Living Colour

Living Colour released their first new studio album in five years entitled ‘The Chair In The Doorway’ in 2009 via Megaforce Records. Living Colour formed in NYC and the band still contains the original members Vernon Reid, Corey Glover, Will Calhoun and (since 1993) Doug Wimbish.

The legendary downtown NYC rock band, who exploded out of CBGB’s in the late ’80s and landed all over MTV, the cover of Rolling Stone and stadium stages around the world with their Grammy Award-winning, multi-platinum debut album Vivid, are back and “fierce” as ever. The band gathered at Sono Studios outside of Prague in The Czech Republic during the fall of 2008 and spring of 2009 to write and record what would become ‘The Chair In The Doorway’. The results stretch from the modern soul anthem “Behind The Sun” to the politically-charged, heavy rock of “DecaDance” to the sacred steel blues of “Bless Those.” The artwork for ‘The Chair In The Doorway’ was compiled from thousands of contest entries by fans from around the world.

“We feel like this is the best record we’ve made yet and we couldn’t be more excited to be releasing it with the legendary Megaforce Records,” says guitarist Vernon Reid.  “Some of our favorite bands were or are Megaforce artists, Metallica, Bad Brains, Anthrax, Black Crowes, so it’s an honor to be part of a label with a great legacy.”

Having helped to pave the way for a number of contemporary African-American artists to follow in their wake, ranging from Rage Against The Machine to Lenny Kravitz to Ben Harper, with a multi-dimensional sound that drew equally from Jimi Hendrix, Bad Brains, Talking Heads and Ornette Coleman, the success of Living Colour broke down the color barriers in rock music. Guitarist and founding member Vernon Reid also founded the Black Rock Coalition to use his influence to further this cause.

Discovered by Mick Jagger who produced their first demo and later offered them an opening slot with The Rolling Stones, Living Colour would go on to create a repertoire that includes a multitude of classic songs, including “Cult Of Personality,” “Elvis Is Dead,” “Open Letter To A Landlord,” “Glamour Boys” and “Love Rears Its Ugly Head.” With ‘The Chair In The Doorway’, the fifth album of their storied career, Living Colour expands the scope of their timeless body of work and, in the process, proves vital as ever.

Slade

With their unique blend of pop, perfect rock n roll, outrageous flamboyance and sense of fun, Slade are one of the best loved British bands of all time. Since forming in 1966, Noddy Holder, Dave Hill, Jimmy Lea and Don Powell notched up 23 Top 20 singles (including 6 No 1’s) and 6 hit albums. In the early seventies Slade were, without doubt, the biggest band in the UK charts – the band scored an incredible eleven top 5 singles between 1971 and 1974 alone.

Originally the In-Be-Tweens and then Ambrosia Slade, the band hooked up with Animals player come manager Chas Chandler (who had discovered Jimi Hendrix) and changed their name to Slade. They became one of the most popular exponents of the burgeoning glam scene of the early 1970’s  Chart success was aligned with a reputation as consummate live performers and Slade’s reputation as the ultimate party band was born.

Nebula

L.A. power trio Nebula, whose cosmic cocktail of heavy riffs, electric blues and psychedelic space rock has earned the band international (and, dare we say, universal) acclaim released ‘Heavy Psych’ on Tee Pee Records in 2009. Nebula released their first album on Tee Pee in 1998 titled ‘Let It Burn’.

The great swirling, electrical ball of dynamism and potential known as Nebula formed in the mythical abyss of Los Angeles in 1997. In its current incarnation the band is comprised of Eddie Glass (Guitar/Vocals), Rob Oswald (Drums) and Tom Davies (Bass/Vocals).

Nebula creates pure guitar-driven, conscious expanding rock for the 21st century and Heavy Psych has everything you could want and need to start the ceremony. They are a culmination of their rock forbearers such as Jimi Hendrix, MC5, The Stooges and Mudhoney turned up a notch, taken to the next level and blasting through space. Nebula spread their gospel through their music and what they are preaching will leave the congregation on the floor.

Combining the combustibility of the sun with the mysticism of the moon, ‘Heavy Psych’ lives up to its name, no matter your preferred definition, and reaffirms Nebula’s reputation as one of rock’s brightest stars – in this galaxy or any other.

