News Roundup 2011: February

Gary passed away aged just 58 on 6 February. The world felt a profound loss upon his passing that it's never really recovered from, and we still miss him as not just a truly great rock star but also as a friend to the station. We re-ran his award winning Blues Power radio series later in the year as a tribute to the great man.

You can read our tribute to Gary from back in February HERE

Elsewhere, a slightly surreal scenario arose when a lawsuit between Live Nation and their former Chairman Michael Cohl revealed that the Stones were supposed to tour in 2011. There were, however, no firm details revealed about the apparent tour (or how definite the plans actually were, considering the lawsuit also alleged that there may have also been a Pink Floyd tour).

Rod Stewart and Jeff Beck were said to be recording together back in February. As it turns out there was to be no Beck-Ola 2 just yet but Stewart told Rolling Stone Magazine "He's going up to record some tracks with his band in February in San Francisco and to send them over to me, so we're making progress."

And while Rod was contemplating one past musical relationship another of his old bands was moving on without him. The other surviving Faces (Ronnie Wood, Ian McLagan, Kenny Jones) revealed that they would be playing more shows with Mick Hucknall out in front and Sex Pistol Glenn Matlock on bass. The band played a handful of dates around the world throughout the year.

Meanwhile, blues rock duo The White Stripes announced that they were splitting up after a little under 15 years together. The former husband and wife said in a statement "The White Stripes do not belong to Meg and Jack anymore. The White Stripes belong to you now and you can do with it whatever you want."

Radiohead once again sideswiped the music industry by releasing an album with just five days notice. It saw the band once again experimenting with electronica, with guitars at a premium. But the promo clip from the album's lead single 'Lotus Flower' did produce one of the more entertaining pastimes for internet pranksters. The sparse video essentially just followed singer Thom Yorke's eccentric dancing in a warehouse. Here's some of the best spoofs:

Upon hearing Downward Spiral over a decade ago would you have ever predicted that Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor would end up winning an Oscar? Well that's exactly what happened when his work with Atticus Ross on the soundtrack to The Social Network won them an Academy Award.

Just before Valentine's Day a certain Mr Geezer Butler said this "I would like to make it clear, because of mounting speculation and rumours, that there will be definitely NO reunion of all four original members of Black Sabbath, whether to record an album or to tour." Well that was clearly that then...

And finally, Metallica revealed that they would be working on a secret project in May that would involve them recording for two weeks. Kirk Hammett revealed "It's not really 100% a Metallica record."This could only be awesome, right?