Search Results for: blur

When the Silversun Pickups were writing “Swoon,”  the follow-up to their breakout “Carnavas” album, they were given access to parts of the universe where mere mortals dare not tread. And they soaked in them. “We were on jets that landed on hovercrafts that rolled us onto Jacuzzi-shaped planes,” frontman Brian Aubert laughed. “And on one Jacuzzi plane, there was a submarine, and that was the VIP, and that was going crazy. And that’s where we wrote the album. We wrote “Swoon” on the backs of hookers. In crayon.” He’s kidding. But there’s no denying that the past few years have… Read more »

In between the raunchy humor and nudity, Blink-182 managed to make a huge impact on other bands and devoted fans. Perhaps without even knowing it – and definitely without ever really trying – Blink-182 have somehow become one of the most influential bands of the past 20 years. This might seem like a bit of a stretch. After all, aren’t these the same guys with the discography of di– jokes? The ones who gave their albums titles like “Enema of the State or Take Off Your Pants and Jacket?” Well, yes. But they’re also the same guys who featured Robert… Read more »

DELETED SCENES HAVE been working on their debut album, “Birdseed Shirt,” for a long time – at least in indie-rock years. Having recorded the basic tracks at Magpie Cage studio in Baltimore in September 2007, the D.C.-born quartet spent roughly 10 months mixing, tweaking and re-tweaking the album. In that time, three members of Deleted Scenes relocated to Brooklyn and two of them have come a few hairs away from completing graduate degrees. Luckily, “Birdseed Shirt” was worth the group’s relative struggle to finish it. The songs Deleted Scenes recently posted to their MySpace page are surprisingly ambitious – delicately… Read more »

New York rock band Interpol will return to duty this summer for a run of European and North American festival dates, beginning July 3 in Norway. The trek will likely be the last in support of the band’s 2007 album, “Our Love To Admire,” before it gets busy on its next album. The only North American date confirmed so far is the Pemberton Festival in British Columbia on July 26. “We didn’t really do much of the summer festivals last year,” drummer Sam Fogarino told Billboard.com. “It will be the last hit-it-home, end-on-a-good note.” The new album, its first for… Read more »

It appears hot tubs can now be powered by green energy. On Dec. 8, newbie garage rockers Foxboro Hot Tubs launched its website with the six-song EP Stop Drop and Roll available as a free download. It didn’t take long for music junkies to realize this new band might not be so new after all. “The internet is ablaze!!!!” proclaimed celeb blogger Perez Hilton last month. “A band called Foxboro Hot Tubs has released an EP of six songs that has people speculating that it’s the Green Day boys experimenting with a new sound.” The songs were pulled a short… Read more »

Times are tough for the bangs-‘n’-guyliner set. Leading practitioners Marilyn Manson and My Chemical Romance are feuding, everyone is being labeled “emo” (and subsequently besieged by laughably uninformed nightly news reports), and Pete Wentz is dating Jessica Simpson’s sister. And now, as if things couldn’t get any worse, spooky-ooky outlet Hot Topic is ditching “dark and foreboding” for “lighter and brighter” in an attempt to halt a three-year slide in sales. “The desire is not to make the store ‘not gothic-y,’ it’s merely to reflect what’s going on in the music scene. Our store design has always reflected the music… Read more »

Before the tour van and the record deal, before the girls begging for autographs, they were middle school mall rats who made a terrible racket practicing in their parents’ homes.

Damon Albarn has confirmed he is concluding his animated pop act Gorillaz later this year with a feature-length send off. Rumours had been circulating throughout 2006 as to the band’s demise, particularly with Albarn focused on his musical work with side project The Good, The Bad and the Queen, and his return to the new Blur album, and speaking to BBC Radio last week, the singer/songwriter confirmed an animated film and accompanying film score would be the band’s swan song. “We’re trying to make a film next, starting in September hopefully,” said Albarn, commenting that they had approached famed Monty… Read more »