Music

Tonight's Futureheads setlist distribution: The Futureheads: 7, Area EP: 1, News and Tributes: 2, This Is Not the World: 3, The Chaos: 7.

The crowd here is reminding me of why it took me so long to bother checking out The National. — at House of Blues gowal.la/r/dNa

There are not enough dicks in the universe for House of Blues to suck.

I love this so, so much.

Judas Priest toured through the summer of 2009, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the seminal metal album British Steel by playing it live in its entirety every night. Now fans can celebrate too by playing live versions of all nine tracks from the album in Rock Band!

Could Judas Priest’s landmark British Steel be the most metal album in history? Let us examine the facts. To begin with, the cover depicts either an ordinary man’s hand… See more →

Tonight, a handful of coworkers and I will lead a fully orchestrated Beatles sing-along with the Boston Pops. bso.org/bso/mods/perf_detail.…

"Sing onstage with the Boston Pops" has been added to the to-do list and checked off.

This is light on actual information, but for any UI folks interested in how shit happens here, these slides give you a glimpse into the process.

Kaboom!

If it takes a Wednesday night metal show with five bands on the bill to prove I’m not really a grownup, so be it.

Too bad the type on the bottom is an afterthought, but otherwise, I quite like this.

Has it really been twenty years already?

I still have that 90-minute cassette whose A-side contained my first copy of Megadeth’s Rust In Peace. Though I had already cut my teeth on other metal bands, I was wary of Megadeth at first. Their name alone seemed to embody everything that was supposed to be frightening and dangerous about heavy metal, and this particular 14-year-old Catholic boy was slightly less interested in rebellion than he was… See more →

Windhammer likes Megadeth.

In the immortal words of Cedric Daniels, “This... is BULL SHIT!”

I hope this isn’t true. :(

I tweeted that one of my all-time favorite albums was coming to Rock Band soon, and apparently the fans were watching. This is one of at least two forum discussions with dozens of posts that are scouring my web site and last.fm account for clues as to what the album might be. Kinda creepy but mostly funny.

Great!

"I’m just trying to get the idea out before the inspiration is gone," he told The Times last year. "Everything I do is motivated by the fear of running out of time."

Can’t wait to hear the rest of this record. So good.

!!!

Well, it’s not weirder news than the Spider-Man musical U2 is reportedly working on.

I might have hoped increased variety and decreased commercial potential might have made me more interested in the critical darlings of "indie rock" instead of less. I’d suggest it has something to do with my fondness for creative constraints, but many of my favorite artists have made a career out of eschewing genre conventions. Hmm.

I want this movie to be good, but even with Joan Jett as an executive producer, I have my doubts. The retarded trailer does not assuage them, especially with the obscenely hyperbolic statement at the end. Can anyone think of a music biopic that was actually good?

Melt-Banana didn’t play the Devo song you loudly demanded throughout the show, but my only disappointment is that you’re still breathing.

Baroness was really great tonight, but they would have been better if I hadn’t started drinking at 3pm. They should work on that.

There were empty seats at the Múm show tonight. I wanted to fill them with people I care about.

In 1993, Washington DC’s fertile indie rock scene gave birth to a band called The Dismemberment Plan. Musically, it skirted genre conventions inconspicuously. Lyrically, it found wisdom and poetry in the commonplace. The whole package was a rare, fun, magical blend of sophisticated and approachable, and the band built a respectable and devoted following with it.

Ten years later, not long after releasing its fourth and arguably best album, The Dismemberment Plan decided to call… See more →

Conceptually trite and kinda sickeningly precious, but the visual thinker in me still likes it.

Good conversation with @iamrumz and @jyllish. Good set from Besnard Lakes. Good night.

Chucky does it again. Very funny stuff.

When I first heard about this awhile back, I had serious doubts about chiptune Miles covers. But I have to admit the samples on the site sound kind of awesome.

:(

First stadium concert in a long time. I can’t believe there are people who experience live music exclusively this way.

AC/DC has disproved my theory that I couldn’t be thoroughly entertained by a band playing a quarter mile away. Sad we missed Anvil, though.

The first sentence is priceless.

Um. Kaboom. I can finally talk about one of the things I’ve been working on.

I’m really curious to see how far into its hallowed halls popular culture will let this crabcore nonsense get. I have a sinking suspicion that it won’t be long before it’s not even fun to laugh at it anymore.

This is part of a massive series for the current No Doubt tour, and they’re all pretty nice. Check out the rest.

I fucking love this guy.

This is a good, broad introduction to heavy metal in all its shades, for anyone who’s interested.

If this is in fact the final box art (and I’m really skeptical that it is), this is some seriously half-assed shit. Ordinarily I’m a fan of understatement in design, but everything about this is awkward: the composition, the wording of the new features, and especially the reworked logo (which I know IS final), complete with phoney-baloney Photoshop spray-paint effect. I feel pretty confident that my obvious bias barely factors into my opinion on this.… See more →

They Might Be Giants are great, but there’s not enough snark in the solar system to adequately describe their audience.

Finally you can see exactly how difficult it has been for me to keep quiet about this game. Set mind to "blown."

I owe Eric Pope a beer for convincing my tired ass to stick around for Peelander-Z. Holy hell, what a show.

Big sound problems for Crippled Black Phoenix tonight at Great Scott. To be fair, they’re probably not used to dealing with 8-piece bands.

Sad that the seven-foot-tall guy who obstructed my view of John Vanderslice will do the same for John Darnielle.

At AS22 in Providence, where J Mascis is waiting in line for the bathroom and Earthless is boring me to death.

In the Stereo

• Snoop Doggy Dogg: Doggystyle
• The Swell Season: The Swell Season

On the Silver Screen

• Let the Right One In

Backstage, an hour before show time, the cramped green room buzzed and shuffled with conversation and preparation. Rhinestones and tassels adorned leather and denim, which adorned bodies aged eighteen to forty-eight, travelers hailing from as far as West Virginia. Many were veterans of the air guitar stage, and some had competed as recently as the previous night. Having failed to capture the titles in their home towns of New York, Boston, and Washington DC, they… See more →

In the Stereo

• Cynic: Traced in Air

On the Silver Screen

• Synechdoche, New York
• My Name Is Bruce
• Zack and Miri Make a Porno

What a year this turned out to be.

Shortly after the year began, my time with the amazing team at Happy Cog ended. It was the best thing for all concerned, even if my lack of an exit strategy left me without direction. My comfort zone was toxic, so really, any direction would do.

I set out to get healthy, physically and mentally. I got my finances in order. I drove 9,400 miles around the… See more →

On the Web

• 2008 Spooky Sock Monkeys: Kim Cornell’s annual crop of petrifying primates is already almost sold out!

In the Stereo

• Van Morrison: Moondance
• The Jackson 5: The Ultimate Collection
• Necrophagist: Epitaph
• The Supremes: The Ultimate Collection
• Ra Ra Riot: The Rhumb Line
• Stiffs, Inc.: Nix Nought Nothing

On the Silver Screen

• Quarantine
• The Godfather: Part II

In the Stereo

• Opeth: Watershed
• TV on the Radio: Dear Science
• Metallica: Death Magnetic
• Radiohead: OK Computer

On the Silver Screen

• Waltz with Bashir
• Burn After Reading

In Print

• Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons