The Road To Fort Rock: NOTHING MORE (Video)

#nothingmore #rockfile #fortrock

One of my radio friends sent me Nothing More's new album last year, as the band released the video for "Christ Copyright". I was blown away by both and they quickly became one of my favorite new bands. Nothing More has already has already had a #1 song on Rockfile Radio FIRE and the second track is currently in the Top 10. The band is now signed to a label and will re-release the album June 24th.

I have an interview scheduled for this Saturday at Fort Rock after I see them live for the first time. Should be a fun time!

http://www.nothingmore.net/

https://www.facebook.com/nothingmore

http://www.fortrockfestival.com

  

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Happy Birthday GLEN HANSARD (video)

#glenhansard #theframes #theswellseason #rockfile

Glen Hansard (born 21 April 1970) is an Irish songwriter, actor, vocalist and guitarist for Irish group The Frames, and one half of folk rock duo The Swell Season. He is also known for his acting, having appeared in the BAFTA-winning film The Commitments, as well as starring in the film Once, which earned him ten other major awards or nominations between 2007–08.

Hansard quit school at age 13 to begin busking on local Dublin streets. He formed The Frames in 1990, and they've been staples of the Irish music scene ever since. Their first album, Another Love Song, was released on Island Records in 1991, and their most recent, The Cost, was released in 2006.

Hansard came to international attention as guitar player Outspan Foster in the 1991 Alan Parker film The Commitments, after attending the New York Film Academy School of Acting. He has often stated that he regretted taking the role, because he felt it distracted him from his music career. In 2003, he presented the television programme Other Voices: Songs from a Room, which showcased Irish music talent on RTÉ.

On 22 April 2006, he released his first album without The Frames, The Swell Season, on Overcoat Recordings in collaboration with Czech singer and multi-instrumentalist Markéta Irglová, Marja Tuhkanen from Finland on violin and viola, and Bertrand Galen from France on cello. Hansard also spent part of 2006 in front of the cameras for a music-infused Irish film Once, in which Hansard plays a Dublin busker, and Irglová an immigrant street vendor. The film had its American premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2007 and received the Festival's World Cinema Audience Award.

In the summer of 2011, he joined Eddie Vedder on his American solo tour in support of Vedder's solo album, Ukulele Songs. He also played his own solo concert at the opening of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art Guitar Heroes exhibit in May and on Cape Cod at the Cape Cinema on 17 June. On September 3 or 4, 2011, he played at Pearl Jam's 20th Anniversary Festival PJ20 at the Alpine Valley Theatre outside of East Troy, Wisconsin.

Hansard plays several guitars, amongst which a very recognizable battered Takamine NP15 acoustic guitar (even sporting a large hole), which he calls "The Horse".

Hansard sang the song "Take the Heartland" on the soundtrack for the 2012 film The Hunger Games. Another song he wrote, "Come Away to the Water", is also featured on the soundtrack, but is covered by Maroon 5 and Rozzi Crane. Hansard can be found singing "Come Away to the Water" on the deluxe edition of his first solo album Rhythm and Repose.

Hansard guest-starred in an episode of the TV series, Parenthood, playing himself. In the episode, "Trouble in Candyland", he performed "High Hope", a single from his solo debut Rhythm and Repose.

source: wikipedia

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Happy Birthday ROBERT SMITH (video)

#robertsmith #thecure #rockfile

Robert James Smith (born 21 April 1959) is an English musician. He is the lead singer, guitar player and principal songwriter of the rock band The Cure, and its only constant member since its formation in 1976. NY Rock describes him as "pop culture's unkempt poster child of doom and gloom," and asserts that some of his songs are a "somber introspection over lush, brooding guitars." Smith's guitar-playing and use of flanging, chorusing and phasing effects put him among the forefront of the goth and New Wave genres. He also played guitar in the band Siouxsie and the Banshees. Smith is a multi-instrumentalist, known for his unique stage look, such as teased hair and smudged makeup, and his distinctive voice.

Smith began sporting his trademark and cult style of smeared red lipstick, eye-liner, pale complexion, artfully dishevelled black hair, black clothes and trainers in the early 1980s, around the same time as the Goth subculture took off. However, Smith denies any credit for this trend and claims it is a coincidence that the styles are similar, stating that he wore make-up since he was young and further saying: "It's so pitiful when 'Goth' is still tagged onto the name The Cure."

His songwriting for the band's early albums centered around themes of depression, loneliness, and isolation. The sombre mood of these early albums, along with Smith's on-stage persona, cemented the band's "gothic" image.

The band's aesthetic went from gloomy to psychedelic beginning with the album The Top. In 1986, Smith altered his image by appearing on-stage and in press photos sporting short spiky hair and polo shirts (this can be seen in The Cure in Orange, a concert in the south of France released on video in 1987). This new haircut made the headlines on MTV news.

Although Smith's public persona could be deemed to portray a depressed image, he has claimed that his songs do not convey how he feels all, or even most of the time:

    "At the time we wrote Disintegration ... it's just about what I was doing really, how I felt. But I'm not like that all the time. That's the difficulty of writing songs that are a bit depressing. People think you're like that all the time, but I don't think that. I just usually write when I'm depressed."

Smith's songwriting has developed a range of styles and themes throughout his career. Some songs incorporate literary paraphrase, such as Camus' novel L'Etranger in "Killing an Arab" (1978)), and "How Beautiful You Are" (1987), based on a poem by Baudelaire. Others involve punk metafiction ("So What"), surrealism ("Accuracy"), straightforward rock/pop ("Boys Don't Cry", "I'm Cold"), and poetic mood pieces ("Another Day" and "Fire in Cairo"). In subsequent decades, Smith explored more poetic moods, which accorded with New Order and other bands of that genre.

Smith's songwriting has sometimes been pop-oriented, for example "Love Cats" and "Catch". However, even Smith's seemingly upbeat tunes invariably contain dark themes; for example, "In Between Days" contrasts a bouncy pop-rock beat with lyrics about sadness and heartbreak.

Although Smith is the main songwriter with The Cure, songwriting credits are usually shared with the band's contemporary line-up.

In an interview in 2000, Smith said that "there is one particular kind of music, an atmospheric type of music, that I enjoy making with The Cure. I enjoy it a lot more than any other kind of sound". When Smith was asked about the 'sound' of his songwriting, Smith said that he did not "think there is such a thing as a typical Cure sound. I think there are various Cure sounds from different periods and different line-ups."

me and Robert, 1996

source: wikipedia

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