Tag: music in the news

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Music in the News – September 3, 2013

Oh, Canada… New fees implemented for bringing international musicians to the Great White North

Booking agents and promoters are now looking at increased fees for bringing non-Canadian musicians to venues across Canada, where music is not the primary focus, such as bars and coffee shops. As the Calgary Herald reported, Canada’s Ministry of Employment, Social Development & Multiculturalism have come up with a legislation that will force owners or promoters to submit a $275 application fee, per band and crew member. In addition, there will be a $150 charge for each approved musician and crew member’s work permit. Should the application be rejected, the fees are non-refundable and will be charged with another application.  Having taken effect on July 31, the new rules are supposed to “ensure that owners and managers of those types of establishments look to hire Canadians first before hiring temporary foreign workers,” according to the government agencies involved in the changes.

Timbaland and Michael Jackson to collaborate

Timbaland isn’t about to let death be a factor in his music production. In an interview with Revolt TV, the super-producer mentioned a project in the works to blend his music with Michael Jackson’s vocals. The project was reportedly initiated by Epic Records CEO, L.A. Reid.

Previously this summer, the LA Times reported Timbaland also spoke about producing music featuring the late Aaliyah’s vocals, while saying that he wasn’t a fan of the work made by other musicians. “Chris Brown got a record, it won’t work. Drake can go do a record with Aaliyah, it ain’t gonna work. ’Cause Aaliyah music only work with its soulmate, which is me,” he said.

 

Sean Kingston on trial for rape

The “Beautiful Girls” singer has been accused of raping an inebriated teenager in his Seattle hotel room in July 2010, following a Justin Bieber concert. TMZ is reporting the now 22-year-old woman says she was forced into sex with Kingston, a member of his band and his bodyguard.  The girl was allegedly under the influence of drugs and alcohol before she was invited back to the hotel room for a meet-and-greet, where she says Kingston was lying naked on his bed as she entered the room. The woman is said to have been rescued by a friend and then taken to the hospital where she was treated for injuries “consistent with rape.” Kingston has denied the allegations of rape but has said that the sex was consensual. The woman is asking for $5 million.

Justin Timberlake is seeing green

Superstar Justin Timberlake might soon be adding super-villain to his resumé. In a radio interview with New York station Fresh 102.7, the singer/actor said he has no interest in playing a superhero, but wants to play a villain in Batman vs. Superman, with Ben Affleck in the lead role. Timberlake has ruled out playing Robin, but says he would love to play his childhood favourite villain, the Riddler. “The Riddler is my favorite villain. The Riddler was like a sociopath. He was proper crazy. So if I’m gonna play crazy, I wanna play proper crazy,” he said in the interview.  The Riddler was last played by Jim Carrey in Batman Forever.

 

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Music in the News – August 27, 2013

Music industry comes together for a good cause

A benefit concert was held Aug. 22 in honour of School of Seven Bells’ guitarist, Benjamin Curtis. Curtis was recently diagnosed with T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma. The “Put Your Sad Down” concert was organized by Strokes’ manager Ryan Gentles who was able to get dozens of big names from the industry to help out. Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. headlined the fundraiser with the help of his solo band. Gentles also enlisted help from Strokes band members Fabrizio Moretti and Julian Casablancas. Moretti, along with friend and musician Devendra Banhart, played the part of DJs for the night while Casablancas donated the infamous velvet blazer he donned for the cover of his solo album, Phrazes for the Young. Other attendees included Joe Jonas from the Jonas Brothers, British model Alexa Chung, Paul Banks from Interpol, along with hundreds of friends, family and fans alike.

Canadian dentist hopes to clone John Lennon

Two years ago Canadian dentist Michael Zuk bought John Lennon’s molar at an auction for over $30,000. Zuk announced in a recent press release that he intends to extract the late Beatles’ DNA in the hopes of someday cloning him. Lennon originally gave his housekeeper the molar in the mid-1960s with the intention of having it disposed, but instead she kept it and later passed it on to her daughter. The legendary Liverpudlian’s tooth was kept in the family until it was purchased by Zuk at an auction in 2011.

