Category: 2016 Bands to Watch

The Fratellis, still riding high off their amazing Coachella Festival performance and their Brit Award for Best New Breakthrough Band of 2006, have hit the road for a three-month jaunt around the globe to play for adoring fans.

The band has already made changes to their tour schedule, so check out the confirmed dates below.

In addition to their own concerts, the boys will also be playing at a number of rock festivals on the indie rock circuit, giving fans more than one chance to see them play. (I wish I could be at every rock festival!)

Links for The Fratellis

– View The Fratellis new tour dates with venue, city and ticket information.
– Listen to, view and download for free or purchase Fratellis’ songs
– Fratellis Performance Live at the SXSW Festival
– Fratellis’ official website
– Fratellis’ official MySpace page
– Fratellis’ official YouTube page

The Queens of the Stone Age are back in true rock fashion with a hot new album and music video “Sick, Sick, Sick” – a hard-rocking and catchy cruncher that is sure to make long-time fans happy and undoubtedly recruit new legions of hard rockers.

Fresh CDs of the band’s new release Era Vulgaris hit the stores last month and “Sick, Sick, Sick” has been spinning non-stop on rock radio stations worldwide, even making it to #36 on Billboard’s Rock Singles chart.

Era Vulgaris is a fantastic rock album and lives up to what would be expected from professional rockers. Rolling Stone magazine rock critic Rob Sheffield sums it up well:

“The latest release is Homme’s fifth Queens album, and like the others, it’s intricately crafted, meticulously polished and ruthlessly efficient in its pursuit of depraved rock thrills…”

Fans seem to dig it too. Read what Amazon.com reviewers think.

A Cast of Constantly Shifting Characters

QOSA or QOSTA (will someone decide which it is to be) has had many pauses and starts since the band’s 1997 formation and band members have quit, rejoined, quit again, substituted and collaborated with other artists on various projects and musical endeavors.

In addition to the release of two albums – R and Songs for the Deaf – in the past five years, QOSA founding members, singer and guitarist Josh Homme and bassist Nick Oliveri, also scored the soundtrack to the movie The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys with help from Brad Wilk, drummer for Rage Against the Machine.

In 2005, Homme reunited with some past band members and contributing artists to release the LP Lullabies to Paralyze. The group also played a couple of years on the OzzFest tour.

For fans that are really curious of the number of rockers who have played, or are still members, in the band, check out their biography on AllMusic.com – the best online source for music of all kinds.

Just a few of them include The Screaming Trees’ Van Conner, Soundgarden‘s Matt Cameron, and Dinosaur Jr.‘s Mike Johnson and musicians from bands like Fu Manchu and Monster Magnet. Even Foo Fighters Ex-Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl has performed with the band.

QOSA Summer of 2007 Show Dates

Queens of the Stone Age are set to headline the Live 105FM (San Francisco) Bloc Party fest on June 9 at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California, approximately 30 miles south of San Francisco. A number of other popular indie artists will also be playing at the all day show.

Here are some of the other gigs QOSA have scheduled as of today’s date for the summer of 2007:

6/7/2007
Radio
Fresno Fair Grounds
KFRR’s Birthday Bash www.1041fresno.com for more details

6/8/2007
Radio
Ventura County Fairgrounds
KJEE Presents The Seaside Beach Ball at
The Ventura Fairgrounds

8/4/2007
Concert
Indianapolis, IN Murat Centre

They turned their back on classical piano and formed a hot indie hard rock band, the Snowdogs, a three-piece rock outfit from Finland that is just waiting to explode.

“Who?” you say?

OK, here’s the deal: The band’s name doesn’t really convey the hard rock scene that they definitely have earned their place in.

Snowdogs punch out infectious hard rock with memorable hooks that are reminiscent of The Replacements, Green Day and Blues Traveler.

But that damn name. Snowdogs vocalist and guitarist Ville Leppanen conceded to Crazewire in a 2004 interview, that it didn’t help the band any when Disney Studios released the movie “Snow Dogs,” (2003) a cuddly-sweet G-rated movie about a novice leader of a dog sled team starring the “what-ever-happened-to-Cuba-Gooding-Jr.”

