antiMusic reports: Alternative rockers ism's great new sophomore album 'Urgency,' 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:
Sacred Cows: This song is a call to arms to people to find out what matters to you and go for it. The idea of a sacred cow is something, in religion, philosophy, martial arts, whatever, that can no longer be questioned, it must simply be accepted. I first experienced this idea in the context of martial arts (I train and teach Jeet Kune Do). Many martial arts aren't interested in whether or not what they do is effective or useful, they're just interested in maintaining their traditions.
Sacred Cows applies this idea not to an external, but to an internal. What elements of yourself do you just blindly accept and no longer question? Are you living as you'd like to? Are your outlooks on the world your own or ideas you got from other people? Accepting where you are at without question means you will never get anywhere, never grow. We need to build our own rituals, find what matters and is sacred for ourselves, not for other people.
TMZ reports: What if you could get your fast food fix without having to talk to a pesky human being? Sounds kinda awesome, huh?
Blink-182 bassist Mark Hoppus, super-sized golf legend Phil Mickelson, and as many as a hundred others thought so, too--but after investing a ton of $$$, they're definitely not lovin' the idea now.
In a lawsuit filed today in L.A., Hoppus alleges that a "company" called Missicom took him for millions, supposedly to install self-service cashier terminals in McDonald's joints in Cali. No terminals ever materialized. Mark now wants $2 mil in damages.
antiMusic reports: Here is a follow up to last week's story about Bon Jovi being accused of ripping off a song from a Boston musician. Now another musician has come forward with claims that Jon and Co ripped off his band as well. Here is what Cats In Boots and Heavy Bones vocalist Joel Ellis had to say to Sleaze Roxx: "It was back in the 1980's when Denny Holan and I were recording our pre-production demos for Atlantic Records with Merri Hoaxx. We had just finished tracking a studio session that included our original song "I'll Be There For You". We left Paramount Studios in Hollywood with a cassette tape of rough mixes and headed straight for The Rainbow Bar & Grill on Sunset. When we got there we gave the tape to Michael to put on the Bar's sound system, it was the classic "Is It Worthy" test for demos and mixes that a lot of bands used to gage their nights work. We'd always pop on the song and listen for the sounds then we would watch to see if people were digging the songs. The place was definitely digging the songs that night. I ran into Sam Kinison who asked me to come back to his table and hang out. So while our tape was playing, we sat at the table in the back with Sam, John Bon Jovi, Peter Aykroyd (Dan's brother) and Doc McGee, etc... Johnny gave us this line of BS that if we gave him this tape he would take it to his uncle at Polydor Records and try to get us out on tour with him.
I somehow felt like I was going to regret that, but we agreed to take a chance and trust him, so we gave John Bon Jovi the cassette that night and we never heard back from him. A short time later we heard the chorus for our song "I'll be theeerrre for youuuu" as JBJs next big hit. My manager at the time wanted to sue his ass but we were doing well and were very busy with all the Atlantic developments going on that I didn't want to cause problems for our momentum that we had going at the time. I hated when people would note the resemblance between John Bon Jovi and me at the time and I didn't want to give the world any other reasons to compare me to the Golden Boy Johnny.
Later on during the Heavy Bones days, I was dating a girl named Lehua Reid, who was previously engaged to Richie Sambora. While she lived at Richie's house, she told me about how she remembered the nights that John Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora would sit at Richie's piano with boxes full of tapes they had collected from trusting aspiring musicians who trusted them with their creations for a shot at success, how they would play through tape after tape looking for catchy songs to rip off all the while laughing at the suckers who gave them their tapes.
antiMusic reports: Page Six is helpfully passing along the rumor that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will headline the Super Bowl halftime show next February, a story that was supposedly confirmed by an all-tables reservation E Streeter Steven Van Zandt made at a Tampa-area Hard Rock Cafe. more
Speaking of musical football, Billboard had this today: Usher and Keith Urban will help ring in the 2008 NFL season with a free Sept. 4 concert at New York's Columbus Circle. Highlights will be sprinkled across the NFL Network, NFL.com and Sprint's NFL Mobile Live. more
Members of the Allman Brothers Band sued UMG Recordings for more than $10 million on Monday over royalties from compact discs sales and digital downloads services such as Apple's iTunes. more
The latest episode of "Talking Metal" features an interview features an interview hosts Mark Strigl and John Ostronomy conducted with StoneRider guitarist and vocalist Matt Tanner. Topics include StoneRider's "Juice Man" video, the Atlanta music scene, and Raging Slab. Additional podcast topics include Grand Magus and Jersey City, New Jersey's Sand Bar. The 25-minute podcast can be downloaded at http://www.talkingmetal.com
George "CorpseGrinder" Fisher, frontman of legendary Death Metal band Cannibal Corpse, has interviewed for Jasmin St. Claire's forthcoming autobiography, 'What the Hell Was I Thinking?!! Confessions of the World's Most Controversial Sex Symbol', which also includes interviews from Motorhead frontman Lemmy Kilmister, porn legend Ron Jeremy, and a host of others. Check out more at www.myspace.com/metalsdarkside
Rolling Stone magazine unveiled plans on Monday for a major design overhaul, scaling down its signature large-format pages to a standard magazine size in a bid to bolster advertising and sagging newsstand sales. Bolster advertising? Isn't 70% of the mag already advertisements? Read more here
Eyehategod will play a show to celebrate their 20th anniversary in New Orleans on August 29. details
Sounds like Oasis are about to announce a tour any day now - they're telling fans to keep checking for updates. more
With record producer Phil Spector's murder retrial approaching, prosecutors on Monday asked a judge to reconsider rulings from the first trial that excluded evidence of six times Spector allegedly threatened people with handguns
Big Hassle reports: U2's first concert video, Live At Red Rocks, will be released on DVD by Interscope/Island/UME on September 30, 2008 in the U.S., along with the accompanying live album, Under a Blood Red Sky.
