NEW MRAZ - LIFE IS GOOD

JASON MRAZ ANNOUNCES “LIFE IS GOOD”

NEW LIVE DIGITAL EP AVAILABLE OCTOBER 5


Jason Mraz has announced details of “Life Is Good,” a live digital EP available October 5 recorded earlier this month on Mraz’s current North American tour.

“Life Is Good” will feature live versions of four new songs, as well as a live version of “Coyotes” from Mraz’s last studio album, WE SING. WE DANCE. WE STEAL THINGS. Mraz and his band recorded the EP on the first three dates of his current tour--in Bangor, Maine; Utica, NY; and at the Life Is Good Festival in Canton, MA. Mraz’s tour, which is still winding its way across the continent, wraps up in Santa Barbara, CA on October 8.

“Life Is Good” will be available at all online retailers beginning October 5. Mraz will premiere the songs on his website, www.jasonmraz.com, starting with “Freedom Song” today. More songs will be posted over the next week, along with candid videos shot by tour videographer Jeff Coffman on the road that capture Mraz explaining the origins and meanings of the new songs.

Mraz first heard “Freedom Song,” after songwriter Luc Reynaud donated the song to a compilation album benefiting the homeless in his hometown of Seattle. Mraz, who was touched by the lyrics to the song, shared the song with a group of freed child slaves in Ghana this summer when he visited the country with the organization Free The Slaves.

This tour marks the first time Mraz has performed “Freedom Song” with his band. Additionally, the collection’s other new songs, “San Disco Reggaefornia,” “Up,” and “What Mama Say,” all results of Mraz’s recent songwriting sessions, also made their live debut on this run of dates.

Following the conclusion of his tour dates, Mraz will return to the studio with WE SING. WE DANCE. WE STEAL THINGS producer Martin Terefe to complete his next full-length album, due out in 2011.

THE DAY ABBEY ROAD ALMOST WENT COLD TURKEY

"Cold Turkey" was written by John Lennon and recorded by The Plastic Ono Band. It was released as a single in October 1969, and was John Lennon's second solo single. It was the first song John Lennon wrote for which he took sole credit, his previous compositions having been attributed to the Lennon/McCartney partnership. The song features Eric Clapton on lead guitar, Klaus Voormann on bass and Ringo Starr on drums.

In 1968 Yoko had suffered a miscarriage, the pregnancy having lasted only five months. John and Yoko were told that Yoko's problems were due to an excess of hallucinogens and the two of them went cold turkey to kick the drug habit. John felt so much better afterward that he wanted to enlighten everyone, mostly about how hard it was to kick the habit, and wrote the song. He had hoped for "Cold Turkey" to be included on the Abbey Road album, but the other three Beatles were against the idea, so the Plastic Ono Band released it instead.

As a footnote, in 1969 Lennon returned his MBE (Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) to Buckingham Palace saying "I am returning this MBE in protest against Britain’s involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam, and against Cold Turkey slipping down the charts. With love, John Lennon of Bag."

FYI - LINKIN PARK - WRETCHES AND KINGS

Track number 10 on Linkin Park’s new album, “A Thousand Suns” is called “Wretches and Kings” and opens with a portion of a protest speech by Mario Savio that occurred on the steps of Sproul Hall at Berkley

Mario Savio was best known as the leader of ''free speech'' demonstrations protesting campus rules at Berkeley in 1964. He was prominent in what became the Free Speech Movement, which is credited with giving birth to the campus ''sit-in'' and with being a model for the larger movement to protest the Vietnam War.

He was one of the hundreds of protesters who staged a sit-in on Dec. 2, 1964, at Berkeley in which the police arrested 800 people. The sit-in was the climax of three months of student protests in reaction to the university's curbing activities of civil rights and political groups on the campus. Students contended that the restrictions abridged their constitutional rights, and Savio became a member of the executive committee of the Free Speech Movement, an organization representing a score of civil rights and political groups at the university.

