Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Alex de Campi’s guide to low-budget videos

The important thing is to remember that it’s a lottery. We were fantastically lucky with the Schema video, but you should assume your efforts will have zero effect (maybe 1,000 views over six months) and spend only as much as you’re comfortable wasting.

  • When in doubt, just do a stop-motion video with your camera and assemble it in iMovie or similar free movie software package. If you want to spend more, ask all your friends whether they know a good director. If nobody knows anyone, post a plea for help on www.shootingpeople.org.uk.
  • On no account spend more than £1,000 of your own money.
  • Do not do a performance video. I don’t care how good you are on stage, it looks so dull. Think of the best videos you’ve ever seen - they told a story, they made you laugh, or cry, or go “wow”. Think up a great story for your video and film that. Don’t just illustrate the lyrics or have the story follow the lyrics 100 per cent - that’s just visual karaoke.
  • Oh, and remember to actually sing the words while lipsynching. Just mouthing them looks fake.

Example of great DIY videos

Sixnationstate - a brilliant video made by the band


Thai and Prostitution:Community Message brought to you by The Rock Starz



Flica:This is not a Thai prostitute. This is Jeerawan - a Thai girl with views against prostitution.

I find a growing number of younger Thais sharing her stand. I wish to neither support nor condemn these opinions. It is a Thai matter and best left to the Thais to sort out.

What I do believe in is perhaps the regulation of prostitution worldwide. Legalising prostitution and establishing it as a legit industry (at several billion dollars if not more annual worth, it better be a legit industry) and allowing Governments to tax it properly will perhaps result in better working conditions for hos.

Marty Friedman vs Paul Gilbert

Marty Friedman vs Paul Gilbert on Japanese TV Show

Ibanez Presents Paul Gilbert's New 20Th Anniversary PGM Signature Reissue Electric Guitar


At Ibanez, 2009 truly is the Year of Paul Gilbert. Ibanez has now reissued his original 1989 signature model as the PGM100RE 20TH ANNIVERSARY model. Plus Ibanez is urging fans to vote for which of Paul's radical-appearance signature models — some of which were originally only available in Japan — should be the next Paul Gilbert Signature Reissue.

Available for order now is the limited edition PGM100RE with its unmistakable combination of metallic blue body complemented by pink painted F-holes and pink DiMarzio pickups. The PGM100RE is limited to just 300 worldwide, with approximately just 150 of those slated for the United States. The Japanese-made PGM100RE features U.S.A.-made DiMarzio pickups, a lightweight basswood body fitted with the Ibanez new Super Wizard (same thin, fast and flat dimensions as the original 1987 Wizard, but even stronger), the original Edge locking trem and a deluxe hardshell case. The list price is $2666.65.

Flica:It is really gorgeous,more gorgeous than watching Pussycat Doll v.clip.If i given choice between PGM and PSC,i will take PGM for sure...(wahahahaha-im not gay!)

Dragonforce VS Marty Friedman & Rolly

Guys,this thing have nothing to do with gossips and biography or whatsoever.This is competition between Dragonforce(UK) VS Marty Friedman & Rolly(JAPAN).So which team win the competition?Check this holy vid out!

Foo Fighters: Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin cover)Damn Funny

This is old post that i put back in my page.And this video clip are really funny though.Dave and Jack Black,you both awesome!

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Underoath Release New Single

This is not the cover of new single

On April 20th Underoath will release their new single 'Too Bright To See, Too Loud To Hear’ on Virgin Records. This will coincide with the band returning to the UK to play the Give It A Name festival on April 18th and 19th at Manchester Academy and London Brixton respectively.

The Florida-based sextet, who are renowned for their cathartic and frenzied live performances, have developed a fanatical worldwide fan base. They are currently inviting their fans to enter a competition to make a video for their new single and post it on Youtube, with the band choosing the winner and nine runners up. The winner will be given backstage access to hang out with Underoath at Give It A Name and the runners up will each receive autographed deluxe box-sets.

U2 New Album Review:No Line on the Horizon


In "No Line on the Horizon," it is the combination of garage-organ drone, fat guitar distortion and Mullen's parade-ground drumming, the last so sharp and hard all the way through that it's difficult to tell how much is him and how much is looping (that is a compliment). The Edge takes one of his few extended guitar solos at the end of "Unknown Caller," a straightforward, elegiac break with a worn, notched edge to his treble tone. "White as Snow" is mostly alpine quiet — guitar, keyboard, Bono and harmonies, like the Doors' "The Crystal Ship" crossed with an Appalachian ballad. "Cedars of Lebanon" ends the album much as "The Wanderer" did on Zooropa, a triumph of bare minimums (this time it's Bono going in circles, through wreckage, instead of Johnny Cash, who sang "The Wanderer") with limpid guitar and electronics suggesting a Jimi Hendrix love song, had he lived into the digital age.

Sample from this album,Breathe:


Flica:I tot this is Stairway of Heaven becoz he seems like "rapping" with low tone voice there.haha(joke dude)

Guitar Hero:John Petrucci


John Peter Petrucci (born July 12, 1967) is an American guitarist best known as a founding member of the progressive metal band Dream Theater. Along with his bandmate Mike Portnoy, he has produced all Dream Theater albums since their 1999 release, Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory. Petrucci was named as the third player on the G3 tour six times, more than any other invited guitarist. GuitarOne ranked him as the 9th Greatest Shredder of All Time.

