Sigur Ros Just As Loud and Beautiful Despite Stripped-Down Approach

Photo: Metcalf/Getty Whenever and wherever they play, Iceland’s Sigur Rós bring with them long, deep tracts of space: the endless-ocean reverb that surrounds Jón Pór Birgisson’s groaning, bowed guitar; the dramatic waiting in the opening measures of songs like “Svefn-G-Englar” andf “Ny Batteri” from the band’s 1999 album, Ágaetis Byrjun; the extended afterglow of Birgisson’s falsetto vocals. But last night at New York’s United Palace Theater, the opening date of their current U.S. tour, Birgisson, bassist Georg Hólm, keyboardist-guitarist Kjartan Sveinsson and drummer Orri Dyrason brought along even more space than usual, leaving the extra strings and occasional horns at home. For the first time since their debut U.S. tour in the spring of 2001, Sigur Rós are performing live here solely as an electric quartet. The effect was a modern arctic spin on the classic, galactic rock of the early Seventies Pink Floyd: simple, powerful notes, chords and flourishes that gathered weight and force as they boomed through the room. Imagine a whole night of “Echoes” from the Floyd’s Meddle — with even more room for echo. The grandeur was typically glacial for much of Sigur Rós’ two-hour show but also faster and harder in the closing, climbing rapture of “Hoppípolla,” the drummed-bass-string march “Hafsól” and the eccentric-boogie glee of “Gobbledigook.” The return to basics may be a combined side product of the majestic, mostly outdoor shows featured in the recent concert documentary Hlemmur and the quick, mostly live sessions for the group’s latest studio album, Med sud í eyrum vid spilum ednalaust. “We feel freer, more open up there,” Hólm admitted backstage, after the concert. The big smile on Birgisson’s face as he strummed hard on his acoustic guitar in “Gobbledigook” was cheerful proof. It was a first-night show, and there were a couple of rough spots. Birgisson had a minor amp crisis at one point, holding up a song, and when he asked members of the opening Icelandic band Par

Published: 2008-09-18 Provider: Rolling Stone Keywords: Rock News, Live Shows

U2's Manager Hurt In Horse Fall

Irish rockers U2's longtime manager Paul McGuiness narrowly escaped paralysis recently after he was involved in a horrific horse riding accident. The music mogul, who also manages the careers of singer PJ Harvey and New York rockers The Rapture,[...] Read more!

Published: 2008-05-28 Provider: StarPulse

Justice Of The Unicorns Envision A Magic Marker Rapture In Our Worst Album Cover Of The Year Race [Art?]

As so often with entries in the WACOTY, the sleeve for Angels With Uzis from Brooklyn rock band Justice Of The Unicorns tiptoes along that fine line between "best" and "worst," with its...

Published: 2008-02-21 Provider: Idolator Keywords: art?,justice of the unicorns,Top

Single Minded: New Tracks From ‘High School Musical 2,’ Junior Senior, Eisley, Davey Havok’s Blaqk Audio and Lori McKenna

Cast of High School Musical 2, “What Time Is It?” [MySpaceTV] In spite of hard-learned lessons throughout the late Nineties, the answer to this question is apparently not “4:30.” Just give in and play this already. You know you’re wondering what it sounds like. Junior Senior, “Can I Get Get” [Junior Senior MySpace] Remember “Rapture”? Junior Senior are really, really hoping the answer to that question is “No.” Eisley, “Come Clean” [Eisley MySpace] Texas band turns the “Dust in the Wind” chord progression into a lithe and lovely late-summer ballad. C, G and A Minor send a letter of heartfelt thanks. Blaqk Audio, “Semiotic Love” [Blaqk Audio MySpace] Davey Havok from AFI fuses Hi-NRG and Darkwave, which should thrill the oft-neglected gym rat/ponyboy demographic. Lori McKenna, “Witness to Your Life” [Rhapsody] McKenna’s got a tough voice and a bottomless supply of big, winning hooks. Also, she said if High School Musical 2 sells more records than she does this week, she’s going to retire. Then she threw a TV.

