What did you do this week? If you were to ask Perry Farrell that question, he’d reply with something along the lines of, “Oh not much… just returned from a “death-defying” rescue mission to the war-torn nation of Sudan, where I helped free 2,300 women and children who were enslaved by the nation’s Taliban-like regime.” And it wouldn’t be the drugs talking either. Well, maybe a little bit, but drugs talking or not, he actually did free the slaves. Perry and his friend, Aaron Cohen (who’s president of the Farrell-funded Jubilee Foundation), flew over to Sudan (even though it’s illegal to do so, and if the government had known, they would have shot their plane down) and took part in the seven-day mission. The burnt-out rocker led “emancipation dances” at various liberation sites in the Sudanese bush, where he sang over music from a boom-box he brought with him causing large crowds of freed slaves, missionaries, and Arab “slave retrievers” into a large dancing frenzy. One can only wonder… what was on the boombox… Hopefully not that new disco solo record he put out.
Do not go see Lord of The Rings. It is a waste of three hours. Save your eight bucks, here’s what happens… Nothing.
On the other hand, Vanilla Sky is great. But don’t get us wrong, we still think that Tom Cruise needs to get taken out back for a jumbo sized ass whooping. Whoever did the score for the film gets an A+ for good taste in music… Radiohead, Sigur Ros, Bob Dylan, Jeff Buckley, The Beach Boys, and even Spiritualized. (although Spiritualized and the Beach Boys didn’t make the cut on the soundtrack cd… someone’s blowing it) The film is a remake of the Spanish movie “Abre los Ojos”, which we hear is even better. During the making Cameron Crowe referred to the film crew as his “band” and in interviews he insists on referring to the film as a “cover”.
Speaking of Cameron Crowe, he just put out the “bootleg” Almost Famous dvd with tons of extra bonus stuff. You get a Stillwater ep, extra footage, behind the scenes, and video clips of a Lester Bangs interview that is worth the price alone.
We’re sure you’ve heard about this by now, but it’s just too funny for us not to comment on it. Millionaire and 30-year-old star of Reality Bites (isn’t that just ironic?) Winona Ryder, got totally busted at about 7pm last Wednesday for shoplifting at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills. Looks like hanging out with Courtney Love has been wearing off on our cute little indie-rockstar dating machine. She was arrested (and later released from custody just after 11:30 p.m., when she posted the $20,000 bail) on charges of grand theft and possessing pharmaceutical drugs without a prescription. Winona, next time you get bored, instead of stealing a bunch of shit you can afford anyhow, you are welcome to come over to our house to pop some pills and play a little Playstation 2… well, as long as you don’t steal anything that is.
In this weeks Kerrang (it’s the one with Fred Durst’s fat head on the cover), there is a two page interview with our own Travis Keller with quotes from Freddy D himself about his thoughts on Buddyhead. Thanks to a lovely friend from the UK (who scanned it for us, you can click below to read it. Make sure Fred knows about it… call him and read it to him (310) 865 7671.
Read: (Part one) (Part two) (Sidebar)
High-res: (Part one) (Part Two)
Speaking of Nirvana records, Courtney – where the fuck is our Nirvana box set?!?!?!
The Icarus Line have been making a lot of year end “best of” lists. Courtney Love put them at number two in her top 5 of 2001 in this week’s issue of NME (right behind our favorite four car garage band fronted by a child actor… The Strokes and their singer – Julian Casablancas of “Big” fame). And further – a whole lot further – down the rockstar totem-pole, some guy from that band The Bloodhound Gang listed “Mono” at #1 for Allstar’s top ten. (click here for the rest of his list… someone tell him that “Physical Graffiti” didn’t come out this year) And in hater news, Dave Muddle used a fake name to review “Mono” in his emo fanzine; “Jeepers! Drive Like Jehu just put a new record out. It’s super zippy. Highly recommended for the fans”. Always so clever that Dave.
