Tag: gramatune

Suburbian Rex interview

interview with Suburbian Rex

Anton, Ivo & Julian comprise Suburbian Rex – a Germany based rock trio. Founded in 2015. the band first focused on preparing a smashing live show and hit the stage in march 2016 for the first time. Since then they played about 100 gigs all across Germany and neighboring countries. After several festivals, their first tour and the release of the „Clockwork Universe“ EP, Suburbian Rex gained a lot of experience, professionalism and has now tasted blood for more.
Being somewhere indefinable between „Stoner Rock“, „Psychodelic Rock“ and „Classic Rock“ Suburbian Rex is an interesting live act for everyone that likes to flee from the unbearable mainstream pop (-rock).

We had an interview with Anton, Ivo & Julian. Go ahead and find out more about the trio…

 

1-Tell us about the band and how did you guys get together?

Rumor has it that the three of us have met each other long time ago in school, listening to the same music, having the same hobbies and sharing the opinion, that rock music seems to slowly die in peoples heads. I mean.. listen to todays popular music. No more words needed.

But in fact we all got brainwashed and reseted about 2,5 years ago.. we really can’t tell what happened before Suburbian Rex. All we know is that rock needs a proper revival in todays youth.. we don’t ask. We do.

photo credit: Patricia Heck

 

2- What can you tell us about your first EP?

Well our first Demo EP is a five song EP with legendary bangers like „Last Gang in Town“ and „Pair of Dice“. But that one is definetly not worth talking about. (laughing)

We released our first real EP „Clockwork Universe“ in June 2016. It was more like a compilation of the songs we liked most. We still tried to put a certain feeling in it, we didn’t want to have it straight forward into the faces, which lead us to the decision to put some smooth and more personal songs like „Tell me your story“ or „Behind those walls“ on it. But all in all back than it was time to finally release something that shows people „Hey we are here. Get ready for some heavy shit“.

 

3-Have you ever looked into the audience and seen something funny that made you laugh?

That moment when there are more people on the stage, than in the crowd…

 

4-Do you listen to music from the middle east?

„System of a Down“ and of course „The Lemonoise“.

 

5-Any projects you are working on right now?

Right now we are working on our debut album which we are planning to release next year. Songwriting, demo – recording, cover – design (cheers to Arash Zarifian). Another project we are working on right now is called holiday. Holy shit, last two years were intense.. we need a breather.

 

6-How did you come up with the Band title?

Too many Weizen and crazy minds. Don’t judge us, we are German!

photo credit: Patricia Heck

 

7-Which 3 songs should be your every road trip soundtrack?

Buffalo Springfield – For what its worth
Red Hot Chilli Pepeprs – Pretty Little Ditty
Parov Stelar – The Sun

 

8-What was the best show you’ve ever played?

Playing „Rockaue Festival 2017“. God damn.. rocking the smallest stage with tons of people in front of it. And they even became more during the gig. What would you say if women start running to your merch after your show?!

 

9-Any last words to say?

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Check us out on Spotify, Instagram, Facebook and everywhere you want. We love everyone who supports proper music. Don’t loose faith in rock, spread love, peace and harmony, take time for yourself and don’t let the modern society and stress enter your head till your gone. Be tolerant and be kind to unkind people. They need it most!

Thanks for the interview.

Anton, Ivo & Julian
Suburbian Rex

____________________________________________________________________

All photo credits go to Patricia Heck, Ausdrucksstark Fotografie

  • Interview by Aida Zarifian

Scorpions release a new album

German hard rock icons Scorpions will release an album of their greatest rock ballads next month.
Titled ‘Born To Touch Your Feelings’, the best of compilation features 17 of Scorpions’ finest rock ballads from their five-decade history including two brand new tracks.
Ahead of its release on Friday 24th November, Scorpions have launched an incentive on social media to get fans to unveil the album artwork.
The band explain on their official website: “Post a picture on Instagram with the Hashtag #BornToTouchYourFeelings now. The more pictures posted with the official album hashtag the sooner you will reveal the brand new Scorpions cover. All your pictures can be found in the social wall on this website.”
At the time of writing the album artwork.
The exact track-listing is also yet to be revealed but expect to hear anthems like ‘Wind of Change’, ‘Send Me An Angel’ and ‘Still Loving You’. 
Explaining how the project came about, singer Klaus Meine told SiriusXM last month: “Sony Music approached us and said, ‘C’mon, guys. You have so many powerful songs. And we wanna put it together in some kind of compilation you guys never did before.'”
Of the bonus tracks, he said: “We went in the studio and everybody came up with great ideas. We just finished a recording session and listened to the first mixes and stuff, and it sounds pretty good. It’s gonna be a ‘best of ballads,’ but with those new tracks. And it’s gonna be a cool project.”

