Hey kiddies, Can you believe it? This SWAG Report thing has reached twenty editions and nobody's clamped down on us yet! Who woulda thunk it could trail on so long? Not me, that's for sure – I figured somebody woulda tried to shut me up or shut me down by now, but everybody's shallow, plastic money trench (the music industry – for those that never crack a book) is still letting me run free and has yet to find an...
Ranked third for most consecutive gold or platinum studio albums behind the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, Rush brought their legendary live show to Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California on Monday night. Bassist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson and drummer Neil Peart performed their epic 1981 album Moving Pictures in its entirety along with old-school classics, songs from a new album due out next year and recent tracks from 2007’s Snakes and Arrows. It really doesn’t get any better...
I couldn't believe it either. I mean, it doesn't shock me that Weezer has signed a new record contract but, seeing that anyone might have ever referred to Weezer as an indie band as the headline above (which also appeared on the press release that was emailed to me) implies was enough to make me do a double-take. It's true though, this morning it was announced that Weezer has officially inked a new deal with the largest indie label in...
When you've got two weeks to explode, what do you do? If you had two weeks – that's just fourteen days – to try to make an indelible impression and stand out from a crowd rather than simply be a face in it, how could that not be looked at as an imposing task? It couldn't be easy, that's for sure, but Cobra Skulls singer Devin Peralta isn't sweating; when his band, Cobra Skulls, was offered a two-week tour covering...
At some point in its' career (if it has taken off and become successful), a band will start to realize who it is; whether it's because they're eating better or have a little extra money to throw around. At that point, they get a little bit confident and why shouldn't they? They paid their dues, left pints of proverbial blood on innumerable stages and got some recognition for it all but (whether as a contrived measure or not) kept its'...
Ever spend a day looking at different things with a magnifying glass when you were a kid? It can utterly change your perception of the world; suddenly pristine surfaces get rough and abstract-looking, simple things appear very complex and complicated and a whole other world of possibilities opens up right before your eyes upon close examination. On its' ANTI– debut, All Alone In An Empty House, Lost In The Trees seems to have taken a magnifying glass to its' own...
It sounds too simple to say that something is “pretty” anymore. The beauty and the curse set upon those who speak English as a mother tongue is that it is very much a pack-rat language; there are a hundred and one synonyms for everything and the common misperception is that the more “expensive” a synonym the speaker uses, the more learned he is. That's not true though; some wors simply express a gift for gab and most often get broken...
Good evening alla you laborin' men and workin' girls, Y'know, there are moments when I feel bad for alla you folks? It's gotta be rough; there you are goin' ta work every day, slavin' for some boss who prolly doesn't appreciate anything other than the fact that you take the paper offa his desk. Godless bastid. He gets ta look good while you do alla leg work – where's the justice innat? How does anybody do that? How do you...
When the Scorpions announced that the "Get Your Sting and Blackout World Tour" was going to be their final tour ever and that they were calling it quits after almost forty years together, it was a no-brainer that I would be there. The band was a huge part of my Heavy Metal Arena Rock Show teenage years (dating back to 1983) and I just could not pass up the opportunity to see them live one last time. I have to...
There are few things quite so endearing to a dyed-in-the-wool indie boy's heart than an all-girl indie pop group making twee, surfy songs. Not to sound condescending, but they're just so cute! Such was the case when The Go-Gos attempted to be trashy but came up with Talk Show, when The Runaways spat out “You're Too Possessive,” when Joan Jett Covered “Crimson And Clover” on her own and Sleater-Kinney spent most of Dig Me Out trying to sound formulaic. In...