Friday, August 25. 2006
It is now Friday Aug 25 and it is time to play WTF Friday, the game where you tell us the first 10 songs that come up on your music player when you hit the Random or Shuffle button. At stake is a classic kingsnake.com T-shirt and the chance to win the monthly grand prize, a black 30Gb video iPod. Also we welcome Metal Blade Records as a contest sponsor this month, so everyone that wins a shirt or iPod will also get a copy of Metal Blade's 2006 Summer Sampler with 18 bands including Cannibal Corpse, Unearth and more!
Here is my list... Props to the club.kingsnake buddy who set me up with all sorts of old school punk live bootlegs and outtakes in Dayona.
1. Reverand Horton Heat - Folsom Prison Blues
2. The Exploited - I Beleive in Anarchy
3. Rancid - I Wanna Riot
4. Dead Kennedys - Night of the Living Rednecks
5. The Clash - White Man in Hammersmith Palais
6. The Ramones - Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue
7. Alice Cooper - Muscle of Love
8. Butthole Surfers - The Shah Sleeps on Lee Harvey's Grave(live)
9. Suicidal Tendencies - War Inside My Head
10. Janes Addiction - Mountain Song
Once again, we give away a kingsnake.com T-shirt to each of our weekly winners and the monthly winner gets a spankin new 30Gb video iPod! For the complete set of rules see http://club.kingsnake.com/index.php?/pages/wtfcontest.html
You MUST post your list TODAY, Friday, for it to qualify for the contest so POST AWAY.
Technorati Tags:
iPod, Contest, Free T-Shirt
Tuesday, August 22. 2006
Stupid girls.
I have seen evil, and it's in the faces of these two little girls.
When I see thir cute smiles all I see is death.
Often over the years, members of my staff and I have been referred to by users who had had disputes with us as "Nazis." My answer to them has always been, "If you use up its meaning, what word will you use when the real Nazis come back?" I have always taken real offense at anyone referring to us in that manner, and always promised myself I would belt the first guy who says it to my face. These girls would treat such an insult as a compliment.
Usually I am not hyper-critical of 14 year old musicians but since these neo-nazi versions of the Olsen twins have a platform to spew their songs of lies and hate, I figure as a music critic I have a right to respond.
When the punk explosion came back to our shores in the late 70s and 80s, it returned with some nasty surprises as well. Long erroneously associated with all skinheads, the neo-nazi movement embraced the anarchic nature of punk and nazi-skinhead violence would sometimes follow bands with no racist intentions of their own. It got so bad that the Dead Kennedys' Jello Biafra penned the legendary thrash anthem "Nazi Punks Fuck Off." Since then, the problem of Nazi skinhead punks, while not abating, at least disappeared from the semi-mainstream as they launched their own white power labels and seemed content to play to their "own kind." Recently, however, the Nazis have begun to take a new tack, ditching the skinhead radicals and aiming straight for the mainstream heartland of America.
Beneath the dimples, braces, and smiley-faced Hitler shirts beat the cold hearts of Nazisim in all its worst forms. Lynx and Lamb Gaede of the band Prussian Blue first performed in 2001 at a white power fest and since then have released two CDs and a DVD. Looking more like they should be on Nickelodeon, overtly racist in their first release, their second release is horrifying in that they have turned to more traditional topics for 14 year olds, such as boys, crushes and dating in an attempt to mask their Nazi message and attract a more mainstream audience. That is frightening at so many levels it is hard to fathom.
I want so much to believe that this is all the work of their mother April, also an avowed Nazi, and that someday these girls will wake up to discover how horribly they have been exploited both by their mother and the Nazi movement. I want to take thse girls by the hand and walk them through the crematories at camps like Auschwitz and Treblinka, make them wade through the ashes of the millions in the mass graves, look at the mountains of hair, eyeglasses, and shoes collected from the victims, see the horror in the eyes of a survivor, hear it in their voice, and smell the stench of death that still lingers today in the camps. Unfortunately with their claims in press interviews that their name "Prussian Blue" is a reference to the dye used in the gas Zyklon B and singing songs about Rudolf Hess, it is clear that at the very least they have been very well programmed by the movement, and are doing more than just simply parroting mother April's teachings.
