The Beastie Boys - Mix Master Mike

November might be cold in Wisconsin, but just before Talib Kweli’s set at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, I had the chance to speak to one of the hottest DJs in the game. He’s the DJ for the headlining Beastie Boys and one of the founding members of the Invisibl Skratch Piklz, but this 34 year-old California native waxes about music, life on the road and the like.

Read More...

Beatallica

an interview with Beatallica singer Jaymz Lennfield as the band headed to Europe for their fifth Euro-tour.

Read More...

Billy Idol

What can you say about Billy Idol?  That the mold was broken after he arrived on the music scene with his pioneer punk band Generation X in 1976?  That he was music video pioneer?  That he lived the life of a rock star while retaining his punk rock beliefs?  After a serious motorcycle accident and some substance abuse problems, Billy Idol took a well-deserved twelve-year break from the music business.  His latest album, Devil’s Playground [Sanctuary Records] is pure unadulterated Billy Idol.  I interviewed Billy Idol via email while he was between tours in August 2005. 

Read More...

Blackdog

Hailing from Chicago after forming in Madison from two musical soulmates, guitarists Anthony Alban and Sammy Reicher, BLACKDOG fuses influences of early 20th Century Delta Blues, 50’s rock n’ roll, and the Classic Rock Pantheon. Andrew Elbert, their drummer says, “ We all love roots music and have a foundation in blues and rock n’ roll. Our heroes are Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Dire Straits, BB King, and Buddy Guy.” After earning their undergraduate degrees from the University of Wisconsin, they decided to take the band to the big city and almost the whole band moved to Chicago (they found a new bassplayer,  Jason Segal, when they got there.)

Read More...

The Black Diamond Heavies

It was one of those humid June evenings where it would be just as easy to go naked as to put anything on, I did the next best thing. Wife beater, no bra, wafer thin cotton Capri’s, commando as the boys like to say, and flats. My roommate Cupcake was severely strapped in, I don’t know what the hell she was thinking. On the advice of Big and Polish we are taking in a band called The Black Diamond Heavies, cool name huh? I had very little prior knowledge of the Heavies, the aforementioned large one turned me on to their debut disc “Every Damn Time” on Alive Records and I was down. I like keyboards and gravelly vocals so it wasn’t a stretch for me but I wasn’t expecting anything spectacular.

And that’s how it started in the lair of the trashy trio at 222 on the Sirloin strip, the conversation is easy, cocktails are cold, the leaf is sweet and we are in a…yeah, this should be ok, different anyway, kind of mood. We have invited a couple of friends to meet us at the show who live in Green Bay, which is where we are headed, downtown. Say what you will about downtown Titletown, it’s easy to park. We do, right across from the venue and saunter in fashionably late. Two opening acts were cute young local boys. Caught two songs from the first band, whole set of the second. Sorry guys, don’t remember names. Didn’t hate either of them, I will say this about both, they had balls, it wasn’t shit.  Bass player for the second band with no socks was ooolala and I see the drummer for the first band walking in downtown Appleton on occasion. I think his name is Amos or something like that anyway, well worth supporting. It was cool that the members of the opening acts hung out, it was stupid that the 15 or so friends who came out to support them left, maybe they just couldn’t handle the filth

Read More...

Black Frog

Guitarist/vocalist Eroc explained to me how they came up with the name BLACK FROG. He had four carnivorous albino aquatic frogs in a fish tank. One day he noticed a frog was missing. The next day another one was gone. Mystified, he put weights on the cover of the tank but he came home and the other two frogs had vanished.

Months passed and the frogs were never found as Eroc concentrated his energies on building a recording studio in his basement and launching a new band. One fateful day, the furnace in the studio needed repair and as the technician opened the furnace, Eroc heard him scream. When Eroc entered the room he found the repairman holding four fist sized frogs as flat as pancakes and blackened from oxidation. They had made their escape through the heating ducts to an entire new floor of the house. In honor of these four brave souls, Eroc decided to name the band BLACK FROG. He still has their corpses today and hopes to shellac them into a guitar.

Read More...

Blaqk Audio

Sometime around the year 2000, AFI’s Davey Havok and Jade Puget started to discuss the possibility of making their mutual love of electronic music reality in the form of a side project called BLAQK AUDIO.  Though AFI’s success kept both of them so busy that talking was all they could do, seven months ago, the duo managed to steal away some precious time and record CexCells.  The album has done well, far exceeding the expectations of both Puget and Havok and the single, “Stiff Kittens”, placed as high as number 20 on the rock charts.

Fans of AFI’s hard, rock and roll sound were taken aback by the dynamic dance music that filled the speakers after purchasing CexCells, but it seems that most have since accepted the side project and all it has to offer.  The name BLAQK AUDIO was the brainchild of Puget, who thought the name suited their desire to make dark, electronic music.  He claims that the unusual spelling was a simple twist on the obvious, as well as being a nod to the Aphex Twins song “Drukqs”.

Although the tour officially ended September 27th, with a final show in Los Angeles, Puget and Havok plan to continue to make music as BLAQK AUDIO in between their commitment to AFI.  Now that the two are, hopefully, resting before picking back up with AFI, Puget was able to sit down for a chat about the tour, the sexual content of CexCells and his plans for the future.

Maximum Ink:  Are there any questions that you are tired of answering?
Jade Puget:  I guess the obligatory meaning behind CexCells, all the usual stuff.  I actually don’t mind answering that stuff either, if there’s something you really want to know.  A lot of people aren’t that familiar with Blaqk Audio as a side project.  If you want to cover some basic information, that’s fine.

Read More...