Music News & Videos

• RS’ 100-Band SXSW Twitter Marathon!
• Muse Pack Anthems Into SXSW Show
• Hole Cover the Stones at SXSW
• STP Rock New Songs, With Krieger at SXSW
• Lady Gaga Sued by Producer/Ex-Boyfriend
• BSS, Truckers, Band of Horses: SXSW
• Weekend Rock List: Rock Biopics
• James Murphy Talks Greenberg Songs
• Win a Special Greenberg iPod
• Rob Sheffield Remembers Alex Chilton
• Spoon, Broken Bells Shine at SXSW
• Secrets of The Runaways: Inside the Film
• Steve Perry Denies “N-Word” Story
• New Dead Weather Album Title Revealed
• Graham Nash on Hollies’ Hall of Fame Career
• Idol Axes Lacey Brown, Ke$ha Performs
• Universal’s New CD Plan: $10 Discs
• Win a Joan Jett Guitar and More Prizes
• Jimi Hendrix’s Last Days: The New Issue
• Best New Bands of 2010
• Dixie Chicks Team With Eagles for Tour
• Phish Announce Big Summer Trek
• Breaking: Local Natives
• Stooges, Genesis Join Rock Hall of Fame
• Jackson Estate, Sony Strike Huge Deal

Scroll down for full news stories, commentary and much more in Rock Daily.

Muse are a band that like things on a massive scale, igniting big sounds on the biggest stages, with the kind of big visual effects known only to the likes of Pink Floyd and Daft Punk. That’s the Muse comfort zone, but the British trio’s special appearance Friday on a much smaller stage at a MySpace Music-presented South By Southwest show traded grand gestures for relative intimacy, without deflating the band’s soaring post-punk prog sound.

There were still laser-beams and songs delivered at arena-rock size at the outdoor amphitheater of Stubb’s BBQ in Austin, but singer-guitarist Matt Bellamy embraced all that is the ground-level nature of the annual SXSW music festival. “We’re feeling good vibes in this town right now,” he told a packed crowd.

RS is tweeting 100 bands from SXSW 2010! Follow the action here.

The band’s hour-long set began with the ominous keyboards and revolution rock of “Uprising,” a track from last year’s The Resistance, calling for “fat cats” to succumb to heart failure while promising, “They will not degrade us, they will not control us…” The band stretched out in a variety of disparate sounds and directions, usually within a single song. Bellamy led the crowd in clapping to the straight-ahead heartbreak beat from the ’80s-style pop hit “Starlight” (from 2006’s Black Holes and Revelations), but also unfurled the galloping Spanish surf-guitar vibe of “Knights Of Cydonia,” sounding like something Dick Dale and ELP might have cooked up together for a Spaghetti Western soundtrack, before Muse slipped into the Queen-like vocal harmonies of “You and I must fight for our rights / You and I must fight to survive.”

There was a welcome bit of funk in some of Muse’s prog, and occasional, if brief guitar flourishes that echoed Hendrix, Black Sabbath and Aerosmith, demonstrating real hard-rock chops in the anxious playing fingers of Bellamy. The songs were anthemic, melodramatic and performed with all the self-confidence of a consistently platinum-selling act. There are many fans and many critics, and the comparisons to Radiohead are not often meant as a compliment. But Bellamy, bassist Chris Wolstenholme and drummer Dominic Howard demonstrated that the great walls of sound Muse have spent the last decade creating can still connect to an audience at ground level.

Indie-rock quartet Metric opened the show, beginning their set with the crackle and hum of “Twilight Galaxy.” The quartet’s 45-minute set was fueled on excited postmodern pop and explosive melody. At one point, singer Emily Haines included a few whispery, spectral moments of Neil Young’s “Hey Hey, My My” as an intro to Metric’s “Gimme Sympathy,” which asks the contentious pop music question: “After all of this is gone / Who’d you rather be? / The Beatles or the Rolling Stones? / Oh, seriously.”

Haines hopped and banged a tambourine in a short sparkly dress during “Help I’m Alive,” her voice going from heavy to high and wailing, “My heart keeps beating like a hammer!” She picked up an electric guitar for “Gold Guns Girls” to slash rhythm during the intense soloing of guitarist James Shaw, stirring up a crowd of festival-goers close enough to be reached.

Muse Set List:

“Uprising” (Riff Version)
“Supermassive Black Hole”
“Resistance”
“Hysteria”
“Stockholm Syndrome”
“Nishe”
“United States of Eurasia”
“Starlight”
“Time is Running Out”
“Unnatural Selection”

ENCORE
“Plug in Baby”
“Knights of Cydonia” (Harmonica Version)

More SXSW 2010:

• RS’ SXSW Twitter Marathon: Catch the Tweets Here!
• Spoon, Broken Bells Grab the Spotlight as SXSW 2010 Launches
• Stone Temple Pilots Debut Songs, Rock With Robby Krieger at SXSW
• Broken Social Scene, Band of Horses, Drive-By Truckers Bring Big Guitar Rock to SXSW
• Hole Cover the Rolling Stones, And Courtney Love Isn’t Satisfied at SXSW

“Make a hole!” yelled one of the bouncers at Dirty Dog, where Courtney Love was about to continue her return to music with a reconstituted version of her band Hole on the third night of the SXSW Music Festival. It was creeping up on 1:15 am. The crowd was packed so tightly together stage left of the dive bar that an emergency situation seemed imminent. Just then the bouncer bulldozered an opening through a space out of thin air to accommodate Woody Harrelson, dressed in a light tan suit and matching Kangol cabbie hat, and his entourage of almost 10 deep. John Doe, frontman for the punk band X, was nearby in the crowd and grew absolutely irate. He pointed at a passing Harrelson and barked, “You fucking celebrities.”

Harrelson and crew, en route to Love’s dressing room, did an about-face minutes later, as Love had just taken to the stage. She was dressed like a wood nymph in pink, with a halo atop her long blond locks. She was telling the audience that she wasn’t doing this for them, but for herself. Then she flipped everyone the bird and said, “Suck it.”

RS is tweeting 100 bands from SXSW 2010! Follow the action here.

A sludgy, bluesy opening number led to a cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil,” followed by a take on the new Hole song “Skinny Little Bitch,” from the forthcoming album Nobody’s Daughter, out April 27th. It sounded much better live, with Love’s raspy growl coated by new guitarist Micko Larkin’s swirls of fuzz.

Love continued with “Doll Parts,” an older song that was supposedly written in response to her first encounter with Kurt Cobain. After that, she started complaining that her voice was shot and that if she kept playing loud songs she wouldn’t be able to play Perez Hilton’s party the following night. “It’s 1:00-fucking-am and I’m an old person,” she said. “It’s time for me to get my blowjob on.”

But she broke out a few more covers, including a full-on band version of Fleetwood Mac’s “Gold Dust Woman” and an acoustic duet version of “Bette Davis Eyes” with Larkin. Elsewhere in the crowd, Matthew McConaughey, wearing a Kangol to match Harrelson’s, looked on approvingly. But Love, who wouldn’t let up about her voice, wasn’t pleased. “Worst show of my life,” she told the crowd, in parting. “I’m so glad you were here to witness it.”

More SXSW 2010:

• RS’ SXSW Twitter Marathon: Catch the Tweets Here!
• Spoon, Broken Bells Grab the Spotlight as SXSW 2010 Launches
• Stone Temple Pilots Debut Songs, Rock With Robby Krieger at SXSW
• Broken Social Scene, Band of Horses, Drive-By Truckers Bring Big Guitar Rock to SXSW
• Muse Pack Arena-Size Anthems Into Surprise SXSW Show

The big story on SXSW’s third day was the surprise Muse performance at Stubb’s, which was announced during the broadcast of the Fox show Human Target earlier in the week (yes, really) — though Rolling Stone’s own showcase featuring Band of Skulls, Jimmie Dale and Colin Gilmore, Court Yard Hounds, John Doe, Rye Rye and Nneka was a pretty hot ticket, too.

Christopher R. Weingarten of @1000TimesYes continued his Twitter odyssey yesterday, tweeting about 24 bands in 14 hours for @RollingStone. Relive his epic quest in our TwitterCam (clips range from the dark rock of Zola Jesus to the pumped-up party pop of Yacht) and catch up on his 140-character reports here:

Check out our day one and day two Twitter marathon recaps.

54) SCORPION CHILD: Local Wolfmother-styled blooz-metal loudly shimmies all over a pre-noon crowd, beckons “scaredy-cats” to dancefloor

55) WARPAINT: Emo’s Jr. absolutely packed by noon to watch these up-and-coming art-rockers lay down spacey, bassy grooves.

56) LOCAL NATIVES: Snaky grooves, spastic energy, excellent Talking Heads cover. So why is this audience so mellow?

57) JAVELIN: Their trademark, water-damaged, rapcentric funkfuzz inspires everything from languid headnods to total spazzing.

58) BANG BANG ECHE: A 15-minute set from impossibly young kiwi synth-garage punx, walking line between savage, spasmodic and huggable.

