My new favorite "momager" is Sue Baran, who handles Long Island's Push Play, who tells Rafer in a story on the band today that she recently turned down a major label's advances, saying: "Tell me something we don't have and maybe I'll think about it."
Judging from the band's video, she's probably right.
Push Play, "There She Goes Again"
Ryan Star has a new home -- on the Web, that is. Rstar.net has undergone a renovation, serving as a central hub for all the random pages that musicians have these days (MySpace, PureVolume, Facebook, whatever).
Ever the grass-rootser, Star promises on the site: "You will never get some ---- update or response from my label pretending to be me. You will get me."
Check out the slick production on the song "Last Train Home," which was featured in the recent film "P.S. I Love You," at http://rstar.net. The song starts automatically.
The Secret History, the band formed out of the ashes of Long Island semi-legends My Favorite, have signed to Le Grand Magistery, the boutique indie label that's home to Stars, Momus, Baxendale and others.
According to Grace, The Secret History -- which also includes singer Lisa Ronson, daughter of guitarist Mick -- are working on a five-song EP tentatively titled "Desolation Town" that will include early online demos, the single "It's Not the End of the World, Jonah" and a new ballad called "Palermo." A full-length CD is due next year.
Meantime, catch The Secret History live Mar. 27 at the Galapagos Art Space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Check out the band's MySpace page for music.
PHOTO: The Secret History, by J.B. Hardy.
Long Island's own Jesse Blaze Snider, son of Twisted Sister singer Dee, will compete against Chloe Rose Lattanzi, daughter of Newton-John, along with other offspring of famous musicians, in a new MTV reality game show.
"Rock the Cradle" features a variety of scions from A-list, B-list and Z-list celebrities, though I'll leave it to you to decide which is which in this lineup:
Landon Brown, son of Bobby
A'Keiba Burell-Hammer, daughter of MC
Lara Johnston, daughter of Tom, from The Doobie Brothers
Crosby Loggins, son of Kenny (as opposed to David)
Jesse Money, daughter of Eddie (another Long Islander, by the way)
Lucy Walsh, daughter of guitarist Joe
And Lil Al B Sure, whose father you can probably guess -- but wait, are exclamation points not hereditary?
The show debuts at 10 p.m. EST on Apr. 3.
Dream Theater, the Long Island prog-rock stalwarts, will launch a 21-date North American tour beginning May 2. The band will play two shows at the new Manhattan nightclub Terminal 5 on May 21 and 22.
The tour coincides with the April 1 release of a two-disc Rhino compilation, cheekily titled "Dream Theater's Greatest Hit (...and 21 Other Pretty Cool Songs)," a reference to the band's 1992 track "Pull Me Under," which peaked at No. 10 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart. The album marks the band's first best-of collection.
On tour with the band are Opeth, Between the Buried and Me, and the up-and-coming metal act 3.
For more information, visit www.dreamtheater.net.
PHOTO: TrialOfTears.net
Nightmare of You drummer Sammy Siegler has been replaced by Mike Fleischmann, formerly of Permanent Me. Guitarist Joseph McCaffrey announced the news on the band's blog last night.
McCaffrey described Siegler's split as amicable, noting that the drummer -- whose previous bands include Youth of Today, CIV and Glassjaw -- was "starting a family." McCaffrey added: "The rest of us are very happy for them. Sammy is an amazing friend and drummer and we are lucky we were able to create music together that we are all very proud of and will hold onto forever."
Fleischmann, 20, of Merrick, had split from Permanent Me -- which was once managed by McCaffrey -- several months ago. He'll perform with Nightmare of You on March 13 at the Crazy Donkey. Also on that bill: Camera-Head Shark, Heavy Rescue and Aeroplane Pageant.
PHOTO: Nightmare of You, with new member Fleischmann, far right.
Nightmare of You has announced a headlining show Mar. 13 at The Crazy Donkey in Farmingdale.
Also on the all-local lineup (though there's still one slot left to fill) are Camera-Head Shark, Aeroplane Pageant and Heavy Rescue.
