Lee Ranaldo on stage w/ Dinosaur Jr. in 2012 (more by Gretchen Robinette)

The Lee Ranaldo Band, which features Lee along with his Sonic Youth bandmate Steve Shelley, Alan Licht, and Tim Luntzel, are about to head to Spain and Portgual for a short tour this month, and upon returning to NYC they'll play a hometown show at Union Pool on April 28. Admission for that show is $12 at the door and openers TBA. They've got some other dates coming up this year too, all of which are listed below.

Meanwhile, Lee and Steve's past Sonic Youth cohort Thurston Moore is on tour with his band, Chelsea Light Moving, and that tour hits NYC TONIGHT (4/5) at Bowery Ballroom with Prana-Bindu and Marco Fusinato. Tickets for tonight's show are still available.

Thurston also contributed to Joyful Noise's new "Cause & Effect" series, which pairs an influential solo musician with an artist they've influenced on a split 7" single. Thurston's 7" has a track by Talk Normal on the b-side. The series also includes Dinosaur Jr/Sebadoh's Lou Barlow paired with Dumb Numbers and The Jesus Lizard's David Yow paired with Child Bite. You can stream the Thurston Moore/Talk Normal 7" at Pitchfork and listen to the other two below.

Thurston Moore and ex-wife/Sonic Youth bandmate Kim Gordon (separately) are also set to play the Yoko Ono-curated Meltdown Festival in London which goes down from June 14-23 at the Southbank Centre. Other artists performing include Yoko Ono herself with the Plastic Ono Band, Patti Smith, Iggy and the Stooges, Siouxsie Sioux (her first show in five years), Reggie Watts, Deerhoof, Savages, Marianne Faithfull, Immortal Technique, Ryuichi Sakamoto with Alva Noto, Sean Lennon with Cibo Matto, Boy George and more TBA. More info at the festival's website.

Meanwhile, you can catch Kim Gordon in NYC at the recently expanded "Night of Improvised Round Robin Duets," which takes place during the Red Bull Music Academy NYC residency at Brooklyn Masonic Temple on May 1. Kim will be joined by Andrew Bird, Robert Glasper, Questlove, Andrew WK, James Chance, Julia Holter, Thundercat, and many more. Tickets for that show are still available.

All Lee Ranaldo dates are listed, along with the Joyful Noise 7" streams, below...

Continue reading "Lee Ranaldo Band touring; Thurston Moore w/ Lou Barlow & others on Joyful Noise 7" series, playing Yoko Ono's Meltdown"

What makes an album great? And perhaps even more critical for this list, what makes a great album gay? To create our list of the 100 Greatest, Gayest Albums of All Time, we polled more than 100 actors, comedians, musicians, writers, critics, performance artists, label reps, and DJs, asking each to list the 10 most important albums of their lives. After receiving responses from Boy George, Rufus Wainwright, Cyndi Lauper, the Indigo Girls' Amy Ray, Perez Hilton, Nate Berkus, Jake Shears, Ed Droste, Nico Muhly, John Cameron Mitchell, Wilson Cruz, Junior Vasquez, Janis Ian, Lady Bunny and a slew of others, we tallied the results to determine our top-100 list. [Out]

Pitchfork also just released their list of the Best Albums of 2009.

Singer Boy George, who was convicted of falsely imprisoning a male escort in his flat in Shoreditch, east London, has been jailed for 15 months.

The singer, whose real name is George O'Dowd, denied the charge and claimed the victim, Norwegian Audun Carlsen, 29, had stolen photos from his laptop.

O'Dowd, 47, admitted handcuffing him to a wall in April 2007 but said he did so in order to trace the missing property.

Judge David Radford told the singer he was guilty of "gratuitous violence". [BBC]

"British singer Boy George was found guilty on Friday of falsely imprisoning a Norwegian male escort by handcuffing him to a wall." [Reuters]

Continue reading "Boy George's 2008 tour is cancelled "

"I'm pretty devastated because I am so excited about this forthcoming tour and having my visa application denied seems unfair after I swept the streets of New York spotless. There are a number of public figures who are openly using drugs and they have no problem with immigration and I have seriously turned my life around and I feel great right now and this is just another reminder of how bad things were. I committed a crime and I happily paid the consequences and I should be allowed to move on and get on with what I do best and that is performing and making people people dance and cry!" [Boy George to Paper Magazine]

Paper also posted a song Boy George wrote for Obama. All tour dates below...

Continue reading "Boy George denied visa for tour, wrote Obama song"

Boy George AS sanitation worker

Boy George FOR santitation workers....

Continue reading "Boy George adds a 2nd NYC show... for sanitation workers"

Tickets are on sale (@ 12) for the upcoming Boy George show at Terminal 5.

Like George Michael, Madonna, Duran Duran, Bruce Springsteen and Cyndi Lauper, Boy George, is playing some shows this summer.

That's Rosie O'Donnell (the one wearing blue) up there pictured with Boy George. She won't be touring with Boy George this summer, but she WILL be touring with Cyndi Lauper (and the B-52's) (seriously).

The Human League, Belinda Carlisle, ABC, Dead Or Alive, A Flock of Seagulls and Naked Eyes are touring too.

And Yaz.

Continue reading "Boy George tix on sale -- this summer is all about the 80's"

PERFORMING ALL THE HITS OF CULTURE CLUB & BEYOND

Boy George is going on a tour of North America this summer, and that includes an August 14th show at Terminal 5 in NYC. $35 tickets will go on sale this Friday at noon. Tickets for some other dates are already on sale. All currently-known dates below......

Continue reading "Boy George - 2008 Tour Dates (Terminal 5, El Rey, etc...) "

Choose your headline for the above photo:
* Student tasered at Gargoyle concert while resisting arrest
* Naked Man Tasered in the Ass at Girl Talk Show
* Girl Talk Show Ends When Cops Taser Naked Student In St. Louis
* Girl Talk Responds to St. Louis show

In other news, Telegraph reports that "Boy George, the singer and DJ, has been charged with false imprisonment after allegedly chaining a male escort to a wall in his home."

And finally, from The Australian: "Man shot in bottom over loud music." Ouch.