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D'Angelo '99 Percent Done' With New Album, Questlove Says
Roots drummer calls long-awaited record 'totally brilliant'





Not only is D'Angelo's endlessly awaited new album "99 percent done," it's an album well worth waiting for, Questlove told Billboard in a new interview. "I would not be far off by saying this is probably my generation's version of Sly [and the Family Stone's] There's a Riot Goin' On," the drummer said. "It's potent. It's funky. It's an extremely hard pill to swallow."

Questlove said the singer has been holed up in the studio finishing the "totally brilliant" follow-up to 2000's classic Voodoo.

"We spent close to 18 hours, well not me personally because I have to go to Fallon, but usually right after work," Questlove said. "He's the only person that I'll actually go to the studio with and stay there to six in the morning, re-doing these drum parts. I won't even do that for my own band, but I'll do it for him. Right now, we're just tightening up the loose ends."

Questlove added that he hopes D'Angelo will turn in the album next month, and said the new songs sound fresh despite the delay.

"He's one of those artists that have, of course, taken 13 years to follow up a record. It's going to take you about 10 years to digest this record. Totally brilliant. Just the way this society works with music . . . being able to judge if something is a classic after the first listen, you can do that after 30 seconds on this. And the fact that we started this record in 2004, and it still sounds like it came out five years from now, it is a testament to the timelessness of it."

Amid earlier rumors that the record was very close to being finished, D'Angelo made his first live appearances in more than a decade last year, jamming with the Roots at Bonnaroo and playing a full set at New Orleans' Essence Music Festival. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Questlove said the record would mark a "radical 180 turn" for D'Angelo, adding the musician had been honing his guitar playing, creating his own unique keyboard sounds and even finding new inspiration in artists like the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and David Bowie.

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Rush Add North American Tour Dates
Canadian rockers will return to the States in April



Rush will continue their current Clockwork Angels Tour with new North American dates that will hit a few cities the trio missed during the first trek. The next leg is set to kick off April 23rd in Austin. Tickets for the new dates in select markets will go on sale January 28th.

Following those spring dates – listed below – Rush will head to Europe then return to North America for another leg starting in June that will find them hitting cities like Hershey, Pennsylvania; Chicago; Milwaukee; Boston; Vancouver; Salt Lake City; and Denver. The band will also return to Grand Rapids, Michigan; and Halifax, Nova Scotia, for the first time in decades. That tour will continue into August, with details regarding dates and venues coming soon.

Last year was a banner year for Rush: Along with the release of their 20th LP, a new concept record titled, Clockwork Angels, the beloved rockers were finally voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

"We're kind of in a groove right now," frontman Geddy Lee told Rolling Stone of the band's recent good fortunes and recent touring. "We feel really good about the way we're playing. We feel like we've raised our game in terms of musicianship and our level of chops. We're also very excited about the way Clockwork Angels turned out. The fan acceptance of it has been very cool. We're happy to go out and bring it around the globe."

4/23 Austin, TX – Frank Erwin Center
4/26 Ft. Lauderdale, FL – BB&T Center
4/28 Orlando, FL – Amway Center
5/1 Nashville, TN – Bridgestone Arena
5/3 Raleigh, NC – PNC Arena
5/5 Virginia Beach, VA – Farm Bureau Live
5/7 Baltimore, MD – 1st Mariner Arena
5/9 Uncasville, CT – Mohegan Sun
5/11 Atlantic City, NJ – Etess Arena

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Vampire Weekend Set Release Date for Third LP
Long-awaited follow-up to 'Contra' is due May 7th




Vampire Weekend will release their long-awaited third album on May 7th, the band announced on Twitter. No title has been chosen for the record, which the band simply referred to as "LP3."

The band has been working on the follow-up to 2010's Contra for more than 20 months, frontman Ezra Koenig told Rolling Stone in a recent interview. It's the longest Vampire Weekend have ever spent on an album, with Koenig admitting, "There was a certain point where we kind of knew deep down that it didn't quite feel right. We knew it could be better."

After a few breakthrough writing sessions – including the one that produced "Unbelievers," which the band debuted on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in November – the group flew to Los Angeles to work with producer and longtime friend Ariel Rechtshaid, working in a studio built in the 1930s and filled with vintage gear. "Things that we might have found boring in the past, we've started to find more fresh," said Koenig. "This record has more piano and acoustic guitar and organ. But at the same time, that means we needed to find ways to flip it."

Rostam Batmanglij, the other half of Vampire Weekend's core writing duo, added, "We've never wanted to be one of those bands that's just reviving something. I think with this album, we've had to be less self-conscious than ever."

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James Taylor Plans Year Off to Make New Album
Songwriter reflects on performing at Obama's inauguration




As his career in music approaches 50 years, James Taylor names an unusual inspiration for his songs: boredom. Starting today, he plans a self-imposed recess from the road and dedicate the rest of this year to composing and recording his first album of new material since 2002.

"It's funny to say, but you actually have to be bored in order to write," Taylor tells Rolling Stone, just hours after playing President Obama's inauguration in Washington D.C. "So I'm looking forward to some empty time in front of me to really focus on the music again. That's what I'm meant to do."

His performance of "America the Beautiful" – coupled with some brief "surprise" anchoring duty with NBC's Brian Williams following Obama's address – will likely be Taylor's last public appearance until he completes the follow-up to October Road, his last record with Sony. (He's currently not signed to a label).

Boredom has eluded Taylor over the past decade, which he has largely dedicated to playing political events. He made 40 appearances in support of President Obama's re-election, including a spot at the Democratic National Convention last September in Charlotte, North Carolina.

"It's like an abbreviation of the entire country, in a way, to be in North Carolina," he says of the state in which his parents, both civil-rights activists, raised him. Just four months before Charlotte hosted the DNC, voters approved a state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. The swing-state support that helped elect Obama in 2008 had receded by last November, and Republican lawmakers there are now pushing to enact a law requiring voters to prove identification at the polls. "It is two very different places," Taylor says. "It's a very forward-leaning, progressive state, and at the same time a sort of impractically hidebound and digging-its-heels-in state as well."

Taylor, who turns 65 in March, has contributed more than $78,000 to various Democratic causes and political action committees over the past two years. "I like so much about this president, I have a good deal of faith in him," Taylor says. "As a democracy we are constantly inventing our own future. Democracy is just as strong as the citizens' participation in it, and we need somehow to try to make it accessible to more people."

Taylor says he has voted in every election, with one exception: In 1968, at the height of the Vietnam war, when the 20-year-old musician was in England recording his first album. It included "Carolina In My Mind."

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