Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” took in a whopping $21.8 million in its first three days, becoming the first documentary ever to debut as Hollywood’s top weekend film. If Sunday’s estimates hold when final numbers are released Monday, “Fahrenheit 9/11” would set a record in a single weekend as the top-grossing documentary ever outside of concert films and movies made for huge-screen IMAX theaters.

If Sunday’s estimates hold when final numbers are released Monday, “Fahrenheit 9/11” would set a record in a single weekend as the top-grossing documentary ever outside of concert films and movies made for huge-screen IMAX theaters.

Adding the film’s haul at two New York City theaters where it opened Wednesday, two days earlier than the rest of the country, boosted “Fahrenheit 9/11” to $21.96 million.

“Bowling for Columbine,” Moore’s 2002 Academy Award-winning documentary, previously held the documentary record with $21.6 million.

“Fahrenheit 9/11,” Moore’s assault on President Bush’s actions after the 2001 terrorist attacks, won the top honor at last month’s Cannes Film Festival and has attracted attention from both sides in the presidential campaign.

The movie has been embraced by left-wing groups, which mobilized members to see it during the opening weekend. Conservative groups sought to discourage theaters from showing it and asked the Federal Election Commission to examine its ads for potential violations of campaign-finance law regulating when commercials may feature a presidential candidate.

Source yahoo.com.

In January, legendary gospel vocal group the Blind Boys of Alabama approached roots rocker Ben Harper and asked him to produce their new album.

At first he passed. “I just couldn’t commit that much time to other people’s music, because I’m making music at such a rapid pace in the studio right now doing my own thing,” Harper says. “They came back and asked about a couple songs. It was such a privilege to be asked and I had to look at my life and say, ‘There should not be anything keeping me from working with these guys.’ They’re one of the musical wonders of the world. They’re like Niagara Falls or the Grand Canyon.”

So, in late January, the Blind Boys, Harper and members of his band the Innocent Criminals moved into Studio B at Los Angeles’ Capitol Studios for five days to record a couple of songs. The early sessions netted five tracks, including the upbeat “Church House Steps,” the a cappella “Mother Pray” and the moving spiritual “There Will Be a Light.”

Harper found himself halfway through a dream project and decided to continue, culling songs from his catalog of unrecorded material. The crew reconvened in mid-March and finished the balance of the album in another five days. There Will Be a Light, an eleven-song collection by Ben Harper and the Blind Boys of Alabama is tentatively scheduled to be released on August 24th. Other song titles include “Where Could I Go?,” “Take My Hand” and a stunning cover of Jeff Buckley’s “Satisfied Mind” sung by Harper and Blind Boy Jimmy Carter.

The three-time Grammy-winning Blind Boys have high hopes for the project. “I think this is going to be a wonderful album,” George Scott says. “To tell you the truth, I believe they’re going to be callin’ us to get another Grammy.”

Adds Clarence Fountain, “Working with Ben was just as sweet as honey in a rock.”

Harper is even more effusive about his new recording mates. “I was extremely intimidated, because of the legend and because of my heightened level of reverence for the men and the music they’ve created,” he says. “The challenge of working with these guys is to not get goose bumps. I’m spending half my days in shivers. It’s crazy.”

Source rollingstone.com.

Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro, bassist Chris Chaney and drummer Stephen Perkins have formed a new band with Skycycle vocalist Steve Isaacs. The as-yet-unnamed group has penned three songs and has begun recording with producer Danny Saber, who worked with Navarro on his 2001 Capitol solo debut, “Trust No One.”

Speculation has been rampant that this spells the end of Jane’s Addiction, which has been inactive since completing touring and promotion for its 2003 Capitol reunion album, “Strays.”

“I am not replacing [Jane’s Addiction vocalist] Perry [Farrell],” Isaacs wrote on his official Web site. “Even writing that like it were possible is crazy to me. Dave, Stephen, and Chris and I are just taking some time to do what is the most fun thing in the world to do — make music and write songs.”

Navarro was more specific in a Web post of his own this week, when he proclaimed, “The deal is that [the reunion] simply didn’t work out. Sometimes things just don’t work out. In all honesty, we have broken up and rejoined roughly four times over the years. Perhaps that should shed some light as to where we are now. We really don’t know. We do know that we really gave it everything we had this time and we actually made a really great record after so many years of silence.”

“Sometimes the best creative relationships are the most combustible and they aren’t meant to last forever,” he continued. Both Capitol and Jane’s Addiction’s management declined further comment on Navarro’s post.

“I don’t know what the future of Jane’s Addiction is, but I do know from being in a band for five years, that you yearn to play with other people and see what making NEW music sounds like,” Isaacs said. “Life is beautiful, magical, and way too short, and to spend time not making music makes you die a little bit inside. I know about that, too.”

The news comes just days after the Farrell-reared Lollapalooza tour cancelled its entire summer run due to poor ticket sales.

Source billboard.com.

