendel was six, and later to Graz, where they lived during World War II, towards the end of which the 14 year old Brendel was sent to Yugoslavia to dig trenches. However, he caught frostbite and was taken to hospital. Throughout his childhood, Brendel had occasional piano lessons, but otherwise little formal music education.

After the war, Brendel composed music, as well as continuing to play the piano and paint. However, he never had any more formal piano lessons and although he attended masterclasses with Edwin Fischer and Eduard Steuermann, he is largely self-taught.

Brendel gave his first public recital in Graz at the age of 17.[1] He called it “The Fugue In Piano Literature”, and as well as fugal works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms and Franz Liszt, it included some of Brendel’s own compositions. However, he gave up composing shortly after this to concentrate on the piano. In 1949 he won 4th prize in the Ferruccio Busoni Piano Competition in Bolzano, Italy and moved to Vienna the following year. At the age of 21, he made his first record, Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 5. He went on to make a string of other records, including three complete sets of the Ludwig van Beethoven piano sonatas (one on Vox Records and two on Philips Records). He has also recorded works by Liszt, Brahms (including Brahms’ Concertos), Robert Schumann and Franz Schubert. Unlike virtually all classical pianists, he has recorded very little Chopin other than the Polonaises.

Brendel recorded extensively for the Vox label — particularly his first set of the Beethoven sonatas — but secured a major recording contract only in the 1970s, nor did he play much outside Austria. His breakthrough came after a recital of Beethoven at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, the day after which three major record labels called his agent. Around the same time he moved to London, where he still resides. Since the 1970s, Brendel has recorded for Philips Classics Records.

Brendel is regarded as one of the most thoughtful interpreters of classical Germanic works by such composers as Beethoven, Schubert and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He has recorded the complete piano music of Beethoven. He plays relatively few 20th century works, but is closely associated with Arnold Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto. In recent years, however, he has stopped playing many of the most physically demanding pieces in the repertoire, such as the Hammerklavier Sonata of Beethoven, owing to problems with arthritis.

Critical reaction to Brendel’s playing has been mixed. While he has been lauded by Michael Steinberg as “the new Schnabel”, critic Harold C. Schonberg noted that some critics and specialists accused the pianist of “pedanticism.”. Brendel’s playing is sometimes described as being analytic, and he has said that he believes the primary job of the pianist is to respect the composer’s wishes without showing off himself, or adding his own spin on the music. “I am responsible to the composer, and particularly to the piece,” he has said. As well as his former mentor and teacher, Edwin Fischer, he cites Alfred Cortot, Wilhelm Kempff, and the conductors Bruno Walter and Wilhelm Furtwängler as particular influences.

In recent years, Brendel has worked with younger pianists such as Paul Lewis, Mark Gasser, Roberto Carnevale and Till Fellner and he has performed and recorded with his son Adrian Brendel, a cellist. He has also published poetry, which has been compared by Andrew Motion to Miroslav Holub in style.

Brendel resides in London.

Source: Last.FM

Shigeru Umebayashi (梅林茂 Umebayashi Shigeru) is a Japanese composer born February 19, 1951 in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka). Once the leader of Japan’s legendary new-wave rock band EX, composer Shigeru Umebayashi began scoring films in 1985 when the band broke up. He has more than 40 Japanese and Chinese films to his credit and is perhaps best known in the West for his score for director Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love (2001). Umebayashi also scored Wong Kar-wai’s long-awaited 2046 (2004).

Source: Last.FM

We’re bound to wait all night
She’s bound to run amok
Invested enough in it anyhow
To each his own
The garden needs sorting out
She curls her lips on the bow
And I don’t know if i’m dead or not
To anyone

Come on and get the minimum
Before you open up your eyes
This army has so many heads
to analyze
Come on and get your overdose
Collect it at the borderline
And they want to get up in your head

[Chorus]
Cause they know, and so do I
The high road is hard to find
A detour to your new life
Tell all of your friends goodbye

The dawn to end all nights
That’s all we hoped it was
A break form the warfare in your house
To each his own
The soldier is bailing out
He curled his lips on a barrel
And I don’t know if the dead can talk
To anyone

Come on and get the minimum
Before you open up your eyes
This army has so many hands
are you one of us?
Come on and get your overdose
Collect it at the borderline
And they want to get up in your head

[Chorus]
Cause they know, and so do I
The high road is hard to find
A detour to your new life
Tell all of your friends goodbye

It’s too late to change your mind
You let loss be your guide
(repeat)

I’ll wait here,
You’re crazy,
Those vicious streets are filled with strays,
You should have never gone to Hollywood.

They find you,
Two time you,
Say you’re the best they’ve ever seen,
You should have never trusted Hollywood.

I wrote you,
And told you,
You were the biggest fish out here,
You should have never gone to Hollywood.

They take you,
And make you,
They look at you in disgusting ways,
You should have never trusted Hollywood.

[Serj moans "now"]

I was standing on the wall,
Feeling ten feet tall,
All you maggots smoking fags on Santa Monica Boulevard,
This is my front page,
This is my new age,
All you bitches put your hands in the air and wave them like you just don’t care.

All you maggots smoking fags out there on Sunset Boulevard.

All you bitches put your hands in the air and wave them like you just don’t care.

Phony people come to pray,
Look at all of them beg to stay,
Phony people come to pray.

[The lines in the letter said "We have gone to Hackensack"]

Phony people come to pray.
Look at all of them beg to stay,

All you maggots smoking fags on Santa Monica Boulevard,

All you maggots smoking fags out there on Sunset Boulevard.

All you maggots smoking fags out there on Hollywood Boulevard.

You should have never trusted Hollywood.
You should have never gone to Hollywood.

All you bitches put your hands in the air and wave them like you just don’t care.

You should have never trusted Hollywood.