Rolling Stone Music News
Bonnaroo Nails Down Dates for 2010 Festival: June 10-13th
The recession helped hasten the demise of a few festivals last year, but at least there’s one thing a music fan can count on: there will be a Bonnaroo in 2010. The ninth annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival announced today it would once again call Manchester, Tennessee home from June 10th to 13th, 2010. Tickets for the festival will go on sale at the Bonnaroo official Website starting November 27th. Like last year, fans will have the option of purchasing their tickets via rock & roll layaway (five installments of $50 rather than the lump fee).
The lineup for the 2010 Bonnaroo will be announced in late January/early February, but this year’s festival will be hard to top: Not only did Manchester get two nights of the reunited Phish, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band headlined Saturday night, and the two headliners closed out the festival by performing together during Phish’s Sunday night slot. (Check out all our 2009 Bonnaroo coverage here.) Other artists at ‘Roo ‘09 include the Beastie Boys, Nine Inch Nails, Animal Collective and Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Dive into Bonnaroo ‘09 in our gallery of shots from the stage and beyond.
Looking ahead to 2010, it seems like the reunited Pavement might be destined for a headlining slot (Stephen Malkmus is a ‘Roo vet having played the festival in 2006). Phish is also a good bet, as are this year’s Super Bowl halftime performers the Who. And call us crazy, but we’re gonna go out on a limb and predict Guns n’ Roses, who have already scheduled shows in Asia and Canada, will bring Chinese Democracy to Tennessee in 2010.
Related Stories:
• Bonnaroo 2009’s Faces in the Crowd: Hippies, Dads, Bees
• Springsteen Joins Phish to Close Out Electric Bonnaroo 2009
• Phish Deliver Giant Set, Beasties Bring Nas to Bonnaroo Day Two
Janet Jackson Was “Shocked” By Michael’s Propofol Use
Photo: Venturelli/WireImage
Janet Jackson admitted she was shocked when she learned her brother Michael’s drug addiction had spiraled into the use of the powerful sedative Propofol in an interview with ABC’s In the Spotlight that aired last night. “That was a shocker to me and it just — that’s serious,” Jackson said. “That’s heavy. That’s heavy. None of us knew to that extent.”
Look back at Michael Jackson’s remarkable career, in photos.
As Rolling Stone previously reported, Janet said she blames the physician who was at Michael’s side when he suffered cardiac arrest, Dr. Conrad Murray, for her brother’s death, because Murray administered the drug that was named as the primary cause of his premature demise. Janet isn’t the only one pointing fingers at Murray: Jackson’s death has been ruled a homicide, and Murray is the lone suspect in the investigation into the King of Pop’s June 25th death. No charges have been filed yet.
Janet also revealed that she and her family were aware of Michael’s addiction but not the severity of it. On several occasions, Janet said she tried to talk to her brother about his problem. “Of course, that’s what you do. Those are the things that you do when you love someone,” Jackson said. “You can’t just let them continue on that way. And we did a few times. We weren’t very successful. You can’t make ‘em drink the water. It’s something that you can’t do for them. Something they have to do for themselves.”
Jackson also said Michael was “possibly” in denial regarding his own addiction to Propofol. She also discussed growing up in the famous Jackson family, her relationships with Jermaine Dupri and first husband James DeBarge and her own Number Ones greatest hits comp, which was released this week. “I needed to get back to work,” she said. “It helped me get through [Michael's death]. I was able to put a lot of my focus someplace else.”
Related Stories:
• Janet Jackson Blames Dr. Murray for Michael’s Death in Interview
• Janet Jackson Honors Michael With Dance Tribute at VMAs
• Michael Jackson’s Death Officially Ruled Homicide
Big Star Rock “#1 Record,” “Radio City” Classics at Rare NYC Gig
Photo: Michael Ochs Archive/Getty
The golden-pop aura that New Yorkers saw hovering in the night sky on November 18th was from a rare local landing, at Brooklyn Masonic Temple, of the Memphis Beatles, Big Star: singer-guitarist Alex Chilton and drummer Jody Stephens with their reunion associates since 1993, guitarist Jon Auer and bassist Ken Stringfellow of the Posies. You can still count on one hand Big Star’s New York visits since 1974, when Chilton and Stephens (with a touring bassist) appeared at Max’s Kansas City to promote the hard-jangle classic Radio City. The Brooklyn show also coincided with a recent release, Keep Your Eyes on the Sky, a four-CD history of the three years, 1972-74, in which Chilton, Stephens, singer-guitarist Chris Bell and bassist Andy Hummel fused, right as they were falling apart, American garage rock, Southern R&B and the British Invasion on the historic pop-adventure albums, #1 Record, Radio City and Third.
