Year: 2013

11 Feb 2013
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Live From Music City with Scott Rockenfield of Queensryche

scott-213x300

Live From Music City talks with Scott Rockenfield of Queensryche about music business topics, their upcoming show in Nashville on March 12th, 2013, his other business ventures, the state of the chain drum cage and the outpouring of fan support as Queensryche moves forward with new music and a new singer. Join us and hear the classic Queensryche tracks “The Lady Wore Black, Walk in the Shadows and Eyes of a Stranger.”

Click the link here to listen to the interview: LFMCScottRockenfield020713

Scott was raised and has lived in the Seattle, Washington area for his entire life. He started music and drum lessons at the age of 11 and focused his studies on music and film classes throughout his high school years. In 1981, at the age of 17, he founded the now multi-platinum rock band Queensryche. Since the band’s inception thirty years ago, they’ve sold over 20 million albums worldwide and have toured around the world, encompassing 45 countries.
Scott first started composing music for film and television in the late 80’s during his time spent with “The Maestro” Michael Kamen. During that time, Kamen asked Scott to work on some additional drums and percussion for the 1993 film, Last Action Hero, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Michael continued working and mentoring Scott in all aspects of film music and compostion for many years to come, until his unfortunate passing in 2003. This began Scott’s exciting new journey scoring music for film and television. After only a few years in the specialty, Scott received a coveted Grammy Award nomination for Best Original Music for the animated feature film Televoid in 1998.
Scott has done a variety of projects since then including the recently completed additional music and all LIVE drums for the immensely popular video game, Call of Duty: Black Ops. Released in November 2010, the game set a new five-day sales record with an estimated take of approximately $650 million worldwide. Just prior to his involvement with Call of Duty: Black Ops, Scott did the orchestrated and electronic score for the horror flick, Albino Farm, released in September of 2009.
In 2003, Scott Launched his own custom drum company called RockenWraps, which specializes in custom graphic laminated wraps for drums and musical instruments. Working with artists such as Lady Gaga, SlipKnot, Beyonce, Rod Stewart, Rob Zombie, Megadeth, WASP, Metallica, Tesla, 30 Seconds to Mars, Snoop Dog and many many, more, RockenWraps has had a chance to design some of the most memorable drum and stage graphics ever to be available.
Scott also has his own music company, Hollywood Loops, that specializes in Sound FX for film, television and video game composing. Distributed around the world, Hollywood Loops products have now been used in video games such as Call Of Duty: Black Ops and also in numerous film and television trailers.
Scott now has dozens of film, television and multimedia projects to his credit and owns his own state-of-the-art recording studio.
He lives in Seattle with his wife and three kids.

http://www.scottrockenfield.net

http://www.scottrockenfield.com

www.twitter.com/scottrockenfiel

www.queensrycheofficial.com

www.twitter.com/queensryche

https://www.facebook.com/#!/QueensrycheOfficial?fref=ts

 

08 Feb 2013
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Live From Music City Interview with Scott Rockenfield of Queensryche Coming Soon!

scott-213x300

Scott was raised and has lived in the Seattle, Washington area for his entire life. He started music and drum lessons at the age of 11 and focused his studies on music and film classes throughout his high school years. In 1981, at the age of 17, he founded the now multi-platinum rock band Queensryche. Since the band’s inception thirty years ago, they’ve sold over 20 million albums worldwide and have toured around the world, encompassing 45 countries.
Scott first started composing music for film and television in the late 80’s during his time spent with “The Maestro” Michael Kamen. During that time, Kamen asked Scott to work on some additional drums and percussion for the 1993 film, Last Action Hero, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Michael continued working and mentoring Scott in all aspects of film music and compostion for many years to come, until his unfortunate passing in 2003. This began Scott’s exciting new journey scoring music for film and television. After only a few years in the specialty, Scott received a coveted Grammy Award nomination for Best Original Music for the animated feature film Televoid in 1998.
Scott has done a variety of projects since then including the recently completed additional music and all LIVE drums for the immensely popular video game, Call of Duty: Black Ops. Released in November 2010, the game set a new five-day sales record with an estimated take of approximately $650 million worldwide. Just prior to his involvement with Call of Duty: Black Ops, Scott did the orchestrated and electronic score for the horror flick, Albino Farm, released in September of 2009.
In 2003, Scott Launched his own custom drum company called RockenWraps, which specializes in custom graphic laminated wraps for drums and musical instruments. Working with artists such as Lady Gaga, SlipKnot, Beyonce, Rod Stewart, Rob Zombie, Megadeth, WASP, Metallica, Tesla, 30 Seconds to Mars, Snoop Dog and many many, more, RockenWraps has had a chance to design some of the most memorable drum and stage graphics ever to be available.
Scott also has his own music company, Hollywood Loops, that specializes in Sound FX for film, television and video game composing. Distributed around the world, Hollywood Loops products have now been used in video games such as Call Of Duty: Black Ops and also in numerous film and television trailers.
Scott now has dozens of film, television and multimedia projects to his credit and owns his own state-of-the-art recording studio.
He lives in Seattle with his wife and three kids.

