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(12/02/04 5:00am)
Because we know more about film than all of Hollywood (and by the transitive property, that means all of you too), we thought we'd present to you, our glorious readers, the grandest film gaffes of the year 2004. Call it a parting gift. Call it our show of love. Whatever you call it, don't call it a fluff piece.
(10/07/04 4:00am)
Star Wars Trilogy DVD Box Set, featuring Episode IV, V, VI and Special Features
Starring: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher
Director: George Lucas (IV), Irvin Kershner (V), Richard Marquand (VI)
Rated: PG
(09/23/04 4:00am)
14 years ago, 18-year-old Matt Jacobson dialed Germany from a Kinko's fax line. On a hunch, he asked to speak to the CEO of Nuclear Blast Records, a German heavy metal record label, and asked if he could open and run its American distribution satellite office. He had no experience, no college education, nothing at all to offer except one strange conversation with a man named Bob Rob. "I don't know why I thought I had any chance of doing this," Jacobson recalls. "I was an 18-year-old kid with no perspective. But I got them on the phone and we started talking and it began a dialogue where they ultimately agreed to let us open their US office." What resulted kick-started the development of a little record label called Relapse Records. Today, the Philadelphia-based company is one of the premiere extreme music record labels in the world.
(11/20/03 5:00am)
For many fans, disillusion ensues when their favorite band makes the dreaded jump from an indie to a major record label. Such a move can result in flashy music videos and bigger, more impersonal venues for shows. Whether true or not, a sense of compromise and impurity creeps over the music. Before they played a sold-out Electric Factory on Tuesday, Thrice's bassist Ed Breckenridge and Thursday's guitarist Tom Keeley talked to Street about such challenges that face their respective groups.
(11/13/03 5:00am)
Whether or not downloading music is illegal no longer matters to the record industry and artists. The new question is how to capitalize off of new technology in order to stop plummeting profits. Last week, online music stores took a huge step forward in their quest to replace brick and mortar record stores as Penn State announced that included in all students' Information Technology fees would be a subscription to Napster.
(10/23/03 4:00am)
E-Town Concrete epitomizes Jersey music - they've been perfecting their mix of hip-hop and metal since 1995, long before rap-rock hit mainstream. Over the years, the band has developed an extremely devoted fan base, evidenced by the chants of "E-Town" that grew louder as the headliners prepared to take the stage. When the music finally began, the pit erupted, shaking the Troc's floor. Luckily, Street sat down before the mayhem to catch up with guitarist David Mondragon and bassist Eric DeNault.
(09/25/03 4:00am)
James Reimer does not exactly stick out like a sore thumb alongside his 23 other band mates in The Polyphonic Spree. The Dallas-based group has attracted a following across the United States with its unique sound and live show. Street talked with Reimer about band dynamics and personal interests.
(09/11/03 4:00am)
Dave Matthews, Some Devil, September 23 (RCA)
(06/12/03 4:00am)
This is the most difficult Metallica album I have ever listened to, and I have listened to them all more times than I care to admit. The guitar solos are gone, songs stop and start, tempos change and new riffs come out of nowhere. You do not have to be a recording engineer to recognize that James Hetfield recorded many of the vocals on his first take. Drummer Lars Ulrich sounds like he is playing drums on pots and pans in a kitchen. Worst of all, you may even hear the influence of (gasp) "nu-metal." After a first listen, I sat back and wondered what on earth I had just spent 75-plus minutes listening to.
(02/28/03 5:00am)
Street had the opportunity to chat with Burning Brides frontman Dimitri Coats on the eve of the band's first night opening for Audioslave. Since re-releasing their debut album, Fall of the Plastic Empire, on V2 Records last year, the Brides have steadily grown in popularity through relentless touring while bringing a much-needed attitude to rock music.
Are you excited to go on the road with Audioslave?
Yeah, the venues are really intense and huge, there's going to be about 4,000 people there. I think the whole tour is sold out.
Would you say that Philadelphia needed a band like you?
I definitely think it wouldn't hurt the city if we broke out a little bit, because I don't think there's ever been a rock band to do that, on somewhat of a bigger level. There's been some cool bands, but it's not really known as a rock town, so I think it would be great for the city.
With many of the bigger music labels consolidating and becoming part of huge conglomerates who aren't necessarily as focused on their music holdings, would you say that the Internet can provide an adequate alternate distribution outlet for independent artists and labels?
Yeah, I mean it's an excellent form of communication. I imagine in the future your television is going to be your computer; it's going to be everything. There won't be any more record stores -- there won't be record stores where you buy a new CD. There will still be those antique shops like Record Exchange and places like that where you can buy vinyl and new stuff, but there won't be anymore video stores or places where you rent movies, so it's going to be interesting to see how it changes. It's killing the music industry now -- it's not so much the internet, its people burning stuff. People aren't buying as many records as they used to. What's happening puts pressure on bands -- if you come out and you don't sell, and a label spends a lot of money on you, and they expect you to sell a million records and you only sell 500,000 copies, which is a gold record, you're kind of considered a failure. We're not in this situation because we were careful about what kind of deal we signed and our label isn't like that. It would be nice to sell a million records, but I don't think we necessarily have to. Certainly not with this re-release, no way.
I've read a lot of your interviews were you say the danger element is missing from rock music. How do you incorporate that into your music?
I just think there's danger in honesty, for one. If you're just coming out and you don't have any pretenses to what you're saying and doing, then that can be intimidating to a lot of people -- that's what The Stooges were all about. You don't have to come out and necessarily be creepy or sip blood or anything, that's all well and good. I just think that people want to see something on the stage that's larger than life and they want to see people get off in whatever way, and to do that you have to be willing to be vulnerable with yourself and be bold, take chances, walk the tightrope and not be afraid of people thinking you're an idiot -- you've gotta to take that chance. That's a dangerous place to be, and a lot of bands aren't willing to do that, they want to play it safe. They want to look like The Strokes and sound like whoever, The Velvet Underground. They want to go with a formula that they know is going to work, and they want to be cool. That doesn't cut it, people can see through that eventually.
You've been on the road a lot. Do you have any good road stories you'd like to share?
I think we're banned from the Milan Hilton. Melanie and I just went there to do press, and we were there with our label and we were all drunk and stuff and horsing around, and our label guy cracked his head open on a glass table and shattered it and we had to take him to the hospital. Then we had a huge laundry bill -- we didn't realize when we asked them to do our laundry through their service that they would dry clean every piece of laundry we had, like every sock and every pair of underwear. The bill came to the equivalent of $1,000, and we're like, we're not paying for it and we're not paying for the glass table or blood on the floor. So, I think we're done there.
(07/18/02 4:00am)
One can argue that two different sides make up the musical career of Sonic Youth. Some fans favor the short, pop oriented song structure of albums such as Dirty or Goo while others wish for the more avant-garde, experimental work displayed on the SYR albums. Fortunately, Murray Street seems to be a near perfect blend of the two sides.