SEPULTURA Guitarist Schedules Brazilian Solo Shows

SEPULTURA guitarist Andreas Kisser will perform material from his first-ever solo album, "Hubris I & II", at the following shows:

Jun. 05 - SESC Pompéia - São Paulo, BRA
Jun. 06 - SESC Pompéia - São Paulo, BRA

"Hubris I & II" is scheduled for release in June via Holland's Mascot Records. A two-disc set, the self-produced effort was recorded in part at A Voz do Brasil studio in São Paulo, Brazil.

Kisser previously stated about the album, "I'm very pleased with the result and I'm excited to hear it all done. It was a long process, a learning process and a great experience. It's a musical journey trough the influences I had for last 15 years of my life and at the same time it's very different from everything I did so far."

"Hubris" comes from Greek word "hybris," which means "excessive pride, wanton violence."

"Hubris I & II" track listing:

I:

01. Protest!
02. Euphoria/Desperation
03. Eu Humano
04. The Forum
05. Virgulândia
06. God's Laugh
07. R.H.E.T.
08. Em Busca Do Ouro
09. Lava Sky
10. A Million Judas Iscariotes

II:

01. Sad Soil
02. Worlds Apart
03. Breast Feeding
04. Page
05. Domenicana
06. Vivaldi
07. 0120
08. Armonia
09. Hubris
10. Mythos
11. O Mais Querido

Check out audio samples on Andreas' MySpace page.

Video footage of Andreas Kisser and his backing band — which includes SEPULTURA drummer Jean Dolabella — performing a track from "Hubris I & II", on "Estúdio Showlivre", a Brazilian Internet TV show, can be view here

Nirvana's Kurt Cobain: Still Missed, By Kurt Loder

Fifteen years ago today, Kurt Cobain's body was found at his house outside of Seattle. He had been threatening to commit suicide — had tried it, even — and now he'd succeeded. The leader of one of the best and biggest bands of the '90s went out on a shotgun blast, in a fog of heroin. A terrible waste, but that was the way he wanted it.

His death wasn't a complete surprise, really. The lyrics that Cobain wrote for Nirvana — the cloud of feeling in which he cloaked his simple song structures — came from a place you were sometimes glad you were only visiting. In a business in which most of what passes for emotion is just another pop calculation, the feeling in Kurt's songs was real. He was apparently amazed, or appalled, by the wealth and fame they brought him. (Although he wasn't so oblivious to these things that he didn't renegotiate the three-way split with his bandmates to reflect the fact the he was the songwriter, and deserved a larger cut.)

They were a great band in any case. But they dealt with their stardom — their sudden, huge renown — mainly by ignoring it. They had no entourage, no hangers-on, no parade of retainers. Showing up for an interview, they would just walk into the room, unaccompanied, bringing along their own beer, likely as not. They were funny; they were nice guys. They had no attitude. Cobain hated the traditional rock-star pose — which was why he had such contempt for Guns N' Roses. He had no interest in giving anybody a hard time.

This is how cool they were. In December of 1993, MTV was getting ready to pre-tape a big New Year's Eve concert in Seattle. Nirvana was one of the bands on the bill, but the headliner was Pearl Jam. Come the day of the show, though, Pearl Jam flaked out and withdrew. In desperation, MTV approached Nirvana and asked the band to step in and save the show, to headline it. This was a huge imposition — essentially, the channel was asking the band to play all night. Nirvana said they'd think about it, and they did. They thought about it for maybe 10 minutes, and then they said, sure.

Or consider this, a story from one of their tours. MTV News had been lobbying to come out on the road with the band, shoot a concert, do an interview. The group was cordial about it, but the answer was no. They'd done a ton of press at the beginning of the tour, and apparently couldn't bear to be asked one more question along the lines of what-is-this-grunge-thing? Who could blame them?

Sitting in New York, though, we thought, wait a minute ... there were two opening acts on the tour, and one of them was Shonen Knife. Shonen Knife was the all-time unlikeliest of rock acts: three burbly Japanese girls with drums and guitars who sang songs about ice cream and jelly beans and sounded like the Ramones might have sounded if the Ramones had sung songs about ice cream and jelly beans. Perfect. We would fly out to wherever and interview the jelly-bean girls and, who knew, maybe pick up a couple shots of the Nirvana guys, too, on the fly. (Kurt Cobain really loved Shonen Knife. He would always come out from backstage to watch them play. "I cried every night," he said.)

