We are happy to annouce that Machine Head has been confirmed to play at Woodstock this year!

And so it begins... 18 tracks of a capella vocals sung by guitarist and lead vocalist Robb Flynn to a haunting, somber melody sung completely in Latin.  The words he's singing? "Sangre Sani" (Blood Saint), "Bellator Inferni" (Warrior of Fire), "Caede" (Murder), "Edemarde" (Suicide) and ending with the whispered "death", accentuating part one of a three-movement Sonata in C# entitled "I Am Hell".  The narrative within the language is goosebump-worthy subject matter; the tale of a female arsonist is played out in three movements after fellow shredder-in-arms, lead guitarist Phil Demmel suggested writing a song about an arsonist to Flynn.  As Flynn would discover in his research, "female arsonists are considered the monsters of the psychological field, because where man commits horrible acts out of anger or for control or domination, when a woman does so, the only explanation for this incomprehensible behavior... is love".  As the eight-minute-plus opener fades out to the sounds of dual-classical guitar and cello one thing is very clear, Machine Head have every intention of carving their own path, marching forward with little concern for what other bands within their genre might be doing.  With their seventh album Unto The Locust, Machine Head have fans and critics from around the globe swarming around them to witness the game-changing aural destruction that they are set to unleash.

"It's a natural progression from 2007's 'The Blackening', but make no mistake, we did not want to write 'The Blackening II'" explains lead singer and guitarist Robb Flynn.  On its face not a bold statement, but given the high praise heaped upon the aforementioned album, many critics proclaiming it the Metal Album of the Year, and some going so far as to crown it Album of the Decade, or single out the Riff of the Decade, why change what's already a proven commodity?  "We wanted to challenge ourselves.  All we heard was 'How are you going to top The Blackening?'" explains Flynn of Unto The Locust's Grammy-nominated predecessor.  "I just started writing on classical guitar, and when I had something I called Dave [McClain, drummer] in and we just jammed it. 'This Is The End' is one of the most technically brutal and fast songs we’ve ever done.  It was a massive challenge that we weren't good enough to even play yet.  That just set the whole thing at a really high bar and we went from there."  Yet for all of the changes on Unto The Locust, the more things have also managed to stay the same.  Flynn jokes, "We still can't seem to write a damn song under six minutes."

Regardless of their length however, the songs that comprise Unto The Locust are tight and expertly-crafted, honed with the deft touch of a rapier, yet replete with the thundering pummel of a ten ton hammer.  Machine Head's patented harmonics are on display, but now they are offset by nimbly-plucked classical guitar and a string quartet, providing an extraordinary sonic interplay that produces a sort of simultaneous intellectual and guttural reaction.  In other words, when you hear a blistering thrash track like "This Is The End", it is undeniably Machine Head, but even further refined and improved upon.  "We wanted to keep the core Machine Head sound - thrashing, down-tuned guitars, psychedelic tones, and sad melodies" Flynn offers, "but we wanted to make it bigger, more epic. Our rule was, if we got goosebumps from it, we kept it."

The band sought to capture said goosebumps at Green Day's Oakland, CA. JingleTown Recording compound, with Flynn handling production duties for the third consecutive time, and mixing done at JingleTown by engineer Juan Urteaga and Flynn (who flew back to Oakland from the road on every day off during the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival), along with Colin Richardson and his UK-based team of Carl Bown and Martyn Ford.  Unto The Locust would be recorded and mixed over the course of 4 months and would even see the band bring in a string quartet by the name of Quartet Rouge, who would end up on no less than three of the album's seven songs.

"Only seven songs?!" screamed A&R Svengali Monte Conner.  Flynn laughs as he fondly recalls his longtime A&R man's reaction to the good news.  As it turns out, this seven-song album is 50 minutes long, and while it boasts no ten-minute tracks a la The Blackening, "a few 7 and 8 minuters are on hand" laughs drummer / Riff of the Decade-winner Dave McClain, "most importantly it feels like an album."  The tracks within veer from the introspective to the downright belligerent.  "Be Still and Know", while taking its name from Psalm 46 of the New Testament, is an unholy rollercoaster ride of a song, at times bludgeoning, at times beautiful, but ultimately hopeful.  "It's about struggle, and overcoming struggle, and knowing that the light at the end of the tunnel is only there if that light shines inside of you", explains guitarist Phil Demmel.  "Darkness Within" is as much of a ballad as Machine Head have ever composed and shows the band spreading its wings both sonically and lyrically.  A song about the redemptive power of music, it's an open wound, at once dripping with emotion and keeping you at arm’s length.  Closing with the anthemic "Who We Are", it features some of Flynn's most unapologetic lyrics to date and begins with a choir of children that features his own two sons, Phil's son, and engineer Juan Urteaga's two daughters singing the intro over a lonely acoustic guitar, marching snares and strings.