Unlike other media personalities that have managed to keep their anti-semitism below the surface and out of the public eye, or denying it, while quitely dispensing their hateful messages, these girls have embraced the whole of the Nazi movement and are now trying to spread their poisonous message to today's youth covertly.
This is not some marketing ploy cooked up by a P.R. agency to create controversy like embracing Kaballa, crucifying yourself onstage, or telling the President to piss off publicly. These girls are real and their message is deadly serious.
This is a warning. Nazis still exist, they are looking for new blood, and they are looking to start young. Please keep them away from your children.
Friday, August 18. 2006
It is now Friday Aug 18 and it is time to play WTF Friday, the game where you tell us the first 10 songs that come up on your music player when you hit the Random or Shuffle button. At stake is a classic kingsnake.com T-shirt and the chance to win the monthly grand prize, a black 30Gb video iPod. I must admit, this week I am cheating and have posted this ahead of time because by the time you read this I will be in Daytona.
Here is my list...
1. Rush - Overture
2. The Clash - London Calling
3. Arctic Monkeys - When The Sun Goes Down
4. Radiohead - Stupid Car
5. Oasis - Supersonic
6. Miles Davis/John Coltrane - Straight, No Chaser
7. Ultravox - I Want To Be A Machine
8. Soundgarden - Jesus Christ Pose
9. Gerry Mulligan Quartet - Swinghouse
10. The Doors - When the Music is Over
Once again, we give away a kingsnake.com T-shirt to each of our weekly winners and the monthly winner gets a spankin new 30Gb video iPod! For the complete set of rules see http://club.kingsnake.com/index.php?/pages/wtfcontest.html
You MUST post your list TODAY, Friday, for it to qualify for the contest so POST AWAY.
Technorati Tags:
iPod, Contest, Free T-Shirt
Wednesday, August 16. 2006
In a land awash in the post-industrial consumerism of the late 20th century, a land seemingly enchanted with the phrase "He who dies with the most toys wins," it's sometimes hard to remember the other phrase, "You can't take it with you." One thing you will take with you is your memories, and I have spent the last few years trying to gather more of those rather than accumulating bits of crap that have to be sorted, stored, and warehoused. School memories, snake hunting stories, expos or conventions and oh ... the concerts. Thousands of concerts.
Big bands, little bands, high schoolers, retirees, hot jazz, cool funk, or riotous punk. Of all my memories, the concerts always come to the top of my lists. The Ramones, XTC, Genesis, AC/DC, god my list is seemingly endless. My only regret is that except for my brief stint as a high school journalist I failed to document any of them and that saddens me, and is a failing I mean to correct here.
Concerts big and small have different effects and meanings to different people. Lots of times it's just seeing a band, watching them plow repetitively through their catalog, playing along as if on some automated music production line, going through the motions to make sound fill the air until their time is up. Other times concerts take on the aura of a religious experience or a historical event. While I have seen many concerts, for me only a small handful reach that level. I have had near-religious experiences both in the past and recently.
The Ramones were one from my long ago past, Hank III or The Zico Chain are some from my recent history. Some of the bands and concerts have gone on to literally change the world we live in today. I am certainly not the only person who feels this way about concerts, either. I always wanted to do a book, and failing that, I started this website instead.
This week I was buying some technical manuals at a local Barnes & Nobles and I spied something on their "new" table. I usually don't get sucked in by such obvious marketing tactics, but what I found was a book that absolutely blew me away. Called "I Was There: Gigs That Changed the World", this inexpensive softbound book is aimed straight at my soul. As I flipped through its pages and counted off the bands I saw between its covers, I found it hard not to get whisked back to those nights in smoke-filled clubs, or the huge stadiums, or reading about the shows you couldn't possibly attend in the popular music press of the time.
