Part 1 here: http://prince.org/msg/8/452597

It’s actually happening! Rita Ora casually announced that she was releasing a new single called “Girls” way back in November, 2017. The song was supposed to drop in January and feature fellow pop queens Charli XCX and Bebe Rexha. The latter even hinted at a fourth collaborator when she retweeted the news with the comment: “And maybe someone else?” It only took six months, but we finally know that Cardi B is the fourth member of the Awesome Foursome. “Girls” also has an official release date.

“I’m so happy to finally announce my new single ‘GIRLS’ feat some amazing powerful women who have inspired me so much!” Rita announced on her social media accounts. “Out 11th May.” She also shared the cover art, which finds their names spelled out on a scrabble board. This has the potential to be a long-overdue US hit for Rita and Charli. Cardi has the midas touch right now and Bebe is hotter than ever thanks to the success “Meant To Be.” On the other hand, this is all but guaranteed to be a UK #1 hit thanks to Rita and Charli’s popularity at home.

ritaora I’m so happy to finally announce my new single GIRLS feat some amazing powerful women who have inspired me so much! Thank you 😇 @iamcardib@beberexha @charli_xcx ! OUT 11th MAY

Soul Legends Temptations Return With New Album ‘All The Time’

The first new studio album since 2010 by soul giants the Temptations, All The Time, will be released by UMe on 4 May.

The album contains their versions of songs made famous by Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran, Michael Jackson, The Weeknd and others, alongside three new original tracks. It features the group’s current line-up of co-founder and sole surviving original member Otis Williams alongside Ron Tyson, Terry Weeks, Larry Braggs and Willie Greene. All The Time arrives 54 years after the appearance of the Temptations’ first Motown album Meet The Temptations, released as they began to build their rare and legendary place in the history of soul music.

The new set will be available in CD, vinyl LP and limited edition white vinyl LP formats. The digital edition includes two tracks available for immediate download and streaming with preorders of the album, plus two bonus track remixes. The set is produced and arranged by Dave Darling, who has worked with Glen Campbell, Brian Setzer and Tom Waits, among others.

Among many notable inclusions, the Temptations’ version of Sam Smith’s ‘Stay With Me’ becomes a gospel-tinged love song, and the group bring their unique presence to The Weeknd’s Fifty Shades Of Grey track ‘Earned It.’ Willams’ unmistakeable speaking voice rings out over the introduction of Sheeran’s ‘Thinking Out Loud.’

The new songs on All The Time are ‘Waitin’ On You,’ ‘Be My Wife’ and the funky ‘Move Them Britches.’ The bonus tracks on the digital album are a ‘Gospel Mix’ of ‘Stay With Me’ and a ‘Heathens Mix’ of ‘Move Them Britches.’

Last autumn, the new musical Ain’t Too Proud—The Life and Times of The Temptations became the highest-grossing production in the 50-year history of the Repertory Theatre in Berkeley, California. It has five-week engagements at the Kennedy Centre in Washington, DC in June and July, at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles in August and September and at Toronto’s Princess of Wales Theatre in October, ahead of its Broadway debut.

As the modern-day Temptations continue to tour the world, Williams observes: “I’m 76 now. Looking back, I never could have imagined where my life has taken me. I’m so proud of what the Temptations have achieved, and I’m grateful for every opportunity we’ve been so fortunate to receive. The music carries me. Together, we lift our voices with love and wonder. We had a great time recording All The Time and we hope everyone enjoys it.”

Pre-order All The Time here.

Tracklist:
01 – Stay With Me
02 – Earned It
03 – Pretty Wings
04 – Thinking Out Loud
05 – Waitin’ On You
06 – Remember The Time
07 – Be My Wife
08 – Still Feel Like Your Man
09 – When I Was Your Man
10 – Move Them Britches
11 – Stay With Me (Gospel Mix)
12 – Move Them Britches (Heathens Remix)

Hank Williams’ Oldest Granddaughter Hilary To Release Debut Album

The country dynasty continues, on disc featuring guest appearance by Ricky Skaggs.

Hilary Williams, the oldest granddaughter of country hero Hank Williams, will release her debut album My Lucky Scars on 25 May on Broken Angel Music. It features a guest appearance by country-bluegrass favourite Ricky Skaggs and a cover of a Joni Mitchell gem.

The lead single from the set is ‘Crazy’ which, Williams tells Billboard, “represents the yin and yang of love. I chose it as my first single from the album because it resonates with everyone. The story of eternal love, and knowing you are meant to be with someone even though there are ups and downs, is timeless.

“I love the melody and retro feel of it, and the reaction to the song has been incredible when people hear it for the first time.”

Hilary recently had a surprise meeting with Mason Ramsey, the ‘Yodelling Walmart Boy’whose performance of Hank’s ‘Lovesick Blues’ became a viral sensation, when he played at the Grand Ole Opry. After being introduced by Skaggs, his performance received a standing ovation. Hilary describes the 11-year-old as “Grandpa’s biggest little fan…so much talent!”

My Lucky Scars includes a cameo by Skaggs on ‘Beautiful Things,’ along with a cover of Mitchell’s ‘River,’ from her unforgettable 1971 album Blue. The song ‘Let Somebody Save Me’ is co-written with John Paul White, formerly of Civil Wars, and Kris Bergsnes. The album title is inspired by a near-death car accident suffered by the artist in 2006.

Hilary is the older sister of Holly Williams, a familiar and respected name on the country-roots circuit with three studio albums to her name, the most recent being 2013’s The Highway. Holly has been raising a family in recent years with her husband Chris Coleman; since 2014, the couple have had two daughters, Stella June and Lillie Mae Louise, and a son, Arlo Gale, all of them great-grandchildren of the late country pioneer.

At the time of the release of the Hank biopic I Saw The Light in 2016, Hilary Williams told Inside Edition: “When I was young I didn’t realise he was such a big country music star, I thought his music was kind of boring. But now I love it because it was just so relatable.”

ABBA Tribute Special Set For Broadcast On NBC In December

US television network NBC have officially announced they re broadcasting an amibitious, star-studded two-hour special dedicated to ABBA in December 2018.

2018 has already been a massive year for a freshly reunited ABBA, with uDiscover Music previously confirming that the iconic Swedish quartet have returned to the studio and recorded their first new songs in 35 years. Now, US television network NBC is getting in on the tributes. On Friday, 4 May, the network officially announced an ambitious, star-studded two-hour special dedicated to the legendary pop group.

The special, which will air on NBC in December, promises to pay homage to some of ABBA’s classic songs, with a variety of artists performing hits like ‘Dancing Queen,’ ‘Mamma Mia,’ ‘The Winner Takes It All’ and ‘Take a Chance On Me.’ The news follows the recent announcement that ABBA will debut their first new song in 35 years, performed by a virtual “avatar” version of the band on a massive world tour.

The worldwide telecast will be produced/directed by Johan Renck and executive produced by Simon Fuller. Es Devlin is on board as set designer. President, Alternative and Reality Group at NBC Entertainment, Paul Telegdy, said in support of the upcoming project: “This network is also thrilled to be the home of brand new ABBA music for the first time in decades. It’s a gift.”

In addition to the new music and the NBC TV special, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again – the sequel to the 2008 movie based on the megahit Broadway musical Mamma Mia! – is scheduled to arrive in US theaters in July.

ABBA first formed in Stockholm in 1972. They broke out with the Eurovision-winning ‘Waterloo’ two years later and are estimated to have sold over 140 million records, making them one of the best-selling music artists of all time. They split up in 1982 and the band has been dormant ever since, other than a one-off private party in 2016.

Tony Kinman, Country Punk Pioneer With The Dils, Rank And File, Dies Aged 63

Tony Kinman, country punk musician, producer and composer with The Dils, Rank And File and Blackbird has died at the age of 63.

Country punk musician, composer, and producer Tony Kinman has died at the age of 63 following a battle with cancer. His brother Chip Kinman shared the news on Facebook. Kinman was a founding member of California punk band The Dils, Austin-based country punk band Rank & File, as well as Blackbird, and Cowboy Nation.

Born in 1956, Kinman was a founding member of bands like The Dils with his brother Chip in the late ’70s, and the band released a number of memorable 7-inch singles throughout the era including ‘Class War’ and ‘I Hate The Rich’.

The Dils were so poorly received in San Diego that the trio moved briefly to San Francisco, which had a more thriving punk scene. There they associated with bands including the Avengers (for whom Kinman briefly played bass) and The Nuns, before heading south again, where the group plied Los Angeles’ erupting punk scene at Hollywood clubs such as the Masque.

Chip Kinman moved to New York for a time, and teamed up there with guitarist Alejandro Escovedo, whom he knew from The Nuns. Soon Tony Kinman joined them, they relocated to Austin, found Austin drummer Slim Evans through an audition, and Rank and File was born.

The group’s 1982 album Sundown was declared the year’s “best debut album by an American rock band” by the Los Angeles Times’ pop music critic, Robert Hilburn. The Austin Chroniclecrowned Rank and File the country band of the year that same year.

Rank And File’s ‘You’re Not Blank’ was featured in Cheech & Chong’s cult 1978 movie Up In Smoke. Rank and File also recorded ‘Amanda Ruth’, later covered by one of their role models (and sibling musician predecessors), The Everly Brothers, who included it on their 1986 album Born Yesterday.

After Rank and File disbanded, the Kinmans created an even harder-edged techno-metal band with Blackbird, which released two independent albums in 1988 and 1989, and one major label album in 1992 — all three titled Blackbird.

Most recently, Tony Kinman produced an album for his brother’s band Ford Madox Ford titled, This American Blues.

Nicki Minaj Announces New Album 'Queen'

Rapper's long-awaited follow-up to 2014's 'The Pinkprint' arrives in June

Nicki Minaj announced on the Met Gala red carpet that her new album 'Queen' will arrive next month. Stephen Lovekin/Variety/REX/Shutterstock

By Daniel Kreps

12 hours ago

Nicki Minaj announced on the Met Gala red carpet that her new album Queen will arrive on June 15th.

Queens MC opens up about everything from her breakup to her writing process in a candid, revealing interview

"It's a big night for me because I just let the world know that my album is coming June 15 and it's called Queen, and I can't wait," Minaj said in a red carpet interview. "I’m dressed like a queen every day, all day."

Queen, the rapper's long-awaited follow-up to 2014's The Pinkprint, will feature Minaj's new singles"Chun-Li" and "Barbie Tingz"; Minaj released lavish music videos for both tracks last week.

In a Beats 1 interview that accompanied the premiere of the two singles, Minaj revealed that she began recording her new album in January, although some of the album's tracks date back over 18 months. Minaj said she's also filming a documentary that will focus on Queen's creation.

"I wanted to make sure I was writing something that was meaningful to me and that would inspire and that would captivate my audience," Minaj previously said of her album. "But most importantly, I wanted to have fun again."

Why Your Favorite Artist Is Releasing More Singles Than Ever

Artists like Camila Cabello, Cardi B and Jason Derulo are putting out record numbers of singles before launching an album. But is the strategy working?

Artists like Camila Cabello, Cardi B, PrettyMuch, Jason Derulo and Janelle Monae are releasing record numbers of singles before an album. Lester Cohen/Getty

By Elias Leight

21 hours ago

Unlike some professional songwriters, who spew out demos at a rapid clip and see what sticks, Savan Kotecha spends weeks tinkering with each of his tracks. This exacting approach has led to credits on name-making hits for One Direction ("What Makes You Beautiful"), Ariana Grande ("Problem") and the Weeknd ("Can't Feel My Face"). But Kotecha worries that his painstaking methods are increasingly untenable.

Migos, Drake and Future all made hour-plus albums – with huge results on streaming services

That's because artists, especially younger acts trying to establish a commercial foothold, are rushing to release more pre-album singles than ever before. The old album rollout model usually consisted of one single in the months leading up to an album and a second to coincide with the LP's release; now, Kotecha says, "it's all about throwing out content." Camila Cabello shot out six songs before her debut LP, Cardi B unleashed four and on-the-rise boy band PrettyMuch have sprayed out six – with no album in sight.

In the last year, established acts have also embraced single-happy rollouts (at least the singers who still believe in them over the surprise release). Taylor Swift put out four songs before Reputation; Justin Timberlake fired off three before Man of the Woods; Jason Derulo has released five since his last album; and Rae Sremmurd unveiled six tracks before SR3MM.

This approach reflects the breakneck pace of a world driven by streaming and social media. "Traditionally artists would go a long time between album projects, disappear and then come back as a big event," explains Robby Snow, SVP of Global Marketing for Hollywood Records (Demi Lovato, Bea Miller). "In this day and age, we try to keep things flowing so artists almost never go away. Fans want to be engaged constantly with artists that they like."

"In the past, it was about vying for fans' dollars," adds Larry Mattera, GM and EVP of Commerce and Marketing for Warner Bros. "Now it's about vying for fans' time ­– time spent consuming our repertoire, rather than our competitors' repertoire."

"It's all about throwing out content," - hit songwriter Savan Kotecha

The rules in this competition remain undefined. "We're experimenting across the board," Mattera says. "Is a singles-focused approach better, with songs stacked at appropriate times? Should it be a smaller body of work [like an EP]? Is this fanbase actually looking for an album at this time?"

Putting out 12 or 15 songs at once on a full-length seems increasingly risky in a world where "people's attention spans are the size of a period," says songwriter Eskeerdo (Fifth Harmony, Kendrick Lamar). "All your music is entirely consumed in a week – if you're lucky," he adds.

By releasing multiple singles, artists and labels can "keep things flowing," as Snow puts it, and also hopefully avoid one-hit wonder-dom, which appears increasingly common in the era of the viral flash-in-the-pan. Acts like Baauer, Tinashe, iLoveMakonnen, Dej Loaf and iHeartMemphis had one unavoidable smash but have not been able – or, perhaps, willing – to maintain a mainstream presence since then. More than ever, "an artist has to build a foundation to sustain," stresses one former major label A&R, who wished to remain anonymous during a job change. "When artists have one big record and go run with that, it doesn't work because they never had a foundation to begin with. That's why I'm such a fan of the slow build." She likes an artist to have four songs working simultaneously before even looking towards an album release.

Keeping multiple singles in the market at once also allows labels to vet a variety of tracks and gauge listener response. "Put it on all the streaming services, see how the numbers look, and if the numbers are up to par, then we go to radio," says the former major-label A&R. "Take H.E.R.'s success: That was a project they put out two years ago and 'Focus' is on radio now. That wasn't something they intended. With Daniel Caesar's 'Get You' record – that worked online [it was released in October 2016], and now it's really starting to impact radio."

Industry insiders on why, now more than ever, placement on hit soundtracks like 'Black Panther' is a key step in a rising act's pop breakthrough

In an ideal world, after a week or two on Spotify and Apple Music, an artist would be able to determine which song, if any, to put muscle behind and focus promotion efforts accordingly. Of course, the reality is far more haphazard. When Cabello's first solo release, "Crying in the Club," failed to catch fire, she put out two more singles – "I Have Questions" and "OMG," which also sank quickly – before finding her way to "Havana," which eventually became a Number One hit and a launching pad for the Camila album. Hits tend to beget hits, so follow-up pre-album single "Never Be the Same" is also now in the top 15 on the Hot 100.

That's a success story. In contrast, Timberlake, perhaps unwisely, chose to release his first Man of the Woods single less than a month before he released the album, giving him little time to stumble onto a "Havana" of his own; none of his singles lingered. But it's possible that extra months wouldn't have made a difference, anyway – Derulo has spread five singles over two years, but none have been embraced, and he hasn't announced a release date for a new album.

These examples demonstrate that spewing out singles is far from a foolproof strategy for scoring a hit. Streamers like options, but choice can still be counterproductive when it comes to radio, which does best when it can focus its power on a single track. In a recent Billboardstory, radio business veteran Sean Ross suggested that this problem plagued Swift's Reputation, which has failed to produce a robust single in the manner of its predecessor, 1989. "Radio's lack of long-term love for 'Look What You Made Me Do' … allowed quick follow-up '…Ready for It?' to live a chart life of its own, and emboldened some [program directors] to back off the first single," Ross wrote. "'Gorgeous' muddled things further."

"In the past, it was about vying for fans' dollars," says one label exec. "Now it's about vying for fans' time."

Another potential problem: sharing too many songs ahead of time blunts the impact of the actual album drop itself. If listeners hungering for fresh material have heard a third of an LP before it comes out, that can make the release less exciting, if not anticlimactic. More importantly, fewer new songs – due to lots of pre-album singles – means fewer reasons to stream, and possibly less time spent on your catalog by listeners whizzing rapidly through the streaming-verse.

But Hollywood Records' Snow sees it differently. He believes that sharing extensive portions of an album ahead of time is actually a good way to signal the stream-ability of the final product and lure listeners to your repertoire instead of the other team's. So even if an artist has one single already scoring high marks on any given platform, Snow reasons, "it can be worth it to put out a few more songs to show that the album is really engaging, there's depth there, and give people more incentive to buy or stream."

As new release strategies like this one become increasingly prevalent, Kotecha has begun to adjust his approach. "If you're working with an artist in the early days," he explains, "you're giving your best material, and it's just part of the building process." So unless he's pursuing a passion project, Kotecha is investing less time in "building artists from the ground up." Instead, "you're waiting for the time when artists need that rocket fuel," he says. "When you're part of pressing the turbo button, that's just as satisfying an experience."

Demi Lovato & Christina Aguilera to Debut New Collaboration at 2018 Billboard Music Awards

5/8/2018 by Taylor Weatherby

Jalal Morchidi/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Demi Lovato performs during the 16th International Mawazine Music Festival on May 20, 2017.

When the biggest names in music come together for the 2018 Billboard Music Awards on May 20, two of pop's powerhouses will join forces for what might just be the most dynamic performance of the night: Christina Aguilera and Demi Lovato.

The pop divas will debut their highly anticipated collaboration "Fall In Line" on the show, as they each announced on their social media accounts Tuesday morning (May 8). Lovato and Aguilera have been teasing a duet for quite some time, with the track finally coming to fruition on Aguilera's forthcoming album, Liberation (due June 15), which the Billboard cover star announced last week.

Aguilera and Lovato join an already star-studded roster of performers for the 2018 Billboard Music Awards, which include Ariana Grande (who will open the show), Shawn Mendes, Camila Cabello, Dua Lipa, John Legend, Kelly Clarkson and BTS. The K-pop superstars will also be premiering a song, performing a track from their forthcoming album Love Yourself: Tear that will drop two days before the May 20 show.

Clarkson will host the 2018 Billboard Music Awards, which will broadcast live from MGM Grand Garden Arena on Sunday, May 20 at 8 p.m. ET /5 p.m. PT.

Ashley Campbell's Debut 'The Lonely One' Takes Hard Choices In Confident Stride: Album Premiere

5/4/2018 by Morgan Enos

Sean Flynn

Ashley Campbell

Ashley Campbell is set to release her debut solo album The Lonely One May 11. The route to finally stepping out on her own terms almost couldn't have been more complicated, either personally or professionally. As the youngest daughter of the late Glen Campbell, who died in 2017 following a protracted battle with Alzheimer’s, the songwriter was put in a position that has bedeviled so many artists with famous parents: how do you honor a musical titan of the 20th century while creating art on your own terms?

Yet, The Lonely One feels absolutely unencumbered by that weight. While the lyrics meditate on triumphs, screw-ups and living with the consequences, the music is giddy with freedom, the equivalent of moving into your own place and realizing you can throw your own jeans on your own floor if you please. But with that freedom comes paying the tab: pick almost any song, and Campbell’s telling you about how self-ownership can feel commensurately sweet and sour.

We are honored to share an exclusive stream and an in-depth interview with Campbell about the seismic shifts in her life, art and experience that resulted in The Lonely One.

​

The album seems to be partially about navigating life as an adult -- for better or worse -- and the cold-water-jet experience of living with your own choices. Do you feel this informed the writing process?

Yeah, definitely. There’s some things you’re going to do whether it’s good for you or not, and sometimes you just have to learn the hard way. It’s kind of like when you have a friend who’s dating someone and everyone knows the guy is bad for her, but she’s going to do it anyway no matter how many times you tell her it’s not going to end well. You just have to figure that out for yourself. So, that’s definitely a big theme on the record.

Were there any specific experiences that made you feel that way?

Well, the song “Taken Man” is definitely a pretty literal translation of that feeling. You kind of have to just make choices and live with them. Especially with the song “Good For You,” that’s kind of the same type of situation where you make a choice to leave and you don’t know if it’s the right thing. For a while, you might be regretting it, but you still know it’s the right thing. You have to stick with it.

Wouldn’t that even apply to even the mundane, insignificant details of adulthood? There’s this great line in the song “Better Boyfriend” where you say, “I can live without a TV / I’m never gonna leave me / I wasn’t drunk when I got that tattoo.”

Yeah. That song in particular is about when you reach that point in your life where you’ve got your shit together and you’re looking for someone else who’s got their shit together.

What span of time were you writing these songs in? What stage of life were you writing about?

The songs are pretty much from a span of four years of songwriting, because I moved to Nashville in 2013 and started writing every single day. So, the album has songs from day 1 of coming into Nashville, all the way through to a couple of months before making the record in 2017. Nashville was the first place I had moved where my parents didn’t live, and I was kind of making my own way. It’s a lot of reflecting on mistakes, reflecting on good times, stuff like that.

A couple of years ago, I remember you released a very touching song about your father’s struggle with Alzheimer’s, “Remembering.” How does this material create distance or closure from the topic of that song, which I imagine must have been the absolute hardest thing to go through?

Yeah, definitely. I’ll probably still be dealing with it on album two. For this album, I put out the song “Remembering” back in 2015, and it was just as a single. I was thinking, “Should I put ‘Remembering’ on the new album, or should it be more of a fresh start as an artist?” Because the whole beginning of my career was me attached to my dad and touring with him, and that was a whole incredible part of my life. But I think now it’s time to move on and become my own artist. That’s why I didn’t put “Remembering” on the record.

I really love your father’s last album as well, Adiós. It’s beautiful and soothing and even helped me out during a rough time. Can you describe what the situation was like making that one? Did you have any participation in the record?

I did! That record was so beautiful. My godfather Carl Jackson produced it and helped choose all the songs. He’s known my dad for so many years that he basically already knew what songs my dad wanted to do. It’s a collection of songs that my dad always wanted to record and had always played live, but had never recorded. It was sort of his bucket list album. Carl was so nice to let me play some banjo on the record. I played on “Everybody’s Talkin’” and “Arkansas Farmboy” and got to sing some background vocals on the record too.

So many musicians have parents who were prestige artists or stars of a different era while they myself might be a completely different artist. Was it a challenge to find a way to draw a distinction to the public in sort of a shallow, PR sense between yourself and who your father was?

I kind of look at it as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it’s awesome that my dad was who he was and that I got to learn from him; I’m so proud of where I came from. On the other hand, it’s hard to get away from the label of being Glen Campbell’s daughter. Even basic things, like songs about sexuality and things like that -- maybe even smoking weed -- I have to start saying “This is Ashley Campbell,” instead of somebody’s daughter. Because for a long time, I had to uphold an image for his sake, because I was kind of his spokesperson.

Now that I’m speaking out for myself now and not on account of others, I need to be able to start expressing myself as an adult woman. And I don’t know what that means -- I’m probably not going to go twerk onstage or anything. Not that kind of expression. But you know, it’s definitely a tightrope to walk, because I have a lot of fans who are my dad’s fans, so I kind of have to walk that line of paying honor to him and his fans who are now my fans, but also making new fans and not being afraid to be my own person.

I can’t claim to know that much about the ins-and-outs and politics of the Nashville music scene, but I would think what you could present to conservative country listeners would be so stringent.

Exactly. I just turned 31. I’m a normal young person and I enjoy all the things that normal young people like. I like to have a drink every now and then or even smoke some weed, you know? It’s hard, because I can’t just post about it every day. Not that I would! But you see artists like Kacey Musgraves or Margo Price and they’re like, “Here we are with giant bags of weed.” I probably couldn’t do so much of that.

Can you describe the overall mood you wish to convey to the listener withThe Lonely One? It’s often bouncy and witty in a way that would appeal to mainstream country music fans, but with kind of a gnarlier energy under the surface that I feel.

I guess I’m trying to reach out to the lonely ones out there. Not that lonely has to be a bad thing, necessarily. But you have to be able to live with yourself in order to live with other people. You have to know yourself before you can give to other people. I have always been kind of the late bloomer in things like that. I was one of the nerds. I never got asked to dances in high school; I only ever had one boyfriend. When I was younger and didn’t have much perspective as I do now, I used to just wonder why I wasn’t like other people, and why other people had all these experiences that I didn’t. But everyone’s got their path. All my songs and the theme of the record is me saying to all those people who may have ever felt like that that it’s okay and there’s other people out there. They’re walking their own paths.

