Amy Winehouse Has an Exclusive Live EP on Urge...

...she is also on the cover on this month's Spin Magazine and also has a downloadable live performance (her US debut) on Spinner.com.

To start with the Live EP...MTV launched a new show last month, 45th at Night, and Amy Winehouse was the debut performer. She played a six song set (or that was all that was aired) of material from her current release Back to Black which includes a duet with Mos Def on "Love is a Losing Game". The video is available on MTV's site(link) and Urge has the audio portion of this show available as an exclusive live EP.

Winehouse is also on the cover on Spin Magazine this month. Spin.com has highlights of the interview and some exclusive video footage (link). Lastly, this is somewhat old news but I just downloaded Winehouse's US debut performance from AOL's Spinner.com (link). While Winehouse's performance on Spinner is great, the interview is priceless. She talks about her love for alcohol and rips into Bono. The interview alone is well worth the download.

On a humerous note, NME.com reports that "British bookmakers William Hill are offering 1/2 odds on Amy Winehouse not turning up to her next gig, scheduled to be Tuesday's (July 17) Eden Sessions show at the Eden Project in Cornwall, England.

The odds offer comes after Winehouse cancelled her scheduled appearances in the U.K. at last weekend's T In The Park and Oxegen festivals, and was photographed drinking in her local pub despite citing "exhaustion" as the reason for her cancellation."

Links:
Amy Winehouse's Main Website (link)
Amy Winehouse's MySpace page (link)

Urge Releases Exclusive 4-Song EP of Klaxons Live @ Studio B, Brooklyn

Urge, who sponsored The Klaxons at Studio B this past April, just released an exclusive four song live EP from the show through Urge (obviously). I am listening to the EP now and the songs sound great. The tracks on the EP are Gravity’s Rainbow, Golden Skans, Atlantis to Interzone, and Magick.

Here is a link to the tracks on Urge(link). I was an iPod bigot for the longest time but now that I have sat down and checked out Urge, it is a pretty cool program. Check it out and see what you think...

Links:
The Klaxons' Main Website (link)
Pictures & Review from April 13th show at Studio B (link)

The Klaxons @ Studio B, Brooklyn, NY April 13th, 2007

MTV Urge Nights sponsored The Klaxons at Studio B last Friday night. I haven't seen a crowd this ready to party since the closing shows at CBGB. The show was sold out and the club was at capacity.


The crowd started pogoing and dancing from the minute the band hit the stage up until the last song. With that many people moving, the temperature rose quickly and that jacket (in the above picture) didn't last long.


As I have heard The Klaxons' music described as "new rave" so I was expecting their live show to sound something like the Happy Monday's. This wasn't the case at all. Below is part of an interview that Urge did with singer/keyboardist James Righton:

URGE: What does the phrase "new rave" mean to you?

Righton: Jaime [Reynolds] invented the term for the band, just as a joke. Then NME got ahold of it, and what the NME says suddenly becomes gospel. So it spread. It's a misrepresentation of the music and misleading in a lot of ways.

URGE: So you're saying you don't take 10 ecstasy pills a day and wear a Dr. Seuss hat to bed?

Righton: No, no. [Laughs.] It's not happening. It's funny, because as soon as it got talked about, we tried to distance ourselves from it. I don't think any band likes a tag, let alone one that conjures up images that we probably don't adhere to.

URGE: What are the differences between the first generation of rave and what you're doing?

Righton: The differences are musical: We don't use electronics, we don't use 303s, we don't use any of that. We're a live band, an organic band, and that allows for human failures and elements. We don't go onstage dressed in neon out of our minds, either. Not every night.





If The Klaxons truely believe the world will end in 2012, they obviously aim to have some fun over the next five years. The new album's final song, "Four Horsemen Of 2012," references the final year of the Mayan Calendar, when some, including Klaxons (Reynolds, Righton and guitarist Simon Taylor-Davis), believe the world will end. But reveling in our worldly demise is cause for a party, according to Righton: "Celebrating that we all are going to die is great! Every gig, we give out the address to Simon's house, that's where the barbeque is going to happen on New Year's Eve 2012."

URGE: Do you really believe that the world is going to end in 2012?

Righton: Of course we do. We're going to design T-shirts that say "12 12 12." Then watches that say "countdown to apocalypse." They're not going to tell the time, just the countdown. You're all invited to Simon's barbeque, as well.

New Interview with the Klaxons Posted to Urge.com

MTV has a new download service Urge that looks more than capable of giving iTunes a run for its money. The site has a 14 day free trial so check it out.

MTV Urge Nights are sponsoring the Klaxons at Studio B in Greenpoint this Friday night (and there are still tickets left) and just posted an interview with the band to Urge.com.

Below are some excerpts from the interview and a link to the full text is below.

URGE: What was the first gig you ever played as Klaxons like?

James Righton: We started the band on November 4, 2005, booked a gig for November 11th and so had to learn to play something quickly. The venue was located in the center of London in a small basement, and when we turned up we found out that the main act had pulled out, so we were suddenly playing our first gig as a headliner with literally three or four songs. Within the first two or three minutes of the set, every instrument fell apart, everything broke, and it was the most punk thing most people in London had seen in a long time.

URGE: Do you really believe that the world is going to end in 2012?

Righton: Of course we do. We're going to design T-shirts that say "12 12 12." Then watches that say "countdown to apocalypse." They're not going to tell the time, just the countdown. You're all invited to Simon's barbeque, as well.

The rest of the interview is available here (link)