Soundwave Is Big and Heavy, Surprised?

The full line-up for the 2011 Soundwave festival has been released and it’s a pretty heavy duty list.

Iron Maiden will headline joined by Slayer, Queens of the Stone Age, Melvins, The Gaslight Anthem, Slash, 30 Seconds to Mars (Full list below)

As usual this website hasn’t heard of many of the more hardcore acts but there are plenty that grab our attention.

With their new album The Final Frontier due out next week, Iron Maiden simply refuse to turn off the creative taps and allow age to take its toll. Iron Maiden will be bringing their full stage show to Australia for the Soundwave festivals and will even be taking in a couple of side shows on the east coast. Having just come off tour in North America where they played to more than 400,000 fans over 25 dates, Iron Maiden should be in fighting form by the time they get here.

Queens of the Stone Age, Primus, Slash, Social Distortion, Rob Zombie, Gang of Four, Pennywise, Monster Magnet and Sevendust are all veteran acts that are still holding their own with the young guns.

The Gaslight Anthem are  a sensational newer band with a couple of outstanding albums to their credit. I’ll be looking for them to do a sideshow.

SOUNDWAVE SHOWS AND VENUES – FEBRUARY/MARCH 2011

SATURDAY 26 BRISBANE, RNA SHOWGROUNDS

SUNDAY 27 SYDNEY, EASTERN CREEK RACEWAY

FRIDAY 4 MELBOURNE, SHOWGROUNDS

SATURDAY 5 ADELAIDE, BONYTHON PARK

MONDAY 7 PERTH, STEEL BLUE OVAL

To be eligible for the Soundwave Festival members pre sale you must be registered as a member on the Festival website www.soundwavefestival.com

Soundwave member’s pre sale:

Tuesday 17 August 9am, Brisbane
Wednesday 18 August 9am, Sydney
Thursday 19 August 9am, Melbourne
Friday 20 August 9am, Adelaide and Perth

Soundwave Festival 2011 Line-up:

Iron Maiden
Slayer
Queens of the Stone Age
Primus
Slash
Social Distortion
Rob Zombie
Avenged Sevenfold
30 Seconds To Mars
Stone Sour
Gang of Four
New Found Glory
Pennywise
Sum 41
Annberlin
The Gaslight Anthem
Third Eye Blind
Devildriver
Sevendust
Less Than Jake
The Bronx
Monster Magnet
Terror
MXPX
Protest The Hero
Melvins
30 Crazyfists
Ill Nino
The Ataris
The Starting Line
Bayside
Madd Caddies
The Maine
Trash Talk
May Day Parade
Foxy Shazam
Never Shout Never
The Blackout
Alesana
Asking Alexandria
All That Remains
High On Fire
Dommin
The Sword
Kylesa
A Skylit Drive
There For Tomorrow
Breathe Carolina
Taking Dawn
I See Stars
Rise To Remain
Nonpoint
Veara
Every Avenue

Slash – Festival Hall

It’s taken the best part of two decades but Slash is going the right way about saving the legacy of Guns N Roses. The bad blood, the constant delays in recording, the side projects and the general air of chaos that surrounded so much of the bands post-Illusion news has tended to obscure the fact that the main reason GnR  rose to the heights they did was that they were a great hard rock n’ roll band.

And inherent in any genuinely great hard rock band is a great hard rock guitarist.

Slash is a great hard rock guitarist.

Tonights show managed to draw together songs from four phases of Slash’s career – Guns n Roses, Slash’s Snakepit, Velvet Revolver and his recently released “solo” album in a show that was really a showcase for his playing and the power of a really good hard rock band in full flight.

The best thing about the show was that the stage was a wanker-free zone. Slash himself is a no-nonsense guitar player – he plays some really tasty lead rock guitar but he does it as a band member not as a band leader. He plays to the song and although for many in the audience he is a “guitar hero” he’s really just a great rock guitar player playing in a great rock band.

In some ways Myles Kennedy is the glue that holds this together. Both Guns N Roses and Velvet Revolver had really distinctive lead singers who drew a lot of attention. Slash’s solo album by definition had a big focus on the singers on each song whether they were Iggy Pop, Ozzy Osbourne, Andrew Stockdale, Ian Asbury or even Fergie. Kennedy then, has the role of filling the shoes of Axl Rose and Scott Weiland as well as making a bunch of songs from Snakepit and the solo album his own.

He does a brilliant job. Performing songs like Sweet Child, Paradise City and Civil War could easily have gone very wrong and ended up sounding like a GnR covers band but to his credit Kennedy gets it just right. He avoids mimicking Rose but equally doesn’t try too hard to change the phrasing and the intent of the songs to make them his own, and by so doing losing the crowd along the way.

