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It is incredibly easy to get buried in publicity emails, and lose track of what you should actually be covering versus what publicists want you to cover. Our publicist (Mike Farley, take a bow) sends me, on average, dozens of emails a day, all of which scream, “Listen to this right this second!” Before I know it, a band I like, like Travis, has a new album out, and I wonder why I haven’t heard a thing about it. Seriously, isn’t it strange that Travis put out an album and the label did nothing to promote it? Anyway, at the end of the day today, Mike forwards an email from the Director of Publicity at Victory Records. The title of the email instantly gets my attention: “I’m removing you from the promo mailing list.” Wow, classy. Even better, the email is a mass email, delivered to God knows how many other sites that Victory had once called upon. The body of the email is almost as funny as the title:
Again, wow, classy. Okay, here’s the point of my piece. I have been so consumed with putting out the fires in my inbox that it wasn’t until I forwarded this hilarious email to some of the writers on my staff that I even realized (my writers, unlike me, are still in contact with the outside world) that Victory records is in the middle of a veritable shitstorm of negative publicity. All of their biggest bands, including Hawthorne Heights, Taking Back Sunday and Atreyu, have jumped ship following charges of gross malfeasance. The final nail in the coffin came today, when former Victory Records VP Ramsey Dean wrote a lengthy dissertation for Absolute Punk about his time with the label. It has since been taken down but, thanks to Idolator and Google cache, the rant lives on. If you have ever supported this label, you owe it to yourself to read this and learn what is really going on. Racism, hookers and paranoia, oh my! To read the entire rant (warning: it’s really, really long), click here. As a post script, I was tempted to tell the publicist that we would be delighted to be taken off their promo list, but I care so little about their product that I decided not to bother. |
 If you don’t think time flies, consider this: Guns N’ Roses’ classic Appetite For Destruction album is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its release this week. To commemorate the event, most of the original lineup is getting together tomorrow night at the Key Club in Los Angeles for a reunion of sorts, and while it’s unlikely that singer Axl Rose will be on hand, it hasn’t been ruled out either. Tori Amos is hitting the road in support of her American Doll Posse album, beginning October 9 in Albany, New York and running through mid-December. A bunch of the shows will be recorded live for future “bootlegs.” Garth Brooks was just added to the lineup for the Martin Luther King, Jr. benefit on September 18 at Radio City Music Hall in NYC. Others on the bill include Queen Latifah, Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin and Carlos Santana. The purpose of the show is to raise money for the MLK memorial in Washington. The Arcade Fire has added a New York City tour date to their fall itinerary, Saturday October 6 at Randall Island. LCD Soundsystem will be the support act on the tour, and here are all of the confirmed dates (more…) |
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While our own Mojo Flucke was not too jazzed about the Exies’ latest album, A Modern Way of Living with the Truth, this song and video intrigues us. Inspired by all of the celebutante’s boorish antics of late (Paris, Nicole, Britney, etc.), the band recorded a new song, “God We Look Good (Going Down in Flames,” and edited the video themselves on their tour bus. The clip has already been pulled from YouTube (it’s been replaced with an edited version), though unless they went through it frame by frame, it’s tough to say what they found to be so objectionable. Some scantily clad women, some drug references, some bad words (maybe; we couldn’t really tell). Sounds like a typical day at the office for us. Either way, the clip doesn’t say anything we didn’t already know about our vapid celebrity culture or the Unstoppable Killing Machine that is George W. Bush (spoken with a hint of sarcasm), but the clip is definitely still worth a look. To video the video, click here. Be patient, the clip is over 30MB in size, so it’ll take some time to load. |
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“Ladyfingers.” Dig it. |
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Dammit, I had this post all ready to go in my head, when I just looked at the site to see…Davy Medsker reported on the same band! Oh well, I’m seeing Daft Punk as well, and here is their cooler than cool appearance in an old Gap ad with Juliette Lewis (shame about how they chopped up “Digital Love,” though).
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My experience with electronic acts live is pretty hit and miss. I love the Chemical Brothers, but the live versions of “Out of Control” and “Setting Sun” they played when I saw them in 1999 (Fatboy Slim was the opening act, and he KILLED) made me depressed. Where’s the big drum track? Where’s Noel? Where’s Barney? It just wasn’t right. I am seriously hoping that is not what Daft Punk is like in concert. They’re closing Lollapalooza on Friday night, and I want these guys to freaking BRING IT. And they damn well better play this song. Daft Punk — “Aerodynamic” Filed under: Alternative and Electronica and Concerts and Songs and Artists and Videos and Lollapalooza Comments: None |
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Yours truly and the illustrious David Medsker will be heading out to Lollapalooza this year to check out some bands and write about what we heard and saw. I’m going to see some cool ones. He’s going to see some cool ones. Some of them we’re going to see together. We already have our little schedules of what we want to see ready to go. One of the bands I’m going to groove to is Yo La Tengo. It’ll be nice to see them. Here’s a video of them playing the catchy “Mr. Tough” live at a radio station.
