This year's Made in America Festival will take place in both Philadelphia and Los Angeles simultaneously with Jay Z headlining both cities. The rest of the line-up has yet to be announced.
To celebrate the release of their recent mixtape, hip-hop legends De La Soul will release 100 vinyl copies of Smell the Da.I.S.Y in record stores around America, Canada, and the UK. The instrumental only album also features an unreleased J. Dilla beat. The hip-hop trio emailed fans to give them hints as to what stores they can pick up the LP. The record is a tribute to Dilla, who died in 2006.
Black Flag and FLAG have settled their trademark lawsuit that Black Flag guitarist and SST Records founder Greg Ginn filed against his former bandmates who are in FLAG, along with Steven Egerton of ALL / Descendants who is playing Ginn's parts in FLAG. Last year, Ginn claimed that FLAG's logo and name where his under his SST label. Now, a settlement has been reached. "FLAG gets to be FLAG, and Black Flag as it is presently known continues to be Black Flag," Evan Cohen, the attorney for Greg Ginn, told The Hollywood Reporter.
In a new interview with Kerrang, producer Butch Vig has confirmed that Foo Fighters are "almost halfway done" with their new album. Vig said, "We've been recording at some different locations, but we're almost halfway done with the recording and it's going well. It sounds different — we've thrown a few things into the mix, in the recording process, that are going to give the record a different sound and a different feel. It's been a challenge, but it's also been exciting."
Speaking of Dave Grohl, he and Krist Novoselic recently spoke to Rolling Stone following their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction with Nirvana and talked about how they came to pick who played with them on stage. Grohl said, "'Don't even ask anyone else. If we can fill the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame performance with these incredible women singing Nirvana songs, then we'll have achieved our own revolution.' It also added a whole other dimension to the show. It added substance and depth, so it didn't turn into a eulogy. It was more about the future. Joan Jett, who formed the Runaways, changed rock & roll for women," says Grohl. "Kim Gordon, from Sonic Youth, was this beacon of light in the predominantly macho, male underground punk rock scene. St. Vincent is a wicked musician that's pushing boundaries now. And Lorde has an incredible future ahead of her as a writer, performer and vocalist." Then asked about what it was like to play together again, Novoselic said, "The first time we played together, it was like seeing a ghost," he says. "The second time, it was a little more reserved. And the last time we played it was like that fucking Demi Moore/Patrick Swayze pottery wheel scene from Ghost. We usually got the song by the third take. It started to sound like Nirvana. Our road crew and some friends were in the room when we launched into 'Scentless Apprentice' for the first time. There were jaws on the floor."
The troubles behind Wu-Tang Clan are heating up. Speaking to Vlad TV RZA spoke about how he and Raekwon are not on speaking terms and how he is absent from the new Wu album. RZA said, ""I haven’t had a chance to really talk to him about why not... But I would say that maybe creatively we on different paths. I'm creatively different than I was in the ‘90s." Now, speaking to Rolling Stone, Raekwon is firing back saying, "I don’t know why he said he didn’t speak to me, because he did speak to me. We spoke about two weeks ago. It was me, him, his brother and business partner Devine and we talked about why I’m not there right now. They know where I’m at and at the end of the day, him saying he didn’t speak to me is a bold-faced lie." He then said he was "one strike" from the Wu, saying, "It ain't the fact that I don't want to be there. Because of course I want to be there. But if we're there, we gotta do the best everything. We gotta work 10 times harder, because that's what I'm signing in for."