That’s just music

In the following September the London’s Proud Camden art gallery is planning to open a photo exhibition that will be dedicated to those musicians who died at the age of twenty seven. Most of them were previously included in the infamous Forever 27 Club, wrote The Guardian. The art gallery wishes to expose sixty photographs of five personalities who made a significant influence on rock music. All of them have passed away at twenty seven.

Visitors will see one of the best photo collections of Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain. Originally, Forever 27 Club included only Hendrix, Morrison and Joplin who died one after another in ten months (1970–1971). Later this list was added with The Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones, who had drowned in 1969, and Nirvana’s frontman Kurt Cobain who had committed suicide in 1994.

In the popular culture it’s widely considered that twenty seven is a critical age for artistic personalities, and now some researchers are trying to back this theory by the certain facts.

AC/DC is going to make the world tour, said Billboard linking this information to the Creative Artists Agency, which is specializing in concert arrangements. A tour shall begin in October and may last for the following year and a half. Venues and schedules are not confirmed yet, but it should become available soon.

The world tour is dedicated to the AC/DC’s first album in eight years.  The release of this disc, which is staying without the name so far is planned on October. It’s possible that the album’s title should be announced in August with the release of a new single. Previously it was rumoured that the album will be called “Strap It On”, but the band had denied everything. It was recorded in Vancouver with the help of their new producer Mike Fraser.

The new Franz Ferdinand’s album shall be more “wild and oriented toward disko”, than any of their previous albums, said the band’s leader Alex Capranos in his interview to BBC. They’ve almost finished working with it in their Glasgow studio, but the release which is without the name yet, will most likely be out in the beginning of 2009.

Franz Ferdinand had already announced a few new songs that should be incorporated into the upcoming album during their recent concert performances. However, Capranos had promised their fans more surprises on the following release.

While recording this album, Capranos was also producing other music projects. Those may include the third album made by The Cribs “Men’s Needs, Women’s Needs, Whatever”. He said that in the future, he would like to spend more time doing this.

The last album made by Franz Ferdinand “You Could Have It So Much Better” was released in 2005.

Pink Floyd’s guitarist David Gilmour is releasing the new album, “Live in Gdansk”, said New Musical Express.  A disk will become the first concert record in his solo career. It shall be produced by Columbia Records on September 16.

This album was recorded during Gilmour’s performance in the Polish city of Gdansk on August 26, 2006 dedicated to the 26^th anniversary of the Solidarity movement. During that concert he was playing songs from his solo album “On an Island”, and of course legendary Pink Floyd’s stuff: “Breathe”, “Time”, “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”, “High Hopes”, “Echoes”, “Wish You Were Here,” and “Comfortably Numb”. Rick Wright (keyboards), who is another Pink Floyd’s member, plus Polish Baltic Orchestra directed by Zbigniew Preisner also took their part in this show.

The album “Live in Gdansk” will be produced in various forms: regular double-disk format, DVD, and as special edition that should include other concert records from “On an Island” tour.

Metallica had announced their upcoming album’s cover and the full track list, said Rolling Stone. It should include ten songs, and the best part is that one of them is the continuation of their classic, “The Unforgiven III” –probably the biggest hit made by Metallica in the 90’s. The first “Unforgiven” came out in 1991 (Black Album), and the second one in 1997 as part of “Reload”.

The release of “Death Magnetic”, Metallica’s ninth studio album is planned on September 2008. This time the band had hired a new producer – Rick Rubin, instead of almost legendary Bob Rock.

The full track list goes as follows:

Death Magnetic

“That Was Just Your Life”
“The End Of The Line”
“Broken, Beat & Scarred”
“The Day That Never Comes”
“All Nightmare Long”
“Cyanide”
“The Unforgiven III”
“The Judas Kiss”
“Suicide & Redemption”
“My Apocalypse”

A Los Angeles firm London & Co, which is specializing in giving assistance for running business and accounting issues had brought an action against Kurt Cobain’s widow Cortney Love, said Associated Press.

Following the given information, Cortney Love has received the exclusive rights on her husband’s intellectual property after his suicide in 1994. At the same time she made an oral agreement with London & Co to give them five percents of her total income. Possibly, they were helping her on various things dealing with her dead husband’s heritage.

As this firm’s representatives say, in 2006 Cobain’s widow has sold some parts of the Nirvana’s album catalogue for 19,5 million dollars, but forgot about those five percents she has promised to pay. Therefore, right now London & Co wants to sue Cortney for 975 thousand dollars.  