For information on tickets, check out Nightmare's page on MySpace here.
Nightmare of You have put their distinctive spin on Cheap Trick's little-known 1978 nugget "On Top of the World," and it's a winner -- part Smithsy swooner, part London Suede vamp-up. Check it out at the band's MySpace page here. The Nightmares also announced recently that they're planning a Northeast tour in late February and early March, with dates and cities yet to be announced.
The all-female rock group Antigone Rising promises freshly-made CDs of their concerts tonight and tomorrow at The Bitter End in Manhattan. It's not a new idea -- Pixies and Depeche Mode, among others, have done it -- but the ladies have at least coined a clever name for the product: InstAntigone."What was that grandiose rock song that burst out in the middle of ESPN 's "Images of 2007" segment recently? It was "This Could Be The Year," a new track by Ryan Star. It comes about two minutes into the video and then plays for the duration. Star, back in Los Angeles wrapping up his new disc for Atlantic Records, is all about stealth marketing: Another track, "Last Train Home," is being featured in the Hilary Swank movie "P.S. I Love You."
After wading through 93 pages of comments in Straylight Run's chat on Absolute Punk last night, here are the Top 10 Things I Learned:
10. Singer/guitarist John Nolan likes Barack Obama and Ron Paul: “i've actually found myself getting pretty excited about the prospect of barack obama winning. he seems like the only person on the democratic side who's actually a real person and not just a political machine. on the republican side i think ron paul is very intriguing. he doesn't have a chance of winning but his ideas are really different and really interesting.”
9. Bassist Shaun Cooper’s favorite Billy Joel song is “Goodnight Saigon”
8. Nolan’s favorite album of last year was Radiohead’s “In Rainbows”
7. They would happily tour with Brand New: “Anytime they want us, we’re there” (Cooper)
6. Drummer Will Noon prefers stick shift to automatic, PC to Mac. And he reads. A lot.
5. The song that had the biggest effect on Nolan in high school was Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
4. Singer/keyboardist Michelle DaRosa is working on a children’s record and her favorite song from the new album is “Cover Your Eyes”
3. Why they toured with Simple Plan: “honestly, we went on tour with simple plan because we had just come out with an ep and we had no other tour offers to go out and support it. and also they offered us a ridiculous amount of money and we needed it at the time. that being said, it was a horrible, horrible thing to do and we definitely regretted it.” (Nolan)
2. Nolan thinks “Take It to Manhattan” should have been the first single from “The Needles The Space” (I kinda agree)
1. A lot of people obviously still care about Straylight Run and maybe Universal could have figured out a way to reach some of them before pulling the plug on “The Needles The Space” so quickly. Just a thought.
In the months following the release of Envy on the Coast’s impressive “Lucy Gray” album, singer Ryan Hunter has been balancing the thrilling firsts that come with a debut with a series of mysterious health problems that he only recently feels have finally worked out.Continue reading "INDIE ROCK INJURY REPORT: Envy on the Coast's Ryan Hunter" »
Edison Glass has finally posted a newly-minted video for "Let Go," the title track from its EP, released this summer. You can check it out at MySpace here. Note: The cell phone number at the end actually works -- you can leave a message for the band members, who promise to call back.
Before Bayside hits the road with Straylight Run and Tokyo Rose in January, singer Anthony Raneri has booked a secret acoustic show at the Knitting Factory on Jan. 18. Tickets are $14 and go on sale at TicketWeb at noon tomorrow (12/20).
PHOTO: Anthony Raneri by David Schrott for Victory Records.
In the run-up to his new album, Everlast is promoting his anti-war video for the track "Letters From the Garden of Stone," in which a soldier seems to be discussing his tour of duty from beyond the grave. It's unclear whether the solider is American or Iraqi, but as he notes in the song, "We all end up on the same side."
The video, filmed in Nashville and directed by Everlast's childhood friend Mazik (formerly of the band Blood of Abraham), focuses on the human cost of the war. There are shots of what appear to be a bloodied Iraqi child and an Iraqi man with his arms raised in surrender.
