Now that a trailer has arrived along with an official website, we’re picking our jaws off the floor as the contributing names and faces roll across the frame: Trent Reznor, Joshua Homme, Mick Fleetwood, Tom Petty, Lars Ulrich, Krist Novoselic, Alain Johannes, Chris Goss, Cheap Trick, Corey Taylor, Stephen Pearcy and many, many more.

“When Sound City closed last year it was a very sad day,” Dave recently explained. “That place was like a church. The list of people that recorded there is like a virtual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. We recorded Nevermind there back in 1991. That funky old place had the best drum room in the world. The drum sound at the beginning of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit?’ That’s Sound City. I decided to make a film about that feeling when you put five guys in a room, hit ‘record’ and the hair on the back of your neck stands up. Expect some epic jam sessions.”

We’ll keep you posted on screening and further involvement details for the Sound City film project as they arise – this doesn’t seem like something any of us are going to want to miss.

Meanwhile, Grohl and his Foo Fighters are nominated for six Grammy awards, including Album of The Year for Wasting Light. Dave announced on the Foos’ official blog that he has already started compiling ideas for new Foos material, as well. He wrote: “We’re not finished yet. There are still more shows to play, more songs to write, more albums to record, for years to come. I mean if you would have told me 17 years ago that in 2012 I would be writing songs for our eighth studio album… well.”

Stewart will host the session on SiriusXM for two hours on Sept. 24, an event that will feature surviving Nirvana bandmates Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, as well as Butch Vig, the producer behind Nevermind. Fans will be able to enter a contest to ask questions live during the show by submitting their questions ahead of time to the show’s producers, with twenty fans selected on the strength of their questions to attend the live taping.

The retrospective will undoubtedly feature a compelling number of stories and reflections on the making and impact of the album that kicked off the grunge movement and changed the trajectory of Rock music. Nirvana’s frontman Kurt Cobain won’t be attending, as a date with a shotgun ended badly for the troubled rocker in 1994, at the height of the band’s fame.

Nevermind has sold over 30 million copies worldwide. SiriusXM will also launch the all-Nirvana channel, Nevermind Radio, on Sept. 23 until Sept. 28.

During the tour, Grohl shows viewers the analog recording and mixing equipment used for the upcoming album, as well as the cornerstone “Foo Fighters sound” guitar, which he bought back in the early 90s while still in Nirvana. He pulls tape reel from the trash can while explaining the process of cutting tape in editing, saying “This is probably some of Taylor’s shitty drum fills that we didn’t use for the record.”

He clearly holds pride in the fact that they took a serious technological leap backwards for the record, which, if the first samples we heard are any indication, is suiting the Foo collective just fine. There garage was the location for Grohl’s original demos for In Your Honor, which he recorded on a “super shitty” drum set. “It was like a fucking Toys R Us drumset, but in this room it sounded like fucking Led Zeppelin.”

Learn more about the Butch Vig-produced record here, and keep track of the Foo Fighters at their official site.

That’s exactly what happened last night at a tiny rock club in Los Angeles called Paladino’s, where Dave Grohl and company played a last minute secret show to the ecstatic delight of fans eagerly awaiting the band’s return.

The set was filled with many Foo hits such as Times Like These, The Pretender, Generator, Learn to Fly, My Hero and For All the Cows, while new material included the songs White Limo, Dear Rosemary and Back and Forth.  Former Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic took up an accordion and joined the band onstage for another new song, I Should Have Known, which he reportedly also plays on the Foo’s upcoming new album.

Grohl told the crowd that the new record, due out in Spring 2011, may end up being called Back and Forth. Recent reports confirm that the band is nearly finished mixing the album, and Grohl has tweeted that it is their “most rocking record” to date. Check out a dry-erase board from the studio, charting the new record’s progress:

According to that ever-reliable “unnamed source,” there isn’t an acoustic guitar on the entire record. The album (the Foo Fighters’ seventh) was recorded with producer Butch Vig at the renowned knob-turner’s studio. Grohl decided to “keep it real” this time around by mandating that the new record would only be recorded on analog tape.

2011 will be a busy year for Foo Fighters. In addition to the new album, they’ve also booked several live dates including the Sasquatch Festival in Gorge, Washington, the Isle of Wight in the U.K. and T in the Park in Scotland.

The event was taped for a PBS special that will air July 28, but we’ve got video of Jack White doing an understated Delta Blues take on the Lennon/McCartney jam Mother Nature’s Son:

Grohl also took the stage and turned out a tongue-in-cheek rendition of McCartney’s Band On The Run (on second thought, it’s not really a goof-off rendition, just Grohl being Grohl). It was a surreal dose of badass to see Stevie Wonder – who was on hand to play We Can Work It Out as well as an Ebony And Ivory duet with McCartney -  rocking along from his seat, next to some highly uncomfortable-looking crypt keepers.

For Grohl, an original D.C. local boy, performing at the White House was a homecoming. “I have probably played every club and every basement and every arena and every stadium” in the town, said Grohl, before gushing over one of his primary influences and the dude he voted for: “Paul, you’re definitely my hero. Mr. President, you’re my other hero.”

Big love to TwentyFourBit and ConsequenceOfSound for the heads up!

The performance was a thrilling collaborative dose that found Grohl cheerfully smashing tambourines next to drummer Matt Cameron as Johannes (who’s about to launch his own solo album) shreds next to lead guitarist Mike McCready. It was sloppy and the sound on the video may be shite, but the energy and enthusiasm more than makes up for any lack of finesse in execution.

UPDATED: Better quality video!

Thanks Ryanne, Koen and DopeySpawn for taping!

This track is the the title track of an EP Mondo is releasing in the states on July 13th (though some import versions are likely already floating around). The rest of the songs on the Dog Food EP are live & acoustic versions. View the tracklist here.

In a May 8th interview with the Herald Sun, Astbury railed against essentially every American talent who had the chops to step into the iconic Doors frontman’s shoes for a reunion of the legendary band – but didn’t. He specifically called out Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and Perry Farrell of Jane’s Addiction as fakes who lack integrity.

Astbury says he was proud to replace & impersonate Morrison for the Doors in 150 reunion shows, but a Stateside singer should’ve stepped up to the “honor” of performing with the elderly ’60s outfit.

“There wasn’t a single American singer who stepped up to the plate and said: ‘I want to do this. I’m an American artist – I demand to do this,’” Ian complained. “Not Eddie Vedder, not Dave Grohl, not Trent Reznor, not Perry Farrell. Not Scott Weiland. Not one of them stepped up and fought for it. When The Doors needed that generation to surround them and support them, the cupboard was bare.” (Never mind the fact that roughly half the names dropped in Ian’s rant have actually performed with the Doors (Vedder / Weiland), and done so with finesse.)

“But I honoured that legacy – I put my soul into it, I lost myself inside it. Every time I walked on stage, I had a responsibility to Jim Morrison, and Ray Manzarek, and Robby Krieger, and John Densmore, to bring it. So the next time people are handing out awards and lauding over Perry and Eddie’s wonderful contributions to music, really have a look at their contribution. Integrity, diginity and experience? Some kind of fake emotionality? I don’t think so.”

That’s right! Why bother tending to your own legacy, when you can take over someone else’s? Because there’s no greater contribution to music an artist can make than to step into the shoes of a long-dead and far more renowned artist and lead his merry band of geriatric survivors through their set of four-decades-old hits and on to the next paycheck, right?

Wrong. Each and every one of the vocalists Astbury criticized has spent the past two decades building a legacy far greater, more successful and well-known than anything Astbury’s accomplished in the same period. Meanwhile, The Doors of the 21st Century is a laughable waste of energy, a nostalgia stroke among those who are no longer artistically relevant; Astbury may have the chops to pull off the expired hits, but his insistence on looking like a Hollywood Blvd. Morrison impersonator while heavily playing up the mystical imagery with props and rain dances onstage is just one of many, many reasons why it’s embarrassing to even watch, let alone conceive of actually participating in.

Astbury went on: “My heroes – David Bowie, Joe Strummer, Ray Manzarek, Jim Morrison, Iggy Pop, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant – all those guys went out on stage and did their shit, and never once stood in the limelight and said: ‘Hey, I’m the cat’s meow.’ They didn’t do that. They had integrity. I want to be like that as I get older. I don’t want to be some jock rock guy: ‘Hey, I’m Dave Grohl, let’s rock!’”

That’s right! Because who wants to be Dave Grohl, nucleus of one of the most popular, megaplatinum bands in the world and one of the most respected and sought-after drummers in the game, who also happens to be a core player in one of the most incredible supergroups ever to exist, Them Crooked Vultures? Certainly nobody with integrity on the mind, if Astbury’s to be believed.

Never one to overestimate his own band’s dwindled worth in today’s music scene, Astbury believes the Cult’s reunion is the best thing since, well, Led Zeppelin: “We asked, what is The Cult in 2010 and 2011? Led Zeppelin? Absolutely. The Doors? Absolutely. Public Image Limited? Absolutely. The Pistols, The Stooges? Absolutely.”

I remember seeing The Cult back at the When Bands Attack festival in San Diego back in 2000. I was mildly familiar with the band, but couldn’t believe how much of an utter asshole the singer was, yelling at the crowd for not being more enthusiastic despite sounding like dogshit himself. All I could think to myself throughout the experience was ‘Wow, this guy really believes he should be way more famous than he is, and he’s really pissed off about it.” Looks like not much has changed.

The difference between Astbury and every vocalist he mentioned is simple: they’ve all had wildly successful careers between the ’90s and now, and each has carved their own legacy with their respective bands without resorting to Halloweenish impersonations. Love may have been a fantastic album, but it was released exactly 25 years ago. Nothing the Cult has done since then has had any impact whatsoever on music culture – and certainly not Astbury’s moonlighting stint as Jim Morrison’s ghost.

In undoubtedly related news, The Cult has just finished an EP with producer Chris Goss and will be releasing it this summer. Consider Astbury’s comments to be the campaign kickoff for the EP’s promotion.

Slash makes a point to avoid overshadowing the guest vocalists, no easy task when dealing with the instant-classic potential of riffs like those on the Ian Astbury-featured Ghost. But there’s a good helping of inspired moments possessing real fire, such as when the brooding Crucify The Dead really takes off and Ozzy sheds his cobwebs, and overall the solos provide clear callouts to what might have been, had the true Guns N’ Roses managed to bury the hatchet for Rock’s greater good.

Ignoring it is ridiculous: Slash has been involved with many projects and collaborations since the demise of GNR a decade and a half ago, but none of the guitar material rings as closely to where the band left off as on this release. Diverse stylistic avenues keep things from getting formulaic, but when the iconic guitarist takes flight into a solo or doubles down on tempo an old familiar longing sets in that can be hard to ignore, still, after all these years.

Fergie holds her own in Beautiful Dangerous until the chorus, when everything goes as wrong as a bad Axl Rose impression by a chick. It dissolves into a flagrant reach for mainstream power-rawk anthemics, like an audition tape for the Super Bowl halftime show (and let’s not discuss that Paradise City abomination). Redemption returns quickly, however, with a count-off to a clean-tone soul riff leading off  Back From Cali, the first of two offerings from Myles Kennedy, a slow-build soul jam that showcases the Alter Bridge frontman’s formidable vocal skills.

After the unabashedly middle-aged Promise featuring Chris Cornell, Andrew Stockdale of Wolfmother does the single best Jack White impression you’ll ever hear in the intro to By The Sword, before turning in an admirable performance more akin to an Aussie Robert Plant over the song’s bluesy, arcing march-strut. Gotten is an unannounced change of pace, a slow-jam panty-soaker with Maroon 5’s Adam Levine that’s perfect for a sad slow-motion airport scene in a romantic comedy. By contrast, Doctor Alibi is a raw, bratty celebration of insubordination featuring the immortal Lemmy Kilmister and the meanest intro Slash has delivered since Perfect Crime. You’ve gotta admit, hearing Lemmy harmonize the chorus with himself while Slash tears it up beneath him is a moment of pure awesome Rock oddness.

Dave Grohl reportedly refused to sing on his contribution, and thus Watch This became an instrumental track, Grohl drumming beneath a riff blizzard rife with solos and a chugging low end courtesy of new Jane’s Addiction recruit Duff McKagan. It’s a powerhouse track that belies any idea that the vocalists are the selling points on this album.

Let’s call the Kid Rock song what it is: a savvy business move by someone who wants to appeal to the country market without outright bending over for Toby Keith or some other “new country” mouth-breathing sensation. There’s some soul to the track, but in the end I Hold On is a jukebox jam for the deep-woods boys of Detour, Michigan. It’s as skippable as the faux-anger shredfest Nothing to Say, featuring Avenged Sevenfold singer M. Shadows.

On the whole, the album’s better than what one might expect, despite being intentionally ripe for ad licensing. It was carefully crafted to please everyone, and could’ve fared far worse for such a proud strut down the middle of the road.

My hearing is a constant state of distant, impossibly high-pitched whirring, my senses are jarred and surging adrenaline has given way to the onset of a musical hangover.

The performance was fantastic. Here’s what you need to know, at least for now:

Setlist: Elephants / Dead End Friends / Scumbag Blues / Gunman / Highway 1 / New Fang / Caligulove / Bandoliers / Mind Eraser / Daffodils / Interlude w/ Ludes / Reptiles / Nobody Loves Me / Warsaw

Non-album track Highway 1 was played – an eerie, echoing psychedelia whirlwind countering Grohl’s immense pounding and skittering backbeats. If you’d like some lyrics, I got what I think is the first verse shoved in my hand on my way out the door:

The sun sets on Highway 1
Saturn will devour his son
Ghosts on the run forever
There’s no Hell
There’s no Heaven
We must go home, home my brother
Wrong once before
Now wrong another
Saturn will devour his son
As the sun sets on Highway 1

More lyrics:

There was a marked growth in confidence among the entire band, having road-tested the songs. The first two times we saw them, back during our trip to Austin City Limits in October, the band was still trying to keep up with the spazzing robot riffs, the tempo changes, the succession of sudden back doors that are precisely what make them so hauntingly badass.

Them Crooked Vultures’ debut album is in stores today, and in honor of the occasion, we’ve got one more exclusive clip from our interview with Josh Homme in Austin, where the crooked frontman explains the pressures and need for secrecy as the project came together. Check it out:

See the rest of our interview with Homme here, and our in-depth review of the debut album here.

UPDATE 11/18: Photos from the band’s show at The Wiltern last night have been posted to Antiquiet’s Facebook Page.