Bob Dylan has been refused permission to play a tour in China.
Dylan was due to play in Shanghai, Beijing, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong this month, but his promoter, Brokers Brothers Herald, have now confirmed that he has been blocked by the Chinese government from performing in the country.
"China's Ministry Of Culture did not give us permission to stage concerts in Beijing and Shanghai, so we had no alternative to scrap plans for a South East Asian tour," Jeffrey Wu, the promoter's head of operations, told the South China Morning Post.
"The chance to play in China was the main attraction for him [Dylan]. When that fell through, everything else was called off."
Bjork stirred up tensions when she performed 'Declare Independence' during a gig in Shanghai two years ago, while Oasis were also banned from performing in China last year due to them having links with the 'Free Tibet' campaign.
Psychedelic Furs announce North American tour details
Psychedelic Furs have announced details of an upcoming North American tour.
Starting with a show at the Hard Rock Hotel in Orlando, Florida, the 28-date tour will finish at Warehouse Live in Houston, Texas on July 2.
The group reunited back in 2000, although haven't released a studio album since 1991's 'World Outside'.
Psychedelic Furs will play the following:
Orlando, FL Hard Rock Hotel (May 27)
West Melbourne, FL Levelz (28)
Atlanta, GA Masquerade (29)
Baltimore, MD Rams Head Live (June 1)
Philadelphia, PA The Blockley (2)
New York, NY Irving Plaza (4)
Boston, MA House Of Blues (5)
Fairfield, CT Stage One (6)
Toronto, ON Lee's Palace (8)
Royal Oak, MI Royal Oak Music Theatre (10)
Chicago, IL Metro (11)
Minneapolis, MN First Avenue (12)
Omaha, NE The Waiting Room Lounge (13)
Kansas City, MO The Midland (14)
Denver, CO Gothic Theatre (16)
Boise, ID Egyptian Theatre (18)
Seattle, WA The Showbox (19)
Portland, OR Crystal Ballroom (20)
San Francisco, CA Filmore (22)
San Diego, CA Belly Up (23)
Los Angeles, CA The Wiltern (24)
Anaheim, CA Grove (25)
Las Vegas, NV House Of Blues (26)
San Antonio, TX White Rabbit (29)
Austin, TX Emo's (30)
Dallas, TX Granada Theater (July 1)
Houston, TX Warehouse Live (2)
Jane's Addiction debut Duff McKagan as their new bassist
by JOE BOSSO
Jane's Addiction played their first concert with Duff McKagan as their new bassist at singer Perry Farrell's birthday bash the other night in Los Angeles.
The event, held at the club Les Deux, officially put to rest one of the worst-kept secrets in the rock world, namely, is McKagan, ex-bassist for Guns N' Roses and sorta-still member of Velvet Revolver, joining Jane's Addiction for good?
Before the birthday gig (check out the video below of the group blasting through Whole Lotta Love), guitarist Dave Navarro posted a a photo on his Twitter account showing McKagan in the studio with the band. The addition of McKagan comes in the wake of original bassist Eric Avery's announcement that he was leaving the group (he had reunited with Jane's following a 17-year break from the band).
What all of this means for the future of Velvet Revolver is anybody's guess. Jane's Addiction are said to be working on an album that will be released in the fall of this year, with an extensive world tour to follow. (Last night, MusicRadar received a press release from Jane's PR firm, welcoming McKagan to the band - meaning, he's not doing this as a lark; he's a full-time member.) And as we all know, Duff's VR bandmate Slash is about to release his much-ballyhooed solo album, with his own world tour to follow.
Although Slash has indicated that the search for a singer to replace Scott Weiland in Velvet Revolver is still ongoing, these recent developments don't exactly bode well for the troubled outfit.
Led Zeppelin's earliest known live recordings surface
by JOE BOSSO
Led Zeppelin's earliest known live recordings have surfaced on YouTube for the first time. The three audio clips, recorded during the band's maiden voyage to America, are taken from their fifth US show, which took place at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington on 30 December, 1968.
They were opening for groups like Iron Butterfly, Vanilla Fudge and Country Joe And The Fish at the time, and Led Zeppelin, their eponymous debut album, was still weeks away from release when they embarked on a rather ambitious 34-show run that took them from Denver, Colorado to North Miami Beach, Florida.
US rock fans were familiar, to some degree, with Jimmy Page from his work with John Mayall And The Bluesbreakers and The Yardbirds, but it's interesting - and downright quaint even - to hear Robert Plant announce the name of the brand-new band to the barely receptive audience.
Check out the YouTube audio of two Led Zeppelin cuts. The first is Dazed And Confused. To complete silence, Robert Plant introduces the song, which features a spine-tingling middle section of Jimmy Page's violin-bowed guitar playing and a rousing group climax. You want dynamics? You've got 'em!
Next up is How Many More Times, Pts 1 and 2.The last song in Zeppelin's set, and by now they've won over the audience. Plant introduces each band member by name - Page is identified somewhat Spinal Tapishly as playing "lead guitar" and elicits the biggest response from the crowd.
And the group puts out: Plant's siren-like voice is full of youthful vigor; John Bonham's drumming is a fascinating mix of nuance (especially in Pt 2) and locomotive force; John Paul Jones is the musical glue, as always; and Page mesmerizes. His leads are searing, his call-and-response lines with Plant are growling and playful, and his use of a violin bow on a Telecaster is haunting.