Nirvana Live at Reading

“Nirvana headlining at Reading in 1992 was something you had to see, and if you didn’t see it then it was something you pretended you saw.” –Kerrang! (October 2003)

“The staggering energy and intensity radiating from the stage never let up… Cobain’s ravaged pop songs coming off like some dream marriage of the Sex Pistols and the Beatles, borne on bracing waves of distorted guitar noise.” –Rolling Stone (October 29, 1992)

Ranked #1 in Kerrang! Magazine’s “100 Gigs That Shook The World” and voted as “Nirvana’s #1 Greatest Moment” by fans in an NME poll, Nirvana’s historic August 30, 1992 headlining appearance at the UK’s Reading Festival is one of the most bootlegged concerts in the annals of rock’n’roll.  Filmed official footage of the event was colour-corrected video from the original film with audio sourced from the original multi-track masters and released as ‘Nirvana Live At Reading’ in 2009.

While the show’s centerpiece was a performance of nearly the entire ‘Nevermind’ tracklist, also noteworthy were early performances of three as yet unrecorded songs which wouldn’t be released until two years later on – ‘In Utero’’s  ‘All Apologies’, ‘Dumb’ and in its first ever public performance, ‘tourette’s’. The career-spanning setlist also reached back to the band’s 1989 Sub Pop debut album, ‘Bleach’, for ‘Blew’, ‘About A Girl’, ‘School’, ‘Negative Creep’ and first single ‘Love Buzz’ and even further back to the mid-‘80s for ‘Spank Thru’.  Other songs from the Reading set would appear in studio form on the ‘Incesticide’ compilation later in the year: ‘Aneurysm’, ‘Been A Son’ and ‘Sliver’.  Additionally, the band played a pair of beloved covers by two bands that helped shape the formative Nirvana sound – ‘The Money Will Roll Right In’ by Fang and ‘D-7’ by The Wipers.

Placebo live reviews!

Placebo are just finishing up an immense tour of the UK and the reviews of their stunning show at London’s o2 Arena have started to come in. Both The Guardian and News of The World featured their reviews at the weekend, with The Guardian observing “it isn’t hard to see why Molko makes such an effective cheerleader.”

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The Computers

So here’s the deal – The Computers consist of Alex (guitar / main vocals), Sonny (guitar / vocals), Nic (bass / vocals) and Will (drums). They live in Exeter and they fuse garage rock’n’roll with 80’s hardcore. Think Black Flag playing Chuck Berry or The Nerve Agents covering Elvis Costello and you’re getting the picture.

The Computers have toured France, Germany, Poland and extensively in UK. They have shared stages with the likes of Rival Schools, The Loved Ones, Gay For Johnny Depp, Hundred Reasons, In Case Of Fire and Fightstar, picking up rave reviews and features in Kerrang, Rock Sound, Big Cheese and the NME along the hectic way. Their debut single ‘Track Four’ was a regular feature of Mike Davies and Daniel P Carter’s BBC shows and led to the band recording a Radio 1 session.

Produced by Larry Hibbitt (Hundred Reasons), the band’s mini album ‘You Can’t Hide From The Computers’ saw the foursome pile through seven songs in a nerve-shredding punk rocking eighteen minutes with a style and an aplomb which saw rave reviews and endorsements from many contemporary UK acts.

Earthless

Earthless is an instrumental psychedelic rock band from San Diego, California featuring members – guitarist Isaiah Mitchell, bassist Mike Eginton, and drummer Mario Rubalcaba. The band started up in 2001 and released their first album ‘Sonic Prayer’ through Gravity Records in 2005. Their second album ‘Rhythms from a Cosmic Sky’ was released in 2007 through Tee Pee Records. 2009 brought with it an epic Earthless release in the form of ‘Live at Roadburn’, also through Tee Pee Records.

