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Elvis Costello, Lucinda Williams, and many other musicians will recreate Bob Dylan’s 1975 masterpiece Blood on the Tracks onstage at a 50th anniversary concert next month, joined by three of the album’s original musicians. The Jan. 24 tribute concert, Shelter From the Storm, is organized by the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and will take place in that city’s Cain’s Ballroom.

Actor Luke Wilson is set to host the evening, which will feature a complete performance of the album, plus other selections from Dylan’s catalog. The...

It’s been 12 years since Nick Lowe released a new album, but the venerated 75-year-old rock & roll sophisticate is back on his game with Indoor Safari. It’s an album of clever, lovingly crafted tunes steeped in Fifties rockabilly and the early-Sixties British Invasion greats, sounds he’s been channeling and reinventing since he was a leader of the U.K. pub-rock and punk scene in the mid-1970s. He sets the tone with “Went to a Party,” an image of an older gentleman throwing on his suit and boldly...

With Run The Series, The A.V. Club examines film franchises, studying how they change and evolve with each new installment.

Inspired by the sudden and tragic death of his fiancée, James O’Barr’s pitch-black comic series The Crow was plenty dark before Hollywood came calling. The story of Eric Draven,...

Music has always been one of, if not the most, important parts of The Crow franchise. Dating back to James O’Barr’s original comic, the artist included lyrics by Joy Division and Robyn Hitchcock to help evoke the gothic moodiness of Eric Draven. That comic even has a soundtrack album: Fears & Bullets.

“Honest to god,” says Dave Rawlings, “we could talk about this album for a week.”

Rawlings and Gillian Welch would be the first to admit that it’s difficult to discuss their landmark third album Time (The Revelator) without launching into a thousand tangents. Every one of its 10 songs, every raw emotion the duo channeled into the record, every one of their failed attempts to record the album — each of these could be the subject of its own lengthy interview. Each backstory has its own backstory, its wheel inside a wheel.

Perhaps the only genre ever to be named after its fans’ level of educational attainment, “college rock” was exactly what the name implied: smart, fun music perfect for hanging out and drinking beer, ideally on a Friday afternoon in fall just after your last class was over. College rock got its start at the close of the Seventies in Athens, Georgia, with the insanely original dance-punk band Pylon; soon it came to be defined by the sweet, cryptic guitar jangle of R.E.M., who went on to help define Nineties alt-rock as well.

Jeff Tweedy has dropped a bizarre, star-studded video for “Gwendolyn,” a track off his upcoming solo album Love Is the King, out October 23rd via dBpm Records.

Conceptualized by Tweedy and directed by​ Jamie Fleischel from Picture Show​, the clip opens with Tweedy wearing a mask while he gets his hair combed. As he takes the covering off, several familiar faces are shown in place of his: Jon Hamm, Elvis Costello, Fred Armisen, Seth Meyers, Courtney Barnett, Alex Winter, Jay Som, Tavi Gevinson, Abbi Jacobson, Norah Jones, Nick Offerman, Jeff Garlin,...

Gearing up for the release of Blonde on the Tracks, her album of Bob Dylan covers, Emma Swift has dropped a tender rendition of “Queen Jane Approximately.”

A highlight from 1965’s Highway 61 Revisited, Swift’s cover showcases her delicate vocals over a 12-string Rickenbacker guitar. The video, which features animation and photos by Hugh Hales-Tooke, contains imagery from Dylan’s 1975-1976 Rolling Thunder Revue tour. He appears as a full moon in his iconic whiteface makeup, as Swift views him through a telescope.

“The idea for the album came about during a long depressive phase,...

In our new series, we look at eight cities where live music has exploded — from legendary hubs like Chicago and Nashville, to rising hot spots like Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Raleigh, North Carolina. The latest is a left-field surprise: Portland, Maine, which is drawing promoters from major cities and ambitious young songwriters.

Every November, more than a dozen top musicians from Portland, Maine, take over the local State Theatre for an ambitious trip back in time: They play a Beatles album in full. This year, it was the White Album; bandleader...

