PROTEST THE HERO announces that they will be playing the Ernie Ball stage every day of this summer’s Vans Warped Tour. The Whitby, Ontario five-piece is touring in support of FORTRESS (1/29/08), their sophomore Vagrant release that debuted at #1 in Canada and #95 in the U.S.  Protest The Hero just wrapped up a sold-out Canadian tour with Silverstein and as the tour moves south, their first U.S. date…
The second round of artist announcements has been made by the A3C Hip Hop Festival premiering the legendary Jeru The Damaja, with Southeastern underground stars, Little Brother and recent Atlantic Records signee, B.o.B. Further propelling the festival into the role of showcasing the best in Hip Hop today, the A3C is solidifying its place in the festival world as an event which features the newest emerging artists coupled with established…
Steaming Dookies is an ongoing techno industrial electronic project founded by me, Billy Pfrommer, a lifelong Chicago musician who, for the last 5 years, have been known to most of the area as the party animal side man and rhythm guitarist for Chicago punks Genral Patton and His Privates. After many tours of active duty with the Privates, I decided to try my hand at electronica, and almost overnight, developed…
Grrrl: A Novel / $13.95 / 260M / 2:00 / Grrrl has a pull quote from the magazine of the publishing company with which it is affiliated. That is a conflict of interest. However, it is meaningless in regards to an interview. Whiteford, the author, did a zine called Matilda for a few years. This book is the story of Marlie, a 10th-grade student (at the time) that jots journal…
FESTIVAL is the work of Brooklyn-based sisters, Alexis and Lindsay Powell and Come, Arrow, Come! is their debut release. The album was recorded in Nashville with engineer and co-producer Jeremy Ferguson of Battle Tapes Recording and is being released on Greg and Jessica Weeks’ Language of Stone label in Spring 2008.
Jeremy Jay resides in Angel town, next to Larchmont where he hang out. He’s tall (6’3) blond (really) and handsome and wants a cat for his apartment. He writes and plays piano and guitar. He says one of his favorite things to do is drive around with the moonroof open and listen to music with his friends. It seems that hes both a small town boy and a big city…
Kaz is an award winning songwriter born in Scotland but now living in Australia. She won the first prize in The Great American Song Contest, Pop category, in 2003. Kaz was born in Dundee, Scotland but now calls Melbourne Australia home. It took many years of writing and performing before finally getting into the recording studios. The result was “The Dinner Party”, recorded with a superb band of session musicians…
Kassin+2 – Furismo / 2008 Luaka Bop / 17 Tracks / http://www.luakabop.com / This is the third album by the +2s (each member of this trio has had an album named after them), and it becomes obvious that the act is hitting on all cylinders. Where we live in a period of song titles that have little to do with the song themselves, the opening salvo (“Tranquiloâ€) perfectly matches the…
Not since the late 1960s and early 1970s has there been a musical artist who so completely spoke for an entire generation. After the breakup of the Beatles and the tragic deaths of Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin, there were few music icons left of their magnitude – until the meteoric success of Nirvana and their breakthrough Nevermind. Following Kurt Cobain’s suicide three years later, Kurt became the…
Greenzine #14 / :45 / 64M / http://www.croadcore.org / Greenzine, c/o Cristy C. Road, P.O. Box 42868, Philadelphia PA 19101 /Â This issue of Greenzine is a tremendous read. Couple that with very realistic drawings (also done by Cristy) and this issue of Greenzine is tremendous. The format is of a perzine, but there is politics throughout, most likely an extension of the very political life of Cristy eirself. What…
January 1, 1981 a new emcee was born. Terrell “Smokey Da Bandit†McSee was introduced to music at an early age, with his influences being that of N.W.A., Ice-T, Ice Cube, DJ Quik, MC Eiht, Spice 1, Prince, and Whodini. The inspiration to emcee came to Smokey at the age of 11, when his uncle, Arthur Williams, was murdered. Smokey used rap as his voice to shout out to the…
The Dodos – Visiter / 2008 Frenchkiss / 14 Tracks / http://www.dodosmusic.net / http://www.frenchkissrecords.com / The Dodos were formally known as Dodo Bird, and signed to Frenchkiss Records a few months ago. “Visiter†is their first album for Frenchkiss, and the disc starts off with “Walkingâ€. “Walking†has a folk backdrop to the instrumentation, while the vocals take a slightly different tack in their alternative grounding. The linking of the…
NEW YORK – ‘THE TRUTH’ is on the way, and judging from every early sign, Sho’Nuff Records/Capitol Music Group quartet CHERISH is about to prove beyond doubt that in 2008, America wants ‘THE TRUTH,’ the whole ‘TRUTH,’ and nothing but ‘THE TRUTH.’
V/A – 2008 Grammy Nominees / 2008 Hip-O / 21 Tracks / http://www.grammy.com / Â This compilation CD covers a wide set of genres and styles of music, and as one can probably guess, consists of those tracks that have been nominated for a Grammy. It is also easy to assume that individuals have heard most of these tracks a number of times; this CD looks to capture what were the…
Strecker is a veteran of the rhythm rock / blue scene having toured with such acts as Asleep At The Wheel, Shawn Colvin and the Bill Strecker Band, sharing the stage with the likes of Jaco Pastorious, Steve Goodman, and Richie Havens, and working with legendary manager Albert Grossman (Bob Dylan, Todd Rundgren). On his recent solo effort ‘Smoke & Clouds’, Strecker has created a record that comes from the…
wipEout Pulse / 2008 Sony / PSP / http://www.playstation.com / http://www.psp-game.com / It astounds me each time I play a game on the PSP, because it seems like every developer and game firm are pushing the portable device to its limits – until, three months later, a game comes along and breaks my expectations completely. For fans of the Wipeout series, this is a direct sequel to Wipeout Pure. This…
At a very early age Tony Berdych knew that music was to play a major role in his life. At four years old he made a guitar out of an old cigar box, a piece of wood and some rubber bands. During his childhood he frequently visited his neighbors house in Detroit to plunk out songs by ear on the piano. He bought his first Gibson guitar at 10 years…
Greenzine #12 Greenzine #12 – I’ve heard a lot about this zine, but I have never had the chance to read it before this review. This issue recounts Cristy’s trip across the United States and back, recounting the journey in a number of styles and expressions, from ultra-swanky prose to punk-as-hell comics. One, regardless if they have been on road trips or not, will find a common spirit with Cristy…
Pennywise–one of punk’s most credible and influential bands, who’ve sold over three million albums worldwide–have revealed the album title and track listing for their forthcoming CD, due out March 25 via MySpace Records. Beginning March 25, fans around the world will be able to obtain a high quality, DRM-free, 320kbps MP3 free download of the REASON TO BELIEVE CD from MySpace for a period of two weeks.
Iron Maiden – Live After Death / 2008 Universal / 240 Minutes / http://www.ironmaiden.com / “Live After Death†is a recording that has legs. Done during the band’s “Powerslave†tour in 1984-1985, this recording has been released on CD a number of times, and is only just being ported over to the DVD format this year. However, instead of going and just sticking a VHS tape on a DVD and…