QOTSA's Josh Homme Speaks,… But Not To Us
QOTSA has been called by Trent Reznor ‘the best rock band in the world’ that ‘could kick your ass if you ran into them in a bar somewhere’, and a lot has been made of Homme’s Elvis-Presley-like charisma
Panda Bear Announces His New Album And Shares 'Mr. Noah'
Glitchy, super layered as anything Panda Bear has ever done, with Lennox’s echoing distant vocals more hypnotic than ever, the song gave me vertigo after a few seconds and it didn’t only come from this weird video that goes with it!
Wayne Coyne Hardly Talks About The Kesha-Dr. Luke Situation
“I think we did like four or five songs, and then Kesha would remind me, ‘Wayne, I can’t put this music out, Dr. Luke will kill me.’ I was like, ‘Oh! I didn’t know!’’
Martha Stewart Living Is Throwing A Punk Rock Party,… What?
How bad it is? Really bad from the beginning, with this sentence in the first paragraph ‘Here’s how to pull together a party that won’t turn into a riot.’ Well, I understand she wants to be funny, but that’s precisely what punk is about, a riot!
Mansions On The Moon At Sonos Studios, Tuesday October 21st 2014
The four members – Lane Shaw on drums, Jeff ‘baby’ Maccora on bass and programming, Ted Wendler on guitar and vocals and Ben Hazlegrove on keys –seemed to be in a very good mood on Tuesday night, joking around and visibly happy about their first milestone
Kenny G Angers China And Turns To Be A Coward
it nevertheless didn’t please the Chinese government at all, which held a press conference, no less, reminding ‘foreign governments and individuals’ to ‘speak and act cautiously and not support [Hong Kong’s] Occupy Central and other illegal activities in any form’.
Billy Idol At Amoeba, Wednesday October 22nd 2014
Billy played his diva side a little bit, in the sense that he took him a few extra minutes to get on stage, but the rest of the evening certainly proved he was not the aloof and snob type
As If Music Tastes Would Tell Anything About Intelligence!!
Beyonce Lil Wayne, Jay Z and most hip hop score badly while music I listen to, like Radiohead, The Shins, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Beck score pretty high – this is a very sad graph, so flawed I don’t even know how to start with this thing!
Taylor Swift Is Number One In Canada, But It's Not What You Think
Anyway, these people bought an eight-second track of pure static, white noise for 1.29 Canadian dollars, and this track about nothing reached the top of Canada’s iTunes chart… not the real Taylor Swift song! Isn’t it ridiculous and funny at the same time?
Starbucks' Song 'Pick of the Week': 'Secrets' By Mary Lambert
Mary is a pretty plump red hair, who sings about her ‘secrets’: she is overweigh, gay out of the closet and may be a bit crazy with a dysfunctional family, but you can’t have a more positive attitude that this girl has!
Perfume Genius At The Roxy, Sunday October 19th 2014
When I left the club, I realized I was wearing a Queens of the Stone Age shirt, and I asked myself, how could I possibly love two opposite sides of the male spectrum such as Mike Hadreas and Josh Homme?
Listen To Ariel Pink's 'Black Ballerina'
If it sounds like a druggy party, may be it’s really one and the song progresses for a few minutes over the same going-into-circles funky bass beats then goes into some typical Pink musical delirium with strange lyrics. Although I certainly can’t really understand everything about the lyrics/spoken words… ‘take your bra and panties off,’ comes up
Iggy Pop's John Peel Lecture Is Just Great!
Although the main topic was about ‘free music in a Capitalist society’, he touched a lot of subjects, mentioned ‘the new electronic devices which estrange people from their morals’ and other bad things (mostly money) related to the music industry, but basically he gave a lot of advices to young artists
Not With The Band: 2014 Is The First Year With No Album Going Platinum
Everyone knows this, when an album or a single has sold a certain amount of copies, it turns Gold (500,000), Platinum (1,000,000) or Diamond (10,000,000), and this is obviously the goal of most artists. However, Forbes reports that, this year, not a single artist’s album has gone platinum, and the year is almost over! Really? Not even Beyoncé or someone in her league?
Amber Jean Young’s Art Exhibit At Subliminal Projects, Friday October 17th 2014
‘Is that Neil Young?’ asked me a guy entering the studio at the same time ‘Yes! And it’s unbelievable!’ I answered. No it wasn’t unbelievable that Neil was there for his daughter’s first solo art show in Los Angeles, but it was unbelievable that I was there, among all these people. Amber was attending, of course, as was Pegi, her mother, and even Stephen Stills showed up
Afternoons' 'Say Yes' Release Party At El Cid, Friday October 17th 2014
Their uplifting songs filled with multi harmonies and wide-screen melodies, which can very easily turn into joyous sing-alongs. Their computer crashed after just one song, they also lost some part of their drum set at one point but this didn’t stop them for very long. May be I hadn’t noticed before
Salad Days: The Birth Of Punk In The Nation’s Capital' A New Documentary About The Punk Scene
The trailer is officially out and you will recognize members of Minor Threat, Bad Brains, Black Market Baby, the Faith, the Slickee Boys, Void, Government Issue, Marginal Man, Dag Nasty, 9353, Gray Matter, Beefeater, Scream, Rites of Spring, Fugazi, Shudder to Think, Nation of Ulysses, Jawbo
Ebola Is A Form Of Population Control, According To Chris Brown
As of October 15th, there have been 17 cases of Ebola reported outside of Africa, whereas 8,376 suspected cases and 4,024 deaths had been reported in West Africa… now imagine if someone white had tweeted the same thing?
