Blog: Spinner.com

Filed under: News Christie Goodwin, Getty Images Reg Presley, the lead singer for 'Wild Thing' hitmakers the Troggs , has revealed that he's battling lung cancer . The 70-year-old is retiring from the garage-rock pioneers while he undergoes chemotherapy. The Troggs, who also had hits with 'Love Is All Around' and 'With a Girl Like You,' started their career in England in 1964 and have been active ever since. Presley suffered a stroke in [...]

Filed under: News , Exclusive , The Hit List Getty Images (2) If it seems like the hip new bands of 2012 remind you of something you've heard before, one, you're old, but two, you're right. The adage "everything old is new again" is particularly applicable to modern music and there are a lot of acts who feel mighty familiar right now. Sensing a time-based forensic piece, we jumped in the Official Spinner [...]

Filed under: News , I Fought the Law Ethan Miller, Getty Images Deen Castronovo, current touring drummer for freshman-year favorites Journey , was arrested this weekend in Oregon for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend . The stickman has been with the band since 1998. After their argument turned physical, Castronovo allegedly chased his girlfriend out of their house when she tried to call her father and grabbed the phone from her hand. He was [...]

Filed under: Concerts and Tours , News , Holy Hell Damon Dahlen, AOL Some fans just can't take a hint. Chairlift singer Caroline Polachek was reminded of this earlier this week during the Brooklyn band's record release show for 'Something.' "Btw, shoutout to the crazy girl who came on stage last night," the group tweeted the day after the Jan. 23 gig. "Sorry we had to kick u out, but [...]

Filed under: News , Video , Exclusive Mike White Though the band rose to prominence because of being heavily featured on the ' Pulp Fiction ' soundtrack, Urge Overkill have been on hiatus for the last 16 years. Spinner is proud to premiere the video for 'Quiet Person' off of 'Rock & Roll Submarine,' their 6th studio album, and first since 1995. The tune recalls the gentler sides of Neil Young via the [...]

Filed under: News , Holy Hell Vimeo So, apparently YouTube doesn't like gay men hugging with their shirts off. Matador Records revealed that Perfume Genius ' new teaser video for his upcoming album, 'Put Your Back N 2 It,' was rejected by the video site for violating its Adult Image/Video Content policy. So, how bad is the ad? For a portion of the 16-second clip, Perfume Genius (aka Mike Hadreas) is [...]

Filed under: Video of the Day Artist: The Dø Video: 'Too Insistent' Highlight: "The idea for 'Too Insistent' was to have our musicians appear with us and perform the song," singer Olivia Merilahti tells Spinner. "We wanted to give a ghost-like atmosphere to this ambiguous love song. We drew inspiration from Rembetiko videos and David Lynch 's ' Twin Peaks .' This was the second video we did with director Noel Paul, with whom we love to work." [...]

Filed under: News , New Music , Exclusive , Q + A Jeremy Balderson With some time off from the Hold Steady and his creative juices still flowing, frontman Craig Finn needed a challenge. Rather than stay home in Brooklyn, Finn traveled to Austin to work with a new set of musicians and producer Mike McCarthy ( Spoon , Trail of Dead). The result is is new solo album, 'Clear Eyes, [...]

Filed under: News Kevin Mazur, WireImage British Prime Minister David Cameron has made his musical tastes well known over the past several weeks, but recently he's found himself in a bit of a musical tiff. Rolling Stones frontman and jangly skeleton dancer Mick Jagger pulled out of an event hosted by the PM because he felt he was being used as a "political football." Jagger was scheduled to [...]

Filed under: News , New Releases Tim Mosenfelder, Getty Images Bright Eyes ' Conor Oberst and other Omaha musicians signed a Jan. 23 letter demanding Nebraska lawmakers stop a law that would prevent the city and other towns from passing anti-discrimination legislation. The musicians feel the law would send a "message to the world that Nebraska is not forward thinking or welcoming." According to The Omaha World-Herald , Oberst and the [...]

Filed under: News , Television Christie Goodwin, Redferns Legendary Canadian rockers Randy Bachman and Fred Turner of Bachman & Turner will appear in 'Dog Fight,' an upcoming motion picture starring Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis . According to the Winnipeg Free Press , the musicians spent four days in New Orleans on set of the film directed by Jay Roach (' Austin Powers '). [...]

Filed under: News YouTube Listen! Ice is back with a brand new invention: Indie Vanilla Ice . After going through several image overhauls, rumor has it that the music industry veteran moved to Echo Park, Los Angeles after finally figuring out a sure-fire way to success. In this pitch-perfect parody of hipsterdom for E!'s 'The Soup,' Vanilla Ice executes the ultimate double bluff. "It's kind of the irony is folded back [...]

Filed under: News , Exclusive , RPM , New Music , New Releases Alan Wilkis Alan Wilkis is one of Brooklyn, N.Y.'s best kept secrets. The producer has been remixing the likes of Yeasayer , RJD2 , Phantogram and many others to great critical acclaim, but now it's time for the beatmaker to put on his bandleader cap and step out on his own. Wilkis' newest project, 'PRINTS,' is a multimedia [...]

Filed under: News , Video , Exclusive , New Music Warner Bros. The Red Hot Chili Peppers ' new video for 'Look Around' is sure to get your head spinning with fresh funk jams, shaving cream fountains and some vintage Peppers antics. The Robert Hales-directed video features the band in adjoining rooms, rocking out in their very own ways. 'Look Around' begins with Anthony Kiedis noodle-dancing through the Chili crew's [...]

Filed under: Video of the Day Artist: Low Roar Video: 'Give Up' Highlight: "This video was a labor of love by my friend Ali Silverstein," Low Roar (aka Ryan Karazija) tells Spinner. "I met her here in Iceland, she heard the song, then went and created this. And I love it. She was able to capture the sentiment of the song without any dialogue between the two of us, which is rare." Watch Low Roar's [...]

Filed under: Exclusive , RPM , New Music Pitch Perfect PR Norwegian disco DJ and producer Todd Terje , whose single ' Ragysh ' was among our top electronic songs of 2011 , has just released 'It's the Arps,' a four-song EP composed entirely of sounds produced by the ARP2600 analog synth. We talked with Terje about his new EP and upcoming LP and remix projects, as well as his Olsen [...]

Filed under: News , New Music , Exclusive , Q + A Allison Michael Orenstein It was with his street corner buddies from the Bronx, Carlo Mastrangelo, Angelo D'Aleo and the recently deceased Fred Milano that Dion Dimucci changed the musical world. As Dion and the Belmonts , they all but owned the late-1950s pop charts with tunes including 'I Wonder Why' and 'A Teenager in Love.' DiMucci found even [...]

Filed under: News , New Music Steve Jennings, WireImage Neil Young took to Facebook Tuesday to share his support of Occupy Audio, a proposed music initiative which hopes to "get the sound back to the people." And judging by the list of people onside, it definitely has some clout. "I support Occupy Audio," Young said in a post on his page. "Thanks for listening." A two-minute video [...]

Filed under: News , New Music , 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 Brooklyn electropop duo Chairlift to discuss their past success, [...]

Filed under: News , Awards Disney The 84th Academy Awards nomination list is here! And out of the 39 tunes shortlisted for Best Original Song, only two have made the cut. 'Man or Muppet' from Jason Segel 's ' The Muppets ' and 'Real in Rio' from the animated feature ' Rio ' are the only two original tracks deemed worthy of an Oscar in 2012. "I think that 'Man or Muppet' should be [...]