Blog: Spinner.com

Filed under: News Eamonn McCabe, Redferns Gamblers who bet the "over" for this Sunday's Super Bowl won't be the only ones hoping for a high-scoring game. Every time the Patriots or Giants celebrate a touchdown by playing 'Rock and Roll Part II,' it'll mean money in the pockets of the 1972 song's composer, Gary Glitter . According to the NME, the British glam rocker stands to rake in thousands of dollars . There's [...]

Filed under: News , R.I.P. Gloria Jean, AP Dick Kniss , longtime bassist for famed folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary and co-writer of the John Denver hit 'Sunshine on My Shoulders,' passed away after a bout with pulmonary disease, tje Associated Press reports. He was 74 years old. The famed trio's Peter Yarrow said that Kniss was "our intrepid bass player for almost as long as we performed together."

Filed under: Video of the Day Artist: Gregory Rogove Video: 'Jackyl' Highlight: "My mom loves bananas, I love bananas, I can't get enough of them," Gregory Rogove tells Spinner. "Even though they are commonplace fruit, we shouldn't forget that they are a tropical wonder. The video for 'Jackyl' was our foray into stop-motion animation. It was a torturous but ultimately fulfilling process. I miss Monty Python." Watch Gregory Rogove's 'Jackyl' Video

Filed under: News , R.I.P. www.AndrewMacNaughtan.com Acclaimed rock photographer Andrew MacNaughtan -- who worked with several groups including Rush and Barenaked Ladies -- died earlier this week. He was 47. According to the Toronto Star , the photographer suffered a heart attack in California where he was on assignment photographing Rush. "We're deeply shocked and heartbroken to learn of the sudden passing of our close friend [...]

Filed under: Concerts and Tours , News , Exclusive , In House Damon Dahlen, AOL In House is AOL Music's series in which we welcome artists into our offices to play some music, chat with our staffers and, generally, just hang out. For our latest visit, Spinner sat down with Minneapolis singer and rapper Dessa to discuss her career, her new album with Doomtree, 'No Kings,' and her views on [...]

Filed under: Exclusive , RPM , New Music , Q + A Morten Gordestad Though they eschew the word "mature," after performing in front of tens of thousands of fans, partying around the world and subsequently growing "sick of seeing each other's faces," Norwegian rockers 120 Days have taken the better part of six years off to quietly regroup, work on independent projects and start families before announcing their return. [...]

Filed under: News , Exclusive , RPM , New Releases Kate Struthers When Doldrums' Airick Woodhead isn't making ephemeral, drummy collages of noise and video, he's at home in Montreal YouTubing James Brown videos. "There's this one of him giving dance instructions but he's really just high out of his mind," Woodhead, the former lead for Toronto-band Spiral Beach, tells Spinner. The Doldrums' sound -- spastic, otherworldly, and proudly textural, like on the [...]

Filed under: News AP Photo/WireImage Calling all musicians! Here is a great, outside-the-box sales technique: Get President Barack Obama to slip in a couple lines of your song during one of his speeches. Last week, Obama delivered several lines from Al Green's classic 'Let's Stay Together' at a fundraising event in Harlem, and the song has now enjoyed a 490% sales increase after the video of the President/crooner went viral. According to Nielsen Soundscan [...]

Filed under: News , R.I.P. Getty Images Clare Fisher, renowned jazz pianist, composer and arranger , has died at the age of 83, the BBC reports. Fisher had been on and off life support during the past month after going into cardiac arrest following complications from a minor surgery. During his lengthy career, Fischer was nominated for 11 Grammy awards , the most recent in 2011 for his instrumental arrangement of 'In the [...]

Filed under: News , Exclusive , New Music YouTube It was like wildest fantasies of music nerds come to life. James Mercer of the Shins , Colin Meloy of the Decemberists and Corin Tucker formerly of Sleater-Kinney got together recently to form a supergroup called Echo Echo. Unfortunately, the band, not to be confused with the Santa Ana, CA, indie rockers of the [...]

