Offbeat Geek

Sorry Joe!

In a heated battle against the X-Factor winner Joe McElderry, “Killing In The Name” clinched the #1 spot on BBC Radio 1’s Official charts show this evening. In fact as I type this I’m listening to it live on BBC right now.

What started as a facebook group sick of X-Factor domination of the Christmas charts turned into an epic battle of music!  Personally I am delighted Rage took the number 1 spot.  This makes UK chart history by being the first ever download only Christmas #1.

Rage have confirmed live on radio that they will indeed honor the free thank you concert in the UK some time during 2010.

Update:  The BBC are now reporting the full story.

Jaw hits floor

Oh my! Rock am Ring festival is celebrating it’s 25th anniversary in 2010. As seen in the image above, the line up is shaping up to be quite epic. Over the next couple of months more bands will be added.

If it is to be anything like the 20th anniversary there will also be a special and very famous guest band who will not be announced.  It is times like this that I wish I were back in Germany.  If you are thinking of going…. get your tickets NOW!!  Mark my words this years RaR is going to sell out fast!

You can check out all the juicy details here

My ears are still ringing from last night’s ‘rockin’ concert at the Marquee Theater in Tempe, Arizona. Overall a fantastic show with great performances from most of the bands. Below, in order of appearance on stage, are my thoughts on each of last night’s acts.

The Asylum

First on stage were the local, full on, metal five piece known as: The Asylum (Myspace).  These guys were most definitely the hardest band present.   On paper they looked like a very odd choice for an opening act especially taking into account the other openers.  They did not let that interfere with getting the crowd motivated.  A giant mosh pit opened up center stage within minutes of their arrival.

The only thing that seemed to hurt them was the loss of a lot of the intricate guitar work present in the recordings.  I couldn’t tell if the audio settings were quite set up right or just lost in the overall barrage of metal slamming into my chest at the time.  Closing with a re-imagining of “Eye Of The Tiger”,  which you can hear on their myspace profile, was just wicked.  The perfect song to finish up on. (continue reading…)

Chester Bennington's new project

Linkin Park front man Chester Bennington’s new side project “Dead By Sunrise” releases their debut album this Tuesday, October 13th.  The first single “Crawl Back In”, out since mid August,  caught my attention.  The full album is available on  their myspace profile.  Quite a nice compilation of styles are present.  Here’s hoping a tour will be announced in the near future.  It would be nice to hear a few of those tracks live.  Check them out!

DJ Champion - Resistance

I recently discovered an artist called DJ Champion from a video preview of the Borderlands game coming out next month.  The song, “No Heaven”, caught my attention and I promptly set about searching out more music by this artist.  As it turned out the song was on an album from about 4 years ago and I feared that the DJ may have stopped making music.  Fortunately this was not the case!  His new album, “Resistance”, came out on September 15th.  Funnily enough the same date as another album titled “The Resistance” by a more well known band, Muse (More on them later when I decide what to make of that album).  “Resistance” has an interesting mix of electronic tracks.  Personal favourites include “Sannois Beach”, “Alive Again” and title track “Resistance (Skool)” which reminds me of “Good Luck” by Basement Jaxx.

Track listing of  Resistance

1. Clear Beach
2. Resistance (Skool)
3. Perfect In Between
4. Plastiques at métaux
5. So Big
6. Backing Off
7. L6 (The Blooded)
8. My Black Saab
9. Sannois Beach
10. Alive Again
11. The Monster

“Resistance” clocks in just past 50 minutes and can be purchased from all the usual venues.  If electronic is your thing I recommend it otherwise I’d give the songs a preview before you part with your cash.  I purchased it directly for C$9.99.  There are several other options which include t-shirt and/or vinyl if you are so inclined.