O’ Neill says she was expecting to be working and available 24/7, ‘handling Gaga’s luggage, administering her ‘medicine’, waking her up, and even ‘ensuring the promptness of a towel following a shower’. It sounds like the usual demand from a diva, but at the top of this, she was required to sleep in Gaga’s bed because the fame monster does not like to sleep alone
When Ngaujah removed his vest, then removed his shirt toward the end of the show, he almost got back into Fela’s skin, and soon more and more women stood up and shook their bodies with more or less success… it was difficult to compete with the three queens though
The story goes something like this: When director Hayley Young was thinking of how to make a video for the song, she wanted dancers from Nashville to be part of the act. A search online brought her to a routine by the Nashville Dance Center set to music from the musical Rock of Ages
Weird Al still has fun like a kid, making the same juvenile mocking face when posing with each if his fan. He actually looked like the nicest guy around, taking the time to talk with each person reaching the signing table, even arriving in advance for the signing! How many stars do that really?
I don’t know what is worse the lyrics (‘Oh! You all say/
It’s okay to be gay/
Because practically fag marriage will stay
/Well this calls for some truth/You’re all insane, fags are profane’) or the terrible awful singing? It’s so bad you are gonna want to strangle the singer after just a few lines
Hip hop, R&B but also electronic dance music and beyond so what’s the problem exactly? Well it’s no mystery that the format ‘Urban’ has been associated with black music and 1Xtra is even described on its website as a ‘black music network’. Let’s be honest, urban is just a politically correct term for black music, and in this case the outrage sadly came from a racial point of view.
‘I definitely struggled with whether to put that one on the record. It has more sentimentality to it than any of the other songs, but I’ve seen a lot of friends go through that stuff. [Having kids] would be a cool thing to do someday. I don’t particularly feel ready for it right now, but I guess no one ever does.’
Since his death, two books (biographies) and two movies have been made, beside the numerous articles printed in magazines. Before accusing the authors and filmmakers of anything, I just wanted to point out a few things I have noticed which make me cringe, more or less
Kanye (who is already playing at the east coast version in Philly) will play on Sunday and Iggy on Saturday, but she is not headlining, you are still stuck with the always generic Imagine Dragons for that. Will this addition make me spend $200 and go to the two-day festival?
They have a story coming with them, a story about zombie-like creatures ‘formed out of the murky Louisiana Swamp’, which were a ‘former backing band to Motown’s greats’ but ‘abandoned at a routine gas stop in Baton Rouge in August 1965’.
Nobody seems to agree if you read some of the comments on Youtube, but everyone is looking for a deep meaning behind these images,… just because it’s Lykke Li, it must be deep. She may be a ghost, a wandering spirit, a lost person reliving the past, a schizophrenic…
Our Supermodel mural must come down by July 14th. This news has come as a surprise and disappointment to me and everyone else that collaborated on making this project happen. This mural was our contribution to the city of Los Angeles – our kiss of color to the city we love.
If I remember correctly their video for ‘Algeirs’ was a sort of spaghetti western, so here we go for diversity. I have been a casual Whigs’ fan but I have seen them live once and Greg Dulli is the hell of a frontman.
It starts with very-Interpol strident, slightly dissonant guitars and Paul Banks’ slow baritone vocals, then it brings more action, with a growing sound for an empowering and nervous chorus, just like Interpol has done it many times before, but as if the music was getting faster than the vocal delivery.
Sony flew them to Los Angeles where they gave a private performance before signing the contract. And you know what, they even have a book deal with Penguin plus a documentary in the making about their rapid rise to success…. Jeez, I just hope this sudden success isn’t going to change and spoil them
Listen’, he said many times to the crowd, managing to get people fully involved even during the metaphysical ruminating poetry of ‘Higgs Boson Blues’, repeating many times ‘Can you feel my heartbeat?… no no no….. yeah yeah yeah’, while looking right into the eyes of the happy pit people
Thicke sold less than 54 copies in Aussie country during its first week of release! The album even failed to place in the country’s ARIA Top 500 album charts whereas, ‘Blurred Lines’ had reached No.1 on the Australian charts at the time of its release. What a dive!
