"The event is called the BT Digital Music Awards, which is taking place this year on October 3rd at the Roundhouse. It's the first music awards show to go into the Roundhouse since it's been refurbished and we're really looking forward to hosting a show with live music in there.The Digital Music Awards is in its sixth year now, and celebrates UK music artists, projects and services across digital platforms. The awards are either voted for by professional panels, or the public, or a combination of both. Last year's event at the Hammersmith Palais featured live performances from Magic Numbers, Turin Brakes, Roots Manuva, The Crimea, Mew and Goldie Lookin' Chain in collaboration with the Philharmonia. A specially-commissioned TV programme was then aired on Channel 4 the following night, which included pre-recorded features on digital music, interviews with more artists as well as the live performances and interviews from the awards show.
Since "digital" is such big news these days, we felt it was important to give an award this year to remind people of some of the early work that was done to get us to where we are now. We want to call this the Pioneer Award and we'd like the very first one to go to Peter"
A specially-commissioned TV programme has been made for Channel 4. This will be going out twice. Once on the 7th October, which will be a 15 minute round up of the awards and will feature Peter. The full programme goes out on the 21st October - currently at 11.30/midnight, but check listings in case this changes
So that's it for entries in the Shock The Monkey Remix Competition. We must apologize for our minimal Hot Picks in the final batch, there were many great mixes, but we just didn't have time to engage our ears and minds for long enough to filter the content - as you might have noticed these picks are pretty random, just an inital reaction as we listen for approval - it's your top ten lists that count (and the ratings for other non-competition packs on the site) Just to clarify, some of you have been playing fast and loose with the PG catalogue in your mixes, and we've let that slip through, but obviously we couldn't do this when other people's music was involved.
Right up to this last night of submissions the music has been amazing, so thanks to everyone who's been involved - it looks like around 740 mixes of Shock The Monkey have made it into the competition (is this a record?) so please help us out by filling in your top ten (but only do it once! we're looking out for odd voting patterns) We've all got lot's of listening to do. If we've made and mistakes in what we have approved,denied and replaced, let us know and we'll get it sorted (but not tonight!)
Hopefully the mixes will keep coming, and as we said in our last post, new Sample Packs are on their way (more on this later in the week) We'll keep you posted on developments in the run up to next Saturdays announcement of the winner in this little game.
More to come, but from the early hours of October all we can say is keep mixing, keep the votes and comments flowing and thanks for the music!
WITNESS is pleased to announce the launch of the Human Rights Video Hub Pilot, in collaboration with Global Voices Online. The Human Rights Video Hub Pilot is the first initiative of its kind a curated forum that amplifies and gives context to human rights-related video footage uploaded to the Internet by concerned citizens around the world.
As announced in Peter Gabriel's Full Moon Club update today, he's going to choose the winner of our Shock The Monkey competition from the top 12 most popular mixes on the site. The deadline for entry is September 30th.
In order to decide which are the most popular mixes on the site some new features will be coming your way very shortly.
Each member will have access to a top ten list to which they can add, remove and re-order mixes (We're hoping to make this available tommorow) We'll then combine all the lists with mixes getting 10 points for each number 1 and so on down to 1 point for a tenth place.
We'll let voting run until the end of Wednesday 4th October to allow for the last entries to be heard and rated - this gives us a couple of days for listening and combining all the lists to reveal the top 12 mixes. We hope to announce the winner a month today on the Full Moon of the 7th October.
Peter returns to the studio after a summer break and we battle technical and other difficulties to bring you news of his travels, music from Thomas Mapfumo and Daby Touré with Skip McDonald, along with stories of Arn Chorn-Pond and our Ambassador of Love.
"Locals may disagree, but St. Petersburg boasts a great music scene, where even buskers are highly talented, according to Richard Chappell, a technical engineer for art rock legend and world-music pioneer Peter Gabriel." (The St Petersburg Times)
There's some fantastic work being done in our 'Shock The Monkey' remix competiton with a month and a half still to run. Even if you're not remixing yourself, we'd love for you to give some of the tracks a listen and help our filtering process by rateing the mixes...help us decide who gets the prize!
In Peter's absence this month we mark the full moon with a few words he exchanged with journalists at last months Real World Party.