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For what, exactly? Doing her a favor and releasing her latest album even though he didn’t want to? Weird, man. |
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Don’t call it a comeback. Sly Stone left audience members confused during his recent European tour stop in Nice. Stone left the stage after ten minutes to leave the Family Stone to carry on without him. 30 minutes after that, he came back out for another 10 minutes and then left again. What a show. |
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British singer/songwriter Amy Winehouse seems to be everywhere lately. She’s going to be at the iTunes Festival in London on July 25 and fans are being given the chance to win tickets on her website at www.amywinehouse.co.uk. Winehouse is also playing Lollapalooza August 3 in Chicago. Country music superstar Keith Urban had to cancel some upcoming tour dates in Europe due to international commitments. Word has it he’s being pressured by his label to step up writing for his next album, and also he’s been asked to write the “theme song” to his wife Nicole Kidman’s new movie called Australia. Macy Gray is heading out on tour with Brand New Heavies in support of her latest album, Big. Predictably, the tour is being labeled as the “Big and Heavy” tour. The tour kicks off August 14 in Fort Lauderdale and runs through August 26 in Hollywood. Pop rockers Lifehouse are out supporting their new album, Who We Are, along with the Goo Goo Dolls, but have already set another short tour for August with pop start Hilary Duff. Here are (more…) |
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A funny thing happened a couple days ago on VH1’s World Series of Pop Culture, and every record label in the world should be scared to death because of it. In a match-up between Almost Perfect Strangers 2.0 and Remo-Leen-Teen-Teen, the last two contestants, Almost Perfect Strangers’ Lucien and Remo-Leen’s Warren, faced off to decide which team would advance to the semifinals. The category was “Party Like It’s 2006,” and host Pat Kiernan would read a couple lyrics to a pop song, and Lucien and Warren had to name the artist. The songs were by artists like Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera, Shakira and Paris Hilton, all pretty big names. They didn’t get a single one right. Think about that for a second. Those songs are only a year old, and these guys, both very knowledgeable trivia buffs, had already forgotten every single one of them. And to drive the point home further, neither one of them was even embarrassed about it. In fact, after the third or fourth missed answer, Lucien laid it out on the table. “I don’t mean to sound like an old fogey, but today’s songs are terrible!” The audience erupted with applause. This, to me, is the most awesome thing that possibly could have happened. Blame illegal downloading all you want, music industry goons, but the real reason you’re losing so much money has less to do with downloading – after all, sales were never higher than when Napster was at its peak – and more to do with the fact that you’re not releasing music worth owning. A few other questionable business decisions also contributed to the decay, such as: - Allowing your product to be used as a loss leader in order to lure people into stores that don’t specialize in, and therefore place no real emphasis on, music Record labels survived the tough times in the past by having strong back catalogs that could pull in some extra coin when the current crop doesn’t pan out. If the labels think they’re hurting now, what do they think things will be like five or ten years from now, when the back catalog is Paris Hilton, R. Kelly and Fall Out Boy? By missing every question in that category, Lucien and Warren inadvertently summed up everything that is wrong with music today: simply put, the music industry lost respect for its own product, and eventually, so did everyone else. |
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Sure, why not a crossover…? BET is running a new series entitled “Hip Hop vs. America,” and on the panel for the show was none other than the legendary Public Enemy front-man, Chuck D. The show focuses on the different sides of the hip-hop genre, and the social responsibility that its performers have to those who are listening. Great concept, and I’m psyched to see it…but, still, I had to ask what I knew lots of other wanted to know:
Yours Truly: Chuck, guys like you and KRS-One have taken rap and made political statements and aided it in being taken seriously as an art form. How do you think a show like, say, “Flava of Love” has affected you being taken seriously, I mean, as far as the rap community in general? Word. By the way, Chuck said he wasn’t really interested in getting his own show…although he said he did think that Professor Griff would do pretty good with one (though, personally, I have to wonder if that wouldn’t have the potential to be even more damaging to hip-hop’s reputation than Flav’s show)…but he admitted that, if he did get his own show, he’d want it to be a one-on-one interview format. I said, “Oh, kinda like Henry Rollins?” I knew he’d been on Rollins’ show…but, damn, boyee, I didn’t know how much he’d enjoyed it. Chuck just lit up and was, like, “Oh, man, Rollins, I love Henry Rollins, I love him, I love everything he does, and I’d love to do anything like that guy.” In closing, another writer asked Chuck if he thought Flava would ever find love, and he instantly offered up a laugh and a scoff, saying, “Flava found love. Flava got more love than he know what to do with!” |
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That’s right. It’s business as usual in the rap world. 26-year-old Remy Ma was arrested yesterday on charges of attempted murder. She was also nailed with charges of assault and criminal possession of a weapon. hHer victim was one Makeda Barnes-Joseph, a 23-year-old female who apparently had an altercation with Ma outside a bar in the Meatpacking District of NYC. |
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The Spice Girls reunion rumors are true….there will be some sort of ticket lottery, and so far over a million fans have signed up for that. The tour kicks on December 7 in Los Angeles. Australian rock band Silverchair had to cancel four of their US tour dates due to a throat infection caught by singer Daniel Johns. The infection caused laryngitis, making singing impossible. Here are the rescheduled dates: Anaheim - House Of Blues - Sunday, July 15 Rescheduled for Wednesday, Platinum country recording artist Taylor Swift will perform on Saturday, July 14 at the Chicagoland Speedway, during the break between the two NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series practice sessions, as race teams make final preparations for Sunday’s USG Sheetrock 400 race. Following her acoustic performance, Swift is scheduled to sign autographs for fans in attendance. Canadian songstresses Tegan and Sara are quite prolific, and are about to release their fifth studio album, The Con, on July 24. The twin sisters enlisted the help of folks like Death Cab’s Christopher Walla and Weezer’s Matt Sharp for the album, and they will head out on their summer tour starting tomorrow. Tour dates (more…) |
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I can already tell that these guys are about to become my new favorite band. Like some wondrous blend of Arctic Monkeys and the Wonder Stuff, this is the kind of song that makes me giddy. I now need to doublecheck the Lollapalooza lineup to see if they’re playing, because I’m fucking there if they are.
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