Chelsea Girls are kinda like Camp Freddy, but with less dicks and more balls. Indeed the band's chief instigator, bassist Corey Parks of Nashville Pussy, was inspired to put the all-female/all-star cover band together after becoming a regular guest player alongside Camp Freddy's bad-boy residents...
Click HERE to read full story and HERE to view an album of images from the Feb 26th show @ The Roxy.
Caught singer, songwriter and virtuoso violinist Lili Haydn at the Hotel Cafe in Hollywood last Thursday night. She played a selection of tracks from her third solo release, Place Between Places, which was one of the most criminally ignored albums of 2008. (Though one of the tracks from it, "Saddest Sunset", did catch the attention of Califoniacation's producers, who used the song in a key scene.)
Haydn first picked up the violin at the age of 8, and was soloing with the LA-Phil by the time she was 15. Transitioning between genres as easily as she changes key, Hayden also plays with LA's daKAH Hip Hop Orchestra and Parliament-Funkadelic. George Clinton calls her "the Jimi Hendrix of the violin" -- and rightfully so -- she shreds on the violin as if channeling the dead guitar god.
Last time I saw her live was several years ago, when she shared the stage with daKAH for a performance of Parliament's "Come In Out of the Rain", an anti-war song that is as relevant to Afghanistan and Iraq as it was to Vietnam. At the Hotel Cafe, Haydn acknowledged the brave and the fallen with a song she'd just written that was inspired by HBO's new documentary film about Martin Luther King's final moments, The Witness: From The Balcony of Room 306 (she'd been invited to play at its premiere). Haydn is passionate about keeping King's dream alive, and is a big supporter of human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Action Center.
Haydn closed her set with the happy-go-lucky "Strawberry Street", a personal fav of mine.
This week I go from the yin to the yang, with a hard rockin' Thursday night date with The Chelsea Girls. The all-star, all-female cover band is comprised of vocalist Tuesdae, bassist Corey Parks (Nashville Pussy), guitarist Allison Robertson (The Donnas) and drummer Samantha Maloney (Peaches, Hole and The Crystal Method). Lemmy (Motorhead) joined the girls at their last show for "Ace of Spades", so it'll be interesting to see who shows up this week.
Amanda Palmer is a rebel with a cause; she fights fiercely for her artistic freedom.
When the musician and singer, who is currently on hiatus from the "Brechtian punk cabaret" band The Dresden Dolls, made a video to promote one of the songs from her debut solo album, Who Killed Amada Palmer, it seems her belly didn't conform to the ideal expressed by a male executive at her label, who apparently explained: "I'm a guy, Amanda. I understand what people like." She fought the label's attempt to slim down her stomach's role in the clip for "Leeds United" (it was already pretty damn small). Her loyal fans also rose to her defense, and a grassroots ReBellyOn website was launched.
The incident was the final straw in Palmer's already fractured relationship with Roadrunner Records, a subsidiary of the Warner Music Group. The singer subsequently asked to be released from her contractual obligations. So far the label has declined her request.
Palmer consoled herself with the very loving and direct relationship she enjoys with her fans via MySpace and her own blog. So when she sparked even more outrage with the release of her follow-up video, for the song "Oasis", they were the first people she turned to for help.
Amanda's semi-autobiographical lyrics tell a story of rape and abortion as told from the perspective of a teenager, who gets through the traumatic experience thanks to her preoccupation with the Brit-pop band Oasis. The subject matter of the song, and the up-beat way it was portrayed in the video, proved to be too much for broadcasters to handle.
Palmer, who is currently touring Europe, received an email while she was in the U.K. from her label there explaining that "all"' of the TV outlets had refused to play the video due to it "making light of rape, religion and abortion." Palmer, in response, reached out to her fans via a lengthy missive on her blog, and by calling up SuicideGirls.
Click HERE to read my interview with Amanda.
It's hard being Tommy Lee. He's alone in a Las Vegas hot tub (albeit a very nice one), he doesn't have a stripper pole installed in his tour bus -- yet -- and he has a habit of finding trouble even when he's not looking for it (the latter being part of his well-documented charm). To make matters worse, he's just found out that sixty of the hottest tattooed chicks on the planet, with the kind of proclivity for naked frolicking he appreciates, are going to be in town the week after leaves. As he waits for his friends to arrive, we selflessly kept the rocker company on the phone, chatting about the Saints of Los Angeles U.S. tour his band, Mötley Crüe, have just embarked on, and the sinful fun that can be found on the road.
Click HERE to read interview.
