rock news

Kurt Cobain About A Son DVD Release Set
(PR) Timed to coincide with Kurt Cobain's 41st birth anniversary, KURT COBAIN ABOUT A SON is an intimate and moving portrait of the late musician and artist Kurt Cobain as told entirely in his own words. The film, which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2006, was nominated for a 2007 Independent Spirit Award, was screened at numerous top international film festivals around the world, and will be released on DVD from Shout! Factory on February 19, 2008, the day before Cobain's birthday. The DVD also contains a behind-the-scenes featurette and has a suggested retail price of $19.99.

Not since the late 1960s and early 1970s has there been a musical artist who so completely spoke for an entire generation. After the breakup of the Beatles and the tragic deaths of Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin, there were few music icons left of their magnitude – until the meteoric success of Nirvana and their breakthrough Nevermind. Following Kurt Cobain's suicide three years later, Kurt became the icon for Generation X and remains so for today's youth as

well.

Directed by AJ Schnack, KURT COBAIN ABOUT A SON is based on more than 25 hours of previously unheard audio interviews conducted with Cobain by noted music journalist Michael Azerrad for his book Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana. KURT COBAIN ABOUT A SON is a profound, almost dream-like account of Cobain's own successes and failures, thoughts and experiences, allowing the audience to gain unprecedented intimacy with this legendary figure.

For this unique film, director AJ Schnack assembled selections from the Azerrad interviews and merged them with newly filmed, evocative imagery of the three cities in Washington state that played a major role in Cobain's life: Aberdeen, Olympia and Seattle. These expressionistic images, combined with a haunting original score by Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard and Nirvana producer Steve Fisk, as well as the music of 20 artists who influenced or touched Cobain during his life - including Queen, the Melvins, David Bowie and Scratch Acid -- come together to create an extraordinary look at a man who went from impoverished indie rocker to world-f

amous tabloid figure in less than a year.

In the film, Kurt Cobain recounts his own life – from his childhood and adolescence to his days of musical discovery and later dealings with explosive fame – and offers often piercing insights into his life, music, and times. The conversations featured in the film have never before been made public and reveal a highly personal portrait of an artist much discussed but not particularly well understood.

New Kids

Return as Old Men: Just The Reunion We Don't Need

(Idolator) People is reporting that Donnie Wahlberg, Joey McIntyre, Jordan Knight, Jon Knight, and Danny Wood
will announce a big old New Kids On The Block comeback within the next few weeks,
despite all five members having aged far out of the "kid" demographic years ago.

(The oldest member, Jon Knight, is now 40! And working as a real estate developer!
Wonder if the market's recent trials have contributed to his newfound willingness
to return to performing.)
The reunion coincides with the 20th anniversary of Hangin' Tough,
which went eight-times platinum and sold 20 million copies worldwide.
[that is just scary]

Kravitz Leak

(antiMusic) Lenny Kravitz: It I s Time For A Love Revolution has been leaked online.

The retro rocker gets the love revolution underway with an album packed with funked up rock and soulful soulful howls. Listen to the disc before it hits stores next Tuesday.

Vh1 has posted the entire album for streaming via "The Leak."

Rock news

New Sex Pistols Songs?

Contact Music reports: The SEX PISTOLS are set to record their first new material in 30 years after being spurred on by the success of their recent reunion tour.

The legendary rockers got back on stage for a series of live dates last year (07) and the positive reaction from fans has convinced them to start work new tracks. The group hope to start recording in the first half of 2008 so that the new songs will be ready for their appearance at the Isle of Wight Festival in June (08).

Drummer Paul Cook says, We might not pull together an album but hopefully there will be some new stuff in time for the summer

Lost Beatles Recordings To Be Released
CMJ reports: Fifteen previously unreleased Beatles tracks recorded live in 1962 have been acquired by Fuego Entertainment, a production company which plans to release them in conjunction with the Echo Vista Group.

The new tracks mark the first time the classic Beatles lineup was captured live on tape, shortly after Ringo Starr replaced Pete Best as the band's drummer.

The recording was made during the Beatles' first appearance at the Star Club in Hamburg, Germany in front of about 20 to 30 people and includes songs "A Taste of Honey," "Hippy Hippy Shake" and Paul McCartney singing Hank Williams' "Lovesick Blues."


Grammy Boycott Contact Music reports: JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE, BEYONCE, 50 CENT and JON BON JOVI are considering boycotting this year's Grammy Awards ceremony in support of the Hollywood writer's strikes.

The annual ceremony is under threat of cancellation after celebrities from the music industry pledged their allegiance to the Writers Guild of America (WGA) union members.

