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Kat – April 18, 2010
If you’re like me, you’ve been a fan of Green Day for quite some time, and even if you weren’t a huge fan, you at least knew who they were. And when the album “American Idiot” came out in 2004, you knew it was a good one. You didn’t even have to really like their previous stuff to find something on the new album that really hit home. Whether it was the title song or “Wake Me Up When September Ends,” the album really seemed to strike at the core of just about anyone. And for Michael Mayer, what struck him was inspiration. It was clearly a rock opera just waiting to hit the stage, and after a few years of inspiration and collaboration, it premiered at the Berkeley Reperatory Theatre back in 2009. But this year, it finally really hit the big times, as it made its way to Broadway. It’s going to be opening this week on Broadway with almost all of the same cast from the original production, and the clamoring from Green Day fans is almost impossible to ignore.
The previews from last week have been jam-packed for this one-act musical that features almost no dialogue, instead using the music to tell the story of the main character, “Jesus of Suburbia”, who is named Johnny in the musical, as he and his friends try to escape their suburban life in favor of something else. One of the friends never even makes it through the starting gates, and yet another finds himself going to war. Johnny himself finds drugs and a girlfriend, and he crashes hard.
It’s a great story, and it’s clearly been thought through a great deal by both Mayer and Armstrong, the lead of the band itself. “American Idiot”, the album, and the follow up to it, “21st Century Breakdown,” are the albums used to create a rock opera unlike most others, and it’s definitely worth seeing.
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Kat – April 12, 2010
If you grew up with parents who loved Pink Floyd like I did, or you were a fan yourself but never got to see the epic album “The Wall” while they were originally doing their tour, you can at least get a little bit of the experience all over again, as Roger Waters has announced the official tour dates for his 2010 to 2011 “The Wall” tour. This tour of North America will consist of 36 separate dates and will begin on September 15th in Vancouver, wrapping up in Anaheim on December 13th of 2011. You’re talking a full 16 month-long tour of an album from 1979 that was only performed 31 separate times. Pink Floyd had their ’80 to ’81 tour that was limited in London, New York, Los Angeles, and West Germany, and then in 1990 Waters held an all-star concert to commemorate ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
This isn’t the first time Waters has been running through the old repertoire, as it were. In 2007 and 2008, he was playing all of “The Dark Side of the Moon” for his concert (and I hear that album syncs up remarkably well with The Wizard of Oz, too. That would be a concert!) and now will take on “The Wall.” Eventually, it’s going to Europe after North America, but there are no details just yet on how that will happen. As for the concert itself, fans won’t be disappointed. The show will be modern and using all the best tech, with a wall 35 feet high and 240 feet wide that will be constructed and then torn down through the performance. There are expected to be a great deal of props and special effects, too. At 2 PM Eastern Time today, you can expect the website to have been relaunched with information on ticket sales, but I’m sure they’re gonna go fast.
Just how quickly do I think they’ll be out of tickets? Well, look at the album itself. You’re talking an album that spent 15 weeks on top of the charts and was 23 times platinum, as well as winning a Grammy. Mix that with some of the most haunting music and catchy lyrics (“We don’t need no education”) and you’ve got the recipe for a cultural phenomenon.
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Kat – April 5, 2010
Who doesn’t love Steampunk? The unusual but exciting take of Victorian technology far past its actual development, such as analog computers and an intellectual development that surpassed the technology, has been a branch of science fiction that audiences have loved for quite some time. We should have known that bands would eventually start to be inspired by it. And one of those bands is “Sugarland,” a country duo that has already won Grammies in their career, and are currently in the studio finishing up what will be their fourth album, and they’ve so far given it the title of “The Incredible Machine.” The vocalist of the group, Jennifer Nettles, has been enthusiastically hopeful about the album and while there isn’t a release date just yet, they’ve got quite a plan for it. With around 10 tracks, all of which are newly written from in between their albums, Nettles has been speaking a great deal about the new changes and growth that will show in the album.
From the lyrics to the vocal work, Sugarland is really hoping to show growth and change from their last album, “Love on the Inside.” To do that, they have considered the steampunk movement as a way to facilitate their growth, and it’s going to be a major theme throughout all of their work on the album. From the song to the tour to album artwork, Sugarland’s foray into steampunk will be complete. Interestingly, the way that Nettles is describing the new vocals isn’t necessarily what I would call steampunk, though. Given that she’s describing herself as a mix of Blondie and Chrissie Hynde, it sounds like this will be a very interesting album that won’t quite be like anything we’ve heard out of Sugarland before. Whether or not that’s necessarily a GOOD thing remains to be seen.
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Kat – March 21, 2010
Austin, Texas was the home of one of the most important and influential music festivals in the United States this weekend, and South By South West was an amazing experience. Even though it was rainy, cold and windy on Saturday as it came to the end of the concert, the fans didn’t really seem to care. On Thursday, March 18th, the famous Motown legend himself Smokey Robinson had been there to deliver the keynote speech and start the festival right. The crowd seemed to be a little restless the first night but as the Conference went on, the crowd and the performers only got more and more enthused.