Filed under: Video , RPM Roadrunner Records After almost 20 years together, Korn are celebrating a creative high with 'The Path of Totality,' their recently released 10th studio album. The record features the California quintet collaborating with some of the leading dubstep and electronic producers in the world, including Skrillex , Excision, Datsik, Noisia, Kill the Noise, and 12th Planet. One of the more interesting tracks on 'The Path of [...]

Filed under: Concerts and Tours , News FilmMagic| WireImage With Madonna 's Super Bowl halftime extravaganza just over a week away, rumours are swirling as to who will be joining her onstage Feb. 5 for the sports spectacle. LMFAO ? Nicki Minaj ? It seems the first performer to confirm is M.I.A. "Sosz im not pulling out 'of' the superbowl thing," M.I.A. tweeted earlier this week. 'i [...]

Filed under: News , Exclusive , New Music , New Releases Tell All Your Friends PR Singer Sylvia Gordon has been in this crazy game called music for a while now. After working with some of pop music's biggest acts -- the Black Eyed Peas , Moby and Kelis , just to name a few -- Gordon has made a name for herself as an expert of production and songwriting. Under the [...]

Filed under: News , New Music Andy Sheppard, Redferns This hour in Lana Del Rey news: The singer, who everyone who cares too much about music seems to have an opinion about, is going to re-release her debut album, 2010's 'Lana Del Ray A.K.A. Lizzy Grant,' this summer. Del Rey/Grant broke the news in an interview with the BBC, saying, "I had signed to an independent label but they couldn't fund [...]

Filed under: News , Exclusive , Television Live From the Artists Den There's a great, little-known artist named Adele , but oh man, can she sing. The burgeoning star will kick off the fourth season of 'Live from the Artists Den,' which premieres nationally on PBS beginning Feb. 3. The show pairs musicians with historic venues and broadcasts the resulting sets to audiences across the 50 states. To whet your appetite for the [...]

Filed under: Video of the Day Artist: Tango in the Attic Video: 'Swimming Pool' Highlight: "We'd been pretty into the idea of making a live video for a while, rather than just putting out a recorded track from the album," singer Jordan Craig tells Spinner. "We collaborated with a young filmmaker called Stephen Grant, and shot it in a steel-cutting factory near where we live. Although the video looks pretty warm it was totally freezing -- not really ideal conditions for playing!" [...]

Filed under: Exclusive , RPM , New Music Linda Brownlee Comprised of Hot Chip member Joe Goddard and Raf Daddy (Raphael Rundell), the 2 Bears have remixed everyone from Cults and Metronomy to Death Cab for Cutie and Junior Boys , receiving radio support for their acclaimed 'Bear Hug' EP from BBC Radio 1's Pete Tong and Annie Mac, and praise from Sirs Elton John [...]

Filed under: Concerts and Tours , News Photograph by Danny Clinch for RollingStone.com Ewan Currie of Canadian rock group the Sheepdogs says this year's Super Bowl halftime show should feature the likes of the Roots , Black Keys or even Prince . Just anybody but Madonna ! "Forget Madonna, y'know," Currie said during an interview Thursday afternoon with Tim & Sid (Tim Micallef and Sid Seixeiro) [...]

Filed under: News , Holy Hell AP Photo|AFP/Getty Images In another piece of news that sounds at once outlandish and also weirdly appropriate: Hulk Hogan once almost joined an early version of Metallica .The WWF/WWE living legend and star of ' 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain ' apparently found work as a session musician before becoming the Super Destroyer and between Hogan and Metallica there is a [...]

Filed under: Concerts and Tours , News , Exclusive Playing for Change Mark Johnson is the co-creator of Playing for Change , the organization best known for creating the viral video of street musicians from around the world performing 'Stand by Me.' The multimedia project has also expanded into the non-profit world, launching music schools and programs in several developing nations, and the Playing for Change Band will kick off a tour on Feb. [...]