That’s just music

American legendary band The Smashing Pumpkins had begun studio sessions in order to hire a new bassist and keyboardist. As their official website says, bassist Ginger Pooley who was playing with them since 2007 has left the band to concentrate on raising of her daughter and possibly other family issues. Until Corgan and his friends find a replacement, Mark Tulin from The Electric Prunes will be doing Ginger’s work because the guy had previously co-worked with Corgan in their joint project - Spirits In The Sky. Current Pumpkin’s line-up is in the wish to hire a keyboardist who is the follower of John Lord (Deep Purple) and Rick Wakeman (Yes), practically someone who knows how to play prog-rock. Right now in order to visit the band’s hiring sessions it’s necessary to send a resume before March 31, so not only famous musicians from other famous bands have some chances. However, as it’s always happening, no one from the street will actually get to the band as The Smashing Pumpkins. New drummer, a twenty-year old Mike Byrne was taken into the band with the help of similar sessions during the previous year. Right after they finish their search the band will start the world tour. Meanwhile, Billy Corgan himself is working with a free online-album called “Teargarden by Kaleidyscope” and so far he was able to publish three out of forty forty tracks.

Radiohead had denied any facts and rumours about so called plans to release a new album. Recently, such information was vigorously spreaded all around the Internet and practically did not have any basic proves. The website which started all of this stuff is Tinymixtapes.com. People who run it began to send emails to the band’s fans while faking all sorts of details about Radiohead’s next release. Basically, the album was to be called “Tehrangeles” and had to include eleven tracks with the names of “The Daily Mail”, “Give Up The Ghost”, and “Supercollider”, which were recently performed during the band’s concerts. The official Radiohead representative made a few comments to the New Musical Express by saying that nothing of this kind, except the above mentioned songs is true. The band is not planning to make any releases in the nearest time. However, it’s well known that Radiohead began to work with the new album, which is eighth to be exact, in January this year, and previously it was also said that they’ve spent three weeks at the Los Angeles studio with their producer Nigel Godrich. Meanwhile, Radiohead vocalist Tom Yorke is going to start his new solo project Atoms For Peace with the mini-tour in around the US sometime in April. The last Radiohead album “In Rainbows” was released in October, 2007.

Iron Maiden had announced the release of it’s new studio album. As MusicRadar said, the new material, which is called “The Final Frontier” should be out sometime in summer this year, and may be one of the best in many years. The track list is not known yet, but what is for sure is that the album will be their fifteenth full length studio work. The release is going to be accompanied with the grand tour in around the US and presumably Canada. Heavy metal veterans will be touring together with their colleagues from Dream Theater (pretty cool band by the way) starting with the concert in Dallas on June 9. The last venue takes place in Washington DC on July 20. Practically, their previous album “A Matter of Life and Death” (2006) was not the worst piece of work either; it got pretty high rates from critics and was able to get to number four on the British national chart. Notably, the four years of silence between these two releases was actually the longest in Iron Maiden’s history because before that fans could expect something new every two and a half years. Well, let’s see how “The Final Frontier” will work out, but most likely it should be pretty good and there are a few reasons to that; first the band is not really getting worse and second their last one was quite big. Thus, high expectations and tons of metal.

A 33-years old Colombian singer Shakira was recently awarded with a medal from the well known International Labour Organization, which concentrates on fighting with poverty and unemployment all around the world. A talented singer was given this privilege for founding of the Barefoot Foundation, which provides free food to six thousand Colombian children and collects charities in order to give them education. Seminars for their parents and communities where they live are also taking considerable part in the foundation’s activities. At the same time Shakira is one of the founders of the ALAS Foundation, which is lobbying government activities to help children in Latin America. In 2003 when she was only 26 Shakira was the youngest UNESCO Goodwill ambassador. At the same time she is quite famous for talking to businessmen and politicians in order to bring their attention on the problems of youth poverty in the third world countries. In 2007 due to her activities ALAS Foundation was able to collect forty million dollars from the government of Spain and two hundred millions from the richest man in Mexico Carlos Slim. In February 2010 she met with the US President Barack Obama to discuss all the above issues. Her meetings with the British prime minister Gordon Brown and the World Bank’s president Robert Zoellick were also counted as her best achievements on the road of fighting poverty. Surely, this lady deserves medals and honours; her work is very considerable and could not be unnoticed by ILO.

