Tapes ‘n Tapes‘ sophomore album, Walk It Off, didn’t impress me too much, not as much as their debut album anyway, but their main, featured single “Hang Them All” makes up for half of the uninteresting tracks. More on why I love this song on a previous post of mine, when I put the MP3 up for download. Bellow you can watch the video for the single, which is ever better then the song, being very fun, colorful and very well directed.
Metallica live at the Silverlake Conservatory, LA 14/5/08. Photo: credit Winter / Getty from Rolling Stone.
This Wednesday the trash metal icons, Metallica, performed live in a benefit concert in Los Angeles for Flea’s music school for kids, the Silverlake Conservatory. The performance was the band’s first one in almost one year, but the quartet didn’t sound rusty at all, by all means they were highly energetic. The almost 2000 fans (who paid as much as 500$ for the ride) gathered in at the Wiltern Theate, were treated to some of the band’s old-school material going far as the mid 80’s with hard riffs, screaming vocals and over all epic speed metal rocking.
“It’s great to be playing live again.” says james Hetfield before bursting into the set, that included almost all of Metallica’s smashing hits, from “Sad But True,” to “Ecstasy of Gold.” to “Fuel,” to the unmistakable rocker “Master Of Puppets.” No new songs from the highly anticipated forthcoming album, however, the band motivating as follows: “We’re not playing any of the new stuff. I don’t think this is the place. This is a benefit for Flea’s thing. We don’t want to grandstand with anything else here. There will be a time for that.”
Near the end of the night, the Red Hot Chilly Peppers psychotic bassist, concert benefactor and all round swell chap, Flea, joined the band on bass for the insanely fast “Fight Fire With Fire,” a speed metal classic from 1984. What a night for Metallica fans!
Before the set, however, our fellow blogging colleagues from Rolling Stone’s Rock Daily, caught up with Metallica for a quick set of interesting questions, that shed some light on the new album, its name, Rick Rubin (the new producer), the concert itself and a few more. Here’s an excerpt. Check out the rest of the interview at RS.
What was the idea behind making this album?
The direction is embracing our past in the now. We know what we know. It’s hard to erase that. But to strip it down again, and get back to why we’re doing this? Why did we write songs that way? The template was Master of Puppets and the strength of that record. How can we do that now?
Attack & Release has been spinning like crazy in my play list for the last couple of weeks and it doesn’t show any sign of slowing down any time soon. A good remark would be that I’ve grown intoxicated with The Black Keys‘ music, so consequently I’m gonna try to spread the awesomeness further to you guys. Last night the Akron duo performed live for Conan O’Brien’s Late Night Show, where they played their latest single “Strange Times“.
Released last year, Manu Chao’s “La Radiolina” went on to gain loads of critical acclaim and the title as the new latin rock icon. However, as it’s always the case with awesome art in a radio friendly world, it of course got terribly overlooked and didn’t get the amount of success it deserved. “Politik Kills” his famous single from La Radiolina just got recently pimped with a delayed video, a child soldier named Christian who fought in the nation’s civil war (Christian carried a ghetto blaster around for two days, trailed by Sauvaire and an ex-child soldier named “Hitler, The Killer”). Directed by the French filmmaker Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire in 2004, in the war turn countryside of Monrovia, Liberia, the video gives a glimpse of life and misery and makes you think, in a way that only Manu could.
Manu will also release an EP, on June 3, containing reggae remixes of Politik Kills, from the likes of Linton Kwesi Johnson and Dennis Bovell as well as Island Records founder Chris Blackwell and respected reggae engineer Paul “Groucho” Smykle. Fans can find out more about the project here. You can catch Manu Chao live at SF’s Outside Lands and Austin City Limits festival.
In a recent press release on their website, the band has announced that due to their new single’s, titled “Pork An Beans,”immense popularity, that it’ll push down the release date, for its upcoming album. Thus, Weezer’s forthcoming full length studio album “The Red Album,” will get out on June 3, opposed to the initial June 24 date, in the USA with much of the rest of the world to follow behind with a few days delay.
Very ,very awesome news indeed. Bellow you can stream and download Weezer’s latest smashing single, “Pork and Beans.”
The Floodkeeps rising as we bring you the second Artist of the Flood. Every month we recognize new/buzzing hip-hop artist and bring you download able music and info on them, but since The Flood isn’t over we are bringing you the three Artist of The Flood. The first was Mickey Factz, but now we go Blu.
