Rock of Ageds: Rolling Stones, Kinks Working on New Albums; Simon & Garfunkel Planning Tour?

From the "I Know It's Only Geritol (But I Like It)" department comes word that both The Rolling Stones and The Kinks could have new studio albums, and that ancient folk-rockers Simon & Garfunkel may be rolling out a U.S. tour, this year.

"I wouldn't be surprised if we did some recording later this year," Captain Jack Sparrow inspiration Keith Richards tells Rolling Stone about a new Stones studio album, which would be the first since 2005's surprisingly solid A Bigger Bang. As for a subsequent tour, however, he says: "I don’t know how the rest of them feel about roadwork at the moment. Maybe we’ll search for a different way for the Stones to go back on the road. Maybe not the football stadiums anymore. Maybe something different. You can’t go around there in lemon-yellow tights forever."

Well, yeah, but people have been saying that about Mick Jagger and the boys since the early '80s.

As for fellow British Invasion at The Kinks, drummer Mick Avory tells website spinnermusic.co.uk, "We've got old tracks which need to be baked. You have to go through this process to transfer them to digital, it's a bit of a process and you only get one shot at it.

"We've certainly got eight tracks we could use there," he added, "so we're going to have to do some more to make the numbers up for an album."

That would make it the first album of new Kinks material since 1993's mostly forgettable Phobia. Since then the band, though never officially having broken up, has definitely been on hiatus, as singer/songwriter Ray Davies has embarked on a solo career, brother/sparring partner Dave Davies has suffered through the effects of a stroke, and Avory, who'd left the band in 1984, has been involved with a number of projects.

Ray and Dave still don't always see eye to eye, Avory notes.

"Once they've slotted together, we can go ahead," he says. All the while they are not wanting to do what the other wants to do, it goes nowhere."

As for that other contentious pair, Simon & Garfunkel's on-again/off-again relationship is apparently on again. While they've sporadically played together over the past few years -- including a scheduled April 24 appearance at this year's New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival -- word is they're also setting up dates in Fargo and Minneapolis-St. Paul, and what's apparently their first-ever show in Winnipeg, in May, with an eye towards a full-fledged U.S. tour.

The duo's last U.S. tour was in 2004, followed by a trek around Australia, New Zealand and Japan last summer.