Mr. Savio and other protesters were adversaries of Clark Kerr, Berkeley's president, who dismissed the Free Speech Movement as ''a ritual of hackneyed complaints'' and said the rabble-rousers were dominated by Communists. Savio appealed to his fellow students to halt the university machinery with their bodies. But just about the only physical violence came when he bit a police officer on the foot. The Berkeley faculty eventually overturned Kerr's position, and he gave in to the protesters.

Savio had a history of heart problems and was admitted to the hospital on November 2, 1996. He slipped into a coma on November 5 and died the following day, shortly after being removed from life support.

In 1999, it was revealed that Savio had been trailed by the FBI and was followed for more than a decade ‘because he had emerged as the nation’s most prominent student leader.’ There was no evidence that he was a threat or that he had any connection with the Communist Party, but the FBI decided he merited their attention because they thought he could inspire students to rebel.

According to hundreds of pages of FBI files, the bureau:

· Collected, without court order, personal information about Savio from schools, telephone companies, utility firms and banks and compiled information about his marriage and divorce.

· Monitored his day-to-day activities by using informants planted in political groups, covertly contacting his neighbors, landlords and employers, and having agents pose as professors, journalists and activists to interview him and his wife.

· Obtained his tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service in violation of federal rules, mischaracterized him as a threat to the president and arranged for the CIA and foreign intelligence agencies to investigate him when he and his family traveled in Europe.

· Put him on an unauthorized list of people to be detained without judicial warrant in event of a national emergency, and designated him as a "Key Activist" whose political activities should be "disrupted" and "neutralized" under the bureau's illegal counterintelligence program known as COINTELPRO.

The investigation finally ended at the beginning of 1975 and at that point an investigation in to the FBI’s abuse of power began. Savio’s ex-wife, Suzanne Goldberg, said that the "FBI’s investigation of her and Savio [was] a waste of money and an invasion of privacy."

CLIFF BURTON (February 10, 1962 – September 27, 1986)

Today marks the anniversary of the passing of Cliff Burton, the original bassist for Metallica. 

During the European leg of the Damage Inc. tour the band complained that the sleeping cubicles on their tour bus were uncomfortable and in order to decide who was getting the pick of the bunks, Kirk Hammett and Cliff drew cards.  On the evening of September 26, 1986, Cliff had won the game with an Ace of Spades and asked to sleep in Kirk's bunk. He was asleep when at several minutes before 7 am, on the 27^th, when the bus skidded off of the road and flipped.  Burton was thrown through the window of the bus, which fell on top of him, crushing him to his death.

James Hetfield later stated that he first believed the bus flipped because the driver was drunk, claiming his breath smelled of alcohol after the accident. Hetfield also stated that he himself walked long distances down the road looking for black ice and found none.

Police detective Arne Pettersson was reported in a local newspaper to have said the pattern of the tracks at the accident site were exactly like ones seen when drivers fall asleep at the wheel. However the driver stated under oath that he had slept during the day and was fully rested and the driver of the second tour bus confirmed his testimony.  The driver was determined not at fault for the accident and no charges were brought against him.

Burton was a Bay Area native who had dedicated himself to excellence on the instrument in honor of his brother, who had passed away when Cliff was 13.  When his band Trauma played the Whisky a Go Go in 1982, two audience members (James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich) were so struck by his solo abilities that they initially mistook it for a guitar solo. When they actually saw who was playing, they couldn’t believe it was a bassist. They asked Cliff to join the band, but he refused not wanting to move from his home in the bay area.  It took a bit of convincing and a move for Metallica from L.A. to the San Francisco Bay Area, but eventually Cliff joined the band.

On April 4, 2009, Cliff Burton was posthumously inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, with the rest of Metallica. During the ceremony, the induction was accepted by Cliff's father, Ray Burton, who shared the stage with the band and mentioned that Cliff's mother was actually Metallica's biggest fan.

