|
So, what do you do when you’re in a band and you’re on the cover of Revolver magazine for the first time?
Well, if you’re Lzzy from Halestorm, you go to the store and buy a copy!
Check out Halestorm when they play acoustic Friday morning at the Hard Rock for the
The “Supergroup” of Dave Grohl(Foo Fighters, Nirvana), Josh Homme(Queens Of The Stone Age, Kyuss), and John Paul Jones(Led “Fuckin’ Zeppelin) will finally release their self titled debut, “Them Crooked Vultures” on November 17th. I had previously raved about their performance at the House Of Blues in an earlier blog and am nerding out about this upcoming release. You can hear the first single, “New Fang” below. While the members themselves are reluctant to embrace the term “Supergroup”, to me they are just that. All are current and former members of bands I love. When I heard they were working together I peed a little. All three innovators in their fields working together to, not regurgitate the past, but to create something new and challenging. At the same time, I wouldn’t mind hearing this combo do a version of “The Rover” from Physical Graffiti.
Here’s some fan shot footage of Nine Inch Nails at Webster Hall in New York. As part of their Wave Goodbye Tour they played “The Downward Spiral” in it’s entirety at select shows. Trent Reznor allowed fans to video the show. This is some pretty cool footage. I am going to miss these guys.
This morning, as you were being waved through the Weston tolls on the Massachusetts Turnpike, did you stop and think about how great this could be? Imagine every day, instead of sitting in a line of traffic stretching from 128 up to the Mass Pike, you breezed your way into work in a reasonable amount of time to begin your much more productive day?
Because of the accident this morning, involving 3 trucks and a car, State Police made the right call and waved commuters through the tollbooths. One of the trucks was carrying frozen beef, which certainly makes this incident more tragic. Turns out, hundreds of fine steer gave their lives, only to have their frozen carcass spread across the highway, because we insist on continuing an antiquated and dangerous tolls system in this state to fund a questionable portion of our transportation budget. Trying to figure out what that money goes for is like to trying to figure out if any of this highway beef is gonna end up in my beef and pea pods take out next week.
According to an MTA public audit, the Turnpike takes in about 53 million dollars a year from restaurants, service stations, fines and advertising, etc. It spends about 21 million on maintenance. I’m no Rhodes Scholar, but I think that leaves somewhere around 32 million to pay some people to collect the rent, plow the road, answer the phones, etc. We do not need to collect toll money anymore, and today just proves how easy it could be.
I know there’s a debt issue. But that’s because for years our politicians used the turnpike like a house, and remortgaged it to build expensive additions like the Big Dig. We can figure that part out later. Right now, we should take the frozen beef like a sign from above. Let’s not waste anymore delicious red meat, or anymore of our valuable commuting time, and close the tolls today.
The average toll collector makes $73,000 a year. The average firefighter makes $49,820. That means the guy tending to the accident victims, and cleaning up the site, was making less money than the guy watching him work while the cars passed through his booth. It’s time to say goodbye to the tolls. If you want to help make this a ballot issue in 2010, go to closethetolls.org.
Well, we were all thinking it… and FINALLY Chris Cornell has come to his senses! This new version of ‘Never far Away’ is actually pretty good! Is it too little, too late to save his career? We’ll see! How long before we hear that Soundgarden is getting back together?
When tracks from Chris Cornell’s third solo album, Scream, started making the rounds last year, fans were confused. The producer was Timbaland? Electric R&B grooves? And is that freakin’ Justin Timberlake on backing vocals? AN ‘N SYNC DUDE ON A RECORD BY THE GUY FROM SOUNDGARDEN?!? The only thing missing was Kayne to grabbing the mic halfway through a song.
Give Cornell credit for trying to shake up his solo career with a bold statement. But the bottom line is that Scream did not work. Outside of a kind review from Entertainment Weekly (they gave it a B+), the album got savaged by critics and fans. It was a Grunge God/ Timbaland Fail. But if you listened to Scream carefully, there was some good stuff underneath all the overproduction and R&B beats.