Rapper 2 Chainz arrested while on tour

American rapper 2 Chainz was arrested in Oklahoma on Aug.22 while on the road with his crew. The rapper’s tour bus was pulled over after police noticed a busted headlight. Officers were suspicious of drug use and attempted to enter but were locked out and denied access by the driver who claimed they needed a search warrant first. Nine hours later, the bus was towed and brought to the Oklahoma County Jail where 11 passengers were arrested on account of “interfering with police process”, according to Billboard. No statements were released commenting on any additional drug charges. This is his third arrest this year, the previous two being related to possession of marijuana.

Mötley Crüe announce farewell tour

After nearly three decades of touring and making music, Mötley Crüe has decided that its 2014 world tour will most likely be its last. “We’ll do one more time around the world and kinda call it quits,” said the band’s frontman Vince Neil in an interview with Rolling Stone. Neil also hints at the possibility of new music being released before the rock veterans say their goodbyes. The band also plans to release the film version of their autobiography The Dirt, which will most likely feature their new material in the documentary itself.

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Music In The News – Stevie Nicks, Azealia Banks, Iron Maiden

The landslide bring that down too?

Stevie Nicks’ NPR interview last week at SXSW touched on a number of topics, including Nicks’ influences, her new solo album, tour, and her time with Dave Grohl’s Sound City Players. The most striking topic broached, however, was the state of modern feminism, which Nicks believes to be losing ground. “We fought very hard for feminism, for women’s rights,” Nicks said during a Q&A with the audience. “What I’m seeing today is a very opposite thing. I don’t know why, but I see women being put back in their place. And I hate it. We’re losing all we worked so hard for, and it really bums me out.” Nicks recalled the atmosphere that her and band mate Christine McVie dealt with in their Fleetwood Mac heyday, saying that they had strived to alter the perception of women in rock & roll at the time. “I said to [Christine], we can never be treated like second-class citizens. When we walk into a room we have to float in like goddesses, because that’s how we wanted to be treated. We demanded that from the beginning.

 

She tweets the dumb

If you’re at all familiar with Azealia Banks, you know that she waxes vulgar on a near constant basis and has a knack for getting into feuds with pretty much anybody from Perez Hilton to Baauer a.k.a the “Harlem Shake” guy, but her latest Twitter rant is one for the books. “Fuck those old saggy white niggas stone roses. I wish them nothing but excrement and death. Wow! I must really fucking be a superstar… You’ve got an established band trying to sabotage my lil rap bitch shine. Wow a bunch of old white men trying to bully a young black girl…. What the fuck else is new in this world ???” The cause of all the animosity? Both played at Australia’s Future Music Festival, where Banks claims the Stone Roses started their equipment check during her set to purposefully sabotage her at the behest of her ex-tour manager. She has since removed the tweets, claiming the Stone Roses had apologized, though no official statement was made on the band’s part.

 

The number of the yeast

Metal has a long and storied history, much of it appropriately soaked in booze, so it is only fitting that one of the biggest monsters of metal have sunk their flag into the brewing business. Iron Maiden, in collaboration with England’s Robinson Brewery, have announced that they’ll be coming out with their very own ‘Trooper’ ale, a 4.7% beer with “Malt flavours and citric notes from a unique blend of Bobec, Goldings and Cascade hops.” The video announcing the new brew features lead singer Bruce Dickinson offering a tour of the Robinsons Unicorn brewery and explaining how the project came about. “As a fan of traditional English cask beer, I thought this could actually be something really exciting,” said the singer. “We could actually develop a proper, real, long-term beer.” Though the band had approached many receptive brewers with the idea, they eventually went with Robinsons due to their standards. “When we got in touch with Robinsons the great thing about [them] was what they wanted to know was were we serious about really brewing a long term beer, having a long-term relationship with the brewery and us,” said Dickinson in the video. “It was almost like we were on trial, it was like going on a job interview.” Though there’s no announced release date, fans can sign up for news at www.ironmaidenbeer.com.