Already having two slept on albums,the Los Angela’s native, Blu,has been pretty busy these past couple of years. Rapping since 2004 he did not put out an album until 2007 when he released the critically acclaimed yet overlooked, Below the Heavens, with producer Exile. Not staying quiet Blu steadily put tracks out on his myspace and began to create a buzz for his next collaborative project with Detroit rapper/producer Ta’raach. Forming C.R.A.C. (pronounced Crash) Blu and Ta’raach released their collaborative debut, The Piece Talks (in stores now), an album originally released in 2006, was “re-released” with more polish and elaborate tracks.
LA hasn’t had an artist like Blu in years. Muddled with gangster rap and 2pac wanna-bees, it’s refreshing to see a new artist show a different side to LA through collaborations and expansions on an evolving genre.
New York’s LG (Vocals,Guitars,Keys), Mike DiLalla (Bass) and Liza B.(Keys,Vocals) form Dead Leaf Echo, a lovely indie band, that’s really pleasant on the ears. Their influences seem pretty broad, but they all seem to point and converge into a single direction: shoegazing. Recently, the artsy trio, have just released their 2nd EP “Pale Fire,” via their own record label Year of the Gallon Records, an EP that shines with haunting ballads and dreamy melodies. The record’s highlight is its title track, “Pale Fire,” a song packed with layers upon layers of guitars and synths, mixed by the one and only Ulrich Schnauss (Depeche Mode,
Coldplay, Mojave 3).
Already a big star in Oceania, where she went multi-platinum in New Zealand and gained a huge fan base in Australia, the highly talented Brooke Fraser is now set to bring her heartfelt music across the ocean, in North America. Her latest critically acclaimed album, “Albertine,” was highly influenced by her travels around the world, in Africa, Europe and Asia, as her music incorporates a very wide array of styles and motives, fact most evident in her lyrics. The album Albertine is actually named for a Rwandan orphan with whom Brooke established a close friendship with on her travels, as Albertine encompasses her passion for justice, authenticity, and faith as well as Brooke’s blossoming love affair with Africa. Bellow you can check out some tracks streamed from Albertine as well as her upcoming North American tour dates, right after the jump!
June 2 LOS ANGELES, CA Troubadour
June 3 SAN FRANCISCO, CA Café Du Nord
June 5 PORTLAND, OR Doug Fir
June 6 VANCOUVER, BC BC Media Club
June 10 MINNEAPOLIS, MN Varsity
June 11 CHICAGO, IL Lakeshore Theater
June 12 NASHVILLE, TN Third & Lindsley
June 14 ST. LOUIS, MO The Duck Room
June 15 KANSAS CITY, KS Record Bar
June 24 PHILADELPHIA, PA Tin Angel
June 25 NEW YORK, NY Highline Ballroom
June 26 BOSTON, MA Café 939 @ Berklee College
June 29 BALTIMORE, MD Rams Head Tavern
July 2 TORONTO, ON El Mocambo
July 4 MONTREAL, QC Metropolis*
Welcome back to The Flood. Sorry for the drought the last few days, but we are back to provide new hip-hop music out right now. So close your eyes and open your ears, The Flood continues…
What’s this? Dave Grohl just wrote to Metallica? That’s right, former Nirvana drummer and current Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl has released an “open letter” to Metallica. Call me an idiot, but there’s only one reason he’d do this - he’s afraid it’s going to suck. OK, maybe suck is a harsh word… he’s afraid the album they’re going to release will not rise to it’s potential (aren’t we all?). Anyway, great letter, and I really hope he’s right.
“Dear Metallica,
Hey, it’s Dave! Remember me? Yeah, I’m the guy that’s been listening to your band faithfully since 1983. I bought your first album ‘Kill ‘Em All’ from a mailorder catalogue called Under The Rainbow, I think. Actually I can’t remember. It was 1983 for Christsakes! But that album changed my life and I’ve been listening to your albums ever since (even ‘St Anger’!).
I can’t wait to hear the new shit, and no matter what you guys do I’ll always be first one at the shop waiting to hear it. I’m sure you’ll come out and blow everybody’s fuckin’ minds, because you’re fuckin’ Metallica!
Good luck. And don’t release it until it’s kick-ass.
In a 
