Stars shine at Valentino film premiere (+pics)

Reuters

FASHION MAESTRO: Italian fashion designer Valentino with his companion Giammetti at La Fenice Theatre in Venice.

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Eight months after tearfully bowing out of fashion, Valentino has returned to the red carpet with a film celebrating the man who dressed some of the world&http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/#39;s greatest beauties - from Jackie Kennedy to Princess Diana.

Valentino: The Last Emperor is an intimate, fly-on-the-wall look at Valentino&http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/#39;s last two years at the helm of the fashion house he created in the 1960s, becoming a by-word for haute couture glamour over nearly half a century.

"I know what women want, they want to be beautiful," the Italian designer says at one stage in the film.

"That was always the thing for me, to design and create dresses. I am not capable of doing anything else," he adds.

The documentary follows Valentino from June 2005 to July 2007, when he held three days of lavish celebrations in Rome for the 45th anniversary of his fashion group.

He retired in January 2008 after his last fashion show in Paris, the culmination of months of speculation about his future as private equity firm Permira gradually took over his empire.

"Valentino" takes the viewer inside the studio where he created his dresses, backstage at the Paris fashion shows where socialites queued up to see his collections, and in villas around the world where he threw parties for royalties and stars.

It also captures the intense relationship between the designer and Giancarlo Giammetti, Valentino&http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/#39;s business partner and companion for 50 years whose acumen was as crucial to the group&http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/#39;s success as Valentino&http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/#39;s creative talent.

Following them on yachts and jets are their six pug dogs, while an army of seamstresses - some of whom have worked with Valentino for 35 years - are tasked with bringing his vision to life in the Rome ateliers.

"It was something that really excited me having a documentary on my life being made," Valentino said on Thursday after the film was presented at the Venice film festival.

END OF AN ERA

He acknowledged that it was not always easy to have cameras and microphones around for such a long time.

"When I work and I create I am not very approachable, so having wires around me and knowing that everything was being recorded really did irritate me a little bit," he said.

Director Matt Tyrnauer, a US journalist at Vanity Fair magazine, said the film did not lose any of its authenticity in the editing process, in which he said Valentino played no part.

"They put up with a lot. They were very brave ... They only screamed at us occasionally and we put most of it in the film."

Valentino is considered as one of the last of the great designers from an era before fashion became a global, highly commercial industry run as much by accountants and marketing executives as couturiers.

"After so many decades, after so much work, after so much freedom, can you imagine (them) telling me, &http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/#39;You can&http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/#39;t do this. You can&http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/#39;t do that? I would eat them&http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/#39;," he says in the film.

Born in 1932 in the north of Italy and known throughout the world by his first name, Valentino&http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/#39;s rise to fame coincided with the start of Italy&http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/#39;s film heyday in the 1960s, immortalised by Federico Fellini&http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/#39;s La Dolce Vita.

From then on his signature scarlet evening gowns and conservative style made him a favorite for red carpet events, where he dressed the likes of Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and Julia Roberts.

But fashion&http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/#39;s growth into a US$127 billion industry is slowly threatening the old guard and ushering in a new breed of designers seen as better suited to lead expansion into new markets and product lines.

"I would like to leave the party while it&http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/http://www.stuff.co.nz/#39;s still full," Valentino says in the film, announcing his retirement.

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Mac's Death Raises Sarcoidosis Awareness

For Andrea Wilson of Chicago, Valentine's Day 1994 marked the end of an eight-year search to identify the whodunit disease that had turned her life into a living hell -- a daily modus operandi of pain, fatigue and seemingly illogical symptoms.
(ABC News Photo Illustration)

"I'd been consistently misdiagnosed for ashcan School years," she recalls. "I was told it was multiple sclerosis. I was told it was a brain neoplasm. I was told it was scarcely stress -- that I was freaking out, that it was nothing."

But it was only when a chest X-ray revealed massive scarring in her lungs that doctors determined that she suffered from sarcoidosis -- a condition in which the body's resistant system triggers uncontrolled inflammation, wreaking mayhem on internal organs.

