Feature film about The Kinks in the works

Biopic about the legendary band to be directed by Julien Temple


A feature film about The Kinks is set to be made.

Tentatively titled 'You've Really Got Me', the film is set to explore the rocky relationship between bandmates and brothers, Ray and Dave Davies

Directed by the film and music video director Julien Temple, who has previously directed documentaries about Sex Pistols and Glastonbury, the film already has Ray Davies involved in the project.

"At the heart of it is the extraordinary love-hate relationship between these two brothers: love/hate, sibling rivalry is at the core." Julien Temple told Screen Daily. "I think it's a very rich social, cultural nexus around The Kinks. Their story is the untold story of all those big bands of the 1960s." He added.

The cast for the film, or a potential release date is yet-to-be-announced.

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Alan Parsons Project Co-Founder Dies

Classic Rock Magazine is reporting the sad news that Eric Woolfson, the man who co-founded The Alan Parsons Project along with Alan Parsons has died at the age of 64 after battling against cancer.

Woolfson was a key driving force behind The Alan Parsons Project, writing all the lyrics and contributing some lead vocals. Additionally, he wrote songs for the likes of Marianne Faithfull, Frank Ifield and The Tremeloes.

He recorded a string of albums with record producer Alan Parsons, as well as writing his own musicals and writing and producing songs for other artists.

His Facebook page was updated with this message early Wednesday: "We are very sad to have to tell you that Eric Woolfson passed away in the early hours of this morning after a long and brave battle with cancer. He very much enjoyed seeing all your kind comments and posts on this Facebook page and his family wanted to thank you for your appreciation of his work.".

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Bachman, Turner reunite for album & tour

Bachman Turner will roll on down the highway again in 2010, without the Overdrive this time!

Bachman-Turner Overdrive principals Randy Bachman and Fred Turner have reunited to record the title track of Bachman's next album, "Rock 'n' Roll is the Only Way Out," which the guitarist describes to Billboard.com as "really rootsy, really AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, really fun, eager, hungry rock 'n' roll. It sounds like we're in our 20s again."

Bachman and Turner plan to announce details of the album's release, which is expected in the fall of 2010, as well as tour plans at a press conference on December 8 in Winnipeg, Canada, where both men reside.

They won't be joined by the rest of their bandmates, however; drummer Rob Bachman (Bachman's younger brother) and guitarist Blair Thornton have filed suit to prevent the duo from using the BTO name. But Bachman said that won't prevent him and Turner - who reportedly are considering monikers such as Bachman-Turner and Bachman-Turner United - from working together.

"We've been getting offers for the last five or six years," says Bachman, who served three separate tenures in BTO. "It started in 2000, with the reunion of the Guess Who. I went to see the Eagles, and the first thing Don Henley and Joe Walsh said was, 'How's Turner? Any chance you guys will do anything?' 'Why are you interested?' 'You're the last band of the '70s that hasn't gotten back together or put something out, that's why!' Mick Jagger said the same thing when we played the SARS show in Toronto (in 2003). So we'll see what happens when my CD comes out; the first cut people are gonna hear is this cut with me and Fred singing."

Bachman and Turner had been in contact for a while before he presented the "Rock 'n' Roll is the Only Way Out" track to him. "I said, 'Fred, pick whatever vocal line you want and scream your head off, just like the old days."

Bachman - whose album also includes appearances by Neil Young and the late Jeff Healey - adds that since then Turner has given the guitarist a few of his songs to work on as well.

During its run, BTO sold an estimated 20 million albums worldwide, topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1974 with "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" and scored Top 40 hits such as "Takin' Care of Business," "Roll on Down the Highway," "Hey You" and "Let It Ride."

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Buffett goes back to roots for 'Hotel'

Jimmy Buffett says he felt a greater level of engagement on his new album, "Buffet Hotel," than he has on many of his other recent efforts.

"With a band this good and with people this good around you, you kind of get in a routine," Buffett tells Billboard.com, acknowledging that previous "listening and fixing" was done primarily by Coral Reefer Band collaborators Mike Utley and Mac McAnally. But on "Buffet Hotel," Buffett says that "we got back to doing things like we did in the old days. Instead of doing it in the afternoon, I said, 'Let's go back like we did in the old days and do those red wine and reefer vocals...at midnight.' I'd get a little buzz on red wine and get my singing chops, get in that mood, and then I'd send 'em over the Internet to Utley and Mac and say, 'Alright, I know they were midnight. You got red wine vocals there. You can throw 'em away or tell me what you think,' and they'd go, 'Do more of those!'

