photos by Kurt Christensen

"So me, Riff, and Elyse saw Soundgarden at Jones Beach. It was an awesome show! The whole band can still fucking rip." - veganaction

It was a generational mix of fans as old classic rock loving men mixed with metal heads, Gen X and Gen Y'ers as the 90's came back alive and everyone remembered when grunge was king. Opening with "Searching with my Good Eye Closed," Chris Cornell, Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron, Ben Shepherd reinvoked the power and thunder that fans have loved them for all these years. It was a trip down memory lane as the band are reintroducing themselves with their back catalogue of singles, B-sides and very deep early cuts and in a set list that appealed to the casual listener to the hardcore fan, Soundgarden were not ready to play any of the new material they have been working on and they didn't need to, they stuck to the working wheel of high octane, dark and murky rock and roll. "Jones Beach, sorry for the wait! We got some new songs but you won't hear any tonight, this is an old song" a bearded Chris Cornell told the crowd right before kicking into "Jesus Christ Pose" -[Officially a Yuppie]

Soundgarden played two NYC area shows over the weekend with Coheed & Cambria. They hit July 8th at Prudential Center in Newark and July 9th at Nikon at Jones Beach Theatre in Wantagh, NY. Their set consisted mainly of material off Louder Than Love, Badmotorfinger, and Superunknown, with a few other cuts as well. The above review and photos in this post come from Jones Beach. We also have setlists and videos from both below.

Last night, Sunday night (7/10), Coheed & Cambria opened for Soundgarden at the Comcast Center in Mansfield, Mass, but without their bassist who was arrested at the venue for robbing a pharmacy earlier that day!

Soundgarden is currently touring the east coast, and will play upcoming dates in Phildelphia and Atlantic City (with Mars Volta) in the coming days. Full tour schedule (which now includes a headlining appearance at Voodoo in New Orleans), with more pictures (though none of Coheed), videos and setlists below...

Continue reading "Soundgarden played Jones Beach & the Prudential Center (pics, setlists & videos)"

Slash released a special-guest-filled album solo called called "Slash" in March. Four of the five members of the Appetite for Destruction era Guns N' Roses lineup appear on the album: Slash, Izzy Stradlin, Duff McKagan and Steven Adler. You can figure out who's missing. Iggy Pop, Ozzy, Lemmy, Dave Grohl, Chris Cornell, and others (even Fergie?) (but not Jack White) appear as guests on the album too. You can stream it, and download a track, below.

Slash is currently on tour in Europe. In fact, you may have heard about how he was "attacked" by a fan on stage at a recent show. That viral video is below.

Slash starts playing North American shows in September. That now includes a September 14th show at Terminal 5 in NYC. $32.50 tickets go on sale Friday at noon. All currently announced dates, the attack video, album stream/download widgets and the full "Slash" album tracklist (with guests), below...

Continue reading "Slash, recently "attacked" on stage, released a guest-filled album, touring, playing Terminal 5"

by BBG

The 12 year break is over & school is back in session. Sign up now. Knights of the Soundtable ride again! www.soundgardenworld.com - [Chris Cornell]

After twelve years of attempts at Top 40, complete with collaborations with Timbaland, Chris Cornell has followed the lead of his former bandmates in Audioslave (I still can't believe that is an actual band name) and returned to the great Soundgarden.

Since the breakup, the rest of Soundgarden has kept busy as well, with Kim Thayil collaborating with Ascend, Jello Biafra, and sunn O))), Ben Shepard collaborating with Josh Homme and Mark Lanegan, and Matt Cameron serving as Pearl Jam's drummer. In March, the three joined Tad Doyle (of Tad) on stage in Seattle at a show for The Nightwatchman (Tom Morello). They performed Soundgarden material. Dig on video from that show, as well as a gang of Soundgarden vids, below...

