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The Rhythm Devils began as the duo of Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann and his percussionist partner Mickey Hart. Over the years, they transcended rock and roll drum stereotypes with polyrhythmic explorations of the world of percussion, using an extraordinary variety of instruments and approaches. The aftermath of this collaboration was the larger Rhythm Devils, which have made periodic reappearances over the years.The 2010 version includes Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart, Keller Williams (guitar, vocals), Davy Knowles (guitar, vocals), Sikiru Adepoju (talking drum), and Andy Hess (bass). Together, they will take music beyond the horizon to a universe where rhythm is in constant flux and sound has infinite potential. They’ll rock.   more ...

THUNDER BODY is live roots reggae and experimental dub. Analog international body sound. Built on respect with respect, THUNDER BODY was formed in April 2010 and is still very much growing. THUNDER BODY is spankin' new original music from Matthew O'Brian (GPGDS founder, lead singer), Rachel Orke (GPGDS), Dennis Mariano, Jeremiah Pacheco, and Brian Blatt. Super-charged super-grooves. Fresh and crisp. THUNDER BODY.  more ...

Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad is relentless reggae sound. Roots reggae and experimental dub. North American International Body Music. GPGDS has played 500 shows in the past three years, touring relentlessly and developing a widespread grassroots following. The group has performed at premier venues and festivals across the U.S. including Red Rocks and Rothbury. In November 2009, Giant Panda released a new album LIVE UP!, which debuted at number two on iTunes’ Reggae Chart. LIVE UP! is a selection of high-quality, previously unreleased live recordings, hand picked by the Rochester NY road warriors. The album exemplifies the tight musicianship and dynamic live show experience GPGDS is known for. It complements their debut studio release Slow Down (2006). LIVE UP! is the closing statement of Giant Panda’s former six-piece lineup, as they are now forging ahead as a quartet. “The reality of this band is that we’re always evolving – musically, spiritually, and within our own circle,” says GPGDS bassist James Searl. “LIVE UP! documents the sound and chemistry that six people shared with each other and crowds around the nation. We’re excited about the future as a quartet, and eager to explore new territories.” Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad has shared the stage with reggae greats Toots And The Maytals, The Wailers, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Steel Pulse, Israel Vibration, Yellowman, Culture, The Meditations, Don Carlos, Morgan Heritage, Midnite, Mad Professor, and Edi Fitzroy.  more ...

In an era of plastic, manufactured music, it is always refreshing when someone goes against the grain and does what they want to do. Hank Williams III is the best example of this in music today. For over twelve years now Shelton Hank Williams III has been fighting the music industry to be his own man. Cast by certain people in the shadow of his legendary grandfather, Williams has fought long and hard to create his own sound and style, and to preserve the true outlaw spirit of real country music. His ever-evolving three hour live shows pay respects to both his country roots, and the punk and metal influences that he has held true to since his teens. Much like his grandfather and his father before Him, Hank III is his own man. He doesn't care what expectations people have in him, and he will do it the way that he does it so long as he is alive.  more ...

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After three critically acclaimed solo records, dozens of world tours and TV appearances, Jesse Malin found himself back in New York City questioning his next move. From his days fronting seminal hardcore trio Heart Attack and infamous glam punks D Generation, then seven years on the road as a solo artist, Malin had cultivated a devout fan base. He’d shared stages with everyone from The White Stripes to Counting Crows, The Hold Steady to Lucinda Williams, but felt like he was losing the plot. Malin contemplated going back to school, becoming a standup comedian or a Las Vegas wedding DJ, and even started work on a documentary film about DC hardcore Rastafarians The Bad Brains. For over a year he didn’t play or record. When asked by a Hollywood screenwriter to pen songs for a film about author J.D. Salinger, Malin — a fan of Catcher in the Rye and other Salinger works — traveled to Cornish, NH hoping to speak to the famous recluse. In typical punk-rock fashion, instead of getting the interview, Malin landed at the local precinct for trespassing and was released only after the cops watched his video duet with Bruce Springsteen for “Broken Radio” on YouTube and were convinced he was just a writer doing research. Though he never met Salinger (who passed away this past January), Malin made the most of the experience by writing “The Archer” and “Lonely at Heart”—two songs that would make him want to work again and become the basis for his new album.  more ...

