MusicWire.TV

Singer/songwriter, Jonathan Clay, put on a remarkably smooth performance this Monday evening, June 21, 2010, at Hollywood’s Hotel Cafe. The Austin native admittedly had always wanted to play at the legendary venue and, living in Texas, had never been granted the opportunity until this week during his promotional tour of SoCal. He was out here promoting his new album, Everything She Wants, and when asked if he’d be interested in doing the Hotel Cafe jam, he was thrilled and ready to rock the stage. His answer, of course, was ‘yes,’ and Musicwire TV was lucky enough to catch the show.

Clay hit the Hotel Cafe stage with his band mates, Darrell Phillips (bass), Zach Chance (keyboards/vocals), and Adrian Marchi (drums) at approximately 11:00PM on Monday night. The boys were greeted by loud applause and shrieking female fans who’d stuck it out for the duration of the night just to see Clay perform. Yes, these guys are, indeed, cute but they also happen to be incredibly talented. They began their set with one of my favorites, Gypsy Woman – a tune with some serious funkadelic flavor, and ended with Clay, alone, performing a solo acoustic number. Clay managed to capture the audience’s full attention for the duration of his set which is not an easy fete at the Hotel, as the crowd can be remarkably discriminating, having been spoiled by performances from artists like Macy Gray and Chris Cornell who make regular appearances at the venue. He kindly thanked the audience at the end of each song and was ever so gracious toward the crowd throughout the show. For his first ever show at the hot spot, Jonathan handled himself like a true pro and certainly did not disappoint. In fact, Clay garnered far more praise from the crowd than previous acts and was even left with a standing ovation. All in all, I’d say that Jonathan Clay’s first Hotel Cafe show was a smashing success.

Clay hails from Austin, Texas, and his sound is a perfect blend of blues, rock, soul, and a whole lot of Texas. You can hear influences of John Lee Hooker, John Mayer, and perhaps even a little Sublime but, most of all, Clay’s sound is a perfect marriage of all of these influences, resulting in something that is truly unique to him and his band. Oh, and his voice is, literally, as smooth as butter and he sounds even better live than he does on his CD.

Jonathan Clay’s past studio recordings have been heard on MTV’s The Hills, The Real World, Newport Harbor, The Freshman, ABC’s Lincoln Heights, The Lifetime Network, and the WB. You can check out his music and learn more about Jonathan at www.jonathanclay.com. And while your at it, go pick up his new album, Everything She Wants, available on iTunes and at www.jonathanclay.com. You won’t be disappointed.

**Special thanks to Lauren Magboo of EFG PR and Lisa Jammal of LJAM PR for introducing us to Jonathan. And stay tuned for footage from Jonathan Clay’s exclusive private performance at the brand new EFG Lounge in Beverly Hills, and a Musicwire TV sit down with the artist.

Pussycat Doll, Jessica Sutta, took time out of her busy schedule to support one of her favorite bands, Tomorrows Bad Seeds, who performed to a packed house at The Roxy this past weekend. Jessica hung out backstage with the band prior to the show and made sure that she had front row seats. She later said to one of TBS’s reps, “we’ve performed here as PCD and it is awesome to see my friends up there on stage this time!”

Stay tuned for more on these guys, including exclusive MWTV sit-downs with the band members, concert footage, and more. In the meantime, please visit their website: Tomorrows Bad Seeds

Hi everyone!  I’ll be interviewing singer/songwriter, Jonathan Clay, on June 18 and I couldn’t be more thrilled!  My dear friends at EFG PR (Entertainment Fusion Group) have turned me on to this hot new artist whose album comes out on June 15, 2010.

Clay hails from Austin, Texas, and his sound is a perfect blend of blues, rock, soul, and a whole lot of Texas.  His past studio recordings have been heard on MTV’s The Hills,  The Real World, Newport Harbor, The Freshman,  ABC’s Lincoln Heights, The Lifetime Network, and the WB.  You can check out his music and learn more about Jonathan at www.jonathanclay.com

The interview will take place at the EFG Lounge here in Los Angeles and I’ll post the highlights right away.  I may do a live stream as well so please stay tuned.  I’m excited…and y’all should be, too!

Hey guys!

I’m thrilled to announce that Musicwire TV is partnering up with NBA Champion/TV Host, John Salley, which means that the site will be expanding. Exciting things are in store for MWTV so stay tuned for updates!!!

Check out Chaika – an electro/pop project brought to you by the uber-talented duo, Sage Galesi and Jack Duff.  Jack and Sage both work on music projects separate from Chaika, but they’ve teamed up for something that’s a little bit of dirty and a whole lot of fun.  The tracks are danceable and the lyrics are raunchy.  The song, Candy, starts out with the words, “you look real good.  Good enough to eat,” and we‘ll just leave it at that.  They write most of the lyrics together and Sage is responsible for the lead vocals, while Jack does all of the programming, synths, and backing vocals.

Both Jack and Sage come from musical backgrounds and met over two years ago in Los Angeles.  It was only recently, however, that they started working on music together after Sage got back from living in London and Nashville where she was working on her own rock album.  Now Sage is back in Nashville, but as Jack says, the two have been having a “long distance music relationship.”  We can’t wait to hear more of what these two have cooking up.  When he‘s not working on the project, Jack plays drums with the band, Radio FreQ.

