News

Poet Michael Horovitz has teamed up with Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon and Paul Weller for a pair of Record Store day releases. The quartet will appear on Horovitz' single, "Ballade Of The Nocturnal Commune" / "Extra Time Meltdown", which will be released by London-based vinyl-only jazz label, Gearbox Records. Weller, Albarn and Coxon will also appear on Horovitz' album Bankbusted Nuclear Detergent Blues, the title track of which was commissioned by Weller, who printed the text in the artwork for his 2012 album Sonik Kicks.

Kings Of Leon bassist Jared Followill has confirmed the band's new album will be out in September. The record, the four-piece's sixth studio effort, is finished and is currently being sequenced. Speaking in this week's NME Followill said: "I thought we were going to make a really mature album but I'm amazed how youthful it sounds. It's like a mix of 'Youth & Young Manhood' and 'Because Of The Times'."

London's Victoria & Albert Museum have released extra tickets for their David Bowie Is... retrospective exhibition. The show, which opened last Saturday, is the fastest-selling event in the museum's history, with 42,000 advance tickets already sold, more than double the advance sales of previous exhibitions. The V&A have now announced that the exhibition is going to be open on Sunday nights from 7 April.

It has been confirmed that Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner will appear on the new Queens Of The Stone Age album '...Like Clockwork'.

Later…Live with Jools Holland will return on April 9 with guests including Suede and Cat Power. The long-running music show will start its 42nd series with the first in eight half-hour live shows on BBC 2 at 10PM on Tuesday, April 9. Suede will appear to perform songs from their new album 'Bloodsports' while Cat Power will make a rare live appearance in the UK, playing songs from her 2012 album 'Sun'.

Tom Morello has spoken about his recent time spent as guitarist for Bruce Springsteen, saying that it is an "honour" to play with the E Street Band.

Jeff Lynne has revealed that the surviving Beatles would “take the piss” when he produced them.

Lou Reed has cancelled a series of West Coast United States shows through the month of April, including two performances at the Coachella festival. The cancelled shows were in Coachella on April 12 and 19, San Francisco on April 14, Monterrey on April 16 and April 17 in Los Angeles. The five cancelled dates were his only listed upcoming shows. No reason has been given for the cancellations. According to a brief statement posted on website for the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles, “This show has been cancelled due to unavoidable complications.”

Motown songwriter-producer Deke Richards, who penned songs for The Jackson 5 and The Supremes, has died at the age 68.

When I first started reading what used to be Melody Maker, in a time now shrouded not so much in what are usually called the mists of time as they are in a fog as dense as anything that might gather over Dogger Bank, I used to accept its weekly delivery in the manner of some kind of jackal, cur or otherwise fanged and ravenous critter.