Tacoma Rock City has changed blogging systems and the URL. Please go here to check out the new site.

Make sure to update any bookmarks or RSS feeds you had pointing to our old system as they will no longer work.

New blog URL: http://blog.thenewstribune.com/tacomarockcity
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Tacoma Rock City hasn't officially relaunched with our new WordPress software, as mentioned in the boss's column this morning. But I have started to add new content. Check out Grit City Bootlegs No. 25, with video from a promising, new local band called The Legend of Bigfoot at Bob's Java Jive at the new link, which is blog.thenewstribune.com/tacomarockcity. Don't forget to bookmark, y'all.

Jucifer's Amber Valentine said it was kosher to share some footage from her band's monster set last night at Hell's Kitchen. So make sure you check back later this week for something really cool.

There's yet one more reason for teenage girls to freak out when the "Twilight" sequel hits theaters in November. Death Cab for Cutie wrote the lead single for the soundtrack for "The Twilight Saga: New Moon." The forthcoming new cut is called "Meet Me at the Equinox," and bassist Nick Harmer, a native of Puyallup, issued a statement originally posted at StephanieMeyer.com, reprinted here.

"We are very excited to be a part of this amazing series of novels set in our own backyard. It just seemed a perfect synergy that a band from the Northwest would create a song for a series of novels set in the Northwest. We wrote 'Meet Me On the Equinox' to reflect the celestial themes and motifs that run throughout the Twilight series and we wanted to capture that desperate feeling of endings and beginnings that so strongly affect the main characters. This song marks the first attempt that Death Cab for Cutie has ever made at contributing new, unreleased material for a film and we are proud to be a part of the Twilight legacy." — Nick Harmer

Sounds like Pearl Jam's set at San Francisco's Outside Lands Festival was amazing based on Rolling Stone's report. I'm kind of worried about the line about Eddie Vedder's vocal chords being "shredded" by recent touring, though. Here's hoping he's well rested by time the band gets to KeyArena on Sept. 21.

"‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ is a song that we’ve had at the top of our wish list ever since I came to Guitar Hero,” Activision's Vice President of Music Affairs Tim Riley tells Rolling Stone. “So it’s been a while.” Read more about yesterday's announcement on Rolling Stone's Rock Daily blog.

As promised on the Tacoma Rock City Twitter page (follow here if you're not already, slackers), I've got footage of Tacoma punk vets I Defy performing last Friday at Hell's Kitchen.

You may notice the guy playing guitar is not Carl Zook, who has gone on to form a new band, called Zook (featured on Grit City Bootleg No. 9 and on the South Sound Mix Tape.) It's another one of their rotating roster of bald guitarists, Shug Lewis, who has been playing with I Defy since March.

But enough with the jibba jabba! Check out the clip!

P.S. You can catch I Defy, live and in the flesh, on Friday (Aug. 28) at Tacoma's Silent Studios Warehouse, near the B & I Mall on South Tacoma Way - that venue's last show, I hear. Details are posted on I Defy's MySpace page.

R&B/pop star Ne-Yo has called off his Sept. 18 date at the Puyallup Fair grandstand due to "unforeseen circumstances," fair organizers announced on their site Tuesday.

Fans can be reimbursed for ticket costs and still receive free gate admission to Puyallup Fair. Learn more here.

A replacement show will likely be announced soon, said Fair spokeswoman Karen LaFlamme.

Here's a gig for you blues heads out there. On Sunday at the Swiss Pub, South Sound Blues Association is hosting a fundraiser to send Blues Redemption and JD Hobson to the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Tennessee, on January, 2010. The lineup goes something like this ...

4 p.m. Alice Stuart and Friends
5 p.m. JD Hobson
5:45 p.m. The Michal Miller Band
7 p.m. The Al Earick Band
8:15 p.m. The Stacy Jones Band
9:30 p.m. Blues Redemption

Check the Swiss site for more here.

Pink's tour launch, originally scheduled for Sept. 15 at Seattle's WaMu Theater, has been moved to KeyArena, the pop star's publicist announced today.

All tickets bought for the WaMu show will be honored at KeyArena, and wristbands will be issued to all WaMu ticket holders to ensure floor and lower bowl access, according to today's announcement.

Additional tickets will go on sale at 10 a.m. on Saturday (Aug. 29). Learn more here.

The money making machine known as Kiss will headline Seattle's KeyArena on Nov. 15, according to tour itinerary released by publicity firm Solters on Monday.

The band's Kiss Alive 35 tour will kick off with a two-night stand in hometown Detroit, Sept. 25 and 26 at Cobo Arena. And the band will play 2 1/2 hour sets, "Rock and Roll All Nite," "Detroit Rock City," "God Gave Rock & Roll to You" and other classics. Buckcherry will provide support on most dates, according to Monday's announcement.

There was plenty of legal mud slinging last time members of the Doors toured, with the Cult's Ian Astbury in for the late Jim Morrison (hence that corny moniker they came up with, the Doors 21st Century.)

But this time around the Doors' Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger are keeping it simple by putting their names on the marquee; and they're teaming up with ex-Fuel singer Brett Scallions this time. But here's betting you'll hear some "Light My Fire" and "People Are Strange" when they drop in on Seattle's Moore Theatre on Oct. 14.

Seattle Theater Group sent me ticket info when I was out of the office the other day. And it goes something like this:

Tickets: $45.00, $35.00, & $25.00, not including applicable fees. Tickets are on sale Saturday, August 29th at 10am at Tickets.com, in person at the Paramount Theatre box offices, 24-hour kiosks located outside The Paramount & Moore Theatres, charge by phone at 877-STG-4TIX, or online at STGPresents.org.

It's been six years since British trip-hop duo Massive Attack released "100th Window," the band's last proper studio album. (Let's forget about that tepid, instrumental soundtrack for "Danny the Dog" from 2004.) And increasingly it's been looking as if the duo, Daddy G and Robert "3D" del Naja, were going the way of their Bristol, England homies Portishead, who took 11 years to release last year's phenomenal "Third."

The good news today is that fans won't have to wait quite that long. Today, EMI Music announced that a four-song Massive Attack EP called "Splitting the Atom" will be released on Oct. 6 followed by a full-length album next February.

The EP title track features long-time Massive collaborator Horace Andy. The disc will also include "Pray for Rain," with vocals from TV on the Radio's Tunde Adebimpe, and remixes of two tracks called "Psyche" and "Bulletproof Love," according to today's announcement.

Listen to what appears to be a leaked version of lead single "Splitting the Atom" here.

Details remain foggy regarding the follow-up album. But When I interviewed Daddy G before Massive's 2006 tour stop in Seattle, he told me that he and del Naja had approached punk icon Patti Smith, David Bowie, Faith No More's Mike Patton and others about appearing on the album.

Patton later told me he had cut four songs with Massive Attack, not including a collaboration called "Kill the DJ" for his Peeping Tom project.