The book is filled with stage and behind the scene photos from the events. The people still seem so incredibly young and I feel so incredibly old. I know that Johnny Rotten grew up to be an adult, but seeing that 25+ year old photo of the Pistols at Randy's Rodeo in San Antonio when he was literally a punk kid and so was I, reading the words again, it all just came flooding back. Seeing the Ramones again as twenty-somethings fresh from the stage. And the shows I didn't go to, but followed in the press or on TV or have heard legendary stories about, they are all there too. James Brown at the Apollo in '62, The Beatles at Shea Stadium in '65, Johnny Cash playing at Folsom Prison in '68 with Merle Haggard in the prison audience, the make or break for Johnny's career, Bowie's last "Spiders" show, Zeppelin's epic 5-night show at Earl's Court in London in '75, Clapton's first comeback show after nearly slipping away to smack, the infamous Ramones show in London in '76, it's all there in black and white and in color. The words, the pictures, the spirit. I got chills down my spine just glancing through it.
It's not just all the good shows either. The dark spirit over Altamont, the show that ended the "free love" of the ,60s, is in there, as is the cloud that hangs over the First Festival of Chilean Song in '69 that helped launch the cultural revolution that put Allende into power in '72, ending in a miltary coup that saw the festival's promotor, musician Victor Jara, his hands mercelessly broken, tortured, executed and buried in a mass grave in the stadium where the festival was held. These are counterbalanced by such stories as George Harrison's epic Concert for Bangla Desh and Bob Geldof's Live Aid.
I couldn't put this book down, even in the car driving home I caught myself sneaking little peaks at the traffic lights. When I got home I read it cover to cover.
Half the price of a concert ticket, this book is a must-have for any live music fan just for the memories it evokes. I know what a LOT of people are going to be getting for Christmas this year.
Monday, August 14. 2006
If you can get there in time, the first club.kingsnake T-shirts to be given out en mass will be this weekend at the National Reptile Breeders Expo in Daytona Beach Florida. We will give out roughly half on Saturday and half on Sunday. Past experience has shown them to be gone after the first hour or so, so plan on getting there early of you want one.We are slated to be in the same spot as last year, in front of the south loading doors
in front of Freedom Breeder, table 541 according to this years program.
Of course if you miss us there you can get one in Anaheim, or Chicago later in the year OR you can even win one free by partcipating in our weekly contests.
Friday, August 11. 2006
Everybody hates Tuesday, not as much as Monday, but still it's a long damn haul to get to the weekend from a bad Tuesday. In hopes of helping get your Tuesday off on the right foot and start that Friday slide early
we have decided to proclaim T-Shirt Tuesday throughout the land and you barely even have to enter.
Every Tuesday we will pick, at random, an individual from our "friends" list on our MySpace page and send them a shirt. That's it, no lists to compile, riddles to solve, or clues to collect.
Check out our MySpace page at http://myspace.com/clubkingsnake
It is now Friday Aug 11 and it is time to play WTF Friday, the game where you tell us the first 10 songs that come up on your music player when you hit the Random or Shuffle button. At stake is a classic kingsnake.com T-shirt and the chance to win the monthly grand prize, a black 30Gb video iPod.
Last weeks winner of the T-Shirt was Michael Peters. Congrats, I hope you play again this week!
Here is my list...
1. Beck - Sexx Laws
2. XTC - Helicopter
3. Flyleaf - I'm So Sick
4. Crossfade - Cold
5. Foo Fighters - DOA
6. Probot - Red War
7. Motorhead - Ace of Spades
8. Rancid - She's Automatic
9. Monaspera - Master pf Poppets
10. Ray Wylie Hubbard - Screw You We're from Texas
Once again, we give away a kingsnake.com T-shirt to each of our weekly winners and the monthly winner gets a spankin new 30Gb video iPod! For the complete set of rules see http://club.kingsnake.com/index.php?/pages/wtfcontest.html
You MUST post your list TODAY, Friday, for it to qualify for the contest so POST AWAY.
Technorati Tags:
iPod, Contest, Free T-Shirt
Tuesday, August 8. 2006
Failing to live up to its press clippings, we have now had a MySpace page for over 72 hours and have yet to have a single teacher email us naughty pictures of themselves. Fortunately we aren't there to meet women, we are there to write about music. For kingsnake.com users unfamiliar with MySpace, it got its start kind of like a kingsnake.com for bands before it turned into the world's biggest dating site for pre-pubescent teens.
