Them Crooked Vultures at Coachella 2010 (more by Rachel Carr)

Father of two Robert McIndoe, 52, was unable to sleep for three months after going to a rock concert that left him with a permanent ringing in his ear. He was watching supergroup 'Them Crooked Vultures' at Brixton Academy.
In the coming months Mr McIndoe faced an uphill struggle to to get proper treatment for the condition, Southwark Coroner's Court heard.
His wife eventually received a letter of referral to a hospital ear, nose and throat specialist on November 1 last year - the day after he apparently killed himself.
Shirley McIndoe told the hearing that the day after the gig last July, her husband was "cross with himself" for not taking ear plugs.
She said: "When it first happened he wasn't too bothered about it because he thought it would subside, and the friend he had been with also had ringing in his ears that day.
"But it was a constant irritation.
"He didn't get a night of sleep after that until he went to hospital."-[Telegraph]

The Kills' Jamie Hince w/ bride Kate Moss

"I'm just absolutely concentrated on The Kills and I don't really care what people think or say about it, even our fans. I think you're in trouble if you start only doing what your fans expect of you. So when people write about our success in relation to Jack White or The White Stripes, it doesn't torture me too much. I think it's hard to expect journalists to pin down your sound, anyway. Especially since the heyday of rock journalism, it's just easiest to describe bands by comparing them to other bands."
[Jamie Hince]

Village roads were shut by police as Kate and The Kills rocker Jamie married at their local church on ­Friday. They are celebrating with a three-day mini festival for guests ­including Sir Paul ­McCartney, Bob Geldof, Naomi Campbell and pal Sadie Frost.

Veteran ­crooner Bryan Ferry performed during a reception that went on until 5am. It also featured trapeze artists, burlesque ­performers and more bands. [Mirror]

The Kills' Alison Mosshart w/ Seasick Steve

It happened during Seasick Steve's headlining set and you can watch the video below.

The Kills return to America in August to play Lollapalooza followed by three dates with A Place To Bury Strangers, two of which are at Terminal 5 with The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. The Kills return to the road in September to play some shows around their appearance at Bumbershoot. All tour dates and the Domino-signed band's new video for "Future Starts Slow", below...

Continue reading "Jamie Hince married Kate Moss, Alison Mosshart played w/ Jack White, John Paul Jones & Seasick Steve (videos)"

Former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney has revealed that he was invited to join Them Crooked Vultures.

The age of the supergroup has returned. In the late 60s it seemed that every top musician was closing ranks, with the likes of Cream, Traffic, Big Brother Holding Company and more taking the music world by storm.

Last year the trend suddenly re-emerged as the likes of The Dead Weather, Monsters Of Folk and Them Crooked Vultures released celebrated albums.

Formed by Josh Homme and Dave Grohl, the American pair turned to Led Zeppelin bass player John Paul Jones to complete the trio. Releasing their debut album it seems as if the band could be an ongoing project.

However in a new interview former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney has revealed that he could have potentially joined the band. Speaking to the Daily Mail the iconic musician revealed that he had dinner with Dave Grohl after last year's Grammy awards when the project was mentioned. [Clash]

The NYC show is two days after the band play Saturday Night Live (Ashton Kutcher will host).

And the NYC show is one of three upcoming live shows the band is playing in February. Tickets are also going on sale Saturday for gigs in Charlotte and Atlanta. All dates below...

Continue reading "Them Crooked Vultures (a band Paul McCartney was invited to join) are playing shows in February, Coachella & SNL"

Them Crooked Vultures didn't include NYC in their initial tour announcement, but it looks like they'll be playing Roseland Ballroom on October 15th. Stay tuned for more information.

Them Crooked Vultures--a/k/a Dave Grohl (drums, backing vocals), Josh Homme (guitar, vocals) and John Paul Jones (bass, keyboards, backing vocals)--has confirmed the dates of its first ever North American tour. The dates kick off with an October 2 performance at the Austin City Limits music festival, to be preceded by a September 30 Austin City Limits TV taping to air at a later date TBD, as well as an appearance at the October 1 Austin City Limits festival pre-party.

Tickets for the headline shows go on sale Saturday, September 5 at 10 a.m. local time.

Continue reading "Them Crooked Vultures (Dave Grohl, Josh Homme & John Paul Jones) - 2009 Tour Dates & Videos "

by Andrew Frisicano

DOWNLOAD: The Almighty Defenders - Bow Down and Die (MP3)

It's supergroup day on BrooklynVegan. Some of it is catch up news. We have a new MP3 and tour dates from the new Black Keys-related Drummer band, and then there's the signing of Dum Dum Girls whose first live show over the weekend brought together member of four other bands. Jack White's new supergroup The Dead Weather is streaming their new album today, and we finally did a post on the Monsters of Folk album (Bright Eyes+My Morning Jacket+M Ward). Supergroups are not to be confused with side projects which were sort of a theme today too - first with Wolf Parade-related Handsome Furs, and then the Mazzy Star/My Bloody Valentine-related Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions (which I guess could be considered a supergroup too). Next up....

The Almighty Defenders (Black Lips + King Khan + BBQ)

The Almighty Defenders, a meeting of might between Atlanta garage goblins The Black Lips, Berlin-based soul punker King Khan, and Mr. BBQ himself, Mark Sultan. Conceived during the Lips' Berlin exile (after their VBS-documented ejection from India), the band's self-titled debut is a madcap, liquor-drenched revival, a blissfully fucked up realization of one of garage rock's most fitting collaborations. "Bow Down And Die," the "booming, chivalrous third song," is an off kilter, beer-swilling chant-along that borrows just as much from choral church music as it does from skuzzball rock n roll.