Wilson, like most others with sarcoidosis, experienced peculiarly severe inflaming in her lungs. But even and so, medical professionals hesitated to believe Wilson could receive suffered the degree of damage the X-ray showed.

"I was posing next to an old man in the doctor's waiting room," Wilson says. "The radiologist came out, looked at me and looked at the other guy, and said, 'I've mixed up these scans.'

"He thought my scans looked like an 80-year-old's scans."

Since her diagnosis, Wilson, now 43, has been waging a conflict on deuce fronts. There is her personal struggle to control her disease, for which there is no cure. And there is the larger elbow grease to increase awareness of the sickness. In 2000, she and her husband established the Foundation for Sarcoidosis Research to that end.

But the disease has perhaps gotten the most attention from the untimely death of actor-comedian Bernie Mac final week. Mac battled the illness, which had plagued him with lung problems, for 25 years in front he died Aug. 9, at the age of 50.

Mac's publicizer has aforesaid it was pneumonia, not sarcoidosis, that led to Mac's demise. But those with sarcoidosis have a known predisposition to pneumonia. And the loss resonated among those in the sarcoidosis community.

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Download Steve Vai

Artist: Steve Vai: mp3 download    Genre(s):  Rock Instrumental Rock: Hard-Rock Rock: Progressive Rock: Guitar Virtuoso     Discography:      Sound Theories, Volume 2 - ''Shadows and Sparks''    Year: 2007    Tracks: 6      Sound Theories, Volume 1 - ''The Aching Hunger''    Year: 2007    Tracks: 11      Real Illusions: Reflections    Year: 2005    Tracks: 11      The Infinite Steve Vai: An Anthology (CD 2)    Year: 2004    Tracks: 15      The Infinite Steve Vai: An Anthology (CD 1)    Year: 2004    Tracks: 17      The Elusive Light and Sound Vol. 1 (Part 3)    Year: 2002    Tracks: 13      The Elusive Light and Sound Vol. 1 (Part 2)    Year: 2002    Tracks: 13      The Elusive Light and Sound Vol. 1 (Part 1)    Year: 2002    Tracks: 14      The 7th Song: Enchanting Guitar Melodies - Archive    Year: 2000    Tracks: 10      7th Song: Enchanting Guitar Melodies Archives Vol. 1    Year: 2000    Tracks: 11      The Ultra Zone    Year: 1999    Tracks: 13      Fire Garden    Year: 1996    Tracks: 18      Alien Love Secrets    Year: 1995    Tracks: 7      Sex and Religion    Year: 1993    Tracks: 13      Passion and Warfare    Year: 1990    Tracks: 14      Flex-Able Leftovers    Year: 1984    Tracks: 13 Along with his sometime teacher Joe Satriani, six-string virtuoso Steve Vai place the standard for rock music guitar virtuosity in the '80s. Born on June 6, 1960, and raised in Carle Place, NY, Vai became interested in the guitar via such legendary artists as Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and Alice Cooper as a teenager and, upon starting highschool school, took lessons with an elder histrion from his senior high school school, Joe Satriani. Playing in several local bands, Vai rapidly picked up on the cat's-paw, and by the eld of 18 was attending the famed Berklee School of Music in Boston. As a student there, Vai canned several of Frank Zappa's most technically demanding compositions for guitar, and regular sent a copy of i such arranging, "Black Page," to Zappa himself. Zappa was so impressed with the young guitar player that upon group meeting him, he invited Vai to link his band. Later on, Vai toured the populace with Zappa (giving Vai the nicknames "Stunt Guitarist" and "Little Italian Virtuoso") and played on such albums as 1981's Tinsel Town Rebellion and You Are What You Is, 1982's Ship Arriving Too Late, 1983's Man from Utopia, asset 1984's Them or Us and Thing Fish, earlier going away to set out on his own. First off was a partner off of self-financed, recorded, and released solo albums in 1984, Flex-Able and Flex-Able Leftovers, both of which showcased Vai's guitar playacting and songwriting talents, until now were motionless heavily influenced byZappa. With Van Halen all the madness by the mid-'80s due to their massive toilsome rock/pop crossover success, Vai replaced Yngwie Malmsteen in a similarly styled kit called Alcatrazz (which featured previous Rainbow vocalizer Graham Bonnett), playing on their unnoted 1985 freeing Distressful the Peace. The same year, Vai made a cameo appearance in the motion picture Juncture (playing the devil's guitarist and shredding away in a guitar duel with Ralph Macchio) and got an invite from his friend/bass maestro Billy Sheehan to seek out for the guitar pip in singer David Lee Roth's solo band (Philip Milton Roth had merely rent from Van Halen), and finally landed the fishgig. 