White Stripes return to the road with an 'Icky Thump'
The White Stripes are set to embark on a world tour this summer to support their upcoming album, "Icky Thump."
Following a two-week stint in Europe beginning June 1, the garage-rock duo will kick off North American dates June 17 at Manchester, TN's Bonnaroo Festival. The outing includes shows in all 10 Canadian provinces, as well as the Yukon, Nunavut and Northwest territories.
"Having never done a full tour of Canada, [drummer] Meg [White] and I thought it was high time to go whole hog," frontman Jack White said in a statement, adding that the July 14 concert in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, will fall on The White Stripes' 10th anniversary.
Following the Canadian run, the Whites will return to the US for performances in 16 Eastern states that they have yet to visit in their career, plus a few other markets including New York City and Boston, according to the band's website. Confirmed North American dates are listed below. More are expected soon. Euro gigs can be found at the duo's website.
To help celebrate The White Stripes' 10th year, the band has teamed with British music mag NME to distribute a limited-edition, red vinyl, seven-inch single of the track "Rag and Bone" from the "Icky Thump" album, which will be released June 19 in the US. The special NME issue, which hits the streets June 6, will mark the first time in more than a decade that a vinyl record has been given away with a magazine, according to The White Stripes' website.
Less than a week later, the band will release the album's first radio single, the title track, on white vinyl. In the meantime, the song "Icky Thump" is available exclusively online at iTunes starting today (4/26).
The new set is The White Stripes' sixth studio effort following 2005's "Get Behind Me Satan," which scored a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album.
June 2007
17 - Manchester, TN - Bonnaroo Festival
24 - Burnaby, British Columbia - Deer Lake Park
25 - Whitehorse, Yukon - Yukon Arts Centre
26 - Yellowknife, Northwest Territories - Shorty Brown Multiplex Arena
27 - Iqaluit, Nunavut - Arctic Winter Games Arena
29 - Calgary, Alberta - Pengrowth Saddledome
30 - Edmonton, Alberta - Shaw Convention Center
July 2007
1 - Saskatoon, Saskatchewan - TCU Place
2 - Winnipeg, Manitoba - MTS Centre
3 - Thunder Bay, Ontario - Community Auditorium
5 - Toronto, Ontario - Molson Amphitheatre
6 - Montreal, Quebec - Bell Centre
7 - London, Ontario - John Labatt Centre
8 - Ottawa, Ontario - LeBreton Flats Park (Ottawa Bluesfest)
10 - Moncton, New Brunswick - Moncton Coliseum Arena
11 - Charlottetown, Price Edward Island - Charlottetown Civic Centre
13 - Halifax, Nova Scotia - Cunard Centre
14 - Glace Bay, Nova Scotia - Savoy Theatre
16 - St. John's, Newfoundland - Mile One Center
22 - Portland, ME - Cumberland Civic Center
23 - Boston, MA - Agganis Arena
24 - New York, NY - Madison Square Garden
25 - Wallingford, CT - Chevrolet Theater
27 - Wilmington, DE - Grand Opera House
28 - Fairfax, VA - Patriot Center
29 - North Myrtle Beach, SC - House of Blues
30 - Birmingham, AL - Sloss Furnace
31 - Southaven, MS - Snowden Grove Park Amphitheater
Silverman Is Magic for MTV Movie Awards
MTV announced Thursday that Silverman will host the 2007 MTV Movie Awards, bringing her particular brand of pretty-girl-says-filthy-things humor to the irreverent trophy show. She takes over for Jessica Alba, who hosted the awards last year.
The awards are scheduled to air live on Sunday, June 3. "Survivor" guru Burnett is executive producing the show, his first collaboration with MTV.
"Sarah's irreverent, no-holds-barred sarcasm and humor have made her one of the hottest comedians in the industry," says Christina Norman, president of MTV. "Sarah is just the person to orchestrate the madness and keep everyone guessing about who'll be her next target."
Silverman stars in "The Sarah Silverman Program," which returns for a second season on MTV's Viacom sibling Comedy Central in the fall. She also hosted the Independent Spirit Awards in 2006.
Her movie and TV credits also include "The School of Rock," "Greg the Bunny" and a feature-film version of her one-woman show, "Jesus Is Magic."
