Atmosphere have released a track from their upcoming album.
Shoulda Known is taken from When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold which is out in the UK on April 21st. You can download the track by saving the link below. Banger.
Tokyo Police Club are to play a number of dates in May and June.The band will release their debut album Elephant Shell on May 5th, with single Tessellate preceeding it on April 21st. They’ll be supporting both releases on the following dates:
May:
29th – Cambridge, Barfly
30th – Nottingham, Bodega
31st – Leeds, Cockpit
June:
1st – Manchester, Night N Day
3rd – Birmingham, Barfly
10th – Glasgow, King Tuts
11th – Newcastle, Other Rooms
12th – Oxford, Academy
13th – Hertford, Marquee
16th – Brighton, Digital
17th – Bristol, Thekla
18th – London, Garage
Goldfinger have announced the tracklisting for their new album.
Hello Destiny will be the band’s debut for SideOneDummy and is set for an April 21st release. The record reportedly has a sound reminiscent of their self-titled record from 1995 and the tracklisting is:
1. One More Time
2. Get Up
3. Goodbye
4. Without Me
5. The Only One
6. War
7. How Do You Do It
8. Bury Me
9. Not Amused
10. Handjobs For Jesus
11. Free Kevin Kjonaas
12. Julian
Eels received an official response from the Queen.
E from the band had invited the Monarch to attend the band’s show at the Royal Festival Hall last month, but she wasn’t able to and the band recruited a lookalike to fill the void. However, the frontman said:
“The Queen’s Lady In Waiting sent me a letter informing me that it would be ‘impossible’ for the Queen to attend our show at Royal Festival Hall,” he explained. “This is the fourth time we’ve played Royal Festival Hall, and I was determined to see a queen sitting in the royal box this time.
Four Tet will release a mini album on April 21st.
Kieran Hebden will put out Ringer with only four tracks, however two of the are almost ten minutes long. The tracklisting is:
‘Ringer’
‘Ribbons’
‘Swimmer’
‘Wing Body Wing’
His DJ and live dates are:
March 24th – Leeds Wire (DJ set)
April 24th – London IndigO2
May 17th – Minehead ATP Festival
10.03.08
Interview by Ryan Bird
Live photo by Graham Pentz
They may currently be regarded as one of alternative music’s hottest properties, but just two years ago Coheed & Cambria was dead.
Rocked by the departure of drummer Josh Eppard and bassist Mic Todd, front man Claudio Sanchez and guitarist Travis Stever found themselves on the edge of a black hole that threatened the band’s very existence. For Todd, however, it was a time that saw his very life hanging by a thread. Bogged down in a pit of depression and drug abuse, he went months without even picking up his bass – something that had been part of his every day life for nearly ten years.
Today, life in Coheed & Cambria – and indeed life for Mic Todd – couldn’t be better. The band has just finished headlining the Kerrang! Relentless Energy Drink Tour 2008, playing to over 30,000 UK fans in the process, while Todd is back in the band and firmly on the wagon. Ryan Bird finds out the story behind the near demise of one of rock’s most essential outfits.
You’ve just finished headlining the Kerrang! Relentless Energy Drink Tour 2008. How did everything go?
It was good! Ireland was really great. We’d been there once before, which is weird because we’ve been to the UK a ton of times but that was only our second time over there.
What was the response like with regards to your new material? For a lot of people that was the first time they’ll have heard those songs live.
Everyone seemed really into it. We’ll start to bring a little bit more of it into every tour over the next year, but we like to play a few songs from every album if we can. We like to keep in touch with our older material, and I think the fans like to see some of those songs too.
How was the tour for you on a personal level? As people may know, you left the band for a little while.
It’s been a really positive experience. When I left I was at a bad point in my life. I stopped playing bass and making music for a while when I left. I basically went to the place where musicians go after they die. There’s nothing worse than not having a show and not knowing what to do with yourself. After a while I realised that being in this band is what I’m supposed to be doing with my life. The timing just felt right, so we talked it out and here I am again.
So for a while you were completely inactive on a musical level?
I wasn’t playing anything at all. I was too busy sitting at home and feeling sorry for myself.
Did you always know that you’d eventually pick up the bass again, or was there a time when you genuinely thought that was it for you?
There’s was a brief couple of months, but eventually with every day I didn’t play I just felt shittier about not playing. It got to the point where I knew that one way or another, something had to change.
Did you approach the band or did they approach you when the time came to get back on the horse?
