Category — News

There are many reasons indie-rockers love Obama. He wants to lower taxes, he supports music and art in schools and he is against the war. But he has more substance than just his stance on important issues. He is young, he’s fresh and people believe he can bring change in Washington. That’s why musicians from all over the country have been showing their support for the Illinois senator.

Bands who have stepped up to support the presidential candidate include The Breeders and The National who will play a show in New York City on October 16th. The following night, The Black Keys and Devo team up to bring their hometown an awesome Obama party in Akron, Ohio’s Civic Theatre. The night’s proceeds will benefit the Summit County Democrats.

The Beastie Boys are also planning their own mini-tour called Swing State Voter Awareness Tour which will be visiting cities in Virginia, Minnesota and Wisconsin. They will be bringing with them an assortement of interesting and entertaining characters such as Santogold and Tenacious D.

Dates for the Beastie Boys’ “Swing State Voter Awareness” tour:

10-28 Richmond, VA - Richmond Coliseum
11-01 Saint Paul, MN - Roy Wilkins Auditorium
11-02 Milwaukee, WI - U.S. Cellular Arena

It isn’t long until Les Paul is officially inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  A month to be exact.  Slash, Velvet Revolver guitarist and former member of Guns N’ Roses, will be performing at a tribute concert in celebration of the event honoring Les Paul on November 15th.

Being such a huge fan of Les Paul, Slash agreed to play at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s tribute concert without even hearing who he would be sharing the stage with.

“I’m just coming with my guitar,” Slash said. Could it be one of his signature Gibsons maybe?

The concert which features other guitar talents such as Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, The Ventures and Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi, is part of a series put on by American Music Masters and is set to take place at Cleveland’s State Theater.

Halloween is a pretty cool night to see a show, people are usually dressed up in costume and drinking a lot, this year will be especially cool because Halloween is on a Friday.

The only problem is what show should you go to? I just recently did a search on Ticketmaster.com for Halloween concerts happening in the LA area. There are a lot. There are some shows I was really surprised at. For example, Hoobastank, (remember them?), are playing at The Canyon Club in Agoura Hills, thats just kind of sad. From the top of the pop charts to a dinner club in suburban Agoura Hills. I guess the pay is good.

There is also Rise Against at the Hollywood Palladium. Indie 103.1 Horrorpops at the Anaheim House of Blues. Cypress Hill at The Wiltern, billed as “Haunted Hill” and even All-Star spook comedy at the Laugh Factory. There are too many concerts to list, so check it out for yourself. And if you don’t like any of them, have your own Halloween party and have your own band play it (if you have one).

Last week Shirley Manson, front-woman for the band Garbage, appeared on “Last Call With Carson Daly” to promote her role on the Fox TV show “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.”

When asked if her band Garbage would be doing another album together, she responded “I don’t know, to be honest. We’re sort of doing our different things.” “I’m doing the TV show, Butch is producing Green Day, so he’s busy, so we’ll see.”

This comment seemed to confirm previous rumors that the man behind the boards for Nirvana’s “Nevermind” and The Smashing Pumpkins “Siamese Dream” would be working on the follow-up to Green Day’s hugely successful “American Idiot” album.

At the time of the first round of rumors surrounding Green Day’s new album, the band’s management kept quiet. As for this rumor, the band’s label Reprise and their management declined requests to be interviewed. In 2006 a representative from Reprise Records confirmed that the band had begun work on new material at an undisclosed studio in the East Bay.

If you’re a Green Day fan, the fact that Butch Vig is producing the record is great news. His work on “Nevermind” and “Siamese Dream” is amazing and he is known for pushing bands pretty far to get their best performances.

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Metallica is set to begin production rehearsals for their latest tour on Monday in San Francisco, the tour kicks off on October 21st in Arizona. According to drummer Lars Ulrich the band will play “a lot of new songs” from “Death Magnetic” on this tour.

The band has not toured the US for quite some time. When they’ve toured on new albums in the past they’ve been pretty conservative when playing new songs. Ulrich explains…

“These new songs are a lot of fun to play,” Ulrich tells Billboard.com. “Traditionally I think we’ve been a little conservative when we’ve started off with two songs, three songs (from the new album). We’re going to hit the ground running here. We’re probably gonna learn all of them and play, I hope, at least five a night and probably rotate ‘em so we get a lot of new songs in. That’s one thing I’m definite about.”

One of the reasons the band is so keen to play the new material is because its been heralded by fans and critics as a return to form. “Death Magnetic” has already sold almost 3 million copies worldwide and over 1 million in the US alone.

“It’s just an overwhelming, positive thing,”. “You couldn’t have told me a month ago or six months ago that we would have a record that would be this well-received. It seems like it’s so universal this time and it’s all over the world and everybody’s so into it on so many different levels — the fans, press, the peers … everybody.”

The band’s stage setup will be “in the round” once again but different from previous tours, involving a huge, moving lighting rig above the band.

I remember seeing footage of the band during the Black Album era and I believe they’ve been playing “in the round” since then. I recently checked out even older Metallica videos on YouTube and was surprised to see Kirk Hammett playing a lot of Ibanez guitars. Regardless of what guitars they’re playing this time around, its the first time I’ve personally wanted to see a Metallica concert in a long while because I think some of the new material is great.