DANGER DAYS: THE TRUE LIVES OF THE FABULOUS KILLJOYS

MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE TO RELEASE HIGHLY ANTICIPATED NEW ALBUM DANGER DAYS: THE TRUE LIVES OF THE FABULOUS KILLJOYS ON NOVEMBER 22ND ON REPRISE RECORDS

FIRST SINGLE, “NA NA NA (NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA),” AVAILABLE VIA ALL DIGITAL RETAILERS ON TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28TH

DATELINE — Burbank, CA — The wait for new original music from platinum-selling rock band My Chemical Romance is over. MCR have announced that Reprise Records will release their highly anticipated fourth studio album, entitled Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, on November 22nd, 2010. New Warner Bros. Records Chairman Rob Cavallo, who produced MCR’s platinum-selling album The Black Parade as well as albums by Dave Matthews Band, Jawbreaker, and The Goo Goo Dolls, among many others, produced the album.

Danger Days’ first official single, “Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na),” will be available from all digital retailers on Tuesday, September 28th. It is the first new original music to be released by My Chemical Romance since October 2006 when the band unleashed their third album, The Black Parade, which shot to No. 2 on Billboard's Top 200 album chart, selling more than 240,000 copies its first week of release, and spawning four Modern Rock smash singles. Dubbed “Album of the Year” by Blender Magazine, The Black Parade earned raves from critics (Rolling Stone called it "a rabid, ingenious paraphrasing of echoes and kitsch from rock's golden age of bombast," while Spin called it “savage and heartfelt”) and cemented MCR’s status as a world-class rock band. Following the album’s release, the New Jersey-bred MCR launched The Black Parade World Tour — their longest and most comprehensive trek yet that culminated in a triumphant hometown show at New York City’s Madison Square Garden in May 2008.

Stay tuned for details about the band’s recently announced European “World Contamination Tour.”

For more on My Chemical Romance, including album trailer, please visit www.mychemicalromance.com.

NEW SOUNDGARDEN - TELEPHANTASM

You had to know that when Soundgarden reunited this summer that there would be a new album forthcoming. “Telephantasm” is a compilation album with previously unreleased material as well as hit songs and rarities spanning the band's thirteen-year career. It is scheduled to be released on September 28, 2010 in multiple formats.

The career-spanning retrospective album will be released in multiple formats, a single CD, that includes an unreleased track, "Black Rain.”  The 1-CD version of the album will also be featured in Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock, with "Black Rain" available on the disc, and the remaining eleven tracks available as downloadable content alongside release of the game. Additional formats will include a 2-CD +DVD and an ultimate set including 3LP +2CD +DVD.

Black Rain is the first single from the album and the first single that Soundgarden has released since 1997. The song was recorded during sessions for “Badmotorfinger” and, according to Chris Cornell in an interview with USA Today, "Black Rain" captures "that super heavy version (of the band) we were finally realizing to its fullest potential about 1991."

Check out the track and the video for yourself…

JAMES BLUNT DOESN'T LIKE TWITTER

While discussing his forthcoming album, “Some Kind of Trouble” James Blunt had the following to say about his experience with social networking. “I have a Twitter account which my label and management want me to do and I can’t engage with it in a way they want me to. They want me to say ‘I’m eating this for breakfast’ and I’m upset about this in the world today.’ The world wants public figures to over-share and I don’t feel comfortable doing it, so I kind of enjoy the way the songs try to speak for themselves.”

That being said, Blunt still feels the best use of celebrity is to use it to shine the spotlight with those doing good. On previous concert tours he raised funds for Doctors Without Borders and he continues to work closely with Friends of the Earth to increase awareness of climate change.

The first single “Stay the Night” should be hitting the air in late October and is described as a sexy, acoustic-guitar driven, party song about “singing ‘Billie Jean’ and mixing vodka and caffeine.” If you can’t wait for the official release there is currently a version of the song circulating on YouTube.

