Spin magazine reports “Sonic Youth super-couple Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore have split up after 27 years of marriage — and the future of the band they’ve played in together since 1981 is unclear.”

Apparently the band is fulfilling its current obligations, which includes five dates in South America. After that fans of Sonic Youth’s noise rock is unclear.

The couple has asked for privacy and respect and will not comment any further at this time.

Being a true artist is far from easy. The stretch limo quickly becomes a fishbowl. The press. The pressures. Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll, right? “Time to go on stage.” You’re sitting in the green room backstage in some city. Thousands of fans waiting in front of the stage. You might’ve had too much of something. You go out there because you have to. It’s your job. Perform. “My fans are there to see me. I love them. Where’s the stage?” You go out there and sing. You stumble up to the microphone. Your mind is mushy; it’s like a dream. You know the song, but somehow it’s lost in translation. Your fans boo. You try another verse and they keep on booing.

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At 3:54pm, singer and songwriter Amy Winehouse was found dead in her London apartment at age 27. We are currently getting as much of the details together from leading media resources. We’ll keep you updated as we learn more…

27 represents the number of outs a pitcher needs to complete a game. The mid-20s are the golden years for players. Following the heels of Oakland’s Dallas Braden’ (26) 19th perfect game in Major League history in May, Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga’s perfect game ended controversially with the 27th batter in the ninth inning. The first base umpire Jim Joyce incorrectly called safe on a close play, but after the fact, when Joyce realized his mistake cost a perfect game, he tearfully apologized. The 28 year-old Galarraga gracefully accepted.

After the game, GM gave the pitcher a $53,000 Corvette, an act that The New York Times’ Nick Bunkley called in to question on the grounds that the U.S. Government currently holds 61 percent of GM stock. “A free sports car for a Detroit Tigers baseball player was not among the reasons the government saved General Motors from financial collapse.”

More than a week has passed and research firm Joyce Julius & Associates in Ann Arbor, Mich., said GM’s gift was cited in 714 TV programs, publicity worth about $1 million. It was also covered in 151,000 publications and Web entries, including Drive On, worth another $7.9 million. Crain’s says GM didn’t commission or pay for the report. Wonder what Nick Buntley thinks of that? For the cost of a couple of full-page ads in glossy magazines, GM netted an estimated $9 million worth of publicity. Sounds like a pretty good deal to us.

As of May 1, 2010, only 31 runners have ever completed a 10km race in less than 27 minutes–that translates to a 4:20-pace-per-mile.

The latest entrant, Chris Solinsky (25), is the first and only member of this exclusive 27-minute club who hails from outside Africa. So far, 20 Kenyans, 6 Ethiopians, 2 Moroccan’s, 1 each from Uganda, Eritrea, and the United States. Solinsky’s winning time was 26:59.6.

It should be noted that no one has died trying to beat this record, which is a major difference to The 27s this site typically covers. To put the 27 runner’s club in perspective, more than 3,000 people have summitted Mt. Everest, the world tallest mountain.

Our congratulations go out to Chris Solinsky.

Wendy O’Connor, Kurt Cobain’s mother, has been granted temporary custody of her grandchild (and Kurt’s daughter), Frances Bean Cobain. The court papers does not specify why Wendy O’Connor and Kurt’s sister Kimberly Dawn Cobain were granted the temporary guardianship, nor is Courtney Love mentioned by name.

Frances Bean Cobain is currently 17 years old. Her mother Courtney Love already lost custody of her between 2003 and 2005 due to Love having a drug overdose.

Frances Bean Cobain’s trust, which was set up by Kurt Cobain before he committed suicide in 1994, is still under control by Courtney Love.

Congrats to Britney on her 28th birthday yesterday. A year-and-half ago it looked like she was headed for trouble, but she cleaned up and is ready for the rest of her life. Author Ian Halperin claimed last year that she feared dying at 27, thereby joining the ranks of The 27 Club.

Turning thirty is a big deal. Many experience the last years of their twenties as a transitional phase between youth and maturity. Thirty marks the real entry to adulthood—an age where most people have completed their university degrees, found their vocation, and are comfortably settled in a relationship—or not.