Do you remember what made you feel that way? Was it the way you were raised, or some other factor affecting you?

I think it has a lot to do with personality, but I was definitely raised in a very religious household. There were lots of restrictions. You didn’t talk about sex or anything like that. I was such a goody two-shoes back then that I was just like, “Okay! I guess we don’t talk about it and we don’t do it.” I think I was a late bloomer.

But in a broader sense, it’s really just psychology 101. The moment you reach in your twenties or thirties -- or never -- where you realize you actually don’t have to define yourself based on childhood preconceptions of who you’d be.

I don’t think it was until I was about 20 or 21 that I realized, “Oh, you can say no to things.” You can choose a different religion than your parents or even not have religion. I started learning, “Oh, I can be my own person now.” Sometimes, those choices hurt the people that you love. But you can’t always be doing things [solely] for other people. At some point, you have to choose your own path in life.

Is there anything else you feel is crucial to know about the record?

Well, the album means a lot to me… [dog cries] Frodo, cool it!

Is his name Frodo?

Yeah, this is my dog Frodo. He’s right here. He’s a miniature schnauzer. He looks more like a Gandalf. Actually, one time I ordered a leather collar on Etsy that had the One Ring inscription and it glowed in the dark.

But about my album! I think the reason it took about four years of me living and working in Nashville to make was because I had to go through a lot to get there. To get to the point of independence in my creativity. Because I was with Big Machine for about two years and that was a totally different direction than I wanted to head in. They were great to me and I am so thankful for the time that I had with them, but when we parted ways, I finally realized I don’t have to worry about what other people think. I can just make music I like and not worry if it’s going to be a No. 1 radio hit or not. I think when I kind of threw my hands in the air and said “You know what? Screw what everybody else wants or what they think is commercial. I’m just going to make music.” The freedom in not caring was really amazing and eye-opening to make music with.

So, finally, what do you learn from Frodo? He seems like a very sweet dog.

Aww. He’s so wise. Frodo is the perfect example of unconditional love and affection. When I got him, I wanted a dog who was all about me and I’m his world. Frodo’s the perfect dog. But he loves everybody else too. We should all try and be more like him.

Springteen Induct Steven Van Zandt Into New Jersey Hall of Fame

"There is no pure distillation of the Jersey ethos than 'Little' Steven Van Zandt," rocker says of E Street Band guitarist

Bruce Springsteen made a surprise appearance at the New Jersey Hall of Fame induction ceremony Sunday to help honor E Street Band's Steven Van Zandt.

By Daniel Kreps

1 day ago

Bruce Springsteen made a surprise appearance at the New Jersey Hall of Fame induction ceremony Sunday to help honor E Street Band's Steven Van Zandt. The guitarist was inducted alongside fellow Jersey-reared stars like Meryl Streep, Blondie's Debbie Harry, Gloria Gaynor and the Four Seasons.

How Clive Davis, Partridge Family songwriters and more helped shape the songwriter's scrappy 1973 debut

"Though born in Boston, Massachusetts, there is no pure distillation of the Jersey ethos than 'Little' Steven Van Zandt," Springsteen told the Asbury Park audience. "Roaring into New Jersey at seven years old, baptized at 13 and the Holy Spirit of the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, the Stones on Hollywood Palace, Steve's vocation – rock & roll – chose him early."

Springsteen then told the audience about the first time he saw Van Zandt onstage in 1966. "One look at Steve, I knew we drunk the same Kool-Aid," Springsteen said of their friendship. "This all culminated in a brotherhood in the E Street Band. Steve served as playing, singing, producing as my irreplaceable lieutenant and our lifetime friendship."

The rocker also praised Van Zandt's work outside of E Street, including his solo albums, "Sun City" and collaborations with Southside Johnny. "Steve is one of the greatest living white soul performers – I mean writers – we have," Springsteen added.

Springsteen acknowledged Van Zandt's role on the New Jersey-based HBO series The Sopranos, playing mob lieutenant Silvio Dante, as well as the guitarist's charity work. "This is his greatest legacy," Springsteen said of the Rock and Roll Forever Foundation and the TeachRockprogram.

Van Zandt then came onstage to deliver his acceptance speech. "I had the experience of witnessing New Jersey become fashionable twice in one lifetime. Thank you, New Jersey; you have been very, very good to me," Van Zandt joked, later noting that if it wasn't for New Jersey, he never would have met Springsteen, a previous New Jersey Hall of Fame inductee.

Following the speeches, Springsteen, Van Zandt and the house band performed Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes' "I Don't Want to Go Home," penned by Van Zandt in for the 1976 album of the same name. The two were then joined onstage by the rest of the evening's inductees; Meryl Streep, who headlined this year's Hall of Fame class, was unable to attend to do filming on Big Little Lies.

"We did the impossible: We made New Jersey hip," Van Zandt told his fellow inductees.

Kendrick Lamar and SZA Shine at TDE Championship Tour Kickoff in Vancouver

The West Coast label's package tour is a victory lap and a way for Kendrick's star power to boost his labelmates

The Top Dawg’s package tour, also featuring SZA, Jay Rock and SiR, is a victory lap and a way for Kendrick Lamar’s star power to boost his labelmates. Laura Harvey for Rolling Stone

By Andrew Gospe

3 days ago

Nearly a decade and a half ago, California impresario Anthony Tiffith signed an unknown 15-year-old musician named Kendrick Lamar to his fledgling label, Top Dawg Entertainment. Kendrick has gone on to win widespread acclaim as the greatest rapper in a generation, along with platinum plaques, Grammys and a Pulitzer.

The greatest rapper alive goes deep on his obsessive studio habits, what Bono taught him and the temptations of stardom

In the past year, TDE has produced a second breakout star in SZA, whose Ctrl was one of 2017’s best full-length studio debuts. The Championship Tour, the roster-spanning label showcase that began last night, is a victory lap for all that success — and a way for Kendrick’s considerable star power to boost the rest of the TDE lineup and the Top Dawg brand itself, as it expands intosports management, film, andfashion.

As audience members filed into Vancouver's Rogers Arena for the tour kickoff, they were invited to take in the label’s accomplishments. Banners framed the stage, detailing TDE artists' major releases and awards, with Lamar’s recent Pulitzer for DAMN top and center. Trading-card-style illustrations of TDE’s artists flashed on the lower of two stage-wide LED screens, and a series of jock jams — "Eye of the Tiger," "Thunderstruck" and, pointedly, "We Are the Champions" — blared between sets.

Lamar loomed over the proceedings, even before he took the stage. Short early sets from R&B crooner SiR and Watts rapper Jay Rock were tamely received, as was a one-song appearance from Ab-Soul, TDE’s least conventional rapper. Several of the songs in these sets featured verses from Lamar, like Jay Rock’s 2015 track "Vice City," but recordings of his voice stood in for the real thing, all the better to build anticipation.

Laura Harvey for Rolling Stone

By the time Lamar did take the stage, there was a palpable buzz in the arena, which had been packed since the music began nearly two and a half hours earlier. Starting with DAMN. highlight “DNA,” he packed 16 songs into a little more than an hour.

Material from his 2012 breakthrough LP, good kid, m.A.A.d city, tended to prompt the loudest response, and Lamar knew it. "I’m sure we got a lot of day-one fans in here tonight — we gonna make sure the day ones eat," he said before performing "Swimming Pools" and "Backstreet Freestyle," two of good kid’s most beloved tracks.

As he’s done on his recent solo tours, Lamar used the four-piece live backing group to his advantage. The rock-inspired setup (think dramatic drum fills and numerous guitar solos) fed off his heightened vocal energy, lending a different feel to classics like "Money Trees" and "Alright" — the latter one of only two cuts he performed from 2015’s To Pimp a Butterfly.

Lamar closed the show with his 2017 Number One hit "Humble," and,as is known to happen, the crowd rapped along a capella for a full minute. Eighteen thousand people singing "sit down, be humble" in unison is a spectacle, to be sure, but it also speaks to the connection fans feel to his music.

Before leaving the stage, Kendrick ran it back, playing the whole song again, this time leaving the beat playing. It was a savvy move from a performer who was in complete control all night.

Laura Harvey for Rolling Stone

Playing immediately before Lamar, SZA was just as engaging while playing a style of lush, laid-back R&B that doesn’t lend itself as naturally to arena-sized spaces. She’s a magnetic performer, weaving biographical anecdotes with songs about sexual politics.

"Why you bother me when you know you don’t want me?" she sang during a buoyant rendition of "Love Galore," her standout single with Travis Scott. Up to this point, Kendrick has been Top Dawg’s past, present and future, but SZA is rapidly joining him as a second flagship artist.

impossible: We made New Jersey hip," Van Zandt told his fellow inductees.

Someday, there may be a lot more old-timers bragging about having attended the Neil Young & Crazy Horse tour of 2018 than actually saw it. It was a tale of a tour of two cities — three nights in Fresno followed by two in Bakersfield, offering fans in two of California’s least glamorous major cities an up-close-and-exclusive look at rock and roll’s least glamorous major star.

Was it the proverbial out-of-town tryout, or a coast-shunning, Highway 99-hugging end unto itself? Although not billed as such, was it Young’s idea of a promotional tour for the newly released archival album, “Roxy — Tonight’s the Night Live,” a set recorded in 1973 that lent three songs to Sunday night’s closing show, and which featured Nils Lofgren in a rare stint as Young’s second guitarist and backup pianist, as does this newly reconstituted lineup of Crazy Horse?

The answers to these questions probably feel more pressing to those who weren’t able to make it to the hastily arranged shows than to those on hand to witness the power, the glory and (naturally) the raggedness. Sunday’s finale-for-now at the stately Fox Bakersfield came close to personifying the ideal of what an electric set from Young should be: a mixture of the endless and the economical; classics and deep tracks; mind-bending indulgence and leave-‘em-wanting-more. And for the significant part of the crowd that drove in from around the state or parts beyond to supplement the lucky locals, the show’s greatness proved that sometimes you do get what your tire tread pays for.

Young’s recent tours have been with Lukas Nelson + Promise of the Real as his relative child-prodigy backing band, and in fact, the only two remaining stateside gigs he’s announced for 2018 are with that group (including an appearance at the Arroyo Seco Festival in Pasadena June 23). That’s a kinder and gentler crew than Young’s older band of standbys. But fans didn’t know for sure who’d be in a revived Crazy Horse (or, as they were billed on the marquees, tickets and merch this time, NYCH). Bassist Billy Talbot had suffered a stroke a few years ago, but he’s back and apparently unaffected. Not back since the last tour in 2014 is guitarist Frank “Poncho” Sampedro, described in a message from Young as “unable to join us right now.” His replacement, Lofgren, was only ever officially a Crazy Horse member on the ’71 album the group recorded sans Young, though he did play the ’73 Roxy gigs of Young that came out 45 years later, which were Crazy Horse in almost everything but name. (Are you following, marginal fans?)

It remained unknown till this past week just what kind of addition to a regular Neil Young touring band Lofgren would be, and the answer is… a less demonstrative one than you might have guessed from his effusive presence in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band… which, Lofgren has suggested in tweets, may be defunct again. Perhaps he’ll adopt a more outgoing persona in a version of Crazy Horse that has actually rehearsed. (At least, Young claimed in the tour announcement that there’d be no rehearsals for this jaunt; fans can judge for themselves whether that claim meets the going Sarah Huckabee Sanders standard of plausibility). But humility suits Lofgren, of course. He’s a swell utility player, adding piano on “World on a String” and “Roll Another Number (For the Road)” and letting his lower, bluesier soloing occasionally bubble up more from beneath Young’s simultaneous, screaming licks… or going in tandem with Talbot to create an even fuzzier version of the signature fuzztone riff for “Hey Hey, My My.”

At one or more prior stops on the mini-tour, reports had put a grand piano on the opposite side of the stage from Lofgren’s, mysteriously unused. Sunday night, fans finally got to hear what it was there for after one of several mid-set discussions among the band led to Young making a one-time appearance at the instrument’s bench for “Speakin’ Out,” a lightly rollicking “Tonight’s the Night” track that’d never been performed live by any official Crazy Horse lineup before. “You never know,” Young quipped by way of the surprise. That was one of three numbers getting their so-called tour premiere Sunday, the others being the less obscure “Hey Hey,” and, for the sole encore, a “Down by the River” that clocked in at close to 13 minutes.

Young did not play “Like a Hurricane” Sunday night, like he had the previous evening in Bakersfield, but on stage, the conditions were, indeed, like a hurricane. A pirate flag whipped around violently above Ralph Molina’s drum kit for the duration of the hour and 45 minutes, and once he doffed his ballcap, Young’s hair spent much of the set aloft from the wind machine… maybe the one thing he will ever have in common with Beyoncé, besides greatness. It may be a visual affectation — or it may just be much-needed AC — but it works as a kind of set design for a show in which you really can imagine the quartet being the turbine that’s kicking up the gale. Nowhere outside of the gates of metal does a band bring this much thunder, and if Young isn’t the only guy who’s rocking this hard at 72, he’s almost certainly the only one who should be rocking this hard.

There were gentler moments in the set, with Young donning an acoustic guitar for “Too Far Gone” and “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” and breaking into the more gently rowdy side of country-rock for “Scattered.” But there were no all-out sops to sweetness; if you want to hear a number as quiet as “Harvest Moon” somewhere besides “A Quiet Place,” you’ll have to wait for the next show with Promise of the Real, which can accommodate that sort of thing. The Crazy Horse generators only wind down so much.

The finest moments Sunday came just a little more than halfway into the set, with a merely nine-minute “F—in’ Up” that is still going on in some other, more benevolent universe. With Lofgren facing him from inches away, Young was at peak Neil-ness, bending, squawking, whammy barring and generally making it sound like being a f—up is the grandest thing one could aspire to in the hero’s quest. As the number seemed to have ended, he added a minute-long coda to reprise and greatly slow down the opening verse, as if what’d just come before had been too grandiose and he needed to reinforce the f—ed-upness of being f—ed up. This would have reasonably been the climax at any other act’s show, but that’s not how Neil Young rolls, and so he rolled another seven numbers. He was singing about feeling small, but there wasn’t a moment’s doubt: We were hearing from a remaining giant.

As for what the future portends for this Crazy Horse, Young did suggest in a message on his Archives website Sunday that there’ll be more: “The band feels great. We peak and crash regularly, as good unpredictable rock and roll has always done. This is like a breath of fresh air, a raw, unedited experience with music, and we don’t know any other way to be. We hope to see you down the road somewhere, in a great old theater near your town or a cattle field out in the Mid-West.” That sounds like a fine second leg for a reunion that started this modestly: Harvest Moo 2019.

Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

Frances Bean Cobain arrives at the Daily Front Row's Fashion Los Angeles Awards at the Beverly Hills Hotel on April 8, 2018 in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Frances Bean Cobain appears to be inching closer to releasing her first official single. The 25 year-old daughter of late Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain and Holefrontwoman Courtney Love posted a brief snippet of an emotional ballad on Thursday (May 3) that once again shows off her songwriting chops.

Sitting in what looks like an office and strumming an acoustic guitar, Cobain sings, "I think I found you/ Penny for your good thoughts/ I think I found you," her voice rising into the verse on what appeared to be a slightly revised version of a track she briefly uploaded a month ago.

While the lyrics becoming somewhat unintelligible after that, the passion and commitment in Cobain's vocals are undeniable. The artist/singer captioned the post "Not hey there delilah," and when a fan asked if she would ever released the untitled track, Cobain replied simply, "Oh yes." She expanded that thought in another response to one of the many commenters who noted that she looks and sounds a lot like her famous parents, wondering if that spurred her interest in trying music.

"You are probably right in the respect that people probably can make assumptions or conclusions about my art because they are informed about my life’s trajectory," she wrote. "Not everyone has to like it, that’s not a requirement of making and receiving art.” Back on Apr. 5, Cobain posted a similar version of the song on the 24th anniversary of her father's death then shortly thereafter replaced it with images of some of her abstract paintings.

Guns N' Roses Releasing Huge 'Appetite For Destruction' Reissue with 25 Unreleased Demos

5/4/2018 by Mackenzie Cummings-Grady

Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Live Nation

Axl Rose of Guns N' Roses performs onstage during the "Not In This Lifetime..." Tour at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 11, 2017 in New York City.

After a mysterious clock was seen on their new website counting down to May 4, Guns N' Roses announced when the clock struck zero this morning that they will be releasing the a jam-packed reissue of their debut as Appetite For Destruction: Locked N' Loaded Edition. The deluxe rerelease,due out June 29, will feature 73 total tracks (49 of which are unreleased) spread out across four CDs and seven 12-inch 180-gram LP's.

Housed in a custom wood box wrapped in faux-leather, the massive set will also include a pressing of 1986’s Live ?!* @ Like a Suicide EP, along with a second B-side collection EP and 25 unreleased recordings from the band’s legendary 1986 "Sound City" sessions, with two additional unreleased tracks from the "Mike Clink" sessions.

Once fans are able to sift through all that rock n’ roll goodness, the set also offers up a 96-page hand-bound book with unreleased photos from singer Axl Rose, as well as 12 illustrations visualizing each song from the original Appetite For Destruction. Additional goodies include a 3D cross, 6 Iron-On stitched logo patches, five metal guitar picks, five metal rings, a specialized USB stick, five never-before-seen band member photos, temporary tattoos, lapel pins, wall posters and so much more. "Appetite For Destruction: Locked N' Loaded Edition is truly the holy grail for G'NR fans," the band's management said in a press release.

For fans that, even after all this, can't get enough GNR, the group is currently on the European leg of their epic Not In This Lifetime Tour, which recently was deemed the fourth biggest tour ever, raking in around $475 million and counting.

Check out the full announcement below:

Guns N' Roses Appetite for Destruction: Locked N' Loaded Track List

Disc One – Appetite for Destruction

1. "Welcome To The Jungle"
2. "It's So Easy"
3. "Nightrain"
4. "Out Ta Get Me"
5. "Mr. Brownstone"
6. "Paradise City"
7. "My Michelle"
8. "Think About You"
9. "Sweet Child O' Mine"
10. "You're Crazy"
11. "Anything Goes"
12. "Rocket Queen"

Disc Two – B-sides N' EPs

1. "Reckless Life"
2. "Nice Boys"
3. "Move To The City (Live)
4. "Mama Kin"
5. "Shadow Of Your Love" (Live)
6. "You’re Crazy" (Acoustic Version)
7. "Patience"
8. "Used To Love Her"
9. "You’re Crazy"
10. "It’s So Easy" (Live)
11. "Knockin’ On Heaven's Door" (Live)
12. "Whole Lotta Rosie" (Live)

Disc Three – 1986 Sound City Session

1. "Welcome To The Jungle" (1986 Sound City Session)
2. "Nightrain" (1986 Sound City Session)
3. "Out Ta Get Me" (1986 Sound City Session)
4. "Paradise City" (1986 Sound City Session)
5. "My Michelle" (1986 Sound City Session)
6. "Think About You" (1986 Sound City Session)
7. "You’re Crazy" (1986 Sound City Session)
8. "Anything Goes" (1986 Sound City Session)
9. "Rocket Queen" (1986 Sound City Session)
10. "Shadow Of Your Love" (1986 Sound City Session)
11. "Heartbreak Hotel" (1986 Sound City Session)
12. "Jumpin' Jack Flash" (1986 Sound City Session)

Disc Four – 1986 Sound City Session and More

1. "Shadow Of Your Love"
2. "Move To The City" (1986 Sound City Session)
3. "Ain’t Goin’ Down No More" (Instrumental Version - 1986 Sound City Session)
4. "The Plague" (1986 Sound City Session)
5. "Nice Boys" (1986 Sound City Session)
6. "Back Off Bitch" (1986 Sound City Session)
7. "Reckless Life" (1986 Sound City Session)
8. "Mama Kin" (1986 Sound City Session)
9. "New Work Tune" (1986 Sound City Session)
10. "November Rain" (Piano Version - 1986 Sound City Session)
11. "Move To The City" (Acoustic Version - 1986 Sound City Session)
12. "You're Crazy" (Acoustic Version - 1986 Sound City Session)
13. "November Rain" (Acoustic Version - 1986 Sound City Session)
14. "Jumpin’ Jack Flash" (Acoustic Version- 1986 Sound City Session)
15. "Move To The City" (1988 Acoustic Version)

Blu-Ray Audio

1. "Welcome To The Jungle"
2. "It's So Easy"
3. "Nightrain"
4. "Out Ta Get Me"
5. "Mr. Brownstone"
6. "Paradise City"
7. "My Michelle"
8. "Think About You"
9. "Sweet Child O' Mine"
10. "You're Crazy"
11. "Anything Goes"
12. "Rocket Queen"

Bonus Tracks

1. "Shadow Of Your Love"
2. "Patience"
3. "Used To Love Her"
4. "You’re Crazy"
5. "Move To The City" (1988 Acoustic Version)

Music Videos

1. "Welcome To The Jungle"
2. "Sweet Child O' Mine"
3. "Paradise City"
4. "Patience"
5. "It's So Easy" (Brand New Video From 1989)

Ana Egge Shares Playful 'You Among the Flowers' Lyric Video: Premiere

5/3/2018 by Gary Graff

Shervin Lainez

Ana Egge

World circumstances led Ana Egge to "not hold back at all" in making her new album, White Tiger -- including the track "You Among The Flowers," whose lyric video is premiering exclusively below.

"The gloves are off, apparently," the Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter tells Billboard. "Basically with the shift in our society and everything that's happening with the news and the manipulation of what we think is real and Trump as president, I really started thinking about what I can do more. I was having a talk with a friend who said, 'Songwriting is your superpower, so figure it out.' So I think a lot of that energy comes through most of the songs. I figured I was going to write everything that comes up and not hold back and tell my truth."

That doesn't mean White Tiger -- which comes out June 8 and features guest appearances by Anais Mitchell and Billy Strings, among others -- is a virulently political album, however. "It's an invitation," Egge explains. "I'm a soldier for peace and I would hope for justice, but it's really about what can I do but tell my truth and try to lift people up a little bit as a musician and bring people together. I think that's more important than ever. Living in New York, there's so many people walking around, dazed, with headphones. It's like music is a balm for them." That steered Egge into a new emotional direction as well, which she credits partly to producer Alec Spiegelman.

"A lot of my songs in the past have been very moody and sad, about getting through stuff," Egge says. "But this record has a levity to it. I released that one song, 'Dance Around The Room With Me,' and my friends were like, 'It makes me feel good. It makes me feel happy.' It was really fun and playful working with Alec." "You Among The Flowers," in fact, was a favorite of Spiegelman, who "really dug into it" to create a light-spirited track that counters a darker lyrical tone.

"It was initially about an attraction and then questioning that and just exploring that little moment of meeting someone," Egge says. "It took me to (John Milton's) Paradise Lost for some reason -- real happy stuff, right? But so much of that song was about that guitar riff that's up front and loud and came from my obsession with playing that riff over and over and finding a melody over it. It's an interesting mix, that song." The attraction, for Egge, "became a song. That's what you do when you're happily married -- you don't pick the flowers," and the lyric video -- directed by Nancy Howell and Mark Lerner -- brings a whole other dimension to the track.

"The head of the label knows them and saw another video they made similar to that and thought it would work here," Egge says. "I like the way everything is three-dimensional with the textures and the embroidery and all of that. It's totally not intentional, but there's something going on there."

Egge is currently on the road and incorporating songs from White Tiger into her set. She's currently adding more dates for the summer, which will be announced soon.

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/w...&t=31s

Tracklist:

1	Girls, Girls, Girls		2:50
2	White Tiger		3:12
3	Be With You		2:56
4	You Among the Flowers		2:46
5	Dance Around the Room with Me		2:58
6	I'm Goin' Bossa Nova		3:32
7	Last Ride		4:15
8	Western Movie		2:54
9	In Tall Buildings		4:22
10	Let the Light In		1:56

Con Brio Turns Nirvana's 'Heart-Shaped Box' Into a Soulful, Trippy Jam: Premiere

5/3/2018 by Gary Graff

Josh Miller

Con Brio

Nirvana's "Heart-Shaped Box" is not just a cool cover for Con Brio's upcoming sophomore album. It also helped jump-start the 10-song Explorer, which comes out July 6.

The soulful San Francisco outfit -- whose frontman Ziek McCarter is big fan of Seattle bands such as Soundgarden, in particular -- was contemplating an EP of grunge covers as its next project. That never transpired, but the smoother, more sultry rendition of "Heart-Shaped Box" -- premiering below -- that the group recorded while in Atlanta for last year's Shakey Knees festival inspired Con Brio to get to work in earnest on the new album.

