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Monday, June 30, 2008
Iggy and The Stooges announce 2008 Summer Tour Iggy Pop & the Stooges - 2008 Tour Dates 07/04 - Skanevik Blues Festival Oslo, NO 07/13 - La Grande Armada Rouen, FR 07/19 - Garden Nef Party Festival Angouleme, FR 07/26 - Race & Rock Festival Seinajoki, FI 08/03 - Osheaga Music and Arts Montreal, Canada 08/06 - Massey Hall Toronto, Canada 08/08 - Terminal 5 New York, NY 08/24 - Clapham Common London, UK Loaded In The Park 08/28 - Zitadelle Berlin, DE 08/30 - Rock Am See Konstanz, DE 09/16 - Amphitheater Gelsenkirchen, DE 09/18 - Hamburg Stadtpark Hamburg, DE 09/22 - Ice Rink St. Petersburg, RU 09/24 - B1 Moscow, RU
Amy Winehouse Glastonbury 'punch victim' speaks The fan who was allegedly punched by Amy Winehouse at Glastonbury on Saturday night (June 28) has spoken out about the experience.
James Gostelow, a 25 year-old Londoner, told BBC News that the incident was the result of mistaken identity, as someone in the crowd behind him threw a hat at the singer.
Golstelow claimed that Winehouse was reacting to the hat being thrown, and believed it was he who had thrown it at her. He said he was not bitter about the incident, saying it was part of the of the festival experience.
"I saw a hat being thrown from behind me and it hit Amy's beehive," he said. "She looked down, saw me looking up, and her elbow went for me.
"She caught my forehead, then someone may have shouted something from the back, which is when she went in again.
"At the end of the day it is all part of being at the front and being pushed by thousands of people. It is all part of the Glastonbury experience. I'm just pleased I got to see her. She did a great act.
"Not everyone can say they have been hit by Amy Winehouse. I just want to shake the person who threw the hat."
Gostelow's footage of the Amy Winehouse 'attack' is available to watch at BBC News and Cnn.com Watch the video here
Jay Z Covers Oasis wins over Glastonbury Festival The tents are packed up and most of the 140,000 music lovers have made their weary way home, but memories of this year's Glastonbury festival, and its headline act Jay-Z, are likely to linger.
The choice of the U.S. rapper to perform on the main stage at a festival best known for its guitar-based rock acts was widely criticized, and Oasis' Noel Gallagher riled the musician by saying the organizers were wrong to pick him.
Jay-Z's response was emphatic. He opened his show with a film using Gallagher's now infamous comments and a montage of clips parodying him, before launching into an acoustic rendition of one of Oasis's biggest hits, "Wonderwall." Most fans and critics were impressed.
"His performance will go down in Glastonbury history," wrote the Independent in a review of the festival.
Rather than being booed off stage as some predicted, "both audience and artist rose to the occasion and turned in a moment of real, euphoric, pop-culture history," added the Times.
The Guardian concluded: "It's brilliantly staged, utterly thrilling and it makes Gallagher look a bit of a jerk."
The Daily Mirror tabloid, however, described his performance as dull. "I felt seriously short-changed as I walked away from this performance," it said.
Jesus & Mary Chain Reveal Box Set The long-awaited Jesus & Mary Chain boxed set is finally set for release Sept. 30 via Rhino.
The four-disc "The Power of Negative Thinking: B-Sides & Rarities" is presented in chronological order and offers a host of previously unreleased tracks, including the "Psychocandy"-era "Walk and Crawl," alternate versions of "Never Understand" and "Coast to Coast," demos of "My Little Underground," "The Living End" and "Dirty Water" and the never-before-heard "Till I Found You."
The box also sports 19 of the 20 rarities previously released on the 1988 compilation "Barbed Wire Kisses," and a cassette-sourced 1983 recording of "Up Too High."
The packaging for "Negative Thinking" is a 6-by-10 gatefold shell and includes an 18-by-24 double-sided poster featuring artwork and a Jesus & Mary Chain family tree.