Dave Grohl likes the Icky Line too! After seeing them play at The Black Cat in DC, Dave wrote about it on his website. Check it out (Click here for the real deal): Friday night we took a field trip down to the Black Cat for the CAVE IN show. For all of you who don’t know about CAVE IN, you should. High voltage rock+roll. All over the stage, feedback up the yin yang, kick ass drummer, weird and very interesting guitar stuff, good melodies. We walked in as the opening band ICARUS LINE was playing, and were completely floored by them too. They fucking kick some major asshole. We hung with them for a little bit, got a bit sloppy (I blew it and left my CD and shirt at the bar, which hurt even more than the hangover the next day) and cabbed it home for fear that DC’s finest would want us to spend some time with them downtown.
The Icarus Line are heading over to do a two month tour in Europe. The dates in the UK will have the very awesome Burning Brides opening the shows. Dates will be posted soon. DON’T EMAIL US FOR DATES, WE AREN’T BOOKING THE FUCKING TOUR!
Pictures of The Icarus Line from the Atlanta stop of the tour are up at bandphotography.com. Click here.
Some dude in New found Glory called Andrew from Piebald a communist for wearing a Buddyhead shirt. We’re gonna call him a geek for being in a pop punk band.
Vagrant Records signed The Dropkick Murphys. They will release a split ep with those old geezers Face To Face real soon. We’re sure you and… well… Rich Egan are real excited about that one.
Speaking of Vagrant, they are about to give birth to a new little bag of evil known as a Dashboard Confessional ep. Four songs of devil music with the jesus freak guy from Sunny Day on guitar coming soon. Email Dave, (xkilledgex@aol.com) he’s guitar tech-ing for Dashboard Confessional. Maybe you can convince him to detune Chris’ guitars, or beter yet destroy them right before he plays in order to make this world a better place.
The singer of the progressive metal band, Death, Chuck Schuldiner died this past week due to a brain tumor at the age of 34. The band’s most recent effort (not to mention their best), “Sound of Perseverance”, was released on Nuclear Blast Records in 1998. Go pick it up if you like bands like Dillinger Escape Plan. A memorial web site has been produced in honor of Schuldiner (at www.emptywords.org), and fans can post their thoughts in an online book of condolences that will be sent to Schuldiner’s family.
In other sad news, Bianca Halstead (a.k.a Bianca Butthole), bassist/singer for the Hollywood band Betty Blowtorch was killed around 5:30am last Saturday morning in a car accident in New Orleans. The driver of the car was William McAllister, reportedly a correspondent for Metal Sludge. According to Chris Lee from the New Orleans band Supagroup, who was with Bianca up until she left with McAllister, McAllister and Bianca left the El Matador Lounge near Decatur Street after a night of post-gig partying with tourmates Nashville Pussy following their gig at the Howlin’ Wolf. “They were driving on the I10 toward Kinner in a ’86 Corvette when McAllister lost control of the wheel and the car spun around. They were sideswiped by another car on Bianca’s side and she was killed instantly. McAllister is being held by New Orleans police and is facing criminal charges. The two passengers in the other car have been hospitalized.” A local news story on the incident reported today that their car jumped the median and swerved into oncoming traffic before being hit. Sources say McAllister appeared inebriated, though Bianca has been sober for 10 years. Our hearts go out to Bianca’s friends and family.
Can’t wait for that new Hot Fuckin Snakes record… hurry up John!
It seems Dreamworks has lost their patience with Elliott Smith. He was dropped from the label this week. He just finished a new full length and from what we’ve heard it’s amazing.
AFI has officially announced that they have signed to Dreamworks Records. Their website stated that “Dexter told them that Nitro no longer has the resources to accomadate there larger than life band”. The A&R guy who signed them is the same guy who signed Creeper Lagoon and Elliot Smith.
Emily’s Bat Mitzvah is one of the major label flavors of the month, and it looks like they’ll be the next band Dreamworks is going to scoop up. Strap your helmets on boys.
Thursday signed to Wind Up Records and changed their named to Boy Hits Car.
