by Ryan Barkan

Super Bowl XLV (45): Dallas Cowboys vs...oh wait....The Green Bay Packers vs the Pittsburgh Steelers in Dallas' brand new, state of the art, big ass stadium. The Packers won, bringing the Lombardi Trophy back to small town America and less sales back to Wiz Khalifa. I wonder if Jerry Jones was faking all of those smiles? Enough of the sports talk. This feature is the return of the long lost "Week In Music Licensing" post.

The real winner tonight - Detroit. A town that has been down on its luck, due for something inspiring to happen. Well here you go. Laura R. Charron tweeted that "#Detroit area agrees that #Chrysler200 had THE BEST commercial." Decide for yourself:

Continue reading "music & commercials of Super Bowl XLV (Eminem, Jon Spencer, Ozzy, Bieber, Bowie, RAC, Kenny G & more)"

Mr. Brownstone @ the Bell House in 2009 (more by Tim Griffin)

The wait is over. Drunken Guns n Roses tribute band Mr. Brownstone will return to the stage on Mischief Night, 2010. It's going down at Brooklyn Bowl and tickets are on sale. I may be unique in that I'm now feeling conflicted between this and Antony with an orchestra at Lincoln Center happening the same night.

The real Slash, who is back on the market, will take the NYC stage in less than a week. Tickets are still on sale (Joe Perry's kids' band 'TAB the Band' and Taddy Porter open the not-too-exciting show)

Duff McKagan meanwhile joined and un-joined Jane's Addiction.

Steven Adler wrote a book.

And Axl Rose refuses to give refunds to those that got the short show in Dublin.

Slash released a special-guest-filled album solo called called "Slash" in March. Four of the five members of the Appetite for Destruction era Guns N' Roses lineup appear on the album: Slash, Izzy Stradlin, Duff McKagan and Steven Adler. You can figure out who's missing. Iggy Pop, Ozzy, Lemmy, Dave Grohl, Chris Cornell, and others (even Fergie?) (but not Jack White) appear as guests on the album too. You can stream it, and download a track, below.

Slash is currently on tour in Europe. In fact, you may have heard about how he was "attacked" by a fan on stage at a recent show. That viral video is below.

Slash starts playing North American shows in September. That now includes a September 14th show at Terminal 5 in NYC. $32.50 tickets go on sale Friday at noon. All currently announced dates, the attack video, album stream/download widgets and the full "Slash" album tracklist (with guests), below...

Continue reading "Slash, recently "attacked" on stage, released a guest-filled album, touring, playing Terminal 5"

Former GUNS N' ROSES guitarist Slash has commented on the countersuit filed by his former GN'R bandmate, Axl Rose, against the singer's former manager, Irving Azoff, claiming that Azoff tried to bully Rose into doing a reunion tour with the original GUNS lineup.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Rose claims in his suit that Azoff did everything he could to sabotage the current version of GUNS after Rose said no to the reunion idea last year, alleging that Azoff tried "devising and implementing a secret plan to set up Rose and the band for failure so that Rose would have no choice but to reunite with the original GUNS N' ROSES members."

Rose's suit adds, "Upon realizing that he couldn't bully Rose and accomplish his scheme, Azoff resigned and abandoned GUNS N' ROSES on the eve of a major tour, filing suit for commissions he didn't earn and had no right to receive."

The claim also added that Azoff, in his own lawsuit, deliberately used Rose's real name, William Bailey, because it "carries significant emotional damage from Rose's childhood."

Speaking to VH1 Radio Networks' Dave Basner, Slash stated about Rose's countersuit, "I don't even know what that's about. I don't know where Axl is coming from. I mean, I know where Irving is coming from -- he's looking for commissions for a tour that he booked. [It's a] pretty reasonable kind of thing. Axl's countersuing, so I'm not sure exactly what the merit is that he's countersuing, exactly. Anyways, I don't keep up with that, I don't follow it." [Blabbermouth]

The Dead Weather @ Home Sweet Home in July (more by Ryan Muir)

The Dead Weather will be performing at Music Hall of Williamsburg tonight (11/17) with an opening set by Ecstatic Peace-signed Australians Violent Soho. To go with that, some other Jack White news...

Jack White will be working with "Queen of Rockabilly" Wanda Jackson. The pairing sounds similar to what White did with Loretta Lynn for her 2004, Grammy-winning record Van Lear Rose, but Jackson says, "They had a super album, but he didn't have her do anything different, you know. She just did her little Loretta Lynn songs. But he told me he's gonna stretch me some, so we'll see." A 2009 Rock n Roll Hall of Fame nominee, Wanda recently performed at the Ponderosa Stomp in New Orleans.

One album White will not be helping with is the new record from Slash. On the nature of that, Slash said, "I wanted to get Jack White to sing on something, but he didn't want to sing. He said 'I'll play drums, I'll play guitar, but I don't wanna sing.'" Slash did manage to get "Dave Grohl, Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourne, Dave Grohl, Flea and three of former Guns N' Roses bandmates, Izzy Stradlin, Steven Adler and Duff McKagan" though.

