Kings of A&R

Better luck this time? Pennsylvania act Runner Runner which features former members of the pop/punk band Over It (formerly on Virgin) has generated some buzz lately with a more Top 40 friendly sound. Tracks like “So Obvious” and “Believe” seem prime for success on the heels of the likes of Metro Station’s “Shake It”. Take a listen to Over It’s first single “Siren on the 101” from their Virgin records debut and decide if the change in sound was one for the better, or worse.

Under Appreciated Indie: Atlanta indie rock group The Constellations have remained seemingly under everyone’s radar with the release of their debut LP “Southern Gothic”. Check out the track “Love is a Murder” featuring Cee Lo of Gnarls Barkley.

Singer/songwriters: A few international singer/songwriters worth a listen are Canada’s Shawn Hlookoff who generated buzz with one of his newer tracks, “Without You”. Australia’s Axle Whitehead has also been receiving some airplay in Australia with his singles “Anywhere” & “I Don’t Do Surprises”.

Shifting genres in Australia, the post-hardcore, rock band Closure in Moscow has signed to the US label Science Records and should be seeing a 2009 release. Comparisons have been made to anyone from The Mars Volta to Saosin, check out the single “We Want Guarantees” and the hard hitting “Breathing Underwater”.

Signing? Ohio pop/rock band The Undeserving have apparently signed a record deal, but have not yet revealed with who, read their blog here

Quick Hits:

Rev Theory
Listen to: Wanted Man
Definitely an improvement from the first and fist pumping lead single
“Hell Yeah”.

Valencia
Listen To: Where Did You Go?

Jack McManus
Listen To: Bang on the Piano
UK piano rocker with radio ready singles.

Soundcheck is written by Dallas who currently attends San Francisco State University and works on the Live 105 (KITS) Action Team.

inPASSING who hails from Orlando Florida collaborated with James Paul Wisner (Dashboard Confessional, Underoath, The Academy Is) and released an EP in the spring of 2008. The band also just released a music video for the track “All Together”. Our favorite track is  Back Down.

Tour Dates:

Sep 12th     Backbooth -  Orlando, Florida
Sep 14th     Green St. -  Greensboro, North Carolina
Sep 18th     Big Daddy’s -  Tallahassee, Florida
Sep 19th     The Porch -  Brandon, Florida

McCain Lifts Off With Van Halen: John McCain introduced Sarah Palin as his running mate with Van Halen’s song “Right Now“. Sammy Hagar has no objection to the Republican Party using the group’s song and said “When I wrote the lyrics to ‘Right Now’, I intended them to inspire people to not sit around and wait for something they believed in but to go out and get it, to make a change however they needed to”

New Video Stream: It’s been the month of Metallica. Metallica has posted the war centered video for the track ‘The Day That Never Comes‘ which can be found on their myspace.

Signings: Post Hardcore band Funeral For A Friend who was signed to Ferret Music and later Atlantic Records have now signed with Victory Records and will release their new album ” Memory and Humanity” on October 28th.

This Week Sales: Slipknot, the metal act from Iowa is expected to sell at least 200k. The band aimed for world domination early in their career and it seems like they accomplished their goal.

The Last Days of Bandwidth Hogs: Comcast recently announced that starting Oct. 1 it would set a threshold for monthly Internet usage. Users will be allowed 250 gigabytes of monthly usage. Comcast said its average residential customer uses approximately 2 to 3 GB while bandwidth hogs could typically use 250 gigabytes. Consuming 250 gigabytes would be comparable to sending 50 million e-mails, 62,500 songs, download 125 standard-definition movies or upload 25,000 hi-resolution digital photos. Frontier and Time Warner Cable are now moving toward imposing internet usage caps.

Universal Music Dodges The Bullet: The Rolling Stones jumping ship and joining Universal Music may have helped Vivendi meet its financial goals, profits for the quarter were up 12%. The rise of digital music is also contributing to the increase of Universal’s market share.

