Blog: Atomic Ned

I'm late to the Cloud Nothings bandwagon though I probably should have jumped aboard when I learned that Dylan Baldi grew up in the same Cleveland suburb that I did. I bet Dylan and I had some of the same high school teachers though I graduated, I'm guessing, at least 15 years before he did. This video doesn't do a whole lot for me but it got over 11,000 views the day it was posted on Vimeo. And while the video is worth maybe a watch or two, the song is pretty [...]

Snow Patrol's latest, Fallen Empires , is released in the U.S. tomorrow. With the release comes a U.S. tour slated to kick off at the end of March. Tickets go on sale for many of these dates starting 1/13. March 29 | Orlando, FL | Hard Rock Live | On sale 1/13 March 30 | Miami Beach, FL | Fillmore Miami Beach | On sale 1/13 March 31 | St. Petersburg, FL | Jannus Live | On sale 1/14 April 2 | Atlanta, GA | The Tabernacle | On sale [...]

There will be dozens more to follow, I have little doubt, but here's the first video to show up on YouTube from Van Halen's intimate club show at NYC's Cafe Wha? The song is an older one called "She's The Woman" that was among the demos VH recorded with Gene Simmons before they had a record deal. And here are the tour dates that hit the web tonight: Thu 01/05/12 New York, NY Cafe Wha? Sat 02/18/12 Louisville, KY KFC Yum! Center Mon 02/20/12 Auburn Hills, MI The Palace Of [...]

I've been on the fence about the Foo Fighters for years. I think I started losing interest in them when my old boss started asking to borrow my CDs because she kept hearing them on the local alt-rock radio station. Clearly I was no longer in the Foos target audience. The Foo Fighters played the final slot on the last night of Lollapalooza this year and - truthfully - going into it I was thinking, "This might be a chance to duck out early and, if I'm feeling really ambitious, maybe I can even start my [...]

(Originally posted on Donewaiting.com ) The biggest struggle when putting together this list is how to rank the albums. What exactly is the difference between a #1 and a #2 album? Without doubt, Viva Brother's "Darling Buds of May" was the song I listened to the most in 2011 and the album it comes from is pretty damn good. But is it my favorite album as a whole? The Damnwells have consistently put out great material and I'm sure I listened to No One Listens to the Band Anymore more, front [...]

In my review of All the Saint's 2008 release, Fire on Corridor X , I said, "All the Saints play this trippy, drug-induced music that reminds me of those movies that seemed particularly eerie on overcast, grey Sunday afternoons. If these guys made a video that showed nothing but crows flying to and from an old, abandoned house with the windows boarded up, it would be PERFECT." All the Saints is just a month away from releasing Intro to Fractions and they've released a video for "Half Red, Half [...]

One of the most influential post-shoegaze UK bands, Swervedriver , are setting course for a return to the U.S. The band officially reunited (at least for touring purposes ... still holding out hope for a new CD) in 2008 and have been doing selective touring in the U.S. for the past few years. I'm very excited about the Cleveland date (even though it's on a Monday) as the one chance I got to see the band was a huge failure on my part (let's just say it involved [...]

New discovery, for me anyway, is Electric Flower , a trippy, sun-drenched psychedelic duo comprised of solo artist (and sometime Yeah Yeah Yeahs member) Imaad Wasif and drummer Josh Garza who YOU might recognize from The Secret Machines but who I'LL always refer to as "the drummer from the best Texas Brit-rock/shoegaze-inspired band you've never heard of, Comet ". The duo's self-titled EP, which you can listen to below, is available on iTunes and on Amazon (and probably a bunch of [...]

A month or so ago, Danger Van Gorder (singer/guitarist) of southern California band Countless Thousands hit me up with a flattering email, telling me how much he enjoyed the content he read on Atomic Ned and how he thought that I might like his band. He was wondering if I might give We're Just Really Excited to Be Here a listen and, if I liked it, maybe write a few words about it. While listening to the - I hate to call it "pop-punk" because that conjures up [...]