59) ZOLA JESUS: Keyboard-saturated gothpunk at its most life-affirming and holyshitbeautiful. In the hottest sun-baked cabin in Texas.

60) ANTLERS: Cinematic rock, near-emo wail and devoted followers triumph over the blaaaaazing sun and a malfunctioning kick pedal.

61) VULTURE WHALE: Fairly brawny Birmingham garage twang. Unexpectedly deafening for guys who don’t move around much.

62) FIGHTING WITH WIRE: Gnashing Irish crunch-pop terrorizes a pub. Like Foo Fighters for ugly people (and that’s a compliment).

63) CASIOKIDS: The name of this cartoon-trance crew implies 8-bit fun, but they’ve got quite a handle on understated ambiance too.

64) WE WERE PROMISED JETPACKS: “This has been our worst show so far. Glad you could be here to rub it in.”

65) EPILEPTINOMICON: Denver trio makes pulseless, charred, feedbacky, quasi-mystical emo noise for ski mask and sweater

66) YACHT: Wild, cinematic nu-new wave party devolves into random partiers storming the stage. “Ladies and gentlemen… That guy!”

67) BLACK ANGELS: Stoner-psych ramblers face comedy of gear errors; shirtless guy who offers them a gift of moss on a stick.

68) MAN MAN: Zappa-punks premiere new material that’s as hectic, fun and dangerous as their audience’s pre-show chicken fights.

69) CAROLINA CHOCOLATE DROPS: Rapidfire banjo, fiddle and beatboxing in the Driskill Hotel’s stately Victorian Room. Their newgrass cover of “Hit ‘Em Up Style” has been upgraded from “must hear” to “must experience.”

70) WET HAIR: Iowa City drone ‘n’ drum duo make appropriately planetarium-worthy ooze in the Hideout’s black box theater.

71) MUSE: The day’s big unannounced show. Appropriately anthemic, appropriately huge, appropriately packed. People that couldn’t get in catch sneak peeks from the parking garage, listen and dance from the street.

72) FREDDIE GIBBS: Midwest gangsta rap artisan delivers rapidfire rhymes, each one crystal-clear. And looks good without a shirt!

73) DONNIS: Atlanta rapper brings his usually nimble rhymes, but his stage presence is filled with bounceworthy crunk energy.

74) THE COOL KIDS: Party rappers with no shortage of anthems. But half the show is the way their minimalist beats slap against your ear

75) GRASS WIDOW: Vinyl-friendly San Fran all-girl trio where bubblegum pop and post-punk dissonance politely intertwine.

76) LITURGY: Hypnotic, occassionally blissful black metal; even more bonechilling in tight quarters.

76) LITURGY: Show more awesome since the band was arrested, tried and acquitted for possession of weed in Fort Worth THIS VERY AFTERNOON

77) LIARS: Beefing up their sound with members of Fol Chen, working way up to art-rock legacy band. Spitting sweaty gothaboom fractals. “Let’s fuck em up with a couple of fuck-em-up ones.”

More SXSW 2010:

• RS’ SXSW Twitter Marathon: Catch the Tweets Here!
• Spoon, Broken Bells Grab the Spotlight as SXSW 2010 Launches
• Stone Temple Pilots Debut Songs, Rock With Robby Krieger at SXSW
• Broken Social Scene, Band of Horses, Drive-By Truckers Bring Big Guitar Rock to SXSW
• Hole Cover the Rolling Stones, And Courtney Love Isn’t Satisfied at SXSW
• Muse Pack Arena-Size Anthems Into Surprise SXSW Show

Photo: Wilson/Webb (Greenberg), Horowitz/WireImage(Murphy)

In Noah Baumbach’s new film Greenberg, Ben Stiller plays a curmudgeon who’s more likely to push people away than attract them. And that’s precisely why LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy, who wrote the soundtrack, likes the character so much. “I’m Greenberg-esque,” Murphy says proudly.

In fact, Murphy’s music was a chief inspiration for the movie: Baumbach was obsessed with LCD Soundsystem’s sarcastic ballad “New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down” while writing the script of a sad-sack Manhattanite living in L.A. So when it came time to approach someone to craft the soundtrack, Baumbach immediately thought of Murphy. “It’s not like it was a stretch, like what would I do if I were a serial killer?” says Murphy about relating to the movie’s plot. “It was more like, what would I do if I were a 40-year-old grumpy dude out of place in Los Angeles? It was real method for me, but I can get into that.”

Murphy has never scored a film before but he agreed to the project so he could take a break from working on LCD’s next album, due out this May. “When given the opportunity to fail myself or fail someone else, I choose to fail myself,” he jokes. When it came time to write, Murphy deliberately chose to move away from typical soundtrack cliches — “[Soundtracks] are just these tones… and sounds all over the place,” he says — and would check in with Baumbach regularly while the director was still editing the movie. “We’d sit and talk, we’d have tea, I’d pet his dog, and we’d look at [scenes],” Murphy says. “It literally could have been two roommates who were making a movie for $15,000.”

The resulting Greenberg soundtrack sounds nothing like LCD Soundsystem: Seventies-style California pop that calls to mind Harry Nilsson and Brian Wilson. “Please Don’t Follow Me,” with its pounding piano riff and bright brass tones, is one of the catchier numbers. Still, LCD fans will find that tracks like the psychedelic freakout “Oh No (Christmas Blues)” hew closer to Murphy’s trademark dance-punk style. “This is how I think scores should sound,” Murphy says. “I’d rather just make stereo music to put into a song, not give somebody all the parts to be spread around the sound spectrum.”

For all his troubles, Murphy got to make a cameo in the movie in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him moment. “I’m one of the people in the party scene,” he says. “I didn’t have a bunch of lines. I just walk from here to there. And I look like a Sasquatch.”

Related Stories:

• LCD Soundsystem Offer Peek at New Album With Studio Footage
• LCD Soundsystem’s “Sound of Silver”: 12th Best Album of the Decade
• Meet LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy, The “Failed Hipster” Who Wants to Make You Move

Photograph by Tony Landa
Night two of the SXSW Music Festival featured a trio of big guitar bands with new lineups, playing new — in some cases not even completed — albums. The pressure was on to strike a balance between satiating fans with classics and testing new material without trying their patience.

More SXSW day two guitar rock: full report on Stone Temple Pilots’ set.

The Southern rock band Drive-By Truckers — now without its third singer-songwriter, Jason Isbell — proved the worth of their new album, The Big To-Do, right from the get-go at Stubb’s. Remaining singer-songwriters Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley went back and forth with hardened new songs about old themes, principally boozing (”The Fourth Night of My Drinking”), whoring (”Birthday Boy”), and employment with “fast food wages” (”This Fucking Job”).

Muscle Shoals legend Spooner Oldham joined the band on keyboard for their final song, “Let There Be Rock.” Hood said it was in homage to record stores, where boys and girls learn about music new and old, and about Big Star’s Alex Chilton, who died of an apparent heart attack Wednesday.

Band of Horses followed with their bar-raising stadium rock. Under a crescent moon emblazoned on a blue backdrop projected onto the underside of the stage’s half-shell, frontman Ben Bridwell led his revamped lineup through a stout set including “The Funeral,” one of the great singles of the passing decade. The middle of the set featured two songs — “Factory” and “Compliments” — from the new album Infinite Arms, out May 18th. They may have been working titles but the mechanics therein were anything but in flux. “Factory” was a casual rocker with a punchy refrain and an undercurrent of keys, over which Bridwell sang something to the effect of, “I got to get my shit together and try to find something to sing.”

Headliner Broken Social Scene arrived with as much manpower as the two prior bands combined. Twelve microphones awaited the ever-fluctuating Canadian collective well past midnight. Jason Collett, a former core member participating in SXSW as his own concern, joined the band’s brain trust — Kevin Drew, Andrew Whiteman, and a freshly shaven Brendan Canning — for the intro track, a new one called “World Sick” (hear it here). The song took advantage of the band’s five-guitar assault, its ascending and descending melodies hopscotching gracefully along Drew’s lyrics about the homesickness inherent to incessant touring.

The band played a handful of old songs, among them a “7/4 (Shoreline)” embellished with a seven-person horn section, but mostly they rocked out new songs from the forthcoming Forgiveness Rock Record, out May 4th. “We’re gonna play our guts out,” Drew said, referring to dance- and keyboard-inflected songs like “Forced to Love,” “Texico Bitches,” and “All to All.” “But we’re human beings,” Drew continued, “still trying to figure things out.”

Stone Temple Pilots are not a band many could have expected to survive two full decades. Even acts without the internal wounds of serious addiction and ongoing conflict rarely make it this long, but when STP emerged onstage at the Austin Music Hall for a special performance at South By Southwest on Thursday, they delivered like journeyman rock stars with their shit together — tight and focused, and unburdened with the bitterness or bad memories from the recent past.