Massive Attack At The Greek Theater, Thursday October 16th 2014
The band took the stage with ‘Karmacoma’, a funky trip hop groove and a background of war news mixed with images of O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson trials, always blending the trivial of our trash culture with the substantial, and if it was not their most familiar song, it immediately gave the tone of the show
Listen To Hanni El Khatib's New Single 'Moonlight'
‘Moonlight’ sounds like a perfect October soundtrack, a bit scary like the month of the dead, with Hanni hurling at the moonlight, and haunting the night over a loop-heavy tune. It’s also super catchy and soon you’ll get addicted to this slick circle drumming
The Drums At Amoeba, Tuesday October 14th 2014
‘We want to have left great, conceptual, beautiful, glimmering records in the world. We’re thinking super long term, like dead-term.’ I don’t think they had these deep thoughts in mind when they were playing in Amoeba, they certainly seemed to have a good time. ‘This is a love song’
Was Ariel Pink Really Hired To Work On Madonna's Next Album?
‘Interscope are calling me to help write Madonna’s record. They need something edgy. They need songwriting. She can’t just have her Avicii, her producers or whatever, come up with a new techno jam for her to gyrate to and pretend that she’s 20 years old. They actually need songs.’
Jerome Holloway, Stelth Ulvang and Magic Giant At the Bootleg Theater, Monday October 13th 2014
They looked (and partially) sounded like Mumford and Sons, as the music had this uplifting-optimistic folk-revival quality but they also had some dance moves as worked out as Justin Timberlake’s
Ke$ha Is Suing Her Producer Dr. Luke For Ten Years Of Abuse
‘This lawsuit is a wholehearted effort by Kesha to regain control of her music career and her personal freedom after suffering for 10 years as a victim of mental manipulation, emotional abuse and sexual assault at the hands of Dr. Luke,’
Minnie Driver Covers Elliott Smith's 'Waltz #2'
I just have a problem with the arrangements, why this terrible change in the chorus? To me, it brings the song down, it makes it less emotional and gut wrenching, it could even bring it in the easy-listening department, or Starbucks counter.
Listen To Drinking Flowers' New EP 'Shadow Show'
The quintet tells us that psychedelia is back with a vengeance although I don’t think it was ever gone looking at the abundance of LA bands that currently cultivates the genre… However Drinking Flowers bring its own drone and unique twist on psychedelia
Annie Lennox: 'Beyonce? I Would Call That Feminist Lite'
‘I take issue with the sexualization of young girls. It is something that is so prevalent nowadays and I think I am not a prudish person, but I am disturbed by what I see.’
Not With The Band: Do Bands Really Tour To Promote A New Album?
U2 (in red) is the band which promotes the most its latest album without any doubt, whereas the Rolling Stones hardly played their latest effort and were rather stuck in some 60s nostalgia… they surely played all these 60s hits. Springsteen had about the same attitude, to a lesser extent.
Los Amigos Invisibles At Taste of South Lake Pasadena, Saturday October 11th 2014
Their sound is distinct and familiar at the same time, a mix of disco-funk-dance rhythms, totally infectious, giving to the scene a very festive ambiance, that could even go all Brazilian carnival at times. Soon, it was a fusion of sounds, with many sing-along choruses and people were dancing, jumping as if they were still attending one of these summer night concerts
Ozzy Osbourne Said He Got Excited During 9/11!
I remember standing on the steps of the hotel, and – you know when you see an old cowboy film and that tumbleweed rolls past on the ground? There was newspapers just floating around on the streets. It was so fucking weird. Everybody just backed off Manhattan because they didn’t know if it was an all-out thing or what.
Annie Lennox' s Signing At Amoeba, Friday October 10th 2014
‘When you first encounter a song, you’re just hearing it at the surface level,’ she declared to Amoeba, ‘but if you want to truly absorb it, you have to really listen to it over and over again. At first, you’re like strangers – and then once you’ve befriended a melody, you carry it around in your head for days and you can’t stop singing it. You become deeply connected through this process; it has to become a part of you.’
Halo Circus At The Hotel Café, Friday October 10th 2014
The quartet (two guys and two girls) gave a rock show with hard-hitting and infectious pop melodies, very diverse songs with bi-lingual lyrics (English and Spanish) and even covers –but not any covers, rather powerful renditions of hit-songs – all transformed by Allison Iraheta’s powerhouse vocals.
Julian Casablancas Talks… Just Not To Us
A lot of what I do is to try and make cool things popular in their own time. But I’m not trying to be new or different. It’s just the same as ever – creative ideas come in my mind and I just execute them.’
