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Is the new version of INXS already hitting the skids? Hard to say, but the band has parted ways with its US label, Epic. The band’s album Switch has sold 375,000 units in the US. Not quite a shitload, but decently somewhat respectable, I suppose. Still, it’s hard to imagine the band going on as long as the original incarnation did. Times have changed, and any band that is “created” with the help of a phone-in audience is…well, more prefab than The Monkees ever thought about being. Certainly everyone knows that these newer kids just want the single to download and not the entire album. The labels know it, the TV execs know it…but do the bands know it? |
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Hoo boy, who needs some money? Perhaps Doug Fieger of The Knack does. After all, he’s now suing Run-DMC for their sampling of “My Sharona” in their 1986 hit “It’s Tricky.” And not a moment too soon, either. After all, that song has only been around since 1986. So why the delay? Apparently Fieger and co-writer/bandmate Breton Averre had never heard the song until just last year. Whaaaaaa? |
 Compiling a Deep Cuts list for David Bowie might seem like a daunting task. The man’s had so many albums and so many great non-single album tracks that it’s undoubtedly impossible to create a list which every fan will agree with. Just look at the number of official compilations Bowie’s already issued and you’ll begin to get the picture (for my money, the best single disc collection remains Rykodisc’s Changesbowie which collects most of Bowie’s hit singles starting with “Space Oddity” and ending with “Blue Jean”). There’s just so much to work with in the man’s catalogue that it can be perplexing, even for record companies to put together something for the fans. At any rate, please enjoy exploring through the Deep Cuts of David Bowie. If you’re a new fan, or are familiar with most everything the man has released, you’ll undoubtedly find something worthy of discussion. |
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Well the results are finally in. Rolling Stone’s Dark Side of the Moonman results, that is. Readers were polled to pick the worst video around, as well as a slew of other bad clips in a slew of other categories. It’s nice to see James Blunt getting maximum mileage out of one of the worst songs of all time. Why can’t he get laryngitis like the Simpson sisters? |
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I haven’t kept up with it at all, because frankly I could care less. But there’s that whole slew of rock fans out there who do care, so I present to you Mr. Lukas Rossi, the winner of “Rock Star: Supernova.” You remember Taco, right? The guy who had “Puttin’ On The Ritz” back in the ’80s? Well, Rossi looks just like him, only with a dash of fake goth. “I’m just surprised anyone cares about a little punk from Toronto,” said Rossi. Well, yeah, there’s that. And then there’s the entire shelf life of something like this all around. Suffice it to say that there may still be a few people listening when the next “Rock Star” is found. |
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Raise your hand if you’re truly surprised. Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston are finally calling it quits. However Phaedra Parks, an entertainment lawyer, says that this is only “a legal separation…not a divorce or a divorce petition.” Who’s the bigger guilty party in this relationship, anyway? Both artists have had their ups and downs with drugs numerous times. Oh and then there’s those times spent in jail…oh wait, Bobby actually hit Whitney, but perhaps he was just trying to smack her out of a drug fog. This can happen, you know. Oh, how the mighty fall. Lap it up. |
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If you’ve ever wanted to see the infamous Kilroy Was Here tour of Styx’s in which they acted out the album’s story, well here’s a little slice of hell for you. The big ol’ “Don’t Let It End (reprise)” finale in which Tommy Shaw plays Jonathan Chance, with Dennis DeYoung in the Kilroy lead. Absolutely one of the uncoolest shows to ever go down. This crowd really loved it, as it was taken from the official “Caught In The Act” video, but there were many stops on the tour where the fans just loathed it (some of which can be seen on the band’s “Behind The Music” episode). Either way, this crap is still abysmal and hilarious to boot. |
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Seeing them live in Vegas, baby! Win hotel, airfare and tickets to Jet’s October 7 show at the Joint in Las Vegas. We’re totally entering this contest. The enter the contest, click here. |
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You young punks are probably too young to remember how great the Little River Band used to be…and you old bastards who remember the LRB but think I’m overstating their talent are apparently senile and have forgotten how phenomenal their harmonies were on “Happy Anniversary,” “Cool Change,” “The Night Owls,” “Reminiscing,” and so many other classics. Over the years, though, the band’s line-up has changed rather a lot, with original members leaving, coming back, and leaving again. Nowadays, there’s literally no-one from the original line-up in the band anymore…and, frankly (and unsurprisingly), it rather annoys the band’s founders that there’s basically a LRB cover band touring the world and playing songs they had nothing to do with writing.