I don’t remember exactly when I met Cameron Crowe, but I know it was sometime in the 1970s. I was a 19-year-old rock critic writing for the Los Angeles Times, which might have been a big deal except that Cameron was a 17-year-old writing for Rolling Stone. If one were to grade by the curve, I suppose I was a slacker.

But when people who aren’t of a certain age find out about my rock ‘n’ roll past, the standard response is, “Oh, ‘Almost Famous?'” And my reply is always the same: “No, I’m almost ‘Almost Famous.'”

By arriving a couple of years later and a couple of years older than Cameron, I missed much of the era depicted in the movie — by the time I was going on the road with rock bands for Rolling Stone, things weren’t as freewheeling and my stories...

The 30A Songwriters Festival will return to the panhandle of Florida January 17th, 2020, with an all-star group of artists set to perform. Among them are formidable tunesmiths who represent a range of genres, including John Prine, Brian Wilson, Indigo Girls, and Tanya Tucker.

With 200-plus artists on tap to perform during the four-day festival, the 30A Songwriters Festival will be spread across 30 venues bordering the Gulf of Mexico before it wraps on January 20th. Wilson will bring his nine-piece band to perform some of his Beach Boys classics, and Prine...

Riverdale leans heavily into its noir side in a hugely entertaining outing.

This Riverdale review contains spoilers.

Riverdale Season 3 Episode 11

"Forget it Jughead, it's Riverdale."

Say what you will about Riverdale, but one thing the show never shies away from is a willingness to experiment with its formula. Just like last season's musical installment or the recent flashback episode, "The Black Dahlia" had the show shaking up the status quo by doing its own take on film noir. Thematically, this is the easily most succesful genre homage to date because it so skillfully adapts itself to Jughead's hard boiled (and often deeply silly) narration. Thusly, the following monologue which opened up this latest chapter:

"Riverdale. Once a safe, decent, innocent place had become Noirtown. Like the setting of a Raymond Chandler story -- filled with dames to kill for, postmen who like to ring twice, and more mobsters than a Scorcese retrospective at the Bijou.

Sheryl Crow, Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires are among the artists scheduled to perform at a concert and voter turnout rally in Nashville. Set for Saturday, October 20th, the event dubbed “Party at the Polls” will culminate with a half-mile march to a downtown Nashville polling location, where those registered in Davidson County can participate in early voting.

Singer-songwriter Lucie Silvas, gospel artist Jonathan McReynolds and folk singer Gabriel Kelley are also slated to perform. Five students from Parkland, Florida — members of the March for Our Lives movement — will also...

Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the National, TV on the Radio and more have created custom Tidal playlists of their favorite Velvet Underground songs for The Velvet Underground Experience, a multimedia exhibition on the band coming to New York that has officially partnered with Tidal.

The music that Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison and Moe Tucker made together, starting with their classic 1967 debut, The Velvet Underground & Nico, has been a crucial influence on generations of rock & roll dreamers and art-world rebels. Brian Eno famously said that...

With the 2018 midterms a mere 35 days away, there’s a fury of voter registration and empowerment events erupting across the country: in Nashville, Faith Hill led a rally just last week with the nonpartisan When We All Vote and, on Wednesday, a consortium of local artists and venues have joined together for the free East Nashville Get Out the Vote Festival.

Anchored by a night of performances at the Basement East featuring Jd McPherson, Charlie Worsham, John Osborne of Brothers Osborne, Robyn Hitchcock, Kyle Daniel, Alanna Royale and more, the...

Robyn Hitchcock has long been known both for his open-minded creativity and for his love for psychedelic music and imagery. In a new video for his Robyn Hitchcock track “Sayonara Judge,” Hitchcock and director Hugh Hales-Tooke, who have known each other since Hitchcock’s days with the Soft Boys in the mid-Seventies, channel that psychedelic spirit to trippy effect.

“I first saw Robyn Hitchcock in my hometown, Cambridge, in 1976,” Hales-Tooke tells Rolling Stone Country. “He was playing with a fairly early incarnation of the Soft Boys. It seemed fitting for...

