News

Blur have announced an intimate UK tour for this August. The Britpop icons will play four shows on the tour, beginning at Margate's Winter Gardens on August 1. They will then play two shows at Wolverhampton's Civic Hall on August 5 and 6, before finishing off at Plymouth's Pavilions on August 7.

Animal Collective have revealed that their new studio album will be titled Centipede Hz. The Baltimore electro-psychedelic band will release the album, which is the 10th LP of their career, in September via Domino Records. The band made the announcement via a video on their official website, which revealed the record's title, a September release and a number of song titles.

Bassist Donald 'Duck' Dunn, who played with Booker T. & the M.G.'s, has died in Tokyo aged 70. The M.G.'s were the house band for STAX records and Dunn can be heard on a number of tracks including Otis Redding's "Respect" and Albert King's "Born Under A Bad Sign". The bassist had been in the Japanese city to play a series of concerts as part of a STAX show, featuring Steve Cropper and Eddie Floyd, and had played two gigs on Saturday night. Cropper posted on his Facebook page that Dunn had died in his sleep this morning (May 13).

Neil Young has debuted a second video from his forthcoming album with Crazy Horse, Americana. The video for "Jesus' Chariot (She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain") follows "Oh Susannah", the video for which Young released on May 1. Americana, Young's first album with Crazy Horse since Greendale in 2003, is set for release on June 5.

ZZ Top have previewed new material on a commercial for American beer, Jeremiah Weed. The advert features the members of the Texan band emerging from inside a giant beer cooler and surprising customers. The advert was shot at Bubba's Country Store in Austin, Texas. The track the band perform, "I've Got To Get Paid", is the first taster from their forthcoming album, produced by Rick Rubin.

Suede have scrapped the majority of the material their aired at their comeback gigs last year - and have returned to the studio with the man who produced their first four albums. Ed Buller is now helming the album, which will be the reunited Britpop band's first in over a decade. Writing on the band's Facebook page, singer Brett Anderson said that the they had been "merrily chipping away at the huge block of raw stone that is, whisper it, the new Suede album" and posted a picture of them together. He added:

LCD Soundsystem's film, Shut Up And Play The Hits, is to be released in the UK this August. Shot on April 2, 2011, at the band's farewell show at New York's Madison Square Garden, the film has been directed by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace and produced by Lucas Ochoa and Thomas Benski of Pulse Films, the same team that directed and produced the Blur documentary No Distance Left To Run. Recently, former LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy revealed that he is currently writing a novel.

Jimi Hendrix's estate has denied reports stating that a biographical film about the rock guitarist's life is in pre-production. Earlier this week it was reported that OutKast's Andre 3000 would be portraying Jimi Hendrix in a new Hollywood biopic, titled All Is By My Side. However, Experience Hendrix, LLC has now issued a statement saying that any such film would not be able to go ahead without their full cooperation. The statement, via Billboard, read:

Iggy Pop has spoken out about shunning major labels and releasing his latest album, Apres, online. Launching the record in Paris on Wednesday night [May 9], Iggy Pop – real name James Osterberg – explained why he released the record direct to fans rather than putting it out via a major label. Speaking about labels, he said: "What has a record company ever done for me but humiliate and torment and drag me down?"

Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry has confirmed that the band's new album is almost finished. In an interview with Rolling Stone he says the band are working on mixing the new tracks this week: "It's really close. We've started to mix. We've mixed a couple of the songs already, but I guess this week we're really kind of rolling into mix mode. We have a couple of tracks left to finish up, just to put some overdubs on, but we're kind of going from the final, final recording tracks to mixing this week."