 

http://www.ironmaidenbeer.com/

 

 

 

 

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Music in the News

Canadian music icon Stompin’ Tom Connors, known for quirky, Canadian-themed songs like “Bud the Spud” and “Sudbury Saturday Night” died last Wednesday of natural causes at his home in Ontario. Knowing he was in ill health he penned a letter to his fans thanking them for their devotion over the years. It was published on his website soon after his passing: “Hello friends, I want all my fans, past, present or future, to know that without you, there would have not been any Stompin’ Tom. It was a long hard bumpy road, but this great country kept me inspired with its beauty, character, and spirit, driving me to keep marching on and devoted to sing about its people and places that make Canada the greatest country in the world. I must now pass the torch, to all of you, to help keep the MapAll stomped out

le Leaf flying high, and be the Patriot Canada needs now and in the future. I humbly thank you all, one last time, for allowing me in your homes, I hope I continue to bring a little bit of cheer into your lives form the work I have done. Sincerely, your friend always, Stompin’ Tom Connors.”

 

Indie fates n’ dire straits

A new study from the Canadian Independent Music Association has turned up some interesting, disheartening statistics about our music industry. The study found that music company employees earn an average of $22,250 a year, which may not sound like a lot to people outside the business, but it’s nearly 300 per cent more than the average indie musician makes in a year, a whopping $7,228. The study does point out that the musicians work about 29 hours a week, whereas the industry folks 33 hours per week. All in all everyone seems to be getting a raw deal, since roughly 60 per cent of the Canadian music industry earns $50,000 or less in gross income. Other stats of note are that nearly half of the music companies in Canada are run by a single individual, the average age of Canadian indie musicians is 39.5 and 73 per cent of them are male. If Canadian music studies are your bag, you can check out the whole 50 page document at CIMA’s website, www.cimamusic.ca.

 

 

W.K. wipes klean

In what is either the most appropriate or inappropriate celebrity endorsement of a product ever, Andrew W.K. has been tapped to be the face of Playtex’s new “Fresh + Sexy Wipes,” a wipe intended explicitly for folks “before and after they engage in sexual activity.” Playtex explained the logic behind their latest spokesman in a statement: “This exciting new product required the help of someone who could embody the brand’s playful yet bold campaign; someone who could party hard, but still be clean when it counted. Andrew W.K. is that someone and we are thrilled to have him on board with us.” In celebration of the union between Playtex and the prince of “Party Hard” the feminine hygiene company will be giving out 100 Andrew W.K. Sensory Kits, which will hit “all five of the recipients’ senses from the packaging to the content inside,” according to the press release.

 

 

 

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Music in the News

 As he’s inked, crying

As I Lay Dying’s frontman Tim Lambesis is the kind of man who starts a side project loosely inspired by an ex-governor action-star called “Austrian Death Machine.” So it’s not difficult to comprehend where he gets his ideas on crowdsourcing incentives to fund said band’s third album Triple Brutal. For a mere $5,000 you can have your initials tattooed on Tim’s butt followed by a celebratory dinner and “maybe you can hold Tim’s hand while he’s under the needle.” Though that’s the top prize to be had on his indiegogo.com funding page, there are a number of other rewards up for grabs, including a gym workout with Tim for $99, having your face on his shirt at a concert for 250$ and having the singer be your personal trainer for a month for $500. As of this writing, the campaign has collected $16,000 of the $63,000 required by April 5, but no one’s coughed up the five grand yet, so you may still have your chance at cheeky immortality!

 

Battle of the B-listers

 A while back troubled actress Lindsay Lohan decided to sue rapper Pitbull over some lyrics he spouted in his song “Give Me Everything”: “So I’m tiptoein’ to keep flowin’/I got it locked up like Lindsay Lohan.’” Apparently Lohan believed that the lines constituted an “unwarranted, unauthorized and unfavorable mention of [her] name and personality, and allusions to [her] physical and mental character.” Lohan’s lawyer argued that the song was created for commercial and not artistic reasons. Incredibly the judge disagreed, saying the song constituted “a work of art” (legally speaking) and that it was protected against publicity and privacy-related claims under the first amendment. “The fact that the song was presumably created and distributed for the purpose of making a profit does not mean that plaintiff’s name was used for ‘advertising’ or ‘purposes of trade’ within the meaning of the New York Civil Rights Law.” In addition to losing the case, Lohan’s lawyer was fined for “an affront to the court” for allegedly plagiarizing her legal briefs from educational websites and other law firms.

