Inspired by Benjy and Brian’s episode 109, I would like to put my own twist on the glorious world of cover tunes.

Track Listing

1. Bob Dylan “All Along The Watchtower”
2. Big Mama Thornton “Hound Dog”
3. Memphis Minnie “When The Levee Breaks”
4. Jake Holmes “Dazed and Confused”
5. Badfinger “Without You”
6. Gloria Jones “Tainted Love”
7. Wild Ones “Wild Thing”
8. Richard Berry and the Pharaohs”Louie Louie”
9. Robert Hazard “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”
10. Johnny O’Keefe and the Deejays “Wild One”

The picture above is the clue that El Paso’s post-hardcore  At The Drive-In posted on their twitter account. Revealed at 1 pm central today, the band announced new shows in Dallas and Austin, both of which sold out in 7 minutes. They will also be playing Marfa, and maybe El Paso also.  If you don’t remember, the band split up in 2001, then its members later formed The Mars Volta, Sparta, and Sleepercar.  These shows are warm ups to their upcoming Coachella appearance.  Zechs Marquise will be providing opening support at the Texas gigs.

Portland, Oregon-based band Blind Pilot, following two sold-out national tours in support of their sophomore album, We Are The Tide, will continue to tour relentlessly this summer, making festival stops at Sasquatch!, Bonnaroo, Newport Folk and Firefly (and more to be announced), as well as supporting The Shins and Dave Matthews Band on select dates.

Released to widespread acclaim, Blind Pilot’s We Are The Tide (Expunged Records) debuted at #56 on the Billboard “Top 200” chart, #22 on the “Overall Digital Albums” chart, has sold over 33,000 copies, and was featured in NPR Music’s “First Listen” series. Following the album’s release, the band appeared on KCRW’s  “Morning Becomes Eclectic” and “Late Show with David Letterman.”  “The band also recently released a Yours Truly video session, shot in San Francisco, for its song “Half Moon.”

We Are The Tide follows Read more

This young 20 something is an up and coming artist who moved from Tacoma to Brooklyn.  2012 is shaping up to be a big year for Oberhofer, who is hitting soon in support of the fantastic new LP Time Capsules II out on March 26th on Glassnote. What a record, what a performer, what a star in the making. The record was produced by Steve Lillywhite in Brooklyn and the quality and experience of such a producer shines through, that combined with Brad’s youthful energy and clever songwriting makes for a record which young and old, boys and girls, and everyone else in the middle will enjoy and relate to. He has already received attention from Spin, Stereogum, and Pitchfork, and should be on your radar by now.  Oberhofer has played at Bowery Ballroom, SXSW, 35 Denton Fest, and will be making appearances at Coachella and Lollapalooza as well. Quickly building buzz lately, Oberhofer also made their television debut recently on the Letterman show. Here is the great new music video for “Away Frm U”, which made its debut on MTVU.

The Toadies began touring this week with a few Texas headlining dates and then will join up with Social Distortion next Tuesday in Portland at the sold out Roseland Theater show. See dates and ticket info below. In mid-July the Toadies will hit the road again and co-headline a summer and fall tour with Helmet!

Toadies announced last month that they would release a six-song EP, but they have now decided to release a full album instead. Play.Rock.Music. will be out in late July. “Summer of the Strange,” the lead track, will be available May 8th on iTunes and Amazon.

The 5th Annual Dia De Los Toadies dates have been announced. The festival will be held Labor Day weekend (August 31-September 1) at White Water Amphitheater in New Braunfels, TX. Lineup coming soon.

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Back in the day, when this place was crawling with forums and chats about random acts of music, we used to poll ourselves to see which release by an artist not only set them atop of the industry but stapled them in as musical gods.

