ATN's Music News of the World: Offspring

EX-DEAD KENNEDY RANTS ON UPCOMING OFFSPRING ALBUMJello Biafra, the former leader of the Dead Kennedy's, kicks off the upcoming Offspring album with what a spokesperson for the group calls a "guest rant." The album, titled Ixnay On The Hombre, will be released on Feb. 4. It is the group's first effort under their deal with Columbia Records. The Offspring became the biggest selling punk band with their Thom Wilson-produced mega-million selling Smash, which was released on the indie label Epitaph. The new album was produced by Dave Jerden, who worked with Jane's Addiction and Social Distortion among others. The album features 13 songs including "All I Want," "Gone Away" and "The Meaning Of Life." Come the new year the Offspring will head overseas, playing Big Day Out festival dates in Australia, then moving on to Europe before returning to the U. S. for a tour in the spring.THE MTV MAKE-OVERAddicted To Noise staff writer Gil Kaufman reports: In a move tantamount to a nyah, nyah in the face of the 99% of MTV viewers who are already shit out of luck in their quest to catch the allegedly awesome videos-only M2 sister station, MTV has announced that they are set to undergo one of their bi-decade facelifts. And guess what? This time they're getting rid of those pesky music videos all together! Okay, not entirely, but just about.MTV President Judy McGrath told the Hollywood Reporter that the station is in search of an "offbeat" image, as opposed, we suppose, to their current slightly out-of-step image. In vowing to let her creative people get "weird" again, McGrath announced a slew of new non-music programming (as if what seems like 20 hours a day of Singled Out and The Real World weren't enough), including a new game show Idiot Savants, and talk shows by Bulls rebounding machine and cross-dressing headline-grabber Dennis Rodman and bleached and built-out MTV pin-up Jenny McCarthy.The only good news is plans for a rave/techno show called Amp, and an "edgier" indie music program with the working title, Indie 500, that will supposedly be edgier than Alternative Nation (but then we hear that will become an hour show that will air in the very, very early hours of the night when even NYC club-hoppers have passed out) and give indie labels a chance to have their band's videos aired.The station will also be adding the popular radio show Lovelines to its line-up, although details on what form it would take were sketchy. The show, which used to be hosted by Headbangers Ball host Riki Rachman, plays nightly on many alternative rock radio stations across the country and mixes celebrity interviews with calls from listeners experiencing sex/drugs/relationship problems. Hmm. Why doesn't MTV just have sex symbol (and Details and Rolling Stone cover-girl Jenny McCarthy do a kind of Dr. Ruth thing.PUMPKINS EX-DRUMMER SURFACES IN SUPER GROUPAddicted To Noise staff writer Gil Kaufman reports: Breeders member Kelly Deal says that The Last Hard Men, a supergroup consisting of Deal, Skid Row's Sebastian Bach, the Frogs' Jimmy Flemion and ex-Smashing Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, are in fact more than just a weird rock and roll rumor."If you've read any of my interviews lately, I talk about Sebastian a lot," Deal said, adding that she's not sure herself why that is. That's all well and good, but just how the hell did you four get together we wondered? I mean, whose idea was that? "I'll tell you what," said Deal, "I saw this article in Spin Magazine about hair bands and I was really bothered by it. I mean, here they were making fun of these bands, but what were the interviewers wearing? Grunge flannel? Baggy pants? I was bothered that Spin made fun of style because everything is style and it was done in a really mean way. Don't get me wrong, I not a huge metal fan either, I mean I like Sabbath, but glam metal was so pussy. It just didn't seem fair." So, basically, incensed, Deal, who'd always heard Bach had a great voice and was the realest of the hair band squealers (her words, not ours), called up a friend and tried to get set up with the singer. Her friend laughed at her, but a few weeks later Bach called and Deal said he was really cool, seemingly open to anything, with a real "punk rock attitude."Bach came backstage at a Kelly Deal 6000 show in New York a short time later and the pair met and decided to do a cover of Alice Cooper's "School's Out" for the new Wes Craven movie, Scream. "We knew they wanted someone to do that song for the movie, so I thought 'who else could I get to do this?' See, my idea was always to have a band with two heavy metal guys and two others. I wanted Jimmy (Flemion) and Sebastian was supposed to bring Tommy Lee, but that didn't happen. Sebastian said it was too bad we couldn't get Jimmy (Chamberlin) because he probably wouldn't do it, but I did my thing and called him up and asked him to do it. He said sure."So, a few weeks ago, the unlikely quartet holed up in Pachyderm studios in Minneapolis and laid down 12 tracks in 4 days with Bach singing and playing theremin and percussion, Deal and