September 30th, 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.