Man Arrested For Leaking Guns N’ Roses Tracks: A Los Angeles man who posted nine pirated tracks from “Chinese Democracy,” from Guns N’ Roses, was arrested by FBI agents and charged with violating federal copyright laws. He uploaded the songs from a computer at the online ad sales company where he works and if convicted of the felony count, he faces up to five years in prison. It’s about time the government is enforcing copyright laws. Here is the affidavit.

New Music: Listen to Walking Alone and Finding Your Way by
Daniel Ghattas. Ghattas hails from Montreal and draws influences from Bryan Adams, Daniel Powter, and Jack’s Mannequin. When I started writing and recording songs I vowed that I would make sure every track on my album was not just good but great. “No filler tracks” was my motto says Ghattas.

Music Biz Questions iTunes After Kid Rock’s Platinum Record:
The Wall Street Journal published an article titled “More Artists Steer Clear of iTunes“. Although iTunes have sold 5 billion downloads a growing number of record companies are trying to steer clear of Apple’s iTunes because they think that in some cases it’s crimping overall music sales.

Atlantic Records recently pulled the album by R&B singer Estelle from the iTunes Store, the same week that one of its songs entered the top-10-selling tracks on iTunes.

Many artists do not want their work dismantled and to be sold in individual tracks, instead iTunes requires that songs be made available separately. Artists, managers, and labels believe they can make more by selling complete albums for $10 to $15 than by selling individual songs. “In so many ways it’s turned our business back into a singles business,” says Ken Levitan, Kid Rock’s manager.

We think this solution is easy. iTunes requires that songs be made available separately because consumers prefer that, but, do artists prefer this? If artists want to sell their album as a complete package then iTunes should have this option. I can’t completely agree with Kid Rock’s manager that iTunes turned the music business into a singles business, because the music biz has always been a singles business since the 1970’s. Although it’s not far fetched and unreasonable to believe that iTunes can cripple album sales in some cases.

Neil Diamond’s Offer Called ‘Unprecedented’: Neil Diamond who is suffering from acute laryngitis apologized to his fans and offered refunds to 11,000 people who attended his concert. Diamond is a true rock n’ roller because he went on stage and gave it his all yet still offered refunds because of a subpar performance. Some industry veterans said they’d never heard of a performer offering refunds because of the quality of the show.

Recommended Listening: Listen to Proud To Be and Its Just Business by Hand Me Down Buick. The band hails from Atlantic City, NJ and they don’t stray to far away from the multitude of bands on purevolume. Although musically they may be on top of the heap it still won’t propel them to national status. We are hoping that some of the talented bands will let go of ‘Emo’ and renew their spirit of experimentation and musical innovation that will hopefully result into a new exciting scene.

New Video Stream: Glam band Hinder has posted the video for their current rock single ‘Use Me’. Seems to be a big budget video with a cast full of girls, but they definitely pulled it off.

LimeWire Moving Towards A Paid Platform: File sharing site LimeWire is moving towards a paid platform. According to Digital Music News Lime Wire finalized a content agreement with The Orchard, a deal that adds approximately 1.2 million songs to the LimeWire Store. Pricing options would include:

25 monthly downloads for $9.99
50 downloads for $14.99
and 75 songs for $19.99.

Songwriting Competition: ISC (International Songwriting Competition) has announced its line-up of judges. This year’s judges include Rob Thomas (Matchbox 20), Tom Waits, Ray Davies (The Kinks), Ricky Martin, McCoy Tyner, T-Pain, Loretta Lynn, Chaka Khan, Robert Smith (The Cure), and many more. To enter, go to www.songwritingcompetition.com

It’s A Long Way To The Top If You Want To Rock N’ Roll: Mark Stoermer, The Killers bassist says new bands breaking into the music industry will have a tough time. “It’s a really hard time for new bands,” says Stoermer. “It’s not that there’s a lack of good music, it’s just that labels are struggling financially.” “Some people say that record labels are bad but people forget they are the ones who break the bands and get them on their way.” Although Mark says that people are more excited to see live bands today, “In the Eighties no-one was really going to see live music. Now it’s big business.”

