RomBox.com

Upper Darby, PA (Philadelphia Area / Southeastern Pennsylvania) — Scale The Summit is a young band out of Houston, Texas. They are currently part of the Progressive Nation Tour with Bigelf, Zappa Plays Zappa and Dream Theater. Their show at the Tower Theatre showcased the talent of the band whose average age is 22.

Possessing good form and great sound, the band played their unique style of instrumental music. They refer to their music as “adventure metal” as it takes the listener on a mental journey.

Their lead guitarist, Chris Letchford, plays an 8-string electric guitar. “As far as fitting in with modern music,” Letchford says, “I don’t think that we fit in with anybody– at all.”

One of the highlights from their set was “Sargasso Sea” from their latest album Carving Desert Canyons.

Scale The Summit Photo Gallery
Bigelf Photo Gallery
Zappa Plays Zappa Photo Gallery
Dream Theater Photo Gallery

Upper Darby, PA — Dream Theater is on their Progressive Nation tour which comes near Philadelphia to the Tower Theatre on July, 31. Zappa Plays Zappa is included on the bill. Frank Zappa’s oldest son, Dweezil Zappa, put together a show featuring his late father’s work.

“Black Clouds & Silver Linings”, the latest album by progressive rockers Dream Theater, debuted at #6 on Billboard’s Top 200 album chart.

“This is truly amazing. After almost 25 years together, Dream Theater is still growing and progressing and doing bigger and better than ever. I can’t think of many bands that can claim that. We are truly thankful to have this incredible support from fans who believe in the band as a musical force,” said drummer Mike Portnoy. “An album with four songs over 12 minutes in the US Top 10? Hell must’ve frozen over! This is one small leap for Dream Theater, and one giant leap for music in general.”

It is quite amusing when you look at their company in the top 10 — the Jonas Brothers, Black Eyed Peas and Regina Spektor.

This journey began in 2001 when at 17 years old, Stuart and Callum formed the band. During this year they played small local shows and school concerts, gaining valuable experience. The duo quickly formed a fantastic musical understanding of one another and shared the same goals and ambitions. Through the years they wrote a full album that falls within the heavy rock/alternative genre. This has been developed through time and experience. Along the way they took on many band members, attempting to create the sound they were striving for. Through various reasons, mainly lack of drive and ambition from the other members, they parted ways with them, seeking the perfect line up. During this time however, there were many positives. A backlog of material was pieced together and valuable gigging and recording experience was gained through the previous line-ups.

September 2008 spawned the birth of the band Purusa. In this month Stuart and Callum found the perfect line up. This now included vocalist and lyricist, Emma. Her all round package of unique vocals, lyrical ability, ambition and aura made her the missing piece they searched to find. Emma has many years of singing experience, going right back to singing cover songs in school concerts (age 11). Her other experience mainly includes singing solo local shows and singing competitions, usually to backing tracks or a single guitar. However, Emma’s desire was always to be the front woman of a heavy rock band. She began her search for this band in 2007. Many bands were tried but unfortunately, none met her high standards… Until she met Purusa.

Purusa’s first endeavour was to write and produce a concept album that has been named ‘Intrinsic’ which is representational of the journey through life and is best described as gothic ambience. This album was created due to the fact that the band struggled to find a drummer that would meet their high standards of ambition, determination and musicianship. In April 2009, all members of the band quit their full time jobs to focus fully on recording their debut album. Due to the bands ambitions towards being successful they searched long and hard and found a session drummer called Tim Kitchen who naturally understood the vibe and intricacies of the songs.

Purusa have currently completed their first 3 track E.P. entitled ‘Anoxia’ which includes Emma’s vocals. They are currently working with a designer to complete artwork for the E.P. which best represents the music. In the meantime the songs are available to listen to on MySpace and Taxi.

Purusa have received excellent, positive feedback from the general public and Radio stations from America, Germany and the UK have shown enough interest to play the songs and promote them on their own pages. They have also been approached by a film director/writer to use one of their songs in a new feature length production, and producer Sylvia Massy has contacted them to discuss recording with her.

Purusa have a marketable image and all the drive and ambition required to ‘make it’ in the industry. They also have a fresh and completely unique sound. Uncommonly to other bands, Purusa’s main influence is its own music. The band constantly strives to build upon and improve in any way the music that they have written previously. They live for playing their own music and listen to their own creations more than those of any other bands.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this bio,

Much love,

Purusa

Queen is said to be considering “American Idol” runner-up Adam Lambert as their new frontman.

Brian May and Roger Taylor of Quenn performed We Are The Champions with Adam Lambert and Kris Allen just prior to the announcement of the winner of American Idol. The Idol contestants began the song then it was revealed that the real Queen was there, too , playing alongside.

KRIS ALLEN IS CROWNED THE “AMERICAN IDOL”

Record-Setting Nearly 100 Million Votes Cast Last Night; 624 Million Total Votes Cast This Season

Two-Hour Spectacular Season Finale Featured Appearances by Queen Latifah, Jason Mraz, Keith Urban, Fergie, The Black Eyed Peas, Cyndi Lauper, Lionel Richie, KISS, Carlos Santana, Steve Martin and Rod Stewart.

Last Year’s Winner David Cook Returned to AMERICAN IDOL Stage

Auditions Set for Season Nine in Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Orlando and Denver

The eighth season of AMERICAN IDOL came to a sensational conclusion tonight as Kris Allen was crowned the winner during the live two-hour season finale on FOX. A new record was set after almost 100 million votes were received following Tuesday’s performance show. In addition, 624 million total votes were cast during Season Eight – more than any other season in the show’s history.

