B Sides for 09/16/2014
Premiering Friday, October 17 at 11 p.m., the project will see the Foo Fighters visit, and record music at, some of the world's most iconic recording studios in 8 US cities - Austin, Chicago, Los Angeles, Nashville, New Orleans, New York, Seattle and Washington, DC. Frontman Dave Grohl will also conduct interviews for the series, speaking with prominent artists in each city and some who have recorded at each facility. Watch the video preview here.
The Kiss star recently claimed music had been "murdered" by those who refused to invest in the next generation of artists, and said illegal downloading had devalued recorded work to near-zero. That led to responses from Robert Plant, Poison's Rikki Rockett and Twisted Sister's Dee Snider. Now Rossdale tells Howard Stern (via Blabbermouth): "I don't think it's dead. Nothing is ever dead in music - it just takes the right record." He namechecks the Foo Fighters and Queens Of The Stone Age as bands who continue to push boundaries - and says he aims to do the same himself. Read more here.
"Making millions of records is fantastic but you want to make the right record," explained Idol in a behind-the-scenes clip. "So we really waited quite a long time for this sensual feeling, this cinematic, theatrical, 1080 pixels, high def wide screen cinema-scope version of this music, which that's the way it feels to me. It feels like a sound track." "The majority of the songs on the album were written by Steve Stevens, Billy Morrison and myself," continued Idol. "The music usually dictates when you put out an album, you feel you've got something worth while or you've got something that makes sense to you or something that seems fresh or progressing, moving your music along. That's what we look for." Check out the song here.
The song came about after Drover, who'd been lined up to join Geoff Tate's Queensryche while two lineups of the band existed, changed his plans and later guested on stage with La Torre's outfit. It's one of several collaborations Drover is working on - and the vocalist says it's not a clue as to how his second album with Queensryche might sound. La Torre tells Bravewords: "I write what the music calls for. The Queensryche material doesn't call for those vocal stylings. If there's a sliver that does, fine - but don't count on it." Check out the video here.
The new album is their first studio outing since 1990's Into The Mirror Black, and it will be released via Century Media. It's the second track to be taken from the album, following the release of Arise And Purify last month. The vinyl pressing of the album features a cover of The Doors Waiting For The Sun and comes bundled with a CD with the track included. Check out the track details and the lyric video here.
Kristine says of their collaborative track Stronghold Of Angels: "This metal hymn is special to me - and Doro's unique voice takes it to an exceptional emotional level. Thank you, Doro, for staying with us, and for the late-night talks." Vervain follows 2012 album Libertine, while Leaves' Eyes recently completed a European tour and play a 10th anniversary show in Belgium on October 18. Kristine joins Anneke van Giersbergen and Kari Rueslatten for a tour entitled The Sirens, including four European dates next month and four more in December. Check out the preview here.
The first show, on March 31, 1974, saw Queen perform tracks from their newly-released album, "Queen II." The set features over a dozen tracks never previously released on any official Queen live album. Recorded by Roy Thomas Baker, the recordings were originally scheduled to Queen's third album (and debut live album), presented as a career-defining release like James Brown's "Live At The Apollo" or The Who's "Live At Leeds." But Queen's creative momentum produced a stack of new songs begging to be recorded and instead of releasing the live album, the band went into the studio to record what was to become 1974's breakthrough album, "Sheer Heart Attack." Queen returned to play two shows at The Rainbow in late November, just two weeks after the release of their third album, which featured the hit single, "Killer Queen." Watch the video here.
The album was funded via a successful Kickstarter campaign, which the Marillion guitarist admitted exceeded all his expectations. Last month he made opening track Morpheus, featuring Hackett, available as a free download. The Ghosts Of Pripyat is released on September 22. It's available for pre-order in deluxe and standard editions, while a live album, recorded during the Steve Rothery Band's second-ever show, is also available. Check out the preview and the preorder links here.
The album was the group's first effort to feature new vocalist Chris Baretto, and was described by Prog as "an expressive work of art." The band are just about to launch their first-ever headline US tour, and remain on the road until March next year. They will also play six UK dates next month alongside After The Burial, Circles and Tides From Nebula. Check out those dates and watch the new "Atlas" video here.
Due out on October 24 via Nuclear Blast, it's a complete rework of the band's 1999 record. The idea came about when they realised only singer Tonny Kakko and drummer Tommy Portomi remained from the lineup of that time. Keyboard Henrik Klingenberg recently said: "We're definitely not trying to rewrite history. The new version is more of a tribute and an update on how the songs sound when played by our current lineup." Check out the stream here.