Michael Friedman, a Canadian ex-pat working in LA in the licensing and placement of music in films and TV, certainly thought so. “I heard some ‘Black Hole Sun’ greatness deep within some of the songs,” he told me, “I also got to know Chris as a friend. I ended up calling Jordan Zadorozny [of the Canadian indie band Blinker the Star and co-writer of song with Courtney Love and friend of Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham].” I flew him down to LA and had him listen to some of the tracks in hopes that he could remix them somehow.”The first track to emerge from this de-Timbalanding of Scream is “Never Far Away.” In its original form, a funky mess obscurs what was actually a pretty good Soundgarden-esque mid-tempo rocker. Jordan peeled back all the beats and turned up whatever guitar was there. The result is a proper Chris Cornell song.
Through a roundabout series of connections, I managed to get Michael on the phone yesterday. And with Chris Cornell’s permission, he sent me this unreleased re-imagined, de-cluttered and grunged-up version of “Never Far Away.”Could this be the beginning of a Scream mulligan?
(PS: ”Michael tells me that this version is a total re-recording, not a remix.”)
This is the greatest thing since Tucker invented Anti-Matter Injectors.
U2 will be streaming their concert live online from the Rose Bowl in Pasadena this Sunday!
Via YouTube, the concert will be available for free viewing around 11:30 p.m. Eastern Time.
YouTube seems to think they’ll be able to handle the millions of users accessing the site to watch the concert and it will be available for replay after the live showing.
Here is a excerpt from my conversation with Art Alexakis from Everclear, who are playing at Showcase Live at Patriot Place in Foxborough(10/21/09). Everclear had some huge hits in the 90’s and despite line-up changes continue to tour and release albums. Their latest, “In A Different Light” is a compilation of some old favorites done with the new band in a different style. The feel is more acoustic and intimate. There are also two new songs to get fans ready for a new release in 2010. This is the first part which is mostly about the band and the music. We also talked about his passion for politics and community service which will be covered in part two. I started by asking Art if they re-recorded the old stuff in this style because: 1. They were not satisfied with the original recordings, 2. For their fans who are getting older and mellower, 3. He’s going deaf.
The manufacturer says:
This 11″ tall box has everything you need to play the KISS version of this classic game. The beautiful Love-Gun themed packaging contains: KISS Tally Board, 200 KISS Bingo Chips, 20 KISS Bingo Cards, 75 KISS Bingo markers and it’s all topped of with an KISS Logo embroidered cloth bag to hold your chips.
KISS fans, if you can’t live without this dumb thing
Marking the 20th Anniversary of Nirvana’s debut album, Sub Pop will re-issue the Platinum Certified Bleach on November 3, 2009. This expanded CD/double-LP will include a never-before-released live performance, special packaging and the first run of the double-LP will be on 180g white vinyl (the first run of the original LP was also on white vinyl).
Originally recorded over three sessions with producer Jack Endino at Seattle’s Reciprocal Recording Studios in December 1988 and January 1989, Bleach was released in June of ‘89 and remains unequivocally/unsurprisingly Sub Pop’s very favorite Nirvana full-length. The album initially sold 40,000 copies, but was brought into the international spotlight following the release and worldwide success of their 1991 sophomore effort, Nevermind. Subsequently Bleach went on to sell 1.7 million copies in the US alone, according to Nielsen SoundScan. This 20th Anniversary Edition has been re-mastered from the original tapes at Sterling Sound in a session overseen by producer Jack Endino.
This edition will include an unreleased live recording of a complete February 9th, 1990 show at the Pine Street Theatre in Portland, Oregon. The show features performances of Love Buzz, About a Girl and a cover of The Vaselines’ song Molly’s Lips and has been re-mixed from the original tapes by Endino (complete track listing below). A 52-page CD /16-page LP booklet which includes candid photos of the band not previously released to the public will also be included in this deluxe edition.
|