Chilton and Stephens now lead a strong performing enterprise, even if it comes around with the frequency of a comet. Auer and Stringfellow, who built their own band on a deep love and study of Big Star, carried with seasoned enthusiasm their half of the treble-guitar tangle and fallen-angel harmonies of “In the Street” and “The Ballad of El Goodo,” from #1 Record, and the Radio City crackle of “You Get What You Deserve.” Auer sang the late Bell’s solo single “I Am the Cosmos” with ethereal poise; Stringfellow got a long ovation for his bright anguished vocal atop the bittersweet charge of #1’s “Feel.”
Stephens, ironically, may be the most underrated member of the band he co-founded. He sang Hummel’s “Way Out West,” from Radio City, anchoring the harmonies around him with a clean, steely force. And when Stephens made the tricky rhythmic turnarounds of “In the Street” and “When My Baby’s Beside Me,” it was fascinating to see the mix of Keith Moon dynamics and Ringo Starr restraint in his drumming, tucked under the power-pop glaze of the original records.
As a young man, first with the Box Tops and then Big Star, Chilton already sounded like a hounded soul, with a strong high tenor hatched with experience and loss. Last night, he had that same voice, but with an added evident fondness for what he had achieved in these songs — and how good and potent they still are. When Chilton got to the verse in the teenage melodrama “Thirteen” about the angry father and the Rolling Stones’ “Paint It, Black” — “Rock & roll is here to stay/Come inside where it’s OK” — he delivered it like someone who got to that wisdom the hard way — and still believed it.
There were also some songs from the 2005 comeback album, In Space (including the overlooked beauty “February’s Quiet”), and a puzzling (to some) encore. “What, no ‘O My Soul’? Instead we get ‘Slut’?” one audience member asked after the lights went up. Well, it’s a great crunchy-pop Todd Rundgren cover. It was in Big Star’s live ‘74 set lists. And there’s always next time — whenever that is.
What’s Next for Springsteen: “Darkness on the Edge of Town” Box Set, “Dream” Tour DVD
Photo: Mazur/WireImage
This Sunday, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band will wrap up their two-year tour by performing their 1973 debut album Greetings From Asbury Park in its entirety (stick with Rolling Stone for a full report). After that, Springsteen’s next moves are unclear. His manager, Jon Landau, says the only plans for 2010 are the release of the long-delayed Darkness on the Edge of Town box set and a DVD of the Working on a Dream tour. “The Darkness box set is 93 percent done,” he tells RS. “It’s absolutely fantastic and there are just some finishing touches that we need to turn our attention to and finalize and we’ll get it out there.” As for the Dream DVD, Landau says, “We’re working on some different approaches to a DVD for this tour. We’ll release it sometime fairly soon, post-Christmas.” Grab the next issue of RS, out November 25th, to read E Street’s reflections on their magical two years on the road.
See the Dream: Springsteen launches his tour with the E Street Band.
The Darkness box will likely contain a remastered edition of the disc, a new documentary about the making of the LP, as well as live footage from the 1978 tour. A handful of pro-shot shows circulate through the fan community, but there’s no word on which concert will be brought out of the vaults for the set. In 2005, fans were stunned when a previously unknown complete performance from London in 1975 appeared on the Born to Run box set. The Darkness on the Edge of Town tour is widely regarded as the high water mark of Springsteen’s live career.
There are no plans for another E Street Band album or tour next year. “We just had back-to-back tours and back-to-back records,” Landau says. “That’s never happened before, so we’re going to have substantial downtime at this point. The E Street Band does have an illustrious future, but I don’t have anything more specific to tell you about next year except those two media projects that are on the horizon.”
The E Street Band have mixed feelings about the tour coming to an end. “I really don’t want the work to end, but I need to go home,” says guitarist Nils Lofgren. “It’s kind of an inherent level of homesickness that wears on you. I’m really looking forward to being home and actually unpacking my suitcase. It sat there with my dogs giving me dirty looks for two years.”
Steven Van Zandt has similar feelings. “It feels very much like The Sopranos,” he says. “Everybody was like, ‘Well, we’re extremely successful and still very high on the ratings,’ but David Chase knew it was time to stop. In the end I agreed and I feel like it’s the same thing here.” He says he hasn’t had any discussions with Springsteen about future work. “I’m always afraid to stop,” he says. “You think, ‘If we stop, can we get this thing going again?’ After a year or two off, you find yourself at the bottom of Mt. Everest looking up and thinking, ‘How are we gonna get there?’ I will be surprised if we don’t continue and if you ask me if I think we’ll continue I’ll certainly say yes. It’s just a matter of what happens to everybody physically, beginning with Clarence [Clemons] I suppose. He may fantasize about retiring, but with all his ex-wives I doubt it.”
