Under Chris "The Surgeon"'s Knife Joan Rivers wishes she had me as her makeover guy.
In it's lifetime, Altsounds.com has had more face lifts than Joan Rivers, but as you have surely noticed, we've gone back under the knife. With so many readers jumping on board to contribute reviews and interviews we worked out a way to display all of the content that's been flooding in.
No matter where you go on Altsounds, music is readily available. In addition to all of the video and music found within posts themselves, random songs from Altsounds artists circulate at the bottom of every page. Maybe you'll discover your new favorite band and want to make sure others are aware of the hidden treasure you just uncovered. And maybe you'll be so aurally offended that you ranking them a '1' isn't enough...you must bash them publicly and destroy them with your words. Love them or hate them, you can now tell everyone about what you found on Altsounds by submitting a review. MG Mills came up with this feature that is called
Found on Altsounds and earned him a handsome $1000 Altsounds Dollars.
Do you have a great idea for Altsounds? If so, tell us about it. If we like what we hear and decide to implement it, you shall be rewarded handsomely.
Global Recession? Speak for yourself. Altsounds Dollars are thriving!
Beat The global recession and start earning Altsounds Dollars now!
We've been getting a lot of emails about this- ALTSOUNDS DOLLARS! While the global economy crumbles and we slowly slide toward the end of days, the fundamentals of the Altsounds economy are strong. News, reviews, interviews and getting your friends to the site will all earn you big bucks. Even simply fucking around on the site earns you money too! You can leave comments, play games in the arcade or just log into the site at some point during the day and make money. And what shall you do once you've hoarded mass quantities of Altsounds cash? Spend it, of course! Buy CDs, get show passes, score interviews, bid on contests for amazing prizes and so much more.
Music That's Hot With a plethora of music to sieve through below is the cream of this weeks ever abundant musical crop.
Nevershoutnever! - The Yipee EP
Doghouse Records 
Best EP title of the last year? Fo sho. Most overrated act to emerge in the last year? Um, no not really. Which is a shame, because that would have made for a great review opener. The problem here is that in the UK, nobody really knows who Nevershoutnever! is so that therefore makes it pretty impossible to be 'rated', let alone excessively. This too, is a shame, because soloist Christofer Drew deserves all the hype that he gets. At first, I really thought that I was going to hate 'The Yippee EP' because of the cute press shots with a cat, the massive side swept badger-esque fringe and Christofer's quirky image and name spelling. Those Yanks, eh. However.... upon letting the music do the talking in a reluctant first listening, I found myself RAPIDLY falling for.......
READ MORE Forgive Durden - Razia's Shadow [CD]
Fueled by Ramen
I wasn’t sure what to expect with this album, I have to admit. I certainly didn’t think that it would be a combination of prog rock and Broadway theatre. The first track of Razia’s Shadow (subtitled “A Musical”, which explains a lot) is, aptly enough, named “Genesis”, and it starts with a tense note underpinned by a deep rumble, which smashes into an epic fantasy-adventure kind of sound. A narrative voice (Aaron Weiss of mewithoutYou) begins the story, before giving way to percussive clicks and plucked strings, delicately weaving a background for the theatrical vocals.
Forgive Durden now consists of Thomas Dutton, all alone apart from his brother, who co-wrote the album, Casey Bates, who produced the album, Rudy Gajadhar (from Gatsby’s American Dream) on drums, and about a dozen extra singers, such as Panic At The Disco’s Brendan Urie and Chris Conley of Saves The Day.
Mr. Dutton should be very thankful for the amount of talent that he has amassed to play on this album......
READ MORE Alicia Keys & Jack White - Another way To Die [Single]
Third Man Records
Being the biggest fan of Jack White that has probably ever walked the planet without crossing the line into stalker-weirdo who copies his haircuts and clothing and goes through his rubbish, I was excited to hear that he and American piano-molestering popstress Alicia Keys had been asked to write and to perform the new theme track for the latest release in the James Bond series - 'Quantum Of Solace'. Well, more excited about him doing it, perhaps sceptical about her.
A lot of people have a validated opinion of what a Bond theme should sound like, and this is fair enough because it is very much a British institution that is successful worldwide, but we here in soggy Blighty still get the feeling that other countries don't really 'get it' and what it is about. If you are one of these type of people, then the chances are that you HATE this track, and I see where you're coming from. As I said James Bond is along with sarcasm, as British as it gets, so to have two Americans perform.......
READ MORE Music That is NOT! If you like shit and you like toast then you will LOVE the utterly shit covered toast that is demonstrated below. Scouting For Girls - I Wish I Was James Bond [single]
Epic Records
Apparently Scouting For Girls are the second biggest selling British band of 2008. How this has happened I do not know. Scouting For Girls make music that is so sickeningly poppy you want to put your fingers in your ears and scream ‘la la la la la’ at the top of your lungs until it's over. Is ‘I Wish I Was James Bond’ an exception? Well the title of the song should be enough to tell you that no, it is certainly not by any means.
