Queens of the Stone Age centerpiece Josh Homme, who produced the just-leaked new album by Arctic Monkeys, says the guys "get weird" on Humbug.
Homme said: "This is the record where they get weird, grow up and trip out."
When asked why he signed on for the project, Homme replied, "I was sucked in at first by the lyrics. Alex sounded like a rare poet playing music - he has a special gift for the gab." He also said drummer Matt Helders as "one of the best".
Look for the album at the end of August, and our review sometime in the coming weeks.
Jack White's latest band, The Dead Weather, pulled a Willy Wonka and placed six photo booth picture strips (their version of "golden tickets") in US copies of their recently released debut, Horehound. While two have already been found, there are still four picture strips waiting to be claimed!
Those lucky enough to find a photo booth picture strip, will win a trip to Nashville, TN for a guided tour of Third Man Records. Included is round trip airfare, two night hotel accommodation and ground transportation for you and a friend. Last day to redeem picture strips is August 15th, so don't miss out on this rare chance to win!
Kid Rock hates Twitter.
"It's gay. If one more person asks me if I have a Twitter, I'm going to tell them, 'Twitter this sh*t, motherf*cker.'"
"I don't have anything to say, and what I have to say is not relevant. Anything that is relevant, I'm going to bottle it up and the squeeze it onto a record somewhere."
Nuff said.
Green Day and Pink are scheduled to perform at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards on September 13. They join Muse and Taylor Swift, among several unannounced performers, with further acts to be announced in the weeks leading up to the event.
Muse will debut their single ‘Uprising’ at the ceremony, which will return to Radio City Music Hall after stints over the past two years in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
Russell Brand will host the event for the second year in a row, which is surprising. Much as I loved his backhanded humor, the victims of the joke (those in the audience) didn't seem to appreciate it much. Good to know he's coming back.
Vagrant Records has moved the release date of Beggars, the sixth studio album from Thrice, up to August 11th. The digital release date was pushed up from October 13 after the album leaked on July 20.
Thrice reacted in a statement on their website, "We'd like to thank those of you who have resisted the urge to download this leak, those of you who have been supportive of us in online forums as this thing began to spread, and those of you who have heard the record and are sharing kind words about it. We always appreciate your support, but even more so right now."
My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way was at Comic-Con promoting his own comic book ventures, including a third "Umbrella Academy" series (Hotel Oblivion) and "The True Live of the Fabulous Killjoys". While there, he broke a little news on the next MCR record, and made a couple stupid comments in the process:
"I'd say we're right in the middle of it. Brendan [O'Brien] is the kind of producer who really likes a lot of things going on at once, so we're tracking and he's going right across the hall and mixing. It's a process that always keeps everyone involved the whole time. The songs are all wildly different, but the one I'm really excited about is called 'Death Before Disco.' It's a completely different sound for the band — it's like an anti-party song that you can party to." Let's stop for a moment and read that last sentence again.
He went on: "I can't wait for people to hear it. It brings back, lyrically, some of that wonderful fiction from the first album. I think we wrote our 'Born to Run,' and I'm so amped about that. To me, it's the greatest song we've ever written — it's my favorite MCR song."
Consider yourself warned.
Wanna hear a new song from Billy Corgan? I guess we could call it the Smashing Pumpkins, but he's the only one left in the band, so that feels about as right as calling Axl Rose's new band Guns N' Roses.
The song was played at a tribute concert for psych-rock pioneer Sky "Sunlight" Saxon in Los Angeles on Sunday. Corgan was joined onstage by new Smashing Pumpkins drummer Mike Byrne, a 19-year-old freshman at the Berklee College of Music, Electric Prune bassist Mark Tulin and Strawberry Alarm Clock keyboardist Mark Weitz.
The song, given the working title "Freak," was written by Corgan in memory of Saxon, the lead singer of '60s garage rock band The Seeds, who died unexpectedly in June.
"Sky Saxon came into our lives, and our lives have never been the same," Corgan said while introducing the track. The two collaborated on a song called "Choose to Choose Love" shortly before Saxon's death, which Corgan later released via Facebook.
After Sunday's performance, Corgan wrote on his Twitter that the tribute show was one of his "proudest days as a human being." "We gave him a mighty send-off to be happy now in God's arms," he said.
The Mars Volta have announced a string of dates in the US, kicking off August 29 at Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco.
The band are hitting the road to support their album 'Octahedron', which was released on June 23.
The band will also perform two-nights at the Hollywood Palladium on August 30 and September 1. The outing wraps up in San Antonio, TX on September 19.
The dates are:
San Francisco CA Outside Lands Festival (August 29)
Los Angeles CA Palladium (August 30, September 1)
Santa Barbara CA Santa Barbara Bowl (2)
San Diego CA Soma (4)
Phoenix AZ Dodge Theater (5)
St. Louis MO The Pageant (8)
Minneapolis MN First Avenue (10)
Chicago IL Congress Theater (11)
Denver CO Monolith Festival (13)
Dallas TX Palladium (16)
Houston TX Verizon Wireless Amphitheater (17)
San Antonio TX Municipal Theater (19)
Described their new design as a "roving gallery show," Green Day have added an art expo to their tour that visually represents the 18 songs on their latest album 21st Century Breakdown -- crafted by 17 international artists.
New York artist Logan Hicks curated the collection and made a set of portraits of the members of the band, which will accompany the touring gallery.
"We are really excited to be touring with this incredible show," Billie Joe Armstrong said in a press release. "Seeing the pieces that our new album has inspired is very exciting. Many of the artists Logan has chosen show their work on the street, and we feel a strong connection to that type of creative expression."
According to a message that was posted on Anthrax's official Twitter account, Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine's claim that Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian told Dave that Metallica was planning on firing drummer Lars Ulrich in 1986 is "not true." The post adds, "Little does anyone know but Lars actually owns the [Metallica] name. Good luck ever kicking him out."
In a new interview with RollingStone.com, Mustaine, who was a member of Metallica for less than two years in the early '80s, was asked if there's any truth to the rumor that on the last Metallica tour Cliff Burton was on before he died, the band was planning on firing Lars Ulrich at the tour's end.
"That's what Scott [Ian] told me," Dave replied. "He said that when Metallica got home, that James [Hetfield], Cliff [Burton] and Kirk [Hammett] were going to fire Lars." -