Related Stories:
• The Band on Bruce: Their Springsteen
• Bruce Springsteen: The Vintage Photographs
• Bruce Springsteen: The Rolling Stone Covers
Death Cab for Cutie, Dead Weather Rock mtvU’s Woodie Awards
Photo: Schwartz/FilmMagic
The Dead Weather and Death Cab for Cutie didn’t pick up any trophies last night at mtvU’s Woodie Awards — the college network’s sixth annual party — but they won the crowd over with two strong performances that capped a night of rock & roll dominance as the big awards went to Kings of Leon (Woodie of the Year) and Green Day (Performing Woodie). The show, which was filmed live at New York’s Roseland Ballroom and airs on MTV, MTV2, mtvU, and Palladia December 4th at 10 p.m., stayed true to its grab-bag mission, mixing a stellar hip-hop collaboration from Clipse featuring Cam’ron and Rick Ross with performances by indie rock faves like Passion Pit and Matt & Kim.
Matt & Kim kicked off the show with raucous rendition of “Lessons Learned,” whose NSFW video — featuring the Brooklyn duo running the streets of New York nearly naked — won Best Video Woodie. The band skipped the strip show, letting eight backup dancers disrobe during the song instead. “We’ve done that, we don’t need to do that again!” Kim told Rolling Stone. “They were ready to take it off,” Matt added. “We were giving them clothes we had lying around, but to take off skinny pants while hopping around is not the easiest!”
Passion Pit had a few pre-show jitters and told RS it was their first-ever awards show performance. “This is like an assimilation, right?” lead singer Michael Angelakos asked. Despite his confession the band was “a little scared,” their energetic set of “Little Secrets” and “The Reeling” got the crowd dancing; Gossip Girl’s Leighton Meester was even spotted singing along.
Angelakos also told us he was thrilled to finally get to see Death Cab for Cutie for the first time after years of being a fan, and their set did not disappoint: the quartet debuted their New Moon soundtrack song “Meet Me on the Equinox” before pleasantly surprising the crowd with “Sound of Settling” from 2003’s Transatlanticism. Death Cab’s Ben Gibbard and Chris Walla revealed to RS they saw New Moon earlier this week and cryptically hinted “just wait for it” when asked about where “Equinox” pops up.
While many of the night’s guests listed Death Cab for Cutie as their most anticipated performance (including Gibbard’s wife, Zooey Deschanel, who doled out the Breaking Woodie), Gibbard and Walla said they were most excited to check out the Dead Weather for the first time. Jack White told RS that a new album from the band will be on the way in early 2010, and they closed out the Woodies with an explosive set of “I Cut Like a Buffalo,” “Treat Me Like Your Mother” and “Hang You From the Heavens.” At one point a fan hijacked the stage, kneeling at the edge and thrashing on his knees as Alison Mossheart shrieked and pranced inches away. The band rocked on unaffected, only breaking its intensity at the end to offer a polite bow before exiting the stage and bringing the Woodies’ controlled chaos to a neat and tidy end.
Woodie Winners List:
Woodie of the Year: Kings of Leon
Performing Woodie: Green Day
Best Video Woodie: Matt & Kim “Lessons Learned”
The Breaking Woodie: Never Shout Never
Left Field Woodie: Tech N9ne
The Good Woodie: Jamie Tworkowski of To Write Love on Her Arms
Radio Woodie: KUPS, University of Puget-Sound, Tacoma, Washington
Best Music on Campus Woodie: Hotel of the Laughing Tree
Ringo Starr Recruits Paul McCartney for New Album “Y Not”
Photo: Mazur/MPL/WireImage
Ringo Starr grabbed a little help from his friends for his new album Y Not, due January 12th, 2010. The Beatles drummer will be joined by his Fab Four bandmate Paul McCartney on a couple of tracks, including first single “Walk With Me,” which finds Macca and Starr sharing vocals. Other guests and songwriters on Y Not, Ringo’s first album since 2008’s Liverpool 8, include Joe Walsh, Joss Stone, Van Dyke Parks, Ben Harper and Richard Marx.
Talking about working with his old Beatles mate, Starr said in a press release, “Paul was doing the Grammys, so he came over to the house and was playing bass on ‘Peace Dream.’ So I played him this other track and Paul said, ‘Give me the headphones. Give me a pair of cans.’ And he went to the mike and he just invented that part where he follows on my vocal. That was all Paul McCartney, and there could be nothing better.”
The illustrated guide to the Beatles’ split.