You will not learn anything real about Nick Cave’s life – may be the most real moment is that scene at the end where you see him sharing pizza in front of the TV with his twin sons – but it’s not a behind-the-image type of thing, the movie rather brings more mystery about one of the most enigmatic songwriters of our time.
At least, if this were a video for a new song, I would forgive them about the nonsense, but where is the music? There’s none and the Lips apparently have decided they were artsy film directors now. But Wayne, sorry you are no Ken Russell! R.I.P. The Flaming Lips.
Yesterday I went downtown Los Angeles to join a protest against Ringing Bros. Circus, outside Staples Center. Morrissey would have been proud… But according to the LA Weekly, the LA City Council enacted in April a ban on cruelty to elephants, but this didn’t prevent the return of Ringling Bros’ in the big Staples arena
Chris is happy, he found love, and has quitted drugs: ‘Maybe I’m getting too cocky, but I really feel like I’ve beat the goddamn thing’. Plus he does not want to be your favorite tortured artist anymore: ‘but I’m sorry, I’m not your Jesus. Don’t hand me that cross. I refuse to play along’
Frontman Brandon Robert had this super low baritone voice, and he efficiently used it, singing on a very monotonous-monochord tone, which accentuated even more the goth imagery. The ambiance, like the light, was dark and dim, but it didn’t mean everything was only about shoegazing and new wavy soundscapes.
They may have invented a new genre, self-described as killwave/Cholo goth, Prayers find their territory where the new-wave/goth scene meets hip hop culture and it totally works! ‘This song goes to the motherfuckers that imitate us’ declared frontman Rafael Reyes… he was saying this with a menacing tone and enough swagger to make Kanye West die of jealousy, and it was certainly funny
Corners is a band that I had the pleasure to see a few times before, I saw them first during a Monday residency in April, then at Lolipalooza, and I had immediately noticed their invigorating sound, a sound which was so familiar and new at the same time. So, I was not surprised to learn that the quartet had a July residency at the Echo, and I may actually go to a few of them
There are many ways to announce the release of a new album these days, some artists don’t even announce it anywhere and drop it overnight on iTunes, but the Twitter method was not Pink Floyd’s management’s first choice as they were not thrilled about the way she broke the news.
‘Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for. It’s my opinion that music should not be free, and my prediction is that individual artists and their labels will someday decide what an album’s price point is.’
The upcoming Zach Braff’s movie, ‘Wish I Was Here’, keeps releasing new songs off its soundtrack, and after a very Shins (but kind of uninspired) song, a Bon Iver tune – that I didn’t even listen to, because I wasn’t ready for more Bon Iver in my life – NPR is now streaming a new and unexpected collaboration between Cat Power and Coldplay.
This is not the first time that Mary Lou Lord posts stories about Courtney Love’s terrible accusations against her on her Facebook page, and this is not the first time this attracts the attention of music blogs. This time, Mary Lou Lord stumbled on some old Courtney Love’s interview – in which, Courtney being Courtney, talks about her prowess, meaning the time she beat MLL’s ass after a Hole show at the Palladium
I am going to see the great Nick Cave twice this week, yes twice! First, at the American Cinematheque, I will attend ‘20,000 Days on Earth: An evening with Nick Cave’
At the Bootleg on the 4th, an all-evening-long psych fest, bringing a dozen of psychedelic bands on two different stages. Since I don’t really like following traditions, I went to the Warlocks’ Smokeout, and spent more than 5 hours inside the darkest club in LA, while having a great time
At the top of the usual shows at Amoeba (always free), at the Echo, Echoplex, Satellite, Bootleg, Silverlake Lounge, El Rey, Henry Fonda to name just a few clubs and theaters where I go the most, there are a series of free outdoor shows all over the city, and choices are gonna be difficult again this season!
The best parts are created when these brainwaves sounds are mixed with real instruments, because at best, these brainwaves are just an amplified ommmmmm people do during a yoga class. I don’t buy any of that as interesting music.
Fans were asked to complete lab rat maze tests, attempt to master a Rubik’s cube, listen to random songs, honestly, I would have refused and left right there, but they went through the whole game, which didn’t stop there: a patient was declared contagious, people had to hurry into a dark corridor filling with dry ice
You can actually do four different musical tests, a Tonedeaf test, an adaptive Pitch test, a rhythm test and an Associative Musical Visual intelligence test. I scored quite high for some, and quite low for others! But I have no musical training whatsoever, and I have never learned music, so musicians probably have an advantage, at least I suppose.