After school they joined up with drummer Benjy Reid and worked diligently to release their cogent 2001 debut Animal Farm.

The band’s freshmen work quickly won acclaim among the British music press and soon forged a relationship that led to their signing on with the popular U.S. independent label Victory Records.

The influence of the 70’s arena-rock band Rush is no accident. Ville’s brother and bassist Mat Leppanen is a huge Rush fan. The two Finnish brothers are American educated classical pianists.

Snowdogs caught on pretty fast in the European indie rock scene after releasing their second album, Deep Cuts, Best Remedies (2003) gained the band a healthy dose of attention from mainstream, but especially college rock, radio shows and indie blogs.

In the extremely competitive, and easily-disposable, world of the rock business, Snowdays ascended to rock notarity fairly fast, but found themselves craving to score as many high-profile gigs as soon as possible while they had the momentum – another savvy move. Rolling Stone magazine even compared them to REM.

With the confluence of all the right elements and of course the proven talent to make solid, memorable indie and alternative rock, Snowdogs was now a group fans wanted to see and before long the band was opening for lead acts like Blink 182, MXPX, Alkaline Trio and Less Than Jake.

Overall, the Victory release of Deep Cuts, Best Remedies did well in Europe, but not as well in the U.S. Nevertheless, tracks like “End of the World” and “Your Sorry Ass” are great examples of the band’s talent and why they’ve earned rock and roll credibility.

Another track “Hell Outta Dodge” is a catchy pop rocker reminiscent of D-Generation laced with hints of Aerosmith and Blues Traveler.

Despite the album’s solid catalog of fresh and catchy rock songs interlaced with thrilling moments of great rock jams, the most influential gaggles of rock music critics and publications in the U.S. either did not hear them or failed to realize just how good these guys are.

The red-hot indie rock outfit, Arctic Monkeys, are not melting polar caps but they are gaining gaggles of new fans around the world.

Next week, the Arctic Monkeys will perform on Radio 1’s Live Lounge on Monday, April 16 at 10 a.m. (London time; so 3 a.m. PST).

Later that day, at 1pm, Radio 1 deejay Zane Lowe will present the Arctic Monkeys’ London Astoria show and a band interview.

If you miss out, chances are the programs will be re-run or archived, but no guarantees.

Stay tuned to IRC for more information and updates by subscribing to the IRC feed.

Arctic Monkey Links:

– Arctic Monkey Win Two Brit Awards
– Arctic Monkeys Edged Out By The Killers for MTV Award
– Arctic Monkeys Official homepage

Dave Rowntree, the drummer for the long-time UK indie revivalist group Blur, told The UK Independent that he plans to run for his local council as a Labour candidate in Marylebone.

“I’ve been a long-standing member of the Labour party and active in local politics for a while,” Rowntree said. (See video below)

“I’m a Westminster resident and in my experience of living here, it all looks lovely – there are hanging baskets everywhere – but you only need to scratch beneath the surface and see that there’s a lot of deprivation and a lot of inequality around. I think someone needs to do something about it.”

Despite his notoriety, Rowntree will have to campaign hard for the position because the Marylebone ward is traditionally conservative.

One fan – Lovelyrita – wrote on the band’s official message board: “I’m sure Damon [Damon Albarn, songwriter/founding member and singer] has always known Dave’s labour convictions, so I don’t think that can be a problem between them.

The problem for us, though is that if Dave is elected, well, I don’t think it’s very appropiated [sic] for a politician to play music in a band… even if that band is Blur. That’s my opinion, at least. So, let’s hope he doesn’t get elected… sorry, Dave.”

The Shortlist Organization will release their official “shortlist” of nominees for the sixth annual Shortlist Music Prize in a couple of weeks, narrowing the “longlist” of 61 albums of 2006 down to the Top Ten.

The Shortlist Music Prize is considered one of the highest honors in the independent and alternative rock music profession. Last year’s winner, Sufjan Stevens, has taken the music world by storm, releasing one compilation of amazing music after another.

