New Led Zeppelin On The Way? Jason Bonham Hints At 'Jam' Sessions With Jimmy Page -- But Not Robert Plant

Drummer admits he doesn't know what will come of 'new material.'
By Chris Harris


Jason Bonham
Photo: Larry Marano/ Getty Images

On Friday morning, mere hours before he was due to take the stage with classic rockers Foreigner at Detroit's GM Renaissance Center, drummer Jason Bonham — the son of late Led Zeppelin kitman John Bonham — told Jim Johnson and Lynne Woodison of local rock station 94.7 WCSX that he'd be an ex-member of Foreigner as of September 1. But that's not the only thing he said.

Much to the delight of Led Zeppelin fans everywhere, Bonham revealed that he's been meeting up with Led Zep guitarist Jimmy Page and bassist John Paul Jones in recent months and that they've been "trying to do some new material and writing."

It was the first time since Led Zeppelin announced they would re-form for a single performance (which happened late last year at London's O2 Arena, in honor of the late Ahmet Ertegün, who signed the band to Atlantic Records in 1969) that anyone connected to the band has confirmed publicly that new music could be on the horizon for the iconic rockers. While the bandmembers have stopped short of definitively ruling out such a reunion, singer Robert Plant insisted in the wake of last year's show that he intended to focus on promoting and touring behind his critically lauded album with bluegrass artist Alison Krauss, Raising Sand.

Not that Bonham knows what — if anything — will happen with the new material he's been working on with Page (who collaborated with pop singer Leona Lewis on an uneven version of Zep's "Whole Lotta Love" at the Olympic closing ceremonies in Beijing on Sunday night) and Jones. He said he just shows up and takes his seat behind the kit.

"I've been over [to England] a couple of times," Bonham said. "I've been working with Jimmy and John Paul and trying to do ... some new material and some writing. I don't know what it will be, but it will be something. At the moment, all I know is I have the great pleasure to go and jam with the two guys and start work on some material. When I get there, I never ask any questions. If I get a phone call to go and play, I enjoy every moment of it. Whatever it ends up as, to ever get a chance to jam with two people like that, it is a phenomenal thing for me. It's my life. It's what I've dreamed about doing."

He said it's still too early to tell what will become of these "jam" sessions, but admitted that the "possibility of doing something is in the cards. I really felt it was in the cards from the moment we walked offstage at the O2." Bonham also explained that, before there could be a Led Zep LP, "lots of politics [would need to] get ironed out," but added that recording with Zep is "something I've always wanted to do."

Bonham noticeably didn't mention frontman Plant's name during the discussion. A spokesperson for Page's management had no comment on the matter, and a spokesperson for Jones' management could not be reached by press time.

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1593468/jason-bonham-hints-at-jam-sessions-with-jimmy-page.jhtml

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Lady Gaga's 'Born This Way' Rockets Up Billboard Charts

Instant-smash single is poised to debut at #1 on Hot 100.
By Gil Kaufman


Lady Gaga
Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Who didn't see this one coming? Thanks to the pushed-up release date on Friday and the most talked-about entrance at Sunday night's Grammys — not to mention what must have amounted to endless spins at clubs over the weekend — Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" is making some chart history.

Billboard reported that after just three days of availability, the tune shot to a record-setting debut on the Pop Songs radio airplay chart at #14 and is poised to possibly debut at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart this week thanks to brisk digital sales.

The first single from the album of the same name due on May 23 got 4,602 plays, which gives it the highest detections total by a debuting song in the chart's 18-year history, representing an audience of 39.3 million. Citing unnamed sources, the magazine also reported that "Born" sold more than 450,000 downloads since its release on Friday morning, which could help the song debut at #1 on the Hot 100 and make it only the 19th song ever to do so on that chart.

