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Music News: John Mellencamp to play Minnesota State Fair Grandstand

John Mellencamp performs at the Starkey Gala in St. Paul, 2016
John Mellencamp performs at the Starkey Gala in St. Paul, 2016Adam Bettcher/Getty Images for Starkey Hearing Foundation

by Jay Gabler

February 19, 2017

John Mellencamp has announced his 23rd album. Sad Clowns & Hillbillies comes out April 21, and Mellencamp will follow the release with a summer tour featuring special guest Emmylou Harris. (Rolling Stone)

Unfortunately, Harris won't be along when Mellencamp hits the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand on Aug. 29. Mellencamp is the second music act, and third entertainer overall, to be announced for this year's Grandstand lineup; Nickelback will play the fair's opening night on Aug. 24, and comic Jim Gaffigan is booked for Aug. 26.

Mellencamp was last in Minnesota to play the annual Starkey Hearing Foundation benefit at St. Paul's RiverCentre last summer.

New Lana Del Rey

Lana Del Rey has released her first song in over a year. "Love" is the first track of her forthcoming album, title and release date TBA. (Rolling Stone)

Mick Jagger has a memoir — and we'll never read it

Publisher John Blake says he's obtained a copy of a 75,000-word memoir written by Mick Jagger in the early 1980s. Blake says it's a fascinating book, and likens it to "the rock 'n' roll equivalent of the Dead Sea Scrolls." He believes the manuscript was originally rejected because it was "light on sex and drugs." A spokesperson for the Rolling Stones confirms that Blake has repeatedly sought permission to publish the book, but Jagger steadfastly refuses to grant permission. (Billboard)

New guitar museum in Tennessee

A new museum that may become a mecca for guitar fans is opening March 10 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. "The Songbirds museum is the new home to what is considered by aficionados as the premier private collection of rare guitars in the world," reports USA Today. "The collection features approximately 1,700 significant guitars from the early 20th century to the 1970s." The museum will focus not on which musicians played the guitars, but on "the beauty, craftsmanship and significance of the instruments themselves."

Kate Nash vs. Snapchat

A recent Snapchat lens featured a clip of music that seemed to be taken from the 2007 single "Foundations" by Kate Nash — much to the surprise of Nash, who posted a series of social media messages asking, "Where's my paycheck?" Snapchat subsequently deactivated the lens, and said they'd made arrangements with a third-party company claiming to have legal rights to license the song. It's unclear whether that third-party company was in fact within rights, or even whether the sampled audio was actually from Nash's song versus a soundalike — but Nash was taken aback. (Mashable)

Shaggs to reunite for first time in 15 years

Cult-favorite proto-punk sister band the Shaggs are part of the lineup for Wilco’s 2017 Solid Sound Festival this summer in Massachusetts — the Shaggs' first show in 15 years. The band's only album, Philosophy of the World (1969), was recently reissued by Light in the Attic Records. Among the band's few but highly devoted fans was Kurt Cobain. (Consequence of Sound)

Roger Waters wants to take The Wall to the border

You saw this coming: Roger Waters says he'd consider performing Pink Floyd’s The Wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, where Donald Trump aspires to build a massive new barrier between the countries. Waters, who's made no secret of his distaste for the U.S. president, famously performed The Wall at the Berlin Wall in 1990, and has recently toured with a full stage production of that album. (EuroNews)

Terrence Malick shares trailer for new Austin music movie

Acclaimed director Terrence Malick (The Thin Red Line, The Tree of Life) is preparing to release a new movie set in the Austin, Texas music scene. Song to Song, which premieres at SXSW on March 10, stars Rooney Mara, Natalie Portman, Michael Fassbender, and Ryan Gosling — with cameos by musicians including Iggy Pop and Flea. A new trailer for the film features Del Shannon’s "Runaway." (Pitchfork)