Stevens’ 2005 album Illinoise is full of soft melodies, inspirational spurts of engery, lyrical intrigue and is easily one of the classic albums of the past decade.

Earlier this month, TSO released the long list of 61 nominees featuring a compendium of the best indie and alternative music of the past year, including artists such as like Snow Patrol, Arcade Fire, Mates of State, Band of Horses, The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV on the Radio, and many more. (See below for the complete list)

The 61 nominees were selected by a panel of nine indie rock artists and journalists, including Sufjan Stevens, Franz Ferdinand, Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol, Wayne Coyne of Flaming Lips, Ronnie Vannucci of The Killers, members of Panic at the Disco, Reverend Moose, editor-in-chief of CMJ New Music Report, and a Rolling Stone magazine rock critic.

To qualify for nomination artists’ albums must be released in the U.S. in the past year and not have sold more than 500,000 copies worldwide. Panelists are also looking for artists who embrace and push the envelope of the indie rock spirit of “creative and adventurous” music.

“This year’s listmakers have created a streetwise playlist of state-of-the art rock, dance and hip hop,” Shortlist creative director Greg Spotts said.

Snow Patrol’s Gary Lightbody told Top40-Charts.com that this year’s Long List “looks like my own iPod.” He says the melancholy “Begin to Hope” by Regina Spektor is “a gorgeous record which is simple and devastating in equal measure.”

Lightbody also elegantly describes two of his favorite artists – both IRC Featured Artists – praising North Carolina’s Band of Horses’ Everything All the Time as “sublime, blissed out elegance” and Beirut’s Gulag Orskestar as “sweeping swooning carnival” of songs, and the couple duo Mates of States Bring It Back as “twisted, warped pop.”

Subscribe to this feed and watch for the Top Ten, and ultimately a full profile of the winner. The winner will be announced sometime in May.

The 61 nominees include artists from 45 different record labels and ten countries as selected by Sufjan Stevens (and based on his taste in music, you might want to check out some of these albums if you haven’t already):

Against Me – Americans Abroad Live in London
And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead – So Divided
Art Brut – Bang Bang Rock & Roll
Band of Horses – Everything All the Time
Beck – The Information
Beirut – Gulag Orskestar
Belle and Sebastian – The Life Pursuit
Bonnie Prince Billy – The Letting Go
Cat Power – The Greatest
Country Teasers – The Empire Strikes Back
CSS – Cansei de Ser Sexy
Cursive – Happy Hollow
Dabrye – Two/Three
Danielson – Ships
Dead Heart Bloom – Dead Heart Bloom
Editors – The Back Room
Field Music – Field Music
Forgive Durden – Wonderland
Girl Talk – Night Ripper
Hot Chip – The Warning
Howling Bells – Howling Bells
Jeremy Enigk – World Waits
Joanna Newsom – Ys
Kidd Jordan, Hamid Drake + William Parker – Palm of Soul
Kimya Dawson – Remember that I Love You
Liars – Drum’s Not Dead
Love is All – Nine Times That Same Song
Lupe Fiasco – Food & Liquor
Mates of State – Bring It Back
Matmos – The Rose Has Teeth in the Mouth of a Beast
Mew – And the Glass Hand Kites
Midlake – The Trials of Van Occupanther
Mohair – Small Talk
Mute Math – Mutemath
Neil Young – Living With War
OOIOO – Taiga
Peeping Tom – Peeping Tom
Raconteurs – Broken Boy Soldiers
Regina Spektor – Begin to Hope
Roots – Game Theory
Secret Machines – Ten Silver Drops
Serena Maneesh – Serena Maneesh
Skream – Skream
Spank Rock – YoYoYoYoYo
Teddybears – Soft Machine
The Blow – Paper Television
The Bronx – The Bronx
The Decemberists – The Crane Wife
The Gossip – Standing In the Way of Control
The Hush Sound – Like Vines
The Knife – Silent Shout
The Stills – Without Feathers
The Strokes – First Impression of Earth
The Velvet Teen – Cum Laude
The Weepies – Say I am You
Tom Waits – Orphans
TV on the Radio – Return to Cookie Mountain
Vaux – Beyond Virtue Beyond Vice
We Are Scientists – With Love and Squalor
Wolfmother – Wolfmother
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Show Your Bones

The super-talented emo-rock indie band Bright Eyes, flying on the success of the release of the Four Winds EP and a string of hot shows in New York City two weeks ago, are teasing fans with the upcoming full-length release of their long anticipated album Cassadaga scheduled for official release by the band’s own indie label, Saddle Creek Records.