Chaika’s influences include Siouxsie and the Banshees, Madonna, Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode, Heart, Eurythmics, and Sinead O’Conner.

So toss on some body paint and let your freak flag fly to the sexy beats of Chaika!
Chaika: Myspace

by Elizabeth Rosselle

by Elizabeth Rosselle

What ever happened to MTV? Remember the days of music videos, “Liquid Television,” “Headbanger’s Ball,” and who can forget Karen Duffy (better known as “Duff”) – the coolest VJ ever to grace the TV screen? I used to stay up all night watching “Aeon Flux,” “Beavis and Butthead,” and, most of all, a lot of really great videos. And yes, there were shows in addition to the videos, but they were still very Rock and Roll. On “Beavis and Butthead,” Beavis wore a Metallica t-shirt, Butthead wore an AC/DC shirt, and those kids played air guitar, like, every five minutes. Aeon Flux, on the other hand, just oozed early nineties goth-rock-chic style like no other in her skin tight patent leather body suit with her ever-so-edgy black a-line bob. And then there were all of those great videos! MTV played everything from Color Me Bad, to Siouxsie and the Banshees, to Megadeth and you could catch them all in one sitting. They even played a lot of obscure tracks, like live bootlegs from The Cure, and this was mainstream television.

When confronted with the topic of what MTV has morphed into over the years, solo artist and former member of the popular rock group, Bush, Gavin Rossdale says, “Well, I think that it’s [the music video] not shown on MTV like it used to be, but there’s something amazing, like on YouTube, there’s, like, 1.6 million people who have seen my video for ‘Love Remains the Same’ and, you know, ten million people saw the Beyonce video and I think that people just don’t need to watch MTV. You know, kids they have YouTube and Live Leak.” ER1

Okay, so I have to respect Gavin’s opinion because after all, he is Gavin Rossdale, but at the same time, it’s frustrating to me that there are established musicians out there who have grown to accept the fact that MTV has turned from music television into something else entirely over the years. I know that we have the internet, and MTV2 on some ridiculously hard-to-find channel like 9511, but why does mainstream now have to be so mainstream and, most of all, trashy? MTV was relatively mainstream and accessible back in the eighties and nineties, but it was still cool. In terms of music videos, they played a wide range of genres, and the shows were off-beat, colorful, and edgy. The network is now inundated with an absurd amount of reality shows featuring the most mundane characters on television. “The Hills,” for instance, which for some God awful reason happens to be one of the most popular shows on TV, is some of the worst television I’ve ever seen. And no, I am not one of those girls who secretly cuddles up on the couch in my pink slippers with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and watches this trash. It’s not a guilty pleasure for me, thank you very much. Sorry LC and camp, some of you do seem like very nice girls, but I’m just not a fan.

Unfortunately, however, there aren’t many alternatives on TV these days during the majority of the watching hours and so people have become accustomed to and, in turn, have grown to love shows like “The Hills,” or “Date My Mom.” I find this very sad. The New York Times recently reported the following: “Shows such as ‘The Hills’ and ‘A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila’ have pulled the cable giant [MTV] out of a steep ratings rut.” (source: http://www.nypost.com/seven/02082008/business). Really? Ratings were down due to the lack of shows like “The Hills” and “A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila?” Why? Probably because we aren’t given very many preferable alternatives and are force fed a lot of this crap.

When asked how he feels about what MTV has become over the years, Guns n’ Rose’s guitarist, Slash, has a completely different point of view from Rossdale’s. Slash says that “it’s very frustrating! You wanna have music television what you think it’s supposed to be and it never has been! Even in the very beginning, it was like it was pretty good but it wasn’t what I expected it to be and then over the years it just turned into something else. I think they should change the name or come up with a new network!” ER2

Amen to that, Slash! While I respect both Gavin Rossdale and Slash as musicians, I definitely tend to agree more with Slash with the exception of his comment that it was only “pretty good” in the very beginning. As for Gavin’s point of view, I do agree that YouTube and Live Leak can be great resources; however, both lack the organic quality that a network like MTV had back in the day when there were live VJs presenting the videos, along with shows like “120 Minutes” where viewers were shown all sorts of new stuff in music, along with some really incredible and rare tracks. I would equate YouTube versus MTV with going to the library to pick up some poetry from your favorite writer, versus going to the Fillmore to hear Leonard Cohen speak to a live audience. Both have their place, but when going to the library and picking out exactly what you want, there are no surprises, whereas when attending a live spoken word event, it’s a treat where you don’t really know what you’re going to be exposed to, but if you’re a fan of the artist that you’re going to see, then you are likely going to enjoy it. It’s that element of surprise that makes it so much fun. And MTV was always chock full of musical surprises back in the day. Perhaps now it’s chock full of crotch shots and who’s dating who on “The Hill’s” types of surprises, but like Slash says, come up with a new name for the network. And for God’s sake, give us a new one that’s as good as the old one, if not better!

ER1: Gavin Rossdale told all of this to Elizabeth Rosselle at a Global Green event at Avalon Hollywood

ER2: Slash told all of this to Elizabeth Rosselle at an Oscar viewing event at Mr. Chows in Beverly Hills, Ca.