The Production Side

One of my guilty pleasures from the 90’s, Garbage, releases their first greatest hits package Absolute Garbage.

It’s probably been a long time since you’ve heard from Garbage. But you have to remember who they were. The band started by three producers and fronted by a beautiful red-haired Scot.
Being a greatest hits package, all of the usual suspects are there. Everything from “Only Happy When It Rains”, Stupid Girl”, “I Think I’m Paranoid” and “#1 Crush” from Romeo + Juliet. Also featured on the album is the theme from the James Bond flick The World Is Not Enough and a new …read more

2 Comments

The reunited, and cleaned up, Meat Puppets will be hitting the road from late August to October to promote their comeback album Rise To Your Knees.
It’s been 11 years since the brothers Kirkwood were both members of the Meat Puppets. The band first split from 1996 to 1999, after years of drug problems for Cris Kirkwood. Then from 99′ to 01′ the band returned, this time with only Curt Kirkwood. However, in 2006 the brothers got together and would team up with Primus drummer Tim Alexander for another Puppets reunion. Rise to Your Knees was released on July 17 and …read more

Comments Off

Chris Cornell rocked the Borgata’s Music Box on July 27 .
Former Audioslave and Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell put on a phenomenal show in Atlantic City. It didn’t hurt that the Music Box was a immaculate venue at the beautiful Borgata. It only held around 900 people, so there wasn’t a bad seat in the house.
Cornell’s vocals have been amazingly restored, after he stopped smoking and drinking. I remember seeing Audioslave back in 2003 and thinking that Chris Cornell’s days were numbered, but he proved me wrong last night . The band that he assembled was also impressive, after all they …read more

Comments Off

Last week Chris Cornell celebrated a birthday (July, 20) and he’s currently on tour promoting his second album, Carry On. So, it seems fitting to share some FYI on Chris Cornell.

Chris Cornell started piano lessons at a very early age, but he disliked the lessons so he taught himself. By age 8 he had enough music to play a full set with a music teacher for the music faculty at the University of Washington.
Cornell left high school at age 15 and worked as a cook.
At age 9 he found a collection of Beatles albums in a friends basement and listened …read more

Comments Off

Several months ago a friend of mine introduced me to the wonderful music of Elliott Smith. I had heard of him before, but never really sat down and absorbed his work. Immediately there were a handful of songs that I feel in love with and one of them was “Waltz #2 (xo)” from 1998’s XO.
For the last week I’ve been hooked on this song. It’s a marvelous piece of work. As the title the implies, the music follows the typical waltz pattern. It’s a great backdrop for the amazing guitar and vocals that Elliott Smith adds.
Initially, I thought that the song …read more

Comments Off

It’s been 5 years since Silverchair released an album and it was well worth the wait.

Who would thought that Silverchair, a group of Australian teens, would bloom into one of the best bands around right now. Australia may have never forgotten the lads, but most of us in the States seemed to; which means a lot of people are missing out on a still young and ever growing band.
I’ll be honest, I kind of forgot about Silverchair for a couple of years myself, despite loving their debut Frogstomp and being the first band that I saw live when they …read more

1 Comment

On September 22 107.7 The End will present their 16th edition of EndFest in Seattle.                                                                                                          
This year the Smashing Pumpkins will headline the radio station sponsored show, which is a stop on the band’s fall reunion tour. Also on the bill will be the legendary Social Distortion, Perry Ferrell’s new project Satellite Party, The Used and the fantastic Bright Eyes. For Bright Eyes this is only one of two scheduled in the States; the other show being at the Hollywood Bowl on September 29. Besides the main-stage, there will also be the What’s Next Stage and The Young and Restless Local Stage.
Tickets are a steal at …read more

Comments Off

The Bay Area rockers just appeared on Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur with an awesome version of John Lennon’s “Working Class Hero”. They will also have cameos in the upcoming Simpsons movie, oh yeah, they also recorded a new version of the theme song too!

There seem to be 2 theories about how the band got their name, but both include smoking an illegal substance. The first theory is that the term “green day” is a Bay Area term used to describe a day spent smoking pot. The second theory is that, while stoned, the guys heard Ernie say …read more

Comments Off

A muggy night and a predictable setlist couldn’t stop The Police from rocking Philly.

The weather held out last night, as fans eagerly waited for the reunion tour of the year, maybe even the decade. The legendary trio came blazing onto the stage with electric renditions of “Message in a Bottle” and “Synchronicity II”.  Of course the band played all of their hits including “Every Breath You Take”, “Roxanne”, and “Don’t Stand So Close To Me”, but managed to sneak in some favorites like “Invisible Sun” and “Bed’s Too Big Without You”.
If you’ve been following this tour, the setlist hasn’t really changed, but fans …read more

Comments Off

I’ve been on a huge Police kick, so I decided to write about a classic track from 1980’s Zenyatta Mondatta. The song was written by Sting while The Police were on tour. The story goes that while in his hotel room Sting saw a program about starving children and was inspired to write “Driven To Tears”.
The song has great lyrics by Sting and Stewart Copeland does some amazing drumming as well. It’s been preformed by both The Police and Sting’s solo concerts and at events such as Live Aid and Live Earth.
Pearl Jam also covers “Driven To Tears” from time to time at …read more

2 Comments