“Juliet, Naked” charmed the roof off the Eccles Theater at the Sundance Film Festival when it premiered there in January, and no wonder.

Jesse Peretz’s adaptation of the Nick Hornby novel is a lovely low-key comedy with a rock ‘n’ roll heart, with Rose Byrne, Chris O’Dowd and Ethan Hawke delivering a trio of deftly and subtly drawn performances from Hornby’s deep trough of memorable characters.

Hornby’s books have been adapted into the commercial and critical successes “High Fidelity,” “Fever Pitch” and “About a Boy.”

Also Read: 'The Children Act' Film Review: Emma Thompson Grapples With Conscience in Sluggish Legal Drama

“Juliet, Naked” is the story of Annie, a British woman in her late 30s whose longtime boyfriend, Duncan, is one of the leaders of a somewhat motley online community of music lovers and nutcases that has grown up around the slim but influential output of one Tucker Crowe,...

Jonathan Demme's death at the age of 73 prompted an outpouring of online memorials from film lovers who remembered the Oscar-winning director for his varied career: everything from the chilling, intelligent thriller The Silence of the Lambs to the brittle 2008 indie drama Rachel Getting Married. But for music fans, those highlights don't even scratch the surface of what cemented his legacy.

It's not hyperbole to say that Demme was arguably the greatest concert filmmaker ever – look at the number of them that he made, the range of artists he chronicled...

Jonathan Demme, the Oscar-winning director of The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, Rachel Getting Married, and much more, died Wednesday at age of 73.

Demme’s varied career not only covered feature films; he was an accomplished director of concert films and documentaries as well, working with an equally diverse array of talent, from Oprah Winfrey and Laura Dern to Justin Timberlake and Spalding Gray.

As news of the filmmaker’s death continues to spread, celebrities and influencers within the entertainment industry have begun sharing their reactions on social media. See a selection of remembrances below

Very sad to hear of...

Showtime has canceled Cameron Crowe's first television series Roadies, his music drama about the behind-the-scenes crews that bring tours to life, after one season.

Writer and director Crowe announced the cancellation in a post on his The Uncool site. "Though we could tell a thousand more stories, this run ends with a complete ten-hour tale of music and love," Crowe wrote. "Like a song that slips under your skin, or a lyric that keeps speaking to you, we hope the spell of Roadies lingers. It was life-changing experience for all of us.

In 2007, after returning to the music scene with the full E Street Band, Bruce Springsteen released the critically- and commercially-adored album, “Magic.” A fierce and cutting portrait of American disillusionment from track to track, the music marked a high point for the legendary rocker’s resurgent post-9/11 work, but it also signified the politically-progressive singer’s most pessimistic take on a society he’s been writing about — and representing — since the late ’60s.

Then, just two years later, the insightful artist released an album that could very well be his most hopeful ever, certainly since his return to prominence. While infectiously enthusiastic and admirably experimental, “Land of Hope and Dreams” was a significant step down in caliber compared to “Magic.” But it was what reflected our mass perspective in 2009, and more than that, it was what we needed to hear.

Assuming we survive the upcoming election unscathed, we’ll remain...

Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me is the latest of a recent crop of buzzworthy documentaries that introduces viewers to talented artists who struggled to find mainstream success when their music was originally released. The story of Memphis rockers Big Star includes incredible artistic achievements followed by snowballing bad luck. When band members Alex Chilton, Chris Bell, Jody Stephens and Andy Hummel formed in 1971, Chilton was reinventing himself a few years after having a #1 hit single at the tender age of 16 with "The Letter" (by his previous band The Box Tops).  

Everything about the early days of Big Star predicted great things to come. After recording their debut album, the cheekily titled "#1 Record", at Ardent Studios in Memphis, the album's release was set to be distributed as one of the first rock albums on Ardent's record label deal through the legendary Stax Records. That label had just signed a deal with Columbia Records,...