Sample of Petrucci Guitar Solo:

No.1 Rolling Stone:Top 500 Best Albums Alltimes

No 1 goes tooooo......Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles!!


Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the most important rock & roll album ever made, an unsurpassed adventure in concept, sound, songwriting, cover art and studio technology by the greatest rock & roll group of all time. From the title song's regal blasts of brass and fuzz guitar to the orchestral seizure and long, dying piano chord at the end of "A Day in the Life," the thirteen tracks on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band are the pinnacle of the Beatles' eight years as recording artists. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were never more fearless and unified in their pursuit of magic and transcendence.

Issued in Britain on June 1st, 1967, and a day later in America,Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is also rock's ultimate declaration of change. For the Beatles, it was a decisive goodbye to matching suits, world tours and assembly-line record-making. "We were fed up with being Beatles," McCartney said decades later, in Many Years From Now, Barry Miles' McCartney biography. "We were not boys, we were men . . . artists rather than performers."

Guns n’ Roses Add Guitarist DJ Ashba For “Upcoming Tour”


Axl Rose and Guns n’ Roses have recruited Sixx:A.M. guitarist DJ Ashba for their “upcoming tour,” the band announced in a press release issued Saturday, March 21st. Ashba is also known for co-writing and co-producing Mötley Crüe’s Saints of Los Angeles. Rock Daily recently reported that Gn’R were planning a worldwide stadium tour for this summer, so Ashba’s addition is likely the final piece of the touring-band puzzle before we start getting some concrete details regarding Axl and company hitting the road.[rollingstone]

Flica:Lolz..no one cant replace the former members of GNR.SLash is still the best.Losing slash and other members = losing 50%-60% of GNR.

Marilyn Manson Come with the New Debut



As Rock Daily reported last week, Marilyn Manson’s new track “We’re From America,” from the upcoming The High End of Low, was posted as a free download on the shock rocker’s official Website. If the song is any indication of what we might expect from Manson’s new LP, it seems like the Anti-Christ Superstar may be heading in a dance-punk direction a step away from the industrial metal and goth pop of previous albums like 2007’s Eat Me Drink Me. Perhaps it’s because Manson is happy to have Twiggy Ramirez back in the fold, but the music ranks among the most upbeat of the singer’s career, even if the lyrics are ultra-critical view of the U.S.A.[rollingstone]

Flica:When im listening to the new song,i cant hold my laugh at all.I laugh untill the end of song.Why?

1.From my personal view,this is more like green day and bad religion-but different in type of music,very political.
2.Taking advantage while all people in US seek for justice is not good way in marketing yourself.
3.The music are just good but The Fight Song more good than the new one eventhough it not the best yet from MM.

MM die-hard fans out there,dont vodoo me,or cursing me,this is just my personal comment,please add ur comment below if u have something to say.Blogs are built to discuss dude!

The Fight Song Video:


We`re From America video:

Green Day Made into a Musical


Green Day and the director of Broadway’s Spring Awakening are set to debut a musical based on the band’s 2004 punk epic American Idiot this autumn, the New York Times reports. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense,” frontman Billie Joe Armstrong told the NYT, “but that’s what I love about it. When people see it, it’s going to be my wildest dream.” The American Idiot musical will premiere September 4th at California’s Berkeley Repertory Theatre and run through October 11th.[rollingstone]


Flica:Geez..so do i can see the green day dancing or worst shuffling?too much things that were influenced by High School Musical.This is just lame.errr dude.nice guitar though.

Sex Pistols DVD Set-Do you already have this?


Full-length concert DVD - directed by Julien Temple - from the now legendary November 2007 Brixton Academy shows celebrating the 30th Anniversary of ‘Never Mind The Bollocks’.

Also includes an additional 90 minute interview feature entitled 'The Knowledge' where the Pistols re-visit parts of London.

To document the Sex Pistols run of five sold-out nights at London's, Brixton Academy the band enlisted director Julien Temple (The Filth and The Fury & The Swindle) along with 'Never Mind The Bollocks' producer Chris Thomas. The DVD was filmed in High-Definition and recorded in 5.1 Surround Sound.

Handphone for the Rocka!


Hell yeah~we are not noob or nerd.And we not people that oppose the development and revolution.So now im reviewing nice cool gadget to all Rocka out there!

Sony Ericsson’s W910 Walkman phone, which is designed for entertainment, such as music – with its Walkman player, or 3D games, on the 2.4” screen, was voted handset of the year, by the GSM Association. Added to its feature set, are two interesting things: Shake Control, which allows users to flick the phone, allowing the unique control of games, and switching between music tracks, in a way never done before, as well as SenseMe, which lets users select music to suit their mood. This Walkman handset was under stiff competition from the likes of Samsung’s G600, LG’s Viewty, and Nokia’s 6500 Slide.

Flica:I wish i have this gadget on my Birthday.Someone donate to me plss.wahaha

Funeral For A Friend confirm Reading & Leeds

Yo to all Funeral die hard fans out there!FUNERAL FOR A FRIEND have been confirmed for the main stage at this year's READING and LEEDS festivals.


They play on Friday Aug 28 in Reading, and the Main Stage on Sunday 30 in Leeds. The line-up for these dates so far stands as Kings of Leon, Kaiser Chiefs, Placebo, Fall Out Boy, Deftones, Funeral For A Friend.