Another project White has had a hand in putting out is composer John Boswell's remix of Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" series called "A Glorious Dawn." The song puts a beat under Sagan's auto-tuned narration and features a guest spot from Stephen Hawking. The track, on YouTube since September (below), is out now through White's Third Man Records.

The Dead Weather also just put out a record of their own, an unannounced EP called Live from Third Man West, which features five songs and four videos from their performance at a promotional pop-up store in Los Angeles in August (similar to what they did in New York in July). You can get it through iTunes.

The Dead Weather play Wednesday too (November 18th) at the mtvU Woodie Awards at Roseland Ballroom, and travel to New Zealand, Australia and Japan in March, 2010.

Tour dates and "A Glorious Dawn" are below...

Continue reading "Dead Weather in town w/ new EP ++ Jack White works w/ Wanda Jackson, but not Slash -- releases Carl Sagan"

last night (April 17, 2008) in NYC....

More than a few special guests (and I don't mean the protesters) showed up to the opening party/benefit inside the John Varvatos store (aka CBGB) on the Bowery last night (April 17, 2008). All photos by Randy Haecker, and there's more where they came from at his Flickr.

A lot of these guys were in town to play a different benefit show the night before.

Tickets to the 'Road Recovery Benefit W/ Slash, Jerry Cantrell, Tom Morello, & Perry Farrell" have been reduced to $25 on Ticketmater.

Own the guitar Slash is signing, and other things. All the for the same charity.

This is a supergroup performance by Slash, Jerry Cantrell, Tom Morello, and Wayne Kramer. Featuring performances by The Nightwatchman (Tom Morello, acoustic), Denis Leary & The Crown Royals featuring the Rehab Horns, Joseph Arthur, Crazy James, and other guests.

Continue reading "Slash, Jerry Cantrell, Tom Morello, Perry Farrell, Denis Leary & Wayne Kramer are playing a benefit show in NYC"

I never go to a show on New Years Eve, but all the options this year might finally change that. The latest worthwhile choice: Gogol Bordello at Terminal 5. Then again, tickets are $45, and I'm not sure if that includes anything besides a performace by GB.

Not necessarily worthwhile, but Velvet Revolver is playing Hammerstein Ballroom that night too (we New Yorkers are more forgiving than Japan). Tickets are like $100! Gogol Bordello suddenly looks like a bargain.

And speaking of gypsies, Devotchka signed to ANTI. Their new album will be released in March 2008, and now they're label-mates with Man Man. All tour dates below....

Continue reading "GOGOL BORDELLO playing New Years, DEVOTCHKA sign to ANTI, VELVET REVOLVER, tour dates"

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will play Nassau Colliseum in Uniondale, NY on March 10, 2008. Add that on to the other recently announced tour dates. Tickets go on sale January 19th @ 10am.

Red Hot Chili Peppers are suing Showtime which kind of makes sense since I always just assumed that Showtime must have paid them already to name their show "Californication". The Times of South Africa says that, like Bruce Springsteen's Magic, Californication was the Chili Peppers' big comeback album. Are they still back? I don't know.

Velvet Revolver were denied visas by Japan because "Japanese immigration officials appear to have taken exception to the backgrounds of various band members...." In related news, Scott Weiland is going to write a book just like Slash did. And speaking of Slash, he's holding a competition for guitar players.

I have to finish what I started, and I guess that would be compiling the world's biggest collection of people dressed as Amy Winehouse for Halloween. I was already up to 92 pictures. By the end of this post you'll have seen another 166. Some are great, and more than a few paired Amy with her boyfriend Blake Fielder-Civil. This photo falls into both of those categories....

Even more looked less like Amy, and then there were many Amys that decided to hang out with Pete Doherty instead of Blake - a pairing that makes a lot of sense from the English musician drug addict tabloid point of view. This picture falls into both of those categories....

Pete Doggerty & Amy Doghouse

In related news,

After Amy Wino's hideous performance at the MTV Europe Awards last night, she was booed when she accepted an award for Artists' Choice. Pete Doherty immediately came to her defense.

He was asked what advice he would give Wino, "I wouldn't give her any. She's fine. It's all bollocks. People should leave her alone. I went for a drink with her earlier today and she's totally fine. Perfectly healthy and happy.
"People are saying she's out of control, but she's not. She's a sensible girl and she knows what she's doing. She ain't doing nothing wrong." [dlisted]

and even Amy with M.I.A....

Now we'll get to more Amy's in a second, but first: To answer my own question, "no", Amy is no longer playing the MTVu Woody Awards or Saturday Night Live due to visa issues. Oh well - not a big loss considering how scary her last live appearance was. That video, and a zillion more Amy impersonators, below.....

Continue reading "more AMY WINEHOUSE costumes & cancellations"