Welcome to

So, it’s been 40 whole years since Woodstock’s massive effect on the world. Thousands turned up to see some of the most famous acts of the time, such as The Who, Hendrix, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and many more brilliant bands. The turn out was amazing, over 400,000 people traveled from all around the world to be a part of this life changing experience.

The festival was an idea to change the way our world thought, it was a free event, to get as many people as possible to attend. The subject as we all know was for more peace and love on the planet, and indeed it was a weekend full of love, peace and happiness. Amazingly, there were no more than 6,000 injuries over the whole weekend and three deaths, one accident and two drug related deaths. Which is pretty impressive to say there were over 400,000 people at the Festival.

In 1999 Woodstock had another festival, again to bring peace and love to the world. This time there were around 200,000 fans entering the three day event. The ‘99 Woodstock did not go to plan. In fact it was a disaster, but come on, what did they think would happen. You put 200,000 people in a field in front of the likes of metal gods Metallica and Rage Against The Machine.. not exactly going to have a loving peaceful weekend are you. On paper the line up was incredible, well if you have James Brown and the Chilli Peppers on the same stage it’s going to be pretty special isn’t it. The festival soon turned into a full scale riot including huge fires and big brawls. The reason being, Woodstock 69 was a free event full of peace and tranquillity, 99 wasn’t free and people were even getting searched to make sure there was no food being brought into the festival. To me it seams like it was a scheme to make a lot of money, not an event to change the world!

I personally blame it on the amount of hardcore, heavy metal acts supporting Woodstock. Such as Korn and Limpbizkit, two bands that are notorious for getting their fans to go crazy. Silly if you ask me. If your looking for a peaceful weekend then James Brown and Elvis Costello are perfect, Insane Clown posse and Kid Rock not so much!

Now we’re in 2009, forty years after the original Woodstock. There is a special anniversary taking place in both New York (August 15th-16th) and Berlin, Germany (August 22nd – 23rd). It was a fantastic success in New York and i’m sure Germany will be the same. Woodfest is free like the 69 weekend and has a lot more sensible choices of acts.

All of you lucky enough to enter either events have an amazing weekend and enjoy all the bands you see. Also don’t forget why you are going to this festival, to appreciate the brilliant music and to help put more peace in this world, I’m sure you all will have a great few days and I hope to see some reviews on how the weekend went.

Cheers, Tom Playrecord.net

For many of people including myself, there isn’t much time left until the festival is up and away!
I’ve heard many mixed views about how this year’s Leeds/Reading festival will turn out. Personally, I can’t wait for it. I know it’s tough competing with last years line up as it had some of the best metal bands on the planet, such as rock gods Metallica and Rage Against The Machine head lining, along with many other brilliant live acts.

This year on the other hand has rock legends, Faith No More headlining the NME/Radio 1 stage. Also, the amazing Radiohead headlining the main stage. That’s not it, there is a much better selection of bands to suite every taste this year!

Throughout the weekend there’s a wide range of music such as uber dance group, The Prodigy, who will be supporting the Arctic Monkeys on the main stage, Deadmau5 headlining the dance stage, Deftones right along side Fall Out Boy and FFAF plus many more massive names; Kings of Leon and the Lostprophets!

I’m sure most people will agree it is going to be a time to remember for many years to come. I hope all of you attending either Reading or Leeds have an awesome weekend and enjoy all the bands you are wishing to see! =D

Written by Tom B

So, it seems that even though we kicked-up a fuss about a Hip-Hop artist performing at our biggest festival this year, we loved his performance and decided to get ourselves to the nearest shop to buy his album…..

The so called “Glastonbury effect” has meant that Jay-Z has now seen his album sales rocket by nearly five-fold..not bad for an album that came out in 2003. He’s not on his own though, many of the artists have seen an increase in album sales since the event, such as
Amy Winehouse and Neil Diamond.

So are we in a time now where Glastonbury will be hailed as a commercial, sales boosting marketing campaign?… quite possibly. The industry will be feeling the bennefit of sales, especially with the amount of downloading that has impacted on high-street business over the last few years. No doubt the major’s will be rubbing their hands together in anticipation of the next “Glastonbury Effect”.

Further Reading
A.M. Nuggets: Glastonbury Festival Pics & Reviews
I wish I was there: Massive Attack at Glastonbury 2008
Amy Winehouse performs/fights at Glastonbury
Lupe Fiasco – Glastonbury Speech

Bo Diddley died from heart failure on monday this week surrounded by family and loveod ones at his home in Florida. He was famous for his unique ‘Bo-Diddley beat’ that laid the foundations for rock ‘n’ roll.

Diddley’s debut single titled “Bo-Diddley” hit number 1 in the R & B chart back in 1955. His success shined throughout the 50’s and 60’s with several releases, interviews and shows. His work continued, and he kept touring into his later years.

In May 2007 Bo Diddley was admitted to intensive care follwing a stroke he suffered after a concert in Iowa. A heart attack followed in August the same year. While recovering from both stroke and heart attack Diddley went back to his home town of McComb for the unveiling of a plaque devoted to him on the National Blues Trail, it was at this unveiling that he played his last public performance. Whilst Jesse Robinson sang a song written for the occasion, he felt that Diddley wanted to perform and handed him a microphone.

Further Reading

Thanks, Bo Diddley
RIP Bo Diddley
Bye Bye Bo Diddley
RIP Bo Diddley
RIP Bo Diddley
Bo Diddley Dies at 79

Oasis are said to have “swiped” Robbie Williams drummer Chris Sharrock. It was reported that Zak Starkey, their previous drummer, has quit the band and the remaining members of Oasis have spent no time at all replacing him with Chris Sharrock.

Chris has work with a number of bands and artists in his career including the La’s and most recently Robbie Williams.

Chris and Zak seem to be following in each others footsteps. They have both been involved with The Lightning Seeds and it now seems they can both say they have been part of Oasis.

We can assume that Robbie Williams will be far from pleased with this news, as himself and Oasis have had rivalry since 2000.

The Drum kit set up that Chris Sharrock uses is the Premier Maple Classic series:

14″ x 8″ Maple Classic Rack Tom (x3)
14″ x 9″ Maple Classic Rack Tom
14″ x 10″ Maple Classic Rack Tom
14″ x 14″ Maple Classic Floor Tom
16″ x 16″ Maple Classic Floor Tom
18″ x 16″ Maple Classic Floor Tom
22″ x 14″ Maple Classic Bass Drum (x2)
22″ x 18″ Maple Classic Bass Drum
14″ x 5.5″ Steel Modern Classic Snare (Parallel Action)

Over 300 of the worlds leading musical instrument distributers and maufacturers will be packed into Londons ExCeL venue on the 14th and 15th of June to inspire you, the consumer with their latest gear.

London International Music Show is 4 shows in one; London Guitar show, Drummer Live, Unplugged and the Sound Recording & Technoligy show all under one roof and one ticket gets you into all shows.

The show promises all the lastest gear and technology with siminars, conferences and even celebrities of the music world. You can expect to see exhibitors from “Acoustic Guitar Magazine” through to “Yamaha Music UK”, and instruments from xylaphones to bassoons.

On the Live stage you can see Paul gilbert playing on saturday for the London Guitar show, Chad smith will be beating them skins for the Drummer live line-up, and the list goes on….

For updates on the event visit www.londoninternationalmusicshow.com and be sure to not miss the best music event this year.

Glastonbury Festival is without a doubt the most famous of UK festivals. An infamous quagmire of muddy music fans brazenly braving the worst of the UKs climate to spend a weekend in a field listening to diverse music and generally having a great time.

This year Hip Hop Legend Jay-Z has been booked for as headline slot. He is by no means the first Hip Hop act to grace the stage at Glastonbury, but its the first time that a Hip Hop act, as opposed to to a classic guitars, drums, vocals band will headline.

Organiser Emily Eavis commented on the “interesting undercurrent” to some of the blogs and public statements objecting to Jay-Z’s place on the lineup. “I’m not sure what to call it,” she says, “at least not in public, but this is something that causes me some disquiet.”

So should the Glasto lineup be dominated by Guitar acts, or is it time that the lineup had a shakeup?

Use the comments system to tell us your thoughts…

Related Blogs
http://www.barkbiteblog.com/2008/04/oasis-star-does.html
http://lovesoul.tv/2008/02/06/jay-z-to-headline-glastonbury/
http://www.stephennewton.com/2008/04/glastonbury-jay-z.html
http://honoluluhiphop.wordpress.com/2008/04/14/oasis-disses-jay-z/
http://www.hecklerspray.com/…
http://www.thelifefiles.com/theyre-not-having-hip-hop-jay-z-in-glastonbury-uk/
http://www.britgossip.com/index.php/2008/04/jay-z-is-right-for-glastonbury/
http://www.festivalnews.co.uk/jay-z-to-headline-glastonbury-2008/
http://blog.musicomh.com/musicomh/2008/04/glastonbury—n.html

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Billy Bragg commented on the fact that social networking sites are often featuring copyrighted music, but the artists are not getting any royalties. He dismissed the idea though of charging the audience and instead suggested that musicians should target the businessmen behind the sites for royalites in the same way that radio stations pay for royalites, not the listeners.

“How does an artist get some sort of reward for their contribution to a business like Bebo? Now, we can charge the users at that end, or we can talk to the businessmen. How do we get recompense from radio stations? We don’t charge the listeners. We charge the business. So I think before we start beating up on our audiences, which is never a good idea in my experience, we really should be looking at where the money is and where the money is going.”

You can see the full interview here

Modern Progressive Rockers Muse have announced that they are considering dropping the traditional album format and will instead release songs one at a time. Frontman Matt Bellamy mentioned the bands thinking on their future relases whilst speaking to NME.

“I don’t think we’re going to approach the next album like we’re making an album.”

“I like the idea of releasing a series of songs, every month or every couple of months – just putting songs out there. Almost like making the single a more prominent format, and then every few years doing a best of from that period and that would be the album. So in other words, throw out songs every couple of months and see how people like them.”

Related Blogs
MUSE GET READY TO RELEASE LIVE DVD/CD
Muse – Absolution

There can not be many people on the who use the internet who have not come across Facebook. Now that it has achieved critcal mass in the world of social networking, it is working to expand its business and capitalise on the massive amounts of traffic that it receives.

The next thing that they are bringing in is looking like its going to be some kind of music streaming service to compete with the like of Apple’s iTunes. This would bring in another revenue stream for the site which at the moment relies on advertising.

This would bring it into more direct competition with social networking behemoth myspace – the original favourite of musicians and bands due to the fact that is has allowed the uploading and streaming of music for a long time now. Most active bands have their own myspace page these days.

Facebook is also directly targeting myspace with the addition of music template pages. These are pretty much a rip off of the myspace idea

The music template Page offers the ability to:

• Send updates about tours and concerts

• Showcase new releases and post your discography
• Add Facebook Music Player to stream your music and post buy links
• Sell tickets and merchandise
• Engage fans with rich media and streaming video
• Import photos from concerts anywhere in the world