antiMusic reports: Urgency, the great new sophomore album from alternative rockers ism, just hit stores last week and to celebrate the release we asked frontman Andre Mistier to tell us a little about his five favorite tracks. Andre went well beyond the call of duty! So let's cut this intro short and let Andre tell you about today's song:
Urgency - The title track of the album. This song is about the question, if it were your last day on earth, what things that you do now would still matter to you? So, there are two ideas that follow. One is that some people put too much urgency on themselves. Is your cause really important enough to kill or die for? Or do you just want it to be? We all have our own lives, and what we do is important to us, but there needs to be some perspective. How your date went on Friday is not nearly as important as your sister being in the hospital.
The other idea is that some people don't have enough urgency in their lives. Many people wait for someone or something else to magically help them achieve their goals. And everyone is special, but it's only the ones who are willing to go out and pursue what they want with urgency, with passion, that will get where they are trying to go. So, the real question is, if it were the end, what actually matters to you and why?
antiMusic reports: Metallica are making announcements like crazy on their website. Over the weekend they not only rocked Ozzfest but made two big announcements: they finished their new album and they have already mapped out some of their tour plans. Here is what they had to say:
Today we finished mixing and mastering our ninth studio album of original material, 'Death Magnetic', which hits the streets worldwide on Friday, September 12. Plus, you'll be able to download every song from the album for 'Guitar Hero III' on the same day!
Time for a different sort of vacation ... one right here on our home turf!! Now that 'Death Magnetic' is complete, we're ready to start a proper indoor arena tour of the States and Canada and we can't wait to visit all of our 'talli-fans here . . . it really has been too long (hey, what's four years amongst friends?).
Billboard reports: Isaac Hayes, the pioneering singer, songwriter and musician whose relentless "Theme From Shaft" won Academy and Grammy awards, has been found dead at his home in Memphis. He was 65.
The Shelby County Sheriff's Office says a family member found Hayes unresponsive near a treadmill today (Aug. 10).
He was pronounced dead about an hour later at Baptist East Hospital in Memphis. The cause of death was not immediately known.
Rockdirt reports: Dirty Harry of Nylon TV went to Courtney Love's home, talking with the singer about her new album, how she "literally gets crucified every day" which she blames to sexism, and her plans to exit music after this album in favor of apparel and television production.
As for Frances Bean Cobain, the daughter she shares with late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, Love said, "I have a teenage daughter now, so it's really, really crucial that I have a great home life and she's so beautiful, she's so vulnerable and was born very famous. She'd have to step over my dead body to get into the music industry, but I don't think she wants to anyway. If anything she'll act, she'll direct... I think she'll end up running Hollywood, and she's got my sh** list, so that's awesome."
At one point in the clip, a man is seen running through Courtney's house, who is identified only as "member of the new Hole", suggesting the new album will be the first release from the band since 1998's 'Celebrity Skin' (though no indication if any of Courtney's prior bandmates will be part of the project).
antiMusic reports: They say celebs die in threes. But a PR company president contacted us with a strange feeling about a possible death trio. Here is what we found in our inbox: Yesterday, it was Bernie Mac. Today it was Isaac Hayes. Could Samuel Jackson be next?
Daryl Toor, president of Attention!, an Atlanta based publicity firm, a former music reviewer and record company executive notes:
"This photograph, taken from Isaac Hayes' official site [features Bernie Mac, Samuel L. Jackson and Isaac Hayes. The photo was promoting the film Soulmen. See link to view the photo] is as eerie as the time I read a newspaper obituary on its own obituary writer ."
antiMusic reports: We've been known to make fun of music awards from time to time. Not only are most awards shows pointless but many times the organizers and voters of these awards are utterly clueless. Just ask the headbanging thrashers in Jethro Tull.
Recently Iron Maiden was nominated for a Best Live Return Award in the Vodaphone Live Awards. The only problem is the fact that Iron Maiden never went away and have been selling out arenas world wide for a few decades now with no let up. So when the clueless organizers of these awards announced this nomination the band quickly said thanks, but no thanks.
They advised their fans "please don't go looking to cast your votes for us. As we are not quite sure where we are returning from, we have asked them to remove us from the nominations and they have done this."
