Bootsy Collins and Bernie Worrell, Tortoise, Stereolab, Luke Vibert and Money Mark are among the artists contributing new songs to the “Moog” soundtrack, due Sept. 14 from Hollywood Records. The film of the same name chronicles the life of Moog synthesizer creator Bob Moog, revered as a pioneer in the evolution of electronic music.

“The musicians who play our instruments show us what our instruments are capable of,” Moog says. “This CD covers an amazing range of music — music of the sort that has done so much to shape our contemporary culture. To me, this CD is a tribute to all the musicians who have used Moog instruments to express their musical visions.”

The documentary was directed by Hans Fjellestad and shot in Asheville, N.C., London, New York, San Francisco, London and Tokyo. Among the artists appearing in the film include Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman, DJ Spooky and Mix Master Mike.

“Moog” will arrive Sept. 17 in a limited U.S. theatrical release. It is expected to hit DVD by Christmas via Plexifilm, which previously issued the Wilco documentary “I am Trying To Break Your Heart.”

Here is the “Moog” track list:

“Abomination,” 33
“Variation One,” Stereolab
“Bob’s Funk,” the Moog Cookbook
“Unavailable Memory,” Meat Beat Manifesto
“Beautiful Love,” Tortoise
“Nanobot Highway,” Money Mark
“I am a Spaceman,” Charlie Clouser
“You Moog Me,” Jean-Jacques Perrey and Luke Vibert
“Sqeeble,” Plastiq Phantom
“The Sentinel,” Psilonaut
“When Bernie Speaks,” Bernie Worrell and Bootsy Collins
“Realistic Source,” Bostich
“Endless Horizon (I Love Bob mix),” Electric Skychurch
“Micro Melodies,” the Album Leaf
“You Have Been Selected,” Pete DeVriese
“Mixed Waste 4.2,” Baiyon
“Another Year Away,” Roger O’Donnell

Source bilboard.com.

After Pearl Jam reassembles in early October for its first live shows in nearly a year, the Seattle rock outfit will get busy on its eighth studio album. “I think they’re planning on going back to the studio this winter,” manager Kelly Curtis tells Billboard.com. As for a possible release date, Curtis would only say, “When they’re done, they give it to us and we go.”

The group will play six shows in October as part of the Vote for Change tour, which Curtis helped organize with the managers of Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews, R.E.M. and the Dixie Chicks. The trek kicks off Oct. 1 in Pennsylvania and will proceed to eight additional presidential election battleground states.

“We were getting bombarded with requests to play around the election, and I thought I would seek out some advice,” he says of the tour’s genesis. “So I called [Sprinsgteen manager] Jon Landau to see how they were dealing with all the stuff coming in. The more we talked, the more we thought it would be a good idea to get a bunch of managers together and try to get educated.”

“What came out of there was five managers connecting and deciding that we should try to pull off some kind of swing-state tour. Then, it became a logistical nightmare,” he adds with a laugh. Curtis declined to comment on the possibility of additional acts being added to the tour or rumors of an Oct. 10 all-star finale show in Florida.

As for Pearl Jam’s specific concerts with Death Cab For Cutie, on-sale dates are still being finalized. Curtis doesn’t expect the shows to be made available as part of Pearl Jam’s ongoing authorized bootleg series, because “it might be a little shorter set from Pearl Jam [than usual], or a lot of collaboration. But then you’re dealing with other people’s record companies and it gets too complicated.”

Curtis hinted at additional Pearl Jam shows in 2004 but declined to reveal specifics. Asked if the band would unveil some new material at Vote for Change appearances, he said, “I’m sure that will be the case.”

Having left longtime label Epic last year, Pearl Jam crowned its free agent status with the July 27 release of “Live at Benaroya Hall” via its own Ten Club fan organization and a distribution deal with BMG. The set debuted last week at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Internet Album Sales tally and No. 18 on The Billboard 200 thanks to first-week sales of 52,000 copies.

“This was a perfect record to try something new with some different folks,” he says. “Luckily, we don’t have to decide [about potentially signing with a new label] right now. We want to do as much as we can ourselves, and for what we can’t do or don’t want to do, we’ll rely on someone else.”

Source billboard.com.

Though Widespread Panic startled fans late last year by announcing that they were planning to stay off the road in 2004, the band’s members haven’t exactly been idle. Bassist Dave Schools, keyboardist John Hermann and drummer Todd Nance are taking advantage of the band’s yearlong hiatus by releasing a trio of side projects.
Schools kicks off the flurry of Panic activity with the August 17th release of More Talk About Tonight, his second LP as Slang, an electronic-tinged collaborative project with producer Layng Martine. The follow-up to 2000’s The Bellwether Project features guest turns from Vic Chesnutt, DJ Logic, Lori Carson and Eric McFadden.

