The spotlight from "American Idol" casts a long shadow. Shining in this coast-to-coast mist is the group once known as the Lee DeWyze Band. The band used to back the "Idol" finalist from Mount Prospect, and its members have a colorful pedigree: Guitarist Louis Svitek was in the popular industrial metal band Ministry and the thrash band M.O.D.He also co-owns the independent WuLi Records in Chicago, for which DeWyze, 23, recorded two albums.» Click to enlarge imageLee DeWyze performs April 27 on "American Idol" -- without his band.
(Fox)» Click to enlarge imageLee DeWyze (right) sings with his band at Naperville's Ribfest in July 2009.
» Click to enlarge imageMusic producers Louis Suitek (from left), Ryan McGuire and Jeff Henderson pose for a photograph at McGuire's studio Friday in Oak Park. The trio also play in a band with "American Idol" contestant Lee DeWyze.(John J. Kim/Sun-Times)
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Listen: DeWyze sings baby-food songs Good, bad from Lee on 'Idol'
Jeff Henderson is the band's multi-instrumentalist. In 2008 his wife, Denise, cooked up the idea of having DeWyze record six songs for their Square One Organic Baby Food children's album (squareoneorganics.com). DeWyze sings original pure pop songs including "Vitamin C," "Greens" and "Porridge," available at iTunes.
The Lee DeWyze Band released the CDs "So I'm Told" in 2007 and "Slumberland" in January.
"There was no response," Svitek said. "The response is huge
On Monday, "Slumberland" went out nationwide to Wal-Mart outlets. It also is slated for a national release at Best Buy and can be found at cd baby.com, where it's one of the top-selling albums.
An "Idol" finalist with product while still competing on TV is unheard of. WuLi had a three-album deal with DeWyze, but to comply with "Idol" rules, the label had to let him out of his contract once he survived the auditions.
His band is left to work out the kinks. "Target only takes jewel cases," McGuire said with a gentle groan in his Oak Park studio. "Lee is a tree hugger. He wanted triple recycled hemp paper with plant-based paint."
McGuire waved a copy of "Slumberland" in the air and said, "This took six weeks to manufacture vs. four days with plastic. That's the way he wanted it."
But it's plastic now. "Once we started getting this rash of orders, we can't wait six weeks."
Time has always been tight in the DeWyze camp.
"Over the summer we played at Fox & Hound [in Arlington Heights], and we were out late whoopin' it up," said McGuire, who plans to attend Friday's "Lee DeWyze Hometown Visit" with his bandmates, should DeWyze survive tonight's round. "He said, 'I gotta get outta here, I'm going to try out for 'American Idol.' " He needed to be there by 5."
5 a.m.?
"5 a.m.," McGuire answered. "So we just dropped him off at the United Center. When he made the final Hollywood cut, we had to release him from the contract. We finished 'Slumberland' in four or five weeks. He was literally on a plane the next day."
"Slumberland" works because DeWyze's soft, grainy vocals counterpoint Svitek's scorching lead guitar and McGuire's spacious drumming. DeWyze plays keyboard, piano and some percussion. Henderson chips in on guitar. Just like the "American Idol" where DeWyze landed, the 10-track record leaves the listener wondering what will happen next.
The albums were recorded in McGuire's studio, which he built in the backyard of his Oak Park home. McGuire is Svitek's partner in WuLi (wulirecords.com). In 2007 the label also released "Only Out for Destiny" from Chicago hip-hop artist Redd and "Blue Screen" by the Chicago metal band the Waking.
Svitek met DeWyze through a friend when the singer-songwriter was 17.
"Lee has a really beautiful voice," Svitek said. "On one track his seven-part harmonies sounded like a church choir. He could probably be in a boy band like 'N Sync. He could have been in a metal band because he can belt it out. But this is his style -- a soulful, acoustic guy. And he writes songs every day."
