Archive for the ‘Concerts’ Category
New Kylesa song is tantalizing
Billy Corgan hit the nail on the head in a recent interview with Spin. He was talking about what it’s like to play new material during shows and had this to say:
the internet really influences how people think about music. So you play a new song live and everybody goes, “Oh, I hate that song.” Then you record a new version of the song that obviously sounds better. But people have already decided they don’t like the song, even though they haven’t heard the recorded version.
It’s a definite tight rope that artists have to walk all the time, particularly in this day and age when fans will post shitty cell phone camera quality videos of the show online hours after it’s over. And of course, hardcore fans who weren’t at the show will be dying to hear the new material, but what they get is a less than ideal quality version of it.
So it’s rare when you watch one of these videos and immediately know that the new song is going to kick all kinds of ass.
But that’s exactly the case with this footage of Kylesa playing a new, as yet unnamed song, during a show in Ireland last month. The sound quality isn’t that bad, which helps, but the song just sounds amazing. It’s got a super-chilled out stoner vibe, and the riff really reminds me of The Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind.”
This just makes me that much more excited for Kylesa’s new album, Spiral Shadow, which drops October 26th.
-Sam
M.I.A. really knows how to piss people off these days.
Most recently, the Sri Lankan rapper has managed to target both Oprah Winfrey and Lady Gaga — two powerful ladies who you probably shouldn’t be hating on; unless of course she’s just looking for some publicity.
Speaking of Lady Gaga, M.I.A. said, “Is it about numbers? About how much you’re selling? Is it truly the journey? Because Lady Gaga’s journey isn’t that difficult: to go from the fucking Upper East Side to a fucking performing arts school and onto a stage at the museum of fucking whatever. That journey’s about four miles.”
Yeah, it’s Lady Gaga’s journey that is making your album plummet 25 spots on the Billboard 200.
And then speaking of her encounter with Oprah, “Oprah seemed to be giving me the cold shoulder. She was dancing with Imaa. Imaa was always dancing with me, hugging and kissing me. Oprah seemed really pissed off with me.”
But hey, at least M.I.A. apologized for the fucking disaster of a show in New York City the other week. As a sign of her apology, she’ll come back to New York, after her tour, and perform a free concert.
Sorry for the language; it just seemed all too necessary.
Sometimes a Tweet is all you need to really sum up a situation.
This comes from Kings of Leon drummer Nathan Followill, in reference to the band’s recent show in St. Louis:
“So sorry St. Louis. We had to bail, pigeons shitting in [bassist] Jared [Followill]’s mouth. Too unsanitary to continue….Don’t take it out on Jared, it’s the fucking venue’s fault. You may enjoy being shit on but we don’t. Sorry for all who traveled many miles.”
That really sucks for both the band and the fans. It’s too bad there weren’t any umbrella hats on hand that the guys could have strapped on to protect them from the fecal showers. I wonder if, in the future, the venue will consider doing what the Cincinnati Bengals considered when they had a similar problem a few years back.
-Sam
Whatever your thoughts are about Lady Gaga, I can’t see any rational human being siding against her in this particular instance.
You see, according to Rolling Stone, this past weekend Gaga had a show in St. Louis which was protested by the Westboro Baptist Church. If you don’t know who the WBC is, they are the people who picketed the funeral of Matthew Shepard (with signs that said things like “AIDS Cures Fags”) along with multiple funerals of soldiers killed in action. They’ve picketed the funerals of Michael Jackson and Dio. They’ve protested outside the Holocaust Museum, calling the Holocaust “minuscule” and saying “Jews are the real Nazis.” A few years ago, after the Sichuan earthquake in China, they released a press release praying “for many more earthquakes to kill many more thousands of impudent and ungrateful Chinese Communists.” And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
The Anti-Defamation League has classified this “church” as a hate group. And it’s sad to say that this group actually is a church because in reality it’s nothing more than the giant inbred family of Pastor Fred Phelps. And yet it still receives the tax exemption from our government.
Anyways, according to these worthless abominations, everything tragic that happens in the world is directly attributable to homosexuality. And Lady Gaga is well known for having a devout following of LGBT fans. So naturally, as the attention-starved whores that they are, the WBC showed up to her concert to call Gaga a “false prophetess” and warn that she and her “gender-confused, self loathing, tone deaf” fans are headed to hell.
Gather round ninjas!
It’s that time of year again. I’m talking, of course, about the annual Gathering Of The Juggalos, now in its 11th year, which is both mindblowing and deeply depressing.
If you are unfamiliar with the Gathering, then you should consider yourself lucky (although, granted, it is a tremendous source of derisive laughter at the expense of morons).
You can watch the infomercial for this year’s event below, but here are just a few of the acts you can see if you decide to slap on some clown paint and head into the fields and forests of Illinois to contemplate the miracles of magnets (how do they work?) and the joys of a Faygo shower: Naughty by Nature, Gallagher (and don’t worry, it’s “not that fake ass Gilligan motherfucker either”), Ron Jeremy (he’ll be “telling jokes about slangin’ dick”), Warren G, Tila Tequila, Afroman, Coolio, Tone Loc, Vanilla Ice, and Method Man and Redman (honestly, guys?).