And he manages to do all this without needing to try and attract too much attention by posing or coming across as too much of a rock star. He lets his singing speak for itself.

The rest of the band simply get the job done. Bobby Schneck (guitar), Tony Montana (bass) and Brent Fitz (drums) don’t steal centre stage from Kennedy or Slash, but in the tradition of great bands they are rock solid contributors.

The selections from the solo album are smart – they don’t try to replicate the more iconic singers on the album and by avoiding that, those songs become identified with this band.

There’s no pyrotechnics, no big sets and no ‘visual extravaganza’ – just a very good band playing great rock n’ fn’ roll. That’s a good way to spend a night out.

Setlist
Ghost
Mean Bone (Slash’s Snakepit)
Night Train (Guns ‘N’ Roses)
Sucker Train Blues (Velvet Revolver)
Back From Cali
Beggars And Hangers-On (Slash’s Snakepit)
Civil War (Guns ‘N’ Roses)
Rocket Queen (Guns ‘N’ Roses)
Fall To Pieces (Velvet Revolver)
Dirty Little Thing (Velvet Revolver)
Nothing To Say
Starlight
Watch This (instrumental)
Slash solo
The Godfather theme
Sweet Child O’ Mine (Guns ‘N’ Roses)
Slither (Velvet Revolver)

Encore
By The Sword
Paradise City (Guns ‘N’ Roses)

Slash – Slash (Sony)

Obviously this album could have gone either way. Slash has never had any claims as a singer and so for this solo album he enlisted the help of some of his famous friends to co-write and take lead vocals on the songs.

It could have ended up as a disjointed collection of self-indulgent guitar anthems with token “famous people” vocal performances that fulfilled a debt of friendship or idol worship.

Or it could have been a really good hard rock album with some truly memorable moments.

Fortunately for all concerned it is the latter.

It seems like Slash himself exercised some real quality control here. He doesn’t let the singers pander to their own safety nets and in fact seems to push them to contribute to his vision rather than underline their own.

An example is Fergie’s effort on Beautiful Dangerous. Slash and the band provide her with a great big rock groove and she responds by sounding more like Ann Wilson than herself. Full points.

It’s a big bodied rock album and its no surprise that the man in the hat is front and centre. There’s some delicious lead, rock, electric guitar playing to be found here and that’s a concept that we don’t get enough of these days.

Slash plays with the angles and he plays with great fluidity and really of you love rock music, you gotta love this guy as a rock guitarist. That’s not exactly a revelation but it’s also undeniable.

On a song like Doctor Alibi (featuring a wonderfully idiosyncratic vocal by Lemmy), when Slash opens the track with a blazing lead break and you know that for all the guest stars its still his album. The instrumental Watch This with drumming by Dave Grohl underlines the point.

Slash has got it right this time – he’s accepted that he’s the star of his own show and almost ironically it took recruiting the all star cast to prove it.

Time For A Quick Slash

Slash won a lot of people over last week when he played at the launch of MTV Classic at the Palace Theatre in Melbourne, where he was joined by Angry Anderson and Andrew Stockdale. It looks like he can now parlay that goodwill into a full tour of Australia in August.

His self titled solo album is a really good rock record with Slash contributing his trademark guitar to songs g=featuring a variety of lead vocalists including Ozzy Osbourne, Iggy Pop, Chris Cornell, Dave Grohl, Lemmy, Ian Astbury, Andrew Stockdale, Lemmy Kilmeister, Kid Rock and even Fergie (who sounds great on her track!)

Slash of course was the guitarist in  Guns N’ Roses, and has guested on a number of recordings by iconic artists like Michael Jackson, Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder, as well as forming the supergroup Velvet Revolver and his own previous band Snakepit.

He may well be responsible for the greatest rock riff of all time with “Sweet Child O’ Mine” consistently taking top honors in polls and pub arguments!

Time Magazine placed Slash second only to Jimi Hendrix amongst the greatest guitarists of all time. Time Magazine!

Slash’s self titled album has already got some great reviews including this one from Metal Resource : “Modern rock will not get much better than this, we have encountered a new standard, a new “classic” that is every bit as good as the best of the best from decades long”

His concert last week when he included a number of Guns N’ Roses songs has seen several reviewers revising their opinion of G n R as “Axl Rose’s band”. Slash has lead singer Myles Kennedy on board and by all reports he more than manages the lead vocals on the Gunners songs that Slash includes in the set.