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Coldplay’s Chris Martin has written a letter to the band’s fans (via their website) to offer up some info regarding new releases. It isn’t a new album but Coldplay fans will be excited, maybe…

The band is gearing up to release an EP called “Prospekt’s March” and it contains 5 songs that didn’t make it onto the band’s latest album “Viva La Vida.” Before the EP is released Chris Martin has also revealed that “In a few weeks we are going to release a version of Lost! which has a guest experience on it in the form of JAY-Z.”

This is why I said that Coldplay fans would “maybe” be excited, I think the Jay-Z collaborations will probably get mixed feelings but either way, if you’re a fan you’ve got a few new things to look out for. The tracklist for “Prospekt’s March” is as follows…

1. Life In Technicolor ii (which is a song)
2. Postcards From Far Away
3. Glass Of Water
4. Rainy Day
5. Prospekt’s March

Chris Martin continues, “We are very proud of these and are pretty excited to release them. They have been the subject of many discussions and arguments; some might be considered too catchy or too heavy for Coldplay songs but in our minds they complete the VIVA LA VIDA picture.”

If you’d like to read Chris Martin’s full letter head over to Stereogum, where they have transcribed the original letter posted to Coldplay’s website.

If you liked my post yesterday about the Gibson selt-tuning Robot Guitar, than you may also be interested in a newly launched site from iMedia Ventures, which provides a virtual learning environment.  It seems as though everything is going hi-tech lately, from the way we tune guitars to the way we learn to play riffs.   The goal of Online Guitar Coaching is to provide aspiring guitarists with a way to receive private guitar lessons in the comfort of their own home, through the internet.  The website encourages students to upload videos of their playing in order to receive feedback from a guitar instructor.  In addition to their work with a guitar teacher, students have access to a variety of other learning tools, including guitar tablatures, videos, diagrams and even a community discussion board.

This site seems pretty cool for someone who is already fluent on guitar, but not really sure where to go from there.  The site provides the opportunity to become a better player because they focus on teaching the art of guitar soloing, without the boring scales approach.  Topics the site discusses include Fretboard Mastery, Improvisation/Soloing and Guitar technique.  These lessons would help an average guitar player become more advanced by improving their hammer-ons, pull-offs, speed, soloing and improving arpeggios.

Check out Online Guitar Coaching now.

Imagine being able to change your guitar from regular to flat tuning at the push of button. Gibson has made that a reality with their creation, the world’s first Robot Guitar, which is already winning awards. On Wednesday, October 1st, BT Digital Music Awards selected the Gibson Robot guitar as the recipient of their prestigious “Best Music Hardware” award.

So what is so great about this guitar? Not only does it automatically tune to the standard A440 tuning, but you can change to any of the 6 most commonly used alternate tunings, such as open E and drop D, at the touch of a button. In addition to that amazing feature, the panel of judges which consisted of distinguished industry professionals, chose to distinguish Gibson’s guitar from the stiff competition based on its innovation, usability, style and price point ($3,999!).

This guitar seems great for anyone in a band who need to change tunings a lot during their performance but don’t want to constantly be changing their guitars. I go to drop D a lot, but I’m not about to spend 4 grand on a self-tuning guitar when I can turn the knob down a step in about 2 seconds. But nevertheless, technology like this is really exciting for the right people.

Check out the Gisbon Robot Guitar demo video.

My Bloody Valentine closed out its 7 date U.S. reunion tour last night in Santa Monica, CA, which generated more than $1 million dollars in gross.

Billboard has an excellent piece on the band, detailing the specifics of the tour and showing how much of an ordeal it really is to plan and execute a successful tour. The tour was in the works for a long time and the band were heavily rumored to be reuniting for last year’s Coachella Festival, but they weren’t ready just yet.

“Tollett came in with an enormous offer for the band to play the 2008 festival, which would have made it financially feasible for Shields to re-form and properly equip MBV. But the band wasn’t ready to take the stage by late April, so Shields opted instead to team with All Tomorrow’s Parties co-founder Barry Hogan for an opening salvo of U.K. dates starting in June, followed by some international festival appearances. MBV also agreed to headline the New York ATP show and then build a short North American tour around it.”

“Playing for a guarantee sources say was six figures not counting sizable merch sales, MBV laid waste to audiences with crushingly loud 90-minute sets, each of which ended with the wall-rattling feedback barrage “You Made Me Realise.”

It’s great to see that the band has set the stage for another tour and that they will most likely continue on with new album plans. A lot of people are going to be happy about this.

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In 1977 who would’ve thought one of the most recognizable figures in Punk Rock would be advertising butter in the future? I’m sure no one did, but then again most people probably assumed John Lydon might not have lived past 1980.

Anyway, the headline is not a lie, John Lydon is the official spokesperson for Country Life Butter, one of Britain’s most popular brands. He has appeared in his first ever television commercial for the product, explaining why he decided to do the ad, he stated…

“People know I only do things that I want to or that I believe in and I have to do it my way,”

“I’ve never done anything like this before and never thought I would, but this Country Life ad was made for me and I couldn’t resist the opportunity.”

The ad mainly capitalizes on Lydon’s status as a rebellious British icon and is viewable at UK publication The Guardian’s website. Butter = Punk?