Henry Rollins named them as one of his favorite new artists. They churn many musical influences into their own molotov cocktail of exploding sound. Punk, rock, hardcore, funk, dance, alternative, metal, industrial, hardcore… you name it. It’s all here, mixed into a wonderful outcome known as Fake Sark — Real Zombie. The band likes to call it Happy Hardcore. The name, taken from the movie Zombi 2, where a shark fights a zombie, also fits this attitude well.
Their second album, Meeting People is Terrible, has a title The Smiths would love. And a lyrical wit is part of this eclectic mix as well. Below is the newly released video of the song “Angel Lust.”
Radiohead (or Vocalist Thom Yorke) declined to meet Miley at the Grammy Awards because they were preparing for a performance. Not sure how Radiohead prepares for a rock performance in their dressing room — pretty Diva-like — but, okay, fair enough. However, Miley was insulted — counter-Diva move — and claimed she was going to use her clout to ruin the band, expose them as, sniff, mean people (extremely Diva-like).
Then Yorke, hit the pres and told Miley to “Grow up.”
The whole thing’s ridiculous, so ridiculous that I’m wondering how Miley is doing on her campaign so far. Has Radiohead’s popularity gone down a notch? Are Miley fans burning Radiohead albums in their backyards and/or deleting their mp3s from their hard drives? Will people decide to pay less when Radiohead’s next Pay-What-You-Want album comes out? Will we be saying “Radiohead Who?” in five years time?
I saw the New York City punk band The Choke (pictured above in a Danielle Ezzo photo) play on the same bill with The Buzzcocks at Irving Plaza in NYC in June 2006, and was just blown away by them. They are a tight and quite powerful quartet. And their singer, Cameron Eve, is quite a dynamic frontwoman. She’s very attractive and has absolutely incredible stage presence.
The Choke recently made videos for two of their tracks–”Picture” and “Face For The Radio.” Both songs are short and sharp, and they smack you upside the eardrums like a sonic punch. Both videos were directed by Tony Barber, the bassist of The Buzzcocks.
To watch the video for “Picture” by The Choke, click below:
To watch the video for “Face For The Radio” by The Choke, click below:
Manchester, England’s The Tides (pictured above) have just released the video for their great new single, “11:34.” The single will be released on April 6th in the UK.
The Tides sound like a cross between Joy Division and The Cure. Good stuff!
To watch the video for “11:34″ by The Tides, click below:
Yesterday’s (Sunday, March 22nd) edition of The Sunday Times of London published a fascinating article about Pink Floyd. Written by Robert Sandall, the article covers a lot of ground, including the relationship of the members of the band with its original leader, Syd Barrett, the death from cancer last year of keyboardist Rick Wright, and the long power struggle for control of the band that was waged by David Gilmour and Roger Waters. The article is a great piece of music journalism and is definitely a must-read for any Pink Floyd fan.
Pink Floyd last performed at the Live 8 concert in London’s Hyde Park in July 2005. Pictured above at that show are (left to right) David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Nick Mason, and Rick Wright. The following year, Gilmour toured with Wright as a member of his band and Nick Mason appeared at some of Roger Waters’ solo concerts. But the rumored reunion tour of Pink Floyd will likely never happen now that Wright has passed away.
PJ Harvey and John Parish will be appearing tomorrow night, Tuesday, March 24th, on NBC-TV’s The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Harvey and Parish will be performing “Black Hearted Love,” the lead single from their new collaborative album, A Woman A Man Walked By. The program airs at 11:35 p.m. Eastern/10:35 p.m. Central. If you do want to see the performance by Harvey and Parish on the show without watching the rest of Leno’s nonsense, keep in mind that the musical guests usually perform at the end of the show. The performance by Harvey and Parish will very likely be shown sometime after 12:20 a.m. Eastern/11:20 p.m. Central.
Following their performances at SXSW in Austin, Harvey and Parish only have two dates scheduled in the United States. They will be playing the El Rey in Los Angeles tonight and The Fillmore at Irving Plaza in New York City on Thursday night, March 26th. Both shows are sold out.
The ultimate 90s heavy alternative rock music tour is about to go underway: Nine Inch Nails and Jane’s Addiction.
And Trent Reznor always has a way of keeping media interactive and accessible. The NIN/JA 2009 tour site is now live at ninja2009.com and features a FREE download with exclusive, previously-unreleased music from Nine Inch Nails, Jane’s Addiction, and Street Sweeper (Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine) . You can also browse tour dates, photos, videos, and listen to streaming music at www.ninja2009.com
And, if you want, you can remix two Jane’s Addiction tracks and one Street Sweeper track on remix.nin.com
Why you would want to do this, God only knows. But people waste time with weirder things on Facebook, so… go at it.
