Music & Muscians

No Longer A Back-Up To American Pop Music Stardom
By Alex Catarinella

Fame sometimes has its discomforts.

“I was so mortified that I hid in a room and sat on the floor in a friend’s apartment,” recalls Greek American singer Annet Artani of her paparazzi-infested fame in Greece. “But I’m ready now.”

Artani, 25, who is a mega-star in Greece, recently moved back to New York to crash the American pop charts. But, American superstardom may be a ways off, even though Artani boasts quite an extensive resume.

In addition to Artani’s album, Mia Foni, which means "One Voice" in Greek and became a top 20 hit in Greece, she’s a reality TV star, albeit a talented, non-annoying one. While in Greece, Artani appeared on Fame Story (think MTV’s Real World for singers, which Artani describes its premise as being isolated in a house and performing once a week without a clue if viewers hate or love you—viewers, fortunately for her, loved her). In addition, she represented Cyprus in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2006 with her power ballad, “Why Angels Cry” in which she reached the semi-finals (ala American Idol).


Annet Artani says she is ready to hit the American
pop charts.

But Artani’s first true taste of fame came before she moved to Greece. Prior to final callbacks for lead roles in the Broadway hit “Rent,” Artani scored an audition to become a back-up singer for Britney Spears. She got the gig, and immediately hit the grueling touring circuit. Talk about a big taste of fame. Eventually, Artani would co-write the international hit “Every time” with Spears while on tour as Spears’ former back-up singer in 2001--a turning point in her career.

Artani’s friends refer to her as “Anetta James” (in reference to the soul icon Etta James): watch out Mariah Carey (also, former back-up singer). There’s a new back-up singer, turned international superstar on the rise.

Artani befriended the then on-top-of-the-world (if on the surface) superstar Spears and witnessed what perhaps could be a foreshadowing of, if not a chaotic, future of her own. “Had I not also befriended her [Spears] and understood what it was like to be stalked or monitored on a personal level, I would've freaked out more when it happened to me,” says Artani.

Of her Greek success: “I sort of knew what was coming, for the most part, although nothing can truly prepare you for the camera guy who pops out of the dumpster when you're jogging in your hood with your trainer!” recalls Artani with a laugh. Like all true entertainers at heart, Artani believes that the perks of superstardom outweigh the darker elements (Isolation, complete lack of privacy, and public scrutiny, to name a few).


Artani, a former back-up singer for Britney Spears, has had her own
spotlight.

Artani talks of being on stage with Spears at sold-out arenas, and of eventually stepping into her own spotlight in Greece and singing in front of 55,000 onlookers: “The rush that you get by giving a piece of yourself and being so vulnerable is not something I can even describe. I want that here. Not because I'm some narcissist that needs adoring fans, but because we all do certain things for something.”

Artani has powerhouse pipes that rival Whitney and Mariah at their best, exotic looks and quite the bootylicious figure (Beyonce, who?) juxtaposed with a goofy sense of humor (She’s “obsessed” with Sarah Silverman and says her humor consists of such funny legends as Lucy and Nanny Fine). Sounds like the perfect pop star. So what’s taking so long for this songstress to take over the states?

Artani’s rather surreal experience in Greece also came with struggles—concerning her Greek American identity. “I wasn't allowing myself to really show them me whole-heartedly, my funny side, or be too creative, mostly because I was told by my label that ‘this was too American’ or ‘sing it less American or they won't relate,’” she says.

And while Artani sings and speaks perfect Greek, the Greek pop scene lacks the enthusiasm of the pop craze surrounding such singers as the ubiquitous Rihanna, Beyonce and Miley in America. Artani says pop stars in Greece usually open for the more “ethnic” headliners.


Artani says Greek-American singers aren’t
Greek enough in Greece.

Greeks opt for Greek music from Greek superstars whose music incorporates Greek instruments and influences and play at the big Greek nightclubs. Essentially, a Greek American just isn’t Greek enough. Artani, who grew up in Queens, New York to Greek immigrant parents, explains: “It’s very interesting to experience, culturally, but very hard to adjust to if you're an American and grew up listening to pop, rock and R&B.”

