Welcome to the Alternative Blog, your hub for all things Alternative. Here, you'll get the latest on our community, as well as fashion, music, pop culture, and more!
Happy Holidays! We're pleased as punch to offer you an exclusive FREE download of "This is War", a holiday song from Dexter Tortoriello and Megan Messina, the duo known as Houses. Back in October, we featured their single "Soak It Up" on our music player, and we were delighted when they offered to make some holiday magic for us. They opted to record a cover of "This is War," originally written and recorded by Dustin Kensrue, as well as creating a video for the song. Here's what Dexter had to say about the music:
The Lighthouse and the Whaler having been enchanting us with their wonderful sounds throughout 2010. We first met the gang back in March during SXSW in Austin and later spent more quality time with them when they performed as finalists in our Unsigned Artist Competition in New York this past August. They recently stopped through Atlanta while on tour and we were able to meet up with the guys for a special unplugged performance while we wasted away the afternoon hanging out in a Midtown parking lot. First song up is "White Days" which, P.S., is also the song we used for our Fall 2010 campaign.
I think that the question "Are you ready to rock?!" is mostly a rheotorical one, but never ones to shy away from a good time, the guys of Fang Island have responded with a resounding "#%$@ YEH!" like the roar of a thousand amped-up stadium fans echoing the call of Gary Glitter. So yes, here's another band for your album collection with five guys who are strongly rooted in classic rock, but Fang Island does it a little bit better than most. Their self-titled sophomore album, which came out earlier this year, was voted "Best New Music" by Pitchfork, who added that Fang Island's "music is just honest and life-affirming and infectious, and it's that rare concentration of directness and simplicity that makes Fang Island so uniquely and wonderfully inclusive." We caught a performance last Saturday and were impressed not only by their sincere desire to have a good time (e.g., the show opened with guitarist Nick instructing everyone in the audience to high five each other) but also by their very visible comraderie, their very own "brotherhood of rock". At almost every point during their set, the vocals were performed by most (if not all) of the 5 band members with very rare solo spotlights - these guys are seriously ready to rock you and it's a true team effort.
Do you remember when you first heard the news that Gwyneth Paltrow was going to star in a movie called Duets about competitive karaoke singers? And then you watched it and found out she could actually sing, on top of the fact that she was already a talented actress and a gorgeous knock-out, to boot? And then you thought, "What, is there nothing this woman CAN'T do??" Well, here we go again: Nanna Øland Fabricius, better known to you and I as Oh Land. She's the Danish daughter of an opera singer and a church organist, a former ballerina and current singer/songwriter who, oh yes, happens to be very beautiful. And though she can pass as Heidi Klum's sister and her music sounds like a cross between Björk and Florence & The Machine, Oh Land definitely offers a creative new interpretation on the female pop star.
It’s that one time of year where we welcome all things spooky out in the open. The haunting yet tons o' fun time of the year where we take the literal skeletons out of the literal closet: it’s Halloween! As a special Halloween treat for all of you fashion fiends and glamorous ghouls, we have a special interview with the redheaded rockstar herself, Melissa Auf der Maur. Although Melissa isn’t a huge Halloween fan, she is certainly no stranger to things of a dark nature; the video for her latest single “Meet Me on the Darkside” has been released just this month from her second solo album Out of Our Minds. You may know Miss Auf der Maur primarily as the bassist from Hole and later as the bassist for Smashing Pumpkins, but she’s been busy working away this millennium as a solo artist, both in music and mediums beyond. Read our exclusive interview with Melissa Auf der Maur and find about her creative process, the “Darkside” and other things that go bump in the night (i.e. her cats).
