Category: External Music (Page 6 of 50)

Wolfmother serves up a tasty “Cosmic Egg”

October 27, 2009 / Jeff Giles

It’s never easy for any artist to take a successful debut and translate that success to a second album, but the road to Wolfmother’s sophomore release was particularly troubled — in fact, vocalist Andrew Stockdale is the only member of the band that managed to survive the journey from 2005’s Wolfmother to the just-released Cosmic Egg.

All that upheaval must have been more than a little traumatic, so it’s hard to blame Stockdale for brushing off questions about it during his Bullz-Eye interview with Jim Washington — in his words, “it’s a bit exhausting to talk about” — and in any event, the band’s heavy sound has survived the transition pretty much intact, so why dwell on the past? Better to just crack open Cosmic Egg and revel in its aural assault, which expands upon the band’s notably Zeppelin and Sabbath-influenced attack. As Stockdale tells Washington, “Certain things inspire you, but then it becomes your own thing. I think the new record is a bit heavier at times and a bit lighter at the same time. There’s a real energy in it, a lot of expression.”

To read the full interview, click on the image above or follow this link!

External Music, Interviews

Cosmic Egg Wolfmother Wolfmother interview

Elvis crashes the Bruce Springsteen concert in Philly

October 20, 2009 / Gerardo Orlando

Hilarious.

Artists, Concerts, External Music, News, Rock, Songs, Videos

Bruce Springsteen Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Bruce Springsteen concert Bruce Springsteen video Elvis Elvis video

La Roux: La Roux

September 25, 2009 / Jeff Giles

RIYL: Eurythmics, Little Boots, Róisín Murphy

Already hugely popular on the other side of the pond, Britain’s La Roux – otherwise known as singer Elly Jackson and her synth-playing partner Ben Langmaid – might sound strongly familiar to pop fans with long memories: with an androgynous red-haired singer and a fondness for icy, clanking beats, they seem – visually, anyway – like the musical offspring of early-period Eurythmics. But where that band drew its heat from the spark generated from the collision of white soul and new wave synthcraft, La Roux stays on the dance floor, nestling Jackson’s thin, fluttery vocals in between a buzzing, whirring electropop army that sounds like it was stolen from the Human League’s synthesizer banks. All that artificial noise can get a little tiresome after a while – new wave did get old, after all – but La Roux walks the fine line between homage and pastiche by serving up a bevy of fresh-sounding, booty-shaking singles that sound equally at home in the clubs or on the Top 40.

The album’s first four tracks – “In for the Kill,” “Tigerlily,” “Quicksand,” and “Bulletproof” – are airtight, flawlessly catchy hits in waiting; in fact, “In for the Kill” and “Bulletproof” have been pretty much inescapable in the UK for months. Whether American audiences will respond is another story (ask La Roux’s Stateside labelmate Robyn about how hard it is to cross over as a dance artist in the U.S.), but however it goes down on the charts, this is an auspicious debut. (Cherry Tree 2009)

La Roux MySpace page

CD QuickTakes, CD Reviews, Dance, Electronica, External Music, Pop

Elly Jackson La Roux La Roux CD review

Everything you need to know about “The Beatles: Rock Band”

September 4, 2009 / Jeff Giles

In case you hadn’t already noticed, we’re living in a post-superstar world — a place where stylistically far-flung artists like Devendra Benhart, Passion Pit, and the Gossip can be hugely popular in their own right, but unheard (and virtually unknown) outside their own small pockets of fandom, and where even a legitimate household name like Reba McEntire can score a Number One record simply by selling 95,000 units in a week. In fact, the top-selling album of 2009 — Michael Jackson’s Number Ones — is a compilation originally released in 2003, which should tell you pretty much everything you need to know about the current state of music.

Or how about this: the year’s most anticipated new release by a major artist isn’t a CD at all, but a video game — and one from one of the last true superstar acts, a band that’s been broken up for almost 40 years.

We’re talking, of course, about the imminent arrival of “The Beatles: Rock Band,” the new edition of the wildly popular game that, in the words of Bullz-Eye’s David Medsker, “allows the players to pretend that they’re in the greatest band of all time.” The game, like the freshly remastered versions of the Beatles’ catalog that fans are drooling over, won’t arrive in stores until September 9, but in the meantime, you can read Bullz-Eye’s breakdown of what to expect in a piece titled — of course — “While Our Plastic Video Game Guitars Gently Weep.” To read about the 10 tracks we can’t wait to play, the songs we’re hoping Harmonix chooses for future expansion packs, and assorted random thoughts on what’s sure to be the gaming event of the year, click the above image or follow this link!

Artists, External Music, News

Beatles remasters The Beatles Rock Band The Beatles: Rock Band preview

Twenty years later, producer John Leckie looks back on “Stone Roses”

September 3, 2009 / Jeff Giles

Producer John Leckie may not be a household name, but thanks to his work behind the boards for a long list of diverse, well-respected acts (including Pink Floyd, Radiohead, all four Beatles, and Public Image Limited), his talents are well known to most rock fans — whether or not they’re aware of it. One of his past projects, the Stone Roses’ self-titled debut, celebrates its 20th birthday this year, and thanks to the good people at Sony Legacy, it’s getting scrubbed and primped for a deluxe reissue — one which Leckie is now out making the promotional rounds to support. Bullz-Eye’s David Medsker, an unabashed Stone Roses fan, naturally jumped at the opportunity to interview Mr. Leckie — and the transcript of their chat is now live at Bullz-Eye.

One of the first questions, naturally, is just how far the reissue’s sound has come from the original CD — and Leckie has an interesting response:

We would make the vinyl master that would then be a CD master, and then it would be copied again for overseas. By the time it’s pressed in America or Australia, it’s a copy, of a copy, of a copy, of a copy.

In other words, if you own an original U.S. pressing of Stone Roses, the fidelity is even dodgier than you might have imagined. But is the new CD remaster the be-all, end-all version, or does Leckie recommend trendier audiophile measures, like listening to a new vinyl pressing? Leckie is vinyl-friendly, as you might imagine, but he’s surprisingly pragmatic, as it turns out:

It’s like, well, what are you playing it on? Most people listen to music on iPods or even little speakers on their laptop. Or in the car, with the windows open. Vinyl is an experience. You don’t do anything else. You just sit and listen to it.

To read more of David Medsker’s wide-ranging interview with John Leckie — including his thoughts on the punk bands of the ’70s, some of his favorite lesser-known projects, and his 20-years-removed perspective on Stone Roses, click on the above image or follow this link!