Son of Rogue's Gallery, a compilation of songs from the seafaring tradition, will feature a grizzled crew including Keith Richards, Michael Stipe, Nick Cave and Shane MacGowan

Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, Tom Waits and the Pogues' Shane MacGowan are among the contributors to a new compilation of pirate ballads. The grizzled, A-list crew was assembled by Johnny Depp, who performs on the album, and the people behind the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

First, some more names. Among the hearties who are shivering timbers on Son of Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs and Chanteys: Tom Waits with Keith Richards, Michael Stipe with Courtney Love, Nick Cave, Broken Social Scene, Marianne Faithful with the McGarrigle sisters, Sissy Bounce with Akron/Family, Beth Orton, Macy Gray and Sean Lennon.

The two-disc set, due next year, is the sequel to a compilation from 2006. There too, Pirates producer Hal Willner manned the tiller.

The key to any voyage into the twangy depths of this weekend's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival is planning.

San Francisco's annual free celebration of bluegrass (and also not bluegrass) in Golden Gate Park, now in its 12th consecutive year, has gotten so popular that shuttling between stages to see all of your favorite bands can prove virtually impossible. Instead, the best idea is often just to get there early, pick a spot near the stage you're most interested in and stay there for the long haul.

(Scroll Down For Playlist And Lineup)

While the lineup was announced months ago, the actual full schedule, complete with set times, was only released recently. Essential planning's gotta all be done Right This Very Second.

Our top recommendations are Ben Kweller, Buddy Miller, Robert Earl Keen, The Dirty Three, the Heartless Bastards, Son Volt and Les Claypool's Duo De Twang. If you're curious as to why this is exciting,...

A few days ago, Relativity Music Group released the soundtrack to Paranorman, which is out in theaters today. The soundtrack is from singer-songwriter Jon Brion, and is streaming all week on AOL Music and MSN Music and can be purchased from iTunes here. We have the press release straight from Relativity Music below:

Los Angeles, CA - August 14th: The soundtrack to ParaNorman by famed composer, record producer, and singer-songwriter Jon Brion is available today, August 14th from Relativity Music Group. The new stop-motion animated comedy thriller, will be released in theaters everywhere on Friday, August 17th. The soundtrack is streaming all week on AOL Music and MSN Music and is available for purchase on iTunes here: http://bit.ly/ParaNormanITUNES.

When a small town comes under siege by zombies, who can it call? “Norman!” From Focus Features and Laika, the companies behind the Academy Award-nominated animated feature Coraline, comes the comedy thriller ParaNorman.

In Neil Young Journeys, Academy Award winning filmmaker Jonathan Demme embarks on a road trip with Young in his 1956 Crown Victoria as he drives from his idyllic hometown of Omemee, Ontario to downtown Toronto's iconic Massey Hall to perform the last two nights of his solo world tour. A long-time fan and collaborator, Demme captures Young recounting insightful and introspective tales of his childhood and masterfully weaves them together with his mesmerizing music including songs from the 2010 album Le Noise and powerful renditions of earlier Young classics. Through the tunes and the tales, Demme portrays a personal, retrospective look into the heart and soul of the artist. We sat down at a roundtable interview with Demme to talk about the inspiration behind his most recent collaboration with Young. He told us what attracts him to artists like Young, David Byrne and Robyn Hitchcock who write words that are almost scripts in themselves,...

Yep Roc Reocrds has announced that it will be celebrating its 15th anniversary with Yep Roc 15, a three-night concert in North Carolina, where the artist-driven label has called home since it was founded in 1997. The event will take place October 11-13 at the Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, N.C., and will feature performances by Yep Roc artists such as Nick Lowe, Chuck Prophet, Robyn Hitchcock, Fountains of Wayne and others....

In so much as I was ever raised, I was raised on television. So I once again had a total blast working on "The TV Land Awards " that airs tonight on TV Land at 9 p.m./8 Cst. Beautifully hosted by Kelly Ripa -- who I first fell in love with on TV -- this year's show features cast reunions from the stars of Murphy Brown, Laverne & Shirley, In Living Color and One Day At A Time. Pee Wee Herman is also honored, as is The Queen of Soul herself, Aretha Franklin, who performs wonderfully and, yes, soulfully. In honor of this grand annual TV event that celebrates TV so well, here's my playlist for tonight's great TV party. As always please add your own tubular tracks below.