McGuire added, "He gets the John Mayer/Dave Matthews comparisons. But he's closer to Ben Harper. He can sing any genre, so when they throw these theme weeks at him, it's nothing for him. He put his own twist on [the Frank Sinatra standard] 'That's Life.' "
But DeWyze couldn't find the right band for his approachable style.
"Most of his friends were doing heavier music," Svitek said. "At the end of the day we would say, 'You gotta get a band, dude.' "
McGuire interrupted, "A young band. We're all a biscuit shy of 40. Nobody wants to look at us."
McGuire and his compatriots began performing with DeWyze in 2006. There was heavy debate on the band's name. "He wanted 'Lee DeWyze,' " McGuire explained. "But we weren't Lee DeWyze. So we would call ourselves Supreme Juice."
The band had planned to wear Cuban lounge shirts with white pants and matching white shoes.
"Lee asked, 'Do I get a band outfit?' " McGuire continued. "We said, 'No, you're Lee DeWyze.' It would drive him nuts. We would razz him and say he wasn't part of Supreme Juice. We played the Good Times Pub in Elmhurst. It's next to Supreme Lobster. So we got there early and all the Supreme Lobster guys say, 'We're Supreme Lobster,' and we go, 'We're Supreme Juice.' It was very funny."
McGuire's StudioTen23, which the drummer built behind his home, is never far from DeWyze's supremely active mind.
In an "Idol" news conference Friday, DeWyze said, "I'd like to sit in a studio and, especially after going through all of this, I'd like to start writing new things, work on things I have written and co-write with people. To put together a good, solid rock album would be cool."
His bandmates recall DeWyze as a shy performer. "Maybe not now, but when we started, if he were to play in front of 10 people he would most likely throw up," said McGuire, a former member of the Primus-influenced Big Foot Sex Slave. "He still looks glassy-eyed on 'Idol.' "
DeWyze has a kinetic mind. If he performs with a set list, he will change midstream, according to his band. The DeWyze Band appeared at FitzGerald's in Berwyn and the Double Door in Chicago, and its last gig was in mid-December before a turnaway crowd at Smoke Daddy in Wicker Park.
"Jeff and I try harmonies with him and we can't," McGuire said. "He gets so caught up in his performance and he's not with it."
DeWyze had a grass-roots following on the Chicago circuit without benefit of mainstream media exposure.
"We drew a couple of hundred people per show," McGuire said. "It was all word of mouth, Facebook, that kind of stuff."
When DeWyze agreed to cover material, it would be left-of-center stuff. His "Idol" audition number was almost "Wagon Wheel," written and performed by the Old Crow Medicine Show from the remnants of a Bob Dylan riff. "That was on a list of 1,800 pre-cleared songs from 'American Idol,' " McGuire said. "Lee lost his mind, as it's a real folky song."
The DeWyze Band lives on as a new rock band called the Virginia Gentlemen. On July 2, they open for Sammy Hagar at RibFest in Naperville, where the Lee DeWyze Band played last summer.
They also were the live house band for "The Chicago Huddle," a Bears TV talk show. The show was taped Fridays at the ESPN Zone.
"They wanted Lee to play cover songs, like Aerosmith, Dave Matthews, Stone Temple Pilots," McGuire said. "And we had to get makeup. He hated cover songs. And makeup. He would hide from the makeup lady. He also hated in-ear monitors.
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Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Japan Sees Risk of Diminishing Domestic Demand for Its Bonds
Japan may need to increase dependence on foreign buyers of government bonds over time as the aging population makes domestic investors less able to purchase the securities, a Finance Ministry official said.
“Given Japan’s demographics, the current-account surplus may decrease and some even say it will go into deficit” in the long term, Masaaki Kaizuka, director of debt management at the ministry, said in Tokyo today. “We may see the need to increase reliance from abroad, whether we want to or not.”
Even as it struggles to contain the world’s largest debt, Japan has benefited from low borrowing costs because more than 90 percent of its bonds are held by domestic investors, backed by household savings. Any increase in dependence on foreign buyers would erode Japan’s advantage over countries such as Greece, which have seen bond yields soar as swelling fiscal deficits prompt global investors to sell their securities.
“Clearly, it can’t continue forever -- eventually domestic assets will shrink and Japan will have to rely more on foreign buyers” who will demand higher yields, said Naoki Iizuka, senior economist at Mizuho Securities Co. in Tokyo.
Echoing remarks made yesterday by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, Kaizuka said the nation’s debt problems are different from Greece’s because most of Japan’s bonds are held by domestic investors. Still, Greece’s fiscal woes are a lesson and Japan needs to improve its financial condition, he said.
Even with a debt load that’s a multiple of Greece’s, Japan manages to keep its borrowing costs down because “risk- averse” households save their cash and financial institutions invest the money in government bonds, Iizuka said.
Low Yields
Ten-year yields have held below 1.4 percent for most of this year, and were at 1.3 percent at 4:10 p.m. in Tokyo. In contrast, Greece’s equivalent bonds yielded 7.81 percent at the market opening today.
Overseas investors held 6.2 percent of Japan’s government bonds as of the end of December, according to the Bank of Japan’s quarterly flow of funds report.
An effort by the government earlier this decade to drum up foreign interest in the bonds failed to see the share of ownership reach 10 percent. Those roadshows were the first time the country had marketed bonds overseas since 1904, when officials sought to pay for a war against Russia.
Fitch Ratings last month cited dwindling savings as one reason why Japan’s swelling debt burden may put pressure on the country’s AA- credit rating.
Dwindling Savings “The slow but steady drop in the savings rate could eventually undercut the sovereign’s ability to fund itself domestically at low nominal yields, leaving it more exposed to interest-rate and refinancing risks,” Fitch said on April 22.The aging population will cause government pension costs to surge and reduce the pool of household assets as retirees draw on their savings, said economist Toshihiro Nagahama. He said the retirement of baby boomers -- those born between 1947 and 1949 -- may strain the public coffers as soon as 2012.
“That may be when Japan’s sovereign risk becomes evident,” said Nagahama, chief economist at Dai-Ichi Life Research Institute in Tokyo.Almost 23 percent of the nation’s 126 million people will be older than 65 this year, the highest proportion in the world, according to Bloomberg data.
Public debt totaled a record 882.9 trillion yen ($9.5 trillion) as of March 31, up 4.3 percent from a year earlier, the Finance Ministry said this week. Households’ financial assets stood at 1,456 trillion yen as of Dec. 31, Bank of Japan figures show.
Debt Ratio
Japan’s debt is projected to be 246 percent of gross domestic product in 2014, the International Monetary Fund said in November. The IMF this week said Greece’s debt will peak at 149 percent of GDP in 2013.
Kaizuka said Japan’s borrowing costs are likely to remain low for the time being.
“I see the merit of issuing long-term bonds because yields are staying at very low levels,” he said at today’s conference. “So we can reduce the risk for debt repayment in the future and benefit from low rates for a relatively long time.”
The government is scheduled to release a strategy next month for containing the debt burden. Finance Minister Naoto Kan said yesterday he wants to keep new bond sales for the year starting April 2011 below the record 44 trillion yen budgeted for this fiscal year.
Iizuka at Mizuho said the government needs to map out a “feasible, credible and sustainable fiscal plan” and the current-account surplus remains a “clear strength.”
“In essence, this is a ticking time bomb, but as long as it’s defused within five years, we’ll be fine.I wanna be the place you call home
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“Given Japan’s demographics, the current-account surplus may decrease and some even say it will go into deficit” in the long term, Masaaki Kaizuka, director of debt management at the ministry, said in Tokyo today. “We may see the need to increase reliance from abroad, whether we want to or not.”