“The initial impetus for Slang was simply for Layng and me to have a free exchange of musical ideas,” Schools says. “It was a mutual admiration society between the two of us that evolved over time to include a lot of musicians that we wanted to work with. The new CD seems to be a more fully realized and mature work.”

Hermann re-teams with Luther and Cody Dickinson of the North Mississippi All-Stars — for the past eight years, the trio has played occasional shows as the Smiling Assassins — for his third album, Just Ain’t Right,, set for release September 14th. “[It’s] a great opportunity for me to get together with these amazing musicians and lay down all of the songs that have I written on my own over the years, songs that have been living in the closet,” says Hermann. “Whenever I have time off from the road and the others are free, we get together to work on songs and play a few gigs.”

Drummer Todd Nance will release Rhythm Oil in October — his third album with Barbara Cue, a collective of Southern pals that includes John Neff of Drive-By Truckers and that began as “basically a tribute show to NRBQ that just kept on going,” according to Nance.

In other Widespread Panic news, the group will release Jackassolantern on September 28th. The live album features tracks from Panic’s Halloween concerts and includes covers such as Black Sabbath’s “Sweet Leaf,” Nelly’s “Hot in Herre” and the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil.”

Source rollingstone.com.

Carlos Santana has begun collecting songs for his next studio album. “I’m going to complete the next Santana album with [BMG chairman/CEO] Mr. Clive Davis,” the artist tells Billboard. “Right now we’re collecting songs. It’s like [the 1999 album] ‘Supernatural.’ What we did was we crafted songs like glass slippers, and then we find the Cinderellas.”

As with his past few albums, the songs will precede the collaborations with other artists. “We’re in the finding songs part,” Santana says. “I’m just supremely grateful [to everyone] from Lauryn Hill to Dave Matthews to Placido Domingo. Most people only work with one level and stay there. Where ‘I only do salsa, I only do norteno,’ and they stay there. I only play music. Period. And that gives me a different spectrum that others don’t enjoy.”

Asked when this new album will be finished, Santana replies, “When it’s done.” The set will be the follow-up to 2002’s “Shaman,” which debuted at No. 1 on The Billboard 200 and has sold 2.3 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

As for the all-Spanish-language album Santana was mulling a few years back, the project has been shelved for now.

“I would like to work with so many people,” he says. “One of my favorite bands is still Molotov. And of course Mana, Los Jaguares. And there are a lot of people [from Latin America] that we don’t even know. But it’s not in the agenda now. I think I would need to establish a different agenda with Spanish radio, Univision and Telemundo.”

As previously reported, Santana will be honored as the 2004 Latin Recording Academy Person of the Year via performances by Black Eyed Peas, Matthews, matchbox twenty’s Rob Thomas, Robi Draco Rosa and Ozomatli, among others. The tribute will be held Aug. 30 at Los Angeles’s Century Plaza Hotel.

Source billboard.com.

The Dead, Phish, Dave Matthews Band and five other artists are pictured on a limited-edition print released by HeadCount, a not-for-profit nonpartisan group dedicated to registering voters.

Live music’s top photographers, Danny Clinch, Jay Blakeberg and C. Taylor Crothers, all donated the use of their work for this print, which is available at HeadCount.org, and affiliate band Web sites.

This is the first collectible item ever to feature images of The Dead, Phish and Dave Matthews Band, three of the most popular touring acts of all time. All the proceeds from the sale of these 18 x 24, full-color prints will support HeadCount

I

R.E.M.’s fall North American tour will find the veteran rock act playing some of the most intimate venues it has visited in years. The 29-date trek kicks off Oct. 13 at Los Angeles’ Greek Theatre and will wrap Nov. 27 in Denver. As previously reported, R.E.M. will warm up for the dates on the Vote for Change tour, playing five shows with Bruce Springsteen, John Fogerty and Bright Eyes beginning Oct. 1 in Philadelphia.

Although the trek will feature such arenas as New York’s Madison Square Garden (Nov. 4) and Boston’s FleetCenter (Oct. 29), it will also find R.E.M. performing in such intimate confines as Akron, Ohio’s E.J. Thomas Performing Arts Hall (Oct. 27, capacity 2,925) and an Oct. 25-26 stand at the Chicago Theatre (capacity 3,604).

Tickets for some shows will go on-sale Aug. 21. Members of R.E.M.’s fan club will be offered special ticket opportunities.

The tour comes in support of the group’s new Warner Bros. album, “Around the Sun,” due Oct. 5 in North America via Warner Bros. First single “Leaving New York” arrives commercially Sept. 27 outside North America.

Here are R.E.M.’s tour dates:

Oct. 1: Philadelphia (Wachovia Center, Vote for Change tour)
Oct. 2: Cleveland (Gund Arena, Vote for Change tour)
Oct. 3: Ann Arbor, Mich. (Crisler Arena, Vote for Change tour)
Oct. 5: St. Paul, Minn. (Xcel Energy Center, Vote for Change tour)
Oct. 8: Orlando, Fla. (TD Waterhouse Centre, Vote for Change tour)
Oct. 13: Los Angeles (Greek Theatre)
Oct. 14: Santa Barbara, Calif. (Santa Barbara Bowl
Oct. 15: San Francisco (Greek Amphitheatre)
Oct. 16: Irvine, Calif. (Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre)
Oct. 19: St. Louis (Fox Theatre)
Oct. 20: Indianapolis (Murat Theatre)
Oct. 22: Nashville (Ryman Auditorium)
Oct. 23: Atlanta (Gwinnett Arena)
Oct. 25-26: Chicago (Chicago Theatre)
Oct. 27: Akron, Ohio (E.J. Thomas Performing Arts Hall)
Oct. 29: Boston (FleetCenter)
Oct. 30: Atlantic City, N.J. (Borgata)
Nov. 1: Washington, D.C. (DAR Constitution Hall)
Nov. 4: New York (Madison Square Garden)
Nov. 5: Uncasville, Conn. (Mohegan Sun)
Nov. 7: Pittsburgh (Palumbo Center)
Nov. 9-10: Toronto (Hummingbird Center)
Nov. 11: Ottawa, Ontario (Civic Centre)
Nov. 12: Montreal (Bell Centre)
Nov. 14: Thunder Bay, Ontario (Fort Williams Gardens)
Nov. 15: Winnipeg, Manitoba (Centennial Concert Hall)
Nov. 17: Calgary, Alberta (Saddledome)
Nov. 19-20: Seattle (McCaw Hall)
Nov. 21: Vancouver (Orpheum Theatre)
Nov. 26: Salt Lake City (E Center)
Nov. 27: Denver (Fillmore)

Source billboard.com.

King’s X leader Doug Pinnick has completed work on a long-in-the-works album with Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament. The duo does not have a name but the 15-track album is tentatively titled “Montana,” according to King’s X’s official Web site. Richard Stuverud, Ament’s collaborator in his side band Three Fish, also participated in the sessions. No release date has been announced.

Pinnick describes the sound as “sort of a southern rock/classic sound, a bit of the Rolling Stones vibe, a little jam band vibe some groovy/funky tunes and a few beautiful ballads.” Pinnick and Stuverud handle all the singing, while Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready recently dropped by to add guitar to seven tracks.

The “Montana” album is just one of many projects on Pinnick’s plate. He is working with Winger guitarist Reb Beach on a CD of “’80s type music” that sounds like “Bon Jovi, Dokken [and] Whitesnake sort of but with my twist for vocals,” Pinnick says. The set is tentatively titled “Devil’s Children.”

King’s X has a double-disc live album in the can, sporting “no overdubs so at times [it] is really rough but has lots of vibe,” according to Pinnick. The group has also begun talks with its former label, Atlantic, to reissue its first four albums in a boxed set with a bonus disc of rehearsals. “This project is in just the talking phase right now,” Pinnick says.

Finally, King’s X is working on a new studio album, which will be the follow-up to 2003’s “Black Like Sunday.” Says Pinnick, “We are doing it like we used to in the early days; some old demos and lots of new stuff. Hopefully this is what you diehards are waiting for.”

The group will hit the road this fall, beginning Sept. 21 in Fort Worth, Texas, and running through a Nov. 17 finale in Baltimore.

Source billboard.com.

Their name is the Asher Kahn Band and they are virtually unknown in the music entertainment world.

Funk legend Rick James was found dead at 9:45 a.m. PT this morning (Aug. 6) at his Los Angeles home by a caretaker, according to a police spokesperson. He was 56. The cause of death was believed to be natural. The artist had a history of drug problems that led to poor health in recent years, including a 1998 stroke.

In addition to his own slew of pop and R&B hits, such as “Super Freak (Part 1),” “You and I” and “Mary Jane,” James wrote and produced songs for the likes of Teena Marie, the Temptations and Eddie Murphy. The one-time Navy deserter fell prey to drugs, and spent time behind bars in the 1990s for assault and holding a woman against her will.

James was recently honored with the Heritage Award from performing arts society ASCAP. Prior to the ceremony, he told Billboard he was planning to release a 30-song double-CD on his Sony/RED-distributed label, Ma Records.

“God sat me down to pay attention,” James said about the stroke. “Then he told me to get back up and hit the stage, and I’m enjoying it.”

James also claimed he was ready to retire from the music business “to do something more spiritual.” His daughter Ty, a rapper, is recording and negotiating a deal for her own solo album.

The artist roared back into the public consciousness earlier this year thanks to a series of hilarious, oft-quoted sketches on Comedy Central’s “Chapelle’s Show.” The show’s host/creator, Dave Chappelle, was in early talks to star as James in a film based on his upcoming autobiography, “Memoirs of a Super Freak.”

Source billboard.com.