Still, even with all the controversy and press that surround the site, music remains at the core of MySpace and it has become a make or break marketing tool for the music industry. At SXSW06 MySpace parked what seemed like dozens of black tour buses stragically around the downtown area and was almost a dark presence looming over the event, like Darth Vader in the Death Star, waiting to suck unsuspecting bands into its gravity.
That said, we too have been captured by its tractor beam and will use our MySpace page to do some things that we can't easily do here, like running song of the week (or even day) picks, and communicating with users on our "friends" list. We are still investigating all the tools, options, and capabilities that MySpace affords, but for now you can view the best photos from our main photo gallery and listen to songs picked by our editors from MySpace's enormous catalog, as well as see how many "friends" we have (or don't have).
This week's song is by Gang of Four and is a 2005 remix of their punk/wave fav "Natural's Not In It" from their groundbreaking 1979 album Entertainment, released on 2005's Return The Gift. Gang of Four played a super secret show at Austin's SXSW in 2006 and to my eternal regret I missed it.
Check it out by going to our MySpace page at http://myspace.com/clubkingsnake
Monday, August 7. 2006
Add this one to the list of research studies that probably goes in the "Duh!" column. According to the Washington Post the infamous think tank The Rand Corp have apparently discovered that teens that listen to popular music are more likely to have sex.
Teenagers who regularly listen to music lyrics with explicit references to casual sex are more likely to initiate sexual intercourse and take part in other sexual activity, compared with those who do not listen to such music.
When asked, the teenagers not listening to popular music and having sex said that they wished they too could have sex, but they were either late for marching band practice or were too busy in the A/V department.
The report went further, reporting the top 3 songs least likely to initiate sex among teens include:
1> Lawrence Welk - Bubbles In The Wine
2> Captain & Tennille - Muskrat Love
3> Anything by Zamfir or Morrisey
Next on the Rand Corps.' list of research studies to be released:
- An indepth review to determine the true lyrics to Louie Louie
- A study to determine if listening to The Ramones does in fact cause mice to explode
Saturday, August 5. 2006
Planning on seeing the Rolling Stones this year? How about Tool, Dave Matthews. or even David Lee Roth? Great, enjoy yourself, just remember when you purchase your tickets you can't email or blog about the show afterward.
I am serious.
No really, I am serious.
You agreed to a contract.
If you look at your ticket you will see that they are all Ticketmaster shows and if you go to Ticketmaster's web site you will see this nifty little clause in their purchase terms contract.
Recording, Transmission and Exhibition
You agree not to record or transmit, or aid in recording or transmitting, any description, account, picture, or reproduction of the event.
So according to the contract you can't transmit any description or account of a Ticketmaster event, you're basically surrendering your right to converse with others about what you saw. Not just photos or audio, words too!
The next line is even more interesting.
You grant permission to utilize your image, likeness, actions and statements in any live or recorded audio, video, or photographic display or other transmission, exhibition, publication or reproduction made of, or at, the event (regardless of whether before, during or after play or performance) in any medium or context without further authorization or compensation.
They, on the other hand, can talk about you, record your image, and display it in anything that they want with nary your say so, no matter how embarrassing or unflattering the portrayal.
So, is Ticketmaster going to come after you if you blog about your Stones concert experience on, say, MySpace? I don't know, but they certainly have set the stage to do so if they want. Certainly if you record the show with your cell phone and post it to YouTube you're probably going to hear from somebody's lawyers, but with the huge number of cell phones that record audio and video, as well as still photos, it is impossible to police everyone.
The music industry already came after the file sharers, are the bloggers next? If you see the Stones this year, great, just don't email me about it. I don't want any part of your illicit description sharing.
To see more of Ticketmaster's policies and terms go to http://www.ticketmaster.com/h/purchase.html
Technorati Tags: Rolling Stones, Blogging. Ticketmaster. MySpace. YouTube
Friday, August 4. 2006
A singer and multi-instrumentalist whose influence upon todays music scene is tremendously unrecognized, Arthur Lee of the band Love has passed away from leukemia.
Formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, Love was one of the first interracial rock bands and frontman Lee often billed himself as the "first black hippie". Lee's music has influenced thousands of musicians over the years, both directly and indirectly. Jim Morrison was said to have considered Love his favorite band and their songs have been covered by everyone from Alice Cooper's "Seven and Seven Is" to the Velvet Undergrounds cover of "She Comes In Colors". For more information on Arthur Lee and the band Love see the web site at http://www.lovewitharthurlee.com/
Technorati Tags: Arthur Lee, Love
Fans of club.kingsnake fav's Slayer can listen to their new album "Christ Illusion" for FREE on MySpace before it releases on Ausust 8th. Go to http://www.myspace.com/slayer to check it out.
Slayer hits the road again in October with a European tour.
Also - Check out club.kingsnakes new page on MySpace at
http://myspace.com/clubkingsnake
Technorati Tags:
Slayer, MySpace
It is now Friday Aug 4 and it is time to play WTF Friday, the game where you tell us the first 10 songs that come up on your music player when you hit the Random or Shuffle button. At stake is a classic kingsnake.com T-shirt and the chance to win the monthly grand prize, a black 30Gb video iPod.
Last months winner of the iPod was EP Forehand and the last 2 T-Shirt winners were KT Jorgensen and Chris Mcara. Congrats, I hope you play again this week!
Here is my list...
1. Blue Oyster Cult - Godzilla
2. Godsmack - Greed
3. The Stranglers- Bring On The Nubiles
4. Pearl Jam - Sonic Reducer
5. Motley Crue - Girls Girls Girls
6. Chemical Brothers - The Sunshine Underground
7. The Clash - Clampdown
8. Cold Play - Don't Panic
9. The Residents - Hitler Was a Vegetarian
10. Exene Cervenka - Here Comes the Crucifiers
Once again, we give away a kingsnake.com T-shirt to each of our weekly winners and the monthly winner gets a spankin new 30Gb video iPod! For the complete set of rules see http://club.kingsnake.com/index.php?/pages/wtfcontest.html
You MUST post your list TODAY, Friday, for it to qualify for the contest so POST AWAY.
Technorati Tags:
iPod, Contest, Free T-Shirt
Thursday, August 3. 2006
Fans of Austin's famous SXSW interactive/film/music festival can now register for 2007's monster event. With attendance claims of over 100,000 attendees for last years festival, SXSW has rapidly(after 21 years?) become Austin's IT event of the year for internet, film, and music professionals and fans alike.
Last years event had surprise artists like the Beastie Boys, Flaming Lips, and Gang of Four popping up unannounced at local clubs, among the thousands of other scheduled bands performing every day and night. Personal highlights for me last year include getting to ask Henry Rollins a question at his interview, having lunch with Owen Wilson (Party Crashers) as well as discovering The Zico Chain (poised to be a major breakout band, their upcoming release produced by Joe Baresi who produced for Tool and Hole) and seeing The Pretenders after so long again.
Attendees that register early get a real break on price and first crack at the available hotels so if you plan on attending now would be the time. Even if you don't register for the festival there are probably just as many non-SXSW bands performing at the same time at non-SXSW venues all over downtown.
2007 promises to be a real zoo. Hope to see you there. And yes. We are planning on handing out FREE club kingsnake T-Shirts on a scale so vast that it frightens our accountants. If you will be attending, reply here and when the time comes we will let you know when and where the shirts will be handed out. If your band is performing at a SXSW event and would like to work with us to increase your audience, contact me directly.
For more information on how YOU can attend SXSW please go to http://www.sxsw.com
Technorati Tags:
SXSW, Austin, Owen Wilson, Henry Rollins, SXSW07, Free T-Shirt
Monday, July 31. 2006
Peaches
Hometown: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
http://www.peachesrocks.com/
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Emo's (Austin, Texas)
Also: Deadboy and the Elephantmen, The Ugly Beats
Peaches Tour Schedule
Peaches Concert Photo Gallery
For someone who has spent an inordinate amount of time of late reviewing testosterone-driven metal shows, the estrogen level at this show was thick and obvious, almost a visible fog settling above the audience as they awaited the arrival of the much buzzworthy artist Peaches to burst forth onstage. It didn't help that the temperatures in the sold out crowd were still in the 100s when she hit the floor a little after 11, nor were the presence of many " bearded ladies" in the audience any boost to the testosterone level. This was most obviously girls night out and I was packin' the wrong equipment. Nothing more frightening (and disorienting) to your average card-carrying hetero male than an audience full of socially (and sexually) empowered women.
