By Clarence Yu

AEROSMITH’S Joe Perry pays homage to his idol Chuck Berry with his own recording of “Run Rudolph Run,” and it’s about time.

According to Aerosmith’s official fan website, AeroForceOne, “Joe has always loved Chuck Berry’s and Keith Richards’ version of this song and has wanted to record it for years now. He also wants to share it with all the fans right here at AF1.”

A diverse list of artists who have covered the song include Bryan Adams, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Grateful Dead and Billy Idol, a testament to the long lasting recognition of the song first made popular by Chuck Berry in 1958.

Perry is reputed to be an ardent admirer of Berry, and it shows in his previous guitar work on songs like “My Girl” off Aerosmith’s Pump (1990) and the axeman often employs Berry’s trademark double-stop licks on his own guitar solos.

The recording, available for free download at AeroForceOne, follows the tradition of a swinging, rockabilly beat as previously recorded by Keith Richards. Perry’s voice is ice cool in its lack of emotion, and it is obvious that the recording was engineered to sound like a classic ‘50’s rock and roll song: high on the reverb, with a lot of bar chords, heavy on the crash drum cymbal, with bits of piano flourishes.

Perry adds his own mark on the song with his signature buzz sounding solos throughout the song. An accompanying video recorded for the song can be viewed at YouTube.

While the song may only be of interest to die-hard Perry and Aerosmith fans, much can be said about Perry’s gesture of making the song free for download. The legendary guitarist has nothing more to prove, and in making this his gift to his fans, it shows a tender side of Perry that he rarely reveals in the rock arena. It can be viewed then as a simple gift from a human being using his God-given talent. Which is, in essence, part of the true spirit of Christmas. Download it now.

By Anna Valmero
Inquirer.net

TWO music babes—one a classy singer, the other a rock chic—performed at a benefit concert at the Mall of Asia.

Sitti and Kitchie Nadal joined the benefit concert “No Limits” in support of the expansion project of the Alabang New Life Christian Center. The concert, held at the Music Hall in Mall of Asia, aimed to reach out to the youth and inspire them to make a difference at a young age.

When she entered the music scene in 2006, Sitti had a mission: to revive the interest of Filipinos for bossa nova, which is considered a niche market locally. Her bold undertaking produced five albums and earned her the title “Queen of Bossa Nova” in the country.

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By Clarence Yu

AC/DC is like comfort music to me. With their latest release, Black Ice, these seemingly unstoppable and stubborn rockers just refuse to quit. Why should they? The music they’ve created over the past 35 years seems timeless and you can always be sure of satisfaction. And they know it.

Produced by Brendan O’ Brien (Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen), Black Ice is also a return to the sound reminiscent of the band’s previous studio efforts, Highway To Hell (1979) and Back In Black (1980), with renowned producer Robert “Mutt” Lange (Def Leppard, Bryan Adams, Shania Twain).

Whether this is a conscious effort or not, the results are decidedly for the better. The various producers the band have chosen over their previous releases either gave this signature sound a slightly more commercial feel (the late Bruce Fairbairn with 1990’s The Razor’s Edge), or a less radio friendly, harder edged twist (Rick Rubin, with 1995’s Ballbreaker). Of course, the challenge with each producer is to try to capture the legendary bands’ sound as they envision it, so credit is due to Brendan O’ Brien, who rises above the pack.

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THEY formed around the time the Eraserheads disbanded. Thus, they christened themselves after one of Ely’s female characters.

Ang Bandang Shirley, however, is no E-Heads tribute band. They were brought together by a common love for Canadian indie supergroup Broken Social Scene.

But they do love Ely, Marcus, Buddy and Raimund.

In MySpace, they likened themselves to BSS “if they listened to the E-Heads, a happier Jeff Buckley with Dong Abay’s street smarts, Sugarfree’s heart inside the baby of Radiohead and Feist.”

They do channel that BSS spirit and vibe. Fortunately for us, though, not all eight of them came to our acoustic session or else we would have been scratching our heads figuring out how to fit them in our tiny studio.

Here’s Owel, Selena, Ean and Joe singing a few songs from their recently-released album “Themesongs”

Check out more stuff about the band (including Ean jamming with +/- (Plus/Minus)) on their Multiply page. Also, here’s the video for the first single off the album “Themesong”.

By Marjorie Gorospe

“Friendship is the secret why we’ve come up with good music,” Filipino rock band BOK76 says.

Calling each other “bok,” which means “brother,” the band’s members have been together for at least nine years – all in the name of music.

Also known as “Bonded on Kinship,” this Filipino band is composed of Erwin Bautista (vocals), Donini Montealegre (guitars/vocals), Jay Castelo (drums/percussion), Owee Nicolas Paz (bass) and Elwynn Dayrit (guitars).

Bautista and Montealegre have been together since grade school. The two had been “rivals” in many competitions but eventually they became friends.

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