Singer Scott Weiland shimmied stylishly across the stage in a snug vest, tie and wraparound shades, rasping to an explosive “Vaseline,” as guitarist Dean DeLeo ignited bursts of noise and melody. Bassist Robert DeLeo strutted in a black suit and white patent-leather shoes, and drummer Eric Kretz pounded anxious beats from a gleaming white drum-riser. The 4,400-capacity Austin Music Hall was packed, and during 75 minutes of hits and new songs, the SoCal quartet managed to make the big shed feel as intimate and overheated as a club show.

They dove into STP’s earliest records, with the brooding, sludgy “Wicked Garden” and the aching resignation of “Creep” still tapping into some early-’90s disaffection and gloom, while the slower “Big Empty” floated to Dean DeLeo’s dreamy slide guitar, with sudden thunderous riffs as repeated exclamation points. Stone Temple Pilots were real grunge-era hit-makers for several years, with songs that remain a staple of rock radio, but the band’s renewed drive onstage after reappearing from a half-decade in limbo saved them from becoming mere oldies.

Songs from the band’s upcoming new album were unveiled throughout the set, fitting easily between the hits. “They’re brand new,” Weiland declared, “but they’ll feel like you’ve been hearing them for 20 years.” The self-titled 11-song collection, due May 25th, will be their first since 2001, and includes the riff-raff of “Between the Lines,” which sounded in Austin like sped-up Rolling Stones, with a flamboyant accent of Ziggy Stardust, as Weiland reminisced on the early days of romance with his estranged wife, purring breathlessly: “I like it when we talk about love, even when we used to take drugs.”

The taunting “Huckleberry Crumble” and “Hickory Dichotomy” were ’70s guitar rock with deep blues in their veins, as Weiland vamped center stage. He tossed his sweat-soaked vest into the crowd and promised another fresh new tune, saying “I hope you dig it,” but instead dove into “Plush,” one of STP’s most recognizable hits. The band had barely begun when Weiland held his microphone out over the crowd, which shouted an entire verse back at the stage.

For the band’s two-song encore, STP was joined by Doors guitarist Robby Krieger, introduced by Weiland as “a man who was part of the greatest rock & roll group in history,” before diving into a fiery “Roadhouse Blues,” leaving enough room for DeLeo and Krieger to stretch out on dueling leads. The night ended with an intense reading of “Trippin’ On a Hole in a Paper Heart,” another drug tale from 1996.

Earlier in the set, Weiland graciously told fans, “It’s your party, not ours.” But after tumultuous times both together and apart, Weiland and Stone Temple Pilots have learned to make the most of surviving long enough to enjoy it themselves.

Set List:

“Vasoline”
“Crackerman”
“Wicked Garden”
“Hollywood Bitch”
“Between the Lines”
“Hickory Dichotomy”
“Big Empty”
“Sour Girl”
“Creep”
“Plush”
“Interstate Love Song”
“Bagman”
“Huckleberry Crumble”
“Sex Type Thing”
“Dead and Bloated”

Encore:
“Roadhouse Blues”
“Trippin’ On a Hole in a Paper Heart”

On day two of SXSW, you could see the mechanisms of the hype machine in full effect. The current crop of buzz bands (the xx, Surfer Blood, Bear In Heaven) packed their rooms wall-to-wall. However, bands who had their moment but still release excellent albums (Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, Vivian Girls) had more modest crowds. Maybe it’s the economy of cool, maybe it’s that bands were expected to play 10 day shows in four days and thus spread audiences thin. But however you watched them, there was still plenty to watch.

Christopher R. Weingarten of @1000TimesYes continued his Twitter odyssey yesterday, tweeting about 26 bands in 14 hours for @RollingStone. Relive his epic quest in our TwitterCam (clips range from the woozy indie drone of the Besnard Lakes to the heavy riffage of Howl) and catch up on his 140-character reports here:

Catch up on our day one Twitter marathon.

• SXSW 2010 Day One Twitter Marathon: 27 Reports, From Andrew WK to Paul Wall
• Spoon, Broken Bells Grab the Spotlight as SXSW 2010 Launches

Photo: Jack/FilmMagic
You know you’ve reached The Fame when someone slaps you with a massive lawsuit. Lady Gaga is being sued for $30 million by producer and ex-boyfriend Rob Fusari, the co-writer of Gaga’s hit “Paparazzi,” who claims he discovered the singer in 2006 and created the moniker “Lady Gaga.” In the suit, Fusari seeks a 20 percent cut from Gaga’s two companies Team Love Child and Mermaid Music, saying he entered into a contract with Gaga in 2006 that also promised him a portion of her merchandising and revenue, the New York Daily News reports. Fusari, who previously had hits with Will Smith’s “Wild Wild West” and Destiny Child’s “Bootylicious,” also claims that he was shortchanged on his royalty fees.

Get a look at Lady Gaga’s wildest outfits.

“It’s an age-old story in the music business,” said Fusari’s lawyer Robert Meloni. “You become famous and you turn on the person who discovered you.” According to the suit, Fusari initially recruited Gaga, then just Stefani Germanotta, to join what he envisioned as “an all-girl version of the Strokes.” “Fusari was expecting someone a little more grunge-rocker than the young Italian girl ‘guidette’ that arrived at his doorstep and was worried that he had made a mistake,” the suit contends. Recognizing Gaga’s ability, Fusari claims he helped craft Gaga’s songwriting to something with more of a dance feel. Their collaboration resulted in three songs that eventually appeared on The Fame — “Paparazzi,” “Brown Eyes” and “Beautiful, Dirty, Rich” — plus the bonus tracks “Disco Heaven,” “Again Again” and “Retro Dance Freak.”

Fusari also claims he accidentally created the “Lady Gaga” name, explaining in the suit “one day when Fusari addressed a cell phone text to Germanotta under the moniker ‘Radio Gaga’ [a song by Queen], his cell phone’s spell check converted ‘Radio’ to ‘Lady.’ Germanotta loved it and ‘Lady Gaga’ was born.” Rolling Stone told the tale a little differently in our June 2009 Lady Gaga cover story, where Brian Hiatt reported that Fusari was struck by some Freddie Mercury-like harmonies the singer recorded and began singing “Radio Gaga” to her as a running joke; Gaga texted Fusari her new name and never answered to “Stef” again.

Besides being collaborators, Fusari and Gaga also shared a romantic relationship, though Fusari’s suit claims that ended in January 2007, adding that Gaga was a “woman scorned” and eventually became “verbally abusive” to Fusari. “All business is personal,” the suit says. “When those personal relationships evolve into romantic entanglements, any corresponding business relationship usually follows the same trajectory so that when one crashes they all burn. This is what happened here.” When reached by Rolling Stone for a response, Lady Gaga’s rep said the singer has no comment on the suit.

Check out photos from Lady Gaga’s Monster Ball show.

Related Stories:

• Lady Gaga Talks “Telephone” Clip, MTV Confirms Video Not Banned
• Lady Gaga Announces Massive Summer Monster Ball Arena Tour
• Lady Gaga and Beyonce Unleash Orgy of Sex, Violence, Product Placement in “Telephone” Video

Photo: Soul Brother/FilmMagic

• A deal that would have brought Paula Abdul to ABC’s revamped version of Star Search has collapsed, according to the Hollywood Reporter, because the former American Idol judge’s salary demand was too high.

• Janet Jackson’s new single will be released March 30th, Jermaine Dupri tweeted last night. The track, called “Nothing,” appears on the Why Did I Get Married Too soundtrack.
• Sarah McLachlan’s first new studio album in seven years, The Laws of Illusion, will hit stores on June 15th, just weeks before the Canadian singer’s Lilith Fair reboot launches its first date.
• Taylor Swift’s six-times-platinum Fearless has become the most awarded country album in history. The 20-year-old star was honored by her label earlier this week, as she scored her 10th consecutive Top 10 Hot Country Song.

Graham Nash is one of the few artists who has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice: first, in 1997, with Crosby, Stills and Nash and again at this week’s ceremony in New York, with his first band the Hollies. But when Rolling Stone sat down with Nash to discuss the induction, he seemed more ecstatic for his Hollies bandmate, Allan Clarke. “I was thrilled for my partner for all those years,” Nash says. “He’s been a very underestimated lead singer.”

Nash, a photography fanatic, also filled us in on his new book, Taking Aim: Unforgettable Rock & Roll Photographs, which compiles his picks for some of rock’s greatest pictures by photographers like Annie Leibovitz, Jim Marshall and Anton Corbijn into a handsome, hard-cover book. “I have a good eye for photography and I have a good ear for music, so if we could combine both of them, I could come up with an interesting journey,” says Nash. (The songwriter also curated a photo exhibition featuring many of those photographs at Seattle’s Experience Music Project, which is on view through May 23rd).