www.scottrockenfield.net

www.scottrockenfield.com

08 Feb 2013
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Live From Music City with Tommy Kessler of Blondie, Rock of Ages and the Blue Man Group

TommyKessler

Tommy Kessler is an American guitarist currently in the new wave/rock band, Blondie.[1] He joined the band in April 2010, replacing guitarist Paul Carbonara who had left Blondie to pursue other projects. When not touring with Blondie, he performs as a guitarist in the fictional 1980’s Rock Band Arsenal in the Broadway musical, Rock of Ages.[2] He has been with Rock of Ages since it opened off Broadway in 2008. He has worked with Kristin Chenoweth playing guitar during her performances on Good Morning America[3] and The View.[4] He has also been part of the band in the New York City performance of Blue Man Group since 2006. He currently uses Jason Z. Schroeder handmade guitars[5] as well as Taylor Guitars. The Taylor models he uses are 854ce and 810e in Rock of Ages, the K14ce and SolidBody Classic with Tremolo in Blondie, and GA3-12ea and NS74ce in studio. Tommy is also currently using a custom handmade JZ Guitars model TK-1 on tour with Blondie.

This interview was recorded in October but due to health and technical issues, it is being posted now. Our apologies to all who were waiting for this.

Click the link to hear the interview  LFMCTommyKessler

For more info on Tommy Kessler click on these links:

http://www.tommykessler.com/#!

http://twitter.com/TheRealTommyK

https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/tommy.kessler.75?fref=ts

http://www.youtube.com/user/tommykesslermusic

08 Feb 2013
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The Disconnect Between Musicians and Promoters Part 1

You hear it all the time from musicians. “Why won’t they book me for an opening act?” “How come they got the spot and we didn’t?”, or “the promoter didn’t do his job” even “the promoter screwed me or didn’t know what they were doing.” etc…. This is obviously a one sided opinion, and from my experience one that is very, very misleading. Many artists have little or no experience in promoting a show, or have an idea what it costs; they just want to blame someone for things not going right, without ever looking at what they bring or don’t bring to the table.

Granted there are instances where maybe a promoter didn’t know what they were doing or maybe there were a small company with very little cash flow to do an amazing job of advertising the show, but that is a risk we all take and like all bands, promotion companies have to start somewhere and grow as well. This is why working as a team is incredibly important and any acts associated with a bill, should be doing everything in their power to work with the promoter and make the show as successful as possible.

I find this can be very frustrating, knowing how much work and money it takes to put on one single show. For a 1,500 seat venue, this can become extremely time consuming and expensive for the risk involved, and a marginal profitable return on the investment. To have a small time musician/band say that the promoter didn’t do their job is completely asinine. First of all, the musician/band probably has no idea what it really takes to make one of these shows happen, and secondly, what an opportunity it is for the band to even get a spot on this when someone else is paying for your opportunity and the big media. Most opening bands should realize by now that their job is to put butts in seats or they have no business opening a show for anyone. They should be able to bring in at least 40 to 50 people to each opening or they shouldn’t complain at all.