And speaking of Coolio, here’s what happened the last time he toured with ICP.
But the Gathering is never about just the “music.” Oh no, this year you’ve got midget wrestling, a bubble-foam party with naked chicks, regular non-midget wrestling featuring Viscera (what, couldn’t get Mideon?) and the Road Dogg among others, as well as flashlight wrestling where the only lights are from the flashlights that the crowd brings at 4 am (”and some of these legends are drunk as hell.”)
This year’s infomercial definitely isn’t as good as last year’s (or SNL’s awesome parody of it and ICP), but it will still make you laugh and feel better about yourself as a human being. And the announcer sums it up best I think, calling it “the greatest time you motherfucker (yes, singular) will ever have. I put that on my nuts, bitch.”
-Sam
On the island of Maui, there’s a small town named Hana — and when I say small, I mean one restuarant, one gas station and one general store, small. It’s very much an untouched area within Maui; authenticity at its finest and Hawaii at its best. To get there, you drive on the Hana Highway which is about 50 miles of one lane each way along side cliffs and through rain forests. Occassionally you’ll have to cross a bridge and it’s one lane. It’s that type of highway.
But it’s absolutely beautiful — lush greenery and huge waterfalls, with the occasional “HOLY SHIT I’M DRIVING ON THE VERY EDGE OF A CLIFF OVERLOOKING THE OCEAN” feeling.
I got to take the trip during my honeymoon last year. Due to the location and the drive, radio was not available and we were left with our own playlists and music. However cliche it may have been, we decided to to play Jack Johnson the entire way there; all three hours along this road. And his music was essentially a soundtrack to everything we saw and witnessed. continue reading
Just to whet your appetite for tomorrow’s release of Korn’s new album, the band released a free concert video online. This is no normal video though; oh no, they are playing it in the middle of a giant crop circle they had commissioned by – get this – a company that will make crop circles for you. Am I the only one who is surprised to know that such a thing even exists? Honestly, who is their target demographic? American farmers who’ve been so overly subsidized by the government to grow nothing but corn? And what ever happened to the old days when you mowed your own damn gigantic shapes in the middle of a corn field while walking uphill both ways?!
Anyways, this concert is pretty good and if nothing else, it’s a reminder that Korn can still rip it up live. I haven’t seen Korn in person since Head left the band (and it turns out that crazy Jesus-freak was the riff-genius behind this band’s success; seriously just ask an incredibly liquored up Munky, he’ll tell you), but when I did see them they were absolutely amazing. This concert seems to suggest that they haven’t turned to shit as a live band, which is nice. Hearing the opening riff of “Here To Stay” still gets me going.
Stay tuned this week for my review of Korn III, and in the meantime enjoy the free concert:
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=105785660-Sam
Remember when David Hasselhoff got absolutely blitzed a few years back and his daughter videotaped him as he lay on the floor of the bathroom completely out of his gourd, shirtless, trying to eat a sloppy hamburger all while proclaiming “This is a mess” and telling his daughter “fuck you.”
Yeah, that was pretty low.
But if anyone could top (drop?) that, it’s Courtney Love.
I’m just going to step aside and let Rolling Stone explain what went down during a recent Hole concert in Washington D.C.:
If you’ve never watched the TV show Scrubs (first of all, what is wrong with you?), then you wouldn’t be familiar with lowly lawyer Theodore Buckland, aka Ted, and his unassuming band of barbershop quartet a cappella buddies. In the show they are known either as The Worthless Peons or simply Ted’s Band. In real life, the four guys (Sam Lloyd, Philip McNiven, George Miserlis, and Paul Perry) actually are in an a cappella group together called The Blanks.
I’m a huge fan of Scrubs (minus the unnecessary and derivative ninth and final season) so it was with much delight when I was walking around Annapolis, MD that I saw a poster on the window of a restaurant/small concert venue announcing that The Blanks would be playing a Sunday matinee show this weekend! Count me in.
Tool don’t give a damn how long they make us wait between albums.
But at least we know they are currently at work on a new one. When can we expect it to hit shelves? “When it’s ready,” Maynard James Keenan told Rolling Stone.
But the enigmatic frontman said those who go see the band in concert this summer (dates here) may get to hear them test out new material – provided the band is ready, of course. “If it comes together, yeah, you’ll hear some new stuff. If it’s not ready, you won’t.” Reasonable enough, I suppose.
Keenan also said that A Perfect Circle, a supergroup of sorts that includes Keenan, Billy Howerdel, and Josh Freese and has in the past included James Iha, Jeordie White, and Danny Lohner, is working on its fourth album. No word on when that might see the light of day, but it’s good news nonetheless.
-Sam