Extreme metal is full of interesting characters. You'd have to put Brutal Truth drummer Rich Hoak near the top of the list. He's a walking set of contradictions: a yoga practitioner with little use for an ascetic lifestyle; a pessimist who talks about the slow motion apocalypse, yet is quick with a laugh or joke; a man excelling at a musical form invented and usually played by people half his age. Behind his stripped-down drum kit, Hoak looks like Lon Chaney reincarnated, a man of 1,000 faces. There's the snarled lip, the open mouth, the clenched [...]
I have a soft spot for that ramshackle guitar pop that festered on the Eastern Seaboard in the late 70s; bands like Richard Hell and The Voidoids, Johnny Thunder and the Heartbreakers and Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers. These acts, as well as individual purveyors like the prodigious Robert Quine, not only operated chronologically between Television and Sonic Youth, but stylistically as well, combining angular guitar riffs with punk energy, all on a ditch digger's budget. I love that music. And now, I think I might love TV Buddhas . The trio [...]
Recently, I spoke with Rob MacArthur , who describes himself as a music fanatic and entrepreneur; he is currently overseeing operations at the online crowd-funding site IOU Music and Rock Garden Jam Spaces . In this interview, Rob talks about the willingness of the record indusry to emabrace new technology and chaos in general and the disruptive nature of these times. Kyle Bylin :"When a new technology arrives, it has to get integrated into society somehow," Clay Shirky writes in Cognitive Surplus . Between the traditional [...]
Jay Adams EZ Ryder Originalz ( http://ezroriginalz.com/ ) Every once in a while you get to meet a celebrity, and even less frequently you get to meet one of your idols, and even less frequently than that you get to have a lengthy conversation with a childhood idol. Over the course of two months, I got to rap with Jay Adams. Jay Adams, and the rest of the Dogtown crew changed my life. Somewhere around 1977, or 1978, I picked up my first issue of Skateboarder magazine, and saw the lifestyle [...]
sorry this took so long... it's wordy, prepare yourselves So remember when i was really excited to go do my first big girl interview with The Pack? Well I got to meet with Young L, but unfortunately the others were unable to attend... Here's roughly how the interview went down: I found L wandering through the lobby of the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in [...]
If the prospect of an indie-rock opera doesn't immediately grab you, consider that Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), Greg Brown, Ben Knox Miller (The Low Anthem), Ani DiFranco, and Petra, Rachel, and Tanya Haden have all joined to create the new record by Anais Mitchell, Hadestown. Mixing elements of country gospel, ragtime, blues and early jazz, to approximations of rock, swing, and avant-garde all crafted into an incredible story, this is truly the Dark Side of the Moon for our generation. One of the things we enjoy about our site, is that we are under constrictions. If a [...]
I don't know about you, but I'm psyched about today's post. Rock God Robert Plant was born on August 20, 1948. Today is his 62nd birthday. Isaac Hayes was also born today, but he'll have to wait until next year for his post. But I'm talkin' 'bout Shaft! Too bad. Robert Plant is one of my all time favorite Rock & Roll personalities. Yeah Zeppelin is wedged into my front four (Beatles, Stones, Who, Zeppelin) somewhere, but it's more than that. I've seen Robert Plant perform both solo, with Jimmy Page and with Alison Krauss. I loved them all to death. [...]
Frank Yang I don't really maintain any sort of live music "bucket list" - I find the very notion a bit creepy - but there are bands whom I've long wanted to see but never gotten the opportunity for whatever reason. Near the top of the list are New York's Versus , whom I discovered just after they finished promoting their last record Hurrah , back in 2000. Of course, at the time I didn't know that they'd basically be going on a decade-long hiatus after frontman Richard Baluyut moved [...]
Stone Temple Pilots , one of the few early '90s alt-rock bands that has managed to last (okay, we're using a broad definition of "last") through the early '10s with a complete lineup, is also one of an even smaller group to reunite and do more than just tour. While STP is doing plenty of that - back on the road until October - the band also released its eponymous sixth album this past May, which peaked at #2 on the Billboard 200. It's also a band trying to find its place amongst the [...]
. . . When I was a kid, Australia scared the hell out of me. The cliché-riddled pictures painted by movies and television depicted it as an island where Mother Nature had gone batshit crazy and was out for blood. Populated by crocodiles, poisonous snakes, and spiders, surrounded by an ocean teeming with man-eating sharks - this wasn't a country, it was a fucking death trap. The Land Down Under was about as frightening and alien a place as could be to a boy growing up in Central Iowa. In the early '00s, I started digging [...]