Cassadaga is Bright Eyes’ first full-length album in two years. The album is titled after the name of a town knof psychics in Florida.

If you can’t wait until April 10, you can stream the entire Cassadaga album from the band’s record label website.

Just in the past few years, the band has achieved enormous success worldwide. In fact, their stardom rivals that of “Big Five” label artists who have worked decades to reach the same level of popularity and record sales.

In 2004, the band hit the Billboard Hot Top 100 twice within two weeks of release with their singles “Lua” and “Take It Easy (Love Nothing).” While they have not released a new album since 2005, rumors say it’s in the works.

The new EP, Four Winds, currently No. 5 on Billboard’s Top Independent Albums charts, is a pre-ample for the upcoming release of Cassadaga, which critics call the band’s best work to date. The album is as American as anything Oberst has ever created with intricate observations of American history – good and bad – as he travels across the country.

In the single “Four Winds“, Oberst writes “off to old Dakota where genocide sleeps, in the Black Hills, the Badlands, the calloused East, I buried my ballast, I made my peace.” Other notable songs include the ironic “Soul Singer in a Session Band,” the energetic “hot Knives” and a show favorite “I Must Belong Somewhere”.

On the Saddle Creek Records website, the fun song “Make A Plan To Plan To Love Me” is described as “Bright Eyes at their most playful; a straight-up love song, replete with girl group vocals and Burt Bacharach strings.

From the website: “Oberst, the fumbling guitarist whose impassioned prose tumbles out under stark stage spotlights, is still recognizable in every track, but the songs are rich with elaborate production, cinema-sized orchestration and, at times, sprawling, almost psychedelic, atmospherics. “

Here is the official track listing for Cassadaga:

1. Clairaudients (Kill or Be Killed)
2. Four Winds [mp3 link above]3. If The Brakeman Turns My Way
4. Hot Knives
5. Make A Plan To Love Me
6. Soul Singer In A Session Band
7. Classic Cars
8. Middleman
9. Cleanse Song
10. No One Would Riot For Less
11. Coat Check Dream Song
12. I Must Belong Somewhere
13. Lime Tree

Bright Eyes is the creation of guitarist, singer and songwriter Conor Oberst and producer and instrumentalist Mike Mogie and Nate Walcott.

The band is also frequently joined by many indie artists from the Omaha scene and beyond, including Andy LeMaster (Now It’s Overhead), Ben Kweller, Gillian Welch, David Rawlings, Maria Taylor, Rachel Yamagata, M. Ward, Janet Weiss (ex-Sleater Kinney), Jason Boesel (Rilo Kiley) and John McEntire (Tortoise).

Bright Eyes is somewhat like Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene – they have rejected Big Five contracts and make wonderful, creative and experimental music that involves artists from other bands or disciplines in a rotating-type fashion.

Fame and experience in the business world is nothing new to these guys, especially for Oberst who caught the attention of the indie rock world in 1994 at the age of 14! as the founder, singer and songwriter of the indie outfit Commander Venus.

Realted Links:

Bright Eyes Spring 2007 Tour and Show Dates

Bright Eyes MySpace

When members of the alternative country rock band Uncle Tupelo decided to call it quits and pursue individual musical careers, fans were devastated.

Son Volt’s new CD release The Search carves new paths in the musical maturity of Farrar and the rest of the band.

Watch a New York Times interview Jay Farrar of Son Volt

Just back from a road tour, rock guitarist Dave Navarro said tonight he is easing back into life in Los Angeles.