Meanwhile, work continues on the band's first new studio album in a decade, a release date for which has yet to be announced.
Here is the track list for "The Power of Negative Thinking":
Disc one: "Up Too High" "Upside Down" "Vegetable Man" "Suck" "Ambition" "Just Out of Reach" "Boyfriend's Dead" "Head" "Just Like Honey" (demo, October 1984) "Cracked" "Taste of Cindy" (acoustic) "The Hardest Walk" "Never Understand" (alternate) "My Little Underground" (demo) "The Living End" (demo) "Some Candy Talking" "Psychocandy" "Hit" "Cut Dead" (acoustic) "You Trip Me Up" (acoustic) "Walk and Crawl"
Disc two: "Kill Surf City" "Bo Diddle Is Jesus" "Who Do You Love" "Everything's Alright When You're Down" "Shake" "Happy When It Rains" (demo) "Happy Place" "F. Hole" "Rider" "On the Wall" (demo) "Surfin' USA" (outtake) "Here It Comes Again" "Don't Ever Change" "Swing" "Sidewalking" "Surfin' USA" (summer mix) "Shimmer" "Penetration" "Break Me Down" "Subway" "My Girl"
Disc three: "In the Black" "Terminal Beach" "Deviant Slice" "I'm Glad I Never" "Drop" (acoustic remix) "Rollercoaster" "Silverblade" "Lowlife" "Tower of Song" "Heat" "Guitarman" "Why'd You Want Me" "Sometimes" "Teenage Lust" (acoustic version) "Reverberation (Doubt)" "Don't Come Down" "Snakedriver" "Something I Can't Have" "Write Record Release Blues" "Little Red Rooster"
Disc four: "The Perfect Crime" "Little Stars" "Drop" (re-recorded version) "I'm in With the Out Crowd" "New York City" "Taking It Away" "Ghost of a Smile" "Alphabet Street" "Coast to Coast" (alternate take) "Dirty Water" (alternate take) "Till I Found You" "Bleed Me" "33 1/3" "Lost Star" "Hide Myself" "Rocket" "Easylife, Easylove" "40,000K" "Nineteen666"
My Brightest Diamond: A Thousand Shark's Teeth (Album Review) My first spin of My Brightest Diamond's sophomore effort, A Thousand Shark's Teeth, was accompanied by a Wikipedia binge that focused primarily on the sinking of the RMS Titanic. The album provided an evocative backdrop for my perusal of the details surrounding the ocean liner's doomed maiden voyage, but it wasn't until a second, more attentive listen that I realized how appropriate a soundtrack it was. The album's title comes from the song "Goodbye Lover," in which singer-songwriter Shara Worden likens the risks of love to an agonizing death at sea—specifically, "fear of exposure" and the prickling of "a thousand shark teeth." The portrait painted throughout Shark's Teeth is of a self-contained world, some faraway Brigadoon filled with storms and teeming with tidal shifts: "I want a storm to blow it out/I want to shake myself and turn my heart inside out," Worden sings on the theatrical "Ice and the Storm," a snow globe of a song. Throughout the album, cascading guitars submerge Worden's soundscapes of swelling strings, tinkling pianos and rattling percussion like rolling waves. "I rest my head on water/I slip under/I descend into the deep/Past the rushes, past the shipwrecks/Into my tears I flow," she says on "Like a Sieve."
Originally conceived as an album of string-quartet pieces, Shark's Teeth evolved into something more musically full-bodied (the spare "If I Were Queen" might be the only vestige from the initial concept): the peculiar, cabaret-style "Black and Cousaud" borrows lyrics from Ravel's L'enfant et les Sortileges; "To Pluto's Moon," the album's mournful, trip-hop-infused centerpiece, is like the despondent bastard child of Radiohead and Massive Attack; "Bass Player" moves with the sexy, measured swagger of its titular subject. For Worden, love is something to wail about but her vocals are slightly reigned in here—perhaps only if you listen to the record back-to-back with Bring Me the Workhorse, but noticeable nevertheless. Björk is once again a touchstone, as Worden turns an unlikely turn of phrase ("Darling, we've accumulated too much miscommunication") into a near pop slogan on "Ice and the Storm," and she possesses the Icelandic performer's peculiar attention to detail. It's something the designers of the Titanic no doubt also possessed. Aside from those iron rivets, of course. (Via)
Oasis Sings From Its 'Soul' On New Album Oasis' new album, "Dig Out Your Soul," has been penciled in for an Oct. 7 release via Big Brother Records. The first single will be "The Shock of the Lightning."
