Paul McCartney is saying goodbye to EMI and hello to the Concord Music Group, yanking his post-Beatles recordings from the music giant's archives in favor of the indie.
Although McCartney's contract with EMI expired in 2007, his back catalogue, which includes his recordings with the band Wings as well as pre-2007 solo releases, remained with the major label, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The ex-Beatle's dissatisfaction with EMI has been well known for quite some time, dating back to when Terra Firma acquired the label in 2007. Since then he hasn't expressed much love for the label, at one point telling a reporter that management treated artists as "part of the furniture."
In 2007, McCartney signed with Concord's Hear Music label (a division of Starbucks), via which he has issued three releases, Memory Almost Full, Amoeba and Good Evening New York City.
McCartney is but the latest major artist to depart EMI since Terra Firma took hold. Other notable ex-EMI recording acts include Radiohead and The Rolling Stones. While EMI still controls Radiohead's catalogue, the Stones were able to take their older works with them.
McCartney regained the rights to his EMI solo and Wings recordings in February. As part of the new deal, the first McCartney project for Concord will be a deluxe reissue of Wings' 1974 album Band On The Run, which will include previously unreleased material.
"I've had a good working relationship with Concord," McCartney said in statement. "I'm looking forward to continuing this relationship."
Joni Mitchell has slammed Bob Dylan as a" deception" in a new interview.
The singer told the LA Times that she thought Dylan borrowed too heavily from other musicians, and distanced herself from being aligned with him.
"Bob is not authentic at all," she said. "He's a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception. We are like night and day, he and I."
Dylan adopted a stage name in place of his birth name, Robert Zimmerman, at beginning of his career. When quizzed over her own name change – Mitchell was born Roberta Joan Anderson – she added: "As for my name, my parents wanted a boy, so they called me Robert John; when I came out a girl, they just added two letter A's to that."
She added: "Then I married Chuck Mitchell. I wanted to keep my maiden name — I had a bit of a following as Joni Anderson — but he wouldn't let me."
Are The Black Crowes about to say farewell yet again? This summer, the band will kick off their Say Goodnight To The Bad Guys 2010 Tour, which will feature three-hour performance sets in most markets.
"Say Goonight To The Bad Guys"? There's not too many ways one can take that little line lifted from Scarface. Or is there?
The tour will begin on 13 August in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and is scheduled to conclude with the band's annual multi-night stand at the Fillmore in San Francisco on 19 December.
As to whether this is the end of the band - they've already broken up once - singer Chris Robinson said, "With a smile so wide you can count my teeth and with a heart so full of love that it is spilling over the rim, I offer a humble and simple thank you. Thank you for your time, your imaginations, your heartaches and joy.
"Thank you for 20 years of cosmic rock 'n' roll. Twenty years of keeping it weird. Twenty years of chasing horizons...This year the music is only for you as we celebrate what has been, what is now and whatever will be."
Brother Rich Robinson offered these thoughts: "At this milestone in our career, I feel very fortunate that I have had the opportunity to spend my life making music. It's been 20 years since we started out on this journey. I would like to extend my deep gratitude to all of our fans who have been there with us along the way. We would not have gotten here without your support.
"Every night I stand on the stage I feel great pride and respect for what we share with our fans. After this tour we are going to take some much needed time to spend with our families. But for now, we are very much looking forward to a great year of touring. I look forward to seeing all your familiar faces again on the road. See you soon."
So if it's not 'farewell,' perhaps it's just a long 'till next time'? We shall see. For full tour date information, visit The Black Crowes website.
Soundgarden performed their first show since 1997 Friday night (16 April) at the Showbox at the Market in their hometown of Seattle. But if the band tried to keep the supposedly secret show a secret, they didn't do a very good job: the name on the marquee advertised 'Nudedragons,' an anagram of Soundgarden.
Since announcing their reformation earlier this year, vocalist Chris Cornell, guitarist Kim Thayil, bassist Ben Shepherd and drummer Matt Cameron have been rehearsing in Seattle. They were announced to play Lollapalooza in Chicago in early August, but just as quickly that gig was said to be not set in stone. Now they're back on the bill, so perhaps last Friday's Seattle show is the first in a series of warm-up dates.
On Thursday afternoon, Seattle radio station 107.7 The End began Tweeting about the possibility of a "secret" show, and news soon spread that fans on the band's e-mail list would receive information on when and where it would take place.
When word got out that a band going by the name Nudedragons would be playing on Friday at the Showbox, it didn't take long for fans to monitor Twitter and Ticketmaster, awaiting the moment that tickets would go on sale. The available 1000 tickets sold out in less than 15 minutes.
According to reports, Soundgarden took the stage and barreled through two hours of their best-known material, ending the night with an encore of The Doors' Waiting For The Sun.
"It's a rehearsal, so if we fuck something up, we're probably going to go through it again," Cornell said just before tearing into Outshined off 1991's Badmotorfinger. From the sounds of it (check out the clip below), they've got it down just fine.
Adam Ant has said he is working on his first album in since 1994.
According to Ant, the album will be named 'Adam Ant Is The Blueblack Hussar in Marrying The Gunner's Daughter'. Speaking to NME.COM, he said that one song features "a member of Oasis co-writing", though he declined to go into more details.
However, Ant did describe the album as a "kind of concept – a live record that lends itself to performance, but a very old fashioned, old school, step-by-step album".
Morrissey's writing partner Boz Boorer and former 3 Colours Red guitarist Chris McCormack are also understood to be appearing, as well as Ant's long-time songwriting partner Marco Pirroni.
In addition, Ant said he has also recorded a song in tribute to his former manager Malcolm McLaren, who passed away earlier this month and was buried in London today (April 22).
The song, called 'Who's A Goofy Bunny Then?', takes its name from an affectionate nickname given to McLaren by Ant - referring to his "quite prominent teeth".
"Malcolm was a sort of mentor in my life" he explained. "As close as you can get to a surrogate father."
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