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Ot was only a matter of time. But hey, thank God on high that Stone Temple Pilots have regrouped. What’s more, the band is taking it out on the road for a summer tour of 0f dates. In the meantime, Scott Weiland’s “other” band Velvet Revolver is finishing up its European tour, but since Scotty and drummer Matt Sorum are acting all bitchy towards one another, there may be no more of that group in the near future. |
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It’s taken Axl Rose so long to get off his arse and release Guns ‘N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy that it was only a matter of time that someone sought medical help. Enter…Dr. Pepper. According to the New York Post, if Axl ships the album in 2008, everyone in America - except estranged guitarists Slash and Buckethead - will receive a free can of Dr. Pepper. “It took a little patience for us to perfect Dr Pepper’s special mix of 23 ingredients, so we completely understand and empathize with Axl’s question for the perfect album,” said a company spokesperson. UPDATE: According to Rolling Stone, Axl has responded to Dr. Pepper’s offer. In a press release, Rose says, “We are surprised and very happy to have the support of Dr. Pepper with our album Chinese Democracy, as for us, this came totally out of the blue. If there is any involvement with this promotion by our record company or others, we are unaware of such at this time. And as some of Buckethead’s performances are on our album, I’ll share my Dr. Pepper with him.” |
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When the Housemartins bit the dust not long after the release of The People Who Grinned Themselves To Death, many a fan of pale white British jangle-pop wept a tear or two. Thankfully, they were able to take solace in the band which rose from the ‘Martin’s ashes: The Beautiful South. Paul Heaton’s voice was still just as heavenly as ever, but the music was more mature, less about the three-minute pop song and more about musical exploration. Their debut album, Welcome to the Beautiful South, was the perfect introduction to the band’s sound, with epic tracks sitting alongside quick and simple pop numbers, plus a cover of Pebbles’ “Girlfriend” for no discernible reason. I’m not sure when this “Wogan” performance took place, but this song - “I’ll Sail This Ship Alone” - is definitely from the group’s debut. Be sure to hold onto your hat when the song reaches its final line; it’s a doozy.
Filed under: Rock and Pop and Alternative and Songs and Artists and Videos and Less Talk, More Music Comments: None |
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…is being released tomorrow. No advance promos, and only a week’s advance buzz before the dropping of a new album entitled Consolers of the Lonely.
If you head over to the band’s website, you’ll be able to read their official announcement about the album, but the key paragraphs are these: The album was mastered and completed in the first week of March. It was then taken immediately to a vinyl pressing plant. Then to a CD pressing plant. Then preparations to sell it digitally began. March 25th became the soonest date to have it available in EVERY FORMAT AT ONCE. The band have done no interviews or advertisements for this record before this announcement. The purpose: to get the album to the fans as soon as possible and as we promised. We wanted to get this record to fans, the press, radio, etc., all at the EXACT SAME TIME so that no one has an upper hand on anyone else regarding it’s availability, reception or perception. With this release, The Raconteurs are forgoing the usual months of lead time for press and radio set up, as well as forgoing the all important “first week sales.” We wanted to explore the idea of releasing an album everywhere at once and THEN marketing and promoting it thereafter. The Raconteurs would rather this release not be defined by it’s first week’s sales, pre-release promotion, or by someone defining it FOR YOU before you get to hear it. Y’know, I gotta tell ya, those final thirteen words in the above excerpt were thisclose to being a definitive “you had me, then you lost me” moment for this writer. I admit to a certain amount of excitement for Consolers of the Lonely - I liked the last album, so I’m certainly curious to hear the new record - but thanks to those thirteen words, it’s now quite clear that, for as great a concept as it is to float an album to the masses without a massive advertising campaign and see if it succeeds on its own merits, at least part of the reason for this method is to give Jack White another opportunity to make his favorite blanket statement, “Fuck those assholes in the press.” Despite the fact that the Raconteurs are clearly enjoying the coincidence of timing, let’s be quite clear about this: the quiet-is-the-new-loud method of pre-publicity is almost certainly nothing to do with Maxim’s Black Crowes review fiasco, since the decision to release Consolers via this off-the-radar method would’ve been made long before that controversy reared its head. You may recall that I branded White an asshole just last year after his comments in the NME about how journalists were idiots for believing information that was put in his band’s official press release. All you have to do is just look at those big-ass capital letters in the lines from the press release to know that White put them there; you can imagine him typing them out, then