May 30th
Riot Fest has announced its lineup for its 15 anniversary edition. Punk-pop group Blink-182 and thrash heroes Slayer, on their farewell tour, are set to headline the live event. The Raconteurs, Rise Against and Bikini Kill are set to flesh out the rest of the Riot Fest roster. Ween, Patti Smith, Taking Back Sunday, Patti Smith, Taking Back Sunday, Violent Femmes, Violent Femmes, Bloc Party, Against Me!, Manchester Orchestra, the Flaming Lips are also among those invited to perform in the festival.
In related news, Blink-182 may be due a line-up change, albeit a rather expected one. Former singer/guitarist Tom DeLonge spoke to radio station 91X about the chances of a reunion between himself and bassist/vocalist Mark Hoppus and drummer Travis Barker.
“Yes everybody, I will play with Blink again. That’s the whole plan. I talk to Travis [Barker] all the time and I talked to Mark [Hoppus] just the other day. We’re always discussing what makes sense and when,” DeLonge says.
It’s unclear whether the rest of the Blink-182 camp has received the memo. DeLonge left the group in 2015 among noted acrimony. Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba was recruited as DeLonge’s replacement. Under the new lineup, the group has released one studio album, toured extensively, and is getting ready to release a new album this year (single Blame it on my youth precedes it). Previous reports suggested that Tom DeLonge, who is is keeping himself busy with his space exploration project, is still a shareholder in the Blink-182 brand and expects that he will someday play with the group once more.
May 28th
The Mars Volta may be reforming. That, if we are to believe a currently deleted tweet by TMV singer, Cedric Bixler-Zavala. The musician responded to a request from a fan, asking for the band to group. Zavala wrote back “It’s happening”. He then went on to say he had worked on new music with Mars Volta guitarist Omar Rodríguez-López, to whom he jokingly referred to as “Puerto Rican Bernie Sanders.”
The Mars Volta are considered one of the most important alternative metal groups of all time. The group was active between the years 2001 and 2012. They recorded six studio albums during that time.
The group’s seeds lie in another trailblazing alternative rock band, At The Drive-In. Both
Rodríguez-López and Bixler-Zavala had been members of the famous post-hardcore group. Upon dissolution of the Mars Volta, the two continued to collaborate in the group Antemasque, as well as reuniting At The Drive-In for shows and a new studio album. News of a Mars Volta reunion is yet to be confirmed officially.
May 27th
It is shaping up to be a marvelous summer for fans of the Cure anxious to catch the goth-rockers live shows this summer. The legendary group, who is preparing to release a brand new album, is also celebrating 30 years since the release of Disintegration, one of the band’s most celebrated albums.
The Cure’s first stop on their world tour, in Sydney, saw the band play
Disintegration in its entirety together with a number of rarities. These included songs such as:
No Heart, Esten, Babble, Fear of Ghosts, Out of Mind, Delirious Night and Pirate Ships (originally by Wendy Weldman).
Earlier this year, singer/guitarist Robert Smith announced the group would be releasing their first album since 2008’s 4:13 Dream. The singer described the album as
“dark” and “incredibly intense,
May 24th
No updates on who is to replace Chris Fehn for the role of percussionist in alternative metal/nu metal outfit Slipknot. Fehn parted ways with the group earlier this year over financial disagreements. Band leader, Clown, was recently asked by reporters at Kerrang Magazine about the identity of the new band member. “The position you may or may not be talking about is nobody’s fucking business,” he responded. He went on to say that the group’s fans would witness the changes on the band’s upcoming tour. Slipknot are set to release a new album on August 9th tentatively titled We are not your kind.
May 23rd
It has been announced that a tribute to the late Pete Shelley is due to be held at the Royal Albert Hall in London on June 21st. The Buzzcocks‘ legendary guitarist is set to be honored by members of bands such as the Damned, Penetration, Sonic Youth, the Charlatans and more.
You can see the great pop-punk band miming to one of their best songs on the popular British TV show, Top of the Pops.
May 22nd
Morrissey is set a new album featuring exclusively covers of some of his favorite songs. The artists whose songs are being covered include Bod Dylan, Laure Nyro, or Carly Simon. It is the follow up 2017’s Low in High School. Initial reviews for the album, from magazines such as NME and MOJO, are mostly critical, a rarity for one of the critics’ darlings.
Kurt Cobain‘s popularity shows no signs of going into decline. Vetements, a fashion collection, has caught the ire of Courtney Love, singer of the band Hole and widow of Cobain. Fashion designer Demna Gvasalia made the decision to incorporate a t-shirt model made famous by Cobain into her collection. The shirt in question has the the words: “Corporate magazines still suck A LOT.” Sans the words “A LOT”, the same shirt was worn by Cobain on the cover of Nirvana’s appearance on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. Supporters of Gvasalia have pointed out, however, that the artist’s work is known to appropriate various well known images. It is as yet unclear whether Love will attempt to take legal action against the fashion line.
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