"If 'The Shock Of The Lightning' sounds instant and compelling to you, it's because it was written dead fast," guitarist Noel Gallagher says. "And recorded dead fast. 'The Shock of The Lightning' basically is the demo. And it has retained its energy,"
"Soul" was produced by Dave Sardy and includes songs from all four band members. A track list has yet to be announced.
"I wanted to write music that had a groove; not songs that followed that traditional pattern of verse, chorus and middle eight," Gallagher says. "I wanted a sound that was more hypnotic; more driving."
The album is the follow-up to 2005's "Don't Believe the Truth," which has sold 201,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Oasis is in the process of signing a North American marketing and distribution deal for "Dig Out Your Soul"; as reported last week, Sony BMG will handle the project internationally.
Boy George denied U.S. visa LONDON, England (CNN) -- DJ and pop star Boy George has been denied a visa to enter the United States, his Web site said Tuesday.
In 2007, George spent five days cleaning the streets of New York to fulfill a community service sentence.
U.S. immigration authorities denied the visa because George, 48, faces trial in November in London on charges of false imprisonment relating to an April 2007 incident, according to a statement from Boy George's management, posted on his site.
"George is astounded at the decision and is having his lawyers here in the States look at it in the hope that someone will change their mind," the statement read.
Boy George, whose real name is George O'Dowd, was charged in London last November with false imprisonment following a complaint from a 28-year-old man, police said. The incident happened in East London the previous April, police said.
George is free on unconditional bail and is not barred from traveling as he awaits trial, his management said. His upcoming schedule includes a series of U.S. club dates in July and August.
George is best known as the singer of '80s pop group Culture Club, with hits including "Karma Chameleon" and "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?" He quit the band in 1987 and embarked on a short solo career before reinventing himself as a club DJ and launching a fashion label, B-Rude.
In August 2007, George spent five days cleaning the streets of Manhattan to fulfill a community service sentence for falsely reporting a break-in at his New York home. George's management said the denial of his U.S. visa had nothing to do with that case.
Trail Of Dead Launches Imprint With Universal Rock outfit ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead is launching its own label, Richter Scale Records, in association with Universal Music Group's Justice Records.
The band's next album is due in January 2009 and was co-produced by longtime collaborator Mike McCarthy and Chris "Frenchie" Smith. According to a spokesperson, Trail Of Dead was intent "on creating a more anthemic record" this time around.
Footage from the recording sessions can be found on Trail Of Dead's Web site.
The band left Interscope following its third album for the label, 2006's "So Divided," which has sold just 26,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Trail Of Dead's 2002 label debut, "Source Tags & Codes," has shifted 124,000.
Early in its career, the band recorded for Trance Syndicate and Merge, and according to frontman Conrad Keely, the move back to an indie will allow Trail OF Dead "to seek the creative freedom envisioned by the founding fathers of our great nation, immune from the tyranny of the corporate ogre." (Via Billboard)
The Verve set to release 1st album since 1997 The Verve has christened its reunion album "Four" and will release it before the end of the summer.
The set is due Aug. 18 via EMI internationally and a day later in North America, where it will come out on the Verve's On Our Own imprint with distribution via MRI/Megaforce/RED.
The album's first single, "Love Is Noise," was premiered on BBC Radio One today (June 23) and is now streaming from the band's MySpace site.
