Monthly Archives January 2012

New York rock band The Pretty Reckless, fronted by vocalist Taylor Momsen, guitarist Ben Phillips, bassist Mark Damon, and drummer Jamie Perkins will hit the road for a six week headline tour commencing March 9th in Tucson, Arizona at Club Congress. The Medicine Tour, with the support of The Parlor Mob, visits major cities in the U.S. and Canada before wrapping on April 25th in Orlando, Florida.

“We’re busy rehearsing new songs,” Momsen says. “I’m excited to play them for our fans and give them a taste of what’s to come from The Pretty Reckless.”

2011 was a busy year for The Pretty Reckless. The group spent over nine months on the road in support of their headline tour as well as opening slots on the Guns N’ Roses and Evanescence tours. The Pretty Reckless released Light Me Up, which The New York Times called “salacious, convincingly muscular, and unnervingly rowdy.”

For more about The Pretty Reckless, please visit www.theprettyreckless.com.

Tour Dates:

March...

This is one tour that rock fans will be talking about for years to come and if you miss it, you’ll be terribly sorry. Opeth and Mastodon will be embarking on a co-headline tour this spring, which kicks off April 4 in Portland, Maine and runs through May 12 in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s the first time these two titans of progressive and forward-thinking hard rock have hit the road together and it’s going to be one for the ages. Ghost will serve as the opener of the tour, which has been christened the “Heritage Hunter.”

About the tour, Opeth frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt, in his trademark deadpan wit, stated, “We’re touring North America together with Mastodon soon. Nice! One of the very few metal bands of today that I genuinely like. Good people too! Ghost are coming with us as well, and they are one of the hottest new bands to come out of Sweden in recent years, and I dig them too. I sound like an old fart, don’t I? Well, I am.”

He continued, “Yet, am I right in thinking that this tour, this line up, is pretty decent? Would you all agree? Not complete s—, is it? Hope to see y’all out there! What are we playing? Not sure yet, but considering the company, maybe we’ll have to pull out the big guns from time to time. In order to keep up, I mean.”

Opeth released Heritage in September 2011, garnering critical acclaim from Rolling Stone (“a career record that reimagines prog as actual rock ‘n’ roll”), Pitchfork (“a pretty, well thought out collection”), AV Club (“wholly absorbing”), Decibel (which featured the band on the cover, in somewhat of a tradition for the band and the magazine), PopMatters (“Opeth still continues to make especially phenomenal music”) and more.

Dates for this momentous trek are as follows. Pre-sale ticketing begins on February 1, with public on sales to follow on February 3. Go here to purchase tickets.

April 4 – State Theater – Portland, ME

April 5 – Orpheum Theater – Boston, MA *

April 6 – Metropolis – Montreal, QC *

April 7...

Having already introduced their special brand of melodic dance mayhem to North American electronic music fans with roof-raising DJ sets at nightclubs in December, London’s premiere dubstep duo Nero is gearing up for a triumphant return to the U.S. in March for their headlining “Second Reality” live tour, as well as eagerly awaited appearances at the Coachella Music & Arts Festival in April. Nero will also launch their exclusive 2012 DJ residency at Surrender and XS Nightclubs, located at Encore at Wynn Las Vegas, performing first at Surrender between the weeks at Coachella.

Tickets for the “Second Reality” tour will be available to Nero fan club members via a pre-sale happening now at http://us.thisisnero.com/tickets/ Those who purchase tickets will each receive an immediate digital download of Nero’s debut album Welcome Reality along with an exclusive laminate that unlocks additional digital content. The fan pre-sale runs now through February 3^rd.

Nero is British-born producers, remixers, DJs, and artists Dan Stephens and Joe Ray, who are joined by dynamo singer Alana Watson for their live concerts, which find them performing high atop a custom-built booth consisting of ghetto blasters, retro TV’s, old amps, and an arcade machine centerpiece.

Nero is touring in support of Welcome Reality, which was released to rave reviews by Cherrytree/Interscope Records in December. With its thunderous bass, hail of house rhythms, lightning flashes of rave synths, and showers of guitar, the album “pulls dubstep toward the arena-pop spotlight without leaving its shadows behind,” as the New York Times put it in its review, while Billboard noted that Nero “comes off like a dubstep-powered pop band.”