"We had a day off and I thought of a way I wanted to remake it and we came up with that (version) within two or three hours," McCarter tells Billboard. "Right after that we wrote a few more songs to propel our writing process in a positive way. We were touring a whole lot at that time and it's hard to find time to really get seven people in a room to pump out the hits. But after ('Heart-Shaped Box') we were able to really dial in the writing process a little bit more. It served us well."

And, McCarter hopes, the song also serves Cobain and others in the same way. "I really feel like we've honored the life of not just Kurt Cobain but also Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington," he explains. "Those were people I was listening to growing up. I loved 'Black Hole Sun.' I loved Chester Bennington; I loved his voice. And I feel like we have some of that same resilience they possessed in their performances, if not necessarily the same way."

Con Brio recorded Explorer in San Francisco in San Francisco and Los Angeles with producer Derek Fuhrmann, and while the tone is buoyant and joyous, McCarter and company also embrace socio-political issues as they did on 2016's Paradise. This time, however, it comes from a different perspective.

"Paradise was inspired by the death of my father," McCarter says. "This one is a really intentional diving into the love and liberation aspect that I took from that event and every other event that transpired. The idea is 'What can we create to inspire us to face life head-on?' (Paradise) was raw; We owned that it was our first album. For this one it was more intentional to add more of a contemporary, modern aesthetic, more of a refined vocal production and more layerings of sonics and synthesizers." Touring the world twice also had an impact on how Con Brio approached Explorer.

"Of course it's a reflection of seeing so many amazing bands and artists around the world deliver their performances," he says. "And just witnessing the industry in a whole other way definitely inspired me to go for the sound I've been hearing in my head for a long time."

Con Brio gets back to touring this week, including a "dream come true" headlining debut at The Fillmore in San Francisco and mixing West Coast, Canadian and European shows throughout the summer -- with more to be added in the near future. "Our band can rock," McCarter promises. "It's, like, R&B and soul but we can really get rockin'. This time out we're like, 'Let's go further in that direction and see how far we can take it,' so it's going to be interesting."

Listen: https://soundcloud.com/conbrio

ey Made a Companion of Honour For Contribution to the Arts

5/4/2018 by Abby Jones

Steve Parsons - WPA Pool/Getty Images

Sir Paul McCartney and his wife Nancy Shevell following an Investiture ceremony, where he was made a Companion of Honour at Buckingham Palace on May 4, 2018 in London.

It's a good day for Sir Paul McCartney. The Beatles icon was made a Companion of Honor by the Royal Family on Friday (May 4) during a ceremony at Buckingham Palace.

The official Twitter account of the Royal Family tweeted their kind regards with a photo of McCartney and his wife, Nancy Shevell, who supported her rock star husband during the ceremony. "Congratulations Sir @PaulMcCartney who has been made a #CompanionofHonour at Buckingham Palace today for his lasting contribution to music in the UK and Worldwide," read the caption.

King George V founded the Order of the Companions Honour in 1917, which is given as a reward for outstanding achievements to citizens of the Commonwealth realms. McCartney receives the honor 20 years after he was knighted by the Queen.

Check out the Royal Family's announcement tweet below.

The Royal Family✔@RoyalFamily

Congratulations Sir @PaulMcCartney who has been made a #CompanionofHonour at Buckingham Palace today for his lasting contribution to music in the UK and Worldwide.

7:33 AM - May 4, 2018

• 3,882
• 939 people are talking about this

Max Scheler - K & K/Redferns

George Harrison of The Beatles.

• juliens_auctionsNEW YORK (AP) — George Harrison’s first electric guitar is up for auction.
  
  Julien’s Auctions says Harrison played the Hoffner Club 40 when The Beatles played around Liverpool, England, as The Quarrymen. Harrison traded his acoustic guitar for the electric model with Ray Ennis, who was a member of The Swinging Blue Jeans.
  
  Harrison donated it to a band competition in 1965 and it was won by a member of a German band who died in 2017. His widow is putting it up for auction.
  
  The auction house estimates the guitar will sell for between $200,000 and $300,000.
  
  A 1965 Fender Telecaster owned by The Band’s Robbie Robertson played by Harrison, Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan is also on the block and estimated to sell between $400,000 and $600,000.
  
  
  

Gallent's New Single:

Listen: https://soundcloud.com/ga...snt-matter

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/w...e-xXN-tcFU

[Edited 5/8/18 9:07am]

Tracklist:
01 – Making History
02 – We Are Magic
03 – Rise
04 – Take Me
05 – Masterpiece
06 – Walk With Me
07 – I Don’t Want To Have To Need You Now
08 – Truth
09 – Together On The Outside
10 – Good Times
11 – Forever All The Way
12 – I Got You Babe
13 – One Night Of Peace
14 – Blues Won’t Leave Me Alone
15 – Hellbound Train

• Van Morrison
• Joey DeFrancesco

You’re Driving Me Crazy

• LEGACY

• 2018

7.0

Françoise Hardy in 1963, at age 19. Photo by Martine Lebon/INA via Getty Images.

• by Quinn Moreland
  Assistant Editor

5-10-15-20

• POP/R&B

9 HRS AGO

When a 17-year-old Françoise Hardy signed her first record deal in 1961, she unwittingly helped kick off a new musical movement. Alongside contemporaries like France Gall, Sylvie Vartan, and Sheila, Hardy quickly became a star of yé-yé, the burgeoning French pop style that mixed sentimentality with overt sexuality. But the notoriously shy Parisian’s songs were also haunted by insecurity, loneliness, and a fear of temporality. This mystique, paired with Hardy’s undeniable beauty, made her a muse to men like Bob Dylan, who famously immortalized her in prose on the back cover of 1964’s Another Side of Bob Dylan. But reducing Hardy to a mere muse erases her extensive impact on music, fashion, and culture at large. “More than a singer, she’s becoming an universal myth with whom thousands of young girls dream of identifying,” claimed one French publication in 1967.

As the ’60s came to a close and yé-yé faded away, Hardy began exploring new styles like bossa nova, most remarkably on her beloved 1971 album La question. Since then, she continued to release a steady string of albums, and in the mid ’90s, Hardy made two high-profile guest appearances on songs by Blur and Malcolm McLaren. And though her own acting career ended in the early ’80s, Hardy’s music has been championed in subsequent films like Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers and Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom. Now 74, the singer has placed her own life under a microscope in the form of a new memoir, The Despair of Monkeys and Other Trifles, and her 24th studio album, Personne d’autre, an intimate reflection on mortality, memory, and romance.

On the phone from France, Hardy discusses her personal soundtrack through the years, the songs that have moved her beyond words. It’s a sentiment familiar to Hardy’s fans, especially non-French-speaking ones, who may not understand every lyric but know what she’s singing about anyway.

Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images

Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 7

This was the only record my mother had, and it was given to her by the only lover I have known she had. I used to listen to this music while reading fairy tales and feeling strange and happy. When music is beautiful, it can take you to a mysterious dimension, even when you’re 5 years old.

Gilbert Bécaud: “Je t’appartiens”

We had a small radio in the Paris flat I was living in with my mother and my sister that I would listen to very often. When I heard this song by Gilbert Bécaud, the melody had a very moving effect on me, and I bought the score because I wanted to read the lyrics. Some years later, the Everly Brothers, whose song “So Sad” has influenced me a lot, recorded this song in English as “Let It Be Me.” I covered it later because I had a British publisher who wanted me to record an LP with very famous songs in English [1968’s En Anglais], but I’m not too fond of my version. I prefer the Everly Brothers one.

The Shadows: “Sleepwalk”

Two years ago, my son Thomas had a concert in Paris, and he played “Sleepwalk,” and I was so amazed. I said to my friends who were with me, “I have known this for a very, very long time. It’s exactly what I’ve been looking for all my life, but I don’t remember what it is.” When I saw Thomas after the show, he told me the name of the American artists [Santo & Johnny] who created this track. I said, “No, it’s not that. I don’t know them. I’m sure I know very well this music.” He said, “Yes, because you know the Shadows’ version.” The Shadows were a very important influence for all the young French singers in the ’60s, including Johnny Hallyday, Eddy Mitchell, and my husband [Jacques Dutronc], who started as a guitar player.

Bob Dylan: “Just Like a Woman”

Dylan has composed and recorded a lot of marvelous songs, but this one is really moving. When he played his songs for me [in a hotel room in 1966] he seemed very shy, and I was very shy too, so we didn’t say anything to each other. At the time, my English was worse than it is today, so I didn’t really understand the words for “Just Like a Woman.” I only understood, “You make love just like a woman/Then you ache just like a woman/But you break just like a little girl,” which was moving to me, very sentimental. He was impressed with me, but not by the singer; by the girl, I think. He had a kind of romantic fixation on a photo of me, but I didn’t take it too seriously at that time. Recently, I got two drafts of letters written by him for me, and I finally realized that he was very serious about this fixation when he was very young. It moved me deeply when I read those letters.

A 22-year-old Hardy in 1966. Photo by Jean Adda/INA via Getty Images.

Elvis Presley: “Where Do You Come From”

Elvis Presley was an important influence, and we all love him very, very, very much. I wrote a song called “All Over the World,” which was influenced by this kind of ballad so much that the British musician I was working with, Charles Blackwell, put choirs behind me who sounded exactly like [Presley’s background singers] the Jordanaires. I think that had something to do with the success that song had in England.

Back in the ’60s, when he wasn’t performing, I always said, “The day Elvis comes back to the stage, I will go to see his show.” When it happened, at the beginning of the ’70s, I made the trip to Las Vegas. I was not disappointed at all. I was amazed.

Véronique Sanson: “Bahia”

Véronique Sanson had her first record in 1972, and around the same time, Serge Gainsbourg had an LP called Histoire de Melody Nelson. Both were masterpieces. Véronique was very creative and inventive in the way she was playing the piano, the way she sang, and the songs themselves. Everything was new at that time. She symbolized a big change in the style. She had recorded her first LP with [songwriter] Michel Berger, and they made music that had never been heard before in France, very personal and new at the same time. At the time, I felt very outdated. But soon after, I was lucky enough to meet Michel Berger and work with him. It was important in my career, because at that time I had made some LPs I was very proud of—and still am—but it was when I worked with Michel Berger that I once again had popular success.

Barbra Streisand: “The Love Inside”

This is one of the greatest songs I’ve ever heard. Of course, Barbra Streisand is always perfect, but it’s the only song sung by her that I have listened to so often. I don’t understand all the words, but the melody is absolutely extraordinary.

Jean-Jacques Goldman: “Puisque tu pars”

Jean-Jacques Goldman is a great composer and writer, and “Puisque tu pars” is the kind of song that makes you cry. The lyrics can only have been written by an artist who knows what real love is; it’s quite rare for people to know what real love is. The song is about giving somebody you love his freedom, because this somebody thinks he can have happiness with somebody else—to wish that he finds what he’s looking for, because you cannot love him more than you do. Maybe this person you love so much can find somebody who loves him not more, because that’s impossible, but better. To say that to somebody you love is extraordinary.

Hardy in 1984, age 40. Photo by Patrick Aventurier/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images.

Etienne Daho: “Heures hindoues”

I have known Etienne Daho, who is a very famous singer in France, since he started singing. In the late ’80s, he was visiting me in the studio where I was recording a new album, and he wanted me to listen to a song he was going to record. When I heard “Heures hindoues,” I told him, “Etienne, it’s what I’ve always dreamed of recording.” He’s such a nice and generous person. He told me, “I’ll give it to you if you want.” But it was impossible, because I was the end of my work with the new album. But even if it had been possible, I would have never accepted such a gift. It’s impossible to accept a gift like that.

David Bowie: “I’m Deranged”

I’ve always been fascinated by David Bowie, but I’m not what you call a fan, because fans have all the records and know everything. I’m not like that. But his album Outside impressed me most. There are other good tunes on this album, but I prefer “I’m Deranged.” When you don't speak English well like me, it doesn’t matter so much not to understand the lyrics. Of course, it can bring something more, but it’s more about the whole musical atmosphere, the production by Brian Eno, and also the melody, which are all tremendous. Outside is not as famous as it should be. I was on a show with David Bowie about 15 years ago, and I told him that Outside was my favorite album by him, and he was stunned. He couldn’t believe it. I think he was quite happy to hear that.

Gabriel Yared: “Rupert Bear”

I was lucky enough to meet [composer] Gabriel Yared at the end of the ’70s, and we made five albums together. He’s a genius in music, and this is one of his most beautiful compositions. He got the Oscar in 1997 for this music for The English Patient. That’s why I wanted to listen to it once more.

Françoise Hardy: “Tant de belles choses”

“Tant de belles choses” means “so many beautiful things.” It’s a very special song for me, because I had the diagnosis of lymphoma at the beginning of January [2004], and my birthday is on the 17th of January. We had dinner, and suddenly my son went away, and it took time for him to come back. A friend of his told me, “He doesn’t want you to see him cry.” I was so upset.

The day after, I wrote lyrics to this tune to give to my son a positive idea of death. Also, this whole album is a very good souvenir, because at the time my son was only a guitarist, and my recording company wanted him to produce some songs on this record. I was a little worried, because it’s a special work to produce songs. But he did very well, it was strange and lovely to work with him.

Thomas Dutronc: “Comme un manouche sans guitare”

When my son Thomas was a little boy, I wanted him to study guitar or piano, but he refused! He was very good at school, especially in mathematics, and his father and I have never been good for that. But then Thomas discovered Django Reinhardt when he was 17, and he started to learn and play guitar. He would play everywhere, and he went to see the most famous guitarist in jazz Manouche music, Bireli Lagrene, who then took him on tour around the world. A few years after that, he signed a contract with a recording company, and was supposed to record an instrumental album. But he knew that instrumental albums don’t work very well, so he wanted to invite some singers to play some tunes he would compose himself. One of the singers told him, “Your voice is OK—why don’t you sing yourself?” So then he made a whole album with instrumental music and also some original songs he had written and composed. It’s for this song that he got a Victoire de la Music award [the French equivalent of a Grammy].

A recent shot of the 74-year-old singer. Photo by Benoit Peverelli.

Sia: “Chandelier”

In 2014, I was in a very bad physical state, so it was very difficult for me to find a song that I listened to very often. But I loved “Chandelier” at first listen, all of a sudden, all at once. I had seen her perform on a TV show called “Taratata” and she was singing very beautiful ballads. I was amazed by her voice, the songs, and also by her face. She has a very strange face, and very strange teeth. I thought it was very courageous of her to sing songs with this huge tooth. Even if you were not interested in her music, it was so extraordinary that a woman was appearing on a big TV show with this tooth like this. A dentist can fix that kind of imperfection easily, but I was impressed because she had not done that.

Better late than never: the late Nirvana frontman’s rumored childhood demos, previously authenticated but delayed by record company politics, will finally arrive in stores in time for Record Store Day 2018.

BY FRED MILLS

A couple of years ago, in a BLURT exclusive report titled “Pre-Nirvana Kurt Cobain Demos Unearthed,” we outlined how a 30-track collection of cassette tapes reportedly dating back to the Nirvana frontman’s childhood had been discovered and were being estimated as being worth “seven figures” or more. At the time of the report there was more than a little speculation that it was all a hoax or, at very least, wishful thinking on the you-gotta-believe segment of the Cobain/Nirvana fanbase (and trust us, that is a HUGE segment).

Subsequently, though, the tapes were authenticated and production shifted into high gear, with a target release date of April 19, 2014 – Record Store Day. It was to be a limited-to-1000-copies numbered set of cassettes, titled The KDC Tapes, released by Geffen/Universal and housed in a deluxe “cigar box” styled packaging and featuring Cobain-derived memorabilia that includes faux-syringes, cigarette packs and snippets of lyrics scribbled on napkins. The artwork was reportedly derived from the recently published photos of the Cobain suicide crime scene. Following the exclusive RSD title there were also going to be non-limited CD and vinyl editions released by the summer.

And then… nothing. Nada. April 19 came and went, and then the summer came and went as well, with no Cobain release, no Nirvana release, nothing. Not even a peep from the Nirvana camp or from their record label. Speculation among the fan community was rampant: were there copyright issues blocking the release, or did the label get cold feet and back off from what could be considered, by sensitive or politically correct types, distasteful, or was there even second guessing along the lines of “what Kurt would’ve wanted” (e.g., were he still alive, would he have wanted his earliest, naive rumblings as a musician made public)? Or PERHAPS COURTNEY LOVE WAS BLOCKING THE RELEASE?!? After all, that batshit gal could be capable of ANYTHING – she proved it when she had El Duce of ...tors offed…

Not to worry, long suffering Cobainirvana acolytes: none of the above turns out to be the case; it was simply a situation where the people behind the release wanted to “get things right.” BLURT has learned from our record industry sources that issues arose primarily surrounding the aforementioned packaging and artwork, with snags in the production including not only having to negotiate with the authorities for the original crime scene photos but also getting the rights from the cigarette manufacturer and the medical supply house (which made the specific type of syringes Cobain preferred, a kind of “reverse hydraulic” feature that facilitated easy injection when not using a tie-off around the arm) to create reproductions of the original items. Those hurdles finally overcome, Geffen has announced that the limited edition cassette box set, still bearing the name The KDC Tapes but now with a more fan-friendly production run of 3000 copies, will be available on this year’s Record Store Day, which falls on Saturday, April 21.

Expect a bit more than the usual frenzy at your local indie record store this year, kids.

From our original report, let’s recap:

A trove of dusty Phillips cassettes purchased by a self-styled “junker” at an Aberdeen, Wash., garage sale have turned out to be early demo recordings by the late Kurt Cobain. It marks the first time since the 2004 Nirvana box set With the Lights Out that heretofore unheard Cobain material has surfaced, and Nirvana experts are hailing the 30-plus tracks – some of them full songs, others just “sketches” – as likely representing the earliest known Cobain material in existence.

The individual who bought the box of tapes initially got curious when he spotted the initials “KDC” (as in, “Kurt Donald Cobain”) scrawled in black magic marker on the side of each cassette. Upon listening to them he contacted a music industry lawyer, who in turn contacted representatives of Cobain’s estate and Cobain’s record label; the tapes were subsequently verified by noted music producers Jack Endino and Butch Vig (who both worked with Nirvana) as being legitimate. The finder is reportedly now in negotiations to sell the tapes to the estate and label.

One industry observer estimates the potential value of the tapes as being “in the seven-figure range.”

Cobain, who was born in 1967 and attended high school in Aberdeen while living there with his mother, apparently recorded them on a vintage 3M Wollensak mono tape deck when he was in elementary school – presumably about the age of 8 or 9, as several of the song titles focus on people and events circa 1974-75: “Nixon Must Die (Or Resign)”; “I Wanna Be Just Like a Weatherman”; “Carlos the Jackal”; “Shazam!”; and the collection’s lone cover, a ukulele version of the Steve Miller Band’s “The Joker.”

According to a source who has heard the material, the tunes are “mostly singalongs” performed on acoustic guitar or the aforementioned ukulele, along with some rudimentary percussion performed by an unknown additional musician, “There’s nothing there that would really give a blindfold test listener the sense that Cobain would go on to form one of the biggest bands on the planet, although it is worth noting that even at that age you could hear the initial stirrings of his trademark rasp – kinda like any kid sounds after he’s been punched in the throat a couple of times, actually.

“With that said, however, a few recurring lyrical motifs, somewhat precocious on one level and disturbing on another, do provide ad hoc foreshadowing. At least three songs contain the word ‘vagina,’ each part of some childlike rhyming scheme, one of them being ‘your mama’; and there’s an unusual fixation on firearms too, such as in ‘…Weatherman’ where he sings in a kind of taunting tone of voice, ‘You’ll wish you were dead/ When I point my gun at your head.’ That’s followed by the popping sound of a kid’s cap gun.”

Genuine historical artifact, or merely a curio for hard-core Cobain and Nirvana fans? With interest in both the artist and the band never having waned since his death in 1994, it’s likely that “The KDC Tapes,” as they’re being referred to in industry circles, will eventually anchor several archival releases: a CD of cherry-picked highlights, a collection of DJ remixes, and the inevitable big-ticket boxed set – possibly even a DVD documentary outlining the finding-of, the cleaning-up-of and the marketing-of the tapes. [Editor’s note: the latter info was obviously premature. See the second paragraph above for the current status of the release.]

Also likely: the unknown percussionist will turn up wanting his cut of the profits. Already, the Cobain estate has reportedly been contacted by several individuals claiming – rather implausibly, and without credible documentation – to be the percussionist. As Cobain’s mother, Wendy, told a Seattle newspaper reporter, “Kurt really was a surly, unpleasant child to be around, and while he’s been characterized as being the type of musician who didn’t like to play with just anyone, it was actually the other way around – nobody wanted to play with him.“

As noted above, both Vig and Endino had initially verified the tapes’ existence and likely provenance, but as time went by and the tapes failed to be released, speculation was rampant that it had all been a hoax, and Vig and Endino’s subsequent silence on the matter seemed to justify that conclusion. In early 2014, however, at a press conference at the Universal Music Group’s offices in Los Angeles, the two producers appeared jointly to announce the impending release, implicitly giving their blessings. “We are pleased and proud to be part of this project,” the pair offered, in a statement. “Kurt impacted our lives in so many ways, this is just our way of ‘giving back’ to the Cobain community.”

In the 2014 press release originally circulated by Universal, it was noted that both the surviving members of Nirvana as well as Cobain’s widow Courtney Love had given their blessings to the project but were not directly involved with the new box set. More recently, however, it appears that in the wake of the protracted delay, Nirvana drummer (and Foo Fighters frontman) Dave Grohl has gotten involved with some last minute remastering of the tapes, utilizing the original mixing board from Sound City Studios (the same facility that he feted in his 2012 documentary a...ry studios), which he had obtained a few years back. “Kurt would’ve dug that,” Grohl tweeted. “[He] loved [going into] Sound City, sometimes just to fuck around with [all the] vintage gear.”

@FooFightersDave Kurt would’ve dug that, total studio rat, loved Sound City, sometimes just to fuck around with vintage gear

Watch BLURT for a review of the Cobain box shortly after Record Store Day, per our usual roundup of choice titles the staff and contributors score. Hopefully yours truly will have a workable cassette deck in time for RSD…

Additional reporting can be viewed here. Check out a teaser video trailer for the Cobain box right here.

Top Photo Credit: A.P. Rilfuul, RETNA Images Inc.

Labyrinth Returning to Theaters, Getting Stage Adaptation

• by Braudie Blais-Billie
  Associate Staff Writer

• ROCK

APRIL 17 2018

See the 1986 cult classic starring David Bowie on the big screen

David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly in Labyrinth, photo by Stanley Bielecki Movie Collection/Getty Images

Labyrinth, the 1986 musical dark fantasy directed by Jim Henson starring David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly, is getting a rerelease. The film follows 15-year-old Sarah (Connelly) as she navigates a supernatural, creature-filled maze to rescue her baby brother from Jareth, the Goblin King (Bowie). A newly restored print will be playing for a three-day run (April 29, May 1, and May 2) in select theaters nation-wide. Tickets are available now.

In an interview with Forbes writer Simon Thompson, Jim Henson’s son Brian Henson has also revealed that there is a stage adaption of Labyrinth in the works. “Not necessarily Broadway, it could be for London’s West End, but it will be a stage show, a big theatrical version,” he explained. “It’s very exciting.” Henson also discussed the long-awaited Labyrinth sequel. “We’re still excited about the idea of a sequel, we are working on something but nothing that’s close enough to say it’s about to be in pre-production or anything like that.”

Inversely, Bowie’s 2015 musical Lazarus is coming to film—it‘s debuting in London this May. New York City has recently began a limited-edition run of subway cards featuring Bowie’s face.

Free Download: https://noisetrade.com/ch...g/stranger

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https://noisetrade.com/ch...aggression

Stranger celebrates the culmination of Tang’s versatile and eclectic songwriting ability. The five song EP Stranger combines emotionally propelled lyrics and intentional songwriting with vibe oriented production and modern sounds. The experimentation embodied by title track/single “Stanger” specifically reflects successful to R&B.

Ultimately, the EP showcases her versatility as a songwriter and illuminate her proficiency ability to navigate through multiple genres. Tang’s experimentation with styles of R&B and EDM gives her newest release fresh contrast to her already established alternative rock sound.

Tracklist:

[Edited 5/11/18 8:20am]

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No I.D. Produced The New ...yer Single

Chris DeVille @chrisdeville | May 10, 2018 - 3:14 pm

“But if you give me just one night/ You’re gonna see me in a new light.” So sings John Mayer on his new single, and the production credit indeed seems designed to change your perspective: Behind the boards is No I.D., the hip-hop producer known for mentoring Kanye West, helping launch Common, and working with Jay-Z and Vince Staples on genius album-length collaborations. Learning that he teamed up with Mayer is not a shocker worthy of cardiac arrest, but it’s definitely a surprise.