“He makes it bigger and he makes it fuller,” Starr said of McCartney’s work on “Walk With Me,” which was co-written by Starr and Parks. “It makes the song like a conversation between us, and that was Paul’s idea to do his part one beat behind me. That’s why he’s a gen-i-us and an incredible bass player.” Macca last appeared on a Starr album over a decade ago, on 1998’s Vertical Man. The pair also reunited earlier this year at a benefit concert at Radio City Music Hall.
Ringo’s early days: photos of the Beatles’ remarkable rise.
Y Not also marks Starr’s first major foray into producing. “I was the least involved in the production of the Beatle records. And then with my solo records, ” Starr said. “Then suddenly, it’s another point in your life, and you say, ‘I’m going do this now.’ So I’ll be producing anything I make from now on. That’s the good news. It’s a confidence thing, I suppose. And Y Not is really another way of me saying, ‘Yes, I can.’ ” Y Not also includes the autobiographical “The Other Side of Liverpool” and opening track “Fill in the Blanks,” which features Starr’s brother-in-law, guitarist Joe Walsh.
Get all of Rolling Stone’s essential Beatles coverage.
Related Stories:
• Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr Unveil “The Beatles: Rock Band” in L.A.
• Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr Reunite Onstage at New York Benefit
• Ringo Starr Does Damage Control Over Fan Mail Controversy
Jack White Says Expect a New Dead Weather Disc in Early 2010
Photo: Bedder Getty
The Dead Weather’s debut Horehound isn’t even a year old, but they’re already plotting their next album. Earlier this week, the band told Rolling Stone they will hit the studio soon to work on their follow-up LP, which could be finished by the time they embark on their Australian tour in March. “We’ll probably be having a new album by that time, if we’re lucky. We have a lot of songs cooking right now, we’ve been playing a few of them live and I’m sure by March the entire 20 or 25 songs will be onstage by then,” Jack White told Rolling Stone. “We can’t tell you that much about it except that it’s gonna be really expansive, and I use that word loosely in a scientific sense, meaning that I’m just using it to distract you.”
Check out hot live shots of the Dead Weather.
As if White didn’t already have enough on his plate in 2009, he also served as producer during a recent recording session with Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and the Queen of Rockabilly, Wanda Jackson. “It was just supposed to be a seven-inch [single], but we did a lot more songs, so maybe it will be something bigger,” White told MTV News before last night’s mtvU Woodie Awards. “There was a lot of good stuff. It’s a wild record.”
White, a Nashville resident these days, is no stranger to the country scene, having previously produced — and won a Grammy for — Loretta Lynn’s 2004 album Van Lear Rose. “They had a super album, but he didn’t have her do anything different, you know,” Wanda Jackson told The Oklahoman. “She just did her little Loretta Lynn songs. But he told me he’s gonna stretch me some, so we’ll see.”
As for not RSVPing to Slash’s invitation to appear on the Velvet Revolver guitarist’s upcoming all-star album, White told MTV, “I don’t even remember that request, but I love Slash. Appetite for Destruction is one of the best rock albums of the past 20-30 years. … I don’t really like those albums where every song is a different person — that Santana thing, that’s not interesting to me.”
Get more stories on Jack White and other guitar gods.
Related Stories:
• Jack White Turned Down Slash’s Request to Sing on Solo Album
• Jack White Can’t Stop Dancing in Dead Weather’s Second “I Cut Like a Buffalo” Video
• Jack White’s Dead Weather Debut With a Bang in New York
Hype Monitor: Tempo No Tempo, Dragonette, Sleigh Bells
The Band: Tempo No Tempo
The Buzz: A nervy, worked-up band from San Francisco, Tempo No Tempo have been kicking around for nearly four years now, getting steadily better while remaining stubbornly under the radar. Their latest EP should change all that: blending hurtling dance rhythms with jabbing, elbowing post-punk guitars, the group takes a literal approach to the notion of “panic at the disco.”
Listen If: Dancing stresses you out a little, and you want your music to reflect that anxiety.
Key Track: The terrifically severe “Kilometer,” where the clanging guitars feel like a starting bell, setting the song’s tense quiver in motion. Vocalist Tyler McCauley coos, “I could never wait for you,” and it’s true — no sooner does are the words out of his mouth than he vanishes, leaving us dead in the middle of a guitar solo that whips around as wildly as a cut power line.
The Band: Dragonette
The Buzz: Dragonette began as a duo called the Fuzz, consisting of guitarist Dan Kurtz and vocalist Martina Sorbara. Fortunately, that name didn’t last — after a few rounds of reinvention, the group turned into a day-glo dance-pop wonder. Their tastes are voracious — they may skew electronic, but the thumping “Gone Too Far” is built around a banjo loop, and Sorbara cites Rickie Lee Jones and Joan Armantrading as inspirations.