Unfortunately, the money people at MTV were dubious about shelling out for an interview with an obscure Japanese punk-pop band. So we had to crawl back to Nirvana and beg them to rethink their no-more-press decision, just this once, and agree to do an interview with us. That way we could get production money — no question there — and fly out and do the Knife, too, and everybody'd be happy. Nirvana thought about this for about 10 minutes too. Then they said, sure.

Cobain loved Shonen Knife and he loved the Vaselines, too, bands like that. But he wasn't an alt-rock snob. He loved everyone from David Bowie to Leadbelly. He said he'd come across Leadbelly's name in reading an interview with William Burroughs. (Burroughs, the Beat author and heroin laureate, was one of Kurt's idols, perhaps unfortunately.) He first recorded the Leadbelly song "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" with his friend Mark Lanegan, of Screaming Trees, singing lead. (The track is included on Lanegan's 1990 solo album, The Winding Sheet.) And of course it was the last song he sang in the MTV "Unplugged" show Nirvana taped in New York in November of 1993. With its bleak lyric about a godforsaken place "where the cold wind blows" and "the sun don't ever shine," "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" must have resonated deeply in Cobain's troubled mind.

I had said or written somewhere that "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" was more commonly known as "In the Pines," and had been performed and recorded under that title by scores of people, chief among them, in my view, bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe. Cobain found this interesting, apparently — or maybe irritating, I'm not sure. I remember standing in a corridor outside his hotel room one night, after the interview we finally did in December of 1993, discussing this subject at some length: "But the Leadbelly version is called 'Where Did You Sleep Last Night.' " "I know, I know, but the Bill Monroe version is called 'In the Pines,' and that's the title I've always heard and — hey, did you ever hear the Dave Van Ronk version? Great guitar player." "Yeah ...?"

A truce was called. I apologized for having impugned his folk-blues expertise. He said, hey, it was okay. He spoke very softly, I remember. Then he said goodnight and disappeared behind his door and that was the last time I saw him.

After his death I wondered whether he and the rest of Nirvana ever realized the powerful emotional effect their music (and their titanic live shows) had on people. Possibly not. "It really took a while," Dave Grohl later said, "like a year and a half or more after everything happened, that I realized, like, 'Wow, we really did kinda make a difference.' " It's too bad Kurt Cobain never had that realization — or, if he did, that it wasn't enough to keep him interested, to keep him alive. He's still missed.

Editor's note: This is a revised version of an article published by MTV News in 2004.

Vivace: the next-gen musical laptop?

All-in-one studio showcased
Ben Rogerson, Mon 20 Apr 2009, 12:48 pm BST


With MIDI controller keyboards and laptops/netbooks getting ever smaller, creating a truly portable music-making system is now easy. However, Vivace is a solution that looks to be more integrated than anything we've seen before.

Designed by Young-Shin Lee and Hae-Jin Jung, it looks something like a musical laptop: a slimline device that offers a touch-sensitive musical keyboard and fold-out touchscreen display.

Vivace is a concept product at the moment and 'specs' are thin on the ground, but you can clearly see octave up/down buttons to the right of the keyboard, and we can only assume that audio I/O is built-in.

However, while the product is certainly eye-catching, we have to wonder about its viability in the current marketplace. As we've already noted, creating a portable studio that can run fully-fledged production software isn't difficult, so the Vivace would have to be something pretty special in order to compete.

Whether its developer will ever give it that chance remains to be seen.
(Via Yanko Design)

AVENGED SEVENFOLD, PAPA ROACH, BUCKCHERRY Interviewed In Iowa; Video Available - Apr. 14, 2009

Bryan Odell, a correspondent for "The Omaha Buzz", a weekly entertainment show on WOWT in Omaha, has uploaded videotaped interviews he conducted with members of PAPA ROACH, BUCKCHERRY and AVENGED SEVENFOLD on February 14, 2009 at the Mid-America Center in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Watch the 10-minute report below.

