Video footage of TESTAMENT guitaristAlex Skolnick at the second annual Brooklyn Springtime Guitar Show on April 1, 2012 at Brooklyn Bowl in Williamsburg, New York can be seen below.
Organized by Mike Schnapp, a Bowl DJ, and Lisa Sharken, a veteran music gear magazine writer and technician, this one-day gathering included an assortment of vendors selling new, used, vintage and handmade guitars, amplifiers, effects pedals, guitar strings, picks, straps, cables, parts, accessories, books, videos, CDs and all sorts of other guitar-related goodies and collectibles.
What sets the Brooklyn Springtime Guitar Show apart from other guitar shows is the fun-filled environment of the Brooklyn Bowl. With an entertaining mix of 16 bowling lanes, delicious food by the famous Blue Ribbon restaurant, a full bar featuring Brooklyn Brewery beer (brewed next door), nine high-definition video screens, a state-of-the-art sound system and a very friendly staff, the Brooklyn Springtime Guitar Show is described as “a unique experience for all who attend.”
“My friends who are dealers were reminiscing about the days when there were guitar shows in the basement of a church on the Lower East Side,” Sharken told The Brooklyn Paper. “I checked out the venue and looked at the space, and I said, ‘You know, I think I can make this work.'”
She added, “The whole idea was really to bring back the local market, promote all the local businesses, let them show their faces and give them some exposure to the public.”
Video footage of TESTAMENT guitarist Alex Skolnick tracking harmonies at Spin Studios in Long Island City, New York for the band’s cover version of the IRON MAIDEN classic “Powerslave” can be seen below. The song is included on the CD/DVD and vinyl versions of TESTAMENT‘s new album, “Dark Roots Of Earth”, which sold more than 20,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No, 12 on The Billboard 200 chart. The CD arrived in stores on July 31 via Nuclear Blast Records.
TESTAMENT‘s previous studio album, “The Formation of Damnation”, opened with 11,400 units back in May 2008 to debut at position No. 59.
“Dark Roots Of Earth” was produced, mixed and mastered by acclaimed British producer Andy Sneap (ARCH ENEMY, NEVERMORE, ACCEPT, EXODUS). Special bonus tracks were recorded, mixed and mastered by Juan Urteaga (MACHINE HEAD, EXODUS, TED NUGENT, NIGHT RANGER) at his Trident Studios. The cover artwork for the effort (see below) was painted by Eliran Kantor, who has previously worked with ATHEIST, SIGH, ANACRUSIS and GWAR, among others.
Jägermeister conducted an interview with guitarist Alex Skolnick of San Francisco Bay Area metallers TESTAMENT at this year’s edition of the Bloodstock Open Air festival, which is being held August 9-12 at Catton Park, Derbyshire in the United Kingdom. You can now watch the chat below.
TESTAMENT‘s new album, “Dark Roots Of Earth”, sold more than 20,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No, 12 on The Billboard 200 chart. The CD arrived in stores on July 31 via Nuclear Blast Records.
TESTAMENT‘s previous studio album, “The Formation of Damnation”, opened with 11,400 units back in May 2008 to debut at position No. 59.
“Dark Roots Of Earth” was produced, mixed and mastered by acclaimed British producer Andy Sneap (ARCH ENEMY, NEVERMORE, ACCEPT, EXODUS). Special bonus tracks were recorded, mixed and mastered by Juan Urteaga (MACHINE HEAD, EXODUS, TED NUGENT, NIGHT RANGER) at his Trident Studios. The cover artwork for the effort (see below) was painted by Eliran Kantor, who has previously worked with ATHEIST, SIGH, ANACRUSIS and GWAR, among others.
