TOMORROW ON OUTQ: ROCK AND ROLL! (THE STONES, BLACK KEYS, HOLE)

For those of you who are new to No Expiration, every Wednesday morning at 9 am ET I go on the SIRIUS XM channel OutQ. I am a weekly contributor to The Morning Jolt with Larry Flick. Tomorrow I will earn my title (given by Larry) of "rock reporter."

First, I'll be talking about The Rolling Stones' Exile On Main Street reissue, which I love. The Stones have never really been too interested in adding bonus tracks to their catalog releases, but I'm glad they did for this one. Actually some of the songs are kind of like collaborations between the Stones of the late '60s/early '70s and today, as Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and even Mick Taylor have added some new parts to some of the bonus tracks (which were unfinished and sitting in the vaults for decades). Of course, even without any extra stuff, Exile is a classic album and perfect for the summer.

I recently wrote about how much I like The Black Keys' Brothers. I'm excited to play them for people who aren't familiar with them.

Likewise, I'm excited to play The Len Price 3 for people. They are an awesome garage rock band who I doubt I would be familiar with, were it not for Little Steven's Underground Garage. They remind me of The Who or The Kinks from the early '60s.

Finally, the new Hole album, Nobody's Daughter. I think it is weird that Courtney Love is using the Hole name, since none of the other members used to be in the band. But I guess Hole has always been about her. I don't know if I love the album, but "Skinny Little Bitch" is pretty classic.

Hey, if you're around a computer or radio at 9 am ET, tune in and let me know what you think!

BON JOVI ON GUITAR HERO COBAIN: "I WOULDN'T LIKE IT EITHER"

There's been some controversy over the Kurt Cobain avatar in Guitar Hero 5 - it doesn't just sing Nirvana songs, you can have it sing songs by other artists - as has often been mentioned in the press (and on this very blog) - Bush (Nirvana lite) and Bon Jovi (the anti-Nirvana). Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl have asked Activision to "lock" the character so that it only sings Nirvana songs, and somehow Courtney Love has blamed this on Activision, Grohl, everyone but herself. But in an interview with the NME, Guitar Hero's CEO said that Kurt Cobain's estate "cashed the check." Does anyone else from the estate cash the checks other than Courtney?

As for Jon Bon Jovi, who I remember making fun of Nirvana and grunge music in general in a music video years ago, even he doesn't like it, as he recently told BBC News. He said he wouldn't want to hear someone else's song coming out of a cartoon version of himself.

KRIST NOVOSELIC AND DAVE GROHL WEIGH IN ON GUITAR HERO

Courtney Love has been... well, "ranting" is a good way to put it ... on Twitter about the Kurt Cobain avatar on Guitar Hero, which, when "unlocked," can be used to front other bands including Nirvana ripoffs Bush and even Bon Jovi. She somehow made it seem like Dave Grohl may be to blame. Dave and Krist Novoselic released this statement today:

This is a statement regarding Nirvana, Guitar Hero and the likeness of the late Kurt Cobain.

We want people to know that we are dismayed and very disappointed in the way a facsimile of Kurt is used in the Guitar Hero game. The name and likeness of Kurt Cobain are the sole property of his estate - we have no control whatsoever in that area.

While we were aware of Kurt’s image being used with two Nirvana songs, we didn’t know players have the ability to unlock the character. This feature allows the character to be used with any kind of song the player wants. We urge Activision to do the right thing in “re-locking” Kurt’s character so that this won’t continue in the future.

It’s hard to watch an image of Kurt pantomiming other artists’ music alongside cartoon characters. Kurt Cobain wrote songs that hold a lot of meaning to people all over the world. We feel he deserves better.

Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl

COURTNEY LOVE IS ONCE AGAIN HOLE

NME is reporting that Courtney Love is going to be releasing her next album under the name Hole - despite the fact that none of the members of Hole will be on it (except for maybe Melissa auf der Maur, who may sing backing vocals, and may tour as the bass player).  I wonder if fans will react as they did to Billy Corgan using the Smashing Pumpkins name. She has been working on this album forever, I hope it turns out well. 

KURT COBAIN'S CATALOG

Interesting story at Portfolio about Courtney Love selling a 50% of Kurt Cobain's publishing catalog a few years back.  Basically she went from being almost broke to being a millionaire, but the company who bought the rights haven't really made much money from it because Nirvana's music was so uncommercial (despite it's commercial success). 

COURTNEY LOVE REUNITING WITH EX-BANDMATE

Yep, Courtney Love is reuniting with her former Faith No More bandmate Roddy Bottum. And yes you read that right: she was in the band for a minute, although she never recorded anything with them (to my knowledge, which isn't definitive).

I kind of lost interest in Courtney about the same time that she became a tabloid magnet, but that doesn't mean that Hole's Live Through This isn't a classic, because it is. In fact, Celebrity Skin is pretty good too. I did love her in the film The People Vs. Larry Flynt.

But so much has been written about her, I don't need to add to it. I just hope she makes another great album. Roddy Bottum is a musician with a lot of range - after all, he was in FNM and also Imperial Teen. Anyway, Ms. Love writes about the album at her MySpace page, but I often don't follow her writing, it's a bit long and very rambling.