Blur's triumphant summer gigs could be the end of the band. Alex James says there are no plans for the quartet to get back into the studio.
Despite encouraging comments recently made by guitarist Graham Coxon, bassist James said they have not talked about "doing anything else whatsoever".
Over recent weeks, Blur played a series of concerts including ones at London's Hyde Park and Glastonbury Festival.
"That was what we said we'd do and we did it and it was great," said James. "It hasn't been mentioned the idea of doing anything else but hey, it was great."
"Best gig we've ever done. Amazing" Alex James on Glastonbury 2009
"I've spent the last week staring at a bonfire muttering to myself. I haven't been able to contain the joy that it brought to all of us. [Glastonbury] was very, very emotional. Everything we hoped it would be and more.
"What was amazing was the band's and the audiences' connection. Best gig we've ever done. Amazing."
Graham Coxon is currently touring his solo album The Spinning Top. Damon Albarn is playing with Africa Express in Paris in August, while James - now a farmer - has recently signed a deal to produce cheese for the Prince Of Wales' estate.
"It will be the poshest cheese in the world," claims James.
Blur have no plans to record again
Metallica announce O2 shows
Metallica announce O2 shows, announce single and play us a Little Taste of Death...
Metallica have officially announced that they will be playing the 02 World in Berlin and 02 Arena in London on September 12th and 15th 2008 respectively. The shows are only available to the band’s fan club members, and those people who subscribe to www.missionmetallica.com. Tickets are £5 and all ticket proceeds will be donated to various charities, which the band will be revealing over the next two week.
And, for those of you that simply can’t wait Metallica have put a couple of small excerpts from their forthcoming album, Death Magnetic, on their sites http://www.metallica.com, http://www.missionmetallica.com and http://www.metclub.com
There will be more excerpts coming soon so please keep your eyes peeled in the meantime..
The band will be making the first single 'The Day That Never Comes' available on iTunes from August 22nd, and as a physical release sometime in September. The video for the track was filmed in the desert outside L.A with director Thomas Vinterberg. UK fans will be able to hear the track exclusively on Zane Lowe’s Hottest track on Radio 1 tonight - 21st August, between 7 – 8 p.m. BBC2’s The Culture Show will be airing a 30 minute Metallica special on 31st August at 11.20 pm.
Metallica headline Reading and Leeds festivals this coming weekend (Leeds on Friday 22nd Aug and Reading on Sunday 24th Aug) in addition to the O2 shows in Berlin and London.
The album 'Death Magnetic’ is released worldwide on Friday September 12th 2008.
Mellencamp calls himself an ‘ex-rock star’
‘I am trying to make the transition from rock star to songwriter,’ he says
NEW YORK - Although John Mellencamp was recently inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the veteran doesn’t consider himself a rocker — at least not anymore.
These days, Mellencamp uses the phrase “ex-rock star” to describe his place: “I am trying to make the transition from rock star to songwriter in public,” he said.
An odd statement, perhaps, since Mellencamp pens most of his music, including some of his biggest hits, from “Jack & Diane” to “Our Country.” But while those songs had Top 40 appeal, he readily admits that the songs off his new album, “Life Death Love and Freedom,” produced by Grammy-winning producer T Bone Burnett, are designed more for personal introspection than heavy radio spins.
He’ll still trot out classics like “Jack & Diane” on tour, but you won’t hear all of the old favorites (Mellencamp admits to recently disappointing one of his wife’s friends by telling her “Cherry Bomb” won’t be on his set list this time around). Mellencamp says he’s more interested in being an artist, not a jukebox.
The veteran talked with The Associated Press via phone from his tour about his new music, America’s woes and navigating today’s tricky musical landscape.
AP: What made you go to T Bone?
Mellencamp: Well, this is the first time that I’ve really had a musical outside producer in my career. Most producers that I worked with were from the technical point of view, but I had been knowing T Bone for about ten years, socially. ... So when I saw the nature of these songs, it just made perfect sense that he was the correct guy to work with these songs.
AP: It’s being described as a dark album.
Mellencamp: It reflects perfectly the mood of this country, economically, socially, racially, in every aspect. There are enough songs on this record that reflect each one of those topics that I spoke about.
AP: Are you hopeful things can turn around?
Mellencamp: I don’t believe they’ll ever go back to the way they were. I think we’re too far past that. I think that (Barack) Obama is definitely a hopeful light on the horizon, but will we ever enjoy the place that we once enjoyed? I don’t think it’s going to happen, simply because everything is changing so rapidly: Technologically it’s changing, the way that we do our stock market is crumbling, the two-party system doesn’t really work anymore ... But you know what (chuckles)? I’m just a (expletive) guy in a rock band.
AP: One of the songs “Jena,” is inspired by the Jena Six case. Can you explain it?
