Minus The Bear’s new video for their track “My Time” has been posted online and can be viewed over at MTVU.com. The song serves as the first single from the bands new album “Omni“, which arrived in stores earlier this month.
Black Tide are currently holed up in New York working on their new album with the production team of Garth “GGGarth” Richardson (Rage Against The Machine, Mudvayne) and Josh Wilbur (Lamb Of God, Avenged Sevenfold). A late 2010 release date is expected.
In the meantime, the group will be doing an acoustic performance and interview on Rich Russo’s “Anything, Anything” radio show in New York City on WRXP 101.9 this coming Sunday, May 16th at 9pm EST. The performance will also be streamed online here.
Some new details have been revealed for The Sword’s forthcoming album “Warp Riders” via an official press release, which can be found below:
“One of the foundations of the metal revival of the past ten years, Austin TX’s The Sword have released two flawless slabs of vintage heaviness on Kemado Records, toured the world with Metallica, and were honored to grace the past three editions of Guitar Hero. This summer, the band casts its gaze to the stars for Warp Riders, their third full-length and their most ambitious effort to date. Hitting stores on August 24th via Kemado Records, it is the band’s first concept album and is fittingly grand in scope both lyrically and in terms of musical craftsmanship.
This also marks the first release where the group has worked with an outside producer. Helmed by Matt Bayles (Pearl Jam, Mastodon, Isis), Warp Riders is anchored by an epic science-fiction narrative. The storyline is a psychedelic space opera that explores temporal themes of death and rebirth.
The album also finds The Sword expanding their range from pure metal to include bone-crunching hard rock at large. Rather than dampening their sound, the band actually sounds more amplified than ever, spewing out some of their most scalding riffs to date and channeling an unearthly bellow from their low end.
Opening track “Acheron/Unearthing The Orb” begins with ominous, fog-drenched atmosphere before a flurry of nimble fretwork and galloping drums storm out of the gate. The energy doesn’t let up once and by the final moments of closing track “(The Night Sky Cried) Tears of Fire,” an intensely satisfying resolution sets in.
Guitarists Kyle Shutt and JD Cronise execute punishing acrobatics while injecting melody at every turn. Bryan Richie’s warm bass lays down the foundation and ripples with menace. Trivett Wingo’s drumming explodes with the perfect balance of both precision and dexterity. Each member of The Sword is an individual force to be reckoned with, but when united they come together like the four horsemen of the apocalypse to wreak havoc like no other.”
Periphery guitarist/mastermind Misha “Bulb” Mansoor recently spoke to MetalSucks about the release of their self-titled (and recorded) debut album. What started as an interview to get to know the promising experimental band quickly became an analysis of the music industry. Recording Periphery’s debut in his basement, Mansoor owns the bands’ masters and licenses them to five different labels Periphery is on worldwide (the album is out on Sumerian in the States). While it took over four years for them to record their debut album, the only cost they had to lay out was a computer and the equipment it took them to record the album. Mansoor says that technology and the Internet are pretty much the great equalizer:
At the same time, I think it’s pretty cool that all these people are able to put out quality music with cheap recording technology and the internet to spread it around.
Oh yeah, absolutely. That’s sort of one of the revolutions that half the people would say is destroying the recording industry, and half the people would say is reviving it. Because you can do what I do, which is bypass the need for advances on records because we recorded our album for free. It cost us nothing. I just did it in my apartment. Hey, anyone can do that if they put the time into it. 20 years ago that would have been impossible. If you wanted a pro-sounding recording, you had to turn out some real cash. We’re talking like 100-200 grand, and you have to use your album as collateral so owning your masters was out of the question as well. It’s just that all of this is affecting the industry in ways that we can’t even predict because of the ripples that it causes. It really opened up new kinds of deals that you can do. It allowed us to sign the kind of deal that we signed. We’re signed to 5 labels. What kind of deal is that? Do you guys own your masters?
Yeah, we do.
That’s great.