As with most protest songs, "Letters" doesn't get into questions of policy. But in a statement released today, Everlast -- whose Website displays his name in Arabic-style script -- said American troops are "not just fighting the good fight for the Red, White and Blue. They're fighting a mental and emotional battle every day, and as each day passes, they lose a little more faith, and a little more hope."
It may have seemed like a risk when he did it, but Fred Mascherino’s decision to leave Taking Back Sunday to pursue his own band The Color Fred is looking more and more like a sure thing. When The Color Fred first came through, it was playing the small Knitting Factory. On Friday, the band played the Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza with Straylight Run. When it returns on Feb. 15 with Angels and Airwaves, it will be playing Roseland Ballroom.
“It’s crazy,” Mascherino told me Friday night, after his set at Irving Plaza. “It’s way too early to be playing Roseland with this project, even if we are just opening.”
But fans of the band’s debut “Bend to Break” (Equal Vision) or those who have seen its increasingly more powerful live shows know that The Color Fred is quickly coming into its own. And Mascherino said he’s once again enjoying the climb up.
“It’s like going back in time,” he said. “I’ve had so much fun on this tour. And it’s so rewarding to be playing my own music.”
SETLIST: Get Out / Complaintor / The Tragedy / Hate to See You Go / Minnesota / If I Surrender / Don’t Pretend
On a related note, Taking Back Sunday has gathered in New York this week and is apparently auditioning guitar players to replace Mascherino. The band is looking at five guitarists, including Andrew Jackson, lead singer/guitarist from the recently broken-up Connecticut rockers Hot Rod Circuit.
On Friday night, as the Straylight Run / The Color Fred tour (a.k.a. The Former Taking Back Sunday Frontmen Move On Tour) wrapped up at the Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza, there was this enjoyable exchange.
FAN: Universal sucks!
JOHN NOLAN: Universal does suck!
FAN: I hate Universal!
NOLAN: I hate Universal too!
And so the Long Beach band's unceremonious dropping from its major-label deal with Universal was announced to the hometown crowd. Bassist Shaun Cooper announced it last week in a post on the band's message board, saying, "We did everything in our power to avoid the horrible situation we were put into, but I guess that wasn't enough. I guess the label is kind of in shambles. I mean, if you feel like the man that brought you The Killers and Fall Out Boy is expendable; what the hell are we?"
In the end, the move really wasn't a surprise. The band's album, "The Needles, The Space" is a pretty bold experiment that would've been hailed as an indie record, but was never a high priority over at Universal because it would simply never go multi-platinum. It was a weird match from the start, though Straylight did get the chance to make the album they wanted to make, glockenspiels and all.
And as their concert Friday night showed, the band and its ambitious sound only continue to improve. Cooper said the band is working on new material already and it has already lined up a tour with Bayside starting in January.
SETLIST: Soon We'll Be Living in the Future / The Miracle That Never Came / Hands in the Sky / The First of the Century / Who Will Save Us Now? / A Slow Descent / The Words We Say / How Do I Fix My Head? / Sympathy for the Martyr / Mistakes We Knew We Were Making / Still Alone / Take It to Manhattan / Existentialism on Prom Night // ENCORES: Your Name Here (Sunrise Highway) / Another Word For Desperate / Tool Sheds and Hot Tubs / Dignity and Money.
PHOTO: Straylight Run for Universal.
Leave it to the music industry to come up with new, creative ways to downsize.
Bellmore’s Permanent Me didn’t get dropped from its label, the Stolen Transmission imprint of Island Def Jam Records. However, its entire label got dropped in a new restructuring that went into effect on Dec. 1. So now Permanent Me – along with The Oohlas, Monty Are I, The Photo Atlas and others – is still on Stolen Transmission, but Stolen Transmission is no longer part of Island Def Jam.
“Our departure from IDJ had nothing to do with the performance of our artists (we were a label focused on developing artists – an art form often not practiced in A&R),” Stolen Transmission’s Sarah Lewitinn explains on her blog. “Our departure was due to restructuring. On my last day, I gave everyone that gave us a chance a hug and thanked them for an amazing experience. I learned so much being there and was put on a very fast track to learning how to A&R.”
