Sincerity — that’s Bob Dylan’s present to you on his first-ever Christmas album. Based on a preview of six tracks from Christmas in the Heart — a set of traditional hymns and popular holiday songs to be released October 13th — held at the Sony Music offices this week, Dylan truly means it when he gets to the famous closing line of “The Christmas Song,” co-written by singer Mel Tormé and first cut in 1946 by Nat King Cole: “Although it’s been said many times many ways, Merry Christmas to you.” Against a restrained country-saloon-band arrangement, Dylan’s dirt-road larynx smooths out into a low warming tenor wishing you the top o’ the season.

Dylan produced the album under his pseudonym Jack Frost (very appropriate this time around) and recorded it with his touring band and some guests, including male and female chorales and Los Lobos accordionist David Hidalgo, who played all over Dylan’s last album, Together Through Life. The accordion is, in fact, the driving instrument on “Must Be Santa,” which Dylan takes at hyper-polka speed, with a spiked-eggnog exuberance in the backing vocals. “The Little Drummer Boy” combines the dusted-roots quality of Together Through Life and the haunted flair of his 1989 album, Oh Mercy, with prominent drum rolls and a wall of singing angels behind him. The Jordanaires-like male harmonies in “Here Comes Santa Claus” add some holiday Elvis to the barn-dance gait. A long Hawaiian steel-guitar flourish starts the palm trees swaying in “Christmas Island,” and Dylan puts extra church in “O Come All Ye Faithful” by singing the first verse in the original Latin (”Adeste fideles . . .”).

Dylan, who opens a fall U.S. tour October 4th in Seattle, recently completed a video for “Must Be Santa” and is hoping Christmas in the Heart will be a gift that keeps on giving. He has pledged all of his American royalties from the record, now and forever, to Feeding America, a program that provides meals for the hungry. Proceeds from overseas sales will go to international charities.

Source RollingStone

Edwyn Collins' wife and manager Grace Maxwell has criticised major record labels and MySpace for not allowing his massive 1995 hit 'A Girl Like You' to be a free download online.

Maxwell detailed her "running battle" with both MySpace and Warner Music Group, who she says are "claiming the ownership" of the song, despite her husband owning the copyright for it - you can read it on her blog at MySpace.

Maxwell said that after writing to MySpace demanding to know why he isn't able to share the track for free, she was put in touch with a Warner Music Group representative who "promised to get it sorted" some months ago.

She added that "MySpace are not equipped to deal with the notion that anyone other than a major can claim a copyright," and went on to vent her frustration that 'A Girl Like You' is being sold elsewhere on the internet rather than being offered for free.

"'A Girl Like You' is available for sale all over the internet. Not by Edwyn, by all sorts of respectable major labels whose licence to sell it ran out years ago and who do not account to him," she wrote. "Attempting to make them cease and desist would use up the rest of my life. Because this is what they do and what they've always done."

Maxwell also wrote about her thoughts on illegal music downloads, coming out in support of file-sharers and shying away from the recent views of the Featured Artists Coalition and artists like Lily Allen.

"Andrew Loog Oldham said that getting ripped off [by the industry] was your entrance fee to the music business of the '60s, so get over it. He's right and things have not changed. We are very over it, but nonetheless aware of who the biggest bootleggers around are. It's not the file-sharers," she stated. "Personally, we've always loved bootlegs."

Explaining her thoughts on how to best govern file-sharing the internet, Maxwell said she wants users to be able to enjoy music by either paying a small subscription or, if possible, for free.

"Let's get on with working out a wonderful new way for music lovers to enjoy music for free or for a small subscription that makes it legal and easy to hear anything and allows the artist to reap the rewards of such freedom of access," she wrote.

Source NME

Former REM drummer Bill Berry reunited with his ex-bandmates Peter Buck and Mike Mills onstage in the band’s hometown of Athens, Georgia on Monday (September 28) night.

Berry, who quit REM in 1997, played drums on a cover of The Beatles' 'The Ballad Of John And Yoko' and The McCoys' 'Hang On Sloopy'. Watch fan-recorded video footage of the reunion on NME.COM below.

The performance took place in Athens' 40 Watt Club, and Berry, Buck and Mills were joined by former Dream Syndicate frontman Steve Wynn, Scott McCaughey of Seattle band The Young Fresh Fellows and Linda Pitmon.

