Alice in Chains are currently being featured on Yahoo Music’s Maximum Performance! The band stopped by the Yahoo studios to perform an acoustic set featuring songs off the new record Black Gives Way To Blue. The band rocked through amazing acoustic renditions of their new hit single “Check My Brain”, “Black Gives Way To Blue”, and “Your Decision”. The band also sat down with Yahoo for an exclusive video interview, where the band talks about life after Layne, and their amazing re-birth with new singer William DuVall.

Alice in Chains’ new album Black Gives Way To Blue is in-stores now.

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This past summer, a certain performance, at a smaller venue in Chicago, managed to steal the thunder that Lollapalooza typically brings to the city and the music world.

That performance was the debut of Them Crooked Vultures at the Metro on August 9.

In a year of super groups, like Chickenfoot and Monsters of Folk, TCV has to be the sickest. Comprised of Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin) and Dave Grohl (Nirvana/Foo Fighters), these guys were, and are, part of some of the biggest and baddest bands of the 70’s, 90’s and 00’s.

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I’ve had the pleasure of working with a really cool band out of Jersey City, NJ called Devi over the past few months, so I figured it’s about time I shared some information about them here on my blog (sorry this took so long Debra!)

One of the first band’s I ever had the pleasure of working with was a NYC band called Black Market Radio, where I met bassist Keith Mannino, now working with Devi. Small world.

With a lot of buzz surrounding them, it’s been a lot of fun helping them develop a stronger web presence that’s definitely building their fanbase. Check out what we did over at devi-rock.com

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Nine Inch Nails just wrapped up their Wave Goodbye tour, which is the end of NIN as a touring act, and may also be taking a break for a bit. So here’s a look back at the career of one of the most visionary groups from the 90’s.

• Michael Trent Reznor was born on May, 17 1965 in Mercer, PA.
• At age five he began playing piano.
• In 1985 Reznor moved to Cleveland and got a job as a janitor at Right Track Studio.
• While working at Right Track, Reznor recorded nine demos that would be known as Purest Feeling in 1988.

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During the 90’s it was routine for Pearl Jam to release a new album pretty much every other year. Now they’re going several years between albums. There was a four year gap between Riot Act in 2002 and 2006’s self-titled release and a three year period building up to Backspacer.

But it’s finally here, after months of promotion and teasing us.

There was the debut of “Got Some” on Conan’s inaugural Late Show on June 1. Then there was the storm surrounding the news that the now label-free band would exclusively release Backspacer via Target.

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Hailed by Spin as “one of the catchiest songs of Alice In Chains’ history,” lead single “Check My Brain” has blanketed rock and alternative radio and rocketed straight to No. 1 on Billboard’s Rock Songs Chart and No. 1 on the R&R Rock Chart.

The riff-driven track appears on the band’s highly anticipated new album, Black Gives Way To Blue (Virgin/EMI), available September 29th. Playboy gave the disc four stars, calling it “Alice In Chains’ Back In Black,” Revolver praised the record for its “dense tapestry of heavy guitars and soaring melodies” and Reuters wrote “the heavy guitars, submerged vocals and thunderous rhythm section assures fans that the band has lost none of its menace.”

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We should all know that 9/9/09 means one thing…the release of The Beatles: Rock Band and the remastered release of their catalog!

Now that we all get to do our own “covers” of Beatles classics, I thought we would look back at some of the other acts that have covered the Fab Four over the years.

Now there have been A TON of Beatles covers, after all, it’s only a prerequisite to cover them if you’re in a band. There’s covers from legends (Elvis, Frank Sinatra, Stevie Wonder, and Johnny Cash) to “glam” rock (Bowie, Motley Crue) to jam bands (DMB, Phish, Black Crowes) to comedic renditions (Jim Carey, Tenacious D) to sampling (The Roots, Danger Mouse’s Jay-Z/Beatles mash up The Grey Album).

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Wolfmother has just launched the first of a series of a behind the scenes looks at their forthcoming opus, Cosmic Egg. Transmissions From The Cosmic Egg: Episode 1 travels the open high-way to Byron Bay where much of the record was born and pre-production took place.

In the piece front man Andrew Stockdale provides an introspective look at the new album, “sometimes I kind of think… Are these songs good enough? Will people like them?” and goes on to explain, “I think these songs suit me. They suit the way I sing and what I can relate to, the world I can relate to.”

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Brothers and sisters sound the siren, a new moon is rising and the return of Wolfmother is well and truly upon us.

With Cosmic Egg hatching in just under two months, Wolfmother have finally decided to share their new single, “New Moon Rising” with the world. The track, which premiered on AOL’s Spinner.com showcases frontman Andrew Stockdale’s continued music exploration of psychedelic rock while proving his new pack of Wolfies were just what he needed to keep the rock alive and well.

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It’s only natural for musicians to eventually team up together. It’s like lamb to the slaughter. Sometimes a collaboration just isn’t enough to get musicians off. Sometimes they need to go the extra mile and form a supergroup.

With recent news of James Iha and Taylor Hanson’s Tinted Windows project, and of course the much awaited Chickenfoot (featuring Hagar, Satriani, Michael Anthony from VH and Chad Smith from RHCP!), let’s take a look down memory lane and check out the many supergroups of the past and present, more importantly those that rocked the Seattle scene throughout the 90’s.

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With a surprisingly warm Friday to start off the weekend, and because I’m just hours away from seeing Scott Weiland at the TLA, I’m in a pretty rocking mood.

Also might be because I’ve been checking out the new debut album from Newark, Delaware’s very own Cubane, entitled C9H8.

The band will be playing a local hometown show to release the album tomorrow, so it’s only fitting that I send you off with some tunes to check out over the weekend. The album should be available digitally very soon, so be sure to check out the Cubane site or MySpace page for updates.

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I mentioned a few weeks ago that Staind was offering some very cool pricing options to sell it’s latest release, “The Illusion of Progress”, which goes on sale today.

They bundled the CD with a T-Shirt and a one-year membership to the fan club for around 28 bones. Not a bad deal as you’d probably pay that much for a t-shirt at a show. Plus, the CD came with 3 exclusive live versions of of “It’s Been Awhile”, “Devil”, and Schizophrentic Conversations”.

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