[Interview] The Veronicas :Twin sisters Twin Attach!

Just to clear things up, the Veronicas are twin sisters from Brisbane, Australia, and have nothing to do with Archie Comics' raven-haired rich-girl Veronica Lodge or teen TV sleuth Veronica Mars.

In fact, neither of them is even named Veronica, nor do they know anyone with the name, all of which kind of begs the question: Why go with "the Veronicas" anyway?

"The name is something we thought about for a long time, and we wanted it to be a girl's name, but we didn't want it to be 'the Jesses,' " guitarist Jess Origliasso laughed. "We were very conscious of not wanting to make it a twin thing, because we think that's really tacky."

"We didn't want it to be called 'the Lisas,' either," singer Lisa Origliasso added. "So one day we saw the movie 'Heathers,' and there's a line where one girl asks, 'Are you a Heather?' and Winona Ryder's character answers, 'No, I'm a Veronica,' and so we went with that, because she was this kind of cool, unique chick with an attitude."

And attitude is one thing the Veronicas have in spades. At the age of 5, the Origliasso sisters enrolled in an after-school musical theatre club, but after a few years of toiling away in low-budget revues of "Godspell" and "Hair," they ditched the club and decided to get serious. They took private voice lessons and for the next several years put in time playing gigs in Brisbane and around Australia's Gold Coast

"We were getting tired of just doing nothing, and we figured that there was no better way to get experience than getting out there in front of people when you're that young," Jess said. "We were just kind of thrust out there and forced to make it

By the time they were 14, the sisters were playing covers of Elvis and Roy Orbison tunes, and making an honest-to-goodness living on the Australian festival circuit. And when Jess got a guitar for her 18th birthday, the Veronicas began banging out original songs, brief three-chord blurts that eventually found their way into the right hands. By the time they were 19, the Origliasso sisters had signed Engine Room, the Australian production team responsible for making the Vines bright (yet fleeting) international stars.

"They take Australian talent overseas, develop it and try to get a major label to pick them up," Lisa explained. "So we were really lucky to sign with them. They sent us over the top."

Or, more precisely, they sent them all around the world, to work with pop maestros like Sweden's Max Martin (Britney Spears, 'NSYNC) and Germany's Toby Gad (Milli Vanilli, Enrique Iglesias). And, after a year on the road, the Veronicas returned home with more than 60 songs and a contract with Sire Records.

Now, having just turned 20, they're prepping their debut album, The Secret Life of ... the Veronicas, a slippery, shiny mix of angsty lyrics and guitar solos, and they've just been tapped by Calvin Klein to be the faces of the designer's fall fashion campaign. It's the beginning stages of a full-fledged rock-and-roll invasion, and it's a whole lot cooler than anything their friends back in Brisbane are currently up to.

"We used to be jealous of all our friends who were just taking it easy while we were rehearsing and stuff," Lisa said. "But now were playing gigs while they're working at Mackey's."

"They don't say 'Mackey's' over here," Jess pointed out.

"Oh, right. Sorry. 'Mackey's' is Micky D's, McDonald's," Lisa laughed. "Sorry about that. That was my Australianess coming out."

[Music Video] The latest MV :This Love

[New Album Review] Hook Me Up

There is an old cliché phrase I was once taught that said: “If you go into something thinking it’s going to be bad, then it’s going to be bad. However, if you go into something with a positive attitude, then it will turn out well”. I would now like to condemn whoever it was that taught me this. On the back of the highly infectious title track/lead single, I was genuinely excited for the new album from former tween sensations The Veronicas, Hook Me Up. With any luck it wouldn’t be like their previous effort, The Secret Life Of…, which became incredibly lacklustre after the first four tracks (all of which, must be pointed out, were commercially released singles).

So, upon listening to the album, the questions have to be put. Is the album better than its predecessor? The answer is yes. Does it feature a new sound and direction for the Orglissano twins? Yes again. But have the Veronicas made a great album because of this? Sadly, no. Far from it. Hook Me Up is a disappointing album, filled with half-baked ideas and ignoring its potential to be a great pop album- or, even, a great dance album.

“Untouched” is an admittedly great opening track, featuring everything that is good about this album. A bizarre alt-pop wave of synths, string section sampling and dissonant guitar, with motor-mouth vocals in the verse, leading up to a great hook in the chorus. This fades out and right into “Hook Me Up”, the lead single and easily the best song on the album. At first, chances are you may not like it (I know that when I first heard it, I hated it). But the best thing about this song is how damn infectious it is, thus making it an excellent pop song with top harmonies and a synth hook Hellogoodbye would be envious of. The one-two punch of this song and the title track prove how good this album could have been. Unfortunately, it’s mostly downhill from here.