Unlike the titular insect which is prone to flying directionless, unable to control its flight, Machine Head has been on a steady and well-earned ascent for the better part of a decade. From their recent Grammy nomination to being hand-picked to open for Metallica in both the U.S. and Europe for a six month stretch, Machine Head's record sales and tour numbers continue to grow even in the face of a crumbling music business.  It’s hard to nail down exactly why this is.  As is so often the case, it is a culmination of a number of intangibles, the most prevalent of which is their unswerving integrity to stay true to themselves.  Machine Head doesn't compromise.  They write the music they love and love to play and deliver it live on an unparalleled level. Flynn chalks it up to the band's willingness to take risks.  "People have respected all of the musical risks we have taken, maybe a little confusing at first, but each allowed us to expand our horizons. It’s not something every band does.  People respect when you make courageous moves like that."

One can fully appreciate the band's current level of success by looking back on their less-than-glamorous beginnings in what was, at the time, a barren metal-less early 90's Bay Area in which a once-thriving metal scene had all but dried up. "It was such a weird time" remembers bassist Adam Duce, "everyone stopped wanting to be heavy and played radio metal or played this horrible funk metal that was getting popular, we were like 'what's wrong with playing heavy?'" And so they did, from beer- and vodka-fueled rehearsals in a small Emeryville, CA. warehouse that they shared with 4 punk rock bands, to stickering and flyering relentlessly to get the word out, to playing their first house and kegger parties, to local shows with the likes of Rancid, Deftones and Napalm Death. The band's first demo - recorded for $800 in a friend's bedroom, with their amps in the bathroom - was a very rough estimation of their burgeoning sound: a combination of the aggression of metal and punk, and the social anger of urban rap, intertwined with hypnotic Alice In Chains-esque vocal harmonies. It was this demo that eventually made it into the hands of Roadrunner Records, setting into motion the course of events that would lead to the 1994 release of their groundbreaking debut, Burn My Eyes.

Resplendent with some of the heaviest guitar tones ever heard in metal thanks to their pioneering use of what is known as "dropped tuning", a type of tuning that allowed them to have a heavy low string while maintaining higher tunings for the rest of the guitar and create harmonics that were in tune with the lowest string - something every metal band on the planet would soon emulate. Machine Head's sound would soon serve as the template for much of the 'metal' sound that dominates the aggressive music market today. But there was something different about Machine Head, something that wasn’t quite right. Never really fitting in with  whatever musical trend happened to be the metal world's fancy at any given time garnered the band an intense devotion from their fans (affectionately dubbed "Head Cases”).  For years Machine Head have existed on the outer fringes of the metal scene, never being fully understood, and as such never being truly accepted by the music media. But over the course of a staggering and often controversial seventeen-year career, the band have managed to maintain and expand a fanbase so large and rabidly loyal that the world at large had no choice but to take notice. With a 'fuck it all' mentality and a fierce determination to carve their own path, Machine Head blocked the outside world and forged over time what would become the defining sound of modern metal.

As with any band that stands strong through a near twenty-year career, there are always ups and downs, but as the beginning of the new millennium would prove, more than ever Machine Head would bow down to no one when it came to their musical output.  With nary a radio single to be had, on either 2003's Through The Ashes Of Empires or 2007's The Blackening, they challenged themselves and each other to write records that would demolish all of their boundaries, and the result was the most structurally complex and technical material that Machine Head had recorded up to that point.  Three-part guitar and bass harmonies, dueling solos and savage thrash intricacy were positioned alongside soaring three-part vocal harmonies that ultimately crashed head-first into bludgeoning, Neanderthal riffage.  Machine Head created the blueprint for the modern metal masterpiece.  But not all would see it that way.  Like their controversial "Davidian" video that was banned by MTV in 1994, 2007 would find Machine Head's lyrics the focus of controversy, and this time the ramifications would be much farther reaching, as conservative forces in the U.S. would see them banned from certain venues citing their fans as "violent" and "the wrong element" with "inflammatory lyrics" as the reason, likely stemming from strong anti-war sentiment and the dark, at-times depressing lyrics found on each release.  But in the end they could not be stopped, with the help of many they would clamor and find last minute venues so their die-hard fans could still see them, and in the end, publications worldwide rushed to heap accolades upon the band, with their peers both within (Metallica) and outside of the metal world (the Grammy board) voicing their clear and unanimous opinion that Machine Head heralded a whole new age.