Gaga could also potentially wrest a record for the biggest debut track for a woman from Britney Spears if download sales continue to climb. Spears' "Hold it Against Me" rocked the chart a month ago with 411,000 in sales, but if Gaga's numbers hold she could land the fourth-largest digital track debut of all time behind Flo Rida's "Right Round," (636,000) the Black Eyed Peas' "Boom Boom Pow" (465,000) and Flo Rida's "Low" (460,000).

The star stopped by "Jay Leno" the day after the Grammys, and in addition to explaining that she and Madonna have no beef over complaints by some that "Born This Way" bears too much of a resemblance to some earlier Material Girl hits, Gaga also announced her upcoming May HBO special and explained the inspiration behind her new album.

She also revealed that she changed up the entire look of her Grammy performance two days before it aired because she wasn't happy with it. "I don't want the band and dancers to feel like a band and dancers," Gaga said, explaining why her crew was dressed in flesh-tone vinyl outfits that matched her own.

When Leno made a crack about her trio of Grammy outfits, which included a molded leather bodice created by fashion icon Thierry Mugler, Gaga said the latter had a cosmic inspiration. "It was inspired by humanoids, alien sex humanoid hybrid women," she said matter of factly, rocking some of the low budget sci-fi alien face-ridged makeup she debuted at the Grammys, on Leno's show.

The talk show host pointed to her third getup, which she said featured a giant black "church" hat, and asked if maybe it didn't block the view of the star behind her at the show, actor Will Smith. Gaga promised it didn't and added that she is in love with his daughter's hit single. "I love Willow," gushed Gaga, who took a series of photos with the pre-teen Smith family singer on her lap at the show. "I told her that she inspired me to whip my hair back and forth!"

Though she claimed to have written "Born This Way" in a matter of minutes, Gaga said she spent more than a year perfecting it and tweaking the music, promising that it is just one of the many sounds you'll hear on the album. "The record is kind of eclectic in a way," she said. "The rest of the songs on the album are quite different from 'Born This Way.' "

As for the album's theme, Gaga said it's about "being able to know that when you were born, you weren't just born in that moment, you have your entire life to realize the person that you're potentially going to become and whoever you choose to be was part of your destiny." Her hope, she said, was to encourage people who are feeling bullied or disenfranchised at the moment to realize that it's "never too late to harness your inner superstar."

For more Grammy Awards analysis, interviews, fashion and more, stick with MTV News!

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1658032/born-this-way-number-one.jhtml

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J.J. Putz Part of D'backs' Culture Shift

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J.J. PutzSCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- It was no great joy to be a member of the 2010 Arizona Diamondbacks -- not during a season which saw the manager fired, the general manager fired and the owner, who pulled the trigger on both moves, saying "this isn't a complete makeover."

The Diamondbacks of 2011 are looking to change the culture in the organization in general, and in the clubhouse specifically.

One of the men they hope will be a major contributor to the new way things are done is the club's new closer, J.J. Putz. The right-hander hasn't filled that role since 2008 as first the Mets, then the White Sox, used him as a setup man.

New Arizona general manager Kevin Towers went after Putz in free agency with the simple lure that "you will have a chance to be the closer," Putz said. And that was good enough for him.

 

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Source: http://mlb.fanhouse.com/2011/02/17/j-j-putz-part-of-dbacks-culture-shift/

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Usher, Ke$ha And More Help Dance Music Go Pop In 2010

But is it here to stay? Our music-industry experts weigh in.
By Akshay Bhansali


Ke$ha
Photo: Andreas Rentz/ Getty Images

In 2010, pop princesses, R&B icons and chart-dominating newcomers all danced to the same beat. Not only did dance music go pop, but pop music caught the club-music bug.

Between Katy Perry's "Firework," Ke$ha's "We R Who We R," Rihanna's "Only Girl (In the World)," Enrique Iglesias' "I Like It," Usher's "DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love" and "OMG" and countless other singles, established artists definitely looked to dance beats for surefire hits. And two of this year's biggest success stories in music were Jason Derülo and Taio Cruz; could there be a soul left in this country who hasn't heard "Dynamite" or "In My Head"?

