Nuts For Music

A while back I wrote about how it was rumored New Kids On The Block were going to make a comeback. Today, on my ride into work, I heard more of that on the radio. In fact, it appears the original members are going to be appearing together on The Today Show at some point this morning. What has the world come to! I guess it’s safe to say no band or musical group is ever dead.

So my “worst fears” have come to pass, we’ll not only have young girls screaming and clawing after these guys at shows, but girls in their late 20’s and early 30’s who grew up with them! We already know that the polar ice caps are melting, does this mean that hell is freezing over??? Needless to say I’m not excited about this in the least, but I’m sure plenty of people will be and these guys will make a ton of money.

I heard on the radio the other day that Slash and Velvet Revolver released a press release that they’re splitting with often unreliable Scott Weiland. Too bad too, because Weiland is a talented singer and Velvet Revolver a decent band. I think they’re supposed to be on tour now, so hopefully nobody gets stuck with tickets they paid for. I just check out their official site and they have a news bit about the split. From the post:

Velvet Revolver founding members Slash, Duff McKagan, Matt Sorum and Dave Kushner announced today that they are parting ways with singer Scott Weiland. "This band is all about its fans and its music and Scott Weiland isn't 100% committed to either,” said Slash. "Among other things, his increasingly erratic on-stage behavior and personal problems have forced us to move on.

Too bad. Hopefully VR can find another good singer to move on with. Good luck fellas!

I saw Bear Hands last night when they opened up for Ambulance Ltd at The Middle East in Boston, MA. They put on a pretty good set, especially for a band that hasn’t toured before. Their lead guitarist is great, playing a mean slide guitar which you can hear on their track Golden. I think this is one of my most favorite songs on the 4 track EP. All 4 songs are pretty good and I’m hoping that they can get a complete album together for release soon.

The band is from Brooklyn, NY. Their said to have a similar sound to Modest Mouse and Interpol, both of which I’m a big fan of. You can buy the EP on iTunes or go to their MySpace page and listen to the tracks there (though you can’t download them). Finding hidden gems like these guys is great. Gets me some music that I might not have listened to without going to live shows!

Last night’s show was Ambulance Ltd @ The Middle East In Boston, Massachusetts. Show started off with a few opening acts I haven’t heard of. One, Bear Hands was pretty good. They had a guitarist that played some mean slide guitar, which sounded great. Too bad they weren’t selling CDs at the show, I’d have bought one.

Ambulance Ltd came on at about 10:30 and played until 12:00. Their set consisted of about half new songs that are unreleased and songs off of their last couple albums. The new stuff was good, but never hearing it before, hard to really get into. Their sound on the new songs was a little different, but this isn’t a bad thing. Keeps stuff interesting. Of course they rocked out to some of their best songs like Anecdote and Sugar Pill. All in all, it was an excellent show. Not a huge crowd, similar to the VAST show I went to in February, which I think is great for small venues such as the Middle East and Indy bands like Ambulance Ltd. I’ll definitely see them the next time they come to town!