Renowned astrologer Rob Tillett, who spent the seventies as a touring rock & roller in his native Australia and now publishes the popular site Astrology On The Web, says that we spend the end of our twenties “clearing the decks of karmic debris for a clean course for the next cycle.”

“Every twenty-nine years naturally presents us with the challenge to rise to new levels of awareness, or face the consequences of having failed to gain the wisdom required to do so,” Tillett says. It’s a phenomenon known in astrology as Saturn Return.

It takes the planet Saturn twenty-nine and a half years to return to the same position it occupied at the time we were born, a significant event as it marks the end of one cycle and the beginning of another.

Astrologers argue that Saturn Return is one of life’s most important thresholds as it intensifies one’s feelings of sadness, isolation, and purpose. In the words of Rob Hand, author of Planets In Transit, it’s “a time of endings and new beginnings,” a fitting characteristic for Saturnus, the Roman harvest god, the model for the grim reaper.

The Romans celebrated the god at Saturnalia. This festival commenced December 17 during winter solstice, the darkest night of the year. Saturnalia turned society’s laws and customs upside down. Slaves became masters (or at least ate at the same table as their masters), gambling was permitted for all, and, in the words of a Roman commentator from 50 A.D., “loose reigns were given to public dissipation.”

But Saturnalia meant more than a drunken carnival. It was a celebration of Rome’s golden age, an era of peace and harmony that was supposed to have taken place under Saturn’s rule. The Greek poet Hesiod wrote that it was the purest of all ages, a time of balmy weather, leisure, and no fear of death.

Thomas Paine, the American Revolution’s ideological inspirator, wrote, “The supposed reign of Saturn was prior to that which is called the heathen mythology, and was so far a species of theism that it admitted the belief of only one God.” So according to Paine, Saturn is the ur-God, the lone ruler of the vast, ancient universe. Saturn was Ninib to Babylonians and Cronus to the Greek—one of the seven Titans who ruled the world until Zeus kicked them off their galactic thrones.

Saturn is known as the “greater malefic,” or “the killing planet,” and it manifests itself in various ways. “Saturn demands resolution and restructuring,” Tillett says. “Resolution of unfinished business and restructuring of our lives to move forward into the future.”

The changes instigated by Saturn are really fantastic opportunities for those who are ready and capable of making major changes in their lives—harvesting what’s been sown.

“Saturn rules the responsibilities, restrictions and limitations we are apt to encounter, and the lessons we must learn in life. He does not deny or diminish imagination, inspiration, spirituality, or good fortune, but he does demand that these things be given structure and meaning,” Tillett explains.

The 27s died before their Saturn returned, and Tillett postulates that other astrological factors are involved. “The 27^th year is an incredibly hefty one,” he notes. “Astrologically, it’s the building up to Saturn Return, but other key factors are at work too.”

Moving at less than one degree per month, it takes the Moon 27 to 28 years to make it 360 degrees around the zodiac. At that point, the Moon revisits its natal position: “The first progressed Lunar Return at age 27 marks the beginning of the difficult transition from the Phase of Youth to the Phase of Maturity,” Tillett says. “The pace of our lives seems to accelerate, as we hurry to clear the decks of karmic debris, in preparation for the next grand stage of the great journey of life. This transitional phase lasts until the Saturn Return, which usually occurs within a year or two.” (Tillett adds that this process is repeated at age 56 when we experience another transition; from the Phase of Maturity to the Phase of Wisdom.)

Another strong effect occurs when the moon’s pathway crosses the sun’s course. These sensitive points are known as the moon’s nodes (also called the dragon’s head and tail). “A collision between the north and south nodes occur during the 27^th year, which often generates intense insecurities that lead to major transformations of the life-path,” Tillett adds.

A fourth cause of difficulties is completing the 27-year cycle around the Pythagorean Triangle, a numerical and astrological concept that we’ll explore later on.

For The 27s, Tillett theorizes, “Their energy is so heavily pushed into a particular channel [i.e. music] and when that channel dries up, they don’t know how to move through the pathway.”

With Tillett’s perspective in mind, it’s easy to see that their creativity waned, replaced with distractions (bad relationships, drugs, dwelling on missed opportunities, or fumbling for a “real” or “new” purpose) and a sense of out-of-focusness towards the end of their lives. At least that’s the case for most of them.

Robert Johnson stuck his tongue in the honey pot and got stung; Jesse Belvin was caught up in things he couldn’t control—be it hiring a party driver or becoming a victim to American apartheidists; Brian Jones was a medicated mess for the latter part of his life; and as we shall see, Jimi Hendrix fumbled for a purpose; Janis Joplin chose to walk alone; Jim Morrison turned to destructive disgust. Ad nauseum.

Could it be that The 27s were too caught up in their youth and therefore unwilling, unable, or simply not ready to move across that threshold and face the responsibilities and expectations (theirs and/or others’) that come with adulthood?

Excerpt from The 27s: The Greatest Myth of Rock & Roll

A couple of years ago Tin Alley drummer Peter Hofbauer hit a kangaroo (yea, they’re an Australian band) while riding his motorcycle. He nearly died the same way Echo & the Bunnymen’s Pete de Freitas did, but three weeks in intensive care put him back on track to recovery. Hofbauer was 27 years old at the time.

Tin Alley’s latest single, “Out of Control,” spawned from the drummer’s near-death experience at 27. In an interview with Oz Music Scene, singer and guitarist Jim Siourthas provided some background context to the song.

“So we were just playing with the idea of dying at the age of 27, and doing a bit of a search on the internet we found out that there was a club called the 27 Club. So that’s basically what “Out of Control” talks about. The idea was spawned out of Peter’s accident, but it actually talks about Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and other members of the 27 Club, and what their lives would have been like, and the reason why they died, and so on. So that’s what the song deals with lyrically.”

Speaking of the words, the trio allowed themselves to paraphrase Neil Young’s line (and that Kurt Cobain later included in his suicide note) by singing “Best to burn our bright than to fade into the night.”

In mid-November, 2009, “Out of Control” reached #1 on the Big Pond rock charts where the single (and EP) is for sale. At the time of writing, you can listen to the track on the band’s myspace page. It’s a catchy rocker in the same vein that the Foo Fighters mine, which explains the radio play it’s garnered in Oz. Also available on iTunes.

Louis Chauvin (“Bird Face”)

Born: March 13, 1881, in St. Louis, Missouri
Died: March 26, 1908, in Chicago, Illinois

Today, ragtime’s best-remembered musician is Scott Joplin, but at the time his friend Louis Chauvin was equally famous within the tightly knit rag scene.

Chauvin was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and although he died without leaving recordings, we know that his ivory chops were legendary in vaudeville circles all over the Midwest.

“Chauvin emerged from the urban subculture of St. Louis,” says Ed Berlin, a ragtime scholar and author of three books on the genre. “Chauvin’s reputation is astonishing when one considers it is based on his contribution to “Heliotrope Bouquet,” a mere 32 measures of music, less than three minutes including repeats. However, its ethereal beauty is unlike anything else coming from the ragtime years, and he certainly impressed Scott Joplin who was the era’s standout composer. This piece of music is unlike anything else ever composed.”

Louis Chauvin couldn’t read music, but his friend Scott Joplin notated “Heliotrope Bouquet” and added the latter half. We’re only left with two other compositions that bear Louis Chauvin’s name, but at least these glimpses provide context to his legend.

Chauvin frequently warmed up by hammering double-time octaves in opposing directions using the entire keyboard. In 1904 he won player Tom Turpin’s piano contest at the Rose Bud Club, and since Joplin was known as the “King of Rag Time Writers,” Chauvin was soon taglined “King of Rag Time Players.”

“The list of contestants demonstrates that as the winner, Chauvin’s talent must have been formidable,” Berlin says. If someone hummed him a composition Chauvin could sit down and play the piece note-for-note, adding harmonies and changing the arrangement to make it his own. Even though Louis’s best known talent lay in fast runs on the keys and incredibly technical impromptu compositions, he was also known as a fantastic singer and a fluid dancer. One account claims Chauvin “had an insatiable thirst for women, opium, and alcohol.”

Louis Chauvin died in Chicago March 26, 1908. He was 27 years old, and the cause of death was complications from syphilis.