Nash also took a moment to discuss some of the back stories behind those photos, including the Henry Diltz picture that would later be used as the cover for CSN’s 1969 self-titled debut. (Check out the band’s track-by-track breakdown of the album here.) When the record was released, fans confused Nash with Crosby, since Crosby’s name appears directly above Nash’s on the album sleeve. “We’re all sitting in the wrong order because we decided to call ourselves Crosby, Stills and Nash,” says Nash. “It flows off the tongue better than any other combination. That’s why people keep calling me Crosby. They think I wrote ‘Guinevere.’ ”

Related Stories:

•Graham Nash Performs “Right Between the Eyes”
•CSN Reflect on Their Epic 40-Year Career
•CSN Talk About CSN: Déjàa VuMovie

Photo: Kravitz/FilmMagic
When Rolling Stone talked to Jack White last November, the multitasking rocker promised a new Dead Weather disc by March 2010. So far, no LP, but the Dead Weather’s official website just revealed the title of the upcoming record — Sea of Cowards — and a vague timetable for its release: “Coming Soon.”

While it’s unclear when Sea of Cowards is arriving — reports of an early May release are being bandied about — we won’t have to wait long for the first single, as TwentyFourBit has identified an Amazon.com page boasting the song “Die By the Drop” as the album’s first single. It appears that “Die By the Drop,” backed by the B side “Old Mary,” will be released digitally on March 23rd, a mere five days from now. Added bonus: 30-second excerpts of both tracks are currently streaming at the e-tailer. UPDATE: The band’s reps tell Rolling Stone Amazon’s March 23rd release date is incorrect. As of now, there is no firm drop date for the track.

“We have a lot of songs cooking right now, we’ve been playing a few of them live, and I’m sure by March the entire 20 or 25 songs will be onstage by then,” White told Rolling Stone in November 2009. “We can’t tell you that much about it except that it’s gonna be really expansive, and I use that word loosely in a scientific sense, meaning that I’m just using it to distract you.”

Related Stories:

• The Dead Weather Muse on the Future of Music, Supergroup Wars
• Jack White Says Expect a New Dead Weather Disc in Early 2010
• Jack White Can’t Stop Dancing in Dead Weather’s Second “I Cut Like a Buffalo” Video

Photo: Wargo/WireImage

What’s the only thing better than becoming the first acclaimed all-female rock band? Becoming the first all-female rock band to get your own biopic. At least that was the feeling during Wednesday night’s premiere of The Runaways, the true story of the five teenage girls who spent the Seventies kicking their way down the Sunset Strip and into the boys’ club. On the red carpet at New York’s Landmark Sunshine theater, the E Street Band’s Steven Van Zandt called the Runaways “my heroes.” Debbie Harry embraced Runaways rhythm guitarist Joan Jett. Chloe Sevigny showed up in black leather, perhaps as a tribute to Jett’s favorite kind of pants. Outside, teenage girls lined up for autographs — one was even clutching what looked like a brand-new guitar.

Check out photos from the set of The Runaways.

Asked about the young rockers amassed behind the velvet ropes, Runaways star Kristen Stewart, who plays Jett in the film, was thrilled. “If I go out there and everyone’s wearing shag haircuts like Joan,” she said, “I’ll know we did something right.” Sure enough, if Stewart earned one rhinestone for every shag haircut outside, every inch of the metallic strapless dress she wore that night would be bedazzled by now.

For the second time in the past 30 years, the Runaways are becoming icons, and the film makes it easy to understand why. Director Floria Sigismondi, who’s made music videos for the White Stripes and Marilyn Manson, offers a fresh, unapologetically girlie twist on hoary old rock biopic clichés. So instead of groupie orgies, there’s a very sweet love scene between Jett and singer Cherie Currie, who never takes off her roller skates. And instead of fights over record contracts, there’s heated debates about the fashion-forwardness of pink corsets.

But there’s never any doubt that these feathered-haired vamps aren’t just as serious about playing music as corseted beauties like, say, David Bowie. It’s just that this is a coming-of-age story, not only for the teenage girls in the band, but for rock & roll itself, which was changing right along with them. “The Seventies was a perfect time to be a teenager, because it was such an era of experimentation with sex and drugs and rock music,” says Sigismondi. “And the Runaways were a truly experimental band: they did all the things young girls weren’t supposed to do.” That includes getting high in airplane bathrooms and urinating on some rude rocker dude’s guitar (as Jett does in one scene).

True to that spirit, Sigismondi is also doing a few things she’s not supposed to do, like casting two former child stars — Stewart and Dakota Fanning, both flown in from a little vampire movie franchise you might have heard of — in a feature that deals frankly with subjects like pill-popping and softcore porn and masturbation. As one blog recently joked, it’s Twilight Girls Gone Wild.

At first, Fanning was anxious about playing Cherie Currie, especially since she knew her real singing voice would be used in the film. “Even the thought of singing karaoke has always terrified me,”admits the 16-year-old actress. “And I had never felt the power of a band behind me.” So Sigismondi arranged for Fanning to practice with the Living Things, an L.A. rock band that features the director’s husband, Lillian Berlin. Currie also taught Fanning her favorite trick: wrapping the microphone chord around her leg, and then unspooling it until it flies into the air for her to catch. Soon, Fanning was so comfortable onstage that she invited her own mother to watch her writhing around to the jailbait anthem “Cherry Bomb,” which includes heavy-breather lyrics like, “I’ll give you something to live for / Have you, grab you ’til you’re sore!”

Currie was impressed. “I got knots on my head the size of lemons when I didn’t do that microphone thing right,” she admits. As a token of her admiration, she lent Fanning a prized Runaways relic: a Davie Bowie belt she’d made herself at age 15. Fanning wears it proudly during the film.

Stewart also heavily researched her role, though she did most of her homework on the bathroom floor of Joan Jett’s hotel room in Seattle. She’d flown out to see Jett play on New Year’s Eve of 2008, and the two women spent the whole night sprawled on the linoleum, talking excitedly about the Runaways. Jett burned albums and live bootlegs for Stewart, and even allowed her to borrow tape-recorded letters to an aunt that Jett had made at age 13. “Getting her voice down at that age was really important to me,” says Stewart, 19. “She’s just saying things like ‘I’m eating a microwave pizza now!’ It’s funny that this total rock star was once just like any other lazy teenager.”

Now, that former lazy teenager couldn’t be more proud. Jett admits that seeing the 19-year-old actress on screen was “like looking into a mirror.” And she’s proud that her band is finally getting its due. Though their debut album never sold more than 25,000 copies, Jett has since gone platinum with her group the Blackhearts, and Runaways lead guitarist Lita Ford may be the best-known heavy-metal goddess of all time. Plus, Jett says, the Runaways’ message — that girls can do whatever the hell they want to — is still important for people to hear. “Women are still second-class citizens,” she says. “I was flying back from a show in Japan, and the flight attendants walked around first class asking all the men what they wanted to drink, and no one asked me. That’s why it’s important for me to get this movie out there, not just to inspire girls to pick up an instrument, but to tell them, ‘Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do something. Make your own victories. Make your own mistakes.’ ”

That also goes for Currie, who once refused an interview with a certain music magazine. “I turned down the cover of Rolling Stone, because I knew the girls would kill me,” she says. “Kids, how do they deal with something like that? We were so young.”

Related Stories:

• Watch a New Runaways Trailer, See Exclusive Photos From the Set
• Joan Jett Talks Big Hits, Career Blows and Runaways Drama
• Lita Ford Returns With “Sexual” LP, Explains Runaways Movie Rift

Photo: Cattermole/Getty
Swedish dance-pop sensation Robyn is reportedly plotting three releases for 2010, and to get the party started, the “With Every Heartbeat” singer unveiled her first official single from one of the upcoming releases, “Fembot,” on her official Website yesterday. Though Robyn famously contested her record label’s attempts to brand her as a Scandinavian Christina Aguilera in the past, “Fembot” could be the purest pop confection Robyn has ever crafted, with its catchy playground catcall of a chorus and Robyn almost mimicking Britney Spears’ robotic singing style over an propulsive dance beat.

The song also continues Robyn’s ongoing android theme that previously spawned songs like Robyn’s “Robotboy,” the interlude “Bionic Woman” and last year’s “The Girl and the Robot” collaboration with Royksopp. “Fembots have feelings too. You split my heart in too, now what you gonna do,” Robyn sings on the track. In an interview with Swedish magazine Bon, Robyn talked about slicing up her new album, originally scheduled for June, into three individual discs to be released in the spring, summer and winter. No release dates have been announced thus far, but the unveiling of “Fembot” is a welcome step forward.

Another track seemingly destined for Robyn’s 2010 pop triptych called “Dance Hall Queen,” produced by Diplo, mysteriously leaked out earlier this year, but YouTube has managed to flush out all evidence of the track. Robyn also reportedly collaborated with Royksopp, “With Every Heartbeat” co-writer Andreas Kleerup and Klas Åhlund, who co-wrote Robyn with Robyn, on her new discs, which will also feature a rap-off versus Snoop Dogg.

Related Stories:

• Breaking Artist: Robyn
• SXSW 2008 Video: Robyn

Sales of physical albums have steadily decreased over the past half decade, and now one major label is hoping to stem the decline by adopting a daring new strategy: lowering the price of CDs. Universal Music Group has revealed a plan to reduce the wholesale cost of their albums in order to decrease the retail price of single-disc albums to $10 or less, Billboard.biz reports. Under the new plan, sales of CDs will only boast a 25 percent profit margin, but UMG hopes the increase of CD sales volume will help reinvigorate their revenues.

