As part of my ongoing efforts to educate the masses about an archaic musical genre that nobody really liked in the first place, I’ll be highlighting some of the forgotten classics (i.e. all of them) of the hair metal era. Anybody who had harboured any lingering respect for me up to this point will soon see the error of his ways.
OK, I know I’m ever so slightly breaking my own rules by featuring a parody act, but given Steel Panther are more or less carrying the flag for ball-grabbing hair metal I feel it’s justified. Choosing a track for this edition of the series, I was put in the rather awkward position of not really knowing where to start: Steel Panther only have a handful of tracks and they’re more or less all equally awesome.
Steel Panther began life as Metal Skool, a semi-satirical glam metal covers band that set up residency in LA and regularly featured guest spots from the biggest names in rock, from Kelly Clarkson to Billy Ray Cyrus and all the way back to Kelly Clarkson again. All four members are fully paid-up veterans of the Sunset Strip – frontman Michael Starr was briefly a member of LA Guns and guitarist Satchel played with Rob Halford’s post-Priest project Fight – so they know their source material better than almost anybody.
Steel Panther’s first official album (second album proper) features 12 slices of ’80s rock magic closely modeled on the work of some of…
There’s a sweet spot in my heart for this Sydney four piece – not only do they craft some of the best alt-pop tunes I know, but they do it with a lush grandeur that so few others ever have. On the back of their brilliant and shimmering Dark Strom EP, released yesterday, here’s Mace Spray the first single to be released:
The Jezabels – Mace Spray:
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And just for kicks, and because it’s pretty, here’s the official video for Hurt Me from their second EP:
Hello Sputnik community,
As a staff writer I frequently get asked about “the right way to write a review” (as if there is a right way), and for tips and pointers by users that want to step up and provide new content to the site. While the creative process is different from person to person, there is one thing that, regardless of if it’s your first review or your 100th, should be a part of the writing process: proofreading. No matter how clearly you think you have laid out your ideas, little kinks have a nasty habit of popping up and sometimes it takes a fresh set of eyes to catch them before you hit submit. To help out with catching grammatical errors, improving flow, and curbing wordiness you can visit the oft underused proofreading forum (here), where you can get a peer review from some of the more helpful community members and the staff. Even if you don’t want to write a review, you can still help out by offering advice and helping those who do. Please don’t let this beneficial feature go to waste.
Thank you for your time,
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Remember the last time a couple of tracks rocked as hard as Broken Social Scene channeling Black Francis via Dinosaur Jr with a detour past the Japandroids? We do, and it was right about every time we spun the red hot singles from PS I Love You‘s upcoming debut Meet Me At The MusterStation (Paper Bag), set to drop on Oct 5th. Fuzzy, fun and wild eye’d, here’s a taste of some Facelove with a hint of 2012 thrown in just for kicks:
PS I Love You – Facelove:
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PS I Love You – 2012:
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On last night’s (Wednesday’s) edition of his Late Night show, Jimmy Fallon finally managed to combine his dual-interest in classic hip hop and wooden acting in a surprisingly good medley of classic rap songs with help from Justin Timberlake and house band the Roots.
I’ve had enough, these salty tears
I’ve caught a thousand of them, filled a hundred cups.
And bit by bit, they grew and grew
So I began to turn them into something new.
Every hour of every night
My little soldiers drew a breath and came to life.
One by one, they formed a line
And pledged allegiance to this salty heart of mine.
Filled the house in shallow waves
I fed them only on revenge and shallow rage.
And they grew up, angry and tall
Lo and behold I have the coldest sea of all.
I built a boat made out of ice
To sail the frozen ocean of my own device.
And there I float, and there I freeze
The commander of her fleet, queen of the sea.
Remember when all that crazy news about Justin Vernon working with Kanye broke? Remember how we didn’t know what to think? Had Vernon sold out, or was Kanye collaborating with people who could really bring his vision to fruition? Well, Yeezy released “Monster”, which was the first taste anyone got of the Vernon/West collaborations, but it was a sort of after-thought verse tagged at the end of a bloated song. Nicki Minaj had already turned in the best verse of her short career, and Vernon’s slow-burning melodicism was perhaps too much of a contrast.
