Smells Like Alternative

Since the reunited rebels will be heading to Australia, New Zealand and Japan this month it seems like a good time to do an FYI on them.

RATM formed in 1991 when guitarist Tom Morello saw frontman Zack de la Rocha rapping and was impressed by his lyric book, so…Morello brought in drummer Brad Wilk and Zack brought in childhood friend Tim Commerford on bass.
Shortly after their first gig, (which was at a house party) the band recorded a 12 song demo.
The band opened up for Porno For Pyros and would appear on the second stage of Lollapalooza 1992 in L.A, …read more

Comments Off

The recently reformed Jesus and Mary Chain have posted three rough demos on their MySpace page. The tracks, “War on Peace”, “Cookies” and “Boiling Over”, are the first tracks made public by the band since 1998’s Munki.
“War on Peace” is pretty good, nice and mellow, but I’m not crazy about “Cookies”. “Boiling Over” could have some potential, but it’s still too rough right now.
The band will be performing a two night stand at the Roundhouse in London on March 11 and 12.

Comments Off

Radiohead have confirmed the cities in North America that they will hit on the road this year, however dates and venues have yet to be announced.
The band intends to play the North American dates prior to their UK tour in June, so I would suspect that the North American tour would take place around this April/May. The band is also apparently going to come back to North America following their European tour this year.
Don’t know about everyone else, but I can’t wait to see these guys!
The cities Radiohead plan to hit are:
Atlanta
Boston
Charlotte
Chicago
Cleveland
Dallas
Houston
Indianapolis
Los Angeles
Miami
Montreal
New York
Philadelphia
San Diego
San Francisco
Santa Barbara
Seattle
St Louis
Tampa
Toronto
Vancouver
Washington DC
In related news, …read more

Comments Off

Can anyone really bash the simple, poppy melodies from Evan Dando and company?
Take for example the title track from 1992’s It’s A Shame About Ray. The lyrics are kind of dark (If I make it through today,
I’ll know tomorrow not to leave my feelings out on display), but the music has a little sunshine to it. With the addition of Dando’s hypnotic voice, it’s no shocker that this song was hit. It’s a safe and uncomplicated track, which is always a pleasant break from the intensity of some of the other 90’s acts.
The song and album titles were apparently influenced by two people. …read more

Comments Off

The Black Crowes will be releasing their new album, Warpaint, on March 4 and are going to perfrom a series of one-night stands in support of it.
Warpaint is the first studio album from the Crowes in seven years, their last effort was 2001’s Lions. You can listen to the first single from Warpaint, “Goodbye Daughters of the Revolution” on their site right now.
The band also announced that they will play the album in it’s entirety, as well as selected songs from their back catalogue and even some surprises.
The Crowes kick off their tour on March 2 at the Starland Ballroom in Sayreville, …read more

2 Comments

Today is the physical release for the soundtrack to Juno, although it has been available digitally for some time.
Anyways, this soundtrack is great, it fits perfectly with the movie (which is very good and is defiantly worth catching). It’s indie friendly, but manages to squeeze in a couple classic songs and some 90’s alternative tracks, which is why is it is relevant to this blog.
The soundtrack, just like the movie, opens up with the folky “All I Want Is You” by Barry Louis Polisar, which pretty much sets the stage for the rest of the soundtrack and movie.
From there it moves to the Kimya …read more

Comments Off

Today is the day for the video debut of Eddie Vedder’s “Guaranteed”, although many of you may not be as excited as I am for this.
It’s a pretty simple video, not much really happening, but it defiantly fits the song. It was shot by writer/director Marc Rocco (Murder in the First, Where The Day Takes You)in only a few days. And, the more I hear I this song, the more I fall in love with it. I’m almost at the point of stating that this is perhaps one of Vedder’s finest songs, which includes his Pearl Jam catalog.
“Guaranteed” can currently be seen on …read more

Comments Off

I saw on NME this morning that the Nine Inch Nails mastermind isn’t too happy right now with the state of the music industry.
Reznor posted his feelings on Nine Inch Nails website after discovering the sales figures for rapper Saul Williams new album, which Reznor produced.
Following a similar method that Radiohead used for In Rainbows, Williams’ latest album was offered online and gave fans two choices. The first choice was to download the album for free or the second choice of paying $5 for a better quality version.
Reznor stated that “As of 1/2/08, 154,449 people chose to download Saul’s new …read more

Comments Off

Since this is the first FYI of 2008, let’s jump into the dolorean and take a look back at what was going on a decade ago.

Albums released in 1998:

Ben Folds Five – Naked Baby Photos
Pearl Jam – Yield
Jerry Cantrell – Boggy Depot
Dave Matthews Band – Before These Crowded Streets
Tori Amos – From The Choirgirl Hotel
Sonic Youth – A Thousand Leaves
Jeff Buckley – Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk
Smashing Pumpkins – Adore
Primus – Rhinoplasty
Scott Weiland – 12 Bar Blues
Rob Zombie – Hellbilly Deluxe
Better Than Ezra – How Does Your Garden Grow?
PJ Harvy – Is This Desire?
Cake – Prolonging the Magic
R.E.M. – Up
Beck -Mutations
Faith …read more

Comments Off

If you follow this blog then you already know by now that I can’t go at least one week without some mention of Pearl Jam; so I was extremely thrilled when I saw that frontman Eddie Vedder will have a music video debut on January 7.
The video is for the track “Guaranteed” from the Into The Wild soundtrack, which has earned Grammy, Golden Globe and Critics Choice nominations. The whole soundtrack is great, but “Guaranteed” is probably the stand out track on it, so I’m glad to see that it’s getting some recognition.
Anyways, I read a long time ago that …read more

Comments Off