longliverock

A couple days ago Blind Melon announced on their myspace blog that their current tour is done for good as they have parted ways with new singer Travis Warren. It seems that after some problems with his vocals that postponed the tour the original four members of the bands were have some issues with Travis committing to the band. Blind Melon had the potential to be a great band, some would say they were but the tragic loss of their original frontman Shannon Hoon due to addiction cut the early success of the band much to short. “No Rain” and “Pusher” are a couple of my favourite songs and were made popular because of Hoons strong, distinct vocals. Of course the band could never been the same without the vocals of Hoon but I have tons of respect for them getting back into recording and touring together as Blind Melon and it’s a shame that they couldn’t finish their tour. Hopefully they can resolve some issues with their frontman or find someone committed to the music so they can continue their tour or get a new one in the works. Fingers crossed for good news from Blind Melon.

“Ya know I’d like to keep my cheeks dry today
So stay with me and I’ll have it made” - No Rain, Blind Melon

R.I.P. Shannon Hoon 1967-95′

Chris Cornell can easily be placed among the best new rock artists. He’s been around since the Seattle music scene was first getting off the ground and played alongside some of the early grunge acts like Nirvana and Pearl Jam. Cornell played with Soundgarden in the 80’s and really made it big in the early 90’s with some great hits like “Spoon Man”, “Rusty Cage” and “Blackholesun”.  After the breakup of Soundgarden Cornell moved onto a brief solo career before emarking on a new band which would become extremely successful, Audioslave. With members of the former Rage Against the Machine including the amazing Tom Morello Audioslave was a force in new music for much of the last 6 or 7 years. Now Cornell and Audioslave have disbanded and are currently working on other  projects. Currently Cornell is working with the Timbaland, maybe the biggest name in pop music right now. At first I was a little unsure about this but looking at Timalands past record, he successfully produces music that is both critically and popularly received. As well Cornell seems to be in a positive mindset about the duo working together. Cornell has been quoted saying that Timbaland is more than a Hip-Hop, beat driven producer and has creative and original musical ambitions even describing the sound as Pink Floyd like on his latest album ”Scream” set to be released in 2009. I can`t wait to hear more from Cornell, although I was a little put off at first when I heard the news he was working with Timbaland and was reminded of Fall Out Boy`s work with the hip-hop producer which I thought was not the strongest rock performance they could have made. With Cornell I think it could be good though as Cornell has already proven to be one of the strongest writers, singers and performers in rock music as well as a highly respected artist. I`m sure that Cornell and Timbaland will find a good balance as I`m also sure everyone is excited for his latest work and is expecting another strong showing from  Cornell and company. 

Montreal has had a long tradition of making some great music. Today the scene is strong with tons of great bands coming out of the city and making it big, not just in Canada or North America but around the world. Some popular and noteworthy bands out of Montreal include Sam Roberts, The Arcade Fire,  The Stills, and Tegan and Sarah among others. What got me thinking about this again is a very good new band growing in popularity “The One Night Band” there new Cd came out about a month ago in Canada and has just been released in the U.S of A just this week. There songs are infectious, they have great reggae inspired music with a sometimes slow but always upbeat and melodic sound and singer Alex Giguere provides some strong lyrics reminiscent of some of the great punk vocalists.  Another very good Montreal based band on there way to making it big but more importantly making some damn good new rock music and adding to the vibrant Canadian music scene.

Reggae, an amazing sub-genre of the standard Rock and Roll. Its hard to find a person who doesn’t love at least some of Bob Marley’s music the most famous Rasta man in history and may be the most influential reggae artist ever. Sublime made some of the most popular rock tracks of the 90’s all with strong reggae influence, as well No Doubt made some great reggae rock tracks (whether you like it or not). As a side note there was also shaggy trying to be a reggae singer but that was simply unfortunate and is best forgotten. Today I think reggae rock is again on the rise, thankfully. There are many of good bands on the rise with a great new reggae rock sound. I’d recommend to any reggae fans to check out some of these indie rock acts with a great reggae sound…Staylefish, Rebel Emergency, Mean Tangerine, Street Pharmacy, The Johnstones and if you haven’t listened to a lot of new rock then Bedouin Soundclash have become very popular on the new rock scene. 

Congratulations Barak, regardless if you support republicans or democrats it is an historic event and a great leap forward for American society as a whole in reducing the racial divide that has always been present. Bush is out and the democrats are in so what does this have to do with Rock. Whenever American support for a president or war are low or there is a strong minority that voice there opinions against a war or president then we see our music reflect that. The Vietnam war inspired a generation of great rock music that is  still popular today thanks in part to Hollywood recreating the war and using the music of the time to recreate the feel of the 1960’s. Today with the Bush administration now ending I’m left thinking there was something good to come out of the last 8 years or so. We have seen for the entire duration of Bush’s presidency a huge explosion of anti-bush and anti-war music that was inspired by one administration actions and embraced by a generation. There was the great “Rock Against Bush” Cd’s that included mostly original songs from some of the biggest rock acts of today including The Foo Fighters, No Doubt, Green Day, NOFX, Anti-Flag, Against Me, Sum 41, Dropkick Murphies and Rancid just to name a few. And does anyone remember that little Green Day cd “American Idiot”, one of the most successful Cd’s of our time. The number of acts, rock band or other types of musicians that wrote and played anti-bush material is immense and many of them were great songs even becoming hit singles. So whether you liked George Bush or not (and most didn’t) you can thank the man who inspired hundreds of bands to write great music. Thank you G.W. for giving a generation of rock bands the inspiration to write, perform and sing. 

It’s been a long time coming but we are almost there. Yes the new Guns and Roses cd “Chinese Democracy” will hit stores on Nov. 23rd. Its been 17 years since Use Your Illusion and almost 14 years has gone into the record sinse G’n'R started working on the latest CD. We’ve been hearing about this record for years now and I’m pretty sure everyone had come to the conclusion that if the record ever did come China would already be a democracy by the time we heard any new material from the record. (Un)Fortunatly the records on its way and the first single has already been released on rock radio, not surprisingly titled ‘Chinese Democracy’. With none of the supporting cast of G’n'R’s hay-day in the late 80’s and early 90’s behind him (most notably the guitar genius Slash) can we expect anywhere near what we saw with “Appetite for Destruction” and other early albums? Undoubtably it will be different, the first single “Chinese Democracy” does not quite seem to have the same energy or appeal that the early Guns singles do. The fact of the matter is this shouldn’t be a surprise, its been almost 25 years since Axl first became the front man for arguably the most powerful rock band of the late 80’s and early 90’s and he has seen a lot of changes in his time. It should be expected that the album will be different from what the band released 20 years ago. Will it still be great rock? It might be or it could be very poorly received especially by the old time die hards. Either way I don’t think this Cd can ever live up to all the hype and my prediction is we may see some very poor reviews. My fingers are crossed for Axl to come out with something special and really hit it well, maybe even justifying a 14 year production(okay maybe that’s impossible). Only time will tell what kind of impact this album will have and on the 23^rd we can all have our say on the quality of G’n’R’s latest musical endeavour, you can be sure I will.