Rock n Roll

u2 & VAST, with cameo appearances from Biffy Clyro, Gojira, Mammal and Tomahawk. As we reach the end of the alphabet, the noteworthy bands get a bit thinner on the ground. So this week, I've decided to pare things down and go deep into the two bands who jumped out the most - being arguably the biggest band in the world, and the act who I wrote about to get this gig in the first place.  

In a day and age when many musicians enter and exit the limelight in the span of a few hit songs, it is common to go see a concert only wanting to hear those few familiar tunes. Such is not the case with Creedence Clearwater Revisited, who will play at Reno's Silver Legacy on Friday night. "We play 20 songs and they're all hits," said Doug "Cosmo" Clifford, the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame drummer for Creedence Clearwater Revival and co-founder of Creedence Clearwater Revisited.  

There's no violence, and their developers have already weeded out most of the sex and drugs in rock 'n' roll. And just about anyone can pick up a fake guitar, microphone or a pair or drumsticks and figure out what to do with it. But Activision and MTV Games, the publishers of " Guitar Hero " and "Rock Band," respectively, want to make sure that even the youngest gamer is on board.  

Be honest. When you first saw the trailer for or clips from 2012 , you got a little sexually excited, didn't you? It's OK, I won't tell anyone.  

Michael Jackson might also be getting the Cirque du Soleil treatment. Though he is gone, the King of Pop lives on in his music and the Canadian-based performance group is "heavily courting" the late singer's estate with an "astronomical" amount of money in hopes of creating a Las Vegas-style show based on Jackson's timeless classics. According to a scoop from Showbiz411, Cirque producers are confident that a Jackson-inspired production would have the same success as "Love," the Beatles-themed show, which is currently heating up the Vegas strip at the Mirage Hotel & Casino.  

This lightweight British comedy is set in 1966 and captures a sense of the era through its costumes, production design, dialogue and, above all, its top-notch soundtrack. While the tale of rogue disc jockeys who defied the government and broadcast rock 'n' roll beyond U.K. territorial waters can grow choppy, watching it is like lazing on a sunny afternoon with old pals. In the mid-'60s, while some of the world's most popular rock bands were homegrown Brits, their countrymen had shockingly limited opportunities to hear them on the airwaves.  

More than $7,000 was raised for long-time Oklahoma City drummer Derek Dugger at a musical event at 66 Bowl on Saturday. In the event organized by Dugger's hot rod car club, The Roadkillers, 14 bands played, and items were auctioned from metal art to pin-up posters for the cause. All proceeds went to Dugger.  

Marianne Faithfull has never been much for nostalgia throughout a roller-coaster career that's found her constantly reinventing herself. But when her band played "As Tears Go By" on her fall U.S. concert tour, she found herself flashing back to where her wild ride all began. "If you'd have told me that at 62, I'd still be singing 'As Tears Go By' to a rapt audience, I couldn't imagine that," says Faithfull.

She is our Lotte Lenya, our (Marlene) Dietrich, our (Edith) Piaf. You can't learn to sing like that   -Hal Willner

 

W ith some artists, there's a constant need for re-invention and Maxine Morin -- otherwise known as DJ Champion -- experienced that drive with his new album Resistance, released in September. After returning to his home studio in Montreal, he sat down to produce what would eventually become Resistance. He found himself in a bit of a sticky situation following the initial recording process -- the album he made wasn't satisfactory.