Neon Trees is possibly the best infectious, American indie rock band that NME, Pitchfork, and the rest of the internet’s blogs haven’t seemed to notice yet. Recently tapped by the Killers to open up a pair of shows, these California and Utah guys seem to be prime for label attention and alternative radio play. Check out their new tracks, “Girls and Boys in School” & “Drop Your Weapon”, mixed by Mark Needham (Bloc Party, The Killers, U2, My Chemical Romance).

‘Twilight‘, the soundtrack to this vampire love story should easily outsell the musical score from this past summer’s blockbuster, “The Dark Knight”. With Paramore on board with another hit in their track, “Decode” and a new cut from Mute Math, as well as hits from Linkin Park and Muse, this film will probably be lucky to make a quarter of what the latest Batman made, but could double or triple the sales total of that film’s soundtrack. View the track listing here.

Saosin will be heading into the studio with producer Butch Walker this January, according to a recent interview with Walker on alternativeaddiction.com. Walker is most well known for producing albums for the likes of Avril Lavigne, Bowling for Soup, and a few other radio friendly acts. He has recently produced tracks for artists like Pink and UK band The Automatic. Is this an odd pairing, or does Saosin need Walker to make that radio friendly album? For now, hear Saosin’s new song called “Love Maker”.

Live Cuts:
In the past week I caught a few shows from Weezer, Anberlin, Audrye Sessions, and Innerpartysystem.
Weezer is currently on tour with Angels & Airwaves and Tokyo Police Club in support of “The Red Album”. The band mixed it up with material that spanned their entire career, including their staple hits and more. They even brought out Angels & Airwaves singer Tom Delonge to sing on “Undone – The Sweater Song”, which made for an in teresting pairing. Due to work obligations, I unfortunately missed covers of Nirvana’s “Sliver” & Pink Floyd’s “Time”, but heard they went well. They also incorporated their hootenanny theme on the hits “Island in the Sun” & “Beverly Hills” where fans were brought up with whatever instrument they had to play along with the band. Weezer still knows how to have fun and satisfy their fans, a good formula for maintaining a successful career.

Anberlin played a solid set last week and are a better band to see headlining than on the Warped Tour or some opening gig.

Audrye Sessions are a recent signing to RCA subsidiary Black Seal and played their EP release show last week in San Francisco. With the aid of a violinist and some horns, they played a short set that sounded spot on. Be sure to catch them somewhere in the U.S. over the next few months.

Innerpartysystem is currently on tour with warped tour buzz band 3oh!3, and are direct support, but supply easily the best show of any of the 4 acts on the Myspace sponsored tour. Equipped with an eye-pleasing light show, and intense stage presence, IPS has had England talking for months and should have the same effect here in their own country. They put on a show fit for an opening slot on the next Nine Inch Nails tour, where they could play in large arenas, not skating rinks.

Quick Picks:

The Classic Crime – “Medisin”

Jimmy Needham – “A Breath or Two”

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

Let’s welcome new comer Michael Warren who hails from Alabama. His record has climbed the charts on the Awarestore.com reaching number five, but more importantly, his songs simply cut through. His songs are more dynamic and hook driven than John Mayer and he doesn’t spend his day on celebrity message boards which makes him a class act. Our favorite tracks are
Love Has Found A Way, No Way, and You.

Kate Tucker & the Sons of Sweden hail from the Northwest corner of Seattle Washington amidst the fisherman and sailors of Ballard. For fans of Mazzy Star, Portishead, and Blonde. Sound Magazine named them as one of 10 bands to watch in 2008. Our favorite track is Faster Than Cars Drive.

Check them out at The Annex (NYC) on October 26.

One Down, Dozens More to Go: This week KOAR has been talking about the potential collapse of ad supported models. Music social network Imeem is laying off 25% of its employees and it’s hired investment banker Montgomery to put itself up for sale. Imeem allows streaming and supposably has 30 million users. Yahoo! which relies on advertising for most of its profits plans to fire at least 1,500 workers after a 64 percent drop in its third-quarter profit.

Hells Bells Are Ringing: AC/DC’s new album ‘Black Ice’ which is sold exclusively though Wal-Mart is expected to sell 800k+ copies its first week. This is huge!

Unsigned Omaha rock band Emphatic has been charting for 10 weeks on Billboards West North Central Chart. Check out the track Goodbye Girl.

Ticketmaster will take over Irving Azoff’s music management company and place Azoff as CEO of Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster will change its name to Ticketmaster Entertainment and will become a live entertainment and marketing company. Front Line Management houses artists such as the Eagles, Jimmy Buffett, Neil Diamond, Van Halen, Fleetwood Mac, Stevie Nicks, Aerosmith, Steely Dan, Chicago, Journey and Guns N’ Roses.

New Stream: Well it’s about time! Here is a new song from the forthcoming Guns N Roses album ‘Chinese Democracy’. We need to give it a couple of listens…

Ad Supported Companies: In yesterdays post “Lala: A Music Revolution“, we discussed that advertising based sites want to give away music in return for ‘eyeballs’, yet the music business continues to shrink and the advertising market is growing larger. Of course it’s only time when the ad supported model collapses. Yahoo! which relies on advertising for most of its profits plans to fire at least 1,500 workers after a 64 percent drop in its third-quarter profit. What will Myspace look like in the future?

Canada’s unsigned Female band Scarlet Sins has been placed on the Official entry ballot for the 2009 Grammy Awards for Best Rock Album, Best Hard Rock Performance, and Best Rock Song. The band recorded their debut self-titled album with producer/engineer Richard Chycki who has worked with Rush, Aerosmith and Simple Plan. “Anyone that hears the Sins CD can’t believe it’s a bunch of girls,” says Bravewords and Bloody Knuckles writer Carl Begai.

A Lean Music Biz? Coolfer spotted a comment on Twitter, “Seriously shrunken swag at convention. CMJ bag nearly empty and few exhibitors. Lean music biz indeed.

Game Wars: CEO Edgar Bronfman, Jr. said he’ll yank music from Guitar Hero if Activision doesn’t agree to pay more for the label’s songs used in the game. Activision CEO Robert Kotick said the labels should feel priviliged that games like Guitar Hero are providing songs exposure that lead into sales spikes. Kotick says,”The bulk of our consumers will tell you they’re not purchasing the products based on the songs that are included, they’re purchasing based on how fun the songs are to play when they’re playing them.” Should labels should pay developers for their music’s inclusion in the games?