Funeral For A Friend are currently wrapping up a sold out UK tour and celebrating of their release of 'Rules & Games', the fourth single to be taken from their 'Memory & Humanity' album.

Jonas Brothers Making Up for Movie Disappointment


Perhaps that poor showing in the box office didn't signify the Jonas Brothers were done after all.

The reason for the Disney megagroup's poor turnout for their movie, Jonas Brothers: 3D Concert Experience, is becoming rather apparent. Their tour—you know, the thing where you pay a lot more but you get to see them in person in a giant room with tens of thousands of other screaming fans—has sold out huge arena venues in many major cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, Pittsburgh, Edmonton, New Orleans, Atlanta and Washington, D.C. In fact, the trio sold more than 800,000 total tickets when the shows went on sale this weekend.

Jordin Sparks, as well as Honor Society, are joining the boy band for the North American leg of the tour, while Demi Lovato will help them kick off the festivities in Latin America in May.

"Ticket sales for this tour have been phenomenal," says Jason Garner, chief executive officer for global music for Live Nation. "It's clear to us that Jonas Brothers are a true global touring powerhouse."

The good news follows the siblings' big win for Favorite Music Group at the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards Saturday evening.

What u think it will be when:Michael Jackson and Slash on same stage?

Michael Jackson and Slash performing 'Black or White' at Michael's 30th Anniversary Concert.Two big name in thier own field now performing in same stage.



Flica:Geezzz.The Slash so awesome.bwahahahahaha

Trivium:Australian Tour Dates

We know some of you saw the leaked rumors, but now the Trivium can "officially" announce thier "Into The Mouth Of Hell We Tour" Australian headlining dates! They are excited to return to Australia for these shows. This is their first time back in Oz after their Australian fans showed dedication by making their "Shogun" album debut on the Australian ARIA at #4! They will not disappoint and will bring everything they have to make the shows memorable for everyone.

Joining them will be German powerhouse Heaven Shall Burn as well as Miami's own Black Tide.

The poster:



The Dates:

13 May 2009 Into The Mouth Of Hell We Tour - AUSTRALIA Brisbane, The Tivoli
14 May 2009 Into The Mouth Of Hell We Tour - AUSTRALIA Sydney, UNSW Roundhouse
15 May 2009 Into The Mouth Of Hell We Tour - AUSTRALIA Melbourne,Place Theatre
17 May 2009 Into The Mouth Of Hell We Tour - AUSTRALIA Adelaide, HQ
19 May 2009 Into The Mouth Of Hell We Tour - AUSTRALIA Perth,Capitol

Monday, March 30, 2009

Oasis:Musical Style and Influence


Oasis are most heavily influenced by The Beatles. This influence is frequently labelled as an "obsession" by the British media.Musically and lyrically, they have also cited bands such as The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks, Sex Pistols, The Smiths, Neil Young, The Stooges and The Stone Roses as their major influences.

Several bands have cited Oasis as an influence or inspiration, including Arctic Monkeys, The Killers, The Coral, and Kasabian, whose singer Tom Meighan is a close friend to Noel. No Way Sis were a cover band from Glasgow who had a top 40 hit in the UK with "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing" a cover of the New Seekers song sung in the manner of Oasis.The Japanese band Little by Little derived their name from the Oasis song of the same name.Other, 'direct' influences have led to court cases; Neil Innes sued after the song "Whatever" borrowed from his "How Sweet to Be an Idiot". He was awarded royalties and a co-writer credit.

Oasis were also sued by Coca Cola and forced to change lyrics after it was alleged that the song "Shakermaker" lifted words and melody from "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing".

Beck:Music based Anime


BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad (TV)

Alternative title: [Beck] ベック (Japanese)
Genres: comedy, drama, romance, slice of life
Themes: Music
Age rating: Mature (May contain sex, drugs, and extreme graphic violence)
Plot Summary: Tanaka Yukio, better known by his nickname Koyuki is a 14 year old who feels disconnected from life in general. Through the act of saving a mismatched dog, he meets guitarist Minami Ryuusuke, and becomes involved in Ryuusuke's new band BECK. Koyuki's life starts to change as the band struggles towards fame.




Official website:
Beck (Japanese)
Funimation's Beck Website
Kaze's Official Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad Website (French)
Madman's Official Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad Sales Site
TV Tokyo's Official "BECK" Website (Japanese)

The opening of Beck:



Flica:I already watched full episode of this anime.Eventhough the plot grow slowly,but in the end it is still great anime.One of source that influence me to play the guitar when im still young.(lolz.im not too old now)

Muse Pics for Your Collections!

This is pics from muse that really amusing thier die hard fans.So what u waiting for?Grab!Grab!grab!




























The Used announce new album


The Used said that they will release thier new album,Artwork,in June.

It was produced by Matt Squire (Taking Back Sunday, Panic At The Disco, All Time Low) and according to vocalist Bert McCracken, the songs are "10 times messier and noisier than they've ever been.

Flica:hurm what it means by 10 times noisier?Are they turning to metal or something

Fender Aerodyne™ Classic Stratocaster® :Special Edition Guitar


A contemporary spin on a timeless classic! Our new Aerodyne Classic Stratocaster guitar bridges the gap between Fender’s ultra-progressive Aerodyne body profile and the vintage design of one of our most beloved and legendary models.