Speaking of hype, the “industry” is licking it’s filthy lips over a band of young fashionable boys from Seattle called “Vendetta Red”. The word is that they “sound just like At The Drive-In”. Well, we saw them play an “industry showcase”, which means they went to some rehearsal space in the valley and played their songs for a bunch of old A&R suits. We infiltrated the gathering, cos we were dying to see what the hub bub was all about. A word of advice for bands that major labels are pursuing, if you’re a REAL band and some A&R person wants to see you play, make them come and see you on your own turf, AT A SHOW, and don’t thank them for coming to see you… IT’S THEIR JOB, THEY GET PAID TO ACT LIKE THEY CARE ABOUT YOUR BAND. Any band that plays an industry “showcase” is off the list of real bands. What are you, fucking N’Sync? No real band plays showcases to old lame people in hopes that they will get their “big break”. Real bands play shows. Sorry kids. The shit seems to be working though, cos apparently the suits are going ga-ga over these kids who apparently saw At the Drive-In once, and thought it would be swell to wear tight pants, grow out afro’s, and try to dance around while they play. Too bad they don’t really sound like At the Drive-In, it’s more like Blink182 if Blink182 had only played a handful of shows.
Meanwhile A&R people aren’t freaking out over real bands who really are amazing like Les Savy Fav.
Amoeba needs to sponsor Buddyhead.
Strife has a new record coming out on Victory called “Angermeans”. From what we’ve heard, now that the boys don’t really have the “Inner Struggle” (they aren’t straight edge anymore), this record is going to be more of a party/feel good record.
The kids from Jackass just signed a deal to make a theatrical version of them pooping on and kicking each others genitals as well as at least three primetime “Jackass” tv specials which will run in 2002. The movie starring Johnny Knoxville, directed by Jeff Tremaine (for MTV Films and Paramount), and produced by Spike Jonze, Knoxville and Tremaine; will begin filming in January.
Tom Green and Drew Barrymore have filed for divorce. The papers, which were filed Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court, cite that Drew was tired of Tom “eating her poop”.
If you like skateboarding, penises, weird creatures barfing on themselves, kids smoking, and naked paintings of Ed Templeton’s wife, check out Ed’s new art fag show called “Black Sperm of Vengeance” at the new image art gallery in Santa Monica. If you can’t make it there, check out their website for some previews of Ed’s stuff. The site also has directions if you need that as well. newimageartgallery.com
Last Wednesday at Spa in NYC, every comic book collectors favorite rock star, Gene Simmons, had a party for his new book. Gene invited Gwen Stefani and Ozzy Osbourne but they didn’t show. But Sebastian Bach did (no, he wasn’t wearing the “aids kills fags dead” shirt) and he brought his wife. Two tribute bands played, one that played and another that just dry humped girls in the audience. Gene turned up his macking skills to an impressive level 10 as he was surrounded by ladies with watermelon sized breasts.
With Corey from Slipknot starting work on his side project called Superego, the rest of the band has headed into the studio with Buckethead to record an album under the working title “hockey stick guitars and goofy getups”.
Melissa Auf Der Mar has a Black Sabbath tribute band and they are playing their first NYC show at Spa on January 23. Hopefully they like Ozzy better than Dio.
Good Charlotte have a “new stage show” from what we hear. They now play dramatic theme music from “Edward Scissorhands” for half an hour before they take the stage and wear bandanas and face paint onstage.
We’re not sure who cares, we sure don’t, but just in case you’re weird and like Seal, he’s going into the studio with William Orbit to do a new album soon.
Not only has Moby been busy taking care of his new puppy, but he’s been working on a new album which is supposed to feature lots of (*gasp*) singers.
Internet geeks around the world, your dreams have come true… Britney Spears is posing nude in an ad for PETA. We’ll for sure keep you posted on this.
The first major label cd to be released with the new copy protection mechanism built in will be “More Fast and Furious” (which is the second installment of the soundtrack to the movie Fast and Furious with such bands as Limp Bizkit) will be released on Dec. 18. Damn.
Coalesce is back together. Yawn.
Demian from Playing Enemy said that the singer of Kittie loves his band (Playing Enemy) and that the last time they came through Seattle, she asked their tour manager to track them down so she could bang them.
