Monday Morning Newsletter (3-30-09)

Wilco has confirmed rumors that Feist will appear on their next album. The untitled work is set for a late June release on Nonesuch. Wilco is presently in the missing process with producer Jim Scott at his Valencia, California studio.

Clutch also is preparing an as-yet-untitled album for a June release. Their CD will come out on their own Weathermaker Music label. They’ve already booked a set of East Coast and Midwest dates to promote the release. The tour will then close out the tour with an appearance as their other incarnation The Bakerton Group at a May 23rd show.

Friday a judge sentenced Rapper T.I. aka Clifford Harris to a year and a day in prison. Magnum T.I. is up on federal weapons charges for an attempting to purchase machine gusn and silencers last year. The plea bargain for a year and a day allows Mr. TI to get early release. Had he received any less he’d have been forced to serve the full term. Potentially he could have served 10 years like anyone who cant' call MTV.

Rapper 50 Cent will be playing a set of 5 shows with Fall Out Boy. The dates are in Denver, Grand Prairie, Houston, Charlotte, and Columbia Maryland. The Kevlar-clad hip-hopper will be releasing not one but two record this year. Why that’s not a double disc I don’t’ know.

Fergie is auctioning her underwear for charity on eBay. If you've a deranged stalker or just have a very strange fetish today is your day. Other top-drawer donors include Emma Thompson, Helen Mirren and Sacha Baron Cohen. The proceeds benefit the New North London Synagogue.

Chin Up Chin Up have called it quits. They’ve planned a final show May 15 at the Empty Bottle in Chicago. On their Myspace page, vocalist Jeremy Bolen wrote: “Thank you to the hundreds of people who have helped us along the way, we have been truly lucky, and as cliché as it may sound, we could not have done any of this without you."

Metallica is being inducted into the Rock N’ Roll hall of fame this April 4th. The dysfunctional band has invited every bipedal mammal tangentially involved in the band for the last 2 decades. The Metallica guest list includes Megaforce and Elektra staff, publicists, music critics, and former bassists Ron McGovney and Jason Newsted, and Ray Burton, father of the late Cliff Burton. Dave Mustaine has decided to stay home and sulk.

Monday Morning Newsletter (9/28/08)

This week singer Clay Aiken outed himself to the world in People magazine, confirming that he was a homosexual. Aiken, stated "I cannot raise a child to lie or to hide things. I wasn't raised that way, and I'm not going to raise a child to do that." Did anybody actually think he was straight? What surprised Jose is that he knocked some broad up with a turkey baster.

Currently the former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and DJ AM a.k.a. Adam Goldstein are hospitalized as a result of burns and other injuries that occurred during a plane crash last weekend. The medical director of the Augusta Burn Center says both men should make a full recovery. The musicians plane crashed in South Carolina killing four people last Friday. The dead include pilot Sarah Lemmon, co-pilot James Bland, Barker's assistant and bodyguard, Chris Baker, and Charles Still. The wrong people always die first.

Chris Cornell's new album, Scream, is slated for a November release date. Famous Hip-Hop producer Timbaland produced the effort and the duo intend to do a short tour together to support the release. The eight planned gigs will begin in Denver on October 17, ending in Seattle on November 2. Jose thinks it sounds like Michael Jackson covering Cornell's last solo album.

Kid Rock is about to end up like Billy Carter. Kid has signed a deal to develop and market his very own vanity beer with Drinks America Holdings. CEO of Drinks Americas J. Patrick Kenny stated, "Kid Rock is a reflection of great American rock and roll music and the American spirit, and we think we can create a beer in that same image." I can only assume that image translates to strong and cheap.

Kanye West is now entertaining a hobby in pedophilia by producing a new children's puppet show. The program Alligator Boots has been described as "Hip-Hop meets the Muppets." Alligator Boots is not yet a series, but only a hopeful pilot being shopped to Comedy Central. Strangely the stink ends with Jimmy Kimmel who owns Jackhole productions, the executive producers on the program.

50 Cent has been hard at work with Activision developing a video game, 50 Cent: Blood In The Sand. Recent Wallstreet news indicated the game could be cut because of an impending merger with Vivendi. Blood In The Sand still has a targeted release date of March 31, 2009. Jose says don't truck wit' fiddy. He shoots people for real.

Another dead rapper is on the verge of releasing a hit record. The long-dead TLC member Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes drops her new record Eye-Legacy on November 11. It features previously unreleased tracks from Lopes, and collaborations with Missy Elliott among others. How do dead people collaborate? Jose will not be writing music reviews from the grave I promise you that.

Yes vocalist Jon Anderson has been replaced on tour due to acute respiratory failure. The rest of the band is continuing with the tour while he recouperates. He has stated that he is "disappointed that they were not willing to wait till 2009 when I'm fully recovered."

The Pretenders, are releaseing a new album, Break Up The Concrete, on October 7. Their ninth studio albu, will include a limited run of eco-packaging that comes with seed paper. This paper can be planted and may sprout Afgahn Polm in about four weeks. Fucking hippies.

Monday Morning Newsletter (06/02/08)

Oxford Collapse is releasing their fourth album, Bits, on August 5 on Sub Pop Records. It was recorded primarily with Eric Emm at Brother Studios. They’re also releasing a new 5-song 12-inch on Comedy Minus One Records. This follows a new 7-inch on Flameshovel records. The supporting tour begins June 13 in Madison, Wisconsin at The Terrace. These boys need a hobby.

Chopper Challenge, a motorcycle-building reality show on CMT, will soon be featuring the band Seether. The bike for episode 104 will feature the band’s logo and likeness. This is slightly less whorish then the cable and insurance company bands they normally use.

The Stills third album, Oceans Will Rise, is coming out on August 19 on Arts & Crafts. There is no word of a tour yet but the band has announced three shows in Canada this June.

The Caesars are releasing their 6th album Strawberry Weed August 19th. This will be their third on Astralwerks and was produced by Ebbot Lundberg of the band Soundtrack Of Our Lives. To the Swedes the band is known as Twelve Caesars or Caesars Palace. Copyright law is a bitch.

Rapper 50 Cent is in trouble again. His Dix Hills home was destroyed this week by a suspicious fire. Six people who were inside including his ex-girlfriend, Shaniqua Tompkins, and their 11-year old illegitimate son Marquise. The couple had been fighting over the 2.4 million dollar house.

There was a big hullabaloo about Prince and Radiohead this week. Prince covered Radiohead's 1993 single "Creep" live at the Coachella Festival. About a hundred bad cellphone videos of it appeared on YouTube overnight. Then in a typical Prince anal-retentive response, his label (NPG) had YouTube yank all the videos. But then Thom Yorke appealed to Prince publicly to permit said videos back online. So today we are all free to see the shitty grainy videos with terrible bootleg audio. Oh joy. Jose prefers the Miser version if you need a cover.

Morrissey has announced his 9th studio album, Years of Refusal, which will be released this September. Producer Jerry Finn also produced his 2004 album You Are The Quarry. Also planned is a Sony BMG reissue of Morrissey's 1995 album Southpaw Grammar. No US label has been announced for Years of Refusal. Morrissey will also be appearing in a UK set of E.D. commercials plugging Viagra alongside Bob Dole.

Neil Young has been moonlighting as a venture capitalist, funding an electric car project. Young has teamed up with Wichita-based Johnathan Goodwin, owner of SAE energy. Young has gambled about $120,000 on the project so far. He was quoted as saying "You know, I thought long ago you could change the world by writing songs, but you can't.”