Weekend Rock List: “Rock Band” and “Guitar Hero” Greatest Hits

Photo: Getty With Guitar Hero: World Tour finally arriving this weekend and Rock Band 2 finally playable for PlayStation 3, we anticipate spending our entire weekend riffing, drumming and singing along with polygon characters and plastic instruments. Tell us your favorite jams from any installment of the Guitar Hero and Rock Band series, and on Monday we’ll reveal the greatest hits from both games. Before you attempt Van Halen’s “Hot For Teacher” on GH:WT, here’s our picks: Nine Inch Nails – “The Perfect Drug” Danzig – “Mother” Weezer – “Say It Ain’t So” Boston – “Foreplay” Radiohead – “Creep” Related Stories: • Rock Band 2 Reveals 20 Free Downloads • Microsoft Says Rock Band, Guitar Hero Do 3.8 Downloads a Month • Exclusive Video: How Tool Came to Guitar Hero: World Tour

Publicado: 2008-10-24 Proveedor: Rolling Stone Etiquetas: Rock News, Rock Lists

Gadget Envy: “Guitar Hero: World Tour”

What It Is: The latest iteration of the hit Guitar Hero series, which adds drums, vocals and a giant bunch of eclectic jam-ready tunes. Who It’s For: Anybody who has been jonesing to drum but felt loyal to the Guitar Hero interface and design. Why It’s Worthy: Let’s start with the hardware: the drum kit that comes with the deluxe edition of Guitar Hero: World Tour is truly awesome, featuring the quietest and most sensitive pads on the fake drums market. Plus, the added cymbals give it a more distinct, natural feel. The song list is impressive and eclectic (Sting and Tool in the same game? Sure!) and Guitar Hero’s visual interface still stands head and shoulders above Rock Band. The depth of options in the customization of your rockers is staggering. Our Only Complaint: One of the elements that falls short is the new option for guitar solos. The new guitars have a touch pad that facilitates slides, but it’s not as sensitive as it could be and the solos become infinitely more difficult if you’re playing with an older axe. Cost/Where to Get It: $189.99 for the full bundle, $59.99 for the game only on XBox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2 and Wii; more info at Guitar Hero’s official site. Related Stories: • Wii Music: Nintendo Designer Mutates Music Games • Fall Gaming 2008: How Real Can It Get? • Gadget Envy: Rock Band 2 • Rock Band Makers Releasing Beatles Game in 2009

Publicado: 2008-11-13 Proveedor: Rolling Stone Etiquetas: Rock News, Gadget Envy

Having Survived Industrial Rock, Ogre Takes on the Future

Nivek Ogre, the founder of industrial icons Skinny Puppy who was born Kevin Ogilvie but now just goes by “Ogre,” has been around both literally and figuratively. Born and raised in Canada, his work with Skinny Puppy (as well as KMFDM, Pigface, Ministry, Revolting Cocks and just about every other major band in the genre) took him all around the world before he finally settled in a serene mountain area in suburban Los Angeles. “My head is always my head, and it’s my most dysfunctional tool, but I have a sense of comfort in places that don’t feel like home,” he explains. He’s produced all brands of art and survived heroin addiction and has had an amazingly productive year: he stars in the surreal movie musical Repo! The Genetic Opera and also has a new album from his project OhGr called Devils In My Details. The album, a left-field construction of processed jams and samples, moves further away from the pounding noise of his former bands towards something more abstract without sacrificing Ogre’s trademark theatricality. “We wanted to make the album an immersive experience. For me, records used to be that, but for today’s kids it’s video games, so we crafted a lot of sound design based on jump starts from video games. It’s a very crafted record. You’ve got to turn it up really loud.” “Looking for a reason to do the record became a big deal for us,” adds Mark Walk, the other half of OhGr. “A lot of people make a record just because the label says they can.” Walk created a number of audio-video loops based on images and films in the public domain. “We started jamming while watching these loops and using them as inspiration. We had a clip of Liberace performing this sort of classical lick, so at least part of the record was inspired by the image of his hands playing the keys. It was a different way to make a record, but it felt really natural after a while.” As for his participation in Repo!, it was a dream come true for Ogre. “My fantasy as a kid was to be able to sit in

Publicado: 2008-10-16 Proveedor: Rolling Stone Etiquetas: Rock News

The 20 Best Live Bands Playing Right Now

This weekend’s rock list, Best Live Band Playing Right Now, got an awesome and terrifying response from you all - thanks for all the nominations. After careful consideration, here is our final list. Now go see these guys! 1. White Stripes 2. Radiohead 3. Pearl Jam 4. Rage Against the Machine 5. U2 6. Metallica 7. Flaming Lips 8. My Morning Jacket 9. The Hold Steady 10. Arcade Fire 11. The Raconteurs 12. Wilco 13. Yeah Yeah Yeahs 14. Red Hot Chili Peppers 15. Gogol Bordello 16. Kings of Leon 17. Muse 18. Dave Matthews Band 19. Tool 20. LCD Soundsystem Photo: AFP/STADLER/Getty

