Category: Rock (Page 157 of 241)

Road Warriors 40

November 16, 2007 / Mike Farley

Country mega-stars Keith Urban and Carrie Underwood will hit the road together as co-headliners beginning January 31 for 24 shows. The tour is being billed as Love, Pain, & the Whole Crazy Carnival Ride Tour (really now, why do these concert promoters think they have to try and be clever?). Tickets go on sale December 1.

Southern California based indie label Hopeless/Sub City Records is organizing the Take Action Tour, which focuses on raising funds and awareness for non-profit organizations. The seventh annual tour will begin in February and features bands such as Every Time I Die and Escape The Fate. Previous artists on the tour include Avenged Sevenfold, Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and Jimmy Eat World. For a complete list of dates, please visit www.takeactiontour.com

Matchbox Twenty is touring for the first time in four years, heading out with special guests Alanis Morissette and MuteMath beginning January 25 in Hollywood, Florida in support of their new album, Exile on Mainstream. The stops include a Valentine’s Day engagement at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Here is the complete list of confirmed shows Continue reading »

Alternative, American Idol, Concerts, Country, Pop, Rock

Less Talk, More Music: Midnight Oil on “Thicke of the Night”

November 13, 2007 / Will Harris

I saw Midnight Oil in concert twice before they called it a day – once at the Boathouse, touring behind Diesel and Dust, the other at Norfolk Scope, touring behind Blue Sky Mining (with Hunters and Collectors as their openers!) – but until I saw this clip, I’d somehow managed to forget just how damned disconcerting Peter Garrett was to watch on stage. At that Boathouse show, I stayed way at the back of the venue, mostly because he scared the shit out of me!

By the way, this is officially the first time I’ve ever seen any portion of an episode of Alan Thicke’s short-lived late-night talk show. Wow, he was as cheesy as an ’80s sitcom dad even then; no wonder it was short-lived.

Alternative, Artists, Concerts, Less Talk, More Music, Pop, Rock, Songs, Videos

Ruby Tuesday: Bis, “I’m a Slut”

November 13, 2007 / David Medsker

When I first heard Bis, I was pretty sure I hated them. I mean, it was on a tribute album to the Smiths, fer crissakes. What on earth were they doing there?

I still don’t have a good answer to that question. Bis, after all, were the ‘90s equivalent of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, which means they were the ‘80s equivalent of Berlin and the Human League. Do any of those bands have a single thing in common with the Smiths? No, which is what made their version of “The Boy with a Thorn in His Side” both fascinating and maddening. On the plus side, they gave the song the danceable beat that it begged for all along. On the other hand, they also stripped Johnny Marr’s lovely chord progression out, effectively turning the song into a dub mix. Not what this Smiths fan was looking for.

Fast forward three years, and Bis releases their second album Social Dancing. Somehow, it catches my ear – I’m guessing they landed a track on a CMJ compilation, as I was a subscriber at the time – and I find a promo copy cheap…and in the process discover a song that still pops up on Medsker mix discs. Short, fast, funny and insanely catchy, “I’m a Slut” gleefully pokes fun at gender roles – “Have I done something to upset you / Was my dress a bit too see-through” – but had a Shirley Manson badass-ness to it as well. In a musical climate that was still suffering a hangover from what Alanis Morissette hath wrought, it was a most welcome breath of fresh air.

The band’s 2001 EP, Music from a Stranger World, was even better than Social Dancing, but it wasn’t good enough to stop them from breaking up two years later. Wikipedia says that they recently reunited for a few gigs in England. You have to think that they’re watching this whole ‘80s retro thing and thinking, “WTF?”

Bis – I’m a Slut.mp3

Alternative, External Music, Pop, Rock, Rock Babes, Ruby Tuesday, Songs

Road Warriors 39

November 9, 2007 / Mike Farley

John Mellencamp is vowing to make his current tour more about the songs and songwriting than about doing rousing choruses of certain songs. What? Does that mean he’s going to take that horrible “This is Our Country” song out of his set, or at least play a short version of it? How about just a verse and a chorus?

UK Brit Pop band Polytechnics are unsigned but have quite the buzz going, and this month will showcase for labels in both New York and Los Angeles. Here are the dates where you can check them out:
Nov 16 @ Mercury Lounge NEW YORK
Nov 14 @ Spaceland LOS ANGELES

Matchbox Twenty has just announced tour dates and their schedule is posted on the band’s MySpace page at www.myspace.com/matchboxtwenty.

Former Tonic lead singer Emerson Hart is on tour and playing acoustic sets with a stripped down three-piece band. According to Hart, this helps him relate to his own music, and offers a better concert experience for his fans.

The Donnas are on tour in support of their seventh album, Bitchin’. This month they are in Europe after finishing a two-month leg of US dates. Here is the current Continue reading »

Alternative, Concerts, Electronica, Hip Hop, News, Pop, Rock

Less Talk, More Music: Husker Du on “The Late Show with Joan Rivers”

November 6, 2007 / Will Harris

Yes, you read that subject line correctly.

Husker Du were winding up their career right around the same time Joan Rivers was losing steam as a talk show hostess, so it’s only appropriate that their lines on the flowchart should have met up. As many times as I’ve seen this clip, I never fail to get annoyed when Rivers mucks up the title of the first song…it’s “Could You Be The One,” goddammit!…but I love the way the band changed the arrangement from the studio version. Stay tuned for the completely surreal interview segment which follows the first song – when Rivers finds out that the band’s name is Danish for “do you remember,” she finds it inexplicable that no-one in the band has any familial connection to Denmark – and then get your ass rocked by “She’s A Woman (And Now He Is A Man).”

Alternative, Artists, External Music, Less Talk, More Music, Rock, Videos