photos by Fresh Bread

Invading South By Southwest, Metallica attempted to pose as one of the hundreds of smaller bands there just hoping to get a record deal.

"We're a young band from Norway and we want to get signed," Metallica frontman James Hetfield told the audience at the heavy metal band's SXSW performance Friday night.

It was a widely expected but not officially announced show at a venue (Stubb's) that for a band like Metallica is downright minuscule, holding about 2,100 people. The band played for slightly more than an hour, performing both classics and, as Hetfield called it, "new stuff" off their 2008 album "Death Magnetic" -- a disc widely considered a return to form for the 28-year-old group.

But despite Hetfield's mock camouflage (and poor Norwegian accent), Metallica stood out on the SXSW landscape Friday. With more than 50 million albums sold, Metallica has probably outsold the other 1,900-plus bands at SXSW combined.

Droves of die-hard fans, catching wind of the rumors, lined up all day outside Stubb's, where Metallica 18-wheelers parked outside. [AP]

More pictures from Friday night's show below...

Continue reading "Metallica @ Stubb's, Austin, TX (Guitar Hero SXSW) - pics "

"In Norse mythology, Völsung was murdered by the Geatish king Siggeir and avenged by one of his sons, Sigmund and his daughter Signy who was married to Siggeir. Völsung was the common ancestor of the ill-fortuned clan of the Volsungs, including the greatest of Norse heroes, Sigurd. Their legend is known in Norse myth through Volsungasaga and Dráp Niflunga and in Old German through the Nibelungenlied.

In the English epic Beowulf, when the Geatish warrior Beowulf has killed Grendel, a Danish bard at Hrothgar's court sings about Sigmund and his father Waels." [Wikipedia]

The above picture is a screenshot of SXSW's recently updated Stubb's schedule. Friday is now the "Guitar Hero Metallica" showcase and "Volsung" from "Somewhere, Norway" is playing at 10:30 pm.

PREVIOUSLY: Metallica playing SXSW??

P.S. Katy Perry has vanished from the Stubb's schedule, thus removing the (not)awesomeness that was Katy playing back to back with the Meat Puppets.

"The idea is like Guitar Hero with the arrows on your keyboard. Naturally, a lot of fun right off the bat.

Add to that a very social experience. You choose to "dance" for people (either flirty, flashy, or funny), and leave a comment for them, sort of like an IM conversation. Comments are auto-generated, so even if you don't really want to say anything in particular, it's still quite funny to have this pseudo-chat." [David Rusenko]

The online video game is still in beta, but each week they, Loud Crowd, ask someone to come in and be the guest DJ. That person usually has a website where they can in turn invite people to go check it out. The last chance to hear Showtrotta's songs are today/Tuesday at noon, 3, 6, and 9 EST. You don't have to play either. You can just leave the game on the background and it basically becomes a radio station. Check it out.

This weekly post was really just meant to be an (arguably) interesting news roundup of where (mostly BV-covered) music and musicians are showing up besides in our stereos/computers/headphones/players/etc. Like all news, it might be positive, negative or neither depending on your point of view. Whether or not an artist is "selling out" by licensing their song to a particular product advertisement and/or TV show is always going to be a valid issue/argument/debate, but I removed "It's Not Selling Out Anymore" from the post title because, lighthearted or not, I think it was making this post into something it's not. Most importantly, I didn't want the title to be misconstrued as an official BrooklynVegan position on anything. There will always be (arguably) cringe-worthy examples of licensing (see Of Montreal + Outback Steakhouse) and licensing-related broken (fan's) hearts (see The Moldy Peaches + Atlantis resorts), but a lot of licensing news (as you can see below), is (arguably) pretty neutral. Are there any Modest Mouse fans offended that a Modest Mouse song appears in a snowboarding video game? I doubt it. Does it bother anyone that Stars of the Lid gave a song to the Environmental Defense Fund? Probably only people that are anti-polar bear... That's all I wanted to say.... I won't write intros to these posts after this week (please try to keep the conspiracy theories to a minimum!), so without further ado... it's "This Week in Music Licensing"...

by Ryan Barkan

Battles @ Irving Plaza (more by Bao Nguyen)

42 Below likes to do things because they can, like make Vodka and wear white suits. The New Zealand spirit maker just launched a campaign and website around the brand's mantra, "Because We Can" - living by your own rules and following your dreams. Pretty deep. The web-based campaign consists of five short films and a user-generated video contest.