Publicado: 2007-07-24 Proveedor: Rolling Stone Etiquetas: Rock News

Former Replacements Drummer Chris Mars’ Dark “Tolerance”

Photo: Courtesy Jonathan Levine Gallery Chris Mars made a name for himself as the spastic timekeeper in the Replacements, the booze-soaked Minneapolis post-punk band he helped co-found. But with rock stardom in his rearview, Mars has made a second splash in the art world. Tolerance, his first book, collects 159 paintings created between 2000 and 2007. Mars’ work is surreal and gothic, equal parts Tim Burton film, Tool video and demented children’s cartoon, with titles like “Fuck If I’ll Hold My Tongue” and “Miserably Obedient.” Tolerance also includes essays and notes by Mars, which helps to illustrate the evolution of his work from the deeply personal (his early work was inspired by his brother’s schizophrenia) to the intensely political (as the intro to a piece called “The Plea,” Mars writes, “Mother (Cindy) Sheehan at top is represented in all-out anger as her voice and her every breath relases the spirit of her fallen son Casey…Bush, yellow dunce, is at the center of the mess.”). Tolerance is available through Billy Shire Fine Arts Press. Related Stories: • The Replacements Considered Reuniting • The Replacements Announce Reissues • Album Review: The Replacements, Let It Be (Deluxe Version)

Publicado: 2008-09-29 Proveedor: Rolling Stone Etiquetas: Rock News

Fricke’s Picks: Motorpsycho

“Suite: Little Lucid Moments,” the opening track on Little Lucid Moments (Rune Grammofon), by the Norwegian power trio Motorpsycho, is not little. It is a mini-album in itself, an improbable union over four parts and 21 minutes of Tool, Goo-era Sonic Youth and the ‘69 Yes: angular riffing, volcanic guitar-bass-drums debate and surprising pop-sheen vocal harmonies. The second section is well named — “A Hoof to the Head” — and the gripping tumult in the third stretch, “Hallucifuge (Hyperrealistically Speaking),” explains why Motorpsycho are established prog-metal stars abroad. Bassist-singer Bent Saether and guitarist-singer Hans Magnus Ryan started the band in 1989, taking the name from Russ Meyer’s 1965 biker-gang B movie and throwing caution to the arctic winds over a long discography of hard-rock indulgence, including the two-CD epics Trust Us (1998) and Black Hole/Blank Canvas (2006). Little Lucid Moments — a single disc, and Saether and Ryan’s first album with new drummer Kenneth Kapstad — is pith in comparison, but just barely. The finale, “The Alchemyst,” is a 12-minute whirl of power-pop clang and polyrhythmic jamming with a soft space choir landing at the end. You wouldn’t want it any shorter. [Photo: Anja Basma]

Publicado: 2008-06-04 Proveedor: Rolling Stone Etiquetas: Fricke's Picks

Single Minded: Britney Spears, Eagles, Puscifer, Backstreet Boys and Armor for Sleep

Every Tuesday Single Minded highlights new tracks hitting stores (or the Web) this week. On Fridays, come back for rarities, remixes, mash-ups and more. Britney Spears, Blackout [Full Album Stream] Well, here it is — after all the head-shaving, car-crunching, baby-bailing, Starbucks-drinking, court-cursing and dance-bungling. The most shocking thing about it? It’s actually pretty good. Backstreet Boys, Unbreakable [Full Stream Album] Somewhere in a dorm room in Okinawa, two college seniors are preparing for the greatest comeback in YouTube history. The Eagles, “How Long” [Official Site] The Eagles’ latest is available only at Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club, two places that give new meaning to the phrase “you can check out any time you like / but you can never leave.” Puscifer, V Is for Vagina [Full Album Stream] Maynard James Keenan pairs intoxicatingly bleak art rock with a bunch of lame jokes about genitalia. You know, totally uncharted terrain for a guy who fronts a band called Tool. One day he will meet Kool Keith, and the two of them will form a rap-rock project called Michael Hunt. The universe will explode shortly thereafter. Armor for Sleep, Smile for Them [Full Album Stream] The second song on New Jersey outfit Armor For Sleep’s third album is called “Williamsburg,” which means in five years it’s going to cost them too much to play it.

