Influential Mike Judge classic reportedly getting revived for this year.

By Fred Mills

It's potentially more explosive news than last month's official "death of irony" obituary posted at hipster blogs everywhere, or this week's notification from the White Stripes that they have broken up: MTV is bringing back Beavis and Butt-head.

As Pitchfork succinctly puts it, the once-meaningful cable TV channel is apparently putting to good use all that dough that's been rolling in via Jersey Shore!

Ths ‘90s ‘toon that so brilliantly skewered, uh, ‘90s youth culture - boy, did it ever; in retrospect, it's clear that B&B mainman Mike Judge was sending up flannel-flying, record-collecting indie culture as much as he was the Wayne's World demographic - is set to return to the airwaves sometime later this year, reports Rolling Stone.

Elaborating on this, the Metal Sucks blog adds that 30 new episodes have been ordered by MTV, and that Judge "plans on retaining the show's original ghetto-tech aesthetic, right down to the faded color palatte."

As far as TODAY's youth culture, the possibilities are endless... a blunt-rolling session with Lil Wayne... Lady Gaga sitting on Butt-head's face... the boys thinking they're going to a Bon Jovi concert but it turns out to be Justin Bieber instead... cameos on iCarly... an entire episode set at an All Tomorrow's Parties festival...

Watch the original pilot, below.

Legendary musician stifles urge to go postal on TSA screener and lives to tell - blog - about it...


By Blurt Staff


Okay, McMurtry fans, this one's for you. Our hero hopped a plane recently and got the full court press from the airport screeners. Needless to say, he got some good material out of it. Can a song titled "We Can't Make It In This Here Scanner Anymore" be destined to appear on the next JM studio album?


Read McMurtry's BLURT blog, "Wasteland Bait & Tackle," right here.

Emphasis on "planning" - nothing due until 2012.

By Fred Mills

Country/folk-tilting Allison Moorer and honky-tonkin' Shelby Lynne are sketching out an album which they plan to write this spring and then, if all goes well, release next year. According to a report at Billboard.com, Lynne said the studio collaboration from the two sisters' 2010 tour and that they'll be "getting together to write songs" and just "see what happens."

Lynne told Billboard, of the tour, "We loved it, people loved it. It was just the two of us on two guitars. Having not written anything yet we did each other's songs and reached back into our childhood and grabbed a couple of things that we grew up singing. It worked brilliantly. We both like to tell stories and cut up and have fun and go with the flow...We don't fight. I know everybody would love that to be the case, but that's not the way it is, and I don't see anything like that happening."

In 2010 Lynne released two albums, Tears, Lies and Alibis and Merry Christmas, while Moorer issued Crows.

"Going to be one of 2011's best albums, AutoTune and pop melodies and all":  Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will is released by Sub Pop on Feb. 15.

By Jennifer Kelly

A lot of critics didn't like Mogwai's last studio album, The Hawk Is Howling.  Complaints were loudest about the band's excursions into the lighter, sunnier electro kinds of sounds best typified by "The Sun Smells Too Loud," but there was a sense that even blistering "Batcat" was an approximation of glories past. Myself, I liked Hawk immediately and found it growing on me over time. I couldn't find anything false in "Batcat;" even after a dozen listens, it sounded authentically obliterating and raw. The tunefulness of "The Sun Smells Too Loud," struck me as an interesting divergence, one that maybe indicated an escape route from Mogwai's opposite-merging, dynamic-shifting monumentality, if it should ever grew stale.

After Hawk, with a 2010 tour and the live Special Moves, Mogwai seemed to retreat to its core, the alternatingly lyrical and bludgeoning atmospherics of guitar, effects and keyboards that have defined the band since its beginnings. Special Moves made the case for continuity, linking "C.O.D.Y"'s wistful melancholy to the slow-blooming moodiness of "I Love You, I'm Going to Blow Up Your School." If Hawk hinted at restlessness, Special Moves was a reaffirmation of history, a summation, a band revisiting its roots.

