Search Results for: seattle

Forget “Kumbaya” and “Home on the Range.” Next year the lyrics of punky-spunky Karen O may be heard around the campfire. While her band the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are in the very early stages of a new album, Karen says they’ve been toying with some folky sounds for their follow-up to Fever to Tell. “There is some acoustic guitar – a first – and Brian [Chase] has been studying tabla, so we may throw some of that in there, too,” she said in an e-mail. “YYY campfire sing-alongs, YYYs go rustic.” While her tongue may be planted firmly in her… Read more »

Los Angeles – Don’t tell Hot Hot Heat keyboardist/vocalist Steve Bays that press coverage doesn’t matter: The reviews for “Make Up the Breakdown,” the band’s 2003 effort for Seattle-based Sub Pop Records, had a direct influence on the act’s major-label debut. “People said we sounded like Dexys Midnight Runners, so I went out and bought a Dexys Midnight Runners album,” Bays says. What he heard resulted in the current single “Goodnight Goodnight.” The song, which Bays describes as a cross between OutKast’s Andre 3000 and early Beatles, takes a keyboard-laced dancehall groove into a chorus that downshifts the song. The… Read more »

New York – Few musicians can boast the level of success that Billy Idol attained in the ’80s and early ’90s. Unfortunately, the “live hard and die young” punk rock ethos doesn’t come with a middle-age survival guide. “When you’re young you never think you’ll be a 50-year-old rocking out with the young bands,” Idol told The Associated Press. That’s exactly what Idol, 49, hopes to be doing next year. The pop-punk patriarch has just released “Devil’s Playground,” his first full-length album since 1993’s unremarkable “Cyberpunk.” With five million-sellers already under his belt, Idol hopes “Playground” will return him to… Read more »

Yes, Bright Eyes just finished a tour in support of their acoustic-based I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning LP last month. But indefatigable frontman Conor Oberst is hitting the road again next month with friends/Saddle Creek labelmates the Faint; this tour will focus on Bright Eyes’ other new LP, the more experimental, electronic Digital Ash in a Digital Urn. The Faint will be pulling double duty throughout the entire tour, playing their own set and serving as Oberst’s backing band, along with cellist Gretta Cohn from Cursive, guitarist Nick Zinner from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and others. The 30-date trek begins… Read more »

Los Angeles – Recording industry executive Andy Gershon sees opportunity in the online file-sharing networks that most of his rivals decry as havens for music pirates. As president of V2 Records, home to such established acts as The White Stripes and Moby, Gershon mines such Internet distribution channels for new fans and revenues. “The cat is so far out of the bag and so far gone that it’s pointless to keep fighting it,” Gershon said. “I might as well make as many people fans of our music, whether they illegally download it or not.” A number of mostly independent recording… Read more »

Chris Cornell, prepare to get your transcendence on. Audioslave are hitting the road in support of their upcoming second album beginning April 14 in Las Vegas, and from sound of things, opening night can’t come soon enough for Cornell. “I can just go out onstage and get lost in the music and get lost in whatever it is I am doing and it becomes transcendent, and it is kind of addictive now,” the singer said Wednesday (March 16). “With Audioslave, I’ve really started to like the road a lot. There is a certain dedication and work ethic that the band… Read more »

The annual three-ring circus that is Ozzfest has become a perennial summer celebration of all things loud and abrasive over the last decade – and this summer’s lineup will not disappoint. Black Sabbath and British metal stalwarts Iron Maiden – who will be playing material exclusively from their first four albums – will share headlining duties, and they’ll be joined for the 26-city ride by Rob Zombie and a host of young metal bands, starting on July 15. Along with Sabbath, Maiden and Zombie, the main stage will also include Killswitch Engage, Shadows Fall and Ozzfest regulars Zakk Wylde’s Black… Read more »

Los Angeles – Before they made the jump to Atlantic Records in 2004, the members of Death Cab for Cutie thought long and hard about leaving Seattle’s Barsuk Records. But after six years of deliberation, and the ultimate satisfaction the band took in its decision, manager Jordan Kurland grants that there has been a twinge of remorse. “I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that after I saw Bright Eyes debut in the top 10, I didn’t think, ‘Ah, we should have done that…’ But we’re having a great time.” Indeed, the band Bright Eyes bolted to No. 10 on… Read more »

New Found Glory are breaking up the monotony of touring… with more touring. Having already spent the majority of 2004 playing radio festivals, the Warped Tour and club dates in North America, Europe and Australia (not to mention the arenas they graced as an opener on Green Day’s tour), NFG decided that it was time that they had a headlining tour of their own… you know, since their latest album, Catalyst, came out almost one year ago. “We had really started thinking about doing a headlining tour back in the fall, but then Green Day comes knocking and says, ‘Come… Read more »

Maybe you can blame it on some indie-minded guilt. On March 1, Death Cab for Cutie – longtime independent stalwarts recently inked to Atlantic Records – will drop The John Byrd EP, the final release for them on tiny Seattle label Barsuk Records. The EP will only be available in two places: on Barsuk’s Web site or in record stores who are members of the Coalition of Independent Music Stores. It could be the result of a guilty conscience. But it’s more than likely not. “We just wanted to have a properly recorded live record out there, because bootlegs show… Read more »