The News Review:
- Scott McLennan
- Pretty in punk: The rebel rocker of the ’80s is coming to the…
- Thousands attend Europe’s largest punk festival
- Heavy metal adopts political social messages in new millennium
- Pop: Arresting development
- Drug cautions at music festival
- THE WEEK AHEAD: July 30 – Aug. 5; PP MUSIC
Scott McLennan
Worcester Telegram – Worcester Telegram – Jul 30, 2006
Now in its 12th year the Warped Tour is also no longer the private sanctuary of young bands and their teen followings. Among the marquee acts on the tour this year are Joan Jett and the Blackhearts whose commercial peak came in the prehistoric days of the early ’80s and Helmet the mind-searing prog-punk band led by 46-year-old Page Hamilton. Since resurrecting Helmet in 2004 after a five-year hiatus Hamilton has enjoyed taking the band into uncharted territories. ne of Helmet’s first tours of duty upon reforming was the Sno-Core Tour another package tour more typically associated with younger bands… Though he is old enough to be dropped off at Warped’s patented parent day-care facility Hamilton’s music will be giving younger punks on the tour a run for their money particularly the fierce and frenetic material released on Helmet’s new album “Monochrome. “Monochrome” reunited Helmet with producer Wharton Tiers who helmed the first couple of groundbreaking albums by the band and is the group’s first for independent imprint Warcon Records. Compared with Helmet’s last album for Interscope Records “Size Matters” “Monochrome” is a leaner meaner affair accentuating Hamilton’s deconstructionist guitar technique and defiant posture; this is clearly a record made by someone who feels like a survivor. And Hamilton said he felt as if the latest edition Helmet with guitarist Chris Traynor bass player Jeremy Chatelain and drummer Mike Jost was on its game as it makes its inaugural Warped run. “With a 30-minute set you have to get going from the start.
Pretty in punk: The rebel rocker of the ’80s is coming to the…
Free with registration – Newsday – AccessMyLibrary.com – Jul 30, 2006
“I never subscribed to the idea that punk rock means you have to play fast and scream” Jett says speaking by phone while on the road recently. “To me it means being a rebel being an underdog being outside and doing it yourself. ” Continuously making music With a new album “Sinner” released on her own Blackheart Records label the time seems right for Jett to reintroduce herself to a generation that probably knows her. CPYRIGHT 2006 Newsday.
Thousands attend Europe’s largest punk festival
Monsters and Critics.com – Jul 30, 2006
\nThe festival now in its tenth year went off peacefully. Last year\’s festival saw the arrival of 8000 attendees. According to Force Attack founder and organizer Imre Sonnevend visitors came from across Europe to enjoy performances from such bands as The Exploited and The Toasters in the weekend-long event. The festival now in its tenth year went off peacefully. Last year’s festival saw the arrival of 8000 attendees. © 2006 dpa – Deutsche Presse-Agentur.
Heavy metal adopts political social messages in new millennium
San Francisco Chronicle – Jul 30, 2006
It takes on a much stronger political tone. Metal artists “have responded to the culture and politics of the day” said Donna Gaines a sociologist and author of “Teenage Wasteland” a study of working class New Jersey metalheads. Metal music in the 1980s was often homophobic and “very white” she said but current bands tend to be socially conscious and suspicious of political power. There’s also more women in the audience — and fronting the bands. “This is another generation rising” Gaines said. Heavy metal has always touched on social and political issues. Metal grandfathers Black Sabbath criticized the Vietnam War in songs like “War Pigs” and “Children of the Grave… ” Iron Maiden’s “Run to the Hills” was an angry denunciation of the displacement of Native Americans. But much of the criticism was blunted by dark imagery that panicked parents and led to the now ubiquitous “Parental Advisory” labels. Metal’s punk brethren were seen as having a more learned world view. That began to change when hardcore punk and metal fused in the late 1980s with bands like Dirty Rotten Imbeciles and Nuclear Assault. But metal was still primarily known for the excessive lifestyles and racy videos of glam bands. The popular view of metalheads as mentally deficient goons was memorialized with the MTV cartoon “Beavis and Butthead” about two teen metalheads who terrorize their pudgy neighbor Stewart who wears a T-shirt of the glam rock band “Winger. More meaningful music was coming from the underground as popular culture embraced grunge and metal lost favor.
Pop: Arresting development
Times nline – Jul 30, 2006
She grew up in Brooklyn and took violin lessons as a child. “I wasn’t a prodigy playing Paganini at six. I wanted to play well but I didn’t want to perfect music that had already been written and already perfected. ” Later studying music at Boston University she loved the unusual harmonies of the great moderns: Shostakovich Bartok and Schnittke. But instead of obsessing over the established repertoire she set out to play pieces composed by her teachers. “Nobody wanted to play them except me. I liked them because they were new… “It’s like a violin that can play lower. I found I liked the lower emotional stuff better than the high-filigree violin. ” A brief flirtation with punk “comfortably released” her residual teenage anger and cleared the way for the vintage soul of Al Green and Donny Hathaway. “It changed my life when I got into that music how raw it was and open. ” She dabbled in side-projects with members of the Grifters and the Flaming Lips and in 1994 started going out with a fellow musician whose influence can be heard with aching poignancy at various points on Real Life. Wasser met Jeff Buckley while they were appearing on a triple bill in Iowa City and they were together until his death by drowning in 1997. That shattering event forced the break-up of the Dambuilders and led to Wasser forming a new group Black Beetle with two of Buckley’s band.
Drug cautions at music festival
BBC News – Jul 30, 2006
A dozen people were also arrested for drug offences at the Global Gathering site on a former airfield at Long Marston near Stratford-upon-Avon. ne man is in hospital with head and other injuries after an assault. There have been 80 other reported crimes. Last year there were 22 arrests and 240 seizures of drugs plus 60 crimes and seven people taken to hospital… “However there has been a serious assault early this morning and detectives would like to hear from anyone who has information to help with police inquiries. The number of tickets at this year’s event was raised by 5000 to allow 45000 people into one of the country’s leading music events. The line-up included Groove Armada Fatboy Slim Daft Punk Sasha Carl Cox Paul akenfold Pete Tong and DJs from Radio 1.
THE WEEK AHEAD: July 30 – Aug. 5; PP MUSIC
New York Times – Jul 30, 2006
punk trio named SLEATER-KINNEY released its self-titled debut album. In the years since Sleater-Kinney built a devoted cult following while the Dixie Chicks built a following far too big to be called a cult (the Dixie Chicks are now the best-selling female group of all time) but no less devoted. This summer both trios have a chance to celebrate that devotion. After a spectacular and fascinating fallout with the country music industry the Dixie Chicks declined to make peace; instead they took their fans and split. Their new album Taking the Long Way (Sony) has been mainly ignored by country radio stations (and to a much lesser extent by pop stations) but it became one of the years top-selling country albums anyway… In the years since Sleater-Kinney built a devoted cult following while the Dixie Chicks built a following far too big to be called a cult (the Dixie Chicks are now the best-selling female group of all time) but no less devoted. This summer both trios have a chance to celebrate that devotion. After a spectacular and fascinating fallout with the country music industry the Dixie Chicks declined to make peace; instead they took their fans and split. Their new album Taking the Long Way (Sony) has been mainly ignored by country radio stations (and to a much lesser extent by pop stations) but it became one of the years top-selling country albums anyway. The controversy has revealed the fissures within the Dixie Chicks fan base; it has also underscored the evolving cultural identity of country music. At the Chicks two New York-area shows this week expect to hear a wide range of emotions funneled through gleeful pop-country songs.