Timberlake & Beyonce double team

Aug. 22, 2007

Timberlake & Beyonce double team
The 2007 MTV Video Music Awards show is now slated for September 9 in Las Vegas, with Justin Timberlake and Beyonce heading up the nominations with a whopping seven noms each, including a direct face-off in the Video of the Year category, for which Timberlake is up for “What Goes Around” and Beyonce is up for “Irreplaceable.” Performers at this year’s event will include Foo Fighters, Lily Allen, and Fall Out Boy, with more TBA; Best New Artist nominess include country diva Carrie Underwood, the aforementioned Allen, Gym Class Heroes, and Swedish modern indie rockers Peter Bjorn and John...

Dean Martin is returning to the popular music fold (well, for some people, he never left, but you know what we mean) with the upcoming release of Forever Cool, which teams Martin’s vocals up with some duet singers to make for a pretty groovy set. In addition to UK singer Robbie Williams - whose 2001 album Swing When You’re Winning featured tunes by Martin’s musical peer Frank Sinatra - Martin’s duet partners on the new set will also include Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Chris Botti, Paris Bennett, Martina McBride, and, er, Kevin Spacey. The disc is set to hit stores this week...

The Beastie Boys, busy on the road, have added a plethora of extra live dates to their schedule for the remainder of this summer, and, in addition to their regular concert appearances, the Boys are also offering up seats for special gala shows, which means you’ve gotta dress up (tuxedos, boys, tuxedos) and at which the band will only play instrumental tunes from their latest set, The Mix Up. In addition, the Boys have teamed up with ARIA to make a $1 donation from every ticket sold to Reverb, the environmental education program. New Beastie Boys dates include stops in Denver, CO (8/16 and 8/17), Los Angeles (8/19-8/21), and at Berkeley, California’s Greek Theater on August 25th...

Klaxons are hitting the tour trail, too, for their third tour of the U.S. They’re bringing along fellow Brits Mystery Jets as openers this time around, and will also be opening up for none other than Bjork at her upcoming Madison Square Garden Show; Klaxons lives dates include September 24th in NYC (with Bjork), 9/30 in Seattle, 10/6 in Chicago at the Vic Theater, and 10/10 in Toronto, Ontario...

MODERN ROCK LINK OF THE WEEK: Yee-haw! We Are Only Fiction has a new tune for you - check out “Glass Liar” on their MySpace at www.myspace.com/weareonlyfiction...

MINI BUZZ:
Brooklyn girls Northern State are taking their spot as opening act for Canadian twin rockers Tegan and Sara on the duo’s Canadian tour; Northern State’s own new album, Can I Keep This Pen? is out on August 28th...
UK band The Coral are set to release their new album, Roots and Echoes as a digital-only release in the U.S. on August 7th via Columbia Records...
Brian Wilson is set to embark on a UK mini tour, on which he’ll be performing new material from his suit That Lucky Old Sun (A Narrative) which consists of both music and spoken word from Wilson...
Australia indie-popsters Architecture in Helsinki are set to drop their latest album, Places Like This, on August 21st, and will follow it up with a U.S. tour that will pass through Chicago (10/16), Toronto (10/18), Minneapolis (10/24), and San Diego (11/02)...
Weezer singer Rivers Cuomo, currently working with Weezer on the band’s sixth album, is also currently working on a proposed personal memoir that will likely include anecdotes about Cuomo’s favorite power-pop influences and the time he spent studying at Harvard...
And The Police are now set to play shows in Australia and Japan early next year, after their 38 U.S. shows drew almost a million people...

And drawing you in to take those hard-earned dollars out of your billfold and spend ‘em on CDs and DVDs are... well, this week’s new CDs and DVDs... ON CD: The Editors’ An End Has a Start... Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Berlin... Snowden’s Snowden... Port O’Brien’s The Wind and the Swell... Fall Out Boy’s Take This to Your Grave... and Pirate Ship Quintet’s Pirate Ship Quintet... ON DVD: Les Paul - Chasing Sound... Marshall Crenshaw: On Stage at World Cafe... Jill Scott - Live in Paris... and Queen: The DVD Collector’s Box ... and that’s the buzz for this week’s Modern Rock.

Questions, comments, rants, raves, suggestions on this column or your fave musicians? Send ‘em to Kristi at modernrocker@gmail.com