So, does “New Light” achieve its intended purpose? Not really. It doesn’t even sound any different from your average John Mayer song: a brisk and moody little soft-rock ditty with slightly funkier guitar flourishes than usual. I guess when the bridge hits there’s a little extra rhythmic action, too, but mostly this would fit right in on The Search For Everything, Mayer’s attempt at a pop comeback from a year ago. If you dig the guy’s music, you will probably dig this too, but don’t expect it to change any haters’ minds.

Hear “New Light” below, where you can also watch Mayer’s new interview with Zane Lowe, in which he begins by calling Shawn Mendes “a better version of me” and admitting, “I’ve retired from a certain type of ambition.”

Interview with Marem Ladson: “Writting songs is a way of healing”

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/w...mp;index=3

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https://www.youtube.com/w..._F5RKmhafM

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Release Date May 18.

Tracklist:
01 – Born
02 – Shades of Blue
03 – Everything I’ve Ever Lost (Is Coming Back)
04 – Woods
05 – For and About
06 – West
07 – All My Storms
08 – Coming Home
09 – My Corazon
10 – Losing Control
11 – You Are Not Welcome

Album Samples: https://itunes.apple.com/...1378977691

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Listen: https://www.youtube.com/w...G90XJ36dlQ

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https://www.youtube.com/w...R_t09zCoDU

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[Edited 5/11/18 8:47am]

Free Download: https://noisetrade.com/bo...018-artist

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Formerly the frontwoman of Philadelphia emo band Little Big League, Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner began her solo career as an experiment in songwriting and self-expression. Her first record Psychopomp was a response to losing her mother to cancer—an album where making music was a method of healing. Critics responded with great enthusiasm, which helped land Zauner a deal with Dead Oceans, and her 2017 follow-up Soft Sounds from Another Planet is in the running for one of the best indie rock records of last year. She’s got a series of sold-out performances soon, with Coachella this weekend as well as the Roxy next week and the Glass House in June. This interview by Bennett Kogon.

You have one of the best homecoming shows I’ve ever seen—opening for Belle & Sebastian at the Oregon Zoo Amphitheatre. I don’t know how you could top a show at a zoo—is there anywhere better you’d want to play next?
Michelle Zauner: This has been a pretty amazing year for me. In December, I was able to play in Seoul, Korea, which is where I was born and where my mom’s family is from. My aunt was able to come see me and it was really special for me to speak a little Korean and perform there. Almost more special to me in a way was to play the Crystal Ballroom in Portland, which is where I saw all the bands that really shaped me as an artist. Like, the first show I saw there was Built to Spill when I was a teenager. And then to play that stage is totally bonkers. I also used to work coat-check at this venue in Philadelphia called Union Transfer. I never thought I would get to headline a room like that and we are going to be there at the beginning of June. I don’t know if I have many more goals after that—I guess I can pretty much retire after this year.

Your first record Psychopomp was written about the emptiness you felt after the trauma of losing your mother. What is your newest Soft Sounds from Another Planet about? How did it feel to write?
Michelle Zauner: I wrote Psychopomp two months after my mom passed away. Some of it was reused material that was written before she passed away, and some of it was material that I wrote specifically about that experience. In a lot of the songs there was an outpouring of raw emotion and confusion. I don’t think I really understood how to feel. It was just stating the very core of where I was at the time. It was definitely a way for me to compartmentalize those emotions because I found it really difficult to communicate with other people what I was going through. I really didn’t have any expectations for Psychopomp—that was very much a record I wrote for myself. It was really a surprise when it garnered a lot of press. It was my first record that did well commercially, or whatever. When it was time to write Soft Sounds, I had a label, I had a deadline, and I had a lot more expectation. At first, I wanted to distance myself from my personal experiences, so I went into it thinking I was going to write a science fiction musical. The song “Machinist” was the first song I wrote for it and it’s quite different than the rest of the record. I quickly realized it didn’t feel fulfilling for me at the time to continue with that narrative. I still felt like I had a lot to say about what I went through and it felt phony to just pretend that I’m not gonna write about my mom dying under tragic circumstances. It was really a huge part of my life. I’m probably going to write about those experiences forever. [Right now] I find myself really wanting to create something that’s very dramatically different. I want the follow-up to sound very melodramatic and kind of theatrical. I’ve been listening to a lot of Nine Inch Nails, so I really want it to be like Homogenic meets Pretty Hate Machine, with this kind of gothic industrial-vibe to it. As soon as I say that, you know … ‘it sounds great!’ But once I sit down and try to write material like that, it doesn’t really go well! That’s the general idea, but right now I’m just trying to write a lot and see what comes naturally. I hope for this next album that I have the opportunity to just take more time and explore different directions. I want to write a lot of material and be able to gain the perspective of having 30 or 40 songs to pick from, which is something I’ve never really done before.

You’ve said you can use your music as a kind of meditation—how does that work?
Michelle Zauner: It’s self-meditative in the sense that it’s very intuitive music. Especially with this project—I kind of started it as a way to express myself quite directly. It all began with a cassette release called June. I had written and recorded really lo-fi and shitty songs for thirty days—every day for the month of June. No matter what I had going on that day, I would have to put out a song. I think it was an exercise in forgiveness and just sort of a way to let my subconscious wander. It came with a lot of really great material and it was a new way of writing for me that was different from what I had been doing with my old band, Little Big League. I think the very beginnings of all my songs come from an intuitive and honest place. I’ve always written music that was really personal and in that way, this has been a way for me to meditate on my life.
Has your relationship with music changed since you’ve become a musician? And as you’ve gone from a DIY musician to the festival circuit and having label backing?
Michelle Zauner: I feel a lot more competent and confident as a musician. I’ve always felt good about what I was making, but I think everyone feels a little nervous and possesses some self-doubt about their work. I’m definitely a lot more capable than I thought I was. I feel much more confident, especially as a producer and an arranger of music. I wasn’t really brought up in an environment where I was allowed to feel that way. I don’t think I’ve been able to fully enjoy the feeling that I’m good at this thing that I love until the last couple of years. That’s been really nice.
The proportion of Asian-American women within rock music is very small—have you ever felt there wasn’t a place for you?
Michelle Zauner: I don’t know—I have complicated feelings about it. I don’t know if I’ve felt that way as a woman as much as I’ve felt that way as a human being. I think everyone feels self-doubt as a creative person, especially being raised in a family where that wasn’t really a valued or promising profession. I think many people are raised to believe that it’s a very lucky and unique position to find yourself as an artist that can support oneself. I think there was more concern about that than being a woman. In a lot of ways, I grew up feeling excited to assert myself in arenas that felt male-dominated. I felt much more like that about other interests than I have with music. I was an avid chess player in elementary school and there are very, very few female chess players. I got used to inserting myself into male-dominated arenas—it excited me more than it intimidated me.
Your work as a solo musician is very much a direct transmission of yourself and your emotions, and you take a very hands-on approach to your other work, too, like your music videos. How is working with image different than working with sound?

Michelle Zauner: I just really fell in love with directing last year. Most of it came from having a really amazing collaborator. I’ve made seven videos with the same director of photography—Adam Kolodny. He’s an amazing talent and honestly pushed me into the role of a director. That gave me the confidence to take something like this on. I’ve been writing music for twelve years now and at this point my progress feels much smaller. Everything that I direct now, I can feel great leaps of progress where I learn so much from project to project. When it comes to music, I’ve been doing it for so long that it’s much more subtle how I’ve grown. I’m still very much a beginner when it comes to directing, so I look forward to where it takes me.

JAPANESE BREAKFAST WITH EMNINEM, ODESZA AND MANY MORE ON SUN., APR. 15, AND SUN., APR. 22, ON THE GOBI STAGE AT COACHELLA AT THE EMPIRE POLO CLUB, 81-800 51ST AVE., INDIO. 3:25 PM / SOLD OUT / ALL AGES. COACHELLA.COM. AND WITH SNAIL MAIL AND AND AND AND ON TUE., APR. 17, AT THE ROXY, 9009 SUNSET BLVD., WEST HOLLYWOOD. 8 PM / SOLD OUT / ALL AGES. AND ON SAT., JUNE 23, AT THE GLASS HOUSE, 200 W. 2ND ST., POMONA. 8 PM / SOLD OUT / ALL AGES. THEGLASSHOUSE.US. JAPANESE BREAKFAST’S SOFT SOUNDS FROM ANOTHER PLANET IS AVAILABLE NOW FROM DEAD OCEANS. VISIT JAPANESE BREAKFAST AT JAPANESEBREAKFAST.ROCKS.

Listen: [/url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3bjPGUDl1k[/url]

• Khruangbin

Con Todo El Mundo

• NIGHT TIME STORIES LTD.
• DEAD OCEANS

• 2018

7.6

Khruangbin @ Villain | Pitchfork Live

https://www.youtube.com/w...4xKvHANqjk

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[Edited 5/11/18 9:31am]

The singer/guitarist gives us an inside look into her daily grind from recording in the studio to being on stage while lyrics float across the screen. She also gives us a glimpse into her personal life.

Alana Davis "Love Again" (Official Video)

Love this groove: https://www.youtube.com/w...e=youtu.be

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/w...xG3yFzeggc

Tracklist:
01 – I Like It When We’re Together
02 – Still Waters
03 – No More Pain
04 – Cover My Eyes
05 – Invisible (Blue Light)
06 – Not Too Far Away
07 – Any Place
08 – Always in My Dreams
09 – This Is Not That
10 – Loving What You Hate

Free Download:

Tracklist:

First Listen: Tori Kelly and The Hamiltones give a song for the ages

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/w...8ScpwE0I84

Scott Hutchison obituary

Singer and writer of emotionally raw folk-rock songs that attracted a wide following for his band, Frightened Rabbit

Caroline Sullivan

Sun 13 May 2018 10.22 EDTLast modified on Mon 14 May 2018 04.13 EDT

‘I think anthemic-misery-indie is Scotland’s greatest export’: Scott Hutchison in concert at Kentish Town Forum, London, 2013. Photograph: Tom Watkins/Rex/Shutterstock

“Chloroform the singer who has nothing to say/ Stare in wonder as the masses sing along anyway,” Scott Hutchison sang on Songs About Roses, a track from the solo album he released in 2014. As bare-boned as anything he wrote, it skewered false gods and those who deified them while flaying himself for not living up to his own exacting standards. Hutchison, who has taken his own life aged 36, made a life’s work of processing his feelings into emotionally raw folk-rock songs that attracted a wide following. With his band, Frightened Rabbit, he established a niche for a global cadre of fans, many of whom identified with his struggle with depression.

Though not a household name outside their native Scotland, the group could fill 2,000-capacity venues around the UK, which boded well for the prospects of their next album. Due to be completed by the end of the year, it would have contained new themes, perhaps even a touch of optimism. Hutchison, the band’s singer and lyricist, told the NME in March: “I’m trying to find different things ’cause it’s album six, and I can’t do this all the time, you know. I don’t think anybody really gives a fuck about my relationships any more.”

There he was probably mistaken. Fans saw him as an extension of themselves, his awkwardness and vulnerability reflecting their own. His openness about romantic travails made him seem approachable – stocky, bearded and affable, he was more brotherly than starlike. Accordingly he treated fans as friends, relating to their problems, though it drained him.

Contacted by the parents of a troubled young fan who found comfort in Frightened Rabbit’s music, he responded with a handwritten note that said in part: “All I really wanted to say is that no matter how dark life seems, you are never alone. There is always hope.” After his death, many followers posted their own accounts on social media of getting through rough patches with the help of Hutchison’s songs.

The band name came from an early nickname bestowed by Hutchison’s mother. “I was incredibly shy as a child, almost chronically so,” Hutchison told Spin magazine in 2010. “So, out of that, my mum called me her frightened rabbit.” When he started to write songs in 2000, midway through a four-year illustration course at the Glasgow School of Art, he cast about for a nom de rock. Plain old “Scott Hutchison” lacked magic, he decided, but his childhood nickname would do.

His solo acoustic project expanded into a duo when his younger brother, Grant, joined on drums, and the two released their debut album, Sing the Greys, on a small Glasgow label in 2006. They eventually became a fivepiece with the addition of Billy Kennedy, Andy Monaghan and Simon Liddell.

Timidity and heightened sensitivity had accompanied Hutchison into adulthood, and informed his songwriting. Though comfortable performing in front of concert audiences, he found one-to-one conversation with strangers a trial and his songs reflected the anxiety. When romances ended, too, it hit him hard – Frightened Rabbit’s much-praised album The Midnight Organ Fight (2008) was influenced by the end of a longterm relationship, and contains some of his bleakest songs.

Its penultimate track, Floating in the Forth, recounts suicidal feelings, about which Hutchison said in an interview with Noisey a few weeks before his death: “It’s a real thought. It’s a thought that I’ve taken to a place that I’m far less comfortable with … I’ve gone 90% of the way through that song in real life.” But he was in a better frame of mind now, he added. “It’s heartening to know that I’ve been through that, and I’m [still] performing that song, alive and feeling good about it.”

Born in Selkirk, in the Scottish Borders, the second of Marion and Ron Hutchison’s three sons, he was close to his brothers Neil and Grant, the latter of whom described himself as the “Tasmanian devil” to Scott’s “frightened rabbit”. Scott moved the 80 or so miles to Glasgow to study illustration, but was more interested in music than art (he later used his skills to design artwork for Frightened Rabbit’s albums).

His first songs were influenced by Ryan Adams and similar Americana artists, but when Grant became a member, they joined a long tradition of jittery indie-guitar acts who couldn’t have been anything but Scottish. His heritage mattered to him – “I think anthemic-misery-indie is … Scotland’s greatest export,” he remarked in 2014, and he did his bit by singing in his own accent.

Their second album, The Midnight Organ Fight, broke them in the US and to a lesser extent the UK. Hutchison’s mercilessly honest lyrics (“Vital parts fall from his system and dissolve in Scottish rain,” ran The Modern Leper) were lauded as poetry; such was the demand from the US that they toured there more than a dozen times. It must have been gruelling for Hutchison, who was afraid of flying.

Three more albums followed, with attendant promotional and touring obligations; Hutchison also put out a solo LP under the name Owl John, and participated, with members of Editors and Minor Victories, in an “indie supergroup”, Mastersystem, who released their sole album last month.

Hutchison’s parents and brothers survive him.

• Scott Hutchison, singer and songwriter, born 20 November 1981; found dead 10 May 2018

[Edited 5/14/18 9:28am]

Kali Uchis - After The Storm ft. Tyler, The Creator, Bootsy Collins

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/w...f5zD7ZSNpQ

Tougher Than The Rest The Album Collection Vol. 2, 1987-1996highlights an intriguing chapter in Bruce Springsteen's career on vinyl. This 10LP box set features all five studio and live albums released during this period, exclusive pressings of the Chimes Of Freedom and Blood Brothers EPs and a book of rare photos and press clippings. Add it to your collection May 18!

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Ray Davies Our Country: Americana Act II The legendary co-founder of The Kinks shares more of his musical autobiography on his new album, the follow-up to last year's Americana. "Our Country follows my journey across America; through endless tours not just to reclaim The Kinks’ career, but to rediscover the country that offered me my earliest inspirations," Davies says of the new album. Backed once again by The Jayhawks, Our Country: Americana Act II is available June 29.

Christina Aguilera fired up Twitter today (May 14) to let fans know who would be joining her on The Liberation Tour. “Been a fan for a long time,” the 37-year-old tweeted. “So excited to have [Big Boi] join me this fall.” While the crossover between their fanbases is likely to be minimal, the rap legend’s involvement is another sign that she’s prepping a hip-hop/R&B album. “To me, there’s nothing like an amazing hip-hop beat,” Legend X told Billboard. “At the end of the day, I am a soul singer.”

And that has been reflected by the album’s first two cuts. Mid-tempo club track, “Accelerate,” features Ty Dolla $ign and 2 Chainz, while “Twice” is a soaring ballad penned by R&B singer Kirby. Liberation’sfirst, and possibly only, pop moment is likely to arrive later this week with the release of “Fall In Line,” a feisty duet with Demi Lovato. The Liberation Tour kicks off in Hollywood, Florida on September 25 and then crisscrosses the continent, before winding up in St. Petersburg, Florida on November 13. See Xtina’s announcement below.

Christina Aguilera✔@xtina

Been a fan for a long time. So excited to have @BigBoi join me this fall for #TheLiberationTour !!

10:35 PM - May 12, 2018

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• 1,641 people are talking about this

Victoria Justice bounces back with a cute bop called 'Gold.' Watch the video.

MORE >>

Finally! Victoria Justice is back in the recording studio, hopefully working on her debut album. The 25-year-old, who most recently starred in Fox’s Rocky Horror Picture Show remake, posted a pic with Nasri Atwehfrom MAGIC! on Instagram. (In addition to releasing his own reggae-tinged bops, the frontman also pens hits for other people as part of the songwriting and production duo The Messengers). She didn’t elaborate on the situation, but the emojis suggest that she is recording new songs.

And frankly it’s about time. Victoria is one of the most underrated teenage TV stars to ever dabble in music. The first Victorioussoundtrack album is legitimately great, featuring songwriting and production from Dr. Luke, Shellback, Savan Kotecha and Toby Gad. (My fave is “Beggin’ On Your Knees”). The double-threat dropped her cute debut single, “Gold,” in 2013 and even promoted an album, which she described as “100 percent my personality.” Unfortunately, it never arrived. With any luck, that situation will be rectified in 2018.

BEN HARPER + CHARLIE MUSSELWHITE @ THE TROUBADOUR

MAY 10TH, 2018 |

Photos by Stephanie Port

“Hey Troubadour, thanks for the best three nights of our lives,” gushed a gracious Ben Harper as he and blues harmonica legend Charlie Musselwhite closed out their final sold out show at the famed West Hollywood venue on Wednesday night.

Hyperbole or not, the bluesy duo put on a dynamic, intimate show for a house full of devoted fans. Continually switching off from lap steel to guitar and back again, Harper and Musselwhite played a setlist full of tracks from their new LP No Mercy In This Land, released on March 30th. The pair switched off on vocals and solos on “When Love Is Not Enough,” “Trust You To Dig My Grave,” “No Mercy In This Land,” “Movin’ On,” and “Nothing At All,” to name a few. They also played some classic rock covers like The Beatles’ “Yer Blues” and Led Zeppelin’s “When The Levee Breaks.”

Harper and Musselwhite continue onto four sold out shows at the Belly Up in Solana Beach starting on Saturday, May 12.

WIN TICKETS TO MUSIC TASTES GOOD FESTIVAL W JAMES BLAKE, NEW ORDER AND MORE! SEPT. 29-30 IN LONG BEACH!

MAY 11TH, 2018 | NEWS

Long Beach’s Music Tastes Good festival has just announced the 2018 line-up and it’s tastier than ever with New Order, James Blake, Santigold, the Black Angels and more … like Broken Social Scene playing their iconic You Forgot It In People album and top west coast chefs from Tijuana to Vancouver! Want to enter to win a pair of tickets to this Sept 29-30 blow-out? Email rsvp@larecord.com with subject TASTEand we’ll pick winners at random before the show! (Must be 18+ to enter and include your full name.)

Ne-Yo Unveils New Song ‘Apology,’ Cover Art and Track List For Upcoming Album, ‘Good Man’

BySingersroom

Posted on May 11, 2018

Ne-Yo continues to create anticipation around his upcoming seventh studio album, Good Man, set for release on June 8 via Motown Records/Compound Entertainment.

Today, the 3x Grammy-winning singer and songwriter drops off the project’s cover art, tracklist, and the new single, “Apology.”

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/w...poNbn3K51g" target="_blank"> https://www.youtube.com/w...poNbn3K51g

On the bouncy “Apology,” Ne-Yo reveals his dirty laundry by confessing all the wrongs he has caused women in the past.

In addition to ‘Apology,’ Ne-Yo’s upcoming album is also headed by the single “Push Back,” featuring Bebe Rexha and Stefflon Don, and the title track, ‘Good Man.’ The project will also feature appearances from Romeo Santos, PARTYNEXTDOOR, Eric Bellinger, Candice Boyd, and Sam Hook. The album is an expedition through the highs and lows of love, with an extra shot of candor. It showcases Ne-Yo’s growth musically and personally, while reacquainting fans with the sounds of classic R&B.

Pre-order Good Man HERE and check out the tracklist below:

1. Caterpillars 1st” (INTRO)
2. 1 MORE SHOT
3. LA NIGHTS
4. NIGHTS LIKE THESE feat. Romeo Santos
5. U DESERVE
6. SUMMERTIME
7. PUSH BACK feat. Bebe Rexha and Stefflon Don
8. BREATHE
9. ON UR MIND feat. PARTYNEXTDOOR
10. BACK CHAPTERS
11. HOTBOX feat. Eric Bellinger
12. OVER U
13. WITHOUT U
14. APOLOGY
15. OCEAN SURE feat. Candice Boyd and Sam Hook
16. “The Struggle…” (Interlude)
17. GOOD MAN

The deluxe version will include all of the above plus these bonus tracks:

18. Pour Me Up
19. Won’t Be Often
20. Reset The Night

Xscap3 Delves Into Past Love in ‘Memory Lane’ Video

BySingersroom

Posted on May 14, 2018

Xscap3, all original members minus Kandi Burruss, keeps the cycle moving by releasing their first music video — this one for the song “Memory Lane.”

In the futuristic clip, Tameka “Tiny” Harris and sisters LaTocha and Tamika Scott unearth the past when their love life and relationship used to be beautiful.

Tiny leads the clip by taking us back to an intimate moment when she and her lover got it on in a kitchen. Draped in sexy lingerie, her eye candy lifts her to a counter and has his way. LaTocha is hot in red as she joins her hunk at the piano for a sweet serenade. Tamika tones down the sexy for comfort as she enjoys a movie and popcorn with her past love.

The video will definitely have you thinking about the easy breezy parts of a relationship.

“Memory Lane” can be found on Xscap3’s latest EP ‘Here For It,’ which arrived back in March 2018.

Enjoy a blast of the past with the “Memory Lane” video below:

https://www.youtube.com/w...to1YiAUMDg

RECAP: Mother’s Day Festival Feat. Maxwell, Gladys Knight & Vivian Green (Photos & Video)

ByDJ JusMusic

Posted on May 15, 2018

Atlantic City was on fire Saturday night, and Singersroom was in the building to capture the soul-stirring moments.

R&B veterans Maxwell, Gladys Knight, and Vivian Green headlined the second night of the Mothers Day Festival, which marked its 10th Mothers Day weekend in Atlantic City. Played in the middle of Boardwalk Hall, people came out in droves; we’re talking from the newly legals to Grandmas, to witness this beautiful night of R&B music.

Vivian Green kicked off the night Mothers Day festival, a week after releasing “Vibes,” the most added song on urban A.C. She went through her catalog of hits including her latest fan favorite “Get Right Back To My Baby.”

Gladys Knight followed and continued to show us that real talent will support you for life. The 73-year-old icon shared some encouraging words to all the mothers before performing “You’re the Best thing that ever happened to me,” and continued to deliver an eargasmic performance of her hits. Ms. Knight had the crowd rocking, especially all the older women.

3x Grammy award-winning artist Maxwell closed out the night with a performance of a lifetime. As soon as he appeared on stage, women flocked to the front like they were starving in hopes of getting a feel or taste of the soul crooner. One woman told me, “He should be my baby daddy.” Mind you, she was well over 50-years-old. I share that to give you a sense of the magic Maxwell created in the jam-packed room. Running through classics like “Bad Habits,” “Lifetime,” “Pretty Wings,” “Somethin’ Somethin,'” and much more, Maxwell served as the perfect ending to an intoxicating night of R&B music. Watch our short clip below of some of his renditions:

Over three days, the 10th annual Mothers Day Festival attracted over 26,000 people, 5,000 more than the year prior. Tourism leaders estimate the festival’s economic impact at about $8 million.

From its advent, the festival, reportedly the largest annual Mothers Day Music Festival gathering in the U.S. has been about more than musical performances. Clothing, art and crafts vendors, as well as Community Corner tables that house health and wellness, political, cultural and educational information to the nonprofit, Advancing Families, are all a part of the festivities. Nostalgia is still a huge part of the Mothers Day Festival.

Platinum Productions and Big Bloc Entertainment produce the annual Mothers Day Festival. Bill Ingram and Walt Reeder Jr. are Executive Producers.

See photos below:

CREDIT: JACQUELYN MARTIN/AP/REX/SHUTTERS

WASHINGTON — Smokey Robinson called for passage of music licensing legislation that will extend copyright protection to sound recordings made before 1972, an issue he said was “a livelihood thing” for many artists who no longer perform.

