UPDATE (late Friday): Last night Adam Yauch issued a statement in response to the media coverage of his health status stemming from the BBC report. While he did not address the specifics of the interview Mike Diamond gave to the BBC, he did indicate that he was not yet cancer free, writing:

Hello My Friends

While  I'm grateful for all the positive energy people are sending my way, reports of my being totally cancer free are exaggerated. I'm continuing treatment, staying optimistic and hoping to be cancer free in the near future.

By Blurt Staff

The BBC is reporting that the Beastie Boys are in full-steam-ahead mode following Adam Yauch reportedly getting a clean bill of health from his doctors following a battle with cancer. (In 2009 Yauch was diagnosed with a tumor in a salivary gland.) With that behind them, the Beasties are now focused again on their new album, Hot Sauce Committee, slated to come out this spring (date tba). As previously reported, it's a double album, and what was originally going to be Part 1 has been delayed and Part 2 will be the initial installment.

Mike Diamond told BBC Radio 1 host Zane Lowe, "It's still delayed - the first one. The second one is coming out as originally scheduled." He added that a tour is still up in the air, saying, "We're still going to have to see how he's [Yauch] doing."

The band also plans to make "a big video" that Diamond described as "a cinematic, short film."

Bassist had been part of the hard rock kingpins since 1974.

By Blurt Staff

Hard rock fans today (Jan. 7) received sad news of the passing of Y&T bassist Phil Kennemore at the age of 57, from lung cancer. Kennemore, along with guitarist/vocalist Dave Meniketti, had been the group's constants since 1974 when the band was still known as Yesterday and Today. They switched to the Y&T name in 1980 and notched huge success by the mid ‘80s with the release of In Rock We Trust, going on to have numerous other hits and becoming an MTV staple during the hard rock and hair metal years.

Meniketti posted at his blog today a lengthy tribute to his longtime bandmate, who'd stuck with him through assorted lineup changes and even a hiatus during the early to mid ‘90s. Wrote Meniketti, in part, "It is with profound sadness and disbelief that I tell you that my best buddy for 37 years passed away this morning, January 7, 2011 at 1am at Stanford Hospital. Bravely and steadfastly battling the horrible spectacle of lung cancer, at the end he was surrounded by his family members, and the Y&T family up until his final breath.

"He had an amazingly strong life force that has influenced everyone who ever had the opportunity to be called a friend of his. I am forever grateful for our lifelong friendship, that was always in place throughout the worst and best of times. I will miss his sense of humor, his amazing wit, but most of all I will always miss not seeing him to my left on the stages I will play from this moment forward."

Blurt-approved Nashville rocker kicks asses (and takes no prisoners) on his upcoming album Give It Time, issued by Shotgun Records.

By Rev. Keith A. Gordon

I dunno, just when I think that this whole promising alt-country thing has run its inevitable course, someone comes along to renew my faith in the ghost of Gram Parsons. Singer/songwriter Pete Berwick has been walking that Lonesome Highway by all by himself for more years than he'd probably care to add up, but in the hallowed tradition of Hank, JC, Gram, and all those other cosmic troubadours that ran afoul of Nashville's corporate Music Row and decided to just do the damn thing their way, Berwick continues to amaze and astound with each new collection of songs.

I'm proud to say that Berwick is a friend of mine, and Peter knows me well enough to know that I'd call bullshit if he dared to deliver anything short of greatness. No worries, 'cause Give It Time is his latest, a near-perfect melding of country and rock music, Berwick channeling the reckless energy and boundless enthusiasm of Hank Williams and Elvis Presley in creating an album that leans heavily towards the punk side of the cowpunk equation, the singer and songwriter sounding as pissed-off and proud as any nineteen year old. After decades suffering the indignities and insults of the music biz, Berwick remains a streetwalkin' cheetah with a heart full of napalm, and with Give It Time he's once again rolled the bones and come up with snake-eyes.

