The Modern Age

NOTE: This is the first part in my much delayed “who knows how long this is going to take” series on my concert-going experience at the Iceland Airwaves festival this year in Reykjavik (yes, I finally learned how to spell it without looking it up), Iceland. Enjoy!
OCTOBER 19, 2006
Yesterday I go into town somewhere between [...]

7:50 PM
Hiya everyone. So right now I’m sitting here at a table at Roseland Ballroom waiting for the Woodie Awards to start. There are eager fans lining the floor of the venue directly in front of me, and the artists tables are to my right. Tegan and Sara’s version of “Walking with a Ghost” is [...]

Tonight I’m going to be liveblogging directly from Roseland Ballroom, location of MTVU’s Woodies Awards. The fun starts around 8pm. Here’s a preview of what I’ll be talking about:
CONFIRMED ATTENDEES:
Beck*
TV on the Radio*
Gym Class Heroes*
Imogen Heap*
Lupe Fiasco
Ghostface Killah
Lady Sovereign
30 Seconds to Mars
Angels & Airwaves
Feist
Plain White T’s
Cage
Atmosphere
Murs
The Academy Is
Gogol Bordello
The Subways
Nightmare of You
*Performing

Every year at the end of October, hundreds of journalists (around 600 this year) and thousands of international music lovers break out their heavy winter jackets, hats, and gloves and flood the city of Reykjavik, Iceland for the Iceland Airwaves music festival. Although Reykjavik is the capital city, the population hovers just under 200,000 people–which [...]

Please RSVP to the email indicated in the flyer before NOON today.

In other Stolen Transmission news, Ultra is famous. Check out the Marc Spitz-penned profile of her in the music issue of Vanity Fair.

The music industry is such a weird place. Why is it that it’s perfectly legitimate to use your naughty bits to sell records? For most people posing in compromising positions is a way to get yourself fired, not a raise. This totally came to mind when I was reading this New York Times article today.
To [...]

Wow, someone at Rough Trade finally had it up to here with Pete Doherty and now his band, Babyshambles, has been officially droped from the RT roster. Apparently Rough Trade can handle a lot of things, but squirting a MTV camera crew with blood from a syringe is not one of them.
In related news, Pete’s [...]

Just when you thought Nick Zinner was the only guitarist that was going to stick it to his critics this week, the king of hating journos and the ‘Net has returned to upstage him. Yes, that’s right, it’s the incorrigible Jack White! Check out the hate spew posted on the WS site yesterday:
What a funny [...]

This just in, Surefire has just signed an indie deal to Lizard King Records! You may know Lizard King as the first people who signed this little band you might have heard of called…The Killers. Look out for a Surefire single to come out in the UK sometime this year.
Congrats kids!

As soon as the ’90s ended, music fans were like, ‘Fuck you!’ Now the young people are taking over and are like, ‘I don’t need you to tell me what to like and not to like anymore!’ Take the choices and give them back to the kids, I say.”
When I read this quote from Drew [...]