The Stokes fans rejoice, Julian Casablancas and company are back with a brand new downloadable single, “One Way Trigger.”

Get on this!

I’ve been jamming “Sweater Weather” all week, what a great song.

Leonard Cohen is a 78-year-old man with a 150-year-old-voice who put on one of the best shows I’ve ever seen.  Can I get a Hallelujah?

I happened to hear this song in passing the other day and haven’t been able to get it out of my head since. It’s pretty chipper for a song about crashing (metaphorical) cars.

Fun Fact – Chris Walla produced Telekinesis’ first LP, Telekinesis!. Neat!

We’re alive! Well, sort of. We’ve been assured that we haven’t contracted the bubonic plague (although, that’d make for a pretty pretty exciting story, right?). As it turns out, food poisoning is pretty wicked business. Thanks for bearing with us, we’ll be back in action soon.

xo

TD

Iggy Pop is famous for a number of things: fronting The Stooges, using peanut butter as body paint, inspiring electric eel-like dance moves, pioneering the stage dive, writing timeless songs, playing a fictional overprotective dad on The Adventures of Pete & Pete…but as of today, we can add “composing epic tour riders” to the list.

The Stooges‘ tour rider, which combines one part practicality to one part off-the-cuff stream of consciousness, is as funny as it is functional.

Keep reading to see the complete rider…

Read the rest of this entry »

The intro of The Black Keys‘ latest single, “Gold on the Ceiling” reminds me of The White Stripes‘ “Blue Orchid” for all the right reasons. MORE DISTORTION!!

I can’t deal with how much I love this song.

So, there might’ve been a time when I knew all the lyrics to “Wannabe.” Cut me some slack, last week seventh grade was weird.  As it turns out, Russell Brand is also into girl power. After meeting Ginger Spice at the Olympics closing ceremony, Brand openly admitted that what he (really, really) wants is a piece of Geri Halliwell. Congratulations, lovebirds!

In the opening scene of Young Adult, Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) digs through her closet to find an old mixtape with the words “Mad Love, Buddy” scrawled onto Side A.  She hops into her shiny new Mini Cooper and jams the cassette into her car stereo. (I realize this seems like a glaring continuity error, but stay with me). Out of the speakers pours Teenage Fanclub‘s “The Concept,” which Mavis replays over and over on her way back home to Mercury, Minnesota.

After hearing this song five times throughout the movie, what’s one more?

The self-proclaimed “Ugliest Band in the World” doesn’t need a pretty face to get by, because The Muggs‘ psychedelic blues-rock speaks for itself. Since forming in 2000, the energetic Detroit-based trio comprised of Danny Methric (guitar/vocals), Tony DeNardo (bass/keys), and Todd Glass (drums) has been taking the globe by storm. Fresh off of their European tour, The Muggs recap a night out in Berlin.

June 16th, 2012

The Muggs @ The White Trash

Berlin, Germany

The Muggs were set to play one of the more famous downtown Berlin rock clubs, White Trash, which featured a restaurant upstairs and a discothèque of sorts downstairs. You could tell this was a serious rock place: Eagles of Death Metal were DJing the next night, and The Bellrays were gracing White Trash soon after that.  The Muggs were billed upstairs, where the stage was crammed against the far wall.  The staff and sound guy seemed leery of us, paying little to no attention to us at first. We couldn’t blame them, after all, were [just a handful of guys] from Detroit.

After our perfunctory meal buyout of burgers and fries, we loaded in my Fender Rhodes bass and Danny’s Fender Deluxe.  Todd, that lucky dog, was able to use the house drum kit, which made load in much easier.

The sound guy gave us the scoop on how the night would go. The expatriate American living in Berlin wasn’t the most enthusiastic guy ever, but he was very nice and respectful of us.  He told us to play one 25 minute set, then break for at least a half hour, then go for another hour. That seemed simple enough.

The Muggs hit the stage around 9:30pm, if I recall correctly.  Our set list was packed with songs from all three of our full-length LP’s, plus powerful blues rock gems from the likes of Rory Gallagher, Free, and John Lennon. By the second set, the crowd was really getting into it. Like the freight train The Muggs can be, we rolled over them with songs like “Get It On” from On With The Show, “6 To Midnite” from Born Ugly, and “Need Ya Baby” from The Muggs.  The DJ was so taken by the music, that from time to time, he would add tambourine to the mix. Nine times of of ten on this month long European tour, we would close out the show with Rory Gallagher’s “Used To Be”, or “the best break up song ever,” according to Mr. Dannymuggs.  Berlin was no exception, we rocked it!!

Immediately after the show, while selling our merch, I was asked by White Trash’s floor manager to come downstairs and handle some paperwork.  By the time I returned upstairs, the DJ was spinning classic 80’s and 90’s music, so the dance floor (located right in front of the stage) was packed.  Our equipment was trapped behind a sea of dancing fools!

Todd, Dannymuggs, and our tour manager, Juanpa, a tall, lanky Spanish man (who loves bocadillo and his café solo), were cutting rugs with drinks in hand and smiles a mile long.  I immediately joined them, to their surprise.  From time to time, Todd would get behind the drum kit on stage and play along to songs like “Rock the Casbah.”

The night flew by and before we knew it, the sun was peaking out – it was 6am!  How could this be?  We had an 8 1/2 hour ride to Switzerland and we hadn’t even gotten to bed yet. We loaded out with the help of White Trash’s manager and got a rotten three hours of sleep at a hostel one block from the venue (which was convenient, thank God). We awoke at 10am, had a slightly lame breakfast for three Euros, and then sat in the van for a whopping 10 1/2 hours, due to two separate traffic jams.

We were 2 1/2 hours late to our last gig at Cafe Bar Agora in Basel, Switzerland, before we flew home to the States.  But like I say, “Rock ‘n roll cures the ails of being late, enduring long van rides, and sleep deprivation.”  To quote B.B.King, “The night life, it ain’t no good life, but it’s my life!”

Tour Tale by: Tony DeNardo (The Muggs)

Video Credit: Schultz Studioz