Music News Net

Kim Deal Announces Her Departure from The Pixies

MUSIC NEWS - Though the Pixies haven’t performed together live since 2011, it appears that the group won’t be getting together anytime in the near future as word is out that Kim Deal is departing the indie darlings.

Despite a rumor that the group was working on a new album and is already set to release a career-spanning photo book sometime this year after a successful Kickstarter campaign, Kim Deal has left after twenty five years with the iconic band. They reunited in 2004 and have been playing live shows sporadicly since, including a tour in support of the 20th anniversary of Doolittle.  But, that's showbiz and the band released the following  statement on Kim Deal’s departure:

GRIZZLY BEAR Adds Summer Tour Dates

MUSIC NEWS- After their recent announcement of 2013 music festival appearances that include Bonnaroo, Governor's Ball, and Firefly, Grizzly Bear will extend their 2013 summer tour with severak August dates, with yet additional shows to be announced. See below for the full slate of spring and summer dates.

Grizzly Bear,  Edward Droste (vocals, keyboards, omnichord), Daniel Rossen (vocals, guitar, banjo, keyboards), Chris Taylor (bass, backing vocals, various instruments, producer) and Christopher Bear (drums, backing vocals), recently taped an Austin City Limits performance that will air next season, and will appear on the Ellen show on April 25. The band's Coachella performance will be webcast via the Coachella YouTube channel

DEFTONES' Chi Cheng Passes Away at 42

MUSIC NEWS - Deftones bass guitarist Chi Cheng, 42, passed away this morning, Sunday, five years after a car crash left him in a coma, his mother announced.  "This is the hardest thing to write to you," Mom J, the name his mother used with his fans, said. "Your love and heart and devotion to Chi was unconditional and amazing."

Her statement was posted today on OneLoveForChi.com, a website that was set up to communicate with Chi's fans and to raise money to help care for Cheng since his disabling accident.   "He was taken to the emergency room, and at 3 am today, his heart just suddenly stopped," his mother wrote. "He left this world with me singing songs he liked in his ear."

Alt Rockers MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE Announce Break Up

MUSIC NEWS - NJ alt rockers, My Chemical Romance have called it a day.   The New Jersey band announced Saturday that "it has come time for it to end." The foursome thanked fans in a statement and said the experience was "a true blessing."

My Chemical Romance's sound is a mix of alternative-rock, punk and pure pop. They released their debut album back in 2002 but made it nationallyin 2004 with the platinum-selling "Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge" and the top-40 hit "Helena."

HOT CHIP Add USA Tour Dates

 MUSIC NEWS - Grammy-nominated British band Hot Chip have announced several more performances this spring. Included are stops in New Orleans with rock band The Howling Hex and Washington, DC with The Crystal Ark.  Their last US tour had them headline the Hollywood Bowl and some magic to the Coachella Cruise.  Before returning to Coachella this April, the quintet will make their first appearance at Miami’s Ultra Music Festival on March 23. Hot Chip are performing in Las Vegas with an opening DJ set from London based musician Four Tet and will return  to New York City on April 9 at Roseland Ballroom with special guests Tanlines and The Crystal Ark.   

 

Last June, the band released their fifth album In Our Heads.  NPR described In Our Heads, which debuted at #1 on Billboard’s Dance/Electronic Albums chart, as their “most expansive, universal album”.  The collective talents of Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard, Alexis Taylor, Felix Martin, Al Doyle and Owen Clarke have provided a consistently stellar output which continues to evolve with a deceptive effortlessness. While their lexicon of influences includes a diverse mix of soul, R&B, gospel, Detroit House, disco and funk, Hot Chip have created a uniquely identifiable sound that positions themselves as the world’s most talented electro-romantics.

BAND OF HORSES Announce USA and Euro Tour

MUSIC NEWS - BAND OF HORSES have announcd another tour based on upcoming appearances at Coachella. They'll hit USA stages pre and post the Indio, CA festival, and have also booked up a series of European dates for later in the summer.

Band of Horses released their latest record, Mirage Rock, last fall on Columbia Records. Full itinerary is listed below, from MNN.

SENSES FAIL Announce Spring 2013 Tour

MUSIC NEWS - NJ rockers, SENSES FAIL announce an extensive US headline spring tour in support of their upcoming album, RENACER (ray-nah-serr) which will be released on March 26, 2013 on Staple
Records.  The tour is presented by PureVolume.com and includes support from Such Gold, Real Friends, and Major League. The tour kicks off April 3, 2013 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and currently wraps on May 11 with a special New Jersey-area show that will be announced in the coming weeks. 

Renacer is Senses Fail’s fifth full-length studio album and was recorded in Los Angeles, California at both The Airport Studio and Red Bull Studio with producer Shaun Lopez (Far, Deftones) at
the helm. 

DEFTONES Announce Spring 2013 Tour

MUSIC NEWS - Grammy-winning alternative band Deftones will be kicking off a tour of North America on March 4, 2013. The headlining run begins in Rochester, NY and wraps March 30 in Houston, TX. Deftones have also rescheduled their New York City and Boston, MA show dates, which had previously been postponed due to Hurricane Sandy. Tickets are on sale now!

KOI NO YOKAN, the alt rocker's seventh studio album, was released November 13 via Warner Bros Records. It debuted at #11 on the Billboard Charts Top 200 chart, with over 65k sold first week, and the first single "Tempest" is currently #8 and climbing at Rock Radio. KOI NO YOKAN has also met with critical
acclaim.

