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Lenny Kravitz will not sing for Aerosmith

December 8, 2009 / Christopher Glotfelty

With Steven Tyler preoccupied with his “Brand Tyler” project, the other members of Aerosmith are reportedly looking for a new singer to celebrate their 40th anniversary as a band. Lenny Kravitz was rumored to be the frontrunner, but the “American Woman” singer has confirmed on his Twitter page that, since Tyler is a family friend, he wouldn’t accept the offer.

Kravitz had been linked to the role amid ongoing speculation about Tyler’s future with the group.

However, in a message on his Twitter page, Kravitz said his friendship with Tyler prevented him from ever taking the singer’s place.

“As much as I am flattered that Aerosmith’s camp would consider me to front the band, Steven Tyler is a family friend, and no voice could ever take the place of his,” he wrote.

“I hope the band stays together. They are classic.”
Tyler’s position has been in doubt ever since the frontman broke his shoulder after falling off stage in August, prompting the cancellation of Aerosmith’s US tour.

Aerosmith is in a serious bind. They won’t recruit a singer nobody’s hear of because album and concert sales would suffer. Also, they won’t record or tour with a slew of famous singers because that’s admitting they need Tyler. What to do?

Artists, News

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Spiral Stairs hints at new Pavement material

December 7, 2009 / Christopher Glotfelty

I don’t know how I let this euphoric piece of new fly under my radar. In an interview with The Age, Pavement’s Spiral Stairs suggests the band will record new songs if the tour goes well. He’s screwing with us, right?

The announcement claimed the tour was not a prelude to a full-blown reformation but during a recent chat Kannberg revealed that new Pavement songs could be on the cards.

“If it’s enjoyable for us, I think it is inevitable that we’ll make some more music,” Kannberg said from Seattle as he packed up his worldly goods ahead of a move to Melbourne to marry an Australian lass.

“I hope so because I think it will be fun.

“If I was a fan of the band, I’d want to hear some new music, but we’re just going to see how it goes.

“We’re taking it one step at a time.”

Kannberg said Pavement had plenty of creative steam left when it broke up, and he had missed the band’s unique chemistry, camaraderie and sense of humour.

During Pavement’s years apart, Kannberg toured with his Preston School of Industry outfit and appeared as a guest with other relatively obscure bands. But it just wasn’t the same.

Pavement is the one band I wouldn’t mind recording new material after a long hiatus. People always wonder what the next Beatles album would have sounded like if the band had stayed together. I wasn’t around back then, so I never had the rabid curiosity. With Pavement, however, I can’t help but speculate.

Artists, News

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Vinyl LP sales continue to rise

December 4, 2009 / Christopher Glotfelty

As retail powerhouses such as Wal-Mart and Amazon begin to carry vinyl on their websites, the market seems to be showing signs of confidence in the ancient format.

Soundscan reports 2.2 million units of vinyl sold this year, already above 2008’s figure, with the holiday shopping season ahead. Last year’s vinyl sales — more than 2 million units — were the most since Nielsen SoundScan started tracking them in 1991.

It’s still a small figure compared with album sales in digital format, which stand at about 69 million units year-to-date. But nonetheless, LP sales are growing just when disks were supposed to be disappearing.

“Vinyl business in the last four years went from 15% to 60% of our business,” says Matthew Wishnow, president and founder of leading vinyl sales company InSound.com, which needed bigger offices to house its LPs.?

Pete Lyman, co-owner of Infrasonic Sound Recording and a full service mastering engineer who prepares masters for pressing onto vinyl, says LP sales are “saving the album as a format. And I think (vinyl) will soon be the only tangible form of music delivery.”

InSound.com, says Wishnow, approached the labels about offering a legal download with a vinyl LP. “With that option, purchasing becomes a no-brainer for consumers,” he says. “We noticed a huge increase in catalog titles when we paired them with MP3 downloads.”

By selling MP3 with an LP, InSound.com appealed to three demographics: the impulsive download buyer, the music-snob collector, and the young hipster — and got all of them to actually buy music on disks.

There’s certainly an assumed “cool factor” that’s come with the recent vinyl trend. That’s unavoidable. Personally, I started buying the format because the albums I wanted didn’t exist on CD. Plus, used records are often fairly cheap.

As for new albums released on vinyl, I can’t afford them. Label exploit vinyl’s current popularity by overpricing. That’s ridiculous. It will be some time before CDs become obsolete, but I certainly foresee the dominance of the digital and vinyl formats. I just think a band’s new album should cost the same on iTunes as well as on vinyl.

News

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Ron Wood arrested on suspicion of domestic abuse

December 4, 2009 / Christopher Glotfelty

Police officers in Esher, Surrey, responding to reports of a “domestic incident,” arrested 62 year-old guitarist Ron Wood at his home on Claygate High Street. Witnesses claim they saw the Rolling Stones member choking his 20 year-old Russian girlfriend, Ekaterina Ivanova.

Celine Dixon told The Sun that she and her boyfriend, Phillip Legge, witnessed the incident outside an Indian restaurant at around 11.30pm.

She said: “We heard a woman screaming, then saw a man pinning her to the ground.

“He was shouting at her then we heard choking sounds so my boyfriend rushed out to help. When he got outside he saw it was Ronnie and Ekaterina.”
Miss Dixon added that Wood let Miss Ivanova go and walked away when challenged by Mr Legge.

The couple then escorted Miss Ivanova back to their home before calling police, she said.

A spokesman for Wood, David Rigg of Project Associates, said: “I can confirm that there was an incident (on Wednesday night) and that Ronnie Wood was arrested. He has since been released on police bail.

“We have no further statement to make at this time.”

Wood began his affair with Ivanova in July of last year. After 23 years of marriage, he left his wife Jo for the young Russian.

News

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21 Century Breakdown: Mike Farley’s Top 10 Albums of the 2000s

December 4, 2009 / Mike Farley

The past decade to me was less about musical trends and styles, and more about how I listen to music. I’ve always been a mix tape guy, and as the ‘90s moved to Y2K, I was entering the world of burning mix CDs. But then around 2004, everything changed, and changed for the better, when I discovered iTunes. Now I could not only make up my own playlists from my music collection, but I could order single songs for 99 cents and add those to my collection. Suddenly I was re-discovering songs from my childhood and teen years, and basically every phase of my music-listening life. And I could arrange all those songs any way I liked…playlists galore and, as I described them, “kickass mixes.” Every four to six months, I make a new play list of what I’m currently listening to, and date that as a new Kickass Mix, something I can go back to that makes me remember what I was doing and feeling at that point in time.

As for the actual music I’ve been listening to and enjoying, there are a few acts that have entered my iTunes world this decade that have become favorites that I can’t get enough of, no matter how many times I listen: The Damnwells, the Silver Seas, Ari Hest, Jason Spooner and Butch Walker, to name a few. I know that radio is basically a shell of its former self and we find and listen to music in so many different ways, but I, for one, have fully embraced the digital world of music.

Here are my picks for top albums of the decade.
1. The Silver Seas: High Society
2. Jason Spooner: The Flame You Follow
3. Ari Hest: The Break In
4. Stereophonics: Langauge, Sex, Violence. Other?
5. The Damnwells: Air Stereo
6. The Southland: Influence of Geography
7. The Damnwells: One Last Century
8. Josh Rouse: 1972
9. Butch Walker: Left of Self Centered
10. Paddy Casey: Addicted To Company

Alternative, iTunes, Lists, Pop, Power Pop, Rock

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