"The Sun Always Shines on TV" -- a-Ha

"I Saw It on TV" -- John Fogerty

"Portable Television" -- Death Cab For Cutie...

In recent years guitarist Peter Buck, the David Straithairn of rock, has put in time as a member of the Minus 5, the indie supergroup the Baseball Project, and the Venus 3, Robyn Hitchcock's touring band. The main element all these jobs had in common is Scott McCaughey, former Young Fresh Fellow and semi-official member of the primary focus of Buck's adult life, R.E.M. (McCaughey was brought in to tour with the group during the Monster tour in 1994 and stuck around, in one capacity or another, until their official dissolution last year.) McCaughey was on ...

College rock icons-turned-radio rock legends R.E.M. may have called it quits last year, but prolific guitarist Peter Buck is soldiering on, working on his debut solo album. Buck, who often spent his downtime playing with multiple side projects including the Warren Zevon-led Hindu Love Gods, The Minus 5, The Baseball Project, and Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3, is putting together songs for an upcoming record. Minus 5 bandmate (and frequent R.E.M. contributor) Scott McCaughey told a Seattle radio station that, while no release date has been set yet, known vinyl enthusiast Buck plans to release the collection on LP only...

God bless the recent renaissance of funny music videos. If artists are going to spend a bunch of money making something that will never air on TV, then they might as well make something the Internet will love and laugh over, right? Nick Lowe drew from the ha-ha pile for his new video for “Sensitive Man,” which is a track off of his latest record, The Old Magic. Lowe and Director Scott Jacobson recruited some comedy A- and B-listers like Marc Maron, The Venture Brothers’ James Urbaniak, and Tim Heidecker, as well as musical heavy hitters like Robyn Hitchcock and ...

British rock stalwart Nick Lowe hadn't made a music video in 18 years, but in producing a video for his new song "Sensitive Man," which premiered today on NPR.org, Lowe went an unusual route -- casting a bunch of American comedians.

Lowe, whose colorful life in rock-and-roll includes producing Elvis Costello's first five albums, marrying a daughter of June Carter Cash and penning the hit "Cruel to be Kind," released his latest album "This Old Magic" to favorable reviews in late 2011.

"Sensitive Man" was directed by Scott Jacobson, who formerly wrote for "Daily Show" and currently works on "Bob's Burgers." Jacobson took a similar route by casting comedians in other very funny, yet quietly sad videos he directed for The National and Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, among others.

This video opens with a conversation between Maria Thayer and Marc Maron (who recently interviewed Lowe on "Wtf"), introducing the idea...

End of the Road festival has made its first lineup announcements for its 2012 event. On its official website and Twitter feed, the festival confirmed its first headliners and a host of other acts. "We are really pleased to announce Grizzly Bear as a headliner for 2012, their only UK festival appearance," it said. "Tindersticks are co-headlining. "Beach House will also play a UK festival exclusive as part of our special celebration of [record label] Bella Union's 15th Anniversary." The Antlers, Jeffrey Lewis and the Junkyard, Mountain Man, Frank Fairfield, The Strange Boys, I Break Horses and Justin Townes are among the artists confirmed for the event. It will also feature Earle, Richard Buckner, First Aid Kit, Doug Paisley, Robyn Hitchcock, Stranded Horse, Outfit, Moulettes, Driver Drive Faster, Robert Ellis, (more)...

Site bested rivals like Brooklyn Vegan and Gorilla vs. Bear to take home the inaugural award.

By MTV News staff

Aquarium Drunkard

Photo: Justin Gage

Aquarium Drunkard, the Los Angeles-based site that features daily music news, interviews, reviews, MP3 samples and original music sessions, was named the winner of the inaugural O Music Awards' Best Independent Music Blog award on Tuesday (April 26).

As determined by fan voting, Ad beat out a field that included sites like BrooklynVegan.com, ArjanWrites.com and GorillaVsBear.net to win the Best Independent Music Blog title. Started in 2005 by Justin Gage, the site features contributions from everyone from My Morning Jacket's Jim James to Robyn Hitchcock, and has since spun off a record label (Autumn Tone Records), a series of live concerts, and a weekly broadcast on Sirius/Xm's Xmu channel.