Now, “Lost in the World” has leaked, and it’s a true monster. The song begins innocuously sampling Vernon’s auto-tune experiment “Woods”, but quickly, it becomes a dark, twisted dancefloor jam that samples Gil-Scott Heron and hardly even features aside from some sing-a-long and a concise but consistent verse. “Lost in the World” is easily the best track to come from Kanye’s lengthy, prodigious leak campaign to promote his latest album (wait, what is it called again?).
I’d attribute the source of the leak, but I think you can figure it out from the most annoying tags since Beggars. Someone forgot a “w”.
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This might be my favourite track to come out this year. It’s by Adam Haworth Stephens, who you might know from his work in Two Gallants, and it sounds like if Bob Dylan re-wrote “Another Brick in the Wall”. It’s off his first solo release, We Live On Cliffs, which is out today.
There’s almost nothing better than some funk in your folk.
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of September 28 , 2010. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors.
Abigail Williams – In the Absence of Light (Candlelight/Lumberjack)
August Burns Red – Home [Live CD/DVD] (Solid State Records)
Bad Religion – The Dissent Of Man (Epitaph Records)
Kenny Chesney – Hemingway’s Whiskey (Sony Nashville)
Eric Clapton – Clapton (Reprise)
Phil Collins – Going Back (Atlantic)
Combichrist – Making Monsters (Metropolis Records) Deerhunter – Halcyon Digest(4AD Records)
Dimmu Borgir – Abrahadabra {EU} (Nuclear Blast)
Doobie Brothers – World Gone Crazy (HOR Records)
Electric Six – Zodiac (Metropolis Records) Enslaved – Axioma Ethica Odini(Nuclear Blast) – Adam Thomas
Gin Blossoms – No Chocolate Cake (429 Records) Glasser – Ring(True Panther Sounds)– Kiran Soderqvist
Halford – Made of Metal (Metal God Ent)
Ingram Hill – Look Your Best (Rock Ridge Music)
InMe – Phoenix: The Very Best of InMe (Indie Europe)
Ice Cube – I Am The West (Lench Mob) Jimmy Eat World – Invented(David Geffen Company)
KMFDM – Greatest Sh*t (Metropolis Records)
James LaBrie – Static Impulse (Inside Out U.S.)
Lazerbeak – Legend Recognize Legend (Doomtree)
Mark Ronson And The Business International – Record Collection (RCA)
Nellie McKay – Home Sweet Mobile Home (Verve Forecast)
MSWhite – Squares (Rise Records)
Mushroomhead – Beautiful Stories for…
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OK, this is pretty old (witness the 9.6 million plays), but it really needs to be seen to be believed. You’ll never listen to ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ the same way again, and if you’re anything like me it’s a life-altering event on the scale of losing the use of one’s legs. But in a good way.
International woman of mystery and self-appointed spokesperson for all gay people in the world ever Lady Gaga has recorded a message (not actually an “address” – shoot me) aimed at the United States Senate, appealing for the US military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy to be abolished.
Stefani’s speaking voice makes her seem kind of slow, and there’s the most awkward phone ringing sequence ever in the middle, but it’s still worth watching whether you agree or disagree with the central premise.
Singer/songwriter Darren Hanlon is reasonably well-known in his native Australia, but he’s a complete unknown almost everywhere else. So US indie Yep Roc’s decision to fly him over for the big international release treatment is a bit of a risk then, right?
Not really. Hanlon’s fifth album, I Will Love You At All, fits snugly into the M. Ward/Andrew Bird canon, with the singer’s mild Aussie twang the only potentially divisive feature of an otherwise terrific album. (And everybody loves Aussie accents, right?)
‘All These Things’ isn’t the best song on the album, or even one of the best, but it is a nice jumping off point in that it sort of condenses the entire record into an upbeat four-minute pop song. Strummed mandolin shows off Hanlon’s prowess in the mini-guitar genre (he’s also a decent banjo player), while piano and tuba lend the track some welcome gravitas. The best part, though, is the simple call-and-response routine generated between Hanlon and Portland singer Shelley Short.
Darren Hanlon’s I Will Love You At All is scheduled for release in the United States on September 21.
Darren Hanlon – ‘All These Things’
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Darren is currently on a mini-tour of the US with Billy Bragg:
09.08.10 – Minneapolis, MN @ Cedar Cultural Center
09.09.10 – Milwaukee, WI @ Turner Hall
09.10.10 – River Forest, IL @ Dominican University
09.11.10 – Ann Arbor, MI @ The Ark
09.14.10 – Indianapolis,…