We’d like to take this time to explain to Demian’s bass player that wearing trench coats and big pants isn’t the coolest things here in the two double zero one.
Last update we posted “That new “Ex-Sunny Day” project with Jeremy, Will, and Nate is going to be called “The Fire Theft”. It’s apparently named after a common idea found in ancient mythology. Someone look that up for us. Well we can always count on Prof. Yaya. Shelby from Frodus did some research for us and here’s what he came up with:
“i did some research for you on ‘the theft of fire’:
Prometheus/promethean
The god Prometheus (“forethought”), son of the titan Iapetus, was the creator of humanity and its benefactor. He bestowed upon mortals many gifts that lifted them from savagery to civilization. One of his most potent benefactions was fire, which he stole from heaven in a fennel stalk to give to mankind a boon expressly forbidden by Zeus. As a punishment for his championship of human beings in opposition to Zeus, Prometheus was bound to a rocky crag and a vulture ate at his liver, which would grow back again for each day’s repast. Thus the name Prometheus becomes synonymous for the archetypal champion, with fire his symbol of defiance and progress. The adjective Promethean means courageous, creative, original, and life-sustaining. Beethoven’s music may be called Promethean and Mary Shelley subtitled her gothic horror novel Frankenstein, A Modern Prometheus.
Also, a theme in other mythologies, like this instance in Finnish mythology:
Louhi, the gap-toothed hag of the North, then got hold of the sun, she caught the moon with her hands and she brought them straight back home to the dark North land. She hid the sun from shining into a bright breasted rock and she sung the moon from gleaming into a mountain of steel. Then she stole the fire from all the cabins. And now it was night; perpetual, long, pitch dark night …
Even God felt cold. So he struck fire on his fingernails to start a new sun and a new moon. But the spark of fire flared up and escaped. It wrought terrible damage all through the world, until it was swallowed by a fish.
Enjoy,
Shelby Cinca aka Prof. Yaya”
Aside from research for Buddyhead.com and watching “Lord of the Rings”, Shelby is back working with his other band, The Cassettes. He’s posted some mp3’s off their new album (one features the guitar player from Dead Meadow – if you don’t have their two records and you are one of those people who think the White Stripes are “mind blowing” you are a fool – get it). www.thecassettesmusic.com
The Basement Jaxx video for “Where’s Your Head At” has monkey dogs in it and rules.
Speaking of videos, The Strokes made a new one… here’s the world preimere.
Travis Barker of Blink 182 is starting a side band which he says will be influenced by Fugazi, the Minutemen, and a touch of Refused. Ten bucks says the singer is from a shitty pop punk band.
Check out Aaron Farley’s online photo portfolio. Hire him if you have money. Click here.
Photos of The Revolution Smile anyone? Click here.
Call up Tommy Lee and tell him you heard a rumor his pee pee is on the large side of the fence. (818) 721-2162.
Bright Eyes has just entered into the studio and begun work on an upcoming full length scheduled for a fall 2002 release.
Crazy Town has written 30 songs for their next audio travesty and are in their newly purchased studio here in Los Angeles and are planning on bringing in an as-yet-undecided producer in the near future. Columbia Records does not yet have a release date for the album, let’s hope it’s far, far away from now.
Initial Records signed another band no one gives a fuck about, Ultimate Fakebook. They’ll be releasing their third full length on March 19, 2001 and it will be called “Open Up And Say Awesome.” Glam metal references are goofy!
Somebody sent an email to inform us: “Hey, last night I was at the The Starting Line show in south jersey and some kids wrote “Suckin Dicks” on Don’t Look Downs tour trailer… man people like to rip off you guys.” Well, if it’s for a good cause such as that, then we say more power to em. Keep up the good work kids.
Holy shit, “The Mouse” emailed us: “I’m “the mouse” bitch! the one who likes to hump and I’m ready to pump!” His real name is Doug. Email him at Dougdevens@aol.com and ask him what it felt like when Jeff Wood dry humped him and got a boner from it.
