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Labelle Reunite - “Lady Marmalade” and All - For First Tour in Three Decades

Photo: Raglin/WireImage Unpredictability reigned at the Oakland stop on Labelle’s first tour since its three soul queens split in 1976. After a surprise introduction from actor Danny Glover, a six-member band and three background vocalists joined the trio onstage at the Paramount Theatre in fiery, cymbal-splashed renditions of tracks from classic Labelle LPs like Nightbirds and last year’s rootsy reunion disc Back to Now. Songs were alternately condensed or stretched out with lengthy interactions between leader Patti LaBelle and fellow singers Nona Hendryx and Sarah Dash, all of whom sported feather-festooned costumes that evoked the flight theme of their heyday’s iconic space maiden outfits. There was plenty of crowd participation, some of it invited — three guys sang and danced onstage during Labelle’s enduring ode to a New Orleans streetwalker, “Lady Marmalade” — and some of it thrust upon the trio. A parade of well-wishers offered lavish gifts, and one fan grabbed a microphone to monologue about himself until a muscular but motherly Hendrix coaxed back the abused mike. As Hendryx herself admitted, these women intentionally foster this sense of freedom: They’ve held on to a politicized consciousness far removed from the usual slick oldies show. Patti improvised a chant of “No more Bush,” and a crowd dominated by African-American couples and gay men roared in unison. She repeatedly replaced her kicked-off shoes from a vast collection of glittering pumps that sat atop the grand piano, and shook her tail feathers at the circulation fans. “I’m menopausal, diabetic, 64 years old, and everything is good,” she boasted. Yet the close and complex harmonies that poured out of Labelle shone like rays from an early morning sun. This beloved retirement-age trio showed no sign of dimming. Set List: “Miss Otis Regrets” “Get You Somebody New” “Messin’ With My Mind” “Superlover” “Good Intentions” “Without You in My Life” “You Turn Me On” “Candlelight” “Rollout” “Lady Marmalade

Published: 2009-02-02
Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: Rock News, Live Shows

Did Axl Rose Swindle Guns n’ Roses and Steal Slash’s Song? A Guide to Rose’s Online Rants

Photo: Getty Axl Rose didn’t give any magazine or TV interviews to herald the release of Chinese Democracy. But just days after breaking his silence with a pair of Q&As on Guns n’ Roses message boards, Rose has published a 4,594-word post and an additional Q&A on the two fan sites. Those who haven’t been following the Gn’R saga for the past 20 years may be a bit confused by some of his references to age-old beefs with Slash and other bits of Guns jargon. We’ve broken out the juiciest bits and explained them here: Claim I. I didn’t swindle my bandmates. Backstory: Slash has alleged that Axl refused to go onstage one night during the Use Your Illusion tour in 1992 unless the band signed away the name rights to the band. “Unfortunately, we signed it,” said Slash. “I didn’t think he’d on stage otherwise.” Axl’s take: “Never happened, all made up, fallacy and fantasy. Not one single solitary thread of truth to it. Had that been the case I would’ve have been cremated years ago legally, could’ve cleaned me out for the name and damages. It’s called under duress with extenuating circumstances.” Plausibility: Axl makes a surprisingly strong case. Might Slash not have had the clearest head during that tour? Claim II. Slash lied in his book. Backstory: In Slash’s 2007 book the guitarist claims that Guns n’ Roses’ final recording sessions were stalled due to a vast musical direction between himself and Axl. Axl’s take: “I have the rehearsal tapes. There’s nothing but Slash-based blues rock and he stopped it to both go solo and try to completely take over Guns. I read all this if Axl would’ve put words and melodies on it could’ve… I was specifically told no lyrics, no melodies, no changes to anything and to sing what I was told or fuck off.” Plausibility: It’s a classic case of he said, Slash said — but again, Slash’s memory of events from the 1990s is always questionable. Claim III: We won’t reform at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Backstory: Fans have been clamoring for a

Published: 2008-12-15
Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: Rock News

Vegoose Festival Report: Rage Against the Machine, the Stooges, Shins, Daft Punk, More

