That’s just music

A member of the golden Guns N’ Roses line-up Duff McKagan has joined the reunited Jane’s Addiction in order to participate in the recording of a new album, said Rolling Stone. Original Jane’s bassist Eric Avery had left the band in the beginning of March this year, right after their Australian tour. Soon after, rumours about the fact that McKagan is about to join them began to spread all over the place. So far Jane’s Addiction did not make any official notes about his participation, but recently Dave Navarro (guitar) had published a photo in his Twitter micro-blog were McKagan is rehearsing with the rest of the band. A signature under the picture were Navarro, McKagan, vocalist Perry Farrell and drummer Steven Perkins are staying together in the studio says, “One more creative day at the Jane’s Addiction studio”. More photos are available on their website janesaddiction.org. Besides working with Jane’s Addiction McKagan is also involved in his solo project Loaded and the band Velvet Revolver which includes ex-Guns N’ Roses musicians. Currently, Velvet Revolver is not active due to a singers absence, plus it’s guitarist Slash is too busy with his debut solo album. In other words, McKagan is most likely taking some part in the Jane’s Addiction creative process, especially if they’re not really hiding it anymore.

British electronic duet The Chemical Brothers had recorded it’s seventh studio album. As their official website says, a new record “Further” will be released on June 7 this year on Freestyle Dust/Parlophone Records label. Totally it includes eight tracks and each one should be accompanied with some unique video, so it must be pretty cool to absorb and enjoy this new thing. Particularly, videos were created in a close co-operation with directors Adam Smith and Marcus Lyall. The new album was inspired by the Electronic Battle Weapon project where Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons were recording promo-singles for other DJ’s (basically for their club performances). In other words, this new thing was born in the process when musicians are not really planning to make a new record, but when it just comes out naturally without any specific plan. Presentation of the album “Further” will be taking place within the frames of The Chemical Brothers concerts in London’s Roundhouse club (20-23 of May). All the tickets are already sold out meaning that The Chemical Brothers is kicking it as never before. Later the band will present the album during the Sonar festival in Barcelona and in a number of other European open-air events. The previous album “We Are the Night” was released in June 2007 while taking the first place in the British hits chart, getting the gold status and receiving “Grammy” for the best electronic/dance record.

British band The Libertines which was the first group for Pete Doherty had declared about it’s reunion, said New Musical Express. Basically, The Libertines made the guy famous for the first time and gave him the base in order to be prosperous in his future musical career. First public performances in six years will take place in August in Leeds and Reading. As The Guardian notes, The Libertines will receive 1,5 million pounds for these concerts, so things are not that simple in this reunion. Among those who will perform together with them in Leeds and Reading are Guns N’ Roses, Blink 182 and Arcade Fire who will present their new albums. By this time it’s known for sure that The Libertines shall not stop after two performances, they will record new material and later tour in many other places. Well, good luck to them, maybe it’s money factor and maybe it’s just another creative wave which hits talented people from time to time. The Libertines were founded by Carl Barat (vocals/lead guitar), Pete Doherty, John Hassall (bass) and Gary Powell (drums) in 1997 in London. They were able to release only two studio albums and have decided to dismantle the band in 2004, but at the same time the band was capable of creating the fan base which still admires them. Later Doherty had established the band Babyshambles while becoming one of the favourites of the ‘yellow press’. Carl Barat’s project Dirty Pretty Things fell apart in 2008.

In the autumn of 2010 Liverpool will be the place for the music festival which is going to last for two months, said Gigwise. Particularly, this grandiose event should be dedicated to John Lennon’s 70’s birthday and surely his memory deserves such a thing. Celebrations will start on October 9, his birthday, and shall last until December 9, the next day after his death (30 years after). The festival’s program includes a lot of musical, poetic and other artistic events, so the city authorities expect tens of thousands of visitors. “His enduring message of peace is as important now as ever and continues to be an inspiration to many. The John Lennon Tribute Season will allow us to remember him as a man, celebrate his music, and his overall contribution to our city”, said Liverpool’s Lord Mayor Mike Storey. The legacy of John Lennon is absolutely huge, and the greatest son of the city of Liverpool is going to be well remembered. Lennon was born in Liverpool on October 9, 1940. In the end of 1950’s together with Paul McCartney he had created the band The Moondogs which was later renamed to The Silver Beatles and The Beatles. In 2010 The Beatles’ fans are marking the unofficial fiftieth birthday of their favourite band and fortieth year since it fell apart.

Legendary U2 vocalist Bono has given some significant investments to Elevation Partners, one of the worst investment funds in the US, said 24/7 Wall Street.com. Practically, the issue is saying that Bono had lost tens of millions of dollars on this business operation (noteworthy, Bono is one of the heads of this fund). Such fiasco on the side of Bono is making him the worst investor who was sending money to the US economy. Also, it’s not the only company which is failing Mr. Bono; another one was the smart phone company Palm. They’re trying very hard to stay within the US smart phones market which is dominated by Apple, RIM and Google, so according to financial analyses the company is going to end up during this year with 90% sureness. In 2006 Elevation had invested 300 million dollars into Forbes Inc, with 750 million capitalization, but unfortunately after that operation the company’s assets have dropped down on 80%. In other words, it’s pretty hard to be more unlucky than Bono these days, the guy was literally doing his best; maybe he did not produce such big investments before and had totally failed this time. Additionally, there is another example of the fund’s problems. Recently, they’ve been investing into Move.com, this company was regulating various websites which specify on the real estate, so Elevation did invest into them when Move.com was on it’s peak. However, right after the real estate business went into troubles Move.com had lost almost one half of it’s assets. Well, Bono did not foresee most of these failures, business is business and hopefully he will get out of it.