The former Jane’s Addiction guitarist made news last week when the divorce of his three-year marriage with Carmen Electra, the former BayWatch star, became official.

From looking at his MySpace page, there are plenty of women “friends” he can ask on a date.

But during an Indie 103.1 FM (L.A.) broadcast in which he was deejaying, Navarro said he is tired of his MySpace page.

“Dude, I’m done,” Navarro said, referring to the frustration he obviously has with the website service. Navarro complained not just about having so many online friends he can’t possibly keep up with them all, but he saved his real fury for MySpace email.

Over the last year or so, a popular spoof series loosely based on “Star Wars” protagonist villain Darth Vader’s less competent brother Chad, has caused a bit of a sensation on the Internet.

The indie cartoon series, “Chad Vader”, created by Aaron Yonda and Matt Sloan of Madison, Wisconsin, has been viewed nearly 10 million times!! on YouTube alone since first appearing on the Internet.

The two men have made virtually no money from the millions of views of their series on YouTube, claiming to be significant contributors to the astronomical success of YouTube and its recent acquisition by Google for $1.4 billion dollars.

But now the force may be with the “Chad Vader” creators.

Last week YouTube announced it will share its advertising revenue with indie film makers like Yonda and Sloan.

The new revenue sharing could be a windfall for indie filmmakers, but YouTube is not disclosing the details of the plan and say it make not be launched for another year.

“We always wanted to make money doing these videos but we just thought that it was impossible,” Yonda said.

“I think anyone who’s an artist wants to be compensated for what they do,” Sloan said, “It would have been nice if YouTube would have announced revenue sharing 9 million hits ago for us.”

Nevertheless, Yonda said, their exposure is opening new doors, claiming the duo are “like this close to getting paid for doing a network series, a web series.”

As for future “Chad Vader” episodes, the sixth episode is set to be released on Feb. 16. There’s even a cameo from Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz. Watch and listen to the guys comment on the upcoming episode and read letters from viewers about past episodes:

Some members of the many revolving members of Broken Social Scene took a break last fall from touring to work on other projects.

Now the fruits of their labor are all over the indie film scene of early 2007.

The projects include composing the score for the upcoming indie film The Tracey Fragments, which will debut at the 57th Berlin International Film Festival on February 8.

The film’s main character, Tracy Berkowitz (played by Ellen Page) searches for her brother who thinks he is a dog. The film is based on the acclaimed novel by Vancouver author Maureen Medved.

This is the band’s third score for the year. Their work has also appeared in Bruce McDonald’s film The Love Crimes of Gillian Guess, on the Wicker Park soundtrack and for Clement Virgo’s film Lie With Me and the upcoming film Snow Cake, which is already receiving critical acclaim.

In addition, they scored the indie film Half Nelson starring Ryan Gosling as an inner city teacher with a drug addiction.

Gosling, who joined Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake in the early 1990’s as Mouseketeers, is an Academy Award winner and has also appeared in movies like The Slaughter Rule, Murder by Numbers, Remember the Titans, The United States of Leland, The Notebook, and The Believer.


Other stuff to check out for BSS:

K.C. Accidental mp3
Lover’s Spit mp3
Compilation of tour videos over the past three years.
BSS official website

Video of BSS playing “7/4 Shoreline”

The hard rock band Mindless Self Indulgence has been asked by iTunes to change where the band is listed on the music service. Currently, The New York City electropunk band is listed under the genre ‘religious’.

The band said that their choice to list themselves under the religious genre has all to do with their “fan base and cult-like following,” claiming to have sold 180,000 CDs last year.

Apparently the religious tag has angered Christian organizations and has prompted them to file complaints with iTunes. The band’s last album “You’ll Rebel To Anything” hit #27 on the iTunes Christian/gospel charts, which probably sparked the complaints.

MSI’s singer, Jimmy Urine, was quoted as saying: “It was iTunes, not us, that interpreted ‘religious’ to mean Christian. What is offensive to some people is obviously inspirational to others. To our fans this IS inspirational music. I have no intention of changing the genre listing of this album.”

What do you think?