TESTAMENT / ALEX SKOLNICK TRIO guitarist Alex Skolnick is featured in a new video interview with WatchMojo.com. He discusses how he first became interested in music thanks to KISS trading cards, how his guitar lessons with JOE SATRIANI taught him to blend work and play, and how he blends thrash metal and jazz:
Nuclear Blast has confirmed a July 27th European/31st North American street date for Testament’s new album, Dark Roots Of Earth. The album was produced, mixed and mastered once again by the world renowned Andy Sneap (ARCH ENEMY, NEVERMORE, ACCEPT, EXODUS). Special bonus tracks were recorded, mixed and mastered by Juan Urteaga (HEATHEN, VILE, SADUS) at his Trident Studios.
Check out the artwork painted by Eliran Kantor (SODOM, ATHEIST, SIGH) below:
Dark Roots Of The Earth will be issued in Europe as a regular CD, CD digi + DVD, CD box set, double vinyl and double picture disc vinyl.
CD tracklisting:
‘Rise Up’
‘Native Blood’
‘Dark Roots Of Earth’
‘True American Hate’
‘A Day In The Death’
‘Cold Embrace’
‘Man Kills Mankind’
‘Throne Of Thorns’
‘Last Stand For Independence’
CD/DVD tracklisting:
‘Rise Up’
‘Native Blood’
‘Dark Roots Of Earth’
‘True American Hate’
‘A Day In The Death’
‘Cold Embrace’
‘Man Kills Mankind’
‘Throne Of Thorns’
‘Last Stand For Independence’
Bonus:
‘Dragon Attack’ (QUEEN cover)
‘Animal Magnetism’ (SCORPIONS cover)
‘Powerslave’ (IRON MAIDEN cover)
‘Throne Of Thornes (extended version)
Plus Bonus DVD
Vinyl tracklisting:
Side A:
‘Rise Up’
‘Native Blood’
‘Dark Roots Of Earth’
Side B:
‘True American Hate’
‘A Day In The Death’
‘Cold Embrace’
Side C:
‘Man Kills Mankind’
‘Throne Of Thorns’
‘Last Stand For Independence’
Side D (Bonus):
‘Dragon Attack’ (Queen cover)
‘Animal Magnetism’ (Scorpions cover)
‘Powerslave’ (Iron Maiden cover)
Testament vocalist Chuck Billy discussed The Dark Roots Of Earth with BraveWords.com recently. The tattooed frontman revealed that it was guitarist Eric Peterson who came up with the title. “It came pretty quick because we were at it for months working on the record, then when we decided we were going to try to fulfil a deadline and get a record out this year, it all just snowballed. That came out first and it sounded really good.”
As far as personal significance of The Dark Roots Of Earth, Chuck offered the following, “Being Native American, it has a different meaning for me – being grounded and set in tune with the earth. But we’ve always been a band that’s touched on stories of the earth or Nostradamus predictions, things like that on all our records. So it was kind of fitting; I’m big into the planet. When I first heard it, I dug it.”
Lyrically the new material deals with “things that happen every day. There’s a lot of things having to do with the earth, war of course. It’s odd that some of the songs I wrote have a lot of earth vibes in them, and then finding out the title of the record after as I was writing about that anyhow, everything just kind of fell into that. We’re still working; we have seven songs complete with vocals. All the music’s recorded. Eric just got back from London and finished all the guitar tracks. Drums are all done; Gene Hoglan (who sat behind the kit on Demonic in 1997) played drums on it.”
In addition to the mighty Gene Hoglan (DEATH, STRAPPING YOUNG LAD, FEAR FACTORY), Chris Adler from LAMB OF GOD is playing drums on a couple of songs. “When we decided we were going to meet a deadline, it was like, okay, who’s playing drums? That was the first thing. So we put some feelers out there and a couple drummers got back to us. Chris actually was one of the first, but he was doing a Lamb Of God record so the scheduling wasn’t working. So we gave him a couple of tracks that he could do for us while he was doing his record. It worked out well, he had fun with it.”
Alex Skolnick (TESTAMENT, ALEX SKOLNICK TRIO), one of metal’s most legendary and influential thrash guitarists, has been announced as the special guest judge for Round 4 of Heavy MTL’s Battle Of The Bands, where the cities heaviest and loudest bands take to the stage for a chance to win one of two prized spots on the Heavy MTL 2012 lineup at Parc Jean-Drapeau this August.