Director Michel Gondry is planning to produce an educational musical together with infamous Bjork, said The Guardian. As he had personally said, they’re planning to make forty minutes of film in the IMAX format, so uniqueness of both artists will be preserved with some cool help from the new technologies. The exact theme of their upcoming movie was not mentioned, meaning that Gondry and Bjork are still not that close to finishing it. “It’s still difficult to say anything particular so far”, he noted. The new project is not his first collaborative work with Bjork, previously he had made lots of her videos, for example on a song “Army of Me”. Most likely these two people are capable of working together and creating something out of this world, hence they did not fail it before and they did not loose their absolutely stunning talents. Michel Gondry is the French screenwriter and director, in 2005 he received the Academy Award for his movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” (2004). Hopefully, the next work will be even better and may explore the giant of Bjork once again. Generally speaking, Bjork is a singer who looks extremely different from the rest of musicians, her style of singing and portraying of herself simply cannot be compared to anyone in the world of music today.

American rock group Green Day began to work with their ninth studio album. This news was brought up by musicians themselves in the recent interview to the “Kerrang!” magazine, so this is not belonging to rumours as many other news things of this kind. Vocalist Joe Armstrong has told the press that they’ve already produced a number of demo records, and in order to do this the band was using weekends during the last European tour. As he said, those songs were recorded in Berlin, Stockholm, Amsterdam and suburbs of Glasgow, and the whole record should come out less than in one year. Green Day is not so fast in writing, their albums are coming out not that regularly, but not without popular success. Their previous release “21st Century Breakdown” came out in May 2009, thus fans had to wait for five long years; this time it turned out way quicker. Gigwise had concluded that “21 Century Breakdown” was able to head charts in fifteen countries. Trio Green Day was formed in 1987 and is considered to be one of the most popular American rock bands alongside with The Offspring and Metallica. Since their first year Green Day was able to sell twenty two million copies in the US alone, four times they’ve received Grammy for the best rock album (”American Idiot” 2004, “21st Century Breakdown”), the best alternative album (”Dookie”) and the best record of the year (”Boulevard of Broken Dreams”).

Producer and a songwriter Rob Fusari had taken the legal action against Lady GaGa in New York in order to sue her for thirty five million dollars, said Associated Press on March 18. Fusari insists that he was vigorously participating in co-writing of many of her hits, had invented Lady’s stage image and even came up with her artistic name. Also, her first contract was signed with his direct help and assistance, so practically according to his opinion she owes him nearly everything. Basically, this guy did help and definitely had artistically co-existed with this fabulously talented singer, but who knows, maybe he is just trying to drag money out of her? As he had personally stated, sometime in March 2006 he was taking the first vocals session with Lady GaGa (in those days she was Stephani Germanotta) and was absolutely stunned by her talents, thus he had decided to assist her future career. Fusari has mentioned that in the beginning they’ve had a romantic relationship, but when she became famous everything just went seriously down between them and she just turned away. By this moment no comments were received from her or her representatives. New York Daily News notes that twenty percent of her income belongs to him and according to Daily Contributer he has received 611 thousand dollars, but Fusari thinks it’s too far from enough. In reality, Rob Fusari is well known for his opening act in Lady GaGa’s career, he produced her first album “The Fame” (the one which made her a superstar), among his other accomplishments is her number one song “Paparazzi”, so he surely deserves something.

Reggae musician Eddie Grant had accused Gorillaz in plagiarism and will most likely take his issue to the court, said New Musical Express. This un-ending artistic saga is seen everywhere and all the time, sometimes it’s true, but usually such proceedings are not getting anywhere because the real stealing is a rare issue. Grant insists that the virtual band which is managed and produced by Damon Albarn had stolen his music for it’s new single “Stylo” from a song “Time Warp” (1983). As Eddie Grant believes keyboard parts in both tracks are identical and it’s absolutely not alright according to him. Surely, he doesn’t like it and probably hesitates Gorillaz in general, but in real those parts don’t seem to be the same, just similar. Also, Grant thinks that it’s not just a coincidence, and Albarn had purposely stolen his personal and beloved musical fragment. Noteworthy, Grant and Gorillaz are working with the same record label EMI, so a singer had already punctured his finger at his business partners as well because they did not notice the stealing process and made it all happen for his rivals. The only thing which was done on the side of EMI was their short consultation with the music specialist and it was not enough according to Grant. Musicians from Gorillaz did not comment this issue so far, and EMI representatives just underlined that it seems to be another personal conflict between them.

Metallica is now getting ready for another massive world tour which may be compared to the legendary Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” tour of 1979. Thus, guys from Metallica once more will prove something very special to their fans and particularly their original ability to play live better than anyone else. Honestly, this band began to gather arenas before MTV even heard of them; their roots and special qualities dwell within their knowledge to perform before the fans while projecting huge energy and power. Metallica’s plans about future touring activities were brought public by the band’s manager Peter Mensch in his recent interview to the Classic Rock magazine. “Coming up with ideas so that the live shows are interesting. Just shooting off dumb ideas and, by the way, between you and me, some of it is recycling stuff that people did twenty five years ago”, noted Mensch. At the same time this guy did not really reveal all the aspects of the upcoming tour, but he did mention that some ideas from the past are going to be used in the present and they had enough of the will power to reinvent the wheel a little bit. Currently, Metallica is touring with it’s new album “Death Magnetic”; they’ve finished Latin American part and in the nearest month the band will continue it in Europe. Surely, Metallica is one of the best rock bands of modernity and truly they’re capable of doing unique things that are not given to the others.