2005

“Episode III — Revenge of the Sith” is the first “Star Wars” tale to receive a PG-13 rating. The movie was screened for reporters Tuesday night at Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch, and the PG-13 rating — “for sci-fi violence and some intense images” — is well-deserved.

The action is relentless and includes sequences more dark and disturbing than anything previously seen in the tragic Skywalker soap opera.

Source: cnn

On April Fools’ Day, Sting walked onstage at San Jose State University’s Event Center in California and kicked off his Broken Music Tour by performing the Police classic “Message in a Bottle.” In the next eighty minutes, he and his stripped-down backing trio shocked the crowd by dusting off eleven Police songs, including deep cuts like “Demolition Man” and “Invisible Sun,” which Sting hasn’t performed since he was in the band.

It wasn’t an April Fools’ joke aimed at music fans desperate for a Police reunion — on each night of this twenty-eight-date tour, which mostly hits college campuses, Sting devotes roughly half of his set to the Police, the trio that broke up in 1984 when Sting went solo.

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Newport, Wales, hip-hop pranksters Goldie Lookin Chain have confirmed a small series of dates to support their debut CD “Straight Outta Newport.” Record Collection will be releasing the CD on May 10. The band will be kicking off their Stateside dates with a their American network debut on Jimmy Kimmel Live on May 25th.

The band, already massive in Great Britain, is starting to make inroads stateside. In March they became the talk of the SXSW convention playing three packed shows in two days. Entertainment Weekly said the record is full of “strangely irresistible rhymes and dirt-cheap samples.” Blender gave “Straight Outta Newport” three stars saying ” Time magazine put their song “Self Suicide” in their list of “Top 10 songs worth at least 99 cents.”

The dates for the tour are as follows:

5/25 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Troubadour
5/26 – San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
5/29 – Chicago, IL @ The Abbey
5/30 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom

Sleater-Kinney’s whose seventh album, The Woods is due out out May 24th has announced tour dates to support the release. While The Woods’ ten tracks may not sport the trenchant political content of 2002’s One Beat, the album is said to be just as strong.

Tour Dates

5/31: Seattle, Moore Theater
6/2: Portland, OR, Crystal Ballroom
6/4: San Francisco, Warfield
6/7: Pomona, CA, Glass House
6/8: Los Angeles, Henry Fonda Theater
6/9: Los Angeles, Henry Fonda Theater
6/15: Minneapolis, First Avenue
6/16: Chicago, Riviera
6/17: Cleveland, OH, Beachland Ballroom
6/18: Toronto, Phoenix
6/19: Montreal, La Tulipe
6/21: Burlington, VT, Higher Ground
6/22: Boston, Avalon
6/23: New York, Roseland
6/25: Washington, DC, 9:30 Club
6/30: Knoxville, TN, Sundown in the City
7/1: Atlanta, The Variety

In support of its brand new album, Deadwing, British quartet Porcupine Tree will cross the pond for North American dates. The tour begins May 13 at Washington, D.C.’s 9:30 Club and wraps June 11 at The Grove of Anaheim in Los Angeles.

The band just concluded a European tour during which they performed in Switzerland, Italy, Spain and France.

While touring the U.S., Porcupine Tree will make their way through the East hitting up New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania along the way. From there, they’ll travel through the Midwest, eventually landing on the West Coast.

Some gigs include the House of Blues in Cleveland May 25; Boulder, Colo.’s Fox Theatre June 1; and The Fillmore in San Francisco June 8.

Former King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp will open for Porcupine Tree on various West coast dates. Additional openers are still in the works.

Porcupine’s current lineup -comprising singer/guitarist Steven Wilson, Richard Barbieri on keyboards, Colin Edwin on bass, and drummer Gavin Harrison – has been together since 1993. Along with its success on the British indie charts, the band also has a reputation as a pioneering underground force in the U.K.

Source pollstar.com.

A month after undergoing surgery to address a brain aneurysm, veteran singer/songwriter Neil Young has returned to Nashville to resume sessions for his next album.

According to a post by Young’s sister Astrid on her official Web site, longtime collaborators such as keyboardist Spooner Oldham, pedal steel guitarist Ben Keith and drummer Carl Himmel have joined Young in the studio.

The artist’s medical status forced him to cancel his planned appearance last month at Canada’s Juno Awards. “He’s feeling good, has everything under control and is back in the saddle,” Astrid Young wrote, likening the lineup of musicians to Young’s acclaimed 1992 album “Harvest Moon.”

Source billboard.com.

Hot Hot Heat will follow their current European tour with almost a dozen headlining dates in the U.S., beginning May 20th at New York’s Webster Hall. Elevator, the Canadian rockers’ follow-up to 2002’s breakthrough Make Up the Break Down, was released last month.

The band recently recorded acoustic versions of five songs from Elevator — “Jingle Jangle,” “You Owe Me an IOU,” “Pickin’ It Up,” “Goodnight, Goodnight” and “Middle of Nowhere” — with hopes of releasing an EP later this year. “It’s just a totally different vibe — like it sounds like old Johnny Cash,” says frontman Steve Bays. “Just two acoustic guitars, vocals and harmonies – but it’s not watered-down versions of the album. It’s really, really cool.”

Hot Hot Heat will also begin releasing some of the twenty-five songs they originally recorded for Elevator but scrapped because they were too “dark.” ! The first, “When We Were Kids,” will be available May 16th as the U.K. B side to the single “Goodnight, Goodnight.” Other shelved tracks include “Wait a Second” and “Eyes Ears Mouth,” a track that Bays says has “a Pacific Northwest sound” and is about his leaving the sleeping Victoria for Vancouver. “It’s weird and emotional to move away from your hometown,” he says, “but I don’t think I’ll ever move back.”

Hot Hot Heat tour dates:

5/20: New York, Webster Hall
5/21: North Hampton, MA, Pearl Street Nightclub
5/22: Philadelphia, Torcadero Theatre
5/23: Boston, Avalon
5/26: Cincinatti, Bogart’s
5/27: Columbus, OH, PromoWest Pavillion (with the Killers)
5/28: Cleveland, Scene Pavillion (with the Killers)
5/30: Detroit, State Theatre (89X bash with Social Distortion, the Killers, Sum 41 and Keane)
5/31: Milwaukee, The Rave at the Eagle’s Club
6/01: Minneapolis, The Quest
6/04: Auburn, WA, White River Amphitheater (107.7’s Endfest with Social Distortion, Interpol, Queens of the Stone Age)
6/09: Reno, NV, Reno Events Center
6/11: Santa Barbara, CA, Santa Barbara Bowl
6/13: Los Angeles, Avalon
7/13: Orlando, FL, Hard Rock Live (MTV taping)

Source rollingstone.com.