50 Cent is such a worldly guy that he wants to be able to promote safe sex…through his own brand of condoms. He says that instead of being part of a safe sex campaign, he’s going to bring out these johnnies and donate some of the proceeds to HIV awareness.
In addition to this, the rapper is going to be publishing books based on his crew and will be filiming New Orleans, a film which also starts Robert De Niro, soon.
Maximo Park will be playing three small dates in their hometown of Newcastle, where they will play new material from their untitled forthcoming second album.
The venues are places the band played earlier in their careers and tickets will only be available from certain indy record stores:
January:
18th – Newcastle Head of Steam (tickets from Beatdown Records, Vine Lane, Newcastle)
19th – Newcastle Cumberland Arms (tickets from Alt. Vinyl, Thornton Street, Newcastle)
20th – Newcastle Cluny (tickets from RPM, High Bridge Street, Newcastle)
A brand new Dub Pistols album is going to drop in March. Their third LP will feature collaborations from Terry Hall, Blade and Rodney P. Here’s the tracklist:
Speed Of Light (feat Blade)
Peaches (feat Rodney P and Terry Hall)
Speakers and Tweeters
Running from the Thoughts (feat Terry Hall)
Rapture (feat Terry Hall)
Cruise Control
Open
You’ll Never Find (feat Rodney P)
Gangsters (feat Terry Hall)
Something To Trust (feat Rodney P)
Mach 10
Stronger
Gave You Time
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted hip hop’s Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five along with REM, The Ronettes, Patti Smith and Van Halen. The inductees will be honoured during the ceremony in New York on March 12th.
The inductees were chosen by 600 voters from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation and each artist will be commemorated in the museum and will have a film presentation of their careers.
Bonnie “Prince” Billy is to play some shows in the UK in January. The line up will be Will Oldham, Alex Nielson, Emmett Kelly, Aram Stith and Azita Youseffi. The dates are:
January:
21st – Glasgow Concert Hall Strathclyde Suite
23rd – Nottingham Rock City
24th – Manchester Bridgewater Hall
25th – Bristol Colston Hall
26th – London Queen Elizabeth Hall
27th – London Queen Elizabeth Hall
February:
11th – London Shepherds Bush Empire
12th – Brighton Corn Exchange
13th – Cambridge Junction
Plan B has announced some tour dates in support of the release of No Good on February 19th.
January:
30th – Preston 53 Degrees
31st – Birmingham Academy 2
February:
1st – Leeds Cockpit
2nd – Glasgow Arches
3rd – Sheffield Leadmill
7th – Manchester Academy 2
8th – Cardiff Student Union
9th – London Shepherds Bush Empire
10th – Bristol Anson Rooms
12th – Cambridge Junction
13th – Liverpool Academy 2
14th – Norwich Waterfront
15th – Southampton University
French group Air are streaming their new single, Once Upon A Time, which comes from their upcoming album Pocket Symphany, on their myspace page.
The duo have said they’ll be touring the record which is thought to have Jarvis Cocker and Neil Hannon on guest vocal duties.
Mike Relm is to release his first album of all-original material this year. The album will feature a video component, once again showing him to be the forward thinking man he’s known to be thanks to his incredible DVD scratching live shows.
He’s also teamed up with Adult Swim for some remixes, two of which will be on the Aqua Teen Hunger Force film.
If this weren’t enough, he’ll also be scoring a short film for Disney called Too Many Robots which will feature animation from Kid Robot. Fresh.
Glassjaw have announced that, whilst there is no set date for actual release, the band will post new songs online for streaming.
Palumbo’s other group, Head Automatica, are working on new material and hope to start on a new EP soon. The busy boy is also working on a Cardboard City Mixtape with DJ Krazyglue featuring El-P, Cage, XO Skeletons, Yak Ballz, Camu Tao and more.
Jimmy Eat World’s sixth album has had more details revealed through producer Butch Vig:
“The record is quite eclectic,There are three or four songs that sound like classic Jimmy Eat World, with angular, razor-sharp guitars. There are a couple that are a lot more dreamy, and some that are very groove-acious. Anybody who is fan will like this record. “
The record, which doesn’t yet have a name, is set for a summer release and will be the first full length since Futures.