It was also, apparently, a one-time deal. With Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will, Mogwai is again aggressively tweaking its formula in ways that will offend purists, but which may be necessary if this band is to continue to satisfy its own curiosity and requirements for growth. The album starts in a shimmer and haze, in light-filled, slow motion "White Noise" which might sound like classic Mogwai if it were not so much brighter. The guitar effects seem less like murk and turmoil, more like the blinding glare off surfaces in sun. There's a transparency here, a sense of space and separation that continues, particularly through the first half of the album. It winds through buzzing, droning, pitch-shifting "Mexican Grand Prix," as close to pop as Mogwai has ever been, and distortion-bleached, drum battered "Rano Pano," and translucently beautiful "Death Rays." Even "George Square Thatcher Death Party" which sounds very much in the fuzz-crusted, over-driven vein of "Batcat" and "Glasgow Megasnake", incorporates the wavery robotics of pitch shifted vocals that bring it back to pop. A sense of play and melody leavens the heaviness in this seventh Mogwai album, especially near the front end, and if that's not what you want out of the band, too bad, that's what they're doing now.   

Or, you could just wait it out for the back end of Hardcore, where, starting with about "San Pedro," the music begins to cleave more closely to the loud-soft, massively heavy template that you expect from Mogwai.  Late album cuts like "How To Be a Werewolf" grow steadily out of quiet beginnings, not changing so much as expanding, the ending louder, more layered and more exhilarating than the start. And "You're Lionel Ritchie" which closes things out, incorporates speech samples into languid beginnings in a way that recalls "I Choose Horses" from Mr. Beast. It's the kind of piece that undulates, building up then dying back to almost nothing then roaring back in a firestorm, and if you don't like the new, poppier  Mogwai, heard up front in this album, you will certainly like the old one, still ponderous, ear-shattering and magnificent.

Sometimes you have to set your expectations aside, going with what's on the disc, rather than what history and experience tell you should be there.  Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will is going to be one of 2011's best albums, AutoTune and pop melodies and all. 

"Some offers."

By Perez Mills

Professional badboy Pete Doherty hasn't been in the news much lately, so we're lucky that Britain's NME decided to insert him into the news today. Citing a posting that Doherty made at his blog recently, the weekly paper extracted the words "some offers for Libertines gigs" for 2011, referring to a vaguely speculative conversation he had sometime last year with his manager.

The Libertines, of course, reunited to play a few British festivals last year but since then all has been silent from the band's camp.

NME adds that Doherty is still planning on keeping busy this year, Libertines or no Libertines, with a few spring solo show and a co-starring role (with Charlotte Gainsbourg) in a film about the poet Alfred de Musset titled Confession d'un Enfant du Siecle.

Hey Pete, there's still money on the table. You go, girl!

Fabled Mott the Hoople frontman wows Fillmore Auditorium crowd on Jan. 28., then drags doppelganger Scott McCaughey onstage for "All The Young Dudes" finale. Pictured above: Hunter w/McCaughey circa 1988. "Which twin has the Toni?"

By Jud Cost / Photo by Marty Perez

I never saw this coming. Ian Hunter, revered frontman for Mott the Hoople, one of the great English bands from 40 years ago, rolled back the clock with a dynamite two-hour set that grabbed a crowd of pensioners and youngsters by the scruff of the neck and shook them till they screamed for mercy.

On the surface, it seemed like a nice night out: Hear a handful of Mott classics and some of Hunter's fine solo stuff, then try to figure out where all the time went. Hunter, now 71, had seemed pretty decent opening for the Zombies at the Fillmore four years ago, but nothing like the dynamo we witnessed tonight. Looking pretty much like he did when I first saw Mott the Hoople, opening for Quicksilver Messenger Service at Bill Graham's Fillmore West in 1970, Hunter reeled off Jerry Lee Lewis-like piano flourishes tonight to back up that deliciously craggy voice (eat your heart out, Robert Plant).

Scott McCaughey, ringmaster of the Young Fresh Fellows and Minus 5, as well as the utility infielder for R.E.M. and the Baseball Project, once volunteered over a few brews that Mott was the template for Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols. When it comes to Hunter and Mott, McCaughey knows his onions. He imported Hunter's look, wholesale - sunglasses after dark and a shaggy, curly mane - for personal use, decades ago. McCaughey even played in a Mott cover band called the Sandbaggers back in the '70s while living in Santa Rosa, Calif. before making history of his own with the Fellows in Seattle.

Behind a crack quartet Hunter calls the Rant Band, so sharp they removed all memories of Mott the Hoople's original lineup from the equation tonight, Hunter reeled off a radiant set of numbers, including "Cleveland Rocks," from his solo career, songs that ranged from the confessional to the anthemic. They were a good 70 minutes in before they even played a Mott tune, a heroic cover of the Lou Reed/Velvet Underground classic, "Sweet Jane."