Prince, Alicia Keys, Fantasia, Nelly Furtado, Tim MCGraw, Kelly Clarkson, The White Stripes, Fergie and Usher are also threatening to boycott the event, scheduled to take place in Los Angeles on 10

Movie's Rock

BACK BEAT (1994)

A pre-fame Beatles head for the seedy clubs of Hamburg in search of success. The band meet up with a group of trendy German beatniks, one of whom (Astrid Kircherr) bass guitarist Stuart Sutcliffe falls in love with. Whilst best friend John Lennon can only watch, Sutcliffe has to choose between rock 'n roll and a new life in Germany... Written by Douglas Baptie

John Lennon and the rest of his new rock-and-roll group - Paul McCartney, Pete Best, George Harrison and Stuart Sutcliffe - travel to Hamburg to try their luck. Word soon gets out and they become increasingly popular, especially with the girls. But Stuart still thinks he is a better painter than bass guitarist, and he has fallen seriously in love with a German girl. He and the rest of the group have to make some decisions. Written by Jeremy Perkins {jwp@aber.ac.uk}

Backbeat is a 1994 movie that chronicles the early days of The Beatles in Hamburg, Germany. The movie focuses primarily on the relationship between Stuart Sutcliffe (played by Stephen Dorff) and John Lennon (played by Ian Hart), and also with Sutcliffe's German girlfriend Astrid Kirchherr (played by Sheryl Lee).

The movie is generally more accurate, both about Sutcliffe's life and the early Beatles history, than the 1979 TV movie Birth of the Beatles, which covers mostly the same period. It also has a darker, more detailed storyline, and The Beatles history as such, is background to the main story.

The film is based on the book The Real Life Story Behind Backbeat - Stuart Sutcliffe: The Lost Beatle by Alan Clayson and Pauline Sutcliffe (ISBN 0330335804, 1994).

Paul McCartney, however, was not impressed with the movie, stating: "One of my annoyances about the film Backbeat is that they've actually taken my rock 'n' rollness off me. They give John the song "Long Tall Sally" to sing and he never sang it in his life. But now it's set in cement. It's like the Buddy Holly and Glenn Miller stories. The Buddy Holly Story does not even mention Norman Petty, and The Glenn Miller Story is a sugarcoated version of his life. Now Backbeat has done the same thing to the story of The Beatles."

The soundtrack to the movie features no Beatles songs, but the cover tunes they used to play in Hamburg, written and recorded by other artists.

Rather than re-create the period sounds, iconoclastic, rebellious musicians were recruited (as a producer noted, The Beatles' pre-recording stage act was "the punk of its day".) This was done to better convey the way the music came across to the audience, at the time. The musicians were all members of well-known American rock bands:

• Dave Pirner (Soul Asylum): vocals
• Greg Dulli (The Afghan Whigs): vocals
• Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth): guitar
• Don Fleming (Gumball): guitar
• Mike Mills (R.E.M.): bass guitar
• Dave Grohl (Nirvana/Foo Fighters): drums

Ian Hart also played Lennon in the film, The Hours and Times.^[1]

Gary Bakewell later reprised his role as Paul McCartney in the television film The Linda McCartney Story.

Scot Williams played Pete Best again in the television movie In His Life: The John Lennon Story.

Additionally, the film's distributor, PolyGram Filmed Entertainment, was then under common ownership with the label which owned the rights to release and distribute the Beatles' music from the Hamburg days, Polydor Record

rock news

Aerosmith Sells Out
(Contact Music) AEROSMITH frontman STEVEN TYLER is cashing in on the band's back catalogue, by selling the rights to a music marketing company.

Tyler has written and co-written 160 songs, including Love in an Elevator and Dude Looks Like a Lady, worth an estimated $50 million (GBP25 million). According to the New York Post, the rocker has formed a partnership with Primary Wave Publishing, which was formed by former Arista and Virgin Records boss Larry Mestel.

Primary Wave also own a stake in the Beatles songs written by John Lennon and the back catalogues of Kurt Cobain, Daryl Hall and John Oates

Hanson The Walk Tour Video

(PR) This summer, HANSON and TOMS Shoes announced a partnership to help end AIDS and poverty in Africa. HANSON is committed to helping those stricken with HIV / AIDS, and TOMS donates a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair purchased. Together, these two organizations hope to make a bigger difference and reach more people than if they stood alone.