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Averaging over 200 gigs per year for the past few years, Ryan Montbleau Band has generated the kind of buzz that only surrounds a talented artist on the verge. Emerging onto the national music scene from his home base of Boston, Ryan Montbleau has been described as something of a Martin Sexton by way of Van Morrison and Stevie Wonder. Yet Ryan Montbleau Band’s music is diffi cult to pigeon-hole or neatly categorize. It is original yet familiar—a fresh sound full of fi rmly-rooted ingredients, including Americana, folk, blues, ragtime and ’70’s R&B and soul. Whereas the band’s intriguing instrumentation and arrangements (not to mention top notch chops) help to create this unique sound, all is fi rmly anchored by Montbleau’s water-tight lyrics and unmistakable voice.   more ...

With more than thirty million records sold and over twenty top ten songs at radio, Gracious Few have united to give rock n’ roll a shot in the arm. Their hard-hitting riffs and soaring vocals offer a fresh take on the sounds of rock n’ roll’s glory days. On June 8, 2010 The Gracious Few release their first radio single, “Honest Man” off of their highly anticipated studio album on the band’s own imprint, Questionable Entertainment. Produced by Talking Head’s Jerry Harrison (LIVE, No Doubt), “Honest Man” is the lead single off of The Gracious Few’s self-titled first studio album, set for release Fall 2010. “Honest Man” takes a lyrical stab at today’s headlines. “It reminds me of my father. He was a World War II veteran. He believed in the American dream with all his heart, he was the honest man of his generation. Now I turn on the television and see Americans without jobs, without food and without a chance to help themselves. This song is a wake up call to the forces of the world who would dare to stand in the way of our ability to provide for ourselves,” states lead singer, Kevin Martin. The Gracious Few are comprised of LIVE bassist Patrick Dahlheimer, drummer Chad Gracey, and guitarist Chad Taylor and Candlebox front man Kevin Martin and guitarist Sean Hennesy. The band has made little attempt to mask their love for classic driving rock n’ roll - 70’s rock bands such as Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd and the Rolling Stones are just a few of the influences you’ll hear on the band’s debut album.   more ...

Mission Hill is an alternative rock band from Boston MA that mixes provoking songwriting, catchy hooks, moody vocals, an energetic live show, and strong musicianship with an unerring commitment to their unique sound. Since forming they have gained a large east coast following through indie distribution and relentless gigging (including a one month stint at the Hard Rock Cafe in Saigon). Their new songs have received much critical acclaim including recently being awarded an LA Music Award for “Indie Male Vocalist of the Year”, as well as being named to the number one spot on Alternative Addiction’s list of “Top Ten Unsigned Bands in the Country”. Mission Hill has shared the stage with many national acts including Bon Jovi, The Script, Kid Rock, Boys Like Girls, Candlebox, Tim Reynolds, Marcy Playground, Blessid Union of Souls, WAR, Donavan Frankenreiter, and many others. With their new songs and an inspiring live performance that easily wins over every crowd they play for, Mission Hill has become one of the premiere bands on the New England music scene. more ...

