That’s just music

Guys from Sonic Youth have found one of their guitars, which was stolen from them ten years ago, said Pitchfork. Probably thieves thought of getting it back, but just wanted to try it out for a little more than was expected. In 1999 musicians became victims of some unknown thieves who stole their guitars and other sound equipment. Band’s guitarist Lee Ranaldo had published a message to Sonic Youth’s fans asking them for assistance in finding that equipment characterizing it as “very old, modified and slightly broken”. One of those guitars was Fender Mustang Ranaldo, which can be seen in the band’s videos “Macbeth and “Mary Christ”. Each of the stolen instruments was rebuilt by the members of Sonic Youth in order to make them sound in some special way. Particularly, Lee is famous for playing his guitar with the help of srewdrivers and drum sticks. Nevertheless, ten years later one person from Holland under the name of Sauerkraut had purchased the guitar on eBay, which later turned to be Lee’s. He immediately contacted Sonic Youth and confirmed a meeting with them to return this precious instrument. As a reward that guy is going to get a unique privilege to see the band at any concert he would like to visit following the VIP status.

American band Alice in Chains is getting ready to release the first album in fourteen years, said Rolling Stone. This band was quiet for so long that nobody could expect them to get out of nowhere right now, but music is calling Alice to come out and see the wonderland again. Most likely the Virgin/EMI record label will be the one to sustain this release in September 2009. The exact date of the release is not known yet. Also, it’s not known what name they’re going to give to this new album. In 2005 the band had hired a new vocalist William Duval who came in there to replace a former singer Lane Staley. Lane had died in his home in 2002 due to the drugs overdose, and the band spent some time in order to find someone who could be equal to him. Before joining Alice in Chains Duval used to participate in the project called Comes With the Fall, which was formed in 1999 and released five studio albums. As the guys from Alice in Chains believe the new album which was going through some serious recording process since October 2008 will allow them to come back to the world of music and may enable the band to restore it’s position within the most popular bands in the world.

Lately Blur guitarist Graham Coxon had performed at one of the London’s pubs, said New Musical Express. This performance is also related to the recent Blur’s plans to reunite. Coxon’s presence at The Spread Eagle pub on Saturday, April 25 was particularly cool due to it’s momentous happening – no one could expect him to come out and play over there. Certainly those who have visited that pub were quite amazed and will remember it for the rest of their lives. Coxon had played seven songs from his upcoming solo album “The Spinning Top” (it’s release is planned for May 11). Among those songs that he played at the pub NME is particularly noting “If You Want Me”. Possibly it’s going to be the next single. Here is the full set of songs that could be heard at The Spread Eagle – “This House”
“In The Morning”
“If You Want Me”
“Perfect Love”
“Brave The Storm”
“Dead Bees”
“Sorrows Army”
Besides that Coxon was performing together with some unknown bassist and drummer. NME is also noting that the concert had attracted a lot of people from streets, so those who were not able to get in just kept on watching from the outside. Coxon looked very happy and nice to everyone, he read a lot of poetry accompanying it with numerous jokes.

Organizers of the Coachella music festival, which took place on 17–19 of April in California will be fined for violating public order, said Prefix. As the local police representatives say, they could keep the stage open only until 12pm and those who are responsible for the concert were warned about such consequences. Every minute of extra performance will cost them $1000. Anyone can understand the reality of bureaucracy that rules over such events as concerts, but each time when it happens the whole idea behind the music and art gets seriously damaged. The first day was finished by Paul McCartney’s performance who kept on playing for fifty more minutes. Those who trully like music, especially if it was performed by Sir Paul should not really care about charging extra dollars. However, they always keep on saying the same stuff like law is above all and forget about everything else. The last day of Coachella was also marked by another incident of this sort which caused The Cure to play without any electricity. The Cure of course was not respected as much as McCartney, plus nobody wished to pay for them. Nevertheless, it’s always rude when bands have to obey and shut themselves from the crowd over some senseless security people.

British musician David Byrne had become a curator of the eighth International (annual) music festival Bonnaroo, which is going to take place between 11–14 of June in Tennessee, US. All this information can be seen on the festival’s official web site. Byrne promotes a lot of new bands and generally speaking acts as someone who pushes creativity forward. Due to his activities this year’s event incorporates Santigold, Dirty Projectors, Katzenjammer, Ani DiFranco and Annie Clark who is better known as St. Vincent. Practically, David makes it very exciting because of his love of many musical styles, numerous variations of sound and good communication skills. “It was very logical to appoint David – his love of all musical styles and his knowledge of how to get his favourite music to the listener turn him into someone absolutely special”, said the president of Bonnaroo, and festivals co-organizer (A.C. Entertainment) Ashley Capps. Following David Byrne’s own words his method of choosing bands is very simple, he invites only those groups which he personally saw somewhere during the life performance. In addition to the list above people who will go to this year’s Bonnaroo may also see Bruce Springsteen, Beastie Boys, Nine Inch Nails, Wilco, The Mars Volta, TV On The Radio, Yeah Yeah, Yeahs, Public Enemy and many more.