Two Blind Melon -related posts in a row. Here's the brand new video from AWOLNATION (featuring Blind Melon's Christopher Thorn on guitar).

Blind Melon bassist Brad Smith will release his second album, Death & Joy , under the name Abandon Jalopy in February. The sophomore release comes more than 10 years after Smith released Mercy and it features guest appearances by fellow Melon members Rogers Stevens and Christopher Thorn as well as Chris Shinn , who sang in Unified Theory , a band featuring Smith and Thorn. Shannon Hoon's daughter, Nico , also makes an appearance on the forthcoming [...]

Gotta admit that the debut solo album by ex- Oasis singer Noel Gallagher is one of my favorite releases of 2012. It completely caught me off guard, mainly because I wrote off Oasis years ago due to overplay on radio. Liam's Beady Eye was pretty good but it didn't grab me the way I was hoping it would so I kind of figured Noel's stuff would go in one ear and out the other. I'm an Ohio guy who complains that tours tend to skip the Buckeye state (whenever this happens, I say that artists [...]

Out of sight, out of mind; tends to happen these days as bands come and go at an alarming rate. Not sure why, but I kind of thought Imperial Teen was no longer together - in my defense, they haven't released anything since 20072s The Hair The TV The Baby and The Band . But not only is Imperial Teen still together, they are releasing their fifth album, Feel the Sound , on January 31, 2012. Though we're still a good two-and-a-half months away from the release date, [...]

• Imperial Teen - Runaway

It's 2011, right? Almost 2012. Perhaps it has to do with marketing plans - hard to promote an album on both sides of the ocean when there is only one band that can tour. And if plans for a tour on the other side of the world aren't on the books for another 4 months, you don't want to lose momentum by releasing an album too early. Snow Patrol's sixth full length, Fallen Empires , will be released in the UK on November 14. For some reason, it's not going [...]

Life imitating art? Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova starred in the movie Once and while that was a fictitious tale of an older street busker and a younger musician, it was an intimate look into a real life love affair. Hansard and Irglova were then thrust into the public spotlight - maybe not as much as Hollywood couples - but even my mom knew who the couple was and followed their fairytale story. Apparently a documentary was filmed as the two - calling themselves [...]

Following up the last post about Cardinal, Kevin Tihista's definitely an artist in the same genre - orchestral pop music that music geeks freak out over. Tihista got his start as the bass player in Capitol Records band Triple Fast Action . After that band broke up, Tihista lent his talents to Veruca Salt (post-Nina Gordon) though he didn't last long before embarking (much to my surprise ... didn't know he had it in him) on a solo career that spawned 5 full length recordings between 2001 and 2005. For somebody so [...]

How did we get by before the internet? Cardinal's always been one of those mythical bands to me - I've read about them, heard bands influenced by them, but I can't recall ever seeing one of their CDs in a record store. It wasn't until Spotify emerged that I finally got to check out this duo (look up Cardinal's re-issued 1994 self-titled debut with eleven bonus tracks!) and hear their sweet pop songs. Richard Davies and Eric Matthews [...]

• Cardinal - Love Like Rain

Luna may have broken up in 2005 but their last three releases (20022s Romantica , 20022s Close Cover Before Striking (EP), 20052s Rendezvou s) have just been issued digitally on iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, Rhapsody and Bandcamp and all come with bonus tracks. Here's the previously unreleased (I think) cover of Led Zeppelin's "Dancing Days" which can be found on Close Cover Before Striking . Dancing Days (bonus track) by Luna

If any of you followed me over to Atomic Ned from my old site, Swizzle-Stick , you'll know that I was a big fan of both the Ultimate Fakebook and The Sheila Divine and, in fact, interviewed both bands numerous times. So how cool is this? The Ultimate Fakebook played a rare reunion show for Halloween and belted out a cover of The Sheila Divine's monster hit (to me anyway), "Hum". Enjoy!

Here's hoping your trick-or-treat night doesn't get rained out.