Side Project? Causing a much larger buzz with his solo project, Alexisonfire guitarist and vocalist Dallas Green is teaming up with Vagrant Records to try and make an impact stateside with his solo, folk rock side project, City and Colour. The lead single, and catchiest song from Green to date, “Sleeping Sickness” could make quite the splash at Triple A radio in January when he will also be embarking on a U.S. headlining tour. Check out the video here

Success via Trailer: M.I.A. saw a great deal of success in 2008 mostly due to a widely publicized trailer for summer blockbuster, “Pineapple Express” which features a good amount of the song, however it was not on the soundtrack. Swedish singer Lisa Miskovsky has started to generate some buzz with a piece of her song, “Still Alive” which is featured in a video game trailer for a popular game called “Mirror’s Edge”. The soundtrack features only this song and remixes of it. Could strong video game sales possibly help push the song to radio?

Back to Canada: A new band making its way onto radio with their blend of indie rock is Arkells recognizable, raspy and raw vocals help drive songs like lead single, “Oh, The Boss is Coming!” and the first track on their new album, “Deadlines”. Bluesy, with hard-hitting vocals, it sounds like they may have something going on here.

Changing gears to something more mainstream friendly is a band that you may instantly relate to power pop, emo rockers Motion City Soundtrack, and that is D.C. band You, Me, and Everyone We Know who sound like they belong on next year’s Warped Tour with catchier songs than the ones most concert-going tweens have been high on. They just released their 2nd free EP this year that can be downloaded here, which is even more pop friendly than their first it features some sweet, 3 minute tracks like “Colorful Language” & “Sometimes We Have Too Much Fun”.

Quick Picks:

Tupelo Honey – “Morphine”- Strong rock band that still needs to get signed.

The Parlor Mob – “Carnival of Crows” - Zeppelin-esque, Roadrunner Records band

Cajun Dance Party – “Amylase”- London indie rockers who have probably never tried Gumbo.

Sam Roberts – “Detroit ‘67” – Another popular Canadian, new album out in the U.S, on February 17, 2009.

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

Corgan says Smashing Pumpkins is not a nostalgiac band…

We’re not a nostalgia band. “It’s not old band versus new band,” he says. “It’s new band or no band.”

“Calling it a 20th-anniversary tour, people expected greatest hits,” he says. “The casual fan who comes in and just wants to see the hits, they were not having it. But we’ve seen a real reactivation in the hard-core fan base.”

Corgan is bothered by the fact that people thought they were done….

No, what bothers me is the notion that we’re done. We didn’t come back for the cash; we came back to be great again. It made me mad that people thought we’re done, that we don’t have a future. Get out. We don’t want you. We’ve never been that band. That happy band. We picked up where we left off. We’re not the retirement band playing our old hits. … I don’t give a [expletive] that most of my heroes got lame when they turned 40. I spent most of the last decade thinking about that. Why do they go from this insanely high level of work to diminished echoes of the past? And I think it’s a coziness thing. You do something amazing, and you don’t want to lose the crowd that tells you that’s amazing. You’re out in the cold. Well, we like to be out in the cold. We’re done with the record business, so we’re free to do whatever I want.

Corgan on the album, the iPod and listening patterns..

We’re done with that. There is no point. People don’t even listen to it all. They put it on their iPod, they drag over the two singles and skip over the rest. The listening patterns have changed, so why are we killing ourselves to do albums, to create balance and do the arty track to set up the single? It’s done.

Corgan still has something to say…

Let me be blunt. When Bruce Springsteen puts out a new album, I pay attention. Same with Neil Young. Because they’re major artists who have something to say. I consider us in that category.

Full interview in the Chicago Tribune.

La Roux is a synth pop duo made up of Elly Jackson and synth player Ben Langmain. Will be supporting Lilly Allen on her next run. The next big thing? Or is the track ‘Quicksand’ a overly compressed pop track ala poor mans version of Princes ‘When Doves Cry’.

Coldplay has responded to the lawsuit by guitarist Joe Satriani, who claims the band stole his song ‘If I Could Fly’ for their ‘Viva La Vida’.

“With the greatest possible respect to Joe Satriani, we have now unfortunately found it necessary to respond publicly to his allegations. If there are any similarities between our two pieces of music, they are entirely coincidental, and just as surprising to us as to him.”

“Joe Satriani is a great musician, but he did not write the song ‘Viva la Vida’. We respectfully ask him to accept our assurances of this and wish him well with all future endeavors.”

Coincidence or Premeditated?

Rolling Stone Continues Layoffs: Rolling Stone Mag has laid off more employees including the editor Kyle Anderson. Wenner Media cut online, marketing and advertising jobs, and the entire offices in San Francisco and Detroit.

Another Layoff: Charlie Walk has exited his post as President of Epic Records.

Film Industry Shakeup: The Financial Post posted a column ‘Film industry faces tech wave like one that shook up music, insiders say‘. Read it here.

Rock Band: The latest statistics revealing the sales performance of Rock Band’s downloadable content is quite impressive. “The statistics reveal that over 28 million track downloads have been made to date. There are 345 tracks by 239 artists on the Rock Band store right now. Harmonix added that it has hit the 500 total song mark for the Rock Band games.”

A New Leak: Fall Out Boys new album ‘Folie a Deux’ has now leaked on the net prior to the December 16th street date. The album is available on the Pirate Bay and BitTorrent tracker Mininova according to Digital Music News.