Recorded at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado on 5th June 1983, Live at Red Rocks will be available for the first time on DVD, and will include 5 previously unreleased songs, a director's commentary, digitally re-graded pictures and a 5.1 mix.
The remastered Under a Blood Red Sky album was originally released in November 1983, and consists of live recordings from three shows on the band's War Tour through Europe and America.
A deluxe version featuring the Under a Blood Red Sky CD and the Live At Red Rocks DVD will be available
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conqueroo reports: The Stax Records and Concord Music Group family lost a great friend on Sunday when soul music giant Isaac Hayes died suddenly at the age of 65.
To the world he was Black Moses, Ike The Ripper and, later, Chef from TV's South Park. To the rest of us who had the extraordinary opportunity to work with him in recent years, he was just Isaac. He was humble, unpretentious and refreshingly down-to-earth. Not bad for a man who delivered a record-setting seven #1 albums to the Billboard R&B chart, scored numerous awards (including multiple Grammys and 2 Academy Awards), appeared in over three dozen films and was named a Royal King of Ghana along the way.
In the '60s, the Covington, Tenn. native helped define the Stax Records sound, co-writing with David Porter such hits as "Soul Man," "Hold On (I'm Coming)," "B-A-B-Y," and "When Something Is Wrong With My Baby" for Sam & Dave, Carla Thomas and Johnnie Taylor, among others.
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PR reports: Alejandro Escovedo has been confirmed to perform at Harley-Davidson's 105th Anniversary Celebration in Milwaukee on August 30th at the Roadhouse at the Lakefront stage on the same bill with Bruce Springsteen.
This will be the second time Escovedo has shared a stage with Springsteen; the first was in April of this year when they teamed up on Escovedo's single "Always a Friend".
This show will mark Escovedo's return to touring after cancelling a handful of dates due to exhaustion and fatigue.
antiMusic reports: Who hasn't misheard a song lyrics. We thought it might be fun to feature some favorites here for you to enjoy.
Today's misheard lyric comes from antiMusic's very own J. Simpson. The lyric is to Pantara's "Walk" and the line "Re, Spect, walk, what did you say? Re, Spect, walk, are you talking to me?"
That lyric has been misheard as "Breath, Spit, Walk what did you say? Breath, Spit, Walk are you talking to me?"
If you have a misheard lyric we'd love to hear from you. See the contact link at the bottom of the page for how to get ahold of us to tell us about your favorites. If you want to check out more misheard song lyrics like this one you can go
PR reports: ZZ Top after touring and recording for the past 39 years and have decided to embark on a tour that will bring them even closer, literally, to their legions of fans. Kicking off in Wichita, KS on September 26, the ZZ Top In Your Face Tour will bring the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers to the kind of intimate venues they played much earlier in their tenure as rock's the longest running band with original personnel intact. For six weeks this fall, the trio forswears stadiums, areas and festivals for small theaters where they expect to connect very directly with their audience.
Guitarist Billy F Gibbons explains, "Earlier this year, because of a routing quirk, we accepted a 'fill-in' date at a little old theater in Knoxville. That experience reminded us of our roots, both in terms of a stripped-down, gut-bucket musical approach and the direct connection with the people who came to see us. So we said, 'why not do this on a more extended basis and have some real fun?'"
Though they've just come back from Europe where they played to monumental crowds at festivals in eight countries, the band was game to revisit the experience and, as bassist Dusty Hill puts it, "We figured it would be a kick to, so to speak, get in people's faces and the idea for this tour was born."
Noble PR reports: Former Dexys Midnight Runners members and Mick Talbot (formerly one half of The Style Council), have reunited the legendary British funk Northern soul band "The Bureau". The band will release a brand new album entitled " And Another Thing" on 6th October.
After an explosive rupture with Dexys Midnight Runners, five visionary men created a fresh start, a powerful new band called The Bureau that immediately recruited two key players from The Upset and then enlisted a jazz trombonist. Blythe, Spooner, Stoker, Williams and Talbot, plus Brown, Jones and Taylor, rattled the rafters of a derelict night club with a battery of new songs and went howling through Holland in February 1981. By August they were touring the US with The Pretenders.
