Natalie Maria Cole was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of crooner Nat King Cole and former Duke Ellington Orchestra singer Maria Cole. Raised in the affluent Hancock Park district of Los Angeles; regarding her childhood Cole has referred to her family as "the black Kennedys" and was exposed to many great singers of jazz, soul, and blues. At the age of six Natalie sang on her father's Christmas album and later began performing at age 11.
Cole grew up with older adopted sister Carole "Cookie" (1944-2009) (her mother Maria's younger sister's daughter); adopted brother Nat "Kelly" Cole (1959-1995), and younger twin sisters Timolin and Casey (born 1961).
Her paternal uncle Freddy Cole is a singer and pianist with numerous CDs and awards. Cole was 15 years old and attending an east coast boarding school, the Northfield Mount Hermon School in Northfield, Massachusetts, when her father died of lung cancer in February 1965. Soon afterwards she began having a difficult relationship with her mother. She enrolled in the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She briefly transferred to University of Southern California where she pledged the Epsilion Theta chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.. She later transferred back to the University of Massachusetts, where she majored in Child Psychology and minored in German graduating in 1972.
Usher Raymond IV (born October 14, 1978), who performs under the mononym Usher, is an American recording artist and actor. Usher rose to fame in the 1990s and after releasing his albums My Way (1997) and 8701 (2001). My Way has been certified 6 times platinum by the RIAA. 8701 has been certified 4 times platinum by the RIAA. Each album sold over 8 million copies worldwide. His success continued with Confessions (2004), which has sold over ten million copies in the United States, and been certified diamond by the RIAA. Confessions has the highest first week sales for an R&B artist in history, has sold over 20 million copies worldwide, and was named the best selling R&B album of the 2000s decade. To date, Usher has sold over 45 million albums worldwide.
Usher has won numerous awards and accolades for his musical work. Including 5 Grammy Awards, 4 World Music Awards, 4 American Music Awards, 8 Soul Train Music Awards, and 19 Billboard Music Awards. In 2008, Usher was ranked as the 21st most successful Hot 100 Singles Artist of all-time by Billboard magazine. The RIAA ranks Usher as one of the best-selling artists in American music history, having sold 22 million copies in the United States alone. Billboard Magazine ranked Usher the #1 Hot 100 artist of the 2000s decade. They also named him the most successful singer and second most successful artist of the 2000s decade. His 2004 album Confessions was ranked as the top solo album and second most successful overall album of the last decade.
On March 30, 2010, Usher released his sixth studio album Raymond v. Raymond, which became his third consecutive album to debut at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart. Usher has achieved ten #1 singles worldwide, including nine on the Billboard Hot 100. He has also achieved fifteen Top 10 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, thirteen as a lead artist, two as a featured artist. Usher is also the first artist to have a number-one single on the UK Singles Chart and the Billboard Hot 100 during the 1990s, 2000s, and the 2010s.
MASSIVE ATTACK LIVE IN TAIWAN WEDNESDAY, JULY 28, 2010 7.30PM
This will be Massive Attack's first visit to Taiwan during an extensive world tour. Taiwan welcomes MASSIVE ATTACK!!
Massive Attack are a collaborative British music production duo from Bristol. Working alongside co-producers, various favoured session musicians and guest vocalists, they make records and tour live. The duo are considered to be progenitors of the trip hop genre.
Originally three in number, DJs Grantley "Grant" Marshall (a.k.a. Daddy G or "G"), Andrew "Andy" Vowles (a.k.a. Mushroom or "Mush") and graffiti artist-turned-MC Robert Del Naja (a.k.a. 3D or "D") met as members of DJ/MC collective, The Wild Bunch. One of the first homegrown soundsystems in the UK, The Wild Bunch became dominant on the Bristolian club scene in the mid-1980s.