Now, on the eve of the release of Unto The Locust, by far the most daring and complex album Machine Head have ever created, we await an album written by true music fans for true music fans.  Not the mainstream pop world, or an internet hit here-today-gone-later-today world that seems so confusingly prevalent.  But for the person who knows that music can save them, or those who it may have already saved... as the words bellowed from frontman Robb Flynn's soul scream out on the haunting acoustic track "Darkness Within", "pray to music build a shrine, worship in these desperate times, fill your heart with every note, cherish it and cast afloat, because God is in these clef and tone, salvation is found alone, haunted by its melody, music it will set you free... let it set you free."  That, is who Unto The Locust is for.
 

Started in London in 2000, The Darkness are a British band playing classic rock, glam rock, and glam metal. The band’s members, however, claim their music belongs to classic hard rock.

Their artistic work has been influenced by rock stars of the ‘80s, including Queen, AC/DC, Elton John, Def Leppard, Judas Priest, Thin Lizzy, Cheap Trick, T.Rex, Led Zeppelin and Van Halen.  What distinguishes them from other modern rock bands is the exceptionally high falsetto of their vocalist Justin Hawkins.

A couple of year ago, the band was dissolved after Justin Hawkins admitted to having an addiction to drugs which made him unable to go back on stage.

In 2011 however, The Darkness was reborn with the original lineup. At the moment, members of the band are getting ready for their European tour. Still remembering their bad past experiences, they now take part in many charitable events and fight against the problem of alcohol and drug addiction.

The British band Asian Dub Foundation has been announced to play at this year’s Woodstock Festival Poland in Kostrzyn on the Oder. The band, whose music combines drum’n’bass, reggae, jungle and dub with traditional Hindu melodies, is going to play at the Woodstock main stage on August 3^rd. The concert setlist includes the songs from their latest album called “A History Of Now” which was released in 2011.

Formed in 1993 in London by musicians of Asian origin, from the very beginning of their career they have been mixing various styles, conventions and genres. Their songs have been influenced by the classical oriental Indian music on the one hand, and on the other by dub, drum’n’bass, reggae, raga, hip-hop and rap. Soul, rock, electronics and techno can be heard in their songs as well.

In their lyrics, the band touch on social and political issues such as racism, emigration, economic crisis, addiction to media or the Internet and religious conflicts. A very strong vocal, both sung and rapped, is a characteristic feature of all songs by Asian Dub.

The band have some dozen albums to their credit. The last one, titled “A History Of Now”, was released last year. For years, they have been known for their uncompromising nature, extreme views and artistic aggression. The Woodstock audience will surely be infected with this enthusiastic energy which exudes from Asian Dub Foundation.

Sabaton is a Grammis-nominated power metal band from Falun, Sweden formed in 1999. The band's main lyrical themes are those of historical wars. This is heard in albums Primo Victoria, Attero Dominatus and Coat of Arms where all of the songs, except final tracks, take inspiration from historical battles or war. Lyrical content drawn from World War II and World War I is prevalent and includes songs about battles and leaders on all sides of these conflicts.

On the March 30th, 2012 the band announced they would go separate ways, with singer Joakim Brodén and bass player Pär Sundström continuing Sabaton, the two are looking for new members to replace those who left.
On April 2nd, 2012 the new line up was revealed. Joining the band are Chris Rörland (Lead Guitars), Thobbe Englund (Guitars) and Robban Bäck (Drums). A new keyboard player has yet to be found. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabaton_(band))

ANTI-FLAG have been spreading their political punk message to the masses since the mid-90’s. Through the years, they’ve gone from non-stop tours criss-crossing North America in a dilapidated van to traveling as far as Australia and Russia. The driving force behind Anti-Flag is to be voice for change and equality, raising awareness on topics from environmental devastation to the erosion of liberty. From their humble beginnings in the Steel Town, Anti-Flag has worked hard to use music as a force for positive change. From clothing drives to benefit shows, their purpose is to not only entertain but more importantly to inform and educate those who share their vision and hope for a better tomorrow.