Over the conference, several different performers were there to really bring some amazing talent and enjoyment to the concert. It was really the second day of the confererence where the fans were given the real performances, and you could see the lights go from red to green on Friday. Sadly, Alex Chilton, famous guitarist of Big Star, had passed away on Wednesday, so there were touching remembrances throughout the performance, and many of the musicians there felt a little numb by the loss. But, the audience wouldn’t let the tragedy stop the celebration of music. They were there in throngs for Stone Temple Pilots, who were finally performing together for a new album, something they hadn’t done in almost a decade. Robbie Krieger also arrived to promote a new documentary on the Doors. Cheap Trick also got to help the audience rock on.
Muse, Courtney Love, and Smokey Robinson himself were all different performers helping to keep the crowd all sorts of riled up during the concert on Friday. To bring it to a close on Saturday was Estelle and Snoop Dogg, and most touching, a full Alex Chilton tribute really brought the night to a final close.
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Kat – February 1, 2010
I don’t know about you, but I can’t NOT love a band with the name Disco Biscuits. This awesome electro-jam group have been quite popular for their fun sound and have had quite a following for some time. And they have finally given the dates for one of their more unique features as a band, their Camp Bisco, an arts and music festival that spans three days. Camp Bisco 9 will be taking place from July 15th to July 17th in Mariaville, NY, at the Indian Lookout Country Club. And it’s going to be an awesome time, as Disco Biscuits will headlining each night of the performances, and there are scheduled to be over fifty other acts throughout the festival.
Curious about the kind acts you might be seeing at Camp Bisco this year? Well, while the performances aren’t set in stone, some of the former performers were DJ Shadow, Snoop Dogg, Nas, Kid Cudi, and Damian Marley, just to name a few. And the camp isn’t just popular, it’s also been praised as a new kind of business model for when artists want to own and host their own live events.
To top all the good news off, Disco Biscuits will also be releasing their fifth album this March, on the 16th, entitled “Planet Anthem.” Given that the band has a new deal now with Warner Music’s Independent Label Group, you’ll see it distributed with them and also released by Diamond Riggs REcords. If you’re curious about what the album will sound like, then go ahead and look for the EPs “Widgets” and “On Time.” The EPs both offered different tracks from the new album, as well as giving different remixes so that their fans could get a chance to hear what was coming and weigh in on what the new album would be.
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Kat – January 28, 2010
So, in this new age of music and technology, it’s hardly surprising that we get most of our brand new album information through things like Facebook and Twitter. Of course, some of that news is groundbreaking, and then some of it is… Mariah Carey releasing an album of remixes. Yes, you read that right. She’s not releasing a new album, she’s releasing an album of remixes. “Angels Advocate,” which was initially supposed to be on February 23rd, got hit with some undisclosed delays and was pushed back without a date. Until now. Today Carey tweeted that March 30th would be the new release date for the album.
If you were curious about what the album’s gonna be like, two of the songs on the album, “Up Out of My Face”, which has Nicki Minaj, and “Angel Cry”, featuring Ne-Yo, were just released earlier this week. And if you’re curious to see what videos directed by Nick Cannon and his wife, Mariah herself, then you can definitely find videos for both of those tracks online anywhere right now.
Of course, it isn’t like she won’t have some competition for this new release date, as Usher’s new album through Jive Records, “Raymond Vs. Raymond” will be debuting the same day and it’s a brand new album, not a remix. Granted, this new album is going to feature duets and remixes from the songs off her album last year, “Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel.” And if you want a dose of live Mariah Carey before the release of her album, you can find her on her “Angels Advocate” tour at the moment, which will be wrapping up with a neat bow on February 27th in Las Vegas at the Pearl Concert Theatre. We’ll see what happens next with her album in the next few weeks.
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Kat – January 16, 2010
You have to give Lady Gaga credit: That woman loves her fans. She was supposed to perform at Purdue University earlier this week, but when she apparently fainted backstage, it was no dice. While Lady Gaga wanted desperately to go out there and perform, her agent and her security made the call that the show couldn’t go on. Given the amount of technical aspects to her show, there were too many concerns that whatever had struck her down the first time could easily hit her during the show. Unfortunately, cancelling the Thursday night concert didn’t occur until the opening acts of the night, Jason Derulo, as well as Semi Precious Weapons, had performed. That meant that the police had to be sent in to announce the cancellation, much to the audience’s dismay.
But, Lady Gaga was more upset that she had to let down her fans, and she was Tweeting about it that night, stating that she felt she’d let her fans down horribly and that she would definitely make it up to them. How is she doing that? She’s rescheduled her concert for January 26th and plans on giving her fans the concert they paid for.
But, that didn’t stop Lady Gaga from getting right back on top of things as she performed for “The Oprah Winfrey Show” Friday morning. She seemed fine, so let’s hope that whatever her illness was, it wasn’t a permanent situation and that she’s going to be just fine. There have been no reports if the illness was serious, and she seems to be functioning again, so it might have just been exhaustion, given that this is her first solo tour. As even Cher knows, sometimes, exhaustion hits and you just need to take a break. But, seriously, Lady Gaga? Cut yourself some slack! You’re only human, girl!
