Alex Skolnick rips St. Anger. If you are into early 80s thrash… well this has significance.

The Phoenix Trap was featured over at The Creative Commons last week. via dangerousmeta.

They wil be playing at The Hard Rock Cafe to compete for an opening slot at Rolling Rock’s Town Fair IV.

Update: It was a great show. The crowd was enjoying themselves, I even saw a 5 year old girl dancing between a few dinner tables! There is no way I couldn’t notice their growth over the three times I’ve seen them this past year. Musically they are tighter (the chorus to “Miss You” had a few old heads rocking) while their stage presence has grown tremendously. The entire band is rocking out now and having fun – as it should be. Keeping my fingers crossed for them. 🙂 And yes, Mark (their bass player) is a friend and fellow weblogger, and I am biased, but I wouldn’t steer you wrong. Give them a listen – you won’t be disappointed.

Give this a listen:

Even if the belly-baring and exposed-thong set disagrees, Evanescence fans sure don’t. After years of none-too-coy Lolitas ruling the prefab pop realm, rocker girls have finally found someone strong and secure to admire.

“She’s not like Britney,” said Evanescence fan Stephanie Croks, 19. “She doesn’t have to get all slutty onstage and wear stripper costumes.”

Instead, Lee stomps around and pumps her fist in the air as any tough-guy frontman would. Her voice soars to operatic highs above the music’s ominous tones while Moody’s guitar comes on like a snakebite, puncturing the melody with precision then spreading distorted fuzz like so much crippling venom. The dichotic combination offers a fresh take on the played-out n?-metal genre, and it’s allowed the Little Rock, Arkansas, group to be one of the few female-fronted rock bands to hover near the top the charts in the last five years.

I am sooo tired of hearing rock is dead (via dangerousmeta). Every year it’s the same old song and dance.

If ever there was a “rock is dead” moment, it was Woodstock ’99. Attempts at pinning on the music were pointless since Woodstock ’94 was just as heavy, if not heavier. But the culture was certainly different.

Read Melissa of the “Deek and Melissa Show” (Boston radio) on Woodstock ’99:

The newspaper reports and news stories I’ve seen are claiming the violent behavior was a result of high prices. The rioting participants making, “anti-establishment statements,” spurred on by the bands who served as a backdrop for the event. That’s not the case. Unlike at Woodstock of ’69, the youth of today do not have a cause, even a cause as small as overpriced concessions at a really big rock show. The violence and outbursts were caused by boredom, by beer, by a small minority who did not feel the unity, and were determined to ruin it for those who did.

Was the experiment of Woodstock ’99 successful? I think it was. I think it brilliantly demonstrated the problems being seen in the youth culture of today. And once again, the parents, the media, the public, rather than saying they don’t understand, rather than looking for answers, are blaming the music. Woodstock ’99 was the voice of this generation. It represented beautifully a misunderstood youth acting out, and adult population exploiting that anger for sensationalistic headlines and pointing fingers every which way but at hemselves.

Rock survived. I believe the web will be the tool to set the rock musician and fan free. Music lives on far after popular trends come and go. Marketers have done their best at pushing one thing or another, but now the musician can deliver straight to the fan, and the fan can seek out what they want to hear. Now it’s the marketers are who are on the defensive because they are starting to get bypassed.

It’s a great time to rock.

Queen, from “News of the World”, 1977

I was nothin’ but a city boy
My trumpet was my only toy
I’ve been blowin’ my horn
Since I knew I was born
But there ain’t no nobody wants to know

I’ve been sleepin’ on the sidewalk
Rollin’ down the road
I may get hungry
But I sure don’t want to go home

So round the corner comes a limousine
And the biggest grin I ever seen
Hey, sonny won’t you sign
Right along the dotted line
What you sayin’ are you playin’
Sure you don’t mean me ?

I’ve been sleepin’ on the sidewalk
Rollin’ down the road
I may get hungry
But I sure don’t wanna go home

Now I’ll tell you what happened…

They took me to a room without a table
They said “Blow your trumpet into here”
I played around as well as I was able
And soon we had the record of the year

I was a legend all through the land
I was blowin’ to a million fans
Nothin’ was a-missin’
All the people want to listen
You’d have thought I was a happy man

And I was sleepin’ like a princess
Never touch the road
I don’t get hungry
And I sure don’t want to go home

Have to have some fun…

(Solo)

And now they tell me that I ain’t so fashionable
And that I owe the man a million bucks a year
So I told ’em where to stick the fancy label
It’s just me and the road from here
Yeah, yeah

I’m back to playin’ and layin’
I’m back on the game

And I’m sleepin’ on the sidewalk
Rollin’ down the road
I sure get hungry and I sure do wanna go home
Yeah

Read this illuminating interview with Adam Gussow, author of “Seems Like Murder Here: Southern Violence and the Blues Tradition”.

Mark has the scoop on what I consider to be potentially great news.

Looks like something is going to happen. How about unsigned artists after this?

“The impulse that created the blues, I believe, is the same impulse that created hip-hop, which is to share in a public forum what is essentially private,” Ainslee says. “To take your experience and put it on the line in a performance medium as a warning and a comfort to the people who follow you.”

Read the rest by Lynne Margolis in the CSMonitor.

IconMTV, “Maytallica”, the rumors of a return to previous metal glory, a new “story” that sounds straight from “Behind the Music”, and now Reuters.

Impressive. Most impressive.