Round 4 will take place at Les Katacombes (1635 St. Laurent) on Wednesday, April 11th with the bands ERIMHA, HOLLOW, MAGNUM STALLION and VALFREYA competing for the symphonic metal night.
Heavy MTL will return to Montreal, QC at Parc Jean-Drapeau on August 11th and 12th.
As of now, weekend passes for Saturday, August 11th and Sunday, August 12th at Parc Jean-Drapeau are going on sale via HeavyMTL.com, by phone at (514) 790-2525 or 1-877-668-8269 in person at the Bell Centre box office.
As a special offer, clients who buy Reserved Seating Weekend Passes and the first 500 clients who buy General Admission Weekend Passes are entitled to receive a download of the new album from Serj Tankian of SYSTEM OF A DOWN that is scheduled for release this August and one download of SCARS OF BROADWAY’s new album coming this fall. Two full album downloads per individual ticket purchase. More details and redemption instructions to follow.
Acts scheduled for Heavy MTL include:
Saturday, August 11th – SYSTEM OF A DOWN, FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH, KILLSWITCH ENGAGE, CANNIBAL CORPSE, BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME, JOB FOR A COWBOY, KATAKLYSM, PERIPHERY, THE FACELESS, VEIL OF MAYA, GOATWHORE, FLESHGOD APOCALYPSE, ROSE FUNERAL, ORIGIN , EXHUMED.
Sunday, August 12th – SLIPKNOT, MARILYN MANSON, LAMB OF GOD, GOJIRA, SUICIDAL TENDENCIES, OVERKILL, HIGH ON FIRE, PROTEST THE HERO, CANCER BATS, THE AGONIST, IWRESTLEDABEARONCE.
A few more bands will be added to this line up and other events that will take part of the festival will be announced soon.
In this excerpt of a recent interview with TheGauntlet.com, TESTAMENT guitarist Alex Skolnick talks about stage presence and production, jazz, and what it was like to be a student of JOE SATRIANI:
Q: Did you start playing jazz guitar?
A: “No, not until later. I was a very advanced rock player for my age. I listened to a lot of VAN HALEN and Randy [Rhoads] and then YNGWIE MALMSTEEN. And then one of the next important players happened to be my teacher, Joe Satriani. I was with him for about two years when I was fourteen. I was an advanced player for my age but didn’t have a jazz background. I think it wasn’t until I was eighteen that I first heard MILES DAVIS and it really struck a chord with me.”
Q: So Satriani took you in at fourteen? How did he find you?
A: “I found him. He was probably the busiest guitar teacher at Berkley and definitely the most respected. Everybody knew about him. He was in his mid to late twenties but all these younger players in their early twenties who were starting to get attention came from him. He was very feared. He was very strict and very serious. He definitely had a reputation for refusing to teach students that wouldn’t practice enough. It was a bit of a bold move to take lessons from him.”
Q: Metal back then was thought of as music for people of lesser intelligence. Did Satriani shake his head in dis-approvement when you joined Testament?
A: “I asked him about it and he thought it was a good idea for me to join Testament He thought it would probably be temporary. At the time I had no idea if I’d stick with the band or if it even made sense. Then things started going places. He wasn’t really unfamiliar with that genre of music anyways. Kirk Hammett from METALLICA studied with him, and the guys from EXODUS would occasionally drop in for lessons. He was very supportive. The fact that he’s Italian, it was like going to the Godfather for permission [laughs].”
Kimmo Kuusniemi’s ASA unveil the long-overdue release of "Collective Failure" + first music video for title-track! Check it out and stay tuned for more news! Click image to watch the video
Kimmo Kuusniemi’s SARCOFAGUS return with a Historic 2010 Concert Video Premiere on YouTube! Click image to watch the video
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Alex Skolnick at the second annual Brooklyn Springtime Guitar Show on April 1, 2012 at Brooklyn Bowl in Williamsburg, New York can be seen below.
Click image to watch the video
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