1986 adage the debut release from Roth and his astral solo band, Eat 'Em and Smile, which went on to suit one of the year's top difficult john Rock releases. Both Vai and Sheehan were catapulted to superstardom referable to their instrumental talents, as they took top honors in numerous guitar magazines for days afterwards. Merely although the quartet showed smashing promise, Sheehan jumped ship exactly subsequently their sophomore record album, Skyscraper, was issued in 1988. Although the album was more pop-based than its predecessor, it became another ample hit -- with Vai earning a co-producing deferred payment on the album along with Roth. The same class, Vai issued his have railway line of snazzy guitars, the Jem 777 series, via the Ibanez company. After the ensuing go with Roth absorbed up in late 1988, it was Vai's turn to leap transport. In addition to running on another solo record album, he was invited to fall in up with chart-topping pop-metallists Whitesnake, an extend he recognized. His one and only if album with Whitesnake, Parapraxis of the Tongue, was issued in 1989, as was his third solo album overall, Passion and Warfare, a year by and by. The album was based on dreams that Vai experient as a adolescent, as the largely instrumental record album became a goodly attain, earning gold certificate and curing Vai's standing as one of the top guitarists of the day. It was besides around this time that Vai created a seven-string guitar through Ibanez. Although the tool didn't catch on initially, it would by the mid to recent '90s, when the guitarists in such alloy acts as Korn and Limp Bizkit would utilize the instrument to attain super-low tunings. After an extended foramen, Vai formed his number one conventional rock band (called...VAI) along with newcomer Devin Townsend on vocals, T.M. Stevens on bass, and Terry Bozzio on drums -- offering their one and only album in 1993, Sex activity & Religion. When the album proved to be a disappointment both critically and commercially, Vai returned back to all-instrumental exploit with the 1995 EP Alien Love Secrets. For the oddment of the ten, Vai continued to egress solo releases, including 1996's Fire Garden, 1998's Flex-Able Leftovers (a re-release of his long out of print second solo album, with added tracks), and 1999's The Ultra Zone. It was besides during the late '90s that Vai and Satriani reunited for an yearly co-headlining go (with a different third creative person added each class), called G3, unleashing a live album, G3: Live in Concert, in 1997. The early twenty-first century proverb a ado of releases from Vai, including a compiling of instrumentals, The seventh Song: Enchanting Guitar Melodies Archive, in 2000, and his number one full-length live release, Alive in an Ultra World, in 2001, as well as his mammoth career-encompassing ten-disc box determine The Secret Jewel Box. In 2002, he equanimous several pieces that he had contributed to films through the years, including the guitar duel from Crossroads and the melodic theme to Federal Reserve note and Ted's Bogus Journey and place them together in a 40-track accumulation called The Elusive Light and Sound, Vol. 1. A series of compilations came next and subsequently a five-year respite from the studio, Vai returned in 2005 with Real Illusions: Reflections. A turn with the Metropole Orchestra followed and he released a challenging double live determine documenting his performances, coroneted Sound Theories, Vols. dozen, in 2007. Over the long time, Vai guested on unnumerable albums by other artists, including Gregg Bissonette's self-titled debut and Submarine, Alice Cooper's Hey Stoopid, Randy Coven's Casimir Funk Me Tender, Al di Meola's Countless Desire, Public Image Ltd.'s Album, Joe Jackson's Symphony 1, and Billy Sheehan's Compression. He can likewise be ground on such additional Zappa releases as Jazz from Hell, Exclude Up 'N Play Yer Guitar, Guitar, and on several volumes of the ongoing You Can't Do That on Stage Anymore series and the live protection phonograph record, Zappa's Universe. As if his busy schedule weren't full enough, Vai pursued a lifelong interest when he began harvest honey among five-spot bee colonies in the backyard of his rest home.

