Friday, May 19. 2006
Uber techno-rave musician Moby has thrown his hat into the ring regarding the issue of Net Neutrality by showing up on Capitol Hill to appear with Massachusetts Democrat Edward Markey to speak out on the issue. "Why do we want to change anything?" said Moby. Then, his bloodstream engorged with adrenaline, Moby grew to 500 feet tall, and proceded to ravage the downtown D.C. area until subdued by agents of the Homeland Security Department.
Details here.
Wednesday, May 17. 2006
Get ready to bring your tanning butter and bottled water with you to Austin this year because regardless if the weather is hot or not the stages at Zilker park will be steamin.
The full ACL Fest lineup has been announced and this years list is certainly another example of Austin's eclectic music tastes.
2006 ACL Fest Lineup As Announced Today:
Certainly one should expect a number of celebrity guest appearances as in years past and a few bands will probably drop or be added as we get closer to the festival date. For more information on tickets dates and accommodations see the ACL Fest web site at http://www.aclfest.com
Some new stuff out streaming.
The Pet Shop Boys new album Fundamental has no US release scheduled but is out in the UK on the 23rd. It's streaming here. I listened. I loved it and I'm going to plunk down the twenty-six bucks for the import. And I resented the eleven dollars I spent on Stadium Arcadium, which just tells you so much about me.
Depeche Mode has made their live shows available for digital download here - including their Coachella performance.
The April 19th London Erasure acoustic show can be sampled and downloaded here. In fact, there's a lot of interesting stuff to download on that site, including the 2004 reunion of Throbbing Gristle (by which I'm SO dating myself, but I can't help it).
Thursday, May 11. 2006
Neilsen SoundScan is reporting that Tool's first release in 4 years debuted at number 1 on the album charts this week, soundly beating out (by double) Pearl Jam's latest release, which debuted at number 2. Godsmack IV dropped to number 7.
Tool's spot at the top will be brief as next week the Red Hot Chili Peppers will release a double-disk produced by Rick Rubin, Stadium Arcadium, which has already leaked onto the net.
Heaven help me. I would actually buy this CD, really I would. I have no clue why other than to keep the collection complete. It may be my OCD kicking in but I would buy it. That is IF it exists.
What CD you may ask? Well the new Guns N Roses Cd. The one that supposedly has been ready for oh maybe 20 years? Ok I'm exagerating. Only 10.
According to Axl Rose on the Eddie Truck show, when asked about it, stated "Sometime this fall or late fall." His band could be heard rehearsing in the background. "It will be out this year."
I coulda swore I heard that old song and dance before.
Apparently GNR now has Dizzy Reed from phase two of GNR, former Nine Inch Nails guitarist Robin Finck, bassist Tommy Stinson from the Replacements, guitarist Richard Fortus from the former Psychedelic Furs and Love Spit Love, and keyboard player Chris Pittman. It is also rumored that Izzy Stradlin from GNR phase one is back. Buckethead left the band in 2004.
GNR has four shows at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom, then off to Europe to play several music festivals.
Let's just say "IF" Chinese Democracy ever does come out, you will see it reviewed here. Until then, we can all wonder if it even exists.
Wednesday, May 10. 2006
John Cook in Slate on Sasha Frere-Jones' weird campaign to dub The Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merrit a racist for not liking hip-hop music:
It would be one thing if Frere-Jones were just some disgruntled OutKast fan with a MySpace page. But he is in fact a disgruntled OutKast fan with access to The New Yorker's pages and all the credibility and authority that go along with that. He ought to take the things he writes on his blog seriously.
I confess The Magnetic Fields' "I Need a New Heart" is playing as I type these words, so maybe mine is not the most objective opinion you could get on this issue, but it's a great article, go read.
Tuesday, May 2. 2006
I was anxiously awaiting midnight May 1 when Rebel Meets Rebel came out. Probably the coolest ever "Country" singer teams up with the Abbott boys and Rex Brown. Two years after we lost Dimebag in a horrible fashion, a new album is released.
It's a great album. Good summertime, backyard drinking music. And of course nothing goes better with a good beer than a David Allen Coe CD.
