Archive: 2003

i sit down again, staring at the melting chunks of my drink. Usually I delight in the vile amusement of solitude, alone for hours strapped to a purple lazy chair thinking; pondering the simple delights and defeats of mankind. I am king here, sovereign to compare and contrast in secret. Tonight however, the entrails of mind shout curses down on the body. Thus, i surrender and flee to an obscure den of vice.

Lennon Legend is a candid visual and audio time-sake for an icon who upon reaching middle age, was just brushing the surface of transcending music and the video form. Using various autobiographical footage and clips from the 70

The Journey Within

Bluegrass greats Del McCoury and Vassar Clements and progressive act Bela Fleck & the Flecktones are among those confirmed to play the 2004 Suwannee Springfest. Set for March 25-28 in Live Oak, Fla., the event will feature more than two-dozen acts on several stages at the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park.
Produced by Magnolia Music & Events, Suwannee Springfest will also feature Guy Clark, Jim Lauderdale, Tony Rice, Donna The Buffalo, Peter Rowan, Psychograss, Verlon Thompson and the Laura Love Band.
Talent lineup and ticket information has not yet been announced for MagnoliaFest, which is slated for Oct. 21-24 at the same location. Clements, Rowan, Lauderdale and Leftover Salmon are among the artists who performed at the 2003 edition of the event.
Source billboard.com.

A multimillionaire skin-care maven wants to create a new national park in Maine, but local residents worry that wilderness protection measures will end the lifestyle their families have known for generations.
Roxanne Quimby, co-founder of Burt’s Bees natural care products, wants to buy as much land as she can in northern Maine to piece together a national park where hunting, snowmobiling, and logging would be off limits. “It’s my intention to donate this land to the people of America,” Quimby told the Portland Press Herald.
In November, 53-year-old Quimby bought more than 24,000 acres of forest east of Maine’s Baxter State Park. This land, which sold for $12 million, brings the total of Quimby’s land holdings to 40,000 acres, making her the second largest individual landowner in the state. With the recent sale of 80 percent of Burt’s Bees to an investment firm at a price of $179 million, Quimby is poised to increase her purchasing power. The ultimate goal is a national park that would cover 3.2 million acres of what some consider the most spectacular wilderness east of the Mississippi River.
The proposed national park is supported by a host of high-profile environmentalists

The VH1 special about the making of Warren Zevon ‘s final album, “The Wind,” will be released on DVD in March.
The album, which includes a cover of Bob Dylan ‘s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and the poignant “Keep Me in Your Heart,” was released to critical acclaim shortly before the singer-songwriter’s death in September. Zevon died at age 56 after a yearlong battle with lung cancer.
Jordan Zevon, executive producer of “The Wind,” says the DVD will show things that wouldn’t fit in the VH1 special and will include footage that shows his father’s personality.
“We got together with Artemis (Records) … and I went through all the tapes and tried to pick some extra tracks to put on there,” he told AP Radio in a recent interview.
“They’re all moments that are uncut. They’re not edited together for the sake of time and go from bit to bit. They’re actually just little moments in the making of the record.”
Warren Zevon has been nominated for five Grammy Awards including song of the year for “Keep Me in Your Heart.” The Grammys will be presented Feb. 8 in Los Angeles.
[i[ Source yahoo.com.