Aquarium Drunkard joins a host of early O Music Award winners; Andy Grammer's...

Summer is quickly approaching. While warm weather makes most of us think beach trips, ice cream, and drinking outside, to die-hard music fans, summer means one thing: Festivals. Here's a guide to some of the shows this summer.

April

Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival 2011

Apr 15 - Apr 17, 2011

Indio, California (Empire Polo Grounds)

Line up Highlights: Arcade Fire, Kanye West, the Strokes, Animal Collective, Pj Harvey, the National, Bright Eyes, Robyn, Odd Future, Ariel Pink, Interpol, Cut Copy, Crystal Castles, Lauryn Hill, Sleigh Bells, Cee-Lo, Lightning Bolt, the reunited Big Audio Dynamite and Suede, Duran Duran, Erykah Badu, the Black Keys, Titus Andronicus, Best Coast, the Kills, the New Pornographers,

Official Website

May

Atp Curated by Animal Collective 2011

May 13 - May 15, 2011

Minehead, England (Butlins Holiday Centre)

Line up Highlights: Animal Collective, Gang Gang Dance, Lee Scratch Perry, Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, Broadcast, Black Dice, Meat Puppets, The Frogs.

Official Website

Sasquatch!

Who doesn't want to see a comedy about porn stars?

Elektra Luxx is a new comedy from writer and director Sebastian Gutierrez. Carla Gugino (Sucker Punch, Spy Kids) stars as Elektra Luxx, a woman attempting to transition from adult film star to functioning adult. The quirky comedy also stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Inception, (500) Days of Summer), Emmanuelle Chriqui (Entourage), Adrianne Palicki (Friday Night Lights), Timothy Olyphant (Justified), and Justin Kirk (Weeds) and features original music by Robyn Hitchcock. The film premiered at SXSW last year where it received rave reviews.

Next Showing: Elektra Luxx comes out March 11 in select cities

Link | Posted 2/12/2011 by reelz

Carla Gugino | Sebastian Gutierrez | Elektra Luxx...

If it's too cold to leave the house for your local theater, there's plenty of options if you stay inside online, on demand and on DVD. What follows is your guide to all the new releases coming your way between now and April.

Online and On Demand

My French Film Festival

Thanks to bids for Oscar consideration, the winter is traditionally one of the rare times foreign films get plenty of attention in the States, particularly at West Coast festivals such as Palm Springs and Santa Barbara. However, Francophiles in particular will be excited to know you won't have to go to California or New York -- or even Paris for that matter -- to be able to catch some of the most recent cinema from France since uniFrance is unveiling My French Film Festival, which is being billed as the "first exclusively online film festival celebrating French talent" that...

Some guys buy a fancy sports car (lame). Some chase after women far too young for them (double lame, and skeezy). Others get hair plugs (absurdly lame, and gross). But Boston journalist Geoff Edgers found a much less tacky and vastly more interesting outlet for his mid-life crisis: He set out on a mission to reunite his favorite band, long dormant British rockers The Kinks. Fellow Bostonian and filmmaker Robert Patton-Spruill went along for the ride. The resulting film, Do It Again, makes its Austin premiere at Music Monday on Nov 8.

Reuniting The Kinks is a daunting task, especially since Geoff is an American, a journalist (not some music industry mogul), and his only connection to founding members Ray and Dave Davies is that he grew up loving their music. It also doesn’t help that the Davies brothers have been feuding since, well, forever. On his coast-to-coast quest, Edgers...

Durham - Once more The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival is a four day film festival that plays like it should last a week They show so many films that it’s impossible to even come close to seeing them all. Five theaters are going at once and the only repeats are the award winning movies. It’s hard to pick while going through the schedule. I’ve yet to hear anyone complain about the movie they saw so much as wishing they could have seen two or three of the other ones that were showing concurrently. This is the best festival for documentary film viewers. The 2010 edition kept up the lofty standards with films about basketball, pork, pastries, scoundrels, nomads and undiscovered superstars.