Johnny Marr Releases "The Messenger" in February

MUSIC NEWS- Johnny Marr, one of the most celebrated and influential guitarists in the history of contemporary music, will release his first ever solo album, The Messenger, on February 26 via Sire/ADA. The 12-song set captures Marr's musical vision exactly as he imagined, featuring his signature guitar and vocals front and center with a sound which mixes elements of angular art rock and rock n' roll.

The release of The Messenger will mark a significant milestone in Marr's distinguished music career. He was first known for his work alongside Morrissey as the creative force behind The Smiths, and has spent the last two decades collaborating with a diverse and amazing array of acclaimed bands, including Talking Heads, Pet Shop Boys, The The, Electronic and more. Marr was a member of the Modest Mouse line-up for 2007's We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank which debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top 200. 

Another Sad Day For NYC Area Rock Radio

MUSIC NEWS- In the NYC market, for 25 years, WFAN made its radio home solely on the AM dial. This week, the jock station was heard for the first time on FM. At 12:01am.   While most folks in the NY, NJ and CT area were contended with the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, CBS quietly launched WFAN's simulcast on 101.9 FM.  And, at that moment NYC lost it's only alt rock radio station, NEWROCK 101.9.  Way to to go, CBS, with lives disrupted, you couldn't leave the music on for a few more weeks?!  But, at least NEW ROCK continues via the web, at newrock1019.com where they'll continue to stream their excellent sounds!

Last month, CBS radio announced it had signed a definitive agreement to purchase 101.9 FM from Merlin Media for $75 million. It's the flagship station for the New York Giants, New York Mets, Brooklyn Nets and New Jersey Devils.

Smashing Pumpkins Announce some Re-Scheduled Dates

MUSIC NEWS- The Smashing Pumpkins have yet to sort out a new date for their postponed Brooklyn Halloween show yet, but they've revealed the dates for their cancelled south NJ and VA dates; December 8  and 9th. Four dates in total are now postponed due to Superstorm Sandy. Full details below.

"At these arena shows, the PUMPKINS--singer/guitarist BILLY CORGAN, guitarist JEFF SCHROEDER, drummer MIKE BYRNE and bassist NICOLE FIORENTINO--are performing their new OCEANIA CD in full and for the second half of the show they play classics and deep cuts from their body of work.  The PUMPKINS are backed by visuals prepared by Sean Evans, whose most recent project was assisting Roger Waters on the newest staging of "The Wall." THE PUMPKINS are using new technology in video-mapping to create something new and previously unseen.   Joining the PUMPKINS for these shows is Morning Parade."

FLYLEAF Loses Lead Singer, Lacey Sturm

MUSIC NEWS - Alt metal rockers, Flyleaf today announced the departure of long time lead singer Lacey Sturm. The band’s final album with Lacey, New Horizons, will be out on October 30th on A&M/Octone Records and is available now for pre-order.

At the same time, Flyleaf announced that Kristen May formerly of the band Vedera will be stepping in as the band’s lead singer for future tour dates to promote New Horizons.

"When listening to New Horizons, I would hope that fans would be able to lose themselves in the story of each of these songs and form their own connections to them; as we have in the band,” remarked bass player Pat Seals. “There is a great deal of our souls laid bare on this record, and I feel like it really comes through on the tracks."

DEFTONES Announce "Koi No Yokan" and Tour

MUSIC NEWS - Grammy-winning alternative rock band Deftones have announced the
November 13th release of their seventh studio album, entitled KOI NO YOKAN. To promote
the release they'll hit the road on a USA headlining tour, with special guest Scars On Broadway, which kicks off October 9 in Ventura, CA and wraps on the West Coast mid- November. Tickets go on sale next Friday, September 7 via Ticketmaster.com.

KOI NO YOKAN was recorded in Los Angeles, CA with Nick Raskulinecz (Alice In Chains, Foo Fighters, Rush) who also produced Diamond Eyes.  Front man Chino Moreno summed up Deftones' sound in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, saying "Obviously we're an aggressive band; not the heaviest, but there's a lot of attack.  He continued, "But there's also this lush beauty that flows within everything that we do, and that's my favorite part of the band. To me, it's the epitome of what the Deftones do."

MNN Chats with Sean Mackin of Yellowcard

by MNN staff writer, Elisabeth Erdmann

     Yellowcard’s humble beginnings as a group of friends from Douglas Anderson School of the Arts in Jacksonville, Florida have made them into the group that they are today: a down-to-earth, music-loving group of guys who wake up every day to do the thing they love the most—make music.  

On Friday July 13^th at Warped Tour in Holmdel, NJ, I sat down with Sean Mackin, the violinist of Yellowcard.  Sitting backstage at the PNC Bank Arts Center, Sean gave me a glimpse into his life as a member of Yellowcard.

 

Rock Radio is Back in NYC with 101.9

MUSIC NEWS- The former rock station (KROCK) that radio exec Randy Michaels took over last year to create New York's only all-news FM station has come full circle. Tuesday morning Merlin Media gave up on its FM News 101.9 experiment, and began (thankfully) airing alternative rock.

The station is now New Rock 101.9. A sister Merlin Media station, WIQI-FM in Chicago, also moved to rock from talk on Tuesday, ending Mr. Michaels' ambitions to create a network of news radio stations.

"Effective immediately, alternative is back on the air in New York as New Rock 101.9, and adult hits are on the air in Chicago as i101," Mr. Michaels said, in a statement. "It was a difficult decision to make, but after a year of minimal audience engagement, coupled with the format's inherent expense, I felt it was time to make a change."

The format change was accompanied by an unspecified number of layoffs of news-related personnel, according to two radio insiders familiar with the station.

As we once heard, LONG LIVE ROCK !