Carbon Leaf has released the first in a new series of EPs, HOW THE WEST WAS ONE. The seven song EP is now available digitally, with pre-orders for the deluxe physical EP now being taken. The physical EP will be delivered in late August. Following on the heels of the HOW THE WEST WAS ONE EP, Spring 2010's CURIOUS GEORGE 2: FOLLOW THAT MONKEY Soundtrack, and 2009's NOTHING RHYMES WITH WOMAN album, the band continues recording new songs in their Richmond VA studio for more upcoming releases.Carbon Leaf has kicked off the Summer of 2010 by touring the Western United States on a journey that took the band up the West Coast, through the Rockies and finishing in Texas. The band will continue to tour throughout August and September, with a series of headlining dates along the Atlantic Coast and up into the Northeast. Carbon Leaf will join Big Head Todd for over three weeks of dates in September. HOW THE WEST WAS ONE is a 7 song EP that was inspired by Carbon Leaf's travels west of the Mississippi over the past five years. This EP is the first collection of songs from some 30+ demos in various stages of completion. During their travels, the band used the physical landscape for mining and evoking undiscovered emotional territory--rolling along, watching and listening for the
stories to well up. As Singer and Lyricist Barry Privett notes, "The geography itself serves as the dowsing rod for tapping into themes like change, wanderlust, unrequited love, blind patriotism, starting over--the search for one's autonomy, identity and community."  more ...

They may call Bloomington, Indiana, home, but since their 2000 formation, Murder by Death have been a band without musical borders. Theirs is a world where Old West murder ballads mingle with rock-injected Western classicism; where an album’s sequencing can take listeners from a haunted back alley in rural Mexico to a raucous Irish pub. All of which is to say, Murder by Death albums don’t just string together songs; they create experiences. With their fifth album (and second for Vagrant), Good Morning, Magpie (04/06/10), Murder by Death continue the tradition of border expansion that drove career standouts like 2006’s In Bocca al Lupo and 2008’s Red of Tooth and Claw. The difference, however, is that this time, the band literally went off the map to get there.  more ...

In their song "The Journey" ("To Speak, To Love, To Listen" 2007), Chris Pearson of Sleeperstar shouts to the heavens, "If I said that I was wrong, and if I wrote you this song would it bring you back to me?" Ironically enough, it is this question that forms thestatement for this alt rock band out of Dallas, TX. Their music seeks to inspire and to make the audience keenly feel the pleading vocals, the "U2-meets-Third Eye Blind" guitar work, and sentimental arrangements of every song. Their members are as multifaceted as their music. Chris Pearson (lead vocals) plays piano, acoustic guitar, and the occasional Les Paul if the roof needs that one, final push to fly off the building. Lead guitarist Nick Box plays with a stylish exactness from his days as a classically trained pianist while effectively contributing vocal harmonies. Pianist Jake Lester also adds his own background vocals and is quick to fill out songs with a variety of effects, organs, and orchestral patches. Shaun Menary (drums) often keeps time with an eclectic clar- ity but also knows when to use a good old 4-on-the-floor. Brandon Rosas (bass) brings an experienced and meticulously-fashioned low-end to their sound which serves as a versatile glue for every song more ...

The Temper Trap's story begins with Dougy. Born in Indonesia andimmersed inan artistic and musical family, with some rich influences from singing in church choirs with his aunty and uncle and listening to his dad, acountry music fan, play guitar. These influences evolved around Dougy,as he moved consistently from different islands in Indonesa, to Hawaii and then eventually to Australia. Dougy's move to Down under started him out as a portrait drawer at $25 a pop or singing a tune for your loose change in downtown Melbourne. Dougy eventually ended up working atthe same retail store as Toby. Dougy had thought of starting a band for years and after a few months of boring work hours and finding out Toby was a drummer and a walking musical dictionary, the first band practice began,minus a bass player. In one of the coincedences that the band have come to rely on Jonny worked a couple of stores down and was called in. He had known Dougy for years back in the busking days when Dougy first arrived in melbourne. Jonny, the 13 year old dreamer and son of a missionary, wanted to learn some guitar and dougy helped him out. A brotherly friendship was formed with some sense of common ground, both drawing life from music and their spritual upbringings, and unaware of the musical union which would be formed 6 years later.  more ...