“It is not just about music,” he told a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday. “It is about lives — they could really use that money.”

Robinson was the latest music legend to visit Capitol Hill to urge passage of the Music Modernization Act, a set of changes in the law designed to streamline music licensing and close a loophole in copyright law.

In the early 1970s, Congress extended copyright protection to sound recordings, but it was effective as of Feb. 15, 1972.

The rise of satellite radio and digital streaming has generated new airplay for classics made before that date, but often the artist and the label are not compensated. Robinson said that his music and that of The Miracles are played over 50,000 times a day, every day. An “arbitrary date on the calendar should not be the arbiter of value,” he said.

Robinson spoke forcefully on behalf of the MMA and particularly the CLASSICS Act, sharing how a few years ago, he audited the digital services playing his music and found they owed him $250,000. After confronting them, he was offered $12,000 and told, “If you don’t like it, sue us.” Robinson noted there are few artists with the economic means to take on that sort of battle, concluding “We need your help!’”

The legislation passed the House unanimously last month, and it also includes sweeping changes to the licensing regime for digital music services. A Senate version was recently introduced.

The Senators seemed inclined to provide that help. Robinson received numerous compliments from Judiciary Committee members, including Chris Coons (D-DE) admitted “Motown hits were the soundtrack of my life,” adding, “the day we get to say I love you back and forth to Smokey Robinson in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing is a good day,” with Hatch confessing, “I’ve been a fan for years.” The enthusiasm didn’t end there.

Said Amy Klobuchar (D-MN): “If I wasn’t for this bill, I’d be in trouble in Minnesota given that it is the home to Prince and Bob Dylan. We miss Prince dearly. He was a fierce advocate, as all of you know, for the rights of musicians and songwriters.” The former state prosecutor said she “literally dressed up as ‘Purple Rain’ for a Halloween party,” a feat she approximated by wearing a plum-colored jacket to the hearing. Invoking “Come senators, congressmen please heed the call,” Klobuchar quoted Dylan, stating “The times they are a changin’” and citing a battle that will “soon shake your windows and rattle your walls.”

Evocative poetry for prosaic battles is in shorter supply today than in the ’60s when Dylan wrote his hit. “The number of professional Nashville songwriters has decreased by 80 percent,” offered Josh Kear, who co-wrote Carrie Underwood’s hit “Before He Cheats.” “An entire middle class of songwriters – they’re gone. That statistic is directly attributable to the way we listen to music in the digital era … under laws written in 1909.”

A sticking point at the Senate hearing was the unclaimed royalties fund. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) questioned witnesses on whether the proposal would do enough to protect independent songwriters ― the one aspect that has received criticism from the creative community. Feinstein said she’s seen estimates may run into the “hundreds of millions” of dollars. Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI) estimated that under current laws 15-20 percent of songwriters are not being paid because they are not appropriately identified (i.e., their names are not easily traceable to their works).

Under the current iteration of the MMA, unclaimed monies are to be distributed every three years and critics have expressed concern those funds would be dispersed mainly to the large publishers who will have 10 of 14 seats on a new board proposed by the bill (the remaining four going to unpublished songwriters). Both Grassley and Feinstein expressed concerns about an even number board in the event of a tie.

National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) CEO David Israelite stressed similarities between this new board and that of SoundExchange, which he said has “worked very well” and noted that for anyone concerned with the board composition “all legal rights remain in place” and federal court remains a remedy as well as “the oversight that the copyright office has.”

Whether independent songwriters will have the financial means to advance such rights is questionable, and at least one observer, music attorney Kenneth Abdo, a partner at Fox Rothschild, speculates that the bill that ultimately passes the Senate will have added protections for smaller players. Overall, Abdo couched the MMA as “not a cure-all, just a good step in the right direction.”

One of the things the MMA doesn’t “cure” is music’s compulsory license, a part of U.S. Copyright Act that dates to 1909, and basically requires that any third-party that wants to distribute commercially recorded music can do so, at rates ruled by the government.

Israelite took multiple opportunities during the hearing to bash the compulsory license and laud the MMA’s introduction of a “willing buyer-willing seller” component. Music Choice president and CEO David Del Beccaro testified forcefully against both the Senate and House version of the MMA, specifically criticizing the willing buyer-willing seller provision, which would close a loophole for pre-1972 digital services that had certain rate limiting protections “grandfathered” when Congress made a round of copyright law changes in 1995.

Also offering opposition testimony was Meredith Rose, policy counsel for non-profit consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge, arguing against the MMA provision that would grant royalties for pre-1972 songs ― which is exactly what Robinson and songwriters Justin Roberts, testifying on behalf of the Recording Academy, and songwriter Josh Kear, appearing on behalf of ASCAP, were opining for. Rose said she was opposed not to the need for pre-1972 payments, but for the manner in which the MMA addresses that need. Specifically, Rose objected to the CLASSICS provision of the MMA extending to 143 years copyright that for other works only runs for 95 years.

Israelite’s frequent compulsory license protestations seem a bellwether for where the industry will next be marshalling its forces once the MMA battle is won. Long a thorn in the industry’s side, the compulsory license prompted Songwriters of North America (SONA) attorney Dina LaPolt to opine last year that “songwriters are more heavily regulated than the pharmaceutical industry.” LaPolt, who flew to D.C. from Los Angles for the hearing, said afterwards that she and SONA were encouraged by what they heard. “We are thrilled that the Senate Judiciary has recognized the importance of modernizing legislation surrounding music creators’ rights in the era of digital distribution,” LaPolt told Variety. “It is decades in the coming and I am looking forward to the bill’s momentum passing through a full Senate vote.”

LaPolt’s opinion was in line with that of Hatch. “Every senator who has shown up here today is committed to solving this problem,” Hatch said during closing remarks. “Let’s get it out of committee and get it passed.”

Christina Aguilera is preparing to unveil a third taste of her forthcoming album, Liberation. So far we have already heard the Ty Dolla $ign and 2 Chainz-assisted lead single “Accelerate” and the stripped-back balladry of “Twice.” Tomorrow (May 16), she will roll out her highly anticipated Demi Lovato collaboration, “Fall In Line.” The twosome took to Twitter this morning to announce the imminent release and to tease the lyrics alongside photos of the starlets performing in their youth. “Little girls, listen closely. ‘Cause no one told me, but you deserve to know that in this world you are not beholden. You do not owe them your body and your soul,” they wrote.

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/w...yuPSLj_6aw

It sounds like they have an empowering anthem on their hands, and we will not have to wait long to see them perform it onstage. Xtina and Demi are set to belt out their first performance of “Fall In Line” this weekend at the Billboard Music Awards. Considering their larger than life voices, it is sure to be a highlight of the awards show. In an interview with Billboard, the 37-year-old explained her reasoning for teaming up with the Tell Me You Love Me hitmaker. “We went through a few names of women. I needed a belty singer, and she took it to the next level. I almost cried when I first heard her on the record.” All things considered, “Fall In Line” could shape up to be a massive hit for the pair moving into the summer.

Things are really heating up for the “Genie In A Bottle” siren as her June 15 release date looms closer. Check out her latest announcement below!

View image on Twitter

Christina Aguilera✔@xtina

Little girls
Listen closely
‘cause no one told me
But you deserve to know
That in this world
You are not beholden
You do not owe them
Your body and your soul#FallInLine. Tomorrow, 8am EST.

8:00 AM - May 15, 2018

• 29.1K
• 9,636 people are talking about this

https://www.youtube.com/w...HFH_BMPNAA

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[Edited 5/16/18 7:43am]

Ray Charles, Los Lobos Set for 'Austin City Limits' Hall of Fame

Class of 2018 also includes Texas piano player Marcia Ball

Los Lobos, Marcia Ball and the late Ray Charles have been announced as 2018 inductees into the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame.ITV/REX/Shutterstock

By Stephen L. Betts

16 hours ago

For their fifth anniversary class, the Austin City Limits Hall of Famehas tapped a trio of artists who represent a staggering array of musical genres and influence. At a ceremony set for October 25th, 2018, the ACL Hall of Fame will welcome into its ranks the late Ray Charles, along with Texas-born swamp rock-and-blues musician Marcia Ball and three-time Grammy winners Los Lobos, who built upon their East L.A. roots when they first formed over 40 years ago, performing a high-energy hybrid that incorporates rock & roll and also emphasizes their Mexican-American roots. All three acts made multiple appearances on Austin City Limits.

Matthew McConaughey presents the honor to his fellow Texan

The star-packed event, featuring performances by Dan Auerbach, soul icon Irma Thomas and legendary vocalist Tracy Nelson takes place at ACL's studio home, ACL Live at the Moody Theater in downtown Austin. Musician Chris Isaak returns to host the festivities, which are open to the public. Tickets for the event go on sale May 18th at 10:00 a.m. CT, with sponsor packages available now. All proceeds will benefit Austin's PBS station, KLRU-TV. Musical highlights and inductions from the ceremony will air in a special New Year's Eve broadcast of Austin City Limits as part of the program's Season 44, which premieres this fall on PBS.

Established in 2014 to celebrate the legacy of legendary artists and key individuals who have played a vital part in the pioneering music series, the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame honored Willie Nelson, Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble, Lloyd Maines, and program creator Bill Arhos and Darrell Royal with induction that first year. The following year's ACL Hall of Fame inductees were Asleep at the Wheel, Loretta Lynn, Guy Clark, Flaco Jiménez, Townes Van Zandt, and the original crew of the show's first season from 1974 to '75. Since then, inductees have included Kris Kristofferson, Bonnie Raitt, B.B. King, Roy Orbison, Rosanne Cash, the Neville Brothers and more.

Additional guests will be revealed in the coming weeks.

Beastie Boys Detail Expansive, Long-Awaited Memoir

'Beastie Boys Book' will feature contributions from Amy Poehler, Wes Anderson, Spike Jonze

The Beastie Boys detailed their expansive and long-awaited new memoir, 'Beastie Boys Book.' Andy Freeberg/Mediapunch/REX Shutterstock

By Jon Blistein

17 hours ago

The Beastie Boys' long-awaited memoir, the aptly titled Beastie Boys Book, will be released October 30th via publishers Spiegel and Grau.

Veteran rapper talks Beats 1 radio show, Beastie Boys' upcoming memoir, the zen of surfing and more

The group's two surviving members, Mike D and Ad-Rock, penned the 592-page book, but also solicited contributions from an array of guests including Amy Poehler, Wes Anderson, Spike Jonze, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Colson Whitehead and author Luc Sante. Beastie Boys Book is available to pre-order via the band's website.

Per a description, Beastie Boys Bookwill cover the band's "transition from teenage punks to budding rappers; their early collaboration with Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin; the almost impossible-to-fathom overnight success of their debut studio album Licensed to Ill; that album’s messy fallout; their break with Def Jam, move to Los Angeles, and rebirth as musicians and social activists, with the genre-defying masterpiece Paul's Boutique."

The book will include rare photos and original illustrations, as well as some more left-field flourishes. Along with the guest contributions, Beastie Boys Book will boast a cookbook from chef Roy Choi, a graphic novel, a map of the Beastie Boys' New York and mixtape playlists.

The Beastie Boys first announced their memoir in 2013, one year after the death of co-founder Adam Yauch. In an interview on Beats 1 earl...ar, Mike D teased the book's multi-faceted nature, saying, "I think a lot of times when I read a band book or I watch a music documentary, maybe I'm just kind of ADD, I get a little bored. But actually, I don't think they do the subject matter justice because it's kinda surreal what happens in bands' lives, so you kind of have to use all dimensions to tell the story more accurately. I can say pretty confidently, it will be unlike any other music book."

U2 Detail Intimate Apollo Theater Concert

SiriusXM will host, broadcast exclusive invite-only gig

U2 will perform a special invite-only concert at the Apollo Theater, which SiriusXM will host and broadcast. Isaac Brekken/Getty

By Jon Blistein

23 hours ago

U2 will perform a special invitation-only concert at Harlem's legendary Apollo Theater June 11th. SiriusXM will host the concert and broadcast the performance after it happens on channel 30.

Skipping most of their most famous songs, U2 fought the easy lure of nostalgia while showcasing hidden corners of their past

The Apollo concert will be a much more intimate show than U2's ongoing Experience + Inno...world tour, which includes an augmented-reality section. The setlist will reportedly comprise cuts from the group's latest LP, Songs of Experience, alongside classics from their catalog. The last time U2 played a similarly-sized venue in New York City was their 2000 concert at Irving Plaza.

"New York City and the U2 band have a unique history," said Bono. "From the songs of Lou Reed, Billie Holiday and the Ramones that taught us how to listen, to the New Yorkers at our earliest U.S. shows who taught us how to play, the souls of New York and U2 have always been intertwined. The Apollo Theater is the heart of New York's musical soul, and to finally be playing our songs on the same stage where James Brown begged 'Please Please Please' is not only a bucket list moment, it’s an incredible honor."

SiriusXM subscribers will have the opportunity to win tickets to the Apollo show through an invitation sent via e-mail. Subscribers since April 25th, 2018 will also be able to enter to win a trip for two to New York to see the show.

The satellite radio giant has hosted several similar concerts at the Apollo over the years, starting in 2010 with Paul McCartney. Other artists to participate include Bruce Springsteen, Metallica, James Taylor and Guns N' Roses.

Following their Apollo gig, U2 will resume the North American leg of their Experience + Innocence, which is set to wrap July 3rd at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut.

Stevie Wonder Plots Brief Summer Tour

"Song Party" concert series will include shows in five cities

Stevie Wonder will host a limited engagement concert series in five U.S. cities this summer. Wonder Productions, Inc.

By Jon Blistein

1 day ago

Stevie Wonder will perform a handful of shows this summer as part of a limited engagement concert series, "Stevie Wonder Song Party: A Celebration of Life, Love and Music."

Paul McCartney, Meryl Streep, Dave Chappelle, more appear in inspiring "Dream Still Lives" video

The series launches with a five-night stand at the Park Theater at Park MGM in Las Vegas, August 3rd, 4th, 8th, 10th and 11th. Later that month, Wonder will play two shows in Atlantic City and two shows in National Harbor, Maryland. The short run wraps September 1st at MassMutual Center at MGM Springfield in Springfield, Massachusetts. Tickets go on sale via Ticketmaster May 21st at 10 a.m. PST.

Wonder teased the "Song Party" trek at a private concert in Los Angeles last week that also marked his 68th birthday. Per The Los Angeles Times, the show featured cameos from artists like Donald Glover and Kelly Rowland, while Wonder also said he hoped to release a new studio album, Through the Eyes of Wonder, later this year.

While Wonder hasn't embarked on a full-fledged tour since his 2015 and 2016 trek celebrating his 1976 classic, Songs in the Key of Life, he has played several festival sets over the past few years. In April, he appeared at the Equal ...nd Justiceto mark the opening of the National Memorial for Peace and Justiceand the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama.

Stevie Wonder Tour Dates
August 3 – Las Vegas, NV @ Park Theater at Park MGM
August 4 – Las Vegas, NV @ Park Theater at Park MGM
August 8 – Las Vegas, NV @ Park Theater at Park MGM
August 10 – Las Vegas, NV @ Park Theater at Park MGM
August 11 – Las Vegas, NV @ Park Theater at Park MGM
August 25 – Atlantic City, NJ @ The Event Center at Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa
August 26 – Atlantic City, NJ @ The Event Center at Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa
August 29 – National Harbor, MD @ The Theater at MGM National Harbor
August 30 – National Harbor, MD @ The Theater at MGM National Harbor
September 1 – Springfield, MA @ MassMutual Center at MGM Springfield

Marc Anthony Signs $160 Million Touring Deal With CMN: Exclusive

5/15/2018 by Leila Cobo

Alan Silken

Marc Anthony

Superstar Marc Anthony has signed an enormous, multimillion-dollar, multi-year touring arrangement with his longtime concert promoter, CMN, the largest producer of Latin music concerts and events in the U.S.

The deal will give Marc Anthony at least $160 million, including guaranteed income and performance bonuses, making it perhaps the most lucrative touring deal ever for a Latin artist. Under the new agreement, CMN will serve as Anthony‘s exclusive concert promoter throughout North America, Central America, South America and the Caribbean encompassing several touring cycles. In Europe, CMN will co-promote concerts with Magnus Talent Agency, the booking agency of Magnus Media, the entertainment company founded by Marc Anthony with veteran agent Michel Vega.

“Our unprecedented partnership with Marc unites an iconic musical treasure with the world's top multicultural live entertainment and branding resources to drive innovation on a global basis,” said Henry Cárdenas, president of CMN.

The new agreement will cover Anthony’s next global tour, slated to kick off later this year.

CMN has long been Marc Anthony’s concert promoter worldwide, and Anthony has long been one of the top and most consistent touring acts in the market, with a steady schedule of sold-out arena and stadium dates every single year. In fact, Anthony and Cardenas have such a longstanding, solid relationship that they created the Maestro Cares Foundation together and host an annual gala every year in New York City.

The new deal solidifies the alliance and hints at expanding marketing, branding and sponsorship opportunities.

"Henry and I started in this industry 30 years ago. Always with an eye on changing the status quo,” said Anthony. "He and his team represent absolute quality and efficiency, with an eye on innovative approaches to the touring experience.”

“We are thrilled to have reached this historic agreement with CMN on behalf of our flagship client Marc Anthony,” said Magnus CEO Michel Vega, who founded Magnus with Marc Anthony in 2015. “It’s proof positive of his iconic status and confirms his position at the pinnacle of the live entertainment world. CMN has been an integral part of his career development and this was a natural evolution of a longstanding relationship.”

Hear Lera Lynn, John Paul White's Haunting New Duet 'Lose Myself'

Lynn's collaborative album 'Plays Well With Others' includes appearances by Shovels & Rope, Nicole Atkins and Rodney Crowell

Halsey, ODESZA & Migos to Headline Breakaway Columbus 2018

5/9/2018 by David Rishty

Erika Goldring/WireImage

Halsey performs during Okeechobee Festival at Sunshine Grove on March 2, 2018 in Okeechobee, Fla.

Kaskade & Khalid will also perform as special guests.

Breakaway Music Festival has just revealed its biggest lineup yet. Its flagship event in Columbus, Ohio, will feature Halsey, ODESZA and Migos as its headliners, with Kaskade and Khalid as special guests.

The multi-genre festival will also feature a slew of stars in the making, like Jaden Smith and Quinn XCII, as well as booming up-and-comers Loud Luxury and Elohim. “We are extremely excited to announce our massive lineup today," says Prime Social Group's Managing Partner Zach Ruben in a press release.

"We continue to push and expand the Breakaway brand to represent the type of music festival that Columbus and the entire state of Ohio deserve. We will continue to pioneer and curate a music festival whose lineup boasts some of the biggest names in pop, hip-hop and EDM but also highlights groundbreaking and cutting-edge musicians and producers nationally and locally. That mixed with renowned production and other festival attractions guarantee to make the perfect weekend experience," he says.

Breakway Columbus, which is an all ages and outdoors event, is set to take place Aug. 24-26 at MAPFRE Stadium. Tickets can be purchased here.

Glenn Branca: guitarist and composer dies at age 69

The avant-garde musician, who inspired a generation of new wave bands such as Sonic Youth, died from throat cancer, his wife says

• Tribute – Glenn Branca:...sm maximal

Jake Nevins

Mon 14 May 2018 17.55 EDTLast modified on Tue 15 May 2018 06.01 EDT

Glenn Branca performs on stage during the Villette Sonique Festival at the Grande Halle on 28 May 2011 in Paris, France. Photograph: Kristy Sparow/Getty Images

Glenn Branca, the celebrated composer and guitarist, has died aged 69. Branca’s wife, the experimental guitarist Reg Bloor, wrote in a Facebook post on Monday that the cause of death was throat cancer.

“Glenn Branca passed away in his sleep last night from throat cancer,” Bloor, a collaborator of Branca’s who frequently performed in his ensemble, wrote. “I feel grateful to have been able to live and work with such an amazing source of ideas and creativity for the past 18 1/2 years. His musical output was a fraction of the ideas he had in a given day. His influence on the music world is incalculable.”

She added: “Despite his gruff exterior, he was a deeply caring and fiercely loyal man. We lived in our own little world together. I love him so much. I’m absolutely devastated.”

Branca, regarded as an avant-garde pioneer since the release of his 1981 experimental album The Ascension, studied theater at Emerson College in Boston before moving to New York City in 1976. Shortly thereafter, Branca and the conceptual artist Jeffrey Lohn formed the band Theoretical Girls, which dissolved in 1981.

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Reg Bloor@RegBloor

#glennbranca

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“I came to New York to do theater, but I came here to see all my punk heroes, too,” Branca told Noisey in 2016. “As it turned out, everyone was on tour. You couldn’t see Patti Smith, or Television or The Ramones. There was nothing happening. The other punk bands were more like power pop, commercial shit. I wanted to do experimental rock, I mean reallyexperimental. Like long-form performance art rock music. The fact is Theoretical Girls came up in that vacuum.”

In 1982, Branca launched his own record label, Neutral Records, which released the eponymous debut album from Sonic Youth, whose founding members Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo met through Branca and were inspired by the composer’s funk-based, post-punk guitar stylings. David Bowie also counted Branca as an influence, including The Ascension on a list of the artist’s 25 favorite albums, writing: “Over the years, Branca got even louder and more complex than this, but here on the title track his manifesto is already complete.”

Branca also famously conducted a symphony of 100 electric guitars at the base of the World Trade Center just months before the 9/11 attacks. In 2008, he was honored with the prestigious Grants to Artists Award from the Foundation for Contemporary Artists. In a 2009 op-ed for the New York Times, Branca surmised that “new music is just the old music again,” writing: “We seem to be on the edge of a paradigm shift.”

John Lurie✔@lurie_john

The X Magazine benefit in 1979 was perhaps the most amazing series of concerts that I have ever seen.
Glenn Branca, playing with Theoretical Girls was the best band in the program. It changed my life. Sorry I never had a chance to tell him.

5:04 PM - May 14, 2018

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He continued: “Orchestras are struggling to stay alive, rock has been relegated to the underground, jazz has stopped evolving and become a dead art, the music industry itself has been subsumed by corporate culture and composers are at their wit’s end trying to find something that’s hip but still appeals to an audience mired in a 19th-century sensibility.”

Glenn Branca: punk composer who turned minimalism maximal

Read more

John Lurie, co-founder of the jazz ensemble The Lounge Lizards, honored Branca on Twitter. “The X Magazine benefit in 1979 was perhaps the most amazing series of concerts that I have ever seen,” Lurie wrote. “Glenn Branca, playing with Theoretical Girls was the best band in the program. It changed my life. Sorry I never had a chance to tell him.”

Wanda Wilkomirska, Polish Violin Virtuoso, Dies at 89

5/3/2018 by Associated Press

Werner Eckelt/ullstein bild via Getty Images

Wanda Wiłkomirska

The director of a residence for retired Polish artists says violin virtuoso Wanda Wilkomirska, a one-time darling of the communist authorities who became a dissident, has died at age 89.

Anna Solnicka-Heller, director of the home for veteran artists, said Wilkomirska died Tuesday.

The daughter of violinist Alfred Wilkomirski, she played with two half-brothers as the Wilkomirski Trio before becoming a soloist with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra.

Wilkomirska performed with conductors such as Leonard Bernstein and Zubin Mehta. Her repertory was wide, but she specialized in Poland’s contemporary music.

She was married to a communist party official, journalist Mieczyslaw Rakowski, but became a supporter of dissident movements during the 1970s. Wilkomirska emigrated secretly after martial law was imposed in 1981.

She had lived in Germany and Australia, where she taught violin.

[Edited 5/16/18 7:40am]

Comeback Anniversary

Madison McFerrin is Making A Cappella Cool Again

05/2018

Born into a family of celebrated vocalists, the Brooklyn singer-songwriter talks about paving her own lane in this Rising interview.

https://is.gd/0BIWsc

EXCLUSIVE: Tamia Talks New Single and Album, Longevity, Winning a Grammy, More

BySingersroom

Posted on May 18, 2018

Six-time Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Tamia recently made her return to music with the soulful new single, “Leave It Smokin,'” the first release from her forthcoming album, Passion Like Fire, the follow-up to 2015’s ‘Love Life.’

“I’m super excited to debut new music, go back out on the road again, connect with people through the music; album releases are always an exciting time,” Tamia declares.

Like its predecessor, Passion Like Fire is inspired from a place of love and includes a body of songs that are cleverly-written, harmonically-rich, and operate from the core of real R&B.

