That’s just music

Music festival organizers at Reading and Leeds had recently said that Guns N’Roses is going to participate at their events, including all previously arranged performances, noted Billboard. The problem lays in the fact that on August 15, Axl Rose’s (band’s frontman) Twitter blog began to spread the news that both venues will be cancelled, and there is practically no hope for the upcoming concerts to take place; a lot of fans just simply began to panic as never before. Both performances should be carried out on August 27 (Reading) and on August 29 (Leeds), however even right now a lot people are questioning such a new certainty, and wish to find more proves. “Festival Republic are informed by GN’R management that Guns N’Roses have not canceled their performances at Reading & Leeds and that Axl Rose’s twitter account was hacked into and all claims of dates being cancelled are unfounded”, underlined a Festival Republic with the diplomatic  precision. After both concerts in Reading and Leeds, GN’R is planning to perform in many other European cities such as Barcelona, Prague, Paris and Rome. Also, the band is planning to give one concert in Sidney in the beginning of December. In other words, fans had something to fear of because Axl Rose is very well known for his eccentric moves, especially during the concert performances.  

Paramount had decided to place Jonathan “Jon” Chu on the director’s position to film a movie about a sixteen year old Canadian singer Justin Bieber, said Deadline. Previously, Chu used to work with the dancing oriented movies such as “Step-Up 2: The Streets” and “Step-Up 3-D”, the last one came out in the beginning of August. Work process had begun already, and Bieber’s concerts are getting filmed in order to be shown later when the whole thing is over; pro-music orientation will be used for the maximum in this case. The major performance which is going to be recorded and incorporated is the upcoming August, 31 concert in New York (Madison Square Garden), it should be reflecting or better to say underlining this movie. Formerly, it was expected that this thing will be filmed by Davis Guggenheim (author of such documentary as “It Might Get Loud” about The Edge, Jimmy Page and Jack White). However, he declined it because currently he is directing “Waiting for Superman”, and is very concerned with the entire idea and it’s final outcome. Some critics are saying that Chu is too young and his experience is not good enough, even though he did movies before. It should be said that those critics absolutely don’t understand anything, and they just simply need to make something on their own first before judging anyone else.

Director of the post-apocalyptic drama “The Road” John Hillcoat had filmed a video on UNKLE’s song “The Answer”, thus creating another interesting shatter within the music video world. It’s currently available on the band’s website and YouTube. The main character of Hillcoat’s video is Ray Winstone (well known for his roles in “The Departed”, “Beowulf”, “Sexy Beast”) who is actually portraying the real story which happened to him a few decades ago. When Ray was seventeen he was hit by the lightning, and thereafter his life was never the same, according to him, one thing ended and another began. It sounds as a pretty cool story to show in the video. “The Answer” is incorporated into “Where Did the Night Fall”, the latest album released by UNKLE in May, 2010. John Hillcoat is famous for his video making, previously he had co-operated with Depeche Mode, Therapy?, Pacebo and Nick Cave. The unusual sounds produced by UNKLE hit the right nerve; it surely infects viewers with that special mood so important in order to propagate the nature of music. Downtempo, trip rock and electronica genres in which they operate are quite progressive and solid, therefore the lightning theme is matching it all the way through. UNKLE is also well known for it’s joint work with such groups as Queens of the Stone Age, Oasis, Massive Attack and Radiohead.

Lady Gaga is planning to participate in the filming of a movie, which is based on her autobiography, said Gigwise. Surely, she has something to say about her own life, and it would be great if she plays a role in there, at least no one can tell it better. As the source of inspiration she named Michael Jackson’s “Moonwalker” released in 1988; according to her Jackson’s piece is the most convenient way to portray the autobiography of an artist. It consists of short stories in which Jackson participates as the main character, and some include his famous videos such as “Leave Me Alone” and “Smooth Criminal”. Notably, many of Lady Gaga’s videos turned into hits – “Alejandro”, “Telephone”, “Just Dance”, “Poker Face” and “Bad Romance”, definitely they must appear in her movie. Bryan Singer is supposedly going to direct it and his experience (X-Men, The Usual Suspects) should reflect the final result. The name of an upcoming movie is not known yet because practically nothing is ready and those who are responsible for the production shall not spread any kinds of exact information. Hopefully, Lady Gaga will show herself as a good actress because after all she is very talented and looks as someone who can make it. Lady’s stage performances illustrate that she is a potential actress.

On August 8, infamous Lily Allen had presumably given the last concert before a long break, which she is planning to take for one very important reason, said Gigwise. This performance took place at the Big Chill festival in England; the whole event was great, but many fans felt a little bit sad. A singer is taking this vacation because of pregnancy, and definitely is worth of it, who can perform while being pregnant? Besides that, way back in February, 2010 Allen said that she doesn’t want to start another three year tour, but would like to try herself in other spheres of creativity. For example, she is planning to establish her own record label and open a clothing line. This girl is obviously partially tired of the stage and it’s very understandable, during the latest years a pressure she was taking during the touring process was tremendous, so now is time to disappear for a while. At the same instance there is no information whether she wants to continue her music career after the break, maybe Allen just wishes to totally re-direct the whole thing away from music nowadays? Lily Allen became famous in 2005 after putting demo-versions of her music on MySpace, later on she had released two studio albums – “Allright, Stil” (2006) and “It’s Not Me, It’s You” (2009).

