Archive for the ‘Confirmed’ 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
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
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
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.”
Here’s a story to file under WTF.
A 31 year old quadriplegic man got impaled at an AC/DC concert in Brisbane this weekend. Yes, you read that right – impaled.
Here’s how it apparently went down.
The disabled guy was a former truck driver who was paralyzed after an accident and now had to use a motorized wheelchair. The concert venue had a special wheelchair podium on the side of the floor where the man was seated along with his friend. But at some point during AC/DC’s set, the man’s friend was dancing, and in the course of his gyrations he hit the wheelchair’s control joystick which “catapulted him into the moshpit.”
And then:
Witnesses said a metal pin used by the 31-year-old Morningside man to manoeuvre objects became a spear and imbedded in his eye as his chair crashed more than a metre to the centre’s floor.
That hurts just thinking about it.
The man is now out of intensive care but is still in serious yet stable condition.
Rightfully so, the venue is getting a lot of heat for their lack of safety measures in place to prevent something like this happening. Just look at the wheelchair podium (pictured). There’s absolutely nothing (other than a board and some red tape) acting as a barrier between the podium and the crowd. Did the venue think a wheelchair is like a Matchbox car and will get turned aside so easily by a board? Mixing big, heavy machines on wheels with people dancing crazily on a raised platform above hundreds of other people with no barrier preventing the chair from rolling off just seems negligent.
Hopefully this guy can retain his eyesight and get back to rocking out soon.
-Sam
Metal Roundup: Wednesday, Feb. 24
Here’s a sampling of some interesting stuff going on in the world of metal:
* Anyone who watched the second season of VH1’s Celebrity Rehab is quite familiar with former Guns N’ Roses drummer Steven Adler’s drug problems. That man has done a lottttt of drugs. So in true rockstar fashion, it makes sense that Adler would release a book detailing his experiences with those drugs. Titled My Appetite for Destruction: Sex, and Drugs, and Guns N’ Roses, Adler’s tell-all is scheduled to be released on June 22.
* Drummer Will Hunt has been chosen to replace Craig Nunenmacher in Black Label Society. Hunt has most recently worked with Evanescence and Dark New Day. He likely will continue to pull double duty with Evanescence and BLS.
* Slash recently collaborated with Fergie on a cover of GNR’s “Paradise City” to be included as a bonus track on Slash’s upcoming solo album. I guess he got a lot of flack for it, so he took to Twitter to defend Fergie’s performance (which can be heard HERE). He said: “Until now, not too many people have heard Fergie sing rock & roll but she sings it better (than) most dudes I know. She’s a screamer at heart.” He then said in an interview that Fergie has talked about wanting to make a rock record outside of the Black Eyed Peas and that he would like to work with her on it. I actually think Fergie could pull that off, but maybe I’m in the minority in that belief. There’s no question that she has a really strong voice tailored to dirtier rock and roll as opposed to having her voice drowned in computer effects like on “Boom Boom Pow.” I’d be at least interested to hear more rock songs from her.
* 10 Years will be entering the studio soon to start work on their third album, Feeding the Wolves.
* Nonpoint have debuted their new song “Miracle.” Listen to it HERE.
* Ray Davies of The Kinks will be releasing a collection of new versions of old songs. He said that he would like to talk with Metallica about collaborating on a song. If you remember, Davies joined Metallica onstage at the 25th Anniversary of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame where they performed “You Really Got Me” and “All Day And All Of The Night.”
-Sam
Official statement from the band
So news broke this week that one of my favourite bands, Straylight Run, has decided to go on an ’indefinite hiatus’. Now a lot of you may not know much about this band (apart from the fact that singer/guitarist/pianist John Nolan was in Taking Back Sunday), take my word for it: the world has lost one of its most truly talented bands.
I first heard them around 7 years ago; getting wind of some demo recordings on a MySpace page, and I was really impressed by what I heard. Since then, I’ve grown to love SR in so many different ways and for so many different reasons. Having only had the chance to see them live twice, I took the opportunity to meet the band on both occasions, discovering that they were not just a talented bunch of musicians, but a band that cared about its fans and worked hard to keep playing shows and make music. It’s because of that fact that their hiatus stings so much. They simply cannot financially afford to be a band anymore. They didn’t have a diva moment, they didn’t grow a part; they are simply low on cash. The same reason has taken quality bands in the past (Brit-rockers Reuben, pop-punkers Allister etc.) and it will continue to do so.