In the following November Ozzy Osbourne is going to receive an honourable prize – “Classic Rock n’ Roll Of Honour” in the nomination called “living legend”, says BBC. This exclusive information was given by the last year’s winner Alice Cooper.  “Seriously, it’s a great honour and I’m looking forward to going to my first Classic Rock Awards in November. Can’t wait to see you there,” said Ozzy, also adding that, “I couldn’t be happier to know that Classic Rock haven’t written me off!”

The other nominees appointed by the “Classic Rock” magazine shall be announced right during this honourable ceremony, which should take place in London on November 3. “An event of the year” category now belongs to Led Zeppeling (thanks to their reunion concert in London), Def Leppard and Whitesnake (recently they’ve made a joint tour), “Hard Rock Hell” music festival, the Iron Maiden’s world tour, and Kiss’s performance at the “Download” music festival.

“The album of the year” nominees are Def Leppard, Whitesnake, Black Crowes, Alice Cooper, Big Linda and Stone Gods, and some other participants. “A group of the year” will include Def Leppard, Whitesnake, Led Zeppelin, Kiss and Foo Fighters.

The whole list of the Mercury Prize nominees was announced in London on Tuesday (July 22), says New Musical Express.  Radiohead together with their album “In Rainbows” is considered to be the favourite out of twelve musicians who were nominated. In many ways this is due to the band’s recent innovative activity in selling of the mentioned above album. It was going for any price which fans were ready to pay.

Besides that, good chances for winning go to Robert Plant and Alison Krauss with their joint work “Raising Sand”. Other Mercury Prize nominees include Alex Turner’s and Miles Kane’s side project The Last Shadow Puppets with the album “The Age Of The Understatement”, anonymous electro DJ who’s hiding under the name Burial (“Untrue”) and a new work made by Elbow – “The Seldom Seen Kid”.

Mercury Music Prize was established in 1992 as an alternative to the Brit Awards. Twenty thousand pounds are given to the best album author that was recorded in Britain or Ireland. Traditionally, a jury gives more attention to those artists who didn’t have a large commercial success. Primal Scream, Pulp, Portishead, Suede, Antony and the Johnsons, Arctic Monkeys and Klaxons were winning this prize during the past years.

A 2008 year winner shall be announced in London on September 4.

Vocalist from the legendary punk-rock band Sex Pistols Johnny Rotten (real name is John Lydon), and his security were accused in attacks and racist exclamations against the Bloc Party’s leader Kele Okereke. As writes The Guardian, this incident took place during the last weekend on Summercase music festival in Barcelona where both groups were performing live.

As Okereke says, him and a few more musicians from the other bands were quietly speaking with Rotten somewhere in the backstage area. However, when Okereke had asked a punk music veteran about his artistic plans on reforming Rotten’s side project Public Image Ltd., suddenly Sex Pistols’ lead singer  turned to be very angry. Eventually, Kele Okereke, Liverpool’s native with the Nigerian roots has heard racist remarks addressed to him. Three men from Rotten’s security crew overthrew him on the floor while beating his face.

This accident was seen by fifty witnesses including Kaiser Chiefs’ frontman Ricki Wilson and Foals’ lead singer Yannis Filippakis who tried to help Okereke.  Johnny Rotten said that this fight was totally provoked by Okereke, and rumours on his racist statements were absolutely faked by the Bloc Party’s leader in order to make this band more popular.

An Italian Capuchin-monk Cesare Bonizzi also known as “brother metal” (fratello metallo) has released his second heavy-metal album, said BBC News.

Following Cesare’s own words, his love for heavy metal had developed after he has visited one of the Metallica’s concerts fifteen years ago. Another influence he is pointing at is the band Megadeth. Right now, a 62–years old monk is living in Milan singing for his own band, which recently made it’s new album called “Misteri”.

In the beginning the other band members were pretty sceptical about an idea of taking a monk into their group. However, any doubts faded only after five minutes of talking to Brother Cesare. “Five minutes after meeting Brother Cesare I decided to go ahead, because he manages to convey so much energy, that other musicians and youngsters often don’t manage to express,” noted guitarist Cesare Zanotti.

Recently, “brother metal” has participated in the “Gods of Metal” music festival in Italy, while performing together with Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Slayer. Soon, he is planning to send the band’s new album as a gift to the Pope.