Archive: 2003

Irish singer-songwriter Damien Rice has some good news to give fans in North America: The lauded indie singer is coming back for a spring tour next year. It’ll be his biggest outing in the States to date, both in number of shows and in venue size. Rice has had mainly club runs and graduated up to include some theatre engagements.
His tour launches March 23 in Boulder, runs up the West Coast into Canada, then makes its way across the States to wrap at the end of April in St. Louis.The Irishman just finished a U.S. outing around the start of the month, having been playing a loose schedule since September. Somewhere in there, he managed to pick up the prestigious Shortlist Award for his sleepy debut, O. Around the start of 2004, Rice will be playing the U.K. and Europe.
Source and dates visti Pollstar.com.
O was recently selected as one of Glide Magazine’s Top 20 albums of the year, for the full list, click here.

Songs by Elton John, Sting, Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder and U2’s Bono are among those nominated for best original song Golden Globe Awards. Danny Elfman’s score for “Big Fish” and Howard Shore’s work on “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” received nominations for best original score.
Organized by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the Golden Globes will be handed out Jan. 25 at Los Angeles’ Beverly Hilton Hotel, and broadcast live on NBC at 8 p.m. ET (tape delayed on the West Coast).
In the best original song category, John and Bernie Taupin’s “The Heart of Every Girl,” from “Mona Lisa Smile,” is among the contenders. Also nominated are Shore, Fran Walsh and Annie Lennox’s “Into the West” (from “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”); Pearl Jam’s “Man of the Hour” (from “Big Fish”); Bono, Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer’s “Time Enough for Tears” (from “In America”) and the Sting-penned, Alison Krauss-performed “You Will Be My Ain True Love” (from “Cold Mountain”).
Other nominees for best original score include Alexandre Desplat for “Girl With a Pearl Earring,” Gabriel Yared for “Cold Mountain” and Hans Zimmer for “The Last Samurai.”
“Cold Mountain” topped all films with eight nominations overall, including a nod in the best dramatic film category. It will vie for the top prize against “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,” “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World,” “Mystic River” and “Seabiscuit.”
Actor/musician Jack Black will contend for the best performance by an actor in a musical or comedy, for his role in “School of Rock.”

Members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, System Of A Down, Audioslave and Slipknot will take part in a benefit concert for striking Southern California grocery store workers. Tickets for tonight’s (Dec. 18) show at the Roxy Theater in Hollywood went on sale yesterday via Ticketmaster and are completely sold out.
The bill will feature Chili Peppers bassist Flea, System Of A Down leader Serj Tankian, Audioslave (and ex-Rage Against The Machine) members Tom Morello and Brad Wilk, Slipknot’s Corey Taylor and Phantom Planet. Comedian/actor Janeane Garafalo will also take part, as well as Boots Riley (the Coup) and Lester Chambers.
Morello and Tankian have a history of activism. The duo formed the non-profit political organization Axis of Justice to energize music fans “around issues of peace, human rights and economic justice,” according to the organization’s Web site
Source billboard.com[/rl].

The Allman Brothers Band will again return to New York’s Beacon Theatre for what has become a nearly annual residency. The 2003 stand comes as the enduring Southern rock act marks its 35th year anniversary. The full list of performance dates is March 18-20, 22-23 and 25-27.
While the Allmans have frequented the uptown New York venue for some 14 years, the band has not played the Beacon every year since 1989. A few years were skipped and in 1995, the band switched to Radio City Music Hall for a six-night stand. The group returned to the Beacon the following year.
Since 1996, the Allmans have played between nine and 18 shows at the Beacon each year. Save for 1994, each gig was in March. In order to give frontman Gregg Allman’s voice a rest, the group usually does no more than three shows without a night off.
Twice the band has documented the fan/band connection that occurs at the Beacon. In 2000, Epic issued the live disc “Peakin’ at the Beacon” and in September the group delivered its “Live at the Beacon Theatre” DVD via Peach/Sanctuary. The latter was culled from two of last year’s 13 nights at the venue.
Slated for a March release in time for the 2004 Beacon stay is a two-disc live set also taken from last year’s residency. The album includes 15 songs also on the DVD, including “Trouble No More,” “Wasted Words” and “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl.”
Recently nominated for the best rock instrumental Grammy for “Instrumental Illness” (from the recently released Peach/Sanctuary set “Hittin the Note,” the band’s first studio effort in almost a decade), the group will get its New York stay underway March 16 with a performance on NBC’s “Late Night With Conan O’Brien.”
Source billboard.com.