 

Better branding through bodyslams

In case you didn’t hear the Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan started his own professional wrestling company, Resistance Pro, back in 2011. Now he’s taken the next logical step in his progression from alt-rock icon to guy who does weird things for a living by using said wrestling company to make a T.V. commercial to sell furniture. The company in question, Walter E. Smithe Furniture, is a local Chicago store known for its ridiculous advertising. If you’re curious, Pitchfork summed up the ad pretty well: “Corgan and one of the Smithe brothers are playing musical chairs in a wrestling ring. Then they get in a fight. Naturally, Corgan calls in his goons from Resistance Pro Wrestling.  When one of the dudes tries to hit another guy with a chair, Corgan stops him: ‘That’s a Walter E. Smithe chair!’” As for Corgan’s reasoning, “Branding anything these days is a real challenge,” he told the Chicagoist. “We have to build credibility in the wrestling community. It’s based on visibility and name recognition.” As to how that translates into wrestlers selling furniture, your guess is as good as mine.

 

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Music In The News: Flaming Lips, Jack White, Cirque du Soleil

Eat yer heart out

If you’ve ever seen a video of open-heart surgery being performed and thought “you know, that would look pretty good encased in chocolate…” You are incredibly weird. Luckily for you, so are The Flaming Lips. In honor of Valentine’s Day, the group is releasing its new Songs of Love mix on a USB key housed inside an anatomically-correct chocolate heart. The group partnered with Dallas-based company Dude, Sweet Chocolate to make the cardio confections, which are “72% South American dark chocolate studded with hazelnut mini whoppers and waffle cone crunch,” and sell for $60 apiece. Before you go rushing to their website to pick one up for that special someone in your life, you should know that the hearts have already sold out.

American History / X-rays

Jack White’s obsession with all things vinyl is only deepening, having announced plans to re-issue more than 25,000 old blues records through his own label for no profit. “It’s very important to American history and also to the history of the world,” White told BBC 6. He also explained how he first fell in love with the recordings when he encountered them at a young age. “I had been looking for Blues records when I was a teenager and the older ones seemed to have been kinda swallowed up,” he said. “At one point in Detroit a whole Blues collection was dropped off at this vintage record store, so that’s when I first bought a whole batch of Document records—Tommy Johnson, Ishman Bracey, Roosevelt Sykes … I’d never seen those records on vinyl before.”
One of White’s other projects will also dig up the past and put it on vinyl, though in a much more literal sense. For the next installment of Third Man Records’ ‘Blue’ series, some of the 7” records will be printed on old medical x-rays. If that’s something you’re interested in, best buy your tickets to SXSW now; the limited pressing “Flex-Ray discs” will only be available at the Austin festival in March.

Scary Monsters and Clown Tights

Cirque du Soleil has turned many an artist’s catalogue into a successful enterprise. To date, they’ve covered Elvis, the Beatles and Michael Jackson. So it might come as a bit of a surprise to hear that the next iconic musician to be welcomed under the proverbial big top is none other than Dubstep artist Skrillex. The DJ is one of several to have signed residency deals with the Cirque’s new Vegas club LIGHT. As part of the deal, each DJ will be able to use Cirque du Soleil’s resources to create their own distinct show. “The LIGHT Skrillex show is gonna be only in Vegas,” he said. “I want it be distinct to the LIGHT club because the configuration is so customizable, it’s fucking crazy. That’s the thing about the club, too: they can do anything, so it’s how you maximize the dynamic of a great show with all their fucking bells and whistles and all of their budgets and resources to do anything.” LIGHT opens on April 26th, though the start date for each DJ’s residency has yet to be announced.

