September, 2009

Produced within the four walls of a former DDR radio station in East Berlin, The Rakes are set to release their third album, ‘Klang’, digitally on October 20th in the US. The album has been available as a UK import since March. It’s been over two years from their previous album, ‘Ten New Messages’ (2007), and a debut, ‘Capture/Release’ (2005), that was compared to the fame of The Libertines, While the past two years have witnessed a series of transformations in the UK, where no one smokes in pubs anymore, everyone’s on Twitter, and those 22 grand jobs in the city are definitely NOT alright, musically speaking, most bands who emerged alongside these post-punk/new-wave Londoners have ceased to exist. The Rakes have managed to stay strong through this period of great change and have witnessed some new changes of their own – reinventing their sound, and creating their freshest, most innovative album to date.

Along with Nirvana, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam was at the forefront of the grunge explosion that emerged from Seattle in the early 1990s and helped to redefine the parameters of rock and roll. Unlike their contemporaries, however, Pearl Jam is the only band of the four to have remained an active unit, consistently touring and releasing albums, in the nearly two decades that have passed since the heyday of grunge. Over this time the band has managed to maintain a rabid and loyal fan-base which follows them around on tour and has earned them, justifiably or not, comparisons with the Grateful Dead.

…Legendary T-Rex frontman Marc Bolan was born in East London.

Born Mark Feld, he grew up in the east and southwest areas of London and developed an interest in music from a very early age. After falling in love with the early US rock stars such as Chuck Berry and Eddie Cochran, Bolan was presented with his first guitar at the age of nine, and soon after had formed his first skiffle band.

After leaving school at the age of fifteen, Bolan joined a modelling agency and was paraded in catalogues and shop windows by ‘Town’ magazine presenting the Mod look that he had immersed himself in from an early age. Bolan never lost sight of his desire to forge a career in music however, and by the age of seventeen he was performing solo shows under the guise of ‘Toby Tyker‘ on the British 60s folk circuit, where he would perform some original compositions alongside covers from established folk acts such as Bob Dylan.

Razorlight have said they would like Noel Gallagher to produce their next album, saying it would give them ‘northern cred’. Speaking in The Mirror newspaper, bassist Carl Demeno said: “Maybe we should get Noel to produce the new Razorlight album. We’re looking for a producer, we need some northern cred!”

Razorlight have been working on their fourth studio album with new drummer David ‘Skully’ Sullivan-Kaplan, who replaced Andy Burrows earlier this year. Burrows is now reported to have joined US band We Are Scientists.

(photo:Søren Solkær)

Fellow Manchester legends Ian Brown and Johnny Marr are set to record a TV soundtrack together, according to the former Stone Roses frontman.

Brown told BBC News he will be working with Marr on a project being put together by a mutual friend, and would also like his former Stone Roses bandmate Mani and Happy Mondays man Paul Ryder to join them on the album. “The idea is that Johnny writes the music and I write the words and the melodies,” he explained. “We’ve got a mutual friend who’s writing a drama series. One of them’s about ticket touts, another one’s about grafters – kids who sell T-shirts and things like that – and another one’s about pickpockets.

Echo and the Bunnymen announced today a very special Mercury Lounge show in NYC on Saturday, October 17th. Tickets go on sale this Friday (10/2) at Noon. This is in addition to their much larger show on November 22nd at Hammerstein Ballroom.

The Fountain, the new album from Echo & The Bunnymen is in stores this November.

The Fountain was kick-started in 2007 when Ian McCulloch began working on somenew ideas with three London-based musicians. “I thought needed to do stuff differently, but so the result still sounded like the Bunnymen,” he says. “What we got with ‘Think I Need It Too’ and ‘Forgotten Fields’, I thought, ‘Yeah, this is how it should sound.’”

To put Blur’s future into perspective all you have to do is listen to Graham Coxon’s latest interview given to the NME. According to Graham there are no more plans to play live together or “do anything else”. So there you have it. The lucky thousands who crammed into the Glastonbury and T in the Park festival venues and the few present for the intimate reunion gigs this year were the last to witness the band perform for a while, or perhaps forever?

The guitarist goes on to say: “We’re in touch and we say ‘Wotcha’ and all that but nothing has been mentioned about any more shows or anything else,” he said. “Everyone’s slipped back into what they do when the Blur creature isn’t heaving around. Law and cheese and music, I suppose.”

After a massively successful career spanning more than 40 years, Ray Davies, the legendary lead singer of The Kinks, is back with creative and unusual interpretations of songs from his extensive catalogue. These are not merely re-recordings of the originals but whole new choral adaptations. Often referred to as “almost indisputably rock’s most literate, witty and insightful songwriter,” Davies had the ambitious idea to collaborate with the 65-strong Crouch End Festival Chorus at the 2007 BBC Electric Proms in London to create The Kinks Choral Collection. This masterful CD will be in stores November 10th on Decca with a nationwide tour scheduled to coincide with the release. (U.S. dates below.)

Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke has announced two LA dates for his new band on October 4th & 5th. Yorke has recruited Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, R.E.M collaborator Joey Waronker, Brazilian instrumentalist Mauro Refosco, and his Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich for the gigs which will take place at the Orpheum Theatre.

Speaking about his new star-studded ‘backing band’, Yorke said: “In the past couple of weeks I’ve been getting a band together for fun to play ‘The Eraser’ stuff live and the new songs etc, to see if it could work! We don’t really have a name and the set will not be very long cuz, well, we haven’t got that much material yet! But come and check it out if you are in the area.”

Jon McClure, frontman of the rock band Reverend & The Makers, has offered his thoughts on the ongoing debate over music downloads. Never one to keep his opinions to himself, McClure has slammed the views of various musicians, most notably Lily Allen, who believe illegal downloading is having a damaging effect on the music industry. After Lily Allen started a blog and wrote to musicians giving her opinion on the debate, McClure has said he believes there are far more important issues that the musicians should be concentrating on. “If they really want to save the world, or whatever, there are issues that are far more important,” he said. “It’s a crying shame that it’s only kids stealing music on the Internet that kind of brings these people out.”