Soundtrack of my life: Brandon Flowers

The News Review:

- Soundtrack of my life: Brandon Flowers
- SkyBar embraces Goth
- Young rockers generate large local fan base
- Rock Music Menu: It’s the same old song for Grammys
- The Anti-Hit List for February 17
- Readers recommend: Songs about heaven and hell
- THE SAVAGE STRIPPER RIPPER IS GUILTY

Soundtrack of my life: Brandon Flowers
guardian.co.uk – Feb 18, 2007
the Killers’ Brandon Flowers in Blackpool. It certainly didn’t make me want to wear black and be alone in a corner of the room. And nobody in Nephi Utah had heard of the Smiths then and I doubt they have heard of them now which made them something special. Everyone was listening to grunge and here was this song saying ‘burn down the disco.

SkyBar embraces Goth
Somerville News – Feb 16, 2007
is walking distance from the Porter Square T stop for the fitness-inclined. Eternal Embrace The club is has recently become a hotbed of specialty music nights. In addition to straight-up rock ?n roll on the weekends Tuesdays encompass some of the area?s best singer-songwriters in a relaxed no-earplugs-required setting while the first and third Thursday of the month will find patrons of the mournful aesthetic congregating en masse for Dark Sky Massachusetts? only ?darker alternative??since it?s apparently not politically correct… The band performs world metal a fusion of many different styles and influences from Middle Eastern Gypsy Celtic European Folk Classical Jazz Rock and Metal said the band?s founding members Eirik and Eleanor Moyer. Eternal Embrace recently signed to the independent label Burnt ak Productions the band released their first CD ?Forest of Stone in the fall of 2006 and will be entering the studio in March to complete work on the follow-up album Snowfall. With the elements of operatic female vocals and cat-like male growls accompanied by symphonic keyboard strands driving guitar riffsand the recent addition of a violinist Eternal Embrace creates works of intricate eldritch meanderings for the new millenium. Tracks ?beron? and ?Dagon? can be heard on the band?s Web site at myspace. The show Saturday will also feature gothic cabaret chanteuse Aepril Schaile Shallow Breathing referred to as ?Connecticut?s answer to Evanescence and doom metal icons Shroud of Bereavement.

Young rockers generate large local fan base
Simi Valley Acorn – Feb 16, 2007
The success of local band Melted Minds has Simi’s youth wondering if alternative metal music might be on the rise once again. “We’re 20 years ahead of our scene” proclaimed lead guitarist Criss Callow. Callow and his four longhaired band mates- Eddie Florez (vocals) Alex Espiritu (rhythm guitar) Mike Gorecki (bass) and Andrew Hodges (drums)- comprise Melted Minds a five-piece onslaught of heavy rock and metal. “Nobody else out there sounds like us at all” Hodges said. “We’re trying to bring music back you know?” Mostly fast-paced and distorted with vocal subjects ranging from death and destruction to the love of making music the band made up of three students from Santa Susana High one from Royal and one ’06 graduate avoids screaming and growling deeming it unoriginal and overused… Callow and his four longhaired band mates- Eddie Florez (vocals) Alex Espiritu (rhythm guitar) Mike Gorecki (bass) and Andrew Hodges (drums)- comprise Melted Minds a five-piece onslaught of heavy rock and metal. “Nobody else out there sounds like us at all” Hodges said. “We’re trying to bring music back you know?” Mostly fast-paced and distorted with vocal subjects ranging from death and destruction to the love of making music the band made up of three students from Santa Susana High one from Royal and one ’06 graduate avoids screaming and growling deeming it unoriginal and overused. The drums are always moving and the bass is rhythmic with the second guitar’s power chords. Though they have a reputation as being hardcore the group has a softer side as demonstrated in their song “Brother” dedicated to the late Dimebag Darrell Abbott famed guitarist of heavy metal band Pantera who was gunned down in a Columbus hio nightclub in late 2004.