"This is a very special band, with four incredibly talented people," the Verve's manager Jaz Summers told Billboard in February. "They made three great albums before. And they're going to make another great album now. There's a bit of magic when the four of them come together."
The Verve got back together in 2007 following a nine-year hiatus. The band's last album was 1997's "Urban Hymns," which launched the U.K. combo to worldwide stardom on the strength of the single "Bittersweet Symphony." Since then, frontman Richard Ashcroft has recorded three solo albums.
The Verve has a dozen summer festival dates on tap, including a co-headlining slot at Glastonbury later this month.
Kings of Leon set to release new album Kings Of Leon unveiled its fourth studio album for media last Thursday (June 19) at a bar in New York's East Village, but band members snuck off before the playback began, perhaps not wanting to influence opinion.
Eleven tracks were played from "Only by the Night," due Sept. 23 via RCA. A pinging keyboard sound introduces the spacey opener "Closer," highlighted by a soulful vocal from Caleb Followill. Fuzzed-out bass drives a great, funky groove on "Crawl," while "Sex on Fire" is a strident rocker with a sultry undercurrent.
The new album is the follow-up to 2007's "Because of the Times," which has sold 180,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Kings Of Leon will be on tour in Europe starting June 27 at the U.K.'s Glastonbury Festival, and will return stateside for an Aug. 9 set at the first All Points West festival at New Jersey's Liberty State Park.
George Carlin RIP George Carlin has died from heart failure. The man who made famous the "seven words you can never say on television" passed away at 5:55 p.m. Sunday at Saint John's Hospital in Santa Monica, his longtime publicist said. He was 71.
Carlin, who has had several heart attacks and a history of cardiac issues, went into the hospital this afternoon after complaining of heart problems.
Carlin has more than 20 comedy albums, 14 HBO specials, numerous TV and movie roles, and three best-selling books to his credit. Last year, he celebrated his 50th year in show business, and he had just finished his last HBO special in March, "It's Bad for Ya."
Dennis Wilson- Pacific Ocean Blue (Reissue) (Album Review) It's not hard to see why Dennis Wilson's only album has such mythical status. Alongside the Beach Boys drummer's colourful back story - the hedonistic hard living, his dubious association with Charlie Manson, his Californian surfer good looks and his all too predictable early demise in his beloved Pacific Ocean - is the album's scarcity value. Out of print for aeons, tracking down a copy of Pacific Ocean Blue has long been the Holy Grail for many a rock fan.
Thankfully, the album is finally getting the deluxe reissue treatment to tie in with its 30th anniversary. An accompanying CD includes album outtakes and tracks. So will shining a light on Pacific Ocean Blue rid it of its reverential allure? Not a jot. It can now justifiably be held up against the likes of Pet Sounds, Surf's Up et al.
Stylistically, the album takes a detour from Brian Wilson's Sixties sunshine-soaked symphonies. Adding a plaintive beauty and combining it with coke-ravaged, mid-Seventies, Spector-ish AOR and some playful studio trickery, the album is a raw, introspective and melancholic delight. Although Wilson's voice might be torturously cracked - notably on 'Thoughts of You' and 'Time' - there are moments of hope, not least on the blue-eyed soul of 'River Song'. Brian once referred to his kid brother as a dumb angel. Well, Dennis might not have been an angel, but he wasn't dumb either.
Death Cab For Cutie, REM join Voodoo Experience Bill Death Cab For Cutie, Erykah Badu, Wyclef Jean, Panic At The Disco, Joss Stone, Lupe Fiasco and Dashboard Confessional are among the top names joining headliners R.E.M., Nine Inch Nails and Stone Temple Pilots at the tenth Voodoo Experience, to be held Oct. 24-26 at New Orleans' City Park.
Billboard.com can reveal that the event will also feature performances by DeVotchKa, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, Cold War Kids, Ghostland Observatory, Joseph Arthur, Old 97's, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, the reunited Shudder To Think, the Gutter Twins, Thievery Corporation, Tokyo Police Club and Man Man.