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Music in the News

Fishing the seas of cheese

Anytime there’s news about members of Primus or Ween doing anything, you know it’s bound to be weird, but put them together and what do you get? A fishing show, apparently. That’s right, Les Claypool and Mickey Melchiondo, better known as Dean Ween, have decided to put together their own reality show that will meld sport fishing with music and comedy and be produced by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Ween says the show will be “personality driven” and you won’t need to know a mackerel from a marlin to get a kick out of it. “The idea is to get the show on after Anthony Bourdain or Tosh.O. It’s a fishing show that you do not have to be into fishing to enjoy,” said Melchiondo.The show, which begins shooting in February, will feature celebrity guests and will have its own soundtrack composed partially of music played on the show. Ween’s angling credentials include 30 years of amateur fishing experience and boating, as well as earning his coast guard license five years ago. Claypool’s, as far as we know, consists of writing songs like “John The Fisherman,” which is good enough for us.

 

The defamation monster

Last week, Lady Gaga found herself giving a six-hour testimony at a midtown Manhattan law office in regards to a lawsuit from a former assistant, a fact she was none too pleased about. “Listen, listen, sir, if you’re going to ask me questions for the next five hours, I am going to tell you exactly what fucking happened,” Gaga told one of the plaintiff’s lawyers, “so that the judge can read on this transcript exactly what’s going on.” The lawsuit in question was filed in 2011 by former aide Jennifer O’Neill, who alleges that the singer owes her more than $393,000 in overtime pay for her around-the-clock work between 2009 and 2011. Gaga claims that O’Neill knew that there would be no overtime pay from the beginning and claims that she benefitted from living a rock star lifestyle through her. “She slept in Egyptian cotton sheets every night, in five-star hotels, on private planes, eating caviar, partying with [photographer] Terry Richardson all night, wearing my clothes, asking YSL [Yves Saint Laurent] to send her free shoes without my permission, using my YSL discount without my permission.” The singer added that O’Neill’s job, which paid $75,000, “was essentially a favor, and Jennifer was majorly unqualified for it.”

 

Baby got payback

In case you’ve been living under a rock without Wi-Fi access, there’s been a bit of a squabble as of late over the Fox show Glee stealing artist Jonathan Coulton’s reworking of “Baby Got Back” and using it on the show without any kind of attribution. Luckily for Coulton, his fans took to the Twittersphere and made the media stand up and notice, leaving Fox with some considerable egg on their face. Last week, Coulton, who is perhaps best known as the writer of the Portal end-game song “Still Alive,” put his version of the rap track on iTunes, and it has since outsold any Glee song on the music distribution service. As if to counteract all the despicableness that’s come from the incident, Coulton has arranged for all proceeds from the track to be split between the VH1 Save The Music Foundation and the It Gets Better Project.

 

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Music in the News – January 29, 2013

The Mars Coda

The Mars Volta singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala announced that the band’s prog-rocking days are over via twitter last Wednesday, citing a lack of interest from guitarist Omar Rodríguez-López. “For the record I tried my hardest to get a full scale North American tour going for Noctourniquet but Omar did not want to.” The singer said that he wasn’t angry about Rodríguez-López’s unwillingness to tour, but asked of his fans, “What am I suppose to do be some progressive house wife that’s cool with watching their partner go fuck other bands? We owe it 2 fans to tour.” Bixler promised that he would be releasing new music soon, and expressed his deep gratitude to The Mars Volta’s fans. “To all our fans all over the world thank you for giving a fuck. You all ruled!”

 

Lupe by name, Fiasco by reputation

Despite being a known critic of Barack Obama’s policies, rapper Lupe Fiasco was asked to perform at the president’s inauguration celebration on Jan. 20. In his set at the StartUp RockOn event at Washington’s Hamilton Live, the rapper took to the mic with a vengeance, playing the same anti-war song for over 30 minutes and speaking out about why he disliked the current administration. When he refused to switch songs, organizers had a team of security personnel remove him from the stage. “Lupe Fiasco was not ‘kicked off stage’ for an anti-Obama rant,” wrote the show’s organizers in a statement. “We are staunch supporters of free speech, and free political speech. This was not about his opinions. Instead, after a bizarrely repetitive, jarring performance that left the crowd vocally dissatisfied, organizers decided to move on to the next act.”

