TOMORROW ON THE MORNING JOLT: FUNK!

Two weeks ago, I returned to SiriusXM OutQ's The Morning Jolt With Larry Flick after being on the disabled list for a while.  Last week, I had to miss it again (for scheduling reasons, not heath ones). Tomorrow I'm back, and I'm bringing the funk.

Well, maybe not funk by the strictest definition of funk purists. But all the music I'm bringing in will be funky.

First up, is the Red Hot Chili Peppers' new album, I'm With You. I wrote about it recently, and I wish I liked it more than I do. That said, it has some great moments, like "Monarchy Of Roses" and "Brendan's Death Song."  More importantly, the new lineup, featuring guitarist Josh Klinghoffer, does show a lot of potential.

Primus is one of my favorite bands, and I really dig their new album, Green Naugahyde, which I just wrote about.  "Tragedy's A'Comin'" is one of my favorite songs of the year.

Fishbone is one of the most underrated bands of the past few decades.  But I haven't enjoyed much of their new music since 1993's Give A Monkey A Brain... And He'll Swear He's The Center Of The Universe.  They've just released The Crazy Glue EP.  I like it.  I'm really looking forward to the documentary about the band, Everyday Sunshine. Anything that gets them to a wider audience is cool with me!

When it comes to Lenny Kravitz, I'm a singles guy.  I have his best-of, and I'm cool with that. But the songs I've heard from his new album, Black And White America (the title track and "Superlove") are pretty cool and very funky. I may have to check this one out a bit more.

I wrote about Trombone Shorty about a year ago, and now he's got a new album, For True. I recently filmed a performance by him at the SiriusXM studios, and he was great (see it here).

Sly Stone actually has a new album, but sadly, it's mostly his old hits re-recorded.  There's no point to doing that: they were perfect the first time, and frankly Sly doesn't sound as good as he used to. There's a good new original song though, "Plain Jane."

I think that a lot of today's funk music is done by DJs, not bands, and David Guetta is one of the biggest DJs. I produced this shoot at The Electric Zoo festival in 2009 and I kind of "got" it.  Although dance music isn't my thing as much as rock and roll, I get it.

I haven't written about Superheavy yet, but any band with Mick Jagger, A.R. Rahman, Damien Marley, Joss Stone and Dave Stewart is worth paying attention to. Also worth paying attention to is the Jay-Z/Kanye West album, Watch The Throne.  So, if time allows, we'll discuss all of these albums tomorrow on the show!

MICK JAGGER AND KEITH RICHARDS RECORDING...

... uh, well... they *are* recording.  The rub: they are recording separately.  The new issue of Rolling Stone (not the one pictured here, the new one with Lady Gaga on the cover) has two separate blurbs about upcoming projects from Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Both mention a rumored 2012 tour.

A small feature on page 18 discusses Mick's new project, a supergroup of sorts that features Dave Stewart of The Eurythmics, Joss Stone, Damien Marley and Oscar winning composer A.R. Rahman. Mick has worked with Dave before in his solo career, notably on songs to the soundtrack of the 2004 film Alfie ("Old Habits Die Hard" is one of his best non-Stones moments). Joss and Mick did a duet on that soundtrack as well.

Mick has always expressed a bit of boredom with doing things the same way with The Stones, but his attempts to do different music projects outside of the band haven't done well.  His last full length solo album, 2001's Goddess In The Doorway, got a five star review in Rolling Stone, which only called attention to the fact that it was far from being a five star album.  (It did have one of his finest moments: his excellent collaboration with Lenny Kravitz, "God Gave Me Everything"). Anyway, it didn't sell well and I remember it being laughed at in the press (and by Keith). I guess his new "super-group" is an interesting project to him.  I have to admit, I'm interested to hear it. In the article, Mick says he doesn't have any Stones plans to announce at the moment.

Meanwhile, an "In The News" item on page 20 says that Keith is finally working again with his former backing band, The X-Pensive Winos. Unlike Mick, Keith seems to love working in the Stones' blues/country/R&B/rock style, which the Winos did so well.  So it's surprising to me that he hasn't done a real solo project in nearly 20 years. I saw the Winos twice (once on each tour) and they kicked ass.

So who knows what this means for The Rolling Stones. They can't wait too much longer to do another album and tour, can they?

Anyway: I know that conventional wisdom says that Keith's solo career is better than Mick's, but I'm planning (planning!) on writing about both men's careers outside of the Stones this week.  Feel free to weigh in, right here in the comments section.

ROCK THE BELLS WILL ROCK A LITTLE MORE

Busta Rhymes and The GZA have been added to the already cool Rock The Bells lineup which also features Nas and Damien "Junior Gong" Marley, The Roots, Common, Big Boi and GZA's fellow Wu-Tangers RZA and Raekwon. That's a pretty cool lineup. This is according to All Hip-Hop.com.

ROCK THE BELLS 2009

They haven't announced the dates yet, but Rock The Bells announced the main artists on this year's lineup.  The headliner is Nas with Damien "Jr. Gong" Marley (they are doing an album together). Also on the bill: The Roots, Common, Big Boi, KRS-One, House Of Pain (!), RZA and Raekwon, among others. Rock The Bells puts on a great show: last year rocked, and the year before was even better (it featured Rage Against The Machine, Pubic Enemy and The Wu-Tang Clan).