Two Americans have won the go-ahead to become the next tourists in space, and two more spots for a Russian rocket trip to the international space station are now on the market, the U.S. firm selling the spots said.
Two thrill-seeking civilians, whose names are still being withheld, have agreed to shell out $20 million each for separate eight- to 10-day trips into orbit.
These two space tourists won’t be the first — U.S. millionaire Dennis Tito and South African technology entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth forked over about the same amount to be launched into space in 2001 and 2002.
Two more seats are up for sale, locking up all the spots available on Russian Soyuz rockets through 2007, according to Space Adventures, a private U.S. firm running the trips with the Russian Aviation and Space Agency.
When the upcoming launches were announced in June, about a dozen people had undergone medical tests for the two available flights and paid certain fees.
The successful candidates were picked largely because they pitched unique mission objectives, Space Adventures President and Chief Executive Eric Anderson said Tuesday.
One of the two is a 38-year-old male Manhattan real estate developer. No details about the other were available.
One of the space tourists will launch in the third quarter of 2004, and the other sometime in 2005. Space Adventures expected their names to be revealed sometime in January.
Most of the $20 million per-ticket cost goes to building the Soyuz rockets, which are not reusable. But the cash also helps boost Russia’s space program.
Russia’s Soyuz craft is currently the only working link to the International Space Station, after the February crash of the Columbia space shuttle grounded NASA’s shuttle fleet.
Source CNN.com.

Fantasy vied with reality on Sunday as the American Film Institute named the year’s 10 best films, listing epics like “The Last Samurai” and the final installment of “The Lord of the Rings” alongside slice-of-life movies “American Splendor” and “In America.” The 10 films to win the AFI Awards 2003, listed in alphabetical order, were “American Splendor,” “Finding Nemo,” “The Human Stain,” “In America,” “The Last Samurai,” “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,” “Lost in Translation,” “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World,” “Monster” and “Mystic River.” The American Film Institute names the year’s 10 top films and television shows without giving rating preferences.
Be sure to read Glide Magazine’s exclusive with American Splendor star Harey Pekar here.
Source Yahoo.com.

Janet Jackson will perform on one of the world’s biggest stages, the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show. The National Football League championship football game is set to air Feb. 1 live on CBS from Houston’s Reliant Stadium.
MTV is producing the Super Bowl halftime show, which will be sponsored by America Online, for the second time. The network previously produced the segment in 2001, which featured Aerosmith, ‘N Sync and Britney Spears.
Last year’s halftime event, produced by Interscope Geffen A&M Records chairman Jimmy Iovine and Tenth Planet Productions director/producer Joel Gallen, saw Shania Twain, No Doubt and Sting perform at halftime. Celine Dion, Carlos Santana, Michelle Branch and Beyonc

Galactic will launch its third annual Freezestyle tour Jan. 15 in Ft. Lauderdale. The trek will include two hometown shows at New Orleans’ Tipitina’s during Mardi Gras, as well as the band’s first dates in Japan. Opening acts have not yet been announced for the run.
Prior to the tour, Galactic is slated to appear Jan. 6-9 on the Jam Cruise and Jan. 10-13 on Jam Cruise II. Keller Williams, Les Claypool’s Frog Brigade, Particle, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and Michael Franti & Spearhead are among the other acts slated to participate. For more information on the sailings, visit the Jam Cruise Web site.
The band will wrap 2003 with Dec. 26-27 shows at New Orleans’ Tipitina’s Uptown.
Here are Galactic’s tour dates:
Dec. 26-27: New Orleans (Tipitina’s Uptown)Jan. 6-9: Jam CruiseJan. 10-13: Jam Cruise IIJan. 15: Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. (Culture Room)Jan. 16: Tampa, Fla. (Masquerade)Jan. 17: Orlando, Fla. (House of Blues)Jan. 18: Jacksonville, Fla. (Freebird Caf

Before the year comes to a close, The Gordon Stone Trio, now featuring Brian O’Connell (Uncle Sammy), has scheduled a few dates in the northeast. This Friday, December 19th, the trio will be at the River Street Jazz Cafe in Wilkes-Barre, PA, followed by a Saturday night show at The Brass Lantern, in Reading, PA on the 20th. On Dec 26th, they hit the Berkshire Blues Cafe in Lee, MA.
The band is also tentatively slated to open for Strangefolk at Harper’s Ferry in Boston, MA on the 29th or 30th.
For additional dates and more information, see gordonstone.com/schedule.php.

The ongoing songwriting credit battle between Yoko Ono and Paul McCartney was recently rekindled when Ono once again left the former Beatles’ name off the song “Give Peace a Chance.”
First released by the Plastic Ono Band in 1969, “Give Peace a Chance” appears on the new DVD Lennon Legend, and, as per the arrangement the songwriting duo reached forty years ago, it was previously credited to both men, despite Lennon being its sole author.
The credits to “Give Peace a Chance” have been in contention for decades. On the 1975 Lennon compilation Shaved Fish, the song was credited to Lennon/McCartney, but when the original Legend CD was released in 1997, McCartney’s name was dropped, as it was on the 1998 John Lennon Anthology box set.
Source rollingstone.com.