Mellencamp: The best way I can say it is when I was 14 years old, I was in a band ... and this was 1967 and I was a 14-year-old kid and I was singing dual lead vocals (with) — I don’t mean to identify him like this, but he was a black kid — and he and I would sing songs by James Brown or the Righteous Brothers, and we would harmonize and we would dance together, and people just loved that kid onstage. It’s when we got offstage there was trouble. And that made a big impact on a 14-year-old John Mellencamp, and it has haunted me and perplexed me my entire life — how people cannot show any more understanding, any more unity.
AP: Do you see the racial climate changing, especially with Obama’s success?
Mellencamp: We create the illusion that we are a nation of compassion and understanding and I’m in Philadelphia right now, walking down the street and I don’t see it. I have a house in Savannah, Ga., I don’t see it. We just don’t say the N-word in public anymore. Big deal. And of course you know there’s all that subculture that uses it to make money, so you have all of that. So, it’s not nice, it’s not correct, white or black, red green, we don’t know how to deal with it. We haven’t dealt with it.
AP: You got so much criticism for using “Our Country” in the Chevrolet commercials. Do you regret it?
Mellencamp: The reason why I got so much criticism is because I had been such a large opponent. I had been against it and spoke out against it in the ’80s and ’90s, and then to turn around and do it made me look like a hypocrite. I am a walking hypocrite. I have to roll with the punches. In a perfect world, I don’t think we should have to do that but this isn’t the record business that I once knew. So, I rolled with the punches and I caught criticism, but, at the end of the day, everybody remembered the song.
AP: Is harder now to write a song now?
Mellencamp: It’s never old hat. I just think that there is this illusion that as people get older, that their work isn’t as good. I don’t think you see that in Picasso, I don’t think you saw that in Hemingway, I don’t think that you saw that in Stephen King. It’s just changes, and it changes generally ... away from the general public. It becomes more personal, it becomes more insightful, and therefore not for the general public. I mean, when you write a song called “R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A.,” that is for the general public to consume. When you write a song called “Ain’t Gonna Need This Body,” (“Don’t Need This Body”) that is for people who are halfway through their lives.
Sugarland scales down for "raw" sound on third album
NASHVILLE (Billboard) - "Exactly!" Sugarland lead singer Jennifer Nettles exclaims when asked if "Beyonce to Bill Anderson" is a fair assessment of the duo's music.
Not only have she and guitarist Kristian Bush performed Beyonce's "Irreplaceable" in concert (a YouTube favorite), but the pair co-wrote with country legend Anderson for their third Mercury Nashville album, "Love on the Inside," due July 22 (deluxe edition) and July 29 (regular).
The duo has enjoyed as much country success as one can hope for if your name isn't Carrie Underwood. The act's 2005 debut, "Twice the Speed of Life," has tallied sales of 2.5 million copies and spawned three top 10 Hot Country Songs hits. Second album "Enjoy the Ride" has sold 2.3 million copies and produced four top 10s, including the No. 1s "Want To" and "Settlin'."
"Love on the Inside" may be the purest Sugarland album yet, according to Nettles.
"We're getting experience and we are also getting more comfortable in our own skin as writers, so musically on this record we went in and we really wanted to scale down," she says. "We didn't want everything to be super-slick. We wanted it to be raw. We also had the luxury, because I was rested, of tracking everything live."
"They wanted to cut as much of this record as we could with less musicians and try to capture the magic in kind of a one-take performance, and that's pretty much what we did," producer Byron Gallimore says.
Co-writers on the album include Bobby Pinson, who was responsible for "Want To," and Tim Owens, who co-wrote "Settlin'." Kenny Chesney guitarist Clayton Mitchell co-wrote the sultry "What I'd Give," and Anderson collaborated on the teen-angst tune "Joey." There's also a witty ode to oft-married singer-songwriter Steve Earle.
First single "All I Want to Do," which is No. 7 on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart, is the duo's fastest-climbing single yet.
After opening for the likes of Chesney and headlining the CMT trek last fall, Sugarland will take labelmate Ashton Shepherd and rising star Kellie Pickler out this fall for a 25-city eastern U.S. tour.
Nettles says that her and Bush's prowess as singer-songwriters doesn't preclude them from being entertainers as well.
"We really do try to explore the different elements of entertaining, of how you set a mood and capture an emotion with other elements besides the music, be it the exact lighting element for a song or taking a hard left and doing something ridiculous and crazy, like getting in a ball and crowd surfing," she says. "Why should you not be able to? I like to be able to add theater to the show."
