Prince Rupert Loewenstein, the former business manager of The Rolling Stones, has died aged 80.

The Bavarian banker, full name Rupert Louis Ferdinand Frederick Constantine Lofredo Leopold Herbert Maximilian Hubert John Henry zu Loewenstein-Wertheim-Freudenberg, was the long-term financial advisor to the band for 40 years. He is understood to have died peacefully in the early hours of yesterday (May 20) after a battle with a long illness, reports Music Week.

In an article in Forbes, Keith Richards called Loewenstein “the mastermind of our setup.”

Loewenstein is credited with turning around the band’s financial fortunes. During almost four decades of handling the Stones’ affairs he helped Mick Jagger alone amass an estimated fortune of £200 million.

Loewenstein, the managing director of the merchant bank Leopold Joseph & Co, was invited to look after the Stones finances at the personal invitation of Jagger. His advice in the early 1970s prompted the band to abandon their UK residence for the south of France, helping them save millions while becoming Britain’s first musical tax exiles. He ended his business relationship with the band four decades later, in 2007.

He was born in Majorca in 1933 to Prince Leopold of the royal house of Wittelsbach, but was educated in England and studied History at Magdalen College in Oxford before going on to work in the City.

His funeral will be held on Friday (May 30) in London.

Jimmy Page will introduce music from his brand-new remasters of Led Zeppelin albums I, II and III at 7.30pm BST.

Page will present the music live from the legendary L’Olympia Theatre in Paris, which is where the companion audio for Led Zeppelin I was recorded 45 years ago.

This will be followed by a question and answer session drawn from questions submitted by fans across the world.

Finally, both at the venue and online the brand new video for “Whole Lotta Love” will see its world premiere.

Just click back here at 7.30pm BST (or 2.30pm EDT and 11.30am PDT, in you’re watching from the States) and – as if by magic – watch Page reveal all live through the embed below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frUavIOFPOM

Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers have confirmed the release date for his new album, Hypnotic Eye.

The band’s first studio album in four years will be released on July 29; the band will begin a North American tour on August 3.

Petty has also announced that every ticket purchased for the upcoming tour will include a copy of Hypnotic Eye.

A rare U2 live recording and audio from an interview are set to go up for auction.

The recordings come from an early concert from the band, which took place at the Vera venue in Groningen, Holland on October 16, 1980. The live recording is made up of four songs, and the previously unheard interview audio is 15 minutes long and consists of Bono and The Edge discussing their plans for the band.

Stockport’s Omega Auctions have said that the interview includes quotes from the pair in which they say: “We don’t like England”. They also show their ambitions for the group, commenting: “U2 wanna be the biggest group in the world.” In addition they add their thoughts on the United States, saying: “America is sick and wounded and has a lot of bad groups”.

The sale takes place on May 30 and the recordings are expected to sell for £1,000. The recordings also come with previously unpublished photos, shown above, which come complete with copyright, as does the interview audio. However, the live recording is being sold as an artefact and is therefore for personal use only.

A spokesperson for U2 recently denied that the band have pushed back the release date of their 13th studio album to 2015. Investigations by Billboard suggested that the band would now be releasing their new LP next year. It reported that the band had booked further studio time with producers Paul Epworth and Ryan Tedder, who would join the project’s main producer Danger Mouse.

Speaking to The Guardian, a spokesperson for the band flatly denied the claims, saying: “U2’s album is planned for this year (2014), is still on track and touring plans haven’t been confirmed yet.”

Queen drummer Roger Taylor has discussed forming a Queen tribute band.

Taylor auditioned for members of the band – called The Queen Extravaganza – online and they are fronted by a French Canadian singer called Marc Martel. Taylor does not perform in the band, but has previously acted as their musical producer. “I spent some weeks with them in Canada rehearsing but they’ve found out what works and what they’re good at, they’ve got some brilliant arrangements of a lot of our old stuff and I’ve sort of let them get on with it now,” he said in a new interview with The Express. “It’s great – I just go and see them occasionally and they’re wonderful.”

The Queen Extravaganza performed on the final episode of American Idol in 2012 and then toured North America. They will tour the UK later this year, playing 14 dates in September. Speaking about other Queen tribute acts, Taylor commented: “Of the Queen tributes, some of them are very funny and some of them are really not funny at all. The terrible ones are cheesy and panto-like, more about dressing up in a Brian May wig and a Freddie Mercury moustache and what they’re missing out is the fact that the music is quite complicated and actually not easy to perform.”

