News

Happy Mondays have announced two back to back shows in London in December. The reformed line-up will perform a double header at the Camden Roundhouse on December 19 and 20. Support will come from 808 State. Earlier this year, the Mondays confirmed that they are working on a new album, which will be the first time all the original line-up have recorded a record of new material since 1992's Yes Please!.

Paul McCartney, and his wife Nancy Shevall, were within two feet from crashing in a chartered helicopter, it has been revealed. The Beatles man and his wife were traveling in a £5million, 9-seater Air Harrods helicopter in May when their pilot became "disorientated" in poor weather conditions and dropped the aircraft towards trees situated within their East Sussex estate.

A selection of John Lennon's personal correspondence is soon to be released as a digital App. 68 letters have been chosen by Hunter Davies, editor of The John Lennon Letters, for inclusion, along with another 10 letters that will be exclusive to the App. Davies will commentary and context by Hunter Davies, audio transcriptions by Christopher Eccleston as John Lennon and a foreword by Yoko Ono. The app is currently exclusive to iOS, although it may eventually appear on other platforms.

Paul Weller will release a new EP, titled ‘Dragonfly’, next month. The six-track collection, which is set for release on December 17, will feature songs taken from the recording sessions of his latest studio album Sonik Kicks. You can see the video for the title track by scrolling down to the bottom of the page and clicking. The tracklisting for Dragonfly is as follows: 'Dragonfly' 'Lay Down Your Weary Burden' 'Portal To The Past' 'Devotion' 'We Got A Lot' 'The Piper'

Kraftwerk have announced a residency in Düsseldorf this coming January. After their residency at New York's Museum of Modern Art in April, where the group played one album per date along with additional works from their back catalogue, the band will follow a similar programme in their hometown. The performances, called 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8, will take place at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen Museum, first from January 11 - 13, then 16-20. Like the MoMA shows, Kraftwerk will play one album per date and will be accompanied by 3-D visuals.

Yoko Ono is set to direct and curate next year's Meltdown Festival at London's Southbank Centre. The 2013 festival will take place from June 14-23. The music and arts event has previously been helmed by David Bowie, Patti Smith and Jarvis Cocker. Of her involvement with Meltdown, musician and visual artist Ono has said: "I am deeply honoured to curate the world-famous Meltdown Festival. In doing so I am aware of the great tradition of experimentalism mixed with classicism that has made the festival such an enduring part of the British arts landscape."

The Rolling Stones have unveiled a brand new track titled "One More Shot" – scroll down to listen to it. The song is the second new recording from the rock legends, who have been back in the studio for the first time in seven years. It follows the release of the track 'Doom And Gloom' and will feature on the band's new greatest hits compilation GRRR!. Like "Doom And Gloom", "One More Shot" was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and was recorded in Paris with longtime Stones collaborator Don Was, who worked with the band on their last five LPs.

Black Sabbath have revealed that they are six tracks into recording their new album. Tony Iommi has said that the final album will consist of 15 tracks. The Guardian quotes the guitarist as saying: "We've written the 15 songs and we've played them all, but now at the moment we're recording them. We're about six tracks in at the moment."

Robert Plant was temporarily knocked to the floor when a fan invaded the stage during a recent gig in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Scroll down to watch fan-filmed footage of the incident. The stage invasion happened last Thursday [November 1] when Plant and his group The Sensational Space Shifters performed at Estadio Luna Park and had just finished performing Led Zeppelin's "Going To California". A man ran onto the stage and approached Plant but was tackled by security with the scuffle causing Plant to lose his balance and topple over.

A rare post-Beatles John Lennon letter to Eric Clapton is expected to fetch as much as £19,000 at auction this week. The handwritten letter by the former Beatle is set to go under the hammer in Los Angeles at the Profiles in History auction on December 18, Reuters reports.