Madonna & The Beasties up for Hall of Fame honor

Oct. 10, 2007

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has announced its latest set of nominees, which are once again pushing the boundaries of “traditional“ rock and roll, thankfully incorporating many genres of rock to honor landmark musicians of all varieties. This time around, Michigan‘s own Madonna is one of the nine noms, after scoring 17 top ten hits in the ‘80s decade alone, and still cranking out the hits today. In addition to Maddie, NY hip-hopsters The Beastie Boys, rap pioneer Afrika Bambaataa, literate songwriter Leonard Cohen, Brits The Dave Clark Five, and surf-rockers The Ventures are among the potential honorees; the five leading vote-getters will be inducted into the Hall of Fame during their annual ceremony on March 10th, 2008...

Musician-slash-activist Bono has been awarded the prestigious Liberty Medal for his humanitarian efforts, including his work to combat hunger and disease issue worldwide. This year‘s award is the first time in the National Constitution Center‘s history that it‘s given the award to someone who‘s not a politician; and Bono will also receive a $100,000 donation to his charity organization, DATA, in addition to the award itself. Bono joins a long legion of past award winners such as Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela...

The now-defunct legendary NYC club CBGB will get a rebirth of sorts through a new series of live performance audio recordings that are being put together by MVD. Each CD will feature a full concert as recorded at the club from the ‘80s just about until the club‘s closure; the first couple of discs will include shows by H20 and Mooney Suzuki, with more expected to be announced later this year. MVD will donate a portion of the sales to the Hilly Kristal Foundation for Musicians and Artists; Kristal ran CBGB for 33 years until its closure last year, and is credited with giving such acts as Talking Heads, Television, Blondie, and The Ramones their first gigs...

Art band MuteMath were the first band to make television history a couple of weeks ago, when they performed their current single, “Typical,“ on the ABC late-nite show Jimmy Kimmel Live. So what‘s newsworthy about this? Well, how about the fact that they were the first band to perform live - backwards? For the band‘s music video for the same song, the band members learned and rehearsed their parts backwards so that when filmed and viewed the parts would appear accurate and natural when the film was run in reverse; so, for this smarty-pants rockers, the obvious next step was to execute all of this hard work in front of a live audience...

MODERN ROCK LINK OF THE WEEK: Speaking of the aforementioned Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the organization has also launched their “The Craft“ chat and sing series, and Paul Westerberg was the series‘ latest subject. Westerberg, on stage in Minneapolis, played 10 songs from his solo work and from his work with the band The Replacements, and discussed a few of the song meanings as well as the impetus for his recent hiatus; “The Craft“ series can be heard entirely at the Hall of Fame archives, or online at www.rockhall.com/thecraft...

MINI BUZZ:
Director Martin Scorsese is set to direct a documentary about Beatles guitarist George Harrison; production is set to begin before the end of the year, with Harrison‘s widowed wife Olivia as co-producer...
Do you dig Guitar Hero? Are you a fan of The Sex Pistols? Then you‘re in luck - the band have reunited to re-record a version of their classic track “Anarchy in the U.K.“ that will appear in the game *Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock*...

Gorillaz are readying a second collection of rarities that will be in stores on November 7th; dubbed D-Sides, the 2-CD set will be available in standard and deluxe editions, with extra remixes from DFA, Soulwax, and Hot Chip...
Natasha Bedingfield‘s second, album, N.B., will finally be out in the U.S. on December 18th on Epic Records; the album, which has been out overseas since April, will include a new song, “Love Like This,“ that wasn‘t on the earlier edition and will feature Bedingfield‘s labelmate, Sean Kingston...
British Sea Power are prepping for the release of their new EP, Krankenhaus?, and will follow the disc‘s appearance up with a few live appearances on the U.S. East Coast, including stops in Philly (10/16), NYC (10/18), and Washington DC (10/19)...
Battles have an EP on the way, too - their *Tonto* disc will include remixes and live versions of the track, plus the song‘s music video and some behind-the-scenes footage - and it will hit stores in the U.S. on November 6th...

Hitting stores this week, in the meantime, are these new releases... ON CD: Stereophonics‘ import-only release of Pull the Pin... The Cult‘s Born Into This... Dashboard Confessional‘s The Shade of Poison Trees... Matchbox Twenty‘s Exile on Mainstream... Beirut‘s The Flying Club Cup... and Fiery Furnaces‘ Widow City... ON DVD: Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story... David Byrne: Live from Austin Texas... Glen Campbell‘s Good Times Again... and Mahavishnu Orchestra: Live at Montreux 1974-1984... 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