Category: Artists (Page 148 of 262)

The Nuge causes dissention within the Bullz-Eye ranks…

It all started so innocently, with a good-natured jab between two comrades in arms about how this album…

…is such a textbook example of “breezy, funky, white-boy pop” that the only antidote to its effects is to spin this album:

And, suddenly, it all went horribly, horribly wrong…

David Medsker: Nugent? Wow, that’s good timing. Have you seen this yet?

Ted Nugent goes OFF on Obama in California

Unfortunately, Red’s going to freaking love this. But the good people at the South Dakota State Fair, however, did not. (Editor’s note: That might be because, based on the Fair’s theme song, which you can hear by clicking on the link to their site in the previous sentence, the organizers would appear to be bigger fans of Orleans than Ted Nugent.)

Red Rocker: Uh, the caption said he was in Cali? And I didn’t hear an objection, if that’s what you were suggesting? Seemed like wherever he was, the crowd was pretty much in his corner…

Jeff Giles: He was asked by the organizers of the SD State Fair to tone down his retarded antics for his planned appearance at the event.

Red: Why?

Jeff: Um, because there are going to be kids at the fair, and they were worried about Nuge threatening more presidential candidates with bodily harm? It sounds ridiculous, I know, but it’s true.

Red: I get that kids attend state fairs, but if their parents are ignorant enough to take them into a Ted Nugent concert then they deserve to be exposed to his Platform For The Everyman.

Jeff: I dunno. At any fair I’ve ever been to, the concerts are open-air, meaning anyone taking a stroll over to the churro cart would be able to hear Nugent spouting off his Platitudes for the Cro-Magnon Buffoon. I can understand the South Dakotans’ concerns, and I, for one, think it’s downright hilarious that Nuge’s career is at a place where he needs to worry about what state fair organizers think of his shenanigans.

David: I’m pretty sure your thoughts on the subject would be much different if, say, Howard Jones told a state fair crowd that George Bush could “suck on this.”

Red: Not really. I didn’t burn my Dixie Chicks CDs a couple years ago. It’s called free speech, Med. Even you hippies embrace that, right!?

David: Free speech, huh? So you would be okay with me cursing like a drunken sailor in front of your daughters?

Red: Again, my daughters (at age 2 and 1) would not be at a Ted Nugent concert! Maybe by the time they’re 13 and 14….

David: Answer the question: would you want me swearing in front of your daughters, yes or no?

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Space Ace does the Dunkin

When David Medsker and I were in Chicago covering Lollapalooza earlier this month, we were sitting around in our hotel room discussing music and such, natch. I had mentioned to him that Ace Frehley was recently in a pretty amusing Dunkin’ Donuts ad. Ace was always my fave member of the original lineup, not just for his playing, but becuase he didn’t take the whole thing so damned seriously and straight faced as Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons. Anyway, here’s the recent Dunkin’ ad with Ace in full Kiss attire makin’ some moolah.

Man-about-MySpace: Tim Halperin

Ben Folds used to awesome. In concert, he still is, a consummate entertainer, and MySpace-aware fans point to his October 2006 live MySpace concert–requests only, the site’s first such event of its kind–chronicled on the Live at MySpace DVD as evidence of that.

But on the studio recording side, many of his fans are right to feel his songwriting has become almost too serious, his lyrics too jaded, to bear. Gone is the insouciance of the Ben Folds Five of the 1990s, the light drama of “Emaline,” the innocently poignant “Brick,” the simple chords . . . the subtle aspects of Folds that are gone and replaced–at least for the moment–with heavy-handed songs like “Bastard” and “You to Thank,” two back-to-back cuts on Songs for Silverman that sound like classic Folds pop but are so bitter and whiny that they just leave one cold.

Tim Halperin
Tim Halperin

Enter Tim Halperin, a TCU student and Folds devotee.

In between classes and other pressing needs that hamper the fun of dorm-dwellers (like having a television too small to read the score of the football game he and his pals are watching, chronicled in his “Life in the Dorm Room,”) this guy records whimsical piano-pop loaded with the delicious chordal curlicues we Folds fans love to hear.

These low-budget productions mean that his voice, piano, and songwriting skill must carry the day in cuts like “Nice to be Free” and “Mary.” They aren’t encumbered by effects and rich sonic backgrounds behind which the singer-songwriter can hide. It’s just his voice, his piano, and very basic backing tracks. Halperin’s vocals and piano playing stand up to the test.

And perhaps that is what is missing from Folds’ layered, heavily produced studio creations of today: That low-budget innocence of his 20s. Halperin’s stuff, while perfectly original in its own right, recalls the Naked Baby Photos era of the Five. Go give him a spin, and if you want his cuts on your iPod, go to his Garage Band page and download away. He claims he’ll let us know when a CD’s coming out; we’ll hold him to that.

“Boycott Winehouse,” sez father-in-law

What do you for a singer who might possibly, but probably not soon, if at all, hit rock bottom due to drugs and drinking? Why, you boycott their products, naturally! At least, that’s what Amy Winehouse’s father-in-law is instructing everyone to do.

“Perhaps it is time to stop buying records,” Fielder-Civil said. “It’s a possibility, to send that message,” said Giles Fielder-Civil (wow, what a name). However, Winehouse’s own father said it would do no good and when she and her hubby hit rock bottom, then they may have a change of heart. Or wind up dead.

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