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For an album about a mute, the latest Mars Volta opus sure has a lot to say. It’s a concept album of sorts, but since nothing with the Mars Volta is ever simple, Frances the Mute isn’t a concept easily explained. Not that the band won’t try. Instead of looking at the upcoming album as an idea, they see it as a character, a resurrected body based on the thoughts of a stranger seeking to find his adopted parents, written in a diary found by former bandmember Jeremy Ward (who later died in 2003) while working as a repo man.… Read more »

U2 may have disappointed Canadians when they only announced one stop here for their Vertigo tour, but the band love our country enough to set up camp here a month before the tour begins. The Canadian Press reports U2 are taking over Vancouver’s GM Place for the next month to rehearse for the tour. There’s been no official announcement from ClearChannel Entertainment – the tour’s promoter – if the band will be in Vancouver. There’s been reports of trucks lining up in the GM Place parking lot, however, so suspicions are high. This isn’t the first band to stay in… Read more »

Some videos dazzle, some are dramatic, some are sexy, and some just make you go, “Huh?” Interpol’s “Evil” might leave you feeling all of the above – but you may never get a good night’s sleep again. “Oh, I hope it’s creepy,” said first-time video director Charlie White. “I intended for it to be two things: spooky and not too hip.” If your ideas of those two things agree with a clip that shows the aftermath of a horrible car crash and its effects on a strangely lifelike, shell-shocked puppet who busts some moves on a gurney, “Evil” is for… Read more »

Hollywood – If imitation is the highest form of flattery, reinterpretation is a close second. Pharrell Williams was certainly flattered by Jamie Cullum’s rendering of “Frontin’,” a bonus track on the British jazz singer and pianist’s breakthrough album, Twentysomething. “He heard it and wanted to meet with me,” Cullum revealed recently. That meeting led to the Neptunes agreeing to work on Cullum’s next album. The odd pairing is scheduled for March, but in the meantime Cullum has been collaborating with another unlikely producer, Dan the Automator of Gorillaz and Handsome Boy Modeling School fame. “We sampled some old jazz records… Read more »

Los Angeles – Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler and his wife of 17 years, Teresa, are separating, the singer announced Sunday. Tyler, 56, asked the public to respect his family’s privacy in a statement released through the band’s publicist, Mitch Schneider. “Before the tabloid media makes more of this than it is, I am announcing that my wife Teresa and I are currently separated,” Tyler said. “We’re just a family trying to work through a difficult time. A little privacy and sensitivity – for Teresa, my children and myself – would be nice.” The couple have two teenage children, Chelsea,… Read more »

Maybe you can blame it on some indie-minded guilt. On March 1, Death Cab for Cutie – longtime independent stalwarts recently inked to Atlantic Records – will drop The John Byrd EP, the final release for them on tiny Seattle label Barsuk Records. The EP will only be available in two places: on Barsuk’s Web site or in record stores who are members of the Coalition of Independent Music Stores. It could be the result of a guilty conscience. But it’s more than likely not. “We just wanted to have a properly recorded live record out there, because bootlegs show… Read more »

Los Angeles – Led Zeppelin got a “whole lotta” belated love from the music industry on Saturday, earning a lifetime achievement Grammy in recognition of a career that changed the face of rock ‘n’ roll. The English band was one of 10 performers, alongside the likes of rockabilly hellraiser Jerry Lee Lewis, blues belter Janis Joplin and country crooner Eddy Arnold, celebrated at a luncheon one day before the Grammy Awards. During their 12 years together, Led Zeppelin never won a Grammy, even though they were arguably the biggest band of the 1970s, a combo whose blues-based rock anthems resonate… Read more »

Los Angeles – Mike Love and the rest of the surviving Beach Boys stayed away, but luminaries such as Neil Young and Jeff Beck showed up in Hollywood on Friday as the music industry honored Brian Wilson at a black-tie bash. The troubled genius behind the fabled vocal group was feted as man of the year at the 15th annual MusiCares dinner, a Grammy-related event that raises money for musicians in need. While previous gatherings took place in glamorous hotel ballrooms, this year’s was held at the Hollywood Palladium, a run-down concert venue infamous for attracting drive-by shootings a few… Read more »

Forget the stage, it’s been almost a decade since Jerry Cantrell, Sean Kinney and Mike Inez – a.k.a. 75 percent of ’90s grunge icons Alice in Chains – have even been in the same room. Sure, they’ve jammed with each other in various permutations since Alice last played a show together (a 1996 taping of MTV’s “Unplugged”), but never all three together. So when they announced that they’d be taking the stage again this month, it had to be for a good reason. “We all saw what happened with the tsunamis in Southeast Asia. It was such an overwhelming tragedy,”… Read more »

New York – At a time when reality and youth lifestyle shows – not videos – dominate MTV’s main programming hours, the network is looking to music-related contests, tour sponsorships and other off-channel marketing initiatives to drive its identity as a music brand. Case in point: MTV in February is sending eight contest winners on a private island getaway with Columbia Records act Destiny’s Child in a stunt it is billing as Destiny’s Isle. The promotion – which MTV has been plotting since last August and was aggressively promoting last fall – will culminate with clips from an afternoon meeting… Read more »