Permanent Me, which marked its new status with a headlining show at the Landmark Theater in Port Washington on Saturday, gets another chance to celebrate change when it headlines the Knitting Factory on Wednesday.
PHOTO: Stolen Transmission
Rockville Centre's Show Me Action has recorded an unlikely track using classical instruments such as piano, violin, cello and upright bass. Is Carnegie Hall in the band's future? Decide for yourself by checking out the untitled composition here. And be patient with the quiet beginning -- this ain't no rock song.
Queens-based up-and-comers The Shake have released the video for their nifty garage-rock single "Manic Boogie." Check it out here:
The folks at Looney Tunes are filming a documentary on the rebuilding of their store, which was burnt to a crisp earlier this summer thanks to a faulty electrical cord. Three "chapters" of the documentary have been posted on YouTube.
In the first, you can see co-owner Karl Groeger, Jr., walking through the charred store and holding up a shriveled piece of coal that used to be an autographed Warren Haynes guitar.
In Chapter Two, Groeger promises a new, radically low pricing structure: "We're not gonna just have one or two things on sale, we're gonna put the entire store on sale."
Chapter Three stars Motion City Soundtrack, one of the first bands to play a benefit show after the fire.
LL Cool J, Grandmaster Flash and Darryl McDaniels of Run-D.M.C. have confirmed their attendance at the Second Annual Long Island Music Hall of Fame Induction Gala, scheduled for October 21.
The troika of rap pioneers marks another feather in the cap of the Music Hall, which over the past few years has grown from a pipe dream into a key player in the Long Island music community. Last year's inaugural ceremony surprised skeptics by securing appearances from Billy Joel, Joan Jett, Peter Criss of Kiss and Leslie West of Mountain, among others.
The strong showing by rappers may also help bring Long Island's music scene out of the classic-rock and grunge eras and into the current age of hip-hop-dominated music.
LL Cool J, a Queens native, will be inducted into the Music Hall by Grandmaster Flash, who hails from the Bronx but now lives on Long Island. Another Queens rapper, McDaniels, better known as D.M.C., will induct the Roosevelt rap group Public Enemy.
Other inductees include Simon and Garfunkel, Blue Oyster Cult, Carole King, Mariah Carey, Neil Diamond, Pat Benatar and Barbra Streisand.
The ceremony will be held Oct. 21 at the Kupferberg Center for the Arts at Queens College in Flushing.
You know the old saying: One man's icon is another man's fan. Bayside proved that during a recent Vans Warped Tour date when the emo heroes got a picture of themselves hanging out with Jonah Hill, Michael Cera and Chris Mintz-Plasse of "Superbad." Like true fanboys, they emailed the photo all over the place, so here it is, below:
UPDATE: The Long Island Sounds Off bill includes The Kerry Kearney Band, Jacks Waterfall, Paging Grace, Stacy Rock, Wired, Airdate and others. More information
Even before the first note of the Live Earth concerts sounds, the idea behind the event has already succeeded in spawning similar shows around the country, including Long Island Sounds Off, set for the Brookhaven Amphitheatre Saturday.
Organizers say the concert, which will be free and open to the public, will feature music from Long Island bands as well as information about global warming and the Broadwater project, which would put a natural gas barge in Long Island Sound.
"This concert is not about raising money, it's about giving people more information," says James Faith, the Brookhaven Amphitheatre's general manager. "Then people can make up their own minds."
It's official: Ryan Star is now a rock star.
"It's really been unbelievable," said Star, calling from a tour stop in Malaysia and laughing about being on "the most expensive call we'll ever have." "I'm being followed by paparazzi. ... When I arrived, I turn on the radio station and the guy's saying 'Ryan Star has landed in Malaysia.'"
Star's success on the CBS reality show "Rock Star: Supernova" this summer has already launched a series of firsts for the Dix Hills native - a chart-topper on MSN Music for his single "Back of My Car," a quickie live album recorded only days after being eliminated from the show and his whirlwind trip to Malaysia (flying first class, natch), where he will play to thousands of fans.