Meanwhile, Queen musical We Will Rock You will retire from London’s West End stage after 12 years. The hit stage production will close on May 31 having first opened in May 2002. We Will Rock You is one of the 10 longest running musicals ever and it is estimated that 16 million people around the world, 6.5 million of those in London, have seen the production in one of the 28 countries it has been performed in.

Speaking about the decision to cease production, co-creators Brian May, Roger Taylor and Ben Elton issued a joint statement on the official Queen website: “We want to thank every one of the many hundreds of incredible musical theatre artists, musicians and crew with whom we’ve had the privilege of working at the Dominion since 2002. And of course the incredible audiences who have rewarded them with over four and a half thousand standing ovations!”

Queen will tour the US later this year. Adam Lambert will once again step in to provide vocals.

Morrissey has released new single “Istanbul”, and a spoken-word promo in which he recites the song’s lyrics.

“Istanbul” is the latest song to be taken from Morrissey’s new album World Peace Is None Of Your Business.

It’s the third song from the album, following the title track and “The Bullfighter Dies”, to have a special spoken-word version filmed. The song can be downloaded via iTunes now, and the video can be seen below.

The tracklisting for World Peace Is None of Your Business is:

‘World Peace Is None Of Your Business’

‘Oboe Concerto’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7fOJZ68gc0

There’s plenty to shout about in the new UNCUT, which goes on sale this Friday, May 23. First of all, we have an exclusive new interview with PAUL WELLER, as he prepares for the release of MORE MODERN CLASSICS, a compilation drawing on tracks from the last 15 years of his illustrious career, a period during which his music has become increasingly more adventurous and unpredictable.

Most artists would probably have taken the release of such a retrospective as an opportunity to reflect nostalgically on past achievements. But Weller as he’s got older seems ever more restless and less inclined to look back when looking forward he currently has so much more to offer. Not long after he recently met Uncut and said what he had to say – about how the record business has changed and not always in good ways, the redundancy of box sets, politics, The Jam, the sci-fi memoir he may or may not be writing and his enduring love of making music – he was sitting in his car, giving us an exclusive preview of three new tracks he’s been working on.

Next up, there’s BOB DYLAN. In the first of a major two-part look at what in many respects turned out to be the weirdest and most controversial decade in his career, many of his old collaborators reconsider Dylan’s 1980s, a time during which he embraced apocalyptic Christianity and otherwise saw his popularity and critical standing reduced to almost nothing, and discover a trove of neglected music.

Elsewhere, let’s hear it for country legend DOLLY PARTON, who we meet in Nashville, and the great New Orleans pianist, arranger, songwriter and producer, ALLEN TOUSSAINT, who was interviewed by Richard Williams during a recent residency at Ronnie Scott’s.

In particularly exciting news, CLIFF RICHARD was persuaded to contribute to this month’s issue and talks about the making of “Apache” by THE SHADOWS, whose guitarists HANK MARVIN and BRUCE WELCH are also on hand with their memories of recording this landmark track in British rock music.

In our regular Album By Album feature, BLACK SABBATH – that is, OZZY OSBOURNE, TONY IOMMI and GEEZER BUTLER – talk us through their greatest albums, while Hollywood actor and general all round dude HARRY DEAN STANTON answers your questions in An Audience With and the redoubtable SHARON VAN ETTEN appears in My Life In Music.

Across 40 pages of reviews, meanwhile, you can read about new albums from JACK WHITE, NEIL YOUNG, DAVE and PHIL ALVIN, FIRST AID KIT, THE FELICE BROTHERS,, BOB MOULD and CONOR OBERST, plus major reissues from LED ZEPPELIN, MOGWAI and MORISSEY. There’s also a report from THE GREAT ESCAPE FESTIVAL, where the Uncut stage hosted performances from THE HOLD STEADY, COURTNEY BARRETT, ETHAN JOHNS and TRANS.

There’s quite a bit to yell about there, I think. Enjoy the issue. And if you’ve got anything you want to say about it, don’t forget to give me a shout. You can reach me at allan_jones@ipcmedia.com.

Pink Floyd are releasing a 20th anniversary box set of The Division Bell.

The box set features six discs, including three replica coloured or clear vinyl discs, 5 collectors’ prints, a Blu-ray disc and for the first time Andy Jackson’s 5.1 audio mix of The Division Bell.

The box set will be released on June 30.

Released in 1994, The Division Bell was the last studio album to be released by the band, who consisted of David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright

The Division Bell 20th anniversary box set tracklisting:

Disc 1 – LP

Original album, remastered for vinyl in 2014 from the original analogue masters. Includes full-length tracks across 2-LP’s for the first time.