flipping off the computer screen and screaming, “Yeah! That’s right! Fuck you guys!” Okay, fair enough, White’s still got an agenda, but the closing lines of the band’s missive about the album offer a very key sentence that rescues the release methodology for me: “The Raconteurs feel very strongly that music has worth and should be treated as such.” Indeed. Which is why I say that, despite having a complete jackass in their line-up, I’m hoping very strongly that Consolers of the Lonely proves to be a successful experiment for the Raconteurs. Oh, BTW, there’s a nice piece by David Bennun about the album’s imminent release over at The Guardian’s website, where, after acknowledging that “one might even see this as a direct attack on the very existence of music journalism,” he, too, praises the idea in principle…but the best part for me were the final pair of paragraphs: “But let’s not do the Raconteurs down; just because they have the luxury of putting out their album in this fashion, it doesn’t mean they’re obliged to. They have chosen to, and good luck to them. Only a cynic would point out that when a film is released without preview screenings for critics, it’s usually because it’s so dire that it overrides the dictum about no publicity being bad publicity. And only Bill Hicks’s hated notional marketeer would view this as a marketing gimmick in itself: ‘They’re going for that anti-marketing dollar. That’s a good market, they’re very smart.’ “I prefer to think of it as a genuine attempt to preserve the pleasures of the LP in a world where the phrase ‘LP’ is (wrongly, in my view) seen as redundant. As for whether this particular LP is worthy of such a gesture, I have no idea. I haven’t heard it. Of course.“ |
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Presenting Mike O’Connell’s hilarious tune that is mos def NSFW. Enjoy, won’t you? |
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This is what Duran Duran’s Red Carpet Massacre should have sounded like. For those who don’t know the back story, Duran Duran solicited the help of hip hop overlord Timbaland and his protégé Nate “Danja” Hills to oversee their last album. This idea was sixteen different flavors of bad, because Tim and Nate demand that they be the stars of their work, not the bands singing and playing the songs in question. Duran Duran were reduced to co-stars on their own album. Tragic. The Midnight Juggernauts right every wrong that Duran made. The drum tracks are positively huge, second only to Daft Punk. The bass lines are fluid and rubbery – nothing on Red Carpet Massacre comes close to the bass line on “Shadows” – and the keyboards are layered without smothering everything around them. And here’s the best part: they’re a trio. That’s right, there are only three guys making all this sound, which I guess makes them the equal and opposite reaction to Wolfmother, and the dance doppelganger of Muse. Their album Dystopia doesn’t land on US shores until May 27, but it already has a spot on my Best of ’08 list. I haven’t been this excited about a band since, well, Muse. Make sure and check out the clips for “Tombstone,” “Shadows” and “Into the Galaxy” as well.
Filed under: Rock and Alternative and Electronica and Songs and Artists and Videos and External Music and Seen Your Video Comments: None |
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The guys at Runawaybox offer up this hilarious “honest R&B song.” Enjoy.
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Last night, I was fortunate enough to catch Willie Nelson in concert at The NorVa, in Norfolk, VA. It was the second time I’d seen him there, and although it wasn’t quite as long a performance as the last time he came ’round, it was still just as good a time. There were, however, a few bittersweet moments, such as when he broke out “Good Hearted Woman,” introducing it with the words, “Let’s do one for Waylon!” Ah, the late Mr. Jennings: how he’s missed. And the absence of Johnny Cash is felt even more strongly. As such, I thought I’d go ahead and offer up an artifact from the past that never fails to make me smile: Willie, Waylon, Johnny, and their ol’ buddy Kris Kristofferson teaming up to sing their version of Jimmy Webb’s “The Highwayman.” Just listen to that crowd scream as each gentleman takes the mike for their respective verse…
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The Manic Street Preachers are kinda the alt-rock version of Status Quo, given that they’re an institution in the UK but barely cause Americans to raise an eyebrow, but as a dedicated reader of Q Magazine in the ’90s, I’ve followed them since the beginning of their career, back when Richie Edwards was carving slogans into his flesh and trying to be his generation’s Sid Vicious. As it turned out, he was a bit closer to being his generation’s Amelia Earhart, given that he vanished into thin and and is presumed dead, but that’s beside the point. The band’s music is arguably more powerful now than it was when Edwards was in the band, probably because they’re a decidedly less self-destructive unit without him in their ranks, but their debut album, 1992’s Generation Terrorists, nonetheless captured lightning in a bottle, combining the best bits of The Clash and Guns ‘N’ Roses and making them into one of the classic records of the decade. This performance of the epic “Motorcycle Emptiness” is actually from the ’00s, so it’s without Edwards, but a decade on, the song itself remains just as powerful.