The set list from the Palace show was

Nightrain (Guns n Roses)
Back From Cali (Slash solo album)
Beggars & Hangers-on (Slash’s Snakepit song)
Nice Boys (performed with Angry Anderson, a Rose Tattoo song)
Civil War (Guns n Roses)
Sucker Train Blues (Velvet Revolver)
Nothing To Say (Slash solo album)
Starlight (Slash solo album)
Sweet Child O Mine (Guns n Roses)
By The Sword (performed with Andrew Stockdale – Slash solo album)
Woman (with Andrew Stockdale – a Wolfmother song)
Slither Velvet Revolver)
Paradise City (Guns n Roses)

Tickets For Slash on sale Friday 7 May, 9am

WEDNESDAY 11 AUGUST
MELBOURNE, PALACE THEATRE – 18+
www.ticketek.com.au 132 849

THURSDAY 12 AUGUST
BRISBANE, THE TIVOLI – 18+
www.ticketek.com.au 132 849 and Rockinghorse Records.

MONDAY 16 AUGUST
SYDNEY, ENMORE THEATRE – Lic A/A
www.ticketek.com.au 132 849

Slash & Friends Release Album

Saul Hudson probably never planned on being in one of the biggest rock bands of their time. But as Slash that’s exactly what he did with Guns N’ Roses.

I reckon all Slash ever really wanted to do was be a guitar player and since G N’R that what he’s been trying to do. He’ll pop up as a guest player on any number of recordings or as a “surprise” guest at a live show. He’s formed a number of bands from Velvet Revolver to Slash’s Snakepit and tried numerous other collaborations along the way.

The guy just wants to play guitar.

Now Slash is releasing a new album and this time he pulled together a bunch of his famous friends to contribute.

Slash has good friends including  Dave Grohl, Ian Astbury, Ozzy Osbourne, Fergie (huh?), Chris Cornell, Lemmy Kilmeister, Andrew Stockdale, Iggy Pop, Kid Rock, and Adam Levine (from Maroon 5).

Slash said “The idea was really simple in the beginning. These are all artists I wanted to work with — that I thought it would be amazing to do something creative and collaborative. And I was so impressed with what everyone brought to the table. They were all so committed to doing a good job. And we had a lot of fun making these songs.”

In keeping with the G N’ R aesthetic Slash’s album is called ‘R&FN’R’.

Good on ‘ya, I say.

01. Ghost (feat. Ian Astbury)
02. Beautiful Dangerous (feat. Fergie)
03. Nothing To Say (feat. M. Shadows)
04. Crucify The Dead (feat. Ozzy Osbourne)
05. Promise (feat. Chris Cornell)
06. By The Sword (feat. Andrew Stockdale)
07. Doctor Alibi (feat. Lemmy Kilmeister)
08. Saint Is A Sinner Too (feat. Rocco De Luca)
09. Watch This (feat. Dave Grohl/Duff McKagan)
10. I Hold On (feat. Kid Rock)
11. Gotten (feat. Adam Levine)
12. We’re All Gonna Die (feat. Iggy Pop)
13. Starlight (feat. Myles Kennedy)

Guitar and Recording Great Les Paul Dies

It’s not often that one man can rightly claim to have changed the course of an entire  industry but the famed Les Paul can stake that claim. Les Paul is this week being acclaimed by musicians and recording artists and engineers around the world after news broke that he had has died of pneumonia in hospital in White Plains, New York.

Les Paul was born Lester William Polsfuss on June 9, 1915.

He is best known as the creator of the Gibson guitar that bore his name but he also was the inventor of overdubbing, tape delay and the use of multitrack recording.

Les Paul built his first electric guitar ‘The Log’ in 1939. Around the same time Leo Fender and Adolph Rickenbacker were also working on their guitars.

In the 50s, Gibson contacted Les Paul to design a range and the Les Paul guitar was born.

Eric Clapton adopted the Les Paul guitar in the 60s. Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Pete Townshend, Peter Frampton, Ace Ferehley, Slash and Keith Richards all became Les Paul players.

In fact in was the Stones’ Keith who once said, “we must all own up that without Les Paul, generations of flash little punks like us would be in jail or cleaning toilets.”

Les Paul was the Godfather of guitarist Steve Miller. Miller’s father was best man at Les Paul’s wedding.

“The world has lost a truly innovative and exceptional human being today,” said Henry Juszkiewicz, the head of Gibson Guitar today. “I cannot imagine life without Les Paul. He would walk into a room and put a smile on anyone’s face. His musical charm was extraordinary and his techniques unmatched anywhere in the world.”

 

“He actually taught himself to play guitar in order to demonstrate his electronic theories,” said Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards. “All of us owe an unimaginable debt to his work and his talent.”

 

“The name Les Paul is iconic and is known by aspiring and virtuoso guitar players worldwide,” said Kiss front man Paul Stanley. “That guitar is the cornerstone of a lot of great music that has been made in the last 50 years.”

 

“He was a futurist, and unlike some futurists who write about it and predict things, he was a guy who actually did things,” said Juskiewicz.

 

Les Paul continued to perform weekly gigs at the Iridium Jazz Club in New York City until a couple of months ago and these gigs became a regular star spotting event as musicians sat in to pay homage to the great man.

 

A musician since childhood, Paul experimented with guitar amplification for years before coming up in 1941 with what he called “The Log,” a 4-by-4 piece of wood strung with steel strings. He later put the wooden wings onto the body to give it a traditional guitar shape.

 

Les Paul began his career as a musician, under the stage name Red Hot Red or Rhubarb Red. He toured with the popular Chicago band Rube Tronson and His Texas Cowboys and led the house band on WJJD radio in Chicago.

 

In the mid-1930s he joined Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians and soon moved to New York to form the Les Paul Trio, with Jim Atkins and bassist Ernie Newton.

 

His first records were released in 1944 on Decca Records. Later, with Mary Ford, his wife from 1949 to 1962, he earned 36 gold records for hits including “Vaya Con Dios” and “How High the Moon,” which both hit No. 1.

 

He had met Ford, then known as Colleen Summers, in the 1940s while working as a studio musician in Los Angeles. For seven years in the 1950s, Paul and Ford broadcast a TV show from their home in Mahwah, N.J. (Ford died in 1977, 15 years after they divorced).

 

Paul had made his first attempt at audio amplification at age 13. Unhappy with the amount of volume produced by his acoustic guitar, he tried placing a telephone receiver under the strings. Although this worked to some extent, only two strings were amplified and the volume level was still too low.

 

By placing a phonograph needle in the guitar, all six strings were amplified, which proved to be much louder. Paul was playing a working prototype of the electric guitar in 1929.

 

His work on recording techniques began in the years after World War II, when Bing Crosby gave him a tape recorder. Drawing on his earlier experimentation with his homemade recording machine, Paul added an additional playback head to the recorder. The result was a delayed effect that became known as tape echo.

 

Tape echo gave the recording a more “live” feel and enabled the user to simulate different playing environments.

 

Paul’s next idea was to stack together eight mono tape machines and send their outputs to one piece of tape, stacking the recording heads on top of one another. The resulting machine served as the forerunner to today’s multitrack recorders. Many of his songs with Ford used overdubbing techniques that Paul had helped develop.

Paul’s use of multitrack recording was unique. Before he did it, most recordings were made on a single tape. By recording each element separately, from the vocals to instrumentation on different tracks, they could be mixed and layered, adding to the richness in sound.

 

In 2005, he released the Grammy-winning “Les Paul & Friends: American Made, World Played,” his first album of new material since those 1970s recordings and his first official rock CD. Among those playing with him: Peter Frampton, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Richie Sambora.

 

“They’re not only my friends, but they’re great players,” Paul told The Associated Press. “I never stop being amazed by all the different ways of playing the guitar and making it deliver a message.”

 

Paul was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2005.

 

Many stars have already made tributes to Les Paul. Here are a few that have appeared on-line already:

“My friend & mentor Les Paul died today at 94, he was one of the most stellar human beings I’ve ever known, rest in peace Les.” — Slash

“Remembering Les Paul today. Just happened to have his namesake Gibson around my shoulder the last few days. Pictures of Les Paul all over the studio today. Very special day in here. You should wiki his life. Pretty amazing.” — John Mayer

“RIP Les Paul-thankyou for the instruments that changed the course of music. If u have ever “rocked” or “been rocked” u can thank Les Paul.” — Tom Morello

“The music industry has lost a giant! I’m very saddened by the news of Les Paul’s passing. I was lucky enough to have known Les as a friend, and admired him as a musician and innovator. He forever changed the way we listen to music.” — Ace Frehley

“Les Paul set a standard for musicianship and innovation that remains unsurpassed. He was the original guitar hero, and the kindest of souls. Last October I joined him onstage at The Iridium club in NYC, and he was still shredding. He was and still is an inspiration to us all.” — Joe Satriani

“There are very few human beings in history who touched so many people the way Les Paul did. Not only musicians. But anyone that loved music. He shared his gifts with all of us and brought people together with his brilliance and devotion to music and the art of sound. It was a privilege to have met him. He will be incredibly missed. But our blessing is to know that his spirit and soul will live for eternity in music everywhere.” — The Hold Steady’s Tad Kubler