Brian Howe, the singer who fronted the British rock supergroup Bad Company for eight years, has died aged 66. He had a heart attack at his Florida home.
Howe’s manager Paul Easton said: “It is with deep and profound sadness that we announce the untimely passing of a loving father, friend and musical icon.”
Bad Company originally formed in 1973 by Free singer Paul Rodgers and Mott the Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs. After Rodgers left to form another supergroup with Jimmy Page, the Firm, Bad Company recruited Howe in 1986, and he went on to perform on four subsequent albums.
THE NEW YORK POST adds:
In his final tweet, Howe recalled his lifetime accomplishments — and one goal he would sadly never end up fulfilling.
“I’ve done a few things in my life,” he wrote on April 26. “I have sold millions of records and toured the world for the last 35 years but I want to appear on Tv with #RickyGervais who in my opinion is a genius.”
WIKIPEDIA notes,:
With Rodgers gone, the remaining two members partnered with new managers Bud Prager and Phil Carson and teamed up with ex-Ted Nugent vocalist Brian Howe (who was introduced to them by Foreigner's Mick Jones) as the new lead singer. In addition, they hired Steve Price as the new bass player and Greg Dechert (ex-Uriah Heep) on keyboards. Howe's vocal style brought more of a pop-rock sound to the band, which Atlantic Records, looking to bring the band back up to arena status, was looking for after declining turnouts to previous live performances and the dismal sales of Rough Diamonds. The band hired Foreigner producer Keith Olsen to produce the new lineup's initial album, 1986's Fame and Fortune. Burrell agreed to rejoin the band and was name checked on the Fame and Fortune album, even though he didn't play on it. But just before the supporting tour, he left once again (Steve Price then returned). Among the subsequent projects Burrell was involved with was a nine-piece jazz outfit called The Tam White Band.
Reflecting the musical style of the mid-1980s, Fame and Fortune was laden with keyboards, unlike previous Bad Company albums, but was only modestly successful. The single "This Love" managed to reach No. 85 on the Singles charts but was not the success the band hoped for. But things were about to change.
In 1987 Dechert was dropped from the lineup as the group decided not to play up the keyboards in their sound as much. They toured that year supporting Deep Purple.
For the next Howe-era album, 1988's Dangerous Age, the band replaced Olsen with producer Terry Thomas, who got rid of most of the keyboards and returned the band to a guitar-driven sound. Thomas also added small amounts of keyboards as well as rhythm guitars and backing vocals and wrote most of the songs with the band. Dangerous Age fared better than its predecessor, spawning several MTV videos and the AOR hits "No Smoke Without a Fire" (#4), "One Night" (#9) and "Shake It Up" (#9, also No. 89 on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles chart). The album went gold and hit the Top 60. For the Dangerous Age tour, the band was augmented by Larry Oakes (keyboards, guitar), who had also played with Foreigner. Price and Oakes both left at the conclusion of the tour.
The band's next album, Holy Water, written mostly by Brian Howe and Terry Thomas, was released in June 1990. The album, also produced by Thomas, was enormously successful both critically and commercially, attaining Top 40 and platinum status by selling more than one million copies. Holy Water was the band's first album on the Atlantic subsidiary Atco. The album spun off the singles: "If You Needed Somebody" (#16), the title track "Holy Water" (#89) and "Walk Through Fire" (#28). "Holy Water" also hit No. 1 for 2 weeks on the AOR charts with "If You Needed Somebody" reaching No. 2. The album received significant radio airplay (five songs made the AOR charts in all) and spawned several video hits. Felix Krish played bass on the CD while Paul Cullen was recruited for live shows.
Ralphs, who was taking care of personal and family matters, sat out for most of the Holy Water tour, although he did perform on the album. Beginning in June 1990, Ralphs was replaced on the road and in the videos by ex-Crawler guitarist Geoff Whitehorn. Ralphs returned later on during the tour (in April 1991) and Whitehorn went on to join Procol Harum in December 1991 with whom he still plays to this day. Also joining at this time was ex-ASAP guitarist Dave "Bucket" Colwell as second guitarist. Their subsequent tour, supported by Damn Yankees, was heralded as one of the top 5 grossing tours of 1991 during a year which saw many other rock acts facing a downturn in concert attendance brought on by rising ticket prices and economic recession.