Heartless Bastards

Heartless Bastards are Erika Wennerstrom (vocals, guitar), Jesse Ebaugh (bass) and Dave Colvin (drums). The story starts in Dayton, Ohio, where Wennerstrom found the name on a multiple choice video trivia game at a bar. As a songwriting teenager during a time when GBV and Brainiac were packing local bars and three of The Breeders were still in town, Wennerstrom used to sneak into clubs to check out the scene. “I would just see those people—my music heroes—hanging out at the bar like everyone else,” she remembers. “I could see myself in them. It gave me inspiration to do my own thing.”

After doing the usual business of playing local shows, the trio set out the following year on a regional tour. One of the first gigs of the trip took them to a bar in Akron, where Black Keys’ drummer Patrick Carney just happened to be one of only a handful of people in the audience. This chance encounter led Wennerstrom and the Heartless Bastards to Fat Possum Records, with whom they released their debut, ‘Stairs and Elevators’, in early 2005.

The band moved on with critical praise in their back pocket, including a four-and-a-half star review from Rolling Stone, which took note that, when Wennerstrom “opens her throat on Stairs and Elevators … she sounds like she’s wailing on the shoulders of giants; her sad and angry vocals channeling all the swagger and spit of a young Robert Plant”

‘All This Time’, was released during the summer of 2006 and it received even more widespread critical acclaim than ‘Stairs and Elevators’. The Bastards played hundreds of shows to support the record, they played huge festivals and toured with Wilco & Lucinda Williams. Wennerstrom’s songs appeared often on TV shows & in films. This would be measured by most as a huge success, though in Wennerstrom’s mind her sound and band were still evolving, and she knew it was time for a change.

In true ascetic discipline, she moved to Austin, Texas in 2007 for a change of inspirational scenery and a new recording project. With the help of producer Mike McCarthy (Spoon, Trail of Dead), she assembled a group of musicians with whom she gave the songs life and uncovered yet another layer of herself and the Heartless Bastards. The two new Bastards aren’t Texas ringers, but fellow Dayton brethren Dave Colvin on drums, and Jesse Ebaugh on bass, who actually played on the original demo that hooked Fat Possum. The album, entitled ‘The Mountain’, delivers the powerful howl that fans expect from the Heartless Bastards, but also weaves in adventure with mandolins, banjos, strings and Erika’s transcendent voice.

ISIS

The music of ISIS is a suitable metaphor for their 12-year career: patient, meticulous, fraught with tension and gradually building towards an apex of seismic proportions. From the hypnotically bludgeoning down-tuned riffs of their early years to the gracefully sprawling passages on their pivotal sophomore album ‘Oceanic’ and continuing through the intricate rhythmic textures and increased melody of 2006’s ‘In The Absence of Truth’, ISIS have successfully navigated the process of growing and evolving without disavowing their initial vision.

There is no consensus among ISIS’s cult-like fan base as to which album serves as the ultimate document of their art. Each record is a piece in the puzzle. Consequently, to brand 2009’s ‘Wavering Radiant’, as the pinnacle of their achievements would be folly, yet it’s a tempting proclamation. The factors that defined ISIS in the past are still present, but the band manipulates its tactics and strategies with a refined sense of purpose and a heightened knack for nuance. They’ve extrapolated on the polar nature of their music, it’s simultaneously their most challenging and accessible music to date. While ‘Wavering Radiant’ is finely structured, dynamically varied, and melodically developed, it’s also unpredictable, expansive, and densely layered. Every ISIS endeavor is an active listening experience–requiring an aficionado’s ear for subtlety and a scholar’s grasp of the larger picture but ‘Wavering Radiant’ manages to provide instant gratification while also harnessing the slow burn of a classic, revealing the full extent of its mysteries only after repeated listens.

Japanese Motors

The most exciting band to emerge from Orange County since the heyday of Social Distortion and TSOL and hailing from Costa Mesa, the Japanese Motors are known around Southern California for the insane all-night blowouts they put on as much as for the driving, raucous garage pop they set the partying to.

Rather than fight the influence of their surroundings like so many of their So Cal contemporaries, Japanese Motors have channelled it into their music, making tunes every bit as sun-baked and laid-back as their coastal environs and rife with positive imagery. “Most bands from here are trying to sound like they’re from London or New York,” guitarist Nolan says. “We embrace where we’re from.”

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