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Beastie Boys think you should vote

Posted in Concert Dates with tags , , , , on Thursday, October 16, 2008 by Ryan Buege

With the election getting close, it seems as if the Beastie Boys have smoothing to tell us in this political hotbed that we know as Minnesota. Beastie Boys have expanded their “Swing State Awareness 2008” pre-election tour to six of the biggest battleground states just days before the election, including a November 1st show at Roy Wilkins Auditorium in St. Paul, MN.

If aggressiveness of both candidates at the debate last night didn’t show you, we have entered the final stretch of the race and all bets are off. With McCain and Obama viciously trading barbs back-and-forth, the tension between Republicans and Democrats has gotten extremely thick. In support of Barack Obama, the Beastie Boys will be playing several “Get-Out-The-Vote” shows in primary swing states in this years election.

The Beastie Boys have always advocated fighting for your rights, even if they were mainly your partying rights, and these shows are scheduled to let you know that they feel the same way about voting. Come to the show and reaffirm your stance with the classic Beastie Boys. And don’t forget to join the mob next week to push your candidate over the top (especially if you’re a supporting Obama).

The shows are:

10-27 Charlotte, NC – Amos’ Southend (w/ Sheryl Crow and Santogold)
10-28 Richmond, VA – Richmond Coliseum  (w/ Norah Jones, Jack Johnson, and Santogold)
10-29 Youngstown, OH – Chevrolet Center (w/ Sheryl Crow, Norah Jones, and Ben Harper)
10-30 Dayton, OH – Hara Arena (w/ Sheryl Crow and Ben Harper)
11-01 Saint Paul, MN – Roy Wilkins Auditorium (w/ Ben Harper and Tenacious D)
11-02 Milwaukee, WI – U.S. Cellular Arena (w/ Ben Harper, Tenacious D, and Crosby & Nash)

Review: Yeasayer, All Hour Cymbals

Posted in Music Reviews with tags , on Thursday, October 16, 2008 by Ryan Buege

It’s already been a year since the release of this album, but it’s still worthy of my short review here. It’s rare that a modern rock band can breakthrough into my collection so effortlessly, but with All Hour Cymbals Yeasayer did it. Yeasayer has put together an album of effortless ethereal, psychedelic experimental rock that pulls you in at every twist and turn.

“Sunrise” is a brilliant introduction to an album that is packed tightly with with airy Middle Eastern and African influenced joyous rock. At times, the chants that permeate many of the tracks on the album provide an other-worldly ritualistic quality that is hard to place; while it feels like you could use the word gospel to describe it, you don’t want to because it never feels preachy. At the same time, the calming choral vocals are well-balanced by Chris Keating’s somber straight-ahead delivery throughout the rest of the album. “2080” and “Red Cave”, for example, propel that album forward with a confident groove after dwelling in psychedelia and off-kilter rhythms on songs such as “Germs”, “No Need to Worry”, and “Wait for the Wintertime”.

All Hour Cymbals is densely layered with a variety of instrumentation both new and old that unexpectedly coalesce into a sound that is concurrently futuristic and rustic. On this album, Yeasayer has achieved a balance that beautifully flows between a variety styles and allows its listeners to fully experience each. Powered by a combination of ethereal harmonies, polyrhythmic drumming, smoky ambience, and doomy marches, All Hour Cymbals is a perfect introduction to Yeasayer. This album was a perfect complement to last winter, transitioned amazingly into summer listening, and looks like it will still stay a relevant part of my playlist through another winter. The future holds great promises for these guys.

7.5/10

For now though, get excited, because Yeasayer is coming through the midwest this month in support of the album! Keep reading for the dates… Continue reading

Ephel Duath channels their dogs on new album

Posted in Music News with tags , , , on Thursday, October 16, 2008 by Ryan Buege

Progressive metal’s best Italian trio, the bizarre, jazz heavy, avant-garde experimentalists in Ephel Duath, have revealed a bit more of their plans for their forthcoming followup to Pain Necessary To Know. The band will release their fourth studio album, Through My Dog’s Eyes, in January 26, 2009 through Earache Records. Over the past couple albums, Ephel Duath has progressed through a number of (..pardon the pun..) palettes and have never failed to bring something new to the world of music. From the forward thinking progressive-influenced black metal of their early albums, to the off-time chaos of The Painter’s Palette, to the spacecy avant-garde jams of their most recent album, Ephel Duath always keeps everyone (including themselves, it seems) guessing about where they’ll take their sound next. Thus far, it appears that the band’s next album will not be an out of line with this trend… Continue reading

