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Alice Cooper & Pink Floyd

info@thelava.dk — 2011-08-22T23:03:44+02:00

Before Alice Cooper enjoyed major mainstream success with his album ”Trash”, he was sort of a rock n' roll curiosity. With elaborate stage shows which was a mix of a b-horror movie and traditional cabaret theater, combined with rock n' roll music, Alice Cooper was an underground phenomenon. ...Even though they've had minor success with a string of records such as ”Killer”, ”School’s Out” and ”Billion Dollar Babies”, he still needed to get up from the underground. With faithful producer and songwriting collaborator Bob Ezrin behind the buttons, and a handful of Lou Reed's session players, they began crafting ”Welcome To My Nightmare”. ...There's plenty of hard rocking, fist in the air-type tunes on the album like ”The Black Widow”, ”Cold Ethyl”, ”Department Of Youth” and ”Escape”. But the crown jewel of the album is the epic ballad ”Only Women Bleed”, a song about domestic violence. Masterly arranged by Bob Ezrin, who's orchestral skills later would come to flourish on tracks like ”Beth” by Kiss and ”Comfortably Numb” by Pink Floyd. ...Even though the concept is a little far fetched, and sometimes difficult to get emotionally involved in, you never want to skip a single track. And I’m most certainly sure that Alice didn't want this record to be taken too serious. ... ...It was created as soundtrack to the film ”La Vallée” which was written and directed by french/swiss filmmaker Barbett Schroeder. Now, from what I can understand from Wikipedia, the film is about “a woman who goes on a strange and accidental voyage of self-discovery through the New Guinea bush”. ...Now, to tell you the truth, I have never seen the film and I have never seen it on the shelf of any video or record store. ...The instrumental songs sounds rather nice and are well composed, but it's the “regular” songs that steals the show. Like the pastoral folk-like ”Wot’s...uh the Deal” which in my opinion is one the most beautiful songs Dave Gilmour has ever sung. Or the semi-satirical and partly autobiographical ”Free Four”, where Roger Waters sings about his dead father and describes the ups and downs and unpleasantness of the rock n' roll lifestyle. ...Not that the song is unusual in itself, but the fact that it's one of very few collaborations between Waters and Wright. ...”Obscured By Clouds” is not a space rock album with a heavy concept like ”Dark Side of the Moon”, ”Animals” or ”The Wall”. ...

Summer Downloads - Tapes Away!

info@thelava.dk — 2011-05-16T18:36:36+02:00

A couple of weeks ago we kicked off a new, ”secret” page on the site called SUMMER DOWNLOADS. It’s an idea inspired by the good old music discipline bootlegging or rather ”TAPING”. It’s such a shame that old customs like b-sides and bootlegging seems to have disappeared with the digital revolution, when there’s really even better circumstances for these curiosities to have their own life with the easy distribution and cheap recording equipment that’s evolved these 10-15 past years. So we’ve decided to start taping some of our own concerts and put select songs up for free download during these Summer months of touring. In other words make our own bootlegs, and encourage you guys to do the same... Please read OUR THOUGHTS and the WIKI-LINK for further info and the ”code of honor” of Taping. We started the project off with ”5-VICE” from VEGA last year, and we’ve just uploaded ”IKEA” from Odense last Friday. For heads up each time we release a new track, just sign up for the newsletter (which you can do HERE). Hope you like the idea, enjoy the recordings and want to take part in the discussion. And off course to see you all out there for some live action, Lava