The next two tracks either suffer from trying to be too much at once (“This Is How It Feels”), and generally not going anywhere (“This Love”). It’s certainly a departure from the guitar pop-rock of their previous album, but it appears not all change is good in this case. As the album progresses from here, you can’t help but get the feeling that the band really need to pull a rabbit out of their hat. And while they certainly come close to it- “I Can’t Stay Away” features some lively beats, and “All I Have” features come catchy moments, live drums (exactly what this album needed more of), and some very cool use of a vocoder- but there is just too much filler and lazy song writing. Songs like “I Don’t Wanna Wait” and “In Another Life” both have great potential, but the best parts of the song aren’t furthered to make for a better overall.

And then there’s “Popular”- what can be said about this one? Basically, if Peaches went out and got completely hammered with Princess Superstar and they managed to have some kind of inbred lovechild with “Best Damn Thing”-era Avril Lavigne as the midwife, it would probably come out sounding something like this. And believe me, this is definitely not a compliment. Talking about the song, the girls say that the song is “taking the piss out of famous people”. However, in a similar vein to Good Charlotte atrocity “I Just Wanna Live”, you simply cannot tell and it comes off as vain and cheap.

It’s good that, at the very least, the Veronicas have gone for something different from the pop market at the moment. But it’s a bitter letdown that, even after all this change, most of the songs just aren’t very good. Not even the fantastic single can save this one. A pity, really, given how good this album could have been.

For fans only- though chances are you may not be much of a fan after this record, even if you were before.

Tracklist:

1. Untouched

2. Hook Me Up

3. This Is How It Feels

4. This Love

5. I Can't Stay Away

6. Take Me On The Floor

7. I Don't Wanna Wait

8. Popular

9. Revenge Is Sweeter Than You Ever Were

10. Someone Wake Me Up

11. All I Have

12. In Another Life

Release Date: 11/03/2007

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[Interview] Counting Crows talk to latest album & DOWNLOADS

Fourteen years ago this month, Counting Crows burst onto the music scene with the hook-laden single Mr Jones and the multi-platinum album, August And Everything After.

Their latest CD is split into two distinct parts - the angry, rock of Saturday Nights and the laid-back folk vibes of Sunday Mornings.

Lead singer Adam Duritz talks about his fight to get the record released, insomnia, and getting angry with fans.

The album was originally supposed to come out last November - did you have trouble finishing it?

Not at all. It's been done since last June. We pulled the record ourselves because the label didn't have any idea of how to put it out.

What happened?

There's this massive invention that allows everyone to reach everyone else in the entire world for free. It's called the internet and I was trying to explain that to the record label.

I wanted to put out a free "digital 45" - one song from each side of the record - to get the idea of the album's two different themes out there.

So the label didn't like the idea?

Well, they said no. So we pulled the record - and believe me they weren't happy with losing a Christmas release.

You eventually got your way. Do you think the tactic worked?

Put it this way - I got an email from a guy I know at Apple a month before the album was available, and the pre-sale version was at number eight on iTunes.

There was no single, we hadn't done any press at that point, there was no reason for us to be that high on the charts - except we did all this online stuff.

I don't know about the record business, but the music industry is not dead. It's a great time to be in a band because there's a tool that allows you to reach everyone for free.

You adopted the internet very early on [Duritz has kept an online diary for years]. Are you ever overwhelmed by the number of fans? Presumably some of them are a bit obsessive.

We have big arguments! You know, I promised them at the very beginning that I would be honest about everything and that meant that when I got angry with them, I would write angry stuff and we would have huge fights!

Has there ever been a point when you've thought: "I can't take this anymore" and decided to stop writing to people on the website?"

No, but there was about a year when I either began or ended every diary entry with "some of you are very unpleasant people!"

It began because I've been a good friend of the actress Mary Louise-Parker [Weeds, The West Wing] since we were kids. Someone from her fan club wrote to our site asking if anyone would like to raise money to buy a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame for her, and she just got savaged by our fans.

They laid into this poor girl who was, you know, just like them. She was somebody's fan. So I just ranted at them on every post - even the nice ones.

I'd write something beautiful like: "Everything is possible and your dreams can come true. By the way, some of you are very unpleasant people, love Adam."

Do you still suffer from insomnia?

I've always had problems - I have a dissociative disorder, which makes the world seem like it's not real. And when the world doesn't seem real, it can be really scary to let go and give up even more of it. So sleep has always been something of a problem.

It's particularly hard for me because of the gigs. A gig is like doing a workout that ends at 11:30. I don't get home 'til after one and I'm wired. So touring really adds to my insomnia.

Does it affect your writing?

A lot of my songs are about isolation and certainly that sensation is never quite as strong as it is in the middle of the night. But I've written a lot of songs in the daylight, too.

You're coming over to headline the Wireless Festival in UK this year - are you excited?

Oh yeah, that's cool. Headlining in Hyde Park? That's pretty cool.

We made our career in Europe by playing festivals, so I have a lot of love and reverence for those shows.

What's your favourite festival memory?

In the 1990s, we spent a whole summer where our end of the day ritual was to meet the guys from Gomez at the side of the stage and smoke cigarettes and drink cans of beer and watch Oasis.

Noel Gallagher is a genius. Those songs are great, and they're loud and they're fun. That's a really good way to spend the end of the day.