We have a licensing deal. We basically license our album out to labels, and it’s based on territories. So we’re signed to Sumerian in the States, Distort in Canada, Roadrunner in Australia, Roadrunner in the UK and Europe, and Roadrunner in Japan – which are all separate but equal entities that have the same resources of Roadrunner. It’s really cool because we have all these territories that are pulling for us separately rather than having one label that’s based out of our area that happens to have offices in other areas or whatever or not even have offices but distribution in other areas. For example if we were on Sumerian, there might not be so much of a push to get us out of the country because we sell a ton of albums in the States and not so much in the rest of the world. However, now that we’re signed with Roadrunner Australia, they’re pulling for us now that the album is out to come there immediately. That’s why we have an Australian tour so fast. Hopefully that will continue to happen.
Yeah, that’s excellent, man. Do you see the industry going that way with bands keeping their masters, doing things on the cheap, and licensing . . .
Yeah, because the thing is that it used to be that you needed to take out a huge loan. Labels, for all intents and purposes other than having a lot of cred and marketing tools, they’re really just banks. The banks are willing to give you a loan, but your equity is really just your talent. They would give you these huge, big deals. Let’s say they’ll do a million dollar deal or whatever; they’ve got to get something back, so that would be the masters. That’s how they would get their money back is through the masters, and they would own your material. If you try to get $100,000 from a bank as a musician working at RadioShack the bank will laugh at you. So you get this one person who would actually be willing to invest in you at the cost of your material. Now that CDs don’t cost that much to make, you can go to a studio and get an album made for (even if you go to a really nice one) you can get it made for under 20 grand. Those are the kinds of loans that are accessible to people through banks. So now the necessity for a label in the old fashioned sense isn’t really the same. You can get away without needing them so you have more clout when you’re negotiating with a label now. You can say “well, I don’t really need that money.” In my case it was like “look, you guys aren’t risking anything, and I’m basically delivering a completed album to you which is going to cost you nothing.” It became very easy to make the case for why I should own my masters.
In the past it would be like “well we should own it because we’re giving you 100 grand.” Now it’s like “well don’t give me anything, and I’ll own my music.” So you can work out different deals these days. Obviously this isn’t for everyone, and Sumerian is also a very forward-thinking label. They’re very new school because a lot of old school labels would be like “fuck no. There’s no way you can do that.” It’s just the way things are changing, and it is very unpredictable. That is both a good and bad thing because: it’s bad because you don’t know what your career is going to look like, but it’s a great time for experimentation. It’s a great time to try these new kinds of deals, and that’s exactly what we did. We’re like “well, this sort of makes sense on paper. Let’s see if we can pull it off.”
Forward-thinking musicians like Mansoor are the types of people that keep music quality good while the industry is struggling to stay a float. As solid as Periphery’s music is, their business model is even better. There’s an old model and a new model, and Mansoor, like the No Label Needed contest, are proving that there are ways to get things done outside of the big label system.
According to DOUBLE NEGATIVE/ex-SCARED STRAIGHT drummer Brian Walsby (via his official blog), the classic "Animosity" lineup of CORROSION OF CONFORMITY — Mike Dean (bass, vocals), Woody Weatherman (guitar) and Reed Mullin (drums) — has reformed and is working on a new album. There are even some summertime shows lined up for the West Coast already, although they have not yet been officially announced.
Mike and Reed were most recently members of RIGHTEOUS FOOL, which also featured guitarist Jason Browning (from HR of BAD BRAINS' solo band). That group will apparently stay together and will coexist with the newly reformed CORROSION OF CONFORMITY.
Video footage of RIGHTEOUS FOOL performing the C.O.C. track "Hungry Child" on June 3, 2009 at The Pour House Music Hall in Raleigh, North Carolina can be viewed below.
Mullin co-founded CORROSION OF CONFORMITY in 1982 as a hardcore punk act alongside guitarist Woody Weatherman and bassist Mike Dean before leaving the band in 2001 amidst health concerns.