Kelly Clarkson Ready To Rock On Summer Trek
Kelly Clarkson will spend nearly three months on the road this summer and fall in support of her upcoming RCA album, "My December." The tour begins July 11 in Portland, Ore., and will run through Sept. 28 in Las Vegas, with venues to be announced. Clarkson will also perform July 7 at the Live Earth benefit in East Rutherford, N.J.
"My December," a release date for which has yet to be confirmed, is led by the single "Never Again," which is just now settling in at U.S. radio outlets.
Before the tour, Clarkson will appear May 12 at Los Angeles radio station KISS FM's Wango Tango show in Irvine, Calif., and will perform May 15 with Reba McEntire at the Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas.
Here are Kelly Clarkson's tour dates:
July 7: East Rutherford, N.J. (Giants Stadium / Live Earth)
July 11: Portland, Ore.
July 13: Seattle
July 15: Sacramento, Calif.
July 17: San Jose, Calif.
July 19: Anaheim, Calif.
July 21: Denver
July 22: Kansas City, Mo.
July 25: Minneapolis
July 27: St. Louis
July 29: Chicago
July 31: Detroit
Aug. 2: Toronto
Aug. 4: Boston
Aug. 5: Albany, N.Y.
Aug. 12: Uncasville, Conn.
Aug. 14: Cleveland
Aug. 16: Philadelphia
Aug. 18: Uniondale, N.Y.
Aug. 19: Washington D.C.
Aug. 22, 24: East Rutherford, N.J.
Aug. 26: Nashville
Aug. 28: Atlanta
Aug. 30: Ft Lauderdale, Fla.
Sept. 1: Orlando, Fla.
Sept. 2: Tampa, Fla.
Sept. 5: Dallas
Sept. 7: Houston
Sept. 9: Las Vegas
Sept. 13: Calgary, A.B.
Sept. 14: Edmonton, A.B.
Sept. 16: Vancouver
Sept. 19: Fresno, Calif.
Sept. 21: San Diego
Sept. 23: Phoenix
Sept. 26: Los Angeles
Sept. 28: Las Vegas
Beastie Boys name new album
Beastie Boys have revealed exclusively to NME.COM that their new album will be called 'The Mix Up' and will be released in June.
Bandmember Mike D said the follow-up to 2004's 'To The 5 Boroughs' will be "radically different" to its' predecessor. The rockier record will instead hark to the style of the band's classic albums 'Check Your Head' and 'Paul's Boutique'.
Mike D said: "We play instruments on the whole album, as opposed to sampling. There's more rock on there. If you know us you can trace the influences and they're no completely surprising. Someone who listens to us casually might think 'What the hell are these guys doing?'
"It might make you flip your wig right off, or your hairpiece, if you're a casual listener."
The star also talked about the band's forthcoming appearance at the London leg of the Live Earth shows, which aim to promote action to confront global climate change.
Beastie Boys will perform at Wembley Stadium alongside the likes of Madonna, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Snow Patrol.
Speaking about the cause, Mike D said: "It's come to the point where drastic measures have to be taken now. To really create a mass consciousness of what needs to be done, mass action, it's gonna take mass awareness. And these huge concerts around the globe are probably one of the best means of doing so."
Asked if he would be playing any new material at the event, the star replied: "By that point we'll already be playing new songs. But I dunno - you don't wanna do 'Jazz Odyssey' in front of a crowd of 60,000."
Film lobbyist Jack Valenti dies at 85
LOS ANGELES - Jack Valenti, the former White House aide and film industry lobbyist who instituted the modern movie ratings system and guided Hollywood from the censorship era to the digital age, died Thursday. He was 85.
Valenti had a stroke in March and was hospitalized for several weeks at Johns Hopkins University Medical Center in Baltimore.
He died of complications from the stroke at his Washington, D.C., home, said Seth Oster of the Motion Picture Association of America.
"In a sometimes unreasonable business, Jack Valenti was a giant voice of reason," Steven Spielberg said in a statement. "He was the greatest ambassador Hollywood has ever known, and I will value his wisdom and friendship for all time."
Valenti was a special assistant and confidant to President Lyndon Johnson when he was lured to Hollywood in 1966 by movie moguls Lew Wasserman and Arthur Krim.
When he took over as president of the Motion Picture Association of America, Valenti was caught between Hollywood's outdated system of self-censorship and the liberal cultural explosion taking place in America.
