Excellent Online

Sasha and Digweed
Los Angeles, CA, Mayan
November 15, 2001

This is a show that you need to mentally and physically prepare yourself for. The show starts at 9pm and ends at 4am. Think about it, that's seven freakin' hours! My brother is the big progressive trance fan and I didn't want to be the one to say, "I'm tired, let's go home" at 1:30am. If he wanted to stay 'till 4am, I was going to be prepared to stay 'till 4am. Plus, I would be dancing for hours on end so I was actually going to the gym and doing a bunch of cardio so I could build up my stamina. Looking back, how stupid does all this sound for a concert?!?!

NUDE RECORDS, the UK indie label known mainly as the home of Suede, has gone belly-up. The company announced its immediate liquidation today, after 11th hour talks to reach a new distribution deal failed. The label's closure shouldn't affect Suede, as the band has been primarily handled by Nude's parent label Sony for some time, and will likely stay under Sony's wingspan. It's also fairly likely that Nude's other money-maker, Black Box Recorder, will quickly find another home for their pending album due next year.

SPECTRUM have cancelled all remaining dates of their U.S. tour after a virtual disintegration of the band following a drug bust in North Carolina. Details of the bust are sketchy, but several members of the band, including Spectrum frontman Pete "Sonic Boom" Kember, were arrested for narcotics. This isn't much of a surprise given Kember's pro-drug history with Spectrum and his former band, Spacemen 3. What IS a surprise is the following post, sent from Spectrum touring drummer Cliff, to the Brian Jonestown Massacre mailing list. Now, please keep in mind that what you're about to read is one guy's side to this story, and we're not claiming that it's the truth. But it's certainly one of the most venomous posts we've seen in a long time, and could shed light onto the real reasons behind the tour's cancellation. Click MORE to see Cliff's rather interesting e-mail.

Spiritualized
Los Angeles, Wiltern
November 13, 2001

No opening act. 2+ hours of spiritualized. Full band, brass section, choir, c'mon you just can't go wrong with that!!

I almost didn't go tonight, my friend talked me into buying a ticket at the last minute so I was sitting really far away at the Wiltern Theatre. I've seen Spiritualized several times and there just isn't any reason to stand in front of Jason Pierce because he doesn't move at all. Sitting about ten rows from the back was a great place to see the show that they put on.

hare rama hare rama
rama rama hare hare
hare krishna hare krishna
krishna krishna hare hare

shankaracharya shankaracharya
shankaracharya pahiman
bhagvatpada bhagvatpada
bhagvatpada rakshaman

sadgurudeva sadgurudeva
sadgurudeva pahiman
shivananda shivananda
shivananda rakshaman

sadgurudeva sadgurudeva
sadgurudeva namaha Om
shivananda shivananda
shivananda sharana Om

Om tat sat Om tat sat Om tat sat Om
Om shanti Om shanti Om shanti Om
Om rama rama rama rama rama

Man, what a daunting task this paragraph seems to be. Somehow, in some way, I'm supposed to provide a proper introduction for an interview with my favorite musician ever. This is tough.

Let me try the professional approach first:

Once upon a time, there was a band from Oxford that captured the essence of post-Madchester UK psychedelic rock. Crafting layer upon layer of fuzzy guitars over hypnotic basslines and pounding white-hot drums, they somehow managed to push the sonic envelope time and time again, without once losing their knack for a captivating hook and powerful melody. The press dubbed it 'shoegazing,' but when push came to shove, the music defied labels, defied description, defied definition. There were dozens of these bands around at the time - several of which were great, several of which were crap. But only one of these bands had the ability to break through the underground to achieve massive critical acclaim AND commercial chart success. That band was called Ride.

Flash forward to 2001. Ride, like most of their contemporaries, are no more. But just in time for the holidays, the boys of Ride have given us a mighty present: a remastered back catalogue, a greatest hits collection, and a triple-disc box set with two entire CD's worth of unreleased tracks (one live, one studio outtakes.) To commemorate the release of the box set, Excellent Online was able to e-mail off some questions to Ride drummer Loz Colbert.

Ah, f**k it. I've never been a professional, I'm not starting now.

Just about everwhere you go you'll fina a link about how Lollapalooza will probably return next year.

Dotmusic has the story about Fatboy Slim's new live CD. The details are slim but it was recorded at last summer's Brighton Beach gig and will be released on January 28. I've been living on bootlegs for so long, it's great to finally have an official DJ set.

Sigur Ros have won the inaugural Shortlist Music Prize. The Shortlist differs from other award shows in that the nominees can't sell more than 500,000 copies of their album before they are nominated. Sigur Ros beat out Nikka Costa, Dandy Warhols, Talib Kweli, Ryan Adams, Air, Bilal, PJ Harvey, Gorillaz and Jay Dee.

Last night's performance was absolutely breathtaking. At some points, the beauty was almost too much to bear. When you get chills for the 5th time in two minutes and you can't bear to see Jonsi break his heart on yet another note, you know it's definitely an emotional night.

Before I get to the songs, let me say that the whole concert was filmed for HBO's "Reverb" program, so I'll be trying desperately to find anyone I know with premium cable (or, I'm actually considering subscribing just for the month's it's on!). So the 1/2 city block of mobile video units, camera men, and wires hopefully did an admirable job of capturing the concert for those who couldn't make it last night.

Review by Melissa Fehr