To put on a show of this size can run from $50,000 up to over $100,000 depending on the type of venue, marketing, guarantee etc… It takes at least 60 – 90 days worth of work, negotiations, planning and so forth to get these things going. When a band is given an opportunity to open a show, many times they don’t deliver and don’t work the opportunity for all it’s worth.

Promoting the show is so important. I am not talking about Facebook posts or the other white noise that you are putting out. I am talking about getting promotional materials, getting off your butt, and doing your job. You should be out on the streets consistently promoting and showing everyone that you are the band to hire for opening spots. Getting the promoter, venue and others to notice you is as important as performing on stage. Doing everything you can to get your fans to purchase tickets to come see you at this event, and then deliver the best show you can that night no matter what the circumstances is the ultimate goal.

Remember, the promoter doesn’t owe you anything. They gave you a shot and if you don’t deliver, it’s no ones fault but your own. Once you do the show, if you happen to deliver and get butts in the seat, then you need to learn to turn that into other opportunities.

In the next blog we will talk about ideas you can do to not only get the opening spots but to also get people to the show but also how to possibly get more out of the show than just exposing your music to a new audience.

Good luck!

You can also read this and some of my other articles at www.metalholic.com. http://metalholic.com/the-disconnect-between-musicians-and-promoters-part-1/

07 Feb 2013
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CD Review – “Transitions” by Steve Lukather

CD Review – “Transition” by Steve Lukather

transition

For many of you, TOTO is a household name; for those of you born after 1985, maybe not. There is no denying TOTO is still a huge act internationally and world renown guitar player Steve Lukather is a huge part of their sound – from songwriting, singing, and, of course his legendary guitar playing. Steve is one of the most recorded guitar players in history – playing with the likes of Lionel Richie, Michael Jackson, Larry Carlton, Van Halen, Cheap Trick, Eric Clapton and George Benson to name a few. A total of 602 album credits to date which by anyone’s standards is amazing.

“Transition” produced by Steve and CJ Vanston is Steve’s 6th solo record to date, not including a couple that are more Steve and friends releases. Having all these CD’s personally and being a huge fan, I was really looking forward to the release of “Transition” and let me tell you it doesn’t disappoint. Steve lets it all hang out on here and deals with some tough subjects such as all the criticism that artists (himself included) receive on a daily basis now that anyone can post anything on the internet.

The CD features an all-star cast of musicians such as Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers/Chicken Foot), Phil Collen (Def Leppard), Tal Wilkenfield, Richard Page (Mr. Mister), Nathan East, Leland Sklar, Greg Bissonette and Lenny Castro. The CD’s hot spots for me are “Judgment Day” and “Creep Motel.”

The first track is “Judgment Day” and the bright point in my opinion. This song is a four on the floor rock song with a blistering solo. It has it’s laid back moments of Steve finger pickings a simple rhythm, but very melodic lines are inserted throughout with a nice bridge/pre-chorus build ups to add weight to the chorus. The song is a message to all the Internet haters out there so take head all you-who-love-to-comment-online about your opinions of other peoples work.

The second track “Creep Motel” deals with the same issues and to me has a slight hint of a Steely Dan vibe in spots. This is a solid rock song with another amazing solo by Luke. As the title would indicate, it has a slinky feel with huge background vocals.

Steve has an uncanny ability to really evoke different moods with his music and does so again here well. Luke’s voice and playing are in fine form and show no signs of slowing down. His sense of melody and playing are something all musicians can learn from. He is definitely someone that knows when to play and when not to which is more important.

The song “Transition” is a great instrumental song written in 7/4 time that adds vocals late into the song. “Right The Wrong” and “Last Man Standing” all have great hooks and are definitely radio capable. All in all, this is a solid CD with not one filler song in its ranks. Well written, well produced with a great energy, and a more organic sound from the Steve Lukather.  Songwriting is at the forefront of this CD, which as we all know, is something very lacking in today’s music scene.

I give this 5 out 5 stars.

You can purchase “Transition” here – https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/transition/id584478886

View the EPK Video for Transition here. Transition EPK

Social media sites for Steve Lukather:

www.stevelukather.net

www.twitter.com/stevelukather

https://www.facebook.com/SteveLukather

http://www.youtube.com/stevelukathertube