Archive for October 21st, 2009
Inside The Monster Ball: Lady Gaga Reveals Plans for New Tour
October 21st, 2009
Lady Gaga hasn’t spilled many details about her upcoming “pop-electro opera,” The Monster Ball — until now. In an exclusive interview with Rolling Stone, the pop star revealed the trek’s theme, her ambitious staging, why she didn’t borrow any plans from her nixed Fame Kills tour, and a few details about her upcoming re-release, The Fame Monster. Get the full story in our new issue, on stands next week, and read Brian Hiatt’s Q&A with ...
Watch Harper Simon Cover Nick Drake’s “From the Morning”
October 21st, 2009
Harper Simon recently stopped by the Rolling Stone offices to perform some stripped-down tracks off his self-produced and self-titled record, which earned a three-and-a-half star review from RS. Click above to watch the singer/songwriter (and son of Paul) perform an intimate version of Harper Simon’s closing track “Berkeley Girl.” Plus, check out Simon’s rendition of Nick Drake’s Pink Moon song “From the Morning” after the jump.
“From the Morning”
Tour Tracker: Weezer, Arctic Monkeys and Dane Cook
October 21st, 2009
Photo: Flanigan/FilmMagicWeezer plot out more Raditude dates including a Halloween show at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom. Plus, Arctic Monkeys head back stateside for a brief early-December tour of the Northeast and comedian Dane Cook embarks on the second leg of his laughfest. Full dates for all three treks, after the jump.
Weezer
Oct. 24 – Los Angeles, CA @ Palladium
Oct. 31 – New York, NY @ Hammerstein Ballroom
Dec. 1 – Chicago, IL @ Aragon Ballroom
Dec. 3 ...
New Music Report: No Age, Plus Florence and the Machine
October 21st, 2009
Rolling Stone’s Kevin O’Donnell guides you to two killer releases in our weekly New Music Report. First up, Losing Feeling, a new EP from SoCal skate-punk duo No Age. Last year’s full-length Nouns was a messy collection of noise rock, and on their new EP the pair tone down the fuzz to focus on hooks — kind of like if Brian Wilson collaborated with Black Flag.
Next up is the debut from a onetime RS ...
Inside a Kanye West Tour: “Glow in the Dark” Photos, Backstage Tales
October 21st, 2009
Photograph by Nabil Elderkin courtesy of Rizzoli
Before U2 went 360 and Madonna was Sticky & Sweet, Kanye West’s Glow in the Dark Tour raised the bar on multi-sensory arena experiences with gigs that were one part eye-popping light show, one part art exhibit and, most importantly, one part incredible concert. With Rihanna, N.E.R.D., Santigold and Lupe Fiasco as openers, West took the show from North America to China and Europe, and now fans can get ...
Breaking: Mayer Hawthorne
October 21st, 2009
Who: Michigan singer/multi-instrumentalist/producer whose month-old debut of retro-soul gems, A Strange Arrangement, is earning him fans like Justin Timberlake, Mark Ronson and John Mayer, who Tweeted, “Record of the year goes to Mayer Hawthorne,” and then invited the rookie to open for him on New Year’s Eve.
Sounds Like: Hawthorne’s self-produced tunes are an eerily accurate homage to the Motown hit machine: Think Funk Brothers-style grooves, luxuriant harmonies, Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting chops and sweetly naive vocals that ...
“Louder Than God”: Rush’s Neil Peart Remembers Blue Cheer’s Dickie Peterson
October 21st, 2009
Photo: Michael Ochs Archive/Getty
Rush drummer and Blue Cheer fan Neil Peart wrote the following in memory of singer/bassist Dickie Peterson, who died after a battle with liver cancer on October 12th:
In the summer of 1968, I was going on 16, living in a small Canadian city (St. Catharines, Ontario), and had been playing drums for a couple of years. I owned a small set of Rogers drums, a plastic AM radio that I played along ...
R. Kelly Returns With “Untitled” on December 1st
October 21st, 2009
R. Kelly has announced he’ll release his new album Untitled on December 1st both physically and digitally. The nameless LP, Kelly’s first since 2007’s Double Up and last year’s shelved 12 Play: Fourth Quarter, has already spawned first single “Number One,” featuring Keri Hilson, and second single “Religious” was delivered to radio recently after debuting on Kelly’s YouTube page. As Rolling Stone previously reported, his The Demo Tape mixtape was released this June.
For Untitled, Kelly ...
On the Charts: Buble Eclipses “New Moon,” Dylan Defeats Archuleta in “Christmas” Battle
October 21st, 2009
Photo: Photo: D’Alessandro/WireImageThe Big News: Twilight Nation couldn’t stand up to the Power of Oprah on the charts, as Michael Buble’s Crazy Love held on to Number One on the Billboard Top 200 after the crooner’s October 9th appearance on Winfrey’s show boosted his disc’s sales to 55 percent more than its first week on shelves. Crazy Love wound up selling 203,000 copies in its second week, outpacing the New Moon soundtrack, which finished at ...
Trent Reznor Celebrates 20 Years of NIN’s “Pretty Hate Machine”
October 21st, 2009
After over three months of dormancy, Trent Reznor’s Twitter page was resurrected last night as the Nine Inch Nails frontman celebrated the 20th anniversary of his debut album Pretty Hate Machine. “Happy birthday, old friend. Pretty Hate Machine turns 20,” Reznor wrote, his first tweet since quitting Twitter following a July 17th message that read, “I believe I’ve done all I care to do here at this point. Flesh and reality and silence are calling.” ...