Basslines and Protest Signs is Brett Callwood’s column looking at the intersection of music and politics. This week talks about Rage Against the Machine.
“Callwood at the Cooler” sees Brett Callwood waxing lyrical about events in the news, pop culture and the etc. This week’s topics include: Mariah Carey, Trump’s inauguration party, Coachella, and more.
Confessions of a Fangurl at Riot Fest Denver is an ongoing series taking place this weekend, August 28-30, documenting the music, emotions and history associated with the festival and its artists. Waterproof mascara encouraged.
In October, the hard-partying, grill-sporting dudes in Avenged Sevenfold will release the self-titled follow-up to 2005’s City of Evil, the band’s breakout LP that’s sold close to 810,000 copies in the U.S. alone. The album is the California metalcore act’s first attempt at self-producing, but according to frontman M. Shadows, that wasn’t always the plan.”We were going to do it with Rob Cavallo,” said Shadows, referring to the producer behind Green Day’s 2004 LP American Idiot and My Chemical Romance’s 2006 effort The Black Parade. “It was such a great match – he loved the songs we’d been working on.… Read more »
Claiming that their free-speech rights had been violated, Mötley Crüe filed suit against NBC, the network that banned the group for dropping the F-bomb on a live New Year’s Eve broadcast of “The Tonight Show.” “This ban constitutes governmentally pressured censorship and violates the law the same as if the government itself had ordered the censorship,” read the suit, filed in Los Angeles federal court on Tuesday. Claiming the ban was a result of an attempt by the network to pacify the government in light of its crackdown on indecency, the band says in the suit that the action has… Read more »
After weeks of speculation about who would be sharing the Ozzfest stage this summer with Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Shadows Fall and Zakk Wylde’s Black Label Society, the big secret’s finally out: Heavy metal quartet Mudvayne have been named the final mainstage act. A photo of the band was posted Monday morning (April 4) on the Ozzfest 2005 Web site, replacing the ominous band silhouette and large white question mark that appeared in that mystery spot ever since the roster was announced just a few weeks ago. There had been much speculation since the initial Ozzfest 2005 announcement concerning who… Read more »
New York, Ny – U.K. ragga-metal hybrid Skindred, who are currently on a packed-house tour with Papa Roach, will hit the road with Sevendust following. The U.K. lads will continue to support their Lava Records debut album Babylon, which has captured the #1 spot on the Reggae chart for 10 weeks, selling over 100,000 copies to date. The South Wales, four-piece band, fronted by former Dub War vocalist Benji Webbe, unleashed their experimental reggae/rock hybrid on America August 31, 2004. Not only has the album seared a lasting impression on the Reggae chart, it has hovered in the Top 10… Read more »
To record what is shaping up to be their heaviest album yet, P.O.D. have spent the past three months living and brainstorming in the former Palm Springs, California, home of sunny ’60s folk-rock quartet the Mamas and the Papas. The area, which now mostly houses retired couples, would probably rather have had the “California Dreamin’ ” singers as neighbors than the dreadlock-waving, guitar-thrashing writers of “Boom” and “Youth of the Nation,” but the San Diego rockers were gracious residents. “We had to go to all the neighbors’ houses and tell them that we were a rock and roll band and… Read more »
Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello and Coup frontman Boots Riley are joining Florida farm workers in protesting Taco Bell at the restaurant’s Irvine, California, headquarters tomorrow. Morello will join the Taco Bell Truth Tour’s Southern California stop as a speaker and performer, under his Nightwatchman guise, to draw attention to a wage dispute between the fast food company and farmers who provide its vegetables. “A real change comes from regular people regularly standing up for their rights at work, at home, and in the streets and that’s what we’ll be doing,” Morello says. “Farm workers in Immokalee Florida are getting paid… Read more »
Ozzy crooned, mooned and squirted his water guns, Disturbed bellowed, and Marilyn Manson vamped it up, but Ozzfest has always been just as much about the lesser-known acts, and Sunday’s show was no exception. Though bands like Kilgore, Pushmonkey and the perhaps aptly named No One have proven that Ozzfest exposure alone won’t make you famous, second-stage alumni System of a Down and Slipknot can attest that it certainly doesn’t hurt. Killswitch Engage’s potential spot in the Slipknot category seemed all but assured even before they appeared at Dallas’ Smirnoff Music Centre. Even though it was only the second show… Read more »
