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Dueling Guitars in Gameland: MTV and Activision Face Off
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Tuesday, 27 November 2007

At a game fair in Los Angeles, attendees tried MTV’s Rock Band.

The holiday season is when all the action takes place in the video game business, and this year has already pitted Microsoft’s Xbox 360 against Sony’s PlayStation 3, and sleek new software against sequels like Halo 3.
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But one of the most watched rivalries is between two games that are not first-person shooters or movie tie-ins. Instead, Activision’s Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock and MTV’s Rock Band put players in the role of rock musicians and allow them to play along with songs by bands like Metallica and the Who.

Both titles could be important to an industry that is trying to reach out to adults, women and anyone lacking interest in a fighting game. Like Nintendo’s Wii, the Guitar Hero games have found a receptive mainstream audience, and the earlier versions sold a total of six million copies. In its first week of release, Guitar Hero III had sales of $115 million. Rock Band was released last Tuesday.

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New Arctic Monkeys video!
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Tuesday, 13 November 2007

Check out the new Arctic Monkeys' video for 'Teddy Picker' filmed by Roman Coppola, famed for previous works with The Strokes and Daft Punk as well as following the family tradition producing the upcoming Wes Anderson film - The Darjeeling Limited.

The video beautifully captures the energy and ease of the band's live performance and the intimacy and charm of the Arctic's unique dynamic.

 

 

 

'Teddy Picker' is released on Monday 3rd December, their 3rd single from album 'Favourite Worst Nightmare' and includes brand new B-sides 'Nettles' and 'The Death Ramps' and a version of 'Bad Woman', a cover of Pat Farrell And The Believers' 1969 track with the wonderful Richard Hawley on vocals.

The single will be released on 7", 10" , CD and as a download, new tracks 'Nettles' and 'The Death Ramps' will feature on the CD and 10".

Arctic Monkeys play 6 very special sold out UK shows in London, Manchester and Aberdeen in December.

 

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Archie Bronson Outfit competition
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Friday, 09 November 2007

It's definitely starting to get colder around these parts. Collars are turning up, bodies are being braced from the cold. We need something raw and energetic to bring that warm fuzzy feeling back.

Well, like a morning sunrise, the Archie Bronson Outfit return with their bare-boned, jagged desire to quake the walls and floor of the 229 in London on Friday 16th November.

We're giving away 5 pairs of tickets to their upcoming one-off show to the lucky brain boxes that know…

Which 'Wonder of the World' shares the name with the Archie Bronson Outfit side project?
1) The Great Wall of China
2) The Pyramids
3) The Northern Lights

Answers on a postcard please – actually, you can just email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it and if your luck is in, you'll be the first to know.
Competition closes on Tuesday 13th November.

 

You can also buy cheap concert tickets here.

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The Pyramids debut album!
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Wednesday, 07 November 2007
The PyramidsThe Pyramids' self titled debut album is released this week. If you're a fan of stripped down and dirty, raw and real garage rock (and who isn't?), then this is for you.

The album was recorded on an old 16-Track tape (the same one which recorded PJ Harvey’s 'Dry' incidently) in a makeshift studio in a barn deep in the British countryside in just one week and captures the urgent sound and hip shaking grind of past garage rocker greats with the unmistakable characteristics and gestures of the Archie Bronson Outfit but with unique energy all it’s own.

You can buy The Pyramids album now from our Mart for £9.99 and a special triangle shaped vinyl of debut single – Hunch Your Body, Love Somebody for £4.99.
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The Sound, Not of Music, but of Control
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Thursday, 25 October 2007

Chinese rock fans at Yuyintang, a underground night club in Shanghai.

SHANGHAI, Oct. 24 — A song often heard on the radio these days begins with a light and upbeat melody, and lyrics that are even bubblier.
“Don’t care about loneliness,” croons the lead singer. “I don’t think it really matters.”

Another much played song tries even harder to soothe. “Ah, little man, ah, succeed quickly,” it counsels. “Enjoy being poor but happy every day.”

Marxists once referred to religion as the opium of the people, but in today’s China it is the music promoted on state-monopolized radio that increasingly claims that role. China’s leader, Hu Jintao, has talked since he assumed power five years ago about “building a harmonious society,” an ambiguous phrase subject to countless interpretations.

