Given the world domination recently achieved by The Peppermint Kicks, I got distracted from the fact that Sal Baglio hadn’t released any new songs from The Amplifier Heads since Rectifier came out at the end of 2022. Well, that situation has been, uh, rectified! “A Song Called Sha La La” is the brand-new single from The Amplifier Heads, and it’s a red-hot, super-duper, intergalactic smash! Writing a great rock ‘n’ roll song about the dearth of great rock ‘n’ roll songs now being written is just about the most meta thing ever. But if you’re going to do a song like this, this is how you do it! “A Song Called Sha La La” might be the best Amplifier Heads song ever, so you know that Sal is bringing it with all he’s got. The whole spirit of the song is nicely summed up by lyrics like these:

Amen! With this song, The Amplifier Heads are fully in 1960s classic radio hit form. Just press play, and you’ve got pure pop majesty for three-and-a-half glorious minutes. For sure, this is a song you can sing, and it will quickly have you up and shouting. And of course you will want to turn it up loud in your car as you rock out with full vigor and care not what a fool you look like to all those smug observers who live sad lives devoid of the joy that rock ‘n’ roll brings. Also on board are rhythm players Kevin “King” Rapillo and Brad Hallen along with some special guest stars: Jeff “G-Man” Giacomelli on tenor sax and Carlos Menenzes Jr, Matthew Naeger, and Henley Douglas Jr from the mighty Jambalaya Horns! 

What do you do when you long for someone to write a song called “Sha La La”? You write a song called “A Song Called Sha La La,” and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy! Glenn Robinson’s cover art is so on-point that I briefly thought it was a photo of an actual 45 record! And that gives you the vibe this song is going for. If you grew up plugging coins into jukeboxes and amassing stacks of vinyl singles in your bedroom, this will be your jam. Look for Super 8, the new Amplifier Heads album, on Rum Bar Records this summer!

-L.R.

The post The Reclusive Genius: Why Dupin is the Ultimate Noir Icon appeared first on Edgar Allan Poets – Noir Rock Band.

Once again, Mike D is getting on the mic. A couple of weeks ago, Mike D released his solo single “Switch Up,” the first new music from any Beastie Boy in 15 years. Recently, Mike has been playing shows with Very Nice Person, the band led by his sons Skyler and Davis Diamond, and he…

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In a new interview with Andy Guitar, Joe Satriani reflected on taking part in the 2024 “The Best of All Worlds” tour with Sammy Hagar, during which Hagar and his bandmates in The Circle — including Satriani and ex-Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony — performed Van Halen material largely. Satriani discussed how he approached the challenge of learning and reproducing Eddie Van Halen‘s guitar parts.

Satriani told Andy Guitar (transcribed by Blabbermouth): “Well, I definitely started with original recordings and just used my ear to get the chords and the arrangement. And that’s the easy part. The hard part is the quirky fingering string choices. Every guitar player we have our own pluses and minuses, and it might be speed, timing, touch, tone, intonation — all kinds of things that certain people have a lot of, and then there are areas where we’re kind of deficient. And so, yeah, you have to kind of come up against that and see, like, ‘Well, how do I measure up in that particular area, and how do I work around it?’ But I think one thing that really helped me was this amazing community — these guitar players of all ages dedicated so many hours to figuring out exactly how Ed played a lot of these songs. And so I would, after I learned the song, I’d go, and I’d spend an hour or two on YouTube just watching how other people address this immense problem of trying to emulate Ed‘s playing. And you can’t capture the magic, but you can get pretty close to the fingering, and some players are better than others.”

He added: “There are players out there like Phil X [Bon Jovi and Triumph] who will play great Van Halen songs without any vibrato bar. And it reminds you that the spirit is sometimes more important than just imitating the part. There are a lot of ways. And then when you go deep into any live clips or if you have memories of seeing Van Halen, as I do, you remember, like, ‘Oh, yeah, [Ed] played it differently every single time.’ He shocked you with how he would just forget about some part or purposely not play it the way it is on the record, and just replace it with something you never expected. And you loved it anyway.”

Satriani also spoke at length about the experience in a separate December 2023 interview with Ultimate Guitar‘s Justin Beckner. He described the particular difficulty of shifting his own deeply ingrained stylistic habits to serve Van Halen‘s music: “The main thing is that for the last five decades I’ve tried so hard to be myself and to be me and not copy anybody. I’ve been lucky, since the late ’80s, to have a solo career, so I really had a job that forced me to be myself as much as possible. So I made a point not to play like anybody.”

Satriani identified three specific areas where Eddie‘s sensibility differed sharply from his own. First, timing: “He plays so on the beat and makes it feel like he’s pushing the beat, but he’s actually not. It’s really amazing how he does it. I thought, ‘Oh, that’s me, sitting on the backbeat as much as I can,’ because I’m playing the melody. When you play the melody, you don’t wanna be on top… And all of a sudden, you go to play a song like ‘I’m the One,’ and it’s like, ‘No, you have to be the guy way in front.’ Every nerve ending in your body is saying, ‘Sit back.’ But to make the song work, you’ve gotta sit forward.”

Second, technique: “Our vibratos aren’t that different. He holds his pick [with his thumb and middle finger], so he’s always got [his index] finger for tapping, and I don’t. The way that he would do the tapping, when he would use it, [was] opposite of the way that I had forced myself to go with it.” Third, right-hand speed: “One of the things that Eddie had was this super-tight swing that was ultrafast with his right hand. I remember hearing for the first time and thinking, ‘Well, I’m gonna have to work on that.’ That’s gonna take me, I thought, three months of 45 minutes a day just working with a metronome to work that into my bag of tricks.”

Satriani, Hagar, and Anthony previously worked together in the supergroup Chickenfoot, recording two albums between 2009 and 2011 and touring across America — though the group never performed any Van Halen material. Hagar and Anthony had also performed the Van Halen catalog with guitarist Vic Johnson and drummer Jason Bonham in Sammy Hagar and the Circle before the “Best of All Worlds” run.

The post JOE SATRIANI On Preparing To Play EDDIE VAN HALEN’s Parts: “I’d Spend An Hour Or Two On YouTube Just Watching How Other People Address This Immense Problem Of Trying To Emulate ED’s Playing” appeared first on Sonic Perspectives.

Atlanta’s Ultra Lights announced themselves with last year’s self-titled EP, a brilliant set of songs beer-battered in the best indie, post-punk, and rock ‘n’ roll the late 20th century had to offer. Today the group is back with news of their full-length debut album, Pleasure’s All Yours. The record is out in July via Chunklet,…

The post Ultra Lights Announce Debut Album <em>Pleasure’s All Yours</em>: Hear “Bad Feeling” appeared first on Stereogum.