The Lowdown

The Lowdown is a New Zealand website developed by the New Zealand Ministry of Health's National Depression Initiative (NDI). The website launched on 3 December 2007.

Mission

The Lowdown aims to help young New Zealanders understand and recover from depression. It does this through online support services and testimonials from New Zealand celebrities.

Features

Navigators

The user can choose from one of four celebrity navigators who tell users how to use the website. There is also a "go alone" option.

Information and Help

The website has depression-related fact sheets and contact lists, as well as online self-tests.

Stories

The Lowdown has video of New Zealand celebrities and musicians talking about how they or someone they know made it through depression. Users can also add their own stories by submitting video or text.

Chat

Users can chat together in a style similar to a bulletin board.

Multimedia

Users can listen to streaming songs from contributing musicians.

Interface

The website uses flash built on ActionScript 3. It uses the Sandy 3D engine.

Grand Theft Auto V soundtrack

The Grand Theft Auto V soundtrack, like previous games in the Grand Theft Auto series, features various radio stations that play different genres of music when the player enters vehicles in the game. The stations consist of licensed music, DJ chat and spoof advertising. The game features 18 in-game stations with 240 licensed songs, 16 of which are musical stations and the other two are talk stations.

Since the game's location is modelled on southern California, the developers attempted to create an accurate representation of Californian music. Production of the soundtrack also consisted of licensing music for the radio stations, and selecting a DJ that matches the genre of music the station hosts. The soundtrack consists of a wide variety of radio stations that play different genres of music, including reggae, hip hop, pop and country. The game also features an original and dynamic score composed by Tangerine Dream, Woody Jackson, Alchemist and Oh No which plays out in several selective missions. Selected tracks from the score were later released on The Music of Grand Theft Auto V. In September 2014, it was announced that new songs would be added to some of the radio stations in the next-gen releases of the game.

Boz Scaggs

William Royce Scaggs (known professionally as Boz Scaggs; born June 8, 1944) is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He gained fame in the 1960s as a guitarist and one-time lead singer with the Steve Miller Band, and in the 1970s with several solo Top 20 hit singles in the United States, including the hits "Lowdown" and "Lido Shuffle" from the critically acclaimed album Silk Degrees (1976), which peaked at #2 on the Billboard 200. Scaggs continues to write, record music, and tour.

Early life and career

Scaggs was born in Canton, Ohio, the son of a traveling salesman. The family moved to McAlester, Oklahoma, then to Plano, Texas (at that time a farm town), just north of Dallas. He attended a Dallas private school, St. Mark's School of Texas, where schoolmate Mal Buckner gave him the nickname "Bosley", later shortened to "Boz".

After learning guitar at the age of 12, he met Steve Miller at St. Mark's School. In 1959, he became the vocalist for Miller's band, the Marksmen. The pair later attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison together, playing in blues bands like the Ardells and the Fabulous Knight Trains.

Grand Theft Auto V

Grand Theft Auto V is an open world, action-adventure video game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It was released on 17 September 2013 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, on 18 November 2014 for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and on 14 April 2015 for Microsoft Windows. The game is the first main entry in the Grand Theft Auto series since 2008's Grand Theft Auto IV. Set within the fictional state of San Andreas, based on Southern California, the single-player story follows three criminals and their efforts to commit heists while under pressure from a government agency. The open world design lets players freely roam San Andreas's open countryside and fictional city of Los Santos, based on Los Angeles.

The game is played from either a first-person or third-person view and its world is navigated on foot or by vehicle. Players control the three lead protagonists throughout single-player and switch between them both during and outside of missions. The story is centred on the heist sequences, and many missions involve shooting and driving gameplay. A "wanted" system governs the aggression of law enforcement response to players who commit crimes. Grand Theft Auto Online, the online multiplayer mode, lets up to 30 players explore the open world and engage in cooperative or competitive game matches.

The Delfonics

The Delfonics are a pioneering Philadelphia soul singing group, popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Their most notable hits include "La-La (Means I Love You)", "Didn't I (Blow Your Mind This Time)", "Break Your Promise", "I'm Sorry", and "Ready or Not Here I Come (Can't Hide from Love)". Their hit songs were all written by songwriter and producer Thom Bell and lead vocalist and founder William Hart.

Their songs have been used extensively in film soundtracks, including Quentin Tarantino's 1997 movie Jackie Brown, in which "La-La (Means I Love You)" and "Didn't I Blow Your Mind" underscore the pivotal relationship between the characters played by Pam Grier and Robert Forster.

Their songs "Ready or Not Here I Come (Can't Hide from Love)" and "Funny Feeling" were used in the video game Grand Theft Auto V on the fictional radio station The Lowdown 91.1.

Their songs have been sampled extensively by various hip-hop and rap artists including: The Wu-Tang Clan, Fugees, Deltron 3030, The Notorious B.I.G., Nas, Boyz II Men, Missy Elliott and DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince.