Results tagged “Music” from Hollywood Babble On

Them Crooked Vultures will play a special one time only club show at the Roxy Monday, November 16, the day before the band's self titled debut is released. The band consists of Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters, Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age and John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, among others.

Tickets will be available exclusively in-person at the venue on show day. No lineups prior to 2pm. Ticket holders will be required to enter immediately after purchase. No ins and outs. Tickets are non- transferable

The show will be open to all ages. Box office and doors open at 8:30. Them Crooked Vultures on stage at 10:30

If you want to venture to the Palm Springs area Saturday, cruise on down to the Spotlight 29 Casino in Coachella Saturday and check out the Old School Reunion IV concert with Midnight Star, Expose', Freestyle Evolution, Club Noveau and Suzi Carr of "Will to Power" playing in consecutive sets.

It's been 26 years since Midnight Star's breakout R&B hit record No Parking on the Dance Floor with the dance hits "No Parking on the Dance Floor" and "Freakazoid" and nine years since they reunited the original lineup. They've toured consistently since 2000 and released an album of new material called "15th Avenue" in 2002.

The group mostly plays shows with other R&B groups of the 80's including Zapp (without Roger Troutman who is deceased) and Con-Funk-Shun, among many others.

Expose is an 80's soul singing group who had a major hit with the song "Point of No Return," as well as other minor hits and they have also reunited. - as has Club Nouveau, who had a hit song with the remake of Bill Withers "Lean on Me" in 1987.

The show starts at 8pm. The address of the casino is

Spotlight 29 Casino
46-200 Harrison Place
Coachella, CA
1 866 377-6829

Most Friday nights at The Hotel Cafe in October have featured (or will feature) great musical acts and this coming Friday the16th is no exception.

Keaton Simons will play at 9 p.m. that night and is a fantastic singer/songwriter
who is great on record and better live. His genre of music is blues
for the most part, and his voice and guitar-playing certainly match
that. His songs are sometimes acoustic, sometimes blues-pop and
sometimes just rockin — but they are always great.

He released his full-length debut CD called "Can You Hear Me" in June 2008 on CBS Records and he has been touring around the country in support of it ever since - playing in Los Angeles sparingly among those stops. The album is a brilliant mix of blues, pop with some rockin' thrown in, with some of the standout tunes that include the very radio-friendly 'Good Things Get Better;' the mellow 'Without Your Skin;' and the blues-rippin' 'Mama Song' and 'Burch Mog.' Another track on the record is perfect for today's weather - add some rain, some wine, some cold, maybe a fireplace along with your significant other and then play the song 'Currently.' Perfect combination.

You probably have already heard his songs and didn't realize it. One
of his tunes is featured in several trailers for the Starz Network
television series "Crash," and several of his tunes have been in the
television shows "Men in Trees" and "Numbers" and the movie "Sky High."

Since his last show in Los Angeles in the summer, he has made a video for 'Without Your Skin' which is here on his youtube channel. He is all over the place online with Facebook fan pages here and here; a myspace page and his own website . He is also on twitter and has created a weekly conversation called Twitterviews where on Mondays, he and another artist interview each other on twitter. That happens at 1pm PST each week.

On Friday, he goes on at 9pm, right after The Makepeace Brothers. Look for new album from Simons soon too, but check out his show first. You're guaranteed to love it.

The drummer for the band The Police has a new book - called Strange Things Happen, which details his entire life up until the 2007/2008 reunion tour.

Copeland's book is mainly about the explosive chemistry among the three members of the group, which disbanded after 1983's album Synchronicity and reformed for a very successful tour two years ago. Copeland (drums), Sting (bass and vocals) and Andy Summers (guitar) constantly conflicted about the style of music that band did - with it fluctuating among new wave, punk, reggae, experimental and then eventually pop.

In the early years, the band played punk and reggae-infused pop and had several hits, including "Roxanne" and "Don't Stand So Close to Me" Their last album was mainly pop with the mega hits 'Every Breath You Take," "King of Pain," "Synchronicity II" and "Wrapped Around Your Finger." and they won three Grammys - two for "Every Breath You Take."

Copeland has never hidden the fact that the three fought and neither has Sting. The band broke up after the Synchronicity tour in 1984 and each member pursued solo careers. Sting has released many solo albums since, has won 10 Grammys and has been nominated for three Oscars. Copeland composed many movie soundtracks as well as the theme for the television show The Equalizer in the 80's, then recorded several solo albums, many of which were of percussion-heavy instrumentals. Summers - the oldest and most experimental of the three - also recorded several solo records and made a record with Robert Fripp (of King Crimson).

In 2007, the group reformed for a new tour (after several attempts and/or reunion shows in the 90's and early 2000's) which was the highest grossing tour of those two years.

Other parts of Copeland's book include his family's participation in his musical career. including his brother Miles, who founded I.R.S. Records and was the manager of The Police and another brother Ian, who was the band's booking agent. Copeland's father Miles Sr. had little to do with the band, but worked for the C.I.A - which added another element of mystery to Copeland, as did his being raised in the Middle East for much of his early life.

It's been out for a week and Pearl Jam's Backspacer was the highest-selling album in the first week of release. Not too bad for a band of 40-somethings who first released an album in the grunge era in 1991.

Backspacer is good, not as fantastic as their first two records Ten and Vs. in the early 1990's, but good. It's the first Pearl Jam album to be at #1 in sales since No Code (1996) and, coupled with 2006's self-titled Pearl Jam, reestablishes their place in music.

Since their explosive entry into music with Ten (1991) and Vs. (1993), Pearl Jam has always been around, but after a fight with Ticketmaster; generating heat with their political stances; their refusal to make videos and the change in the musical landscape, the band veered off course until the mid-2000's. No Code sold well, but Pearl Jam the album brought them back into the consciousness. Backspacer continues the resuscitation.

The first single from Backspacer is 'The Fixer' which is certainly radio-friendly, but personally, 'Amongst the Waves,' with it's fantastic hook and chorus, seems to be the better single (it might be the second). Singer Eddie Vedder's love of surfing certainly permeates the latter song and that same activity inspired him to write the lyrics for a few of most powerful songs on Ten such as 'Alive' and 'Black.'

Other song highlights on Backspacer include "Gonna See My Friend," which is a rocker that sounds like Chris Cornell (formerly of Soundgarden) could easily sing it and "Just Breathe," which is reminiscent of the Into the Wild Soundtrack (on which Vedder composed and sang all of the songs) as well as the Vs. track 'Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town."

Guitarists Stone Gossard and Mike McCready continue to blend guitar sounds perfectly without overpowering the songs and Jeff Ament uses several different bass guitars and sounds that are always appropriate for the styles of each song.

Unlike several of their albums, Backspacer has 11 straight forward songs with none of them being unorthodox instrumentals or experiments like "Aye Davinita," "Bugs" and "Hey Foxymophandlemama, That's Me, " among others. (All three of those tracks appear on the same album - Vitalogy.

These guys have certainly mellowed and gotten more clean-cut, but they've also far outlasted their Seattle peers and made another good record.