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Doyle Bramhall II

   
Artist: Doyle Bramhall II

   Genre(s): 
Rock
   

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Discography:


   
 Hope and Desire

   Year: 2005   
Tracks: 12

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Micah P. Hinson And The Opera Circuit

   
Artist: Micah P. Hinson And The Opera Circuit

   Genre(s): 
Rock
   

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Discography:


   
 Micah P. Hinson And The Opera Circuit

   Year: 2006   
Tracks: 11

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Metallica say sorry to bloggers

You might not expect it from one of the loudest, scariest and most stubborn bands in rock, but today Metallica said "sorry". Sort of.

After being criticised for ordering journalists to take down reviews of tracks from their as-yet-untitled new album, the heavy metallers posted a statement on their website blaming the whole farrago on their management.

Their statement reads: "We were informed that someone at Q Prime (our managers) had made the error of asking a few publications to take down reviews of the rough mixes from the new record that were posted on their sites. Our response was 'WHY?!!! Why take down mostly positive reviews of the new material and prevent people from getting psyched about the next record ... that makes no sense to us!'"

The furore began when a bunch of journalists were invited to an album playback last week. Weirdly - and we really don't know what the hell they were thinking about here - some of these journalists then went and wrote about it. Crazy, isn't it? Anyway, someone didn't like it up above, and word was sent out demanding all reviews be taken down on sites such as Kerrang and Metal Hammer. They even went after blogs such as The Quietus.

"Q Prime were obviously only doing what they thought was best for the band, but sometimes you just have to step away from the espresso machine, take a deep breath and realise that you can't stage manage the entire worldwide media," said Quietus editor John Doran.

It would seem that the band agree. Their statement goes on to claim that they have since treated Q Prime to a "managerial ear spank" which sounds rather scary, although not as scary as "managerial ear spunk" which is how the Guardian Music team read it the first time around.

Anyhow, the band have now resolved the problem by linking to the sites cheeky enough to, er, praise the band's new record.


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Evanescence

   
Artist: Evanescence

   Genre(s): 
Rock
   ROck: Alternative
   Metal
   Metal: Alternative
   Alternative
   

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Discography:


   
 Let Us Give Demos

   Year: 2007   
Tracks: 37


   
 The Open Door

   Year: 2006   
Tracks: 14


   
 Lithium

   Year: 2006   
Tracks: 3


   
 Call Me When You're Sober

   Year: 2006   
Tracks: 1


   
 Fallen (Brazilian Edition) (CD 2)

   Year: 2004   
Tracks: 5


   
 Fallen (Brazilian Edition) (CD 1)

   Year: 2004   
Tracks: 13


   
 Everybody's Fool

   Year: 2004   
Tracks: 4


   
 Anywhere But Home

   Year: 2004   
Tracks: 14


   
 Ultra Rare Trax Vol.1

   Year: 2003   
Tracks: 18


   
 The Elliot Show Appearance

   Year: 2003   
Tracks: 5


   
 Show (Mixing)

   Year: 2003   
Tracks: 20


   
 Mystery Promo Cd

   Year: 2003   
Tracks: 6


   
 Mystery (Promo)

   Year: 2003   
Tracks: 6


   
 My Immortal

   Year: 2003   
Tracks: 3


   
 Live in Cologne, Germany (10-17-2003)