DOWNLOADS

1. Mr. Jones

2. Angel Of The Silences

3. Recovering The Satellites

4. Have You Seen Me Lately?

5. Daylight Fading

6. Mercury

7. Omaha

8. Round Here

9. Rain King

10. A Murder Of One

11. Goodnight Elisabeth

12. A Long December

13. Anna Begins

http://rapidshare.de/files/15694075/cc-woodstock.part1.rar http://rapidshare.de/files/15693885/cc-woodstock.part2.rar

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R.E.M.: fast, furious and fun

The band breaks from its latest run to talk about rock, three decades into the game.

By Ann Powers, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

AUSTIN, TEXAS -- YOU'D think 15 minutes with one member of R.E.M. would be a lot like 15 minutes with another. In the rush and grind of promoting "Accelerate," the band's 14th album, at the South by Southwest Music Conference, Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills didn't have much more to spare.

A Wednesday club show at Stubb's Bar-B-Q led to a Thursday taping of the venerable "Austin City Limits" TV series; in between there was radio to do, a campaign's worth of hands to shake, and a new set of songs to try to thoroughly grasp.


Media encounters inked into such a run take on an inevitable shape: for a veteran band, it means discussing the new album (this one rocks), assuring fans you still enjoy the job ("fun" is the operative word for these three), and offering some warm memories and rejiggered hopes for the future. Potentially meaningful encounters with journalists turn semianonymous, like visits from the cable guy. Even smart, friendly, seasoned artists can't be blamed for resorting to stock answers.


But for the passing moment in which these three submit to amiable grilling, they are fully present. This is an old game for them, but they take it seriously.


"The truth is, I've been working so hard I haven't had time to land," said Stipe when asked what it means for R.E.M. to be here, at a festival rooted in the indie-rock scene the band was so instrumental in creating. When he did talk about legacy, wasn't in terms of music, but politics, and generations.


"As a 48-year-old, I'm thrilled to have someone younger to vote for," said the unabashed supporter of 46-year-old Sen. Barack Obama. "I think we screwed it up, you know? I'm looking at and talking to and hanging out with people born during the Reagan era, and I feel like our generation, we did what we could, but it really wasn't enough. I think we can continue to inspire -- I hope -- or support the next generation or the generation below. But I think it's time to pass the baton to them and see what they can do with this mess."


Meanwhile, R.E.M. is busy redefining the romance of its own existence. Except for U2, no other band of its generation has been stuck with so much heavy meaning. As one of indie rock's co-founders -- along with many more obscure bands, such as the Dream Syndicate and Hüsker Dü, whom Buck habitually name-checks -- R.E.M. still represents the idea that amplified, guitar-based songs can bring people together and even form the basis for a larger life.


"Being in a band is a lifestyle," said Mills. "Being politically active is a lifestyle. Being a fan of music is a lifestyle. You can combine those things, and it does become a big community. That's a very difficult thing to do, and when you can pull that off -- when you can make so many people feel the same sort of passion -- you've done something really good for the world in general, I think."


It's a beautiful ideal, and on some level, it has to be an illusion. Like any long-lived band, R.E.M. is also a business that has to keep renewing itself.


The meditative, electronics-influenced albums the trio has made since drummer Bill Berry's 1997 departure haven't always pleased longtime fans, who miss the driving melodicism of classic works such as "Document" or "Murmur." "Accelerate," which hits the Internet on Monday via the Facebook-friendly music application iLike, before arriving April 1 as a physical disc, willfully answers that criticism. It is songful and determined, a frank gesture of self-acceptance.


"I'm just really personally pleased that they made this album at this point in their career, on an artistic level," said the group's longtime manager, Bertis Downs, backstage at "Austin City Limits." "People wouldn't have thought this was the record they'd make, and I'm not sure they would have thought it was the record they'd make. Whatever it does commercially -- and it's gonna sell -- the fact that they've made this record in their career is a very good thing, artistically. I hope it's the first of many, many more; it may very well not be. But I just think it's really nice that they have."


Asked whether "Accelerate" represents some idea of "classic R.E.M.," Buck cringes just a bit. "You try to avoid repetition," he said. "I could probably rewrite 'Murmur' every day, and that would be a little less than interesting. Sometimes you do come up with a really great chord change, and you say to yourself, you know, this sounds like something I might have done 10 years ago. But if it's great, you take it."


Buck is forthright, with a hint of a laugh behind his quick answers. ("Music is all he does," Mills says of his tune-writing partner.) Playing in R.E.M. has become an extension of his larger life as a working musician in the Pacific Northwest, where nobody's overly committed to one band. Recently Buck has played guitar with indie-pop guru Robyn Hitchcock and toured in bands with R.E.M.'s longstanding sidemen, drummer Bill Rief- lin and multi-instrumentalist Scott McCaughey. Buck's love for playing seems inexhaustible; he still enjoys sound checks. And there are plenty of those ahead during a 5 1/2 - month world tour that stops May 29 at the Hollywood Bowl.

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