Published: 2007-08-15 Provider: Rolling Stone Keywords: Rock News

Debbie Harry Reveals Fountain of Youth, Eagles Plan New Album, Lil Jon Recruits Crunk Rockers

Blondie’s Deborah Harry, 62, has revealed the secret to her youthful-ish looks: black-sheep embryos. Around the time she was experimenting with rap on “Rapture,” Harry also experimented with “fresh cell replacement” (and later with good ol’ plastic surgery). Joe Walsh says to expect a new Eagles album and tour in 2008 (the LP will be the band’s first studio release since 1979’s The Long Run). Lil Jon has recruited R. Kelly, Ice Cube, Kid Rock and many more to join him on his new crunk/rock album, appropriately titled Crunk Rock. Check out this 20-plus minute video about the making of the new Wu-Tang album, 8 Diagrams, and play our favorite new drinking game, “Count the Blunts.” Fueled by satanic, murderous lyrics, Ozzfest’s Denver stop almost degenerated into a full-blown riot, or Woodstock ’99.

Published: 2007-08-01 Provider: Rolling Stone Keywords: Rock News

Fricke’s Picks: James Blackshaw

In 1999, James Blackshaw was a teenage guitarist from the London suburbs, playing in indie-rock bands. Then a friend played him The Dance of Death and Other Plantation Favorites, a mid-Sixties album of solo acoustic fingerpicking by the iconic American guitarist John Fahey. “I remember not quite understanding it,” Blackshaw says now of that record, a seminal document of Fahey’s orchestral technique and compositional fusion of rugged Delta blues, Indian-raga modes and pioneer spirituals. But Blackshaw was intrigued enough to attend Fahey’s London concert that year (the latter died in 2001) and teach himself how to fingerpick and play in alternate tunings by studying Fahey’s recordings and American folk songs like Elizabeth Cotten’s “Freight Train.” “I never got on that well in bands,” Blackshaw admits, laughing. “What attracted me to Fahey’s music was that it was solitary — very austere but very emotional.” Nearly a decade later, Blackshaw, 26, is one of the best and most original instrumentalists in the new, acoustic renaissance, with a series of luminous solo recordings on which he enriches the full-bodied ring and drone of his twelve-string arpeggios with the gentle, symphonic blush of tamboura, harmonium and prayer-circle drumming. Compared to the intricately scored bloom of Blackshaw’s 2007 album, The Cloud of Unknowing (Tompkins Square), his early small-pressing releases (just reissued by Tompkins Square) are learning steps, lush and ambitious in increments. Celeste, first issued in 2004 in a microrun of 80 CD-Rs, is deceptive simplicity: a two-part half-hour suite of tumbling, repetitive motifs that mutate and expand like rippling circles of pond water. Lost Prayers and Motionless Dances, also from 2004, is a single piece, a lusty serenade that ends in a soft, hissing sea of radio static, echoing Fahey’s own experiments with folk rapture and raw-sound portraiture.

Published: 2008-05-08 Provider: Rolling Stone Keywords: Rock News, Fricke's Picks

Rock Daily’s New Year’s Eve Rock Guide: All the Essential U.S. Shows, Plus TV Specials

With the ball set to drop in less than seventy-two hours, Rock Daily has the comprehensive list of all the best concerts and must-see rock TV going on New Year’s Eve across the country. Whether it’s Nas in Los Angeles or Radiohead Webcasting via Al Gore’s channel, here’s our New Year’s Rockin’ Guide, conveniently organized by city: Concerts: New York Patti Smith @ Bowery Ballroom Velvet Revolver @ Hammerstein Ballroom Slick Rick, Kudu, Moby (DJ set), Holy Ghost (DJ set) @ Studio B Earl Greyhound, The Big Sleep @ Mercury Lounge moe. @ Radio City Music Hall Gov’t Mule @ Beacon Theatre Les Savy Fav @ Bowery Ballroom Mr. Brownstone @ Music Hall of Williamsburg Gogol Bordello @ Terminal 5 Nellie McKay @ Joe’s Pub Los Angeles Chris Brown @ Crash Mansion Nas, Salt-N-Pepa @ House of Blues Bloc Party (DJ set), The Rapture (DJ set), Talib Kweli @ Roosevelt Hotel Justice (DJ set), Peaches, 2 Live Crew, A-Trak @ HARD New Year’s Eve Music Festival Rufus Wainwright, Belinda Carlisle @ Walt Disney Concert Hall MSTRKRFT, Z-Trip, Lazaro Casanova, LA Riots, Franki Chan @ Giant Maximus Fest at 826 Francisco St Atlanta Band of Horses @ The Earl Black Lips @ Drunken Unicorn Derek Trucks, The North Mississippi All-Stars @ Fox Theatre Widespread Panic @ Phillips Arena Atlantic City Elvis Costello & The Samples @ House of Blues Boston Soulive @ Paradise Rock Club Chicago Spoon, The Sea and Cake @ Metro Umphrey’s McGee @ The Aragon Black Kids @ Empty Bottle Cleveland Rusted Root @ House of Blues Dallas The Old 97’s @ Longhorn Ballroom Detroit Cherry Poppin’ Daddies @ MGM Grand Detroit Casino Las Vegas Kanye West @ The Pearl Backstreet Boys @ Body English The Bangles, The Doobie Brothers @ The Fremont Street Experience Goo Goo Dolls @ House of Blues 3 Doors Down @ Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Miami R. Kelly, Keyshia Cole, J. Holiday @ American Airlines Arena New Orleans Buddy Guy @ House of Blues Oklahoma City The