But similar to the American starlets, Artani’s fame put her on her toes. “I had to watch my step a lot because there has been a negative connotation put upon us in Europe; partially because of our current not-too-intellectual war president, and partially due to Americans who visit Greece in the summer and have no inhibitions because they are partying. I had to make sure my Greek was always perfect or be prepared to be made fun of.”

Eventually, Artani’s talent, charm and gorgeous looks won over Greece. But it wasn’t enough for Artani. “Yeah, they accepted and liked me, but I didn't ever feel like I was giving them a real understanding of who I was,” Artani confesses. “So it’s sort of a weird type of acceptance. But mostly, I felt constipated there because I felt a little lost in translation.”

If her struggles in Greece are any indication, Artani has a bumpy road of ahead of her in the fickle and superficial American music industry (thankfully for Artani, the recent onslaught of overseas soul singers, such as Amy Winehouse and Lily Allen could be beneficial). But Artani’s experiences over the years have made her wise, if not more determined for superstardom.

Artani witnessed the darkness that can come with fame while working with Spears. But ‘afraid’ is not a part of Artani’s vocabulary—this one’s fearless. “It didn’t scare me,” she says. “I just felt bad, mostly because I began to see the demise during our friendship.”

Artani cites the artist and their support system as the precursors to sustainable success. “While Brit had an amazing group of people behind her, she was not the one calling the shots. That is mostly because she was young and didn't have the knowhow,” Artani says.

Sounding every bit professional and insightful, Artani continues: “But just because you grow up and have all this power, doesn't mean you suddenly have the knowhow as a grown up, if in fact you had all this help getting there. Great management, producers, hard work on her behalf, and a solid team is what got her there.”

Artani’s insight into pop stardom’s downside shows that perhaps she should pen a how-to-be-a-pop-star guide. And while Spears, “had her mom as a support system schmoozing and getting her daughter auditions and a good manager,” Artani’s parents were Greek immigrants whose concerns were “trying to feed us” and, unlike Spears’ stage mom, had “no clue about developing a pop star.” “And I'm sort of glad about that, because I had no choice but to learn how to do things on my own,” Artani says.

Artani’s not-so-glamorous journey has involved working six jobs in one semester. Unlike many American pop tarts, Artani’s childhood didn’t include the Mickey Mouse Club. She worked hard and eventually attended college.

“Once you've been on your own and have had no professional help for all these years, you are forced to be more grounded,” Artani says humbly. “I'm young, but my spirit is that of someone who has been seasoned because it took a lot of struggle to get here.”
Still, while Artani’s music could be classified as pop (although think an edgy Pink meets Fergie’s funk with a bit of Etta’s vocals), you can feel realness and modesty pulsating from her. She keeps it real. Refreshingly so.

Nowadays, you’ll find Artani prepping hardcore to cross over to the American charts. Her days and nights consist of frequent dance classes, running her own MySpace and Facebook websites, and recording sessions for her debut American album, which she describes as “high energy, pop/dance with a little rock and hip hop lacing.”

In addition, Greek-inspired sounds can be heard on her first single, “Alive.” “I'm not trying to be Shakira or anything. But I love Greek rhythms and instruments and I would love adding them in for some flavor.”

The aptly-titled and “Girl Power” anthem single “Alive” reflects where Artani now finds herself -- in this unique transition from back-up singer to Greek megastar to aspiring American pop star. In the song, she sings “I'm Alive, I survived it all when you let me fall / I'm Alive, made it through somehow, I'm a big girl now.”

“It’s exactly as I feel right now; happy to be alive! I went through some hard stuff the past few years on a personal level, probably something lots of women experience, and I wrote that song in the midst of it to remind me of my power,” Artani says. “And now that I'm in a better place, I hear it and I feel victorious.”

