Festival, Hip Hop, Live Shows, Metal, Music, Music News, Punk, Rap, Reunion, Rock

Cypress Hill & The 2 Day Smoke Out (Festival)

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I am beyond jealous of this line up…

I have not seen quite a line up like this in a long time.

Where do I start talking about this amazing festival? 

Sublime?  Seriously?  I am so curious to see how this is going to pan out.  Who is this 20 year old Rome who picked up the singing duties?  Will it be just a glorified Long Beach Dub Allstars?

Why am I asking so many questions???  I am excited that is why.

Pennywise will be playing one of the days with their new singer who was just assigned as Jim Lindberg announced his departure of the band last month after being with the band for 19 years.  Zoli Teglas from handcore punk band Ignite is taking over the duties temporarily.  I am so curious to see how this goes.

Pennywise’s Fletcher Dragge had this to say about the replacement:

“As everybody knows, Jim has left the band and we’re looking for a new singer. For the time being our friend Zoli has agreed to fill in for Jim for a couple shows to avoid having to cancel them while we look for a permanent replacement.”

Acts like Cypress Hill, Deftones, Method Man & Red Man, Bad Brains, Afrika Bambaataa (wow, seriously…wow), Mix Master Mike, Goodie Mob (reunion performance), Hieroglyphics, and the Geto Boys (reunion performance) all in a span of two days all hosted by Cheech & Chong really makes me wish this was a touring festival. 

Sadly though, it is in California and there is no way I am going to be at that show this year.  I hope to read good things about it and I thank my pals over at Earshot Media for giving me the heads up.

Download This!, Indie, Live Shows, Music, New Release, Pop Rock, Rock

What’s So Great About The Grates?

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I love it when I hear a song that I have to listen to over and over again because I like it so much.  I put it on replay so that each time it plays though I can find something else about that song, perhaps a certain beat or a lyric that I might have missed around the first time.

This is the case with a song titled “Burn Bridges” that my pals over at Thirty Tigers sent me this afternoon to check out.  The song is by an Australian band called The Grates who will actually be releasing their sophomore album titled Teeth Lost, Hearts Won through Thirty Tigers.

One listen to this song and there is a pretty good chance you are going to think The Grates are great too.  It has this Mates Of State positive-makes-you-want-to-smile feel while at the same time being edgy and aggressive.  I can hear hints of female driven 90’s bands as well as current indie rock style providing for a great listen.  With the lead vocalist Patience sounding a lot like a young Gwen Stefani (before the solo crap) this band exempts a lot of energy and aggressive raw fun.  I am really looking forward to hearing the rest of Teeth Lost, Hearts Won.  The album drops on September 15th.

To add to my excitement the band is actually going to be playing some shows with my favorite ladies Those Darlins.  Sadly they will not make it to the Cleveland show next week when Those Darlins return but I guess I will live.  Hopefully they will make a stop here sometime soon.  They sound like they would be a lot of fun to see live.

DOWNLOAD THIS! – The Grates – “Burn Bridges”

So seriously, did you dig that song as much as I did?  Do you want more?  Well head over to their MySpace page for a bunch of other tracks.

Better yet, have some fun and watch their videos:


The Grates Live (More Dates TBA):
September 3rd – Boston, MA – The Middle East Upstairs w/ Viennagram
September 4th – New York, NY – The Mercury Lounge w/ Tiger City
September 13th – Morrison, CO – The Monolith Music Festival at Red Rocks
September 18th – Phoenix, AZ – The Rhythm Room w/ Most Serene Republic
September 19th – Los Angeles, CA – Spaceland w/ Most Serene Republic
October 8th – Little Rock, AR – Whitewater Tavern w/ Those Darlins
October 9th – Norman, OK – The Opolis w/ Those Darlins
October 10th – Lawrence, KS – Jackpot Music Hall w/ Those Darlins
October 14th – Salt Lake City, UT – Kilby Court w/ Those Darlins
October 16th – Seattle, WA – Sunset Tavern w/ Those Darlins
October 18th – Eugene, OR – Sams Bonds Garage w/ Those Darlins
October 20th – San Francisco, CA – The Rickshaw Stop w/ Those Darlins
October 27th – Albuquerque, NM – Launch Pad w/ Those Darlins
October 29th – Dallas, TX – The Cavern w/ Those Darlins
October 30th – Austin, TX – The Continental Club w/ Those Darlins

Band info:

Australia’s The Grates are set to release their anticipated sophomore album Teeth Lost, Hearts Won on September 15th via Thirty Tigers/Dew Process. The 13-song album was produced by Peter Katis (Interpol, The National) at Tarquin Studios in Connecticut and features guest appearances by Kori Gardner of Mates of State (vocals on “Milk Eyes“) and Tim Fite (vocals on “Not Today”). On this album, the follow up to their 2006 Interscope Records debut, Gravity Won’t Get You High, The Grates have brought a depth and density to the songwriting – the lyrics are raw and poignant and the sonics more biting and aggressive.