Listen If: Your favorite artists of the last few years were Lykke Li and Ladyhawke, and you’re looking to complete your holy trilogy of perfectly pouty pop.
Key Track: “Pick Up the Phone,” the kind of bright, charming pop song Cyndi Lauper would have killed for in the 80s. Few artists get the concept of the “bridge” right anymore, but the build to the chorus is tense and heavenly, so that when arrives, it’s as liberating as a great gospel song.
The Band: Sleigh Bells
The Buzz: Brooklyn duo of Derek Miller (ex-Poison the Well) and Alexis Krauss make awesomely impolite dance music, raising a stiff middle finger to fidelity and instead choosing to run all of their tracks in the red — overdriven, overamped, over distorted. In other words: perfect.
Listen If: You want your music to come with its own busted subwoofer.
Key Track: The irresistible “Crown on the Ground,” where Krauss coos out a clipped melody in jump rope cadence over blown-out blasts of synths that whallop like a bag of bricks. One things for sure, when Krauss says “Set, set that crown on the ground,” you’d better listen.
“Anvil!,” “It Might Get Loud” Left Off Oscar Documentary Short List
Photo: Kravitz/FilmMagic
There’s the old adage, “If it’s too loud, you’re too old.” Looks like the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is older than we thought: two of the year’s best and most rocking documentaries, It Might Get Loud and Anvil! The Story of Anvil were both left off the 15-film short list for the Best Documentary Academy Award nominations, /Film reports. Both movies earned three-and-a-half star reviews from Rolling Stone.
Anvil! told the Spinal Tap-esque story of long-running Canadian heavy metal act Anvil. If its any consolation for Anvil, the band saw their film premiere at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, opened for AC/DC, rocked out with Slash, performed on The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien and filmed a cameo for the Seth Rogen action film The Green Hornet. Not bad for a band that flew under the radar for 30 years, but it still would’ve been cool to see Anvil dressed in tuxes while walking down the red carpet at the 2010 Academy Awards.
It Might Get Loud featured guitar gods Jimmy Page, Jack White and U2’s The Edge talking about their craft and trading riffs, culminating in a jaw-dropping jam session. For more on that film and our killer six-string coverage, check out Rolling Stone’s Ultimate Guitar Hub.
One music-related film did make the Oscar short list, however: Soundtrack for a Revolution, which features the Roots, the Blind Boys of Alabama, John Legend, Wyclef Jean and many more. And in case you’re wondering where Michael Jackson is on the short list, Rolling Stone previously noted that This Is It wasn’t released before the Oscar deadline, making it ineligible for the documentary category this year.
There were some other notable omissions from the Academy Awards doc short list, including two of our favorites of 2009. “Oscar doc short list leaves out Capitalism and Tyson,” Rolling Stone movie critic Peter Travers wrote on his Twitter yesterday. “The NY Times reports that douche is now an acceptable word. Oscar, you’re a Doucher!”
Related Stories:
• Anvil Exposed: Canadian Metal Vets Rock With Slash, Talk Doc
• Anvil’s Story Rocks On: Band Hits the Studio, Nabs Slash for Book
• “Anvil! The True Story of Anvil”: The Year’s Great Rock Movie?
• Guitar Gods Crank It Up for New Documentary “It Might Get Loud”
Stone Temple Pilots Postpone Tour Dates to Finish New Album
Photo: Flanigan/FilmMagic
Stone Temple Pilots will spend the rest of 2009 in the studio. Scott Weiland and Co. have postponed the remaining U.S. dates on their tour to get to work on “their highly anticipated record, which will be coming out in the early spring of next year,” the reunited band announced on their official Website. As Rolling Stone previously reported, the group has written roughly 18 songs for the album, which will be produced by Don Was.
Scott Weiland backstage and up close: exclusive photos.
Weiland has already promised fans the band will hit the road again for the long haul in support of their new album, their first since 2001’s Shangri-La Dee Da. “When we finish the album, there will be a big tour around its release and that will probably be a long tour,” Weiland said. According to Blabbermouth, however, the band and Atlantic Records are embroiled in a battle in which STP claims they are free agents and Atlantic insists they’re still under contract. So even though the album is expected out in early 2010, legal red tape may hold up its release.
Stone Temple Pilots have four more shows left on their 11-date tour of Canada, including a gig tonight in London, Ontario. All the tour dates that were scheduled after STP’s November 24th show in Halifax, Nova Scotia have been deleted from the band’s official site.