This list is not exclusively based on money (otherwise Dr Dre is way richer than Beyonce) but on plain power, like the number of mentions in print, TV and radio, and the impact on social medias such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Anyway, Beyonce is rich because sex sells and she has certainly put her booty before whatever talent she has
‘If I can’t get up and go to the bathroom myself and I’ve got tubes up my ass and an enema in my throat, then I’ve said to Sharon, ‘Just turn the machine off’. If I had a stroke and was paralyzed I don’t want to be here. I’ve made a will and it’s all going to Sharon if I die before her, so ultimately it will all go to the kids.’
They have been described as evoking ‘the summer of ‘75 while layering on a healthy dose of ‘90s shoegaze fuzz’, and I would say that, especially after a Beatle song, I was more concerned by the 70s than the 90s, as it was obvious these guys were revisiting an idea of American classic rock
According to Alternative Press, the members of the UK death metal band Unfathomable Ruination are going to perform inside a sealed, airtight container until they run out of oxygen…. And then what? They will pass out and die? Or I guess someone is going to open that door
According to the Future Heart, it seems that this is almost done, as the album can already be pre-ordered on Amazon, and will be issued via Capitol on July 29th. This means that Beck fans will have had three Beck albums this year, ‘Morning Phase’ released last February, this ‘Song Reader’ and another one that Beck always mentions, probably set to be released this fall.
Metallica’s headlining at Glastonbury received a lot of criticism, especially because James Hetfield is the narrator of a new TV series about bear hunting on the History Channel. Hetfield is a real hunting enthusiast and you can easily find online images showing the Metallica frontman beside a huge grizzly bear that he may have just killed? At least, he wants you to believe so
This new Lolipalooza event had 33 bands playing on three stages in just one afternoon-evening, I managed to see 29 of them, and it felt like a marathon! Yes, I am exhausted today, it was a bit crazy and way too much for the same day, but it’s always the case for festivals. There is no way I am gonna remember what the first or even the 15th band sounded like but who really cares?
I must say that the Echo/Echoplex is probably my favorite place in LA for many reasons (beside the awesome shows they host), the managers are so cool with any crowd antics, they let people climb on the booth seats when they can’t see the stage, they let people stage diving and crowd surfing their heart out, and nobody felt restrained to do so on Saturday night.
As everyone knows, the place is huge, with a petting zoo, an arcade, some amusement park rides, a Disneyland-like railroad train station, a large garden with a collection of children statues, and a mansion with a toy room and game stations set up all around the house….
I had no idea thatIncubus guitarist Michael Einziger was really into science. He was a student at Harvard University in 2008-2011, has studied history and philosophy of physics and he has even contributed to an article on the topic of human evolution. But he has especially a profound interest in physical sciences
Adams’ confident (and very male) vocals, at the sonic image of the iconic bands of this period. The only fragile, emotional and insecure part of Adams may only seen through the lyrics, ‘All my life been shaking wanting something/
Holding everything I had like it was broken
/Gimme something good
/Gimme something good
/Gimme something’…
The network has been holding focus groups in the San Fernando valley to get a sense of whether or not the participants – comprising entirely African American women – are interested in a program that would follow the tribulations of Chris Brown’s post-jail life
‘As someone who has worked very closely with Terry Richardson on many many many occasions since I was 17 years old I would like to say… from my OWN personal experience: I have never been forced or manipulated into anything. I made a music video with him and I have never felt uncomfortable with Terry …”
This year was the first year artists saw their names printed on the Coachella poster, obviously a big progress in the recognition process. There was a time when artists were barely paid, had to buy their water like any concertgoer and didn’t even had private toilet or shower
In the opening track of he album, which appeared in my mailbox this morning, you can certainly hear Radiohead’s influence – can he even escape the comparison? –but there is something else going on during ‘Coming Up For Air’.
The concept, founded by Bono, is just self-promotion, buy any (RED) product and a certain percentage goes to Bono’s Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, meaning that not a penny comes out of Bono’s pocket. And that’s his genius, he passes for a humanitarian without giving away his money