No tour dates for the Almighty Defenders yet, but The Black Lips will be at the July 26th Williamsburg Waterfront Pool Party, playing with Health, Grupo Fantasma and Trail of Dead. The Black Lips are actually one of the only artists to play a 'Pool Party' two years in a row. Ironically(?), when they played last year, it was on the same bill as King Khan. Maybe they'll bring him along again, or maybe they should just make an Almighty Defenders show which would be cool.

The Black Lips are also playing a few other festivals this summer, including Pitchfork Fest and Seattle's Capitol Hill Block Party. The band was recently featured on the soundtrack of the Gael Garcia Bernal & Diego Luna film Rudo Y Cursi, which came out in May. That disc includes contributions by Devendra Banhart, Juana Molina (who's playing tonight, July 8th, in Central Park) and even Bernal himself. Album art and tracklist for that below.

Bernal is hardly the only actor getting into music these days. Dead Man's Bones, the combo of actors Zach Shields and Ryan Gosling, is set to release a self-titled album, produced by Tim Anderson of I'm A Robot, October 6th on Anti-. Silverlake Conservatory Children's Choir, who you can see below, also pitched in vocals. Two videos of the band are below.

You can catch a different kind of supergroup in NYC at the Bowery Ballroom on August 1st. Dangerous, an "All Metal Tribute To Michael Jackson," features members of Tragedy (the "Heavy Metal Tribute to the Bee Gees" who are playing the Beach at Governors Island this summer) and the 2 Skinnee Js. Tickets to that are on sale now.

And if that's not enough...

Members of Led Zeppelin, Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone Age are working together on a new project...The as-yet-unnamed supergroup unites Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme, and lead Foo Fighter (né Nirvana drummer) Dave Grohl. The trio are presently in Los Angeles, recording their debut album.[Guardian UK]

Check out Almighty Defenders videos, album art and tracklist, with Rudo Y Cursi album info and Dead Man's Bones videos, below...

Continue reading "Supergroup day continues: Zeppelin/Grohl/QOTSA, Almighty Defenders (Black Lips+King Khan), Dead Man's Bones, more"

photos by Stephanie Berger

"It is not unusual these days to hear Merce Cunningham called the world's greatest living choreographer. I go further: I have long thought that he is the greatest living artist since the death of Samuel Beckett, almost 20 years ago.

His latest world premiere, "Nearly Ninety," presented at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Thursday (his 90th birthday), is not a perfect work of art...

...The music, composed and performed by John Paul Jones, Takehisa Kosugi and Sonic Youth (Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, Steve Shelley), sounds now like a rock musician's worst hangover, as if the pot and the kettle were calling each other every color under the sun before settling down and breeding a whole tribe of tintinnabulations. One powerful guitar chord out of the blue happened on Thursday to coincide with the most electrifying gear change in the Goggans-Squire duet, but even such moments are mere effects... [NY Times]

Continue reading "Merce Cunningham at 90 - Sonic Youth, John Paul Jones & more @ BAM, Brooklyn - pics"

"April 16 marks the 90th birthday of Merce Cunningham--one of the most important choreographers of our time--whose radical approaches to space, time, and technology continue to redefine the way we experience dance. Over the course of his celebrated career, he has forged a distinctive language of movement, illuminating the body's inherent drama and limitless capacity for change. And as a longtime collaborator of John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns, he has played a leading role in fostering innovation across art forms.

In celebration of his birthday, Merce Cunningham Dance Company returns to BAM with the world premiere of a dazzling evening-length work created in collaboration with and performed live by underground rock legend Sonic Youth, former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, and mixed-media sound composer Takehisa Kosugi. With an intriguing multi-tiered décor by world-renowned architect Benedetta Tagliabue, lighting by Tony and Obie-winning designer Brian MacDevitt, and costumes by Romeo Gigli, this new masterpiece is testament to the boundless imagination of a man who, on the cusp of his ninth decade, still keeps us on our toes."

It's not totally clear to me if Sonic Youth will be playing any of their own songs at the four BAM performances (I'm looking into though). What they'll decide to put on the setlist at the No Fun Fest show they're playing in Brooklyn in May is also somewhat of a mystery.

Sonic Youth's 16th album, 'The Eternal', is out via Matador Records on June 9th. Maybe we'll get a plain old Sonic Youth concert some time around then.

by Black Bubblegum

Led Zeppelin in Central Park, 1969

"As you probably know, Jimmy [Page], Jason [Bonham, son of John Bonham] and I are actually rehearsing and we've had the odd singer come in and have a bash. As soon as we know -- which we don't -- we will let you know. But we really hope that something is going to happen soon because we really want to do it and we're having a lot of fun, actually, just rehearsing. Jason is actually tremendous. . . We really wanna do something and Robert doesn't want to do this, at least for the moment. I don't really know what his plans are. He really doesn't want to make loud music anymore. We do. I mean, I love acoustic music, but it doesn't stop me from turning something up . . . And what we've done so far sounds absolutely fantastic. When it does come, it will come, and you'll know about it."

Led Zeppelin, Robert included, reunited in December of 2007 in tribute of Atlantic Records impresario Ahmet Ertegun.

Robert Plant has otherwise been keeping busy with the "acoustic" music he's making with Alison Krauss. Video below...

Continue reading "Led Zeppelin to tour with a new singer? John Jones speaks"

an Ahmet Ertegun Tribute....

continued below....

Continue reading "Led Zeppelin reunion concert photos & setlist"