British musician Peter Gabriel is not going to release the album in which he planned to incorporate the variety of cover songs. Basically, the album “I’ll Scratch Yours” had to cover his original “Scratch My Back” by specifically chosen musicians, noted The Guardian. The main reason for this unsuccessful outcome was caused by other artists who have decided not to participate in the project. Particularly, one of the biggest musicians who will not take his part in this game is David Bowie. As Gabriel said in the recent interview to Rolling Stone magazine, Bowie had lost any interest in music and due to this strange thing his song “Heroes” will be recorded by Brian Eno who was it’s original co-author. Also, if following various rumors, Arcade Fire had withdrawn it’s flag from Peter Gabriel’s recording stash. Pitchfork notices that the band shall not cover Gabriel’s “Games Without Frontiers”, thus totally failing his idea to make it up in 2010. All of these factors have eventually led to the fact that “I’ll Scratch Yours” will not be  released as one album, but should be divided into singles and only in this way may hit the stores. First two songs from “I’ll Scratch Yours” - “Biko” performed by Paul Simon and “Not One of Us” by The Magnetic Fields are already available at the iTunes. The rest of them including “Wallflower” by Radiohead should come out in the nearest time. Ex-Genesis leader Peter Gabriel had released “Scratch My Back” on February 12, which turned to be his eighth studio album in his solo career. This album consists of numerous and famous covers of Radiohead, Elbow, Talking Heads, Lou Reed, Bowie, Neil Young and many others.

Thin Lizzy’s “Live and Dangerous” album is now considered to be the best rock record of all times according to the British radio station Planet Rock, said Gigwise. Definitely, this broadcasting firm did not draw this conclusion from nowhere, they were using their listeners as the main source of such opinion. Thin Lizzy’s album was even able to overdue Deep Purple’s “Made in Japan”, which eventually grabbed number two on their list. Third spot belongs to “Strangers in the Night” by UFO. Fourth and fifth places were conquered by The Who with it’s “Live at Leeds” and “If You Want Blood, You Got It” by AC/DC. Most of these radio polls are naming the best and each of these albums could go to the first place by the way. The only thing is that one day these votes spread in one way and in other days they may look totally different, but practically with the same bands and albums. The first ten list also includes Pink Floyd’s “Pulse” and “Live After Death” by Iron Maiden. The only group which went into Planet Rock’s list with three albums at once was Canadian legend Rush; Led Zeppelin is represented by two albums. It’s all great, but again and again such lists mainly incorporate old bands and old artists, so it would be much better to see someone new. However, all these old bands are surely deserving this kind of respect, new ones will get there later. Thin Lizzy is the Irish hard-rock band that was created in Dublin by a singer and bass guitarist Phil Lynott, drummer Brian Downey and guitarist Eric Bell in 1969. In various times many prominent musicians were taking part in it’s lineup - Gary Moore, Brian Robertson, Snowy White, Darren Wharton and John Sykes.

British musician Ray Davis is getting ready to release the album, which is going to contain new versions of his songs, or if to be more exact those songs that he wrote together with his band The Kinks. As the Rolling Stone magazine says, this project should include such famous musicians as Bruce Springsteen and John Bon Jovi. Both participating legends were working with songs “Better Things” from the album “Give the People What They Want” (1981) and “Celluloid Heroes” from “Everybody’s in Show-Biz” (1972). Besides that, Davis is planning to record with The Killers, Metallica and Lucinda Williams. The whole idea about making this kind of release was born after Davis had performed at the ceremony dedicated to the twenty fifth anniversary of the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame. During that concert he was performing The Kinks songs “You Really Got Me” and “All Day and All of the Night” together with Metallica. Now, it’s surely known that the new album will come out by the end of 2010. In the meantime, Ray Davis is also taking care of his solo album and is not denying that The Kinks may be reunited sometime in the future. Of course, it would be very cool to see this band getting back together, but nobody knows when exactly it may happen because Davis did not mention any particular time. However, once such words were said then The Kinks will be out there on the stage again. Practically, Mr. Davis had mentioned that The Kinks’ reunion in many ways depends on his younger brother Dave Davis; the worst part about this is that Dave had a stroke in 2004 and simply was struggling for his life. Currently his health is getting much better and it gives extra hope to The Kinks fans.