On Tuesday (May 15th), Tamia held an intimate private album listening session at Vinyl Crown Studios in New York City with a few members of the media and following the event, Singersroom spoke with the music veteran about the upcoming release (Her new music sounded amazing). During our quick sit down, Tamia, who is celebrating the 20th anniversary of her critically-acclaimed, self-titled debut, Tamia, spoke enthusiastically about the pending release, her career, managing her life, and wanting to win a Grammy (after we dragged it out of her).

“I feel like I’ve been fortunate enough to be recognized for the things that I’ve done, Tamia tells Singersroom. “I don’t necessarily have a lot of awards and accolades but I’m very proud of the work that I’ve done, and I don’t do it for the accolades, I do it for the love of the music.”

Naturally, I wanted to get Tamia’s real feelings, so I pressed a little bit more to which she responded: “I have been nominated for like six Grammys, but whatever (laughs). One would be nice.”

Nonetheless, this astonishing talent would rather longevity over Grammys. “There are people who’ve won Grammys, and that’s it; we’ve never heard from them again… I’m still here 20 years since the first nomination.”

Rolling Stones Rip It Up in Ireland at 2018 Tour Opener

By Patrick Doyle

5 hours ago

The band kicks off latest No Filter run with rarities, blues mayhem and a story about going out and eating a "spice bag"

The Rolling Stones kicked off their 2018 No Filter tour in Dublin with rarities, classics – and a story about eating a "spice bag" together.Charles McQuillan/Getty

By Patrick Doyle

Something happened when the Rolling Stones played "Miss You" at Dublin's Croke Park on Thursday night. At most Stones concerts, the song seems skippable – a must-play staple that winds up feeling like a slog. But last night, the disco hit seemed to inspire everyone. It happened shortly into the song; as Charlie Watts played his sturdy four-on-the-floor stomp, bassist Darryl Jones decided to go on a funk excursion, unleashing a fast series of staccato notes. This caused Keith Richards to light up and add some colorful chords; Mick Jagger danced like a madman, and Ronnie Wood grinned as he made his Strat cry.

Band announces 11 shows starting in May, including first British concerts in five years

The Rolling Stones are still a great live band in 2018 because of these kinds of moments, the ones no one sees coming. The opening night of the latest leg of the band's European No Filter tour was full of them – from Richards grinning as he let out a burst of Hubert Sumlin–inspired licks during "Ride 'Em on Down" to the band jamming out on the super-rarity "Neighbours," causing Jagger to remark, "Well, that was rocking."

Unlike most stadium-rock spectacles, Stones shows still feel like a risky place – where they can either hit a new peak, or a staple like "It's Only Rock & Roll" can fall apart for whatever reason. The tension is heightened by their age; they are now approaching their 56th year as a band. Pink Floyd and David Bowie, legendary artists that came after them, are the subjects of touring museum exhibits. The Stones have one of those too, which makes it increasingly shocking that the four principal players still remain on the road, playing at such a high level. They also continue to work their way into our culture in strange and unexpected ways – this week the New York Times reported that before the 2016 election, FBI agents had a code name for their Russian interference investigation: "Crossfire Hurricane," a line from "Jumpin' Jack Flash."

The evening felt like a homecoming. It had been a decade since the Stones had played Ireland, and an unusually chatty Jagger fondly recalled the time the Stones played Ireland's Adelphi Cinema in 1965. He gave warm shoutouts to Belfast, Cork and even some more obscure towns. He introduced Ronnie Wood as the "Kid from Kildare." Before "Wild Horses," Jagger joked: "We tried to learn 'Whiskey in the Jar' and it didn't really work out so we're going to do this." Jagger said the band had had a blast hanging out in Dublin for the last few days – the four of them even went out to the tourist-packed Temple Bar area the night before and shared a "spice bag." ("For those who are not aware a spice bag is crispy chicken ... chips, and a mystery blend of Chinese spices all shaken up in in a bag or box," according to Just Eat.)

The show began with Charlie Watts. The drummer sat alone onstage playing the menacing rhythm of "Sympathy for the Devil." In the past, Stones shows usually begin with a Richards riff. The switch felt like a nod of appreciation to Watts, the group's oldest member at 76. Most veteran rock drummers, from Phil Collins to Rush's Neil Peart, have had to quit for physical reasons. But in a crisp green button-up, Watts slyly directed rhythmic left turns. During "Tumbling Dice," he broke character, making bug-eyes at Jagger and grinning, as if to say, "can you believe we're still doing this?"

An early peak came during the band's wildly fun cover of Jimmy Reed's "Ride 'Em on Down," Jagger wailing away on the harmonica. After that, Jagger introduced a song "we haven't done in a couple hundred years." They broke into Tattoo You's blues rollercoaster "Neighbours." It went longer than on the album, Richards and Wood weaving Chuck Berry licks as Watts grinned. (The last time the band played the song was in 2003 on the Forty Licks tour.) Another highlight was "Midnight Rambler." Jagger, who seemed to be pacing himself until this point, stalked the catwalk, jumping and ducking as he howled the murderous tale. The rest of the band huddled in a close circle, in deep blues meditation. No other band can make a stadium feel like a blues club.

Richards played another rarity during his solo set. After a fiery "Before They Make Me Run," during the slot where he typically plays "Happy," he strapped on an acoustic guitar for "The Worst," the slow-burning Voodoo Lounge ballad. "Well I said from the first/I am the worst/Kind of guy for you to be around," Richards sang. His ragged croon blended with singer Bernard Fowler's harmonies and Wood's steel guitar was deeply moving. Wood, who last year announced he had a lung-cancer scare, was the night's most joyous spirit, mugging in sparkly sneakers all while playing his ass off.

The homestretch included "Brown Sugar" "Jumpin Jack Flash" and a fiery "Gimme Shelter," which included images such as a "Stronger Together" sign from the Hillary Clinton campaign and what looked like the Women's March. The band closed with "Satisfaction," Richards playing a small Gibson solid-body, giving the song an extra-garage-y feel. When the Stones came back after several years off for their 50th anniversary shows in 2012, it felt like a victory lap. But since then, the band has toured steadily, put out a blues covers album and are reportedly finishing up their first album of new songs since 2005. "I'd like to see just how far they can evolve," Richards told Rolling Stonethree years ago. "I have no demands or particular visions for them, but I want to see how far it will go." Last night, they were still working on it.

Set List

"Sympathy for the Devil"
"Tumbling Dice"
"Paint It Black"
"Just Your Fool"
"Ride 'Em on Down"
"Neighbours"
"Wild Horses"
"You Can't Always Get What You Want"
"It's Only Rock 'n' Roll (But I Like It)"
"Honky Tonk Women"
"Before They Make Me Run"
"The Worst"
"Miss You"
"Midnight Rambler"
"Start Me Up"
"Jumpin' Jack Flash"
"Brown Sugar"

Encore

"Gimme Shelter"
"(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"

Bill Wyman: At Home on the Cote d’Azur

By Steven Gaydos

@HighSierraMan

Steven Gaydos

CREDIT: REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

Back in the 1970s, the British tax authorities thought it was a good idea to take about 90% of one’s annual earnings, which led multitudes of showbizzers, including a certain British pop-rock-blues band called the Rolling Stones, to bugger off to the South of France where they proceeded to save about 60% of their income and also produce one of the towering rock album masterpieces of the era, “Exile on Main Street.”

Nearly 50 years later, at the South France country home of ex-Stone/writer-producer-musicologist-archivist-and-more Bill Wyman and his wife Suzanne, the Wymans are still celebrating the fruits of the U.K. taxman’s barmy scheme.

“I first came here (St. Paul, about 30 minutes from Cannes) in 1971 and I’ve been here ever since,” recalls Wyman, who’s got three great reasons to encamp locally today and none of them involve dodging taxes.

First of all, despite perfectly lovely digs in both Chelsea and Suffolk back home in the U.K., the restored 17th-century farmhouse he bought here 12 years ago sports a view of the walled city St. Paul de Vence, an expansive blue-tiled swimming pool that could fit the entire British Invasion and enough rooms to house the Wymans, their three daughters and the odd celebrity friend likely to pop in. Wyman’s not name dropping, he’s just being his normally meticulous self when he notes that “Joan Collins, Leslie Bricusse, Michael and Shakira Caine” and other entertainment luminaries of that sort are prone to share his enthusiasm for the Cote d’Azur lifestyle.

Secondly, Bill and Suzanne just celebrated their 25th anniversary here, and judging by the photos of the bash they threw at the nearby famed Colombe d’Or restaurant, the celebrants dined well among the Miros, Chagalls and Picassos and fun was had by all.

Thirdly, Wyman’s down here to help promote his newest project “The Quiet One,” a documentary on his life that is being sold in the Cannes Market by Submarine Entertainment.

“Quiet,” directed by Oliver Murray, is a personal passion project whose existence is a result of Wyman’s desire “to tell my story right. I’ve had an unusual life” says the famously self-effacing bass player, who powered the timeless hits of the band who are still Rolling on the road this summer, 56 years after their founding and whose live set today consists almost exclusively of songs Wyman helped build as half of the rhythm section with Charlie Watts. You know the titles, kids: “Satisfaction,” “Paint It Black,” “Start Me Up” etc.

As befits the “Quiet One” moniker, Wyman is paradoxically short on words and long on dedication to preserving his legacy. His archives take up many rooms and include a lifetime of photographing, filming, and collecting everything from recording instruments to tour buttons, posters and an indescribable allotment of artefacts that paint a picture of his life, not just as a rock star, but as the multi-faceted artist who’s also an historian and tinkerer. He famously built the bass and amp kit that helped him lock the Stones gig.

And he’s the opposite of a dilettante: when queried about which of the various interests have consistently held their place in his life alongside the Stonesmanship, he says he’s spent an entire lifetime cultivating “my interest in music, photography, archaeology, history, sport, love of nature, and collecting artefacts – and my archive.”

But though “self-effacing” is the term that often pops up when describing Wyman’s personality both as bass player and conversationalist, it’s clear that “Quiet” is a chance for the 81 year-old Wyman to lay down the fact that he had a life before the Stones, nearly three decades with the band, and nearly three decades living outside the band again. “The best thing about working on the documentary was reliving the nice times,” notes Wyman. “The worst was getting emotional at times.” And not surprising for a fellow who loves art and making it, Wyman found “the most surprising thing was watching scenes come to fruition. There are definite divisions in time in my very unusual life – which will be apparent when the film is finished.”

And there’s certainly nothing “self-effacing” about the importance and scale of what Wyman now sees of his life in rear-view mirror: “This proving to be a positive way of getting things right,” notes Wyman. “But I can’t get everything into the film that I hoped for. My life is a bit like ‘War & Peace.’”

February 12, 20189:04 AM ET

NATE CHINEN

Nellie McKay's Sister Orchid comes out May 18.

Shervin Lainez/Courtesy of the artist

Nellie McKay isn't the type to offer an unthinking inducement to romance. A singer-songwriter drawn to the inherent tensions between surface and substance, she has earned her reputation for unruly drolleries. The least conflicted love song in her repertoire might be the one she wrote, ages ago, about walking her dog.

But she isn't an outright skeptic, either. After all, this is someone who recorded an album in glowing tribute to the ingénue Doris Day, and later built a poignant cabaret show around the transgender jazz pianist Billy Tipton. (Other subjects of her wry inquiry have included the environmentalist Rachel Carson and the comedienne Joan Rivers.)

The bottom line for McKay, it would seem, is that there's always another level, a deeper layer. And this much remains true on her new version of "The Nearness of You," performed alone at the piano and offered here just in time for Valentine's Day.

YouTube

"The Nearness of You" is a veritable jazz standard — composed 80 years ago by Hoagy Carmichael, and recorded since by everybody from Harry James to Norah Jones. The song is invariably performed at a ballad tempo like this one. But McKay brings an odd bittersweetness, and maybe a whiff of sublimated tragedy, to her delivery. Could she be singing to a sense memory, or a ghost? Every possibility seems plausible.

The track comes from McKay's forthcoming solo album, Sister Orchid. That's "solo" in all senses of the word: McKay accompanies herself on the album, not only playing piano, her main instrument, but also ukulele, harmonica, celeste and even a bit of harp and cello. As producer, she makes judicious use of overdubs and sound design, incorporating cinematic atmosphere on a couple of tracks.

Along with "Nearness," her track list includes flickering old standards like "My Romance" and "In a Sentimental Mood," raising the possibility that this is an album about love in its various forms and stages. But McKay also includes the non-romantic Carmichael tune "Lazybones," and "Small Day Tomorrow," a semi-obscurity by Bob Dorough and Fran Landesman.

In her liner notes for Sister Orchid, which assume the form of an American noir travelogue — part Kerouac, part Chandler, all Nellie — McKay observes that "this album speaks of the night, the outsider, the plaintive wail of those lost at sea." How's that for a Hallmark greeting?

Listen:

https://www.youtube.com/w...0bn2xr-6cE

Tracklist:
01 – My Romance
02 – Angel Eyes
03 – Small Day Tomorrow
04 – Willow Weep for Me
05 – The Nearness of You
06 – Georgia On My Mind
07 – Lazybones
08 – Where or When
09 – Everything Happens to Me
10 – In a Sentimental Mood
11 – My Romance (Reprise)

Sister Orchid comes out May 18 via Palmetto Records (Amazon, iTunes).

Felicity Soars With New 'Pilot With a Fear of Heights' Single: Exclusive Premiere

5/17/2018 by Bryan Kress

Katia Temkin

Felicity

Australian-born, South African-raised singer-songwriter Felicity is taking off quickly with her irresistible debut single “Pilot With a Fear of Heights.”

“‘Pilot with a Fear of Heights' is a song I wrote from a timid place,” the singer tells Billboard. “I wanted so badly not to want this person, but ultimately being with him was my destiny,"

The New York-based songwriter ingeniously weaves a metaphor together that relates the feeling of falling hard for someone with being the one in control who can’t help but succumb to the unknown. The song, which she fittingly came up with on a plane, follows the emotional flow of its uneasy subject with a subdued, atmospheric intro that rises to a chorus that hits “like a jolt of unexpected turbulence in your ears.”

The song reaches its anthemic heights with help from producer Brian Kierulf, who has worked with pop superstars such as Lady Gaga and Britney Spears and ably guides the track to hit high and hard. With a debut so strong, the sky is the limit for Felicity.

Listen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uePP84mwH7k

Acoustic version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g36VTNMnuyI

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Kelly Clarkson performs at MGM Grand Garden Arena on April 15, 2018 in Las Vegas.

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/w..._R1lQSl508

American Woman Series Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/w...OtQJuS6rQc

[Edited 5/18/18 9:48am]

R&B/Pop artist Laura Roy teases us with her first release in 2o18 titled "Temporary"

The record is a smooth blend of r&b with electronic neo soul elements courtesy of UK producer/artist GEO which perfectly fits Laura's smooth and sultry vocal performance. The song sees the Canadian songstress professing her desire for more out of a situation that was once meant to be innocent and fleeting but has now turned into a new love interest. She bares it all in her confessional lyrics describing feelings of confusion and contemplation and eventually proclaims that she will be the first to make the move.

Listen: https://soundcloud.com/lauraeroymusic

Laura has been quietly working on her 7-song R&B/Electronic infused EP with GEO set for release Summer 2018.

Jessie J to Release Four-Part Album ‘R.O.S.E.’ Over Four Days; Unveils Video For ‘Queen’

By Singersroom

Posted on May 19, 2018

Jessie J is kicking off a new trend with the release of her upcoming fourth full-length album, R.O.S.E. The project will arrive in four parts over a period of four days. The schedule is as follows: R.O.S.E. (Realisations) out May 22, R.O.S.E (Obsessions) out May 23, R.O.S.E. ( Sex) out May 24, and R.O.S.E. (Empowerment) out May 25.

“Its crazy that its been 4 years since I released new music,” Jessie says about the upcoming release. “I have done so much growing in the last few years. You can hear it in the music, the songs on R.O.S.E. are simply me singing my diary in a melody. I am so grateful and happy that anyone who has been waiting for this record in full will finally have it.”

Accompanying the album announcement is a powerful music video for her inspirational single “Queen.” On the track, her delivery practically chills, stretching from vulnerable verses into a seismic refrain befitting of its crucial message. The empowering lyrics, “I love my body, I love my skin, I am a goddess, I am a queen,” come to life on-screen in the video.

Jessie’s message may come from an emotional and hurtful place, nonetheless, her delivery is soulful and hypnotizing.

“The song QUEEN is so much bigger than me,” she says. “The message it carries and the power the message has, has the potential to live on forever. I truly want as many women around the world to hear the song. To feel the lyric, to believe them, and to sing them OUT LOUD!! It was so important to me to have real women celebrated in the video. There is no better time than now to empower each other and lift each other up. I hope this video and song can help and remind any woman that she is beautiful and is a QUEEN. All women are QUEENS.”

The QUEEN video celebrates a series of all women from multicultural backgrounds, including Lizzie Velásquez star of the powerful documentary A Brave Heart: The Lizzie Velásquez Story and Fullscreen’s Unzipped. It’s Jessie J’s rawest and realest statement to date.

R.O.S.E. will also feature the previously released singles “Think About That” and “Not My Ex.”

In addition to working on the anticipated release, Jessie J also launched a sold out headline tour of intimate venues worldwide, and contributed “I Got You (I Feel Good)” to the Fifty Shades Freed Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. Most recently she had tremendous success in China, joining the TV show SINGER – a singing competition where she performed each week in front of a television audience of 250 million with a grand finale viewership of a 1 billion. Not only was Jessie J the first international artist to ever compete alongside the biggest artists in Asia, but also the first to ever win.

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/w...w8k0dW3Drk

R.O.S.E. TRACKLISTINGS:

R.O.S.E. (Realisations)
OH LORD (Interlude)
THINK ABOUT THAT
DOPAMINE
EASY ON ME

R.O.S.E. (Obsessions)
REAL DEAL
PETTY
NOT MY EX
FOUR LETTER WORD

R.O.S.E (Sex)
QUEEN
ONE NIGHT LOVER
DANGEROUS
PLAY

R.O.S.E (Empowerment)
GLORY
ROSE CHALLENGE (Interlude)
SOMEONE’S LADY
I BELIEVE IN LOVE

Free Sampler: https://noisetrade.com/fa...ic-negrito

Kiana Ledé Drops Stripped-Down Acoustic Video For ‘Fairplay’

BySingersroom

Posted on May 20, 2018

70s and 80s Hitmaker Reggie Lucas dies at age 65

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[Edited 5/21/18 7:16am]

LA-based songstress Elohim has released her debut self-titled album in the midst of a major North American tour with The Glitch Mob. Her stint with The Glitch Mob is slated to hit Bonnaroo, Electric Forest, Hard Summer and Life Is Beautiful festivals along with numerous major cities in the US and Canada.

Classically trained Elohim has been around since 2015 with debut singles "She Talks Too Much" and "Xanax," but is starting to make waves in a big way as Elohim was released directly through BMG. The budding star is a rarity in that she remixes many of her own tracks, and honors the trippy tradition of running visuals alongside her music. The album comes on the heels of hot release "Half Love," which was gifted a World Record spin by Zane Lowe on Beats 1 Radio.

Stream the full album below and buy tickets for Elohim's remaining shows with The Glitch Mob here.

Listen: https://soundcloud.com/elohimelohim

Tracklist:

01. why am i like this?
02. the wave
03. sleepy eyes
04. Skinny Legs
05. fym
06. hallucinating
07. the universe is yours
08. enemies
09. panic attacks ft. yoshi flower
10. silence is cool
11. half love
12. i want you
13. not your mama
14. water baby
15. insecure

Johnny Depp Hunts Notorious B.I.G.'s Killer in First 'City of Lies' Trailer

Actor portrays LAPD detective Russell Poole in film based on non-fiction book 'LAbyrinth' about rapper's 1997 murder

Johnny Depp portrays detective Russell Poole, one of the investigators into the murder of the Notorious B.I.G., in the trailer for 'City of Lies.'

By Daniel Kreps

20 hours ago

Johnny Depp portrays real-life LAPD detective Russell Poole, one of the lead investigators into the murder of Notorious B.I.G., in the first trailer for the upcoming film City of Lies. The film is the latest project to examine the Ready to Die rapper's drive-by shooting death, with the trailer arriving on what would have been Christopher Wallace's 46th birthday.

How Biggie's classic second album changed one Midwestern life – and how the politics of 2017 change the way we hear it now

"A murder like that only goes unsolved if the police don't want to solve it," Depp's Poole says of the alleged conspiracy that hindered the investigation into Wallace's death. Poole died from a heart attack in August 2015, with Depp cast as the detective the following year. Wallace's murder remains unsolved.

The film's synopsis says of City of Lies, "LAPD detective Russell Poole (Johnny Depp) has spent years trying to solve his biggest case, but after two decades, the investigation remains open. 'Jack' Jackson (Forest Whitaker), a reporter desperate to save his reputation and career, is determined to find out why. In search of the truth, the two team up and unravel a growing web of institutional corruption and lies. Relentless in their hunt, these two determined men threaten to uncover the conspiracy and crack the foundation of the L.A.P.D. and an entire city."

Biggie's Life After Death cut "You're Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You)" soundtracks the trailer. The film is based on Randall Sullivan's non-fiction book LAbyrinth: A Detective Investigates the Murders of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G., the Implication of Death Row Records' Suge Knight, and the Origins of the Los Angeles Police Scandal; the film was initially titled LAbyrinth until the name change to City of Lies.

City of Lies opens in theaters on September 7th. Following the 20th anniversary of Wallace's murder in 2017 – which followed the 20th anniversary of Tupac Shakur's death the preceding year – numerous television series and documentaries explored the rappers' tragic end, including Fox's Who Shot Biggie & Tupac? and USA's Unsolved .

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/w...09D5d77rsU

Mike Judge Taps George Clinton for 'Tales From the Tour Bus' Season Two

Parliament-Funkadelic leader will serve as consulting producer for funk-themed installment of animated Cinemax series

Mike Judge recruited George Clinton as consulting producer on the funk-themed second season of animated Cinemax series 'Tales From the Tour Bus.' MediaPunch/REX/Shutterstock; Invision/AP/REX/Shutterstock

By Ryan Reed

6 days ago

Mike Judge recruited Parliament-Funkadelic leader George Clinton as a consulting producer for the funk-themed second season of animated Cinemax series Tales From the Tour Bus. The Silicon Valley creator will collect road stories involving Clinton, James Brown and "Bootsy" Collins for the new installment, set to premiere later in 2018.

Inside Mike Judge's Animated Country-Music History Romp

Cinemax series offers wild stories about Waylon Jennings, Jerry Lee Lewis and others, as told by their bandmates and friends

The funk-heavy season follows a twangy debut installment from 2017, which chronicled the history of country music. The eight-episode batch utilized interviews with former bandmates, friends and associates to recount wild adventures involving Johnny Paycheck, Jerry Lee Lewis, George Jones and Tammy Wynette, Billy Joe Shaver, Waylon Jennings and Blaze Foley.

Judge, who rose to fame in the animation field as creator of both Beavis and Butt-Head and King of the Hill, narrates and executive produces the acclaimed series. Executive producers Glen Zipper and Sean Stuart will return for Season Two; filmmaker/music critic Nelson George will join as a consulting producer, with writer Mark Monroe as co-executive producer.

Last year, Judge detailed his creative headspace to Rolling Stone, noting that he approaches the show "less like a history lesson and trying to find the crazy, funny stories that haven't always been out there." He added, "A lot of country-music documentary stuff that's been on TNN and CMT has been very polite. But a lot of the stories I've heard are more gnarly than Mötley Crüe stories."

Bob Seger Schedules Postponed Runaway Train Tour Dates

Rocker returns to road in November following back injury

Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP/REX Shutterstock

By Daniel Kreps

23 hours ago

Eight months after Bob Seger postponed his Runaway Train Tour due to a vertebrae issue, the rocker rescheduled 10 dates from the trek.

Hear Bob Seger Talk About His Health Scare, New Album and Springsteen

After his 2017 tour was cut short by a back injury, he hopes to be back on the road this year. Hear him discuss in Rolling Stone Music Now podcast

Seger and the Silver Bullet Band will resume the tour on November 24th in Kansas City. The 13-date tour is currently scheduled to conclude February 23rd, 2019, but Seger will likely tack more dates onto the Runaway Train Tour. Tickets from the original shows will be honored at the make-up dates.

The Detroit News notes that Seger's representatives and promoters tried to make sure that the rescheduled tour dates coincided with the same day of the week as the original show; Saturday shows from the postponed 2017 tour will be made up on a Saturday in 2018, etc.