Even as it struggles to contain the world’s largest debt, Japan has benefited from low borrowing costs because more than 90 percent of its bonds are held by domestic investors, backed by household savings. Any increase in dependence on foreign buyers would erode Japan’s advantage over countries such as Greece, which have seen bond yields soar as swelling fiscal deficits prompt global investors to sell their securities.
“Clearly, it can’t continue forever -- eventually domestic assets will shrink and Japan will have to rely more on foreign buyers” who will demand higher yields, said Naoki Iizuka, senior economist at Mizuho Securities Co. in Tokyo.
Echoing remarks made yesterday by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, Kaizuka said the nation’s debt problems are different from Greece’s because most of Japan’s bonds are held by domestic investors. Still, Greece’s fiscal woes are a lesson and Japan needs to improve its financial condition, he said.
Even with a debt load that’s a multiple of Greece’s, Japan manages to keep its borrowing costs down because “risk- averse” households save their cash and financial institutions invest the money in government bonds, Iizuka said.
Low Yields
Ten-year yields have held below 1.4 percent for most of this year, and were at 1.3 percent at 4:10 p.m. in Tokyo. In contrast, Greece’s equivalent bonds yielded 7.81 percent at the market opening today.
Overseas investors held 6.2 percent of Japan’s government bonds as of the end of December, according to the Bank of Japan’s quarterly flow of funds report.
An effort by the government earlier this decade to drum up foreign interest in the bonds failed to see the share of ownership reach 10 percent. Those roadshows were the first time the country had marketed bonds overseas since 1904, when officials sought to pay for a war against Russia.
Fitch Ratings last month cited dwindling savings as one reason why Japan’s swelling debt burden may put pressure on the country’s AA- credit rating.
Dwindling Savings “The slow but steady drop in the savings rate could eventually undercut the sovereign’s ability to fund itself domestically at low nominal yields, leaving it more exposed to interest-rate and refinancing risks,” Fitch said on April 22.The aging population will cause government pension costs to surge and reduce the pool of household assets as retirees draw on their savings, said economist Toshihiro Nagahama. He said the retirement of baby boomers -- those born between 1947 and 1949 -- may strain the public coffers as soon as 2012.
“That may be when Japan’s sovereign risk becomes evident,” said Nagahama, chief economist at Dai-Ichi Life Research Institute in Tokyo.Almost 23 percent of the nation’s 126 million people will be older than 65 this year, the highest proportion in the world, according to Bloomberg data.
Public debt totaled a record 882.9 trillion yen ($9.5 trillion) as of March 31, up 4.3 percent from a year earlier, the Finance Ministry said this week. Households’ financial assets stood at 1,456 trillion yen as of Dec. 31, Bank of Japan figures show.
Debt Ratio
Japan’s debt is projected to be 246 percent of gross domestic product in 2014, the International Monetary Fund said in November. The IMF this week said Greece’s debt will peak at 149 percent of GDP in 2013.
Kaizuka said Japan’s borrowing costs are likely to remain low for the time being.
“I see the merit of issuing long-term bonds because yields are staying at very low levels,” he said at today’s conference. “So we can reduce the risk for debt repayment in the future and benefit from low rates for a relatively long time.”
The government is scheduled to release a strategy next month for containing the debt burden. Finance Minister Naoto Kan said yesterday he wants to keep new bond sales for the year starting April 2011 below the record 44 trillion yen budgeted for this fiscal year.
Iizuka at Mizuho said the government needs to map out a “feasible, credible and sustainable fiscal plan” and the current-account surplus remains a “clear strength.”
“In essence, this is a ticking time bomb, but as long as it’s defused within five years, we’ll be fine.I wanna be the place you call home
What makes the desirt beautiful
First need your hand and forever can begin
I am slow walker but I never walk backward
love and be loved in return
http://www.vbforums.com
http://forum.isilo.com
http://www.antionline.com
http://www.physicsforums.com
http://www.online-literature.com/forums
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