On HANSON's Fall 2007 "The Walk Tour", the band worked to raise awareness of TOMS' mission, by staging a 1 mile walk in every city and inviting TOMS to sell their shoes at every show. HANSON helped TOMS reach their goal of donating 50,000 pairs of shoes to children in need, as well as helping TOMS reach a new audience.

But this was only the beginning. In November, HANSON accompanied TOMS Shoes founder Blake Mycoskie to South Africa to assist in "dropping" those 50,000 new pairs of shoes. Isaac, Taylor and Zac personally outfitted many South African children and revisited the country and people they have been working towards helping through their "Great Divide" single and merchandise, as well as several other projects they are involved in. The next shoe drop is scheduled for July, and this Spring HANSON will again be helping TOMS reach their goal.


Eminem Hospitalized
(Gigwise) Eminem was rushed into hospital in Detroit over the Christmas break and was treated for a 'serious heart condition' and 'severe pneumonia', a report claims.

The controversial rapper's weight is believed to have ballooned to 200lbs (14 and a half stones) in recent months, which has not helped his condition.

TMZ claims that Em – real name Marshall Mathers – has since been discharged from hospital and is now at home recuperating.

Movie's Rock

Singles (1992)

Romantic comedy about six of Seattle's young people, most of whom live in the same apartment building and whose lives revolve around the city's ever-expanding music scene. The inter-related stories about each character's progress through the singles scene are intriguing and often very funny, and the soundtrack is a grunge fanatic's dream, with the likes of Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Mudhoney

a movie review by: Jerry Saravia

Rating: 4 stars

Of Cameron Crowe's few films in his career as director, I count "Singles" as my absolute favorite, a sincere, hilarious, slightly satirical take on twentysomethings in Seattle, the land of good Starbucks coffee and endlessly rainy days.

We have Bridget Fonda as a cafe waitress with architectural ambitions who has a lunkheaded musician boyfriend (Matt Dillon) - he does not pay her as much mind as he should. They both live in a singles apartment complex, though not in the same apartment. The other tenants include Campbell Scott as the inventor of a new transportation system and Sheila Kelley as a desperate, shrill-voiced woman who seeks a date through a video service that specifically outlines her traits and sexual specialties (Tim Burton shows up here as a director who insists on designing her next video).

The delight in "Singles" is that the screenplay allows room for the characters to breathe and roam free based on their desires and emotions. Crowe has not written a plot to bring his characters together - he mostly devises ironic title cards like chapter stops for a series of events in his characters' lives. There is no dumb, recycled plot here, as in the similar but inconsequential "The Night We Never Met," to bring the film momentum. Sometimes there are breaks in time and space and other times, his characters speak right into the camera. It can be a disorienting device but Crowe uses it expertly to draw us closer to these people. My favorite moment was hearing Scott's story about his mother's advice to stay single when he was eight, and how he once mispronounced sperm as spam when he was a kid.

The funniest, truest moments are supplied by Bridget Fonda (a terrific comedienne), who can't figure out why her boyfriend won't pay attention to her and why her breasts are too small for him - Fonda has the spark and wit that was crucially missing from her performance in "Bodies, Rest and Motion." I enjoyed a scene where she flirts with the possibility of calling her boyfriend who has not called her when he should have. She decides that throwing a piece of paper in her trash can mean calling him or not calling him (and then she forgets what it initially meant).

Exceptionally winning are Matt Dillon as the rock singer who devises funny, disorganized lyrics on Fonda's answering machine; Campbell Scott as the straight, serious-minded guy who doesn't call his girlfriend a whole week after their first date to be different; and Kyra Sedgwick as the most sympathetic character (an environmentalist) who compliments Scott on his honesty - "You always say the perfect thing."

"Singles" is a wild, boisterous, smart, refreshingly simple and supremely entertaining take on the day-to-day basis in which twenty-year-olds live on their fears, their hopes, their agendas, their worries. Along with a great soundtrack with music by Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Smashing Pumpkins, this has got to be one of the best of the Generation X pictures of the 90's.

American Gangster
Director: Ridley Scott

Starring: Russell Crowe, Denzel Washington, Josh Brolin, Common , Ted Levine

Official website: http://www.americangangster.net

In Ridley Scott's masterfully crafted new movie, Denzel Washington, playing real-life Harlem drug kingpin Frank Lucas, is so deeply embalmed in dignity that he leaves Russell Crowe, as the detective determined to bring Lucas down, to provide most of the picture's pure crime-flick enjoyment.