Iron Maiden charged into 2012 with two major news announcements.  Firstly, March 26 saw the release of a live BLU-RAY, 2DVD and double CD soundtrack: En Vivo!  Filmed during their 2010/11 Final Frontier World Tour, En Vivo! captures the show at the Estadio Nacional, Santiago in front of  50,000 Chilean fans.  Alongside the live show, there is a bonus disc featuring an 88-minute documentary  Behind The Beast giving a behind-the-scenes look at exactly what is involved in putting on an IRON MAIDEN concert.  Secondly, in June, the MAIDEN ENGLAND WORLD TOUR gets underway. This highly anticipated tour is the next chapter in the History Of Iron Maiden and will closely follow 1988’s Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son Tour not only in choice of set list but also in production and content. The 2012 dates, with Coheed & Cambria opening,  will be the opening leg of this World tour and will be the band’s most extensive visit to North America in many years. The band show no signs of slowing down or losing the formidable passion that has seen them triumphant at the forefront of Metal for three decades.

32 years on, and with over 80 million album sales, more than 2000 live performances, countless satisfied fans and 15 studio albums of unerring quality and power to their name, Iron Maiden have more than earned their proudly-held status as one of the most influential and revered bands ever.

So this begs the question… Read more

311 have just had their biennial 3/11 day last month. Every other year since 2000, the band has gathered their fans for a day of nearly non stop music. Growing larger in both size and length each time, this year’s event in Las Vegas was the first to expand to two days instead of just one. They played 79 songs over those two days. They are gearing up for their 2nd annual cruise to the Bahamas next month, with the Dirty Heads, Shwayze & Cisco, Passafire, and others.

They will also be touring this summer, with Slightly Stoopid, SOJA, and The Aggrolites. Tour dates listed below: Read more

Your good friends at Music Emissions have dug up yet another group of contests for you in April. This month we will proudly publish contests for The Shins and Dry The River (4.20.11)… Read more

This isn’t a new video, it was originally released last December. I first came across it in February thanks to a good friend, and immediately watched it several times. I also couldn’t resist showing it to everyone I knew, and wanted to post it as a video of the week. At the time, we were only using videos from bands from the 35 Denton fest, then SXSW, so…finally now is the time!

London based Flux Pavilion  aka Joshua Steele has always been influenced by hard hitting dance music in everything that he does and it was only a matter of time before he found his own sound in the dance industry. in early 2008 Dubstep lit this internal fuse and he hasnt been the same man since. Influenced by the likes of The Prodigy, Basement Jaxx and dubstep pioneer Rusko, Flux loved the high energy madness that dance music was capable of and set about making some of his own in the form of dubstep. Already adept with production skills he was soon off the starting block and his tunes were in swift circulation on the dubstep forum and were becoming a familiar name in the scene. What started of as a bit of experimentation soon became clear that Flux has definitely landed on his feet with this sound. His song “I Can’t Stop” was sampled in “Who Gon Stop Me” on Watch The Throne.

The amazing graphics of this modern day Starsky and Hutch like video were created by Powster, and directed by James Swindells and Andrew Robinson.

Word on the street (or at least the on the interwebz) is that Pearl Jam is working on a new record to be released this year. Lead frontman Eddie Vedder still announced his own solo tour, to promote and support his debut solo album, 2011′s Ukelele Songs. Bad news today though is that the tour has been postponed this Spring.  The tour dates will be rescheduled for November and December, except for the Jazz Fest performance. Tickets will be honored for the rescheduled dates, and refunds will be available upon request through the point-of-purchase. This is due to nerve damage from a previous back injury that occurred earlier this year. His manager said that Eddie is frustrated yet positive. Tour dates listed below.

Eddie Vedder 2012 tour dates:
4/11 – Las Vegas, NV, The Pearl
4/13 – Phoenix, AZ, Comerica Theater
4/16 – Albuquerque, NM, Kiva Auditorium
4/19 – Tulsa, OK, Brady Theater
4/22 – Houston, TX, Jones Hall for the Performing Arts
4/25 – San Antonio, TX, Lila Cockrell Theatre
4/27 – Austin, TX, Bass Concert Hall
4/30 – Dallas, TX, The Music Hall at Fair Park
5/3 – New Orleans, LA, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
5/8 – Jacksonville, FL, Moran Theater
5/10 – Clearwater, FL, Ruth Eckerd Hall
5/13 – Ft. Lauderdale, FL, Broward Center for the Performing Arts
5/16 – Orlando, FL, Bob Carr Performing Arts Center