R. Kelly lawyers try to revive tattered defenses
R. Kelly's attorney guided his electric scooter down a hallway outside the courtroom where his client is on trial for child pornography, exclaiming as he sped past several reporters, "In the morning, we attack!"That battle cry last week from Ed Genson, who suffers from a neurological disorder that makes it difficult for him to walk, was apt: After two weeks of prosecution testimony, the R&B star's lawyers have a lot of ground to regain.After launching their defense days ago, Kelly's lawyers are endeavoring to breathe life back into several key claims when the case continues this week, including that a mole on Kelly's back proves his innocence and that a sex tape at the heart of the case could have been doctored, possibly as part of an extortion plot.
Kelly, who won a Grammy Award in 1997 for "I Believe I Can Fly," has pleaded not guilty to child pornography for allegedly videotaping himself having sex with a female prosecutors say was at young as 13. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison.Defense attorneys say neither Kelly nor the alleged victim are on the videotape, pointing to what they said in opening arguments was the absence of a fingernail-sized mole on the man's back in sex tape. Kelly, they noted, has such a mole.But the mole defense took a hit when a prosecution witness froze frames on the tape that showed a spot on a man's lower back — located in the same place as a mole on Kelly's back as it appears in 2002 police photos.
On Thursday, however, the defense played their own frame-by-frame footage of the man's back for jurors.
"Do you see a mole?" Kelly attorney Marc Martin asked defense witness Charles Palm."I see a black mark but it doesn't appear to be a mole," the video expert replied.Palm also told jurors the spot appeared only intermittently — proof, he said, that it was likely a mere glitch on the tape.
Kelly, who at times appeared dejected as prosecutors presented their case, seemed more at ease as the defense got into the thick of their case, even occasionally nodding his head in agreement as witnesses spoke.He seemed particularly buoyed by three relatives of the alleged victim who took the stand for the defense to say they didn't recognize her as the female on the graphic tape. Four relatives testified earlier for the prosecution to say it was her."It definitely wasn't her," one relative, Shonna Edwards, told jurors emphatically on Wednesday. Edwards said she saw the tape for the first time a few days before, saying the female's body in it was too developed to be her relative at the time.
Among the most surreal testimony of the trail to date came when Palm, the defense video expert, sought to counter testimony that doctoring the nearly half-hour video — 100,000 frames on the entire footage — would be practically impossible.To demonstrate it was doable, he played an excerpt he digitally altered where just the heads of the man and woman disappeared as they had sex. At other points, their bodies fade in and out completely, as if they were ghosts."I created most of that over a couple of spare hours," he said. Asked in cross-examination if anything indicated the tape had actually been fabricated, Palm conceded, "Nothing jumps out at me at being obviously faked."When they continue their case this week, Kelly's lawyers were expected to call a witness who came forward after the trial began to claim he could discredit Lisa Van Allen, the last witness for prosecutors before they rested their case Monday.In her potentially damaging testimony, the 27-year-old told jurors she engaged in three-way sexual encounters with Kelly and the alleged victim on several occasions, including once on a basketball court.
She also described how Kelly allegedly carried a duffel bag stuffed full of homemade sex tapes. "Wherever he was at, the bag would follow him," she said.The defense has already begun trying to impinge her potentially devastating testimony.A law clerk for the defense, Jason Wallace, told jurors Wednesday that Van Allen's fiance sought $300,000 from Kelly in exchange for her silence. Van Allen also has admitted she once stole Kelly's $20,000 diamond-studded watch from a hotel.
Alicia Keys' troubled time leads to big success
R&B singer Alicia Keys is enjoying a successful worldwide tour, a chart-topping album and will act in an upcoming movie, but it might not have happened, she said, were it not for a near breakdown two years ago.Keys, whose current hits include "No One," is in the middle of her "As I Am" tour. The new "As I Am" album debuted on record charts at No. 1 and has sold over 3 million copies.
In October, she makes her film debut in "The Secret Life of Bees," starring Queen Latifah and Jennifer Hudson. Based on the best-selling novel of the same name, the movie is co-produced by Will Smith and backed by indie powerhouse Fox Searchlight.While Keys seems to lead a charmed life and has the sort of career that most other 26-year-olds could barely imagine, it hasn't always been so rosy.Two years ago, the singer went through a troubled period that nearly derailed her life and career. A workaholic lifestyle and the death of a close relative from cancer pushed her "very close" to the breaking point, she admits.Instead of having a public meltdown, Keys faced her demons in private."I knew I needed time away, so I went to Egypt for a month -- on my own, which gave it a whole different perspective," she told Reuters in a recent interview."It allowed me to see things I'd never seen before -- all the temples on the Nile, the Pyramids, the history. It was so rich and beautiful and strong, and it inspired me so much, and renewed me."
TIME TO REFLECT
Keys said she felt like it was important to be alone so she could reflect on her thoughts and examine her life, away from the media spotlight. She also cut back her work schedule."I'm definitely a workaholic in some ways, although less than I was before," she said.
Ultimately, she said, the near-breakdown brought about an artistic breakthrough that helped shape the music on her third album and her edgier stage persona.
