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Today’s Music News: Are the Replacements over?

by Staff

June 07, 2015

The music world has been buzzing over reported remarks by Paul Westerberg as the Replacements played the Primavera Porto music festival in Portugal. According to Pitchfork, "Westerberg announced that this would be the last time that the band plays together. After saying that the band stayed at the hotel instead of coming in for sound check, he also reportedly said 'lazy bastards to the end' and smashed his guitar." Letters on shirts worn by Westerberg over the course of the band's "Back by Unpopular Demand" tour spelled I HAVE ALWAYS LOVED YOU, NOW I MUST WHORE MY PAST. If it's true that the Replacements are done playing together, that puts an end to the band's 21-month comeback run that began with an August 2013 performance at Toronto's Riot Fest and included precisely one Minnesota show, at Midway Stadium in September 2014. (Local Current)

On Saturday, Chris Martin of Coldplay performed "Til Kingdom Come" at the funeral of Beau Biden, son of Vice President Joseph Biden. The funeral for Beau Biden, who died of brain cancer at age 46, was attended by mourners including President Barack Obama. (NME)

Folksinger Ronnie Gilbert has died of natural causes at age 88. Gilbert was best known as a member of the Weavers, an important folk group spanning the 1940s through the 1960s, whose members included Pete Seeger. (Rolling Stone)

Anthony Riley, a singer who was a contestant on the most recent season of The Voice, has died of an apparent suicide at age 28. (Billboard)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9gAl7ir8qo

This year's Tony Awards were presented on Sunday night; winner of the Best Musical prize was Fun Home, described by the New York Times as "a poignant and raw exploration of family, memory, sexuality and suicide."

The Cheapo Records location in Uptown Minneapolis is looking for a new home: its current site at the intersection of Lake Street and Fremont Avenue is being sold and will be the site of a planned office, retail, and residential building. "The music retailer is looking for another Uptown location after its lease expires in August," reports the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal. "A new store would be smaller than the large Lake Street address Cheapo has called home for at least three decades. Cheapo has no plans to close or move its stores in St. Paul or Blaine."

Buzz Osbourne, a founding member of the Melvins and a personal friend of Kurt Cobain, has sharply criticized the new documentary about Cobain. "People need to understand that 90 percent of Montage of Heck is bullshit. Total bullshit," writes Osbourne in a review of the film for The Talkhouse.

"Let's find a time. I'm ready!" says Keith Richards of the prospect of heading into the studio to record a new Rolling Stones album. (Rolling Stone)

Roger Daltrey (the Who) and Liam Gallagher (Oasis) are reportedly forming a supergroup with Ian Broudie (Lightning Seeds) and Zak Starkey (son of Ringo Starr) for a live special marking a one-off comeback of the British entertainment show TFI Friday. (NME)

At this weekend's Governors Ball, Ryan Adams made comments that seemed to jibe at the "robot music" of Deadmau5. Since the two went into a studio together in 2012, many attendees took Adams's remarks as a joke—but EDM star Deadmau5 wasn't so sure. (Consequence of Sound)

A new ad hoc memorial in Chicago commemorates a 2004 incident in which a Dave Matthews Band tour bus ejected up to several hundred pounds of human waste onto a boatload of tourists. (Consequence of Sound)

Who showed up for U2's recent Los Angeles shows? A Hollywood and music-world who's-who including Kanye WestBruno MarsRobert PlantGeorge ClooneyJulia RobertsAngelina JolieBeck, and Jennifer Lawrence. (Billboard)

The severely-injured hand of Enrique Iglesias is "getting better little by little," says the Spanish singer-songwriter, after he suffered cuts while grabbing a photo drone at a recent show in Tijuana. (Billboard)

Country star Kacey Musgraves is concerned about alien abductions, having "seen several UFOs." (Billboard)

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