Related Stories:
• Scott Weiland and Stone Temple Pilots Plot New Album for 2010
• Weiland Recovers From Seizure, Plots Stone Temple Pilots Tour
• Scott Weiland Seeks Sweaty Redemption Onstage as Solo Tour Rolls Into Austin
News Ticker: DJ AM, John Mayer, Imeem, Lil Wayne
Photo: Kravitz/FilmMagic
- From now until December 14th, you can bid on more than 800 pairs of sneakers from DJ AM’s collection on eBay. Proceeds from the auction will benefit the DJ AM Memorial Fund, which strives to help people struggling with addiction, the L.A. Times reports.
- John Mayer’s Battle Studies is expected to top next week’s Billboard 200 with sales between 275,000 and 300,000, Billboard reports.
- MySpace has reportedly reached a deal to purchase ad-supported music site Imeem for approximately $8 million, CNET reports.
- Lil Wayne has become a father — again. The rapper’s fourth child, a son with singer Nivea, was born over the weekend, Perez Hilton reports.
Tour Tracker: Michael Buble, Bebel Gilberto and Four Tet
Michael Bublé promises to spread Crazy Love throughout the U.S. starting in March 2010, Brazilian singer Bebel Gilberto returns to the States for another tour and Four Tet plot out February club shows in support of their first album in four years, There Is Love in You. Full dates for all three treks below.
Michael Buble
Mar. 10 – Orlando, FL
Mar. 12 – Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Mar. 13 – Tampa, FL
Mar. 14 – Atlanta, GA
Mar. 16 – Philadelphia, PA
Mar. 17 – Pittsburgh, PA
Mar. 19 – Worcester, MA
Mar. 20 – New York, NY
Mar. 23 – Cleveland, OH
Mar. 24 – Cincinnati, OH
Mar. 25 – Detroit, MI
Mar. 27 – Chicago, IL
Mar. 28 – St. Paul, MN
Mar. 30 – Denver, CO
Mar. 31 – Salt Lake City, UT
Apr. 2 – Portland, OR
Apr. 3 – Seattle, WA
Apr. 6 – Oakland, CA
Apr. 8 – Phoenix, AZ
Apr. 9 – Los Angeles, CA
Bebel Gilberto
Nov. 23 – Washington, D.C. @ 9:30 Club
Nov. 25 – New York, NY @ Hiro Ballrooom
Nov. 27 – Boston, MA @ Paradise Rock Club
Nov. 28 – Montclair, NJ @ Wellmont Theatre
Nov. 29 – Montreal, QC @ L’Astral
Nov. 30 – Toronto, ON @ Sound Academy
Dec. 2 – Chicago, IL @ Park West
Dec. 3 – Minneapolis, MN @ Dakota Jazz Club
Dec. 5 – Denver, CA @ Ogden Theatre
Dec. 8 – Solana Beach, CA @ Belly Up Tavern
Dec. 9 – Los Angeles, CA @ Henry Fonda Theatre
Dec. 10 – San Francisco, CA @ Bimbo’s
Four Tet
Feb. 17 – New York, NY @ Le Poisson Rouge
Feb. 18 – Cambridge, MA @ Middle East Downstairs
Feb. 19 – Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle
Feb. 20 – Austin, TX @ The Mohawk
Feb. 23 – Seattle, WA @ Chop Suey
Feb. 24 – Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore Cabaret
Feb. 25 – Portland, OR @ Doug Fir
Feb. 26 – San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
Feb. 27 – Los Angeles, CA @ Echoplex
The Man on the “Moon”: Q&A With “Twilight Saga” Director Weitz
Rolling Stone witnessed the awe-inspiring power of Twilight last year, when we dared to ask whose fans were more passionate: those of Robert Pattinson or the Jonas Brothers? Then we dropped a Q&A with Pattinson that had Twihards going … Twiberserk?
With the follow-up flick The Twilight Saga: New Moon out this week, we caught up with the sequel’s director Chris Weitz, who’s well known in these parts for his adaptations of The Golden Compass and About a Boy. Weitz opened up about the movie’s wildest stunts, satisfying those ravenous Team Edward fans and scenes you won’t find in Stephenie Meyer’s original book. Check it out here:
• The Man on the “Moon”: Q&A With “Twilight Saga” Director Chris Weitz
Video Sites Announce New Music Features: Hulu Adds Artist Pages, Vevo Sets Launch
Norah Jones, whose new album The Fall was released yesterday, is about to become a Web-music guinea pig. EMI has teamed with video-streaming site Hulu — itself a partnership between NBC, ABC and Fox — to establish artist pages for the major label’s roster. Jones is the first to get her very own Hulu page, which will house all of the Grammy winner’s music videos and a selection of live performances, as well as interviews about recording The Fall. As Rolling Stone previously reported, in December 2008 major labels were weighing partnering with Hulu to increase streaming royalties.