Overall the album is described as being delightfully upbeat and uncynical. Blunt says, “It captures a bit of the mood of the early ‘80s. There was a global atmosphere in the West that we could do anything – the same optimism we felt as teenagers.” ‘Some Kind of Trouble’ really captures that same sense of freedom and excitement and naivety.”

Look for it to hit the shelves in early November.

JANIS JOPLIN - THE LAST RECORDING

During September 1970, Janis Joplin and her band began recording the album “Pearl” with producer Paul A. Rothchild who had produced albums for The Doors. Two of the tracks on the album, “Mercedes Benz” and “Buried Alive In The Blues” were not completed before her death.

Despite her death producer Paul Rothchild felt there was enough usable material to compile an LP and included both tracks on the LP. The acapella “Mercedes Benz” was a rough first take having been the last song that she recorded. Janis had been scheduled to add her vocals to “Buried Alive In The Blues” on the day that she was found dead. The song was added to the album as an instrumental. The posthumously released album became the most successful album of her career and contained her biggest hit single, “Me and Bobby McGee”.

The last actual recording Joplin completed was a birthday greeting for John Lennon. The birthday greeting was her singing “Happy Trails” written by Dale Evans which she recorded on October 1st, the same day that she recorded “Mercedes Benz." Lennon, whose birthday was October 9, later told Dick Cavett that her taped greeting arrived at his home after her death.

RIP LEONARD SKINNER

Associated Press reports that Leonard Skinner, the basketball coach and gym teacher who inspired the name of the Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, died Monday in Florida, his daughter said. He was 77.

Skinner died in his sleep at the St. Catherine Laboure Manor in Jacksonville, where he had been living for about a year, his daughter Susie Moore said. Skinner had Alzheimer's disease.

He was working at Robert E. Lee High School in Jacksonville in the late 1960s when he sent a group of students to the principal's office because their hair was too long. Those students later formed a band, using a variation of Skinner's name for their own.

During an interview in January 2009, Skinner said he was always bothered by the way the legend grew to say he was particularly tough on the band members or that he had kicked them out of school, according to The Florida Times-Union, which first reported Skinner's death.

"It was against the school rules," Skinner said then. "I don't particularly like long hair on men, but again, it wasn't my rule."

The band became popular in the mid-1970s, with hits such as "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Free Bird." Three of the band members, including lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, were killed in a 1977 plane crash. The band regrouped and continues to perform today.

Years after sending the young students to the office, Skinner found his son listening to an album called "Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd." The son, also named Leonard, said his father wasn't particularly impressed.

After discovering the connection, Skinner eventually made friends with some of the band members, according to the paper. They even performed at a Jacksonville bar the former coach owned.

Skinner later allowed the band to use a photo of his Leonard Skinner Realty sign for the inside of their third album, and he once introduced them at a Jacksonville concert.

Skinner's children said their father was never completely comfortable with being linked to the band but did grow to embrace it.

"He made a lot of new friends," Moore said. "That in itself really brought a lot of wonderful people in our family's lives, simply because they were Lynyrd Skynyrd fans, and they wanted to meet Dad. They loved him. They're part of our extended family now."

NEIL YOUNG - LE NOISE

Whether as a singer, a songwriter or a guitarist, Neil Young has been one of the most influential and important artists of the rock era. Blending folk, country and rock, the acoustic and the electric, the melancholy and the hopeful, Young has been an icon for the uncompromising and unpredictable since the 1960s. It’s no surprise then that his newest release is something just a little different.

Le Noise is a collaboration between the acclaimed rock icon and musician, songwriter, and producer Daniel Lanois, known for his work with U2, Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel, Willie Nelson, The Neville Brothers and many others. Young and Lanois have crossed paths musically over the course of many years, including performances at Young's Bridge School Benefit Concert and at Farm Aid when Lanois was Willie Nelson's music director, but this is the first time the two have recorded together.

