Dexys stream first track from forthcoming album

Dexys have made "Nowhere Is Home" available as a free download via their SoundCloud page.

The track, which received its debut radio play today on the Radcliffe & Maconie show on BBC 6Music, is the first material to be made available from their forthcoming album, One Day I'm Going To Soar.

One Day I'm Going To Soar, released on June 4th 2012, is Dexy's fourth album, their first in 26 years, following the release of Don't Stand Me Down in 1985.

They have recently added 2 extra dates to their forthcoming U.K. tour.

The list of current shows is as follows:
MAY
4th Treorchy, Wales Parc & Dare Theatre
6th Glasgow Cottiers Theatre
7th Whitely Bay Play House
8th London Shepherd's Bush Empire

Tickets for the London show will be priced at £20, £27.50 & £30 via www.gigsandtours.com. Tickets for the Glasgow show are £25 and are available via www.gigsinscotland.com. The Whitely Bay tickets are available via www.gigsandtours.com and are priced at £28 and the Treorchy tickets are available via www.orchardentertainment.co.uk priced at £25.
These are the only UK headline shows the band will be confirming at this time. There are plans for more later in the year, but no more will be added to this current run in May.

Source music-news

In early 1968, The Beatles set up Apple Records, a unique and daring enterprise that gave a wide range of new artists (James Taylor, Mary Hopkin, Badfinger, Billy Preston, among others) a chance to be heard.

But all was not music at Apple: The Beatles also opened their doors to aspiring filmmakers, inventors, designers and more than a fair share of opportunists. Very little came in the way of these other endeavors, however, and before long, Apple Records was bleeding money. By 1970, it had become a platform for but a select group of acts and the by-then ex-Beatles to release product.

A new documentary, Strange Fruit: The Beatles' Apple Records, takes a behind-the-scenes look at the label's early days. Scheduled for DVD release on 26 March (24 April in the US), the film features new interviews with some of the Apple Records stable: Jackie Lomax, David Peel, label CEO Tony Bramwell and members from Badfinger and Elephant's Memory.

In addition, there are observations from musician and Beatles expert Chris Ingham, author and journalist Mark Paytress and Apple biographer Stefan Granados.

The film also includes archive footage of Apple artists and the organization for which they recorded as well as interviews from the vaults, location film, rare photographs and music.

Source musicradar

John Mayer has had to pull out of all of his upcoming performances including his SXSW showcase for next Saturday, March 18 citing health reasons.

Mayer had been suffering from granuloma, a growth on his vocal chords and thought he had the trouble fixed.

On Wednesday he went to see his doctor and was given the bad news that the granuloma had grown back.

“This is bad news,” he wrote in his blog. Because of this, I have no choice but to take an indefinite break from live performing. Though there will be a day when all of this will be behind me, it will sideline me for a longer period of time than I care to have you count down”.

John further explained the problem. “A granuloma forms and continues to snowball because it’s in a spot where the vocal cords hit together and there’s no way to really give it a chance to heal without a good stretch of time and some pretty intensive treatment. In short, it’s one giant pain in the ass,” he said.

John was due to unveil his new songs live for the first time at SXSW. “SXSW regrets to announce John Mayer has had to cancel his SXSW 2012 performance, along with his entire tour, due to health reasons. Mayer was set to headline Stubb’s BBQ on the evening of Saturday, March 17,” sxsw.com states.

“I’m completely bummed, especially for all of you who started making plans to see a show,” John says. “Nothing feels worse than having to break the stage down before the performance, and I mean nothing. I love this band you were going to hear, I love the guys and girls I work with, and the only thing that stops me from devolving into a puddle of tears is knowing that it’s a long life, and the greatest gift in the world is being able to create music no matter what the circumstances. So these are the new circumstances, and I’ll find a way to make it mean something. That’s all you can ever do”.

Source noise11

Davy Jones, the diminutive singer and maraca player with The Monkees, has died at home in Florida after suffering a heart attack. He was 66.

The Monkees - Jones, plus Micky Dolenz, Mike Nesmith and Peter Tork - were manufactured for NBC television by producers Bob Rafelson and Bert Schneider, taking The Beatles film A Hard Day's Night as their blueprint. But the group quickly transcended their TV image. On screen they were portrayed as a struggling band desperately seeking fame. In reality, however, The Monkees were a much cherished and hugely successful group, yielding a string of sparkling hit singles, including Last Train To Clarksville, I'm A Believer, Pleasant Valley Sunday, and Daydream Believer, on which Jones sang the lead.

