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The SMH reports:
The world’s most famous violinist, Nigel Kennedy, has abandoned plans to become an Australian citizen in protest at the country’s role in the war in Iraq.
UPDATE. Some background on the untidy British fiddler, courtesy of HMS Cheesemaker.
Damn. Now I’ve got more CDs to get rid of.
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 01 18 at 02:24 AM • permalinkHmm, he is more proof that musical talent and brains are gifts which the lord rarely bundles into the one person.
Posted by Steve at the pub on 2006 01 18 at 02:24 AM • permalinkNigel who?
Wasn’t he that fellow what played the violin and dressed faux-punk or something?
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2006 01 18 at 02:38 AM • permalinkHe is a lowbrow crossover artist who thinks that shock = virtuosity. Australia has lost nothing on this one…
Posted by Bilious Young Fogey on 2006 01 18 at 02:40 AM • permalinkHe became popular through his rendition of Vivaldis 4 Seasons, which now makes him an expert on just about everything.
Two years ago I made a heap of money from a contract that went very well. I think Kennedy is a crap player and shouldnt be allowed into the country. We only want good piano players in Oz
Correct me if I’m wrong, but he is a Pom who resides in Poland - both countries have troops in Iraq.
Don’t get me wrong, its not like we need another fatuous wanker here, but I’d love to know the reasoning.
Also to I’d like to know what prompted him to share this fact with us now, its not like we put troops into Iraq yesterday.
Posted by Harry Buttle on 2006 01 18 at 02:47 AM • permalinkwhen did he become famous, let alone the world’s most? i’m sure cuba can find a place for this head tilter
Completely OT, but check out Little Bo Peep in the PETA ad. Yowsah!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2006 01 18 at 02:51 AM • permalinkO/T - That model in the Peta ad has huge boobs!
Posted by Lucky Nutsacks on 2006 01 18 at 03:02 AM • permalinkWhat’s with her clown-face makeup? Ick.
BTW, has Blogads been hijacked by PETA, or what? I thought “it was only going to be for a week”...
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 01 18 at 03:08 AM • permalinkAnd dude, his cover of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” sucked…!
Now this is a fiddler!
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 01 18 at 03:14 AM • permalinkWho gave this prancing fop the idea that Australia wants him as a citizen?
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2006 01 18 at 03:25 AM • permalinkHe became popular through his rendition of Vivaldis 4 Seasons…
Great. As if the world doesn’t have enough recordings of the 4 Seasons. Surely one of the most over-recorded concertos and we don’t need any more. Still, the punters like it and it’s a good seller. Nothing to tax the brains there - so overdone it’s nothing more than 16thC musak these days.
Posted by walterplinge on 2006 01 18 at 03:30 AM • permalink“World’s most famous violinist”
NONSENSE! This is the World’s most famous violinist! (And probably this is the most famous violinist ever!!!
Posted by nofixedabode on 2006 01 18 at 03:46 AM • permalinkI don’t understand why we have elected representatives and public servants when the all the world’s problems could be solved in a week if we just put a bunch of musicians and actors in charge of our countries.
Sure, most of them dropped out of high school, sure the highest personal responsibility they’ve ever endured is feeding their goldfish, but they just seem so confident in their almost godlike abilities to manage complex economies foreign policy that we owe it to them to try.
One caveat: if they fail, and I’m not saying that’s even possible, but if they do for some reason make a massive, disastrous mess of things, we reserve the right to drag them out into the street and string them up like dogs.
Deal, Mr. Violin idiot?
He’s a famous violinist the way Adam Hall is a comedian.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 01 18 at 03:57 AM • permalinkDue to Nigel Kennedy’s politics, I refuse to ever learn to play the violen!
Posted by perfectsense on 2006 01 18 at 04:06 AM • permalink“If a classically-trained Japanese-born violinist can go to a tiny town (pop:3,807) in southwestern Missouri, right in the heart of the Bible Belt, marry a beautiful, talented southern blond who produces and co-hosts his show, and can draw busloads of heartlanders to his packed shows, why, one must expand the universe of possibilities for an Asian male in America!”
Nah. The heartland is a bunch of xenophobic, racist rednecks. Just ask those sophisticated Yurripeans at the Guardian and Le Monde. Branson must not have gotten the memo.
I think most Aussies would prefer to be fiddled by Vanessa Mae or The Corrs.
In other news, I have abandoned my plans to become an Iranian citizen. Do you think Saudi Arabia would have me?
PS
I think most Aussies would prefer to be fiddled by Vanessa Mae or The Corrs.
