You can listen to the new Killers cd over at MTV’s The Leak.

This is a song by Jason Isbell of The Drive-By Truckers. It should be on his solo album “Sirens of the Ditch” whenever New West happens to let it see the light of day. If you wish to get an audio version of the song ninebullets.org has an .mp3 and a .flac version available.

The Ashes were a Tampa Bay area blues band that enjoyed a brief celebrity before completely fizzling out around the start of the new millenium.

I’m very particular about music, and while some people assume I’m sticking to established genres or some other ignorant elitism, that’s simply not true. I like what I like, and it crosses all genres. The Ashes of Grisum is a great example of that. I don’t generally find a lot of blues that resonates with me, but the Ashes, with that mournful instrumentation and those wild, despairing vocals, really did it for me.

Listening to later works, recently made available by sometime-bandmate Vinnie Saletto, it seems obvious that the spark had died out even before the band did. The raw earnestness had faded into self-made clichés of Biblical references, emotional hardships, and lamentations of all kinds.

But for a short while they were the real deal, and that shouldn’t be forgotten.

The Ashes of Grisum - Fool for Nothing

Show our banner around and we’ll love you forever.

Especially if you save the banner to your own server instead of linking directly to ours.

The past few months there has been a lot written about Flowers and Co.’s new cd…quotes of “one of the best cds of the past 20 years” and “There’s nothing that touches this album.” Well, yesterday I cam home to find the new Paste in my mailbox and there is a story about the guys. The first thing that jumped out to me was the picture….Here are the former glam boys all scruffy and western. To be honest, it looked contrived. The article had scenes of Flowers being serenaded at a urinal, epiphanies back stage @ U2 shows and quests to find the essence of Springsteen. I must admit though, at the end of the article I was convinced that The Killers wanted desperately to be more than a flavor of the season band who wrote a perfect pop album @ the perfect time. I was (and still will) gonna give the cd a test drive and see how they did.

Well, seems they were none to successful of you listen to the folks over at Rolling Stone.

All over Sam’s Town, the Killers leave no pompous arena cliche untweaked in their quest to rewrite Born to Run - even though one of the reasons Springsteen’s a genius is that he’s never tried to rewrite Born to Run himself. On Hot Fuss, Flowers got boyish emotion out of his flat Gary Numan voice box, which is how he charmed his way through fantastic anthems like “All These Things That I’ve Done.” But here, he strains for a high register he doesn’t have and ends up with a screech. Yet even a more deft singer couldn’t save bloated epics with I-swear-I’m-not-making-this-up titles like “Bling (Confessions of a King)” and “This River Is Wild.” “My brother, he was born on the Fourth of July”? “I woke on the roadside/In the land of the free ride”? “Enterlude” and “Exitlude” frame the album with a vague hotel/casino theme (”We hope you enjoy your stay” - where are we, the Paradise Theater?), but the concept adds up to nothing except faux-Boss cliches already picked clean by Eighties never-weres from Lone Justice to John Eddie.

The new cd “Sam’s Town” comes out October 3.

Gorillaz’ Albarn launches new band

09/25/2006 4:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Dotmusic

The first single from Gorillaz/Blur singer Damon Albarn’s new band, The Good, The Bad & The Queen, will be released in October, it has been announced.

“Herculean” will be released on CD and 7-inch and then deleted on the same day. The artwork has been designed by former Clash bassist Paul Simonon.

Simonon is joined in the band by former Verve guitarist Simon Tong, Fela Kuti’s drummer Tony Allen, and Gorillaz/Blur mastermind Albarn.

The Good, The Bad & The Queen play their debut show at the Roundhouse in London on October 26, which is part of the BBC’s Electric Proms series of gigs.

“Herculean” is due for release on October 30, according to the British music weekly NME.

source

You never know what to expect when you see a Lucero show. The band may perform without incident or the night could end in a complete drunken stupor. Either way, the music will always come from the heart.

Lucero gets a huge write-up on MSNBC.

I know what you are thinking….emo jumped the shark a long long time ago boy…or, what’s EMO….well, to both I say exactly BUT just in case there was a little life boy band Good Charlotte went out and found the biggest baddest muthafuckin’ shark in the ocean and went 100% Fonzie on that bitch with this track. Bet it goes straight to number 1 on the urban charts.

Good Charlotte - Keep Your Hands Off My Girl

Okay; admittedly I am not the biggest Beck fan in Tampa.  Hell, I am probably not even the biggest Beck fan in my neighborhood and if we are gonna continue down this road it is probably a stretch to call me a Beck fan at all.  I do not own any of his cds and the only album I am particularly fond of is “Sea Change“, his least Beck album to date.  That said, if you are bumping Beck in your car and I hopped in I would not be disgruntled…I am firmly in the take him or leave him boat I suppose.  I will say that a couple of seasons ago I saw him on Austin City Limits w/the Flaming Lips as his band and I thought that was freaking awesome and I have looked forward to seeing him live the next time he comes through the Tampa area ever since.  A couple of months ago I saw an article where Beck mentioned his new cd was gonna be a hip-hop cd. Well, this peaked my interests to say the least…I figured one of 2 things…complete train wreck trash *or* it could have a Buck 65 type sound and kill.  Well, the cd leaked and while a “hip-hop record” it is not it does have its moments and I am glad to say that outside of “1000 bpm” there are no complete trainwrecks.  The “non hip-hop” tracks are standard Beck fare and, to be honest, are pretty good.  The new cd comes out October 3.

Beck - Cellphone’s Dead
Beck - Dark Star

Buck 65 - Wicked and Weird

Footnote: Beck has also announced details of a 10-year anniversary reissue of 1996’s ‘Odelay’, which will feature rarities and remixes by Aphex Twin and Dust Brothers (warning: this link causes siezures). The reissue will also include B-sides and ‘Deadweight’, which was included on the soundtrack to the 1997 film ‘A Life Less Ordinary‘

So, you could not make it out to Austin for the Festival. Never fear! Large Hearted Boy is keeping track of the available shows as they appear on the torrent sites.