Massive Attack itself started as a spin-off production trio in 1988, with the independently-released song, "Any Love", sung by falsetto-voiced singer-songwriter Carlton McCarthy, and then, with considerable backing from Neneh Cherry, they signed to Circa Records in 1990 – committing to deliver six studio albums and a "best of" compilation. Circa became a subsidiary of, and was later subsumed into, Virgin Records, which in turn was acquired by the now Terra Firma-owned major, EMI.
Their debut album, Blue Lines (1991), was co-produced by Jonny Dollar and Cameron McVey, who also became their first manager. Geoff Barrow, who went on to form Portishead, was an intern and trainee tape operator at Bristol's Coach House studio when the album was recorded. McVey (credited at the time as 'Booga Bear') and his wife, Neneh Cherry provided crucial financial support and in-kind assistance to the early careers of Massive Attack, Portishead and Tricky during this period, even paying regular wages to them through their Cherry Bear Organisation. Massive Attack went on to critical acclaim for their ever-changing line-up of distinctive, often 'ethereal' or whispery guest vocalists, interspersed with Del Naja and Marshall's (initially Tricky's) own, similarly hushed, sprechgesang stylings, on top of, what became regarded as, quintessentially British, creative sampling production; a trademark sound that fused down-tempo hip hop, soul, reggae and other eclectic references, musical and lyrical.
With the coffee-table chill-out of Protection in 1994, a rather heavier, guitar-upgraded Mezzanine in 1998, and then the denser, more clinical soundscaping of Robert Del Naja's essentially solo 100th Window in 2003, Massive's overall sound grew persistently more experimental and melancholy, having a greater degree of gothic post-punk texture and moodily cinematic electronica integrated into it.
In the nineties, the trio became known for often not being able to easily get along with one another and working increasingly separately. Andy Vowles (Mushroom), who had once thought of himself as the trio's musical director, reluctantly and acrimoniously left Massive Attack permanently in late 1999, after an ultimatum from the other two members to end the group immediately if he did not. Despite having taken Del Naja's side in the effective firing of Mushroom (who, it was felt, had become intolerable and virtually impossible to work with) and then participating in a show-of-unity webcast as a duo the following year, Grant Marshall (G) had also effectively left by 2001 in that he abandoned the studio altogether due to feeling unappreciated and alienated by Del Naja (who in turn had grown resentful of what he felt to be Marshall's overly minimal and unenthusiastic involvement) and out of weary reluctance to confront Del Naja over his own misgivings with regard to the total musical control of Massive Attack he had by the post-Mezzanine-era, particularly the quality of songwriting and the eschewing of any sort of DJist approach at that stage (the substantial and costly "Lupine Howl period" in question would end up being painfully discarded). Marshall's departure was often ostensibly portrayed as merely a fatherhood sabbatical, perhaps to play down tensions. However, G returned to a studio role with greater commitment in 2005, having joined the touring line-up of 2003/4 (following encouragement from Del Naja that he return), though he did not produce "Live With Me", with Terry Callier, the new track from the Best Of disc of 2006's Collected or any other material at that time, having not felt unencumbered enough at Del Naja's 100 Suns studio, and would insist on initiating tracks separately thereafter.
The two would later work jointly once again during 2009's Damon Albarn sessions which would provide most of the impetus to finally start and finish the fifth proper studio album; that and the availability and willingness of Martina Topley-Bird to finally be involved.
A record label, Melankolic, was started in 1995 as an imprint of Virgin [EMI], but had become defunct by 2003, primarily because the newly appointed Virgin executives at that time stopped further funding due to the label's seemingly unmanageable overspending, or rather that of its bands. Over the decades, the group have collaborated with Neneh Cherry, Madonna, David Bowie, Mos Def and Sinéad O'Connor amongst many others. Despite the group's many associations with Bristol, Carlton McCarthy, their first ever featured artist, is the only Bristolian-born and raised guest singer that they have ever featured on a record to date. Roots reggae veteran Horace Andy has featured on all of their regular studio albums, each one being slower to emerge than the last; notoriously taking an increasingly long number of years to be concertedly started and finished.
