Tiny Lights

Tiny Lights was a music group formed by John Hamilton (guitar/vocals) and Donna Croughn (vocals/electric violin) in 1985. Original members include Dave Dreiwitz (bass/trumpet), Jane Scarpantoni (cello) and John Mastro (drums). Based in Hoboken, New Jersey, the group frequently performed at Maxwell's and the Court Tavern in New Brunswick, New Jersey. They recorded a total of seven albums, two of which were later released on Psychic TV's Temple Records. From 1988 to 1994 Tiny Lights toured the United States extensively, performing with Michelle Shocked, 10,000 Maniacs, Henry Rollins, Poi Dog Pondering, The Feelies, The Bongos, and many other bands. A compilation album, The Young Person's Guide to Tiny Lights was released on Bar/None Records in 1995. Other members include Stuart Hake (cello), Andy Demos (drums), Catherine Bent (cello), Andy Burton (piano, organ), and Ron Howden (drums—formerly the drummer for Nektar).

The group's members employed a rich array of instrumentation, including cello, electric violin, trumpet, soprano saxophone, tabla drums and bass clarinet. Improvisation was a constant feature of their live performances. Rolling Stone Magazine memorably described the band as "Sly and the Family Partridge."

Riz Ahmed

Rizwan "Riz" Ahmed (born 1 December 1982), also known as Riz MC, is a British actor and rapper. He has starred in The Road to Guantanamo, Shifty, Britz, Four Lions, Ill Manors, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, and Nightcrawler.

Early life

Ahmed was born into a Muslim family in Wembley, London. He is of Pakistani heritage, and has as one of his ancestors Sir Shah Muhammad Sulaiman, "the first Indian judge appointed by the British in Uttar Pradesh" - through him, he's also a descendant of Mulla Mahmud Jaunpuri, one of the foremost Islamic philosopher-scientists produced during the Mughal empire. His parents moved to England from Karachi, Pakistan during the 1970s. He attended Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood through a scholarship programme. He graduated from Christ Church, Oxford with a degree in PPE and studied acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama.

Acting career

Television and film

Ahmed's film career began in the Michael Winterbottom film The Road to Guantanamo in which he played the part of Shafiq Rasul, a member of the Tipton Three. He and another actor involved in the film as well as two of the Tipton Three were detained at Luton Airport upon their return from the Berlin Film Festival where the film won a Silver Bear Award. Across his years as an actor he has also featured in various TV roles. He has played Sohail Waheed in the 2007 Channel 4 drama, Britz. 2008 saw him perform as both Riq in the five-part horror thriller for E4, Dead Set and Manesh Kunzru in ITV1's finance fraud drama Wired. In July 2009 in appeared in Freefall alongside Sarah Harding. He featured in the title role of the 2009 independent film Shifty, directed by Eran Creevy. Ahmed plays a charismatic young drug dealer in the film which sees a life in the day of this character. He was nominated for Best Actor at the 2008 British Independent Film Awards for this role, alongside Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson.

Patrick Neate

Patrick Neate (born 1970) is an award-winning British novelist, journalist, poet, screenwriter and podcaster.

Early life

Born and raised as a Roman Catholic in South London, he was educated at St. Paul's School and Cambridge University. He spent a gap year in Zimbabwe and has since returned to Africa on many occasions. He drew on the gap year experience in Musungu Jim and the Great Chief Tuloko.

Works

His books to date, in order of publication, include Musungu Jim, Twelve Bar Blues, London Pigeon Wars, Where You're At, City of Tiny Lights, Culture is Our Weapon, and Jerusalem.

Musungu Jim, Twelve Bar Blues and Jerusalem are a trilogy in that the characters of Jim and Musa Musa are found in all three novels. However, each stands alone.

In each, he takes a foreign culture and explores the nature of story and the power of stories to create identities. At its best, his writing is lyrical about the nature of humanity, and yet still sufficiently entertaining to count as an "easy read." Musungu Jim envisages a coup triggered off by a hapless gap year student in an African dictatorship not unlike Mugabe's Zimbabwe. Twelve Bar Blues interweaves various characters but focusses chiefly on Lick Holden, a semi-mythical horn player, not unlike the legendary Buddy Bolden.

Tiny

Tiny, meaning of small size, may refer to:

As a nickname

Light (disambiguation)

Light is an electromagnetic radiation, part of which stimulates the sense of vision.

Light may also refer to:

Devices producing light

In religion

People

Places

Food or beverages

In music

Albums