The figured maple top with cream binding and choice of eye-catching transparent finishes (see below) take the Aerodyne concept to a new place, creating a stylistically modern but more comfortable and traditional aesthetic. Features include a basswood body, C-shaped maple neck with 7.25”-radius 22-fret rosewood fingerboard and matching painted headstock, three-ply mint-green Stratocaster pickguard, chrome hardware and aged plastic parts, Fender/Ping® vintage-style tuning machines and a vintage-style synchronized tremolo bridge.

The Best Guitar Solo Ever:Stairway to Heaven


If Jimmy Page is the Steven Spielberg of guitarists, then “Stairway” is his Close Encounters. Built around a solid, uplifting theme—man’s quest for salvation—the epic slowly gains momentum and rushes headlong to a shattering conclusion. The grand finale in this case is the song’s thrill-a-second guitar solo.

Page remembers: “I’d been fooling around with the acoustic guitar and came up with several different sections which flowed together nicely. I soon realized that it could be the perfect vehicle for something I’d been wanting to do for a while: to compose something that would start quietly, have the drums come in the middle, and then build to a huge crescendo. I also knew that I wanted the piece to speed up, which is something musicians aren’t supposed to do.



Metallica Fall Tour Dates Announced


After a triumphant summer European tour, Metallica will return to rock North America this fall for the second leg of their sold-out World Magnetic Tour. The multi-platinum hard-rock band will criss-cross the U.S. and Canada from September 14th through December 12th in support of their platinum-selling tenth studio album, Death Magnetic, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart in September 2008 and won 2009 Grammy Awards for Best Metal Performance (for the track "My Apocalypse") and Best Recording Package.

Tour Dates:

September 14 Nashville, TN Sommet Center On sale 4/4

September 15 Cincinnati, OH US Bank Arena On sale 4/4

September 17 Indianapolis, IN Conseco Fieldhouse On sale 4/11

September 19 Montreal, QC Bell Centre On sale 4/4

September 28 San Antonio, TX AT&T Center On sale 4/4

September 29 Dallas, TX American Airlines Center On sale 4/4

October 1 Ft. Lauderdale, FL Bank Atlantic Center On sale 4/4

October 3 Tampa, FL St. Pete Times Forum On sale 4/4

October 4 Atlanta, GA Phillips Arena On sale 4/4

October 12 Winnipeg, MB MTS Centre On sale 4/4

October 13 Minneapolis, MN Target Center On sale 4/4

October 15 Cleveland, OH Quicken Loans Arena On sale 4/4

October 17 Charlottesville, VA JPJ Arena On sale 4/11

October 18 Charlotte, NC Charlotte Bobcats Arena On sale 4/4

October 26 Toronto, ON Air Canada Centre On sale 4/4

October 29 Ottawa, ON Scotiabank Place On sale 4/4

October 31 Quebec City, QC Colisee Pepsi On sale 4/4

November 9 Grand Rapids, MI Van Andel Arena On sale 4/4

November 10 Buffalo, NY HSBC Arena On sale 4/4

November 12 Albany, NY Times Union Center On sale 4/4

November 14 New York, NY Madison Square Garden On sale 4/11

December 5 Las Vegas, NV Mandalay Bay On sale 4/4

December 7 Boise, ID Idaho Center On sale 4/4

December 8 Sacramento, CA ARCO Arena On sale 4/4

December 10 Anaheim, CA Honda Center On sale 4/11

December 12 San Jose, CA HP Pavilion On sale 4/4

Guitar Hero:Paul Gilbert

Paul Brandon Gilbert (born November 6, 1966 in Illinois, USA) is an American musician. He is well known for his guitar work with Racer X and Mr. Big, as well as many solo albums. He also joined Joe Satriani and John Petrucci on the 2007 G3 tour.



Talking about his influences, Paul mentions many different artists, including: Tony Iommi, Alex Lifeson, Jimmy Page, Robin Trower, Judas Priest, Akira Takasaki, Jimi Hendrix, Kiss, Van Halen and The Ramones. He is also a great fan of The Beach Boys and The Beatles. He states on the Space Ship Live DVD that George Harrison is one of his favorite guitar players. Guitar World magazine declared him one of 50 of the world's fastest guitarists of all time, along with Buckethead, Eddie Van Halen, and Yngwie Malmsteen.

Gilbert composes music in a wide variety of styles including pop, rock, metal, blues, funk and classical, but is perhaps best known for his versatility and speed, which helped him be named as one of the "Top 10 Shredders Of All Time" by Guitar One Magazine.

The epic video from this Guitar Hero:

Loudness:Heavy metal from Japan


Loudness (ラウドネス ,Raudonesu?) is a Japanese heavy metal band formed in 1981 by guitarist Akira Takasaki and drummer Munetaka Higuchi.They were the first Japanese heavy metal act signed in the United States, releasing seven albums (3 in America) by the end of 1987 and reaching the Billboard top 100.

In 1993,the band nearly split-up, with the departure of Higuchi and Sawada. However, much like Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi, Takasaki never disbanded Loudness as the group - eventually featuring Anthem bassist Naoto Shibata and Ezo drummer Hirotsugu Homma in its lineup - continued to release material. This new incarnation of Loudness released 4 studio albums (Heavy Metal Hippies, Ghetto Machine, Dragon and Engine) and 1 live album (Loud 'n' Raw) between 1994 and 1998.