Publicado: 2007-10-31 Proveedor: Rolling Stone Etiquetas: Single Minded

Otep Win MySpace Voter Registration Contest, Rocking Denver Tonight

Photo: Getty Like the Democratic nominee himself, Otep have been relying on first time voters this summer. As recent winners of Rock the Vote and MySpace’s DemROCKracy contest, which kicked off on July 1 and encouraged bands with MySpace pages to have their fans register to vote, Otep was awarded a spot on the bill of Rock the Vote’s Ballot Bash tonight, joining Fall Out Boy, N.E.R.D. and Jakob Dylan on stage at Denver’s Elli Caulkins Opera House. The contest awarded a spot on the bill to the band registering the most fans using their online voter registration tool. “We got involved about 48 hours before the contest ended. It was pretty intense,” Otep, the band’s front-woman and bold anti-war lyricist told RollingStone.com. The band registered 532 voters in two days. In 2008 alone, Rock the Vote’s online voter registration tool has helped over one million young people secure their spots at the polls, with an expected two million 18-29 year olds registered by the time November rolls along. It’s fitting that Otep, an anti-Bush, socially conscious band who have been speaking out against the war since it’s start in 2002, and whose MySpace page boasts a “Countdown to Bush’s last day,” should take the grand prize. “I’ve always been naturally politically minded,” Otep says. “I tend to like to stand up against what I see as unfair and evil — especially something that is glaringly unjust. I don’t know how to separate art from life.” Since 2004, Otep has called for the end of the Bush/Cheney administration at nearly every show. But the band’s not all talk: last year, they recorded their entire album in New Orleans to help out the city’s economy. “It’s the trickle down effect of the Bush administration. When we were there, we were blown away by what wasn’t happening,” she says. “The devastation of the area. The FEMA trailers sitting in enclosed parameters, like internment camps.” The band is also involved with the environmental organization Carbon Rally, and has worked with M

Publicado: 2008-08-25 Proveedor: Rolling Stone Etiquetas: Rock News, 2008 Election

Behind the Scenes at Grammys: Paramore, Beyonce, Mika, Aretha Franklin, More

The red carpet at the Grammy Awards this year was a bit like a bad acid trip: 500 feet of crimson carpet, a group of scary-looking Sgt. Pepper’s dancers with freaky makeup, an Amy Winehouse lookalike working for the TV Guide Channel and bleachers packed with crazed fans singing every song by the artists that came their way. Rock Daily spied Yoko Ono going in for a photo op with Beyoncé (but at the last second Solange jumped in to pose with her big sister instead), and Paramore singer Hayley Williams, who was the happiest girl on the carpet. “It’s an honor. I’m nervous. I’m worried I’m gonna trip because I don’t wear heels,” she said. Williams noted that she didn’t toss a few back to loosen up. “I don’t drink, but that’s okay. When we started touring, I wanted to be cool so I drank when we were overseas, but it doesn’t appeal to me.” Maynard James Keenan of Tool was pretty damn sure that his band wouldn’t be coming home with the Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance. “Nope. Foo Fighters will get it,” he said. “I hear they are performing with an orchestra. That’s gonna be amazing. I came for the fiftieth [anniversary of the Grammys],” he added. “This is my first time here.” The Plain White T’s worked the carpet with the Delilah, who’s an Olympic hopeful, and told us they’re recording their next album in April and shooting for a September 2008 release, while the extremely tall Mika revealed he’s somewhat inspired by prostitutes. “You know a lot of my lyrics are twisted,” he insisted. “I have a song called ‘Lollipop’ that four-year-olds sing, but the truth of the matter is it’s about a hooker. I would come across them at three o’clock in the morning coming out of the studio in Miami.” Akon announced he was hoping for “a hotel room full of ‘em” after the awards. Full of what, we naively asked. “Women!” he replied. The more wholesome Ne-Yo, who was up for five Grammys, wasn’t worried that having his

Publicado: 2008-02-11 Proveedor: Rolling Stone Etiquetas: Rock News

According to Baseless Evidence, Led Zeppelin and Metallica to Headline Bonnaroo

Led Zeppelin tour leaks keep coming from the strangest of sources. First, it was the Cult’s Ian Astbury blurting out what could be the biggest secret in rock as he announced his band would open for the still-unannounced and unconfirmed Zeppelin reunion tour. Now, “an anonymous reader” reportedly told the Lefsetz Letter writer Bob Lefsetz, “Zeppelin just confirmed for Bonnaroo. They can’t officially announce until after the London gig so pass it on! Also Metallica is confirmed on the bill too!” Zeppelin, the stars of Rolling Stone’s current issue, have not announced any dates outside of their December 10th reunion concert at London’s O2 Arena. Both rock bands make sense though for the ‘Roo: Led Zeppelin could single-handedly draw a Woodstock-sized audience to rural Tennessee even without a hundred other bands on the bill, plus the festival headlined the reunited Police last June. Metallica would continue Bonnaroo’s trend of putting hard acts on the marquee, as the festival experimented with Tool among its headliners in 2007. But can we really believe “an anonymous reader” of The Lefsetz Letter? We barely believe our own “anonymous readers.” Just two weeks ago, a fake Coachella flyer was making the rounds claiming that Radiohead, My Bloody Valentine and an unretired-from-the-stage David Bowie were headlining the 2008 Indio, CA, festival. But with the ever-increasing number of festivals being held in the summer, Led Zeppelin would seem like a major coup for the hippie heaven Bonnaroo … that is, unless, they can orchestrate a Phish reunion. Related Stories: Required Reading: Led Zeppelin’s 1975 Rolling Stone Interview With Cameron Crowe Led Zeppelin: The Story of the Most Sought-After Rock Reunion Is in the New Rolling Stone Zeppelin Watch: Ian Astbury says The Cult Will Open for Led Zep in Cincinnati Next Year [Photo: Getty]