“If Teeth Lost, Hearts Won was a beast, I imagine it’d be like something from Where The Wild Things Are,” lead singer and front woman Patience says. “They’re big and scary, but they’ve also got this sensitivity, and pick up the little kid and protect him.” Drummer Alana adds, “Or maybe like the griffin In Alice In Wonderland. He’s like a lion and eagle together, but a really gentle creature.”

The band, who have recently relocated to Brooklyn, NY in order to make American touring easier, have confirmed a co-headlining tour with Those Darlins in October. Fresh off a completely sold out residency in New York City and various dates supporting Passion Pit, the band have also confirmed a performance at the Monolith Music Festival at Red Rocks on September 13th (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Phoenix, Mars Volta, etc) with additional live dates with Most Serene Republic.

In Australia, The Grates have played numerous sold out headline tours, played major festivals such as Big Day Out, Homebake, Falls Festival, Southbound and stole the show at Splendour In The Grass. Gravity Won’t Get You High has gone Gold in Australia while Teeth Lost, Hearts Won is well on its way to Gold status as well.

The American record release follows a highly successful trip to the U.S. for the SXSW Music Festival in March. While in Austin, the band played five buzzed about shows in four days and gained a massive amount of recognition for their highly energetic performances.

Cleveland, Good Times, Live Shows, Music, Personal Entry, Rock

Memories of The Veil and looking forward to the Way Of Life

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Sometimes I absolutely hate social networking websites.

I can care less about the constant status posting of some people on Facebook.  I do not need to know how many steps it took for you to get your mail this morning or how tired you are and wish you could sleep in some more.  Truth is some of these posts are just TMI, too much information.

I also love social networking websites too.

These days it is so much easier to reconnect with friends of the past without driving all over the city to find them.  There is no awkwardness in finding old friends on social networking websites.  All you have to do it request to be their friend and suddenly you have reconnected instantly.

In the case of this post I have reconnected with a old friend, rather friends and I owe it to the social networking site Facebook.

When I was just a young punk kid I had the pleasure of hanging around a high school band foursome called Witch’s Veil.  I remember going to a certain house I am sure a lot of my high school friends remember having good times at and would watch them play in the backyard garage.

Years later after high school and a break up, the band re-grouped with a most of the original members and called themselves The Veil.  By this time I had become pretty good friends with the band and hung out with them on many occasions.

At my young naive age I wanted nothing more than to be in their band but alas there was no room for me.  Jacob, Norm, Jamie, and Bryan were all great friends to me but they had control of the direction of the band and honestly they knew I could not play an instrument had my life depended on it let alone needed an extra person to their band. I could sing some, but they already had two great singers that took control of the songs.  I knew it was not happening but I never stopped thinking of how fun it would have been to partake in band practice.

I understood and never really bugged them about my short lived dream.  Still, I was fascinated with being around them so I hung out at their practice space and watched them do their thing.  I loved the process of a jam turning into a 4 minute rock bash complete with guitar solos and drum solos.

Still I wanted to be in that damn band so badly.  I remember one night I grabbed a tambourine and started keeping with the beat.  They guys got a kick of it and before I knew it I was labeled “Tambourine Man”.  From then on I would grab a tambourine and a beer at every practice and play along to all of the songs.  I became an unofficial member of sorts…

Soon they invited me on a  world tour and I would supply the hardest tambourine solos everyone had ever seen….no…that did not happen.

Hell, I did not even play live with them it was just a practice thing for kicks and giggles.  The truth is they did not need a live tambourine man, and I knew it.  They did however need a friend and a fan to support them.  I was pretty good at doing that.

They would invite me to their shows and I as well as a good group of friends would attend as many as we could.  I hung out with them before the shows, and drank with them after.  I was almost a roadie of sorts but never helped them move their equipment but did drink their beer.

The band later broke up because of indifferences but still remained friends throughout the years.  After all the foursome knew each other since high school.  They still remained friends but just did their own thing musically with some staying in bands and others starting families.

I did my best to keep in touch with them all but sometimes you just can’t help what happens over time.

