Search Results for: through being cool

If the Click Five had sold more copies of its debut album, the Boston pop band might be in an even trickier position than it is now. Modest sales, an executive at the group’s Atlantic Records label says, are precisely what enabled the Click Five to survive the departure of original lead singer Eric Dill, who quit last year during preproduction for the follow-up to 2005’s “Greetings From Imrie House.” “The band had achieved a good deal of success,” says Andy Karp, head of A&R at Atlantic, pointing to “Imrie House” sales of 333,000 copies. “But they hadn’t really become… Read more »

Imagine a “dream machine” on wheels. It’s easy if you try. But the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus is no dream. A state-of-the-art multimedia studio packed in a bus, it’s a vehicle for opening the minds of aspiring young musicians. “Swing open the door, step inside, take three short steps into the main cabin and look around,” writes Mark Garvey in “Come Together: The Official John Lennon Educational Tour Bus Guide to Music and Video,” a recently published history of the bus by Garvey and Yoko Ono Lennon. “You’ve entered a different world. And whether you’re young or old, if… Read more »

For then 15-year-old Travis McCoy, high school gym class was nothing more than an excuse to chat about music with buddy Matt McGinley. McCoy, who was an aspiring rapper, was the frontman for a local band, and McGinley played drums for another in their native Geneva, N.Y. The summer after sophomore year, McGinley’s band landed a party gig, and McCoy, who happened to be at the same gathering, stepped to the mic and began to rhyme along with it. Thus Gym Class Heroes was born and went on to release three independent albums before signing to Fall Out Boy principal… Read more »

We’re not even 20 seconds into the show, and Ryan Seacrest is already suggesting that we’re in for one helluva train wreck tonight. “We don’t havhe Paula! But we’ll find her, right?” This is “American Idol”? It’s the last round of semifinal performances, and nothing could be worse than Tuesday’s embarrassing men’s show . Well, I guess if they let Antonella sing for the entire episode I’d reconsider that statement. But with a group of girls this talented, even an off-night would be worth watching. And Paula’s top-of-the-show disappearing act certainly suggests that it may be chock full of potential… Read more »

Late in the afternoon of Jan. 16, a SWAT team from the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office, backed up by officers from the Clayton County Sheriff’s Office and the local police department, along with a few drug-sniffing dogs, burst into a unmarked recording studio on a short, quiet street in an industrial neighborhood near the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. The officers entered with their guns drawn; the local police chief said later that they were “prepared for the worst.” They had come to serve a warrant for the arrest of the studio’s owners on the grounds that they had violated the… Read more »

Are the re-formed Smashing Pumpkins set to rock Lollapalooza? Will the long-dormant Police return at Bonnaroo? How about a reunited Nirvana taking the stage at South by Southwest, only with Ben Kweller playing guitar and singing Kurt’s vocals? All three sound too good to be true, little more than the pipe dreams of manic music buffs with way too much free time. But incredibly, they’re all “100 percent confirmed” by sources with intimate knowledge about such things. But don’t go crazy just yet. It’s entirely possible that absolutely none of the above information is true. After all, we’re smack-dab in… Read more »

Baltimore – If you find yourself surrounded by 40,000 fans, 40 bands, three stages and 85 degrees, you’ve apparently waded chest-deep into the summer concert season. For years, folks east of the Mississippi have welcomed the start of that season at the HFStival, now staged in Baltimore after thriving for 15 years as a Washington, D.C., staple. Quite a bit’s changed since WHFS-FM started ushering in the arrival of summer – most notably the station itself, which disappeared from the dial earlier this year. It has since resurfaced as an online entity and also takes over Baltimore’s Live 105.7 on… Read more »

Alexisonfire inherited the screamo crown of Canada this year, knocking it right off the emotionally hardcore heads of their peers. Their sophomore disc, Watch Out!, which the band describes as sounding like “two Catholic high-school girls in mid-knife-fight,” went gold in under three months, even though the band received little radio play. We caught up with lead screamer George Pettit to talk about the finer points of fronting the band and how his success is finally allowing him the chance to move out of his parents’ house. ChartAttack: You guys have had a crazy-good year. Has the success been any… Read more »

Los Angeles – Epitaph Records built its foundation on punk rock. But just before last year’s presidential election, the label’s most biting political commentary arrived courtesy of Sage Francis, a 27-year-old rapper from Providence, R.I. The song “Slow Down Gandhi” sarcastically rips into liberals and conservatives alike, casting a cynical eye at warmongers and the “cool kids” who “were rocking votes.” With a perfectly articulated delivery that recalls Chuck D, Francis builds each verse with a mixture of activism, paranoia and humor. “If they could sell sanity in a bottle, they would be charging for compressed air,” he quips. Epitaph… Read more »

After being on the road for two years, playing hundreds of shows and doing about just as many interviews, the last thing Finger Eleven guitarist James Black probably wants is to listen to the same old questions. So, ChartAttack sat down with Black to talk a little about comics, the band’s new single and surviving on the road with your friends… You guys have a new single coming out called “Thousand Mile Wish.” Is it a heavier song or more of a ballad like “One Thing”? James Black: It’s a softer song. In my opinion it’s actually in-between because the… Read more »