Most music aficionados will cite Bob Dylan as one of the greatest songwriters of the 20th century (if not the greatest). But Dylan didn't always write songs, he started out as a song interpreter. "I just wanted a song to sing," he says of his early days, performing traditional folk and blues. At a certain point, he explains, "I had to write what I wanted to sing, because what I wanted to sing, nobody else was writing. I couldn't find that song someplace. If I could, I probably would have never started writing." Happily, he didn't find "that song," and he did start writing, and he wrote rather prolifically. He released nine studio albums in the '60s (eight of which were mostly or all original material), and there were many songs from that era that didn't make it onto any of Dylan's albums. But Dylan's self-titled debut album from 1962 featured mostly covers. There were, however, two originals: "Talkin' New York" and "Song to Woody." The latter was a tribute to legendary folk singer Woody Guthrie. Guthrie, as it turned out, was the first artist Dylan was aware of who wrote his own songs, which he also discusses in this interview clip. Watch it here.
I remember sitting outside a venue somewhere in Italy a bunch of years back, my trusty Caparison Apple Horn Orange guitar in lap, waiting for everything getting ready for soundcheck. This somewhat annoying riff popped up from out of nowhere and I couldn't stop playing it. It had a cool, energetic drive. (I am deeply fascinated by the creative process; where is the stuff actually coming from?) This was the embryo to Freak of the Week, one of the tunes from Cooking with Pagans, the new Freak Kitchen record and the soundtrack to an astounding, animated 2D video in the works. When writing songs I never ever think about keys, tonality, time, e t c, I just go for my gut feeling. What sounds good is good. Later on I realized the Freak of the Week riff was in the time signature of 11/4, was partly based on the somewhat harsh Indian raga Pantuvarali (also named Kamavardani), had loads of counterpoint non commonly used in metal music as well as quite nasty chord changes. Still, the trick is to fuse all these elements and make it accessible to everyone. We do not want to be smart ass musicians that are complicated for the sake of it. We want to have fun and rock out like any other band. And we do. But with a twist. One day I had an e-mail from the stunning Juanjo Guarnido, author of the Blacksad books and top notch, former Disney animator. As an ignorant bastard I didn't have a clue who he was but was utterly flabbergasted by his work. I called Chris, our mighty fine bass player, who completely freaked out and enlightened my limited intellect about Juanjo. I asked maestro Guarnido if he would like to do the artwork for Cooking with Pagans and he was delighted to (actually, I think this was the purpose of his e-mail since he was a long time Freak Kitchen fan!) What he did could easily be described as, by far, our best cover to date. We are happy to the bone about it! Juanjo didn't stop there however. He was always quite frustrated how his sophisticated animations would end up in a poor way on the big screen. Once in a lifetime he wanted to get it right and proposed to do an animated video to a tune from record. I proposed Freak of the Week which now had manifested into an actual song. He loved it. Said and done. A Kickstarter took off and raised no less than a 152,000$ (animation is insanely expensive, drawing frame by frame in old school, wonderful 2D), much thanks to Guarnido spanking his comic book world buddies to cough up original art to donate to the project. The footage is quite insane and we are just thrilled and honoured to be part of the ride. The video will premiere at Comic Con in New York in October. A book is being written about this painstaking project as well, containing storyboards and art from the video and more. � and it all started with myself noodling on the guitar while waiting for soundcheck somewhere in Italy. Life is weird and wonderful. Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself and learn more about the album right here!
...end |
Travel News, Trips and Tips: Road Trip Essentials
Hot In The City: Carin Leon Will Open For The Rolling Stones in Arizona
Caught In The Act: Ministry Rocks Chicago
Sammy (Hagar) Super Sunday Coming To TV
Anthrax Reuniting With Dan Lilker For Upcoming Live Dates
NEEDTOBREATHE To Livestream Red Rocks Concert
Bruce Dickinson Making Appearance At WonderCon For
Joe Bonamassa Plays Jimi Hendrix's A Vintage 'Band of Gypsys' Rig At Nerdville
Vampire Weekend Stream 'Mary Boone' Visualizer
Paul Di'Anno's Warhorse Deliver 'Stop The War' EP
The Exies Return With 'For What It's Worth'