Flemion singing and playing bass and guitar and Chamberlin handling drums, percussion and some vocals. "We were only supposed to do the cover, but once everybody got there, I extended the studio time and we knew we wanted to record more material," according to Deal. She knew she wanted to do some Jimmy Flemion songs, including "If You Want a Rock, Go To the Quarry," one of her favorite Frogs tunes, and before they knew it they'd covered the Scorpions' "Leave Me" and the Rogers and Hammerstein nugget, "I Enjoy Being a Girl," done in a "Peggy Lee style" according to Deal. Deal produced the album, whose other songs were penned by her and Flemion, and the ebullient sometimes Breeder said she expects it to come out on her own Nice Records label, with distribution via a bigger label. "I don't know if it's a one-off and I don't know if we'll tour, although Sebastian is already drawing up pyro plans for the shows," said Deal about future plans, "but I don't think it's odd at all, I think this is normal, it's the thing everybody should be doing."As for Deal's other plans, she just returned from Seattle where she recorded a duet ("Hung Over Again") with the Supersuckers' Eddie Spaghetti in a "George Jones/Tammy Wynette style" for that band's final Sub Pop album. And her band, the Kelly Deal 6000, whose debut was the first release on Nice, just filmed a video for "How About Hero," in which Deal plays a "Xena the Warrior Princess-type character" and are about to leave for a six week European tour. As for the Breeders, Deal said succinctly, "I'll give you my stock answer to that stock question, 'that's Kim's band, so you'll have to ask Kim.'"CONCEPTUAL CONUNDRUM: SOLO WORD FROM PINK FLOYD KEYBOARDISTAddicted To Noise staff writer Gil Kaufman reports: Would you expect any less from a member of Pink Floyd? Keyboardist Rick Wright could have easily just written and recorded some vague, proggy songs for his debut solo album, Broken China, but, as with all things Floydian, Rickie needed a "concept," a ponderous, overarching theme to tie it all up, y'know? So, on December 10, be prepared to wade through the four movements of Wright's twisted tale: "Childhood," "Adolescence," "Depression" and "Reason for Depression," which make up the 16-song exploration of, you guessed it, clinical depression.Wright, apparently fascinated with the plight of a friend suffering from depression, teams up with depressive singer Sinead O'Connor for two songs on the effort, "Reaching For the Rail" and "Breakthrough," although we won't guess which "movements" they belong to. Wright, who plays all the keyboards on the album, co-produced it with lyricist Anthony Moore; Tim Renwick contributed guitar work. No word yet on a Prozac-sponsored tour, or rumors that the flying pig has been replaced with an inflatable dose of Lithium.A NEW BATCH OF (SUPER) GRASSAddicted To Noise staff writer Gil Kaufman reports: It's been a busy few months for Oxford, England's Supergrass. Since the 1994 release of their infectiously pop debut I Should Coco, which promptly landed them in the "next big thing" pile in Merry 'Ol, the trio have toured the world and, just recently, finally gotten back to the biz and recorded a follow-up. According to a label source, the boys are in the process of mixing their sophomore effort, whose working title is Second Album Syndrome, slated for a March 1997 release.In the meantime, drummer Danny Goffey and his wife brought a son into the world, on John Lennon's birthday no less, hence the name Alfie Lennon Goffey. The band have purposely kept a low-profile so they could concentrate on the new songs. They recently told the New Musical Express that those new songs are "not a drastic change, though there is a track with a human beatbox on it, which is weird, with a stomping organ on it. It's a bit more psychedelic I suppose, harder and a bit more diverse" [than the debut].Supergrass have been confirmed as the headliners at next year's Glastonbury Festival. Like their debut, the new album was partially recorded at Sawmills studio in Cornwall over the summer (the same place Oasis recorded Definitely Maybe) and will likely be kicked-off with the single "Richard the Third." Other songs scheduled to be included on the 12-track album are: "You Can See Me", "Hollow Little Reign", "Cheapskate", "The Sun Meets The Sky" and "Sometimes."OFF-THE-(ATN)-WIRE: INXS are about to come out of hibernation. Their new album, tentatively titled Elegantly Wasted, is due in mid-March of 1997. It features 12 new songs and the same line-up of the band you've come to know and love and was produced by Bruce Fairbairn and mixed by Tom Lord Alge...Fromer Jane's Addiction bassit Eric Avery has formed a new band called Polar Bear...A single by FuManchu has been produced by ex-Kyuss guitarist Josh Homme. Former Kyuss drummer Brant Bjork is in the band... If you dig Pavement, the Velvet Underground and the early Modern Lovers we suggest you give an album by 764-Hero called Salt Sinks and Sugar Floats a listen. It's brilliant...While you're at it, don't miss K by Kula Shaker, the latest, greatest Brit-pop band to hit US shores.