When we first see him, in 1968, Lucas is a driver for Harlem mob boss Bumpy Johnson (Clarence Williams). After Johnson dies of heart attack in an appliance store, where he'd been railing about U.S. retailers buying direct from overseas suppliers and cutting out hard-working American middlemen, Lucas decides to introduce that practice into the drug trade. He flies off to Vietnam, sets up direct connections with Asian suppliers, and begins smuggling huge quantities of pure heroin back to the States concealed in the returning coffins of dead GIs. The New York Mafia, which has run the drug-distribution business up till now, isn't pleased.

Meanwhile, New Jersey detective Richie Roberts (Crowe) — a straight arrow so honest he's drawn the displeasure of all the many crooked cops on the scene — is recruited to head up a new Federal anti-drug task force. When he spots a packet of Lucas' product — "Blue Magic," twice as pure as other varieties of heroin on the street, and half the price — he sets out to find its source. The chase is on.

Lucas, with his reverence for family and his penchant for sudden, bloody violence, could be a character out of the Godfather movies. (American Gangster in fact lifts a couple of sequences from those films virtually intact, including a wrap-up played off against a church service.) We see him bringing his five previously upstanding brothers to New York and slotting them into his dope business (after impressing them by shooting a rival in the head on a busy street in broad daylight), and we wonder, if he loves them all so much, how he could indoctrinate them into such depravity. We see the ravaged addicts on whom his business relies and flourishes, too. But we're also asked to admire Lucas as an innovative businessman with an unbending code of honor. This notion is as bogus here as it's been in many other post-Godfather crime sagas (and in the Godfather movies themselves). Lucas may wear sleek tailored suits (he deplores the Superfly look, telling one gaudily-attired player, "That's a costume with a big sign on it, says 'Arrest me'"), and he may preside over big, warm family dinners, but the man's a scumbag — no matter how hard the movie tries to sell its ambivalence as a point of view.

Denzel Washington is a hugely charismatic star, but here he's straitjacketed by his character's inscrutable conception, even after he's paired with the sympathetic Puerto Rican beauty queen (Lymari Nadal) who becomes his wife. This leaves Russell Crowe, an equally formidable actor, to effectively run off with the story. We can see Crowe thinking, and feel the inner turmoil that's wrecked his own family life, and we're drawn in by his rich, magnetic baritone. Even for Crowe, however, the picture's conflicted setup is tough going, and he can't push it as far as it would require to qualify as a gangster classic.

The movie was gorgeously shot by Harris Savides (Zodiac), and director Scott has captured the urban landscape in which the story is set with a sweeping authenticity, panning down from the pounding El trains into the teeming streets below. If nothing else, American Gangster exposes Brian De Palma's Scarface — the most wildly popular drug saga among gangster wannabes — as the crude cartoon that it is. Scott's film is a more intelligent production — it's not as witlessly bloody as Scarface, and it's not burdened with Pacino-style ranting. But it also lacks that picture's unabashed pulp wallop (it could've used a little more of Josh Brolin as Roberts' vile, bad-cop nemesis); and in the end we wonder what we're supposed to be taking away from this morally opaque and ungainly story. Not a lot, unfortunately.


-- Kurt Loder (MTV.com)

07s Best Sellers Revealed

.(antiMusic) Nielsen Music has released their end of the year report and there are some interesting finds. Despite the labels crying about falling sales, overall music sales increased 14% in 2007, though total album sales fell 15%

Josh Groban was the biggest selling solo artist, with sales greater than 4.8 million albums and the Eagles were the biggest selling group in 2007 with sales of 3.6 million. The good news was also on the digital front. Digital album sales increased 53% to 50 million units sold. Digital track sales increased 45% with 844.2 units sold.

Though all genres showed a drop in sales, Rap and R&B continue their decline. Rap sales dropped a staggering 30% and R&B fell 18.3%. What the labels trying to pass off as rock dropped 12.5%. It's the older releases via digital that helped fuel the industry in 07. Catalog sales jumped 64% (22.9 mill) and "deep" Catalog sales increased 63% (16.0) with "current" digital sales only increasing 46% (27.1). A lesson can be learned there.

Here some facts released with the report followed by the Top 10 Albums of 2007: Music purchases in 2007 reached 1.4 Billion, the third consecutive year music sales have exceeded 1 billion; 1.2 billion (2006) vs. 1 billion (2005) . Music sales exceeded 58.4 million in the final week of 2007, representing the biggest sales week in the history of Nielsen SoundScan. The previous record was Christmas week 2006 with 47.4 million music purchases. Overall Album sales (including Albums and Track Equivalent Album sales) declined 9.5% compared to 2006. Total album sales declined 15% compared to 2006. Consistent with the previous three years, 20% of total album sales occurred during the Holiday Season (last 6 weeks of year).