As previously reported, Legacy Recordings, Sony Music Entertainment's catalog division, has set a June 1 release date for a new CORROSION OF CONFORMITY best-of collection in the "Playlist" compilation albums series. Entitled "Playlist: The Very Best Of Corrosion Of Conformity", the CD will contain remastered versions of the following songs:
01. Heaven's Not Overflowing 02. Vote With A Bullet 03. Drowning In A Daydream 04. Albatross 05. Clean My Wounds 06. The Land Of Free Disease 07. Buried 08. King Of The Rotten 09. Big Problems 10. Fuel (Jam-Box Tape) 11. Long Whip / Big America 12. Wishbone (Some Tomorrow) 13. The Door 14. My Grain
CORROSION OF CONFORMITY's latest album, "In the Arms of God", came out in 2005 on Sanctuary Records. The group's first collection of new material since 2000's "America's Volume Dealer" was produced by C.O.C.'s longtime collaborator John Custer. Besides working on four of the band's previous albums, Custer also produced C.O.C. bassist Mike Dean's track on Dave Grohl's PROBOT project and C.O.C.'s contribution to "Nativity In Black", the BLACK SABBATH tribute compilation. Playing drums was New Orleans' Stanton Moore, skinsman for the renowned jazz-funk combo GALACTIC.
Otep, The Birthday Massacre, Beneath The Sky and The Agonist will be touring together later this summer, dates for the trek run as follows:
July 19th Colorado Springs, CO – Black Sheep July 20th Billings, MT – The Railyard July 21st Rapid City, SD – Pennington Fairgrounds July 24th Seattle, WA – El Corazon July 25th Portland, OR – Hawthorne Theater July 26th Bend, OR – Bend Event Center July 28th Salt Lake City, UT – In the Venue July 30th Orangevale, CA – The Boardwalk August 01st San Diego, CA – Brick By Brick August 02nd Riverside, CA – The Lab August 05th Santa Ana, CA – Galaxy Theatre August 06th Tempe, AZ – Club Red August 07th Farmington, NM – Gators August 08th Amarillo, TX – Club Khaos August 09th Little Rock, AR – The Village August 12th Laredo, TX – Bottoms Up August 14th San Antonio, TX – White Rabbit August 15th El Paso, TX – Club 101 August 17th West Hollywood, CA – Key Club
The first annual Rockstar Energy Drink Uproar Festival will begin in late summer and feature headliners Avenged Sevenfold and Disturbed, along with Halestorm and Stone Sour.
Set for the Jägermeister second stage are headliners Hellyeah, as well as Airbourne, Hail The Villain, New Medicine and the Jägermeister Battle of The Bands Winner in each city. The 36-date tour launches Aug. 17 in Minneapolis and will play primarily Live Nation amphitheaters before wrapping Oct. 4 in Madison, Wis.
Uproar is produced by John Reese, John Oakes, along with Darryl Eaton and Ryan Harlacher at Creative Artists Agency, and Live Nation's Perry Lavoisne. This team co-founded and continues to co-produce the Rockstar Taste Of Chaos and the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem festivals. All of the amphitheater dates are being produced in conjunction with Live Nation.
Uproar will be a multi-activity festival tour, offering additional attractions like a concourse midway filled with vendors and a daily wrestling tournament featuring the Detroit-based Blue Collar Wrestling Alliance. The 36-event tournament will encompass 245 matches over seven weeks throughout North America. The athlete that perseveres will be named King of the Tournament.
The national on sale for the Rockstar Energy Drink Uproar Festival is Saturday, June 12, and tickets will be available via RockstarUproar.com and LiveNation.com. A special pre-sale will commence Tuesday, June 8. Ticket prices range from $10 to $69.
Capital Chaos, founded & created by Zoran Theodorovic was originally created as music video television show to be aired on public access in Sacramento, California. Our first show aired May of 1998 and still runs weekly to this day. In the middle of 2005 Mr Theodorovic invited Clint A. & William P. to participate in the show and a Youtube channel and a website were created. At some point in 2006 Clint went on his way leaving William & Zoran to soldier on, which they did together until January 2012 where William was let go due to irreconcilable differences. Capital Chaos currently enjoys the company of Amb Pirate and Kevin Champ. A new Youtube Channel was created & the website switched to Facebook(because let's face it everybody is on Facebook all the time now and who wants to go to some silly website and miss out on very important Facebook stuff. LOL!!!) and Capital Chaos continues on.