While some may deem UMG’s strategy as “too little, too late,” the move does put the price of physical discs in line with what digital music services like iTunes charge for full album downloads, making physical discs a more attractive option. “We think it will really bring new life into the physical format,” Universal Music Group Distribution president/CEO Jim Urie said. UMG revealed that they plan on selling more deluxe editions of albums, however those discs will carry a higher price tag.

While retailers are applauding the move, Billboard.biz writes that the other major labels aren’t too pleased with UMG’s price shift. “Why does Universal feel the need to get below $10?,” a distributor at a competing major wondered. However, there is precedent for UMG believing their new strategy will work: When Trans World Entertainment, who runs music stores like f.y.e. and Wherehouse Music, tested out a $9.99 price plan, CD sales jumped 100 percent.

Related Stories:

• Despite Some Big Rock Records, Music Biz Still Struggling
• October CD Sales Down As Economy Struggles With Recession
• Music Sales Slump Could Spell the End of Boxed Sets

Photo: Winter/Getty(Silverman), Pace/FilmMagic(Perry)

In an interview with Playboy set to hit newsstands tomorrow, comedian Sarah Silverman responds to questions about her provocative brand of humor by telling a story about how “the onetime lead singer of a very popular band from the 1980s” came up to her after a show and said, “You’re my favorite comedian. You have the best nigger jokes.” Silverman didn’t outright name Journey’s Steve Perry, but she added, “I’ll just say this: After that, I stopped believin’,” a poke at the band’s classic “Don’t Stop Believin’.”

Was she joking? In an interview with Rolling Stone yesterday, Perry took Silverman’s accusation very seriously, adamantly denying he ever used “the n-word” after meeting her backstage at a comedy show. “I’m really shocked. She was so friendly and so nice,” Perry tells RS. “I don’t understand why she would go there, it’s so bizarre. I don’t use that word, are you kidding? That’s so derogatory.” Perry admits he met Silverman on a pair of occasions “a long time ago” after being “amazed at her ability to make people actually laugh at every racial slur and every ethnic group she could possibly come up with,” but insists Silverman’s recollection of their meeting is just another episode concocted by the controversial TV star for comedic effect.

Perry tells RS, “I walked up to her after the show and I said, ‘I can’t believe that somehow you seem to be getting away with all these slurs and the n-word, I just can’t believe how you’re doing this,’ and I looked at my friend and I said, ‘I can’t believe how she’s getting away with this,’ and she looked at me and kind of smiled. It wasn’t like I was condemning her or condoning her, it was just that I can’t believe how somehow creatively she was making everybody in that club of all colors and all ethnic backgrounds laugh. That’s what it was.”

Despite the accusation, Perry still marvels at Silverman’s ability to walk the dangerous line of political correctness with her comedy. “You’ve gotta see her show because she uses every ethnic slur known to man that historically has been very unforgivable,” Perry says. “I’m Portuguese, that’s the only ethnic background she left out, but maybe after this article she’ll come after me now.”

Photograph by Krista De La Rosa
Broken Bells made a lot of noise the first day of the SXSW Music Festival with their “pop-up” show at a parking garage on Red River Street in downtown Austin. It took place at 1:00 pm and was packed to capacity. That trend continued at their Wednesday night NPR showcase at Stubb’s.

Catch up on 27 more reports — and see video — from SXSW’s Day One in our Twitter marathon roundup.

Despite what you’ve been told, Broken Bells are not a duo consisting of James Mercer, on hiatus from the Shins, and Danger Mouse, on hiatus from Gnarls Barkley. Last night they were a seven-piece band, with multiple guitars, horns, and keys that provided a platform for Mercer to kick out the jams. Broken Bells played their entire self-titled album, starting with the endearing, organ-infused first single “The High Road.” The ambient details Danger Mouse adds to Broken Bells’ songs are not as readily apparent in a live setting — his in-studio electronic curlicues were relegated to preprogrammed samples, as he mostly manned a drum kit — but still make the songs feel like more than just Shins tunes with new players.

While Broken Bells may still be in pursuit of their live voice — the show was one of the band’s handful of debut gigs — their onstage successor, Spoon, have had years to perfect a muscular, new-wave aesthetic. The Austin five-piece, augmented by a second percussionist, was introduced by the same disheveled fellow who introduced the Flaming Lips at a pre-SXSW gig in Austin last week attended by Spoon frontman Britt Daniel. (The guy said he was one of six people at the first ever Spoon show, where he reported that Daniel joked, “I wish I knew what it took to get people to like my music.”)

Spoon raced through songs from the albums Transference and Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga clad in black, amid sparse white lights. Daniel made occasional detours to wield his guitar like a mobster spraying a Tommy Gun. On cue with the rip-roaring “Don’t Make Me a Target,” the lights illuminated the stage in an orange glow that left the band exposed to the crowd.

Daniel performed two songs without his guitar, including a slowed-down version of the Damned’s “Love Song,” during which he wielded a maraca like a panhandler shaking a cup of coins. Then he proclaimed, “OK, we’re gonna do it,” and revisited the summer of 2007 with the hit “The Underdog,” whose premise is no longer applicable.

Day one of SXSW 2010 didn’t have a big show for everyone to whisper about and try to sneak into — although Lemmy’s name was bandied around quite a bit. Instead, fans of niche genres celebrated their own victories big and small. Andrew WK returned with his new band after a long hiatus, rappers Paul Wall and Chamillionaire patched things up on stage, electronic wonder Flying Lotus kicked off what is probably going to be a year of amazing hype, and indie rock buzz bands (Real Estate, Surfer Blood, Neon Indian, etc.) did their victory laps. Whatever scene you repped, there was something special to get excited about.

Chris Weingarten of @1000TimesYes began his Twitter odyssey yesterday, tweeting about 27 bands in 14 hours for @RollingStone. Get a look at the mayhem for yourself in our TwitterCam (clips range from the psych scuzz of Tobacco to the stoner metal of Priestess) and catch up on his 140-character reports here:

1) KILL THE CLIENT: Only @ sxsw can you see a grindcore band at noon on a Wednesday. Dude is currently stalking/scaring the early birds

2) YELLOW FEVER: Charming and adorable indie-poppers with hard-working drummer rocking Mario Clouds-looking sweater in 64 degree heat

3) LISSIE Country-folk outsider finds extra 10 minutes in her set; does tender, howling version of Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters”

4) TV GHOST: Trashgoth frontspazz Tim Gick lurching & freaking all over the icky floor of the appropriately batcave-like Beer Garden.

5) TOBACCO: Black Moth dude bringing the scuzziest, wooziest, weirdest, noisiest dance party to a tent. Lots of bearded head nodding!

6) PRIESTESS: Punishingly loud instore at @waterloorecords w/ foggy stoner riffs, snarky fan jokes & a tutorial on changing a string

7) MATÍAS AGUAYO: Minimal techno producer plays multitasking rock star with maracas and funky slidewhistle.

8 ) THOSE DARLINS: Riotous, giddy cowpunk about DUIs and crank calls completely packs the Red 7 porch.

9) TORO Y MOI: Rising chillwaver taken aback by “the biggest crowd I ever played.” Hard to see, but making some inhuman smear.

10) REAL ESTATE: NJ’s pastoral punks look a little bored, sound a little mushy… But that might be on purpose.

11) FUCKED UP: Frontman Pink Eye says Emo’s was first place he ever went shirtless. “Fat guys everywhere felt a little bit skinnier.”

12) TORCHE: Emo’s Jr. is way too tiny to handle their enormous sludge, enormous hooks, enormous energy, enormous crowd.

13) SHOUT OUT OUT OUT OUT: Six-man discopunk crew and a mountain of gear make a patio vibrate, then make it bounce. Brbrbrbrbrbrb.

14) BALMORHEA: Austin chamber-gloomsters cast a skeletal shadow over the reverent, still audience at the Presbyterian Church.

15) HESTA PRYNN: Former Northern State MC growing into a sultry, new wavey, electro, rapcentric art-diva persona, with mixed results.

16) THE YELLOW DOGS: Iranian post-punkers ride spidery bass lines, galloping hi-hats & garage-fucked guitar. Small crowd, great sound.

17) SOKO: Parisian quirkball is equal parts Kronos Quartet, Bjork & Slits. Everyone claps along to “People are mean, people are bad.” Brilliantly nuts; ranting about Austin’s creepy love of taxidermy; singing about fellatio; “I’m French so pardon my French”

18) NAAM: Virtuosic bass crunge, ripped jeans, long hair, extended krautrock blissouts as shaggy stoner metal spectacle. Yes!

19) HERE WE GO MAGIC: Lush, complex, moody indie rockers gently woo a crowd that’s lively, chatty and reeking of weed.

20) J-ROCC: Stones Throw turntable savant spins all 45s. Packed but still room for breakdancing. Kids go bonkers for William Bell.