A new gigantic book about Dylan's lyrics to be published soon
In the book, the songs are presented in alphabetic order, and the way it is printed respects Dylan’s own writing — based on Dylan’s personal notebooks and manuscripts; for example, a long line sprawls across the wide page if it is supposed to be unbroken
Physicist Stephen Hawkins' Voice Sampled On The New Pink Floyd Album
Will feature the voice of famous theoretical-physicist Stephen Hawking, or rather his robotic artificial voice! Hawkins, who suffers from ALS is almost entirely paralyzed and communicated through a speech-generating device, and his strange voice will appear on ‘Talkin’ Hawkin’, one
Morrissey's Ex-Label Is Now Selling 'Fuck Harvest' Shirts
. Should we take this as an ironic answer? A funny one? Or could it be a twisted way to say fuck you to Morrissey without getting into trouble,… while simply making fun of his behavior?
Stephin Merritt's Signing At Book Soup, Monday October 6th 2014
How did he come up with these short poems for short words? Just because of Scrabble apparently, and probably because of his interest for these two-letter words that are really important in the game… I wouldn’t be able to tell, I haven’t played Scrabble for ages.
Listen To AC/DC's New Track, 'Play Ball'
I like this ‘Play Ball’, which plays as a straightforward guitar attack with a tap footing tempo and singer Brian Johnson’s always furious and more-than-ever-raucous vocals,… the track has even some true bluesy parts!
Live Nation Worldwide's Giant Appetite
The theater may soon be owned by Live Nation Worldwide, the giant corporation which recently set up Jay Z’s Made in America festival in LA and operates way too many concerts and festivals all around the country. However, Nederland has decided to fight and just got a new partner AEG live with a petition against Live Nation
New Order's Bernard Sumner Talks About His New Book,… Just Not With Us
‘I first read about hypnotism at school and I used to do tricks like getting a really skinny guy to arm wrestle the local bully. Much later, when we were in Joy Division, I read a book on hypnotic regression and how it could be used for therapy. I first hypnotized Ian at our rehearsal room.”
Not With The Band: Women In Music, Have We Really Made Any Progress?
‘I’m tired of men who aren’t professional or even accomplished musicians continually offering to ‘help me out’ (without being asked), as if i did this by accident and i’m gonna flounder without them. or as if the fact that I’m a woman makes me incapable of using technology.”
'Inherent Vice' Features A (New) Radiohead Song
Journalists who attended the New York screening on Saturday, could listen to ‘Spooks’, an instrumental, showing up in the credits at the end of the movie, and being described as a number with ‘surf-rock guitar’ which ‘makes it a good fit for the 1970-set ‘Inherent Vice’, which includes a surf-rock saxophonist
A New Site With Beautiful Music Data Visualizations
We have seen many graphs before but playing with music consumption data is fun and probably endless. This new graph sums up almost 60 years of music sales classified by
FKA Twigs Stalked By Racist Twitter Users
I have checked many of the accounts which launched the racist harassment on twitter, and most of them have been suspended… excellent Twitter police! Now a lot of people are expecting Pattinson to make a move to defend her woman, but FKA Twigs seems to be doing just all right by herself
GZA At The Echoplex, Thursday October 2nd 2014
I was with them. I was with this girl holding tight a poster given away inside the club and commemorating the night, I was with this guy who had brought his whole vinyl collection to the show I was with this guy in a wheelchair holding a hand made Wu-Tang Clan necklace moving closer to the stage as the show was progressing.
'Henry & Glenn Forever & Ever' At La Luz de Jesus Gallery, Friday October 3rd 2014
What does it says about you when your face can be used in cartoons and comics, when your mug has reached this level of familiarity that everyone instantaneously recognizes who you are once sketched by more than three dozen of different artists?
Maroon 5's New Video For 'Animals' Is Just Dumb
Of course, there is the metaphorical parallel between women and meat, and the video has been very criticized by advocacy groups (such as RAINN, Rape, Abuse, Incest, National Network, the National Sexual Violence Resource Center according to the Independent and TMZ) which are saying that the video is glorifying violence against women and even rape… really?
Starbucks' Pick Of The Week, 'Higher' By Lia Ices
‘Higher’ is an electronic experimental pop affair, a very sunny chillwave with layered guitars, keyboards, beats and Ices’ youthful voice very high in the mix, packed into an exotic vibe, she even picked a Jamaica location for the video.
'Origin of Inspiration: Seven Short Essays for Creative People’, The Little Book Julian Read
I owe everything to Sam and the ideas he has revealed in this new edition. My life completely changed once I was introduced to him. He taught me how to think about art and eventually how to attack it, making me a living example that his approach is almost fool-proof…’
Rap Genius Launches Rap Stats
They are wordy, very wordy and I often can’t keep up with the speed of the delivery,… I have no idea how many words are in an average rap song or how many times you will hear ‘bitch’ in current rap hits, but Rap Genius has now the answer with Rap Stats, a feature dedicated to break down the words in rap lyrics over tim