For good measure we've included some other 'work in progress' from that day in the form of performances from Daby Touré (who's currently back at the studios working on new music) and Sevara Nazarkhan. To make sure we abide by Stanley Kubrick's words of wisdom as quoted by Peter in the clip, we've also included audio from the instrumental version of 1992's 'Digging In The Dirt'.
I open this month's update with two very important questions; 'Am I forgiven?' and 'What's a limited edition Real World Summer Party Live CD?'
The first refers to the 'dastardly' Archive Challenge. The second? Well, more about that later...
Peter was caught on camera many times this month, but unfortunatly not specifically for a Full Moon Club update, we offer instead a little hybrid alternative for the lunar peak.
As Peter said last month we had a party on the 28th to celebrate 20 years of the studios and showcase new music from Real World Records. Those attending the press conference had a chance to hear some of the near mythical "Big Blue Ball' project that has been undergoing a long gestation, but is now emerging in the skilled hands of producer Stephen Hague. Hear a little of 'Whole Thing' featuring Peter from that project and take an exclusive look at the day here at Real World, with a chance to hear from some of those at the event.
We had amazing performances from Charlie Winston, Guo Yue, Daby Touré, Sevara Nazarkhan and Little Axe, who's stunning set lured the legendary Robert Plant onto the stage with Peter for the end of the night.
Thanks to all those involved, and we hope you enjoy this little teaser!
BBC's Radio One dropped in to Real World to enjoy the party on 28 June. You can catch up with music and interviews captured on the day by listening again at the 'One World' website...........
Everyone on site at Real World had their fingers crossed on the morning of Wednesday 28 June and were looking skyward for signs of ominous black clouds! We were all hoping that it wasn't going rain! This was the day of the Real World Summer Party - our biggest celebration in the last 7 years- and we were relying on the sunshine to make it a perfect day.
The big event was to celebrate 20 Years of Real World Studios, its investment in a future of recording and the unique relationship with Real World Records. The refit and relaunch of two of the main studios - the famous Big Control Room and smaller Production Room - were the motivation to crack open a bottle of wine. It then seemed a good idea to invite a number of Real World artists to the studio and put on a concert in the grounds of the studio.
During the afternoon the invited media took part in a press conference where Peter Gabriel talked about the illustrious history of the studio, played some tasters of forthcoming music to be released on the label and introduced a number of musicians and producers.
Following a wonderful barbeque from resident Real World chief Geraldine, lashings of Pimms, fine wines, delicious deserts and west country cheeses the invited audience of friends and business associates enjoyed an evening of music.
Adrian Sherwood opened proceedings with a mellow 'dub lite' DJ set followed by new comer singer song writer Charlie Winston. Chinese flutist Guo Yue provided a magical moment of solo performance followed by the wonderful Daby Touré who got the crowd in party mood. Sevara Nazarkhan, the beautiful Uzbek diva, was outstanding. LIttle Axe brought the house down (even though we were all outside on the lawn) with a fantastic set of 21st century blues featuring the legendary Skip Mcdonald, Keith Le Blanc, Doug Wimbish and original Tackhead vocalist Bernard Fowler. Quite unexpectedly the band were joined on stage by Robert Plant (who was unable to resist the temptation to get up there with like-minded musicians!) followed by Peter and Sevara. What a finale! The whole evening was brought to a fabulous conclusion with a specially designed firework display - the scale of which has never been seen before in the skies above the village of Box!
And we didn't even have a light shower.....
In preparation for the Real World Summer Party on June 28 Peter Gabriel has writen in The Independent of his memories of discovering the location for Real World. "Peter Gabriel tells how, 20 years ago, he set up his pioneering label and studio dedicated to recording and releasing music from all over the globe"
We're pleased to announce the first Real World Remixed competition in association with Peter Gabriel, who's given us Shock The Monkey to remix and Solid State Logic, who are donating a great prize.
Check out the great mixes of The Afro Celt Soundsystem, Los De Abajo And Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali/Temple Of Sound already posted on the site along with more details on the competition.
It is accomplished at last! Many apologies to you for this very late appearance, but Ive been quiet and alone, under lock and key delving deep into the archives and I lost all sense of time! Ive rummaged through drawers that slide smooth and dusted down long-forgotten files (fuelled by a variety of chocolate snacks, of course)