As Seger told Rolling Stone in January, the rocker suffered a ruptured disc prior to embark on the Runaway Train Tour and the symptoms ultimately spread to his legs. "My doctor said to me, 'Oh no, that's it, you're done with this tour. You're having surgery now," Seger said. "I'm feeling better all the time. They aren't letting me lift anything over five pounds. I can't do anything: no piano, no guitar, no nothing. But as soon as the pain stops, I'll be playing again."

Bob Seger Tour Dates

November 24 – Kansas City, MO @ Sprint Center
November 27 – Des Moines, IA @ Wells Fargo Arena
November 30 – St. Louis, MO @ Scottrade Arena
December 12 – St. Paul, MN @ Xcel Energy Arena
December 14 – Chicago, IL @ Allstate Arena
December 20 – Greenville, SC @ Bon Secours Wellness Arena
December 22 – Atlanta, GA @ Infinite Energy Arena
January 19, 2019 – Columbus, OH @ Nationwide Arena
January 29, 2019 – Billings, MT @ Rimrock Auto Arena
January 31, 2019 – Boise, ID @ Ford Center
February 15, 2019 – Phoenix, AZ @ Talking Stick Resort Arena
February 17, 2019 – Denver, CO @ Pepsi Center
February 23, 2019 – Inglewood, CA @ The Forum

The Monkees' Michael Nesmith, Micky Dolenz on Their Upcoming Duo Tour

The Mike and Micky Show will feature lots of hits and rare songs that even the most hardcore Monkees fans have never heard live

Michael Nesmith and Micky Dolenz discuss 'The Mike and Micky Show,' an all-new tour devoted to the music of the Monkees. Scott Dudelson/Getty

By Andy Greene

18 hours ago

From the earliest days of the Monkees, Micky Dolenz and Michael Nesmith had a special bond. Their harmony blend was a crucial part of the group's signature sound, and on the group's television show they shared impeccable comic timing and loved nothing more than to go off script and improv with one another. "We even had this odd idea about doing the Mike and Micky Show because we enjoyed playing together and singing together so much," says Nesmith. "We just never had the big money support for it because it was all about the Monkees, so we'd just set up on some of the set furniture and sing songs while the crew set up lights."

Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork tell the stories behind some of their most enduring tunes

It has taken over 50 years, but their dream of the Mike and Micky Show is finally coming true in June when the "The Monkees Present: The Mike and Micky Show" kicks off a month-long run of dates in Chandler, Arizona. It's going to be a very different show than anything any incarnation of the Monkees has ever presented since there won't be screens displaying vintage clips of the group and they're dipping deep into the catalog to resurrect songs that have never been played live. "It's been a lot of work because Nez is quite the perfectionist," says Dolenz. "But it's so exciting to hear these songs done in their original context and harmonies. It's so great to recapture all these moments."

Perhaps the most amazing thing about the tour is that Nesmith agreed to it in the first place. Less than two years ago, he retired "Monkee Mike" after an emotional farewell show at the Pantages Theater in Los Angeles. The group was in the middle of a huge 50th-anniversary tour, but Nez sat out nearly every date, leaving Dolenz and Peter Tork to carry the Monkee banner as a duo. But once those dates wrapped in December 2016, Tork told Dolenz that he wouldn't be available for any shows in the foreseeable future. "I realized if there was going to be any more Monkees music played live that Micky and I were going to have to do it," says Nesmith. "From the old Mike and Micky stuff I felt there may be some creative fun to be had here."

Rehearsals began at Nesmith's home in Carmel, California, a couple of months ago. At first, it was just the two of them and Nesmith's son Christian poring through the 12 Monkees studio albums, picking tunes they felt like singing and trying them out vocally without any band. "We did a version of [the 1967 Headquarters song] 'You Told Me,' the vocal part, that was really electrifying," says Nesmith. "I was like, 'Wow, this song does well under a little rock & roll power when you get away from the pop shampoo commercial stuff.'"

Special attention was paid to latter-day Monkees LPs The Birds, the Bees & the Monkees, Instant Replay and The Monkees Present. These came out after the peak of Monkee-mania and are packed with Nesmith originals he wrote while beginning to plant the seeds for his groundbreaking country rock group the First National Band. "One of the first songs we dusted off was 'St. Matthew' and 'Some of Shelly's Blues' [from the sessions for 1969's Instant Replay]," says Nesmith. "Mick asked if I wanted to sing 'Joanne' [a minor hit for the First National Band in 1970], but I felt it was way too much off into my own corner and not associated with the Monkees at all. But we are doing 'Different Drum' since that fell into the Monkee stew because Coco [Dolenz] started singing it in the live shows."

The show will also feature all of the band's biggest hits, including "Last Train to Clarksville," "I'm a Believer," "Daydream Believer," "Pleasant Valley Sunday" and "Stepping Stone." They call these the "can't cannot play" songs. "Those will always be about half to one third of any Monkees show," says Dolenz. "Nez likes some of the early Monkees hits more than others and I do too, but it goes without saying that we're doing all of them. I've learned over the years that once the audience knows they are getting those hits they will listen to just about anything else."

Once they had a working list of songs they wanted to do, Dolenz and Nesmith went into a rehearsal space with a band that includes Wayne Avers on guitar, Christian Nesmith on guitar and vocals, Alex Jules on keyboards, John Billings on bass, Rich Dart on drums, Coco Dolenz and Circe Link on background vocals, Pete Finney on pedal steel, and Paul Kramer on banjo, fiddle and guitar. The latter two will help them flesh out Nez's country rock tunes. "It's an astoundingly good band," says Nesmith. "This band and this iteration of the Monkees music is the best I've ever heard. It's the most fun to play, too."

They're going to rehearse all the way up to opening night on June 1st, and they have yet to settle on a final set list. "Good Clean Fun" from 1969's The Monkees Present is provisionally slated as the opening tune and "Me & Magdalena," "Circle Sky," "Porpoise Song" and "Birth of an Accidental Hipster" are near certainties. Dolenz is pushing very hard to get Nesmith to sign off on a version of the First National Band's "Grand Ennui" the ensemble has worked up. "I have been begging him to do that," says Dolenz. "Wait unit you hear it. It friggin' rocks!" Nez isn't quite convinced. "I told him it couldn't be any further from a Monkees thing, from subject matter to the way it's performed," he says. "When we started doing it, it jumped up to its full bright, sprightly self and we realized this would be a great song to sing. But so would, you know, the Beatles catalog and we have to stop at some point and say, 'This is a Monkees show.'"

One thing they aren't doing is any song originally performed by the late Davy Jones beyond "Daydream Believer." "Nobody can sing what David sang," says Nesmith. "He was so sweet and generous and the songs need this voice there when we play them. We made a decision to not do them."

Lingering over the whole tour is the absence of Peter Tork. The singer-guitarist successfully battled a rare form of oral cancer in 2009 and was an eager participant on every Monkees tour between 2011 and 2016, though he kept an extremely low profile in 2017. Earlier this year, he said he wasn't going to be involved in the tour because he was focused on his Lead Belly tribute LP Relax Your Mind. But the disc came out in January and he hasn't announced any tour plans behind it. "I've always had a certain distance from Peter," says Nesmith. "I don't really know what he's doing or what he's thinking."

Dolenz is slightly more willing to talk about the situation. "Last year when we talked about reconnecting he said, 'I'm not available,'" he says. "He told me a couple of years ago that he wanted to pursue his dream project, which is the Lead Belly album. He worked on it for a long time and he's going to tour with [his band] Shoe Suede Blues. My understanding was that Peter was just not available for this tour. That's his business and you'd have to ask him for more about it."

Tork's absence is a big reason Dolenz and Nesmith aren't touring as the Monkees, though when you ask them whether or not the band on the stage will be the Monkees you get a very long and philosophical answers about what the group was in the first place. "The Monkees is a television show," says Nesmith. "It was a group we played on television. Once it steps outside that show, people have to nourish it and make it something on their own. When you play the songs in your car or in headphones at your office it starts to integrate itself into your life like a real band. But that doesn't mean the television show is coming to life. You, however, might see it as a band. There's a real bifurcation in the way it exists in my mind. In some ways, it's a creative extension of the job I get called up to do every once in a while and really enjoy."

Dolenz looks at it from a bit of a different angle. "There's no short answer to this," he says. "It's like saying, 'What is Star Trek?' How many casts have been in Star Trek? But it's all Star Trek. You can't reduce these things in any scientific sense. We've never controlled the brand name and we have to pay [Rhino] every time we tour and use it, which we're happy to do."

Whatever you call the band, they have no plans beyond the end of the tour in Red Bank, New Jersey, on June 25th. Michael Nesmith already has a First National Band tour booked that will take him to the southern United States and up the East Coast in the fall. Dolenz is booking solo shows and is in talks with producers about returning to the stage on Broadway or the West End of London. But they both say they are very opening to resuming the Mike and Micky Show at some point in the future when their schedules permit. "You just don't say no to anything right now," says Nesmith. "Who knows what's going to happen?

Micky Dolenz, Mike Nesmith Tour Dates

June 1 - Chandler, AZ @ Chandler Center For The Arts
June 2 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Orpheum
June 3 - San Diego, CA @ Humphrey’s
June 5 - Anaheim, CA @ The Grove
June 6 - Saratoga, CA @ The Mountain Winery
June 8 - Stockton, CA @ Bob Hope Theatre
June 9 - Stateline, NV @ Harrah's Lake Tahoe
June 12 - Denver, CO @ Paramount
June 14 - Chicago, IL @ Copernicus Center
June 15 - Huber Heights, OH @ Rose Music Center
June 16 - Cleveland, OH @ Cain Park
June 18 - Toronto, ON @ Sony Center
June 19 - Kitchener, ON @ Centre In the Square
June 21 - Philadelphia, PA @ Keswick Theatre
June 22 - New York, NY @ Beacon Theatre
June 25 - Red Bank, NJ @ Count Basie Theatre

Congress Is Giving Musicians First Chance of Fair Pay in Decades

Why the Music Modernization Act matters

Link: https://www.rollingstone....es-w520301

Black Eyed Peas

[Edited 5/22/18 9:18am]

R&B/Soul artist Alina Baraz drops music video for her latest single, “Coming To My Senses.”

Sara Bareilles and Andrew Lloyd Webber Perform ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ Showstopper (Watch)

By Tara Bitran

Collaborating for a first-time-ever performance to celebrate their work on “Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert,” Grammy Award-nominated songstress and composer and star of Broadway’s “Waitress” Sara Bareilles sang showstopper ballad “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” accompanied by the show’s legendary composer and executive producer Andrew Lloyd Webber on the piano.

The musical theater veterans were on-hand Monday night at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood for an evening that consisted of a panel discussion and special musical performances in honor of NBC’s latest live TV musical success. The production, which aired on Easter Sunday, April 1, scored rave reviews not only for the performances of the three leads but also for the show’s ambitious staging, direction, choreography, cinematography, and camera work.

Monday night’s star-studded panel included Webber and Bareilles (who played Mary Magdalene) as well as stars John Legend (Jesus Christ himself) and Brandon Victor Dixon (a Wakanda-saluting Judas Iscariot), executive producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan, director David Leveaux, choreographer Camille A. Brown, production designer Jason Ardizzone-West, and music producer Harvey Mason, Jr.

The event was moderated by NBC’s “World of Dance” judge Derek Hough. Legend closed out the night with a performance of his current hit “A Good Night.”

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/w...gCQNE-QxCE

Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP

Florence Welch of Florence and The Machine performs live on stage at the Walt Disney Concert Hall on May 21, 2018 in Los Angeles.

Florence Welch & her band played four new songs off their upcoming fourth studio album.

At a pre-album release show in Los Angeles, Florence + The Machine previewed four new tracks off their latest album High as Hope, due out on June 29. At the intimate show at the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s iconic Walt Disney Concert Hall, the band played singles “Sky Full of Song” and “Hunger,” in addition to two previously unheard songs.

Lead singer Florence Welch utilized the entirety of the flower-covered stage to reach out to fans throughout the 2,200-capacity concert hall. Barefoot and extended to the tips of her toes, Welch began the show with “Between Two Lungs” from her debut album, Lungs. Welch encouraged the composed audience to get on their feet as she danced her way through “Queen of Peace” and “Only If for a Night” prior to introducing the new material.

On the cusp of singing second single “Hunger,” Welch described her mixed feelings about releasing such an emotional song.

“The fact that I didn’t want to put it into a song meant that it should go into a song. I had no idea what would happen and I was scared,” Welch told the audience.

She added: “There is something about songs that you can put something that seems unsayable and painful and through other people hearing it and not only listening but singing it with you, it turns into joy. I don’t know how that happens. You do that. You did that.”

Welch followed “Hunger” with the first single from High as Hope, “Sky Full of Song,” quieting the audience that was shouting ‘I love you’ throughout the hall.

As Welch sang of friends and family calling out for her outlandish behavior, the crowd remained subdued until the lines “In a city without seasons, it keeps raining in LA.”

The band played through breakout hit “Dog Days Are Over” and How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful track “Mother” before debuting new song “Patricia.”

“This is a song from the new album and it is about a woman who is very close to my heart. I don’t want to tell her about it in case she doesn’t like the song. So, nobody tell her,” Welch said before the song’s gliding harp intro.

The final new track of the night was “100 Years.”

“This is another new song I wrote. I wrote it two years ago in London and I’m English so it seemed to me maybe it was too earnest,” Welch said. “We’re a sarcastic people and it seemed somehow too earnest in its peace and love, but then it seemed like a time to be earnest. So I put it in a song.”

Florence + The Machine closed out the show with three songs from her previous album, including “Ship to Wreck,” “Delilah” and the foot-stomping “What Kind of Man.”

“Thank you so much to everyone who has been with us since Lungs,” Welch said. “It’s pretty much the same, I think. It’s just I’m less drunk and there is less glitter. I don’t know if that makes it worse. There’s the same amount of flowers all the way through. That has not changed. “

As the seven-piece band that features original keyboardist and fellow songwriter Isabella Summers remained surrounded by flowers arrangements sprouting from their instruments, Welch sprinted through the orchestra view seats and then the front orchestra to deliver the pivotal chorus of “Delilah” in the middle of a sea of outstretch arms.

New album High as Hope is out June 29 via Republic Records.

United Artists/PhotoFest

The Beatles in the 1968 film "Yellow Submarine," from animation director Robert Balser.

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/w...A6qOMUPmmA

Getty Images; Design by Jessica Xie

Will Smith & Nicky Jam

‘The King’ Trailer: Fear And Loathing On The Elvis Trail

by Patrick HipesMay 22, 2018 8:09am

Oscilloscope Laboratories

Oscilloscope Laboratories acquired Eugene Jarecki’s documentary The King ahead of its Sundance Film Festival debut this year, and now the film that takes a journey in Elvis Presley’s actual 1963 Rolls-Royce to take the pulse of America has a trailer. The pic, which discovers some hard truths, takes viewers on a road trip through the heartland (along with passengers including everyone from Alec Baldwin and Chuck D to Rosanne Cash, Van Jones, David Simon, Ethan Hawke and Emmylou Harris) opens June 22 in New York then the next week in Los Angeles ahead of a national rollout.

The logline for what becomes a cautionary tale: Forty years after the death of Elvis Presley, two-time Sundance Grand Jury winner Eugene Jarecki takes the King’s 1963 Rolls-Royce on a musical road trip across America. From Memphis to New York, Las Vegas, and beyond, the journey traces the rise and fall of Elvis as a metaphor for the country he left behind. In this groundbreaking film, Jarecki paints a visionary portrait of the state of the American dream and a penetrating look at how the hell we got here.

Jarecki (Why We Fight, The Trials of Henry Kissinger, Freakonomics, The House I Live In) wrote and directed the music-filled pic. It was produced by Christopher St. John and David Kuhn and executive produced by Steven Soderbergh, Barbara Biemann, Errol Morris and Cash.

Elvis Presley’s ’68 C...ion On NBC

Check out the trailer above and the poster here:

MOVIES

The King vs. the “Reality Star Fool”

The King, Eugene Jarecki’s latest documentary, compares the glorious ascendance and pitiful demise of Elvis Presley to the Trump era.

By AISHA HARRIS

JAN 26, 2018 4:36 PM

/AFP/Getty Images

At Cannes last year, Eugene Jarecki, the filmmaker behind the acclaimed 2006 documentary Why We Fight, unveiled an ambitious new project that had been years in the making. Originally titled Promised Land, the film follows Jarecki as he travels across the country in a 1963 Rolls Royce once owned by Elvis Presley, attempting to chronicle the rock star’s meteoric rise and devastating fall against the backdrop of the political and cultural tensions of the 2016 election.

The final version of the doc, now titled The King, was acquired by Oscilloscope earlier this month and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Thursday. In it, Jarecki begins his journey in Presley’s birthplace of Tupelo, Mississippi, before moving on to Memphis, where a young Elvis became immersed in the culturally rich blues traditions that would shape his musical aesthetic. Later, he traces his ascendance in the music and film industry through New York, Hollywood, and Las Vegas. Along the way, Jarecki meets and picks up a multitude of colorful talking heads, some famous (including Alec Baldwin and co-producer Ethan Hawke), some who knew Presley personally, others pleasantly conversational locals with a story to tell. They expound upon Presley’s complicated legacy and troubled personal life and discuss how the country’s obsession with capitalism and greed have successfully killed the myth of the American dream for the middle/working class and the poor.

The King is an entertaining watch, if a bit scattered at times when attempting to balance and connect Presley’s life and career with more recent political and cultural shifts that have led us to the election of Trump. But there’s no shortage of memorable quotes and introspective moments, especially in a sit-down interview with Public Enemy’s Chuck D, who expands upon his infamous “Fight the Power” lyric in pleasantly unexpected ways. Just ahead of its premiere at Sundance, Jarecki sat down with me to discuss his vision for the film, and further elaborate on how he views the country’s current state through the lens of Elvis. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Aisha Harris: Where did the idea of traveling across the country in Elvis’ Rolls Royce come from?

Eugene Jarecki: The thinking for this started in the 2013 timeframe. The preparing for it as a vision of America through the eyes of Elvis and in the metaphor of Elvis for America, that was where we began. Then, as we studied Elvis and started to learn everything about what was going on then and now, one of the things that came to our attention was that there had been a Rolls Royce that he had owned, and that car was available. It was something that a movie could take on a road trip. It didn’t take me long to imagine what it would be like to set out on an odyssey in Elvis’ Rolls across the country he left behind.

In a lot of ways the film started out with an idea: Who is more American than Elvis? And who better represents the hopes and dreams of the country than Elvis, and the era that one thinks of when he came into prominence? Yet, at the same time, that’s complicated, because that era was rife with its own complexities. We’re talking about postwar Jim Crow America. We’re talking about America in the 1950s confronting the complexities of her own birth and growth. Yet, there’s something very beautiful there in the birth of the country and the birth of Elvis. They both arrive on the scene and they hit like a meteor. The world is never the same for it. The film began with that idea at a time of great challenge in America. This was before Trump but the country was already the country that would end up with Trump, and that’s not a healthy country.

There’s one quote in particular that stuck out to me, and it’s from Ethan Hawke. He said something along the lines of, ‘Elvis took the money at every turn,’ every chance he got he went for the money instead of …

Something deeper.

Something deeper—and then where does that leave him? “Dead on the toilet at 42.” I got the sense that if not you, at least a lot of the people you interviewed felt as though the country has reached the bottom of the bottom, like we are done. Do you feel fatalistic in a way, when you look at where we are right now?

The whole thing is like Rocky. To be honest with you I saw Rocky when I was a boy and I think it scarred me for life because I do believe that one of the ironies of life is that the best shit happens when you’re very, very far down. It creates situations where over and over when I look at global conditions I’m the one person in the room who has some funny sense of possibility in the worst of times. I always have been that person, I don’t know why. It makes me feel a little strange sometimes because you want to look at a horrible situation and say that is a horrible situation period, there’s no silver lining here, but the truth is that when Elvis is at his best, it all crashes. America emerges victorious from World War II, and it has been a steady slope downward toward imperialism and all of its trespasses ever since. We get to the top of our game and we overplay our hand and we start encroaching, encroaching, encroaching, becoming the very empire that the [Constitution] Framers did not want us to be because they broke off from an empire. It’s classic.

Trump is the embodiment of everything that killed Elvis Presley.

One of the things we are suffering from the most is that American victory in the 20th century created a kind of comfort—and I’m not saying [this is true] for poor people, but—I’m saying the general thrust of those who governed this country is that their lives were made so comfortable that they didn’t have want. Because they didn’t have want they didn’t create policies that promote achievement and that promote growth. They create policies that in a very neoliberal way service us to have all the goodies and the color TV and the full-service pushbutton FedEx iPhone selfie lifestyle and that has made us noncompetitive in the world, it’s part of what is making us drift downward and it also creates a kind of cancer of the soul. Industry brings us pride, it brings us depth, it brings discovery.

It seems like you were trying to find this connection to Elvis through your travels—having gone into it with one idea, and then the ugliness of the 2016 election happens and having to switch gears. How did you decide that this wouldn’t just be about Elvis, but would also be a link to Trump?

When the film premiered at Cannes it was very different from now.

It was called Promised Land.

In the change of the title and in the change of the content of the film you see my process of learning how the election and specifically the ascent of Trump figured into the larger American story that I’m looking to tell. When I started out on the road trip I started out on the 2016 timeframe, so I knew that I was going to be driving across the country with the election and its aftermath drifting by outside the window of Elvis’ car. And I knew that that was going to be an interesting thing to look at because we knew that it was one of the most fractious, turbulent, soul-searching times in American history.

That Trump would win, and he won right before we brought the film to Cannes, actually threw a curve ball into the narrative, if I’m honest, because people said “I get what you’re doing, he even looks like him; Trump is the fat Elvis.” It dawned on me after the festival that that’s not true—Trump is the opposite of Elvis. Trump is the embodiment of everything that killed Elvis Presley, all of the greed, all of the misshaped priorities, all of the addiction and sloth and white male elitism and you can go on and on. Primarily he is an embodiment of the capitalism that destroyed Elvis Presley because Donald Trump is an embodiment of money as an ultimate priority over anything else.

But can’t you argue Elvis also did that himself?

I think you have to ask yourself where Elvis ends and where the forces acting upon Elvis begin. To be fair to Elvis and to be critical of Elvis you can do both. One can say Elvis was the first person who ever became this kind of super star and the Colonel Tom Parker, who managed Elvis, was an extremely shrewd business person who took a rather naïve country boy under his wing, took 50 percent as a management share so he did something that a cleverer person wouldn’t have let him do. He took 50 percent but he also won Elvis the world in many ways or at least half the world, OK. You can say a lot of that was done to Elvis and who among us has the power to push away the kind of fame and the kind of power that was made available to him? I think some of us have that ability and I think a lot of us would go a lot like Elvis and think, “I’m doing good for the world. Look at these fans. Read this fan mail. I must be doing good, everybody loves me.”

When we talk about Trump being the embodiment of everything that killed Elvis it doesn’t let Elvis off the hook. The best way to understand the American situation right now in my view is that the American people have suffered decades of abuse in which the rich have gotten richer, the poor get poorer, the middle class is evaporating, and the American people were desperate, like any abused person would be, for a change. And the American people said I’m so upset, I’m so frustrated with the status quo the next fool that walks in that door saying anything else, that’s the one I’m going to go with—and in walked this grotesque reality star fool saying just what you wanted because he’s a gifted con artist, so you went with him.

What is he? He’s American’s rebound guy, that’s what Donald Trump is, and we all know abused people, we encourage them to break out of the abusive relationship they’re in and what do we know, they always end up with another version of the same abuser, very often worse. Here we are. Now the question is when will America look at this condition and not just say ‘I’ve got to get rid of the rebound guy,’ which is a no-brainer. That’s only the start because if we’re not careful we’ll just replace him with the next one, the next billionaire. Billionaires don’t run democracies, that’s not how they work.

Now, it’s very clear to me, he’s the embodiment of all that I wish Elvis Presley had escaped from, and therefore his cautionary tale for the American public is that this concoction of power and money which we now see embodied brazenly in Donald Trump, ubiquitously in Donald Trump, is clearly not the direction for an enlightened, kind or sustainable country or planet.

'The King' premieres in the upcoming season in the TV program 'Independent Lens' on PBS. No date as of yet.

Broadway Hits Record $1.65 Billion Season Powered by Bruce Springsteen

6:15 AM PDT 5/23/2018 by David Rooney

Courtesy of Rob DeMartin

'Springsteen on Broadway'

That's a 14.4 percent jump from last year, though admissions remain almost flat and original properties are in short supply, with all four best musical Tony contenders adapted from movies.

When Sara Bareilles and Josh Groban step onto the Radio City Music Hall stage June 10 to present the Tony Awards, Broadway producers in the audience will be sitting pretty: With the 2017-18 season wrapping May 27, grosses already have hit a record high north of $1.65 billion, a sizable hike of 14.4 percent from last year.