Luckily, at least I was packin' the right photographic equipment. I had a new f/1.4 lense I was dying to try out and Emos is a great little venue to dial stuff like that in, though not necessarily during a sold out show like this one. By the time Peaches made it out it had become a fight to maintain any location near the stage, with fans literally crawling on the floor in hopes of "popping up" closer in. Still I was able to remain close enough to the stage for 2 of my 3 photo songs before being forced back by the throngs.
Many fans were surprised to find out that the Peaches show had sold out, unfortunately most of those same surprised fans expected to be able to pick up tickets at the door. They were of course disappointed, but have only themselves to blame as no one could expect to get in show night at a small club with an artist who has this much "buzz."
Boy, did they miss out too. Peaches put on a 90 minute set that just blazed and those who made it in just ate up the experience. Peaches' music has been described as "Electroclash" which wikipedia defines as "a style of fashion, music, and attitude that fuses new wave, punk, and electronic dance music with somewhat campy and absurdist post-industrial detachment in addition to vampy and/or camp sexuality." That description is spot-on from what I experienced. Peaches blends dance, hip/hop, and punk with a purposely shocking amount of sexual content (to the un-initiated) and a smattering of politics (her latest disc is titled "Impeach My Bush") guaranteed to turn conservative moral majority members a whiter shade of pale.
Me, I'm a bit tougher to shock. I mean saying the word "fuck" onstage hasn't caused outrage in this town since Phil Tolstead of The Huns got arrested onstage at Rauls in 1978 for supposedly uttering it, earning Austin its first chops as being the Texas punk mecca. In fact the truth is much better than the legend and could itself be a Peaches story, and my god it's 2006 and even Willy is singing about gay cowboys. It's just tough to be truly shocking anymore.
Peaches stripping out of the gold lame down to a bikini with the assistance of a roadie or two during "Two Guys (For Every Girl)" was an interesting touch but I wouldn't want to crowd surf that way. This was a fun show that crossed many genres and genders and anyone who can handle the overt and graphic sexuality of the music and the musician will enjoy themselves.
Stepping up to second bill and filling the shoes of the missing in action openers, the Eagles of Death Metal, Deadboy and the Elephantmen from Houma, Louisiana filled in well. After appearing at SXSW and being the first music act on Henry Rollins IFC show that has now featured such artists as Slayer, The New York Dolls and Thom Yorke of Radiohead, they are poised to be something big. A good portion of the crowd had come just for them and they have a substantial street buzz of their own.
I got a chance to chat with Dax Riggs between sets and he said he really enjoyed doing Henry's show and appreciated his support, and that they really liked doing shows in Austin. Based in Louisiana, Dax formed Deadboy after his metal band Acid Bath split up in 1997. His music with Deadboy is best described as kind of a southern flavored White Stripes with a spicy cajun edge. He has an original sound that is stripped lean raw and expressive. I look forward to reviewing his disc and will definitely put them on my list for the next tour.
Rounding out the nite were show openers The Ugly Beats, a local Austin band. Go-go boots, tambourines. They had a poppy, punky 60s feel and were well suited to the other acts musically, complementing their sounds, rather than clashing.
Once again thanks go out to the Emo's crew and to Peaches and her tour manager for hooking me up with a photo pass.
I will try to catch one more show before I head out to the National Reptile Breeders Expo in August to hand out club kingsnake T-Shirts, if not my next review will probably be the "As the World Burns" tour featuring X and The Rollins Band at Stubbs on August 30. I am still trying to get a photo pass for that show, so cross your fingers.
Technorati Tags:
Peaches, Austin, Deadboy and the Elephantmen, Emo's
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