Upcoming Album Releases >> November

Posted on November 5, 2012 by marc

November >> is for Thanksgiving and this month we can be thankful for a cornucopia of new releases from hip-hop absentees, super duos and most importantly the electronic elite. Get ready to gobble gobble up this musical feast. There's plenty to go around.

Crystal Castles

Back after about 2 years apiece, Ghostface and 50 rep the said hip-hop. Diplo & his now lonesome in Major Lazer as well as Travis Barker & Yelawolf drop new studio albums in the tandem section along with my favorite duo in electronic on planet Earth, Ethan Kath and Alice Glass who make up Crystal Castles.

I'm mad excited for III to make its way into my earhole. It's only the 3rd full length album by Crystal Castles but it really only took their debut self-titled LP to get my attention when I first heard 'Courtship Dating' back in 2008. That is when I fell in love with Alice and the grim 64-bit sounds of the genius in Ethan. Obvi this is a November Christmas for me but here are the other notable releases for this month.

Major Lazer Free The Universe >> 11.6 Ne-Yo R.E.D. >> 11.6 50 Cent Street King Immortal >> 11.13 Big Boi Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors >> 11.13 Crystal Castles III >> 11.13 Deftones Koi No Yokan >> 11.13 Midnight Magic Walking The Midnight Streets >> 11.13 Travis Barker and Yelawolf Psycho White EP >> 11.13 Ghostface Killah Twelve Reasons To Die >> 11.20 Rihanna Unapologetic >> 11.20 Alicia Keys Girl On Fire >> 11.27
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New Videos >> Rough Road Bus Tour at Marquee Theatre

Posted on October 29, 2012 by marc

Benny Benassi >> hit the decks in the desert again but hit the road this time with a bus full of Rough Roaders on bus tour featuring CONGOROCK and Pink Is Punk. This was was my 5th time seeing Benny so it wasn't too much of a surprise that he crushed it. But the rest of the Rough Road Bus Tour got stupid nasty with it and were the perfect artists to get the Thursday night crowd of EDM ghouls moving and dancing their faces off.

Benny Benassi >> Marquee TheatreSome of my favorite jams in EDM were dropped hard on this pre-Halloween weekend crowd, from the likes of these gents in 'Cinema' [obvi] to others not present in 'My Feelings For You' [superb remix]. 'Twas was a monster way to kick off the spooky shenanigans that would ensue. Check out some of the vids below and the rest on the zBORED YouTube channel [sorry for the delay in posting - I've been mostly dead this week of graveyard smashing].

Pink Is Punk: CONGOROCK: Benny Benassi:
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Benny Benassi >> back in the desert

Posted on October 24, 2012 by marc

Benny Benassi >> returns to the valley Thursday night at Marquee Theatre for the Tempe stop on the Rough Road Bus Tour with Congo Rock and Pink Is Punk. The king of Rock 'N' Rave always puts on a high-energy set of juicy electro for days so expect the house to be packed and moving.

Benny Benassi >> Rough Road Bus Tour

Stateside over the years, I've seen Benassi at Myst [RIP] and a few times at Radius where his most recent visit there was a 3-hour set on his Cooking For Pump-kin tour. That was his best set I think and definitely looking forward to him outdoing himself to kick off Halloween weekend.

There's a gang of Benassi tracks that I love and will forever remind me of college like 'Satisfaction' and the 'California Dreaming' remix but every time I've seen him on the decks he never mixes them in. He goes harder live, which I can appreciate, but I certainly wouldn't mind taking a Benny time machine tour back to spring breaks in Mexico just for a minute. Sigh.

Okay enough nostalgia-typing. Get to Marquee tomorrow night at 8pm to check out Benny and dance your face off with some sexy ghouls and goblins. Tickets are still available through Lucky Man so get after it before it sells out. See you there :j

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New Videos >> Metric at Marquee Theatre

Posted on October 11, 2012 by marc

Metric >> returned to the valley last night for at least the second time since I've been following them. This time they played Marquee and this time I was actually able to go. It was long awaited but it was worth the wait. They crushed it. Emily, namely. She not only soothed us with her hot Canadian vocals but got down on her saucy Canadian keyboard for a tight jam sesh in the opening song and later she shredded a mean Canadian guitar.

Metric >> Marquee Theatre

Metric opened with 'Artificial Nocturne' which is the opening track off their new album Synthetica. They actually followed the the album sequence on the next 2 songs as well with 'Youth Without Youth' and 'Speed The Collapse'. Obvi this being their Synthetica tour they played the majority of this release like the title track and 'Breathing Underwater'. Unfortunately, they didn't get to my favorite track 'The Void'. I love all of the album though. It's probably their best yet. Yeah it is.

The old stuff they got to was the dope stuff that got me into them like 'Help I'm Alive' and 'Stadium Love' which they closed with - that is, until the standard encore which included 'Black Sheep', 'Gold Guns Girls' and a sick outro acoustic version of 'Gimme Sympathy' that we got sing along to with her on repeat [super cheesy but okay it was super fun].

I would love to see Emily and the squad rock the fuck out again soon but according to her monologue they were wrapping up a super short 6-week tour. It would be total radness to the max to see them play Toronto. I guess I'm just itching to go back to Canada. I bet they'll be at Coachella though.

It was a tight show. Check out the vids below if you don't believe me. The rest of the footage is housed on the zBORED YouTube Channel. Go there.