Published: 2008-01-02 Provider: Rolling Stone Keywords: Rock News

White Stripes Kick Off Summer Tour With Surprise Nashville Gig

After a nearly two-year hiatus, Jack and Meg White reunited at Nashville’s Cannery Ballroom May 18th for an intimate surprise gig. The sold-out show — which packed the 1,000-seat venue — was a practice run before the start of the Stripes’ summer tour. Donning classic White Stripes garb — Jack in a black T-shirt and red pants, Meg sporting a black and white polka dot dress — the duo delved into a flawless hour-and-a-half set without missing a step, making it all the more difficult to believe they hadn’t performed together publicly since December of 2005. “How is my new hometown doing?” White asked the crowd — which included fellow Raconteurs Jack Lawrence and Brendan Benson and the Rapture’s Luke Jenner — before launching into an appropriately Southern-fried cover of Hank Locklin’s “Tennessee Border.” Backlit by eerie red lighting, the rockers then mounted a set of tracks that spanned their eight-year career. They screeched and shook through early tracks “Do,” “Apple Blossom” and “Hotel Yorba,” revisited crowd pleasers like “We Are Going To Be Friends” and “Jolene,” and then played the new single, “Icky Thump.” When it was all over, the electrified (and joyfully drunken) crowd stomped its approval, coaxing Jack and Meg back onstage for a three-song encore that sealed the show’s status as one for the history books. Their fist-pumping, hair-shaking take on “Seven Nation Army” lured even the most buttoned up Nashvillians in the room onto the floor to let loose. Just before exiting the stage for the last time, Jack addressed his hometown crowd once again: “Thanks to all of you for coming to see us on short notice.” We wouldn’t have missed it for the world, Jack.

Published: 2007-05-21 Provider: Rolling Stone Keywords: Live Shows

Bioshock Survivor Mode Hands-on

Can you survive the halls of Rapture once again?

Published: 2008-08-07 Provider: AskMen.com

Studios scramble in wake of 'Harry Potter' delay

"Harry Potter" fans are seething. "Twilight" devotees are in a state of giddy rapture. Will Ferrell's getting nervous.

Published: 2008-08-26 Provider: Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Bioshock

DVD Reviews: It's a rare vidgame that makes you want to stop shooting and appreciate the scenery. "Bioshock," one of the most anticipated non-sequel videogame of the year, takes place in Rapture, a dystopian undersea city so intricately detailed and well thought out that players will find themselves truly and completely immersed.

Published: 2007-08-22 Provider: Variety.com

Flight of the Red Balloon (Le Voyage du ballon rouge)

Film Reviews: Loosely inspired by Albert Lamorrisse's 1956 classic "The Red Balloon," Hou Hsiao Hsien's French-language debut gracefully extends his recent thematic concerns -- specifically, with the hectic pace and isolated nature of urban life -- and relocates them to contempo Paris. Filmed with the Taiwanese director's characteristic sensitivity, this eloquent study of loneliness and postmodern drift likely will be received with more admiration than rapture by the helmer's followers. But Juliette Binoche's turn as a harried single mom and pic's enlivening portrait of domestic rupture make this a highly accessible Hou, ensuring healthy fest life and, perhaps, moderately stronger arthouse biz than usual.

Published: 2007-05-17 Provider: Variety.com