Country Pantera? Sound Odd? Not to me. The southern boys of metal never made a secret of their roots. Dime and Vinnie's dad was country songwriter Jerry Abbott who owned Pantego Studios in Pantego, Texas. Folks who have heard Pantera warm up have heard the Classic David Allen Coe song Jack Daniels If You Please. And honestly, the man wrote the song My Long Hair Just Can't Cover Up My Redneck.
To hear a clip of Rebel Meets Rebel visit the website.
More Dime News
Dime Vision is being released as well May 2. It is a DVD of Dimebag's life put out by his Brother Vinnie Paul. Dime was one of the greatest heavy metal guitarists, and from spending a bit of time with the CFHs back in the day, a helluva nice guy.
I really would have liked to go to the Coachella music festival down in Indio last weekend, but it was going to be like forty million degrees in the shade and I just can't do that; we have thin blood up here in Northern California. So because I simply don't spend enough time on the computer already, they put the freaking thing online for me to watch. I wasn't sure whether to thank them or curse them.
I picked up the stream with Depeche Mode doing "Enjoy the Silence." I love Depeche Mode, I love that song. But I could so have lived without the sight of David Gahan's pasty body. I understand it's hot there and he had to take off his shirt but this wasn't right.
Fortunately, he left the stage after that, presumably to drink the blood of a virgin so as to have the strength to go on with the set. A fully-clothed Martin Gore sang "Shake the Disease" - a less prettied-up version than the album cut. A song called "Shake the Disease" should never be prettied up. As a closer, a semi-clad Gahan did "Never Let Me Down Again," which is such a drug song, isn't it? It sounded desperate. I'm not saying that in a bad way. But I do think Gahan needs to stop doing drugs and get a tan.
She Wants Revenge came on next, all wearing not just shirts but jackets, so I'm now thinking Gahan was just being an exhibitionist and not suffering from the heat. (Or was he showing off his tattoos? I wish I could get the image out of my head.) Everything they sang was extremely depressing, very very very dark and delivered in a despairing monotone. I seriously think this guy should have been prevented from listening to Joy Division during his formative years. I couldn't stick with it. I like dance music that makes me happy.
Sunday was Madonna and her amazing muscled arms, the perfect antidote to David Gahan. And something like forty million other bands. (Forty million is my number of the day.) Tool were said to have brought the house, er, tent, down, and Sigur Ros, the world's most famous Icelandic band (they sing in a made up language, because they decided Icelandic was insufficiently obscure) got rave reviews too from a friend who was there.
Although the weather stopped me, many braver souls than I did make the journey and they want to tell you all about it and even show you videos. And AT&T keeps promising to make the live stream available on its Blue Room site, I'll update when I get news.
Friday, April 28. 2006
The Beck show announced for June 19 at Austin's Backyard has been pushed back a day and will now happen on June 20. The show is officially SOLD OUT, so if you were waiting to get tickets, you're too late.
Hank III (Hank Williams Jr, Jr?) will be bringing his hellbilly mash-up of country western speed metal to La Zona Rosa on May 23, and Echo and the Bunnymen will be there on June 17.
In other Austin music news, Tom Petty has been announced as this year's headliner at ACL fest. The official, complete, lineup will be announced on May 11. Also appearing this year: Ben Harper, Thievery Corporation, Son Volt, The Flaming Lips, Los Lonely Boys, Iron and Wine, Asleep at the Wheel, Massive Attack, KT Tunstall, New Pornographers, the Shins, Matisyahu, Kasey Chambers, John Mayer, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Subdudes, Buckwheat Zydeco and the Greencards. More to follow...
Tuesday, April 25. 2006
Via WiredBlog from News.com:
For the last few years, a coalition of technology companies, academics and computer programmers has been trying to persuade Congress to scale back the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Now Congress is preparing to do precisely the opposite. A proposed copyright law seen by CNET News.com would expand the DMCA's restrictions on software that can bypass copy protections and grant federal police more wiretapping and enforcement powers.
What does this have to do with music?