Rock Music Menu: It’s the same old song for Grammys
zwire.com – Feb 16, 2007
Although overdoing it seemed to run in tandem with the theme of the Grammys at one point it seemed to have morphed into the Country Music Awards; without even involving the Dixie Chicks. In a weird nearly half-hour portion of the telecast LeAnn Rimes Rascal Flatts Reba McEntire and Carrie Underwood turned the Staples Center into the Grand le prey. Inexplicably with the recent death of James Brown the Recording Academy decided to launch a massive tribute — to The Eagles. Yes that band of 70s excess massive egos and pink champagne on ice were paid homage with three of its songs performed by Rascal Flatts and Carrie Underwood. Hearing “Hotel California” (right up there with ‘Stairway to Heaven” as songs to never be played again — by anyone) “Desperado” (see “Hotel California”) and “Life in the Fast Lane” had me wondering if Glenn Frey had died. Rascal Flatts singer Gary LeVox looked like a former jock five years removed from high school that aged badly but still kept the same wardrobe and lame haircut. And it figures that when he wasn’t singing dude kept busy by playing an artful combination of air guitar and air drums… “That’s not to say the show was all bad it did have its moments. As expected The Police opened the show with much fanfare. Sting began the performance by exclaiming “We are The Police and we are back!” which induced as much pandemonium as could be expected from the music industry stiffs in the crowd. Plodding though a still to be perfected version of “Roxanne” just seeing the three together again was spellbinding. The old-school Police logo emblazoned across Stewart Copeland’s bass drum not seen since 1986 was downright chill inducing. But again how does a reunited Police get just under four minutes when a needless and uninspired collaboration between Corinne Bailey Rae John Mayer and John Legend gets almost 15? It seemed too easy to think event organizers would be so predictable in starting off with such a bang only to go quickly downhill; there had to be something else of merit some sort of surprise — right? Unfortunately the answer in the negative was clear before Mayer made his first creepily contorted facial expression while hitting notes on his guitar. Speaking of awards The Dixie Chicks and the evening’s other big winner Mary J.

The Anti-Hit List for February 17
Toronto Star – Feb 17, 2007
THE G FIND "25 YEARS"They may be from Belgium but the easy reference point here is Death Cab For Cutie with a dollop of glitchy pop act Styrofoam. In fact the other music on the band’s site tends to reverse that equation which is perhaps why this is the one that makes the biggest first impression. Thanks to My ld Kentucky Blog for pointing the way. (From Stars on the Wall.

Readers recommend: Songs about heaven and hell
guardian.co.uk – Feb 16, 2007
Whether they are as whimsically presented as the heaven in Amen Corner’s (If Paradise Is) Half As Nice or as frighteningly tangible as the hell hound on Robert Johnson’s trail these concepts raise the stakes. I reckon we should start off in hell and work our way up. The Reverend AW Nix was a 1920s hellfire preacher intent on terrifying Americans on to the path of virtue with gospel-influenced sermons such as the yuletide-ruining Death Might Be Your Christmas Gift. Here he describes with thunderous relish the progress of a Hades-bound train collecting those benighted souls foolish enough not to heed the words of the Reverend AW Nix… The Reverend AW Nix was a 1920s hellfire preacher intent on terrifying Americans on to the path of virtue with gospel-influenced sermons such as the yuletide-ruining Death Might Be Your Christmas Gift. Here he describes with thunderous relish the progress of a Hades-bound train collecting those benighted souls foolish enough not to heed the words of the Reverend AW Nix. When I heard Nirvana’s version I assumed they’d dusted down something from the 1930s but it was written in 1984 by Curt Kirkwood an Arizonan who knew his way around the scorched terrain of old-time religion. His band’s howlingly raw recording anticipates not Nirvana but the White Stripes. The language of hell is also potent in songs of ghetto outrage.

THE SAVAGE STRIPPER RIPPER IS GUILTY
New York Post – Feb 16, 2007
Cortez now 26 was a self-absorbed struggling musician and yoga enthusiast who became obsessed with his petite sweetheart – repeatedly hounding her to clean up her act. Yesterday an eight-woman four-man panel found that Cortez brutally slashed her across the neck not once but twice and stabbed her to death. "The beautiful woman and baby that we raised for 21 years – I feel she's with the angels now and at peace" said grieving dad Jon Woods a music-education professor at hio State University where he directs the marching band. Cortez took the stand in his own defense last week. He assured jurors in his placid high-pitched voice that the real killer is still out there despite the prosecutorial equivalent of a royal flush having been recovered at the crime scene: Cortez's fingerprint on the wall in the victim's blood. Instead Cortez told jurors he is a poet dancer musical-theater buff aspiring rock musician yoga instructor appreciator of sunsets and reader of sacred Hindu texts. True to form he appeared to take yesterday's verdict meditatively his head bowed as he sat at the defense table… And returns back to her day" Cortez wrote in an entry he admitted on the witness stand was about Woods. Any similarity to the words and Woods' mode of death was merely a coincidence Cortez had assured jurors. "Hell hounds wanna pounce" he wrote in a song he penned called "The Killing Machine. " Cortez performed the song with his band Monolith the week before Woods' murder. "It's really a nice song" Cortez told jurors – after Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Carol Berkman declined his offer to sing it Even without the fingerprint or the journals Cortez had been incriminated by cellphone records that showed he called Woods five times within a single minute as he stood outside her apartment at 86th Street and First Avenue in the moments before the murder according to cellphone transmis sion tower records. Cortez had been the ex-from-hell dialing Woods an amazing 57 times on the day they broke up one month before the murder.