Anti-Flag’s message is global and as such the goal is to take that message and their brand of high-energy punk rock to the world at large. They’ve toured extensively in the USA, Canada, UK, Europe, as well as South America, Russia, and Scandinavia. They’ve appeared on the Big Day Out festival tour in Australia with Rage Against the Machine, Billy Bragg, Arcade Fire and Bjork. They were the only band to play two sets each day at the Leeds and Reading Festivals in England (rocking the main stage and the BBC Lock Up Radio Stage for a total of four sets in 35 hours). They’ve headlined Rhein Kultur, the biggest free festival in Germany, taking their message to 50,000 Germans.

Anti-Flag have recently completed a Northeast US tour with NOFX.  The band is currently working on their follow-up album to 2009’s “The People or the Gun”.

The Qemists started their career in 1990 as a rock band, however they soon became interested in drum’n’bass, which was growing in Britain at that time, and they started to combine it with rock stylistics. They did not send their songs to any record label for quite a long time, until 2004, when their first two singles, titled Summer Son and React, were released by Mastermind Records.

Their career gained momentum after their first remix of the Coldcut duet titled Everything Is Under Control. After the success of the song, which was the band’s first recording released by Ninja Tune, many artists, including Dr. Octagon and Roots Manuva, became interested in cooperation. Other bands, such as Basement Jaxx, Kano and Lady Sovereign asked The Qemists to put their finishing touches to their songs.

In 2008, The Qemists released their debut album titled Join the Q. This album best illustrates how well the band can combine rock with electronics and a big amount of drum’n’bass. Their second album Spirit In The System came out in 2010.

Being able to blend rock with drum’n’bass, The Qemists are often compared with bands like Pendulum and The Prodigy. Their performance at Woodstock Festival will be yet another chance to see them in Poland, where they enjoy great popularity! The Qemists are the headliner of the first day of the festival.

Founded in 2003,  Dubioza Kolektiv  needed one year to release their first album. Created with the help of the legendary reggae singer Benjamin Zaphanajah and the members of Fun-Da-mental, that CD foreshadowed a new quality on the music market. The following albums only consolidated the position of the Bosnian band. When Dubioza released their sixth CD in 2011, the Balkans and much of Europe already treated them a cult band. Now it’s about time Poland got to know this musical phenomenon too. Their music is an extraordinary fusion of genres, including reggae, ska, funk and punk, spiced up with dubstep interludes and a modern electronic background. Their energetic concerts are hard to forget; brilliant rhymes, charismatic vocalists and the crazy show all make it hard to look away from the stage.

The band was selected to play at Woodstock Festival Poland from the CEETEP pool. Supported by the EU, the CEETEP program aims at promoting talents from Eastern and Central Europe (http://www.etep.nl/en/).  Sadly, musicians from this part of our continent are often only popular in their native countries, although their music is world-class.

THePETEBOX – a young beat boxer, whose cover of a song by The Pixies won the hearts of the online community. Only a truly talented person could get 2’000’000 views. THePETEBOX is considered one of the most promising  beat boxers of his generation. His debut album “Future Loops” with covers of popular songs and his own compositions will soon become available in music stores.

After a couple years of remaining silent, Piotr Glaca Mohamed, the charismatic leader of Sweet Noise – one of Poland’s leading rock bands – comes back on stage with his new project “My Riot”.

A famous rock vocalist, Glaca is also well-known for his “straight” attitude to live: he does not smoke or drink alcohol, he does sports. On stage, Glaca is very dynamic, and the journalists often refer to him as “the demon of energy”. A keen volunteer, Glaca has been supporting various charity organizations for many years, among them The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity, The Polish Humanitarian Organization, The “Nigdy Więcej” foundation and Monar. In 1999, Piotr took part in an anti-drug campaign organized by the Chancellery of the President of Poland. In 2004, he participated in the “Pozwól żyć” (Let Live) anti-drug action organized by Monar and Zbigniew Hołdys. Last year, because of the principles he holds, he was invited to create, in cooperation with Peja, a song titled “Pozwól mi żyć” (Let Me Live). The song speaks about the battle against alcoholism.

Glaca is a celebrated artist both in Poland and abroad. It is worth mentioning that last year he co-created a musical project together with a member of the world’s most famous rock band, Tool. The list of Polish artists who cooperated with Piotr is quite impressive too; he has already worked with Edyta Górniak, Anna Maria Jopek, Natalia Kukulska, Nergal, and many others.