James, a band that did go away for a while, was nominated in their place according to reports.
antiMusic reports: A founder of the country band Sugarland is suing the two current members for $1.5 million. According to a lawsuit filed late last month in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, Kristen Hall was to get a cut of the group's profits even after she left in 2005 for a solo career. more
Next week's Rock Band DLC update features the Roadrunner Records 6 Pack. The six pack of tracks will sell at 480 Microsoft Points or $5.99 actual bucks. It's not all Mallcore, they actually picked some real metal vets they managed to sign to the Hot Topic friendly label over the past few years. grab the details
A man has been arrested in connection with the death of Lebanese pop star Suzanne Tamim, police in the Gulf emirate of Dubai have said. The 30-year-old singer was found dead in her flat last month. more
Akon has failed to appear in court. The rapper was due to appear in court in Fishkill, NY on charges of second degree harassment and endangering the welfare of a minor after he threw 15-year-old Anthony Smith from the stage during a concert. more
There is an exhibit of Led Zeppelin memorabilia at Knebworth House to benefit Jimmy's Charity Action for Brazil's Children. There is a contest being run as part of the exhibit which features a $3,000 dollar CD/DVD/Radio and a painting of the band, both of which have been signed by Jimmy. All the entries, and all the sales from the exhibit benefit the ABC Trust. The contest runs until August 29th. The website is here You can see photos of the signed entertainment system and painting by clicking on the contest for each item.
On Saturday night's edition of The Classic Metal Show, guitarist Tracii Guns of L.A. Guns called in from the road to talk about his version of LA Guns and their new singer, vocalist Marty Casey (of Rockster INXS fame). During the course of the conversation, Guns made some startling accusations regarding "the other" L.A. Guns members Steve Riley (drums) and Phil Lewis (vocals). more
A festival has been constructed around Carcass' upcoming appearance in Florida. The Florida Death Fest will take place on Saturday, September 13th at Jannis Landing in St. Petersburg, FL. details
Billboard executive editor Bill Werde has been named the magazine's new editorial director. He replaces Tamara Conniff, who is leaving to become president of music services for Irving Azoff's Front Line Management Group. more
Note to publicists: When contacting us to try and get us to cover your latest generic emo band, it's not a very good idea to start off by insulting us about how we cover the news; especially when our news coverage deals with bands that our readers are actually interested in, instead of your dime-a-dozen interchangeable wannabe fourth stage Warped band that won't be remembered in six months by even their handful of Myspace friends. Just sayin.
Finally, we welcome Kerrang! Radio to our RockNews.info newswire. You can now get the latest 20 headlines from Kerrang! Radio along with 20 other leading music news sources all in one place. Updated every 20 minutes. Check it out
AC/DC Newsletter reports: On August 15, AC/DC will shoot a video in the UK for their forthcoming album and they need they need your help. After all, what good's a video without the electricity surging through the crowd? That's where you come in.
So, if you're ready for the big time, all you have to do is fill out our form explaining why you're the biggest Acca Dacca fan in one sentence, and you and a guest could end up appearing in the next AC/DC video.
Fans must be in the Central London area, and available from 3pm to Midnight on August 15 to take part in the video shoot. Fill out our form cross your fingers and next thing you know you might find yourself immortalized in the new AC/DC video.
antiMusic reports: TMZ sent this out from one of their employees: Beyonce, or L'Orιal for that matter, probably had no idea that an ad for hair color would cause so much controversy. I am an African-American woman and I work for TMZ. Yes, TMZ hires Black people.
I saw the new L'Orιal ad a few days ago, and it struck a nerve. There's still a stigma of Black celebs acting "too Black." This ad re-enforces that negative portrayal.
Why can't a powerful, talented African-American woman be celebrated for her natural beauty? L'Orιal claims they didn't change Beyonce's appearance, but who are they fooling? L'Oreal obviously wanted to make Beyonce look white. The L'Orιal ad is disrespectful and dismissive to the Black community. And L'Orιal's explanation is lame. [almost as lame as singers doing ads for products.]
TMZ reports: It should be no surprise that someone who was signed on DMX's label has been arrested. Rapper Yung Berg was busted early yesterday morning in New York City after police investigated a complaint by a limo driver.