The final studio album of the Howe era, 1992's Here Comes Trouble, featured the Top 40 hit "How About That" (#38) and "This Could Be the One" (#87). The album went gold. Before touring in support of Here Comes Trouble, the band added ex-Foreigner, Roxy Music and Small Faces bassist Rick Wills and Colwell, a protégé of Ralphs, was now a full-time member. The band toured with several acts, including Lynyrd Skynyrd, and recorded a live album, What You Hear Is What You Get: The Best of Bad Company on the Here Comes Trouble tour. The critically acclaimed album, released in November 1993, featured live versions of hits from both the Rodgers and Howe eras of the band.
Howe left the band in 1994. Regarding his departure from the band, Howe stated: "Leaving Bad Company was not a difficult decision. It had got to the point where nobody was contributing anything to songwriting and quite frankly, the band was getting very very sloppy live. I quite simply, along with Terry Thomas, got tired of doing all the work and then getting nothing but resentment for it from Mick and Simon."[12]
Here's one of the band's best known songs.
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Thursday, May 7, 2020. Iraq has a new prime minister while the United States still has its Joe Biden problem.
"I believe Tara Reade, yes I do," Lucy Flores told PLANET AMERICA (Australia's ABC). Tara has stated Joe Biden assaulted her in 1993. And the mainstream media has largely ignored the story. Kelly McBride weighed in with her conclusions on why NPR waited forever to cover the story. The media's reluctance to cover it has allowed some like hypocrite Alyssa Milano to argue that the claims must not be true because the press isn't covering them and it allowed the attacker -- and his attack squad -- to set the terms of the conversation. Why? The people who set the terms of the conversation are people who experts in the topic. Twitter is full of Tucker Carlson's applying 'standards' that are not standards. As we noted yesterday, it was C-SPAN that brought on RAINN's (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) vice president Heather Drevna.
Heather Drevna: What I can say is we shouldn't dismiss someone's allegations of assault merely because their story has changed or what they have told audiences has differed at times. You need to take into account her explanation for why the details she described last year don't all match what she's alleging now, why the complaint might not match what she's alleging now. You also need to take into account that she told some friends and family members at the time of the alleged assault. It's not unusual for a survivor to take years to process the trauma that they have experienced and just because they've not come forward publicly immediately after events may have occurred doesn't mean that they did not happen.
C-SPAN, not CNN. Not CBS. Not PBS. Not NPR. Not . . .
Survivors are being smeared by idiots who know nothing about the topic.
Reade’s case is made stronger than Ford’s by the existence of corroborating witnesses. Her mother called into a television show hosted by Larry King in 1993 to say her daughter had problems with a prominent senator. Reade’s brother as well as a former neighbour named Lynda LaCasse, a committed Democrat and Biden supporter, recall having been told about the assault not long after it happened. Given these facts, it would be hypocritical for those who condemned the judge to maintain their support for the senator, a fact that Fox News and right-wing media are likely to highlight incessantly in the six months leading up to the presidential election.
Biden is a thoroughly mediocre candidate. He underperformed in previous runs for president, has articulated no vision for change, seems unable to open his mouth without making a gaffe, and looks aged and unsteady. His closest competitor in the primaries, Bernie Sanders, a year older at 78 and recovering from a heart attack, came across as a bundle of energy in comparison. Democrats turned to Biden because he was well-known and well-liked, a safe pair of hands, their best bet against the existential threat represented by Donald Trump. Those hands now look far from safe.
If you offered America nothing but "I'm electable" and then it really becomes obvious that maybe you're not, what do you have to offer? Not much. Chris Kahn (INDEPENDENT) explains:
Democratic hopeful Joe Biden's advantage over US President Donald Trump in popular support has eroded in recent weeks.
Mr Biden seems to be paying a heavy price for a lack of visibility with voters during the pandemic, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.
The opinion poll conducted on Monday and Tuesday found that 43pc of registered voters said they would support Mr Biden in the November 3 presidential election, while 41pc said they would back Mr Trump.
Mr Biden led by six percentage points in a similar poll last week and by eight points in a poll that ran from April 15-21.
Democrat Rebecca Parsons is running for the US House of Representatives in Washington's sixth district. She Tweets:
Rebecca Parsons is not alone. Holly Otterbien (POLITICO) reports:
There is another strand, however, those who pretend to support survivors until one of their own are accused. This craven group then falls silent. Ingrid Jaques (DETROIT NEWS) reports:
Gretch The Wretch is damaging her own political career. Violet Ikonomova (DEADLINE DETROIT) notes:
Whitmer’s statements are consistent with a set of talking points circulated by the Biden campaign to surrogates, which incorrectly cite an inconclusive New York Times investigation as proof “this incident did not happen.”
