It s his first proper new album since before his dumb MTV reality sitcom. This guy a href="http://www.morethings.
com/log/2007/01/black-sabbath-is-joke.html" title="Black Sabbath sucks" wasn t much of an artist /a even in his prime before he blew his brain out on booze and dope. God only knows why anyone would give a rat s ass about any record he d make now, other than maybe as some kind of cheap camp irony.
/p p Maroon 5 have their second album out, i It Won t Be Soon Before Long /i . It s been five years since their first album and big hit This Love. Judging from their appearance on i SNL /i last weekend though, they don t seem to have managed to conjure up even one good hook in all those years.
But what do I know? This album is currently the #1 seller at Amazon. br / br / Joan Osborne has a new album out on Time Life Records.
i Breakfast in Bed /i shows her covering classics like Midnight Train to Georgia and Ain t No Sunshine. On the one hand, an album of covers doesn t sound all that scintillating. On the other hand, Joan Osborne is an outstanding singer.
She s a powerhouse singer who understands the virtues of restraint. /p Wed, 23 May 2007 20:51:45 EDT
com/thehorrors" The Horrors /a are so excited about the release of their new album i Strange House /i that they are going out on tour and want you to come to their shows! One lucky fan -- courtesy of Sneak Attack Media, the MuseBox, Stolen Transmission, and Blogcritics -- will get a pair of tickets to a show closest to the winner plus a subscription to a href="http://www.viceland.
de/index_int.php?country=us" Vice Magazine /a .
/p p The giveaway is open to US and Canadian residents only, and you must be of age to enter the venue. Minors must get approval from their parents in order to enter the giveaway, if they are able to attend the concert venue. /p width="100" height="75" style="float:left; margin:5px; border:1px solid white"/ Anna Creech is a librarian and blogger who dreams of a day when she can improve the ratio of read-to-unread books in her house.
Along with writing reviews, she maintains the a href="http://bcgoodiebag.com/" Blogcritics Goodie Bag /a , a collection of daily digital treats for eyes and ears. /div br style="clear: both;"/
I rsquo;m sure this article, this little ditty about a concert in the city of burned out lights, will get me more hits than anything I rsquo;ve ever written anywhere before. You know why. And sorry fellas.
You came to the wrong place. /p p I have a second bet for the music lovers who made it past the title. If a garage rock band, especially one singing in a non-English tongue (kudos to those resisting the imperial forces, in league with Chewy, Han, and Luke), has the savoir-faire to brand themselves as racy and then puts on a spectacular visual show, a href="http://bp0.
blogger.com/_9jVOWoaUMdo/RlB4cnakjgI/AAAAAAAAAMA/2f7fF7dqqw8/s1600-h/54.jpg" img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5066682013803908610" style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer" src="http://bp0.
blogger.com/_9jVOWoaUMdo/RlB4cnakjgI/AAAAAAAAAMA/2f7fF7dqqw8/s320/54.jpg" border="0" alt="" / /a it doesn rsquo;t really matter if anyone knows the lyrics mdash; or any song differentiation at all, for that matter.
In case you rsquo;re wondering, that rsquo;s a compliment. And in case you rsquo;re wondering, I rsquo;m talkin rsquo; lsquo;bout a href="http://www.myspace.
com/54nh" 54 Nude Honeys, /a the Japanese dirty rockers (garage punk) who (dis-)graced the stage of La Maroquinerie in Paris last night. /p p It wouldn rsquo;t be fair to continue with the Nude Honeys without saying something about the impressive opening act, a href="http://www.myspace.
com/rodeomassacre" Rodeo Massacre /a . As you know, sometimes the opening act is utterly missable. One often finds only about one-quarter of the main act audience even deigning to pull their little ostrich heads out of the sand for it.
It rsquo;s significant that Rodeo Massacre played to a full house. This is a band to watch. The charismatic lead singer Isabel Lindqwister is a gospel choir bird and a jazz dive diva from Stockholm.