"The application of wit and humour will scupper the presumptuous and pious values of the establishment," states David Johansen after MOJO asks the New York Dolls singer to sum up the everlasting appeal of this most timeless of bands. Not quite the stock 'still rocking' answer, but the dryly eloquent Johansen has come a long way since the flamboyant, Jagger-pouting motor-mouth who fronted the first incarnation of the band nearly 40 years ago.
In 2010, original members Johansen and Sylvain Sylvain still retain that reckless spirit - originally sparked in a midtown cycle shop in 1971 and boosted since the Dolls regrouped in 2004 for Morrissey's Meltdown.
"When we got back together I just thought we were going to do the one gig," drawls Johansen as the band prepare for their upcoming London show at Koko on April 19. "We just got together to do [Morrissey's] gig but then kept getting asked to do more. We kept doing them and it was like a year, then nobody was doing anything else any more so it was like, 'Let's face it, we're doing this'. It wasn't like we had some kind of plan."
The Dolls are returning to active road duty after a spell pursuing individual projects, including Steve Conte's solo album, Sylvain's collaboration with former Dead Boy Cheetah Chrome and Johansen's gigging around New York ("Sometimes with a band, sometimes just with Brian Koonin on guitar. I do pretty much anything, just singing..."). He also still hosts his David Johansen's Mansion Of Fun radio show on Sirius XM.
"Everybody's been doing their own thing and now we're gearing up again," he says with some pleasure. "It's kind of like a fraternity now. We just get together and everybody knows what to do. We just get on stage and it's really enjoyable."
Last year saw the Dolls break with tradition and record away from New York for the first time, holing up at Todd Rundgren's studio on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. Against these idyllic surroundings, Rundgren produced the sparkling mix of Dolls-style turbo-blues and rooftop ballads which grace Cause I Sez So - the second album from the current line-up of Johansen, Sylvain, Conte [guitar], Sami Yaffa [bass], Brian Koonin [keyboards] and Brian Delaney [drums].
This was a vastly different scenario from the endless party in which Rundgren produced the group's epochal 1973 debut: "We were kids on St Marks Place, then going to the studio like a circus parade," he remembers. "People were asking where we were going; 'We're going to make a record, come with us!' It'd be like a bacchanal with 50 people in the studio. There weren't any distractions with this one. It was beautiful there. It's nice when you're looking out and there's whales cavorting in the bay.
"We made the album really fast. With Todd it was good because he really just documented the band. He wasn't trying to make it something that it's not. We only took in a couple of files; Todd said, 'Oh man, come on!' It's then you just got to use your imagination.
"For me, it's the best way to work. It's a rock 'n' roll record. It's not something to be laboured. You look at these bands that have a record that sells five million or whatever. I would imagine that's paralysing by the time you have to make another one but we just get together and say, 'Let's see what we got', and that's what it is. It's not like we're thinking we've got to do something different. I don't want to be running around all neurotic. I just want to play, so we don't agonise over it. It's, 'Okay, lets make some songs and record 'em'."
"To us making a record is really like an entry to playing live. We have to make a record so we get to play live again for another 18 months or whatever. That's what we love to do. If we can't play it's like a retriever without a frisbee. We just start walking into walls and stuff. For me, it's a lot less responsibility so I like it. Once we're on the road and things are semi-organised then we have an idea how the day's gonna go. We need a little structure in our lives!"
"The Dolls is really very free. Its a rock 'n' roll show. That's the fun of it. We get together, start to levitate and a lot of people come along with us."
Kris Needs
Photo: Victor Frankowski
New York Dolls play their only UK show of their European tour at London's Koko on April 19. Tickets: 08700 603 777 / www.aloud.com.
Malcolm McLaren, the man who - if his own outlandish publicity is to be believed - birthed punk as a cultural force during his tenure as the manager of the Sex Pistols has died at the age of 64. The punk svengali had been diagnosed with cancer which finally claimed his life on Thursday April 8, 2010, in Switzerland.
Born in Stoke Newington in North London on January 22, 1946, McLaren enjoyed a middle class education and eventually attended art college in the '60s before embarking on a life in fashion and music as the '70s dawned.
Influenced by teddy boy culture and retro American rock'n'roll - most notably the likes of Gene Vincent and Elvis Presley- he and his partner Vivienne Westwood opened Let It Rock, a shop on the King's Road, in 1971. A year later he headed to New York to buy stock for the shop when he encountered the New York Dolls and, intrigued by their trashy aesthetic, he began managing them.
Renaming his shop Too Fast To Live, To Young To Die, McLaren was clearly influenced by the Dolls' nihilistic attitude but both parties went their separate ways after a three year struggle. By then he'd developed his shop further and, now called Sex, it became the epicentre for what would become the UK punk scene which was centred around another band he was managing. That band would eventually become the Sex Pistols.
McLaren was largely credited with engineering the Pistols' controversial career - much to singer John Lydon's eternal annoyance who later sued him for unpaid royalties and won in 1987. In hindsight, however, McLaren's ability to create controversy also ended up destroying the band itself after their one and only proper studio album Never Mind The Bollocks, claiming the life of bass player Sid Vicious along the way.
Post-Pistols, McLaren managed Bow Wow Wow fronted by the teenage Annabella Lwin before launching his own musical career drawing on everything from hip hop (Buffalo Gals) opera (Madame Butterfly) to Franco-pop (Paris Paris) along the way.
Ever an outspoken figure, McLaren's endeavours and sloganeering contributed hugely to punk's cultural resonance and will outlive a man who enjoyed nothing more than self-mythology.
A full tribute to McLaren will appear in the next issue of MOJO magazine.
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