Live Underground with Jessie Brown, Album Release

I caught up with Jessie Brown again on Live Underground as she's having her CD release this Friday at Michael's with the Stogies & Carmen Townsend. That's a show you SHOULD go to. Here's the interview:



http://jessiebrownband.com

Interview with The Dirty Heads

The Dirty Heads had some awesome success with their song Lay Me Down featuring Rome, they're back with a new album, Cabin By The Sea, coming out June 19th. I caught up with them to chat about the new album, collaborations & more.

Interview with The Offspring

The Offspring have a new album, Days Go By, coming out June 26th. I caught up with their guitarist Noodles this week to talk about the album, some old demos that surfaced last year & when we might see them back in Halifax.

Live Underground with Jessie Brown

This Friday at Michael's Bar & Grill, The Stogies are having a tour funraiser with the Sweet Deals & Jessie Brown. I interviewed Jessie tonight on Live Underground about her upcoming album of soulful rock tunes.

Her self titled album comes out in June, keep up to date here: http://jessiebrownband.com

Live Underground with Stone Mary

Tonight at the Seahorse, Stone Mary, Old Blood & Shelter With Thieves are playing as part of their Crack In The World tour that will take them to the ECMA's in Moncton. I spoke to Stone Mary vocalist, Christine Campbell, on Live Underground.

Also check out Stone Mary playing Young Love live!

www.stonemary.com

Live Underground with Shelter With Thieves

Shelter With Thieves are nominated for a couple 2012 ECMA's (Loud Recording & DVD of the Year for Live At The Seahorse). Tonight I spoke with their drummer Matt on Live Underground about the ECMA nominations & the Crack In The World tour with Stone Mary & Old Blood.

Here's some clips from their Live at The Seahorse DVD.

Go check them out at the Seahorse tomorrow night with Stone Mary & Old Blood. http://www.shelterwiththieves.com/

Life Lessons: Back Ya Sh!t Up

I hope my real life problem can be a good life lesson for you as it's made my life difficult this week....

The other night I was having problems with an iPhone app, so I decided up update it & a few others. This is where things went horribly wrong...

During the process of  updating, my phone froze. Gave it a reboot but it wouldn't go past the opening apple screen. Upon connecting to itunes I found my phone was now in recovery mode & needed to be restored. If I were a smart person, I would have regularly backed things up & this would've have been that big a deal....... Note, IF I were smart. In reality, I hadn't been backing up my phone. What's that? Why not, when there's iCloud so easily available. Well you see, I had been lazy on upgrading to iOS 5 and therefore did not have this available to me. So today's lesson: Back Ya Sh!t Up!..... and keeping up to date on software, probably smart as well.

Poor Young Things

Konrad & Scott from Poor Young Things dropped by Live 105 before their show at the Seahorse tonight for a chat. Here's the full interview:

Poor Young Things + Alert The Medic @ the Seahorse = Rockin' show, you should go! Get more on the band at http://www.pooryoungthings.com

Here's their video for Blame It On The Good Times, getting played on Much Music!

Live Underground with The Green Reflectors

I love 2 piece bands & I love surf/rockabilly music. So naturally I love The Green Reflectors! 2 brothers that play instrumental surf rock, they're from the south shore of NS & I spoke to their guitarist Kyle on Live Underground about the band and the upcoming Rockabilly Riot on Saturday.

 Here they are covering Link Wray's "Rumble."

Go to the Seahorse on Saturday to check these guys out at the Rockabilly Riot! For more on the band, click here.

Macy Gray Covered Who? WTF?

There's been some interesting artists cover great songs over the years. Some can be good, some not so much. This might fall under "Not So Much." 

