Category: Music

PunkNews:

Alkaline Trio have posted their forthcoming release Remains online. The album, which is a compilation of b-sides and rarities, hits stores next Tuesday through Vagrant.

Here.

WFMU’s Beware the Blog:

This is one of the best records in my collection. I have a thing for spoken word records, and this is by far the best spoken word record I’ve ever heard. I usually like to play this record for people without telling them what it was intended for, to see if they can guess why anyone would buy it. The idea is straightforward enough: you put this record on in repeat mode while you’re out of the house in order to fool potential burglars into thinking someone’s home. Like those automatically light timers, except for sound. Of course, it would be far easier and more convincing just to leave the TV or radio on, but that wouldn’t be NEARLY as much fun!! Plus, this is in STEREO so you’re sure to get the extra added illusion that the voices are coming from different parts of the room!

The truly great thing about this record is all in the execution. The couple bantering back and forth here presumably had kind of a rough script they were following, and sort of semi-improvised their banal conversation. It’s actors trying to sound as inconspicuously actor-ish as possible. Add to this the fact that, as per the instructions on the jacket, you’re supposed to play it at a level where someone standing outside the house can hear that there’s people talking inside without being able to make out what’s being said, and to me that’s a recipe for pure performance art! (In fact, I’ve considered staging a performance with two actors, using this LP as the entire backdrop.)

Here.

WFMU’s Beware the Blog:

Three years prior to his cartoon, Ali came out with one of the most amazing things he was ever involved with. 1974 brought us one of the most legendary vinyl records ever made, Ali and His Gang vs. Mr. Tooth Decay. The album features an A-list cast of celebrities all in rather ridiculous poses. Frank Sinatra, for instance, appears as a desperate ice cream vendor insisting Muhammad Ali force the gang of children that’s following him (more orphans?) to eat ice cream. “No, kids! Ice cream hassa lotta sugah innit! Ice cream causes cavahtehs!”

Here.

NYT:

Lately, the major labels have in effect tried to move into the talent management business by demanding that new artists seeking record contracts give their label a cut of concert earnings or T-shirt and merchandise revenue — areas that had once been outside the labels’ bailiwick.

“They’re all starting to ask for the same things,” said Theo Sedlmayr, an entertainment lawyer based in New York who represents acts like 50 Cent.

There has also been a scramble to squeeze revenue from other unconventional sources, including amateur videos posted to YouTube that incorporate copyrighted songs. Universal Music threatened to withhold its huge music catalog from Microsoft’s new digital music service unless it received a royalty of more than $1 on each sale of the technology giant’s Zune portable music player.

Here.

WFMU’s Beware the Blog:

Fans of Andy Kaufman might recall his patented “windmill punch” from his wrestling days, in which he whipped both his arms around non-stop, Pete-Townsend like. He claimed that nobody could touch him while he was “in the punch.”

Hardcore dancing incorporated Andy’s windmill punch into its roster of accepted dance moves long ago, but until I saw this video of the Pennsylvania harcore band cdc doing their song Crowd War, I didn’t realize just how popular the Kaufman influence had become: download mpeg video, 10 megs, or youtube it. (The band cdc is not to be confused with the cult of the dead cow or the center for disease control).

Here.

Blender:

44. MANOWAR
None more metal. None more gay
An American answer to Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, Rochester, New York’s Manowar embody every conceivable heavy-metal cliché: Bodybuilders all, the four wear leather and animal pelts onstage; singer Eric Adams shrieks only of death, warfare and the glory of metal; Joey DeMaio performs solo bass renditions of “The Flight of the Bumblebee.” They’re quite possibly the most ludicrous people in rock & roll history.
Appalling fact In 1993, Russian youth voted Manowar above the Beatles and Michael Jackson as the act they would most like to see perform live.
Worst CD Sign of the Hammer (EMI, 1985)

Here.

WFMU’s Beware the Blog:

Released on Casablanca, recorded live 1979 at the Roxy in Hollywood with backing band that includes Christopher Guest credited as Nigel Tufnel (three years before Spinal Tap, though well dressed and with short hair), Ming the Merciless, Lars Svenki, Dwight Night and Beanie Barnhill. Tracks flow into each other as it’s a live record

Mp3’s, Here.

Ted’s Myspace blog:

I am so lost I almost buy Gene Loves Jezebel but I get distracted in the nick of time as Trent rounds the aisle and announces, I’m buying this!