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Upcoming Album Releases >> October

Posted on October 2, 2012 by marc

October >> is here and Q4 has already kicked off with several splendid surprises on the first new music Tuesday of autumn. Namely, Matt & Kim and Muse lead things off with their 4th and 6th studio releases, respectively - both dropping after over 2 years of touring their previous releases. While they, Why? and Coheed & Cambria represent some solid swinging artists in the front of October's lineup the utmost excellence and overdue albums are up in the back of the order.

Shiny Toy Guns >> III

Mid-month can't come soon enough for me because Boys Noize, Pinback, Shiny Toy Guns and Calvin Harris all have something new to drop and I'm mad excited for all of it. As I mentioned the other day, Calvin Harris hasn't always impressed me but that sentiment flipped after finally seeing a live set at Soundwave 2012 at Big Surf this past Saturday night. He crushed it. Instafan I am.

Shiny Toy Guns are coming out with III which is 4 years post-Season Of Poison, which I wasn't as big a fan of as their debut We Are Pilots - that album was/is epic. I got to interview the band in 2007 on that tour and have been a huge fan ever since. I think I also fell in love with Carrah Faye [vocals, bass, keys] at that point too. It's going to be so swell to hear STG freshness once again and hopefully we'll get an opportunity to hear it live pending a Phoenix stop on tour. In the mean time, here are some other notable releases in October.

How To Dress Well Total Loss >> 10.2 Matt & Kim Lightning >> 10.2 Muse The 2nd Law >> 10.2 Tori Amos Gold Dust >> 10.2 Why? Mumps etc >> 10.2 Coheed & Cambria The Afterman: Ascension >> 10.9 Ellie Goulding Halcyon >> 10.9 Boys Noize Out Of The Black >> 10.16 Pinback Information Retrieved >> 10.16 Shiny Toy Guns III >> 10.23 Calvin Harris 18 Months >> 10.30
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New Videos >> Soundwave at Big Surf

Posted on September 30, 2012 by marc

Soundwave >> gets better and better every time. Saturday night at Big Surf in Tempe was the 3rd installment of the waterpark music festival and it proved to be the best one yet. As a returning Soundwave surfer I can attest to the the entertainment, experience and execution being flawless.

While I'm a huge fan of Diplo, Boys Noize, Kaskade, Dirty South and other artists from Soundwaves past I think this lineup was the best. Adventure Club, Designer Drugs, Z-Trip and R3hab crushed it as expected. Each bring different styles of electronic into the mix and propers to SLE & Disco Donnie for continuing to bring the elite and in the variety.

I was very pleasantly surprised by the early evening set by Seven Lions and the headlining Calvin Harris. I wasn't familiar with the former and wasn't the biggest fan of the latter until last night. Both brought it to Tempe and I couldn't have asked for better sets. The energy during Calvin Harris was unbelievable. I've been to my share of shows over the years [ovbi] but this energy was rare.

The Soundwave experience is unique. I don't know of any other festival you can day drink, go on water slides, dance and be merry to the sounds of the utmost electronic illness. I envision this festival transforming into a 2 or 3-day banger at some point and perhaps rivaling fests like EDC or Ultra [though I wouldn't really want it to get that big - 2 stages a reasonable distance away from each other are perfect and manageable without any stress]. It's time for the desert to put a stake into the scene and this is just the way to do it.

This installment was better not just in the artistry but in the little things too like separating 18+ crowd. There are still some areas of improvement that I anticipate will be addressed before next year [more bars, more food, more potties, etc.]. These little things will go a long way.

All in all, it was the blastest blast and I'm really looking forward to next year. Check out some of the videos I took below [the rest on the zBORED YouTube channel] and you may party vicariously through my camcorder. Enjoy!

Seven Lions:

Designer Drugs:

Adventure Club:

Z-Trip:

R3hab:

Calvin Harris:

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Soundwave >> at Big Surf

Posted on September 21, 2012 by marc

Soundwave >> is coming back to the desert in Tempe again to officially kick off the fall. The 1-day music festival featuring some of the illest in electronic takes place next Saturday [SEPT 29] at Big Surf waterpark. Last year the spring Soundwave had Diplo and Boys Noize on the bill. Last fall's fest featured Kaskade, Z-Trip and Dirty South. This year Steve LeVine Entertainment and Disco Donnie Presents are bringing in Calvin Harris, R3hab and Adventure Club to headline along with other international big hitters in EDM.

Soundwave 2012Since I've lived here in the desert there has always been a killer conglomerate of musical madness to put a cap on summer from That Damn Show to Fall Frenzy. As dance and electronic continues to explode it's only natural that a festival like Soundwave takes over as the staple.

“We are thrilled to announce the return of Sound Wave music festival this September,” says pioneer and SLE head honcho Steve LeVine. “Our goal was to be the first to bring electronic dance music fans in Arizona an experience they had never had before and the third installment of this festival is promised to be bigger and better than ever!”

In addition to the aforementioned headliners hitting the decks on the Waikiki [main] stage, the day get started with the Red Bull Thre3Style Massive DJ competition where AZ native Z-Trip makes his return versus Switch, Designer Drugs and others from here and across the globe.

It's going to be a sick sick day again. Get excited and get after it. Tickets are only $35 and $65 for VIP if you want to throw down a little extra for a private bar, cabanas and no lines for the potties [well worth it]. The weather will be cool and the music will be hot. Surf's up, dudes.

Get tickets and more info on the show/artists at soundwaveaz.com and get on the social tip too while you're at it [facebook.com/SoundWaveAZ, twitter.com/SoundWaveAZ].

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