That's the good news.

The cautionary note: Admissions are nearly flat, increasing by just 1.6 percent over the previous season, when attendance was pumped by peak Hamilton fever, SRO demand for Bette Midler in Hello, Dolly! and hot-ticket entries like Dear Evan Hansen.

The 2016-17 season generated $1.45 billion at the box office, with 13.27 million total admissions. Attendance for the current season is just under 13.48 million with one more week to go, meaning the majority of those new dollars are coming from premium tickets, not additional butts in seats. It's worth noting also that just 30 new productions were eligible for Tony Awards this year, the lowest number in more than a decade. That means that the pileup of hits is creating a logjam, with incoming shows vying for fewer available theaters.

Still, it's hard to find a downside in the numbers. As little as 10 years ago it was rare to see more than a handful of shows crack the $1 million mark on a standard nonholiday week; in the week ending May 20, 18 productions topped that threshold, with Hamilton surpassing $3 million and The Lion King exceeding $2 million. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child narrowly missed the latter mark due to the large number of comped Tony voters being accommodated.

That healthy cluster of powerhouse earners includes Broadway's newest MVP, Bruce Springsteen, whose concert memoir, Springsteen on Broadway, has grossed close to $61 million since its October opening, even with hiatus periods and short playing weeks, sometimes with as few as four performances. The show is now scheduled to run through Dec. 15 and is the top-grossing new production of the 2017-18 season.

Premium tickets also have pumped grosses for Mean Girls (with a book by Tina Fey, who wrote and starred in the film), Harry Potter and the starry revival of The Boys in the Band, which opens May 31 (outside Tony eligibility) and hit a promising $1 million in its first preview week. Even the critically maligned jukebox show Summer: The Donna Summer Musical is drawing crowds, pulling in more than $1 million a week.

If producers are concerned that audience growth isn't keeping pace with box office, few are complaining. But there's a genuine risk that Broadway is slowly being priced out of the range of all but high-income consumers.

The other concern arising from this season's Broadway landscape is the dearth of original material. In fact, the sole Tony contender for best new play that's still running is Harry Potter, a two-part theatrical experience met with rapturous reviews and heralded by a record haul of Olivier Awards from its London debut, yet nonetheless an extension of a globally popular brand.

The air of familiarity is even more pronounced among new musicals, with all four of this year's Tony nominees — The Band's Visit, Frozen, Mean Girls and SpongeBob SquarePants — adapted from film or TV properties, not for the first time. The category's frontrunner, The Band's Visit, has the edge in part because the delicately crafted show is based on a little-seen 2007 Israeli feature, not on a title already firmly embedded in the American pop-cultural consciousness.

Jukebox shows, whether biographical like Summer, or built around a Mamma Mia!-style patchwork narrative like Jimmy Buffett's Escape to Margaritaville, also contribute to the view that Broadway has become a deluxe recycling center. As shows get more expensive to mount, producers are less inclined to take risks on unknown titles.

On the positive flipside, a number of revivals have been among the outstanding productions of the past season. As long as theater-makers can yield bold reinventions of classic work like Angels in America, Three Tall Women, The Iceman Cometh, Carousel and My Fair Lady — all of which are performing well at the box office — claims about the demise of creativity will sound hollow.

Trends on Broadway invariably are cyclical, and next season already is shaping up to be a stronger one for original plays, with Jez Butterworth's The Ferryman, James Graham's Ink, Theresa Rebeck's Bernhardt/Hamlet and Oscar-winning Moonlight co-writer Tarell Alvin McCraney's Choir Boy all coming in.

Still, let's hope that alongside Pretty Woman, King Kong, Moulin Rouge! and The Cher Show, we also see some startling fresh explorations of the musical-theater form to bolster confidence in a new generation of storytellers sculpting from raw clay.

MAY 23, 2018 6:00am PT by Kimberly Nordyke

Scooby-Doo, Flintstones Kids Shows Land Series Orders at Boomerang

Boomerang, Turner's all-animation streaming service targeted at kids and families, is ramping up its original content offerings with two new series featuring some familiar characters.

The service said Wednesday that it has greenlighted Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?,featuring the Mystery Inc. gang teaming up with celebrities, and Yabba-Dabba Dinosaurs!, focusing on the kids from the Flintstones series, Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm.

Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? finds Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy and Scooby joining forces with celebrities and pop culture icons including NBA star Chris Paul, recording artists Halsey and Sia, Ricky Gervais, Kenan Thompson, Bill Nye, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Mark Hamill, Steve Urkel (with Jaleel White reprising his Family Matters role), Batman, Sherlock Holmes, The Flash and Wonder Woman to solve some of their toughest mysteries yet.

Yabba-Dabba Dinosaurs! follows Pebbles Flintstone and Bamm-Bamm Rubble, along with Dino, as they leave their quiet home of Bedrock to explore The Crags, a vast land that is as dangerous and wild as the dinosaurs that inhabit it. There in the wildnerness, they help new friends, fight new enemies and learn about life through their endless crazy adventures.

Both series hail from Warner Bros. Animation and will premiere next year. For Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?Chris Bailey (Kim Possible) serves as producer and Sam Register (Teen Titans Go!) as executive producer. For Yabba-Dabba Dinosaurs!, Mark Marek (MAD) and Marly Halpern-Graser (Right Now Kapow) serve as producer and Register (Teen Titans Go!) as executive producer.

In addition, Boomerang has renewed several original series, including Be Cool Scooby-Doo!, Bunnicula, Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, New Looney Tunes, The Tom and Jerry Show and Wacky Races.

Boomerang also has acquired Wind in the Willows, an animated adaptation of the classic novel from U.K. distributor HoHo Rights. The show will make its U.S. premiere next year.

The service also said it is launching a "full Spanish-language experience" over Memorial Day weekend, along with new product features like the ability to create avatars and playlists and Universal Search on Roku, Amazon and Apple platforms.

Boomerang was originally launched in the U.S. in 2000 as a TV network; last year, Turner and Warner Bros. partnered to also launch Boomerang as a stand-alone domestic premium video subscription service offering a library of more than 5,000 Hanna-Barbera, Looney Tunes and MGM animation library titles, along with original series, on a streaming platform.

Boomerang said its users now have access to more than 2,000 titles for streaming or download-to-go instantly. It also will be available via Android TV starting Memorial Day weekend, with additional platforms to come by year's end.

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[Edited 5/23/18 9:59am]

Betty Davis Was a Raw Funk Pioneer. Her Decades of Silence Are Over.

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The trailblazing funk singer, bandleader and producer Betty Davis dropped out of public for decades. A new documentary, “Betty: They Say I’m Different,” tells her story.CreditRobert Brenner

Why participate in a documentary now? “I figured it would be better to have them cover me when I was alive than when I was dead,” Ms. Davis said.CreditRobert Brenner

But her music was not forgotten. In the 2000s, persistent longtime fans convinced her to allow reissues of her recordings on the dedicated archival label Light in the Attic. It has released all three of her 1970s albums, as well as her Columbia sessions from the 1960s and her last ’70s sessions with Funk House.

Belatedly, she has been acknowledged as an influence and inspiration for generations of musicians, from Prince and Rick James to Erykah Badu and Janelle Monáe. Yet even with her music restored and her story being told, Ms. Davis has ruled out performing again. “With age, your looks change,” said Ms. Davis, who prefers not to disturb her fans’ image of her. “I want to leave them with what they had,” she said.

Last year, Light In The Attic released Betty Davis: The Unheard Columbia Years 1968–1969, compiled from remastered original analogue recordings of previously unheard Miles and Betty Davis sessions.

Unreleased Demo of Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’ w/Nile Rodgers

MUSIC

Getty

THIS UNRELEASED DEMO OF ‘LET’S DANCE’ MIGHT BE MORE TIMELESS THAN THE ALBUM VERSION; HEAR THE RECENTLY RELEASED TRACK WITH NILE RODGERS.

by Matt Miller | Esquire

When David Bowie first played an early version of “Let’s Dance” for Nile Rodgers in 1982, the Chic guitarist was not impressed. “I come from dance music,” Rodgers told Bowie at the time. “You can’t call that thing you just played ‘Let’s Dance.'”

So Rodgers tinkered with the structure and the chords and turned the song into one of Bowie’s biggest hits. They recorded the whole album in 17 days—start to finish with mastering—and Rodgers later called it, “the easiest record I’ve ever made in my whole life.”

Somewhere in those 17 days, Bowie and Rodgers recorded a demo version of “Let’s Dance,” which has never been properly released until today. It’s a stripped-down take on the song, missing many of the effects, synths, backing vocals, and horns. It’s just guitar, drums, bass, and Bowie.

What’s interesting is that this stripped down version takes away much of that ’80s edge of the original, making this demo feel even more timeless. It also highlights Bowie and Rodgers’s songwriting ability, focusing on the song’s beautiful structure and chord progression. Along with that, it’s easier to hear the dynamics of Bowie’s vocal performance, with some of the incredible bends and and notes he hits. In fact, this version seems even more like an intimate love song than one for a dance party. But that’s David Bowie for you—the ever-changing chameleon. Even almost two years after his death, he’s still full of surprises.

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/w...YCHRXpCz8c

Buddy Guy Proves Blues 'Is Alive and Well' With New Song 'Nine Below Zero'

Blues legend shares Sonny Boy Williamson cover as first single from new album

Buddy Guy unveiled his searing Sonny Boy Williamson cover "Nine Below Zero," the first preview off the blues legend's 'The Blues Is Alive and Well.'

By Daniel Kreps

22 hours ago

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/w...ZSt3sFk8FA

Buddy Guy has unveiled his searing, six-minute-long rendition of "Nine Below Zero," the first preview off the blues legend's upcoming album The Blues Is Alive and Well .

Find out who our panel of top guitarists and other experts picked

"Ain't this a pity? / People you know it's a damn crying shame / Well you know it's nine below zero / And this woman put me down for another man," Guy bellows on the slow-burning track originally penned by Sonny Boy Williamson. "Well I give her all my money / All my love and everything."

However, the highlight of the track is the masterful, minute-long guitar solo that Guy, one of Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Guitarists, doles out in the middle of "Nine Below Zero."

Guy's The Blues Is Alive and Well, his first album since 2015's Born to Play Guitar, arrives June 15th. The album features guest appearances by Mick Jagger ("You Did the Crime"), Keith Richards and Jeff Beck ("Cognac") and James Bay ("Blue No More").

The Americana Music Association also announced Wednesday that Guy would be the recipient of their Lifetime Achievement Award. Guy will receive the honor at a September 12th ceremony at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium.

"Buddy Guy's incomparable musical craftsmanship has been lovingly shared with us over the years," AMA executive director Jed Hilly said in a statement. "As a community [that] reveres and honors groundbreaking artists and their work, we are humbled to present Buddy with this Lifetime Achievement honor in recognition and thanks for his musical and artistic contribution."

Guy recently appeared on David Letterman's My Next Guest Needs No Introduction to discuss Chicago blues. "We all was from the South, and we came in [because] the Chess Brothers recorded here, and that's when they started calling us 'Chicago,'" he told Letterman. "But if you really want to be honest about it, you should call it the 'Southern blues.'"

Maggie Rogers – “Fallingwater”

Gil Green | May 23, 2018 - 7:11 pm

Maggie Rogers just released her soft new single “Fallingwater” produced by collaborator Rostam Batmanglij (formerly of Vampire Weekend).

The track starts off with a pulsing backbeat that fits right in with the electronic-pop of her debut EP Now That The Light Is Fading and last year’s single “Split Stones.” It tumbles and whooshes, but the electronica eventually melts into the background, consumed by Rogers’ gentle, folksy voice and a piano.

On this song, Rogers’ nature references are in full force, and her singer-songwriter foundation comes out in lyrics like: “Now I’m in a creek/ And it’s getting harder/ I’m like falling water.” Listen below.

https://www.youtube.com/w...1AS0AiyzlE

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https://www.youtube.com/w...qPtIkxSxI0

In typical Rogers fashion — aka a handwritten note shared on Twitter — she speaks of the song’s vulnerability and duality. It acts as both a cry for help and a battle cry in the face of her rapid transition into fame. Read it below.

Maggie Rogers✔@maggierogers

Fallingwater.
12a gmt. 7p est. 4p pst.

11:38 AM - May 23, 2018

• 887
• 150 people are talking about this

CREDIT: Olivia Bee

“Fallingwater” is out now.

Pete Yorn And Scarlett Johansson - Apart

Tracklist:
01 – Iguana Bird
02 – Bad Dreams
03 – Movies
04 – Cigarillo
05 – Tomorrow (Remix)

Premature Evaluation: Chvrches Love Is Dead

Chris DeVille @chrisdeville | May 22, 2018 - 2:24 pm

Sometimes a band emerges just in time to encapsulate a moment in music. Consider this incomplete history of post-Y2K indie rock trends: You want to sum up the early aughts garage rock revival? Cue up the Strokes’ Is This It. The post-punk revival that unfolded soon after? Interpol’s Turn On The Bright Lightsfunctions as a sacred tome. The dance-punk movement that took hold next? The Rapture’s Echoes is your jam. These acts did not lack for successful peers, but they owned their overlapping epochs to the extent that they’ve aged into historical shorthand, totems by which to remember those eras.

Such bands loom large over their micro-genres, but they often struggle to move beyond them. When you arrive fully formed, captivating listeners and inspiring imitators with your well-defined aesthetic, messing with that formula is tricky business. The conflict between repetition and evolution is not unique to these era-defining acts, but in such circumstances it’s amplified to the point of distortion. The impulse to explore is tempered by a stronger-than-normal demand to keep doing what you’re doing, to continue signifying a moment that has proven profitable and listeners have loaded up with sentimental resonance — maybe even to extend that moment, acting as a bastion against the cruel passage of time.

On the other hand, no band wants to be imprisoned in the past, so even the ones who opt for if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it sophomore LPs (think Room On Fire) usually venture into unknown territory (think First Impressions Of Earth) when they sense the context around them changing. These attempted metamorphoses can be messy; if ruling one environment is difficult, adapting to new ones is near impossible. Yet what’s the alternative? Stagnation? Lightning doesn’t strike twice, and it when it does strike it’s over before you realize what’s happened.

Which brings us to Chvrches, the scene-defining avatar for indie rock’s 2010s dalliance with synth-pop. They made their entry into the mass consciousness in 2013, embodying a cultural shift from rock groups toying with synth-pop aesthetics (Passion Pit, Phoenix, MGMT) toward outright synth-pop acts with a rock band’s sensibility and marketing plan. These kinds of projects seemed impossible to escape half a decade ago, but in hindsight, Chvrches stand out. When asked to name a synth-y indie band, they are likely the first one that comes to mind. Even Purity Ring, their closest competition as standard-bearers for the indie-goes-synth-pop sound — the White Stripes to their Strokes, if you will — sounded more than a little like Chvrches on their most recent LP, 2015’s Another Eternity. They weren’t the only ones.

It’s easy to see why other groups would be attracted to Chvrches’ approach. On 2013’s The Bones Of What You Believe, the Glasgow trio mustered all the anthem-writing skill they’d accumulated in their years with various depressive Scottish guitar bands and turned it loose on keyboards and drum machines. The result was soaring, sparkling pop music, tinted by melancholy but bright and approachable in execution. Lauren Mayberry’s voice beamed across the sleek digital backdrops like light reflecting on polished metal. She confidently and capably sold stories of romantic tumult, colored by humor and vulnerability but vague enough to write them into your own personal drama. So: pop music, rendered artfully and with just enough personality to make an impression. It sounded spectacular, and it won them a devoted fan base that happened to include a lot of festival curators and alternative radio programmers.

Two years later, when Chvrches returned with Every Open Eye, that sound remained spectacular, and it still played well in the marketplace, even as the idea of pop music emerging from the indie-rock sphere was starting to seem quaint. Every Open Eye was a retrenchment record, one of those sequels that hits all the most beloved beats from the original, but harder. Those releases run the risk of redundancy, but in this case it worked. The production was increasingly dynamic, sometimes violent in its physicality. Mayberry was ever more melodious and commanding, deeply human but with a near-superhuman ability to convey emotional power. The tracklist included fewer obvious standouts but also less filler. They didn’t just avoid the sophomore slump, they triumphantly leapt over it. They could keep releasing albums that sounded exactly like that forever as long as they kept the songwriting sharp.

Instead, they’ve delivered an album that maintains the sparkle but can’t seem to find the spark. Chvrches are touting Love Is Dead, out this Friday, as their lean into the full-fledged pop sound they’ve always carefully skirted by keeping all their production in-house. Having nailed their Room On Fire maneuver, they’ve opted for the First Impressions Of Earth approach on LP3, tweaking their insular creative process in search of fresh inspiration. For the Strokes, that meant hiring industry veteran David Kahne in place of longtime producer Gordon Raphael. For Chvrches, it means working with mainstream super-producer Greg Kurstin, the guy who produced Adele’s “Hello,” on eight of 12 tracks and Steve Mac, the guy who produced Ed Sheeran’s “Shape Of You,” on another. They also turned to the Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart as a mentor figure and welcomed the National’s Matt Berninger as a duet partner.

A bio by Lizzy Goodman — incidentally, best known for writing a book centered on the Strokes — portrays the band as “true blue Glaswegian punks” cautiously edging up toward the big, bad mainstream machine in pursuit of making the ubiquitous “wind-in-your-hair” radio hits they’ve always craved. Simultaneously, the album supposedly indulges what Martin Doherty calls the band’s “artistic and introspective and angry” side: “We’ve broadened the appeal, but there are moments that are more difficult than anything we’ve ever done.” Despite pushing in opposite directions, Love Is Dead is allegedly more coherent because Mayberry wrote her lyrics with the rest of the band in the room. Goodman quotes Martin Doherty on the band’s trepidation about welcoming outsiders into the fold: “We knew that if you get led down the wrong path it can completely derail your career.” It’s supposed to indicate that Chvrches avoided such a fate; after hearing the album, it reads more like an epitaph.

Love Is Dead is not a faceplant, but it’s definitely a stumble. Maybe you figured that out after hearing lead single “Get Out,” a perfectly competent Chvrches song that not-so-subtly rewrites The Bones Of What You Believe opener “The Mother We Share,” or seeing the atrocious cover art, which approximates a Trapper Keeper purchased at Hot Topic. Maybe you gave up at “My Enemy,” the Berninger duet, a dark synth-pop ballad that awkwardly marries the National’s depressive simmer to the neon Chvrches template. Maybe subsequent singles “Never Say Die” and “Miracle” tipped you off, both of them strong tunes smothered by post-EDM throbs seemingly borrowed from OneRepublic or X Ambassadors, saddling their show-stopping hooks with overwrought artifice. Maybe, against a mounting pile of evidence suggesting the band’s attempts to penetrate a wider audience have dulled its impact, you’re still holding out hope.

That would put you in parallel with Mayberry, who here joins many of her peers in attempting to parse the disastrous state of the world in search of evidence for optimism. In conjunction with pursuing a broader sound, she aimed for a broader lyrical approach, expanding beyond personal romantic entanglements toward reflections on the end of empathy and the resilience necessary to imagine a better future. The vagueness that has always made her lyrics such a cipher extends to these more globally minded numbers, but that’s not always a problem. The uptempo flicker “Graves” works well as a catchall rallying cry against complacency: “You can look away while they’re dancing on our graves/ But I will stop at nothing now.” The percolating “Heaven/Hell” offers further power-to-the-people sloganeering: “Have you reached the point of no return? We can raise our glasses, dancing on the ashes as it burns.” These aren’t solutions, but they function well enough as fight songs for #TheResistance.

Other times, Mayberry proves too simplistic. Repeating the phrase “Never, never, never, ever, never, ever, ever say die” ad nauseam proves more irritating than inspiring, while “Miracle” and “Wonderland” rely on platitudes like “We’re looking for angels in the darkest of skies” and “Can’t live forever with my head in the clouds.” The Depeche Mode-inspired “Deliverance” fares better, applying some trademark Mayberry moonbeam melodies to basic but relevant critiques of religious hypocrisy: “Is it deliverance if you can never change? Is it deliverance if you hurt me in exchange?” She’s back in her interpersonal comfort zone on “Forever,” expressing regret for burned bridges against some of the most rock-oriented production on the album. And she explores a different sort of remorse on opener “Graffiti,” a practically apocalyptic look back on wasted youth, lamenting, “Time to kill was always an illusion,” before sighing, “I’ve been waiting for my whole life to grow old/ And now we never will, never will.”

Mayberry’s words, melodies, and winsome presence serve the songs as well as they ever have, and many of the ones they’ve withheld until release day are of a higher quality than the advance singles. “Forever” goes full Flashdance and pulls it off. “Graffiti” rips off old Chvrches songs better than “Get Out” does, pivoting skyward at the chorus with dramatic flair. “Deliverance” thrives in that luminescent E*MO*TION zone, and deep cuts “Graves,” “Heaven/Hell,” and “Wonderland” add new wrinkles to their sound. But Love Is Dead is plagued by turgid lows the likes of which we haven’t seen on previous Chvrches albums. The minimal ballad “Really Gone” is rudderless filler. The requisite Doherty lead vocal, “God’s Plan,” will make you wish you were listening to Drake even if you hate Drake. Those EDM-inflected rock songs are a double bummer because you can hear the excellent Chvrches songs struggling to break through the studio sludge.

The rap about Love Is Dead presenting the truest, most coherent version of Chvrches rings hollow. This is the first time they’ve seemed confused about who they are and what they’re doing. If it feels unfair to criticize a band long heralded as a beacon of indie-rock poptimism for taking a logical next step toward pop radio airplay, please understand the distinction between pop geared for maximum sonic pleasure versus pop geared for maximum profit and exposure. No one needs the latter from this band. There are already enough careerists out there hawking a slightly shittier version of Chvrches in search of a big break. SoundCloud remains saturated with that stuff even after the wave seems to have crested and the critical zeitgeist has largely shifted back toward guitar music.

Which raises the question: Is Love Is Dead actually worse than the previous Chvrches albums, or has the band merely fallen out of fashion? Many of the acts that become emblematic of their scene lose some of their luster in hindsight, once the buzz wears off, but when I revisited those first two LPs this past week they’d surrendered none of their vibrance. The same cannot be said for Chvrches themselves. With Love Is Dead, they’ve reminded us once again how difficult it can be to transcend your moment.

Love Is Dead is out 5/25 on Glassnote.

Free download: https://noisetrade.com/beauandluci/fire-dancer

“Flower children with rock ’n roll souls,” Beau + Luci, sisters from the swamplands of Southern Georgia, enchant audiences with hypnotizing harmonies and bluesy melodies. Growing up in Waycross, Georgia, just a few miles from the Okefenokee Swamp, their music combines the mystery and folklore of “the land of the trembling earth” and endearing small town southern charm with their own blend of bluesy Americana rock. Heavily influenced by the Allman Brothers, Fleetwood Mac, Emmylou Harris, and Johnny Cash, with their undeniable approach to storytelling steeped in ageless spirituals, blues, and classic rock, Beau + Luci captivate souls from all walks of life. At the young ages of 19 and 22, raised listening to generations of diverse, legendary artists, these two sisters have cultivated their artistic skills from a vibrant and rich Georgia music culture.

Tracks:

• 1
  Fire Dancer
• 2
  Like A Drum
• 3
  Black Boots
• 4
  Rattle The Bones
• 5
  Among The Stars
• 6
  Muddy Water
• 7
  Deeper Well

Suwannee Hulaween festival reveals full lineup featuring Jamiroquai, ODESZA, Janelle Monáe, Tipper, The Revivalists, STS9, REZZ, Tory Lanez, Gramatik, Dr. Dog, TroyBoi and more

14 hours ago by David Sikorski

Yes, it is absolutely time you start planning a dope trip for Halloween this year. One of the best musical offerings for the ghoulish holiday weekend of October 26 can be found in Live Oak, Florida at Suwannee Hulaween. This 2-day festival experience brings together a fully immersive experience like no other. Through a unique blend of passionate music curation this festival offers fans limitless possibilities for adventure – rejuvenating yoga classes, speaker workshops, art-installations, visual live performances and more. No wonder this beloved festival has amassed a devote following known as "HulaFam." This year's lineup will feature performances by acts like The String Cheese Incident, Jamiroquai, ODESZA, Janelle Monáe, Tipper, The Revivalists, Fisher, STS9, REZZ, Tory Lanez, Gramatik, NGHTMRE, Action Bronson, Snakehips, Bleep Bloop and more. Check out the full lineup below:

Christina Aguilera - Fall In Line (Official Video) ft. Demi Lovato

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/w...Q2j5ApzSqs