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LA’s up-and-coming dark rock sensation, Black Veil Brides, has set a July 20th release date for their highly anticipated debut full-length album, 'We Stitch These Wounds', to be released on Standby Records. Black Veil Brides will hit the road in support of 'We Stitch These Wounds', headlining the Hot Topic Presents: The Sacred Ceremony Tour, along with Vampires Everywhere!, Modern Day Escape, and Get Scared. The six-week trek is set to kick off in San Diego on July 2nd. Riding the success of “Knives and Pens”, and a brief headlining tour, the band promptly headed into the studio with their manager-turned-producer, Blasko, to begin recording 'We Stitch These Wounds', before hitting the road again as part of the Royal Family Tour, alongside From First to Last, Eyes Set to Kill, and Confide. The band’s continued success earned them shelf-space in Hot Topic stores nation-wide, where their merchandise has ranked as high as number two in sales. With a thriving and dedicated following of fans (The Bridesmaids), and a highly trafficked MySpace profile (averaging over 10,000 plays a day, peaking in the 9th spot on MySpace’s Top Music Charts in the ‘Metal’ category), Black Veil Brides stand out as LA’s lone breath of fresh air.   more ...

GWAR is part of an ancient order of warriors known as the Scumdogs Of The Universe who were banished from space and sent to planet Earth for a scandalous array of cosmic crimes. Once on Earth, the Scumdogs fornicated with apes and thus, through bestial sexual mutation, the human race was born. A crime far too great for their extraterrestrial ruler/maker — The Master — to discount, the Scumbogs were incarcerated in ice, deep beneath their hulking temple in the wastelands of Antarctica. Here they lay dormant for millions of years, controlling the will of the humans they’d spawned through mental telepathy. With little effort and great results, they brought about war, disease and injustice. Earth was on a path to self-destruction before GWAR had ever played a note…  more ...

"Each night when doors open, we're having a listening party of our upcoming album SIDEWALKS. (Releases Nov. 2nd) We're excited that people who come support us at shows will get a chance to hear it before anyone
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John Brown’s Body is a progressive reggae band from Boston, MA and Ithaca, NY that tours the world performing what the group calls “Future Roots Music”. The sound is rooted in reggae rhythms and blended with a variety of other styles including dub, electronic, funk, ska, hip-hop, and dubstep. Originally deep-rooted in the more traditional roots and foundation of Reggae that helped build their reputation as a serious act, their music (starting in 2003) began to take a direction toward a more modern, spaced-out sound with an occasional blend of the traditional when Elliot Martin took over as lead singer. All Music Guide credited Elliot Martin as writing “the most gorgeous melodies in all of modern reggae music…” As such, the band’s sound has been described by the New York Daily News as being “more Massive Attack than Marley” and by the Village Voice “reverent and revolutionary at the same time,” a nod to their futuristic take on reggae music and their ability to put a unique twist on the genre. John Brown’s Body has performed with a variety of groups, representing a wide-range of genres including well-known acts such as: Dave Matthews Band, The Flaming Lips, STS9, Furthur, Ozomatli, Broken Social Scene, and Jurassic 5.   more ...

Look no further than the title track of their new Vanguard debut album The Bear to understand Stephen Kellogg and The Sixers. As the band sings passionately, “Sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you. Sometimes you’re gonna win, sometimes you’re gonna lose… but you know in the end – there's no apologies!”  Many bands talk about “keeping it real,” but in The Sixers’ case, they mean it. “We’re not up there projecting a personality we can’t believe in. I think it’s important to go with the feel of each moment and take chances. If that means we get out of synch or sing out of key once in a while, so be it. The crags are cool because they’re interesting.”  That explains why producer Tom Schick (Norah Jones, Ryan Adams, Rufus Wainwright) signed up for the new record. “Each person in The Sixers really adds a lot,” he says. “They’re so locked in with each other. Stephen is definitely the leader of the gang, but everybody has their say,” he adds of the roles played by Boots Factor and Kit Karlson. “They rise and fall together. It’s amazing to watch them work.”  Although The Bear is not a concept record, there is a conscious time line that the characters on the record follow and Kellogg even goes so far as to say thatit's "66 percent autobiographical." Of course, he will only elaborate on it a little, "If I explained the entire story to you, it wouldn't be as fun to dive in and figure it out for yourself", he says grinning. "I'm sorry, but I just can't take apart every aspect of the music without taking something out of the soul of it... you'll have to experience it yourself and find meaning there." No apologies needed.   more ...

