Category: Music News

Michael Jackson, the once titled Prince Of Pop, is closing his Neverland Ranch so as to save money on expenditure, meaning some of his staff will no be without a job. It was reported that Jackson was forced to pay over $300,000 in unpaid wages to staff after being threatened with legal action, on top of having to pay a fine of around $150,000.

More worryingly, reports are floating around that he wants to make his musical comeback with bullet-hole ridden rapper 50 Cent, after the singer spoke to Fiddy’s DJ in the middle east not long ago. Watch this space… if you even care.

www.michaeljackson.com as always for the official news.

UK Superstars Radiohead have announced dates on their tour of Europe and the UK in May of this year, which will showcase tracks from their forthcoming album.

As well as playing these dates, more shows are set to be announced for later in the year, as well as playing the V Festival. The support for this tour will be in the form of Willy Mason, and tickets go on sale for Wolverhampton, Blackpool and London on March 25th.

The tour visits:

May 6-7 – Copenhagen KB Hall
May 9-10 – Amsterdam Heineken Hall
May 12-13 – Blackpool Empress Ballroom
May 15-16 – Wolverhampton Civic
May 18-19 – London Hammersmith Apollo
August 19-20 – V Festival
August 22 – Edinburgh Meadowbank Stadium
August 24 – Dublin Marlay Park

Check out www.radiohead.com for the full works.

Metal kings Sepultura will be slaying it on tour with In Flames throughout March and to celebrate the tour, an e-card for Dante XXI has been released. There’s a game and a massive prize for winning it. So check it out at:

http://www.spv.de/eng/sepultura/ecard

And the tour dates are:

March 22nd – London Forum
March 23rd – Manchester Academy
March 24th – Glasgow Barrowlands
March 25th – Sheffield Corporation
March 26th – Birmingham Academy
March 28th – Dublin Ambassador Theatre
March 29th – Liverpool Academy
March 30th – Cardiff Coal Exchange

Hit up www.sepultura.com.br for the official words.

Music TV giant VH1 has officially begun production of an upcoming “Behind The Music” feature on legendary metal titans Pantera. An exact air date for the show is yet to be announced by television sources.

Pantera’s “Greatest Hits” collection was recently certified Platinum for sales of over 1,000,000 units in the United States alone. The band’s “3 Vulgar Videos from Hell” home video collection is expected to see a store date of April 3 through Rhino. The set will reportedly contain all new Dolby 5.1 surround sound – the first ever Pantera release to obtain such a feature.

In other Pantera related news; front man Phil Anselmo and bassist Rex Brown will make their return to the stage this coming Summer as part of a first ever European tour from heavy metal super group Down. The trek will run throughout both May and June – taking in a number of festivals as well as select headline shows.

Hit up www.pantera.com for the official business.

Manic Street Preachers guitarist and vocalist James Dean Bradfield and bass player Nicky Wire have each been working on solo albums since the last Manics output in 2004. Wire has recorded a punk album and said that the Manics were writing as a group as well, meaning that fans of the Welsh group have a lot to look forward to in the coming year.

James Dean Bradfield will be performing at the V Festival this year on August 19th and 20th.

Check their news at www.manicstreetpreachers.com

Gun-toting Republican Ted Nugent turned into Axl Rose this week after slamming pop-punk superstars Green Day’s decision to refuse a collaboration.

It’s reported that the outspoken left-wing group declined an opportunity to work with the guitar legend as part of an undisclosed creative venture, sparking outrage with the self-proclaimed “Hunky Ted”.

Nugent reportedly commented: “Their social ignorance, historical vacuity and knee-jerk condemnation of America and the Bush administration is nothing short of embarrassing”.

It is however believed that Nugent in fact owns all of Green Day’s albums. Twice.

Swing on over to www.greenday.com for the official stuff.

All you lucky Mogwai fans can check out the new e-flyer for the band’s upcoming Mr Beast. All you need to do is click on the address below and you can listen to tracks from the brand new album, watch 2 live videos, filmed at Mogwai’s 5 night “sold-out” residency at London’s ICA in January and see exclusive clips from the documentary “The Making Of Mr Beast” (available on the Ltd CD/DVD release).

You can also win tickets and hotel accommodation to their special Royal Albert Hall show on September 22nd.

So get a wriggle on and visit www.mrbeast.info

For the website, go and have a look at www.mogwai.co.uk

Music legend and general God-like being Bob Dylan has announced he will play 2 dates in the UK in June. The shows are part of his European Tour and will take place at the end of June. The tickets go on sale today so make sure you get in quickly.

The dates are: Bob Dylan will play:

June 27th – Cardiff International Arena
June 28th – Bournemouth International Centre

And don’t forget to check out www.bobdylan.com

Morrissey has revealed at the South By South West festival in Texas, that he and the other former members of The Smiths were offered $5 million to reform and play at the Coachella festival in California last year.

However, he refused claiming that money was never an issue, but he did throw in some Smiths’ numbers into his set at the SXSW show.

www.morrisseymusic.com has all the official info.

Strokes Guitarist Nick Valensi is to appear on Regina Spektor’s new album, which will be out in June, titled Begin To Hope.

Specktor had opened for The Strokes on their Room Of Fire tour and says she has around 700 songs to whittle down for the upcoming album, which has her using electric guitars and drum machines.

She is set to showcase the new material on her forthcoming US tour.

Click over to www.reginaspektor.com for the gossip.