Tour Postponed, Tower Date Doubtful Amy Winehouse confessed to her mother-in-law that she is heroin addict. The troubled singer — who was rushed to hospital last week after allegedly overdosing on a cocktail of ecstasy, cocaine, ketamine and alcohol — poured her heart out to Blake Fielder-Civil’s mother Georgette during a family crisis meeting called by Amy’s father Mitch at Hampshire’s Four Season Hotel last Friday (10.08.07). Hair salon boss Georgette, 42, told Britain’s Daily Mirror newspaper: “We can’t force them to give up drugs, it has to come from them, but we can encourage them to get help. “I […]
Max Roach & MLK: I Have A Dream
ASSOCIATED PRESS: NEW YORK — By his 30th birthday, Max Roach was already considered the greatest jazz drummer ever by his peers. By the time he died this week, the 83-year-old master percussionist was known worldwide as much more: innovator, activist, teacher, genius. Roach, whose rhythmic innovations and improvisations defined bebop jazz during a career marked by expectations defied and musical boundaries ignored, died late Wednesday in a Manhattan hospital after a long illness. No additional details were available, said Cem Kurosman, spokesman for Blue Note Records, where Roach played on seminal recordings with Thelonius Monk, Duke Ellington and Miles […]
30 YEARS GONE: You Are Always On My Mind
BY REAGAN GAVIN RASQUINHA/TIMES OF INDIA — Elvis Aaron Presley certainly isn’t going to be lonesome tonight. The hound dog whose famous baritone has been immortalised in vinyl, film and disc will be remembered by legions of his fans who couldn’t help falling in love with The Voice. Today, it’s 30 years since the King passed on, claimed by his love for excess. But that kindly light that shone throughout his unbelievable career still shines on. BT asked some of the city’s diehard Elvis fans about how they remember their hero on this day… Who can forget Elvis’s initial charm […]
THE EARLY WORD: A Phish Called Wanda?
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iLENNON: Working Class Hero
CUPERTINO, California — August 14, 2007 — Apple today announced the debut of the John Lennon solo catalog on the iTunes Store (www.itunes.com). Sixteen of Lennon’s solo works from EMI Music are available for the first time on iTunes starting today, with the “Lennon Legend” and “Acoustic” collections making their worldwide digital debuts. For a limited period of 30 days, exclusive video content will be included with the albums “John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band,” “Sometime in New York City,” “Walls and Bridges,” “Milk and Honey” and the collections “Anthology” and “Working Class Hero.” “John would have loved the fact that his music […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
BARELY LEGAL: Tokyo Police Club, Johnny Brenda’s, Thursday Night BY AMY Z. QUINN I was almost starting to feel bad for Tokyo Police Club. Here they were, headlining the very-important Thursday night bill at Johnny Brenda’s. Yet in the space of 12 hours, the opening band on the bill, Vampire Weekend, had not only sucked up all the critical buzz, but had the Philly indie/blog scene’s musical tastemaker riding the express bus to Crushville. Vampireweekend. And we don’t know what else to say: It’s love. We spent a whole afternoon earlier this week scouring the web for as many of […]
HOT DOCUMENT: Arcade Fire Fall Tour Dates
Arcade Fire has confirmed and announced all dates for their fall US tour, which will be the last American shows in support of their second album Neon Bible. LCD Soundsystem will support on all dates, including a special evening at Randall’s Island in New York, to which additional support acts are still being added. September 15 – Austin TX – Austin City Limits festival September 17 – Morrison CO – Red Rocks September 20 – Los Angeles CA – Hollywood Bowl September 21 – Mountain View CA – Shoreline Amphitheatre September 24 – Seattle WA – Bank Of America Arena […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
WHAT’S NEW, PUSSYCAT: Tom Jones, Resorts, Atlantic City, Last Night [SLIDE SHOW] BY JONATHAN VALANIA Last night, I took my mom to see Tom Jones in Atlantic City for her 67th birthday — cue up an image of a horned-up blue-haired old lady, and then multiply it by a thousand and you start to get an idea of that scene Sunday night at Resorts’ Superstar Theater. Can’t honestly say that mom turned me onto a LOT of music when I was a kid, but two faves — The Mamas & The Papas and Tom Jones — inhabit a special place […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
NO SLEEP ‘TIL BROOKLYN: Beastie Boys, Festival Pier, Last Night [SLIDE SHOW] BY JONATHAN VALANIA So as promised, here’s a rough transcript of the Q&A at the Beasties press conference. The assembled press included Dan DeLuca from the Inquirer, Christian Hoard from Rolling Stone, some dude and dudette from Wonkavision, and dude from Gloucester County Times. (Note: We all sat around waiting about an hour for a.d. amorosi to show up — and when he finally did, he sat down for two minutes, checked his cell phone messages and then he left before the press conference even started! Now that […]
THE BREAKDOWN: Let Us Praise The Common Man
BY M. EMANUEL It’s been a wet-firecracker of a summer for hip-hop. Gone are the days when summer was the season to expect a heavy rotation of full-lengths from your favorite MCs — things have changed. Record sales are in the toilet, digital downloads are either destroying or saving the industry (depends on who you ask and what day you ask them) and cautious record labels are releasing albums at a snail’s pace, and only after they are assured that there is enough radio-friendly material to justify the six-figure palm-greasing required to make them hits. In the midst of this […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
BLUES EXPLOSION: White Stripes, The Grand Opera House, Wilmington, Friday BY JONATHAN VALANIA Mississippi said to Michigan: What did Delaware? If you ask this question – a variation on the old school bus singalong “Delaware” — to a sold out crowd at the Grand Opera House in Wilmington, Delaware, and pause dramatically and then answer your own question with “Alaska!” and (this part can’t be underestimated) your name is Jack White — well, people go positively apeshit. As Hello Clevelands go, it’s pure Jack: old-timey, slightly bawdy, just this side of corny, and, in the right hands, showbiz gold, Jerry. […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
WAGON TRAIN: Porter Wagoner, opening for the White Stripes, Madison Square Garden, Last Night BY AMY Z. QUINN For the life of me, I couldn’t remember the name of the dude with the Siegfried & Roy hair playing playing twang-tastic guitar behind Porter Wagoner. I got to my seat just after they came on, as he was singing Wagoner to the stage: “The Wagonmaster’s comin’, the Wagonmaster’s comin’ . . .” and, tragically bereft of an Internet-ready device with which to google, the solution finally came to me. Time to call Mom. She’s a country fan from way back when […]
We Know It’s Only Rock N’ Roll But We Like It
THE WIZARD OF MOZZ: Morrissey, The Mann, Last Night BY A.D. AMOROSI FOR THE INQUIRER As Brit-pop’s patron saint of things smartly smarmy, sexually obsessive and shyly sensitive, Morrissey — regarded as divine since he fronted the Smiths from 1982 to 1987 — has become more iconic with each solo effort. It’s odd, then, that an idol so untouchable has grown more willing than ever to engage his feverish fans. Take his show on Monday at the Mann Center. With a graying, spiky pompadour and a thicker middle than in his waifish youth, Morrissey, 48, may appear more pope than […]