Released in the U.K. in August, Welcome Reality debuted at No. 1 and rapidly earned Gold status, fueled by its singles “Innocence,” Guilt,” “Promises” (which also stormed straight to the top of the UK charts) and “Me and You,” which was the most played record on Radio 1 for three weeks in a row and is now the first U.S. single from the album. Nero’s indie/dubstep hybrid smash Me and You Remix EP is also currently available digitally, and features a brand-new remix of “Me And You” by Steve Angello of Swedish House Mafia, and a Skrillex remix of “Promises” (previously unavailable in the U.S.) that has racked up more than 10 million plays on YouTube.

Check out the video trailer for HARD Summer 2012 here featuring “Promises” (Skrillex & Nero Remix) and Nero’s Dan Stephens.

With nominations from BBC’s Sound of 2011, XFM’s Sound of 2011, and Music Week’s Top 15, Nero also won 2010′s Beatport Award for Best Dubstep Act and Best Dubstep Track for “Act Like You Know.” The duo have performed at all the major UK music festivals including Glastonbury, Bestival, Reading, and Wireless, and still found the time to produce remixes for The Streets, La Roux, deadmau5, N*E*R*D and Daft Punk.

Decca recording artist Imelda May makes her forth appearance within a year on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” January 31 to perform her song “Proud and Humble”. May showcased her second single “Inside Out” on the program this past fall. In July she was there singing the title track from her album Mayhem and she appeared on the show in April with Jeff Beck. May closed out 2011 with a sold out show at Dublin’s O2 Arena performing two songs with fellow countryman Bono. This past weekend, she performed at the CHANEL Numéros Privés exhibition opening night in Las Vegas. Before heading to Leno, she’ll tape a number of performances including PBS program “WoodSongs”, “Rachael Ray” and the NPR program “World Café”. Airdates to be announced.

Mayhem marks May’s second ...

Heavy metal fans now have a chance to own a piece of musical history and help find a cure for Myotonic Dystrophy (DM). LAMB OF GOD lead guitarist Mark Morton has donated the custom-designed and autographed Jackson guitar from his personal collection, and the strings and LAMB OF GOD guitar picks he used to record four of the songs from the band’s album Wrath, to the Myotonic Dystrophy Foundation (MDF). All proceeds from the sale of the guitar will support research into treatments and a cure for this devastating disorder.

This auction will be run through eBay MissionFish. Bidding begins at 5:00 PM PST on Wednesday, January 25, 2012 and ends at 5:00 PM PST on Saturday, February 4, 2012.

Three-time Grammy-nominated LAMB OF GOD has been helping MDF raise funds for DM research since 2009, when...

Tonight on PBS at 9pm EST, Grammy nominee and legendary crooner Tony Bennett will take centerstage in the latest installment of the landmark TV series “Great Performances”. The program entitled “Tony Bennnett: Duets II” will feature the singer’s greatest hits, performed by Bennett and today’s biggest stars, including Lady Gaga, John Mayer, Michael Buble, k.d. lang, Sheryl Crow, Willie Nelson, Queen Latifah, Norah Jones, Josh Groban, Faith Hill, Alejandro Sanz, Carrie Underwood and more.

Check out the trailer for a sneak peak: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Alfpyl2jLB4

Again, the sessions filmed to capture the magic of these performers singing with the master of the Great American Songbook, will air TONIGHT at 9 pm on PBS (check local listings).

CONNECT WITH TONY BENNETT
http://www...

Pop-rock singer-songwriter Cory Lamb is on the rise thanks to the release of his debut album, Break the Cycle. Cory worked on the record for two years in Los Angeles with the help of producer Andy Duncan (founding member of OK Go), and has caught the attention of actor Stephen Baldwin who helped produce Cory’s first video. Cory is preparing to release his new single, “Safe In Your Arms,” which fans can download mid-February.

The video for the album’s second single, “It’s a Good Day,” was directed by Life Garland (Lil Wayne, Jessie J) and is streaming now over at YouTube. The video has been in rotation across the country at locations such as McDonald’s, Hot Topic, Taco Bell, and more. Cory and his band will also be joining Fireflight and Rapture Ruckus on their upcoming “The Stay Close Tour” (tour dates below), kicking off at the end of January with stops across the US.

For more on Cory Lamb, visit his official site at www.corylamb.com as well as his Facebook and Twitter pages. Fans can now pick up a copy of Break The Cycle on iTunes, distributed by Universal/Fontana.

The Stay Close Tour with Fireflight & Rapture Ruckus

Jan 27...