LOLA DUTRONIC "Everybody Loves You When You're Dead"

Someone's finally come up with a pop tune cousin to Jim Carroll's "People Who Died". Lola Dutronic (featuring Stephanie B.) runs us through a shopping list of questionably moral individuals that we just adore now that they're deceased. Now sing along with the likes of backing vocalist friends Chris Frantz & Tina Weymouth (Tom Tom Club), Mona Mur & En Esch, Hugo Burnham (Gang Of Four), Eric Debris (Metal Urbain), Jeremy Gluck & David Buckley (The Barracudas), Ian MacKay (The Diodes), Ray Coburn (Honeymoon Suite), Bill Wood (Eye Eye), Bucko Billie Brock (Boys Brigade), Jaymz Bee (The Look People), Teddy Fury & Project Heartbreak. From the new album "Everyone's A Star" now on iTunes.

RORY STORM / RINGO STARR recordings unearthed

After 52 years sitting in the basement of the sister of Rory Storm (Alan Caldwell) in Liverpool, previously unheard recordings of Rory Storm & The Hurricanes - Ringo Starr's band prior to joining The Beatles - will be released for the first time on a new CD collection. Full story

TIM CHAISSON - DISCovery of the week

Prince Edward Island's Tim Chaisson's new album 'The Other Side' drops September 25th. The first single has been released and can be heard Here for free.

BESSE COOPER the oldest living person turns 116

With the spate of celebrity deaths in the past few months it's nice to have a good news story for a change. On August 26th Georgia resident Besse Cooper celebrated her 116th birthday. That's right, kids, Besse was born August 26, 1896!!! She is now recognized as the oldest living human and sits in 10th place on the list of the oldest verifiable people to have EVER lived on the earth (Jeanne Calment of France holds the record at 122 Years, 164 Days).

Here's hoping Besse has another wonderfully historic year!

CRAIG ELKINS "I Love You" CD review

CRAIG ELKINS "I Love You"

For many years now I've made it a mission to not slag independent releases when I review them. A lot of REAL blood, sweat and tears and most probably a considerable amount of personal debt goes into putting together 10 or 12 songs for a CD knowing very well it could take years to do it again based on the personal circumstances of most struggling artists. Ex-Huffamoose member Craig Elkins' latest release was treated with the same reverence. But after two listens to the entire 9 song collection I ejected the CD and tossed it into the back seat of my car. For the first time ever in my 40 years as a music afficionado an artist has triggered the one emotion I've NEVER experienced while listening to music: Anger. It pushed me way outside of my cushy comfort zone. I'm not sure if this was Elkins intent or whether I'm not the person that should be tuning in to his confessionals. To preface this you should know that there are no bad songs on the album. His musical approach is Memphis Alt-country created with the help of Pete Thomas (Elvis Costello), Charlie Gillingham & Dave Immergluck (Counting Crows), Neil Larsen (Leonard Cohen) and a huge team of other contributors. His voice shifts between an emotively over-the-top Adam Duritz or Barney Bentall ("Tell 'em My Story") to the more subdued and conversational Marc Cohn (on the album's best track "I Wanted To, But I Didn't"). But the album plays out like a movie monologue in a smoke-filled seedy hotel room with blacked out windows where a heroin addict is soliloquizing shortly before overdosing. And if you think I'm being harsh just check out the opening track "Offin' Myself" where he goes on about being a prick and he might just kill himself or the directly-to-the-point "I Can't Stop Being a Dick". Every song's a bigger downer than the last - and shifts thematically back and forth between SELF-loathing and PEOPLE loathing. Just check out the closing Randy Newman-like literal lyric acoustic dirge "Human Drag" - "Being a fucking human can be a really big fucking drag".

Even when Elkins' stream of consciousness observations are accompanied by a catchy chorus like "Most of the People" he's still presenting as skid row Emo boy: [Paraphrasing here cause there's no lyric sheet] "Most of the people that you see on the street or in the crowd or at the store/Some in the place in the space that you occupy are gonna die before you see them again". How uplifting. Sounds like Elkins is having a rough life or needs therapy or maybe just a hug. But as a recent comedian once said very succinctly - you know who cares about your problems more than you? Nobody. Some people write about their personal pain in a diary (or on Facebook or have the name Tom Waits). Elkins has committed it to a well produced CD. Jury's still out on whether that's brave or foolish. Maybe I'm missing the point of the whole thing because Elkins certainly has an audience - hell, his stuff has been used on the TV show "Sons of Anarchy" and even in commercials. Or maybe he's just putting us all on. After all, the album is ironically titled 'I Love You' and his tagline is 'Music For Real (Depressed) People'. Craig Elkins Website

RIP - Astronaut Neil Armstrong, 82

Neil Armstrong, the first human to walk on the Moon as part of NASA's Apollo 11 mission in July 1969 has died at the age of 82.

KLAATU releases 35th Anniversary 'Hope' remaster CD