According to the New York Times, EMI hopes to add more of their artists over time, as well as continuously update Jones’ Hulu page to keep it a destination for fans. Andy Forssell, a senior vice president at Hulu, anticipates that the streaming video site will eventually agree to deals with the remaining major labels.
Interestingly enough, Hulu’s dip into the music world comes the same day that new video Website Vevo — a joint venture between YouTube, Universal and Sony — announced its launch date, December 8th. Using the YouTube model, Vevo will offer up music videos plus other artist-related content, Billboard.biz reports.
Related Stories:
• Major Labels Consider Hulu Partnership, New Music Video Site as Alternatives to YouTube
• Universal Labels And Google’s YouTube Reach Deal For New Video Service
• Warner Music, YouTube Reportedly Strike Deal to Restore Videos
New Music Report: Blakroc
This week’s New Music Report lasers in on the self-titled debut from supergroup Blakroc, a collaboration between the Akron blues-rock duo the Black Keys and a cast of guest rappers that includes Ludacris, Mos Def, RZA and Pharoahe Monch. It’s not a disc of Limp Bizkit rap-rock though — it’s more like something you’d expect from the Roots. On “On the Vista,” the Keys lay down free-floating psych grooves while Mos Def delivers what sounds like off the cuff rhymes. Raekwon contributes the excellent “Stay off the Fuckin’ Flowers” and the Keys churn out a great swamp-blues groove to back RZA on “Tellin’ Me Things.” But the disc’s best track is “Coochie,” a remake of an unreleased Ludacris song featuring a from-the-grave vocal from Ol’ Dirty Bastard.
>>Watch every episode of our weekly New Music Report video podcast by subscribing via iTunes (when prompted, click “Launch application”). Every Tuesday, a new episode will be delivered to your iTunes. [If you don’t have iTunes, download it here.]
Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Fox Tale
Photo: Greg Williams
Whenever Wes Anderson directs a movie, Rolling Stone pays attention: this is, after all, the guy who made one of the best film soundtracks of all time for his breakthrough, Rushmore. Peter Travers praises Anderson’s latest, Fantastic Mr. Fox, as “an adventure in pure imagination that plays to the smart kid in all of us” in his three-and-a-half-star review. And now we’ve got an interview with Anderson and Jason Schwartzman, who voices Fox’s son Ash, in which the pair break down the process of bringing Roald Dahl’s beloved children’s story to the big screen.
Charlotte Gainsbourg, Beck Team in Trippy “Heaven Can Wait” Video
We thought Lars von Trier’s Antichrist would be the strangest thing we saw this year that starred Charlotte Gainsbourg. Turns out, we were wrong. Up top is the new video for “Heaven Can Wait,” the first from Gainsbourg’s collaborative album with Beck, IRM. Beck co-stars in the clip, a two-and-a-half minute montage that seems to incorporate and visualize all the abstract, offbeat imagery he’s documented about his native Los Angeles in his 15-year career.
The video, which debuted earlier today on Spinner, was directed by Keith Schofield, but watching it you’d think Gummo auteur Harmony Korine had a hand in it. Here’s a small sampling of all the WTF?! you’ll see in “Heaven Can Wait”: Police arresting a dude in a SpongeBob costume, a backyard boxing match next to a merry-go-round, a wigged dinosaur enjoying a bubble bath, a skateboard with hamburgers for wheels, babies dressed as hot dogs and a giant bomb with the word “Nachos” written on it. You really need to just see it for yourself to get the total, awesome effect.
As Rolling Stone previously reported, IRM’s title track was released as a free download in early October. “Heaven Can Wait” is now available at digital outlets, and the physical album is due January 26th.
When Beck isn’t standing next to men with half beards like in the above video, he and his Record Club — presently featuring Wilco and Feist — are covering Skip Spence’s Oar one song per week over at the Modern Guilt singer’s busy official Website.
Related Stories:
• Flashback: Beck Performs With Charlotte Gainsbourg’s Mom
• Charlotte Gainsbourg and Beck Share New Song “IRM” Online
• Beck’s Record Club Tackles Skip Spence’s “Oar” with Wilco, Feist
Nick Jonas’ Administration to Debut at Grammy Nominations Concert in Los Angeles
Photo: Venturelli/WireImage
Nick Jonas & The Administration, the youngest of the Jonas Brothers’ new side project, will make their live debut at “The Grammy Nominations Concert Live!!” in Los Angeles on December 2nd. To demonstrate Jonas solidarity, Kevin and Joe will lend some brotherly support by introducing the band at its first-ever performance, at Club Nokia. Nick Jonas will join previously announced performers the Black Eyed Peas, Maxwell and Sugarland at the Grammys noms show, where LL Cool J will serve as the evening’s host.