The original and classic line-up of the band reunited in 2001, at the request of Takasaki, to celebrate the band's 20th Anniversary. Although intended to be a one-off, the popularity of the band's reunion in its native Japan was overwhelming and the lineup decided to continue. At least one studio album and one DVD release have followed every year since the 2001 reunion, in addition to one-off recordings, like 2005's theme song for famed K-1 fighter Musashi ("The Battleship Musashi").

2006 brought the 25th Anniversary of Loudness.

In April 2008, just two months after releasing Metal Mad, they decided to go on hiatus, when drummer Munetaka Higuchi was diagnosed with liver cancer. They played with Motley Crue in October 2008 at the Greater Tokyo Area's Saitama Super Arena, with session drummer Kozo Suganuma (Fragile, Ded Chaplin) filling in for Munetaka. On November 30, 2008 Munetaka died from his illness at a hospital in Osaka. He was 49 years old.

The most popular song of Loudness,Heavy Chain.

Peter Doherty :History and Controversy

Peter Doherty (born 12 March 1979) is an English musician, artist and poet. He is currently a singer and songwriter in the band Babyshambles, but first came to fame with punk band The Libertines, alongside Carl Barât. In 2005, Doherty became prominent in tabloids, the news media, and pop culture blogs because of his romantic relationship with supermodel Kate Moss and his well-publicised drug use.




Equipment:
Epiphone Coronet
Gibson ES-125
Epiphone Casino

Try check this song and comment it here:

Joe Wings:Malaysian Guitar Hero


Joe Wings real name Abdul Zamin bin Abdul Kadir is a guitarist for rock group Scandals and Wings, album producer, musician, lyricist and singer. Married to Linda Rasul.

A gibson user.

See this video on how this Malaysian Guitar hero doing his solo.From my personal view,he is awesome,but still the Led Zeppelin is the legend.hahaha

Ibanez and Artists


Ibanez (pronounced /ˈaɪbænɛz/ or /aɪˈbænɛz/) is a guitar brand owned by Hoshino Gakki and based in Nagoya, Aichi, Japan. Hoshino Gakki were one of the first Japanese musical instrument companies to gain a significant foothold in the United States and Europe.

The Ibanez GIO Series is a budget guitar series produced by Hoshino Gakki (Ibanez), replacing the Cimar line. The GIO guitars are a "budget" model line similar to Fender's Squier guitars and Gibson's Epiphone line. Unlike those particular budget lines however, these are produced as fully Ibanez branded, with a GIO logo above the standard Ibanez logo to indicate the series. This series of guitars were produced in either China or Indonesia, depending on model.

Artist that use Ibanez:
Paul Gilbert


Rob Balducci





Dream Theatre European Summer Shows

Progressive Metal pioneers CYNIC have been confirmed as Dream Theater's Special Guests at the following shows on their European tour in June:

June 27th - Wettingen SwitzerlandJune
30th - Prague Czech RepJuly
1st - Budapest Hungary

This updates Dream Theater's June European schedule to include the following festivals and headlining shows with special guests as follows:


Sat
Jun 06, 2009
Solvesborg, Sweden
Sweden Rock festival

Festival with Heaven & Hell, ZZ Top, In Flames, Twisted Sister, Journey, Marillion, Sevendust, Europe, Foreigner, Motorhead, UFO and many more.

So for european DT die hard fans,what u waiting for?Wear ur self in black,garb the ticket and let banging!

Dream Theatre European Summer Shows

L`Arc En Ciel:Know bit about this Outrageous Japanese Band!


L'Arc-en-Ciel (ラルク アン シエル ,Raruku an Shieru, "The Rainbow" in French) is a Japanese rock band, that formed in 1991. The group has sold over 13 million albums, 16 million singles, and millions of other units, such as videos. They were ranked at number 58, in a list of Japan's top 100 pop musicians, provided by HMV in 2003.

Origin :Osaka, Japan
Genre(s): Alternative rock, pop rock, hard rock
Years active :1991–present
Label(s): Danger Crue, Ki/oon/SMEJ, Tofu, Gan-Shin

Members:
Hyde
Tetsu
Ken
Yukihiro

The sample of the LARUKU video:




Sunday, March 29, 2009

Cool Latest Slipknot Wallpaper for You!

This is the new slipknot with the new sign and mask.Make your desktop wallpaper more ROCK with this cool pics dude~~




10 Easy Steps to become a Rockstar! part 2

Step five: Make friends and influence people

As with any creative effort, the first people you turn to are your friends. I ransack my e-mail address book and get going; some 500 messages are sent out, urging them to visit MySpace and have a listen. The response is muted, and I get the feeling that the majority of people haven’t bothered. Meanwhile, on MySpace itself, I’m sending messages and adding people as “friends” with gay abandon, but repeatedly hitting the same brick walls. For one thing, people are so sick of bands adding them as friends in a frenzy of self-publicity that MySpace has introduced an option that allows them to automatically deny all band friend requests.

I try to add current bands whose sound I think bears a reasonable similarity to mine - such as London’s The Feeling, and French band Phoenix. Phoenix block my request, and while The Feeling accept, they have 82,000 friends already. The likelihood of me being invited round to their bass player’s house for a dinner party are pretty slim.I speak to Charlotte Clark, online promotion specialist at PR firm Way To Blue, for advice. She is frank about the amount of work involved in self-promotion. “If you’re going to make any impact via MySpace, you have to make it your life. If you’re a five-piece band, you’ve each got to be on there for an hour a day, sending birthday messages to people, building relationships with other bands - it’s really time-consuming.”