Although we love The Killers we disagree with Mark’s statement that there isn’t a lack of good music. Mark may not realize that he is a member in a band with a killer rock star frontman that happened to write some mega songs. The threat isn’t bankrupt labels, the true threat is the lack of creativity and inspiration.

Yes my friend, there is a lack of good music which is why some labels are primarily bankrupt. It’s called the chicken and the egg scenario. What came first, the chicken or the egg? Now, does the band break themselves or does the label break the band? KOAR is betting on the chicken.

Lastly, nothing can stop or block an artist from writing great songs except for inspiration. When inspiration is non-existent then creativity and originality ceases to exist. This is what we are experiencing today known as the creative drought. An artist will ‘Make It’ If he or she writes great songs and presents an entire exciting package that excites an audience. At that point it will become undeniable and you will make many important friends who will assist in broadening your market.

Send new music along with your myspace to tips@kingsofar.com

New Stream: Metallica has now posted a uptempo song titled My Apocalypse that will come off Death Magnetic.

Revolver Mag recently interviewed guitarist Kirk Hammmett.

I’m really psyched about that and just curious as to what people are gonna say about how my style changed says Kirk. It’ll probably run the gamut from “Ah, it’s really fucking great,” to “Ah, he fucking sucks.” So, I’m ready for it all. That’s just the way it is. Especially with the Internet now. I mean, everyone’s a critic nowadays whether they’re qualified or not.

My brother-in-law came up to me and was like, “Are there any bands who are in their 20s that you guys are intimidated by?” And I thought about it long and hard and I’m like, “No.” I wish there was because it would give us a nice challenge and motivate us to maybe step up to their plate, whatever their plate might be.

Music and Politics Makes Cheap Entertainment: Madonna who has evolved into a hybrid of Michael Jackson meets Marilyn Manson was slammed by John McCain after she compared him to Adolph Hitler. In her song ‘Get Stupid’ pictures of McCain was flashed along images of destruction and global warming as well as Hitler and Mugabe. “It clearly shows that when it comes to supporting Barack Obama, his fellow worldwide celebrities refuse to consider any smear or attack off limits,” says McCain. The truth is Madonna just loves the press..

Signings: West Palm Beach band Hey Monday (former Blake) has signed to Columbia/Decaydance. We mentioned Hey Monday in April 2008 discussing how Paramore has spawned a throng of female fronted bands. It seems they posted a new song titled Homecoming which seems to be their best song which falls more towards The Bangles’ Hazy Shade Of Winter than emo-ish Paramore. The Bangles? Yes, you heard us right. Just listen to the opening riff of each song.

Arizona indie atmospheric band Lydia has signed to Universal Motown. Check them out in our February New Music Column. Check out the track Fade.

American Idol Shakes The Cage: Grammy-Nominated songwriter
Kara DioGuardi has joined American Idol as a fourth judge and will sit alongside Paula Abdul, Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson. “She is a smart, sassy lady, and one of America’s most successful songwriters. We know she will bring a new level of energy and excitement to the show,” says Simon Cowell. DioGuardi’s songs have appeared on more than 100 million records. Her songs have been recorded by Grammy award-winning artists including Kelly Clarkson, Christina Aguilera, Gwen Stefani, Celine Dion, Faith Hill, Carrie Underwood, Santana and Pink. Scores of major recording artists including Britney Spears, Avril Lavigne, etc.

Thriving To Yahoo: KOAR’s favorite Thriving Ivory is in the running for
Yahoo Music’s ‘Who’s Next?’. Cast your vote here and help put them on the map.

BMI Dodges The Bullet: BMI posted $901 million in revenues for the fiscal year, up 7.4% from last year. BMI will disperse $786 million to songwriters, composers and copyright owners, an 8% increase over the prior year.