He hands me a cassette with artwork so lame I have to chuckle.

Voivod’s Dimension Hatross.

Here.

SFGate Daily Dish:

Federline had been plugging his debut album, Playing with Fire, on the show, which entered the Billboard 200 chart at a lowly 151 and has sold less than 7,000 copies.

Federline is also enjoying his new single status, declaring to his female fans he was “a free man” at Chicago’s House of Blues Wednesday night.

On stage, Federline said, “Hey, I see a lot of fine ladies in here. You know I’m a free man, right, ladies? You wanna dance with a pimp?”

Following his performance, Federline partied at nightspot Cabaret, where he danced to his own album in the club’s VIP section.

Here.

LA Times:

Though forms of freak dancing — also called “grinding” or “the nasty” — first appeared years ago, so many students are doing it now that educators nationwide are drawing up rules of behavior, changing music formats away from freak-friendly hip-hop, and banning from dances students whose movements are deemed too sexual.

“Of all the things that happen at a high school, having to spend so much time on dances — that’s out of whack,” said Kelly Godfrey, principal of Los Alamitos High School in Orange County.

Some students say a crackdown on freaking would discourage them from attending school dances.

“I wouldn’t go,” said Chelsea Walsh, 15, a sophomore at Aliso Niguel High. “It would be boring. How else do you dance?”

Here.

Richard Hell, NYT:

On practically any weekend from 1974 to 76 you could see one or more of the following groups (here listed in approximate chronological order) in the often half-empty 300-capacity club: Television, the Ramones, Suicide, the Patti Smith Group, Blondie, the Dictators, the Heartbreakers, Talking Heads, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, and the Dead Boys. Not to mention some often equally terrific (or equally pathetic) groups that aren’t as well remembered, like the Miamis and the Marbles and the Erasers and the Student Teachers. Nearly all the members of these bands treated the club as a headquarters — as home. It was a private world. We dreamed it up. It flowered out of our imaginations.

How often do you get to do that? That’s what you want as a kid, and that’s what we were able to do at CBGB’s. It makes me think of that Elvis Presley quotation: “When I was a child, ladies and gentlemen, I was a dreamer. I read comic books, and I was the hero of the comic book. I saw movies, and I was the hero in the movie. So every dream I ever dreamed has come true a hundred times.” We dreamed CBGB’s into existence.

The owner of the club, Hilly Kristal, never said no. That was his genius. Though it’s dumb to use the word genius about what happened there. It was all a dream. Many of us were drunk or stoned half our waking hours, after all. The thing is, we were young there. You don’t get that back. Even children know that. They don’t want their old stuff thrown away. Everything should be kept. I regret everything I’ve ever thrown away.

Here.

Manowar.Com:

“Gods Of War” has evolved into a multi-part epic cycle which will include tributes to the Gods of Valhalla. Continuing MANOWAR’s mission to never stray from their heavy metal style, “Gods Of War” will present a new level of heaviness, intensity and brutality to the MANOWAR mythos. “With this kind of theme… when you are paying tribute to Odin, the God of War, country music or jazz would not create the appropriate mental imagery and would not do justice to the Father of the Gods himself,” says MANOWAR bassist and founder Joey DeMaio. “Heavy Metal is needed to tell this tale.”

With “Gods Of War”, MANOWAR is calling all warriors to enter Valhalla. Let the battle begin!

Here.

Onion:

“In order to come to the aid of the hip-hop nation, we must regrettably ask those men who heroically served the Black Planet to once again don their fatigues and take up their plastic arms,” S1W Chief and Public Enemy Minister Of Information Professor Griff said. “We have no more options. It’s not as though we can simply call 911. That would be a joke.”

Here.

You’ve finally reached the end of the f*ckin’ internet, dude. This is the home of the greatest band in the world, Metal Skool. DO NOT BE FOOLED by pale imitations of other imitations. We’re the best imitators of the best music in the history of music, 80’s metal.

We play songs by Whitesnake, G&R, Poison, Winger, Warrant, Motley Crue, Bon Jovi and more.

Here. And on MySpace, Here.

Manowar fan film on YouTube. Do I have to mention that it’s hilarious?
Here.

Manowar:

MANOWAR is back with an October 2006 release of a new single “The Sons Of Odin” followed by a full length DVD containing the historic EarthShaker Fest 2005 performance this November.

Fans can soon expect more details about the release date of the new studio album entitled “Gods Of War.”

Here.