source: Planetrock.com

Foo Fighters Premiered a new song called Soldier

Foo Fighters have premiered a new song called ‘Soldier’ that was recorded during ‘Concrete & Gold’ sessions.
The track appears on the compilation album ‘7-Inches for Planned Parenthood’, which is streaming from today and released as a box set on Friday 11th November.
All proceeds from the release will go to sexual health charity Planned Parenthood. The blurb promoting the album reads: “Lawmakers with extreme views are working hard to shut down Planned Parenthood.
“If they succeed, millions of Americans will lose access to basic health services, including STD testing and treatment, birth control, and cancer screenings.
“7-inches for Planned Parenthood is a response to this threat. This curated series of records is made by a group of people who believe that access to health care is a public good that should be fiercely protected.
Boasting epic tracks like ‘Run’ and ‘The Sky Is A Neighbourhood’, Foo Fighters’ ninth studio album ‘Concrete and Gold’ stormed straight in at number one when it was released last month.
Foo Fighters’ massive shows at Manchester Etihad Stadium and London Stadium in June 2018 went on sale at 9 am 20th October.

From left to right: Chris Shiflett, Rami Jaffee, Taylor Hawkins, Dave Grohl, Pat Smear and Nate Mendel

source: Planetrock.com

Saman Barzegar Interview, guitar player from Varte

Saman Barzegar Interview

Saman Barzegar is the guitar player from Varte. Varte started out their career in 1393 as a progressive band, consisting  of Reza Marzban, Aidin Pooladvand and Saman Barzegar.
Their debut album The inscribed tale was released last September which is now available everywhere.

1-Tell me about yourself and how did you make the band?

My name is Saman Barzegar, I started playing classic guitar in 1385 and after 3 or 4 years started playing electric guitar professionally. It was late 1393 that we started our band, “Varte” with my friend Reza Marzban. It’s been 3 years we’re working professionally .

2- How did you choose the name Varte for your band?

We had lots of names in mind. But didn’t agreed on any.One of the guys came up with Varte, we thought for a few days and thought it’s a good one. Since our genre is progressive and we all liked it.

3- What’s your genre? 

Our genre is based on Progressive and alternative themes. But most of our earliest single tracks are more alternative. But I could name “Antalcidas”? which is progressive. But on the whole we’re so open about genre.

4- Tell us about “ Inscribed tale” album?

It has 10 tracks which 4 of them are instrumental and the other 6 have Persian vocals. Our album’s main theme is historical.like each song is based on one specific period of Persian history.

5- What is your favorite track from the album?

Such a hard question! We’ve been working on our album for a year day and night. Might be a bit cliché, but our songs are really like our children!

-if it’s that hard you can choose 2 favorite 

_Yes I can pick 2, our 8th and the second track.The second one is the most significant song in our album.

6- which musicians inspire you?

There are lots of them. I can say what I mostly listen to. I like jazz a lot. Late 60’s and early 70’s progressive rock bands like King Crimson and Pink Floyd are my favorite. From 90’s bands, I like Opeth, Meshuggah and Tool.

7- what would you do if you weren’t a musician? 

If I wasn’t a musician… I can’t answer that! I wouldn’t do anything I guess! Because music is my life an everything.I also spend most of my free times doing music.

8-Do you think Farsi sounds OK on rock music ?

It is I guess, there are lots of great bands who do rock music in their own languages.
Take Rammstein as example, they’ve done great job writing German songs and as for us it’d be so weird to write songs about ancient Iran in English !

9-What’s your plan for the future?

Our album will be out in like two or three months, then we might do concerts in Kerman and Tehran.

The lemonoise band Biography

The lemonoise

Indie rock band The Lemonoise started out its career under the title Bad Lemons back in 1393.

The song Dream was their debut track since which their sound went from punk to funk and more electronic themes, changed the name to The Lemonoise and

started working on their Farsi album called The Odyssey which will be out soon.

They have also released two tracks off the album.