21) JAHDAN BLAKKAMOORE: The evocative toaster/MC/vocalist and beat polygot Shadatek are transfixing as ever, but could use a louder PA

22) HAUSCHKA: Satie feather-drops, gorgeous string plucks, transfixing rattles. Stillness is the move.

23) BRIAN POSEHN: “I’ve been to this festival a bunch of times and I can tell if your band sucks from 50 feet away.”

24) ANDREW WK: There’s pushing & shoving in parts of this club that logically shouldn’t have pushing & shoving. Andrew interviews and hugs an enthusiastic fan on stage. Thanks for coming, Chris!

25) SPOON: No shrugs or indie-cool, Britt Daniel is leather-clad, guitar-stabbing rocker in his own backyard.

26) ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE: Cosmic comedown, endless solos, “whataburger” as stage banter, actual tarot card readings by the merch booth.

27) PAUL WALL AND CHAMILLIONAIRE: One of the hotter, more electric shows of the day. And they even publicly apologized for beefing!

Photo: Michael Ochs Archive/Getty

Classic Alex Chilton live moment: 1987, long after midnight, a sleazy rock bar in Roanoke, Virginia. When the man strikes up his best-loved song, the Big Star classic “September Gurls,” some drunk idiot celebrates by throwing a bottle that hits the guitar. Chilton cuts the song dead right at the syllable “Sep—” and snarls, “If I catch the motherfucker who threw that bottle, I’m gonna kill him.” Then, to the band: “OK, on D. One. Two.” They pick it up without missing a beat: “Teeeehm-ber gurls…” A perfect summary of Alex Chilton’s mix of Southern charm and evil charisma.

Alex Chilton, who died Thursday of a heart attack at 59, was one of the all-time great rock & roll songwriters, and the ultimate indie cult hero. He also had one of the strangest careers in American music. At the age of 16, he sang a huge pop hit that’s enjoyed radio rotation ever since, the Box Top’s “The Letter.” But he left the middle of the road for one head-scratching move after another: the Memphis guitar band Big Star, a string of sloppy garage-punk records with titles such as Like Flies On Sherbert and Dusted In Memphis, then an embrace of New Orleans R&B and lounge standards. He famously dropped out in the 1980s to wash dishes in New Orleans. In the 2000s, he toured with the Box Tops and Big Star, never talking to journalists or revealing anything about his private life. The only time I ever attempted to interview him, backstage after a solo show, he just snickered, “I have to rest my voice” — a strange claim, since he was smoking a dubious hand-rolled cigarette the size of his head. But he said everything he had to say in his music.

Everybody has a different favorite Alex Chilton. But mine will always be Big Star. They made three albums in the 1970s: #1 Record (the “catchy pop” one), Radio City (the “twisted Beatle obsessions” one) and Sister Lovers (the “late-night emotional breakdown” one). Chilton’s high, bittersweet voice was full of pain and yearning, even when the chiming Rickenbacker guitars were pure teenage kicks. He sang the acoustic ballad “Thirteen,” probably the most obscure oddity to make Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time (it came in at Number 396), along with other gems like “September Gurls,” “Life Is White,” and “Night Time.” He could take a song as dark and fearful as “Blue Moon” and made it sound romantic, crooning, “If demons come, while you’re under… / I’ll be the blue moon in the dark.”

Nobody bought these albums at the time, and radio wouldn’t touch them, but all three became classics. Big Star invented a vision of bohemian rock & roll cool that had nothing to do with New York, Los Angeles or London, which made them completely out of style in the 1970s, but also made them an inspiration to generations of weird Southern kids. Especially girls — for hipster gals who couldn’t necessarily relate to the abrasive machismo of Lou Reed or Iggy Pop, Alex Chilton was a dude who let female fans hear themselves in his music. Nobody was ever better at making Southern girls feel cool.

Like so many other Eighties kids, I first heard of Big Star because R.E.M.’s Peter Buck kept mentioning them in interviews. The Bangles did a cover of “September Gurls,” and the Replacements did the tribute “Alex Chilton,” but it was R.E.M. who really set the table for Chilton’s late-’80s surge in popularity, a moment captured in last year’s movie Adventureland. The scene where Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg bond over “I’m in Love With A Girl” is a completely accurate picture of how it felt to discover Big Star in the Eighties, at a time when “indie rock” didn’t even have a name yet.

Alex Chilton never seemed to have much interest in his career. He refused to milk the Big Star resurgence — by then, he was exploring a whole new sound, the lazy R&B raunch of records like High Priest. He was hilariously surly to fans requesting Big Star oldies. At a summer ‘88 show in New Haven, where some guy up front kept yelling for “Oh My Soul,” Alex just sneered, “Sorry — I don’t think this particular band has the capability to play that particular song.” Any time he faced the camera, he gave a mean glare and clenched his shoulders like a fighter. Despite years of hard living, he always seemed indestructible — and thanks to his music, he always will be.

Note: I didn’t witness that show in Roanoke. I heard about it from a Virginia girl I met in a bar, when the bartender put on Radio City. We both recognized the album, so we traded stories about Chilton shows we’d seen. A couple years later, we played Big Star’s “Thirteen” as the first dance at our wedding. Thank you for everything, Alex Chilton. You will always be the blue moon in the dark.

More on Alex Chilton:

• Big Star Rock “#1 Record,” “Radio City” Classics at Rare NYC Gig
• Alex Chilton Set to Go
• Big Star Travel “Space”
• Big Star Album Reviews

American Idol delivered its first Ford commercial set to an unlikely tune last night — the Hives’ “Tick Tick Boom” — which was quite appropriate for Rolling Stones week since the Swedish garage rockers’ charismatic frontman Howlin’ Pele Almqvist has borrowed 70 percent of his mind-blowing stage show from Mick Jagger. If Idol can somehow get even one percent of its massive viewership to revisit the band’s incredible 2000 disc Veni Vidi Vicious, Season Nine has redeemed itself.

The show also featured amped-up version of the Rolling Stones’ “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” by Season Seven winner David Cook, plus Orianthi performed her single “According to You.” And Ke$ha rocked her feather headdress alongside dancers balancing giant TVs for heads during a rendition of Animal single “Blah Blah Blah” that featured an uncredited cameo by 3Oh!3 (perhaps Ryan Seacrest didn’t recognize them?).

But the night’s real task was Season Nine’s first Top 12 elimination. Paige Miles, Tim Urban and Lacey Brown landed in the bottom three, and minds were certainly blown when Urban — who turned “Under My Thumb” into pseudo-reggae slop — was declared safe. Miles, who struggled with laryngitis but managed to pull out a decent “Honky Tonk Woman,” triumphed over Brown, who had sung a surprisingly interesting “Ruby Tuesday” set to a string quartet on Tuesday night. Randy Jackson, Ellen DeGeneres, Kara DioGuardi and Simon Cowell unanimously agreed not to use their one-time Judges’ Save to keep Brown in the competition.

That means, of course, that Siobhan Magnus (who Rock Daily declared “Lady Lambert” but our readers seemed to perceive more as “Gal Gokey” for her “Paint It Black” screech) will sing another week, along with strong contenders Crystal Bowersox and Didi Benami. Was Brown’s time really up? Give RS your take in the comments.

Photo: Kane/WireImage

• U2 will release their Artificial Horizon remix album as a triple-vinyl set on May 14th. According to the album’s site, Trent Reznor, Justice and Hot Chip are among the 13 producers who reworked songs from Pop to No Line on the Horizon.

• Waka Flocka Flame has been arrested for violating his probation by traveling outside of Georgia. http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1634154/20100317/waka_flocka_flame.jhtml" Target="blank">MTV News reports the rapper will be held in a Houston jail pending a hearing in several weeks.

• Patti Smith will receive the ASCAP Founders Award and perform at the group’s 27th annual Pop Music Awards on April 21st in Los Angeles.
• Smashing Pumpkins will launch Record Store Day on April 17th with a special performance in L.A. hosted by Rocket Science Ventures and Amoeba Records. Fans will be able to pre-order Teargarden by Kaleidyscope Vol 1: Songs For A Sailor exclusively at indie record shops on the 17th as well.

Photo: Michael Ochs Archive/Getty

Alex Chilton, singer and guitarist of Big Star, one of the most influential rock groups to emerge from the early 1970s, has passed away at the age of 59. Chilton reportedly suffered a heart attack today in New Orleans, just days before Big Star were scheduled to perform at the SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas. Chilton had been complaining about his health earlier in the day, and was eventually taken to a New Orleans hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Big Star drummer Jody Stephens confirmed Chilton’s passing, Memphis’ Commercial Appeal reports. “Alex passed away a couple of hours ago,” Stephens said. “I don’t have a lot of particulars, but they kind of suspect that it was a heart attack.”

Read Rob Sheffield’s tribute to Alex Chilton.