But Chinese musicians, cultural critics and fans say that in entertainment, the government’s thrust seems clear: Harmonious means blandly homogeneous, with virtually all contemporary music on the radio consisting of gentle love songs and uplifting ballads.

In recent weeks, television networks have come under intense pressure from Beijing to purge their programming of crime and even mildly suggestive sexual references. Variety show producers are subject to new rules aimed at enforcing official notions of dignity. Art galleries and theatrical productions, meanwhile, have always been subject to review by censors.

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CD Review:Radiohead - In Ranbows
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Thursday, 18 October 2007
These wily boys may have a secret album-title exchange program with Kelly Clarkson, but everything else about In Rainbows is typically hard-rocking Radiohead. Like every other Radiohead album except Kid A — Radiohead - In Ranbowsstill their most famous album, but they only made it once — In Rainbows has uptempo guitar songs and moody acoustic ballads, full of headphone-tweaking sound effects. All of it rocks; none of it sounds like any other band on earth; it delivers an emotional punch that proves all other rock stars owe us an apology.

In a brilliant move, Radiohead released In Rainbows via optional-pay download; I paid $5.27, in honor of my mom's birthday. Almost all the songs are already familiar to fans from live versions, but here they become expansive new creations. "Arpeggi" and "Bodysnatchers" ride on white-heat rhythm-guitar overdrive, while "House of Cards" is a fragile lovers-rock ballad closely resembling Dusty Springfield's (and the Byrds') "Going Back." "All I Need" has erotic pleading ("I'm an animal trapped in your hot car"), sad chimes in the "No Surprises" mode, and an ominoso synth-piano rumble. On 2003's Hail to the Thief, Yorke's vocals were all punk rage, but here his voice has an R&B lilt that suits the songs' romantic directness.
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Reveal and Around the Sun 2001-present
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Tuesday, 16 October 2007

R.E.M.'s 2001 album, Reveal, shared the "lugubrious pace" of Up. Global sales of the album were over four million, but in the United States Reveal sold about the same number of copies as Up. The album R.E.M.was lead by the single "Imitation of Life," which reached number six in the UK. Reveal included drumming by Joey Waronker, as well as contributions by Scott McCaughey (a co-founder of the band The Minus 5 with Buck) and Posies founder Ken Stringfellow. Writing for Rock's Backpages, The Rev. Al Friston described the album as "loaded with golden loveliness at every twist and turn," in comparison to their "essentially unconvincing work on New Adventures in Hi-Fi and Up." Similarly, Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone called the album "a spiritual renewal rooted in a musical one" and praised its "ceaselessly astonishing beauty."

In 2003 Warner Bros. released the "best of" compilation In Time, which featured two new songs, "Bad Day" and "Animal." That same year during a concert in Raleigh, North Carolina, Berry made a surprise appearance, performing backing vocals on "Radio Free Europe". He then sat behind the drum kit for a performance of the early R.E.M. song "Permanent Vacation," marking his first performance with the band since his retirement.

R.E.M. released Around the Sun in 2004. Stipe had suggested the new album would be "primitive and howling," and the band had released a stark political protest song called "Final Straw" free over the Internet during the invasion of Iraq, leading fans to expect a return to roots. Instead, the album (and the final recording of that song) was ultimately more processed than even Reveal, although it featured some of Stipe's most personal songwriting. Around the Sun received a mixed critical reception, and peaked at #13 on the Billboard charts. The first single from the album, "Leaving New York," was a Top 5 hit in the UK. For the record and subsequent tour, the band hired a new full-time touring drummer, Bill Rieflin, who had previously been a member of Ministry. In late 2004 the band toured with Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam, Bright Eyes and others on the Vote for Change tour. Throughout 2005, the band embarked on their first full-length world tour since the Monster Tour ten years earlier. During the tour, R.E.M. participated in the Live 8 concert event.

 

 

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Hold on Before It's Too Late!
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Sunday, 07 October 2007

Today I woke up. I feel a bit sick as yesterdays night was a bit tiring... I turned on my favorite radio and heard a Goo Goo Dools song called Before It's Too Late. You can know this song from The Transformers.