Among the dozens of local and/or non-rock acts set to appear are the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Irving Mayfield's New Orleans Jazz Orchestra, the New Orleans Bingo! Show, Ozomatli with Chali 2na, the Blind Boys of Alabama, Kermit Ruffins, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, the Iguanas, Bonerama, Marc Broussard and King Britt, the latter staging a tribute to local legend Sister Gertrude Morgan.
Weekend passes priced at $115 go on sale Monday (June 23). Three-day VIP passes will also available for $450.
Amy Winehouse Has Emphysema Amy Winehouse has early stage emphysema and her lungs have been damaged by smoking crack cocaine and cigarettes, her father said in an interview published yesterday (June 22).
The Sunday Mirror quoted Mitch Winehouse as saying that Amy has an irregular heartbeat, and has been warned that she will have to wear an oxygen mask unless she stops smoking drugs.
"The doctors have told her if she goes back to smoking drugs, it won't just ruin her voice, it will kill her," Mitch Winehouse was quoted as saying. "There are nodules around the chest and dark marks. She has 70 percent lung capacity."
The 24-year-old soul diva collapsed at her north London home last Monday after signing autographs for a group of fans and was taken to a London hospital for tests. She remained there all week.
She is still scheduled to sing at a concert in London on Friday celebrating the 90th birthday of Nelson Mandela and plans to take part in the Glastonbury music festival the following day.
"When she's been inactive work-wise then that's when the problems really start. The doctors have said that medically there isn't any reason why she can't do Glastonbury," the paper quoted him as saying.
He also pleaded with her drug-taking friends to stay away from her. "What hope does she have if people are taking drugs around her," he said.
Chris Goodman, spokesman for Amy Winehouse, said, "If that's what Mitch says, that's what he says. It sounds right." Mitch Winehouse could not immediately be reached for comment.
The Shins Releasing Next Album On Frontman's Label The Shins are likely to self-release their fourth studio album through frontman James Mercer's Aural Apothecary label. The beloved indie rock group's first three albums were released by Sub Pop.
"The deal will be more of a [pressing and distribution] deal than a traditional record deal," Shins manager Ian Montone said. "That partner could very well remain Sub Pop, who have done a remarkable job with the band and have a great staff of people who really love music. It could be a digital partner with respect to other rights. All of this is being determined. The first goal is to make the record and see where that takes us."
Says Sub Pop general manager Megan Jasper, "The Shins have been a huge part of Sub Pop's story. We'd love to continue working with them."
The Shins are seeking a deal that would allow them to own their masters, "and, in addition to the marketing tools we have at our own disposal, team up with a label partner that will assist with additional marketing, radio, and various costs," Montone reports.
For a band like the Shins, who have sold 1.58 million albums in the United States since 2001, according to Nielsen SoundScan, such a deal makes sense because "it allows them to have the best of all possible worlds -- control and ownership, as well as the ability to still partner with a label and be able to take advantage of that traditional infrastructure," according to Montone.
The band's most recent album, 2007's "Wincing the Night Away," debuted at a career-best No. 2 on The Billboard 200 and has sold more than 538,000 copies.
New Calexico Album Details The Tucson band has announced the details to their new album. It will be called "Carried to Dust" and will be released on September 9. The album features collaborations with Iron & Wine's Sam Beam, Tortoise bassist Doug McCombs and Pieta Brown. This album will be the follow-up to their 2006 release "Garden Ruin". The tracklisting is below and a cover by Calexico.
