The Devastations

Devastations are an indie rock band from Melbourne, Australia. The band was founded in 2002 by the three friends Tom Carlyon, Hugo Cran and Conrad Standish after the end of their former band Luxedo.

The band was signed to Beggars Banquet Records, has released three albums and has toured extensively in Europe, where two of the band members live. Their debut album was named by Rolling Stone Germany as the best debut of 2004.

The band was nominated for an Australian Music Prize for Coal in 2005 and again in 2007 for Yes, U. The album, Yes, U, was also nominated for an Age Newspaper EG Award for Best Album of 2007.

Confirmed to be making an appearance on the upcoming tribute to The Cure on Manimal Vinyl in the Fall 2008. In 2009, the Devastations contributed to the AIDS benefit album Dark Was the Night produced by the Red Hot Organization.

Personnel

Discography

Coal (Kathy Mattea album)

Coal is an album by American country music singer Kathy Mattea, released on April 1, 2008 in the United States on her own label, Captain Potato Records. The album consists of 11 covers of classic coal mining songs by artists such as Merle Travis and Hazel Dickens.

Background

Mattea's decision to make an album about this topic was influenced by the fact that both of her grandfathers were miners, as well as by the Sago Mine disaster in 2006, which, when it occurred, reminded Mattea of the Farmington Mine disaster that had occurred when she was nine years old. She has said that she was expecting a set of stories in the songs she covered on this album, but instead found a connection to her miner ancestors. Her deep interest in this topic was also noted by the album's producer, Marty Stuart, as when they were recording the a cappella song "Black Lung". Stuart said it would be like "trying to repaint the 'Mona Lisa'", in that it requires authentic commitment to the task. Mattea also stated that it was so difficult for her to learn the song that it took her six months to do so. Nevertheless, the first recording of Mattea's version of the song ended up being kept after it made the recording engineer, whose father had died of black lung disease, cry. Stuart reacted by telling Mattea that this was a sign she was performing the song right.

Thomas & Friends (series 1)

Thomas & Friends (previously known as Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends) is a children's television series about the engines and other characters working on the railways of the Island of Sodor, and is based on The Railway Series books written by the Rev. W. Awdry.

This article lists and details episodes from the first series, which was originally broadcast in 1984. This series was initially narrated by Ringo Starr for the U.K. audiences, who re-dubbed 25 episodes for the U.S. audiences; which was later re-dubbed again by George Carlin for the U.S. audiences.

Most episodes in this series have two titles: the original titles from the U.K. broadcasts are shown on top, while the American-adapted titles are shown underneath.

All episodes from this series can be found on the DVD release Thomas: The Early Years, released by Anchor Bay Entertainment/HIT Entertainment in 2004.

It was produced by Clearwater Features Ltd. for Britt Allcroft (Thomas) Ltd.

Production

All of the stories in Series 1 were originally written by the Rev. W. Awdry, including a one-off story commissioned by the staff, Thomas' Christmas Party. The seven engines introduced in this series became the core of the cast in later episodes, with crew member (and from Series 8-12, director) Steve Asquith terming them the "Magnificent Seven". Many settings from the first series would stay with the show for years, even through its 2009 transition to CGI, such as Knapford, Wellsworth, Gordon's Hill, Henry's Tunnel, and Tidmouth Sheds.

Transport (band)

Transport is a three-piece independent rock band from Brisbane, Queensland, made up of Keir Nuttall (guitar, vocals), Scott Saunders (bass, vocals) and Steve Pope (drums).

History

Transport was formed in 2001 when all three members were studying at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music. In 2003 they won Australia's National Campus Band Competition.

Transport also tours and records as the band of Brisbane singer and Sony-BMG artist Kate Miller-Heidke, joined by singer and violinist Sallie Campbell.

Transport's material is written and developed co-operatively by the band, and Keir Nuttall has also contributed songs to Kate Miller-Heidke's repertoire, notably her turntable hit Space They Cannot Touch from 2004's Telegram, and her 2007 single Words.

Transport's first two EPs and other songs including the single Sunday Driver were recorded by producer Guy Cooper on the Gold Coast.

The band has continued to record and perform independently of Kate Miller-Heidke, mainly at Brisbane venues but also on interstate tours and live radio broadcasts. The band's song Sunday Driver was downloaded a record 24,000 times from the website of youth radio network Triple J, and in Britain Stone Hearted has been aired on BBC Radio 1 and on Kerrang! Radio.

Transport (recording)

A transport is a device that handles a particular physical storage medium (such as magnetic tape, audio CD, CD-R, or other type of recordable media) itself, and extracts or records the information to and from the medium, to (and from) an outboard set of processing electronics that the transport is connected to.

A transport houses no electronics itself for encoding and decoding the information recorded to and from a certain format of media. It only extracts and records information to the media, as well as handling mechanical operations for accessing the media itself, such as playing or rewinding a tape, or accessing the tracks on a disc.

An example of a transport for a storage medium would be an audiophile-grade audio CD transport, which houses no D/A converter, unlike most ordinary audio CD players. Instead, the audio CD transport is connected to an external D/A converter via a coaxial (SPDIF) or optical (Toslink) digital audio connection to convert the digital audio information to analog for interfacing to most audio equipment.

Troopship

A troopship (also troop ship or troop transport or trooper) is a ship used to carry soldiers, either in peacetime or wartime. Operationally, standard troopships – often drafted from commercial shipping fleets – cannot land troops directly on shore, typically loading and unloading at a seaport or onto smaller vessels, either tenders or barges.

Attack transports, a variant of ocean-going troopship adapted to transporting invasion forces ashore, carry their own fleet of landing craft. Landing ships beach themselves and bring their troops directly ashore.

History

Ships to transport troops were already used in Antiquity. Ancient Rome used the navis lusoria, a small vessel powered by rowers and sail, to move soldiers on the Rhine and Danube.

The modern troopship has as long a history as passenger ships do, as most maritime nations enlisted their support in military operations (either by leasing the vessels or by impressing them into service) when their normal naval forces were deemed insufficient for the task. In the 19th century, navies frequently chartered civilian ocean liners, and from the start of the 20th century painted them gray and added a degree of armament; their speed, originally intended to minimize passage time for civilian user, proved valuable for outrunning submarines and enemy surface cruisers in war. HMT Olympic even rammed and sank a U-boat during one of its wartime crossings. Individual liners capable of exceptionally high speed transited without escorts; smaller or older liners with poorer performance were protected by operating in convoys.