So what chance for me - a new, bedroom-based act with no profile and only the internet at my disposal? Charlotte laughs. “Well, I firmly believe that no band has ever broken via the internet, and certainly not just through MySpace. Yes, the internet is essential for promoting new acts, but it needs to be combined with other media to make it work.”

So, where does that leave me? At this stage, I have two weeks before my single release date to build up a colossal pool of online chums that, according to Charlotte, normally takes around 18 months to acquire. I have 200 friends. My page has had 900 views. But 800 of those people might have hated the song, and of the 100 who like it, perhaps only 10 will click through to iTunes and buy it. No, if I’m going to flog a few hundred MP3s, I had to reach tens of thousands of people. And fast.

Step six: Make more friends and influence people

In desperation, I create profiles for The Schema on every social networking site I can possibly find that welcomes upcoming bands with open arms, including Bebo.com, Tagworld.com and purevolume.com. Over at Garageband.com, I reluctantly pay $19.99 to enter the song into some kind of contest, in which bands earn themselves reviews of their own work by reviewing other material and rating it for melody, production values and lyrical flair.

It feels like a grim evening class in musicianship; I am informed that my song is “lacking intensity”, although one review does praise the excellent, er, female vocalist. The cheek. But will this translate into sales? Do I really want to appeal to a clique of fellow bedroom artistes? Not really.

I pay my friend Alf, who runs a web development company called LikeMind, to build me a Facebook application that can play “Those Rules You Made” to anyone kind enough to add it to their profile. This secures me another 100 listeners. But with 10 days to go before release, I am experiencing that familiar feeling of futility. I’ve sent MP3s to all the main online music sites - Drowned In Sound, Playlouder, PopJustice and a dozen others - and a clutch of online radio stations, but I am getting no positive feedback.

It is pretty much as I thought: there are just so many bands out there that another new one is almost an irritant, just another flea in the ear of the music industry. On the other hand, maybe I am just being a cheapskate. I’ve only spent £97.11 so far - perhaps it is time to throw a bit more money at this thing, and make a video.

Step seven: Splash the cash

Charlotte at Way To Blue has already told me that a video is key to creating promotion opportunities online - not least because of YouTube, where music promos can pick up hundreds of views in the blink of an eye. I’ve only ever made one video, in 1990, which involved making a friend’s cat move in time to music. It was, needless to say, crap. And not only am I lacking experience and creative flair, my video equipment extends to one rather knackered Nokia mobile phone.

I appeal via e-mail and my blog on the www.schema.co.uk website, asking if anyone can help. Within a couple of hours a friend sends me the e-mail address of Alex de Campi, a graphic novelist who is also a budding video director looking to expand her portfolio. We exchange e-mails. She says that she is interested, and - incredibly - she reckons she can turn it around in just over a week. When we met up, her straight-talking, can-do attitude terrifies me; she has already come up with a complete video treatment, combining the paranoid emotions of the protagonist of the song with a meta-commentary on how difficult it is to make a video.

But how much will it cost? She promises me that, if she works for free and succeeds in pulling a huge number of favours, she can probably bring it in for under £500.

I ponder this. If I’d produced a run of CDs, it would have cost me at least that amount, if not more. Maybe this is the new reality - that a video is where any tiny budget you have needs to be spent. So, with a deep breath, I say, “Yeah, let’s do it.” The next few days are a blur of storyboards, props, reels of tape and endless messages on Facebook and MySpace pleading for extras to turn up on the day of filming. Alex has earmarked a location: a park near Embankment Tube station, as we’ll save money on lights by filming it outdoors. The day before the shoot, I peek nervously at the weather forecast. It’s really, really bad. The phone rings - it’s Alex.

“Bad news,” she says.

“What, the weather?” I ask.

“Worse. Westminster council wants £300 to let us film there.”

All our plans for the video are arranged, and the council has me over a barrel. I’m supposed to be funding this myself, in the true spirit of DIY, and there is certainly no slush fund available. So the question is: will spending that £300 earn me the 600 MP3 sales that I’d need to cover the extra cost?

“But Alex,” I whine. “I might pay them the cash, and then it might rain all day.”

“Stop stressing,” she barks. “You’re winding me up. Let me worry about the rain. You just worry about the money.”

So I bite the bullet. What else can I do?

Step eight: Make a video

We arrive at 8am with two taxis full of equipment. Alex has managed to find willing, upcoming actors on casting websites to play the various parts, including stern-looking twins, a buxom glamour model, someone from a Steps tribute band, and our lead actor - a young chap called Mark Joseph who has, apparently, been in The Matrix.

My internet-sourced extras show up looking miserable and knackered, but all they have to do is be filmed sitting in deckchairs reading newspapers - nothing too arduous. My job: to play the tune from my iPod through a tiny speaker, held up at head-height so the actors can mime along.

After a ludicrous day of hand-jiving, bottle-smashing and fending off the local vagrants, Alex is able to say: “It’s a wrap” just before 4pm. We’ve done it, and in just eight hours - and the rain had held off.