Carried to Dust Tracklisting: 01. Victor Jara's Hands 02. Two Silver Trees 03. The News About William 04. Sarabande In Pencil Form 05. Writer's Minor Holiday 06. Man Made Lake 07. Inspiracion 08. House of Valparaiso 09. Slowness 10. Bend to the Road 11. El Gatillo (Trigger Revisited) 12. Fractured Air (Tornado Watch) 13. Falling From Sleeves 14. Red Blooms 15. Contention City
Spiritualized: Songs in A&E (Album Review) There's a Groundhog Day aspect to Jason Pierce's Spiritualized. The details may vary from album to album, but you can bet on hearing a hybrid of blues, gospel, free jazz and garage-rock, accompanied by references to soul, fire, medication and God. Even so, his sixth album's emotional power mostly transcends any sense of deja vu. Delayed and coloured by a near-fatal bout of double pneu-monia, it is his most moving record since 1997's Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space. Much of its pleasure derives from poignant juxtapositions: the way morbid, Townes Van Zandt-style country is underpinned by the wheezing of a respirator on Death Take Your Fiddle, or the foaming distortion of You Lie You Cheat gives way to beatific choral harmonies. In more ways than one, Pierce sounds revived.
Guitarist Bo Diddley Dead at 79 (CNN) -- Bo Diddley, the musical pioneer whose songs, such as "Who Do You Love?" and "Bo Diddley," melded rhythm and blues and rock 'n' roll through a distinctive thumping beat, has died. He was 79. Rock 'n' roll pioneer Bo Diddley influenced generations of guitarists.
Diddley died Monday, surrounded by family and loved ones at his home in Archer, Florida, a family spokeswoman said.
The cause was heart failure, his family said.
The world-renowned guitarist's signature beat -- usually played on an equally distinctive rectangular-bodied guitar -- laid the foundation for rock 'n' roll, and became so identified with him that it became known as the "Bo Diddley" beat. It was unlike anything else heard in pop music.
"This distinctive, African-based ... rhythm pattern (which goes bomp-bomp-bomp bomp-bomp) was picked up by other artists and has been a distinctive and recurring element in rock 'n' roll through the decades," according to the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame.
Guitarist George Thorogood, a Diddley disciple, put it more bluntly.
"[Chuck Berry's] 'Maybellene' is a country song sped up," Thorogood told Rolling Stone in 2005. " 'Johnny B. Goode' is blues sped up. But you listen to 'Bo Diddley,' and you say, 'What in the Jesus is that?' "
Among the artists who made use of the Bo Diddley beat were Buddy Holly ("Not Fade Away," later covered by the Rolling Stones), Johnny Otis ("Willie and the Hand Jive"), the Yardbirds (covering Diddley's "I'm a Man" and adding their own guitar stylings to the closing bars, which were later incorporated into the Count Five's "Psychotic Reaction"), the Strangeloves ("I Want Candy"), Bruce Springsteen ("She's the One"), U2 ("Desire") and George Michael ("Faith"). Hundreds of artists have covered Diddley songs. Blog: The genius of Bo Diddley
"Bo Diddley was one of rock 'n' roll's true pioneers," said Neil Portnow, president and CEO of The Recording Academy, the music industry organization best known for presenting the Grammy Awards. "He inspired legions of musicians with his trademark rhythm and signature custom-built guitar, and his song 'Bo Diddley' earned a rightful place in the Grammy Hall Of Fame. He leaves an indelible mark on American music and culture, and our deepest sympathies go out to his family, friends and fans. The 'Bo Diddley beat' surely will continue on."
Diddley's debut single was his self-titled 1955 classic, with "I'm a Man" as its B-side. The songs were released on Chicago's Chess-Checker Records label, also the home of Chuck Berry and Willie Dixon.
"It was the first in a string of groundbreaking sides that walked the fine line between rhythm & blues and rock 'n' roll," his Hall of Fame biography says.
Diddley was also a pioneer of the electric guitar, tweaking his instruments and adding a variety of effects to his recordings.
A contemporary of Berry, Fats Domino and Elvis Presley, Diddley cut a stylish figure on the rock 'n' roll landscape. With his guitar, dark glasses and black hat, he looked vaguely menacing; his music was much earthier and bluesier than that of his rock 'n' roll contemporaries.
However, Diddley wasn't above climbing on bandwagons in search of wider popularity; his early 1960s albums included such titles as "Bo Diddley Is a Gunslinger," "Bo Diddley's a Twister," "Bo Diddley's Beach Party" and "Surfin' with Bo Diddley."