Boredoms plans a Deluxe CD/DVD release for 77BoaDrums

Posted in Music News with tags , , , , , on Saturday, October 11, 2008 by Ryan Buege

Are you familiar with with the psychedelic ambient noise makers in Japan’s Boredoms? If not, do yourself a favor and get informed on that now. For those of you already on the boat, I’m sure you heard about the near-mythical 77BoaDrums concert that took place. An event in which the ever-unpredictable Boredoms gathered an orchestra of 77 drummers from various backgrounds and with kits of varying sizes for an epic syncopated jam of primitive, avant-pyschedlia. Well, now thankfully for those of us who were not fortunate enough to attend the 7/7/07 concert in Brooklyn, Boredoms will be releasing their poly-rhythmic drum jam from that day as a CD/DVD on November 26.

Their set that day suceeded in accomplishing something that was altogether unbelievable (and was only to be superseded this year by the 8/8/08 88BoaDrums set featuring 176 drummers). 77BoaDrums
can be thought of as a film, directed by Jun Kawaguchi, and even the concept of the project follows through to the ediiting. The movie is 89 minutes, which is approximately 77 minutes and 777 seconds you want to think too hard about it. Although it appears that the DVD won’t contain the entire 77BoaDrum film, it is clear that this project is one that’ll be worth the buy. If you want to see the entire concert again, you have to make it to the screening of 77BoaDrum Tokyo’s NYTFGP Film Festival in New York on Monday, October 13. Director Kawaguchi will be present for a Q&A at the first of two screenings scheduled that night, and will introduce the second. Stay tuned to myspace.com/boredoms and myspace.com/film77boadrum to find out how to preorder this beast of a release!

It’s going to fucking kick ass!

Here’s some exercepts from YouTube, just to give you an idea of the complexity of organizing an event like this (much less making an amazing film about it):

Animal Collective reveals their plans for a new album

Posted in Music News with tags on Friday, October 10, 2008 by Ryan Buege

Today is a happy day! Animal Collective have announced Merriweather Post Pavilion, their full-length studio follow-up to their 2007 release Strawberry Jam! According to a press release from Domino Records, the album was recorded in Oxford, Mississippi at Sweet Tea recording studio with Ben Allen and is due January 20 in CD, double LP, and digital formats from Domino.

Over the last few years, these extremely prolific psych/experimental artists have lifted their unique presence outside of the underground and onto the mainstage but have lost none of their vibrant, oddball, folksy charm. Their intention remains hellbent on exploring the depths of their artistic consciousness, and for that reason Animal Collective can never do any wrong. After the release of Panda Bear’s solo album this year and personally witnessing their mind-blowing headline performance at the Pitchfork this summer, my anticipation for this album is as high as any album this year. It’s great to watch your favorite artists stay so true to themselves as they mature, especially when they are still churning out the most spine-chillingly beautiful music you know.. So mark your calendars, the date has been set – JANUARY 20TH!

Keep reading for a tracklist!… Continue reading

Eugene Hütz and Max Cavalera plan a meeting of the minds

Posted in Music News with tags , , , , , , on Thursday, October 9, 2008 by Ryan Buege

Two of modern rock and metal’s most creative and ambititious frontmen, Eugene Hütz from Gogol Bordello and Max Cavalera from Soulfly/Cavalera Conspiracy/ex-Sepultura, have announced to Brazillian press that they are planning a future collaboration! In a O Globo magazine interview with Hütz, he stated “doing something as friends is easy, organizing something is much more difficult — and in any case, everyone is my friend!” when he was asked about his plans for future collaborations. He then went on to say that the Cavalera collaboration had already been discussed and is pretty much certain at this point.

Personally, this is an announcement coming from left-field, but I welcome it with my arms open as wide as they’ll stretch! It has been an extremely busy year for Cavalera – with his new Cavalera Conspiracy project with his brother Iggor having released their debut Inflikted in March and Soulfly releasing their most recent full-length Conquer only 3 months ago. With a project with Eugene Hütz to look forward to now as well, there is no reason to long for Cavalera to return to Sepultura like there might have been 5 or 10 years ago. Both Hütz and Cavalera could arguably be considered the most charasmatic and unique band leaders in their corner of music. And while Soulfly has been busy infusing their blend of groove metal and thrash with elements of world music, dub, and reggae, Gogol Bordello executed a brand of Punk rock that wears their Gypsy/East European heritage on their sleeve. When you consider that Soulfly even recorded with Gypsys in Serbia on two of their last 3 albums, it becomes clear that these guys are on the same page. This is going to be one to look forward to!