The Cure was literally forced to perform and so to speak successfully finish their concert without any electricity, said NME. This incident took place during their live performance at the Coachella music festival on April 19. Practically, if the band can keep on playing even after electricity goes down it means that musicians can handle some serious challenges. The Cure had already played twenty nine songs when the concert organizers have warned them and asked to finish their performance. At that moment the band’s leader Robert Smith had shared some bad words with the crowd and began to play “Boys Don’t Cry”. They definitely didn’t care about rules and regulations by showing some serious rock n’ roll attitude. Two minutes later organizers have decided to use some pressue and turned down the electricity, but it did not stop Smith and his band from playing. “Jumping Someone Else’s Train” and “Grindng Halt” were played in the acoustic version, so only those who stood right next to the stage could hear it. Pretty nice concert after all, real rock n’ roll and a lot of “I don’t give a f…” to those who organize concert events. This performance had finished the three-day festival, which annually takes place at the California’s Coachella valley since 1999. The only exception was in 2000 when the festival was cancelled due to some financial problems.

American band The Smashing Pumpkins began to take auditions in order to hire a new drummer instead of Jimmy Chamberlin who has left them in the end of March. System Of A Down drummer John Dolmaian also took his chance to participate in this process, said The Smashing Pumpkins official web site. Twelve musicians have visited the first session which took place just a few days ago in Los Angeles. Due to the fact that the band’s leader Billy Corgan had received too many offers from a numerous number of musicians, The Smashing Pumpkins guys are thinking about organizing another audition in May that will allow them to get the final result. Besides System Of A Down Dolmaian is also well known for his presence in Axis of Justice, Scars on Broadway and Serj Tankian’s solo project. In 2006 John Dolmaian was declared to be a drummer of the year by a Drum! magazine. Jimmy Chamberlin had explained his decision by the loss of interest in what The Smashing Pumpkins is doing today. At the same time he keeps on denying traditional for the music world misunderstandings that could appear between him and his former bandmates. In the upcoming time he is planning to stay with his own group Jimmy Chamberlin Complex.

British soul singer Amy Winehouse keeps on bringing more news. Recently, she said that it’s in her upcoming plans to write a book for children, noted Monsters & Critics. As this news source says, Winehouse has decided to write with the help of her collegue Pete Doherty (The Babyshambles). He told her that writing poetry will enable a lot of new artistic qualities and feelings. “Amy’s been stimulated since living in St. Lucia. She loves the chilled out atmosphere and has found it has encouraged her to write again,” said one of those who is closely related to her. Right after Doherty told Amy to start writing poetry she thinks about releasing a book first, which will discuss her tough artistic life. In other words it’s going to be a good practice before she may continue on something more serious. However, what she is already planning sounds quite important anyway. Writing poetry for children is way more sophisticated and no one knows yet when she is going to begin to fulfill this plan, but she promises that one day it’s going to happen. Currently, Winehouse is planning to buy a house in St. Lucia in order to stay away from London because “it influences her in the negative way”.

Recently, British soul singer Amy Winehouse and the infamous rapper Snoop Dogg were not able to record two songs together. As rumours say they’ve spent the whole day at the studio and simply smoked too much weed, so any kind of work was impossible, notes Gigwise. Smoking made them too relaxed, and eventually nothing could be done to record anything new. Sounds pretty funny, for sure these two had some terrific fun together, but it’s also interesting to find out who was actucally able to drag this information. Maybe they were not trying to hide it too much? Gigwise is not possessing absolutely clear information on what they’ve actually smoked or drank, but anyone knows that Snoop is into smoking and at his presence nothing else is being tried except weed. Winehouse is not getting behind and her notorious behaviour including smoking of that stuff is quite well known. As the above news source says both musicians began to record music, but soon after found themselves making some short chronic breaks, so eventually they could not finish what they’ve started. So far there is no data on when they’ll come back to work again. Lately, Amy’s record label asked her to edit some songs that she made up for the upcoming release. On the other hand Snoop is working with his new album “Malice in Wonderland”.

Guys from AC/DC have told their fans that they did not sign any agreements to headline the Romanian Bucharest Rock Arena festival, said New Musical Express. They’ve stated that festival’s organizers were speaking out on AC/DC’s participation before consulting them, so they are not going to take any part during this event. It should be pretty sad for their Romanian fans, but also festival organizers had to worry about it earlier, hence band’s like AC/DC can’t just get up and go anywhere without their any agreement. At this moment there is some clear information that Bucharest Rock Arena festival was cancelled, notes Blabbermouth. It had to take place on May 30/31 this year near the Romania’s capital city. Usually this event attracts up to 70 thousand people not only from Romania, but also from other parts of the EU and closely located countries as well. Previously, on Tuesday they’ve performed in London at the infamous O2 Arena and currently the band is getting prepared for the grand tour, which is going to be launched in support of their latest album “Black Ice”. Good chance for those who have missed them in Bucharest by the way. AC/DC is one of those unstoppable bands that keep on rocking despite their age, time and anything what may stand on their path.