When you grow old your life changes and everyone know that.  You meet new people, move in different directions, and sadly lose touch with good friends.  I lost touch with the members of The Veil but not completely.  Once in a blue moon I would run into them and they were just as happy to see me as back in the day.  The term friend for life comes to mind when I think of them.

In 2007 the world lost an amazing person as Bryan Collyard lost his life in an accident.  I can honestly say he was one of the more friendly people I will ever have had the pleasure to have in my life.  He and hung out a lot throughout the years before, during, and after The Veil.  He was a good man and everyone who knew him would say the same thing.

I heard rumors of the rest of the band getting together after Brian’s passing and jamming out.  A couple of weeks ago Jacob messaged me on Facebook letting me know that the band regrouped and were going to be playing a show.  Someone who I have not kept in touch with for years found me online and informed me of plans with the rest of the band.

Jacob informed me that he, Norm, Jamie, and friends created Way Of Life after jamming out a bunch of times after Brian’s passing.  The remaining members of the band knew that Brian wanted them to go on and after two years of intense jam sessions they decided to start playing out live.

This Thursday Way Of Life will be playing at the Beachland Ballroom at around 8:30pm.  I will be in attendee and would not miss this for the world.  Tickets are only $5.00.

To get a small taste of their music head over to their MySpace page.

Band Bio:

Way of Life is a “Straight up Rock n’Roll” band in the vein of the Stones, G n’R, and Social D. Norm, Jacob, and Jamie originally played in the popular Cleveland 90’s band The Veil, regularly selling out venues such as the Odeon and Peabody’s and opening for national acts such as Creed and Days of the New. James Genero has also been a long time Cleveland musician.

In the original band, Jacob played drums, Scott played bass, Jamie sang, and Bryan Collyard played guitar. After the passing of their loved long time friend and guitarist Bryan in January of 2007, the three, without really much effort at all, started getting together and ‘jamming’ some of the old tunes they use to play together. Being a group of friends that enjoy getting together by a good camp fire and breaking out the acoustic guitars and hand drums and having jam sessions, they in this case also did so, getting together at the houses, the three all playing acoustic guitars and singing the old songs. After getting together a dozen or so times, they realized it felt good and somehow was just right- they liked the positions they assumed instrumentally, thus deciding to keep those roles and seek out a drummer and bass player. They have found the perfect bass player and drummer.

After two years in the making, Way of Life is ready to come out. Way of Life stands for exactly what the Cleveland music scene is; a Way of Life…………

Download This!, Indie, Music, Music News, Music Video, Pop

My Hero: The Indie/Undie Performer Har Mar Superstar

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If you have never heard of Har Mar Superstar and claim to have a sense of humor as well as hold an appreciation towards those who work hard at the music they create, you are missing out.

I will say though, Har Mar is not for everyone.

Born Sean Tillman, Har Mar Superstar can be defined as a singer/songwriter with major indie(undie)-pop / R&B / dance qualities.  He is a performer like none other and has made a huge name for himself in the UK in past years.  In 2004 he released The Handler and in October he will be dropping an all new album titled Dark Touches.  Not only does he write his own music, but he also writes for others making this guy one of the harder working artists out there.

On Dark Touches, Har Mar will take his dance club pop style to a whole new level thanks to his dedicated work to his moniker and will feature a huge roster of special guests including P.O.S., The Faint‘s sick beat creators Clark Baechle and Jacob Thirle, and even is joined by John Fields who has produced many acts including Andrew WK and Rooney.

To make things even more interesting Dark Touches will include a track that Har Mar co-wrote that was originally intended for pop superstar Britney Spears.  Rejected by Britany Spears’ management for unknown reasons, Har Mar decided he keep the track “Tall Boy” and include it on his upcoming album with unchanged lyrics and his added style making for an interesting listen.

DOWNLOAD THIS! – Har Mar Superstar – “Tall Boy”

I can still remember the first time I had the pleasure of checking out Har Mar Superstar.  It was 2001 and the then unknown artist was the opening act for Tenacious D.  Har Mar came to the stage all by himself and performed to the crowd his material while slowly stripping throughout to his tighty whities.

The crowd was speechless.

I was cheering as loudly as I could. All the silent folk around me turned their heads from the stage and looked at me with the same puzzled look.  Others in the theater were cheering too but I am pretty sure that not all of the applause was sincere.  Mine was.

I cheered for a couple of reasons.

One being for his performance.  It was good.  He sang pop like songs sometimes heavy on the R&B over pre-recorded material.  He danced about the stage in his own style and proved to have better moves that many people who frequent over priced dance clubs.