Through it all, and after conquering the Greek pop scene, Artani learned the importance of remaining true to herself, although it’s easier said than done in the dark music business—just ask her predecessors.

While Artani’s experiences have taught her well, she is not back-up singer material; she has a voice that demands to be heard. One that stands out among the typical American pop star, and one that refuses to conform to a pre-packaged image—there’s certainly no puppet strings attached for Artani.

“I don’t want to second guess myself. I want to be silly, weird, eccentric, bitchy, polite, pretty, voluptuous, sexy, and stick out like a sore thumb. Because that's who I am.”

Music & Musicians

Mercury Rising
By Glenn Burwell

Marymount Manhattan College’s very own Amanda Lavin is one of New York’s up and coming starlets. In a candid interview Lavin proves nice girls don’t always finish last: Gloria Estefan, Japanese piano instructors, and her love of Chopin are some of the topics petite bombshell opened up about.

Not many people know much about 19 year-old singer-song writer Amanda Lavin. Even in a school with a student body as small as Marymount Manhattan College’s where it seems that everyone knows everyone. This isn’t to say that Lavin doesn’t stand out, because she does, but you probably wouldn’t know her unless you were lucky enough to be called her friend. That is, unless you were sent a link to her MySpace music page, ( http://www.myspace.com/amandalavinmusic) and listened to what she had to offer, and immediately realized, when she hits that last note, you want more.

“I’m not about actively drawing attention to myself,” Lavin coyly says sipping a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon, at one of her favorite restaurants Per Lei, where the staff seems to know her well. “I talk to people from my high school and they say they never knew that I would move to The City to become a recording artist.”

Amanda Lavin

Lavin, a blonde-haired blue-eyed beauty, stands about five-feet five- inches tall, with hands, strong and slender, that were clearly made to play the piano. Lavin credits her piano lessons to her unique sound and style of the music she writes. “Classical music feels intrinsic; it has been instilled in me. I love any of Chopin’s waltzes.” Her classical training is much like that of her musical inspiration, the late Freddy Mercury of Queen.

“Freddy Mercury is my biggest inspiration hands down, I feel like we are similar in that we both began with the classical piano training,” Lavin said. “His metaphoric lyrics and hypnotic melodies were always complex and interesting. He had a basic understanding of how people felt,” she says.

One might think it ostentatious of her to compare herself to a legend like Mercury, but Lavin makes it clear that Mercury’s style is his very own and she aspires to find her niche in the industry like her idol.

“What I aim for in creating music is to create something that is universally appreciated.” Lavin doesn’t mean this in terms of “selling out,” a saying she despises, in order to sell more records, but so more people can be exposed to her music and her message.

Lavin’s classmates probably didn’t know she would make the move and follow her dreams, because, for a while, neither did she. “I only really absolutely knew that I wanted to be a singer when I was in my senior year [of high school]. I actually thought I would be a journalist,” Lavin admits. When she was a child she would dance to her mother’s cassette tape of Gloria Estefan’s Turn the Beat Around. Other early childhood favorites included “anything Whitney [Houston]”, Alanis Morissette which her mother banned because of the mature lyrics, Lea Salonga (the voice of Princess Jasmine in Disney’s Aladdin).

“In the back of my mind I always knew I wanted to be a singer. When I was a kid people would tell me I should,” Lavin said, when discussing childhood memories. Despite the fact she didn’t always know she would want to sing professionally music was always a part of her life.

The first child of her parents, Lavin, remembers moving from her Bronx apartment to a house in Yonkers, NY where her love of music began. “For some reason there was a piano in the house when we moved there. Anytime I could I would beat on the piano.” Lavin’s parents, who she says are incredibly proud of her music, didn’t dismiss her curious plunking as noise. Instead they enrolled her in a “daddy and me” piano class. “That’s when I technically started playing piano, if you can call it that. It wasn’t until I was five that I actually began taking lessons,” she said.

Lavin in the city

Now on her second glass of wine, Lavin sits back and becomes even more down to earth- if that is humanly possible. “I’ll never forget her, she was a very small Japanese woman, Miss Nakamishi,” she chuckles and her eyes brighten as she speaks about her first piano teacher, from the days of “daddy and me.” Her attitude changes as she explains her second teacher whom she studies under to this day, “I started taking lessons with Irene when I five, she is very…she’s a great woman,” she hesitantly says this. “No I actually do love her she’s practically family I’ve known her so long,” she quickly follows.

Lavin recalls her Swedish instructor suggesting she lose a couple of pounds, “I was in the seventh grade, but that’s why I love her she just tells it like it is.” Miss Nakamishi made her smile, but Irene made her work, and always held her to the highest standards, which has subsequently worked in her advantage. Evidence of years of hard work is apparent in her music and her hands.

Like most artists she breaks her music into two parts -- her music and her lyrics. She explains her process, “The creative process, I just love it, for me that is when everything makes sense in my mind. When I can’t find what feel out there, I write it. My hope is that someone else could use it. At the end of the day I want my music to be honest, universal, and evoking- that’s it. ” In the word of Freddy Mercury, “I always knew I was a star and now, the rest of the world seems to agree with me.” All in favor of Amanda Lavin, say, “Aye”. Aye.

Music & Musicians

Punk Might Be Dead, But ‘Punks’ Are Still Alive
By Gunes Atalay

It’s 1976 and a 14 year-old girl with red hair with two platinum streaks in the front and dressed in black is walking around in Max's Kansas City Club in the East Village next to Union Square Park . Her name is Donna White.

She fell in love with punk music when she first heard Ramones at the age 13 and began listening to them constantly. That same year, while attending a party, someone told her she should hang out at Max's. Her first night there, she met her first boy friend who knew everyone in the punk scene at the time. “Suddenly I found myself in this punk glam world and I loved every minute of it,” said White.

White ran away from home at 15, and in the following years, she went from concert to concert and began living on the Lower East Side. She lived in the famous Chelsea Hotel for a while, and said she was constantly broke, but it didn't matter.

She says the atmosphere was so different in those days. “Today’s East Village is full of restaurants and commercial stores with a hint of what used to be there. We were different. We used to be like a big family,” White said. “We all took care of each other. We did drugs, we had fun, and we just didn't care about anything. We used to make our own clothes, because we didn't have enough money to buy them.”

White said that although the stores Trash and Vaudeville did exist, it was the cheapest place to shop, unlike today where it is so expensive to buy supposedly punk clothing. “Some old punks still live in Lower East Side, and when you see them you know they are from the old days, and majority of them live on the Alphabet City because you could only afford living there back in those days, sharing studios,” she said.

White said she began using drugs at a very young age and began feeling like an old, little girl. “I got tired. I got very tired. I had to get away.”

White moved to West Coast, and struggle for a long time before becoming a stripper. She moved from city to city, and stripped and got into trouble many times. She attracted stalkers and was almost raped. “I wanted to be back home, in my heart, but I just couldn't. I was still on drugs constantly and had no purpose of living.”

White said her life changed when she got pregnant at 28, and returned to school and became a nurse. She lived with her daughter in Arizona for years until she found out her brother had HIV since he was 19. “I had to protect him. My mom was never there for us, I had to be there for him.”

White and her daughter returned to New York. Even though she wanted to keep her daughter away from drugs, she also wanted her to get into the punk scene.

“I went to St. Marks after years because I wanted my daughter to grow up in that scene and I was shocked. First of all, rents were sky high. I couldn't understand how New York's “worst” neighborhood became one of the most expensive areas,” said White. “Then I realized it just became fashionable and was considered “artsy.” It just seemed so fake. I saw people paying loads of money for ripped clothes and hair gels to do their Mohawks. We used to wear ripped because we didn't have money. Wear the same pair of jeans for years, you will see what I mean. And, we did our Mohawks with Jell-O!”

White saw several of her old friends who seemed very tired, but she found that most of them were dead, and all the places she used to go were closed.
“I knew real punk was gone, never to be back.”