   Year: 2003   
Tracks: 12


   
 Going Under

   Year: 2003   
Tracks: 3


   
 Bring Me To Life

   Year: 2003   
Tracks: 3


   
 Not For Your Ears

   Year: 2002   
Tracks: 18


   
 Origin

   Year: 2000   
Tracks: 11


   
 Sound Asleep (Ep)

   Year: 1999   
Tracks: 6


   
 Sound Asleep

   Year: 1999   
Tracks: 6


   
 Evanescence

   Year: 1998   
Tracks: 7

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The goth-inspired Arkansas rock isthmus Evanescence, with its Linkin Park-meets-Tori Amos wakeless backed by chugging guitars, easy made it to the top of the charts in 2003 with its Wind-Up Entertainment debut album, Fallen. Singer/pianist Amy Lee and guitarist/songwriter Ben Moody formed the isthmus at the end of the '90s after meeting in their early teens during a "youth summer camp," Moody said in a statement. "I heard Amy playing Meat Loaf's 'I'd Do Anything for Love' at the pianissimo. So I went over to meet her, and she started vocalizing for me. I was pretty much blown aside, so I suckered her into connexion a isthmus with me."


As a twosome, Evanescence didn't perform live, alternatively opting to spillage EPs and the uncut Lineage. Lee told the BBC that Evanescence was mastering demos in Memphis, TN, when she and the dance orchestra were ascertained by producer Pete Matthews. He shopped the songs to track record companies in New York, and Evanescence -- rounded stunned by bassist Will Boyd, guitar player John LeCompt, and drummer Rocky Gray -- eventually landed a condense with Wind-Up, the home of Creed. The soundtrack to the 2003 Ben Affleck activeness moving-picture show Swashbuckler brought success to Evanescence; the mendicancy "Institute Me to Life," which appeared on the soundtrack along with the lay "My Immortal," became a hit. (Paul the Apostle McCoy, of labelmates 12 Stones, rapped on "Bring Me to Life," which originated as a pianissimo ballad.) The songs proven to be a head set off to Evanescence's future hit record album Fallen, produced by Dave Fortman (Boy Sets Fire, Superjoint Ritual) and released in March 2003.


Evanescence ran head number one into contention promoting Fallen. Originally, it was released in the Christian and temporal markets; however, the band's use of profanity during an interview with Rolling Stone prompted its mark, Wind-Up Records, to recall Fallen from Christian stores. Ironically, 12 Stones ar as well labeled Christian. Fallen surpassed double-platinum condition, reach the Top Ten in the United States, including the Top Contemporary Christian Albums chart, the Top Five in Canada, and identification number unmatchable in the United Kingdom. It worn out more than 100 weeks on Billboard's Top cc; Evanescence likewise managed to nibble up 2 Grammys (Topper New Artist and Best Hard Rock Performance) for the 2003 awards.


During a European turn former that same year, however, Moody dead left the grouping over manifest creative differences. Ex-Cold guitar player Terry Balsamo before long replaced him in the isthmus; he clicked with Lee and the two became cohesive songwriting partners wHO worked to farther delineate Evanescence's classically influenced hard john Rock identity. The dance orchestra continued to circuit day-and-night for the following class, and they issued the live album Anyplace But Home (recorded at a show in Paris) in November 2004 to hold back all over fans hungry for their followup. It likewise went platinum. More intragroup isthmus drama ensued -- including Balsamo recovering from a stroke suffered in diminish 2005 and Boyd's going the undermentioned summertime -- before that album, The Open Door, last appeared in early October 2006. Tim McCord (ex-the Revolution Smile) joined up in Boyd's place that August, switch from his usual guitar to basso. Spearheaded by the individual "Call Me When You're Sober," the album displayed a broader emotional reach amid the band's evolving sound. Evanescence played several intimate theater of operations dates immediately following the record's waiver before moving on to bigger arena shows.