More than 840 million digital tracks were purchased during 2007; an increase of 45% over 2006. Digital album sales reached the 50 million for 2007; up 53% over the previous year and accounted for 10% of total album sales compared to 5.5% in 2006.

In the final reporting week of 2007 the following sales records were broken: Digital track sales surpassed 42.9 million. The previous sales record was 30.1 million, week of 12/24 -12/31/06.

Digital album sales this week fell just shy of the two million mark with sales of 1,920,000 sales; breaking the previous record of 1.2 million (12/31/06) .

Flo Rida's track "Low feat. T-Pain" set the mark for the biggest selling week for an individual Digital Track, with sales of 467,000 (previous record was Rihanna's "Umbrella at 276,000 sales). Note that Chris Brown's "Kiss Kiss" track sold 277,000 downloads which also broke the previous record held by Rihanna.

The first time a digital song (combining all versions of the same song) sold more than 300,000 downloads in a week. Flo Rida's song "Low feat. T-Pain" is the new record holder for biggest selling week for a Digital Song with sales of 467,000 this week. Fergie's "Fergalicious" held the previous record with sales of 295,000. Timbaland's digital song "Apologize" also broke the previous record with sales of 319,000 this week.

In 2007, there were 9 different digital songs with sales that exceeded 2 million compared to one in 2006 ("Bad Day" by Daniel Powter - 2,015,000).

41 Digital Songs exceeded the 1 million sales mark for the year compared to 22 digital songs in 2006 and only 2 digital songs in 2005.

Fergie was the biggest selling digital artist in 2007 with 7.5 million track sales.

There were more than 390,000 different physical albums that sold at least one copy over the Internet during 2007.

Physical Internet album sales reached a new record high with sales of of 30.1 million unit sales; an increase of 2% over 2006 year-end total (29.1).

2007 TOP TEN SELLING ALBUMS
1 Noel / Josh Groban 3,699,000
2 Soundtrack / High School Musical 2 2,957,000
3 Long Road Out of Eden / Eagles 2,608,000
4 As I Am / Alicia Keys 2,543,000
5 Daughtry / Daughtry 2,497,000
6 Soundtrack/ Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley 2,489,000
7 Minutes To Midnight / Linkin Park 2,099,000
8 Dutchess / Fergie 2,064,000
9 Taylor Swift / Taylor Swift 1,951,000
10. Graduation / Kanye West 1,892,000

rock news 2008

Grohl Joins Zeppelin as Band Book US Fest?
Gigwise reports: Dave Grohl is reportedly waiting on a very important phone call, an invitation to go drum on the rumoured Led Zeppelin reunion tour.

Apparently the Foo Fighters man is desperate to take control of the skins for anymore shows the band might play despite the fact that he praised Jason Bonham's performance at the O2 Arena show.

According to one of those people that seem to know everything – the insider – Grohl was also in the running to take Bonham's role at the London gig.

Metal Underground has this report Mirror.co.uk can exclusively reveal that LED ZEPPELIN - who staged a triumphant "one-off" gig at the O2 this month - will be the headline act at the Bonnaroo festival in the US next year. The festival runs from June 12 to 15 in Tennessee - and if all goes smoothly they may even hit the road and tour.

An insider told us: "This is the news that will drive their fans absolutely wild. They have been bombarding their website to get back together for good but only Robert Plant wasn't keen to commit. Now he's had a change of heart and if it goes well they are also talking about touring

McCartney and Ozzy Duet
Gigwise reports: Sir Paul McCartney is set to team up with a strange choice of singing partner the 2008 Brit Awards – he's to duet with Ozzy Osbourne.

The former Beatle is to receive the Outstanding Contribution To Music award, and plans are being finalised for him to give the show a fitting conclusion by performing Bond theme classic 'Live And Let Die' with the ex-Black Sabbath frontman.

Why Macca needs someone to duet with on the song, and why that someone would be Ozzy, is beyond us – but, perhaps unsurprisingly, it's all Sharon Osbourne's idea.



Doherty Accused of Song Theft
Gigwise reports: Pete Doherty has been accused of a double dose of plagiarism over Babyshambles' song 'Baddie's Boogie'.

Wayne Kenyon, a former friend of Babyshambles guitarist Mik Whitnall, claims the tune is the same one he wrote in the nineties whilst in The Ferrymen.

He tells The Sun. "Baddie's Boogie is a tune that I wrote for The Ferrymen. "I have footage of me playing it at three gigs in Germany in 1997