Ever hear the story about British conductor Thomas Beecham and the Australian cello player?
He was conducting an Australian symphony orchestra, and an unfortunate young lady at the front was doing her best to produce musical sounds from her cello.
Beecham stopped the orchestra, and said to the young lady,
“My dear. You have between your legs an instrument that is capable of giving joy to thousands of men. Yet all you can do is sit there and scratch it.”Boom-boom!
I have at least HEARD of Vanessa Mae and The Corrs.
Posted by Steve at the pub on 2006 01 18 at 05:23 AM • permalinkUnfortunately for Nigel, despite our string-ent visa restrictions, the position of scruffy whingeing pom has been filled over and over again already!
He actually made his reputation before the Vivaldi recording (which was late 80s)with one of the Elgar Violin concerto. By the time he grew into his “adult” persona, which looked more like a reversion to rebellious 16 year old, he was making statements like “I will no longer play works by dead composers” while, ironically, at about this time giving renditions of Purple Haze by Hendrix.
Real and non-deluded musicians are honoured and thrilled to perform the great works by dead composers.
I was honoured to be in the audience some years ago to hear a young lady perform the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto - it turned out to be her dying wish - she was soon to succumb to a fatal cancer.And here I thought Isaac Stern, playing solos to the crowds in Tel Aviv while the Scuds fell, was the world’s most famous violinist…
of the gals of Bond. Hey, you try playing the strings part to Khatchaturian’s Sabre Dance topless…
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2006 01 18 at 11:25 AM • permalink#37 Tim T, LMAO!
Ah well, if some Pommy bastard doesn’t want to migrate to Oz nobody will compel him to do so nowadays. And his beef? He objects to overthrowing a fascist tyrant and liberating millions of people from savage dictatorship, giving them the opportunity to govern themselves and build a prosperous nation. You can see why he would hate that.
Posted by Michael Lonie on 2006 01 18 at 08:43 PM • permalink#43. Why would someone play Hendrix on the violin? Is it even possible?
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2006 01 18 at 10:52 PM • permalinkI’ve followed serious music since I was seven
(with time out for the teen years). So I can say, I’ve heard him play, that he is a very good violinist. But then there’s the ‘but’. But he’s not anywhere near the ‘world’s most famous’ violinist. No way. Itzak Perlman - probably is, Midori - possibly, Sarah Chang - challenging. There are others.What ‘Nigel’ Kennedy did, and which helped make his present reputation, however small, is insist on the singular name, “Kennedy”, plus maybe dressing (in those formal concert occasions) like Ronald MacDonald. So as to cause a stir, you see, and drum up business. That part of him is smart.
The rest of him is as a form of identity with the ‘artists’ I’ve criticized previously (at many places). They’re that fraction of humanity, thinking, sometimes rightly, that they are ‘talented’, while a good fraction of them are really just crazy. Musicians are no exception. Schumann quite publically went mad, dying in an asylum, Wagner, an extreme controler, was a Jew-baiter and a ‘user’ of people. He managed to steal his best friend’s wife. There is no doubt about their ‘genius’. There are lots of examples, and just in music (Vladimir Horowitz was a manic depressive,and a nasty man). In the plastic arts, many more. And don’t get me started on literature!
I’d rather see Jimmy Page play a strat with a bow than that pretentious twerp. His bovver boy schtick is a load of bollocks as well- like that other faux chave who cooks, the accent and clobber is a put on; both spoilt public schoolbys who’ve used the cockney sparra image to cover the fact that they’re not very good at what they are supposed to be maestros of.
I would have like to have seen how long Nige and Jamie would have lasted at a Radio Birdman gig in the late seventies- I’m betting about 12 minutes before someone pulled off their heads and pissed down their necks.Cockney sparra (or sparrow)- east end bit of a lad, best personified by Phil Daniels. Bovver boys were the original skins, with cherry red docs, braces, grandpa shirts and a number 4. Both Oliver and Kennedy bung on a tower hamlets accent and look while originating closer to knightsbridge- a pair of put-ons, who have created a persona to try to make out what wide boys they are when they’re a pair of hooray henrys.
Fucking tossers who need a good slap.It does? Hmp. Right then, what was he saying? I only understood this part:
“Fucking tossers who need a good slap.”
because these phrases keep turning up on my quarterly evaluations, but the rest of it mystifies me.
Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 01 20 at 05:54 PM • permalink
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Oh dear. Oh well, what he does best is having a good fiddle. No need to come to Oz to do that surely?