Trey Anastasio, frontman and lead guitarist for Phish, has teamed up with Orchestra Nashville for a project called Time Turns Elastic. When the orchestra starts its 2008-2009 season at the Ryman Auditorium Anastasio will be there, too.

The work is touted as groundbreaking for vocals, orchestra, and electric guitar. Given the work Anastasio has done with Phish and some of his more ambitious solo products, the Time Turns Elastic project promises to be creative and interesting beyond measure. The first team up for Orchestra Nashville and Anastasio was back in 2004 and 80,000 fans were treated to “new classical” music. The collaboration was such a hit that the work continued.

Anastasio has been working on this newest collaboration for 18 months now, as he’s been off the road. A lot of emotion went into the work, and all who have worked on it seem to believe that a lot of emotion will come out of it, as well. It’s like nothing else out there, with long passages of orchestral music intertwined with vocals and unparalleled electric guitar work.

Some think it odd that the Ryman – a traditionally country music venue – would be the choice for this music, but it’s actually not so strange when you consider that Orchestra Nashville has a serious reputation for music that goes beyond the boundaries.

Hailing from Oklahoma, the quartet hasn’t really hit the big time yet but they’ve played shows with Bon Jovi, and that’s pretty big to them. Also big to them is their third album, which is still untitled and not quite finished just yet. They have 10 tracks recorded and have taken their time, spending the last three years writing and reflecting.

The album is expected to be out in November and will be a culmination of all that has happened to them in that time period and how they feel about it. They don’t want to just stuff a bunch of music onto an album and throw it out there for everyone – they want their music to mean something, both to them and to their fans.

Once their album is done there are already other ideas in the works, including collaboration with other artists – something that could also appear on the last few remaining tracks of the November album. Barefoot Studios in Hollywood was the home base for recording the album, and the band worked 12-hour days with producer Eric Valentine. Band guitarist Nick Wheeler joked that it was such a rock-star thing…without any rock stars. Being humble is one of the things that the band does well.

Fan made music video. Great song.

Idol, Kimmel, and the Conchords…how could it get any better than that? At the Emmy awards ceremony for television excellence, the Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics category is awash with creativity, and also amusement.

The Conchords have two songs in the running – “The Most Beautiful Girl” and “Inner City Pressure” – and because of that are favored to win, but they’ve got a lot of competition. A viral hit from Sarah Silverman and Matt Damon that was performed for Jimmy Kimmel Live is running against them, as are two other finalists. Fans of any of the songs will just have to wait to find out who the winner ultimately is.

Music is not the only category, and there’s also the Outstanding Picture Editing of Clip Packages for Talk, Performance, Award or Reality Competition Series. In that competitive market the Jimmy Kimmel Live song as well as Kimmel’s song in response will go up against each other and also against the “David Cook Goes Home” segment that came from the American Idol show.

American Idol has the most nominations, with nods in categories such as Outstanding Reality Competition Program, Outstanding Sound Editing, Outstanding Technical Direction and Outstanding Host for the much-loved (and much-made-fun-of) Ryan Seacrest.

This is hilarious. They pegged the bands best I’ve ever seen.

 Jimi Hendrix will finally take his rightful place in the guitar hero game franchise.  For all you fans out there who couldn’t believe that Hendrix hadn’t made an appearance, the delay was due to his estate not being able to locate the original masters.

Not to worry, multiple songs have been located and will be included in “Guitar Hero: World Tour.”  (more…)

Zach De La Rocha has a new band. The line  up features the former Rage Against The Machine front man, as well as  Jon Theodore (formally of The Mars Volta).

The band says this when asked about the significance of it’s name: (more…)