The Blurbs
M.I.A. “/\/\ /\ Y /\” Album Review
You expect confrontation when it comes to M.I.A.
She’s blazed paths on the strength of wildly fresh sounds and uncomfortable politics – inciting just as many death threats as dance parties.
But trailblazing as a career is tough to pull off.
And this is especially so for an artist like M.I.A., who is so heavily dependent on her producers to make top-notch beats. Without them, she’s basically dead in the water. And as /\/\ /\ Y /\ (henceforth called Maya) displays, even with a solid beat in tow, her provocateur personality sometimes comes across as blissful ignorance.
How many times can a band “go back to its original sound” before the whole thing becomes a desperate sham?
That’s the question that has loomed large over Korn ever since they declared that their newest album, Korn III: Remember Who You Are, would be a return to the group’s early aural stylings after enduring several years and several albums worth of misguided experimentations and lousy music.
The first time Korn pulled this trick was with Take a Look in the Mirror. That album was a reaction to what the band perceived as slow sales of Untouchables, and they wanted to bring back their hyper-aggressive sound. But it wasn’t seen as a ploy because the finished product was actually pretty good.
The same cannot be said for Korn III.
So I know a few people who were feeling pretty bummed when word broke today that Pearl Jam seemed headed for an indefinite hiatus after closing out their recent tour in Portugal.
The hubbub started because during the show, Eddie Vedder read the following statement in Portugese from a piece of paper: “Thank you for coming to our last show. Not our last ever, but our last in a long time.”
Major media outlets then ran with the “news.”
The only problem? As PJ’s publicist Nicole Vandenberg noted, “He says that at the end of all tours, because the tour has ended. The remark may have gotten a little lost in translation.”
So there you have it. Straight from the horse’s mouth. Kind of.
-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
Remember in the old Looney Tunes cartoons when a character would see a buxom female walk by and they would do a double-take followed by their eyes popping way out of their head, accompanied by an awooga horn?
That would be an appropriate reaction to this photo.
-Sam
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
Today’s suggestion comes from regular Suds reader Elliott.
Elliott suggests Eugene, Oregon’s The Underlings, who he describes as such:
I would describe them as indie but that’s not really doing the band justice. They are a really good rockin band led by former garden weasel guitarest ed on guitar and vocals. If i have to categorize this band I’d say rock with a little punk mixed in for flavor.
That’s a good description. I’d call them “garage-punk” but with a definite pop aesthetic. Not the kind of bubblegum pop that is played on the radio, but pop in the sense of easily recognizable melodies and rhythms. Think Rancid or Foxboro Hot Tubs. The singer’s got a nice voice and I’m digging the chunky bass lines.
It’s a shame that these guys have so few plays on their MySpace page because they are a pretty fun band, so head on over there and give ‘em a listen.
Regular Suds reader (and avid Tool fan) Justin S. will like this one.
At this year’s E3 video game conference, publisher Activision held a press conference for what I’m assuming is Guitar Hero 3,487. Obviously, there’s nothing really exciting about that.
But to spice up the proceedings they brought out Maynard James Keenan (of Tool, A Perfect Circle, and Puscifer – for those of you who are sadly unaware) and Billy Howerdel (also of A Perfect Circle and ASHES dIVIDE) to cover one of the greatest songs of all time – Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
They were backed up by a full orchestra and choir, not to mention some pixelated game avatars singing and playing along as well. Needless to say, it was pretty sweet (and I’m sure Maynard would have beaten that track on expert). Check it out:
And speaking of Maynard making awesome cover songs, he recently worked with The Flaming Lips’ guitarist Steven Drozd to cover Elton John’s “Rocket Man.” Their version carries the fantastic title “Rocket Mantastic.” They cut the song together during Drozd’s scoring work for the film “The Heart Is A Drum Machine.” You can stream the song over at Puscifer’s website.
-Sam
Linkin Park isn’t quite on the Tool-schedule of releasing albums, but they are close enough – taking three to four years in between each album release.
We knew that LP was hard at work on a new album, but prognostications had its release date pegged sometime around the end of the year or early next year. Thankfully, we won’t have to wait that long.
According to the band’s official site (which hopefully will be getting a make-over ASAP as it’s still stuck in their iPhone game phase), the group’s fourth album will be released on September 14th and has the title A Thousand Suns. The first single will be a track called “The Catalyst” and that will be released on August 2nd.
They also announced a pretty cool contest in connection with the album:
Cool Cudi Cover
I was perusing Kid Cudi’s Facebook page when I came across this awesome cover he posted of his song “Pursuit of Happiness” by Lissie. I hadn’t heard of Lissie, an Illinois-based indie rocker, but this cover is so damn good, I’m gonna have to check her out.
Lissie’s debut album, Catching A Tiger, is out now in the UK. Us Americans (as opposed to U.S. Americans) will have to wait until August 17th to get it here in the States.
Check out a couple more sweet covers she’s done after the jump: