The kids from the O'Keefe Music Foundation covered the tough Pantera song 'Walk', with 9-year-old Colt Sheddin singing Phil Anselmo's parts. The rest of the band are children also - guitarist Aidan Fisher is 16, bass player Jonas Miller is 15, and drummer Justin Laroche is 15 - but only when counting in years...

Pianist McCoy Tyner was best known for his work with John Coltrane as part of his classic early-’60s quartet, but has also played with Sonny Rollins, Stanley Clarke, Wayne Shorter, and more. His influence as a pianist and musician is hard to overstate. He died at age 81. NPR describes him as a "pianist whose deep resonance, hammering attack and sublime harmonic invention made him a game-changing catalyst in jazz and beyond".

Melbourne-based hip-hop artist Sampa the Great won the Australian music prize yesterday with her album 'The Return', two years after she first won the award for 2017 album 'Birds and the BEE9', making her the first artist in the history to win the Australian music prize twice, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. Zambian-born Sampa Tembo thanked the judging panel for recognising an album “not written for radio play or commercial appeal”, the Music Network reports. The album deals with themes of migration and displacement. Sampa’s album beat out a shortlist that included recordings by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Thelma Plum, Amyl & the Sniffers and more. Previous winners of the AMP include Gurrumul, Augie March, Courtney Barnett and AB Original.

Korn made their own surgical masks in the shadow of coronavirus-mania - and they already sold out. The masks were on Korn's online webstore for $10 (usually they are sold as a 20-pack for less than $20) - and more is coming, for $11. These masks protect from… absolutely nothing. They're not actual, medically-approved masks. They're merchandise. The masks are of more use to those who are actually carrying the virus, since it can prevent the spread of the germs when they cough - Loudwire makes sense of the situation.

The full list of releases for Record Store Day 2020 has been revealed, with the likes of David Bowie, Eminem, My Chemical Romance, Robyn, Gorillaz, New Order, The Cure, Christine & The Queens and Biffy Clyro set to drop exclusive vinyl this April 18. RSD 2020 will see hundreds of vinyl and cassette releases sold exclusively through independent record shops for one day only. For the 13th Record Store Day will see thousands of independent shops around the world taking part in the celebrations with live in-store performances, mini street festivals and entertainment.

Beastie Boys, Ozzy Osbourne and Nine Inch Nails have cancelled their appearance at South By Southwest (SXSW) Festival 2020 in Austin, Texas due to coronavirus concerns, Kerrang reports. They were set to participate in the festival’s film section. The artists join major companies such as Netflix, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon Studios, TikTok, Mashable and Intel, that have pulled out of SXSW due to health concerns. SXSW will screen employees and volunteers for signs of illness before they are cleared to work at the festival, and add handwashing stations and hand sanitizer throughout. SXSW begins officially on March 16.

Many successful bands benefit from the push and pull between one member who believes that music should be a vessel for ideas and activism and one who just wants to give people a good time, the optimal result being music that is simultaneously righteous and fun - Guardian writes about the curious/unfortunate Public Enemy split, supposedly over Bernie Sanders. “Chuck D, he’s the politician of the group. I’m just the friendly jester” - Flavor Flav said. "It’s a shame that after 35 years Public Enemy is no longer able to contain both impulses, but whoever is to blame, it’s not Bernie Sanders" - the G said; adding a good point: "Band dynamics are as hard to fathom as other people’s marriages, which is why our cultural obsession with splits and reunions goes far beyond music. They are case studies in the forces that bring people together and drive them apart".

Taylor Swift, a longtime Nashville resident, has handed over $1 million to the Middle Tennessee Emergency Response Fund, the Tennessean reports. She included a link to the Response Fund and encouraged fans to donate to the cause. Also in tornado-related news, Gibson Gives, the charity branch of Gibson Brands, pledged to donate guitars to those whose guitar of any brand was damaged in the natural disaster, Billboard reports. Guitar brands Heritage and Harmony, as well as gear case and accessories brand MONO, are calling for affected artists to get in touch if their gear has been destroyed, damaged or lost due to the disaster, NME reports.

