Archive for the ‘News’ Category
Seeing AC/DC in Australia is dangerous
First it was a quadriplegic falling off a platform and getting his eye impaled, leaving him blind. Now, it’s a fan getting “glassed in the neck.”
Holy cow, seeing AC/DC perform in Australia is a death wish.
The latest report comes from Perth, where a 39 year old man wanted to attend an AC/DC show with his friends but couldn’t afford the tickets. So he did what any reasonable person would do in that situation; he parked his van outside the club, cranked his favorite AC/DC tunes, and started getting shit-faced.
Around 1 AM, a group of people who knew the men approached. Somehow a fight broke out. Who knows, maybe some heated words were exchanged. Maybe one guy thought Brian Johnson is better than Bon Scott. Maybe they were arguing whether “High Voltage” is better than “Jailbreak.” The point is, this whole fracas ended with the van-guy getting stabbed in the neck with a broken bottle. He was taken to the hospital where his injuries were described as serious (duh).
So all you Aussie AC/DC fans, you might consider wearing some kind of armor to their next show.
-Sam
Free Weezy.
At Manhattan Supreme Court on Monday, Lil’ Wayne was finally sentenced to his year in prison.
With the courtroom packed and a crowd growing and growing outside, Lil’ Wayne was offered the chance to make a statement. Instead, he declined while shaking his head.
While leaving the courtroom, fans showed signs of support for the multiplatinum rapper. Fans wore shirts, “Free Weezy!” and voiced their concerns for the artist. “Keep your head up, Weezy,” stated one of the fans.
With some good behavior, Weezy could be out of prison in eight months.
Back in January, fellow writer Dan argued that Dave Grohl is the greatest rock artist of at least the modern era, if not ever. So he should be ecstatic to hear that Grohl’s main band, Foo Fighters, are preparing to record their seventh album.
Grohl announced the news on Friday at the Independent Spirit Awards, saying that Butch Vig would produce the record.
In a change of pace from previous albums, which were recorded in a high-tech studio in California, the new disc will be recorded entirely in analog in Grohl’s garage. No release date has been set, but September has been discussed as a possibility. The album will be accompanied by a documentary on the band’s history and the making of the newest album.
And of course, the news was accompanied by the obligatory, and profusely infuriating insistence that, according to Grohl, “I think this could be our heaviest album yet.” I really need to start keeping track of how often that phrase is used in the run-up to a new album.
-Sam
HammerFall Rocks NYC
One of Sweden’s top metal bands, HammerFall, performed last night at the Fillmore at Irving Plaza in Manhattan. I attended the concert along with my younger brother and best friend.
Like most of the classic metal bands, the top power metal bands around the globe sound incredible live in concert. HammerFall was no different. They were crisp, clear and not too loud. Now, don’t get me wrong, I like loud shows, but in such a small venue with such a huge band, the volume was perfect. The bass did not overpower the guitars and the drums and vocals were on point.
HammerFall’s overall performance was outstanding. They were so much fun to watch and sing along with.
If you enjoy fun music, give them a listen.
HammerFall homepage: http://hammerfall.net/
The real reason why Howard Jones had to leave KsE’s tour may now be coming to light – and it is tabloid worthy.
Quick recap before I get to the real news so that everyone is caught up.
I went to Killswitch Engage’s first show of their headlining tour this winter back on February 4th. After just five days, lead singer Howard Jones suddenly dropped off the tour due to “unforeseen circumstances” as the band’s official press release put it. That led to much speculation about Jones leaving the band.
But replacement singer Phil Labonte said that he was just filling in until Howard “gets better,” leading most people to believe that he was just hurt or sick. It was then reported that Jones had fallen on some stairs and hurt his back and that was why he left the tour. OK, that’s understandable. Still, if that was the case, the band should have come out and said that instead of letting damaging rumors swirl.
But now ThePRP has exclusively learned the alleged real reason as to why Jones left the tour:
IMPREGNATING A PORNSTAR!
Hahaha, who says they don’t make rockstar debauchery like they used to?
The pornstar in question is Allie Foster (pictured), who took to Twitter yesterday to announce:
Howard Jones of Killswitch engage, meet TMZ and your bitter baby momma coming with sweet sweet fuckin revenge you dirtbag.
Hmm, that sounds like good inspiration for a Killswitch song, but I digress.
She then goes on to Tweet that Howard is married and that he has been pressuring her to get an abortion. Of course, there is a post on her Twitter today which claims that her account was hacked and that she did not post any of that. So who the eff really knows? I mean she did post a picture of her baby bump.
