If a listener ever found himself or herself in need of an album to narrate their life story at the point where they’re staring up at the sky asking the big questions of life, Satellite’s Calling Birds may be the one.
If it were NBA awards season, the sixth man award could have easily gone to the sold-out Starland Ballroom crowd Monday night, which sang every word from the opening band to the evening’s closer, “My Friends Over You.â€
COLUMBUS, Ohio – A small memorial started by a handful of fans blossomed into an outpouring of grief and celebration Thursday, less than 24 hours after the shocking slayings at the Alrosa Villa club where Pantera/ Damageplan guitarist “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott and three others were killed. Despite the rain and cold temperature, hundreds of fans gathered outside the weathered metal club to pay homage to their hero. They erected makeshift crosses, laid yellow roses in honor of Abbott’s Texas roots and burned candles in his honor, but mostly they shared stories, asked each other why anyone would do such a… Read more »
It’s been a big year for Jesus. Mel Gibson made a fortune at the box office with “The Passion of the Christ,” Kanye West has huge plans for his single “Jesus Walks”, and now Green Day have recorded a concept album about their own Jesus character. “The record has a story line throughout it that follows a character by the name of Jesus of Suburbia,” singer Billie Joe Armstrong said Wednesday during a break from rehearsal. “It’s [about] him coming of age and the growing pains that are involved in it and seeing if he makes the right choices or… Read more »
Prince wants his music back. Just a month before he releases the first DVD from his New Power Generation Music Club, the club has sent its paid members a list of album rarities Prince would like returned in his continuing struggle to guard against bootlegging and to control his own sonic real estate. In an e-mail sent Wednesday to the NPGMC, fans were asked to “Help the cause!” and look for “anything with a WB logo that was unofficially released during Prince’s tenure at that label.” Among the suggested discs to send in, according to a list provided by the… Read more »
Nearly 7,000 music industry representatives and more than 1,000 bands are descending on Austin this week for the 17th annual South by Southwest Music Conference and Festival. Even for a place that calls itself the “Live Music Capitol of the World,” the planes, buses and vans arriving full of shaggy-haired men and tattooed women carrying guitars and drums adds a new dimension to the city. The musicians and industry representatives have come for four days of industry panels, discussions and trade shows. To balance out the shop talk, the festival features four intense nights of live music with 1,000 acts… Read more »
Clad in skimpy tank tops, teenage pop stars Lena and Yulia giggle and clasp hands on a Russian television talk show as their hit music video is played for a studio audience. The camera pans over the audience, lingering on a Russian Orthodox priest who grimaces and crosses himself when the video shows the girls kissing. The pop duo Tatu – Russian slang for “This girl (loves) that girl” – has long been causing a sensation at home. But now that the teenagers are also climbing charts around the world, their scanty schoolgirl uniforms, flirtations with lesbianism and in-your-face sexuality… Read more »
Neko Case will release her third solo album Blacklisted, on August 20th. Recorded at Wavelab in Tucson, Arizona, Case cited the title track as representative of the wistful mood of the disc. “I was in Iowa City, Iowa when I wrote it,” Case says of the song. “I was feeling pretty sad, and it was before our show so I went for a walk – Iowa City is a very beautiful town – and I found this old train depot that was closed down. I was just kind of looking around and was overwhelmed by the place, and a lot… Read more »
Strahov Stadium has had it all – communist rallies, anti-globalization protests, gymnastics exhibitions, drive-through movies and, now, Ozzfest. The crumbling structure, which stands as the largest stadium in the world per square foot, lent itself well to Ozzy Osbourne and his latest touring comrades, who hit the venue Thursday night for the seventh stop on the metal tour. With their stage parked in the middle of the field, the hard rockers used only half of the 200,000-capacity stadium, carving out an almost cozy cradle for Bohemia’s metalheads within the concrete monolith. While the tour got off to a less-than-grand beginning… Read more »
Veteran British electronic duo Pet Shop Boys has lined up a spring/summer world tour due to kick off May 14 in Miami. The trek crosses over to Europe beginning June 12 in Madrid and concludes with 12 dates in the group’s U.K. home base. It comes in support of the pair’s eighth EMI studio album, “Release,” which debuts this week at No. 5 on the European Top 100 Albums chart. The set is due April 23 in North America. As previously reported, the group’s planned Wotapalava tour was canceled last July due to poor ticket sales and the failure to… Read more »