Buffett adds that ProTools also allowed him to keep the project going even while he was touring. "Mac and I could sit and discuss things in the hotel rooms and look in stuff that he was working on, and then I could work on 'em," he says. "I was totally involved at that level, just wanting to tweak little things...up to the end, but without beating it to death."

"Buffet Hotel" started life with the recording of the title track in Mali when Buffett attended the Festival in the Desert (and discovered the album's namesake, Hotel De La Gare Buffet, in the Bomako Train station). He also worked on the album's 12 songs in London, Nashville, Chicago, Long Island and Muscle Shoals, Ala., with songwriting contributions by Will Kimbrough, Roger Guth, Jesse Winchester and others, as well as a cover of Bruce Cockburn's "Life's Short." Buffett and company previewed several of the songs during his 2009 concerts, notably "Summerzcool" and "Surfing in a Hurricane," the first surf rock song he's ever written.

"Mac told me on the last night of the tour we'd done seven of the new songs off the album over the summer, and I'd never done that before," Buffett recalls. "Usually you're lucky to get one or two songs from a new album into the show, so it was a complete reversal."

Buffett is planning a full-scale "Buffet Hotel" tour for 2010 and intends to start the year in Australia and the Pacific Rim. He's toying with the idea of playing entire albums next year and hopes to play 1983's "One Particular Harbor" in Tahiti. He's also putting into motion into a special performance at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival with "Buffet Hotel" guests Sonny Landreth and Toumani Diabate. And while he says that he's "out of the movie business" at the moment, Buffett is working on a documentary about his trip to Mali with director Margaret Brown.

Buffett also has two books in the works, a collection of short stories set in the Pacific and "a rock 'n' roll novel" called "Mudbath" that is "based on a real-life adventure, but hopefully you won't recognize any of the characters."

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Hendrix song named best riff of all time

Voodoo Child, by Jimi Hendrix has been named the greatest guitar riff of all time, more than 40 years after he first recorded the classic jam.


Late guitar guru Hendrix, who topped the singles chart with the track in 1970, triumphed in a poll of musicians.

The track - full title Voodoo Child (Slight Return) - edged past Guns N'Roses song Sweet Child O'Mine which finished second in the poll by musicians' website MusicRadar.com.

When the site's sister magazine Total Guitar last conducted the survey five years ago, the list was headed by the G N'R song.

The list shows that the older riffs are the best. Just two from the past decade make it into the top 20 - Muse's Plug In Baby at 11 and The White Stripes' Seven Nation Army at 15.

Michael Jackson's Beat It, with its Eddie Van Halen guitar part, props up the top 20.

Voodoo Child - with its distinctive 'wah-wah' opening - was first released on Hendrix's Electric Ladyland album and led on from an earlier track, Voodoo Chile, which was a 15-minute blues jam. Confusingly, by the time it was released as a single in 1970 it too had been named Voodoo Chile.

MusicRadar.com's editor-in-chief Mike Goldsmith said: ''Nearly 40 years after his untimely death, Jimi Hendrix is still the undisputed heavyweight champion of rock guitar.

''Of the current generation of six-string stars, only Jack White of The White Stripes and Muse frontman Matt Bellamy feature in the higher echelons of our list. No surprise given both Bellamy and White share - or have inherited - Hendrix's unique blend of experimental instincts and white-knuckle showmanship.

''Above all though, our poll seems to indicate one thing - in 2009, classic rock still rules.''

More than 5,000 MusicRadar users took part in the poll.

The top 20:


1. The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Voodoo Child (Slight Return)


2. Guns N' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine


3. Led Zeppelin - Whole Lotta Love


4. Deep Purple - Smoke On The Water


5. Derek and the Dominos - Layla


6. AC/DC - Back In Black


7. Metallica - Enter Sandman


8. The Beatles - Day Tripper


9. Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit


10. The Rolling Stones - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction


11. Black Sabbath - Paranoid


12. Muse - Plug In Baby


13. Eddie Van Halen - Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love


14. The Kinks - You Really Got Me


15. The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army


16. AC/DC - Highway to Hell


17. Led Zeppelin - Heartbreaker


18. Black Sabbath - Iron Man


19. Led Zeppelin - Black Dog


20. Michael Jackson - Beat It

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Paul McCartney: 'I nearly gave up Beatles'

Legend jokes that his stage fright almost got too much for him

Paul McCartney has jokingly revealed his stage fright was so bad in the '60s he thought about quitting The Beatles.