Steve James created the greatest film about the dirty business of Chicago high school basketball in Hoop Dreams. Espn gave him a chance to look into...

By Sean O’Connell

The Kinks, to me, were a second-tier rock outfit. That’s not a slight against the band. Several of their hits, from “Lola,” “All Day and All of the Night” and “Tired of Waiting for You” to “You Really Got Me,” became part of pop culture’s conscience. They just never attained the same level of popularity and mainstream success as legendary first-tier rockers The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones or The Who.

Geoff Edgers would disagree. The Boston Globe reporter views The Kinks as one of the greatest rock and roll bands of all time. And with his 40th birthday fast approaching — the milestone of the mid-life crisis — Edgers sets a personal and professional goal. He’s going to reunite the four original members of the band, including feuding brothers Ray and Dave Davies, who haven’t spoken in years.

Robert Patton-Spruill’s documentary “Do It Again,...

Joshua Leonard joins Treatment According to Variety, Joshua Leonard, Jennifer Maas and Steven Schardt (the creators of the indie comedy Humpday) are teaming up for Treatment.

The script was written by actor-writer Sean Nelson (The Freebie). The story follows "an unsuccessful screenwriter who checks in to an exclusive rehab to pitch an A-list star his project." Leonard is going to star in the film. Maas will produce and Schardt is going to make his feature directing debut.

The cast also includes Ross Partridge, Brie Larson, Jessica Makinson and Chris Caniglia. John Hodgman, Robyn Hitchcock, Katie Aselton, Jack Betts, and Calvin Reeder will be making cameos.

Treatment is presently filming in Los Angeles.

Scottish singer KT Tunstall will be one of the headlining acts at a music festival aiming to raise awareness of a fantastic climate change organization.

Tunstall will join Graham Coxon, Kathryn Williams, Robyn Hitchcock, Liam Frost and many others for the Shift Festival at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall from January 26-31. The event will benefit Cape Farewell, an organization that has brought together leading artists, writers, scientists, educators and media for a series of expeditions into the wild and challenging High Arctic. Together they have mapped, measured and been inspired by this awesome environment and have endeavoured to bring home stories and artworks that tell how a warming planet is impacting on this wilderness.

The organization has led a number of expeditions as part of its work, and has gathered the support of stars such as Jarvis Cocker, Vanessa Carlton, Martha Wainwright and many more.

Read more...

Robyn Hitchcock does what he wants. Colin Meloy knew this when he gave the legendarily whimsical British singer/songwriter carte blanche to fiddle around on an instrumental track on The Decemberists' new album, The Hazards of Love. And I learned it myself when, while researching for Paste's May cover story, I emailed Hitchcock a few questions about his experience collaborating with the band. How and when did he first come across this relatively young Portland group? What was it like making music with the band, and especially Meloy, who'd so often cited Hitchcock as a major touchstone in his own artistic development? What did he make of their rather unusual recent musical direction? Pshh. Hitchcock tossed my humdrum queries to the wind and, between tour dates and flu recovery, wrote me the most wonderful 339-word, wildlife-invoking, punctuation-damning reply I could have never asked for. ...

Eccentric English singer-songwriter adds to his hit-or-miss catalog

As no fewer than three collections of Robyn Hitchcock reissues and rarities have been released since his last studio album (2006’s Ole! Tarantula), it appears that it’s now time to re-evaluate the famously eccentric singer-songwriter’s work. But listening to those retrospectives doesn’t provide as much perspective as one would hope, as what is most striking is how little Hitchcock has changed over the years, from his salad days at the helm of the Soft Boys through 28 years of solo albums. That’s both a strength and a weakness, of course, as his output has been consistently excellent but seldom exceptional, staying close to the John Lennon and Bob Dylan foundations upon which he has built his famous fixations with sex, food, death, and bugs. With his 16th solo album, he’s not so much competing against himself as he...