The band is a Stockholm-Paris musical commute. It rsquo;s not really garage. It rsquo;s not blues.
It rsquo;s a great postmodern pastiche that is clearly influenced by the mods. Lindqwister, a Swede in Paris, has a bluesy soulful voice that recalls Kelly a href="http://bp2.blogger.
com/_9jVOWoaUMdo/RlB6rHakjiI/AAAAAAAAAMQ/-uYS0GVcfso/s1600-h/lindqwister.jpg" img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5066684461935267362" style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: right; cursor: pointer" src="http://bp2.blogger.
com/_9jVOWoaUMdo/RlB6rHakjiI/AAAAAAAAAMQ/-uYS0GVcfso/s200/lindqwister.jpg" border="0" alt="" align="right" / /a Hogan and The Detroit Cobras in contemporary indie settings. Like the main act that followed her, Linqwister rsquo;s stage presence competes with her extraordinary vocals.
Her straight blonde bangs into the eyes and mane descending to the derriere give her an unforgettable magnetism as she grooves around the stage as if at mod revival party. Rodeo Massacre was a fantastic prelude to the spectacular 54 Nude Honeys. /p p The Nude Honeys (named from the deck of playing cards popular with American forces in WW II) bring me back to my original hypothesis about garage and spectacle.
I don rsquo;t rsquo; speak Japanese. No matter. Lead singer Yuri could rsquo;ve been screeching, ldquo;Give me your money, idiot!
rdquo; and I would rsquo;ve never known the difference. The Nude Honeys gave the mostly male audience exactly what they wanted: high energy, surf-tinged garage-punk and dominatrix theatrics. /p p Darkness is to Honeys as Kryptonite is to Superman.
You have to see them to love them. Judging from the roaring crowd, some of it exploding in to an impressively post-teenage mosh pit, the Honeys belong to an audio-visual genre that bends the borders of rock, theater, the gentleman rsquo;s club, and the musical. They also follow in the tradition of theatrical dirty rockers like a href="http://www.
allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?
p=amg sql=11:g9fpxq85ldte" The Plasmatics /a , a href="http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.
dll" G.G. Allin /a , a href="http://www.
allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?
p=amg sql=11:0ifyxqr5ldhe" title="iggy pop" The Stooges /a , and a href="http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.
dll" The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black /a . Their all latex attire is poached from the legendary punk fashionistas on King rsquo;s Road circa rsquo;76. Chanteuse Yuri rsquo;s bikini provocatively shoots up the mercury as she shakes her fists violently at the ceiling, pouncing about, and screaming in a voice and antics that recall a deluded yappy schnauzer picking fights with Doberman Pinschers.
Her range is not impressive, but war cries and transitory ululating is real brand differentiation. /p p Just as Rodeo Massacre is about Linqwister, so the Honeys are about front(al)-lady Yuri. The bassist and guitarist, did little to draw attention beyond their admittedly sultry attire.
A smile here and there. A tough SnM presence handling the prominently long-necked guitars mdash;but with more stationary and muted gestures by comparison to their singer. The drummer, the lone guy in the group about whom the male audience no doubt fantasizes for his intimate surroundings on this ldquo;Sexy Pistols Tour, rdquo; is the second most prominent figure.
Relegated like all drummers to the dustbin of the stage, he nevertheless refuses that anonymity with wild movements and a sopping wet chest. Picture Animal from the Muppets, but wet, Japanese, shirtless, and in latex pants. /p p It rsquo;s true that the sound does matter.
No one moshes to Simon and Garfunkel or Air. But this is definitely a band to watch. object width="425" height="350" param name="movie" value="http://www.
youtube.com/v/C4f2qvLaePE" /param param name="wmode" value="transparent" /param embed src="http://www.youtube.
com/v/C4f2qvLaePE" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350" /embed /object /p div id="authorbio" An educator, scholar and critic, Jayson Harsin also was recently an indie rock and alt. country dj for seven years at WNUR radio in Chicago. He has two blogs (Pearls Before Swine and Parisnormale:Indie Paris Music News).
