File under things that are either going to be pretty OK or trainwrecky on a Converse sneaker-ad level: Jack White and Alicia Keys are going to collaborate on the theme song for the new James Bond movie, Quantum Of Solace, the first duet in Bond soundtrack history.  read more »

Virgin Records southern rock quintet Saving Abel, currently on a summer-long tour with Puddle of Mudd, will rock on into the fall. The band will join hard-rockers Shinedown to support co-headliners Avenged Sevenfold and Buckcherry on the road in a series running from mid-September to the first week of October (full schedule below). In that leg of the tour, Saving Abel will make one hometown appearance, for Memphis radio station WMFS.  read more »

This past weekend the mighty city of Guelph, Ontario was invaded by music lovers of all shapes and sizes who turned out to celebrate the 25th annual Hillside Festival.

Greetings from "at large"! Like any good penitent, my self-imposed blogging exile has included certain dietary restrictions. Fer instance listening to as little music released in 2008 as possible. But spending the day slopping about in music-related nostalgia is still OK, because otherwise I would have to turn to Jack Van Impe reruns or honest work. That's why this weekend, while Maura was taking in the horror what Fat Mike and/or the Get Up kids wrought , I was at the Rock The Bells tour, a package deal involving hip-hop's geriatric giants that is not a "festival" but a "hip-hop platform," presumably because it's easy for socially conscious rappers to steal juice from political terminology in an election year. We (meaning me and photographer Frank Hamilton) scammed our way in with Idolator's press credentials (and strategic puppy dog eyes), so the usual guilt meant I wouldn't be able to enjoy myself if I didn't type something up after the fact. (Plus Maura made me.) What did we learn?  read more »

Most Fake Beatles songs are properly attributed to non-Beatle sources. However, there are a few that belong to one particular subset of the genre at hand but with a murkier provenance namely, Beatles outfakes. These are tracks that, for one reason or another, are either mistaken for rare or missing actual Fab Four songs or else are presented as such, mostly by bootleggers, either carelessly or deliberately. In the first post of our series, we presented one such outfake, "Have You Heard the Word," by the Fut, which the Beatleggers would have you believe is the genuine article. The list of Beatles outfakes range from the plausibly Beatlesque "Have You Heard the Word" to tunes that fooled only the most Beatles-starved or most credulous listeners ("L.S. Bumble Bee," by Peter Cook & Dudley Moore, for example). There is, however, one song that has been circulating among collectors for more than 30 years that still stirs up "is it or isn't it" debates "Peace of Mind" (aka "The Candle Burns").  read more »

Which festival are you attending or do you prefer? Seems to me that Creamfields looks a little more popular on this board so lets see...Global for me

From time to time, we like to round up the all-important, all-summarizing last sentences of the biggest new-music reviews. Today's entry is the new album from churchgoer and radio DJ Alice Cooper, Along Came A Spider, which hits stores today. "Alice Cooper has done it again, delivering a strong album that should not be overlooked. He has crafted a loose tale of murder, dismemberment, and evil with a soundtrack that is deceptively upbeat. He even ties it in with an older release, mentioning Steven of Welcome to My Nightmare fame. Cooper obviously still has it, and I look forward to whatever he has to deliver in the future." [ Blogcritics ] "Musically, the disc harkens back to old-school Alice, closest to the "Love It To Death" era, with some modern touches thrown in. Time-share (with Kiss) drummer Eric Singer provides a solid underpinning to the mayhem." [ AP via the San Francisco Chronicle] "Though every two-bit heavy-metal band may seem to have bled dry the vernacular of homicide, in songs like Wrapped in Silk Cooper uses a dark wit, which steers him well clear of clich. Like his best stuff, it's funny, sickening and rocking all at once." [ Telegraph ] "At 60, Cooper's sneering delivery hasn't deteriorated.  read more »