Berry quit REM amicably in 1997 to become a farmer, saying that he wanted a career change. He had suffered a brain aneurism while performing onstage with the band in 1995.

The performance at the 40 Watt Club marked Berry's first public appearance since playing with REM at the 2007 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction.

.Watch the video at NME

Days after releasing a double-A single Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses/The Hollow Earth, Radiohead's Thom Yorke has announced he's formed a new band - don't worry, it's just a side project - with which he intends to play live shows.

The group consists of Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, long-time Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, REM collaborator Joey Waronker and Brazilian multi-instrumentalist Mauro Refosco.

In a blog on Radiohead's Dead Air Space, Yorke discusses the new outfit, and mentions upcoming gigs at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles on 4 and 5 October:

"In the past couple of weeks I've been getting a band together for fun to play The Eraser stuff [Yorke's 2006 solo album] live and the new songs etc..to see if it could work!"

Yorke adds, "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. We've also got locals Lucky Dragons playing."

The Radiohead frontman doesn't indicate whether there will be additional dates, but with Flea returning to active duty in the Chili Peppers in just a few weeks, the unnamed band might be a weekend-only affair.

See his new band's photo at music-radar

Stewart Copeland has a most definitive answer to the millions of music fans hoping for another reunion by The Police: Who knows?

"I mean, I intend to be on the planet here for another 50 years," the 57-year-old drummer tells Billboard. "Who knows what'll happen.

"To escape from The Police we had to melt down the cage and...dismantle the huge behemoth that grew up around the band. The three of us had to get away from it. As to whether or not we do it again, who knows."

Police 'war stories'

Copeland has documented much of The Police's tale - 'war stories,' he calls them - in a new book called Strange Things Happen: A Life With The Police, Polo, And Pygmies. While he admits that both his former bandmates covered the group's history well, he feels that his take puts sheds new light on "the conflict in the band."

"It has always been too easy to assume it was just a clash of egos, and that was always very frustrating for me because it's so far from the truth," he says.

"In fact, we are very selfless in The Police, all three of us; we really leave our egos at the door and go in there and take a pasting from each other - and we take it. That's what life in The Police was all about. It was always a clash of musical ideals...We were fighting over the right things."

As for the immediate future, Copeland is finishing a concerto for The Dallas Symphony Orchestra that will have its premiere in 2010. In addition, he's finalizing an offer to work with a British opera company.

And after that? Who knows?...

Source music-radar

Bruce Springsteen And The E Street Band began their last concerts at New Jersey's Giants Stadium last night - the venue is being demolished to make way for a larger one - and The Boss debuted a new song just for the occasion.

"Evening, New Jersey! Nice to be in my backyard," Bruce said to the crowd of 80,000. "Joining us tonight to shut the old lady down?

"We've had a lot of great nights here," he added (these concerts will make 19 in all). "Let's make this another one." And with that, Springsteen, who just turned 60, kicked off the three-hour, 13-minute show.

"I was raised out of steel here in the swamps of Jersey/ some misty years ago/ through the mud and the beer/ and the blood and the cheers/ I've seen champions come and go," he sang. "So if you've got the guts mister/ if you've got the balls/ if you think it's your time, then step to the line/ and bring on your wrecking ball"

The new anthem received a thunderous ovation, but it was Bruce's complete reading of the Born To Run album that brought the audience to its feet - and knees.

Springtseen has four more nights to go in his Giants Stadium-closing run, and he's promised to Play Darkness On The Edge Of Town in full as well.

Springsteen's Giants Stadium opening night set list

Wrecking Ball
Seeds
Johnny 99
Atlantic City
Outlaw Pete
Hungry Heart
Working On A Dream
Thunder Road
Tenth Avenue Freeze-out
Night
Backstreets
Born To Run
She's The One
Meeting Across The River
Jungleland
Waitin' On A Sunny Day
The Promised Land
Into The Fire
Lonesome Day
The Rising
Badlands
No Surrender
Raise Your Hand
E Street Shuffle
Growin' Up
American Land
Dancing In The Dark
Hard Times
Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)

Twenty-nine songs. What a slacker at 60!

Listen to the new song at music-radar