JOE JACKSON will be out with a new Album and Tour this Fall.
Joe Jackson will be a busy man this fall when the eclectic British artist releases his first album of original music in seven years and heads out on tour.
Jackson, best known for the '80s hits "Stepping Out" and "Breaking Us in Two," releases Fast Forward on October 2nd. Drawn from sessions recorded in New York, Amsterdam, Berlin and New Orleans, it uses different backing players from each city. There's only one guest vocalist, 14-year-old Mitchell Sink from the Broadway musical Matilda.
Song wise, it's mostly originals, along with a cover of the 1930s German cabaret song "Good Bye Jonny." A preview of the track "A Little Smile" has been posted on YouTube.
Jackson's tour will stop in Washington 10/23 at the Lincoln Theatre (Pollstar)
FOO FIGHTERS: You Say It's Your Birthday?
Dave Grohl continues to take his "nicest guy in rock" title seriously.
His latest good deeds took place at Foo Fighters Toronto show last week. Early in the concert, he spotted a six-year-old who, it turned out, was attending her first concert. He pulled her out of the crowd during "Walk" and had her stand on the side of the stage for the duration of the song. But he wasn't done there.
Later on, he spotted a fan holding a sign that said it was his birthday and asked if he could play drums with the band. Guess who pulled him out of the crowd and gave him the chance to live out his dream. Grohl warned the new 18-year-old, Anthony Bifolchi, "If you suck on the drums, I will personally tar and feather your ass backstage." Not to worry. The kid delivered the goods on "Big Me" and everyone went home happy.
TOM PETTY: Regrets Over "Rebels"
With the controversy over the Confederate flag dominating the headlines lately, Tom Petty has weighed in about his decision to use it while promoting his 1985 song "Rebels" off his Southern Accents album.
He has written an essay for Rolling Stone in which he says he remembers fans coming to his shows wearing flag bandanas and having it be on other clothing. "Fortunately, that went away, but it left me feeling stupid... People just need to think about how it looks to a black person. It's just awful. It's like how a swastika looks to a Jewish person. It just shouldn't be on flagpoles.
Beyond the flag issue, we're living in a time that I never thought we'd see. The way we're losing black men and citizens in general is horrific. What's going on in society is unforgivable. As a country, we should be more concerned with why the police are getting away with targeting black men and killing them for no reason. That's a bigger issue than the flag.”
WEEZER: Rivers' TV Pilot Grounded
Rivers Cuomo's plan to become king of another medium has been sidetracked -- after FOX decided to pass on the pilot for his proposed scripted series, DeTour.
The Weezer frontman was working on a potential series about a rock star who abandons the limelight to get a college degree, an echo of his own experience of attending Harvard off-and-on for many years. Rivers tells Vulture, "DeTour did not get picked up, so that whole chapter is closed. It’s weird. In music, if you make an album and your label decides not to put it out, you can bring it to another label and sometimes it can be a big success... In TV, I’ve learned, it’s not like that. The pilot was made, completely finished, and we can’t show it to anybody! No one will ever see it. It’s a huge waste of money.”
TAYLOR SWIFT, LORDE: Taylor Gets "Royals" Visit In D.C.
No one expected "Royals" at a Taylor Swift concert in our nation's capital -- but there it was.
Lorde made the 19-hour flight from Auckland to Washington D.C. to join her gal pal onstage last night (Monday) at Nationals Park, where the two hooked up on the New Zealander's
Grammy-winning song.
Afterward, they both took to Instagram. Taylor wrote, "When your friend flies across the world to surprise your crowd with 'Royals' because she's a wondrous angel." And Lorde captioned a photo of the two, "Looking over at my girl like, 'Can u believe this is the kind of fun stuff we get to do for a living?' THANKS TAY AND D.C. GETTING TO SING FOR U TONIGHT RULED."
Lorde also wrote on Twitter, "I’m gonna talk more about the show when I see it in full tomorrow. Be prepared for live tweeting and/or a long reference-heavy Tumblr post, but seriously, @taylorswift13 is the leader of a great and beautiful galaxy that I’d live in forever.”
There was one slight mishap in Taylor's galaxy during the show, though. A mechanical malfunction left her stuck up on a platform with no way down. She toughed it out, however, telling the crowd, "In the meantime, I’m gonna sing a song for you called 'Clean' and I hope you’ll sing along.”
T plays Nationals Park again tonight (Tuesday).