Now, I might just be a little bitter, but I blame the fickle nature of the casual music fan. You know the kind, the ones that buy albums just to listen to the singles over and over, the ones that talk loudly over quite bands at shows, the ones who have 40 songs on their mp3 players because that’s all they’ll ever need. Yes, I know I sound like a real music snob, but I’d like to think that after 12 years of loving the kind of music I do and supporting my local scene, and the past decade of playing in bands in front of less than 20 people at a time, I’ve earned the right to an opinion. And my opinion is simply that there is no hope for the little bands in this world. Now, you may disagree with me here, you may reel off a list of underground bands that remained healthy and active for long periods of time, but I speak of more recent times. I’m talking post-2000. It remains to be seen whether or not any of the underground bands that have formed over the last decade will ever succeed in having long careers whilst maintaining a sense of non-commercial credibility. If come 2020 there is a bunch of bands still going that contradict what I’m writing, I’ll happily admit I was wrong, because if I am proven wrong I will be absolutely ecstatic. But in all honesty, the loss of a band that I think was one of the very best has really forced me to cast my mind back to those underdog bands I’ve loved and lost over the years. Just recently, the fantastic The Jonbenét split, and I was beside myself with fury. Why you ask? Well because Gallows are making middle-of-the-road, over-produced punk rock (with a massively delusional sense of self-importance, I might add) whilst The Jonbenét have been churning out genuinely bruising punk rock, dripping with defiance and independence, but can’t even manage to scrape together the money for a cheap recording.
You can call me bitter. You can call me elitist. But great underground bands fold every day because of the fickle business that is music. Guys being underpaid for the work they put in, told their pure creation is not good enough to share with others. It’s almost enough to make you lose faith. But I’ll end on a positive note, as, for now, there are so many great bands still plugging away around the gig circuit, playing for tiny audiences and working day-jobs to fund their passion. Even those bands that have broken up now have left behind great legacies. So to Straylight Run, to American Football, to Johnny Truant, to Reuben, to countless others…thanks for the tunes.
So take yourself down to your local venues, visit the websites of some independent labels. Hell, go buy some Straylight Run records and give those guys the funds to get back on the road and do what they live for. Whatever you do, just remember: it all starts with your local scene, with all the little bands. They’re the ones who will grow to be the greats. Be a part of it.
Deftones have marked May 18th on the calendar as the day they will release their new album.
The band has dubbed the effort Diamond Eyes.
Speaking about the lyrical content on the new album, singer Chino Moreno had this to say:
I do very little singing about myself on this record. I love songs where I can totally take myself out of being human. I can sing about really odd things, and they don’t necessarily have to pertain to me at all. It paints a picture.
That quote is at least somewhat ironic since a lot of Deftones’ past lyrics are about “really odd things.” As for the sound of the album, Moreno said that it’s not going to stray far from the unique “aggressive overtones and lush openness” that have marked their work from the very beginning. He said to expect a mix of both heavy songs and experimental tracks.
The band will be giving away the song “Rocket Skates” off the new album for free on February 23 at their website. For now, they’ve posted a teaser for the song on YouTube.
-Sam
Megadeth Tour Update and Awesome News!
After postponing their tour due to a surgery needed for the front-man of Slayer, Megadeth has released the new dates for their upcoming tour entitled American Carnage. The tour still consists of Megadeth, Slayer and Testament. These summer tour dates can be found on www.megadeth.com.
Also, the former founding member and bassist of Megadeth, David Ellefson, is now back with the band after an 8-year hiatus!
Ellefson is responsible for a huge percentage of the original sound that Megadeth created over the years and it will be a treat for any true Megadeth fan to see him live in concert on the upcoming tours.
Megadeth is hitting the road before the American Carnage tour for a 20th Anniversary tour of their hit 1990 record, Rust In Peace. Many Megadeth fans and metal fans worldwide claim that this is their best and most genre-changing album to date. On this special tour, Megadeth will be playing the entire Rust In Peace track list from front to back. David Ellefson is said to be rocking the bass guitar for these two upcoming tours.