A day in the life of the Jonas Brothers: exclusive photos.
As Rolling Stone previously reported, Jonas recorded the Administration’s first album in Nashville while on a two-week break. The Administration are comprised of four musicians that the Jonas gang had previously worked with, including bassist/producer John Fields, drummer Michael Bland and keyboardist Tommy Barbarella — who both logged time with Prince in the New Power Generation — and guitarist David Ryan Harris, who will be replaced by Sonny Thompson (also of the NPG) for live appearances, according to USA Today.
Nick Jonas described the music on his side project as ” ‘heart & soul,’ because the music that I make is from my heart, and the lyrics I write are from my soul.”
Related Stories:
• Nick Jonas Announces Album With Side Project, The Administration
• Jonas Brothers Talk About Outgrowing Teen Pop in New Rolling Stone
• Behind the Jonas Brothers Cover: Teen Idols in Rolling Stone
Vampire Weekend on the Birth of New “Contra” Single “Cousins”
Last month, Vampire Weekend gave fans new tune “Horchata” gratis. Yesterday, they released their official first single from Contra (due January 12th), the frenetic, bouncy “Cousins.” VW’s Rostam Batmanglij and Chris Baio recently sat down with Rolling Stone to discuss the genesis of the song and its live debut south of the border.
” ‘Cousins’ is a song that we recorded in Mexico City. It’s got probably the most demanding bass part Chris [Baio] has wrote for himself, and probably the most demanding drum part Chris Tomson ever did for himself,” Batmanglij says. “So it’s a demanding song.” Whereas “Horchata” was a laidback slice of California pop, the “Cousins” groove kicks off fast and the energy never stops with rapid fire drums and frenzied guitars.
After conceiving the song, Vampire Weekend quickly introduced the track to their fans. “When we were in Mexico, we were working on the song, maybe it was like a Tuesday or Wednesday and that Friday we played it in Guadalajara,” Baio told RS. “So it was sort of like ‘Okay, we’ve been chipping away at this, now we get to share it.’ ”
As for whether the audience embraced “Cousins” after its live debut, Batmanglij said, “I put myself in the audience’s shoes, like when I go to see a band that I love and I hear them play a new song for the first time, there’s always an element of it’s never going to hit you the way the ones you’ve heard so many times before have. But I look at it as just kind of a gift, so you try to savor it.”
Related Stories:
• Vampire Weekend Unload New Song “Horchata,” Tour Dates
• Vampire Weekend’s New Album “Contra” Out January 12th
• Vampire Weekend California Dreamin’ On Second Album
Aerosmith on Steven Tyler: “He Doesn’t Act Like a Sober Person”
Photograph by Frank White
Last week, Steven Tyler surprised Joe Perry at a New York solo gig and announced onstage he wasn’t quitting Aerosmith. In new interviews with Rolling Stone, members of the group say that they not only still plan on hiring a new singer — but they are concerned that Tyler may have returned to some of his bad habits. “He doesn’t act like a sober person,” says Aerosmith guitarist Brad Whitford. “I’m not hanging with the guy, but his history of drug abuse is well documented. And like many other people in this same position, the prospects aren’t good. For most people, full blown recovery is a tough thing to pull off.”
Aerosmith Live: four decades of rockin’ the joint.
Drummer Joey Kramer also has concerns, though he wasn’t as explicit as Whitford. “I hope that Steven takes the time to put the focus on Steven and get healthy and take care of himself,” he says. When asked what exactly he means by “get healthy” Kramer said, “The truth of that is something that only Steven can answer and I’m not really at liberty to discuss it, you’d have to speak with him or his management.” A rep for Tyler said he is too busy working on his forthcoming memoir to comment on the allegations.
Aerosmith in calmer times: backstage photos from their hometown throwdown.
Meanwhile, the group says they have no plans to wait two years to reform, which Tyler has asked them to do while he works on a solo album and his book. “We have a fortieth anniversary coming up and we all would like to celebrate that with our fans,” Kramer says. “There’s people that we’ve been kicking around [to sing]. Famous singers. If that’s part of what it takes for us to move forward then you know, that’s what it’s gonna be.” Check out the next issue of Rolling Stone, on stands November 25th, for a detailed account of Aerosmith’s implosion.
Related Stories:
• Aerosmith’s Kramer Speaks Out About Aerosmith Singer Search
• Exclusive: Joe Perry: Aerosmith’s Problems Far From Over
• Aerosmith’s Tyler Airlifted to Hospital After Falling From Stage