 

 

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10,000 Things to Control
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Friday, 05 October 2007

Control

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You're probably aware that there's a new film about Joy Division and Ian Curtis's tragically short life called Control but did you know that the star of the film; Sam Riley used to be the lead singer in 10,000 Things?

The band erupted on the scene back in 2004 and released their incendiary debut EP on Domino/Dusty Company with the legendary Phill Brown, a man who was in the room when All Along The Watchtower, Stairway To Heaven and Sympathy For the Devil were recorded and judging by his performance, it seems Sam is doing pretty well for himself in his new profession.

Control is released across the UK this week but believe it or not, the US distributors for the film apparently requested Joy Division to perform at the recent premiere in New York. Some people eh.

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The Best of Times, the Worst of Times
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Wednesday, 19 September 2007

SATURDAY night rolls around, and you realize your mom threw out your favorite Cannibal Corpse T-shirt. So you grab your skateboard and head over to Village X, a T-shirt shop on St. Marks Place, off Second Avenue.

 

Until the store closes at 1 in the morning, cool-looking teenagers mill about, some of them with wallet-chains and skateboards, some of them with combat boots and blazing Mohawks. The walls are lined with red and black band shirts folded into squares — an enormous quilt of rock. You know a shirt is cool if the band name contains at least one word that sounds as if it could be on the SAT: Incubus, Mastodon, Corrosion of Conformity.


Maybe you’ll run into Gus Fernandez, a 17-year-old from Harlem who shops there every weekend. The other night he stopped in, mid-skateboard-ride, with his cousin George Fernandez, who bought a T-shirt of the hard rock band System of a Down.


With his neatly combed black hair, a long-sleeve shirt with flames shooting down the arms, and fingerless black gloves imprinted with an X-ray image of hand bones, Gus looked almost conservative. If he were a more mischievous type, he would have found plenty of items on the shelves to tempt him — shot glasses, glass pipes, leather whips, handcuffs — but he wasn’t the least bit interested. “We’re just looking for clothes, man,” he said.

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R.E.M. becomes a trio - 1994-2000
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Wednesday, 12 September 2007
After piecing together two slow-paced albums in a row in the studio, 1994's Monster was, as Buck said, "a 'rock' record, with the rock in quotation marks." Though the result was conceived as a back-to-basics album, the recording was difficult and plagued with tension. Like Out of Time, Monster topped the charts in both the US and UK. The singles "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" and "Bang and Blame" were the band's last American Top 40 hits, although all the singles from Monster—including the UK-only singles "Crush With Eyeliner" and "Tongue"—reached the Top 30 on the British charts.

In January of 1995 R.E.M. set out on their first tour in six years, beginning several collaborations with prominent REMstage and lighting designer Willie Williams. On March 1, two months into the tour, Berry collapsed on stage during a performance in Lausanne, Switzerland. It transpired that he had suffered a brain aneurysm. He had surgery immediately and had fully recovered within a month. Berry's aneurysm was only the beginning of a series of health problems that plagued the Monster Tour. Mills had to undergo abdominal surgery to remove an intestinal adhesion in July; a month later, Stipe had to have an emergency surgery to repair a hernia. Despite all the problems, the group had recorded the bulk of a new album while on the road. The band brought along eight-track recorders to capture their shows, and used the recordings as the base elements for the album. After the tour was complete, the band entered the studio and recorded the rest of the album.

R.E.M. re-signed with Warner Bros. Records in 1996 for a reported $80 million, the largest recording contract in history at that point. 1996's New Adventures in Hi-Fi was their longest album to date. The album featured the seven-minute "Leave," the band's longest song to date, which was composed by Berry. Another notable track on the record was its lead single "E-Bow the Letter," a collaboration with Patti Smith, who had been one of Michael Stipe's earliest influences. Critical reaction to the album was mostly favorable; however, in light of such a huge contract sum, the album marked a considerable downfall of the band's commercial success. Though it debuted at number two in the US and number one in the UK, the album failed to generate the sales of their previous three albums'. Also in 1996, R.E.M. parted ways with their long-time manager Jefferson Holt, allegedly due to sexual harassment charges levied against Holt by a member of the band's home office in Athens. The group's lawyer, Bertis Downs, assumed managerial duties.
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