Search Results for: All Time Low

Metallica are keeping busy while they wait for guitarist James Hetfield to rejoin the fray following treatment for substance-abuse problems. When Hetfield entered rehab on July 19, the band announced it had “postponed all current activities, including recording sessions for our new album”. On Friday, however, guitarist Kirk Hammett and drummer Lars Ulrich invited Ja Rule into the studio to record a rap for a new track. “I spin two 12-bar verses with Metallica on their new big, huge record they got that’s crazy,” Ja Rule said. The mostly instrumental number may end up on a DreamWorks Records compilation, Ja… Read more »

Former Metallica bassist Jason Newsted made his first live appearance with his new band, EchoBrain, on Sunday, playing an hour-long set of heavy yet melodic rock to close out Nadine’s Wild Weekend, a showcase of Bay Area bands. Newsted left Metallica in January, partly due to a strict policy barring side projects, and he had an air of rebirth about him at the posh Bimbo’s 365 Club. “Playing other types of music with other people always enabled me to play better for Metallica,” Newsted said before the show. “It really kept me fresh to hit that loud stuff, my forte.… Read more »

Though they’d rather be making their own movies, Sonic Youth are back in the studio laying down atmospheric music for a French film and noisy dinosaur rock for their next album. “We’re improvising and getting into these long, elaborate stretches of music and keeping an ear for soundtrack cues but at the same time listening for how they would work for song elements,” singer/guitarist Thurston Moore said last week. “We sit around drinking iced coffee, and then we start getting it together and playing and all hell breaks loose and it just becomes like a creative mosh pit for a… Read more »

There might be a better setting for a Tool concert, but it doesn’t exist in waking life: The prehistoric, rugged beauty of Red Rocks Amphitheater felt almost threatening when serving as the physical backdrop for the band’s volcanic performance on Friday night, which opened a brief tour with prog-rock veterans King Crimson. Flanked by rock formations pushed up from the bubbling earth more than 60 million years ago (and donning a bald head, sporadic body paint and a black leather bodice), Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan looked like an androgynous ambassador of the apocalypse. Judging by the capacity crowd –… Read more »

Picture this: A kind of “MTV Unplugged” on The Travel Channel. Then you have an idea of what to expect from “Music In High Places,” airing 10 p.m. EDT Friday on MTV. This week’s outing offers an unusual and entertaining acoustic performance by the Deftones, a band whose ear-shattering, in-your-face music won a best metal Grammy this year. “This is a group that really played into the philosophy of ‘Music In High Places,”‘ said the show’s executive producer, Parvene Michaels. That philosophy was to take the Deftones out of their concert venues, unplug their electrical guitars, microphones and amplifiers and… Read more »

It is a visual overload, this PopOdyssey tour starring the reigning champs of the pop music marketplace, ‘N Sync. There are films and explosions and dancers and mechanical bulls and more costumes than songs – it looks exhausting for performer and young viewer alike. It’s a feast of production values, a sign that every dime went into something the audience can see and, taken collectively, the show is a better marketing tool than a dozen videos. PopOdyssey is flat-out a vehicle to expose new songs to their hard-core audience and give a dynamic and visceral association to the bulk of… Read more »

They are known as the Alkaline Trio, but the way the red-hot Chicago punk band goes through drummers, they could be called the Next in Line Trio. Since founding member Glenn Porter left the group a little more than a year ago, the trio have had three different drummers, and they’ll have a fourth by fall. Porter was replaced by former Smoking Popes drummer Mike Felumlee, who left a year later to spend time with his family. Face to Face’s Rob Kurth filled in temporarily for Alkaline Trio’s breakthrough slot on Blink-182’s spring club tour. The group is now rehearsing… Read more »

Macy Gray picked up more than postcards and passport stamps during her world tour supporting On How Life Is – she also brought home inspiration for her second album, The Id. The charismatic songstress says her world travels supporting her 1999 breakthrough exposed her to an eclectic mix of styles and sounds that inspired her to get wild in the studio. “You go to France and African rhythms are really big over there and then you go to Germany and you’ve got like German hip-hop,” Gray said Wednesday. “And then there’s all kinds of techno clubs and drum’n’bass and jungle… Read more »

After brandishing an iron fist Tuesday by suing the Dixie Chicks for breach of contract, Sony Music extended a velvet glove on Wednesday through a statement that practically caresses the top-selling trio. “We filed this complaint to confirm that the Dixie Chicks remain signed to an exclusive recording contract with Sony Music,” the statement read. “We take great pride in the work we have done in establishing the Dixie Chicks as the most popular and biggest selling female country group of all time. We have tremendous respect for all of the Dixie Chicks, as well as for their extraordinary music.”… Read more »

Embattled song-swap service Napster Inc., facing a judge’s order which could put it permanently out of business, announced Thursday it had settled copyright infringement lawsuits brought by hard rockers Metallica and rap artist Dr. Dre. “I think we’ve resolved this in a way that works for fans, recording artists and songwriters alike,” Metallica co-founder Lars Ulrich said in a statement announcing the deal. “Our beef hasn’t been with the concept of sharing music,” Ulrich said. “The problem we had with Napster was that they never asked us or other artists if we wanted to participate in their business.” Under the… Read more »