Survivors and advocates have taken issue with Whitmer’s response, calling it a politically convenient rush to judgment that undercuts the #metoo movement. The case is not closed, they argue, noting that media outlets continue to uncover more information and documents that could shed light on what happened have not been made public.
“I think to see any person who comes forward diminished is a disservice to every single victim who’s still holding onto their story and future victims who should be able to tell their story,” said Huff, who says she was raped more than a decade ago but never named her assailant because he was well-respected and she feared no one would believe her. “When people ask why victims don’t come forward, Whitmer’s response is why.”
It’s a sharp contrast from the way in which Whitmer was received seven years ago when, during a speech on the floor of the state Senate, she shared that she’d been raped as a college student. Whitmer’s goal at the time was to “put a face” on the people who would be affected by a controversial bill to ban private insurance plans from covering abortion. She didn’t succeed in changing any votes, but she has said her words did encourage more women to come forward with their own stories.
Whitmer has since become somewhat of a local face for the #metoo movement, speaking out on sexual harassment at the state Capitol and quickly ousting a former campaign manager who’d been accused of “inappropriate behavior” with former co-workers. Last year, she concluded her speech at a campus sex assault symposium at Eastern Michigan University with this message for survivors: “I see you, I hear you, I believe you … I carry you in my heart every day, and I’ll never stop fighting for you.”
Huff and two other survivors with whom Deadline Detroit spoke said they felt Whitmer should have stayed silent or called for a more robust investigation before shooting down Reade’s claim.
“For her to just say I don’t believe her, that’s a slap in the face to women in general,” said Nicole Reid, 35, of Port Huron. “Would she have believed me? Would we have believed her? Would she have wanted someone to believe her?”
People are calling out Gretch The Wretch's inconsistencies. And while she refuses to believe Tara Reade, it should be pointed out that there are many who are noting that her own story remains very short on details. The doubt she's raising about Tara? It's creating doubts about her own claim -- a claim she used to rise to fame and political prominence. You reap what you sow.
Turning to Iraq, THE WEEK notes:
Early Thursday, Iraq's Parliament selected Mustafa al-Kadhimi to serve as the country's new prime minister. Iraqi officials have said the 53-year-old former intelligence chief is acceptable to both the United States and Iran, The New York Times reports. Iraq has been without a prime minister since late last year, when Adel Abdul Mahdi resigned amid anti-government protests; he has been leading a caretaker government. Kadhimi has already met with protesters, taking a different approach from the previous government, which at times used the military against demonstrators. In addition to social unrest, Kadhimi will also have to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, which has locked down Iraq, as well as historically low oil and gas revenues.
Iraq has been searching for a new prime minister for six months now. The most recent prime minister had been forced out back in November but remained in the post in a 'care taking' role. Mustafa is the third person to be named prime minister-designate during this period. Ahmed Rasheed and John Davison (REUTERS) note, "Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, Iraq’s intelligence chief and a former journalist, will head the new government. He will begin his term without a full Cabinet, however, after several ministerial candidates were rejected." What they fail to note?
For starters, to move from prime minister-designate to prime minister, the Iraqi Constitution calls for only one thing: the creation of a cabinet. Not a partial one. The Cabinet requirement is supposed to show that the designate can govern. The ability to form the Cabinet demonstrates that the designate can work with Iraq's various political blocs.
Thus far, the Constitution has not been followed. That's one of the many reasons that Iraq does not progress -- the government is repeatedly headed by someone who can't even form a Cabinet that gets Parliament approval.
At this point, there are 22 ministers in the Cabinet -- 22 positions. This number can -- and often does -- change. How many positions was Mustafa able to fill? 15.
The following sites updated:
"I believe Tara Reade, yes I do," Lucy Flores told PLANET AMERICA (Australia's ABC). Tara has stated Joe Biden assaulted her in 1993. And the mainstream media has largely ignored the story. Kelly McBride weighed in with her conclusions on why NPR waited forever to cover the story. The media's reluctance to cover it has allowed some like hypocrite Alyssa Milano to argue that the claims must not be true because the press isn't covering them and it allowed the attacker -- and his attack squad -- to set the terms of the conversation. Why? The people who set the terms of the conversation are people who experts in the topic. Twitter is full of Tucker Carlson's applying 'standards' that are not standards. As we noted yesterday, it was C-SPAN that brought on RAINN's (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) vice president Heather Drevna.