For three years now, the Vegoose festival has been bringing Las Vegas the sort of eclectic acts the city normally shuns: metal, hip-hop, politically motivated tunage and indie rock’s latest beloved. This year was no exception: the first day alone delivered Mastodon, Public Enemy, M.I.A. and the Shins. Throw in Saturday night performances by Iggy and the Stooges and Daft Punk, and you might just have the most musically diverse day in Sin City history. (For a full photo gallery from Vegoose, click here.) From the start great music was plentiful. Gogol Bordello opened the festival with one of the strongest sets of the weekend. Backed by two percussionist/dancers, ferocious fiddle playing and singer Eugene Hutz’s manic presence, the band won over an audience that seemed delightfully surprised by the band’s gypsy-punk attack. As with many of the afternoon bands, the Vegoose set was only the beginning of their Vegas trip. After performing, the band did a signing in a makeshift Zia Records tent in the Vegoose field, before heading to downtown Las Vegas where bandmembers spun discs at Beauty Bar until 3 AM. Not everything worked. Bands like the Shins (who wore costumes) and Blonde Redhead (who did not) found their more intricate music bleed away by the acoustics of a vast field and competing bands. Vegoose has three active stages and overlap between sets made it hard to see everything even for the most dedicated fans. Perhaps the biggest disappointment of Saturday was competing sets between Cypress Hill and Public Enemy (who arranged for that?). Still, some of the Cypress audience popped over long enough to join Chuck D for a rousing chant of “Fuck George Bush.” Other of Chuck D’s pronouncements on affairs of State might have been a bit over the crowd’s head: His complaints that the Euro and Pound were kicking American ass ellicited a collective “huh?” As night descended with dust filling the air from the dirt field, Iggy and the Stooges came out and gra

Published: 2007-10-30
Provider: Rolling Stone
Keywords: Rock News, Live Shows, Festivals

NIN Dazzles With Lasers, LEDs and Stealth Screens

A vast wall of swirling static dances on a giant screen as Trent Reznor and his band launch into their song, "Only." Initially obscured by this sea of visual white noise, the Nine Inch Nails front man intermittently appears to push through the particles of snow with his hands and body, popping in and out of view and opening up random tunnels in the chaos. "Sometimes, I think I can see right through myself," he sings. Nine Inch Nails fans are accustomed to such sonic and visual feasts whenever Reznor and company go out on tour. But this time around, NIN has pulled out all the stops, creating a groundbreaking, fully interactive visual display that is as much a part of the show as the band's instruments. "I'm not really a purist," admits Reznor. "If I'm in the studio working on an album, I try to only please myself. But when it's a tour, it feels a bit more like I have a responsibility to some degree to entertain people." Reznor and other band members use Lemurs during the "electronic set." The touchscreen devices can be used to control a range of audio and visual aspects of the show on the fly. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com For the band's current Lights in the Sky tour, Reznor has not only raised the bar for what's possible in an arena tour, but has also produced what could arguably be one of the most technologically ambitious rock productions ever conceived. Unlike most rock shows, the visuals for about 40 percent of the show (including "Only") aren't pre-rendered. There's no staging, no pantomiming by band members: It's all interactive, live and rendered on the fly. With more than 40 tons of lighting and stage rigging, hundreds of LED lights, a daunting array of professional and custom-built machinery running both archaic and standard commercial VJ software, three different video systems and an array of sensors and cameras, the tour is nothing if not a lavish display of techno wizardry. According to Reznor, it all started with a relatively simple

Published: 2008-09-13
Provider: Wired

Picture: Keep Taking The Pennies: Northern Rock And Tax

Nicolas Cage Is A National Treasure [Monday Morning Box Office]