Vocals/electric guitar : Mostafa Hoseini

Electric guitar/bass guitar/engineering : Sina Karimi

Synthesizer/back vocals : Parsa Asadzadeh

Drums/artwork : Arash Zarifian

kahtmayan band biography

kahtmayan

Ancient Iranians called the 26th night of Persian calendar Kahtmayan

. As this night did not exist in the Arabic calendar it did not undergo any change after Arabs invasion of Iran.

As Kahtmayan reflected ancient Iran and was a purely Iranian name, Homayoun Majdzadeh picked it for a Metal band he formed in late 90s.


The main idea behind Kahtmayan was creating music that was based upon eastern melodies and rhythms along with a dark magical atmosphere. Such atmosphere and melodies allowed Homayoun to

reflect on the feelings he had about his hometown.


Homayoun gave Kahtmayan a head start by performing music accompanied by instruments such as “Acoustic guitar”, “Oud”, “Daf” and etc. The initial lineup of the band included: “Homayoon

Majdzadeh” (guitar), “Ardavan Anzabipour” (bass), “Ali Khodadoost” (keyboard), “Khaled Sanadzadeh” (drums). In [YEAR] Kahtmayan began to work on a side project along with its originally targeted

music genre. The project was then developed into an instrumental progressive metal album written and arranged by Homayoon Majdzadeh called “Virtual Existence”. The band members decided to

release the album under the name of Kahtmayan and hence “Virtual Existence” became Kahtmayan’s first album. After composing the album, the band took the album to stage and performed it live in

concerts.

Final recording of “Virtual Existence” was left incomplete as Khaled and Ali both got separated from the band. With two new members joining the band; “Vanik Vartanian” (drums) “Ali Azhari” (guitar),

Kahtmayan soon had a new line up.

Considering the new band members’ musical preferences and capabilities as well as the rising popularity of thrash metal genre in Iran, Kahtmayan embarked on composing and recording a thrash metal

album called “Exir”. Due to limitations enforced by Iranian authorities the band could not include vocals in Exir and the album had to be released as an instrumental thrash metal album. The last straw

hit when the band was forced to abandon their live performance by the officials in 2005. Despite all the problems and disappointments surrounding the band, Kahtmayan performed Exir album in

studio and released a DVD of this performance.


Soon after releasing the DVD, Vanik, the band drummer, left the band and Iran and Kahtmayan once again was faced was faced with the challenge of pursuing its initial musical genre. The remaining

members of Kahtmayan assembled and began working on the demos, which had been put aside for years and were supposed to be chosen as Kahtmayan’s main music. A number of guest musicians

accompanied Kahtmayan in those years.


In the meantime, a guest keyboardist namely “Orod Anzabipoor” joined the band, and helped to get done the undone recording of the Virtual Existence album in the year 2009. In the early 2009,

Kahtmayan got a chance to work on the almost forgotten project that was initially planned to be Kahtmayan’s musical debut. This was made possible with newcomer drummer “Saeed Piltan” so eager to

put his best foot forward for this and Homayoun shouldering responsibility as the band’ vocalist.


The band’s efforts later developed into the album “Risen from Ashes” which will be recorded in near future. Risen from Ashes will be Kahtmayan’s first album featuring vocals and is centered around a

dark and an aggressive atmosphere adopted from the many old ideas Kahtmayan was initially planning to materialize at its outset. “Risen from Ashes” has truly risen from the ashes of what the band has

been through and reflects the perseverance, hard work and the determination of the band members to survive through all hardships.

reference

http://www.kahtmayan.com/history.htm

King Raam biography

King Raam

King Raam (Born in Bushehr, Iran in 1981) is an Iranian-born musician now living in Tehran, Iran. He is the lead singer for the Iranian punk rock band Hypernova and he also does solo work under the pseudonym King Raam.

Early life

King Raam was born in 1981 in the coastal city of Bushehr, Iran. His father was a professor and eventually relocated the family to Eugene, Oregon to complete his PhD. By 1991 the family moved back to Iran.

Musical career

Hypernova

Hypernova was created in 2000. Bandmates Raam (vocals) and Kami (drums) played extensively in the Tehran underground scene as well as a few small-time international gigs. The line-up changed extensively during this period, and Raam even took a brief sabbatical from the band to study International Relations in Toronto. Hypernova got a break in 2006, playing at the Intergalactic Iranian Music Festival in the Netherlands. In 2007, Hypernova was invited to perform at the South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin, TX. Pooya rejoined the band and Kodi Najm (guitar) and Jam (bass) were added to the line-up. Unfortunately, an international incident involving a group of British soldiers held off the coast of Iran caused a delay in Hypernova’s visas. However, their agent was determined to get them to the US and finally enlisted the help of New York Senator Chuck Schumer, who expedited their entry to the United States. Expecting to stay just two weeks, Hypernova brought only their instruments, some clothes and $400. They got a gig at the FatBaby bar on the lower east side of New York, where they garnered attention from MTV and the New York Times. Hypernova continues to tour and has released four albums and their song “Viva La Resistance” is featured on Rock Band 3.