Interscope has penciled in a Jan. 27 release for “Unsung: The Best of Helmet (1991-1997),” a 21-track retrospective of the seminal New York hardcore act. Group leader Page Hamilton was involved in the selection of the songs, which include the 1997 Modern Rock Tracks chart hit “Exactly What You Wanted” and such staples as “Unsung,” “Milquetoast” and “Give It.”
“Unsung” also sports the House Of Pain collaboration “Just Another Victim,” from 1993’s “Judgement Night” soundtrack, plus the “Feeling Minnesota” soundtrack contribution “Disagreeable.”
Helmet split in 1999 after five studio albums. And while a published report in August claimed the group was eyeing a reunion, a management spokesperson for Hamilton refuted the claim to Billboard.com. Instead, Hamilton has signed a deal with Interscope for a new project, which includes late period Helmet guitarist Chris Traynor. As previously reported, the pair has also collaborated on tracks intended for Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale’s solo debut.
The group is targeting a May or June release for its Interscope debut, which will be supported by Hamilton’s most extensive set of live dates in some time. “Page is serious about working and returning to the live scene,” the spokesperson says.
Here is the track list for “Unsung”:
“Repetition””FBLA””Bad Mood””Sinatra””In the Meantime””Better””Unsung””Give It”Iron Head””Just Another Victim””Milquetoast””I Know””Rollo””Wilma’s Rainbow””Overrated””Like I Care””Disagreeable””Pure””Renovation””Driving Nowhere””Exactly What You Wanted”
Source billboard.com.

The third annual Bonnaroo Music Festival has been slated for June 11-13 in Manchester, Tenn. Staged by Superfly Productions and A.C. Entertainment, the eclectic jam band-based event will again take place on a 600-acre farm approximately 60 miles southeast of Nashville. An initial artist lineup has not yet been announced.
“Artists and fans have made Bonnaroo a very special event, and we are going to continue to provide the right elements to produce a music experience of the highest quality,” Superfly’s Jonathan Mayers says in a statement.
Held in June, the second edition of Bonnaroo was the second-highest-grossing event of 2003, taking in $11.5 million and drawing a crowd of 80,576. The lineup included the Dead, Neil Young, Widespread Panic, moe., Allman Brothers Band, Flaming Lips, the Roots, Emmylou Harris, Ben Harper and the Polyphonic Spree.
Like the inaugural festival, this year’s event spawned a two-disc CD release as well as a DVD featuring many of the acts that performed across several stages.
Both Manchester Bonnaroo Music Festivals have sold out in advance via online ticket sales that were fueled by word-of-mouth, not traditional advertising. A planned August 2003 Bonnaroo NE event in Riverhead, N.Y., was canceled after local officials refused to grant permits for the Field Day Festival scheduled two months earlier at the same site.
Source billboard.com.

A live chronicle from Joe Jackson’s 2003 tour that reunited him with his original band will be released in March, according to the artist’s official Web site. The as-yet-untitled disc will feature recordings at concerts in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and Anaheim, Calif. The tour came in support of the studio album “Volume IV,” released in March by Restless/Ryko.
Separately, on Jan. 20, Koch will release “Live,” a 14-track concert set recorded in April 2001 in Portland, Ore., and Seattle. The disc was previously exclusively available through Jackson’s site under the title “Two Rainy Nights.” A DVD that features 13 songs captured at the same shows, as well as an interview and excerpts of Jackson’s book, “A Cure for Gravity,” is available from STS Media.
Source billboard.com.

Meat Puppets bass player Cris Kirkwood was shot Friday by a security guard at a post office in downtown Phoenix, according to reports. Kirkwood underwent surgery for an abdominal wound at a local hospital and was listed in critical condition over the weekend.
Witnesses said Kirkwood got into an argument with a woman when they both tried to pull into the same parking spot. When Kirkwood continued to shout obscenities at the woman on the way into the post office, she reported him to the building’s security guard, who asked Kirkwood to leave the premises.
Back in the parking lot, Kirkwood reportedly refused to leave. When the guard took out his baton, Kirkwood grabbed it and struck him in the head. In self-defense, the guard then took out his gun and shot Kirkwood.
One of the most influential acts of the 1980s, the Meat Puppets soared to worldwide prominence during the modern rock revolution thanks to the 1994 album “Too High To Die” and an appearance on Nirvana’s legendary “MTV Unplugged” episode. The group was led by Kirkwood and his guitarist brother Curt.
Cris Kirkwood has reportedly battled substance abuse in the years since, and did not participate in the group’s last album, 2000’s “Golden Lies.”
Source billboard.com.