Sources say a limo driver reported a dispute with five passengers, and when police investigated the complaint, they busted Berg and his buddies on a pile of charges.
Cops say Berg, real name Christian Ward, was charged with criminal possession of a weapon, criminal possession of marijuana and menacing.
Gibson reports: Ask Mick Jagger. Leaving a big time band even temporarily for solo success is a dicey proposition. Rock history is littered with artists that made the leap and fell flat on their pretty faces. Only a few have managed to strike out alone and actually enrich their bank accounts and fan bases.
Gibson listed 15, here are three of them: Ozzy Osbourne - His work with Black Sabbath was amazing, if underappreciated, in its time. As a solo star he's gone multi-platinum, having established the incredibly durable Ozzfest heavy metal fest and become a reality show icon.
Dave Grohl - He was doing just fine playing drums for Nirvana. But after Kurt Cobain's suicide in 1994 Grohl instinctively kicked into high gear, writing all the songs and playing all the instruments on his platinum-selling, Grammy-nominated solo debut under the name Foo Fighters (before it actually, you know, became a band).
Robert Plant - How do you top Led Zeppelin? The secret to Plant's success is that he never even tried; instead following his passion, whether it's 1950s style doo-wop (The Honeydrippers), leftfield folk (Dreamland) or contemporary bluegrass with fellow blonde Alison Krauss (Raising Sand).
PR reports: With the world's eyes turned towards China for the start of this week's Olympic Games, ears turn towards today's Chinese underground rock scene. This is China's subculture.
When Chicago-based musician, producer and label owner Martin Atkins (member of PiL, Pigface, Killing Joke, etc) visited Beijing in the fall of 2006, he had no idea what to expect. What he found was a thriving underground culture of rock bands that reminded him of his time in London in the late '70s, and of the downtown scene in early '80s NYC. He signed several bands while he was there, shot 80 hours of video footage, and rented out High End Sound Studios, where he recorded tracks from well over a dozen bands. He recorded live shows at the D-22 club--a venue that embodies the spirit that CBGBs had when Martin arrived in NYC over 25 years ago--just as news of the final show at the legendary NY nightclub was breaking on CNN.
The entire experience is best revealed in '16 Days in China' where Atkins documents his 2006 trip to Beijing. Here he recorded the cream of the Beijing music scene crop. The DVD features exclusive studio footage including the recording of the China Dub Soundsystem album, and upcoming chinese artists such as Snapline, The Subs, and P.K.14. It also contains music videos, cultural commentary, exclusive music, and more.
TMZ reports: Clay Aiken's baby mama has popped! Aiken's mother told local Raleigh, N.C. TV station that the "American Idol" runner-up was now the proud papa of a bouncing baby boy named Parker Foster Aiken.
Aiken's BFF, 50-year-old Jaymes Foster, gave birth at 8:08 AM this morning in an "undisclosed location."
Aiken's mother Faye said the dark-haired Parker weighed 6 lbs. 2 oz and was 19" long. She says her son is "smiling from ear-to-ear."
antiMusic reports: Ludo will be checking in with us all summer as they rock the Warped tour in support of their Island Def Jam CD "You're Awful, I Love You". Here is the band with latest entry:
Woke up in Cincinnati. Ludo's the first show of the day. Wah? Yes. 11:30 show. Wah? We were the last to play in Pittsburgh and the first to play the next day. Crazypants! No Idiot Parade, because it was kind of a clusterbang to get from our stage to our merch tent. But we hung out for many hours at the merch tent with Byron meeting fans and making buddies. The signing went well and then we were off to do press. Four interviews to do that day. We knocked them out in succession. Blam-blam styley. That night, we grabbed a little barbecue. Convy and I sat on the banks of the Ohio River with Donnie and Rifqa and talked about how to make better use of the street team the next day. One of the Japanese girls of Oreskaband softly played her trombone 30 yards down the bank. I watched the water and looked at Kentucky's tree-y hills on the other side. It was pretty. I really like rivers. They make me happy. Short drive that night. Good sleep.
Find out where you can see them, preview tracks from their new CD and learn more about Ludo here.