Each of the five short films have a few things in common - men in all white suits, left-of-center creative, art installations, cool music, and no relation whatsoever to Vodka. Carpet Cupcake uses Battles' 2007 jam "Atlas". Two different Boards Of Canada songs are used in Beach Dolls and Car Wrap. Domino artist Four Tet provides the sonic background to Mountain Rainbow, a spot where the white suit men create a huge arch of colored plastic chairs on top of a snowy mountain. South African electronic artist Felix Laband is used in Crate UFO.

Do you have a "because I can attitude"? Do you also like to make your own videos? Do you want to win some money for doing those things ($4200)? If so, you can head to the campaign's website to find out more about the contest.

Other Notable Licensing News:

Tokyo Police Club think it is "really cool and really awesome" that they made a cameo on Sunday night's (11/16) episode of Desperate Housewives. They entered a "battle of the bands" contest, performed "In A Cave", and had two of their song titles ("Shoulders And Arms" and "Cut Cut Paste") featured on the club walls as faux band posters. Even more, two band members have lines in the dialogue. Stereogum has the video. In semi-related news, TPC's Graham Wright just released a solo EP online as a free and/or pay download.

On the tube, Gossip Girl featured three tracks from the new Kings Of Leon album, Only By The Night; One Tree Hill for the second week in a row used a song by Margot & the Nuclear So-So's and also had a song by Earlimart; 90210 went with Kanye West, and Stereolab; CSI Miami used both Jenny Lewis and Bloc Party; NUMB3RS had Cold War Kids; Privileged used CSS; Grey's Anatomy had The Coral Sea. All this week Letterman is featuring cover bands.

Nissan'snew Canadian commercial "Morning Light" goes singer-songwriter with Alexi Murdoch's "Breathe". Nice song but I think they could have found a similar style track with a better lyrical match. Watch the video here.

Toshiba's UK agency breaks the broadcast mold a bit with a commercial featuring Matrix-esque cinematography while using the Crystal Castles song "Air War". Watch the video below.

Stars Of The Lid hit NYC's (le) Poisson Rouge on Friday 11/21; I wonder if they will play the serenely spatial "A Meaningful Moment Through A Meaningless Process", a song used by the Environmental Defense Fund to help fight global warming. The web commercial was released at the end of August. The powerful Polar Bear spot can be seen below.

What do 2008 Mercury Prize winning band Elbow and Electronic Arts have to do with each other? Elbow's song "Grounds For Divorce" is the soundtrack to the commercial announcing EA's new first person shooter, Left 4 Dead; the game hits shelves this upcoming week. Video is below.

Ubisoft Montreal just released Shaun White Snowboarding in North America. The game's soundtrack is a good mix of classic (Bob Dylan, Heart, Blue Öyster Cult, Living Colour, Run DMC, Harry Nilsson) and modern (Modest Mouse, MGMT, The Ting Tings, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club) bands. Check out the full soundtrack at Wikipedia. Bob Dylan plays NYC this Friday night (11/21).

Interesting downloadable content (DLC) was made available this week via Xbox Live and Playstation Network for both Guitar Hero World Tour and Rock Band 2: GH got both a Jimi Hendrix and Smashing Pumpkins three song pack and RB2 fans can now play the entire Foo Fighters album The Colour and the Shape.

Videos below...

Continue reading "This Week in Music Licensing (Crystal Castles, Stars of the Lid, Elbow, Battles, Tokyo Police Club, and more) "

by Black Bubblegum

You've come a long way baby...

They say you shouldn't kick people when they're down, but what if they're already kicking themselves? Guns 'N Roses announced that the new GNR track "Shackler's Revenge" from the right-around-the-corner Chinese Democracy will premiere in the Harmonix Music Systems video game Rock Band II due this September.