. . . When I was a kid, Australia scared the hell out of me. The cliché-riddled pictures painted by movies and television depicted it as an island where Mother Nature had gone batshit crazy and was out for blood. Populated by crocodiles, poisonous snakes, and spiders, surrounded by an ocean teeming with man-eating sharks - this wasn't a country, it was a fucking death trap. The Land Down Under was about as frightening and alien a place as could be to a boy growing up in Central Iowa. In the early '00s, I started digging [...]
![[Interview] The Big Giant Dog of Dubstep: Rusko](http://cache.elbo.ws/posts/2743214_lg.jpg)
As dubstep expands and spread throughout the world like an unstoppable virus wobbling through the airwaves (with symptoms like having a severe urge to party), certain leaders of the genre have emerge to not into popularize it but transform it into an evolving beast of bass distortion. And this is where Rusko comes in. As Taylor from themixster.com writes "Since becoming a member of the elite mad scientists of sound that make up the Mad Decent cult, Rusko has been tweaking and adding a dancey lightheartedness to the wobbly genre; essentially inventing his own dubstep formula, [...]
Let's play a little game of visualization, shall we? I want you to close your eyes and imagine the most culturally vibrant city in the world, where everywhere you turn there's either a bar or nightclub, and no one seems to ever sleep as the party lasts all day, every day! Did I happen to mention that it's on an island, almost separated from reality? Now I want you to picture a little slice of heaven amidst all this hedonism, a grassy, artificially-created sanctuary where residents can go to seek even more pleasure, often in the form of music. [...]
When Tender Trap first entered our eardrums, we were charmed by its indie-pop prowess. Great songwriting, wonderful guitar lines and delicious vocals made us anxious to learn more about the band. You can imagine the sense of charm we felt when we discovered that the band was fronted by the great Amelia Fletcher. Having previously played in Talulah Gosh, Heavenly, and Marine Research, she has already contributed to the soundtrack of our lives. Joined by Heavenly and Marine Research alum Rob Pursey, John Stanley (Marine Research), Katrina Dixon and Elizabeth Darling, they have continued to make [...]
Legacy Recordings proudly announces the release of Red Velvet Car , the first new studio album in six years from the groundbreaking Seattle-based band Heart , available everywhere on Tuesday, August 31, 2010. Buy CDs, MP3s, more: Heart on Amazon.com Heart on Amazon.co.uk The release of Red Velvet Car heralds Legacy's forthcoming reissues of the [...]
MUSIC NEWS - RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE lead singer Zack de la Rocha is heading up a boycott against the state of Arizona called The Sound Strike. "We have to intervene in order to do whatever we possibly can to limit that state's ability to function and implement the law," Mr de la Rocha says in a Web video he's produced (see recent press conference below). So far, he's recruited artists ranging from Kanye West and Nine Inch Nails to Latino bands such as Los Tigres del Norte. See [...]
Amanda Palmer Radiohead Covers Ukulele EP Released July 20th Digital via Bandcamp & 1000 Limited-Edition Vinyl Bundles Which Include Palmer-Painted Radiohead-Inspired Ukuleles Don't Miss The Special "Record-Release Webcast Luau Party" Tuesday July 20 @ 6pmEST! "… (Idioteque is) foreboding even when played on an instrument favored by generations of Hawaiian Airport greeters." – The Tripwire Amanda "Fucking" Palmer, the un-pin-downable front-woman of The Dresden Dolls, gleefully celebrates her musical independence with the release of a Radiohead ukulele covers EP including the tracks "Creep", "Idioteque", "FakePlasticTrees", "No Surprises", "High and Dry" and [...]
THIRTY SECONDS TO MARS ADD NEW DATES TO THE U.S. RETURN OF THEIR "INTO THE WILD" WORLD TOUR Tour Kicks Off August 30th In Syracuse, NY Through Oct. 16th In Pensacola, FL Neon Trees, Violent Soho And New Politics Will Open On Select Dates Thirty Seconds To Mars Leads 2010 Kerrang Award Nominations – Fans Have Until Wednesday, July 21st To Vote For The Winners Multi-platinum rock band Thirty Seconds To Mars have added new dates to the U.S. return of their massively successful "Into The Wild" world tour. The [...]
Over the past four summers, New Yorkers have flocked to Brooklyn for some pretty stellar Sunday Pool Parties . And even though organizers JELLYNYC were forced to relocate the summer concert series from McCarren Park Pool - aka a real pool - to its current home at Brooklyn's East River State Park, thanks to acts like Grizzly Bear, Dan Deacon, Beach House, Girl Talk, and Grupo Fantasma, the Pool Parties continue to remain one of the borough's more popular summer attractions. (For context, attendance has grown from 6,000 per day at the McCarren Pool to more than 10,000 after [...]
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