Radiohead frontman Tom Yorke had for the first time announced the name of his new solo project. Previously, the unknown band, which had debuted in Los Angeles way back in 2009 was given the name - Atoms For Peace. Basically, this title came from Yorke’s song recorded on his earlier solo album “The Eraser” (2006), and Dwight Eisenhower’s infamous 1953 speech at the UN headquarters. As the Radiohead’s official website says, Tom Yorke is about to make a tour in around the US during April this year with eight concerts. Atoms For Peace will visit New York (April 5, 6), Boston (April 8), Chicago (April 10, 11), Oakland (April 14, 15) and Santa Barbara (April 17). Opening act shall go to Flying Lotus. On April 18 Atoms For Peace will also perform as headliners at the Coachella music festival in California. Besides Tom Yorke this new band includes Radiohead’s producer Nigel Godrich (keyboard, guitar, back vocals), drummer Joey Waronker, Mauro Refosco (percussion), and Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea. At the same time according to New Musical Express, Tom Yorke had performed on February 25 in Cambridge without his Atoms For Peace colleagues while singing absolutely new songs - “The Daily Mail”, “Give Up The Ghost” and “Mouse Dog Bird”. In other words, this musician is showing and developing his great talent all over the place.

Universal Music Group made it public that they’re going to re-release The Rolling Stones’ classic 1972 album “Exile on Main Street”. As Music Week notes, the new version will include ten previously un-released songs that were recorded during the early seventies. Among them is “Plundered My Soul”, “Dancing in the Light”, “Following the River”, and “Pass the Wine”, and also alternative versions of “Soul Survivor” and “Loving Cup”. For some reason a lot of old bands these days are very good in finding something old from their stashes, songs that were absolutely not known before even by their fans. These songs were recently discovered by Mick Jagger. In his recent interview to the Rolling Stone magazine Mick said that he had renovated newly found tracks together with Keith Richards by adding vocals, guitars and percussion. Re-release of “Exile on Main Street” is going to be available in two formats: regular (eighteen original tracks) and gift (eighteen original tracks plus ten new). So called super deluxe version is going to incorporate 50-page catalogue with photographs, and DVD with a documentary called “Stones in Exile”. “Exile on Main Street” is considered to be one of the best and most successful albums that was ever produced by Rolling Stones. Among 500 greatest albums of all times (according to the Rolling Stone magazine) this album stands on number seven.

Kasabian and Muse have received two awards from the New Musical Express magazine. The ceremony took place in London on February 24. The latest work released by Kasabian “West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum” won in two nominations - ‘the best album’ and ‘the best album cover’. On the other hand Muse was given ‘the best British band 2010′ and ‘the best website’ awards. Originally, Kasabian was nominated in six categories including ‘the best British band 2010′, ‘the best album’, ‘the best video’ and ‘the best concert lineup’. The same amount of nominations was given to Arctic Monkeys, which eventually was left out with only one actual award - ‘the best concert lineup’. Also, ‘the best video’ award went to Biffy Clyro for it’s “The Captain”. Oasis, which was going for three out of four nominations did not receive anything. The best foreign band according to NME is Paramore, which fought with Green Day, Kings of Leon, Vampire Weekend, and Yeah Yeahs. The best soundtrack belongs to The Big Pink’s “Dominos”. In other words, New Musical Express remains the same in it’s tastes and choices when organising events of this kind. However, NME is only organising it, everything else belongs to music fans.