Category: External Music (Page 33 of 50)

The Nuge causes dissention within the Bullz-Eye ranks…

August 30, 2007 / Will Harris

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?

Alternative, Artists, Concerts, External Music, Rock

Looking for a new musical subgenre…?

August 28, 2007 / Will Harris

Consider…bubble-goth.

Or, better yet, don’t. Especially not if it’s anything like the God-awful cover of Bauhaus’s “She’s in Parties” that’s been provided for your listening “pleasure” by Estonia’s latest export, Kerli.

Alternative, Artists, External Music, News, Pop, Rap, Songs

Have you seen this man…?

August 24, 2007 / Will Harris

His name is Remy Shand, and he put out a fucking phenomenal debut album called The Way I Feel in 2002…and, then, he vanished.

I mean, vanished.

His website hasn’t been updated in about four years. The MySpace page that exists for him doesn’t include any of his music and has no information beyond what was in the original press release for The Way I Feel. According to Wikipedia, the most up-to-date news brief on his site- from October 2003! – suggested that Shand was was working on his second album, to be called Day In The Shade, but that briefing has since been removed, and, obviously, the album still remains MIA.

You’ve gotta give the guy credit: in a world like ours, it’s an impressive accomplishment to disappear so successfully. But, dammit, I want more Remy Shand music!

In the meantime, however, we can still reminisce with a few of his videos…

The Way I Feel

Take a Message

See? Don’t you want more Remy Shand music now, too…?

Artists, External Music, Pop, Rock, Songs, Videos

Day in the Shade Remy Shand Remy Shand second album Take A Message The Way I Feel whatever happened to Remy Shand

Power pop has been berry, berry good to Eric Carmen…

August 21, 2007 / Will Harris

Yes, that’s the headline you never saw for my chat with former Raspberries frontman Eric Carmen…and for good reason, as it’s quite awful.

There was a brief period during the 1970s when the funniest rock-related one-liner involved a teenager asking, “Hey, did you hear that Paul McCartney used to be in a band before Wings?” It’s a joke that isn’t nearly as funny today, what with Wings having been relegated to little more than footnote status in McCartney’s career timeline, but if you lived and died by the FM dial during the ’70s, you can still see the humor in it. In turn, you might also have been really amused in the late ’80s, when kids were thrilling to Carmen’s “Hungry Eyes” and “Make Me Lose Control” without having any inkling that, a decade and a half earlier, he had been fronting one of the definitive power pop bands of all time.

Carmen and his fellow ‘Berries — Wally Bryson, Jim Bonfanti and Dave Smalley — were staples of the Billboard singles chart from 1972 to 1974, but creative struggles led to line-up changes and the band’s eventual dissolution. The 21st century, however, has found the guys getting back together and doing some live dates, one of which – a performance at L.A.’s House of Blues on Oct. 21, 2005 – has recently been released on Rykodisc as Live on the Sunset Strip. After a few scheduling conflicts and one missed opportunity (which was totally this writer’s fault), Bullz-Eye had a chance to speak with Carmen recently, and we quizzed him about the legacy of The Raspberries, his solo career and its notable difference to the sound he’d helped forge with the band, and how he can’t help but empathize with Kelly Clarkson these days.

Check out the interview here.

Artists, Concert CDs, External Music, Interviews, Pop, Rock, Songs

Eric Carmen Eric Carmen interview

Yet another ripple effect of the slump in CD sales: really shitty album covers

August 14, 2007 / David Medsker

As the senior editor for Bullz-Eye, I am bombarded with dozens of emails per day from publicists (and they never sleep. Ask them, they’ll tell you), and to be honest, I’m lucky. Our publicist, Mike Farley, only forwards the must-act emails to me, so it could be much worse than it already is. (Thank you, Mike.) Today I received a newsletter from one very nice publicist (she has my direct email address, rats) who has the unfortunate task of repping a sorry excuse for a Benetton ad of a band named The Last Goodnight. I received a promo copy of their record last month, and the cover featured a picture of the band. They look ridiculous, but that’s not the point of this post. (It is, however, the point of my review, which runs on 8/24.)

This is what the final album cover artwork looks like.

Are, you, kidding me?

That is the worst album cover I’ve seen in years. Look at the snake’s head and its tail. Hell, look at the snake’s entire body. It looks as though it was drawn by a blind person who had the features of a snake explained to them by a Japanese person who was speaking through a translator. In other words, I know that’s a snake, but it’s the worst-looking snake I’ve ever seen in album cover history. How on Earth, in this day and age, did such a mediocre drawing make it to the final pressing?

Almost at once, the answer hit me: because no one buys CDs anymore.

I can actually hear the CEO bellowing at his staffers in the boardroom. “What are you doing wasting another thousand dollars on the cover? The kids are just going to download the album anyway! The cover, if they even look at it, will be no more than an inch by an inch on their freaking iPod Nano! The snake looks fine, now get the damn artist out of here. He’s stinking up the place, and my lunch has been stolen three days in a row.”

Anyone who lived through the ‘80s knows that this is actually a hilarious concept, since the advent of the CD had LP artwork purists crying foul as far back as 1986. Sure enough, the popularity of the compact disc caused bands to think of their album covers in much simpler terms, but no band in the ‘80s on Virgin Records (the Last Goodnight’s label) had to suffer the embarrassment of a cover like this, which is why I think this artistic atrocity comes down to simple economics. If people aren’t buying CDs, then there is no reason to waste money on elaborate, or even adequate, artwork.

I hope the people in the art departments at the major labels know Flash, or how to make a stunning cup of coffee, because it appears they are next on the chopping block…if they haven’t been axed already.

External Music, Pop, Rock