Continue reading "Soundgarden is back "

Bob Mould two nights ago @ Joe's Pub (more by Jacob Blickenstaff)

Last night (4/9), while some were enjoying (or not enjoying) a Passover Seder, others caught Bob Mould at his second of two shows at Joe's Pub. Anonymous wrote,

Unfortunately it was not an ideal venue tonight.
It could have been, but the atmosphere just wasn't the way most BM solo shows usually are.
Still not bad, and the audience was with him, but people were eating dinner....that's an ideal venue for Bob Mould?? I don't think so.

We have a review and pictures from the first night, HERE. Tonight (4/10), Bob switches it up a little and plays DJ (and maybe performs live?) at Highline Ballroom for his popular gay dance night Blowoff. (Tickets are on sale.)

Paper Magazine held their "Beautiful People Party" at Hiro Ballroom last night. Past musical guests at the annual get together have included Antony and Joanna Newsom (whose music is now featured in a bra commercial). This year it was Paper cover-girl Katy Perry who was already in town playing multiple nights at Irving Plaza and humping bananas.

Speaking of humping bananas, Chris Cornell played two shows at Webster Hall this week. In the YouTube video below you can see that he.... shaved his guitar player's head on stage while they were playing at one of them.

Also featured in Paper's new "Beautiful People" issue is comedian Aziz Ansari who co-stars with Amy Poehler in the TV show Parks and Recreation which premiered last night. Did you catch it? What did you think?

Lissy Trullie was featured in last year's "Beautiful People" issue. Last night she played Union Hall with US Royalty (who play the Studio at Webster Hall tonight).

New Ditmas Park/Flatbush venue Sycamore hosted its third-ever live show last night. Check out the schedule for what they have coming up.

The Books paid a somewhat rare visit to NYC. The band, noted one showgoer, "debuted some sweet new tunes." Those'd be from the group's forthcoming record, which, according to the Columbia Spectator, is due next year. The Spectator also noted the lack of promotion for the show - which according to the Books' Twitter sold out less than a day before it happened. One student, on the minimal on-campus promotion, said, "I had no way of knowing they were playing at Columbia...I found out about the concert on a random music blog that I was casually browsing -- I don't even remember which site it was."

As NYC's summer concert lineup comes together, two shows were added to calendar yesterday - Casiokids at South Street Seaport and Shilpa Ray at Castle Clinton (as part of a Sly Stone tribute concert). Shilpa played Death by Audio last night. Look for more summer-show announcements today (in addition to Simian Mobile Disco at the Williamsburg Waterfront).

UK band Pet Shop Boys almost became Rescue Shelter Boys.

What did you do last night?

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Natasha Shneider (May 22, 1956 - July 2, 2008) was a musician, born in Moscow, Russia. She was most notably the keyboardist and vocalist in the musical group Eleven, and was the partner of bandmate Alain Johannes. She also played left-handed bass on the group's first three albums. Shneider and Johannes were part of the line-up of the band Queens of the Stone Age for the recording of their 2005 effort, Lullabies to Paralyze and on the tours to support it. Previous band affiliations include Desert Sessions, Black Russian, and Walk the Moon; she was also a significant contributor to Chris Cornell's 1999 solo album, Euphoria Morning.

On July 2, 2008 a message was posted on the Sweethead MySpace of which Natasha's former band-mate Troy Van Leeuwen is a member and was a close personal friend.

Natasha Schneider, musician extraordinaire, former actress, singer of the ground-breaking band Eleven, and one-time Queens Of The Stone Age keyboard player, died today at 11:11am of cancer. She was a brilliant, beautiful, and ballsy woman who will be missed deeply by all those who knew her. Send your loving thoughts her way in the universe.

[Wikipedia]

Continue reading "Natasha Shneider, RIP (Eleven, Desert Sessions, QOTSA)"

Earl Greyhound @ Irving Plaza, NYC - Oct 2007 (CMJ) (cred - Jefferson)

While Patti Smith & Les Savy Fav are ringing in the new year at Bowery Ballroom, Earl Greyhound and friends (TBA) will be doing it at the much more intimate Mercury Lounge. $25 tickets go on sale Friday. All other EG tour dates have them opening for Chris Cornell. Those dates below....

Continue reading "Earl Greyhound - New Years @ Mercury, tour w/ Chris Cornell"