The band's decision to officially introduce material from their sixth album via a computer game is an unusual one, but it's a move likely to become more popular as the industry begins to recognise just how important music-related video games are. Since its launch in 2007, Rock Band has won several industry awards and netted its developer Harmonix Music Systems $208 million. Music by the Rolling Stones, Bon Jovi and the Who is currently available on the first version of the game, which allows players to form a virtual band and play along to famous songs. Like its rival Guitar Hero, the music video game has found success by tapping into the long-established history of air-guitar playing among music fans into a competition with an all-star soundtrack. [Guardian]

The news came days before Metallica announced that their entire upcoming album, Death Magnetic (as in a magnet to your coinage) would be available for download/play on Activision's Guitar Hero III. GnR and Metallica still feuding after all these years..... and what's more metal than feuding via corporate synergy?

Metallica's Death Magnetic was produced by Rick Rubin, an encouraging sign considering hewhoshallnotbenamed has produced every album since ...And Justice For All. (Sorry guys, I do have an eensy teensy glimmer of still ridiculously skeptical faith.)

In other news that would make Cliff spin is his grave, Death Magnetic will be released in a collectors edition Coffin box set (where have I seen that before?) with a CD of demos, a DVD detailing making-the-album, a limited edition (natch) tee, a flag, guitar picks, and a fold out poster. The "Coffin" is in addition three other releases on their Mission: Metallica website. I think I'll go for that fan-friendly 5LP set, what about you guys?

Metallica recently played all the classics at Bonaroo.

In the two months since MTV Networks and Harmonix released the music-based videogame "Rock Band," players have purchased and downloaded more than 2.5 million additional songs made available after the game's initial distribution. Activision, meanwhile, said it has sold more than 5 million new songs via download for "Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock" since it began adding downloadable content in early November. [Reuters]

the eighth in a series where we asked comedians to tell us what was good this year....

Sam Seder, David Cross and Jon Benjamin (CRED)

Jon Benjamin is another one of my favorite funny people in NYC. A fellow mass-hole by birth, Jon has carved his niche in the comedy world through his extensive voicework, absurd videos, unforgettable live collaborations, and unique approach to stand-up. Jon is part of Tinkle, a stand up show co-hosted by David Cross and Todd Barry as well as Midnight Pajama Jam with Jon Glaser. His voicework includes Dr. Katz, Home Movies, The Venture Brothers, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Family Guy, Lucy Daughter of the Devil, Freak Show, Assy McGee, Wet Hot American Summer, and more. He's also guested and cameoed on a zillion TV shows and movies. Jon took a moment to tell us what he was into in 2007. - Klaus

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My top ten music-related things of 2007 by Jon Benjamin

Let’s Stay Friends, Les Savy Fav

Theme to Pocket Tanks, the downloadable game - this would have made my 2006 list, if I had made one

Mountain’s "Mississippi Queen" – this was the first song my son played on Guitar Hero 3 so it will always hold a special place in our hearts.

"Smell Yo Dick" by Riskay - isn’t there an easier way to expose your man for cheating? dicks frequently emit a bad smell which can be mistaken for pussy

continued below....

Continue reading "Best of 2007 by Jon Benjamin"

Coincidentally, I took this picture of Les Savy Fav playing Guitar Hero at SXSW this year. I'm glad I waited four months to post it...

Jerry asked:
If you had to select a LSF song to be in Guitar Hero III, what would that be? Also, a non LSF song.

Seth Les Savy Fav answered:
I'd have to go with either "Pills" or "Adopduction" off of Go Forth OR "The Sweat Descends" from Inches. "Pills" has a lot of variety - both chords and single-note progression. "Adopduction" would fit nicely in the top 2 tiers of the game - it's not a face melter, but it has it's chops. "The Sweat Descends" is just guitar mania and a crowd-pleaser. As far as non LSF tunes, I'd say early Metallica - preferably "Master of Puppets" for its scope and orchestration.

Continued below.....

Continue reading "you interviewed LES SAVY FAV (part 2)"