Blog Posts by Steve Baltin

Queen
drummer Roger Taylor was recently in his hometown when he saw a poster
that caught his attention. "It said, 'Queen on stage,'" Taylor tells Rolling Stone.
"I saw in the very hall where we used to play and there's just the
quite bad picture of a band. There are so many of these tribute bands
and then there are like orchestral concerts going on featuring music. A
lot of these things are not up to scratch and so we want to do it
properly."

Assembling a tribute tour worthy of an iconic act - a group that remains so popular late lead singer Freddie Mercury was honored on Google's home page a few weeks ago
on what would have been his sixty-fifth birthday -  is a daunting task.
But  Taylor thinks he's found an innovative solution to, as he puts it,
"keep Queen's music alive." The drummer is enlisting the public's help,
putting together an online competition to find the group for Queen
Extravaganza, a 2012 trek that will feature a band playing Queen's music
combined with unseen

This should be a great time for Peter Hook: The Joy Division co-founder and former New Order bassist is coming to the U.S. next week with his new band the Light to perform the Joy Division albums Closer and Unknown Pleasures in their entirety. Plus, his old friend Moby will take over the vocals on some of the songs at two Los Angeles dates.

But his excitement over the tour - he says he's rediscovering the band that he "put away for 34 years" - has been dampened by the news that New Order has decided to reform without him for a series of charity shows. Rolling Stone spoke to him today about his former bandmates, his recollections of Joy Division and what else he's planning for his U.S. tour.

This morning you released a statement responding to the New Order reunion.
It's a very difficult thing to talk about because it's an odd position to be in. We are in business together, we have a Ltd. company together, and it's been the goings-on behind the scenes that are the major problem. Them

With his hip-hop act Childish Gambino, Donald Glover - best known for his role as Troy on NBC's hit comedy Community - is giving his acting career a run for its money. He's just signed a deal with indie label Glassnote, home to Mumford & Sons and Phoenix, and is getting ready to release his debut album, Camp (tentatively set for November 1st).

"The biggest compliment I can give the album right now is it's worthy of being on Glassnote," he tells Rolling Stone. "I love Glassnote's stuff, and he [Daniel Glass] was like, 'We can do anything with this album if the album's good.'"

Glover probably also scored some points with one track in particular that gives a shout out to Mumford & Sons. "I definitely reference them in this one song," he says. "We all know each other, it's kind of cool. It's like a family."

Is working with Mumford or Phoenix a possibility? "I don't know if I'm allowed to talk about it right now, but I've started collaborating with a bunch of artists," he says.

His wish

Good Charlotte are releasing a mix tape, Before The Fame: The Madden Brothers, on October 1st. "It's all new artists - Machine Gun Kelly, Rockie Fresh," Benji Madden tells Rolling Stone. 

The mixtape will be the only music that fans hear from the Maddens for awhile, though. "We're stepping away from the grind of making records and touring for a minute, just to have fun and be creative like we were when we were 15," Benji says.

Good Charlotte released their last album, Cardiology, in November 2010, their fifth album since their debut in 2000. Since then they've also kept up a very active touring schedule, but both have full liveswith his twin and bandmate Joel having two kids and the brothers now both 32, they have full lives outside of music to concentrate on. However, for acts like Incubus, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Evanescence, all of whom released or are releasing new albums in 2011 five years after their last project the break has been great for them artistically and personally.

It didn't take much to get actor Jonah Hill to agree to direct Sara Bareilles' forthcoming video for "Gonna Get Over You," which will be released sometime in the next few weeks. 

"We've known each other for a long time, and he wanted to foray into this world. I'm like, 'Um, yes please, do my video,'" Bareilles told Rolling Stone at the East Los Angeles supermarket where they were filming the video she describes as a "mish-mash of Grease and West Side Story."

Bareilles had no problem breaking her famous friend into the music video game. "There's something really special about being someone's first, like he's a video virgin," she said. "I feel like I'm in new territory as well because I'm dancing for the first time, it's a totally different thing I've ever done."

Hill was inspired by Spike Jonze, whom he calls a hero and a friend. "His videos have informed a lot of the way I think visually, and music video direction is something I think will help make me a better director," he said.

On

Rebecca Black started her home schooling 10 days ago after being forced out of school due to bullying, but the teenage "Friday" sensation has seemingly gotten the last laugh over those who tormented her: She's working on a full-length album, which will be out around Halloween, she told Rolling Stone.

She's well aware, though, of the vitriol directed at the song that brought her to the VMAs. "The album is nothing like 'Friday," she says. "It's got ballads, dance songs, everything."

Black, who is 14, seems unfazed by the events of the last few months. Next up? "Grammys, touring, or movies," she says, though there are no tour plans (or Grammy or movies, for that matter) in the works yet. "I'd love to be in Twilight, and I can't be in Harry Potter anymore, which sucks."

RELATED:

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The MTV Video Music Awards were a major spectacle as always, with flashy performances, often bizarre outfits and an abundance of bleeped-out chatter. The backstage scene was about as wild as you'd expect, but without the pyro and, thankfully, no bleeping at all whatsoever.

"This is f**king awkward, what the f**k am I doing," said Odd Future's Tyler, the Creator, who won a Moonman for Best New Artist. The rapper was clearly in a good mood, or at least good enough that he was willing to offer some relatively kind words for Bruno Mars, with whom he has been feuding with for months. "He put on a good performance, but I still hate that dude's f**king music."

Nicki Minaj won Best Hip-Hop Video for her "Super Bass" clip last night, but she was more interested in talking about her next album backstage. "[It's] going to have a lot of Roman on it," she told Rolling Stone. "If you're not familiar with Roman you will be. He's a boy who lives inside me, he's a lunatic and he's gay. I have a lot of

Insane Clown Posse's Shaggy 2 Dope (whose real name is Joseph Utsler) has heard all the talk about having media lightning rod Charlie Sheen appear as part of this weekend's Gathering of the Juggalos in Cave-In-Rock, Illinois. "Everybody thinks Charlie Sheen, craziness! But really it's not. It makes total sense," Shaggy tells Rolling Stone. "Charlie Sheen right now is under a microscope, he's under scrutiny. Everything he says is debated, picked apart - much like everything we do."

The duo are themselves no strangers to controversy for pioneering the "horrorcore" genre, using rap-metal for tales of cannibalism, murder and necrophilia. Equally controversial has been the Gathering itself, whose Juggalos are devout ICP fans who have brought their own turmoil over the years, most famously last year when they pelted both Tila Tequila and Method Man with bottles and rocks.

Sheen will host the main stage Saturday night, the first time in its 12-year history that the festival will have a host.