Jadu is a Los Angeles startup that launched on Wednesday morning, and it allows fans to dance with digital versions of artists, the Rolling Stone reports. Jadu got five initial artists, including Poppy, Pussy Riot and Vic Mensa, to put their digital likenesses on the app, and filmed them dancing and posing, surrounded by 106 cameras to make three-dimensional images. Footage will show up in the app’s camera, and the artists’ songs will play in the background while users film their own videos alongside the holograms. Asad J. Malik from 1RIC, the augmented reality studio that developed the app, said he and the studio developed the app specifically with highly interactive short-form video platforms like TikTok and Instagram in mind - “People are used to being in the content, if they’re posting things, they’ll likely be in it". The tech behind making these holograms a reality is expensive and can cost upwards of $100,000 per day for access.

The song that Chris Martin calls the most important he wrote in his career, has been remade by the Acapop! KIDS, an American acapella group famous for their covers of famous songs. Coldplay song in the new arrangement sustained its suspense and grandeur, although it's being sung by teenagers. There are 11 of them now.

While the coronavirus has taken a big toll on the arts world in terms of closed venues and canceled events, it has also spurred plenty of show-must-go-on creativity in some of the hardest-hit areas, as performers and organizations have tried to adapt to trying circumstances, playing in front of - a camera, streamed online, like Quartetto Dafne string quartet playing Beethoven and Borodin in La Fenice opera house in Venice on Monday. New York Times has the encouraging story.

You used to have to pick a side. You broke America by singing in English. You played the part of lover boy through peacocking and hypermasculinity. You made it in pop by picking your political battles. Bad Bunny is breaking all the rules with a glee that plays up how silly all these hyperspecific ideas about gender and language and pop stardom and activism have been all along - Vulture says in a commentary about latino reggaetone star Bad Bunny; who's just released his new album.

A Los Angeles judge has reaffirmed a 2005 court order that Suge Knight must pay former Death Row Records employee Lydia Harris $107 million dollars that he allegedly never paid her, NBC LA reports. Harris claimed that she and her husband Michael were early investors in Knight’s Death Row Records in 1989, and that she was the company’s first Vice President. It’s unclear how and when Suge will on pay Harris as he’s currently serving a 28-year prison sentence for voluntary manslaughter after running over two men on the set of 'Straight Outta Compton'.

The UK's health ministry has suggested that in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus, people should wash their hands while singing 'Happy Birthday' – twice – in order to ensure the operation lasts the recommended 20 seconds. Freelance journalist Jen Monnier has some other suggestions, like Dolly Parton's 'Jolene' - easy to sing, fun, only 25 words long, and eight of them are "Jolene"!

The 2020 installment of Ultra Music Festival in Miami has been canceled due to concerns over the coronavirus, Miami Herald reports. City officials encouraged organizers to postpone the event. The annual electronic music festival was supposed to take place at Miami’s Bayfront Park between March 20th and 22nd, with an expected daily attendance of over 55,000 people. The scheduled lineup included Major Lazer, Flume, Zedd, Gesaffelstien, David Guetta, Afrojack, and DJ Snake, among others.

Concert venues and music businesses in Nashville are beginning to rebuild after being hit by several tornadoes Tuesday morning, Billboard reports, While popular concert venue the Basement East saw major damage, many other East Nashville-based music companies are also grappling with the aftermath of the destruction. Collective Artist Management (whose clients include Clint Black, Sara Evans and Edwin McCain) and Dualtone Records (the label home to the Lumineers, the Lone Bellow, Shovels & Rope and Amos Lee) both witnessed extreme loss. Craig Dunn, vp Collective Artist Management shared news on Facebook: “I was overwhelmed when I saw the devastation and damage to this beloved neighborhood in our great city. My sadness and dismay were quickly replaced by hope and optimism as hordes of volunteers showed up with snacks, water, and two hands willing to help clear debris. I DEFINITELY Believe in Nashville”.