Heather Drevna: What I can say is we shouldn't dismiss someone's allegations of assault merely because their story has changed or what they have told audiences has differed at times. You need to take into account her explanation for why the details she described last year don't all match what she's alleging now, why the complaint might not match what she's alleging now. You also need to take into account that she told some friends and family members at the time of the alleged assault. It's not unusual for a survivor to take years to process the trauma that they have experienced and just because they've not come forward publicly immediately after events may have occurred doesn't mean that they did not happen.
C-SPAN, not CNN. Not CBS. Not PBS. Not NPR. Not . . .
Survivors are being smeared by idiots who know nothing about the topic.
Reade’s case is made stronger than Ford’s by the existence of corroborating witnesses. Her mother called into a television show hosted by Larry King in 1993 to say her daughter had problems with a prominent senator. Reade’s brother as well as a former neighbour named Lynda LaCasse, a committed Democrat and Biden supporter, recall having been told about the assault not long after it happened. Given these facts, it would be hypocritical for those who condemned the judge to maintain their support for the senator, a fact that Fox News and right-wing media are likely to highlight incessantly in the six months leading up to the presidential election.
Biden is a thoroughly mediocre candidate. He underperformed in previous runs for president, has articulated no vision for change, seems unable to open his mouth without making a gaffe, and looks aged and unsteady. His closest competitor in the primaries, Bernie Sanders, a year older at 78 and recovering from a heart attack, came across as a bundle of energy in comparison. Democrats turned to Biden because he was well-known and well-liked, a safe pair of hands, their best bet against the existential threat represented by Donald Trump. Those hands now look far from safe.
If you offered America nothing but "I'm electable" and then it really becomes obvious that maybe you're not, what do you have to offer? Not much. Chris Kahn (INDEPENDENT) explains:
Democratic hopeful Joe Biden's advantage over US President Donald Trump in popular support has eroded in recent weeks.
Mr Biden seems to be paying a heavy price for a lack of visibility with voters during the pandemic, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.
The opinion poll conducted on Monday and Tuesday found that 43pc of registered voters said they would support Mr Biden in the November 3 presidential election, while 41pc said they would back Mr Trump.
Mr Biden led by six percentage points in a similar poll last week and by eight points in a poll that ran from April 15-21.
Democrat Rebecca Parsons is running for the US House of Representatives in Washington's sixth district. She Tweets:
#JoeBiden must withdraw.
#TaraReade's allegation is part of a pattern of behavior. 7 other women have accused Biden of inappropriate touching. He's on video invading the space of women and girls. We MUST defeat Trump. We do that by defending our moral standards.
#BidenDropOut
Rebecca Parsons is not alone. Holly Otterbien (POLITICO) reports:
Jess Scarane is campaigning for Joe
Biden’s old Senate seat with a striking message for a Delaware Democrat:
She believes his accuser, Tara Reade.
Scarane, who said she is a victim of
sexual assault, tweeted in March that when she listened to Reade talk
about her claims, “the assault I experienced as a teen at my first job
came rushing back. She was telling my story, too. Almost word for word.”
She has called on Chris Coons, the incumbent she is trying to oust and a
top Biden ally, to support an investigation.
“I
debated sending the tweet that I first did, probably for hours,” she
told POLITICO. “Because I was not only exposing my own story, but I
think there’s still a lot of fear and potential ramifications by just
saying this deserves to be taken seriously.”
Scarane is one of more than a
half-dozen progressive House and Senate challengers — almost all of them
millennials — who have said publicly that they believe Reade’s claim
that Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993 when she worked as his
Senate aide or otherwise spoke out in support of her. Though most are
long-shot candidates with limited resources, their remarks could stoke
division at a time when Biden is trying to unite the party’s warring
factions. Their stance also risks exposing a rift between some younger
and older Democrats as Biden works to strengthen his position as the
Democratic nominee.
There is another strand, however, those who pretend to support survivors until one of their own are accused. This craven group then falls silent. Ingrid Jaques (DETROIT NEWS) reports:
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer once wrote, “Sexual harassment is not a partisan issue and is unacceptable no matter who does it.”