Today White is a nurse living with her 16 year-old daughter and sometimes wants to return to her gypsy punk lifestyle, but she knows it no longer exists. She now back where she started, in New York City, reminiscing with old friends “who are still hardcore, real punks.”

“The Punk scene might be dead, and all the old punks may seem like they are getting along with the society by having regular jobs. But I know they all are the same old kids inside, dying to go back. Punk is living inside us.”

Music & Musicians

'La Reina' Ana Gabriel Returns To The Garden For One Night Only
By Leslie De Jesus

A round table with an embroidered off-white tablecloth was positioned stage left far enough from the musicians, but close enough for the performer to walk with ease to it. A small vase was placed on the table with a single red rose. Two glasses of water were soon placed beside the vase.

The stagehands scurried around the stage making sure everything else was in place. Once they exited, three background singers, dressed in black, entered and took their mark, blending in with the musicians who had appeared onstage minutes earlier.

At 8:45pm, the lights began to dim and the crowd rose to its feet. Red lights filled the stage and the crowd began to chant “Ana! Ana! Ana!” Music filled the Madison Square Garden Theatre auditorium and everyone’s attention was directed to the giant screens above the stage. Images flooded the screen rapidly interchanging from live footage to still photographs of the performer enchanting her audiences across Latin America.

The images faded to black and the name Ana Gabriel flashed onto the screen. The crowd grew louder with anticipation and within seconds, the Mexican international superstar appeared on stage before the awestruck audience. She immediately got down to business and belted out hit after hit.

Half way through the performance a young woman rushed the stage. She carried a bouquet of red roses and security dashed to get her away, but Ana removed her earpiece and said, “Let her through.”

At the sound of those words, the young woman stuck out her tongue defiantly at the guards and hugged the Mexican singer. Many soon followed the young woman’s lead and weaseled their way to the front of the stage. Many handed the artist flowers while others held out photos for her to autograph. She smiled and assured the guards that it was fine. She signed autographs as she sang and occasionally asked the autograph seekers to ‘at least remove the pen caps’ before approaching the stage.

Another young woman found her way to the front and was trying to grab the singer’s attention. Ana asked the young woman to speak into the microphone and once the young woman took the mike she went into a long-winded account of how she had met her last year because she was an employee at the Garden. She asked the artist if she could go backstage after the show and Ana lost her nerve and stated, “I don’t care who your boss is or if he’s the owner of Madison Square Garden, the only boss here tonight is me.” The crowd erupted into applause.

The pint-size artist grew angrier as the young woman pleaded with her. Ana continued, “The only people I answer to tonight is this audience. You probably didn’t even pay for you ticket tonight while everyone else here did.” The young woman looked crestfallen, yet continued to ask the singer for lavish requests. Ana finally had enough of her and asked the maestro to cue up the next song.

She performed “Luna” (Moon),“Quien Como Tu?” (Nobody Better Than You) and “Simplemente Amigos” (Simply Friends), among others. “This is for all the Queens,” she said in Spanish before belting out her feminist anthem “La Reina,” and many women in the audience rose and sang along with her, waving their arms triumphantly in the air. Ana closed the evening with her up-tempo hit “En La Oscuridad” (In the Dark). Confetti filled the auditorium as she took her final bow and blew kisses to the audience.

First time concert attendee nine-year-old Lissette, clutching her grandmother’s hand, said, “I liked everything but my favorite part was when the confetti popped out,” she said with a timid smile. For 55 year-old Augustina Muñiz the concert was unlike anything she had ever experienced, “it was like a movie” she kept saying.

Muniz said it had been twenty-odd years since she had last attended a concert. Her eyes sparkled as she said, “It was beautiful, and I forgot all my problems. I was on another planet. She’s so kind and humble and her voice is so powerful. She never gets tired.” Her daughter Rosa wrapped her arms around her mother and said, “I’m so glad I was able to bring my mother to this concert. I knew she’d like it. She’s her favorite artist.”