Filed under: Rock and Alternative and Songs and Artists and Videos and Less Talk, More Music Comments: None |
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Catch her while she’s not having a psychotic moment and give her some money! Yes, Britney Spears will be appearing on the March 24 episode of “How I Met Your Mother.” Spears will be playing a “mousy” receptionist named Abby. Haha! Putting Brit-Brit in a low key “semi-unattractive” role is comedy gold. Set your stopwatches to see how long this latest comeback will last. |
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Take the lead singer from Toad the Wet Sprocket, get him to write a song with Jon Brion, and then let Toad-boy record it with some guys from Nickel Creek. Voila: you’ve got Mutual Admiration Society’s “Sake of the World.” This live version, however, gets bonus points for having John Paul Jones (late of Led Zeppelin) on bass and Pete Thomas from The Attractions on drums. If only MAS would do another album together… P.S. Yes, I know “Toad-boy” is actually named Glen Phillips. But it made me laugh to call him “Toad-boy.” Filed under: Rock and Pop and Alternative and Songs and Artists and Videos and Less Talk, More Music Comments: None |
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Hey! Whaddaya do when your rock band is really starting to hit all new heights, selling out arena tours, and taking over the radio airwaves? Why, you release your shittiest album to date, that’s what! Sad, but true. By the dawn of the ’80s, Cheap Trick had had a surprise smash hit with their live At Budokan album, and stayed relatively well on the charts with their fourth proper studio album Dream Police. But by the time they made it to All Shook Up, it seems that the gas was running out in more ways than one. But who would have imagined that such great power popsters teamed up with George Martin would produce such a flaccid LP? True, not every moment of Dream Police was as solid as Heaven Tonight or the band’s debut, but the title track and “Voices” were especially great, as well as the Tom Petersson-sung “I Know What I Want” (that has remained a staple of the band’s live show). All Shook Up, on the other hand, had “Just Got Back” and not a whole lot else. You can hear the potential in there throughout the album wanting to break free, but instead it’s hampered by lackluster songwriting and by-the-numbers performances. Indeed, it was the beginning of a quick decline for the Trick. Petersson would quit the band after the album’s completion and his absence was more than felt on albums like One to One and Next Position Please, though while both slightly more enjoyable than All Shook Up, just didn’t have that classic Cheap Trick feel to them. And as we all know, it wouldn’t be until Lap of Luxury with the return of Tom and the godawful song “The Flame” that rocketed Cheap Trick up the charts and kept them there that the band had a renaissance of sorts. Of course, by that time, the kids wanted to hear “The Flame” and “Don’t Be Cruel.” Thankfully the band has since written off this period of their career. But that big “comeback” would not have been possible without All Shook Up leading the way to a quick descent. Some fans have recently cropped up to defend the album, but to my ears it still sounds as lifeless as it ever did. For once, Cheap Trick seemed tapped out of ideas and no amount of George Martin overseeing the project could help save the ship. Now maybe if they had had Ringo along as well to pen a couple songs, things could have really gotten cooking. I’m only half-kidding. |
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It’s time once again for the weekly dose of what’s new on the CD racks, so let’s get straight to it shall we? Cassettes Won’t Listen’s Small Time Machine is out today. Our own Jeff Giles reviewed the album last week at Bullz-Eye. Rapper Fat Joe is back with The Elephant in the Room. More info is available at Billboard.com. The Presidents of the United States of America are back once again with their new one entitled These are the Good Times People. Former Young Fresh Fellow Kurt Bloch produces. Hear the new sounds on PUSA’s MySpace. Snoop Dogg also returns to the fold this week with Ego Trippin’. Snoop’s MySpace page is the place to have a listen. The unstoppable juggernaut NOW That’s What I Call Music! series is back, with number 27 all ready to be ordered. Finally, both The Cranberries and Ohio Players have their own two-disc Gold collections out this week, while The Zombies’ Odessey & Oracle gets the deluxe “40th Anniversary Edition” treatment. Find out all about that right here. |
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“Fooled By a Smile” played “live,” you bet!
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Songs like “Watermelon Crawl” will make you go out and kill. Enjoy!
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