Recorded in Lanois' home in the Silverlake area of Los Angeles, Le Noise features Young on acoustic and electric guitars with Lanois adding his trademark sonic textures, creating one of the most sonically arresting albums Young has ever recorded. No band, no overdubs, just "a man on a stool and me doing a nice job on the recording," as Lanois puts it.

Lanois says. "He (Neil) walked in the door and I put an acoustic guitar into his hands - one that I had been working on to build a new sound. I wanted him to understand that I've spent years dedicated to the sonics in my home and that I wanted to give him something he'd never heard before. He picked up that instrument, which had everything - an acoustic sound, electronica, bass sounds - and he knew as soon as he played it that we had taken the acoustic guitar to a new level. It's hard to come up with a new sound at the back end of 50 years of rock and roll, but I think we did it."

SOMEONE SAVED HIS LIFE THAT NIGHT

"Someone Saved My Life Tonight" is an Elton John song from his album Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. The song lyrics were written by Bernie Taupin and refer to a time in 1969 when Elton John was considering marriage to his girlfriend, Linda Woodrow. John and Woodrow were sharing a flat with Taupin in the East End of London. While having serious doubts about the looming marriage and lack of finding success in his musical career John became depressed and contemplated suicide.  It was during this period that Elton sought help from his friends, especially Long John Baldry.

Baldry had been a blues singer in the band Hoochie Coochie Men that at the time also included a young Rod Stewart.  In 1965 the Hoochie Coochie Men became Steampacket and eventually disbanded when Stewart left to pursue a solo career.  Baldry then formed the band Bluesology featuring an unknown Reg Dwight on keyboards with Elton Dean and Caleb Quaye on guitar. Reg Dwight soon adopted the name Elton John, his first name from the guitarist Elton Dean and his surname from Long John Baldry.

Baldry was openly gay during the early 1960s when homosexuality was still criminalized and medicalized in Britain. It was Baldry who convinced John to abandon his plans to marry Linda Woodrow in order to salvage and maintain his musical career.  As a sign of his respect and gratitude for Baldry, Taupin wrote him into the song as the ‘someone’ in the title.

White Collar Worker

"Takin' Care of Business" is one of the best-known hits from the Canadian band Bachman–Turner Overdrive. Randy Bachman had written the song some eight years before it's release while he was a member of The Guess Who and had titled it "White Collar Worker.”  His idea was to write a song about a recording technician who worked on The Guess Who's recordings. This particular technician would take the 8:15 train to get to work, inspiring the lyrics "take the 8:15 into the city." The standard uniform worn by technicians at the studio was a white collared shirt, which gave Randy the name "White Collar Worker.”

When Randy first played the song for Burton Cummings, lead singer of The Guess Who, Burton said the opening guitar riff Randy had arranged for the song was similar to that of the Beatles' "Paperback Writer" that he was ashamed of him and that The Guess Who would never record the song.

Eight years after writing the song, and during the supporting concerts for BTO's first album, Randy was driving and listening to the radio when he heard radio DJ Darryl Burlingham say the day before a gig, "We're takin' care of business on C-Fox radio," and Randy decided to insert the lyrics "takin' care of business" into the chorus where "white collar worker" previously existed.

The next night lead vocalist Fred Turner's voice gave out before the band's last set and Randy sang some cover songs to get through the gig and on a whim he told the band to play the C, B-flat and F chords over and over while he sang "White Collar Worker" with the new words "Takin' Care of Business" inserted to the chorus.  The crowd loved the song and Fred Turner who was the normal vocalist for the band insisted that Randy record it for their next album.

The band included the song on their second album, Bachman-Turner Overdrive II with a new opening guitar riff giving it the signature sound it has today. Randy also continued to sing the song in concerts providing Fred Turner with a much needed opportunity to rest his voice during shows. The song would eventually reach #12 on the Billboard singles charts and become one of BTO's most recognizable songs.