Chicago – Jonathan Demme’s “Rachel Getting Married” was easily one of the best films of 2008, featuring Oscar-worthy work by Anne Hathaway, Rosemarie DeWitt, screenwriter Jenny Lumet, and its acclaimed director. Full of energy, passion, love, and pain, “Rachel Getting Married” is a must-see, one of the few films of 2008 that will stand the test of time and the Sony DVD treats this excellent film with the respect it deserves. It’s a great release.

DVD Rating: 5.0/5.0 “Rachel Getting Married” can be a tough sell. A movie with a star known mostly for her mainstream comedies like “The Devil Wears Prada” and “Bride Wars” that’s shot with mostly handheld cameras and recreates an experience akin to being at someone else’s wedding is not the first flick most people reach for at the video store.

Rachel Getting Married was released on DVD on March 10th, 2009.

Photo credit: Sony Pictures Home Video

The truth is that,...

In spite of a violet, twilit snowscape on the cover and the title’s nocturnal farewell, Goodnight Oslo is Robyn Hitchcock’s sunniest record in ages. Recording with a gaggle of friends will do that. It’s the prolific eccentric’s second with The Venus 3—Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey, and Bill Rieflin—and guests include lead Decemberist Colin Meloy, Egyptian Morris Windsor, and Sean Nelson of Harvey Danger. Two songs even feature female backing vocals, a rarity for Hitchcock. “Saturday Groovers” best exemplifies the light mood: Its bounce is borne along by harmonies and handclaps. The good vibes go ...

English singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock has announced a tour in support of his new album Goodnight Oslo. The former Soft Boys and Egyptians frontman will follow up last year's Glastonbury performance with a series of gigs in the UK this month, kicking off in Glasgow on February 7 and finishing at The Globe in Cardiff on February 19. He will follow the dates with tours of Australia and Us with the Venus 3. Hitchcock recently announced plans to write a musical based on Clint Eastwood's Magnum Force. (more)...

There are some non-musical films that seem well-suited to theatrical adaptations. Simply throw in a few big numbers and some jazz hands and you’re there. We’re thinking Billy Elliot, The Full Monty, Shrek, even Evil Dead: The Musical seemed to embrace the silliness of the cult film it’s based on. And then there are some films that are as far removed from chorus lines and high kicks as possible. You’d think that Clint Eastwood’s grisly crime thriller Magnum Force might be one such contender. But you’d be wrong as the 1973 sequel to Dirty Harry is reportedly heading to the Great White Way…

Who would attempt such a thing? None other than British alternative rocker Robyn Hitchcock. The cult performer claims to have a long-standing passion for the film, revealing: “It’s a film that seemed to be on all the time when I was on tour.

Singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock is planning to turn "Magnum Force" into a full-blown musical!

"Magnum Force" is, of course, the 1973 sequel of "Dirty Harry" and Hitchcock, an obsessive fan, wants to turn this shoot 'em up to a song and dance extravaganza!

According to the Guardian:

Plans are reportedly afoot for the 1973 sequel to Dirty Harry, in which Clint Eastwood hunts down a vigilante cop with a penchant for murdering gangsters, to be turned into an all-singing, all-dancing production. It would follow in the footsteps of rather more comprehensible conversions such as Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Dirty Dancing, Sunset Boulevard and the world-conquering Billy Elliot.

Hitchcock revealed:

"It's a film that seemed to be on all the time when I was on tour," he said. "By the fifth time [I saw it], I became addicted to it. It's taken a very strange hold on my life."

Now keep in mind, it's just a planned stage musical for now,...

The whole movie-into-musical trend was kind of cool, at first. I'm no Broadway expert (I've seen all of two live musicals in my life, much to my regret), but I'd argue that many of them really energized the Great White Way, especially the ones by Disney (we may soon find that a whole generation of Broadway composers were inspired by that infant exposure to The Lion King). Lately though, it's just become a race to see who can take the craziest concept and get people to buy tickets. Sometimes, it's hilarious (Evil Dead), but most of the time it's just ugly.

Perhaps the death knell has sounded with this one: Magnum Force, the musical. British singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock has plans to turn it into a stage musical, with MTV executive Bill Flanagan producing. Hitchcock has had a lifelong affair with the movie -- his most recent album Ole! Tarantula featured...