The album-opening "Renegade" is a defiant statement of purpose, an outlaw credo delivering with an unimaginable fury that is as hardcore punk in spirit as anything that you'll hear from either the punk-rock or alt-country crowd. With unbridled guitars chomping at your eardrums, syncopated rhythms and fierce vocals deliver the (autobiographical?) tale of living fast, dying young, and leaving behind a burned-out corpse. Berwick slows the pace only slightly for "I Keep Waiting," an unabashed rocker with a heart of gold, swirling guitars and bash-crash rhythms creating a disconcerting wall of sound on top of which Berwick lays down his whiskey-soaked vocals and one of the greasiest, most fulfilling guitar solos you'll ever hear. In the distant background, Jason Botka's honky-tonk piano-pounding sounds like the din creeping out of a back alley barroom.

"Won't Give It Up" is another crucified rocker that displays Berwick's deft touch as a wordsmith, the song's blistering soundtrack pumped up by Berwick's non-stop verbal barrage. Shaking a bloody fist at the record-making establishment, Berwick spits out muscular lines like "you wanna see scars, I got 'em"; "the world don't care if you live or die, one man laughs while another cries"; and "gotta make a stand for something, ain't settling for nothing"; and "tell me are you really satisfied, do you think that it's too late to try, maybe for you but not for me...I won't give it up!" Nashville's star-making machinery may have turned its back on Berwick and his fellow travelers on the fringe of "polite" country music, but this is one hombre that ain't going down without a fight, not while there's still one last breath and a chance to spit in authority's face.

Even the ballads on Give It Time ("My Heart Is On Hold") rattle and clank like rusty machinery beneath the weight of the songwriter's angst and frustration. Berwick imbues the song with so much heartache and anguish that you'll bury your head under the bedcovers for a week if you approach the tune without caution. None of the songwriting-by-committee that creates many of Music Row's hits these days comes anywhere close to expressing the sort of emotion and fire that you'll find in "My Heart Is On Hold," the song's conflicted protagonist turning his back on love to venture off into the uncertain badlands walked by lonesome wanderers from Ricky Nelson and Dion to Bruce Springsteen and Steve Earle. To lighten up the load a bit after better than a half-dozen mind-numbing exercises in seriously heartfelt songwriting, the humorous rave-up "Beer" is a cleverly glib ode to that golden-brown honky-tonk beverage favored worldwide.

Berwick is an outlaw and outcast by choice, not by marketing, and the magic displayed by "Falling From The Circle Of Love" shows that he can write commercial country fare with the best of 'em...hell, better than just about any of them, really, and some smart label suit could score a big hit for one of his artists with this elegant love song. That would make ol' Pete a bundle of well-deserved cash, and besides, nobody is going to do the song better, Berwick's leathery vocals standing in stark contrast to the song's elegant construction and Botka's wonderful pianowork. "The Sadness In Your Eyes" is another fine romantic moment, kind of bittersweet and tear-stained but evidence of the deepness of Berwick's talent, a Dylanesque ballad with sweeping grandeur and finely-crafted lyrics that, again, in the right hands, could earn the songwriter a truck full o' cash and accolades. Berwick's breaking-heart delivery could never be equaled, however, his weathered vocals balanced on the edge of tears, accompanied by female backing harmonies and a filigree acoustic guitar solo that is simply outstanding.

Ten songs in, you figure that Give It Time has run its course, and you'd be as wrong as you could be to overlook "When." This epic stream-of-consciousness rant is Berwick's "Eve of Destruction," his "Jungleland," his "Positively 4th Street" all rolled into one massive, monster, six-minute-plus song. "When" opens with a spacey, almost psychedelic guitar-driven intro before Berwick's battered acoustic chimes in and the vocals jump off..."how long must we wait" Berwick screams towards the heavens. "As the road goes on and on, how will we know when we are there?" he asks, "time is a deceiver that's got us in its grasp." Hell, Berwick throws out enough ideas, concepts, and questions in this one tune to fuel six or eight other songs. Man's longstanding philosophical conundrums are echoed in Berwick's existential "how long must we wait?" In this case, though, the song only gets stronger, louder, and more strident as it rolls along, Berwick's tone growing in urgency, his questions more potent, his anger and frustration more apparent as the instrumentation swells to a cacophonic assault. It's like Berwick's brain busted open and all the shit that's been mugging him for years comes pouring out in one powerful, uncensored blast of white light/white heat. In the end, no answers are to be had, just a song that is rock 'n' roll at its core, and the nagging, enduring final question "how long must we wait?"       