Infamous rapper Kanye West had announced the release of his new studio album, which is supposed to be released in November this year, said Pitchfork. Previously, it was expected that it will come out in September, but plans were radically changed at the last minute. Besides that, he is not going to call the album “Good Ass Job” as it was planned before; probably the record company had decided to stop him from such titles. West had also mentioned those musicians who helped him to get through the writing process, he included Thom Yorke from Radiohead and Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails. Surely, these guys are very powerful songwriters and he had experienced their talent, genre was not standing in between because great things are totally limitless in creativity. At the same time, Kanye West had promised to release the first single in three weeks, thus fans shall not stay without his new music until November; it may be one of two songs – “Lost in the World” or “All of the Lights”. By the end of July West had posted parts of the upcoming release on his Facebook and Twitter accounts, however over there he did not use any musical instruments, only his voice was the actual sound.  

An independent record label Secretly Canadian is going to release a mini album recorded by Antony & The Johnsons, which is supposed to include covers of John Lennon and Bob Dylan, said NME. Pretty good idea that assumes respect and dedication toward these prominent musicians, however this is not very innovative so to speak because it’s been used by too many before. A lot of bands and musicians keep on covering or dedicating something to the old “class” without contemplating anything new on their creative side, thus a circle just keeps on turning without revolving. A new record will be called “Thank You for Your Love” and should hit the stores on August, 24 this year; additionally it must be included into their upcoming studio release. Besides that, the band had renewed Lennon’s “Imagine” and totally recreated Dylan’s “Pressing”, in other words original stuff is pouring from Antony & The Johnsons, but under the ‘cover’ from legends. Their next studio record is planned for October, 2010 and it’s already known that they’ve called it “Swanlights”. Previous album “The Crying Light”, which came out in January, 2009 marked the beginning of their world tour, so most likely this group will repeat the whole thing by starting another traveling agenda in 2011.

Glastonbury music festival’s organizer Michael Eavis had invited U2 to participate in the event in 2011, said The Guardian. It’s expected that the band will perform on Glastonbury-2011 on Friday, July 24. The festival itself should take place from June 22 till June 26, and must create another spectacle all over England once again. Glastonbury is the biggest music event in Europe which reflects somewhat of a Woodstock in that place of the world. Notably, U2 had to perform on this year’s Glastonbury, but the whole thing was cancelled due to Bono’s (band’s vocalist) back injury that required serious surgical involvement. Also, they’ve had to cancel a number of concerts in North America, so 2010 is not the luckiest year for them. Therefore, legendary Irish group was replaced by Gorillaz, definitely not the worst, but not the best choice either. Previously, Eavis was saying that two headliners were already chosen for 2011, although for some miraculous reason did not mention their names; for many people such motives are very well understandable, organizers keep it secret because nothing is arranged yet.  Contracts, money and pride on both sides establish this unpredictable and certainly warring state condition within the music business. Hopefully, nothing bad will happen to Bono or other band members so they would be able to perform during the next year’s Glastonbury event.

A Perfect Circle, currently forgotten by many people, quite good and innovative band had announced it’s reunion. Formed by musicians from Tool, Nine Inch Nails, Zwan, Queens of The Stone Age and many others is planning to hit it back with new material and surely new-fangled venues. On August 3 the band’s Twitter account ‘aperfectcircle’ had posted a sentence which said, - “The old grey goose is dead not”. Information that can be found on the website includes posts by the band’s founders Billy Howerdel, A Perfect Circle and Tool vocalist Maynard James Keenan, Zwan bassist Paz Lenchantin, and some other musicians that had participated in A Perfect Circle. Later, the above mentioned news was approved by A Perfect Circle drummer Josh Freese, who is also well known for his work in Nine Inch Nails, Offspring, Weezer, Devo and many others. Keenan had also given an interview to Rolling Stone in which he noted that he is working with new songs for the band’s upcoming album; so the old grey goose is still alive, and that’s for sure. A Perfect Circle was founded in 1999 by Keenan and Billy Howerdel; their first album called “Mer De Noms” was recorded by numerous musicians and brought an incredible popularity to the newly formed band. After their third release in 2004 A Perfect Circle fell apart with no plans to come back. However, plans do change once in a while, so people should get ready to see them again.

British music label Warp Records is going to release the new Brian Eno’s album, who is considered to be one of creators of the ambient style, absolutely great and totally popular today. Such news had appeared on the record’s official website. This information did not mention the name of Brian’s new album, and did not specify the release dates, continuous problem though. However, some fans and critics believe that it must get out by the end of this year, but as always such things can get postponed all the time. Warp Records was founded in 1989 and in the beginning was specializing exclusively on the electronic sound, but later began to switch towards rock groups (Maximo Park, Battles) and even experimental folk such as Grizzly Bear. Many performers which co-operated with the label are using Brian Eno’s ideas (Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, Autechre). Brian Eno became famous in the beginning of the 1970’s as a member of the Roxy Music. Later he worked with Robert Fripp, David Bowie, David Byrne, U2, Coldplay and numerous others. Practically, his influence on music is tremendous and he truly can be called the founder of the electronic technique in modern music. So far his latest album is “Another Day on Earth”, which was released in 2005.