Last summer's Austin City Limits festival in Texas has yielded a best-of called, coincidentally, Austin City Limits. The album features performances from The Pixies, Blind Boys of Alabama(always a winner) and Dashboard Confessional, and comes out on Rhino Records August 30th. [Relevant]
The guy who invented TV dinners, Gerry Thomas, died Wednesday at the age of 83. I've never had one in my life to my knowledge. But rest in peace anyway.
There hasn't been an MTV: Unplugged album in a long time - until now: R&B siren Alicia Keys has one airing on the network September 9th, with guest shots from Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine, a guy I've never heard of and - get this now - Common and Mos Def. Maybe Talib Kweli will show up and him and Def can stage a Black Star reunion! That'd be hype!
Oh man, this is awesome news! Paramount has acquired the rights to the Smurfs franchise with the goal of a three-dimensional movie by 2008. That's rad!!
Former Vice President Al Gore announced that his newest venture Current, a television channel scheduled to launch Aug. 1, will not have any political slant. The 24-hour news and information channel is targeted for the 18 to 34-year-old audience. I think the bit about not having a political slant is crap.
One of my coworkers informed me this morning at work that the Foo Fighters Canadian dates later this year(eight cities, none of them Ottawa) will feature openers Sloan, therefore making me a lock to see the Montreal show. I love Sloan.
The Contender lasted all of one season, featuring one of the contestants dying soon after his appearance(awful story), some really bad scripting for Sly Stallone, and more - and ESPN is apparently close to signing it up for a second go-round. As they say, never, ever count Stallone out.
It's not news anymore, but in a stroke of irony straight from the heavens, the cop from the Village People was arrested last weekend. *pause for laughter* Thank you very much. We'll be here all week.
Thanks go out to a guy I like to call Uncle Shawn, who runs punkottawa(see banner up top), and who provided me with access to the new Stretch Arm Strong record. Kids, lemme tell you something. They will come August 24th(Babylon, with Haste the Day), and they are going to wreck the place. Go and enjoy one of the best positive hardcore bands alive.
With the legendary CBGB's in New York City still under threat of closure, the almost-as-legendary hardcore band Lifetime have reunited for this year's Hellfest after the festival offered to put forty grand towards charities of the band's choice, as well as a healthy sum to the campaign to keep CB's open. Great story, and Lifetime will kill everything next month in upstate New York. [altpress]
...in a related story, an act is scheduled for Hellfest called - not kidding here - the Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza. That is so stupid it sounds like I made it up.
Strength Through Vengeance is the very-near-future new record from Quebec's A Perfect Murder, who have replaced, I think, four-fifths of the lineup that recorded Unbroken. I hope the sound isn't too drastically different, because the intro to 'Time Bomb' still pops up in my head a lot. Great tune. If you care to find out for yourself, check this out.
Oh dang, says here Public Enemy are reuniting for Hellfest too! I gotta hit this now! Public Enemy! "Don't believe the hype!"
New Suicide Machines alert! This here song's called 'The Red Flag', from the upcoming record War Profiteering Is Killing Us All. This track is pure heat. So much for the ska side of things.
Posted by mike at July 22, 2005 11:21 AM