Synthesis Weekly Reviews: “White Lies for Dark Times” by Ben Harper and Relentless7

Posted on 01. Jul, 2009 by Author in Album Review, Music

Ben Harper and Relentless7
White Lies for Dark Times
Virgin
Ben Harper’s musical career has been filled with much praise and prestige. Whether it be his certified gold solo album Fight for Your Mind or his groundbreaking Live From Mars with the Innocent Criminals, Harper has enjoyed the luxury of much-deserved critical acclaim. His new album, White Lies For Dark Times, with Texas-based backing band Relentless7 should be received with similar enthusiasm to prior efforts. “Number with No Name” kicks the album off with a danceable bluesy swagger led by crafty guitar work [...]

Manchester Orchestra’s Video For ‘Shake It Out’

Posted on 24. Mar, 2009 by Dallas VonKillbot in Music

I’ll be the first to  admit that I have a drinking problem don’t understand hip music anymore.  I get the fact that there’s a bunch of effeminate dudes singing about love with undistorted guitars and synths everywhere, but I don’t get why anyone would ever like it. I still can’t wrap my brain around why anyone would dig anything by Vampire Weekend, Jason Schwartzman or Belle and Sebastien, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to.
With that aside, probably the only hip band I do love is one [...]

Howard Stern At It Again

Posted on 10. Sep, 2008 by alisse in Blog, Consumption, How's Business, Lifestyle, Sex

Howard Stern’s newest business: Auctioning a 22-year-old girl’s virginity! Going by the name Natalie Dylan for safety precautions, this girl is willing to auction her virginity on Sirius radio to pay for her college tuition. She has agreed to take a polygraph test and a gynecological exam to prove she is in fact a virgin.

I really have doubts about this after reading that the owner of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, Nevada’s legal brothel, introduced her to Stern and is hosting the auction. Supposedly she knows Dennis Hof from the Bunny [...]

No-Asis: Tonight’s Oasis Show is Cancelled

Posted on 09. Sep, 2008 by spencer in Music

After being knocked to the ground by an attacker during Sunday night’s Oasis show in Toronto, Noel Gallagher has been advised to cancel tonight’s show. At least he got a doctor’s note…
From NME:
Following an incident during Oasis’ performance at the Virgin Festival in Toronto, when Noel was attacked by a stage invader Oasis are regrettably being forced to announce that tonight’s show in London, Ontario cannot go ahead as planned.
Noel fell heavily on to his monitor speakers when he was pushed suddenly from behind by his attacker and suffered bruising [...]

The Kooks Konk It Out

Posted on 17. Apr, 2008 by AJ in Blog, Music

The highly touted boys from Brighton are back with their sophomore release, Konk, that hit stores earlier this week, but some are questioning whether the pre-release hype matches the merit. The Kook’s debut release Inside In/Inside Out was exceedingly well received, but reviews for Konk have been mixed. Betty Clarke of The Guardian gave the record 4 out 5 stars saying, “The woolliness of their debut has been replaced with a determined pop sound that dips into hard-edged rock,” but New Music Express was less than optimistic, and rather disappointed:
“What’s [...]

Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends” Could Mean Sink or Swim for EMI

Posted on 14. Apr, 2008 by spencer in Music

As mentioned last Friday, Coldplay has announced a June 17th release date for their fourth album, “Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends.” While writing that post, something clicked on in the back of my mind: this album has the potential to either keep Coldplay’s label EMI afloat for another year, or make necessary the eventual merger of EMI Music (including its subsidiaries like Capitol, Virgin, Astralwerks, Blue Note, Def Jux, Mute and Tooth & Nail) and Warner Music Group, who currently hold the 3rd and 4th [...]

Red Jumpsuit Apparatus Dropped By Virgin?

Posted on 30. Jan, 2008 by Daniel Taylor in Idiocy, Music

So granted, that video with the dude beating his wife or whatever was pretty corny, but TRJA did scan over 800k units of their first record, which even by today’s margins is no chump change, especially for a label like Virgin, whose roster reads like a dollar bin in a used record store. Nevertheless, in a blog post titled “Virgin Records, Soundwave, and our NEW record…” the band states:
Stay tuned for a series of important announcements regarding Virgin Records, the Soundwave cancellation, and our NEW record…
To our fans in Australia [...]

Commercial Space Travel

Posted on 23. Jan, 2008 by some guy in Science, Technology

Sir Richard Branson, billionaire owner of the Virgin Group, has taken one more step towards commercial space travel. Virgin Galactic, whose mission is “to fly passengers who are not professional astronauts to an altitude slightly over 100 kilometers (62 mi) and allow them to experience weightlessness for up to 6 minutes,” today introduced a model for the spacecraft at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The engine will be Canadian built, and seats upon “SpaceShipTwo” (great name) will cost about $200,000 apiece. Quite a deal [...]