That
comment, from a November 2017 tweet before Whitmer became governor, has
since been deleted from her personal Twitter account.
And so has the sentiment behind it, apparently.
While
Whitmer has had no problem calling out sexual harassment and assault
when a Republican’s reputation was at stake, she isn't concerned when
the alleged bad behavior is exhibited by Joe Biden, who is eyeing
Whitmer as a contender for his running mate.
Gretch The Wretch is damaging her own political career. Violet Ikonomova (DEADLINE DETROIT) notes:
Whitmer’s statements are consistent with a set of talking points circulated by the Biden campaign to surrogates, which incorrectly cite an inconclusive New York Times investigation as proof “this incident did not happen.”
Survivors and advocates have taken issue with Whitmer’s response, calling it a politically convenient rush to judgment that undercuts the #metoo movement. The case is not closed, they argue, noting that media outlets continue to uncover more information and documents that could shed light on what happened have not been made public.
“I think to see any person who comes forward diminished is a disservice to every single victim who’s still holding onto their story and future victims who should be able to tell their story,” said Huff, who says she was raped more than a decade ago but never named her assailant because he was well-respected and she feared no one would believe her. “When people ask why victims don’t come forward, Whitmer’s response is why.”
It’s a sharp contrast from the way in which Whitmer was received seven years ago when, during a speech on the floor of the state Senate, she shared that she’d been raped as a college student. Whitmer’s goal at the time was to “put a face” on the people who would be affected by a controversial bill to ban private insurance plans from covering abortion. She didn’t succeed in changing any votes, but she has said her words did encourage more women to come forward with their own stories.
Whitmer has since become somewhat of a local face for the #metoo movement, speaking out on sexual harassment at the state Capitol and quickly ousting a former campaign manager who’d been accused of “inappropriate behavior” with former co-workers. Last year, she concluded her speech at a campus sex assault symposium at Eastern Michigan University with this message for survivors: “I see you, I hear you, I believe you … I carry you in my heart every day, and I’ll never stop fighting for you.”
Huff and two other survivors with whom Deadline Detroit spoke said they felt Whitmer should have stayed silent or called for a more robust investigation before shooting down Reade’s claim.
“For her to just say I don’t believe her, that’s a slap in the face to women in general,” said Nicole Reid, 35, of Port Huron. “Would she have believed me? Would we have believed her? Would she have wanted someone to believe her?”
People are calling out Gretch The Wretch's inconsistencies. And while she refuses to believe Tara Reade, it should be pointed out that there are many who are noting that her own story remains very short on details. The doubt she's raising about Tara? It's creating doubts about her own claim -- a claim she used to rise to fame and political prominence. You reap what you sow.
Turning to Iraq, THE WEEK notes:
Early Thursday, Iraq's Parliament selected Mustafa al-Kadhimi to serve as the country's new prime minister. Iraqi officials have said the 53-year-old former intelligence chief is acceptable to both the United States and Iran, The New York Times reports. Iraq has been without a prime minister since late last year, when Adel Abdul Mahdi resigned amid anti-government protests; he has been leading a caretaker government. Kadhimi has already met with protesters, taking a different approach from the previous government, which at times used the military against demonstrators. In addition to social unrest, Kadhimi will also have to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, which has locked down Iraq, as well as historically low oil and gas revenues.
Iraq has been searching for a new prime minister for six months now. The most recent prime minister had been forced out back in November but remained in the post in a 'care taking' role. Mustafa is the third person to be named prime minister-designate during this period. Ahmed Rasheed and John Davison (REUTERS) note, "Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, Iraq’s intelligence chief and a former journalist, will head the new government. He will begin his term without a full Cabinet, however, after several ministerial candidates were rejected." What they fail to note?
For starters, to move from prime minister-designate to prime minister, the Iraqi Constitution calls for only one thing: the creation of a cabinet. Not a partial one. The Cabinet requirement is supposed to show that the designate can govern. The ability to form the Cabinet demonstrates that the designate can work with Iraq's various political blocs.
Thus far, the Constitution has not been followed. That's one of the many reasons that Iraq does not progress -- the government is repeatedly headed by someone who can't even form a Cabinet that gets Parliament approval.
At this point, there are 22 ministers in the Cabinet -- 22 positions. This number can -- and often does -- change. How many positions was Mustafa able to fill? 15.
The following sites updated:
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