"It’s only a matter of time when going to a party will mean just putting on Virtual Reality (V.R.) goggles and headphones at home and you’ll be at the event with people from all over the world, chatting in real-time with someone who could be present in their natural looks, retouched, as a cartoon, avatar… the possibilities are endless" - DJ UMEK told Attack magazine about what he thinks DJing will look like in ten years. DJ Heather has a philosophical perspective: "We are living in the future past present. The next ten years will be straddling the world of the analogue and digital. Reflecting a desire f the deejay, producer, club-goer, raver to connect on a tactile level while being able to maintain the convenience of having world access in the palm of their hand".

Robert Plant has a new band Saving Grace, playing British folk, the latest song they did is a great cover of 'Everybody's Song' by Low, a true cover for a different song; Haim announce new album ‘Women in Music Pt. III’ with a single 'The Steps', accompanied by a great video made by Paul Thomas Anderson; RINSE goes solo - and post-punky - on his new single 'Tell Me Tell Me Tell Me'; David Berman (Purple Mountains, Silver Jews) collaborators Woods made "a gateway into dream and an escape from everyday reality" with 'Where Do You Go When You Dream'.

Last week the mighty chamber indie collective Magnetic Fields announced that their new album, ‘Quickies’, will consist of 28 songs; the longest of which clocks in at 2.35 and the shortest runs to just 17 seconds. It’s a new paradigm I’d love to see alternative music embrace again" - Mark, My Words argues in favor of short songs in rock.

Ecstatic Peace Library is the brainchild of Moore, made in collaboration with comic artist Savage Pencil and Soho Music, and Zippo Records head Pete Flanagan, with his son Jim working there. Guardian visited it in Hackney, London, where Moore lives now, and talked about the physicality of objects in a world where everything is digitised and streamed. Moore doesn't mind people going there to get a photo with him - “It’s fine. If Patti Smith walked into this place I’d want a picture with her”, and he doesn't mind dogs either - “We are everything friendly”. What about profit? - the G asked. “What about artistic profit, creative profit, intellectual profit?” - the Sonic Moore replied.

An awful lot of the Austin economy depends on the festival, and its cancelation would affect a lot more than just the attendees, Texas Monthly argues in favor of going ahead with plans to hold South by Southwest this year (25,000 people have signed a petition to cancel it). People that depend on SXSW are - "caterers, pedicabbers, ride-hailing drivers, bartenders and servers, tech crew and security staff, and countless others who rely on SXSW as a windfall to pay off bills and get their heads above water each year. A whole host of bars and restaurants are able to weather the slow winter months because they know that, come March, rental fees and prepaid bar tabs will keep them afloat. Hotels and pizza places and portable-toilet rental companies have developed alongside SXSW".

The 'Other Music' documentary about the much-loved New York independent record store that closed in 2016 got a new trailer, featuring interviews with Tunde Adebimpe (TV On the Radio), Regina Spektor, Jason Schwartzman, Matt Berninger (The National), Ezra Koenig (Vampire Weekend), as well as rare footage of in-store performances by Neutral Milk Hotel, Vampire Weekend, The National, Mogwai, The Rapture, and more (watch below). Docu is coming to US theaters this spring around Record Store Day.

Tony Banks, Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford are reuniting as Genesis for a UK and Ireland tour, 13 years after last performing together, Ultimate Classic Rock reports. The trio will be joined by Collins' 18-year-old son Nicholas on drums and Daryl Stuermer on guitar and bass. Founding member Peter Gabriel, who left the group in 1975, will not be taking part. Guitarist Steve Hackett will also miss the shows.