If you split right about then, thinking the old guy must be just about out of gas, it was an unforgivable error. One thing Hunter knows better than anyone: how to play a set's dynamics like a Stradivarius. He kicked off the encore quietly with just piano and synth for Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim's achingly beautiful "Somewhere" from West Side Story.

Then, to the delight of longtime fans, Hunter cut loose with an earthshaking one-two punch of Mott's "Walkin' With A Mountain" spliced to their epic "Rock And Roll Queen." Another solo gem, "Once Bitten Twice Shy" led to a gloriously stomping "All the Way To Memphis." But Hunter was just getting started.

After patrons helped dust the chandeliers with raucous boot (and cane) stomping, Hunter returned to briefly reminisce about the first time Mott played S.F. The band went guitar-shopping and scored a Maltese Cross electric in a pawn shop for $75. "That guitar turned out to be crap," admitted Hunter. "I sold it for five quid when I was skint. It was nothing like the one I got for my 70th birthday from Joe Elliott of Def Leppard. This one's pretty good."

And he knew how to use it, too. "Roll Away The Stone" sounded more like a boulder being catapulted straight downhill. The heartwrenchingly autobiographical "Saturday Gigs" followed ("'73 was a jamboree/We were the dudes and the dudes were we/Did you see the suits and the platform boots?"). And then there was nothing left to do but play the one everyone came for, the '72 Bowie-penned hit that capped Mott's career in the U.S., "All The Young Dudes." As an added treat, Hunter called McCaughey up onstage to strap on a guitar and sing along. It looked like a career-crowning moment for the ecstatic Bay Area native.

"I was already in hog heaven watching Ian's incredible set," said McCaughey, afterwards. "I was in shock when they called me up to join in, completely unexpected." Fortunately, he added, John Barleycorn helped him find the nerve. "I was still pretty nervous, being on stage with one of my heroes to play such an iconic song: 'All The Young Dudes.' Kill me now, dude!"

Sure, it would have been nice to hear a few more Mott jewels, like "I Wish I Was Your Mother," "Honaloochie Boogie" and especially "The Ballad Of Mott The Hoople" ("Buffin lost his childlike dreams and Mick lost his guitar/Verden grew a line or two and Overend is just a rock 'n' roll star"). But that might have been like having two really great steak dinners. One, grilled to perfection, was plenty tonight.

Live preview of material from forthcoming album happens tonight at 8 pm.

By Blurt Staff

G Love will preview songs from his upcoming album "Fixin' To Die" with a live Creative Allies concert webcast this evening (Feb. 2) at 5pm PST  / 8pm EST. The intimate solo performance will be broadcast from the campus of Ex'pression College for Digital Arts in Emeryville, CA.

The webcast is free to watch online at the C.A. site - www.creativeallies.com - an online design community lets gives everyone a chance to enter design contests for their favorite bands.  Creative Allies is currently running a poster design contest with G. Love. Go here for more info on the contest.

You can read more details about the new album elsewhere on the BLURT site - something about some dudes called the Avett Brothers had a hand or two in the project...

Incoming: monster-sized Collector's Edition, too....

By Blurt Staff

2011 is Pearl Jam's 20th anniversary - you may have heard of the Seattle band - so it's no stretch to picture the impending arrival of newly restored and expanded editions of Vs. and Vitalogy, the second and third albums from PJ.

Hitting stores on March 29, both will be available in new Expanded Editions (featuring three bonus tracks on each) or together in a three-disc Deluxe Edition (featuring the bonus disc Live at the Orpheum Theater, Boston, April 12, 1994) and Limited Edition Collector's Box Set. A few weeks later, each will also be released in new commemorative remastered Vinyl Editions in time for Record Store Day 2011 (April 16th).

The details (hold on tight, lots of details...):

*The Expanded Edition of Vs. includes three bonus tracks recorded by Brendan O'Brien at The Site studio during the Vs. sessions: 

-  a previously unreleased acoustic version of "Hold On";

- "Cready Stomp" - a previously unreleased studio outtake;

- the previously release cover of Victoria Williams' "Crazy Mary" featuring Williams on backing vocals and guitar.

*The Expanded Edition of Vitalogy includes three bonus tracks:

-  the previously unreleased guitar/organ-only mix of "Betterman";

-           a previously unreleased alternate take of "Corduroy" from the Vitalogy session (recorded by Brendan O'Brien);

-           a previously unreleased demo version of "Nothingman," taken from the original DAT (recorded at John and Stu's in Seattle on October 14, 1993, featuring Richard Stuverud on drums).