Publicado: 2007-12-04 Proveedor: Rolling Stone Etiquetas: Rock News, Led Zeppelin Reunion, RS 12/13/07: Led Zeppelin

Fricke’s Picks: Porcupine Tree, the Future Kings of England and the Raspberries

The Art of Nightmares Porcupine Tree – the long-running British progressive-rock band founded and commanded by singer-guitarist-composer Steven Wilson – are rare in their field: obsessed not with fantasy but the death of it, particularly in children. At a recent head-trip gig at New York’s Beacon Theatre, films of sickly-white preteen zombies – hypnotized by computer screens, gulping medication, brandishing handguns – were projected on a screen behind Wilson during his tangled distortion-bomb riffing in the long title track of the recent album, Fear of a Blank Planet (Atlantic), and the record’s even longer centerpiece nightmare, “Anesthetize.” A schoolgirl ran amok in what looked like a ruined psych ward during the convulsive title instrumental from the group’s new EP, Nil Recurring (Transmission). Wilson started Porcupine Tree in 1987 as a home-studio experiment that has since evolved, live and on an extensive series of records, into an aggressively modern merger of Rush’s arena art rock, U.K. prog classicism – especially Pink Floyd’s eulogies to madness and King Crimson’s angular majesty – and the postgrunge vengeance of Tool. There are no dragons evident on Fear of a Blank Planet or Nil Returning. But there are plenty of demons. And King Crimson guitarist-sage Robert Fripp plays on both records, an impeccable seal of approval. New Royal Freaks Witches and fiends run riot through the lyrics and instrumental vapors of the six extended tracks on The Fate of Old Mother Orvis (Backwater), by the Future Kings of England. The audaciously named British band’s mix of art rock and freak folk is also rife with other specters – the pastoral Floyd, ’72 Genesis, the echosoup psychedelia of Amon Düül II – whipped together with an ardor that sounds like yesterday and tomorrow at once. Seventies Rock Candy Hard and sweet, the Raspberries were never the second coming of the Beatles. They were, in the early Seventies, and still are – based on a show I just saw by the original li

Publicado: 2007-11-08 Proveedor: Rolling Stone Etiquetas: Fricke's Picks

Maynard James Keenan’s Puscifer: Tool Leader Speaks on Enigmatic Side Project

When you say the name of Maynard James Keenan’s new recording project, Puscifer, it is “Pus as in Puss’n'Boots,” says the Tool singer on a recent afternoon at Electric Lady Studios in New York. “Not as in a boil,” he adds with a dry chuckle. Keenan, working on the record on a rare day away from Tool’s current world tour, explains that Puscifer “is my attempt to make music to inspire people. Heavy rock is sinking, the industry is dying. This is definitely not thinking man’s music” — elliptically referring to Tool’s dense, serpentine metal — “but groove-oriented music that makes you feel good.” The music Keenan previews at Electric Lady is suitably provocative, with a good-time roll. “Queen B” features a bee’s nest of overlapping, processed vocals — including Keenan’s own deep country baritone — over noir-ish hip-hop drumming, like Keenan’s previous side outing, A Perfect Circle, in Tennessee-midnight-radio dub. “Dojo” is marching percussion and sinister electronics with what sounds like the death gulp of a Duane Eddy-treble guitar. “World Up My Ass” is Keenan’s version of the 1980 Circle Jerks song — total psychic collapse as straight-up backwoods fun. “Country Boner” is delightfully offensive and something of an antique — a cover of a song by the Illinois garage band Electric Sheep, which featured pre-Tool guitarist Adam Jones and his high school buddy, Tom Morello, later in Rage Against The Machine. Keenan describes Puscifer as “more of a collaboration” than a group. Contributors include Primus drummer Tim Alexander, guitarist-soundscaper Jonny Polonsky and, on vocals, Lisa Germano and actress Milla Jovovich. And Keenan says the music could end up as more than just an album, which he expects to issue in October. “I’d like to release it in different ways — maybe two songs at a time, every three

Publicado: 2007-07-19 Proveedor: Rolling Stone Etiquetas: Rock News