The Only Ones & Hanoi Rocks

info@thelava.dk — 2011-05-06T13:08:35+02:00

I’ve been listening to a lot of great records these past 3 weeks, and I thought to myself the other day: ”why not share it with you guys out there on the intrawebs across the world?” ... So I thought I will give it a go myself right here on the blog. ...Fronted by the enigmatic Peter Perrett, The Only Ones made 3 records and sort of faded away into obscurity. It's really a fantastic record and I'm sort baffled that nobody I talk to know of this record or the group for that matter. Peter Perrett sings his heart on every cut of the album and his voice sort of remind me of Lou Reed and a little bit of Bowie. ...The Only Ones is often shoe horned into the punk category which I find a little strange. ... So if you're into early 70's glam ala Roxy Music, Bowie and Lou Reed I think you will dig this one. The Only Ones only made three studio albums, and to tell you the truth i've could have picked anyone of them. ... But I've listned to this one the most lately so that's why I choose this one. ... There you will find their biggest hit Another Girl, Another Planet (which have been covered by both The Libertines and Paul Westerberg/The Replacements). ...Hanoi Rocks first record is mix of everything I like in rock n' roll. It's got glam, it's got punk, it's got power pop and blistering guitar parts a la Johnny Thunders and Keith Richards. Often regarded as the ”inventors” of hair metal, Hanoi Rocks doesn't sound like that at all. ... Yes, it is true that a lot of the Sunset Strips bands in the mid-80's were inspired by Hanoi Rocks, but that's more on their look than the actual music if you ask me. ...You can quite clearly hear, that he's not a very technically good singer and his finnish accent is thicker than gravy. ...Andy McCoy (lead guitar) does a fine job in keeping the music raw and gritty, and it's obvious to anyone that he's a huge Johnny Thunders and Keith Richards fan. Add some bouncy bass from Sam Yaffa, a steady beat from Gyp Casino and a chugging rythm guitar from Nasty Suicide (I'm not kiddting, those are their names), and you got a fun, loud and snotty glam/punk rock record with some killer tunes. I find this one an awful lot of fun and so will you. ...

Record Store Day EP

info@thelava.dk — 2011-04-15T17:42:31+02:00

Hey guys Tomorrow our Record Store Day EP will be available at 11 shops in Denmark. It’s only released 100 copies and we’ve tried shake things up a bit, so you’ll get both a demo, live recordings, alt. versions and b-sides. It’s pretty great if we might say ourselves. We hope you’ll enjoy it and support your local record store on this very special Saturday. ...1. Sailors, Cowboys & Indians (Live from Lava Radio) 2. Harder Than You Think (Alt. version feat. Josephine Philip) ...Bonehead's Bank Holiday ...The Floor Is Made of Lava (1st Demo) 5. 5-VICE (Live from VEGA 2010) ...Leave Me Now (P4 Live Session) COPENHAGEN STORES: Route 66, Soundstation, Musiksmag, Kaffe og Vinyl, Æter, Repoman, Rockuglen, Second Beat AARHUS STORES: 180gram, Stardust SVENBORG STORE: Vinylen

Spring Update

info@thelava.dk — 2011-04-05T23:43:30+02:00

             

Things have been busy the last month for each of us, and Simon seems to regret his agreement to write these blog posts, so I thought I’d give it a go this time - maybe he’ll come around, but the guy hates the internet, he’s not even on Facebook, for crying out loud... These days we’re working on new songs, as our concert calendar isn’t exactly packed, so it’s great to just hang out and fool around with a few chords and words again. Summer is just around the corner though, and we’ll be playing quite a lot once we reach May, so better make the best out of it, for as long as we have the time. When we got together today we started talking about Record Store Day - a self-proclaimed ”Holiday” founded in USA in 2007, where independent record stores joined forces to make a special occasion for people to go listen to, talk about and buy real records, in real stores, from real people. Kinda radical in these digital, distant web-mania days, but a lot of bands liked the idea, and so they started making special releases to support the event. We like the idea of making something special for the occasion, so we’ve decided to put out a rarity compilation of all the things we’ve recorded for the past year and maybe some way old stuff as well. Tomorrow we’ll decide on the tracklist and during next week we’ll post some more details about where the release will be available as well - in the meantime you could read a bit more about RECORD STORE DAY, Ozzy is this year’s ambassador, ’nough said. All the best, ...