There were albums, too, US Number 1s in The Monkees, More Of The Monkees, Headquarters and Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. And despite The Monkees' assembled origins, they were in tune with the counter culture, hanging out at LA heads' mecca The Trip with The Byrds. They took Jimi Hendrix on their 1967 US tour - although Hendrix skipped the tour early after fans drowned him out with their calls for Davy - and hosted Frank Zappa and Tim Buckley on their TV show.

Interviewing Jones, Tork and Dolenz last year just before they embarked on a tour to celebrate 45 years of the group, it became clear just how fond of The Monkees Jones was. Turning on his trademark boyish charm, he told me with a wide grin, "You can never escape being a Monkee, I'll do a show, sign an autograph and I'll always be asked, 'Where's Micky?' or 'How's Pete?' or 'Why don't you guys get back together?' I always feel connected to The Monkees."

Born in Openshaw, Manchester on December 30, 1945, Jones was a child actor, starring in Coronation Street and Z Cars on television, and on stage as the Artful Dodger in Lionel Bart's musical Oliver! When the show hit Broadway, Jones, just 16, was nominated for a Tony Award. Signing up with Screen Gems Television shortly after, he auditioned for a role in The Monkees.

"When I went to the audition, it was just another job to me," he said. "But then on meeting the other Monkees, having these three other guys to bounce off, I soon thought, Wow, how great is this? I just have to play myself."

The television show ran from 1966 to 1968 and produced the 1968 film spin-off, Head, and 1969 TV special 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee, both subversive works which deconstructed the group on screen. "I didn't get or like Head very much," said Jones. "But on 33 1/3 we got to work with Fats Domino and Jerry Lee Lewis and The Clara Ward Singers. That was cool."

When The Monkees split in 1970, Jones went solo. Then in 1976 he joined Micky Dolenz, Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart (the last two wrote Last Train To Clarksville and The Monkees theme), issuing the Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart LP. In 1987 he then reunited with Dolenz and Tork for a tour and the album Pool It. Mike Nesmith was asked but refused to join the band, although he did appear on The Monkees' Justus in 1996, before departing the line-up again before the 45th anniversary reunion tour.

Nesmith, an echt musician, always struggled with the Monkees association. For Jones, however, it was invariably a blessing. "The Monkees were such a huge part of my life and whenever I think of them I can only smile at the good times we all had together."

Davy Jones leaves behind his wife Jessica Pacheco and four daughters. He will be missed.

Source MOJO

Indian musican and composer Ravi Shankar has passed away at the age of 91 on Wednesday 7th March.

Ravi Shankar began touring Europe in the mid 50's but it wasn't until he met George Harrison in 1966 that his musical genius was fully recognised by the western world. George Harrison travelled to India for a period of 6 weeks in order to learn to play the sitar under the tutleage of Shankar. In 1967 Ravi Shankar performed at the Monterey Pop Festival and won a Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance for West Meets East, a collaboration with Yehudi Menuhin. Coincidentally the Beatles won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in the same year. The album included "Within You Without You" penned by Harrison, who had been influenced by the Indian classical music of Shankur.

In his career Shankar was awarded India's highest honour the Bharat Ratna in 1999 and won three Grammy Awards.

He is survived by his estranged son Ajay and daughter-in-law Hindi film actress, Varsha Usgaonkar.

Source undercover

Trammps Singer Jimmy Ellis Passes Away at 74

The man who sang out Disco Inferno for the Trammps, Jimmy Ellis, passed away on Thrusday at a nursing home in Rock Hill, SC from an undisclosed illness. He was 74.

The official site for the group posted the following:

The Trammps started in the mid-60's as the Volcanos, making it to number 33 on the R&B charts with Strom Warning (1965). The grouped worked around the country for a number of years after, at one point changing their name to the Moods, before becoming the Trammps in 1972 with Ellis, Harold and Stanley Wade and Earl Young.

Picked up by Buddah records, their first hit under the new lineup was a cover of Zing Went the Strings of My Heart (1972/#17 R&B/#64 Pop). Over the next three years, the moved between a number of labels, including their own Golden Fleece, before returning to Buddah for their first big hit, Hold Back the Night (1976/#10 R&B/#35 Pop).

Later in 1976, the group moved to Atlantic Records where they would have a string of hits starting with That's Where the Happy People Go (1976/#12 R&B/#27 Pop) and peaking with Disco Inferno (1977/#9 R&B/#11 Pop) which was included on the soundtrack of Saturday Night Fever.

Their chart hits ended in 1983 but they continued to tour throughout the years. Except for a couple of years when he took a hiatus, Ellis was part of the group up until two years ago.

Ellis is survived by his wife, Beverly, a son, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Source VVN