A lot of pundits have spilled a lot of ink (and electrons) talking about the end of the music industry...well, Pete Berwick is dancing on the graves of all those Music Row naysayers, and with Give It Time he takes the D.I.Y. aesthetic to an entirely different level. There are few artists that will create an album this personal, this emotional, and this powerful in this year, or any other for that matter...the kids on the indie-rock tip just aren't ready and willing to reveal themselves so openly, no matter what little lyrical clues they send their audience. Give It Time is the real deal, though, a postcard from the edge from a middle-aged country-rocker who has looked into the abyss and stomped all over his inner demons, doubts, and frustrations to emerge on the other side even stronger and more pissed off than before. Let's hope that Berwick continues to make music as engaging, vulnerable, and potent as that on Give It Time, 'cause dammit, the man is speaking for all of us who want, and deserve something better from our entertainment than Taylor Swift and Rascal Flatts.

So - can we finally talk Spotify?

By Blurt Staff

Some may call it sobering news, but most would simply shrug it off as a foregone conclusion: according to the Nielsen SoundScan year-end report for 2010, the record industry continued its plummet into free-ball as album sales fell 12.8%. That represents a drop from 373.9 million units to 326.2 million over the past 52 weeks, which in turn represents another 20% decline for hard-copy CD sales.

Billboard.com is reporting on the SoundScan figures today, noting that a 13% uptick in digital album sales - another inevitability - doesn't exactly offset the decline, particularly in light of the fact that a digital album retails for considerably less than a physical release. Album downloads clocked in at 86.3 million, up from 76.4 in 2009, which SoundScan says represents 26.5% of all U.S. album sales.

Individual song downloads, long seen as a growth area for the industry, apparently are slowing down, with only a 1% increase for 2010 (1.17 billion units, up from 1.16 in 2009).

Read the entire report over at Billboard - there are additional breakdowns of figures and commentary on individual sales champions such as Katy Perry and Eminem.

One word, kids: Spotify. Until the American music industry gets its head out of the sand and embraces the streaming subscription model, it's destined to receive bleak news this time of year for many years to come.

Ken Stringfellow's other band is still smoking...

By Blurt Staff

The Disciplines are set to release their sophomore full-length, Virgins of Menace, on February 15 on Seattle's Spark & Shine Records. Featuring Ken Stringfellow (The Posies/Big Star), Bjorn Bergene, Baard Helgeland and Ralla, the Norway based garage-rock quartet scored a massive Scandanavian hit with, "Oslo", the first single off their debut album, Smoking Kills,  in 2008.

As BLURT described it in our 8-star review of the album, "stomping garage-rock with vocals aggressive enough to have followed [Stringfellow's] neighbors Nirvana to a life of unimaginable riches back in 1993... from reckless abandon through a more sophisticated pop approach."

The band made their live debut on the main stage at that year's Oya Festival and went on to play festivals in the UK, France, USA, Canada and South America.

The new album was recorded in the arctic fishing port of Tromso and is a staggering masterpiece of venomous, broiling, face-melting rock infused with the hooky melodies that Posies fans will instantly recognize. Tracks such as "Some Kind of Sickness" and the opening title track are visceral and on edge, while "Fate's a Strong Bitch" features a rant by punk legend Lydia Lunch.

The Disciplines will also be touring North America in the spring.

2008 album was a critical favorite that year.

By Blurt Staff

Asheville, NC, music scene mainstay and Band of Horses member Tyler Ramsey's sophomore album A Long Dream About Swimming Across The Sea is re-released this week via Brown Records/Fat Possum. 