Well, we hadn’t spoken for almost nine months. Not a word. I felt like I owed them an apology as time went on. I wasn’t trying to get back into the band or anything, I just wanted to make good on what I’d done by leaving. So we met up, hung out, had a great time, and at the end of the day I said to them; ‘If you guys ever want to make music again in any capacity, just give me a call.’ They were playing with somebody else at the time, so I wasn’t trying to step on anybody’s toes. They called me twenty minutes after I’d left while I was driving home and asked me to come back.
Was it a weird feeling for you at first?
In a way it was. After not making music for such a long time it took me a little while to get back into the swing of it, but once the ball started rolling everything started to gel again.
When you rejoined the band weren’t far off recording ‘No World For Tomorrow’. Was it a headache having to leap back in and not only learn how to play again, but to have to write new music at the same time?
It had its moments! It was weird because the band had just enlisted a new drummer in Chris [Pennie], but he couldn’t play on the record due to some contractual wrangles with his old band. That’s when we got [Foo Fighters drummer] Taylor [Hawkins] in, so about a week before we went into the studio we hired out a space in L.A. and just went to work. Chris had already written the drum parts so Taylor was learning how to play them all properly, and I was still writing little bits and pieces on bass and getting to grips with it all again. The drums and bass were very much completed together, and I think that shows a little bit on the record.
What was the actual recording process like?
It was pretty mellow. We were in a different place from where we’d worked on all of our previous records. We were on a different coast and using a different producer, so it was a new experience in some ways. We actually started laying down guitars first rather than drums. We used a click track and then Taylor would play along to the guitar stripe as opposed to the guitars going over the top of the drums, so it was a very different method. We actually built [On The Brink] in the studio. Overall we had a couple of months to do it in and we were working thirteen hour days, so these were full on days, but it was a fun experience. We’ll probably try something different for the next record.
Did you find yourself suffering from cabin fever towards the end of the process? Having jumped straight back in at the deep end it would be understandable.
Nah, I wasn’t suffering from that. You could feel a vibe creeping in towards the end though. I work fast and I don’t really have that much to do. There’s only one bass part whereas guitars get tracked repeatedly built upon, so I was only really there for moral support most of the time.
How long did it take you personally to finish your parts?
I do a whole song in probably about an hour.
So you can do an entire album in a day?
Yeah, but I didn’t do them all at once. I’d usually come in and lay a track down in between guitar takes, just to give the other guys a break and make sure they didn’t burn out. Whenever they were feeling the pinch, I’d rock a bass part.
Was there a time during the recording when you felt like you really wanted to go home and step away from everything for a bit?
No, I loved it there! Everything felt really good. It was a great experience and I’m really glad that we did it. We went into the process with an open mind, and that really helped everyone get to where they needed to be. I was back in the band and glad to be making music again, and that was all that really mattered rather than how tired I was or whether I felt like going home for a few days. It was a blast. I’d do it again tomorrow.
It sounds like everything is really positive for you right now.
Being in this band is exciting again. We toured a lot for like, six years prior to my leaving, and it took its toll. I lost the love of my life, I married a girl that I hated, and all of this fucked up shit was going on around me. I was basically living in a coffin. Now it’s a totally different story. I know I belong in this band, and I know I belong on the road. I’ve tried living that other life, and that shoe just doesn’t fit. Now I just want to make music for as long as I can.
Read the live review from this tour here.
Coheed and Cambria release Feathers 17th March and the album No World For Tomorrow is out now via via Columbia Records. Find them at www.coheedandcambria.com and via their MySpace.
In case you hadn’t guessed from the name, Dusty Rhodes and his southern-fried River Band are pretty well acquainted with their classic Americana. ‘First You Live‘ is the Californian sextet’s debut album, and a gloriously diverse, psychedelic beast it is too. Imagine the Flaming Lips sharing a flask of moonshine whiskey with Hank Williams, and you’ll have a rough idea of where Dusty and co. are coming from.
Incorporating accordion, harmonica, violin and mandolin into the traditional band set-up was never going to result in the most conventional of sounds, and so it proves with ‘First You Live‘. ‘Leaving Tennessee‘ is a yearning, up-tempo country stomp, whilst recent single ‘Dear Honey‘ is a drunken lament to lost love to rival the best of them. Elsewhere, ‘Street Fighter‘ boasts a gritty, guitar-laden chorus, and the closing, Beatles-esque ‘Ballad Of Graff‘ is worthy of a ‘Hey Jude‘-sized sing along.
Check out ‘Leaving Tennessee‘ on the link above. The band will also be visiting the UK for the first time, when they play three London shows at the end of this month. Let’s face it, we could use a bit of Californian cheer at this time of the year.
