The opening line of Ally Kerr’s second album, Off The Radar (Much Obliged Records, 2008) gives a tantalizing taste of the thinking person’s pop craft that is to follow. The line comes from “Could Have Been A Contender” and it opens with, ‘he sits and smiles at his big CV thinking he’s just the knees of some bee’.

Scotland is a land that has already brought us Belle and Sebastian, Arab Strap, Teenage Fanclub, Franz Ferdinand, The Goldenhour, John Martyn, Idlewild, Daniel Wylie, and a whole host of other artists that literally ooze song writing talent. It is high pra
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The Jonas Brothers are three guys who shouldn’t have any trouble finding themselves a Valentine. While, Kevin Jonas and Joe Jonas still appear to be going strong with their respective ladies, it appears that young Nick is once again single.

Kevin is currently linked to hometown girl Danielle Deleasa (they both grew up in Wyckoff, New Jersey), and Joe is dating “Push” star Camilla Belle. Both had “no comment” about their dating lives when asked by a fan on “The Insider” on Thursday night if they were dating anyone. Meanwhile, 16-year-old Nick, who had been most recently rumored to be dating “Wizards of Waverly Place” star Selena Gomez, replied that these days he’s single.

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Hubby and I are huge Johnny Cash fans, and there has been much heated discussion in our house about this newly released collection of classic Johnny Cash songs remixed by artists such as Alabama 3 (think Sopranos theme), Count de Money, Snoop Dogg's new QDT team, and Pete Rock. Since our musical tastes vary widely (dance, blues, hip hop, classic rock, punk, rockabilly, country, Motown, Stax,….) but we tend to like "original" sound, we really weren't sure about this.

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BB King is set to come out of retirement and play a series of UK gigs this summer. The 83 year-old guitar legend will return to Britain for four arena shows in June. He plays: Manchester MEN Arena (June 24) Birmingham NIA Arena (25) Cardiff CIA (27) London Wembley Arena (28) Tickets on sale from 9am (GMT) on Friday (February 6).
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The personal possessions of The Clash’s former guitarist Mick Jones are set to go on display at a London exhibition starting this March.

‘The Rock And Roll Public Library’ is billed as Jones’ personal take on the O2 Arena’s British Music Experience exhibition.

Jones’ collection will go on show at London’s Chelsea Space from March 18 until April 18.

Among the items on show are customised stage clothes, instruments, flight cases, records, amplifiers and recording gear, posters, books, boxes of correspondence and song lyrics.

Jones will also display books, magazines, videos, ephemera, toys and games collected throughout his life.

The guitarist said he plans to make the collection freely available in the future.
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After the banner year in music that was 2007, I suppose it was inevitable that 2008 would be a let down. And it was. It's not that there wasn't any good music released this year; after all, I was able to come up with a full list of 20 (unlike with 2006, where I wimped out at ten). But there was a lack of greatness this year, with albums that rank very highly this year that would have ranked much lower the year previous. In fact, until I seriously started to think about how this list would shape up, many of the albums on it had failed to grab me throughout the year. In part, this has more to do with the fact that I spent the year listening to older music, but still, if I loved these albums like I loved the ones that topped last year's list, I would've taken notice much earlier.
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Fleet Foxes frontman Robin Pecknold appears to be launching a side project, after a solo MySpace page was discovered by fans. The band, White Antelope, features Pecknold, and has posted two songs to stream on the page. One of the songs is folk standard ‘False Knight On The Road’, which will feature as a B-side on the upcoming Fleet Foxes single ‘Mykonos’, and on the re-release of their self-titled 2008 debut album. It was recorded solo by Pecknold. The band’s page, which can be found at MySpace.com/awhiteantelope, features little other information about the project, barring a description as “covers and assorted stuff, nothing serious”. He told Chocolate Bobka: “I used to post demos of songs on that page before the record came out.
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Music is an experience. For Anthony Gonzalez, his music reflects the experience that no one on this planet could enjoy without having fallen asleep. The music Gonzalez first started making was ambient and electronic, and it wasn’t until he saw that picture of the Messier 83 (M83) spiral galaxy that it all came together.

It would take many lifetimes to see whether existence in the M83 galaxy was like his aural perception of it. In the second album as a solo project, M83 pursued a return to dreamlike music that he sought to make. Digital Shades, Vol. 1 is the first collection in a hopefully long series of ambient tracks.

Despite a run time of almost 36 minutes, Digital Shades is anything but brisk.

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Who better to lead off this great CD than Junior Wells? And who better than line up as Number 2 than Sleepy John Estes? Both these people were significant parts of Bob Koester’s life. If you’re not familiar with Bob, I recently wrote about him, as well as referred to him in other Delmark reviews I’ve done.

Junior Wells was one bluesman who personified Chicago Blues, plus he recorded for Bob’s Delmark label in Chicago. He has a blues history that will keep you busy reading for weeks, so rather than re-invent the wheel, go do your homework.

The second on the roster, Sleepy John Estes was a Delta bluesman who recorded some blues back when there were records, and those records spun around on a turntable at 78-rpm (78 revolutions per minute), which means they were the really old stuff, Prewar, as that blues era is named.

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After a series of scandals involving photographs on the Internet, you’d think that “Hannah Montana” star Miley Cyrus would be careful about the photos she poses for.

But the Disney superstar is in hot water again, this time for a snapshot that leaked online late Monday in which she is pictured pulling at the corners of her eyes in a mock-Asian gesture amid a group of squinting friends, including an unidentified person of Asian descent.

George Wu, executive director of the national Asian Pacific American non-profit OCA released a statement on Monday in which he criticized the 16-year-old singer for her actions.

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