The News Review:
- Band slices distinctive style out of rock punk
- Nine Inch Nails’ Year Zero Preview – News Story | Music Celebrity…
- Rap rock and acrimony? It’s only the Hall of Fame
- MIDI Me page 1 – Music – SF Weekly – SF Weekly
- Punk legends will play Perth tonight.
- Festival gig sparks NZ tour for The Clean
Band slices distinctive style out of rock punk
USA Today – Mar 14, 2007
acts aiming to hop the pond and make some waves. The Young KnivesIn tweed jackets and Coke-bottom glasses the Young Knives hardly cut the figure of dashing blades. Their sharper edge emerges in Voices of Animals and Men a debut album of choppy strapping post-punk packed with eccentric wit and whimsical narratives about British suburbia. With no other candidates available to play bass they drafted Henry’s younger brother Thomas later nicknamed House of Lords for his tendency to veto good ideas. The band was influenced by Pavement “which was funny and not at all posey” Dartnall says. “They seemed more interested in songwriting than sex and drugs and that was refreshing… “You get thrown in with people you’d never hang out with. At first it was weird and frustrating dealing with power struggles and very consumer-minded people who live for holidays and cars. The Knives considered a career in music unattainable until their hobby exploded last summer. Voices entered the British chart at No. 21 and pumped out four top 40 hits. Suddenly the gardening buffs from a bucolic outpost were drawing huge crowds and rave reviews. This month they’re on a U.
Nine Inch Nails’ Year Zero Preview – News Story | Music Celebrity…
MTV.com – Mar 14, 2007
href} {button:true} ); For weeks we’ve been feverishly following the ever-twisting web of promotion surrounding Nine Inch Nails’ Year Zero. From a simple message encoded on the back of a T-shirt that web — or more specifically an Alternate Reality Game — has grown to encompass eerie voice mail Web sites Morse code clues hidden in MP3s and messages buried deep within music videos all building an impressive (and generally terrifying) back story of a future society poised on the brink of spiritual moral political and environmental Armageddon. And we’re not the only ones hooked by it all. The buzz surrounding Zero is seemingly growing daily with every blog write-up and each clue revealed (see. And while a certain amount of that interest can no doubt be attributed to the unbelievable thoroughness of the Year Zero ARG even more of it is due to the harrowing believability of the concept Reznor’s cooked up for the album… How could Zero — which is due April 17 — be expected to support such an epic and far-reaching story line one spanning 15 years and three continents involving a cast of hundreds? How could it possibly live up to the brilliantly labyrinthine promotional scheme from whence it came?You get the feeling Reznor sort of wanted it that way. It’s probably the most adventurous experimental and ballsy album released on a major label since Green Day’s revelatory American Idiot which also happens to be its closest kin in spirit at least. Because for all its growling electronics squelching guitars and plinking African kalimbas Year Zero is essentially a punk-rock album one born of the same bold attitude that drove Green Day to jettison traditional thinking while making Idiot. But that’s about as far as those comparisons can go. Because there’s no jaunty nine-minute rock-opera pieces to be found on Zero nary a ballad on par with “Wake Me Up When September Ends. ” Shoot there are barely any discernable guitars. Instead almost every sound you hear on the album has been chopped ripped pulled flayed destroyed flattened squeezed or smashed beneath the massive ominous bit-mapping of Reznor and co-producer Atticus Ross.