A funky little piece of piano kicks things off, but after just 11 seconds the cringe fest begins: “007”, says a quintessentially English voice, “Britain’s finest secret agent, license to kill, mixing business with girls and thrills”. Then in comes lead singer Roy Stride with his try-hard vocal delivery and irritatingly predictable lyrics. Scouting For Girls write songs like an 8-year-old would write a poem, actually that might even be an insult to an 8-year-old...
“I wish I was James Bond, just for the day. Kissing all the girls, blow the bad guys away......
READ MORE Skew - Skew [Album]
It's Bananas Music
I live for electro music so I was delighted when I popped this CD in to the computer and iTunes pops up electronic as its genre. The delight however was pretty short lived.
Kicking off with ‘Stadiums are OK too’ things sounded promising, it saw me nodding my head to what is a pretty nice dirty synth riff. I was getting excited about the big fat juicy beat that was surely on its way. Nope. The beat is has is an 8 bit old drum machine sound. It’s far from energetic and lends little to the track. This combined with the repetitive synth gets tiring to the ear rather quickly. Maybe if there were a few breaks in the noise things would improve?
For me this is sadly the story of the entire album, and it’s a great shame because I think there’s potentially some good stuff on there. Track two starts with a really nice bit of synth which reminds me of Doctor Who, back in the day, when everything was done on tape loops, and this album does well to capture that analogue sound.....
READ MORE
We Will Rock You
Altsounds users are concert going freaks. The gig listed below gave our reviewer the horn this week.
Elbow - Live 19th October Carling Academy, Glasgow
Feat. Jesca Hoop
Sunday is for drinking with the Seldom Seen Kid indeed and not a nicer band could you wish to spent the evening in the company of and sink a few cold ones. Elbow are currently riding the crest of a wave with the Mercury Award winning 'The Seldom Seen Kid' and it's no more than they deserve as no band has been as consistently brilliant as Elbow continue to be. And so to tonight's gig.
The room erupts in cheers as Guy Garvey walks onstage to introduce the warm-up he admits that due to being 'a tight bastard' they couldn't afford to pay for a backing band so we'll be getting a solo acoustic performance tonight so all keep quiet and embrace Jesca Hoop. Miss Hoop arrives suitably dressed for this bloody freezing Scottish weather in a huge polar bear hat looking and sounding kind of like Katie Melua now hold on it's not as bad as it sounds. Admitedly her songs could do with a band to bring them fully to life but she holds her own well tonight on songs like 'Enemy' and 'Seed Of Wonder' .....
READ MORE
Plug In Baby
Must buys from the technological world.
M-Audio Pulsar II - Small-diaphragm Condensor Microphone A mic collection should include small-diaphragm condensors for their transparent, uncoloured sound. M-Audio's Pulsar II should become a part of yours
The M-Audio Pulsar II Small-diaphragm microphone comes in a lovely wooden box that demonstrates something M-Audio do well -and that's package their equipment. The included case of the M-Audio Pulsar II Small-diaphragm microphone, with it's velvety interior, was enough to make me fall in love with them before I had even plugged them in or tested out how they sounded. There are also lots of cool accessories included in the box such as stand mounts, foam shields, a stereo bar and drawstring carry cases. The ONLY thing not included are shock-mounts which would have made the M-Audio Pulsar II Small-diaphragm microphone package delivery perfect!
The M-Audio Pulsar II Small-diaphragm microphone is an updated and re-designed version of the original M-Audio Pulsar microphone. M-Audio sent me over a pair of Pulsar II Small-diaphragm microphone to put through a heavy amount of tests and real life sessions.
M-Audio are doing like many other manufacturers, and are getting a lot of their microphones manufactured in China for the very obvious cost saving reasons. As a company, when you outsource your manufacturing abroad the most important thing to add to your worry list is quality control. Based on my experience thus far with M-Audio it appears that they are taking this VERY seriously and are also doing a great job ensuring the quality is in every single piece of equipment they manufacture.
READ MORE Information:Other Shizzle On Halloween, Oklahoma City is likely to be cooler than your city.
There is so much more to discuss...so many new features, but I'll save it for next time. I do have an invitation for you, though. I am often teased for living in Oklahoma, the linty belly button of the US. Sure, there are places significantly cooler than Oklahoma City, but let me ask you this, tough guy- are YOU having a ginormous Halloween Parade with the Flaming Lips where everyone dresses like skeletons? Probably not.
| 
8 Pints In | Issue#17