 

Snoop Lyin’

Reggae icon Bunny Wailer, one of the founding members of Bob Marley & The Wailers, has called out Snoop Lion for what he sees as an appropriation of Rastafarianism in order to sell his music. Wailer says that Snoop’s “outright fraudulent use of Rastafari Community’s personalities and symbolism” is an insult to the culture and is all a gimmick to promote work, including the rapper’s upcoming docu-film Reincarnated, which details the artist formerly known as Dogg’s transformation into Snoop Lion. Equally outraged are the head of the Ethio-Africa Diaspora Union Millennium Council, who wrote a 7-page demand letter, saying “smoking weed and loving Bob Marley and reggae music is not what defines the Rastafari Indigenous Culture!” In the letter, the council have asked him to stop using “Lion” in his name and issue a public apology, or they will pursue legal action against him.

 

Which neighborhood is it in?

If you’ve got $325,000 to spare and are looking for a way to cement your title as the most die-hard Arcade Fire fan ever, why not buy the church the band recorded The Suburbs and Neon Bible in? The band had to leave the church when the roof collapsed and they must have found a better deal somewhere else, because the band posted the real estate listing on their twitter page with the caption “Anybody want to buy a church?” The listing describes the space as a “charming church which housed a small concert hall, followed by a recording studio also offering accommodation. Its architecture makes it a perfect location for an artist’s studio, a place of worship, a cultural, community or other organization. Offer here a unique setting to your project!” Oh, and the roof repairs should only run you about $24,300-$44,200, in case you were wondering.

 

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Music in the News: Skrillex, Metallica Concert Movie, Megadeth soup kitchen

Drop the heat

Celebrating his 25th birthday last week, Skrillex accidentally lit his hair on fire trying to blow out the candles on his turntable-shaped cake. In a moment reminiscent of Michael Jackson’s hair-burning Pepsi incident, the Wizard of Wub was recorded unknowingly lowering his signature half shaved head of hair into the lit candles on the cake, only for them to catch within a few moments, after which they were immediately extinguished. Skrillex has emerged unscathed from the incident and the overall feel of the TMZ exclusive video is one of amusement rather than anxiety, as partygoers and the man himself both laugh it off.

 

… And plastic black glasses for all.

In case you’ve remained blissfully unaware of its presence, there is a 3D Metallica Concert movie in the works, and it has enough of a plot that it requires an actor. Through the Never will not only feature concert footage of the band playing a set of their hits, but will also feature the story of “a young band crew member who is sent out on an urgent mission while the band is playing a rousing live set in front of a sold-out crowd and unexpectedly finds his world turned completely upside down.” In case you’re the kind of person who wonders about these things, the actor who will somehow have to rival Metallica’s onscreen charisma is Dane DeHaan, who most famously starred in 2012’s Chronicle. Also on board for the film is Predators director Nimród Antal, presumably due to his experience working with freakish humanoid life forms on film.

 

Peace sells, but who’s frying?

Perhaps in an effort to counteract “being vilified and having my character assassinated,” Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine, who you might remember as the guy who railed on Men’s Wearhouse about a gift card last week, has decided to put his money where people’s mouths are by opening a soup kitchen in Haiti. He took to Facebook to announce his new charity work, and explain how the kitchen came about. “I was approached with an opportunity, and thanks to your unwavering support, my family and I have been able to fund a soup kitchen in Haiti with a ministry called, ‘Outside The Bowl,’ and you will be proud to know that when it is started (which will be very soon), we will be feeding up to 8,000 meals a day to the less fortunate.”

 

Mr. Montreux est Mort

The world of jazz lost one of its foremost impresarios last week when 76-year-old Claude Nobs, founder of the Montreux jazz festival, died after spending several weeks in a coma. Nobs started the summer festival in 1967 while working with the resort’s tourism department and since then the festival has attracted a variety of famous musicians, including Miles Davis, Ray Charles, B.B. King and Marvin Gaye. The classic rock aficionados amongst you may recognize him as the man monikered “Funky Claude” in Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water.” The festival founder was injured while cross-country skiing on Christmas Eve near his home in Caux, and had been in a coma ever since.

