Monday Morning Newsletter (2-23-09)

Next week the three-day Harvest Of Hope festival will take place in St. Augustine at the St. John's County Fairgrounds. It’s proceed benefit Harvest of Hope, a non-profit bringing aid to migrant workers. Bands on the bill include Paint It Black, Against Me!, The National, Deerhunter, Propagandhi, Bad Brains, and over 100 others.

R&B singer Solange Knowles managed to overdose in Nyquil this week. The singer popped a number of Nyquil flu tablets while on an air flight. She blacked out and woke up in the baggage claim then was taken to the hospital. …But isn’t that what Nyquil is supposed to do?

The Michigan Brewing Company is working with the Bull-god himself, Kid Rock on a new line of beer, which should be in stores this spring. The Michigan Economic Growth Authority has wisely granted them a $700k tax break towards the booze-project. Christian rocker Gavin DeGraw will be releasing a new record Free, on March 31. It was produced by Camus Celli. To promote the 10-song release, DeGraw will be doing a stretch of small-venue dates across the U.S. called the bore-us-to-death tour.

In an unnatural use of the term “super group” band Tinted Windows is composed of Ex-Smashing Pumpkin guitarist James Iha, Fountains of Wayne bassist Adam Schlesinger, Taylor Hanson of Hanson and Cheap Trick drummer Bun E. Carlos. It’s kind of a celebrity B-list definition of “super.” Their debut album is set for a spring release and their debut performance at Billboard’s South by Southwest showcase on March 20.

Henry Rollins lost his gig at KDLD in L.A. when the station flipped formats last month. KCRW took the opportunity to snatch up the aging punk icon. His program there will run Saturday nights from 6-8 p.m., starting March 7. Welcome back Henry.

ELO Bassist Kelly Groucutt died this week. He performed on most of ELOs hits throughout the 1970s including “Mr. Blue Sky” and “Livin' Thing.” He left over a royalty payment disagreement in the early 1980s but remained active enough to cut a solo album that same decade. He died Thursday of a heart attack. He was 63.

Somebody hacked the twitter account of Miley Cyrus this week. Apart from being hysterically funny on its own, the hacker twittered such Shakespearean quips as “IM NOT A FUCKIN ROLE MODEL I HATE LITTLE KIDS I ONLY DO HANNAH MONTANNA FOR DA $$$$$$$$” and my favorite “ME AND MANDY HAD SEX IN HANNAH MONTANNA WIGS.”

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.