My Riot was created in cooperation with a Sopot-based break-beat producer hiding under a pseudonym “TR Hacker” when Glaca was in the US. After two years of sending files between Sopot and Los Angeles, the time came to finish the CD in Poland. During those two years, Glaca worked on the “Serce” (Heart) project, accompanied by Toshi Kasai (who was the producer of albums by Melvins, Fripp&Adam Jones and Red Sparoows), and on recordings for M.T.void, a project which he created together with Justin Chancellor, bass player from the legendary band Tool. Knowledge and experience gathered in California helped Glaca to work on the album by My Riot. His aim is to produce another CD setting new standards for composition, sound and lyrics. Many outstanding artists both from Poland and abroad have been invited to the project, which will be primarily aimed at Polish audience.

My Riot combines musical and stage experience of professional musicians with the energy and youth of debutants who too take part in this project. Assembled by Glaca and Jarek Chilkiewicz a.k.a. Chilka, the band is ready to play live. The combination of break beat, electronics, dub step, hip hop with hard rock, alternative music and punk with passionate lyrics and Glaca’s special character guarantees a feast for the ears.

“Time for some damn adrenaline”

Managed by Glaca, the concerts of Sweet Noise were always on a high artistic and technical level. Sweet Noise was the 2003 winner of the Golden Spinning Top, a prize awarded by the Woodstock audience. In fact, they have so many fans among Woodstockians, that they have already played on the festival three times. Sweet Noise concerts were Glaca’s ticket to the Polish mainstream music market. Between 1994 and 1995, the band won at all rock festivals in the country.

My Riot is composed of:

Glaca – vocals, electronics

Hacker – electronics, keyboard

Diamond Chill – guitars

Zwierzak – guitars

Szymon – percussion

Click on one of the links below to learn more about My Riot:

myriotband.com

http://www.youtube.com/myriotband

www.myspace.com/myriotband

www.facebook.com/myriotband

http://www.flickr.com/photos/myriotband

Elektryczne Gitary is a Polish rock band created in 1989 by Rafał Kwaśniewski, Piotr Łojek and Kuba Sienkiewicz. The main idea of the band is creating singer-songwriter music in a rock’n’roll setting. Most of the songs have been written by Kuba Sienkiewicz. The band’s logo is an “electric cat”, created by visual artist Jarek Koziara.

The band gained much popularity and up to 2009, sold over 1.5 million original albums. From the very beginning, the musicians have been famous for their specific sense of humor and perverse self-irony. Kuba Sienkiewicz himself has never tried to conceal that he does not treat the rock style too serious. “During a concert,” he says, “I am trying to create the best possible caricature of what I’m doing. My guitar phrases are done in such a way that they seem to be laughing at themselves. Virtually anything can happen then and it’s all  more like a happening than a classical rock concert.

(Source: Polish Wikipedia)

Gooral is a producer, a sound-generator and a forerunner of blending electro-house, dubstep and dnb with the tradition of the Polish Gorals. The artist’s music is greatly influenced by the his hometown Bielsko-Biała. Surrounded by mountains, this city is seen by some as a gateway to the mountains, and by others as a gateway to hubbub. Gooral’s connection with the city is stronger, however he did spend half of his life in the mountains, teaching people how to ski.

In the second half of the 90, Gooral fell in love with technical and electronic music. His band Psio Crew, started with Maciek Szymonowicz, played hundreds of concerts and released the album called “Szumi Jawor Soundsystem”. In 2008, Gooral left Psio Crew to walk his own musical path… This how the Gooral project was born. Apart from Mateusz Górny, there are three other permanent members of the Gooral live team: Tomasz Jabko Łapką (violin), Stanisław Karpiel-Bułecka (vocal) and Michał Kopa Kopaniszyn (visual arts). This mixture, connecting various cultures and places, turned out to be quite explosive, as can be seen at various concerts, both small ones like the one in Gostynin and huge ones like Sziget. The artists proudly announce that their first “solo” album, called “Ethno Electro”, will be released by SP Records in mid-April.

Gooral was selected from the pool of 780 bands who had sent their records to Fabryka Zespołów. The band skipped the preliminaries and was instantly qualified to play at the Main Stage! You could see their fantastic performance at the 20^thGrand Finale concert in Warsaw. Gooral has also been entered into the CEETEP pool by Heineken Open’er festival.