Valenti abolished the industry's restrictive Hays code, which prohibited explicit violence and frank treatment of sex, and in 1968 oversaw creation of today's letter-based ratings system.
"While I believe that every director, studio has the right to make the movies they want to make, everybody else has a right not to watch it," Valenti told The Associated Press shortly before his retirement in 2004. "All we do is give advance cautionary warnings and say this is what we think is in this movie."
Dan Glickman, his successor at the MPAA, said Thursday that Valenti embodied the "theatricality" of the industry.
"Jack was a showman, a gentleman, an orator, and a passionate champion of this country, its movies, and the enduring freedoms that made both so important to this world," Glickman said in a statement.
John Fithian, who heads the National Association of Theatre Owners, recalled Valenti as a wise and ready mentor. Fithian said he had lunch with Valenti shortly before his stroke.
"I was going to lunch to ask him advice actually on one or two critical issues. He was on top of his game, taking calls from leading directors in the middle of lunch to answer questions and give them advice," Fithian said.
The white-haired Valenti was familiar to movie fans through his appearances at the Academy Awards, when frequent Oscar host Johnny Carson would poke fun at his speeches. But Valenti was a showman, equally animated whether testifying at a congressional hearing, hobnobbing with celebrities at the Cannes Film Festival, or previewing films for Washington's elite in his office's private theater.
His friends ranged from actors Kirk Douglas and Sidney Poitier to, more improbably, Sen. Jesse Helms, a conservative often at odds with Hollywood.
"Jack Valenti was a true leader and gentleman whose wit, fire and passion for our business inspired everyone regardless of politics or opinion, background or belief," Barry Meyer, chairman and chief executive officer of Warner Bros., said in a statement.
In Valenti's later years he handled tricky new challenges from the Internet and technologies that allow movies to be illegally reproduced and distributed in an instant. Valenti also traveled worldwide seeking to thwart movie piracy and boost film exports to reluctant countries such as China.
Valenti's Washington career was born from tragedy. As a Texas-based political consultant working for then-Vice President Johnson, Valenti was riding in the presidential motorcade on Nov. 22, 1963, when President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. Valenti, six cars behind the president, initially didn't know what happened.
"Without a trace of warning, the car in front of us accelerated from eight miles an hour to eighty," he wrote in his memoir, "This Time, This Place," to be published in June. "The whole spectacle turned bizarre, like an arcade game run amok, as we drove madly toward or away from some unnamed terror."
In an Associated Press interview, he said in 2003 that the assassination "is so seared in my memory I literally, sometimes at night — not often, but once or twice a year — I relive that day."
Oliver Stone's 1991 film "JFK" angered Valenti. Stressing he wasn't speaking for the MPAA, he said the film's implication that LBJ was involved in the assassination was "quackery" plucked from a "slag heap of loony theories."
Hurried aboard Air Force One for Johnson's historic flight back to Washington, Valenti was instantly drafted as a special assistant to the new president.
His duties grew to include congressional relations, diplomacy and speech editing, and he attended Cabinet and National Security Council meetings. Valenti became known for his loyalty, likening Johnson to Lincoln for his civil rights efforts and declaring, to widespread ridicule, "I sleep each night a little better" knowing Johnson was in charge.
Yet Valenti resigned in 1966, over Johnson's objections, to accept the movie post. He became one of the highest-paid and best-known trade association executives, with a salary topping $1 million and his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
A lifelong film lover, he once cited the 1966 film "A Man for All Seasons" as his all-time favorite.
The ratings program that featured labels such as "G" for general audiences remained his greatest legacy, even as social mores evolved even further, creating new criticism over Hollywood's attempts to protect its audience.
The ratings system has met with recent disapproval from many film critics, cinema fans and moviemakers, especially directors of independent films who say the system is stacked in favor of big studio productions and against edgier, low-budget fare. Critics also say the system is overly prudish on sex while allowing excessive violence. Recently, tobacco opponents have even sought to add smoking to the list of activities deemed too sensitive for younger viewers.
Director Kirby Dick's 2006 documentary "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" depicted the system as a secretive and inconsistent process that did not provide adequate methods to appeal decisions.
The system did undergo changes over the decades. A PG-13 rating (parental guidance strongly recommended) was added in the 1980s. The X rating for adult films was transformed into the NC-17 rating in the 1990s.