On these final few hours before the sugarplum-gorging orgy that begins at dawn, we dutifully tabulate for you, like a trembling Bob Cratchit scratching figures with a quill pen into the margins of the Scrooge & Marley ledger, the weekend's box office numbers: 1. National Treasure: Book of Secrets - $45.5 million Frankly, we don't know what took infallible superproducer Jerry Bruckheimer and supermuse Nicolas Cage this long to bring us another Treasure chapter: With Secrets conquering this weekend's box office (and bringing in $10 mil more than the original), the American-history-corrupting adventure serial has now graduated to official franchise&trade status. We're eagerly anticipating all future installments, including National Treasure: Three Dollar Bill, in which Cage and his ragtag band of bookish fortune-hunters discover that the Lincoln Memorial's head spins to the left when a Sacagawea and Susan B. Anthony dollar are placed in its orbital sockets, revealing a secret tunnel to J. Edgar Hoover's fabled lingerie closet. 2. I Am Legend - $34.2 million A 56% drop-off in receipts for the last-Will-on-Earth sci-fi thriller still brings Legend's take to an impressive $137.5 mil, though it might also indicate that the premise needed a little refining. Luckily, producers have already began making the proper adjustments for the sequel, replacing that German Shepherd (talented, but kind of one-note) with a grizzled straight-man for Smith to bounce his trademark one-liners off of, and those cheesy CGI zombies with a vast array of adorable aliens from Rick Baker's creature shop. 3. Alvin and the Chipmunks - $29 million "It's great to be in the singing chipmunk business," Chris Aronson, Fox's senior VP of distribution, told Variety; that's a 180° change of tune from what execs were saying about the Jason Lee family film when the forecast looked less sunny, dismissively referring to it as "the untitled Richard Gere project" and "Ratatouille for retards." 4. Charlie

Published: 2007-12-24
Provider: Defamer
Keywords: Box Office, i am legend, monday morning box office, national treasure, Walk Hard

Britney Has A Counterpart In Britain!

Meet Kerry Katona. She's a huge British celebrity who's sorta like Britney's spiritual twin, except she does even less. Seriously, after extensive research (meaning I read the source article), I've deduced that Kerry used to be married to a British boy band star, and then had some kids by him and was primarily known for being a total coke whore and splashing her ass across the British tabloids. And if you think the tabloids here are bad, you better think again! The rags here are like soft and gentle kisses from a butterfly compared to the Brits' savagery. And they have boobies on page three with the weather! Neat! Kerry is currently denying charges she's powdering her nose during her fifth pregnancy. These latest accusations were made during a recent television interview in which Kerry looked like she had just been using a mirror. And I don't mean to look in. You know when people have just been blowing rails and their jaws are kinda doing some funny things and they're a little intense? Right. Although she is clear-eyed and coherent during our interview, on GMTV last week, Kerry's manic behaviour led to speculation she was under the influence of something. She claims a medical condition is responsible for her mood swings. "It's the bi-polar," she protests. "I'm often up and down. I think that's why some people think I'm on coke. One minute you're 'Grrrrrr!' then the next you're down. I find it sick that people think I'd take drugs while pregnant." So why does she think so many people dish the dirt on her? "I was brought up with the backstabbers, the slags, the thieves, the no-goods," she says. "The ones that stole wallets and credit cards, the alcoholics, the drug addicts, the wife-beaters. They were my friends and family. Sounds like my family. Seriously, I thought it was just an American phenomenon that complete wastes of space could garner this much attention. But no, it's global. It makes you pray for a vast meterorite to come hurtling toward us, do

Published: 2007-10-26
Provider: A Socialite's Life

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Rewind: The Week in Rock Daily

SUGAR RAY LETS 'FLY' AGAIN

Learn guitar from rock gods on iVideosongs.com

Labelle Reunite - “Lady Marmalade” and All - For First Tour in Three Decades

Did Axl Rose Swindle Guns n’ Roses and Steal Slash’s Song? A Guide to Rose’s Online Rants

Vegoose Festival Report: Rage Against the Machine, the Stooges, Shins, Daft Punk, More

NIN Dazzles With Lasers, LEDs and Stealth Screens

Keep Taking The Pennies: Northern Rock And Tax

Nicolas Cage Is A National Treasure [Monday Morning Box Office]

Britney Has A Counterpart In Britain!

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