Search Results for: You, Me, And Everyone We Know

In the career path of a rock star, playing in a cover band typically comes near the beginning, somewhere between discovering your parents’ vinyl and winning a battle of the bands at the county fair. Lately, however, some rock stars have been forming ironically named cover bands after making it big. In fact, what used to be considered somewhat lame has suddenly become chic, with Dave Navarro’s Camp Freddy leading the way. “Everyone’s jumpin’ that train, man,” said Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, whose cover band Chevy Metal has been playing around Los Angeles for five years. So why the… Read more »

In the career path of a rock star, playing in a cover band typically comes near the beginning, somewhere between discovering your parents’ vinyl and winning a battle of the bands at the county fair. Lately, however, some rock stars have been forming ironically named cover bands after making it big. In fact, what used to be considered somewhat lame has suddenly become chic, with Dave Navarro’s Camp Freddy leading the way. “Everyone’s jumpin’ that train, man,” said Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, whose cover band Chevy Metal has been playing around Los Angeles for five years. So why the… Read more »

While Floridian metalcore sextet Underoath were recording 2006’s Define the Great Line a little more than a year ago, the band’s drummer, Aaron Gillespie, found himself writing straight-up rock tunes, material that he realized wouldn’t fit with Underoath’s vicious style. If these songs were to be heard someday, he knew he’d have to release them himself. So before Define ’s June release, Gillespie hit the studio alone to track the songs, playing all of the instruments himself and even tackling vocalist duties, like how Trent Reznor records Nine Inch Nails albums. This spring, Gillespie’s as-yet-untitled solo debut, which he’ll release… Read more »

One sunny afternoon not long ago, Dick Copaken sat in a booth at Daniel, one of those hushed, exclusive restaurants on Manhattan’s Upper East Side where the waiters glide spectrally fro table to table. He was wearing a starched button-down shirt and a blue blazer. Every strand of his thinning hair was in place, and he spoke calmly and slowly, his large pink Charlie Brow head bobbing along evenly as he did. Copaken spent many years as a partner at the white-shoe Washington, D.C., firm Covington & Burling, and he has a lawyer’s gravitas. One of his bes friends calls… Read more »

The upcoming closure of New York’s famed punk-rock club CBGB is lamented by locals as the loss of a legendary venue; for others it symbolizes another Manhattan neighborhood becoming corporate and bland. Standing underneath the club’s red awning on Thursday evening, several young musicians smoked cigarettes and bemoaned the loss of the dank, grimy club that began in 1973 and will have its last show on Sunday, featuring Patti Smith. The venue — its full name is CBGB & OMFUG, or Country Bluegrass Blues and Other Music For Uplifting Gormandizers — spawned the Ramones, Talking Heads and Blondie, whose lead… Read more »

Good Charlotte drummer Chris Wilson – who provided the back beat on the band’s latest album, The Chronicles of Life and Death – has left the group due to undisclosed “personal health problems.” The band made the announcement via a letter posted Tuesday on GoodCharlotte.com. “As many of you know, our drummer Chris Wilson has been on and off the road due to personal health problems,” the band wrote. “Unfortunately, his problems continue, and we have made a collective decision to have Chris stay around his friends and family and begin to truly rehabilitate. This has not been easy on… Read more »

BEVERLY HILLS, California – If only iTunes charts meant as much as Billboard charts. “I’d be on the front of People magazine every week,” Ben Folds joked. “I have a real disproportionate Internet fanbase. On iTunes, it’s me and the Boss.” In “the real world,” a.k.a. record stores, though, Folds has pretty much tossed in the towel. “You don’t have to walk in the mall for very long to realize I’m not really in that world,” Folds said during a promotional trip to Los Angeles last week that included, of all things, an in-store performance at Virgin Records. “The misconception… Read more »

Used record bins are flooded with albums from swaggering British lads whose bands have conquered England and have their eyes set on cracking the States. Not too many of them can claim to have their music used in two of the most popular TV shows in the country before most Americans have ever heard of them, though. The vaguely scary, beat-crazy sound you might have heard on recent episodes of “Desperate Housewives” and “CSI: Miami” comes courtesy of Kasabian, currently infecting American ears with the intense marriage of druggy beats and massive guitar riffs from their self-titled debut. “We’re going… Read more »

Toronto, Ontario – Oh, Sum 41, how far you’ve come. Despite this show making up for a previously cancelled one, Ajax’s favourite sons were greeted by a full house of hardcore kids, girls in tiny tube tops, drunken frat boys and little pop-punkers firmly protected by a designated parent. One had to wonder whether those parents were routinely covering their poor child’s ears, given all the less-than-all-ages language that was being tossed around. “Sorry Mom, sorry Dad, your kids are going to be learning some new words tonight!” An appropriate warning coming from frontman Deryck Whibley, who would proceed to… Read more »

The nonstop party that is the life of Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee for about the past 20 years gets cranked up several notches on his upcoming solo album, Tommyland: The Ride, which is due in August. And although he knows it’s a cliché, he swears the album is the best thing he’s ever done. “It’s true, this is the best thing I’ve ever done!” Tommy yelled from a stop on the Mötley Crüe reunion tour. “I mean, people will be like, ‘Is that f–ing Tommy?’ It’s like an event record.” That much is true, as Tommy has invited a… Read more »