*Deluxe Edition CD version - Vs. and Vitalogy will be available together in a CD deluxe edition which includes:

-  the Expanded Edition of each album;

-           a copy of Live at the Orpheum Theater, Boston, April 12, 1994. A special performance recorded at the tail end of the mythic Vs. tour, Live at the Orpheum Theater showcases a dream setlist created especially by the Pearl Jam crew and has for years been one of the most sought-after recordings among serious aficionados.

*Limited Edition Collector's Box Set (5 LPs, 4 CDs, 1 Cassette, Digital Download, Composition Notebook, Memorabilia-filled Envelope). Contents include:

-Expanded Editions of Vs. and Vitalogy remastered with bonus tracks on CD;

-Remastered Vinyl Editions of Vs. (single LP) and Vitalogy (double LP);

-Double vinyl LP and CD of Live at the Orpheum Theater, Boston, April 12, 1994 plus an exclusive digital download of the concert;

-Exclusive collector's cassette featuring live tribute and studio performances from a number of Pearl Jam's fellow artist friends. Broadcast on January 8, 1995, this recording is part of the legendary Monkeywrench/Self-Pollution Radio series produced by the band;

-80-page composition book filled with photos, drawings and artwork by Eddie Vedder and Jeff Ament;

-A glassine envelope containing a collection of Vs. and Vitalogy- era memorabilia including beautiful lithographs of each band member, postcards, posters and much more.

*Record Store Day Vinyl Editions (Remastered) - Available April 12th

            Vs. and Vitalogy will be available at independent record retailers in new commemorative Vinyl Editions on April 12th in time for Record Store Day 2011 (April 16th).

Groundhog forecasts a cloudy future. The band belongs to you now, kids.

By Fred Mills

That collective, "OH MY!" and accompanying gasp? It's the sound of bloggers across the web, registering their dismay at the news this afternoon of the White Stripes break-up. (Or maybe it's dismay at being only one of 512 media outlets to "break" the news... wait, make that 516, 4 more just pinged Google news in the time it took us to type that sentence...)

That's right: the groundhog popped out of his hole today, Feb. 2, saw his shadow, and caused the White Stripes to confirm what a lot of people saw coming a long time ago, particularly in light of Jack White's multitasking like a mofo over the past few years with myriad side projects and work on his Third Man label.

In all seriousness, though, we've lost a great band. Below is what Jack and Meg wrote at their WhiteStripes.com website, and we at BLURT with both of them well. R.I.P.

***

The White Stripes would like to announce that today, February 2nd, 2011,
their band has officially ended and will make no further new recordings or perform live.

The reason is not due to artistic differences or lack of wanting to continue, nor any health issues as both Meg and Jack are feeling fine and in good health.

It is for a myriad of reasons, but mostly to preserve What is beautiful and special about the band and have it stay that way.

Meg and Jack want to thank every one of their fans and admirers for the incredible support they have given throughout the 13 plus years of the White Stripes' intense and incredible career.

Third Man Records will continue to put out unreleased live and studio recordings from The White Stripes in their Vault Subscription record club, as well as through regular channels.

Both Meg and Jack hope this decision isn't met with sorrow by their fans but that it is seen as a positive move done out of respect for the art and music that the band has created. It is also done with the utmost respect to those fans who've shared in those creations, with their feelings considered greatly.

With that in mind the band have this to say:

"The White Stripes do not belong to Meg and Jack anymore. The White Stripes belong to you now and you can do with it whatever you want. The beauty of art and music is that it can last forever if people want it to. Thank you for sharing this experience. Your involvement will never be lost on us and we are truly grateful."

Sincerely,
Meg and Jack White
The White Stripes

Latest fabulous swag contest from you-know-who.

By Blurt Staff

Okay, all you Jesse Harris fans. Please visit the Blurt-online Contest Page where you can enter to win copies of Jesse Harris' solo albums Through The Night and Cosmo plus MP3s of his entire back catalogue.

Although best known for having written and played guitar on Norah Jones' breakout hit "Don't Know Why" (for which he won the Grammy Award for Song Of The Year), Jesse Harris is an accomplished producer and solo artist in his own right. He has released 10 albums, including his latest releases "Through The Night" and "Cosmo" (an all-instrumental recording) and has toured worldwide. His songs have been covered by numerous great singers, such as Smokey Robinson, Willie Nelson, Cat Power, Solomon Burke, Emmylou Harris, and many others.