Since the start of this year, Ozzy Osbourne, 71, had to cancel his 2020 tour to seek treatment. Elton John, 72, had to ditch dates after declaring himself “extremely unwell”. Madonna, 61, was forced to scratch a bunch of shows due to “overwhelming pain”. Aerosmith had to scratch dates due to various health issues experienced by Steven Tyler. The 56-year-old frontman of Metallica, James Hetfield, needed to cancel shows to look after his health. Beforehand, Paul Simon stopped touring at 78, Bob Seger at 74, Kiss aged between 68 to 70, Neil Diamond at 79, and Eric Clapton at 74. Guardian is trying to find consequences of this change, and it's quite simple. According to Pollstar, five out of the top 10 worldwide tours of the last year featured band members over the age of 50, which makes them the cornerstone of touring, especially since the audience who attends shows by older stars has the deepest pockets, raising profits for everyone. In general, the touring industry is generally estimated to generate between $50-60bn worldwide.

"One of the richer, more abstract, more discursive rap albums in recent memory" - Stereogum says about their newest choice for Album of the week, R.A.P. Ferreira's debut under his real name (Rory Allen Philip), co-produced by The Jefferson Park Boys. The beats are slightly leftfield - full of live instrumentation with murmuring bass, idle guitar flutters, occasional bursts of horn, and jazz as an obvious inspiration. His raps are more "slam poetry than straight-up rap. The songs unfurl on their own schedule. They’re never too long, but you’re also never quite sure which direction they’ll twist in next". In lyrics, R.A.P. is interested in playing games with language, like - “preaching the rhyming word is absurd as pledging allegiance before reading terms of service agreement”. So, an unusual album, but not too much.

Wired doesn't like how music sounds through Alexa loudspeakers and argues in favor of listening to some music - classical and classic rock in particular - on a CD, rather than streaming, for a simple reason - sound quality: "The zany operatics of all tempestuous evergreen musicians—you just gotta let them fly. Big emotions need big sonic landscapes. Loud bass is fine when you have your life together, but where would we be without the wide-ranging dynamics that alone can give voice—and thus solace—to the bipolar youth in ecstatic anguish?".

A series of deadly tornados destroyed the popular Nashville music venue Basement East Monday night. Basement East’s co-owner, Mike Grimes told the Rolling Stone a tornado struck Basement East at approximately 1:15 a.m. local time, shortly after a Bernie Sanders benefit concert had concluded, so nobody was hurt. Grimes says the "venue is pretty much a total loss”. The Basement East opened in 2015 and had welcomed artists including Best Coast, Archers of Loaf, Lucy Dacus, Pinegrove, and The Lemon Twigs. The venue’s upcoming calendar promised shows from Delta Spirit, Hamilton Leithauser, Torres, Frances Quinlan, and The Airborne Toxic Event.

English singer-songwriter lost the electro feel on his third album, borrowing this time "from English folksong, baroque pop, and piano balladry", Pitchfork says in a review. The P describes the album as "more dream than recollection", and "his richest, a loose tapestry of memories both painful and cherished". DIY magazine hears "a stunningly-harmonious musical journey filled with nostalgia".

Alexis Petridis reports from Berlin where developers are kicking out nightclubs to make place for offices and flats. The last one to be kicked out is Griessmuehle, which closed down with a continuous 56 hours party. It was a worthy farewell - "dressed-down kids in hoodies alongside guys in drag; girls in standard-issue techno black dancing with men in their underpants. At one point, a gay couple in their 70s sweep past. They’re conservatively dressed for dinner at the Savoy in the 1920s – one of them is walking with a silver-topped cane. The atmosphere is simultaneously friendly, excited and licentious: a friend who goes there regularly calls it 'benign freedom'". An estimate says that one-third of Berlin clubs have been lost in the last 10 years, and at least 40 more clubs are currently under threat. Ironically, Berlin housing crisis has something to do with Berlin’s club scene - job adverts for engineers and IT specialists basically say "Come to work in Berlin, because it’s the greatest cultural clubbing city in the world".

Spotify is asking record labels and artists for money to advertise their songs within its app, arguing that they’ll reach new fans and increase their popularity - Bloomberg writes in an analysis of the streaming giant's change of business model. The effort is controversial because it’s complicating wider talks over long-term music rights between Spotify and the record companies. The service has already introduced one tool, called Marquee, and is pitching a second.