Archive: 2003

Rock duo the Black Keys has postponed an extensive European tour after guitarist/vocalist Dan Auerbach fractured two toes while unloading a van full of equipment. The Akron, Ohio-based group was scheduled to be in Europe through a Nov. 30 show in Berlin. Fans are encouraged to keep their tickets for the affected gigs, as they will be valid when the shows are rescheduled next year.
“Not only were we exhausted and way too stressed after this insane year of non-stop touring, but little s*** like missing planes and fracturing toes added to our decision to take a break,” Auerbach writes on the band’s official Web site.
The Black Keys were touring in support of their sophomore album, “thickfreakness,” released this year by Fat Possum. The pair will return to the stage on Dec. 6 in Oberlin, Ohio, and will play a previously announced New Year’s Eve show at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland. The only other show on the group’s schedule is Jan. 2 in Detroit.
During the downtime, Auerbach says he and drummer Patrick Carney “are busy in the basement trying to remember what it’s like to practice. All of our recording equipment and musical junk has a nice thick layer of dust on it, so we’re gonna wipe the dust away and get to work on writing some new songs.”
Source Billboard.com.

Wilco is in a New York studio recording the follow-up to its acclaimed 2002 album “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.” As with that set, which was released by Nonesuch after Wilco parted ways with Warner Bros., the band is working on the sessions with producer/multi-instrumentalist Jim O’Rourke. Chris Shaw, best known for his work on Bob Dylan’s “Love and Theft,” is engineering.
The album, tentatively titled “W*lco Happens,” will most likely not be released until late spring. Tracks include “We are Finished Waiting for You Now” and “Hell Is Chrome.”
Source Billboard.com.

Garaj Mahal has planned to ring in 2004 with a 3 night run in British Columbia. New Years Eve, Dec 31st & New Years Day, Jan 1st will be at THE BOOT 7124 Nancy Green Way, Whistler, B.C. The Jan 2nd show will be held at MESA LUNA 1926 W Broadway St. Vancouver.
To celebrate New Years, the band is also holding a Dream Set Contest. The person who

Following opening for the Yonder Mountain String Band for New Years Eve in Denver, Americana rocker Jay Farrar will headline a series of US club dates in support of Terroir Blues, released last June. From January 15 through the end of the month, Farrar and his backing band, Canyon, will play a selection of theatres and clubs from Texas out West to Washington.
Currently, Farrar is bringing his brand of rock to Europe. In the U.K. and Ireland, he is backed by Mick Clews and Peter Noone (both in Peter Bruntnell’s band) and Mark Spencer (Blood Oranges), with Peter Bruntnell supporting. Then, in Europe, it’s just Farrar and Spencer.
For complete tour dates visit pollstar.com.

Between the release of Preston School of Industry’s 2001 debut and the recording of their upcoming album, Monsoon, frontman Scott Kannberg relocated from the Bay Area to Seattle. But despite the title, Monsoon, slated for a January 20th release, doesn’t sound like it was written underneath Seattle drizzle — the album is chock-full of sunny California melodies. “I moved to a whole new environment up here,” says the former Pavement guitarist. “I’m not used to the rain. Moving away was kind of hard in the beginning. Seattle’s a challenge.”
Wilco joined in for “Get Your Crayons Out.” Plied with BBQ chicken and salmon, beer and diet Coke, they ransacked Kannberg’s basement studio for instrumentation and gave the track the kitchen sink treatment.
“Jeff [Tweedy] did some really amazing guitar parts,” Kannberg says. “It sounds like a jug band or an early Velvet Underground bootleg or something. Glen [Kotche] found some pots and pans in the basement and started playing those. I gave Leroy [Bach] some old Pavement ashtrays that we have, and he used those as percussion instruments. He was really excited about that.”
Upon his return from a six-week tour of Australia, Kannberg plans to dig through the vaults for bonus material slated for a planned expanded, re-mastered version of Pavement’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain targeted for release next year. “I gotta go through all my own archives, all the songs we never put out,” he says. “There’s probably five or six songs that were totally unreleased from around that period, and probably a few demos that we actually did with our old drummer Gary [Young]. I think we can salvage a few of those.”
Source Rollingstone.com.