AVENGED SEVENFOLD will finish its current U.S. tour with two epic SoCal shows before a crowd of beloved hometown fans at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles on April 16 and at the San Diego Sports Arena on April 17. AVENGED SEVENFOLD will also perform at The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas on Saturday, April 18 with special guests ATREYU and REV THEORY. This will be the last chance to catch the Orange County quintet until 2010, marking the end of a hugely successful touring cycle as the band heads into the studio to work on their next album once the tour is finished.

The band is touring behind the self-produced "Avenged Sevenfold", which topped the Billboard Alternative, Hard, and Rock charts the week after its release in October 2007. It also won the award for "Best Album" at the 2008! Kerrang! Awards. The follow-up to 2005's million-selling "City of Evil", "Avenged Sevenfold" debuted at No. 4 on The Billboard 200, marking the biggest sales week ever for the quintet. The album has been certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America.

PAPA ROACH's fifth studio album, "Metamorphosis", sold 44,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 8 on The Billboard 200 chart.

PAPA ROACH's 2006 CD, "The Paramour Sessions", opened with nearly 37,000 copies — a drop from the 52,000 first-week performance of 2004's "Getting Away with Murder" — to debut at position No. 16 on The Billboard 200 chart.

"Metamorphosis" was written at the legendary Paramour Mansion and recorded at NRG Recording Studios. The album was co-produced by Jay Baumgardener (311, EVANESCENCE, INCUBUS) and PAPA ROACH. James Michael (MÖTLEY CRÜE, SIXX: A.M.) also co-produced five tracks.

ROADRUNNERRECORDS.COM TOP 20 OF ALL TIME!

So this week we're switching it up a bit on you! We've decided to do a little more research and bring you the top 20 of all time on RoadrunnerRecords.com from both video and audio! Going through all the information on these was really interesting, and we're going to give it to you. Take a look at how many plays each video got, and how many times the audio tracks were played! Then watch YOUR favorites!

Top Songs of All Time on RoadrunnerRecords.com
1. Nickelback "Rockstar" ... 193,872 plays
2. Killswitch Engage "Daylight Dies" ... 154,647 plays
3. Nickelback "Too Bad" ... 148,511 plays
4. Suffocation "Breeding The Spawn" ... 124,752 plays
5. Cavalera Conspiracy "Sanctuary" ... 124,537 plays
6. Cradle Of Filth "The Foetus Of A New Day Kicking" ... 105,038 plays
7. Nickelback "Far Away" ... 101,527 plays
8. Slipknot "The Blister Exists" ... 87,993 plays
9. Slipknot "The Heretic Anthem" ... 83,420 plays
10. Trivium "Anthem (We Are The Fire)" ... 71,695 plays
11. DragonForce "Operation Ground And Pound" ... 68,778 plays
12. Killswitch Engage "This Fire Burns" ... 61,316 plays
13. Dream Theater "Constant Motion" ... 59,630 plays
14. Killswitch Engage "Holy Diver" ... 55,663 plays
15. Cradle Of Filth "Dirge Inferno" ... 54,591 plays
16. Dresden Dolls "Night Reconnaissance" ... 54,083 plays
17. Trivium "The Rising" ... 49,560 plays
18. Black Label Society "Blood Is Thicker Than Water" ... 44,293 plays
19. DevilDriver "Unlucky 13" ... 43,715 plays
20. Killswitch Engage "My Curse" ... 43,411 plays

Top Videos of All Time on RoadrunnerRecords.com!
1. Nickelback "Far Away" ... 252,160 views
2. Nickelback "Photograph" ... 215792 views
3. Trivium "Entrance Of The Conflagration" ... 202,127 views
4. Trivium "Anthem (We Are The Fire)" ... 200,628 views
5. Nickelback "Savin' Me" ... 200,154 views
6. Cradle Of Filth "Temptation" ... 182,106 views
7. Slipknot "MTV Teaser" ... 175,130 views (can you believe a TEASER got more views than a music video?! What are you Slipknot fans doing?!)
8. Nickelback "Feelin' Way Too Damn Good" ... 165,692 views
9. DragonForce "Operation Ground And Pound" ... 162,926 views
10. Slipknot "The Blister Exists" ... 161,012 views
11. Black Label Society "Concrete Jungle" ... 151,286 views
12. DragonForce "Through The Fire And Flames" ... 148,854 views
13. Nickelback "How You Remind Me" ... 136,837 views
14. Killswitch Engage "My Curse" ... 128,780 views
15. Slipknot "Before I Forget" ... 125,617 views
16. Nickelback "Someday" ... 124,679 views
17. Nickelback "Rockstar" ... 120,780 views
18. Nickelback "If Everyone Cared" ... 114,189 views
19. Stone Sour "Through Glass" ... 106,351 views
20. Slipknot "Voliminal DVD Trailer" ... 97,853 views