Dealings with WEA were not smooth, and The Bureau's first album was easy to find in Australia and North America but unavailable in Britain. After a couple of other tours, financial treachery forced the band to stand down. Late in 2002, Ian Jennings saw Archie Brown perform with his band, The Young Bucks. Being a great fan of The Bureau, he quizzed him about it over too much beer.
PR reports: Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers will take the stage with other performers at Disney's Concert for Hope, a benefit concert supporting cancer research and treatment programs at City of Hope. It will be held Sunday, September 14, at the Gibson Amphitheatre at Universal City. Tickets for the concert will be available Saturday, August 16 at 10am.
"We are honored and grateful for the generosity of Disney, Creative Artists Agency and the dedication of Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers in supporting the lifesaving work of City of Hope," said Michael A. Friedman, M.D., president and chief executive officer, City of Hope. "This Concert for Hope demonstrates their commitment to improving the lives of patients with cancer and to helping create a future in which cancer is not only treatable, but curable and preventable."
The concert continues Disney and Cyrus' support of City of Hope. Last year, Disney donated $1 from every ticket sold during her highly successful "Best of Both Worlds" concert tour to cancer research at City of Hope. The concert series raised more than $1 million.
antiMusic reports: The heavy-hitting metal quintet Five Finger Death Punch is proud to announce a full US headlining tour this fall. They will be joined by In This Moment, Bury Your Dead, and Another Black Day. The tour kicks off September 29 in Colorado Springs, and wraps up December 4th at the House of Blues in San Diego.
Frontman Ivan Moody commented on the upcoming tour: "After kicking ass with all our metal friends on MAYHEM this past summer, we knew that our next step had to be massive!! And after a list of brilliant projects we had the opportunity to tour with, we have put together an Annihilating Bill!!! This fall, Death Punch will be charging back through the states with one of metal's premiere front women [In This Moment], the crushing sounds of long-time underground bad asses Bury Your Dead, and some stellar newcomers, Another Black Day. We are pulling out ALL the stops and we are taking no prisoners!!"
While most shows go on sale to the general public this weekend, special VIP pre-sale tickets will be available starting Tuesday, August 12th
Atlantic Records reports: Decaydance/Fueled By Ramen recording group Gym Class Heroes have announced details of their upcoming co-headline tour with The Roots.
The North American schedule which features support from Homeschool/Atlantic Records R&B sensation Estelle will begin on October 3rd at Baltimore's Rams Head Live! and then traverse the continent through a November 1st finale at Albany, New York's Washington Avenue Armory
The tour celebrates the release of Gym Class Heroes' hugely anticipated fourth album, "THE QUILT." The collection which follows 2006's RIAA gold-certified breakthrough, "AS CRUEL AS SCHOOL CHILDREN" arrives in stores and at online retailers on September 9th.
Interscope reports: Rattling like a glass test-tube over a blue-flame, TV on the Radio will follow-up 2006's universally acclaimed Return to Cookie Mountain and drop Dear Science on September 23rd via Interscope Records.
New songs from the Brooklyn quintet's third full-length album will be unveiled throughout North America in September, starting in Portland, OR with festival appearances in Colorado and California.
The band will be joined by special guest Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson and later The Dirtbombs, who will open select dates.
Prosthetic Records reports: Massachusetts' All That Remains has unveiled the new track "Chiron," from the band's forthcoming album, 'Overcome,' online at the official All That Remains Myspace Page.
In addition to the launch of the audio, the band shot a video to accompany the song earlier this summer while in Los Angeles with director Brian Thompson (As I Lay Dying, Killswitch Engage, Angels And Airwaves) and The Vault LA. There is a behind the scenes sneak peak available here
"I'm really pumped about Chiron," frontman Phil Labonte says. "It's one of the favorites on the new disc so we can't wait for people to hear it. We had a really good time working with Brian for the video too, and we're very happy with his work." In the meantime, All That Remains is currently out on the road as part of this year's Vans Warped Tour is already busy supporting the Sept. 16 release of 'Overcome.' "These shows have been NUTS!" Labonte continues. "Kids come out and go totally bonkers, or wait in line for two or three hours just to say, 'what's up.' It's really amazing to be a part of this."
In addition, ALL THAT REMAINS has confirmed a fall co-headlining tour with Trivium upon completion of the Warped Tour dates
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:
Hot in Indianapolis. Certainly the warmest day of the tour since Boston. That sun sure was vigorous. Got up and got out there with Donnie and Rifqa at doors, where some volunteers were helping promote with signs. We sold some CD's and told people to come see us play at 6:00. Then we found out they'd changed our set time to 5:30. Crap. We changed all the signs and sent everyone out to promote the new time. Hung out intermittently with Byron at merch. Showed the bus off to some Wickes peoples. Watched some great sets.
The bus started smoking at a certain point, and Randy had to call someone to check it out since the generator had switched off. Then Randall ran off with a runner and tracked down 4,000 CD's for Ludo to restock with. Busy day for the TM! We played early that evening to a great crowd, did an Idiot Parade, loaded out, grabbed food, did a signing, met good people, showered, loaded out the merch, hung out at the barbecue, and then called it a night. Great work team! Let's go to Milwaukee!!!
Find out where you can see them, preview tracks from their new CD and learn more about Ludo here.