Ramsey, who joined Band Of Horses in fall 2007 - wrote A Long Dream About Swimming Across The Sea while living in a log cabin in Swannanoa, NC, in late 2006-07.  Recorded at Asheville's Echo Mountain Studios with the help of Bill Reynolds (also of Band Of Horses; who's worked with The Avett Brothers and Lissie) and Danny Kadar (My Morning Jacket, Band Of Horses, Grizzly Bear), the album was released by the Echo Mountain label in 2008, prompting an outpouring of critical kudos (including from BLURT predecessor Harp magazine).

Ramsey's warm vocals and intricate finger-picked guitar playing lead the way throughout, the expressive guitar lines often telling as much of a story as the lyrics. "A Long Dream" opens with a rolling and ruminative cadence, while the ethereal "Night Time" and the gorgeously languid "Once In Your Life" rise to gentle and varied crescendos.  Other standout tracks include the bluesy waltz of "No One Goes Out," the elaborately layered instrumental "Birdwings," and the mesmerizing, strings-laced "When I Wake," each song reinforcing the album's fine, hypnotic brilliance.

Ramsey is currently working on a follow-up album to be released later this year.  He will also head overseas for a Band Of Horses tour at the end of the month that will run through February.

Also getting ready to release a new Insane Warrior album.

By Blurt Staff 

Producer/DJ RJD2 and his label Electrical Connections are jump-starting the new year with the release of The Glow Remixes this week. The three-track digital EP is now available as a free download exclusively through Bandcamp and includes "The Glow" original music video.

The Glow Remixes features new remixes of "The Glow", a track from his acclaimed 2010 release, The Colossus. One track comes from Paolo Palazzo, who was selected by fans as the winner of RJD2's recent remix contest. The Chicago heavyweight DJ duo Flosstradamus also gives the original cut a dancefloor-friendly makeover, while Candy Panther completes the EP with his laid back, mid-tempo club adaptation.

Also, a new record from RJD2 and The Insane Warrior, We Are The Doorways, is coming February 1. A strictly instrumental affair, We Are The Doorways was loosely inspired by horror and sci-fi film scores of the ‘70s and early ‘80s. At times jazzy, psychedelic and introspective with blissful ambient passages, the record still maintains the attention to groove that RJD2 is known for. Unrestrained, open passages - often without rhythmic elements - recall the work of both Eno and John Carpenter.

Read the BLURT interview with RJD2 from last year right here.

RJD2 tour dates:

Sat. 1/15/11 - Calgary, AB @ Canada Olympic Plaza w/ Subvert

Sun. 1/16/11 - Stateline, NV @ MontBleu Resort Showroom

Fri. 1/28/11 - Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge

Sat. 1/29/11 - Englewood, CO @ Gothic Theatre w/ MTHDS, Willdabeast

Thu. 2/10/11- Richmond, VA @ The Canal Club

Fri. 2/11/11 - Athens, GA @ New Earth Music Hall

Sat. 2/12/11 - Tallahasse, FL @ The Engine Room

Fri. 3/4/11 - Bozeman, MT @ Rail Jam

Guitarist will bring along a who's who of indiedom to a monthly residency.

By Blurt Staff

In conjunction with the Rock Shop in Brooklyn, songwriter and guitarist Jennifer O'Connor is going to be hosting and performing in a monthly songwriter's series called Tower Of Song that will take place on the second Tuesday of every month in 2011.  She plans to invite three other songwriters each time to the Rock Shop: the musicians will play a handful of songs and talk about thier songwriting processes a little bit, then collaborate and maybe play a cover or two. 

As O'Connor puts it, "I think it's going to make for a really interesting night of music, especially for those interested in the "song" as an art form and maybe learning about how different folks write.  I, for one, am totally excited to see what comes from it."

She adds that she's soliciting input from fans about the songs they'd like to hear as well as what songwriters might be a good fit. She also indicates that she's presently working on her next album - the followup to her acclaimed 2008 release Here With Me, and hopes to have it out this year.