THE 50 GREATEST METAL FRONT-MEN OF ALL TIME! (Roadrunner Version)

In the latest issue of Metal Edge Magazine, writers Adrien Begrand, Brett Callwood, Leonard Pierce, Bryan Reesman and Jeff Treppel (with an editors note by Phil Freeman) took on the extensive task of listing the top 50 greatest front-men in metal. With elaborations on the top 25, they list some of the best. So why are we writing about it? Because we disagree with a ton of it! Rob Zombie was the front-man of legendary White Zombie… but we all know his lyrics left something to be desired. Do you really think he is worthy of top ten recognition? Sully Erna is the lead man for the pop act Godsmack, is he really better than Tim “Ripper” Owens? (Judas Priest, Iced Earth).

That being said, Roadrunner Records Senior Director of A&R Mike Gitter, Director of Publicity Amy Sciarretto, Tour Coordinator Justin D'Angelo and New Media Content Editor Sam Roon decided to take it upon themselves to sit down and compile what they think is a very accurate list of the top 50 front-men in metal. The team took a special liberty that should be noted. In the many hours of discussion, they came across several people who were more the front-men of their bands than the lead singer. You will see that this was taken into consideration and the true greatest front-men of metal are listed here.

As you may have already guessed, there’s a catch! The team purposely left out every Roadrunner Records artists from this list, including any bands signed to Roadrunner internationally. This was a daunting task because besides being slightly bias through our work, the team genuinely loves a lot of these front-men and really felt they should be on this list. Never the less they persevered and you are about to read what is a very accurate list of the 50 greatest front-men in metal.

Compare our list to the Metal Edge list… Let us know what you think!