 

King Raam

Following the success of Hypernova, Raam created King Raam as a solo project. Collaborating with (poet and artist) Tara Aghdashloo, Esfand, and others, Raam released his first solo album, titled Song of the Wolves in November 2011. His second album, named as The Vulture, released in 2014 containing 14 songs in both Persian and English.

Return to Iran

Raam moved back to Iran in 2014, right after he released his second album. He started working with Sajjad Afsharian in theaters in Tehran. In September 2014 he played some of his songs in his own country for the first time.

Other Appearances

Raam appeared on the reality TV “Shahs of Sunset”, Season 1, Episode 6.

reference

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Raam

Geddy Lee , Big Beautiful Book of Bass

Geddy Lee has written a book about his undying love for the bass guitar.
Entitled ‘Geddy Lee’s Big Beautiful Book of Bass’, the book will come out via HarperDesign /HarperCollins worldwide in autumn 2018.
Described as “the definitive book on the bass” that will appeal to both Rush fans and musicians and collectors, it features contributions from arts journalist Daniel Richler and Geddy’s trusted bass tech, John “Skully” McIntosh, with photography by Richard Sibbald.
The press blurb promoting the release reads: “Geddy Lee’s Big Beautiful Book of Bass is a gorgeous, fully illustrated love letter to rock ’n’ roll’s rumbly bottom end, complete with a guided tour of Lee’s extensive vintage bass collection, personal anecdotes, observations and history, from one of the world’s most revered and beloved masters of the instrument.

Geddy Lee

“This lavishly illustrated book presents one facet of Lee’s own personal journey. The bass guitar has been his passport, his vehicle, his fuel; this book will be his account of a life lived on the stage and a view of the world he’s seen on the road.”
Alongside the standard edition, there will be a limited number of signed and numbered deluxe editions of the book available next autumn.

Source: planetrock.com

The Rolling Stones – On Air

The Rolling Stones are set to release a collection of rarely heard radio recordings from their embryonic years.
Aptly titled ‘ The Rolling Stones – On Air ’, the album consists of songs Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Brian Jones, Bill Wyman recorded for BBC shows including Saturday Club, Top Gear, Rhythm and Blues and The Joe Loss Pop Show between 1963 and 1965.
Making the release highly enticing for Rolling Stones aficionados, eight of the songs included have never been recorded or released commercially. Conversely, seven of the tracks were debuted on the airwaves before featuring on future Rolling Stones albums and EPs.

the rolling stones

Available to pre-order right here, ‘ The Rolling Stones – On Air ’ is released via Polydor Records on CD, double CD deluxe edition, heavy-weight vinyl and special limited-edition coloured vinyl on Friday 1st December. The standard edition contains 18 tracks, while the expanded deluxe version boasts a further 14 songs.
As a taster for the record, you can listen to a live version of The Rolling Stones’ debut single ‘Come On’ below – a cover of the Chuck Berry song of the same name – recorded for The Saturday Club on 26th October 1963.

 

Yes New Live Album

Yes are set to release a new live album later this autumn.
Titled ‘Topographic Drama – Live Across America’, the extensive live record is released on double-CD and triple-LP formats on Friday 24th November. Both versions feature stunning cover artwork from the band’s longtime collaborator Roger Dean.
The album was recorded over 12 dates on Yes’s summer 2016 North American tour that saw the band open by performing their 1980 album ‘Drama’ in its entirety for the very first first time.
Following ‘Drama’, Steve Howe, Alan White, Geoff Downes, Billy Sherwood, Jon Davison and additional drummer Jay Schellen played songs from two of Yes’s best-selling albums: ‘And You And I’ from 1972’s ‘Close To The Edge’ and ‘Heart Of The Sunrise’ from 1971’s ‘Fragile’.
The set list then moved on to sides one and four from Yes’ 1973 double-album ‘Tales From Topographic Oceans’, before the album reaches an emphatic finale with ‘Roundabout’ from ‘Fragile’ (1971) and ‘Starship Trooper’ from ‘The Yes Album’ (1971)

yes
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