The NIN/JA 2009 tour with Nine Inch Nails, Jane’s Addiction, and Street Sweeper begins May 8th in West Palm Beach, FL, and continues through North America this summer. NIN will then continue on with a series of dates across Europe and Asia during July and August. Watch the NIN tour page for updated on-sale information: tour.nin.com
Since this past Tuesday was St. Patrick’s Day, I’ve been listening to a good bit of Irish music this week–U2, The Chieftans, The Corrs, and Thin Lizzy mostly. As luck would have it, VH1 Classic aired a Thin Lizzy concert from the 1970s yesterday. I always thought they were a great band (I love their Live and Dangerous live album), and watching that concert just put an exclamation point on that.
Looking through You Tube for some Thin Lizzy clips, I came upon the gem below. It is not a Thin Lizzy clip per se, but it is a Thin Lizzy song and does include some members of the band. The clip is “Don’t Believe A Word,” and it was aired on BBC-TV’s music program The Old Grey Whistle Test on January 9, 1976. Sharing lead vocals on the song are guitarist Gary Moore (pictured above, left), who was a member of Thin Lizzy in 1973-74, and bassist Phil Lynott (pictured above, right), who was Thin Lizzy’s lead singer. Rounding out the band in the clip are guitarist Scott Gorham, an American who joined Thin Lizzy after Moore’s departure from the band, drummer Cozy Powell, and keyboardist Don Airey.
The song starts in a slow bluesy way and slowly builds until it becomes an absolutely ferocious guitar duel between Moore and Gorham. And Moore had broken a string on his guitar near the start of the song!
This is just great stuff. And watching it made me realize how much music lost when Phil Lynott passed away so young. Thankfully, we still have his recordings, such as this one. Without further ado, here is “Don’t Believe A Word”:
The video for “Black Hearted Love,” the first single from the new collaborative album by PJ Harvey and John Parish, which is titled A Woman A Man Walked By, has had its premiere on NME.com and is now available for viewing. The clip, directed by Jake and Dinos Chapman (The Chapman Brothers), features Polly Harvey jumping in slow motion in a bouncy house in the rain. It’s somewhat bizarre, but very effective.
Harvey and Parish said of the video:
“We were both very excited that Jake and Dinos Chapman wanted to make a video for ‘Black Hearted Love’. The result is beautiful, mysterious, surreal, and enhances the song wonderfully.”
On the subject of the video and getting to work with Harvey and Parish, The Chapman Brothers stated:
“We decided ‘Black Hearted Love’ deserved something haunting and enigmatic – yet brazen and colorful. Hence, a collision between an ominous forest and a garish bouncy castle seemed entirely appropriate… Working with Polly and John was an absolute pleasure.”
To watch the video for “Black Hearted Love,” click below:
The “Black Hearted Love” single will be released on April 13th in the UK. However, it is now available for download from iTunes in the United States.
Harvey and Parish did several radio appearances from the South by Southwest Festival in Austix, TX on Friday, March 20th. Their performance and interview with host Jason Bentley that was done for Los Angeles station KCRW-FM’s program Morning Becomes Eclectic can be heard by clicking here and then clicking the audio link. The program is approximately 40 minutes in length. It is a must-listen for fans of Harvey’s music.
No. Please, no. God, no. I don’t know if I can take Creed in heavy radio rotation again.
And Scott Stapp: That swoon of voice, somewhat reminiscent of a masculine Celine Dion, matching the grandiose posturing on-stage of any diva, singing “My Sacrifice” as his encore, the hard rock equivalent of “The Wind Beneath My Wings.” Now imagine that face plastered all over magazine covers again… no thanks. Rolling Stone once printed this about the frontman:
“irony-deficient, Jesus-haired and often shirtless in a way that reminded people of the guy from Lord of the Dance.”
That may be one of the coolest thing printed in RS in years. And accurate.
But, according to some sources, yes, Creed will be reuniting for a U.S. run this summer.
And what about Alter Bridge? A really good band that came out of the ashes of Creed. It was one thing when Alter Bridge nearly fell apart upon their singer, Myles Kennedy, joining Zeppelin. But to break up the band for Creed. That’s just too much of a sacrifice (pun intended).
However, if you’re into it, you can sign up to be a Scott Stapp minion right now: creedofficial.com (watch video, too).