The love went both ways, with dance music's biggest stars finding mainstream success this year. Dance-music maestro deadmau5 took up house-artist duties at this year's VMAs, and Swedish House Mafia and Usher teamed up for a medley of their gems at the American Music Awards.

So how did this happen? We caught up with some music-industry experts to get their takes.

"You definitely saw tempos go up this year," Jon Caramanica of The New York Times told MTV News. "And I think what you had are a lot of producers who are really familiar with nightclub stuff. They are familiar with Europe. Things are happening on a more global scale now."

"I think everything from Europe, and sometimes even Asia, it comes to America, and we just adopt things a little bit slower," said Jared Eng of JustJared.com. "I think it was just a change. People like different types of music at different times. And dance was of this moment."

Noah Callahan of Complex magazine added: "I think 2010 saw the merging of the pop and dance genres. Pop artists realized that there were best practices that could be borrowed from dance music. And, ultimately, [all] pop music that has been made in the past 20 years had ended up being remixed for the club by dance artists. I think they basically just cut out the middleman and went straight there."

Dance music being introduced into the hip-hop and R&B realms was particularly notable this year.

"I think David Guetta kind of at the end of last year and the beginning of this year spearheaded it," said freelance writer Julianne Escobedo Shepherd. "He produced a lot of tracks. I think as trends go, people revile 'unst-unst.' But it's just coming back around. Big-room techno was a way for people to get decadent in a year that no one could get decadent."

"You have someone like will.i.am, who's like, 'Well, I spent all this time in Ibiza, and this is what they are doing,' and he wants to find a way to bring that into his music," Caramanica said of the Black Eyed Peas mastermind. "R&B especially became dance music. And especially with your Jason Derülos, Taio Cruzes. Guys like that would have literally been blocked at the border two years ago. That would not have made it through customs. And now all of a sudden they have #1 songs. I think will.i.am had a lot to do with that last year."

Elliott Wilson of RapRadar.com added: "It's actually even affected hip-hop. I was talking to Q-Tip, and his next record, I feel like that's gonna kind of go in that vein. I know that was also Jay-Z's thought process with Blueprint 3 at first, that he wanted to make a little bit more of a world music [vibe], a little more dancey. I think the kids today want to go to the clubs. They wanna have a good time. They wanna dance. So I think the artists of today are trying to kind of feed that audience."

"I think it's caught on this year because the people who've done it have been successful," offered Clover Hope of Vibe magazine. "Like 'OMG,' with usher, he didn't have success until he made a dance record. He had 'There Goes My Baby' and these really, like, adult-contemporary records that didn't really catch on. And then once you see that everybody is doing it and that people are liking it, they are like, 'OK, let me just try this out.' It's like Auto-Tune. Like, 'Let me see what I sound like on a record by David Guetta.' They end up liking it and doing more of it."

So does the club-music trend have staying power. According to our tastemakers, not so much.

"I do think it's a blip," Caramanica said. "I don't think that's gonna be something that lasts in America. I think this is gonna be a moment we'll all look back on and go, 'Wasn't that weird when Jason Derülo and Taio Cruz had #1 records?"

"At some point, these R&B artists will get kind of sick of it and be like, 'Let me go back to my soul background,' " Hope said. "When you actually have to say something, dance doesn't really lend itself to substance. And I think that R&B artists, they really want to talk about love and in a deep way, and to do that, you need to do, like, a soul or a traditional R&B record. I want to say that it's kind of a fad."

"I think music is very cyclical," Eng offered. "So I think dance music might be here for a little bit, but I'm sure it will phase out at some point."

Wilson called dance music "the sound of today. I think that people want more aggressive, faster beats, and I think that that probably has legs until at least next summer."

What do you think? Is dance music here to stay? Let us know in the comments!

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1655031/usher-keha-more-help-dance-music-go-pop-2010.jhtml

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