Monthly Archives December 2010

Roadrunner Records is recently launched SignMeTo Roadrunner Records, a dynamic new free service that mimics the actual A&R process using social networking tactics.

SignMeTo is a fun and functional way for fans and unsigned bands to participate in the music industry’s A&R process. Users begin by signing up as “scouts,” and unsigned bands create their own profiles, which scouts then rate and tag. The band profiles offer comprehensive functionality, with bands being able to upload photos, video, music and tour dates. For added convenience, artists and managers are able to use one dashboard to control multiple profiles.

Scouts then peruse the site and rate and review bands, which impact SignMeTo charts, which refresh daily or weekly by genre. The more each scout interacts with the site, the more weight their opinions carry. New charts are formed as users spread new tags, with genres expanding from the very simple “Alternative” or “Rock” all the way to more complex genres like “Russian Death Metal.” Besides other chart incentives, bands can also earn badges, some of which are bestowed by real Roadrunner A&R staff. SignMeTo already boasts 6,000+ active band profiles and 10,000+ scouts.

SignMeTo.roadrunnerrecords.com

For bands, ...

In a digital age where music is produced, consumed and discarded in the blink of an eye, Rome is brilliant anachronism: a defiantly analog album that took five years to perfect and has been made to pass the test of time.

Brian Burton and Daniele Luppi met in Los Angeles in 2004. Burton, better known as Danger Mouse, had just created a media storm with The Grey Album, begun work on Gorillaz Demon Days opus and was also embarking on his hugely successful Gnarls Barkley project with Cee-Lo Green. Luppi, a composer from Italy, was receiving acclaim for his album An Italian Story, which revisited the cinematic sounds of his childhood. (He has also written music for the screen – Sex and the City, Nine – and later worked with Burton on arrangements for Gnarls Barkley, Dark Night of the Soul and Broken Bells.)

United by their shared passion for classic Italian film music, they decided to create something special. After an intense songwriting period – writing separately at first, and then together as the songs evolved – they travelled to Rome in October 2006. Luppi made some calls and they assembled the original musicians from films such as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West – including the legendary Marc 4 backing band and Alessandro Alessandroni’s ‘I Cantori Moderni’ choir. Most of the musicians were in their seventies and hadn’t worked together for several decades.

They booked time in Rome’s cavernous Forum Studios – ...

For many years Richmond Va. artist/musician Dave Brockie has been known to the world as GWAR’s pig-snouted and bellicose lead “throat-thing”, Oderus Urungus, playing to semi-packed houses around easily 35% of the world. Never one to shy away from using GWAR’s success as a way to gain attention for a bewildering variety of side projects, including a glut of bands (X-Cops, Death Piggy, DBX), a variety of bizarre performances (F-Art Players, Chippy the Chippopautamus, The Crack-a-thon), and a slew of demented drawings and illustrations (see some here), Brockie has now added literature to his already bulging quiver of artistic arrows.

Eleven years after its completion, Brockie’s sprawling epic of modern war and ancient necromancy, Whargoul, has finally been released in book form by Eraserhead Press.

The story of the Whargoul came to being in the late nineties as Brockie toured Europe with GWAR. Inspired by some of histories more despicable events, Brockie began drawing and writing about the creature that called itself “Whargoul”. The idea of an undying creature that found sustenance in the carnage of war began to flesh itself out in the form of several comics for the now defunct Slave Pit Funnies, and was stand-out track on GWAR’s 1997 album “Rag-Na-Rok”.

Ultimately Brockie decided the only way the story could tru...

Upon first listen, Katie Costello’s incredible upcoming release Lamplight (Tiny Tiny Records, February 22) is all soulful melody and tapping feet. Exceptionally sultry and soaring vocals weave their way into currents of piano, each tune brimming over with a sound you might expect from times past – but don’t get us wrong, everything about Katie Costello is oh-so-today and immediately exciting.

On second listen the lyrics start to jump out at you, swishing swiftly through your ear drums, into your brain and flowing through your blood until they plant themselves firmly into your heart. Upon third and fourth and fifth listen, the record comes together in the same way every great album does, in the moments when you find yourself on an empty street, iPod blasting as you dance recklessly along in the rain doing bell kicks over puddles, happily sheltered under a big black umbrella or when you find yourself on the subway, alone, singing along, out loud.

At th...

London’s White Lies made a major splash with their dark and enigmatic 2009 debut, To Lose My Life, and are ready to up the excitement factor once again with the announcement of their highly anticipated sophomore record Ritual set to hit on January 18, 2011 via Geffen/Fiction.

Produced by Alan Moulder, Ritual is the perfect epic and roaring follow up taking us on a sonic journey through dancefloor beats meets raging guitars and everything in between, fused together perfectly, and all at an incredibly melodic breakneck speed. Ritual teems with dark distorted anthems for the modern age. British critics have given White Lies accolades as successors to the likes of Echo & The Bunnymen, The Teardrop Explodes, Depeche Mode, The Psychedelic Furs and Magazine and have called lyricist Charles Cave a “ classic doom-rock dreamweaver; Nick Cave meeting Edgar Allen Poe.” First single “Bigger Than Us” is available now!

Whi...

Dancelicious is the first of a series of dance compilations featuring global chart topping songs by the world’s hottest music artist. The premiere volume is unmatched, featuring international superstars Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Solange and Kelly Rowland. All of the tracks on the album have been remixed by award-winning and celebrated dance music producers & DJs including Freemasons, Kaskade, Mr. Mig and Ralphi Rosario.

Six international hit remixes that have never been previously released are included on the compilation. The songs by Beyoncé, Lady Gaga and Solange have each topped the Billboard Dance Club Play Chart at #1.

DANCELICIOUS track listing:

Lady Gaga & Beyoncé – “Telephone” (Kaskade Mix)

Solange – “Sandcastle Disco” (Freemasons Mix)

BeyoncÃ...

New Artist Alert! – Jessie J is a 22 year old Brit who’s written for Alicia Keys, Chris Brown, and Miley Cyrus – you know the hit “Party In The U.S.A” – yeah she penned that! Signed to Jason Flom’s label Lava Records imprint on Universal Republic Jessie J is set to release her debut album in the US early 2011, and will launch with her first single a ballad of “Who You Are” recently featured in Step up 3D.

It’s hard to classify Jesse in one genre (pop? Rnb? urban / pop? Indie / pop?) but one thing we def know is that this girls got SWAG!

Check out the video for her UK single and US set up track “Do It Like A Dude”- It received 140K views in just 24hrs!

www.jessiejofficial.com

www.facebook.com/jessiejofficial

 

Only Son is releasing his second album, Searchlight, on January 18!

Check out the video for “Magic,” the first song on the album, here! It was directed by Adria Petty (Kings Of Leon, Regina Spektor, Beyonce.) AND download it free here!

Only Son is the music of NYC-based songwriter Jack Dishel (former lead guitarist for The Moldy Peaches.) Only Son’s sophomore record, Searchlight, will be released January 18, 2011. Searchlight features standout tracks like “Magic” and “It’s a Boy” as well as guest appearances by Regina Spektor and members of The Strokes and Of Montreal.

Born Yevgeny Leonidovich Dishel in the former Soviet Union, Jack arrived in America as a three-year-old Russian refugee. A music fanatic from a young age, Jack got his first ramshackle drum set after seeing Tommy Lee spinning in midair above the crowd in Motley Crue’s “Wildside” video. That spawned his “suburban metal head” phase which gave way to a lengthy “urban street kid” period which began at the age of 14 upon hearing “Fuck The Police” on a friend’s stereo system in Queens.

“All of a sudden my pants were sagging and my hair wa...