But the format Valenti laid out in the late 1960s generally has remained intact. Valenti was always quick to rebut critics, saying frequent MPAA surveys found that parents with young children felt the ratings system was a helpful guide.
Without the ratings system, Valenti said, Hollywood could be faced with a labyrinth of local censorship boards with conflicting standards.
Born in Houston, the grandson of Sicilian immigrants, Valenti swept floors and made popcorn in a local theater as a boy. He never lost his wonder at what he called the "miraculous, unfathomable alchemy" of moviemaking.
After earning the Distinguished Flying Cross for piloting bombing missions over Italy in World War II, he worked his way through night school at the University of Houston, then earned a master's in business administration from Harvard.
In 1952, he co-founded an advertising and political consulting agency. He was introduced to Senate Majority Leader Johnson three years later and was "mesmerized," Valenti recalled. "I felt a primal force was in my presence."
He met his future wife, Mary Margaret Wiley, through his budding friendship with the senator — she was Johnson's longtime secretary. They had three children.
Valenti wrote a handful of books, including one on Johnson, "A Very Human President," and a novel, "Protect and Defend," published in 1992 by Doubleday with the help of one of its senior editors, Jacqueline Kennedy.
By the time he retired, the movie business had been on a growth spurt for more than a decade, with admissions climbing to their highest level since the late 1950s.
"I'm the luckiest guy in the world, because I spent my entire public working career in two of life's classic fascinations, politics and Hollywood," he said in 2004. "You can't beat that."
'Monster Mash' singer Pickett dies at 69
NEW YORK - He does the "Monster Mash" no more. Bobby "Boris" Pickett, whose dead-on Boris Karloff impression propelled the Halloween anthem to the top of the charts in 1962, making him one of pop music's most enduring one-hit wonders, has died of leukemia. He was 69.
Pickett, dubbed "The Guy Lombardo of Halloween," died Wednesday night at the West Los Angeles Veterans Hospital, said his longtime manager, Stuart Hersh. His daughter, Nancy, and his sister, Lynda, were at Pickett's bedside.
"Monster Mash" hit the Billboard chart three times: when it debuted in 1962, reaching No. 1 the week before Halloween; again in August 1970, and for a third time in May 1973. The resurrections were appropriate for a song where Pickett gravely intoned the forever-stuck-in-your-head chorus: "He did the monster mash. ... It was a graveyard smash."
The novelty hit's fans included Bob Dylan, who played the single on his XM Satellite Radio program last October. "Our next artist is considered a one-hit wonder, but his one hit comes back year after year," Dylan noted.
The hit single ensured Pickett's place in the pantheon of pop music obscurities, said syndicated radio host Dr. Demento, whose long-running program celebrates offbeat tunes.
"It's certainly the biggest Halloween song of all time," said Demento. The DJ, who interviewed Pickett last year, said he maintained a sense of humor about his singular success: "As he loved to say at oldies shows, `And now I'm going to do a medley of my hit.'"
Pickett's impression of Karloff (who despite his name was an Englishman, born William Henry Pratt) was forged in Somerville, Mass., where the boy watched horror films in a theater managed by his father.
Pickett used the impersonation in a nightclub act and when performing with his band the Cordials. A bandmate convinced Pickett they needed to do a song to showcase the Karloff voice, and "Monster Mash" was born — "written in about a half-hour," said Dr. Demento.
The recording, done in a couple of hours, featured a then-unknown piano player named Leon Russell and a backing band christened The Crypt-Kickers. It was rejected by four major labels before Gary Paxton, lead singer on the Hollywood Argyles' novelty hit "Alley Oop," released "Monster Mash" on his own label.
The instant smash became a sort-of Christmas carol for the pumpkin and ghoul set. In a 1996 interview with People magazine, Pickett said he never grew tired of it: "When I hear it, I hear a cash register ringing."
While Pickett never re-created its success, his "Monster's Holiday," a Christmas follow-up, reached No. 30 in December 1962. And "Graduation Day" hit No. 80 in June 1963.
He continued performing through his final gig in November. He remained in demand for Halloween performances, including a memorable 1973 show where his bus broke down outside Frankenstein, Mo.
Beside his daughter and sister, Pickett is survived by two grandchildren.