The current, long-awaited regular studio album is entitled Heligoland. The duo's collective plan to tour globally in promotion of the record - dates in Australasia, the Americas and again in Europe. A follow-up EP comprising leftovers from the Heligoland-era is to be started soon, with May, June or July 2010 as the tentative release window given.
PET SHOP BOYS LIVE IN TAIWAN
WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 2010
7.30PM
NANGANG EXHIBITION CENTER
No.1, Jingmao 2nd Rd., Nangang District, Taipei City 11568
TICKETS: SECTION A $5000, SECTION B $4000, SECTION C $3000
THERE WILL BE A SPECIAL ADVANCE PRE SALE PRICE FOR COMBINATION MASSIVE ATTACK/PET SHOP BOYS TICKETS AS FOLLOWS: SECTION A $6999, SECTION B $4999, SECTION C $2999
Drikung Kagyu Great Indiscriminated Amitabha Puja for Transferring Consciousness
Place：Upper level, Area L,M,N
Url：http://www.gloje.org/en/
On October 3rd, 2010 at the Taipei World Trade Center Nangang Exhibition Hall, Most Venerable Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche, the abbot of the Glorious Jewel Buddhist Center, will preside over the auspicious Drikung Kagyu Great Indiscriminated Amitabha Puja for Transferring Consciousness to propagate orthodox Buddhism, purify human beings’ minds, and bring blessings to all people of Taiwan. It will be the sixth grand puja that is presided over by Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche since 2005. The puja will take place at the World Trade Center Nangang Exhibition Hall for the first time. The scale of this year’s event will be larger than that of the previous ones. It is estimated that as many as 18,000 people will participate in the puja.
According to the benevolent Most Venerable Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche, the indiscriminated puja is the puja which does not assign the designation of patrons and participants’ accumulated merits are not related to their wealth and social status. All attended sentient beings, who have favorable karmic connections, will receive non-differentiating blessings, rescue, and protection from the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Therefore, representatives for making the mandala offerings towards the Buddhas, Bodhisattvas and the officiating guru, Most Venerable Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche, as well as the 1000 representatives for light the lamp offerings to the Buddhas are selected by lot at the entrance to the puja venue on the day of ceremony. No candidates are appointed in advance.
Admittance to the event is free of charge, and so is the making lamp offerings. Under the guidance of Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche, and without the necessity for outside fundraising, as always, the members of the Glorious Jewel Buddhist Culture Exchange Association have pledged over NT$ 10 million to cover the cost of the event. In the past 5 years upon the perfect completion of the puja, Most Venerable Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche always donated his personal contribution and the offerings from the attendees of the grand puja to the Ministry of the Interior for charitable and social welfare services, making the extensive virtuous connections on behalf of the sentient beings. Delegates from the Ministry of the Interior, a lawyer, an accountant, and bank representatives would be invited to the puja venue as witnesses. The total amount of donations made by Most Venerable Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche during the previous 5 years was more than NT$ 2.4 million.
Without the need of advertisement, the compassionate aspiration of Rinchen Dorjee Rinpoche became well-known simply by word of mouth of the disciples of the Glorious Jewel Buddhist Center. All pujas in past 5 years were fully seated and have been attended by more than 54,000 believers, including those who particularly traveled to Taiwan for the puja from places such as Japan, Hong Kong, Holland, France, India, New Zealand, Australia, the US, Britain, the Philippines, and Brazil. Additionally, the pujas were also attended by Ngakpas, Geshes, Khenpos, lamas, nuns of the Drikung Kagyu, Drukpa Kagyu, Nyingma, and Gelug lineages of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as monks and nuns of Exoteric Buddhism, who all came to the pujas on their own initiatives. The previous Great Indiscriminated Amitabha Pujas for Transferring Consciousness were all auspiciously perfected and innumerable sentient beings received salvation.
(886-2)
2725-5200 Venue Inquiry: 5521、5529 ,Conference Room Inquiry: 5511~13、5517 
(886-2) 2788-8353