Good news! The Foo Fighters are coming to the Bay in February, and tickets go on sale this Sunday. Better news! Dave Grohl grew his hair back! Whew. I'm so glad he got rid of that damn Tegan and Sara haircut. From PR:
ON SALE SUNDAY, DECEMBER 16TH AT 10:00AM!FOO FIGHTERS
with Against Me!
Saturday, February 2, 7:30PM
ORACLE Arena
Tickets are $45.00 for general admission floor and $45.00, $38.50 and $25.00 for reserved seating plus applicable service charges
Tickets available at Livenation.com.
-- Oscar Pascual
I love anything that has to do with The State. You know, the early 90s chock-full-of-genius sketch comedy troupe whose members gave way to awesome shows like Reno 911! and Stella? If not, acquaint yourself with David Wain's webshow, Wainy Days. This week's episode (above) features dude of the year McLovin as he gets beat up as a Mexican gardener. Hilarious accents then ensue. Then, a little pee-pee. Genius, I say! Genius! -- Oscar Pascual
Daft Punk
Alive 2007
(Virgin Records)
The '70s fell to Pink Floyd — and so the Zeroes have fallen to Daft Punk. The French duo started churning out techno/house/electronica music in the '90s. Now, they're globally dilated and definers of that diffuse genre. Alive 2007, their new album, is a live recording from a June concert in Paris. There, the band remixed and hybridized its old hits: out came new arrangements with more bass, heavier synth, and mash-ups done proper. At the outskirts of the album, you can hear the crowd whooping and cheering. The music itself emanates from Daft Punk's signature stage-set: a pyrotechnical pyramid, with the two men — dressed as robots — orchestrating the synth-phonies from above. Alive begins with "Robot Rock" — if tribes had synthesizers, this would be the result. The next track bundles "Touch It" and the infamous "Technologic," during which the cracked voice of an infant recites P.C. functions malevolently. "Television Rules the Nation," with that resonant, repeated mantra, consecrates a world-historic fact: that everything — politics, the economy, families, the imagination — is falling into a crushing orbit around the tube. And it's getting worse. "One More Time" has been touched up with celestial synth riffs that sound like what happens when you press down on your eyelids and colored forms glide across them. Psychedelia and 10-ton beats aren't the only of Daft Punk's M.O.'s, however. The band seems to channel the loud discordance of the zeitgeist, and Alive 2007, with its human-robot motifs, might well be an omen and touchstone of the Virtual Age. Exhorting the crowd to life, the concert ends on "Human After All." But are we anymore? -- Penn Bullock
We received an email earlier this week that Skankin' Pickle guitarist Lynette Knackstedt died last week in the band's practice space. We're still waiting for confirmations on the details, but Punknews.org reported that Lynette died last Friday, Dec. 7, at age 37. Our condolences go out to her family, friends, and fans.