“Now the hard work starts,” says Alex - she has 48 hours to turn this into a coherent promotional video. She stays up all night on the day the single is released, tweaking the clips and adding effects so we have something to put up on YouTube. When I wake up the next morning, there is an e-mail from her: “It’s up. I go die/sleep now.”

Step nine: The YouTube factor

I take my first look at the video - and I’m the 16th person to watch it. Alex has done a brilliant job - it’s funny, it complements the song beautifully, it’s packed with friends of mine looking slightly self-conscious. I’m truly proud of it. I do another big e-mail-out and another blog entry urging people to watch it and tell their friends to do the same.

By lunchtime, it’s going down well; it has received 650 views, and has become the 64th “most favourited” video in the UK that day. Then, at some point during the afternoon, the YouTube editors notice it is picking up plays, and - god bless them - they stick it on the front page.

At this point, things go ballistic. By the end of the working day, we’ve had 6,000 views and a string of positive comments. By the time I go to bed, we’ve had 25,000 views and have been officially crowned the most-watched music video in the UK that day.

By the next morning it has notched up 64,000 viewings. And then, at around 6pm on Thursday 23 August, “Those Rules You Made” becomes - and I still can’t quite believe this actually happened - YouTube’s most watched music video in the world over the previous 24 hours, with 67,500 views.

I receive an interview request from an Argentinian newspaper. This is success way beyond what Alex and myself could ever have hoped. But, while ravaged with excitement, at the back of my mind, I am wondering whether anyone has actually gone and bought the thing.

Step 10: A star is born?

We have to wait until yesterday, 29 August, to get my first set of sales figures from Ally at Emubands.com. By this point, almost a quarter of a million people have watched the video, and for a brief period we’ve edged out Linkin Park and become YouTube’s No 3 music video globally during that week. The chart rundown looks hilarious, with my solitary, valiant DIY effort amid a sea of swanky major-label productions for the likes of Foo Fighters, Pharrell Williams and Enrique Iglesias.

At midday, the total sales for that the previous week finally arrive in my e-mail inbox. There’s no easy way of writing this, so I’ll just write it: 58. And for the avoidance of doubt: fifty-eight.

This news is, on a personal level, deflating. My total costs, including the £300 for Westminster Council, have come to around £870. My total receipts are about £27. Extrapolate these figures to the industry as a whole, and you can see why the boardrooms are in crisis; even taking into account that my record might just be a bit rubbish, 58 sales out of a quarter of a million YouTube views provides undeniable proof of both the fleeting nature of internet success, and the reluctance of the public to spend money on pop music.

I break the news to Alex; it’s her video, after all, that has brought my song to so many people. “Bah,” she texts back, grumpily. “Nobody actually pays for music anymore, do they?” Hmm. Maybe that’s just how it is. So maybe I am being needlessly downhearted. There’s my own artistic fulfilment to consider, after all. I might be out of pocket, but a quarter of a million people had heard my song. So let’s paraphrase Scritti Politti’s inspiration, the Desperate Bicycles. It was fairly easy. And it would have been cheap, had it not been for Westminster Council. So hey - why not just go and do it anyway?

10 Easy Steps to become a Rockstar! part 1

Step one: Write some songs

The first decision of the DIY superstar: avoid arguments over “direction” and “identity” by taking charge of the musical side of things and getting a couple of songs written. Should I make a contrived attempt to appeal to the kids and risk looking like an idiot? Or just produce something heavily influenced by the kind of stuff I listen to these days, i.e. Steely Dan, Hall & Oates and The Doobie Brothers?

After a couple of days of introspective, poetic contemplation and musical doodling on my computer, this initial task is pretty much completed. One of the songs, “Those Rules You Made”, tells the story of a paranoid bloke who suddenly realises he’s in a relationship with someone who has extremely high standards, but he’s somehow slipped under her radar. It sounds a bit like, well, Steely Dan, Hall & Oates and The Doobie Brothers, and thus (at least to me) like a first-class A-side. The total cost to me so far: effectively nothing. Monkeys? Shmonkeys.

Step two: Choose a name

The typical procedure here is to ransack your brain, scrawl words on a piece of paper, go to bed, wake up the next day and discover that the best idea you had was something like “Tollund Man”. But I eventually come up with something reasonably arty: The Schema. I set up a page on the social networking site MySpace, and upload the two tracks for the world to hear. I then spend £9.99 on a domain name for my own website, www.theschema.co.uk, and call my friend Dicky to tell him what I’m up to.

“Called what? The Schemer?”

“Er, no. Schema. With an ‘A’.”

I’ve fallen at the first hurdle: I’m trying to promote a band whose name actually needs spelling out to people. I also discover that searching for “the schema” on Google turns up a load of pages about Javascript programming. Brilliant.

Step three: Spread the message

There is a big area on my MySpace profile where a picture of the band should go. Reluctant to present my overweight, balding self as the saviour of rock’n'roll, I find a picture of some stick-figure silhouettes on a photo site, istockphoto.com, so I pay £2.35 for it. I e-mail it to an ex-flatmate, Simon, who has his own design business called Drinkmilk, and in return for just £25 he summons all his visual skills and tints the image pale green and selects an agreeable font for the lettering on it.

Back in the old, pre-desktop-publishing days, CD manufacturers would bamboozle you with wallet-busting quotes for processes you didn’t understand, such as “origination of camera-ready artwork”, and the record sleeve would always come back looking like a dog’s dinner. But now it’s a piece of cake. I set up my website using the same colour scheme, uploaded the image, and added a tantalising message: Coming Soon - The Schema.

