Paul Simon is So Over It

Modern Rock

By Kristi Kates | March 3, 2018

Singer-songwriter Paul Simon has announced that he’s done performing live concerts — except for the occasional charity or honorary event — and will be staging a farewell concert for his fans on July 15 in London’s Hyde Park. Simon will be joined by James Taylor and Bonnie Raitt, with more supporting musicians to be announced. The Hyde Park event will take place at the end of what will ostensibly be Simon’s last major tour, a trek that kicks off May 16 and will take him through North America, the U.K., and mainland Europe …

Liverpool, England, band Echo and the Bunnymen, who enjoyed its first heyday back in the ’80s and became the subject of a new flood of interest in 2014 with its twelfth album, Meteorites, is keeping those musical waters moving with an upcoming studio album and a roster of tour dates for this year (starting with a shortlist of U.K. shows). The new album, called The Stars, The Oceans, and The Moon, will mix up a collection of brand new Echo songs with some “transformed classics,” as the band put it, taking several prior hits and adding in strings and other audio decoration. The  Stars, The Oceans, and The Moon will hit outlets this May. Keep an eye on the band’s official website, bunnymen.com, for additional tour dates as the year progresses …

The Decemberists is returning this week with the release of its eighth full-length studio album, I’ll Be Your Girl, which will hit outlets on March 16 via Capitol Records. To support the brand new set, the band hop back on the road for a big world tour starting later this year. In the meantime, you can catch them stateside on their North American dates, which kicks off on March 22 in Pomona, California. That trek will include a stop in Ann Arbor on Friday, May 25 at the Hill Auditorium. The band’s own Travelers’ Rest Music Festival is also happening again this summer, Aug. 4–5 in Missoula, Montana …

Talib Kweli has stepped away from the traditional record industry and has decided to release his newest album on his own record label, Javotti Media. The album, which he’s dubbed Radio Silence, includes contributions from an impressive shortlists of Kweli’s fellow indie artists, including Waka Flocka Flame, Anderson.Paak, Jay Electronica, and Rick Ross; Kweli is calling the set “a musical celebration” in which he takes his own familiar hip-hop sound and mixes and matches it with these different talents to craft some experimental numbers … 

LINK OF THE WEEK
Heading west this spring? Point your compass toward the 2018 Sasquatch Festival in Gorge, Washington, set for May 25–27 with a wide range of indie-rock acts including David Byrne, The National, Bon Iver, Modest Mouse, Neko Case, TV on the Radio, Tune-Yards, Tyler the Creator, Spoon, and many, many more. Get the whole lineup and ticket information at sasquatchfestival.com …

THE BUZZ
Get funky with George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic on March 8 at Sound Board inside the MotorCity Casino Hotel in Detroit …

Grand Rapids/Muskegon band Pop Evil has released its fifth studio album, an eponymous effort that officially introduces new drummer Hayley Cramer …

Fellow Grand Rapids band 78 Revolutions Per-Minute, a punk rock group that’s causing quite a stir in the region, has dropped its own new record, an EP called Here Lies a Mouthy Kid …

St. Andrews Hall in Detroit will welcome two standout indie acts this week, Judah and the Lion (with special guest Tall Heights) on March 8, and Lights on March 9 … and that’s the buzz for this week’s Modern Rock.

Comments, questions, rants, raves, suggestions on this column? Send ’em to Kristi at modernrocker@gmail.com.