More details and contact info at her official website.

Dates so far:

Tuesday, January 11  Jennifer O'Connor, Chris Brokaw (Come, The New Year) Amy Bezunartea (Clint Michigan), & Tim Foljahn (Two Dollar Guitar, Cat Power)

Tuesday, February 8  Jennifer O'Connor, Charles Bissell (The Wrens), Kendall Meade (Mascott), Richard Baluyut (Versus)

Something about an insanity defense?!?

By Blurt Staff

It's a brand new year, and what better way to get things rolling than with some choice Courtney Love news? La Love has been fairly quiet of late, particularly on her social media platform of choice, Twitter, where for the past month all she has done at her feed (@CourtneyLoveUK) is post photos of herself, sometimes just once a day but occasionally, like on Dec. 9, a whole slew of not-all-that-in-focus images. Sorry, all you trim hounds, but she's been keeping the cheesecake pics to a minimum.

We suspect she's been under attorney's orders to keep those collagen lips zipped, however, because looming on the horizon - Jan. 18, to be exact - is a high-profile court appearance: that's when she goes on trial for defamation stemming from a Twitter rampage she embarked upon back in March of 2009 against fashion designer Dawn Simorangkir.

Billboard.com has posted a detailed outline of the case, which in a nutshell boils down to this: over the course of four days Love unleashed a barrage of insults and accusations against Simorangkir (read the story, it's juicy stuff), so now the designer is claiming that these "false" statements "destroyed her career." Naturally the Love camp is denying there was any defamation or even any damage.

Billboard reports that Love's attorneys intend to call a medical expert as a witness who will "testify that even if Love's statements were untrue, her mental state was not ‘subjectively malicious' enough to justify the defamation lawsuit... That claim -- something akin to an insanity defense for social media -- suggests that Twitter was so appealing and addictive for Love that she had no appreciation for how the comments she posted would be received by others."

Wow. Courtney Love needing an insanity defense. Who'd a thunk it?

Anyhow, in all seriousness, the whole case is being framed as a potentially groundbreaking one in which a celebrity's Twitter statements can leave them liable for any harm they do. (Maybe Chris Brown should have to face a judge too for his homophobic outburst on Twitter, hmmm?) That is, as the report puts it, it may represent a First Amendment issue: "whether an average Twitter user would interpret Love's vicious tweets as facts rather than merely her opinion."

Dunno about that. What if you're blitzed out of your gourd and the line between fact and opinion doesn't even exist? Our prediction: somebody will eventually invent and market a device that, when synched with Twitter pages, can detect alcohol on the breath of the person tweeting (or hey, maybe even detect what chemicals are currently in the bloodstream), and automatically block the person from using Twitter if the level of intoxication is determined to be sufficiently high. Granted, that might not apply to, ahem, CERTAIN CELEBRITIES who are clinically bonkers, but... we're just sayin'...

Innovator in the synth-rock world died following cancer diagnosis.

By Blurt Staff

Sad news to report. Japan (the band) multiinstrumentalist Mick Karn (born Andonis Michaelides) has passed away at the age of 52. He'd been battling cancer since being diagnosed with the disease last June.

A post on Karn's official website yesterday reported the news:

It's with profound sadness that we have to inform you that Mick finally lost his battle with cancer and passed away peacefully at 4.30pm today, 4th January 2011 at home in Chelsea, London. He was surrounded by his family and friends and will be deeply missed by all.

Posted: 4th January 2011

Karn, of course, was a key component of Japan's sound and success, and along with frontman David Sylvian he helped steer the band during the late ‘70s and early ‘80s to become one of the leading synth-rock outfits. Karn subsequently worked with everyone from Kate Bush to Gary Numan to Joan Armatrading, additionally collaborating with Peter Murphy as Dali's Car. At the time of his death, Karn was reportedly planning on getting back together with Murphy for a propose second Dali's Car album.

[Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons]