'Cast in Metal: Airbourne Frontman Joel O'Keefe

If AC/DC aren't cranking out albums fast enough for you and Rhino Bucket don't get your engine revin,' then check out the new Airbourne album 'No Guts, No Glory.' The second disc by these Aussie/DC obsessives is a feast of sleazy, slammin' rhythms, jagged flesh-cleaving guitars and howled melodic vocals that sound like Angus-and-company on [...]

Source: http://blog.mtvmusic.com/2010/05/24/cast-in-metal-airbourne-frontman-joel-okeefe/

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'Tron Legacy': Under The Hood Of Three Cool Vehicles

Designer Daniel Simon gives MTV News a behind-the-scenes look at how the film's futuristic machines were built.
By Eric Ditzian


Lightcycle in "Tron Legacy"
Photo: Disney

The "Tron Legacy" vehicle design team had one goal: "We wanted to make the most sexy vehicles ever onscreen."

According to German-born designer Daniel Simon, who worked on transforming the original film's iconic creations from clunky machines to sleek, futuristic works of art, the crew set the bar high for themselves. It was a four-year process that began with director Joseph Kosinski and production designer Darren Gilford, who conceived the overall concepts and then brought in folks like Simon, whose work includes designing real-world Bugattis and Lamborghinis.

Not that they actually built the lightcycles and lightjets we see in the finished film, which hit theaters on Friday (December 16). While the crew constructed each vehicle's cockpit, complete with LED lights and instrumentation, the machines only exist on the sketchpad and in the ultra-powerful computers with which Kosinski created his film.

Simon called up MTV News recently to walk us through the creation of three of the vehicles in the new movie. Here's what we learned.

Lightcycles
As fans of the 1982 film know, the first lightcycles — those bikes that race forward and emit beams of light — weren't open-air vehicles but rather sported concealing shields. You couldn't see the actors furiously riding through the movie's CGI world. The tech team back then simply didn't possess the computing power to capture such complexity. They had to hide the actors. The first thing Kosinski wanted was to make his "Tron Legacy" bikes open-air.

"It was a pretty obvious choice. That is what most motorcycles look like," Simon said. "They had exactly those ideas in the '80s but didn't have the technology to execute them. Making the lightcycles open-air was a way to show off our technological revolution. And it's more fun for the actors, since they can be seen and they can interact with the environment."

To further update the bikes, the team drew inspiration from real-world bikes built to set speed records. "From the rider position and the wheelbase, it's inspired by land speed-record bikes that you would see in Bonneville or El Mirage," Simon explained. "Motorcycle fans will know Burt Munro, who set all these records in the '60s, he used the same rider position. The only difference is that you can't actually turn a bike like how the bikes are turned in the movie!"

Lightjets
Simon and his fellow designers got a few simple directives for the lightjets, a collection of elegant warships that do some crazy aerial battling late in the film. As Simon puts it, "They said they want this vehicle to look elegant yet aggressive, it has to fit three people in and it has to have a gun in the back and the wings should fold up. But out of that concept, you can make 5,000 different designs."

Nor were they constrained by real-world consideration for airplanes; these lightjets never had to land safely at LAX. Yet such freedom had its limits: The jets had to conform to what the public is generally familiar with when it comes to aircraft. With so many possibilities, they drilled down to a few concrete references.

"The big jets should be more like gliders, laid-back but still sinister with guns and sh--," Simon said. "The small ones should be like mosquitoes, aggressive and very agile."

Quorra's Car
Olivia Wilde's Quorra drives a seriously impressive sports car in the film. And there's simply nothing like it on Earth. "There's not a real car we referenced," Simon said. "It's freaking huge — almost 9-feet wide. It would kick every Lamborghini's ass."

The car, it turned out, was too huge, and Simon had to go back to the drawing board. "The door has this scissor-swing opening and it was difficult to design," he said. "And then the room where they were going to shoot it was not high enough for the door to swing open. We were like, 'Oh sh--, this has to be a foot shorter!' "

Check out everything we've got on "Tron Legacy."

For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com.

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1654460/20101216/story.jhtml

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Adam Lambert's 'Whole Lotta Love': The Story Behind The Cover

Glam rocker tackled the legendary 1970 Led Zeppelin song for 'American Idol' rock night.
By Gil Kaufman


Adam Lambert performs "Whole Lotta Love" on "American Idol" on Tuesday
Photo: R. Mickshaw/Getty Images/ Fox

Imagine a freight train speeding toward you at midnight. Or a rockslide barreling down a hill as you try to outrace it. That's the feeling of the ominous, chugging Jimmy Page riff that kicks off Led Zeppelin's 1970 Stonehenge of rock, "Whole Lotta Love." And that's before singer Robert Plant leans into one of the nastiest, ecstatic rock screams this side of the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again."

That's the song Adam Lambert chose to sing on "American Idol" rock night Tuesday (May 5), and, needless to say, it was a challenge that the eyeliner-loving Los Angeles stage veteran was more than up for, hitting a series of high notes and rock screams that would have made Plant proud. It was a risky maneuver that paid off for Lambert, who chose a tune that came in at #75 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2004.

The legendary British rock act recorded the tribute to Chicago blues icon Willie Dixon during their second U.S. tour after working it out in their live show, including it on their 1969 classic album Led Zeppelin II. Like many of the songs Zeppelin performed early in their career, "Love" was a blues standard turned on its head with a heavy dose of crunching psychedelic guitar and thundering drums, courtesy of late drummer John Bonham. The song was based on a 1962 tune by another blues forefather, Muddy Waters, called "You Need Love," which was penned by Dixon.

For Zeppelin's version, Plant customized the lyrics by adding some lyrical quotes from a few other songs Dixon wrote for Howlin' Wolf, "Back Door Man" and "Shake For Me," nailing the tricky vocal in a single take. It was also inspired by 1966's "You Need Loving" from the British rock group the Small Faces, for whom Zeppelin had great affection, but they also did not credit Dixon for his part in writing the original lyrics. The song became Zeppelin's first U.S. single and their only U.S. top 10 hit. Though their manager would not let them release singles in the U.K. because he thought it cannibalized album sales, the song was finally released as the band's only British single in 1997.

Dixon sued Zeppelin over the song in 1985, claiming it borrowed too heavily from his "You Need Love," and Zeppelin reached an agreement with him, with Dixon using the money he received to set up a program that provided musical instruments for schools. A cornerstone of heavy rock, the tune -- which was the theme song for the long-running British countdown show "Top of the Pops" in the 1970s and '80s -- has been covered by dozens of artists over the years, from Tina Turner and Ben Harper to Prince, Slash, Leona Lewis, Train's Pat Monahan, the London Symphony Orchestra and Jane's Addiction.

Get your "Idol" fix on MTV News' "American Idol" page, where you'll find all the latest news, interviews and opinions.

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1610709/20090505/led_zeppelin.jhtml

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PITNB Readers, 121810

Here is this week's batch of photos sent in by Pink is the new Blog readers ? Rena sends in an absolutely adorable photo of her 6 month old son Cash who altho he looks terribly upset is actually a very happy baby ? Doti from Houston, TX sends in a supercute photo of her [...]

Source: http://www.pinkisthenewblog.com/2010/12/pitnb-readers-121810/

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Chick-Fil-A Breaks Ground On Their Hollywood Location

Earlier this month we learned the EXCITING news that Chick-Fil-A is finally planning to open a restaurant in Hollywood, CA next Summer and yesterday they broke ground on the new restaurant site! Chick-Fil-A Hollywood will open on Sunset and Highland in Summer 2011 ? here are a few photos and tweets from yesterday's groundbreaking demolition [...]

Source: http://www.pinkisthenewblog.com/2010/12/chick-fil-a-breaks-ground-on-their-hollywood-location/

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