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Gift idea: Led Zeppelin 50th anniverary book

Led Zeppelin got together for their first rehearsal fifty years ago. To commemorate that fact, a lavish coffee table book, Led Zeppelin by Led Zeppelin,  was released in October.  Just in time for Christmas, there’s a new trailer to prime the holiday shopping pump.. more

New for the Tesla Model 3: A fart app. You read that correctly.

Tesla vehicles are both high-tech and quirky. Witness, for example, the Model X’s “celebration mode.” Then there’s the navigation system that can be configured to simulate driving on Mars. Over the weekend, a new software update was pushed to vehicles that allow owners to configure their Model 3 to fart in one of six, er, [&hellip.. more

Shazam unveils the most-Shazamed songs of the year

Shazam, the magical audio identification app (now owned by Apple, by the way), is always collecting data on what songs people want, er, identified. Here are the songs that people were most curious about. 1) Clean Bandit ft Demi Lovato, Solo 2) Nicky Jam and J Balvin, X 3) Calvin Harris and Dua Lipa, One Kiss 4) Dynoro and [&hellip.. more

Random music news for Tuesday, December 18, 2018

Hang in there. The days will start getting longer again really, really soon. Meanwhile, distract yourself from the darkness with some music news for Tuesday, December 18, 2018. Weekly Canadian music sales and streaming numbers vs. this time last year: Total albums, -22.7%; digital albums, -19.6%; physical albums, -24.5%; CDs, -28.1%; vinyl albums, +22.0%; streams, [&hellip.. more

Weekly survey: What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen at a gig?

Earlier this month, a metal band called Smack’d Up played a Christmas charity gig in Sacramento, California. Unable to get the crowd into the show, the vocalist started throwing all kinds of shade on the city and the audience. This went on for a while before a man dressed as Santa strode through the crowd, [&hellip.. more

Geddy Lee’s Big Beautiful Book of Bass book signing

Anyone who knows anything about Rush’s Geddy Lee is familiar with his fascination with collecting things. It started with stamps as a kid. Later, it moved on to baseballs and then wine. But bass guitars? He came to that rather late. What began with him wondering why he couldn’t find another ’72 Fender Jazz that [&hellip.. more

So how do ticket brokers get concert tickets before you?

Ticketmaster and its relationship to secondary ticket sellers was in the news a lot throughout 2018. Billboard rounds out the coverage with this article on how ticket brokers manage to get to concerts before you. Country star Eric Church and his management team are known for pushing back against ticket scalping; on his 2017 tour, they canceled [&hellip.. more

Stuck for a gift idea? How about an Alexa-powered twerking teddy bear?

Meet Gemmy’s teddy bear, a plush toy that will twerk to the beat of songs and will lip-sync responses from Alexa. That includes when Alexa reminds you about things like calendar events and timers. Made by the same people responsible for Big Mouth Billy Bass. There are three versions version: Twerking Bear, a seasonal version [&hellip.. more

The time when Benny Hill parodied the Rolling Stones on British TV

Benny Hill’s sort of humour, especially with his attitude towards women, is so anachronistic that it’s off the charts. But occasionally, something like this resurfaces. Might be worth a chuckle. Hey, we’re entering the slowest music news days of the year. I’m desperate for content.. more

“Don’t Take Him Back, Cardi!”

Readers of Alan’s site know that it’s more of a blog than hardcore music news. We not much for gossip either, which is why you haven’t seen much about the whole Cardi B situation with now ex-husband Offset of Migos. I’m not sure exactly where I saw it, but I know there have been tweets [&hellip.. more

I like this: PIG covers that Wham Christmas song

One of the happiest sounding Christmas songs you’ll hear on those radio stations that go all-holiday music is “Last Christmas,” the perennial hit by Wham. But what if someone were to take these chirpy sounds and make them sound a little more…sinister? Then you might have <PIG>, a metal band right up there with Laibach [&hellip.. more

Random music news for Monday, December 17, 2018

It’s the final sprint towards Christmas. How crazy is the next seven days for you? Can you take time to check out the music news for December 17, 2018? Sepultura wine. Yes, reds and whites. A Goth-themed pizza-and-beer place? Yes, please. Expect a return of The Strokes in 2019. (Via Larry) Apple wants to launch [&hellip.. more

Now Vladimir Putin wants to control rap (in Russia, anyway).

Popular music has long been feared by those in power. They’re afraid of the messages and passions that can inculcate that masses with ideas contrary to what they want us to believe. Rock’s role in social and political change has been well-documented. So has that of hip-hop. Which brings me to Vladimir Putin. With its [&hellip.. more

Your Tool album meme of the week

A number of new release calendars issued by the music industry optimistically list a new album from Tool. No specific date. Not even a specific quarter. Just “coming in 2019.” If I were American Tool fan, this meme would have me on Team Bernie.. more

Rock My World Canada, Chapter 30: Your Favourite Enemies

[Mike Carr has put together a massive volume on Canadian music history entitled Canadian Alternative & Indie Reference and Collector’s Guide. It’s an incredible discography of hundreds of bands. This is the latest excerpt from his book. – AC] Your Favorite Enemies is an alternative rock band that was formed in Varennes in 2006. The band is [&hellip.. more

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