The News Review:
- New exhibition treats communist oppression of 1980s Czech rock bands
- Punch Judy and punk
- Great punk band X marks 31st anniversary with tour
- Why my story is a spiky Cinderella’
- Bruce who? What to do if you’re just not into that guy
- Rock Opera. Seriously.
New exhibition treats communist oppression of 1980s Czech rock bands
radio.cz – Mar 28, 2008
And so thisreliance upon Czech and Czech alone in later rock music probably did lendthe music a sort of national character. Because songs and music are linkedto the language they are written in – the language gives the song itsrhythm after all. ?And as well the musical instruments and sound systems people wereusing here weren?t maybe as good and expensive as those in the West. Sothe sound wasn?t as crystal clear and as clean as elsewhere.
Punch Judy and punk
St Petersburg Times Russia – Mar 28, 2008
Petersburg on Friday. Punk-cabaret favorites The Tiger Lillies who performed in Russia in June return with two new albums. “Love and War” an unlikely tribute to 16th century composer Claudio Monteverdi was released last year while “7 Deadly Sins” the band’s 21st album with each song devoted to one particular vice came out earlier this month. The band’s entire career has been covered in The Tiger Lillies Book that contains the lyrics to 282 songs and 340 photographs mostly previously unpublished. Formed in 1989 The Tiger Lillies feature Martyn Jacques the band’s falsetto singer and squeeze box player double bass player Adrian Stout and drummer Adrian Huge. Jacques spoke to The St… Old people interested in classical music. So it was quite a difficult show for us. It wasn’t actually much fun. The audience actually didn’t really like what we were doing and quite a lot of them actually walked out. They didn’t even wait for the encore they just walked out.
Great punk band X marks 31st anniversary with tour
TheNewsTribune.com – Mar 28, 2008
And near the top of my list I’d put the influential but commercially neglected Los Angeles punk band X. Founded in 1977 the quartet – singer Exene Cervenka singer-bassist John Doe guitarist Billy Zoom and drummer DJ Bonebrake – crafted edgy invigorating rock songs with darkly poetic lyrics piercing vocal harmonies and stylistic forays into rockabilly folk and vintage garage that set the outfit apart from monolithic punk peers. But despite widespread critical acclaim – “All Music Guide’s” Greg Prato calls X “one of the greatest live rock acts of all time” – and having the Doors’ Ray Manzarek the producer for early albums as a high-profile cheerleader the band never quite took off commercially. Its major label debut and highest charting album is 1982’s “Under the Big Black Sun” which peaked at No. 76 on the pop albums chart. And debut album “Los Angeles” widely hailed as an essential punk classic never even charted. The veteran outfit will headline Seattle’s Showbox at the Market with a pair of 31st anniversary shows on Sunday and Monday… Its major label debut and highest charting album is 1982’s “Under the Big Black Sun” which peaked at No. 76 on the pop albums chart. And debut album “Los Angeles” widely hailed as an essential punk classic never even charted. The veteran outfit will headline Seattle’s Showbox at the Market with a pair of 31st anniversary shows on Sunday and Monday. And that gave me an excuse to call Doe and pick his brain on the whys. “Well the reason we didn’t reach a mainstream audience was all my fault because I didn’t write a hit song” he said laughing from his end of the line somewhere the middle of rural Missouri. Then taking a serious stab at the question he accentuated the up side of cult status: “I don’t know why we didn’t.
Why my story is a spiky Cinderella’
Belfast Telegraph – Mar 28, 2008
"My mom turned me on to everything from Chopin to Hendrix. I loved Wagner too. I then discovered the Beatles and rock music on my own saw Zeppelin play and later on I found punk rock. " Although he didn’t know it at the time that genre of music would end up literally changing his life. In 1980 the young Rollins formed a band called State of Alert and while they had a lot of fun playing two-minute punk at breakneck speeds it was with his next effort that he would make his name when he fronted Black Flag. For the uninitiated Black Flag were an absolutely seminal band. Their records and live shows have inspired everyone from Andy Cairns of Therapy? to a young Kurt Cobain (whose first punk gig was Black Flag) and to this day their album Damaged still gets hailed as the greatest underground release of all time.
Bruce who? What to do if you’re just not into that guy
Seattle Times – Mar 28, 2008
• The explosive Seattle garage-punk band Das Llamas — gritty songs like “Wood on Bone” mark this as one of the top young bands going around here — plays Fremont club High Dive (9:30 tonight $7). Das Llamas singer Kerry Zettel sounds like Adam Ant on steroids. • If you’re needing a hip-hop fix the Rendezvous is the place to be as national players Grayskul — they caught national play with the video to the killer cut “Scarecrow” — and party-crew Cancer Rising lead a wild bill (10:30 tonight $5). • Sera Cahoone a former drummer — with Carissa’s Wierd and briefly its offshoot Band of Horses — continues her impressive career as an alt-country singer-songwriter. She has a new Sub Pop CD “Only As the Day Is Long” displaying a relaxed yet honest sound… • Does the noise level of audiences at clubs bother you? Then listen to the e-mailed whisperings of local singer-songwriter Levi Fuller:”Sometimes I want to play (or attend) shows of quiet acoustic artists at a place where people will sit and listen to them and it can be very challenging. House shows are great but you can’t really promote them the way you’d like and some people feel weird going to them. Most of the other venues are bars that generally host loud music so quieter acts tend to either get drowned out by drunken conversation or cranked up in order to compete with said conversation. What he envisions as “a monthly series of quiet shows” begins with performances by Fuller Moe Provencher and TroubleShooting (8 p.
Rock Opera. Seriously.
Washington Post – Mar 28, 2008
But even though the very idea is enough to give most rockers (not to mention the average opera fan) an aneurysm the East Village Opera Company’s wild amped-up covers of such 19th-century hits as "La Donna e Mobile" and "Habanera" have been met with surprising enthusiasm by headbangers and opera connoisseurs alike. "We’re just playing this music the way the composers would write it if they were alive today" says Kiesewalter whose 11-piece band (which includes two singers and a string quartet) will perform music by… The music turned out so well that he and Ross eventually recorded a full album of arias putting a band together in 2004 and debuting at Joe’s Pub in New York. “The response was overwhelming” he says “and it caught us completely by surprise. There were punk rockers in ripped jeans and older people who revere opera. I thought opera purists would throw stuff at us but they got a bigger kick out of it than anybody. There were subscribers to the Met there singing along. They knew every word to every aria. “Expect hard-rocking wildness Saturday when the band will rethink such songs as a love duet in Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly” and the virtuosic Queen of the Night aria from Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.