By Andy Greene / Rolling Stone
The Dropkick Murphys were already done recording their new album Going Out In Style when they gathered up the courage to ask Bruce Springsteen if he’d be willing to contribute guest vocals to one track. “We were on tour in Australia when we finally got the nerve and we sent him an e-mail,” says Ken Casey, frontman for the Boston-based band. “You’d think having to deal with Bruce Springsteen would be this complicated thing. But it was just like ‘want to do it?’ and he was like ’sure!’ It was as easy as that.” [...]
Continued at rollingstone.com
By Drew Tewksbury / LA Weekly
Former (is it former?) Public Enemy hypeman and current human cartoon Flavor Flav is opening a fried chicken restaurant in a tiny Iowa town with a population of 26,000. The very notion of Flav’s golden grill chomping into some crispy eats thereby generating billions of fried chicken shards that rain down upon his oversized neck clock has gotten the blogs a-buzzin. But Flav’s not the only musician–or whatever he is–who got bitten by the entrepreneurial bug. Here’s the Top Ten Musician-Owned-and-Operated Restaurants (alright Musician-Branded is more like it) for your viewing pleasure. [...]
Continued at LAWeekly.com
By James Zahn / Kik Axe Music
Celtic punkers DROPKICK MURPHYS have announced a March 1, 2011 release date for their seventh full-length studio album entitled GOING OUT IN STYLE. The record will be released through their own BORN & BRED RECORDS (ILG), and was produced by Ted Hutt. The album also features a guest appearance by “The Boss” himself, with BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN providing vocals in their rousing rendition of “Peg O’ My Heart.” [...]
Continued at kickaxemusic.com
From BBC News
Former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr has been offered a “serious” book deal to write his autobiography.
The guitarist, who is now with The Cribs, broke the news to fans on his Twitter page. [...]
Continued at BBC News
By David Sillito / BBC News
A growing number of music-lovers unhappy about the way album tracks are enjoyed in a pick-and-mix fashion have decided to take action.
The rules are strict. No talking. No texting. You must listen to every song on the album.
Classic Album Sundays treat our best-loved records like great symphonies and are being set up in London, Scotland and Wales.
Groups of music fans sit in front of a vinyl turntable, with the best speakers they can afford, dim the lights and listen to a classic album all the way through.
This monthly club in north London is run by Colleen Murphy and for her it is a strike against “‘download culture”, the sense that music has just become an endless compilation of random songs used as background noise. [...]
Continued at BBC News
By Peter Hodgson / gibson.com
That title may incite some pretty strong opinions, but the fact is that there are some covers that build on the legacy of the original track to such a degree that you can hardly imagine the song performed any other way. Naturally, a great cover can’t exist without a great song, but here are 10 covers that were so powerful in direction, popularity or just plain originality that they made listeners forget momentarily they were covers.
10. “Stayin’ Alive” – Dweezil Zappa
Disco lovers may still fight to the death for “Stayin’ Alive,” but Dweezil Zappa’s all-star remake on his album Confessions (1991) is sure to come out on top as far as guitar geeks are concerned. Check out that guest list: Zakk Wylde, Steve Lukather, Ratt’s Warren DeMartini, Extreme’s Nuno Bettencourt and Tim Pierce. And the vocals are performed by – wait for it – Donny Osmond (although a version exists with Ozzy Osbourne at the mic, too). [...]
Continued at gibson.com
Friend of Almighty, Bob Bell recently posted a cool list of places and things mentioned on Fountains Of Wayne Songs.
Just a few: Christopher Walken, Metallica, The King Of Queens, Kentucky, Playboy, Highway 101…
Check out Bob’s complete list and leave comments at Ranker.com
By Brad Brevet (Rope Of Silicon)
In a live Times Talk with Trent Reznor, the musician confirms he will again be working with director David Fincher and score his upcoming The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo remake, currently set for a December 21 release later this year. Reznor mentioned he and Atticus Ross had been working on the Dragon Tattoo score for the past two months.
Reznor scored Fincher’s The Social Network with Ross and is currently looking at a potential Oscar nomination (if not a win) as a result of the much loved, electronically infused score. [...]
Continued at Rope Of Silicon
By Ed Christman / Billboard
While there was plenty of dispiriting news in Nielsen SoundScan’s year-end numbers for 2010, there were a couple of bright spots: For one, rap music made a big comeback last year, driven by the top-selling album of the year, Eminem’s “Recovery,” and the non-traditional store sector became the No. 1 retail channel. [...]
Continued at billboard.biz
By Melinda Newman
Well, this should sound interesting. TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek has linked up with Jane’s Addiction to play bass and write tunes for the forthcoming Jane’s album.
He joins singer Perry Farrell, guitarist Dave Navarro and drummer Stephen Perkins in the band. Also signed on is producer Rich Costey, who’s worked with Muse, Franz Ferdinand and Interpol. Founding bassist Eric Avery, who has come and gone before, left the band last year. Duff McKagan joined briefly, but only lasted six months and left in September. [...]
Continued at HitFix