The 50 Greatest Metal Frontmen of All Time

1. Robert Plant (Band of Joy, Led Zeppelin, Rockestra, The Honeydrippers, Page and Plant, Strange Sensation, Alison Krauss)
2. Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden, Samson)
3. Ronnie James Dio (Elf, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Dio, Heaven and Hell)
4. Axl Rose (Guns N' Roses, Hollywood Rose, L.A. Guns, Rapidfire)
5. James Hetfield (Metallica)
6. Angus Young (AC/DC) (Argue it if you don’t agree!)
7. Alice Cooper (Alice Cooper)
8. Steven Tyler (Aerosmith)
9. David Lee Roth (Van Halen)
10. Ozzy Osbourne (Black Sabbath, Ozzy)
11. Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, Fantômas, Tomahawk, Peeping Tom, Lovage, John Zorn, Kaada/Patton, Dillinger Escape Plan, Hemophiliac, Maldoror, General Patton vs. The X-Ecutioners)
12. Gene Simmons (Kiss, Wicked Lester) (Argue it if you don’t agree!)
13. Dee Snider (Twisted Sister, Desperado, Widowmaker, S.M.F.'s (Sick Mother Fuckers) )
14. HR (Bad Brains, Human Rights)
15. Rob Halford (Judas Priest, Fight, 2wo, Halford, Bullring Brummies)
16. Sebastien Bach (Madam X, Skid Row, Frameshift, Damnocracy)
17. Iggy Pop (The Stooges, The Iguanas)
18. Henry Rollins (State of Alert, Black Flag, Henrietta Collins and the Wifebeating Childhaters, Rollins Band)
19. Marilyn Manson (Mrs. Scabtree, Marilyn Manson)
20. Serj Tankian (System of a Down, Serart, Axis of Justice,)
21. Phil Anselmo (Superjoint Ritual, Christ Inversion, Down, Arson Anthem, Viking Crown, Pantera)
22. Lemmy (Motörhead, The Rockin' Vickers, The Head Cat)
23. Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails Pigface, Tapeworm)
24. Kerry King (Slayer) (Argue it if you don’t agree!)
25. Danzig (Misfits, Samhain, Danzig)
26. Zach De La Rocha (Rage Against the Machine, Inside Out, Hardstance, One Day as a Lion)
27. GG Allin
28. Scott Ian (Anthrax, Stormtroopers of Death, Damnocracy, Pearl) (Argue it if you don’t agree!)
29. Rob Zombie (White Zombie, Scum of the Earth)
30. Tomas Lindberg (At the Gates, Disfear, The Great Deceiver, The Crown, Skitsystem)
31. Maynard James Keenan (TexA.N.S., Children of the Anachronistic Dynasty, Tool, Green Jellÿ, Tapeworm, A Perfect Circle, Puscifer)
32. Gaahl (Gorgoroth, Trelldrom, Wardruna)
33. David Coverdale (Whitesnake, Deep Purple)
34. Doro (Snakebite, Warlock)
35. Greg Puciato (The Dillinger Escape Plan)
36. Vince Neil (Mötley Crüe)
37. Wendy-O-Williams (Plasmatics)
38. Lita Ford (The Runaways)
39. Conrad Lant (Venom, Cronos, Probot)
40. Mike Muir (Suicidal Tendencies, No Mercy, Infectious Grooves)
41. Alexi Laiho (Children of Bodom, Sinergy, Kylähullut, Impaled Nazarene)
42. Jeff Walker (Carcass, Blackstar, Brujeria, Electro Hippies)
43. Tom G Warrior (Hellhammer, Celtic Frost, Apollyon Sun, Triptykon)
44. Wino (The Obcessed, Spirit Caravan, St. Vitus, Wino)
45. Joey Demaio (Manowar)(Argue it fuckers!)
46. Chuck Billy (Testament, Dublin Death Patrol)
47. Mike Monroe (Hanoi Rocks, Demolition 23)
48. Dead (Mayhem, Morbid)
49. Sakevi (GISM)
50. Till Lindemann (Rammstein, First Arsch)

Taproot announces headlining tour

Taproot is gearing up for their spring '09 headline tour entitled The Take It Tour. Taproot is touring in support of their highly anticipated fourth album Our Long Road Home, which features the hard-hitting track Take It after which the tour takes it's name.

Kicking off March 19th in Cleveland, OH and continuing through the first week of May, The Take It Tour will be heading to the following cities with more dates to be announced:

March 19 Cleveland, OH Peabody's
March 20 Grand Rapids, MI The Intersection
March 21 Columbus, OH Alrosa Villa
March 22 Louisville, KY Uncle Pleasants
March 24 Chicago, IL Penny Road Pub
March 26 Edelstein, IL The Hub Ballroom
March 27 Wichita, KS Club Fuzion
March 28 Fayetteville, AR Froggy's
April 2 Harker Heights, TX The Music Vault
April 3 San Antonio, TX Club Rio
April 4 Baytown, TX Foozies
April 5 Dallas, TX Skillman Street Pub
April 8 Lubbock, TX Jake's Back Room
April 9 Odessa, TX Dos Amigos
April 10 El Paso, TX Chic's
April 11 Tempe, AZ The Club House
April 14 Los Angeles, CA The Key Club
April 16 Las Vegas, NV Hard Rock Hotel - Wasted Space
April 17 Livermore, CA The Burro
April 19 Modesto, CA The Fat Cat Music House and Lounge
April 23 Seattle, WA El Corzon
April 25 Billings, MT FOE
April 27 Maplewood, MN The Rock
April 29 Waterloo, IA Reverb Rock Garden
April 30 Huntingburg, IN Huntingburg Event Ctr.
May 2 Lansing, MI Small Planet

Handpicked to join Taproot are Dear Enemy and Adakain. Atlanta-based Dear Enemy impressed Taproot as well as everyone they played in front of when they were on tour with Sevendust together, and Adakain is a fresh young band out of Dallas, TX that was in the right place at the right time for Taproot bassist Phil Lipscomb to insist they join the tour.
For more information go to: www.taprootmusic.com or myspace.com/taproot




Date: Feb 24, 2009
As Reported by: jason