Live dates:
March 28th – The Luminaire (Kilburn)
April 1st – The Fly (Holborn)
April 3rd – The Water Rats (King’s Cross)
There’s a lot of great bands coming from the Emerald Isle right now but Putrefy are seriously sick, they’re from Northern Ireland and have one of the best death/gore metal sounds out there at moment.
This release on Redrum Records is their 1st album and also comes with all the songs from the former “Lust so Vile” EP making this a must have. All of the songs have been re-recorded and re-mastered for this making Cranium Smashing Brutality as brutal as it comes! It’s safe to say that Putrefy have very much developed from the last EP and serve up much tighter and more complicated arrangements which brings comparisons to heavy hitters like Gorerotted. with this release. Classic tracks such as “Drowned in Concrete” and “Tit, Clits and Hacked of Bits“, stand out for amazing timing and demonic brutality.
If you are looking for the embodiment of true underground metal featuring green zombie artwork with samples, blasting raw power, breakdowns and gutteral vocals then Putrefy have all the right ingredients for a dose of proper underground death.
French
O2 Arena – London
28/02/08
The Cribs
Klaxons
Bloc Party
Kaiser Chiefs
Manic Street Preachers
Words: Cait Mogridge
Pics: NME
It’s hard not to be disappointed when a gig is hyped as much as the NME Big Gig was, but disappointed I was not. As soon as I walked in the door of the new O2 Arena I was surrounded by people desperately offering me exclusive access to this, and free entry to that. I managed to shake them off and had a wander round the venue and stumbled across Noel Fielding signing autographs for screaming girls. He did win ‘sexiest male’ in the NME awards…
Into the Arena and the show kicked off with a ridiculously energetic performance from Wakefield’s favourite band, The Cribs. Their punchy songs were only interrupted when front man, Ryan Jarman stopped to say, “this is a billion pound’s worth of venue you’re all sitting in, a billion pound!” in his memorable west Yorkshire accent. It took me a while to notice the average audience member wasn’t old enough to buy a pint but the appearance of the Smiths’ Johnny Marr mid set certainly didn’t go unnoticed.
Next up were the Klaxons, who came to the stage in full length black cloaks and more eye makeup than could be found in Gerard Way’s makeup bag, both of which seemed to completely disintegrate before the end of their set. Songs like “Golden Skans” and “Atlantis to Interzone” got everyone moving with the so called inventors of new rave.
Dj sets between bands provided by Radio One’s Zane Lowe made sure the kid’s energy levels never fell below hyperactive. The combination of alcohol, e-numbers and splashes of Pendulum and such like seemed to take hold of everyone in the pit. I could only imagine how sweaty they must have been by the end.
But for many, Bloc Party were the highlight of the evening with an awesome set complete with pyrotechnics, smoke and streamers. As always, their chillingly indie riffs and meaningful lyrics got to everyone, even though they prefer to play more intimate venues.
Afterwards I grabbed a chat and an extortionately priced beer with the UK’s quietest guitarist Russell Lissack, and asked him how he thought it went. His comment: “Well it was a bit hot under those lights”. He was more concerned about the fact that security wouldn’t let his Mum backstage.
“Why the f*ck didn’t you vote for The Cribs to win anything?”, was the way Kaiser Chiefs’ Ricky Wilson chose to start before launching into a set of irritatingly catching pop records. It was evident they had experience in playing stadium sized venues, the crowd almost gave you the eye if you weren’t going nuts and singing na-na-na-na-naa in the appropriate places.
All this of course, was building up to the performance from the winners of this years’ Godlike Genius award, The Manic Street Preachers. Although they seemed to be the ‘odd one out’ in many ways, they certainly caught our attention by opening with a marching band of bagpipe players that filled the whole stage. They then treated us to a set spanning the length of their career, including classics like “Motorcycle Emptiness” and their more recent release “Autumn song”. As they played, slogans panned around a screen at the edge of the arena, memorizing its viewers.
They also managed to cram in an amazing cover of this last summer’s hit ‘Umbrella’ by Rihanna and a version of ‘She Sells sanctuary’ by The Cult. Just when we thought they’d run out of surprises, Welsh rocker Cerys Mathews of Catatonia appears on stage to sing ‘Your love alone is not enough’ for an awesome finale. “We’re very f*cking happy taffs tonight”, James shouts out, before tearfully thanking NME. I think that was obvious from the start.
So do I think I’ll be sat in the front row for the awards next year? After this years’ show, I certainly hope so.
The second part of Atmosphere‘s Q&A session has gone live.
Check out why Slug’s hair is like that, what P.O.S. wants to know and what Ant’s worst job was…