"The show was really a phenomenon here," said Star, whose intense, dramatic brand of lyric-driven rock created many fans through the TV show. "But what's really incredible is they're not talking about the show. They're talking about rstar.net and my myspace page. They're playing 'Back of My Car' on the radio."
So here's a really good scenario for a band: It's playing songs at its CD release party that are so new, they aren't even on the CD.
Even better: The songs are just as catchy, if not more so, than the ones on its already-impressive CD.
This was the case at Bandcamp's CD release party Sunday night at the sold-out Boulton Center in Bay Shore.
The Seaford-based quartet played most of its forthcoming CD "Wanna Dance" (E.V.L.A.), including the once-and-future hits "Someone" and "Celebrity" ("You better know the words to this one," singer/guitarist Matthew Bair told the crowd, once they hit the sing-along part) as well as the strong songs "One Day" and "Brightest Dark."
Just as impressive, though, were new songs "Natalie Crush" and "Never Seen a Movie at All," which showed the band is continuing to move forward.
On a related note, Harlan Friedman, WLIR's music director, said he will be adding Bandcamp's new single "Fonzie Movement," a retro-rocker filtered through a Weezer-like sensibility, to the station's playlist on Tuesday.
SETLIST: Get to You / Thinking about You / Situation Lose Lose / Crash and Burn / One Day / Brightest Dark / Valentine / Someone / Natalie Crush / Face of the Planet / Never Watched a Movie at All / Fonzie Movement / Celebrity
Bandcamp plays Best Buy, 1050 Old Country Road, Westbury, at 6:30 p.m. Friday.
Matthew Bair isn't in any hurry.
Sure, the 19-year-old from Seaford has already been writing songs for half of his life and playing guitar for as far back as he can remember. His song "Celebrity," which recently became a staple at Shea Stadium during the Mets playoff run, won the international "Song of the Year" contest in 2004. And his group Bandcamp signed a deal with Atlantic Records and recorded its debut album before he graduated from Seaford High School last year.
But after that initial rush, Bair and Bandcamp did what so many bands do when dealing with the music industry - they waited. They waited for company politics to shake out. They waited for industry reshuffling to settle down. They waited until they felt they couldn't wait any more. On Tuesday, the waiting will finally end, when the band's debut album, "Wanna Dance?" (E.V.L.A.), finally arrives in stores - more than a year after it was completed.
"We're all just really excited to get these songs out there," says Bair, calling from a tour stop in Detroit. "It's been great to see people's reactions. We've lived with these songs for a while, but to most people, they're brand new. That excitement gives them a new life, a new energy that comes back to us."
For Bair, "Wanna Dance?," which was produced by Dave McNair and Good Charlotte's Benji Madden, marks another important transition - from solo singer-songwriter to part of a band, with his brother, drummer Kris Mazzarisi, guitarist Sean Gould and bassist Steve Shebby. "I still write songs, but everybody puts their two cents in; we all work on the arrangements," Bair says. "It grows from a 'Matt song' to a 'Bandcamp song.'" [More...]
PHOTO: Bandcamp is (l. to r.) Sean Gould, Matthew Bair, Kris Mazzarisi, Steve Shebby.
Listen to "Get to You" here
Watch "Celebrity" video on the jump
After a nine-week run on "Rock Star: Supernova," Ryan Star delivered his farewell speech on last night's show.
Ryan Star landed in the bottom three for the first time and survived the cut, but his fellow Long Islander Jill Gioia wasn't so lucky.
Straylight Run went into the studio in July but the band is just now posting its video diaries of the recording process. Actually, make that the "riding bikes through the hallways" process.
In case you've forgotten what the Bandcamp boys look like, the Seaford-based band put a pretty cool homemade video for "Celebrity" online. Not only does it feature lots of live footage of the soon-to-be celebrities, it also includes shots of Long Island luminaries like WLIR's Harlan Friedman, Jay from Greener and one-third of the Backstage Pass posse.