Speaking last night(November 25) in London at a preview screening of his new DVD, Good Evening New York City, the singer-songwriter explained he was so nervous before taking the stage in the band's early period that he sometimes wondered if it was all worth it.

"They used to have a thing called the NME Poll Winners Party, where the owner of the NME would get us, the Stones, all the top acts, to come and perform for nothing! This was a couple of years into The Beatles' career," he said.

"So I remember being on the steps of Wembley Town Hall, literally getting ill with nerves, and thinking, 'I've got to give this business up, this is no good'. It was quite nerve-wracking."

He seems to have recovered fully from his nerves nowadays, though, saying: "I'm not so bad now. I know I've got a really good band, which helps. It's nice at the end of the evening to take a bow and there's just [five] of us. I used to feel sorry for Elvis in Vegas 'cause he used to have 50 people on stage with him and it didn't sound any better than his early records, where there were three people."

McCartney also explained that the band's performances weren't always well-received in their early days.

"We went to Stroud one day, and hardly anyone showed up, which wasn't wonderful," he said. "Then you used to have these Teddyboys, the louts, you know. They started throwing coins at us. So we ended up picking them up, [ended up] a couple of shillings richer!"

Talking about the recording of his new DVD, McCartney revealed that 'Here Today', written about late bandmate John Lennon, is always the most difficult to perform.

"That sometimes catches me out, it catches me out in this film version, where I realise I'm telling this man that I love him, and it's like, 'Oh my god', like I'm publicly declaring it in front of all these people I don't know! It's like, 'What am I doing?' It's a good thing to do, though."

Later in the question and answer session, the Beatle said he's always expecting to tire of the music business, but never does.

"You know, I keep expecting to get fed up, but I don't, and I'm really glad I don't," he said. "The strange thing is it actually gets a bit more exciting, maybe because of this confidence, you start to think, 'They really want to see me, maybe I can do this'."

Then, asked by a journalist which song of his he would have liked John Lennon to perform, McCartney picked his 1970 song 'Maybe I'm Amazed', but admitted he would probably have a different answer if asked another time.

The Beatle is set to release his new DVD Good Evening New York City, featuring 33 songs recorded at New York City's Citi Field, on December 7.

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Kiss announce 2010 European tour

Band announce 'Sonic Boom Over Europe: From The Beginning To The Boom'

Kiss are to tour Europe next year – on a gig run that includes five UK and Ireland dates.

The band announced the tour, which is dubbed 'Sonic Boom Over Europe: From The Beginning To The Boom', in a video that you can watch by scrolling down and clicking below.

Gene Simmons and co are set to visit the UK and Ireland next May, playing dates including Dublin's O2 Arena (May 7), Glasgow's SECC (9) and London's Wembley Arena (13).

After that, they head to Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, France and Spain.

Speaking about the tour on Kissonline.com, Gene Simmons said "Kiss is a four-wheel-drive monster truck. Our mission? To rock Planet Earth. To spread the gospel of Sonic Boom."

Tickets for the tour go on sale on November 27.

Kiss will play:

Dublin O2 Arena (May 7)
Glasgow SECC (9)
Manchester MEN Arena (10)
Birmingham LG Arena (11)
London Wembley Arena (13)
Zurich Hallenstadion (16)
Geneva Arena (17)
Milan Mediolanum Forum (18)
Vienna Stadhalle (20)
Ostrava Cez Arena (21)
Prague O2 Arena (23)
Berlin O2 World (26)
Leipzig Leipzig Arena (27)
Bratislava Stadium (29)
Hamburg Colorline Arena (31)
Oberhausen Koenig Pilsner Arena (June 1)
Trondheim Lerkandal Open Site (8)
Stockholm Stadium (12)
Malmo Stadium (13)
Oslo Valhall (14)
Aalborg Gigantium (16)
Arnhem Gelredome (18)
Clisson Hellfest (20)
Madrid Palacio de los Deportes (20)

You can view the kiss video by clicking below:

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