After close to two years waiting for this season of the Sopranos to begin, I must confess it felt eerily surreal to be watching a brand new episode today. Having watched (and re-watched) the first 5 seasons on DVD many, many times - it was with baited breath that I waited for the torrents to kick in. My usual modus operandi is to have my fave torrent site feed my RSS reader (Netnewswire) with info on the latest torrents. Having set one of my Dashboard clocks to New York time, I knew when the show would be airing. Once the torrent fed itself into my RSS reader, it’s off to Usenet and alt.binaries.multimedia to leech on. (Usenet is astronomically much faster than torrents).
And was it worth the wait? Hell yeah! A mind-blowing first up episode indeed that featured a completely surprising plot twist. I certainly was not expecting what happened and am very curious how this will all unfold.
Believe the hype. It simply does not get much better than this.
Launch Radio Networks reports: There’s been no official comment, but there just might be something brewing between Led Zeppelin leaders Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. The pair has been estranged for a few years, with Plant repeatedly saying he has no interest in revisiting the past. However, while neither man is currently on tour, they were both in Los Angeles last week, and they stayed at the same hotel. Of course, that could just be a coincidence, but photographer Ross Halfin wrote in his online diary at that he was with both men in L.A. in separate incidents, and that Plant was “in town with Jimmy Page.”
Over the past few years, Page has asked Plant to work together, but Plant has always declined and said repeatedly that he has no interest in revisiting the past.
In August of 2004, Page told the U.K. newspaper The Independent that he was thinking about doing a Santana-style album with a number of guests. There’s been no word on how far along the project is, or when it might come out.
Plant kicks off a European tour on Friday (March 10) at the Caprices Festival in Crans-Montana, Switzerland. North American shows haven’t been announced for this year yet.
Several new photos of ALICE IN CHAINS members Jerry Cantrell (guitar) Mike Inez (bass) and Sean Kinney (drums) rehearsing for their upcoming appearance at the taping of an episode of VH1 Classic’s “Decades Rock Live!” have been posted online at Cantrell’s official web site.
As previously reported, COMES WITH THE FALL vocalist/guitarist and member of Jerry Cantrell’s touring band William DuVall has been tapped to sing lead vocals with ALICE IN CHAINS at “Decades Rock Live!”, a tribute to HEART that will take place March 10 at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. It is not presently clear if DuVall will be joining the group on any of the other dates that are currently being scheduled.
In a recent interview with MTV.com, Cantrell confirmed that “there will be some ALICE IN CHAINS shows this year — that’s a fact.” At this point, the guitarist said, all he can really say is that the band is active, and that the remaining members of ALICE will be taking the stage this summer to perform songs from the band’s catalog.
“We’re making it up as we go along,” Cantrell explained to MTV.com. “It’s what we always did in the past. We’re writing the book as we live it. We feel confident that we will have a good time and that it’s something that will live up to the same level. It’s an exploratory thing, and we’re just having fun with it. We’d like to go out and play for the people that supported us and love the music as much as we have all these years. We want to celebrate what we did and the memory of our friend.” [Referring to late ALICE frontman Layne Staley, who died in April 2002 from a mixture of heroin and cocaine.]
Upcoming ALICE IN CHAINS shows:
Jun. 02 - Nürburgring, GER @ Rock am Ring
Jun. 03 - Nürnberg, GER @ Rock im Park
Jun. 04 - Milan, ITA @ Gods of Metal
Jun. 10 - Donington, UK @ Download
Jun. 11 – Dublin, IRE @ Download
Jun. 15 - Burgenland, AUT @ Nova Rock
According to KissKollector.com, KISS’ original Spaceman Ace Frehley is featured in the new issue of Entertainment Weekly talking about the science-fiction series “Stargate Atlantis” in the magazine’s “Random Celebrity Critic” section. Ace reviews the series and apparently insinuates that he will be appearing in one of the show’s upcoming episodes.
Frehley is no stranger of the TV camera having done gigs on “MAD-TV,” “Howard Stern” and Lance Hendrickson’s “Millennium.” Ace has also done voice-over work for a couple of “Family Guy” episodes.
A video that recreates the introduction to The Simpsons with live actors is spreading across the internet faster than Homer can say “D’oh” - part of a viral marketing campaign by UK satellite broadcaster BSkyB.
Painstakingly crafted by Sky and its ad agency Devilfish, the video was originally intended as an on-air promotion for the Sky One network, which airs new episodes of The Simpsons in the UK.
The company decided to release it on the internet as part of a word-of-mouth brand building exercise, tapping into the red-hot web video sector.
“If we had only showed it on air, you might turn to someone and say that was really cool,” said BSkyB communications director Matthew Anderson. “Putting it online, there’s a fantastic discussion between millions of people - it’s bringing the Simpsons to them instead of having them tune in.”
After less than a week, the video has been viewed millions of times at online video sites like YouTube and Google Video.
The move to create word-of-mouth “viral” content follows similar guerrilla marketing efforts from major advertisers such as Nike and Microsoft, and comes amid a concerted push by traditional media companies to expand their online businesses.
The live-action Simpsons video is a remarkably faithful live-action re-enactment of the animated show’s title sequence, although diligent fans quickly picked up on small discrepancies that betrayed its British origins, including “Marge Simpson” driving in a car with the steering wheel on the “wrong” side.
The booming popularity of internet video has raised fears about online piracy after the boom in file-sharing that decimated the music industry.
The “Simpsons” video was intended to spread freely, and Anderson said that Sky worked closely with Simpsons producers and creator Matt Groening. Global media conglomerate News Corp owns The Simpsons as well as about a third of BSkyB. In recent weeks some media companies have cracked down on unauthorised distribution of their content.
YouTube was recently forced by US broadcaster NBC to take down video from Saturday Night Live that had been widely shared online. NBC is now hosting the video clips, including a spoof gangster rap by actress Natalie Portman, on its own advertising-supported site.
“Now, instead of searching the web for ‘borrowed’ NBC highlights, you can go to the source! We’ve taken your viral favourites and gathered them into one convenient location,” the site reads.
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