Well, the band’s original guitarist, Graeham Goble, has just released a solo album - The Days Ahead - and tackled this annoyance via a song entitled “Someone’s Taken Our History.” You can check it out at his official MySpace page…and you should, because it really captures the old LRB feel…but in the meantime, you can get an idea of how he feels by reading a sampling of the lyrics: “Someone’s taken our history Ouch. |
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Robert Christgau, one of the preiminent music reviewers in the United States (and one who knows it, since he once famously referred to himself as “the Dean of American Rock Critics,” has been fired by the Village Voice. The Voice had been Christgau’s home for about as long as I’ve been able to read, and it’s where he oversaw the publications’ annual Pazz and Jop critics poll, to which I’ve contributed in the past. The poll was, “in addition to being the definitive annual best-of list, both before and after the Internet, a kind of virtual powwow, a way for critics to ‘gather’ each year to talk about music and their perennially embattled profession.” Christgau’s right up there with Bangs, Marcus, and Marsh when it comes to recognizable music critics. I’m sure he’ll bounce back, but it’s depressing to think that he had to leave at all. |
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I recently watched U2’s concert film, “Rattle & Hum,” and it was better than I remember. Over the years, I’ve read several reviews that used words like “disastrous,” but I thought it was an interesting, if mostly staged, look at the group as they were evolving into the “Biggest Band in the World.” I think the soundtrack suffers a bit because it’s all over the place. I would rather have seen two separate discs - one consisting of new material and one live album. Considering all of their output during those years, the disc of new material would have looked something like this:
That’s a nice playlist. I realize that a few of those songs (“Sweetest Thing,” “Hallelujah (Here She Comes)” and “Silver and Gold”) were released as B-sides to singles from The Joshua Tree, but had they been “Americanized,” recorded in the same spirit as “Desire” and “Angel of Harlem” were, they would have fit right in with the rest of the material and the band would have had three great albums in a row instead of two and a half. The second disc could have compiled the band’s live greatest hits up to that point; it would have been perfect for a fan like myself, who got into U2 during The Joshua Tree years but didn’t have the fortitude (or the finances) to dig into all the previous albums to find their better songs. Oh well, I guess they did all right without my help. |
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New Killers video. Directed by Tim Burton. With stop-motion animation. Okay, technically that’s three great tastes. But still: You’ve got our attention. Now when can we see the darn thing?! |
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When in Portugal, do as the Portugese do and pelt Nickelback with rocks during their concert. Well, OK, it wasn’t really their concert, as the band’s management booked them there to support a death metal show. But please, can’t we just start doing this same thing to them over here as well? Except instead of letting them get two songs in, just let them get two notes out and then get them to get off the stage. |
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According to USA Today’s Listen Up blog, Ric Ocasek has a new Cars project in the works. It’s a live CD/DVD called The Cars Unlocked, due Oct. 17, taken from his own collection and featuring more than 20 unreleased performances and plenty of behind-the-scenes footage. “I don’t know if I’d call it a documentary as much as a really well-done home movie,” Ocasek said of the package, which follows the band from 1979 to 1986.
By the way, Ocasek also indicated that he hasn’t completely written off doing any future work with the Cars…which answers the question, “How well did his 2005 album, Nexterday, do?” |
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Well, here ya go. Diddy Kong pissing for all his fans. What’s next, Diddy? Are you going to give some lucky winner a Cleveland Steamer? We can only wait and watch. |
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