Scotland’s Beta Band recorded their upcoming album four times before finally getting it right this summer, when they tracked a fifth and final version.
“Our first album [The Beta Band] was written in the studio,” singer Stephen Mason says. “But we were ridiculously prepared for this one.” The as-yet-untitled album, the follow-up to 2001’s Hot Shots II, is due in late March.
“I initially wrote a load of songs, and gave the demos to the band,” Mason says. “They went away and each did a version, so we ended up with four versions of each song. Then we had to condense those four versions down to make another version, and we took that and used it as the starting point for the studio.”
The process was laborious to say the least, but it resulted in twelve songs that are among the most cohesive the band have ever recorded, and a louder, more aggressive sound than previous efforts. “This album is, in some ways, a lot less unusual than the other stuff we’ve done,” Mason says. “Unlike in the past, where we’d record a one-minute song with a fifteen-minute outro, there are no monoliths on this one. Some are much more like pop songs, for us anyway.”
The self-produced album — recorded in Wales during an eight-week stretch this summer — is currently being mixed by Nigel Godrich (Radiohead) and the band. Among the tracks are “Assessment,” which features a brass section. Mason describes it as “guitar-led with quite a large rock tribal rhythm behind it.” Mason likens “Space Beatle” to “a really sad guy alone in a mine, mining for feelings. The only thing he’s got with him is a tiny little hammer and an out of tune electric organ.” But “Simple” is a “classic acoustic guitar song” that is among the most commercial tunes the group has ever recorded.
A pair of DVDs are slated to accompany the album, one a making-of film shot by Scottish comedian Pete Rankin and the other a collection of twelve videos. Mason, drummer Robin Jones, sampler John Maclean and bassist Richard Greentree will each shoot three of the low-budget videos, which will either be set to demo version of songs from the album or culled from the six tracks that didn’t make the final cut.
Source Rollingstone.com.

Like any tour documentary, looking inside the mystical travelling caravan that is called Janes Addiction is a far cry from the realistic long van rides, fast food, small clubs and not all glitz story of most rock and roll bands. Starring Perry Farrell, Dave Navarro, Stephen Perkins, and Flea as the 1997 version of Janes Addiction in the midst of their

If you bought the last Pearl Jam tour DVD, you

Hawaiian singer/songwriter Jack Johnson will headline a benefit concert on Jan. 3 in Oahu, Hawaii. The event will also feature performances by Michael Franti & Spearhead, DJ Logic, Makana and Amy Hanaiali’I & Willie K.
The goal of the concert is to raise funds for the Kokua Hawaii Foundation, which works to preserve Hawaii’s natural environment. Some funds have been earmarked to start school recycling and gardening programs on Oahu, in the hope that similar programs will eventually be implemented throughout the state.
As previously reported, Johnson has two releases on the horizon for Nov. 25 via his Brushfire label. The first is a DVD of the surfing film “Thicker Than Water,” which will be accompanied with a 14-track soundtrack featuring two newly recorded songs.
Johnson is in the midst of a tour of Australia and New Zealand, which hits Christchurch on Friday (Nov. 14).
Source Billboard.com.

Fans of veteran modern rock act the Cure will get a late Christmas present on Jan. 27, when Fiction/Elektra/Rhino releases the four-disc boxed set “Join the Dots: B-Sides and Rarities, 1978-2001 (The Fiction Years).” Frontman Robert Smith personally supervised the project, which will feature a 76-page booklet with track-by-track commentary from Smith and bassist Simon Gallup.
The 22-track first disc spans 1978-1987 and includes “Another Journey by Train” (the B-side to “A Forest”) as well as a version of “Lament” which was only available in 1982 on a single inserted in copies of the magazine Flexipop. Disc two is highlighted by “Sugar Girl” (the B-side to “Just Like Heaven”), alternate mixes of “Icing Sugar” and “How Beautiful You Are” and three different versions of the Doors’ “Hello I Love You.”
The third disc, collecting 15 tracks from 1992-1996, sports tunes contributed to soundtracks for “The Crow” (“Burn”) and “Judge Dredd” (“Dredd Song”), “Halo” (the B-side to “Friday I’m in Love”) and covers of Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” and David Bowie’s “Young Americans.”
Disc four rounds up 15 cuts from 1996-2001, such as an acoustic version of “Just Say Yes,” the import-only “Coming Up,” a cover of Depeche Mode’s “World in Your Eyes” and alternate mixes of “Wrong Number,” “This Is a Lie” and “Strange Attraction.”
Source Billboard.com.