I doubt this is the end of what has become a wildly interesting story of cover-up and deception. But come on Howard, bag it up next time!
-Sam
Here’s a sampling of some interesting stuff going on in the world of metal:
* Mudvayne has debuted their new video for the song “Beautiful and Strange.” It’s the second video in a three part series. And it didn’t take long for the video to be banned from all major outlets. One viewing and you’ll understand why. Censors don’t usually take kindly to buried-alive fallen angels digging up the graves of surprisingly full-chested naked, dead women and then proceeding to mount them and bang them silly all while images of torture and a girl actually getting her lips sewed together flash on screen. But hey, that’s fuckin’ metal! Go watch the necrophiliac’s dream over on VampireFreaks.com.
* Killswitch Engage have a new song, “My Obsession,” on the new God of War video game. Stream it at Noisecreep. (It’s really good.)
* Check out the cover art for Sevendust’s new album, Cold Day Memory, and prepare to be severely underwhelmed. Seriously, that’s the best you could come up with?
* Deftones have released the track list for their new album, Diamond Eyes.
* If anyone (like me) was hoping Limp Bizkit might return to the sound of their first album and/or their last album (aka more emphasis on the band, less on Fred Durst and rapping) this news should dash those hopes: Rappers Raekwon and Paul Wall will both have guest appearances on Gold Cobra.
* Dutch violin player, Karianne Brouwer, has a really cool cover of Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters”:
http://www.vimeo.com/9758791-Sam
I am not sure how many of you are into video games enough to have picked up any of the Rock Band games as well as purchased any of their download-able content, but I am. I have been waiting for this day since its first announcement last summer. The Rock Band Network gives the tools to artists and labels in order to put out songs for the Rock Band titles. Starting today the service will be available to the public so we can start to buy the slightly over 100 available songs with your closest friends. As of right now RBN is up on the Xbox360 and hopefully next month it will be running on the PlayStation Network.
Whenever bands take a long time between records and then come back with a drastically different sound, they take a serious risk in alienating their audience and jeopardizing their career.
That’s exactly what happened with Taproot, who, after a really good debut album (Gift) and a mediocre follow-up two years later (Welcome), took three years before making their next album, Blue-Sky Research, which scrapped nearly all of the band’s chugging riffs and unique screams and instead saw the band trying to reinvent itself as some kind of radio-friendly alternative outfit. The move was a complete disaster. The music was so watered down that it just came across like a puddly mess, and more importantly it angered a lot of the group’s core audience, myself included.
Look, I’m definitely not saying that bands should never change their sound. I don’t think that’s true at all. But bands should at least be able to gauge their own strengths and weaknesses and not seek to make music that they cannot pull off – like Lil’ Wayne’s “rock” album. I mean, “Prom Queen” is one of the most hideous musical abominations I’ve heard in recent years, but I digress.
The Black Keys released one of my favorite albums of 2008, Attack & Release. Produced by Danger Mouse, it featured a noticeable progression of the band’s sound and the songs were catchy as hell – just a bunch of really tasty southern psychedelic riffs and anguished crooning.
But after the record came out, the two band members started dabbling in all sorts of side projects like their rap-rock project Blakroc, Dan Auerbach’s solo album, and Patrick Carney’s band Drummer. It seemed like it would be a long time before we heard them together again in The Black Keys.
Thankfully, that’s not the case. And we will actually get to hear new Black Keys music much sooner than I ever anticipated. How soon? Well the band announced that their sixth album, Brothers, will be released on May 18th.
This time, however, Danger Mouse is only producing one track, “Tighten Up.” Carney and Auerbach will be handling most of the other production work themselves. So it will be interesting to see whether they can carry over the same magic from Attack & Release without a heavy Danger Mouse influence. Personally, I think they can.
Perhaps the coolest bit of news about this new album is that there will be a cover of Jerry Butler’s “Never Give You Up” (as opposed to Rick Astley’s more famous “Never Gonna Give You Up”, although a cover of that would be awesome as well.)
They chose a great album cover too:
Full track list after the jump.
Aerosmith finally realized they’re not actually Aerosmith without Stephen Tyler. After auditioning to find a replacement, the band is going back to Tyler. The band made the announcement via their website and also revealed a European tour this summer. The band has also been offered some South American dates, but no shows have been announced yet.
Tyler stated, “I just auditioned and I got the gig.”