Scritti Politti had listed all the costs associated with making their records on the back cover of their first three releases. Maybe I have a similar duty to list all my expenses, too. So I set up a blog on my new website, with a rolling list of the costs incurred so far. The current total: £37.34. Easy? Yep. Cheap? Certainly.

Step four: Get the product out there

Truthfully, my hopes for the success of my single aren’t high. But I find a website called www.hitsongscience.com which mathematically analyses songs for hit potential. The results for “Those Rules You Made” make interesting reading: it scores 7.07 out of 10. Which, apparently, puts me in the company of such luminaries as Kasabian, Shakira and Elton John.

Chart status seems almost a formality now - but I need get my single into the online stores, and particularly Apple’s iTunes store, which currently sells around 80 per cent of all music bought online. But how?

Relevant information on Apple’s website is scarce to non-existent, and if you search on Google for “getting on iTunes”, you end up at third-party sites that deal with Apple on your behalf in return for a percentage cut of receipts.

The demand for these services seems enormous; musicians’ forums are awash with stories of how, with some sites, your music sits in a backlog of unprocessed material, and how it takes over four months to reach the online stores.

But a bit of digging uncovers a smaller Glasgow-based operation, emubands.com, that promises to get my two-track single on to over 170 internet outlets - including iTunes - within four weeks, and all for a flat fee of £24.95.

This seems too good to be true. I’ve had awful experiences of the parallel world of CD distribution: you manufacture as few CDs as the factory will allow (the minimum run is usually 500) and the distributor, after haranguing you to somehow set up a UK tour and contrive to be reviewed in the NME, might then take 50 of them on sale or return, if you’re lucky. After a couple of months, they generally return all of them to you in the same box you’d delivered them in.

Bands all over the country have hundreds if not thousands of their own CDs stored under beds or propping up the TV, filling every conceivable space with a grim reminder of the unmarketability of their music. MP3s, however, occupy no physical space. You don’t have to guess how many you’re going to sell before you start; every download just magics another copy out of the digital ether.

Ally Gray, the proprietor of emubands.com, explains his business model. “Traditionally, bands had to beg for distribution and had to somehow prove themselves. But we’re open to absolutely everyone, and we just charge a flat fee for liaising with the stores, getting the tunes online and doing the accounts. We pass on 100 per cent of our receipts from the stores straight to the bands - which works out at between 40p and 50p per downloaded track.”

After e-mailing the sound files over to Ally, I get back a confirmation of the release date: 20 August - right on my self-imposed 30-day deadline. This achievement, however, quickly gives way to a grim truth. My MySpace page has been up now for over a week, and its handful of visitors are all, in fact, me sneaking a peek at the page to see if anyone has visited. MySpace and its like are nothing but shop windows, and on the internet, no one comes walking past by accident. It’s time to start the horrible process of publicity.

Coheed and Cambria New Album!

Neverender: Children of the Fence Edition is a live CD/DVD box set by Coheed and Cambria that was released on March 24, 2009. It contains five DVDs and four CDs featuring live footage of the concert series Neverender and audio from each night. In addition, a fifth disc features a documentary of the concert series. The band officially reported on their Myspace that the Children Of The Fence edition would be limited to 15,000 copies worldwide. The first 3,000 copies were signed by the band.Children of the Fence is a play on Heaven’s Fence, the universe in which the band’s concept albums take place. The price for the package is currently listed between $80-$110 (£75-£90). The dvd was directed by Doug Spangenberg.

Coheed and Cambria embarked on a sixteen date tour across four cities with four dates taking place per city. On each one of these four dates, the band performed one of their concept albums telling the story of The Amory Wars. The DVD set was announced the first night of the New York City leg of the tour on October 22, 2008. The DVD was filmed at Terminal 5. A condensed version will also be made available on March 24, 2009 and will contain only two discs featuring the live concert only.

Jason Newsted to rejoin Metallica

Metallica will be reuniting with former bassist Jason Newsted when they’re inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall Of Fame next month.

Newsted acrimoniously split from the Bay Area thrash titans in 2001 and a war of words with frontman James Hetfield ensued. But now it seems all is forgiven and Newsted will be joining the band on stage at the ceremony in Cleveland, Ohio on April 4.

“Jason Newsted will be there, and he will be playing with us at one point,” said guitarist Kirk Hammett. “We went as a band when Black Sabbath was being inducted, and at that time Blondie was also being inducted that night. And there was so many politics and so much drama that, you know, we collectively said to each other, ‘We don’t want any of that,’ because it kind of, it puts a really bad, sour note on the whole celebration itself.”

The band will be inducted by Red Hot Chili Peppers’ bassist Flea.

Gerard goes J-ROCK?

My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way has penned a new track for the end credits of the upcoming director’s cut of the 2005 animated movie, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete.

Way has joined forces with J-Rock legend Kyosuke Himuro, a former member of BoØwy, for a song called Safe And Sound; a title which is lifted from Way’s 2007 short story of the same name published in the second volume of the comic book anthology Dark Horse Presents, which featured The Kraken from his The Umbrella Academy series.

The track will be released on iTunes on April 29, but if you want a sneak listen follow this link and click on the trailer tab at the top left.