I also cheered because this guy had the balls to take the stage and do his thing without hesitation.  There was a lot of heckling and plenty of booing during the show but Har Mar just blew it off like it was nothing.  He believed in himself and even if his performance included scrapping his attire, I appreciated his performance.

Since the night I made sure to check out all that he has released and I not once was disappointed.  “DUI”, a track from The Handler is a track that still remains in heavy rotation in my musical listening choices.

It’s been five years since I last heard from Har Mar and it’s true, I am excited to hear what is to come from this insanely talented performer.  Look for the new album to drop in the states on October 13th.

Here is the video for “DUI”:

Press info found on Har Mar Superstar’s website:

After a five-year proper-album break since 2004’s The Handler, Har Mar Superstar, sexy as ever, is ready to unleash Dark Touches on the masses. On Dark Touches, Sean Tillmann – the singer, songwriter, and producer behind the Har Mar moniker – delivers his most club-friendly collection of jams yet. Tillmann’s silky smooth croon and tongue-in-cheek lyrics lead a nonstop dance party that blends everything from synth-pop to R&B, with ample hooks around every corner.

Dark Touches builds a bridge between the worlds of indie and Top 40 dance music, thanks in part to an eclectic group of collaborators. The album’s many guests include John Fields (Andrew WK, The Jonas Brothers, Rooney), The Faint’s beatmakers Clark Baechle and Jacob Thiele, singer-songwriter Adam Green, P.O.S. of the Rhymesayers collective, Neon Neon’s Boom Bip, Flowers of Doom, and Samaire Armstrong. The Bird and The Bee’s Greg Kurstin, who has also produced tracks for Britney Spears, Kylie Minogue, and Lily Allen, co-wrote and lent his studio wizardry to “Tall Boy.” The track was originally intended for Spears and, with the unchanged lyrics, takes on a vibrant new life in the hands of Har Mar.

Of course no Har Mar song is complete without Tillmann’s signature lyrics, which are both outrageously absurd and witty. “I Got Next,” which features The Bird and The Bee’s Inara George, details Tillmann’s practice of asking women to sign contracts that put him next in line to date if they ever leave their current boyfriend. He has also penned an anthem for the ladies with “Girls Night,” a track that was once intended for The Cheetah Girls, and like “Tall Boy,” maintains the original lyrics, written from a female perspective.

Tillmann is also getting ready to dip his toes into the world of Hollywood with the release of Whip It, a film directed by Drew Barrymore. As if he isn’t wearing enough hats already, Tillmann is actively developing his own movie scripts and sitcom pilots. Along with his golden pipes, the ability to juggle multiple creative outlets is sure to win him entry into both the hearts and undergarments of women and men everywhere.

Get ready, everyone. Dark Touches is coming!

As always, if you are on Facebook, please stop by the page, become a fan, and say hi:
HAR MAR SUPERSTAR FACEBOOK PAGE.

You can also follow Har Mar on TWITTER & listen to his music at MYSPACE.

Bad Times, Death, Hip Hop, Music, Music News, The Suck

R.I.P. DJ AM (Adam Goldstein) – 1974-2009

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Travis Barker & DJ AM
Travis Barker & DJ AM

I got home around 2:30am this morning when I checked Twitter before shutting my eyes on an amazing day.

Sadly I read something I wish was not true.  DJ AM was found dead in his NYC home.

Seriously?  WTF.

Having personal battles in his life, it was stated that the popular DJ who has worked with a whole slew of folk including Crazy Town, Jay Z, and most recently Travis Barker ended his life by an apparent drug addiction.

Having narrowly escaped death not even a year ago from a fatal plane crash it appears as if he simply could not deal with life anymore and made a terrible decision to pull the plug on his life.

Travis Barker tweeted the following this afternoon:

Don’t know how i am gonna play 2night but i am for AM. My brother is gone.i love u and miss u, i’ll never forget all the good times we had. I’ll never forget everything we’ve been thru and every time i play the drums i’ll think of you. U were an amazing friend/DJ/human being. Rest In Peace my brother, this really fucks me up.

It’s just sad to see such talent just end it all.  He made a powerful impact on so many other artists…

I appreciate all music out there so obviously I was familiar with some of his work but not all of it.  I do know that he was too young to leave this world the way he did.

Perhaps the most stand out DJ AM material to me is that of the DJ AM and Travis Barker (TRV$/DJ-AM) mix tapes that are available on the internet.  The TRV$/DJ-AM mixes are available for download free of charge.  If you have not heard them before you should check out what the late DJ and drumming sensation Travis Barker created.  The mixes incorporate live drumming by Travis Barker along side DJ AM spinning just about anything he could get his hands on.

RIP DJ…