Rock ‘n’ roll has rarely been as smart, soulful or satisfying than it has in the hands of The Posies. During an on/off career that’s spanned three decades, the Seattle-rooted outfit, led by musical polymaths Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow, have shaped and re-shaped their muse, creating one of the more compelling catalogues in modern pop. From the very beginning, the band sired a succession of classic LPs – including the now seminal Dear 23 and Frosting on the Beater– that served as joyous rejoinders to a generation mired in grunge. And yet, for much of their history, the band has been playing a game of genre tag semantics, dodging facile and limiting descriptions like “power pop” and “retro pop” — terms which initially greeted their 1988 debut, Failure. “We started out as teenagers, twenty-some-odd years ago, and we made this lovely, very innocent kind of record that existed in stark contrast to the prevailing winds that were blowing in Seattle at the time,” notes Stringfellow. “Ever since then, people tend to think of us as this very sunny vintage-sounding band. But we really haven’t been that way for a long time.” “There are so many influences and styles woven into what we do and we’ve never made the same record twice, not even close to it,” adds Auer. “And our new record is as sophisticated and challenging as anything we’ve ever made.” Shot through with widescreen majesty, marked by a vast musical breadth and scope, as well as an endless supply of haltingly beautiful melodies, The Posies’ seventh and latest album, Blood/Candy, should shatter any narrow perceptions of the band, once and for all.    more ...

The first sound you’ll hear on oh little fire is a high-pitched keening, like the shrieking of an unattended phone, or the distant skirling of a ghost on a winter night. Suddenly, Sarah Harmer’s band kicks in, with drums propelling a gust of rock more forceful than anything she’s played since her mid-‘90s days with rambunctious Kingston rockers Weeping Tile. She sings with a sense of purpose: “A new wind will blow through everything / Through everything I know.”  On oh little fire, her first album in five years, Harmer sounds reinvigorated and positively charged. In the years after touring her last studio release, the Polaris Prize-nominated I’m a Mountain, she set music aside to focus on political and environmental campaigns, helping to shepherd PERL (Protecting Escarpment Rural Land), the organization she co-founded. Only on occasion did she venture into the studio, lending backup vocals to artists such as Neko Case, Howie Beck, and Great Lake Swimmers. Her own music and lyrics were waiting for the opportune time to burst out: as she sings on “Careless,” “All the words that I’ve held too close to my chest / Are calling on me now to get through.” oh little fire was recorded in a Toronto east end studio run by producer Gavin Brown (Metric), and on Wolfe Island, near Kingston.    more ...

Iggy Pop was wrong. There is, in fact, fun. Fun is what happens when three extraordinarily talented musicians come together to create something altogether new and wonderful. Nate Ruess, late of The Format, has teamed up with ex-Anathallo multi-instrumentalist Andrew Dost and Steel Train’s Jack Antonoff, resulting in their ingenious debut, “AIM AND IGNITE.” The trio melds a stunning array of diverse inspirations – spanning Broadway to The Beach Boys, “NILSSON SCHMILSSON” to “PINKERTON” – into an irresistible collection of freewheeling pop songcraft. Songs like “Benson Hedges” and “All The Pretty Girls” are fit to burst with richly prolix lyricism and intricate melodic twists and turns, which provide plenty of room for Ruess’ distinctive vocals to soar. With “AIM AND IGNITE,” Fun have crafted something special indeed, a contemporary rethinking of classic 70s pop, where ornate arrangements and inspired orchestrations meet present-day rock ‘n’ roll.   more ...