From WiredBlog:
If you're feeling guilty about all the music you're downloading without paying for it, perhaps reading about new attempts to double down on the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) will help assuage that guilt. The "Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2006" includes some frightening expansions of current anti-piracy efforts, making it illegal to "make, import, export, obtain control of, or possess" anything that can be used to circumvent copyright protection. It also allows authorities to use wiretaps whenever copyright infringement is suspected (as opposed to in general, without permission?), doubles copyright-related prison terms, allows for the seizure and destruction of anything used for copyright infringement, and more.
From BoingBoing:
The new law would send you to prison for attempting to infringe copyright. It would make it even more illegal to own tools that could be used to remove copy-restrictions, like DVD-ripping software -- it could even bust Symantec for making software that removed the Sony rootkit malicious software that the company distributed with its CDs last year.
And why are they doing this? Back to WiredBlog:
According to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the problem is that the money made by infringing businesses is being used "quite frankly, to fund terrorism activities." Sure, buddy.
I'm trying to comprehend where the money comes in with peer to peer sharing .... but OK. Go delete Limewire from your computer right now or the terrorists win.
Sunday, April 23. 2006
From The Stranger:
Blame Thomas Dolby if cell-phone ringtones piss you off. Nah, he didn't write that egregious "Crazy Frog" tune. But the '80s synthpop legend best known for the international hit "She Blinded Me with Science" is responsible for the polyphonic squawking of mobile devices worldwide, thanks to audio software developed by his company Beatnik.
More here.
Friday, April 21. 2006
Former Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth is now a former radio talk show host.
It was announced today that his new talk show, one of the replacements for Howard Stern, has been canceled after failing to establish a beachead on the airwaves. Performance was so dismal that it was pulled before the announcement of the latest Arbitron ratings.
Apparently there is no truth to the rumor that Sammy Hagar, also former Van Halen frontman, will be replacing Roth, nor will Gary Cherone, another former frontman for Van Halen.
It is also unknown whether Roth will collect on his $4 million salary, or will have to return to being a NYC paramedic to pay the bills.
Thursday, April 20. 2006
Adult Swim is about to get grind.
Debuting this August on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim is a new cartoon that will get all of our hard core panties in a bunch, "Death Clock Metalocalypse," about a Norwegian Black Metal band call Deathklok. Adult Swim was already pretty damn cool, but now they are just getting hard core cool. From the trailer, it looks a bit Airheads or Spinal Tap with a touch of the blackness.
Right now there are 20 episodes on the schedule. Michael Amott of Arch Enemy is lending his talents and his voice. It is always hard to tell if something is going to be good from the previews, but one thing I can tell: the music is going to rock.
Death Clock Metalocalypse
Who would you put in a supergroup of metal folk? I'm not sure, and honestly, the last place I would expect to get music news is my husband's Maxim magazine, but hey, we take it where we get it.
VH-1 pulled together five musicians, in hopes probably that they would kill each other and maybe get a good show. However, according to the article in Maxim , everyone got along.
So who who should go in a metal supergroup? You would need a legend, a legacy, a hair band member, a hardcore member, and a thrash member. VH-1 hit up their group of regulars:
The Legend - Ted Nugent
The Legacy - Jason Bonham
The Hair Band - Sebastian Bach
The Hard Core - Evan Seinfeld
The Thrash - Scott Ian
Would have been fun to toss in Glenn Benton, Chris Barnes or King Diamond, but hey - still a pretty diverse group of fellas.
The mission - To record and preform in front of an audience after living with each other for two weeks. Honestly, with some of the egos present here, I personally am amazed they lived, but I will be tuning in.
Friday, April 14. 2006
From the strange but true files, it seems two miniaturized KISS tribute bands are going head to head over who had the idea to start a tribute band populated by little people. The mini-match culminated in at least one tiny bandmember being tossed from the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. No further news is available at this time and so far no comment from the full sized KISS camp either. I am hoping to see this ironed out in the wrestling ring rather than the courtroom. Perhaps we can convince the Hells Belles, the all-female AC/DC tribute band, to officiate the match. Only in Vegas...
More here.
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