Chilton began his musical career in his teens as a member of the Box Tops before returning to his native Memphis to form Big Star with guitarist/co-songwriter Chris Bell, drummer Jody Stephens and bassist Andy Hummel. Blending power pop with the sound of the Beatles and the Beach Boys, Big Star were critically acclaimed but largely ignored commercially. In their short time together in the early-’70s — though Bell exited the band after #1 Record, Hummel after Radio City — Big Star only released three studio albums, but what three incredible albums they were: 1972’s #1 Record, 1974’s Radio City and 1978’s dark but beautiful Third/Sister Lovers all placed on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and their classic tracks “Thirteen” and “September Gurls” both made the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

While they only lasted a few years, Big Star’s impact continues to reverberate decades later. R.E.M. and the Replacements both named Big Star and Alex Chilton as major influences, and the Replacements’ Pleased to Meet Me features a song titled “Alex Chilton.” Chilton became a cult musical icon, and artists as diverse as Beck, Wilco, Elliott Smith, R.E.M., Cheap Trick, Jeff Buckley, Garbage, Bat For Lashes and Whiskeytown have covered Big Star’s songs. Renewed interest in the band’s music led to a reunion of sorts in the early ’90s and a new album in 2005’s In Space, which featured two members of the Posies, Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer. Just last year, a box set celebrating Big Star’s entire catalog, Keep an Eye on the Sky was released.

Look back at David Fricke’s review of Big Star’s last New York City concert.

“It’s not like I’m a ‘big star’ constantly getting noticed, but I do get recognized,” Chilton told Rolling Stone in 2000 of the fame that eluded Big Star during their first years together. “What’s nice is that the people in my neighborhood just know me as Alex. It’s funny, because I spent so much of my life moving from place to place and I went through a few dark periods, but in the last few years I’ve kind of settled down.” Chilton is survived by his wife Laura and son Timothy.

For more on Chilton’s musical legacy, watch a handful of Big Star classics below, and be sure to remember Alex by looking back at our Rolling Stone features below:

• Big Star Rock “#1 Record,” “Radio City” Classics at Rare NYC Gig
• Alex Chilton Set to Go
• Big Star Travel “Space”
• Big Star Album Reviews

“Thirteen”

“September Gurls”

“Life is White”

“In the Street”

“Kanga Roo”

Jeff Buckley performing Big Star’s “Kanga Roo”

Photo: Vasquez/Wireimage

Pixies frontman Frank Black has released plenty of solo albums over the years, but perhaps nothing as freaky as his forthcoming NonStopErotik, due out on March 30th. The disc — which was co-produced by longtime collaborator Eric Drew Feldman — features some of his most overtly sexual songs, including the swirling ballad “When I Go Down on You” and the snarling, mid-tempo anthem “Lake of Sin.” Rolling Stone caught up with Black to talk about his inspiration, why raising five kids hinders his ability to work and the future of the Pixies.

Check out a gallery of Frank Black and the Pixies in action.

Many of these songs are overtly sexual in a way, including “Lake of Sin,” where you sing about someone undressing behind ferns. What was the inspiration for that?
When I was a kid, in second grade, “fern” was a euphemism or code word for vagina. I don’t know where that came form. I guess the record has some graphic sexual detail but it’s only really referenced in a literal way; it’s just me talking about ferns.

Many indie-rock bands don’t discuss sexual topics so openly in their songs.
You know, I read a disparaging review that questioned whether someone wants to listen to old Frank Black singing about vaginas or whatever. I understand the point, but really the record is not meant to be a sexual appendage to your own experiences. It’s not meant to be a record you make love or masturbate to. I wouldn’t masturbate to a recording of my own voice either!

You recorded most of these songs while on the road. Why?
I’ve got five kids. Maybe I can sit at the kitchen piano and start to work on something for a few minutes. But in general, I work on the road and in hotel rooms or studios.

NonStopErotik includes a particularly revved-up version of the Flying Burrito Brothers’ “Wheels.” Where’d that come from?
I forced Pete Yorn to record that for a session of his that I was working on. He did a fine, tender version of it. I realized at the time that the obsession with that song was my own obsession and that I need to do it myself. I didn’t want to do anther country rock version of it so we just changed the tempo — you know, the whole “let’s give it the Velvet Underground, indie-rock treatment.” A lot of eighth and sixteenth notes. I’m pleased with the Velvet Underground treatment.

Any plans to do a solo tour?
I don’t have anything on the books yet. I’m working something out with this film company and we’re trying to do a simulcast with a Q&A and a band performance. It’ll be a performance of the record with these little films and then a Q&A. We’re still working on that, though.

What’s the status of another Pixies album or tour?
I certainly hope to tour again. I don’t want to misspeak but Europe and Israel are happening and there’s other stuff happening in the fall. But that’s still to be confirmed. As for an album, we’re not doing one officially. I think everyone in the band is creative and writing and stuff. But we haven’t raised the flag, like, “The Pixies are currently recording.”

Related Stories:

• Kim Deal Says No New Pixies Album “Because I Don’t Want To”
• Pixies’ “Doolittle” Turns 20: Frank Black on the Band’s Return to the Road

Hot Chip have established themselves as much for their quirky music videos as their catchy dance pop, so it comes as no surprise that their hilarious vid for One Night Stand’s “I Feel Better” is another must-see entry in their videography. The clip finds the nerdy Hot Chip recast as a boy band and muses whether the Brits’ music would be more popular sales-wise if the members were all male models. Before trotting down the boring path of cultural commentary, however, a glowing bald figure similar to Steve Coogan in Hamlet 2 emerges from the back of the theater to horrify the screaming teenage girl fans.

From there, the video descends into lunacy: The bald man destroys the four-man boy band by shooting lightning bolts out of his mouth, only they are resurrected as a quintet. Then, a floating head pops in and shoots laser beams from his eyes and mows down the actual Hot Chip, who cameo in the video. The clip comes straight from the warped mind of director and British comic Peter Serafinowicz, who Americans might recognize as the yuppie flatmate-turned-zombie in Shaun of the Dead and who will voice the role of Paul McCartney in Robert Zemeckis’ Yellow Submarine remake.

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Photograph by Free Energy

Rolling Stone’s new issue, on sale today, includes a special feature on the hottest new bands of 2010, from Philly power-pop group Free Energy to stoner Atlanta MC B.o.B. We asked all seven acts to snap candid photos on the road and compiled the best shots here:

• The Best New Bands of 2010’s Most Candid Shots From the Road

Keep reading for a quick dossier on all the artists. Plus, check out the exclusive premiere of Grace Potter and the Nocturnals’ new video for “Tiny Light,” which was directed by Paul Minor (Muse, Queens of the Stone Age):

Free Energy: Philly power poppers who mine the best of glammy Seventies-style arena jams on their James Murphy-produced debut Stuck on Nothing.

The Dirty Heads: Cali surf bros who revive Sublime-style reggae rock, rapping and harmonizing on their April disc Any Port in a Storm.

B.o.B.: Atlanta-bred rapper signed by T.I. whose eccentric loves (Animal Collective, collecting crystals, gospel) create a fascinating mix on The Adventures of Bobby Ray.

Grace Potter and the Nocturnals: Rowdy blues road warriors fronted by singer-organist Potter, who learned to appreciate the wonders of acid at the tender age of 12.

Titus Andronicus: Jersey punks with an intellectual streak — their latest LP The Monitor is a concept album about the Civil War.

Neon Indian: 21-year-old Alan Palomo, a laptop virtuoso who’s become the face of “glo-fi” thanks to the dreamy keys on Psychic Chasms.

Mumford & Sons: Acoustic U.K. folk band whose old-timey folk-rock is inspired by mythology and bluegrass.

Photo: Loccisano/Getty
Bust your patchwork pants out of mothballs and tune-up your VW Bus. After last year’s triumphant return to summer touring, Phish have announced that they will hit the road again for a 29-date tour that kicks off June 11th in Chicago. The upcoming trek features multiple-night stands in major cities, including three back-to-back nights at the relatively intimate Greek Theatre in Berkely, California, starting August 5th. And while Phish haven’t planned have any of their trademark festivals — such as last October’s Festival 8 in Indio, California — the band has slotted in plenty of shows in more bucolic settings, such as the two-night stand at the scenic Telluride Town Park in Telluride, Colorado.

Check out photos from Phish’s Festival 8.

A ticket request period is currently underway through this Friday at 11:59 at Phish’s website; tickets will go on sale to the general public on April 2nd.

The announcement follows weeks of speculation that the jam-band kings would tour. On March 4th, bassist Mike Gordon hinted to Rolling Stone, “It’s looking like [a tour] is in the talks. We knew we wanted to wait until summer to do something.”

Of course, Phish haven’t exactly laid low over the past few days. On Monday in New York, Phish paid tribute to Hall of Fame inductees Genesis, performing note-perfect live versions of the prog-rock kings’ “Watcher of the Skies” and “No Reply At All.” If you missed that performance, expect those tunes to pop up in their set lists for the upcoming tour.

Check out a gallery of Phish-heads hanging out pre-show at the band’s Hampton reunion gig.