 

 

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Music in the News

Good Guy Gibson

Zambonis guitarist Dave Schneider experienced every musician’s worst nightmare last month when Delta Airlines baggage handlers destroyed his prized 1965 Gibson ES-335 guitar. Upon arriving at his Buffalo destination, Schneider took a video of his guitar case wedged between a service elevator and a rail on the loading dock and posted it online. Now Gibson has stepped up and offered to repair the guitar free of charge, in addition to gifting him an anniversary re-release of a Gibson 1963 ES-335 on the house. “We all know Gibson guitars rock,” Schneider wrote in an email to Yahoo! news, who first broke the story last week. “But at this moment, the Gibson company is rocking even harder than Pete Townshend’s Les Paul.” The Zambonis front man called the guitar company’s offer “the cherry on top of the best musical nightmare ever.”

 

The Twitter of Mr. Rager

In a follow-up to his blasting of Universal last year, in which he claimed the label treated his album WZRD “like some indie side project tax write off,” Kid Cudi has attacked Republic, his current label, for not getting his songs enough radio airplay. Cudi let loose in a series of tweets last Tuesday, pointing out that his two latest singles, ‘King Wizard’ and ‘Just What I Am’ had each received more than 3 million views on YouTube and blamed the fact that this was not translating into radio on Republic. The choicest tweets of Cudi’s rant are presented to you now without any further commentary or correction:

“To my label, I swear to all that is fuckin holy in this world, if things dont change soon, theres gonna be some problems”

“I worked too hard on all this shit. Producing, writing, directing AND executing the shit proper. I did my part, I put in work. Wtf”

“Yall kno I cuts no slack. Not w my music. Every song is my life. A piece of my fuckin tormented soul. It matters to me. I give a fuck”

“Trinidad James got 4.1 million views on his hit (rightfully so), and I hear that jam EVERYWHERE. Wheres my fuckin spins???”

 

Motorheadphones, ‘nuff said

This week’s prize for cleverest branding goes to British rockers Motorhead, who’ve partnered up with techie entrepreneurs Anders Nicklassen and Ulf Sandberg to bring you their new line of ‘Motorheadphones’. “People say we’ve never sold out,” joked frontman Lemmy Kilmister. “No one ever approached us.” The new line of audio gear consists of two headphones and six in-ear models, which are already being monikered ‘anti-Beats’ due to their focus on enhancing mid-range sounds over the traditional emphasis on bass that was such a prominent feature of Dr. Dre’s headgear. The reason behind the decision, as Kilmister puts it, is that an overemphasis on bass is “like you’re listening through a towel.” The legendary rocker also expressed hope that his more tech-savvy associates do a good job on the project, joking, “It sucks killing people.”

 

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Music In The News

Big Boi’s one that got away

Outkast rapper Big Boi’s upcoming album Vicious Lies And Dangerous Rumors boasts an all star cast of collaborators, with big names like Ludacris, Kelly Rowland, Kid Cudi and T.I. having already lent their talent to the rapper’s second studio album. As Big Boi told The Village Voice, though, there was one noticeable exception to the A-list roll call; his Outkast mate, Andre 3000.  “He could’ve been on any song he wanted to. I gave the motherfucker about five songs, but I guess he was just too busy,” said Big Boi. “He said he had to do some Gillette shit.” Though the comment, referencing the series of Gillette ads the Hey Ya! hitmaker starred in, spawned laughter during the interview, Big Boi made sure they knew he was serious. “No for real. He said he had some contractual obligations.” Vicious Lies And Dangerous Rumors is set to drop on Dec. 11.

 

Did they try to shake him out?

In terms of embarrassing reasons to miss a gig, this one’s way up there. Florence and the Machine drummer Chris Hayden nearly missed his band’s BBC Radio 2 In Concert show because he couldn’t get himself out of the bathroom. “I didn’t know whether to say it on stage because I didn’t want to embarrass him, but he got trapped in the loo. He was screaming,” said singer Florence Welch. “He got really freaked out. We could hear him trying to bash the door down, and they had to take the door off its hinges, so my Dad did offer to stand in. But he did escape.” Thankfully, the band was able to play on time for presenter Jo Whiley’s Radio 2 show, but the question still remains: if you didn’t want to embarrass him, why did you tell the media about it?

