From Billboard: Former KISS guitarist Mark St. John died Thursday of an apparent brain hemorrhage. He was 51.

St. John (born Mark Norton) appeared on one album, 1984’s underrated Animalize. Granted, the whole non-makeup era was a bad one for KISS, but Animalize was their strongest effort from that period and during his all-too-brief tenure, St. John was a breath of fresh air. When he took over for Vinnie Vincent (who lent a lot of muscle to 1983’s solid but numbing Lick It Up), I was hopeful that good things were in the works for my all-time favorite band.  (more…)

I was out of pocket the last couple of days, so I wasn’t able to comment yesterday on the NME interview in which Keith Richards claimed he once snorted some of his dad’s ashes with some cocaine. It’s already old news, and the spin control has already started, with Kurt Loder of MTV News dismissing the whole thing as “totally untrue.” Kurt’s ironclad source? Richards’ manager, Jane Rose, who says the comment was made “in jest” and she “can’t believe anyone took [it] seriously.”

Oh, well, then — if Keith Richards’ longtime manager says it’s not true, that’s good enough for me!  (more…)

(Editor’s note: Today we debut a new feature, in which our senior critic Laurence Station catches us up on the new releases he’s been absorbing over the past month. Take it away, L.S. …)

This month it’s all about protest music (with an Amon Tobin chaser). Whether disaffected by conditions on the homefront (as Jay Farrar appears to be) or taking a more abstract expressionist take on the woeful state of worldly affairs (the suitably named Low), artists are venting their collective spleens and we’re rating their misery.

+ Son Volt: The Search
+ Low: Drums and Guns
+ LCD Soundsystem: Sound of Silver
+ Ted Leo / The Pharmacists: Living With the Living
+ Amon Tobin: Foley Room

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Modest Mouse: We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank
Epic, 2007
Rating: 3.9

“Florida,” off of Modest Mouse’s new We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank, is the natural complement to “Float On” from the band’s 2004 commercial breakthrough Good News For People Who Love Bad News. The latter song was a crossover hit, a minor-key pop song that differs from much of the rest of the band’s music in its upbeat theme. The newer work is more pessimistic — Isaac Brock singing of his inability to leave his past – yet ramps up the poppiness with an ooh-ah chorus, slick production and yet another powerful guitar hook. The track is certainly not completely radio-friendly, given Brock’s unrepentantly abrasive vocals and a shoegazing bridge, but you can’t say the band isn’t trying. And while it isn’t the lead single, the song is a nice approximation of the album as a whole: generally accessible, but not plying the top 40 crowd for favors.  (more…)

RJD2: The Third Hand
XL, 2007
Rating: 2.7

I saw RJD2 spin two summers ago. It was a formative experience, compelling proof that being a good DJ or crate-digging hip-hop instrumentalist takes more than buying some records, installing Pro Tools on your computer and spending a few Saturdays mixing. The man danced between four turntables and a box of records, building eighteen-minute collages of samples culled from a variety of tracks; it was a weird fusion of visual and aural performance, and a compelling argument for turntablism as the successor to jazz.

Despite being just months after the release of Since We Last Spoke, RJD2’s last outing, there were two events that night that foreshadowed The Third Hand. The first came during a set break, when RJ told the crowd in all sincerity that he couldn’t believe we were choosing to see him instead of the Gin Blossoms, who were playing at another venue. The second came at the end of the set, when a fan asked the DJ what he was listening to at the time. The answer: Odyssey and Oracle, the seminal ’60s pop album by the Zombies. (more…)

 So Dallas Austin has apologized, sort of, to Christina Aguilera and Joss Stone for comments made in a video clip that’s been circulating around the Internet. Or has he?

In the video (which has since been pulled from YouTube), he discusses having sex with Aguilera and asserts that she and Stone sleep with producers in exchange for music for their songs. In a statement released to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, however, he doesn’t refute those claims. He also rather churlishly defends his comments, stating that he “felt justified” in talking about them in this way and that his comments “were purely an act of retaliation, not of malice or cruel intent.”

Oh, well, then — that clears everything right up! You were retaliating — but you didn’t intend to be cruel or malicious! Well, of course! After all, retribution — especially the kind that could cause serious harm to a person’s reputation regardless of its veracity — is perfectly okay! I mean, what’s more human than taking revenge on a singer by going on at length about a young woman’s sexual proclivities, implying that she’s a slut or a ho — while simultaneously propping yourself up as a stud for having partaken of her wares? After all, you weren’t acting out of malice or anything. Seriously, Dallas, who’s your publicist? Because you need to fire them for letting you make even more of an ass out of yourself.

C’mon, dude, man up. If you’re going to apologize, then say you’re sorry and leave it at that. Don’t pull this passive-aggressive B.S. where you’re apologizing out of one side of your mouth and saying “Yeah, but they deserved it” out of the other.

Read Dallas’ non-apology after the jump.  (more…)

 … at least according to hitmaking producer (and all-around class act) Dallas Austin, as revealed in this appearance on something called Rowdy TV. (Editor’s note: The video has been pulled from YouTube since this was originally posted.) In it, he also claims that Aguilera and Joss Stone have sex with producers in exchange for music for their songs.

So the inference here is that it’s skanky to sleep with producers for tracks (and to sleep with their friends) — but it’s perfectly okay to avail yourself of a pop singer willing to trade sex for tracks. Nice double standard there, D.A. 

If this guy didn’t have friends in high places, with any luck he’d still be wasting away in a posh Dubai detention facility. Wonder how Sen. Orrin Hatch, Lionel Richie and Quincy Jones feel now about having pulled strings to get Austin out of there. Great work, fellas!

Damn, Sheryl Crow doesn’t care for American Idol. “Let’s face it, it undermines art in every way and promotes commercialism,” she’s quoted as telling Ladies Home Journal. Well, I only followed Idol regularly during its second season, and that was because of the girl I was dating at the time, so I’m not defending the show here. But c’mon, Sheryl, are you trying to write my material for me? (more…)

Eddie Van Halen entered a rehab facility on Thursday, reportedly for alcohol problems. Those same problems, and not friction with David Lee Roth, are rumored to be the reason that a reported Van Halen reunion tour was recently derailed. “I have always and will always feel a responsibility to give you my best. At the moment I do not feel that I can give you my best,” Van Halen says in a statement on the band’s Web site. “That’s why I have decided to enter a rehabilitation facility to work on myself, so that in the future I can deliver the 110% that I feel I owe you and want to give you.”

I think that bar is a little high, given Diver Down, Balance and Van Halen III. In fact, some would argue that he hasn’t given us his best since 1984. Still, we wish Eddie a 110% recovery.

Brad Delp, lead singer of the band Boston, was found dead in his home yesterday. He was 55. Delp’s cause of death isn’t known as of this writing, but police have ruled out foul play. 

I wasn’t a huge Boston fan — I thought some of the lyrics were a bit simple — but I appreciated Delp’s amazing voice and incredible power, and the guitar prowess of Tom Scholz. I remember buying the 45rpm single of “Don’t Look Back” as a kid at the local K-Mart for a buck. I sang along to that and “Long Time” many times in my bedroom, using a badminton racket for a guitar and a hairbrush for a mic, just like a lot of kids at the time. A lot of their music sounds dated to modern ears (although that’s true of most bands eventually), but when I hear “Don’t Look Back” or “More Than A Feeling” today, I have to sit through the whole thing. They’re simply great rock songs. Our condolences to the band and to Delp’s family.

As of this writing, the band’s site honors Delp with a succinct statement: “The nicest, kindest, most caring, down to earth rock star the world has ever known. May you rest in peace.”