Foster The People and Stone Temple Pilots among Mobile’s Bayfest great lineup.

Officials with Bayfest, the annual October music festival in Mobile, dropped perhaps their most impressive lineup yet for the 20th annual festival, set for Oct. 3-5 in downtown Mobile.

Among the highlights of the eclectic lineup:

• Invigorating indie rockers Foster the People, whose «Pumped Up Kicks» was a crossover smash.

• Grammy-winning singer/songwriter CeeLo Green, a former coach on «The Voice» whose smash songs like «Forget You» and «Crazy» (the latter with the group Gnarls Barkley) combine elements of R&B, hip-hop and alternative rock.

• Legendary country act Alabama, whose historic career includes topping the Billboard Country Songs chart a whopping 34 times.

• Eclectic rocker Kid Rock, an area favorite whose audience encompasses fans of country, rock and hip-hop for hits like «All Summer Long,» «Bawitdaba» and «Cowboy.»

• Alternative rock favorites Stone Temple Pilots, who have replaced original lead singer Scott Weiland with Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington to perform their classic material, including hits like «Plush» and «Interstate Love Song.»

• Iconic R&B group Earth, Wind and Fire, whose history dates back 45 years and includes such timeless songs as «September,» «Shining Star» and «Boogie Wonderland.»

• Hugely popular country singer-songwriter Brantley Gilbert, whose country chart-toppers include «Bottoms Up,» «You Don’t Know Her Like I Do» and «Country Must Be Country Wilde.»

These acts top a list of several dozen playing on stages across the downtown Mobile area over three days. Bayfest typicall features local and regional acts during daylight hours, moving toward national acts as the sun starts to set. Late evenings will include acts like country hitmakers Thompson Square; rappers Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and Ludacris; alt-rock favorites AFI; and rock icon Joan Jett & the Blackhearts.

Weekend passes are available at http://www.bayfest.com and Mobile area Circle K stores for $60 through Sept. 19. After that date, the price rises to $80. Day passes at the festival gates are $40 per day. Children 12 and younger are admitted free with a ticketed adult.

For more information, visit http://www.bayfest.com.

Franz Ferdinand, Phoenix, Crystal Fighters Kick off BILBAO BBK LIVE 2014

Future of the Left opened the three-day event. The Cardiff four-piece suffering slightly from an early slot that saw them play to a sparse but appreciative audience. Frontman Andy Falkous was never going to let that put him off his stride though. He led his cohorts through a set of organised chaos so powerful the onlooking Pyrenees trembled under the weight of Julia Ruzicka’s mammoth bass sound.

First on at the main stage were Parquet Courts. The preppy New Yorkers treating the crowd to history lesson in East Coast cool – from The Velvet Underground right through to The Strokes, via The Ramones and Television. Their show is tremendously good fun without being ground-breaking. They run out of steam a little towards the end, the victims of the festival’s economical booking policy meaning they have to play for about 15 minutes longer than an opening act would normally.

White Lies brought their brand of synth-laden indie to a rapidly growing crowd in the early evening. Mainland Europe still lap them up. Harry McVeigh’s every whim is gladly indulged by the youthful Basque audience, leading to some of the most dutiful clap-alongs you’re likely to see.

Franz Ferdinand headlined the first day to a sea of glowstick wielding and fairly well lubricated fans. They are everything you’d want Franz Ferdinand to be – lively and accomplished with a string of sing-along choruses that most bands would sell their souls for. Live there is little of the art-rock tendencies that brought them to the world’s attention, just a whole lot of fun. Their show is certainly none the worse for it.

Bilbao BBK continues today with sets from The Prodigy, Bastille, Chet Faker, The 1975 and many more. Check back at Gigwise for the latest news, reviews and more from the festival.

The Flaming Lips explicit, trippy video that features Miley Cyrus and Moby

This is a match that goes way back: after Miley Cyrus had a rough start to the year, she found the psychedelic music of The Flaming Lips helped her get through living on her own for the first time. Since then, Cyrus has performed with frontman Wayne Coyne on her Bangerz tour, recorded a “completely weird” version of ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’, and taken that weirdness to a whole new level with this NSFW video.

The “Wrecking Ball” singer, 21, shot the five-and-a-half-minute video while recovering from the allergic reaction that hospitalised her, forcing Bangerz tour dates to be postponed.

“This is the video we originally intended to be for a song that has reference to the drug LSD,” Coyne said. “Even though (Miley) was still quite ill, she was full of laughs and great absurd suggestions.”

The eccentric musician went on to explain the concept of the clip, which sees electro singer-songwriter Moby star as an “evil, power-hungry cult leader”.

In brief, this megalomaniac wants John F Kennedy’s brain, which contains the original formula for LSD.

The problem is that this magic brain belongs to Miley, so a “nympho Manson girl-type blonde superfreak” is hired to steal it.

This mission is completed while Cyrus is unconscious in bed, but on waking she is “mega-p****ed” and enlists a burned-faced Santa and a lesbian Bigfoot from a nearby spaceship to get her brain back.