Disc 2 – Blu-Ray (all previously unreleased)

– 2014 Marooned video – directed by Aubrey Powell with stereo and 5.1 audio soundtracks

– 5.1 audio mix of The Division Bell by Andy Jackson in 96khz/ 24-bit

– HD audio stereo mix of The Division Bell by James Guthrie 96khz/ 24-bit

Disc 3

Red vinyl 7” single Take It Back (edit) / Astronomy Domine (live)

Replica 7” red vinyl in picture sleeve

Disc 4

Clear vinyl 7” single High Hopes (edit) / Keep Talking (edit)

Replica 7” clear vinyl in picture sleeve plus poster bag

Disc 5

Blue Vinyl 12” single High Hopes / Keep Talking / One Of These Days (live)

Replica 12” blue vinyl, laser etched design on reverse, picture sleeve. Includes 7 collectible film cards in a wallet

Disc 6 – CD Album

2011 Discovery version of The Division Bell in a new dedicated wallet

The box set will also contain 5, 26cm x 26 cm art prints designed by Hipgnosis/StormStudios.

The Science Museum in London have unveiled the centrepiece of a new installation by Aleksander Kolkowski, their Sound Artist in Residence in 2012.

The item in question is the full-size reconstruction of the giant 27ft long ‘Denman horn‘, designed in 1929 by the Museum’s then Curator of Communications, Roderick Denman, to produce the widest possible frequency range.

A popular highlight of the Museum’s daily tours in the 1930s, the horn has been rebuilt by the Museum’s Workshops team.

Kolkowski said of the horn: “This audio leviathan, seemingly primed and ready to blast through the museum walls, instead offers up a uniquely immersive aural experience, one in which sounds and voices from the past and present converge.”

The Exponential Horn: In Search of Perfect Sound runs at the Science Museum from May 20 – July 27. You can find more details here.

Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy is set to release a solo album.

Details of the album are still to be announced, but, Pitchfork reports, Tweedy will be playing songs from the album on a solo North American tour, set to start at Detroit’s Masonic Temple on June 5 and finishing up at the Newport Folk Festival in July.

Tweedy will be backed by a new band on the tour, with son Spencer Tweedy on drums, Jim Elkington on guitar, Darin Gray on bass and Liam Cunningham on keys.

Tweedy recently made a guest appearance in US TV series Parks And Recreation. Tweedy appeared as the frontman of a fictional band called Land Ho!, who was lobbied by Amy Poehler’s character, government worker Leslie Knope.

Wilco released their latest album The Whole Love in 2011. It followed their 2009 self-titled release.

Led Zeppelin look set to face legal action over claims that their 1971 song “Stairway To Heaven” is copied a 1968 track by Spirit.

Lawyer Francis Alexander Molofiy is attempting to block the forthcoming re-release of Led Zeppelin IV, stating that his client – late Spirit guitarist, Randy Alexander – should be given a writing credit on the track, as it resembles Spirit’s 1968 song “Taurus”, reports Rolling Stone. He has said he will be seeking a copyright infringement lawsuit.

“The idea behind this is to make sure that Randy California is given a writing credit on ‘Stairway To Heaven’,” said Malofiy to Bloomberg Businessweek. “Its been a long time coming.”

Mark Andes of Spirit says Led Zeppelin would have heard “Taurus” when the two bands were on tour together in the late 1960s. “…it would typically come after a big forceful number and always got a good response. They would have seen it in that context,” he said. Speaking about the time lapse between the alleged plagiarism and legal action, he added: “The clarity seems to be a present-day clarity, not at the time of infringement. I can’t explain it. It is fairly blatant, and note for note. It would just be nice if the Led Zeppelin guys gave Randy a little nod. That would be lovely.” California’s family stated that they waited so long to take legal action as they could not previously afford it.

Rolling Stone says that a representative for the band has refused to comment on the case. The band will reissue their first three albums next month.

A guitar previously owned and played by George Harrison has sold for £390,653 at auction.

The black-and-white 1962 Rickenbacker 425 was bought in Mount Vernon, Illinois in 1963 and was used by Harrison during performances that same year on shows Ready Steady Go! and Thank Your Lucky Stars. It was also played in the studio during the sessions which resulted in the recordings of “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “This Boy” in October 1963.

The guitar was sold by Julien’s Auctions in New York on May 17, reports Reuters. The auction also saw the sale of a placard covered in doodles and signed by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, from their “bed-in” protest, which sold for £111,190, and a Hofner bass rented by Paul McCartney, which sold for £74,325.

Meanwhile, Richard Lester’s film A Hard Day’s Night is to be re-released in cinemas and on DVD. The 1964 film has been fully restored and will be in cinemas and available to download on July 4. A limited edition DVD and Blu-ray release will follow on July 21.