R&B singer Macy Gray is releasing an album of covers, some of those covers have left me scratching my head. Here's the list:

Here Comes The Rain Again (Eurythmics)
Creep (Radiohead)
You Want Them Nervous (skit featuring J.B. Smoove)
Smoke Two Joints (The Toyes)
La La La (Teaching The Kids) (featuring Layann Al Saud, Avery Albert, Happy Hinds & Siena Stelber)
The Power of Love (featuring Hugh Salk)
Nothing Else Matters (Metallica)
Sail (AWOLNATION)
I Try Is Cool And All But...(skit featuring Nicole Scherzinger)
Maps (Yeah Yeah Yeahs)
Mel Rap (featuring Mel Hinds)
Bubbly (featuring Idris Elba) (Colbie Caillat)
Wake Up (Arcade Fire)
Really? (skit featuring MC Lyte)

Different song selection, but I'm trying to wrap my head around the smokey voiced Macy Gray singing Radiohead's "Creep" or Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters." I can't imagine those will compliment the original songs too well. I will say, this is not the worst covers album I've heard of. That distinction goes to Pat Boone's "In A Metal Mood." This is what I mean:

I'm sure Macy Gray won't be that awful, but I still wouldn't have high hopes for her turning out some cool Arcade Fire or Yeah Yeah Yeahs covers.

Live Underground with Three Sheet

Three Sheet are from Halifax, they play Hip-Hop but don't have a DJ & there are no beats. Real instruments, beat boxing, MC's & singers. They are heading to Taiwan very soon for a tour, before that they'll be at Michael's tomorrow night for a send off show. I spoke to their guitarist Ryan on Live Underground about all the excitement.

Get more on Three Sheet at http://www.threesheet.com & if you want info on their send off show tomorrow night, here's the FB event: http://www.facebook.com/events/143255472464225/

St. Paddy's Day & A Story!

It's St. Patrick's Day, the one day of the year it's socially acceptable to have beer for breakfast, everyone finds they are 1/100th Irish & commits to a full day of drinking. It's a delight! I quite enjoy the Irish/Gaelic music/bands that gets played a little more often today. One of those bands, though they don't always have an Irish drinkin' song kinda vibe (they actually are Irish), is U2....

I bring them up as I have this running joke with a few friends. There's a certain bar in Halifax I've been to a few times, every time I'm there I hear at least one U2 song. I was at this bar the other day with some people & I had mentioned this, they just brushed it off. We were there long enough to heard 2-3 songs & then what should come on but U2 - Pride (In The Name of Love). This has happened a few times, now it's to the point where I can make an easy couple bucks to bet that it'll happen, which makes me love this place even more!

You're probably wondering what bar I'm talking about. Well if I told you, that'd spoil all the fun (not to mention I'd wanna see a few advertising $'s first as a spokesperson haha). But should you ever go to this establishment & notice you've heard a few songs by U2 while you're there, you'll know ;)

New Ink & My Itchy Fail

On Monday I got a new tattoo, the last few I've gotten seem to always be tributes to important figures in my life, the latest is no exception. My grandmother passed away shortly before Christmas at the age of 90. She was tough though, in & outta the hospital several times in her last year & kept bouncing back from her ailments. So this seemed fitting....

However, today I got a little busy & forgot my moisturizer at home. It has caused great itchiness! Perhaps a little madness to as I resist the temptation to scratch....

That bottle of moisturizer shall not leave my side until this is healed!!

Bands & Smart Phone Apps

Red Hot Chili Peppers are a band I've been a fan of for many years, just the mixture of funk & rock I've always adored and that is what first made me want to learn how to play bass. They've now put out their own smart phone app...

With the app, you can keep up to date on the band, where they're touring, if they're in studio, photo galleries etc. It seems really cool, I know there's other bands doing the same... makes me wonder, is this going to replace a traditional .com website for bands?

The need for an actual website has been shrinking with social networking sites like Facebook & Twitter, I've seen more then a few .com band sites simply being a place holder & directing web traffic to FB, Twitter, YouTube etc. Add mobile apps that are dedicated to giving you all you need to know about the band into the mix, it doesn't seem like there's as big a demand for a websites anymore. Granted, not every indie band will likely have the ability to get their own mobile app, for them a .com maybe but FB & the like are so much easier to manage. Plus there are millions if not billions of people on those social networking sites already that could stumble upon your band page. Less likely your website is to come up in a Google search.

Now we wait and see how it all goes down....