Well, this should go over well without incident or controversy: recently, during Australia’s Big Day Out Festival, Kanye West’s soundcheck drowned out the Soundgarden performance on a neighboring stage, prompting Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell to call the music “retarded.” Nope, shouldn’t offend anyone at all.
Reunited and it feels so good. After a 13-year break from the road, Soundgarden will finally tour again again this summer. Billboard.com reports that the reunited grunge rockers have revealed the first four dates of its upcoming U.S. tour, which sends the band to Toronto, Philadelphia, Denver and Los Angeles starting this July.
More tour dates are expected to be announced soon, thankfully.
Today’s roundup gets you psyched for upcoming albums and performances from a variety of different acts. Whether you dig the unbearably badass art-metal of Jane’s Addiction or the generally unbearable Plain White T’s, we’ve got a list of shows and sounds to look forward to in the near future.
This week’s roundup finds some old artists returning to work after a reunion, some other old artists returning to work after everyone forgot about their existence, and some new artists finally getting back in the studio to record a new album. For fans of rock music, there could be some good releases to look forward to…
After 15 years of silence occasionally peppered with horribly Auto-Tune’d solo records and the intermittent reunion show, grunge gods/ pioneers Soundgarden have, according to Spinner, “begun plotting their first studio album in 15 years.”
The 90s gave us some of the purest rock music ever, and it’s a testament to the quality of those bands that they were able to record dozens of solid albums and still have plenty of great rare material lying around. What follows is a list of some of the best B-sides, rarities, obscure tracks, and special releases from eight definitive 90s rock bands. Enjoy the flashback.
It seems just like yesterday when we were basking in the nostalgic glory of Soundgarden at Lollapalooza. Putting on one of the best closing sets we’ve seen all festival season (even sounding better than Arcade Fire at the other end of Lolla), fans of Chris Cornell and his band got to take in a performance they knew they might never get to see again… or at least for a while. There’s talk about a reunion tour but the hard facts and evidence indicating that it’s actually going to be happening any time soon just aren’t here yet. If you’re curious as much as we are, you might also be wondering where the tour dates are. Announce them already, guys!
However, we did get a new single – “Black Rain” – a track off of their forthcoming greatest hits album, Telephantism, and now we also have a music video to go along with it. Check the video – their first in ten years – out below!
Ben Shepherd, bassist for the recently reunited Soundgarden, has a bone to pick with Spin Magazine, who recently described Shepherd as “homeless” before the ‘90s rock band’s reunion, according to Spinner.
Shepherd claims that he was merely “broke” and “couch surfing,” but that Spin misinterpreted his comments and stretched them to “sensationalize” and “sell their story.” Which is totally, totally irresponsible, almost like writing that Lady Gaga’s massive increase in Twitter followers may well bring about the end of all things in an apocalyptic orgy of blood and death.
Reunions can make or break a festival and Lollapalooza had to have the biggest reunion of 2010 with Soundgarden closing out the South Side of Grant Park. Sure, Chris Cornell has been touring solo for the last decade and hashing out the occasional tribute to his mainstay band, but to see Soundgarden, the trio of faces that helped pen what became grunge was one for the ages, perform their songs live again was more than a big deal.
