The Rolling Stones have announced plans to play the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York on December 8. The show will come after the band's gigs at London's O2 Arena on November 25 and 29, and before their previously announced shows in New Jersey at the Prudential Center in Newark on December 13 and 15. Tickets for the new date will go on sale November 19. Mick Jagger recently spoke to Billboard about the high ticket prices for the band's forthcoming shows, saying they are so costly because the band's gigs are "expensive to put on".

Billy Bragg delivered the second annual John Peel Lecture earlier today (November 12) at the Radio Festival 2012 at The Lowry in Salford. Bragg's speech saw him rallying against the decline of state educated musicians in the UK Top 40, highlighting a magazine study which revealed that 80% of artists in the charts in 1990 were state educated, as compared to the charts in 2010 which were dominated by those who had been privately educated. He said – via The Guardian: "A decent education in the arts will only be available to those able to pay for it."

Cosmic collaboration from two electronic masters...

Happy Mondays have announced two back to back shows in London in December. The reformed line-up will perform a double header at the Camden Roundhouse on December 19 and 20. Support will come from 808 State. Earlier this year, the Mondays confirmed that they are working on a new album, which will be the first time all the original line-up have recorded a record of new material since 1992's Yes Please!.

Paul McCartney, and his wife Nancy Shevall, were within two feet from crashing in a chartered helicopter, it has been revealed. The Beatles man and his wife were traveling in a £5million, 9-seater Air Harrods helicopter in May when their pilot became "disorientated" in poor weather conditions and dropped the aircraft towards trees situated within their East Sussex estate.