Keep reading more to check out the video for “American Wedding” from Gogol Bordello and “Sanctuary” from the Cavalera Conspiracy… Continue reading

Gojira made an amazing music video for their new song “Vacuity”

Posted in Video with tags , , on Tuesday, October 7, 2008 by Ryan Buege

France’s best metal band, Gojira, has just released the thought-provoking new video for “Vacuity,” the first single from their skull-crushing new album The Way of All Flesh. “Vacuity” was filmed by directors Julien Mokrani and Samuel Bodin with a RED video camera (the type used by Peter Jackson in the Lord of the Rings series), and they did an unbelievable job of reflecting the themes of the song through strong imagery and metaphors. The song was described by guitarist/vocalist Joseph Duplantier to UK’s Rock Sound magazine as being “about the Buddhist meaning of the word which is emptiness not nothingness, the ultimate presence. It was very hard to picture that concept in a video so we told the story of a girl carrying her own casket as the whole album is about facing your death and your pain.”

It’s been a long time since I spoke to Joe Duplantier during the Cavalera Conspiracy debut gig – and even longer since the release of Gojira’s last album, their genre-defining instant classic From Mars To Sirius. Needless to say, I’ve been very impatient to get this album in my hands to see how the last three years have influenced the band msuically. From the tracks that I’ve heard available on their myspace, The Way Of All Flesh defines their uniqueness even more. While the resemblances to Morbid Angel, Meshuggah, Mastodon, and Sepultura are still clear, Gojira seem to be getting more confident in their vision and abilities every day. Watch out for the album to hit stores on October 14. For now, we’ve got the video for you.

Dates for Gojira’s November U.S. tour with In Flames, All That Remains, and 36 Crazyfists are after the jump… Continue reading

Register to vote NOW

Posted in Politics with tags , , , on Monday, October 6, 2008 by Ryan Buege

It’s the last day to register, so if you’re not planning on registering on the day of the vote at the polling place then get it done today!

Register to vote TODAY

Andreas Kisser offers free preview of his debut album

Posted in Music News with tags , on Monday, October 6, 2008 by Ryan Buege

Andreas Kisser solo debut Hubris I & II available 10/20/08

Guitarist ANDREAS KISSER has posted four new songs from his debut solo album Hubris I & II which will be available on October 20, 2008 through Mascot Records. Go to his myspace now and preview “Vivaldi”, “God’s Laugh”, “Page”, and “Eu Humano” – four classically trained blues-heavy rock and metal songs that show us a different side of Kisser than we’ve ever seen before. Although these songs are probably not representative of what to expect on the forthcoming SEPULTURA release A-Lex that is due in November, there are some awesome headbang inducing guitar heavy grooves and intense sweep-picking to whet your appetite for all of the releases featuring Andres Kisser that will be coming out this year. On Dante XXI Kisser and his Sepultura bandmates did quite well to rebound from the chaos that surrounded their band in the late-90s and early-00s, and (despite the fact that I’m not sure how the new drummer can possibly fill the shoes of the since departed Igor Cavalera) this writer is honestly fucking excited to see what is to come from the thrash legends from Brazil. Here’s to the future! For now, check out myspace.com/andreaskisser and myspace.com/sepultura to stay tuned for release updates.

Cursed has a video

Posted in Video with tags on Monday, October 6, 2008 by Ryan Buege

The now defunct CURSED made an interesting post on their blog earlier this week, and it’s worth my mention here. Despite having the brutal new album III: Architects of Troubled Sleep recently released earlier this year and the Blackout at Sunrise EP under their belt as well, they have posted the brand new music video to “The Void” from their second album II. While releasing your first music video for a song that was written two albums in the past might be a surprising move for most bands, time has proven that the moves of unconventional band’s like CURSED can never really be proven or understood. This is a band that opened the aformentioned II album with a four minute hardcore metal explosion featuring vocals and the song was entitled simply “Intro” – logic doesn’t really apply to them, if you know what I mean. It’s clear that CURSED honestly embodies the arrogant “don’t give a fuck” attitude that it takes to survive as a hardcore band or metal band, and for that I salute them. What IS surprising is that this song still sounds as fucking awesome and forward-thinking as it did when they released it three years ago. That my friends, is what distinguishes the amazing bands from the rest. It’s only all too sad they broke up earlier this summer.

With that said, this video (which was directed by their friend Karol Orzechowski) is a gem, as well. She did an excellent job to perfectly reflect the brutal, inspired, fire-spitting rage of the audio track. CURSED are a band to be feared, and after entering their world, yours will never be the same. Here’s the video to “The Void”