Search Results for: basement

NASHVILLE —  Watch Nathan Followill breeze into his local Nashville watering hole, and it’s obvious that he’s well known and well liked by the crew at McCabe’s Pub. Clad in sweats and a Yankees cap, the Kings of Leon drummer comes off more as cool local guy than international rock star Nothing in this manner indicates that his Nashville-based rock band’s fourth album is finally making the Kings as big in the United States as they have been in Europe since 2004, when the group had back-to-back No. 1 singles in the United Kingdom According to the band’s label, RCA,… Read more »

When Barack Obama moved into the White House on January 20th, he gained access to five chefs, a private bowling alley – and a killer collection of classic LPs. Stored in the basement of the executive mansion is the official White House Record Library: several hundred LPs that include landmark albums in rock (Led Zeppelin IV, the Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed), punk (the Ramones’ Rocket to Russia, the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols), cult classics (Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica, the Flying Burrito Brothers’ The Gilded Palace of Sin) and disco. Not to mention… Read more »

You’ve played the iPhone app. Now get the soundtrack. EMI Music has become the first major label to line up multiple artists for an edition of Tapulous’ popular iPhone game application Tap Tap Revenge. The new version of the rhythm game, called Tap Tap Dance, features songs by five EMI acts — Moby the Chemical Brothers Digitalism Daft Punk and Basement Jaxx — as well as independent acts Justice, Junkie XL Soul Magic Orchestra and Morgan Page Tapulous will release all 10 tracks included in the game by the end of the year as a digital soundtrack that will be… Read more »

The first time Arcade Fire performed in Paris, Mathieu Saura stood outside the venue with his girlfriend, holding up a sign that read, “Please, we want to come to the show.” The band’s bassist, Richard Reed Perry, got them in, and ever since, Saura might as well have not left. Under the name Vincent Moon, he’s gone from a fan begging for tickets to an in-demand filmmaker who has revolutionized music video. His films are stripped down, intimate videotaped performances – shot in one take, often of an act simply strolling down a street or playing in a parking lot.… Read more »

The wedding may have been Alice in Wonderland, but the honeymoon is shaping up to be more Ashlee in underground. “We’re in the basement of a house,” newlywed Pete Wentz told Ryan Seacrest on his radio show this morning. “We’ve got some, like, blow-up palm trees down here. It’s pretty nice, man. A little fake-‘n’-bake tanning booth. It’s gonna look like we went on a private jet somewhere. And we’re gonna save that 30 grand. “The paparazzi thinks we left on some private jet or whatever. You know, the truth is, we’re just sitting down here, eating DiGiorno pizza, getting… Read more »

Feist’s musical palette contains many emotional colors, but there’s something to be said for joy. More than anything, a playful spirit explains why this was the Canadian singer-songwriter’s breakout year – that, and a well-timed iPod commercial. She’s up for four Grammy Awards at the Feb. 10 ceremony, including best new artist. One of Feist’s videos shows her flying through the air and literally being pulled back to Earth by someone suspicious of her fun. Another depicts her dancing through fireworks in what one onlooker at the production told her “looks like what falling in love feels like.” Her clip… Read more »

What could be better after a hard day’s sightseeing? Visitors to Liverpool, birthplace of the Beatles, can rest their heads in the Lennon or McCartney suites at the Fab Four-themed Hard Days Night Hotel that opened Friday. More than 45 years after John, Paul, George and Ringo emerged from Liverpool’s tiny, sweaty clubs to conquer the world, the Beatles industry is key to this battered-but-proud city’s attempt to transform itself from fading commercial hub to thriving cultural hotbed. The 110-room Hard Days Night Hotel hopes to be its newest attraction. “It’s stunning, spectacular,” said Julia Baird, John Lennon’s half-sister, after… Read more »

Pete Wentz was treated to dinner a few months ago by Lyor Cohen, the renowned rap promoter and U.S. music chief of Warner Music Group. Wentz, 28, is the eyelinered heartthrob and bassist of punk band Fall Out Boy; but this dinner was in celebration of the hit single just released by another band, Panic! At the Disco, which records on Wentz’s own label, Decaydance. “He asked me, ‘What do you want out of life, Pete?’” Wentz says. His answer was flip: business cards. The next day he received a stack of cards listing his name and a new title:… Read more »

Recently, Maureen Callahan wrote a piece for the New York Post about Crush Management, the NYC cadre that shepherds the careers of Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, the Academy Is … , Boys Like Girls and Armor for Sleep (or, as Callahan puts it, “basically any band that a 13-year-old girl with a blog and a Hot Topic habit obsesses over”). Aside from providing readers with some genuinely bananas quotes from songwriter/ rock-and-roll vampire Butch Walker about credibility (especially considering this is on his résumé), the article is excellent primarily because it floats the hypothesis that the artists… Read more »