It was a duel between Kris Allen and Adam Lambert, who each performed three songs on Tuesday night’s final competition show. Allen, from Conway, AR, emerged as America’s choice in a competition that began with more than 100,000 hopefuls who turned out in San Francisco, CA; Louisville, KY; Phoenix, AZ; Salt Lake City, UT; San Juan, PR; Kansas City, MO; Jacksonville, FL; and East Rutherford, NJ.

Allen capped his coronation on Wednesday’s finale by singing “No Boundaries,” co-written by IDOL judge Kara DioGuardi, Cathy Dennis and Mitch Allan. The song is available for download exclusively on americanidol.com and iTunes.

Last year’s winner, David Cook, returned to the AMERICAN IDOL stage to perform his new single, “Permanent.”

The broadcast from the NOKIA Theatre L.A. LIVE in downtown Los Angeles also featured appearances by Queen Latifah, Jason Mraz, Keith Urban, Fergie, The Black Eyed Peas, Cyndi Lauper, Lionel Richie, KISS, Carlos Santana, Steve Martin, Rod Stewart and Queen.

Lambert and KISS rocked the house with a medley of “Beth,” “Detroit Rock City” and “Rock and Roll All Nite,” while Allen took the stage with Keith Urban to sing “Kiss a Girl.” Third-place finisher Danny Gokey performed “Hello,” “Just Go” and “All Night Long” with Lionel Richie, and Allison Iraheta sang “Time After Time” with Cyndi Lauper. Finalists Anoop Desai and Alexis Grace sang “I’m Yours” with Jason Mraz, while Lil Rounds and Queen Latifah performed “Cue the Rain.” Reunited for the first time, the Top 13 joined Carlos Santana for his hits “Black Magic Woman” and “Smooth.” The Top 5 girls joined Fergie on the chart-topping songs “Glamorous” and “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” and The Black Eyed Peas performed “Boom Boom Pow.” Rod Stewart joined the Top 8 guys on stage to perform a medley of “Hot Legs,” “Some Guys Have All the Luck,” “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy” and “Maggie May.” In addition, finalists Megan Joy and Michael Sarver performed “Pretty Flowers” with Steve Martin. To cap off the night, Allen and Lambert joined Queen in a show-stopping rendition of “We Are the Champions.”

On Tuesday night’s final competition, Allen and Lambert each performed three songs. Allen sang “Ain’t No Sunshine,” “What’s Going On” and “No Boundaries,” while Lambert sang “Mad World,” “A Change is Gonna Come” and “No Boundaries.”

Kris Allen is the eighth American Idol to win the coveted title and a record contract with 19 Recordings. He joins Kelly Clarkson, Ruben Studdard, Fantasia, Carrie Underwood, Taylor Hicks, Jordin Sparks and David Cook.

30 Seconds to Mars is still in an intense legal battle with EMI records. Jared Leto recently put out this news release:

Still fighting the good fight here in the City of Angels. Working
nonstop in the laboratory, experimenting with any and everything. So
many exciting things happening we wish we could share them with
everyone all the time. Yes, there are those days filled with more
questions than answers and a healthy amount of self doubt but we think
this is the absolute best thing we have ever done to date. Now it’s
just about finishing. About commitment. About surrender. You know the
drill. This part of the story isn’t too different for all of us around
the world. I guess it just depends how the light falls.

So, sorry to say it doesn’t look like we will have a record ready to put out this year….

…just kidding. Hehaw. It’ll be done momentarily and out sometime this
summer. Woooohooooo! We cannot wait. So many secrets to tell about what
we have been up to. Soon….

The EMI situation is still the same unfortunately. They are still
intent on suing us for 30 gazillion dollars and we are still intent on
fighting for what we believe in. We had hopes for some sort of
resolution by now but it’s not yet meant to be. We have prepared
ourselves for whatever outcome may transpire and although we welcome
continued conversation and compromise we remain ready for the battle
for what is right and true.

Whatever happens we promise you all one thing. This new album will be out this year. No. Matter. What.

We miss the road and all of you very much.

XO
-jared

by RomBox.com for the Rock n’ Roll Romper Room

The Offspring
Rise And Fall, Rage And Grace

The Rise And Fall, Rage And Disgrace album was released in 2008 by the Offspring. In June, they announced it would debut on-line. The release of the CD came later in the year. It is the bands eighth album, and the first since 2004. Drummer, Atom Willard, left the band in 2007 and joined Angels & Airwaves. However, he hadn’t been drumming on the recordings. Because of a contract dispute with Geffen records, Willard was not allowed to record. Studio musician, Josh Freese, had been doing the drumming tracks as he had on the previous album.

In any event, the album eventually came out… and due to the onslaught of bad reviews, many people instantly dismissed it. In fact, this reviewer was not even going to give it a try.

Despite the critics, and in the true spirit of American Punk, the album developed an underground fan uprising. It was recently brought to my attention by several of these underground offspring. They said, “you’ve got to listen to this!”

The Offspring have often been pigeoned-holed as a Punk band. Perhaps the music is Punkish. But, on this album, the music has more depth than what comes to mind when you hear “Punk.” Yes. There are elements of Punk and Ska in many of the songs. On the other hand, the melodies, hooks and metal overtones tend to broaden the listening horizon. Some people might even go so far as to say, “the more you listen to it, the more you like it.” Does that mean it boarders on Pop? Shhh… don’t tell the underground fans.

1. Half-Truism 3:27
2. Trust In You 3:09
3. You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid [Explicit] 2:57
4. Hammerhead 4:38
5. A Lot Like Me 4:28
6. Takes Me Nowhere 2:59
7. Kristy, Are You Doing Okay? 3:41
8. Nothingtown [Explicit] 3:30
9. Stuff Is Messed Up [Explicit] 3:31
10. Fix You 4:20
11. Let’s Hear It For Rock Bottom 4:04
12. Rise And Fall 2:59