Foo Fighters recently unveiled the documentary Back and Forth at South By Southwest, and though it met with general acclaim, one person isn’t a fan: Foos drummer Taylor Hawkins.
“I wish we wouldn’t put that f—ing movie out,” said Hawkins to NME of the film, which openly chronicles his battles with drug addiction and the band’s brushes with near-dissolution. “I’m not really comfortable with the public sort of openness.”
Take a look at the trailer:
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It’s been 14 years since The Notorious B.I.G. (real name: Christopher Wallace) was killed in Los Angeles in a drive-by shooting.
Several probes and investigations have yet to bring the criminal(s) to justice, and fans of the legendary rhymer have been left wondering what has been accomplished by authorities handling the case.
Now, finally, the FBI has released its (heavily redacted) documents on the murder, and several facts were revealed—one being that the bullets that killed him were rare Gecko 9mm ammunition, made only in Germany and sold Stateside only in California and New Jersey.
Officials hoped they could link the bullets to other crimes to find the murderer, but none was discovered. They were also hoping to link Biggie’s killing to Tupac Shakur’s six months earlier—and did find individuals who were present at both scenes.
They report that a number of the officers on duty at the industry party Biggie was leaving at the time of his death were also employed by Suge Knight’s rival West Coast label Death Row Records as security officers, which violates LAPD policy.
The documents also include talk of Biggie’s connections with the Genovese crime family in New York, and posit that the family may have photo or video evidence of the persons involved in the shooting.
And on a quirkier note, the contents of Big’s pockets at the time of his death were listed: Biggie had a Georgia driver’s license, a pen, 0.91 grams of marijuana, an asthma inhaler, and three condoms. You can check out the files yourself at the Los Angeles Times.
Do you think they’ll ever find out who killed Wallace? Let us know what you think.
Read More:
The Notorious B.I.G.’s murder investigation ‘reinvigorated’
The Biggie Picture
Notorious B.I.G.: Rap’s latest casualty
(Follow the Music Mix on Twitter: @EWMusicMix.)
Image Credit: Phil Andelman
It’s been a rough decade for the Beastie Boys, as they’ve faced problems both personal (like Adam Yauch’s cancer, which has put the group on the back burner for the better part of two years) and professional (their last proper album, 2004′s To the Five Boroughs, was met with general apathy).
But now, Yauch is in better health and the trio has unleashed the single “Make Some Noise” from their long-delayed new album Hot Sauce Committee Part Two. And the Boys seem to have found their musical groove again—listen to the track at their official site now.
Two men were arrested and charged with the murder of DJ Megatron, the music deejay and BET television personality who was gunned down near his Staten Island home on March 27. A police spokesperson said that William Williams, 21, and Richard Cromwell, 20, were taken into custody yesterday and charged with murder, robbery, and criminal possession of a weapon.
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Every couple of years the same question is asked of R&B music: “What happened to it?”
The inquiry is made as if the genre is dead or has mutated into something grossly unfamiliar. Sure, top-tier artists like Usher and Beyoncé seemingly have both feet firmly planted in pop music. But essentially, they are rhythm and blues singers.
The problem is, to me at least, that what R&B purists are looking for—soulful, non-Auto-Tune–assisted voices sans European club-inspired bass lines and obnoxious synths—is hard to find. Or maybe folks just aren’t looking hard enough.
Last night a capacity crowd piled into New York City’s Irving Plaza to catch two oh-so-talented yet not-so-famous R&B songstresses, Universal Motown’s Melanie Fiona and J’s Marsha Ambrosius, for BET’s Music Matters tour. READ FULL STORY »
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The Recording Academy, whose annual Grammy Awards “recognize excellence in music,” announced earlier today that they’ve cut the amount of categories used to acknowledge that greatness to 78.
The top always-televised awards—Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best New Artist—were not touched.
But several existing categories have merged. R&B took one of the hardest hits, being cut in half to four. And male, female, and group R&B Vocal Performance awards are now one: R&B Performance. Like rhythm and blues, a new award for Rock Performance replaces awards for Rock Solo Vocal Performance and Rock Performance by a Duo or Group.
If there’s one thing rock stars like more than driving expensive cars into swimming pools while on angel dust, it’s writing tunes about how gosh darned unfair society can be. The history of the latter tendency is exhaustively tracked in British music writer Dorian Lynskey’s new tome, 33 Revolutions Per Minute: A History of Protest Songs, from Billie Holliday to Green Day, which is out this week.
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Doesn’t it say “Let only he who is without sin picket a Lady Gaga concert” somewhere in the Bible?
In her latest YouTube video diary update, Gaga reveals footage of her arguing with a Christian fundamentalist protester outside of one of her shows. The picketer—who was doling out “get out of hell free” cards—was a bigot with a big gut who seemed to get quite a kick out of cutting off Gaga mid-sentence.
In the video, Gaga’s car rolls up to the lonely protester and she offers a friendly, “Hi, I’m Lady Gaga,” to which the man replies huffily, “So?”
You know what, guy? You are clearly spending hours of your free time lurking around her concert, which sort of undercuts the whole “So you’re Brad Pitt? That don’t impress me much” attitude.
Trying to meet him on some common ground, Gaga told the man, “I’m listening. You know we really believe in God at my show.” “Well, your pervert ways don’t quite equate to what God is all about,” the man spat out. “ When asked to clarify, he made what I’m sure he thought was a devastating, eloquent argument: “Yeah, the homo stuff.”
You can skip ahead to the 2:20 mark and watch it here: READ FULL STORY »
Yesterday, legions of rock fans remembered the seventeenth anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death with a spin of Nevermind or a viewing of “Heart Shaped Box.”
Jared Leto decided to do it another way:
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The numbers for Britney Spears’ new album, Femme Fatale, are in.
Her seventh set debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart with 276,000 copies sold. Though it opens at the top spot, that’s a pretty underwhelming tally, considering it’s her second-lowest opening. Only her first record, 1999′s Baby One More Time, sold less, with 121,000 units.
Hip-hop talent Wiz Khalifa’s Atlantic Records debut, Rolling Papers, begins its stay on the chart at No. 2. 197,000 copies of his “Black and Yellow”-featuring set were purchased. While Adele’s 21 holds at No. 3: this g0-around she sold 94,000 albums. Check out the full top 10 after the jump.