/div br style="clear: both;"/ Sun, 20 May 2007 15:15:56 EDT The Smashing Pumpkins have pushed back the release date of their upcoming album. i Zeitgeist /i was originally planned to come out on July 7, 2007 will now be out on July 10th. The album was originally set to come out on a Saturday, but has been pushed back to a more typical Tuesday release.
/p Apple Inc. has received FCC approval for its upcoming iPhone. Approval from the FCC is necessary for any phone that is set to be released in the US.
AT T-Cingular have an exclusive contract to distribute the phone and say that it should be expected in late June. br/ MSN has revealed its new LiveEarth.msn.
com site. MSN is the exclusive online media partner of the event and the site now combines information about climate change along with entertainment. There are now photos as well as editorial and video content on the site alongside a free downloadable song by Madonna written for the Live Earth concert series.
/p div id="authorbio" Katharine Donelson is a student of Linguistics, Communication and Welsh. She currently lives in Cardiff with her fiancee where she spends her time learning Welsh vocabulary, listening to music, watching films, photographing the local scenery and maintaining her blog a href=http://www.thefilmnoirexperience.
com The Film Noir Experience. /a /div br style="clear: both;"/
I haven t heard much about it, but Elvis Costello s right hand man has what is listed as an opera, with performances by Elvis, Sting and the Brodsky Quartet. I remain healthily skeptical of classical music turns by pop musicians -- even Elvis -- but this lineup should be worth a listen. /p p Also, Wilco has i Sky Blue Sky /i .
I would be more likely to call their undistinguished songwriting i Sucky Bland Sucky /i , but some critic types really think this band is the shiznit. In fairness, it s not just critic types, as this album is currently #5 at Amazon. /p p I would maybe slightly more favor the third album by Gretchen Wilson, i One of the Boys /i .
She generally strikes me as lowest common denominator modern commercial country music, but at least I can remember one or two hooks from Redneck Woman. That s more than I can say for Wilco, to which I ve given more careful listening. /p p Linkin Park has a new album i Minutes to Midnight /i , their third.
I don t understand why they ve sold three trillion albums, but they looked halfway like somebody last week on i Saturday Night Live /i . Still, I couldn t remember a thing about either of those songs after watching carefully. However, they re the #1 seller currently at Amazon, so what do I know?
/p Avant-Garde Jazz, Free Jazz, Avant-Garde, Structured Improvisation, Modern Composition, Free Improvisation /p YACHT i I Believe in You. Your Magic Is Real /i Marriage br/ Drop Al a note, and try to talk some sense into him, will ya? gadfly at morethings.
com /div br style="clear: both;"/ p IBM has announced that it has lost some computer tapes containing sensitive information about customer transactions and employees. The tapes were lost in February while they were being transported between two IBM facilities by a third party. The tapes fell out of the vehicle near IBM s headquarters in Westchester County, New York.
The tapes contained data mostly on former employees. IBM has not indicated how many tapes were lost but they have put an ad in the local paper asking for the return of the tapes. br / br / a href="http://www.
nme.com/news/bob-marley/28381" Classic Bob Marley to be reissued on USB stick /a br / br / br / br / The Bob Marley album i Exodus /i will be released on USB stick and on Micro SD Memory Card for the 30th anniversary of its original release. The USB stick and Memory card will be limited editions with only 4,000 of the data stick and 2,000 of the memory cards being released.
The album will also be available as a CD and a deluxe CD, which will include 12 songs on a DVD recorded at the Rainbow Theatre in London. The album will be reissued on May 28th and will be packaged the same as the original recording. br / br / br / br / br / /p div id="authorbio" Katharine Donelson is a student of Linguistics, Communication and Welsh.
She currently lives in Cardiff with her fiancee where she spends her time learning Welsh vocabulary, listening to music, watching films, photographing the local scenery and maintaining her blog a href=http://www.thefilmnoirexperience.com The Film Noir Experience.
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