As far as explanatory statements from musicians go, this one by Relient K frontman Matt Thiessen about his band’s new album, Five Score and Seven Years Ago, sort of takes the cake for general awesomeness: “We had already come up with the title of the album, so I decided to write some lyrics about John Wilkes Booth. I hope people don’t think it’s a concept record about Abraham Lincoln or anything like that.” Gee, why would anyone think that? After all, there are tons of albums out there that nick their title from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (“Four score and seven… Read more »
Not every A-lister rang in the New Year in style. Britney Spears’ evening, for one, was quite the snoozefest. At least, that’s the official no-partying party line. The singer’s recently rehired rep, Larry Rudolph, is lashing out at reports that the star passed out–and had to be carried out–while hosting a New Year’s Eve party in Las Vegas, claiming instead that the mother of two was just catching some zzz’s. “By about one o’clock she was just done, so we took her out,” Rudolph told the Associated Press. “She was not drunk. She was just tired and falling asleep.” The… Read more »
You can’t blame U2’s concert promoter for wondering just how big the band’s Vertigo world tour could have been if it had simply kept on playing. After all, not one ticket went unsold for the 131 shows on the trek, which began March 28, 2005, in San Diego and wrapped December 9 in front of 47,000 fans at Honolulu’s Aloha Stadium. Having been on the road in fits and starts since March 2005, U2 was clearly in a celebratory mood in Hawaii, as Bono danced onstage with a woman from the crowd during “Mysterious Ways” and even pulled a lucky… Read more »
Gerald R. Ford, who picked up the pieces of Richard Nixon’s scandal-shattered White House as the 38th and only unelected president in America’s history, has died, his wife, Betty, said Tuesday. He was 93. Ford had battled pneumonia in January 2006 and underwent two heart treatments – including an angioplasty – in August at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. He was the longest living president, followed by Ronald Reagan, who also died at 93. Ford had been living at his desert home in Rancho Mirage, Calif., about 130 miles east of Los Angeles. Ford was an accidental president, Nixon’s… Read more »
UNIVERSAL CITY, California – If you’re Panic! at the Disco, how do you end a year in which you went from relative unknowns to one of the hottest bands on the planet? “I might get a tattoo that just says ‘2006,’ ’cause it was such a big year,” bassist Jon Walker said. “Really, just the whole year in general has been amazing to us.” So a tattoo (maybe?) and “a little time off for the holidays,” added drummer Spencer Smith. “Then we’re going to start writing a new record over the winter and hopefully we have something out next fall.”… Read more »
Season 2, Episode 8. Clearing up tales of the vasectomy and the rash and the smell in the hatch, and how Pat is the reason for it all… Originally Aired December 14, 2006 on idobi Radio. Music from Men, Women, & Children, Fall Out Boy, Don’t Look Down, Billy Talent, Butch Walker, Plain White T’s, Rip Slyme, Pennywise, and South.
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 »
Pete Wentz, bassist in Chicago’s Fall Out Boy, knows rock ‘n’ roll success. His band’s latest, ‘From Under the Cork Tree,’ has gone double-platinum. Now he’s looking for fashion success, having launched a clothing line, Clandestine Industries. Celebs such as Kanye West have requested Clandestine’s hip threads, and the bartenders at Wentz’s favorite hang — the brand-new North Side bar Lakeview Broadcasting Company — all wear Clandestine. ”LBC is a New York bar,” Wentz said. ”And it doesn’t hurt that the staff is outfitted in Clandestine — it’s completely Fall Out Boy approved.”
IRVINE, California – After 13 years, three labels, seven albums and a career-retrospective DVD, MxPx say they have a record that will put their past work to shame. “This record will kick all of our other records’ asses!” singer/bassist Mike Herrera said. The band’s forthcoming LP, Panic, is its first disc for SideOneDummy and the follow-up to 2003’s Before Everything & After, which spawned punk-pop singles like “Well Adjusted” and “Everything Sucks (When You’re Gone).” “[This record] is raw, but it’s heavy, and it’s a different MxPx,” said the 29-year-old Herrera. “Someone that’s known us in the past may be… Read more »
Matt Skiba, lead singer and guitarist for Chicago punk purists Alkaline Trio, feels that there are a lot of misconceptions out there regarding Satanism, and, as a longtime member of Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan, can tell you that it’s not all fire, brimstone and threats of eternal damnation. Really, the faith’s simply about theatrics, how to comport yourself when you’re out and about (for instance, one of the church’s Ten Commandment-like mandates forbids followers from bothering others in open territory, but “if someone bothers you, ask him to stop – if he does not stop, destroy him”) and maintaining… Read more »