Rap rock and acrimony? It’s only the Hall of Fame
Seattle Times – Mar 14, 2007
But while it was most certainly accepted the embrace was not as warm as it could have been; the rappers got perhaps the most reserved ovation of the night with an almost lukewarm response to their somewhat haphazard medley performance. The night’s biggest ovation may have been for the woman who swore she’d never make it in: Patti Smith. The bohemian poet straddled the hippie and punk eras with her album “Horses” setting a standard for literate rock. At the induction ceremony she performed her biggest hit “Because the Night” co-written with Bruce Springsteen and the Rolling Stones’ classic “Gimme Shelter. Passed over in previous years an emotional Smith remembered friends and family who didn’t live to see the day — and jokingly recalled an argument with her husband MC5′s Fred “Sonic” Smith shortly before he died. He told her she would get into the hall and that she would feel guilty because he would not make it — even though he was more deserving. He asked her when she did make the hall to “please accept it like a lady and not to say any curse words… Lead singer Ronnie Spector thanked a list of people from Cher to Springsteen to her publicist — but made no mention of ex-husband Phil Spector the producer whose gigantic “wall of sound” is synonymous with the act. The snub was underscored when she gave a special thank you “to our FIRST producer” then cleared her throat. Ronnie Spector had an acrimonious split with the legendary music man decades ago. His trial for the murder of an actress at his suburban Los Angeles mansion is due to start next week. After the Ronettes sang a trio of their hits Shaffer came to the microphone to read a note from Phil Spector who said “I wish them all the happiness and good fortune the world has to offer. Two of rock’s most influential figures — and members of its hall — received tributes: Civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton honored James Brown while hall officials remembered one of the institution’s founders record executive Ahmet Ertegun.
MIDI Me page 1 – Music – SF Weekly – SF Weekly
SF Weekly – Mar 14, 2007
0010 –>write to the editor | email a friend | print article |. The San Francisco duo composed of Marijke Jorritsma and Gregory Zifcak makes a wicked electro-ruckus that’s become a mainstay of live shows in local punk electronic and noise scenes. At a recent Hemlock gig the pair stirred up an egalitarian dance floor including a pony-tailed tech dude doing the python crusty punks pushing each other around and no kidding someone waving glow sticks… Subject(s):Eats Tapes by Frances Reade”I think we have diverse tastes” says Jorritsma from Eats Tapes HQ in the Mission. “You just want to play shows with people you like and the atmosphere you like and because of our diverse tastes we tend to play diverse shows. ” Eats Tapes makes an incorrigible kind of dance music out of decayed synths crotchety old drum machines oddball vocal samples and yes an old Nintendo. Contradictory to popular belief Tapes doesn’t build much of its equipment nor is the couple hung up on analog. “It’s mostly little boxes” Zifcak says of Tapes’ ample electro stockpile an impressive amount of which travels to live shows where Jorritsma hops between machines flailing her arms and getting caught up in her deadly dance beats. The cacophony is made possible through the magic of MIDI an outdated but widely used means of getting electronic devices to cooperate with each other. We’ll get to Eats Tapes’ fanatical belief in MIDI in a sec though.
Punk legends will play Perth tonight.
Free with registration – Europe Intelligence Wire – AccessMyLibrary.com – Mar 14, 2007
Punk legends will play Perth tonight. (14-MAR-07) Europe Intelligence Wire. The group who are still writing and recording.
Festival gig sparks NZ tour for The Clean
New Zealand Herald – Mar 14, 2007
It’s been about five years since Dunedin band The Clean played to New Zealand audiences and over 25 since their experimental style of pop music first began making waves. Their local record label Flying Nun has referred to them as being “the band that started it all” following a period in the late 1970s and 1980s where they were considered trailblazers for a wave of alternative punk rock and pop music to originate from the south. They had a relaxed work ethic and were never going to become commercial heavyweights but nevertheless eventually managed to gain a worldwide cult following and have been credited with influencing some heavyweight overseas indie bands. Their status didn’t go unnoticed when Dunedin City Councillors last year decided to organise a festival to celebrate the city’s heritage. The Clean have never really disbanded and Hamish Kilgour this week flew into Dunedin from New York where he has lived for 18 years to join his brother David and another original member Robert Scott. Kilgour says the band have talked about coming together again and festival organisers created an opportunity to do that by showing eagerness for them to play a home gig and paying his travel costs from New York… “He calls it a “large rock” that one has to hang on tightly to. While the Heritage Festival gig has provided the nucleus for the reunion fans will be pleased that they are also playing shows up the country as far as Leigh north of Auckland. All three band members have stayed involved with music over the years (David Kilgour has just toured Australasia with his band the Heavy Eights) and Kilgour says playing together again comes fairly naturally for the trio. “We really learned to be musicians together so have an empathy which is something you probably always seek when you’re playing music with other people. “It’s a pretty good basis to use as a point of exploration. So it’s a bit like riding a bike.