Hell. Yes.

Since the alphabet is the building block of our language, the Powet Alphabet is the building block of what makes us geeks.
“Only” music video, directed by David Fincher with effects by Digital Domain

Nine Inch Nails were a group actively largely in the 1990s and 2000s that performed various permutations of rock, including industrial, goth, techno, metal, pop and other influences. Because the musical styles varied from album to album and often from song to song, its hard to peg them into a single genre, though if you like heavy music its not hard to be a fan.
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Last week Ted Leo suggested a “paradigm shift” would be coming today, and sure enough here it is.
“The Brutalist Bricks” as a Broadway musical, with Paul F Tompkins and John Hodgman also appearing. The video is directed by WMFU’s Tom Scharpling.

Weezer announced they’d have a new album called Hurley a while ago. Any fan of LOST thinks first of the character Hugo Reyes played by actor Jorge Garcia, knicknamed “Hurley”

Apparently as the band was considering titles and covers, one photo of singer/songwriter Rivers Cuomo with Garcia was a clear favorite. As a result, the cover of the album will simply be a closeup of Garcia’s face with no text.

Says Cuomo, “I just loved this photo of Jorge Garcia — it just had this amazing vibe. We didn’t want to do a fourth self-titled record and we knew people would refer to it as ‘the Hurley record’ even if left it without that title, so we just called it ‘Hurley.’ No words are on the cover because all we wanted was his amazing face.”

Even though theres no connection for the songs themselves (Cuomo says he’s only up to season 2 on dvd), Lost Executive Producer Damon Lindelof none the less was excited: “New Weezer album title had to be a coincidence. Then I saw the cover. So. Damn. AWESOME.”

Hurley will be released on September 14th, the first single “Memories” is making the rounds on rock radio.

Soundgarden announced their intent to reunite some time ago (the group split back in 97) and they’ll take the stage for the first time since then at Lollapalooza this weekend. Coincidentally, it was at Lollapalooza in 1996 that I saw Soundgarden while touring in support of their last studio album.
Anyway, their next release is Telephantasm, which is much like their last release A-Sides, a greatest hits album with one new song. What a value to those of us who supported Soundgarden and already own the albums!

Its not all doom and gloom though, since the first million copies of the next Guitar Hero title, Warriors Of Rock, will include the single CD version that album. The unreleased song “Black Rain” will be on the CD and will be available for play in the game. The game releases September 28, and the standalone release of Telephantasm will not release until October 5, so you can get a limited Soundgarden fix a week early!

Hit the jump for the full track listings to the CD and the limited edition CD/DVD combo.

USA Today of all places is getting us our first real look of Rock Band 3’s Keytar. Looks like putting it in your lap will be the easiest way to play, and the color coded portions of the keyboard will let the novice easily pound away like they’re Ben Folds without actually being super precise. Meanwhile its clear that the hardest level of the game has been beefed up to allow more challenge to those guys who’ve been playing Rock Band 15 hours a week for the past 3 years.

Hit the jump for a peek at a few of the songs to be included in the game. Spoiler Alert: “Rainbow In The Dark” made the cut! This one’s for you, Dio.

Source USA Today (Thanks Ernie!)

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En route to see Ashes Divide at the Viper Room, noble reader and fan RJK snapped this photo of a billboard. Four familiar icons, one unfamiliar, and one giant number “3”

The billboard is just a mile away from LAX, it appears Harmonix is gearing up to make the big announcement of the next Rock Band. The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) starts next week in Los Angeles. We already have heard early reports that we’ll see keyboards added to the mix, and this ad pretty much removes all doubt.

Check your local listings, PBS is bringing Video Games Live home.

After five years of fan demand, VGL will release a DVD and PBS will exclusively air 90 minutes of it this summer. As part of the PBS Pledge Drive, The Video Games Live DVD, Blu Ray, and CD will only be available via PBS through November 1. This will be a great chance to support public television in your community and get a sweet DVD while you’re at it. Thats a lot better than a tote bag!

Dates will vary from city to city and station to station depending on when your local PBS station will run its pledge drive, so definitely keep an eye on the schedule. Video Games Live will run from July 31 through the month of August.

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