 

Will it feature little pink haunted houses?

After more than a decade of working on the project, John Mellencamp and Stephen King’s musical Ghost Brothers of Darkland County will soon reach completion. The musical deals with two sets of brothers fighting over a woman, 30 years apart in the same cabin. Mellencamp originally hatched the basic idea in the late nineties while spending time in his cabin in Bloomington, Indiana — which he claims is haunted. As far as splitting duties goes, each man has a clear idea of what they contribute to the project.  “It was Steve’s job to tell the story,” said Mellencamp. “It was my job to develop the characters through songs. That’s different than most musicals. The best example of that is My Fair Lady. They had a story with Pygmalion, so they just stuck songs in there.” Though an early version of the show ran in Atlanta earlier this year and there was a recent table reading in New York for investors, there are no plans to put the show on Broadway just yet. “John believes in reaching for the stars in everything he does,” said King. “But a lot of Broadway these days is fucking Disneyland. It’s blue-haired ladies from Westchester County. They come in buses and they want to see Aida or the Lion King. It’s almost like an amusement park.” If you’re interested in seeing the early version of the show, a CD/DVD deluxe edition, which will feature the soundtrack, handwritten lyrics and a mini-documentary about the making of the musical will go on sale March 19.

 

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Music

Music in the News

Moore makes musical “murder” musing

Last week, thousands of masked protesters observed Nov. 5 by protesting at Britain’s House of Parliament, re-enacting the final scene from the 2005 movie V for Vendetta, and Alan Moore, creator of the graphic novel that inspired the masked mobs, decided to provide them with a soundtrack. The graphic novelist released a song in support of the group on the Occupation Records label entitled “The Decline of English Murder.” The title is a nod to a 1946 George Orwell essay, and the song itself features Moore sing-talking over sparse instrumentation provided by Joe Brown. The lyrics deal with the greed of the banking industry and the failings of government. Those lucky enough to have purchased the track online on Nov. 5  were entered into a draw to win a Guy Fawkes masked signed by Moore himself. Though the draw is over, the track can still be downloaded from Occupation Records’ website for about $1.60, with all proceeds going to the Occupy movement.

 

Brace yourselves, musicians are coming

If you’ve ever looked at the drummer from Coldplay and thought to yourself “Now there’s a guy I’d like to see in a gritty, medieval television series,” your prayers have been answered. Will Champion is set to have a cameo appearance in the upcoming season of HBO’s fantasy show Game of Thrones. As Champion is a drummer by trade, his cameo will consist of him, well, drumming. Though we don’t yet know how this will come up in the show, fans are speculating that he might be drumming in a band at a wedding. Another musician to enter the world of George R. R. Martin next year will be Snow Patrol singer Gary Lightbody, though we don’t know under what capacity he’ll be appearing.

 

But how will I know who’s cool?

Composer Thomas Bergersen, who has worked on several movie trailers and films, came out in defense of dubstep and other “unpopular” music forms in a lengthy Facebook post last week.

“People identify themselves through music, and express themselves through their taste in music. Sometimes people get so caught up in the attributions of genres that they forget what music is about in the first place,” he writes. “They limit themselves to certain styles because their mind is not free. Music can and should be enjoyed across all genres, regardless of social value, political statement, mainstream success, stigma and so on, because great talent is to be found in every aspect of art, from the popular to the most obscure and unknown.” He ends his post by asking readers to reject the herd mentality when it comes to music and “cultivate that which resonates within you, not what resonates with others.”

 

May the pants be with you

Through the constant campaigning, speech giving and handshaking across the country is probably what won Barack Obama his second term in the White House, Katy Perry admitted to having tipped the odds in his favor by giving the president elect a pair of lucky Y-front briefs with his face on them. Perry reportedly spent nearly £200 on the underthings at a store in Hampstead in north London. “She was delighted when she got to hand him a pair at a political rally just before he won, “ a source told the UK Sun. “Katy’s been saying he won because of the lucky pants.”

 

 

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