Moby has gained “powerful rainbows from hell” which see the superfreak kill Santa and Bigfoot, leaving a baby rodent with the brain.

All the while, The Flaming Lips are “disguised as rainbows, mushrooms and flowers watching from the sky room where a giant diamond explosion happens”.

It remains to be seen where this crazy collaboration will go next, but Cyrus and Coyne performed together at the Billboard Music Awards and both got matching tattoos of the pop star’s late dog Floyd, suggesting this friendship looks set to stick around.

Oldie but goldie: Love Is all I Got by Feed Me & Crystal Fighters

Expand your soul with love on the weekend! Such an amazing song 🙂

MGMT’s first EP «We (don’t) care» from 10 years ago!

So, how old can we feel, knowing that MGMT’s first EP was released 10 years ago, but, to make you feel better, here we share the first songs  Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser shared to the world.

Psychedelic Rock to start your day!

We Care

Everythin’s Happenin’ So Fast

Love Always Remains

Grutu

Kids (First Version)

We don’t care

My Chemical Romance ex-frontman, Gerard Way goes Britpop on upcoming Solo Debut

Former My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way detailed the heavy British influences of his forthcoming solo debut in an interview with NME, saying he was inspired by a litany of U.K. groups from Britpop era bands like Blur and Pulp to post-punk outfits like Wire and Gang of Four.

Find Out Where My Chemical Romance’s ‘Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys’ Landed on Our List of 2010’s Best Albums

«The sound of it is rooted in a lot in shoegaze, also Britpop — the whole thing largely feels like a British album,» he said. «I was going for a lot of things that were completely new to me. Even the way we attacked the vocals and tried to make them sound was very different from ways that I had ever been recorded.»

While Way said he would often chase these influences on My Chemical Romance songs, he admitted they didn’t always mesh with his old band’s sonic fingerprint. On his solo LP, however, he was able to explore the depths of fuzz-soaked guitars and tweak the way he recorded his own voice. «My vocals over the years have been so used to being triple tracked and quadruple harmonized and compressed to shit,» he said. «But we didn’t do that. A lot of the time it’s a single vocal, which is cool.»

Fitting the heavy U.K. influences of the new LP, Way is set to premiere the material during gigs at two of the country’s biggest festivals, Reading and Leeds, both of which take place August 22nd to 24th. Way said the U.K. felt like a natural place to make his live solo debut, not just because of his new sound, but because the country has always responded positively to his music.

«This was the first place to get us, to fully understand My Chemical Romance, and I feel like it’s going to be the same situation here,» Way said. «I think in the States, it’s going to be a bit of a fight — I think it’s going to be a bit of a fight here too, for different reasons, because it always should be a fight. But I think just the influences alone, because they’re so rooted here, it needed to be set off here.»

Way announced that he’d signed to Warner Bros. as a solo artist back in May, promising new music in the near future, though there’s still no word on a release date or title for the LP. His solo venture comes just a little over a year after My Chemical Romance split up following an impressive 12 years together.

«We were spectacular. Every show I knew this, every show I felt it with or without external confirmation,» Way wrote afterwards in a lengthy open letter to fans. «There were some clunkers, sometimes our secondhand gear broke, sometimes I had no voice – we were still great. It is this belief that made us who we were, but also many other things, all of them vital – And all of the things that made us great were the very things that were going to end us – Fiction. Friction. Creation. Destruction. Opposition. Aggression. Ambition. Heart. Hate. Courage. Spite. Beauty. Desperation. LOVE. Fear. Glamour. Weakness. Hope. Fatalism.»

 

«Metal Zone» by The Vines and Details From Upcoming Album «Wicked Nature»

The Vines are staging a major comeback, releasing a brand new video for «Metal Zone» — the vicious first single from their upcoming double album, Wicked Nature — and offering three new songs as an instant download to those who donate approximately $9 or more to the band’s PledgeMusic page.

Check out the trippy clip below, which finds the Australian outfit ripping and roaring through «Metal Zone» as their black-and-white world slowly gets warped and twisted into something far more kaleidoscopic.

Wicked Nature will see release on September 2nd, and while a minimum donation will secure you a digital copy and downloads of «Out the Way,» «Anything You Say» and «Everything Else,» the Vines also have a number of CD and vinyl packages available. You can also purchase an original lyric sheet pack or snag one of the few remaining copies of a signed test pressing of the LP.

«The record is the heaviest the band have released,» writes Todd Wagstaff — who discovered and signed the group back in 2001 — on the PledgeMusic page. «All funds raised from these pre-orders will go into recording and financing a new team of radio, publicity and online agents we have engaged around the world to promote The Vines’ music.»

Wagstaff also noted that the Vines won’t embark on a big tour behind Wicked Nature, but they will play select shows; and while they’ll also keep interviews and press to a minimum, Nicholls and Co. will continue communicating with fans through social media.

Radiohead’s Just video.

Considered for NEM as one of the Greatest Indie Anthems Ever, this music video was also #2 of the NME’s Greatest Music Videos of all times.

Can you guess why is the character lying on the floor?

«Palisades Park», Cool song and video by Counting Crows!