To get fans pumped for the upcoming tour, Phish will release a 3-D version of their Halloween festival in April. Details on theater locations and ticketing will be announced shortly; more information is available here.
June 11 – Chicago, IL @ Toyota Park
June 12 – Cuyahoga Falls, OH @ Blossom Music Center
June 13 – Hershey, PA @ Hersheypark Stadium
June 15 – Portsmouth, VA @ Telos Pavilion at Harbor Center
June 17 – Hartford, CT @ Comcast Theatre
June 18 – Hartford, CT @ Comcast Theatre
June 19 – Saratoga Springs, NY @ Saratoga Performing Arts Center
June 20 – Saratoga Springs, NY @ Saratoga Performing Arts Center
June 22 – Mansfield, MA @ Comcast Center
June 24 – Camden, NJ @ Susquehanna Bank Center
June 25 – Camden, NJ @ Susquehanna Bank Center
June 26 – Columbia, MD @ Merriweather Post Pavilion
June 27 – Columbia, MD @ Merriweather Post Pavilion
June 29 – Canandaigua, NY @ CMAC
July 1 – Raleigh, NC @ Time Warner Cable Music Pavilion
July 2 – Charlotte, NC @ Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre
July 3 – Alpharetta, GA @ Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre @ Encore Park
July 4 – Alpharetta, GA @ Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre @ Encore Park
August 5 – Berkeley, CA @ Greek Theatre
August 6 – Berkeley, CA @ Greek Theatre
August 7 – Berkeley, CA @ Greek Theatre
August 9 – Telluride, CO @ Telluride Town Park
August 10 – Telluride, CO @ Telluride Town Park
August 12 – Noblesville, IN @ Verizon Wireless Music Center
August 13 – Noblesville, IN @ Verizon Wireless Music Center
August 14 – East Troy, WI @ Alpine Valley Music Theatre
August 15 – East Troy, WI @Alpine Valley Music Theatre
August 17 – Wantagh, NY @ Nikon Theater at Jones Beach
August 18 – Wantagh, NY @ Nikon Theater at Jones Beach

Photo:Legato/WireImage
The Big News: Lady Antebellum’s reign atop the charts came to an end as Ludacris and Gorillaz battled it out and the Atlanta rapper’s Battle of the Sexes took Number One on the Billboard 200 with 137,000 copies sold. Gorillaz landed at Number Two as Plastic Beach moved 112,000 copies. Battle is now Ludacris’ first chart-topping album since 2006’s Release Therapy and the fourth Number One album of his career. Plastic Beach also gave frontman Damon Albarn the best U.S. debut of his career — including his tenure with Blur — and improved on Demon Days‘ Number Six debut in 2005. Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now dropped to Number Three.

Nearly four decades after his death, Jimi Hendrix, Rolling Stone’s current cover star, entered the charts at Number Four with his collection of unearthed tracks Valleys of Neptune, which sold 95,000 copies. Rounding out the Top Five was another debut, Gary Allan’s Get Off on the Pain. In platinum news, Lady Gaga’s The Fame surpassed the three million mark and Justin Bieber’s My World scored the 16-year-old singer his first million seller.

Debuts: It was a big week for new albums as James Mercer and Danger Mouse’s Broken Bells entered the charts at Number Seven with their self-titled debut, which sold 49,000 in its first week. Further down, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Beat the Devil’s Tattoo came in at 56, Frightened Rabbit’s Winter of Mixed Drinks took 78 with 6,900 copies and the Pavement greatest hits collection Quarantine the Past bowed at 149.

Last Week’s Heroes: The influx of debuts in the Top 10 pushed Sade’s Soldier of Love out of the Top Five for the first time since its release five weeks ago, with the album landing at Six. The biggest drop from last week goes to Lifehouse’s Smoke & Mirrors, which fell from Number Six in its debut week to 34 thanks to a 74 percent sales decrease. With Ludacris’ pair of tracks in the Top 10 of the Hot 100 — “How Low” and his guest spot on Taio Cruz’s current Number One “Break Your Heart” — expect Battle of the Sexes to remain in the top spot this time next week.

Photo: Michelson/WireImage
The Dixie Chicks will hit the road for the first time in four years this summer when they team up with Eagles and Keith Urban for a co-headlining stadium trek. Urban will miss the tour’s opening show June 8th in Toronto, but will join the tour when it swings south to East Rutherford, New Jersey’s New Meadowlands Stadium on June 10th. So far, only eight June dates have been announced. For ticket information, check out Dixie Chicks’ official site.

As Rolling Stone previously reported, the Chicks’ Emily Robison and Martie Maguire recently unveiled a side project called Court Yard Hounds while waiting for singer Natalie Maines to return to the Dixie fold. “Emily and I had the itch,” Maguire says, “and every time we’d call Natalie and say ‘are you ready?’ she wasn’t ready. She wanted a clear-cut break.” Robison and Maguire reiterated in January that the Dixie Chicks weren’t disbanding.

Court Yard Hounds will make their live debut at this year’s SXSW festival — including a gig at Rolling Stone’s first-ever SXSW showcase at Austin’s the Palm Door — and release their self-titled debut album in May. The Hounds will also spend some days on the Lilith Fair bill this summer.

Get the lowdown on 40 more of spring’s hottest upcoming albums.

Dixie Chicks/Eagles/Keith Urban
June 8 – Toronto, ON @ Rogers Centre*
June 10 – East Rutherford, NJ @ New Meadowlands Stadium
June 12 – Boston, MA @ Gillette Stadium
June 14 – Philadelphia, PA @ Citizens Bank Ball Park
June 15 – Washington, DC @ Nationals Park
June 19 – Chicago, IL @ Soldier Field
June 22 – Winnipeg, MB @ Canad Inns Stadium*
June 24 – St. Louis, MO @ Busch Stadium*

(* Keith Urban not on bill)

Related Stories:

• Pair of Dixie Chicks Plan Album, Tour as New Band Court Yard Hounds
• Rolling Stone at SXSW 2010: 100 Tweets, Two Showcases and More
• Dixie Chicks Go the “Long Way”

Photograph by Plitz/Good Times/Cache Agency

On August 26th, 1970, Jimi Hendrix celebrated the official opening of his Electric Lady Studios in Manhattan’s West Village. It would be the last time he ever set foot in his beloved recording sanctuary; he died three weeks later in London at age 27 after ingesting a powerful dose of the sedative Vesperax. But a month prior to the party, the man Rolling Stone would later name the Greatest Guitarist of All Time laid down a few special tracks, including a jam with Steve Winwood on “Valleys of Neptune,” in Electric Lady’s Studio A. That song, in a different incarnation, is now the centerpiece of a new collection of previously unreleased Hendrix gems called Valleys of Neptune. In the new issue of Rolling Stone on sale at newsstands today, David Fricke dives into Hendrix’s last days and lost recordings, tracing the epic plans and earthly troubles that marked the guitar god’s final months.

Jimi Hendrix on the cover of Rolling Stone: see all the issues.

Speaking with Hendrix’s longtime engineer Eddie Kramer, as well as bassist Billy Cox and former assistant engineer Tommy Erdelyi (better known as Tommy Ramone), Fricke explores Hendrix’s high hopes for Electric Lady and his anticipated fourth studio album. In an interview just days before his death, the guitarist had said he was thinking “this era of music — sparked off by the Beatles — had come to an end. Something new has got to come, and Jimi Hendrix will be there.”

Explore Rolling Stone’s essential guitar coverage.

Fricke also provides a guided tour of the previously unheard Hendrix recordings found in Jimi’s vaults, from the whirlwind nine-minute Band of Gypsys song “Burning Desire” to an alternate master of “May This Be Love” — both of which will see release later this year via Experience Hendrix’s deal with Sony. As a bonus, you can read original Hendrix reviews — including Lenny Kaye’s original take on The Cry of Love, plus Rainbow Bridge, Into the West and War Heroes — online now.

Experience Jimi Hendrix in classic photos.

Also in this issue: Mark Binelli’s epic investigation into the real green economy — America’s pot industry; Neil Strauss on dark funnyman Ben Stiller; 2010’s hottest new bands from Free Energy to Mumford & Sons; inside Hole’s chaotic return; Jeff Goodell on coal’s toxic secret; and Josh Eells hops on the road with Muse.

Photo: Getty

• Jimmy Fallon’s show will dedicate the week of May 10th’s musical performances to the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street, which is being reissued on May 18th. Billboard reports as-yet-unnamed big acts will cover Exile songs each night; the Stones themselves are not confirmed guests.

• Jack White told British GQ he just collaborated with Jay-Z: “We did a song together a few weeks ago. It was incredible. I played him something that I’ve been kicking around for a while and he immediately came out with words for it. It’s unbelievable-sounding.”
• Lil Wayne failed to appear in an Arizona court for a hearing related to the drug and gun charges he faces there because he’s in a New York prison, but the judge issued a bench warrant and upped his bond, the AP reports.
• Lilith Fair has unveiled the lineups and dates for its first eight dates. The fest’s official website has full details, and tickets go on sale March 27th. The tour kicks off July 2nd in Portland, Oregon, where Sheryl Crow, Erykah Badu and Sarah McLachlan will be on the bill.