Billboard magazine, in its review of "As I Am," said Keys "takes a step closer toward the soul revival popularized by John Legend, with full band arrangements and bright horn hooks, only occasionally falling back into the piano/melisma combination that drove the singles off her first two albums."
Keys has always prided herself on being in control of her career and music, producing her records and writing songs, but ironically, she was able to push herself more on the new album by giving up some of that control, she said."I purposely didn't have such a kind of controlling approach about it and I allowed the music to flow," she said. "I've come more into my own, and really, with experience comes confidence and a little bit more of awareness of how I would like to do it, having learned from the past."
She added that she is anxious to experiment even more and wants to work with rock acts like the White Stripes, Green Day, U2 or Coldplay."Things that are not quite of the same world, or so you think," she said, "but when you put them together it's just really interesting."
Jammys to honor disbanded Phish
Four years after they disbanded, the guys from Phish are getting a lifetime achievement awards from the Jammys — but don't get your hopes up about a reunion.
The annual awards show honors the best in improvisational music. It's not clear whether all the band members — Trey Anastasio, Jon Fishman, Mike Gordon and Page McConnell — will show up to the May 7 event at The Theater at Madison Square Garden. At this time, there are no plans for them to perform, said Peter Shapiro, the show's executive producer and co-founder.
He said "a couple" of the Phish members had expressed interest in being part of the show, but would not elaborate.
Phish received numerous Jammys before parting ways in 2004. The Vermont-based jam band had developed a Grateful Dead-like following during their 21-year run, and was among the nation's top touring acts.
5 Years After Fire, Great White Touring
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Police and firefighters showed up early for a recent Great White concert at a Cincinnati nightclub — just to be sure no pyrotechnics would be used.With a new tour and a new album, Great White has tried pressing forward since its pyrotechnics ignited the Feb. 20, 2003, fire that killed 100 people, including Great White guitarist Ty Longley, and injured 200 others at The Station nightclub in West Warwick.
Five years later, though,the band's connection to the deadly blaze is hard to shake.
Tony Heitz, manager of Annie's, the Cincinnati club where 600 fans enjoyed a show without any problems, noted that "you'd have to be in a cave" not to have heard about the fire.
The band, which enjoyed success in the 1980s with its blend of blues and hard rock, reunited last year with original members to mark their 25th anniversary, issued a new studio album and spent the last two months touring Europe.
They have steered clear of Rhode Island, where many victims' relatives still hold them at least partly responsible for the fire and remain upset that only the club owners, Jeffrey and Michael Derderian, and the band tour manager, Daniel Biechele, were held criminally responsible.
"I don't see why they are out there playing, why anybody would even want to go hear them," said Diane Mattera, whose daughter, Tammy Mattera-Housa, died.
After the fire, Mattera uprooted a memorial cross placed at the fire site for Longley and left a note saying the cross didn't belong there because Longley and the band had killed her daughter.
The band's label, Shrapnel Records, did not return calls for comment. An e-mail attempt to contact the band went unreturned.
Great White guitarist Mark Kendall told The Associated Press in a 2006 interview that The Station nightclub fire was a "full-blown American tragedy."
"I was sad to be a witness to it. It was just a nightmare," he said.
Hundreds of survivors and victims' relatives are suing the people who made up the band at the time of the fire (the band's lineup has changed several times). Their lawyer, Steven Richard, declined to comment because the case is still pending.
But fans, even those injured in the fire, have been more forgiving.
Linda Fisher, who suffered third-degree burns, still performs their signature ballad, "Save Your Love," on karaoke machines. She also sang it onstage with Great White lead singer Jack Russell at a concert in Pennsylvania months after the fire.
"I still think they screwed up, I still think they used poor judgment, but there's been nights where I used poor judgment," she said.
Great White laid low after the fire, then began touring to raise money for The Station Family Fund, which was created to help survivors with medical bills and other expenses.
Todd King, a fire survivor who helped found the fund, said while some victims' relatives were upset with Great White's fundraising role, the band raised about $100,000 for the fund.
"I had to weigh both ends against the middle," he said. "We were in dire need of funds, and they were raising funds."
But fund co-founder Theresa O'Toole said the band was probably helping itself as much as it was helping the survivors.
"They needed to do something to help their situation, and we were it," she said.
Great White emerged in the 1980s as part of the so-called "hair band" genre, where groups found success with a formula of loud guitars, power ballads — and big hair. Their biggest hit was a cover of Ian Hunter's "Once Bitten Twice Shy," and they scored platinum albums and a Grammy nomination.
But by February 2003, their heyday had long passed and they were touring venues like The Station, a roadside nightclub in West Warwick with a capacity of less than 500 that routinely hosted 1980s rock groups and tribute bands to groups like KISS.