Eventually, Diddley returned to his roots and became a rock 'n' roll elder statesman. He was featured in the Thorogood video "Bad to the Bone," playing pool with Thorogood, and showed up during the Nike "Bo Knows" campaign starring Bo Jackson.
At the conclusion of a Nike commercial that showed Jackson excelling at a variety of sports, the athlete picked up a guitar and produced a squall of noise. Cut to Diddley, listening to the attempt: "Bo, you don't know Diddley," he said.
"I never could figure out what it had to do with shoes, but it worked," Diddley told The Associated Press. "I got into a lot of new front rooms on the tube."
Diddley was born Ellas Otha Bates in McComb, Mississippi, on December 30, 1928. He later took the name McDaniel after being adopted by his mother's cousin. Diddley's family moved to Chicago when he was 7, according to his Hall of Fame biography.
He played violin as a child, but said he was inspired to pick up the guitar after hearing John Lee Hooker's 1949 rhythm and blues hit, "Boogie Chillen."
He told many stories of how he got the name "Bo Diddley." In a 1999 interview, he said it came from his childhood friends, according to AP. Other tales included a one-string instrument from traditional blues called a diddley bow, the AP notes.
Either way, it became his own -- as did his music.
"I don't like to copy anybody. Everybody tries to do what I do, update it," he told the AP. "I don't have any idols I copied after."
"They copied everything I did, upgraded it, messed it up. It seems to me that nobody can come up with their own thing, they have to put a little bit of Bo Diddley there," he said.
He continued to tour well into 2007, but suffered a stroke last May and a heart attack in August.
He was inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in January 1987.
Though he was upset that he never received the financial rewards he expected -- "I am owed," he told the AP, adding "a dude with a pencil is worse than a cat with a machine gun" -- he reflected modestly on the rock 'n' roll revolution he helped start.
"Well, it's no different from anything else, I guess. I started sumthin'. I just happened to be the first one," he told the British magazine Uncut in 2005. "But I never thought it would turn into what it did. Somebody had to be first, and it happened to be me."
MIA to WED Genre-bending Brit singer M.I.A. is engaged to a member of Montreal's affluent Bronfman clan, Sun Media has learned.
And she made the announcement here in Edmonton during her concert at the Edmonton Event Centre Tuesday night.
The performer became engaged last week to Benjamin Brewer, the son of Warner Music Group Chairman and CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr., according to sources in the position to know who wish to remain anonymous. Brewer is a guitarist for New York alt-rock band The Exit.
It is not known if the couple has set a wedding date or location.
M.I.A., 30, is touring Canada in support of her 2007 CD Kala. In an interview with Sun Media, M.I.A. said she might have to get married to stay in the U.S., or move to Montreal following the expiration of her American work visa in June.
M.I.A. was born Mathangi Arulpragasam in London, England. She was raised in Sri Lanka, her family's native country, before they returned to London -- as refugees.
The Bronfmans are one of Canada's richest families, having made their fortune from their Seagram whiskey empire. (Via Edmonton Sun)
Morrissey Completes New Album, Preps Reissue Morrissey is planning a September release for his ninth studio album, "Years of Refusal." According to trusted fan site True to You, the album will be released by Polydor in the U.K. and an as-yet-undecided Universal label Stateside.
The 12-track "Refusal" was produced by Jerry Finn, who helmed Morrissey's 2004 album "You are the Quarry."
At some point before the album release, Sony BMG plans to reissue Morrissey's 1995 album "Southpaw Grammar" with remastered audio, three previously unreleased tracks and new artwork.
There's also new Morrissey music to be had in the form of "All You Need Is Me," a single due June 2 in the U.K. The track ins one of several new songs that have cropped up in Morrissey's live shows this year, including "Something Is Squeezing My Skull" and "That's How People Grow Up."
Two of the single's B-sides, "Children in Pieces" and "My Dearest Love," are collaborations with Oscar-winning composer Gustavo Santaolalla.