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Copyright 2004 Billboard

Rhino Records has set an Aug. 17 release date for two retrospectives celebrating the work of influential quartet Talking Heads. The label’s revamp of the live package “The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads” will mark the first CD issue of a fan-favorite release from 1982, while “The Best of Talking Heads” is the group’s first U.S. single-disc greatest-hits set.

Both titles were assembled with the involvement of all of the band’s members — David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Chris Franz and Jerry Harrison.

Originally a double-vinyl set, “The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads” has been buffed up to a two-disc release with the addition of 13 previously unreleased live tracks spanning 1977-1981. Also appended to the album are three cuts from a 1979 promotional-only live disc — The Girls Want To Be With the Girls,” an early version of “Drugs” titled “Electricity” and “Found a Job.”

“The Best of Talking Heads” is an 18-track collection of the band’s most popular tunes, including “Psycho Killer,” “Burning Down the House” and “And She Was.”

Last fall, Rhino released the three-CD, one-DVD box set “Once in a Lifetime,” including songs from throughout the band’s career as well as all its videos. A 1992 Sire/Warner Bros. compilation, “Popular Favorites 1976-1992: Sand in the Vaseline,” surveyed each of the band’s studio albums across two discs and added five then-previously unreleased songs.

In related news, former Heads frontman Byrne will follow a July European tour with another North American run. He is touring behind his latest album, “Grown Backwards,” released in April by Nonesuch.

Source billboard.com.

Wilco have settled a lawsuit filed in the U.K. by progressive electronic label Irdial-Discs over the sample that spawned the title of the band’s 2002 album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

The sample, used in the distortion-laced outtro to the song “Poor Places,” is taken from The Conet Project: Recordings of Shortwave Numbers Stations’s “Phonetic Alphabet Nato,” which consists of a woman’s voice repeating the words “yankee, hotel, foxtrot” in a monotone for ninety seconds.

The Conet Project is a historic collection of secret “Numbers Stations,” shortwave radio transmissions used by the espionage agencies around the world to communicate to their agents in the field.” Although the exact origins of the broadcasts are unknown, Irdial claimed that the “distortions, nuances and noises” in its recording make it distinct and available to copyright.

“When it was interpolated into the mix, Jeff [Wilco frontman Tweedy] thought since it was an unidentifiable source, it was not a copyrightable recording,” says Wilco attorney Josh Grier. “The comparison is if somebody goes out and records a lion roaring [and you sample it], the lion can’t sue you, but maybe the person who made the recording can.”

Exact terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but Grier said Irdial will receive a “share of the sound recording royalty on that track.”

Nebraska wunderkind Conor Oberst is taking Bright Eyes on the road for what’s billed as An Evening of Solo & Collaborative Performances Featuring Bright Eyes, Jim James (Of My Morning Jacket), and M. Ward.

The three singer/songwriters mounted a tour under the same name in February. Each performer does a solo set, but all three are on stage throughout most of the show, contributing instrumentation and vocals to one another’s songs.

The jaunt runs from October 8-19, beginning in Fort Worth, Texas at the Ridglea Theatre. The tour runs up the West Coast and wraps in Vancouver, B.C.
M. Ward has several appearances scheduled prior to the tour, including the Merge Records 15th Anniversary Festival July 29 in Carrboro, N.C.

James is currently on the European festival circuit with My Morning Jacket. He’ll appear solo at the Gram Parsons tribute shows in Southern California July 9-10.

Source pollstar.com.

A disc of recently discovered, previously unheard demos for the Clash’s “London Calling” will be included in the Legacy edition of the classic album, due Sept. 21 via Epic. Although a track list for the demos has not been finalized, it is tipped to include songs that did not make the final cut for “London Calling.” The tapes were recently discovered in storage belonging to guitarist/vocalist Mick Jones.

In addition to the original album and the aforementioned demos, “London Calling: The 25th Anniversary Edition” will boast a DVD chronicling the Clash at that point in its existence. A 45-minute documentary was created by longtime biographer Don Letts, and features recording studio footage, previously unreleased live performances, interviews with Jones, the late Joe Strummer, Topper Headon and Paul Simonon and a rare conversation with band manager Kosmo Vinyl.

The new edition will also feature full song lyrics, a new essay and rare photos by band photographer Pennie Smith.

Released in 1979, “London Calling” has come to be regarded as one of the best albums of the punk era. It features such Clash classics as the title cut, “Train in Vain,” “Clampdown,” “Guns of Brixton,” “Spanish Bombs,” “Rudie Can’t Fail” and “Death or Glory.”

Source billboard.com.

The Black Keys will rumble again with the release of their third album, Rubber Factory, September 7th on Fat Possum Records. The Akron, Ohio, garage blues rawk duo’s new set follows their breakthrough album, 2003’s Thickfreakness, which earned the band a spot in the final ten albums for the Shortlist Prize.

Among Thickfreakness’ converts were Sleater-Kinney and Beck, both of whom offered the Black Keys opening spots on tours last year. Those bits of good fortune were tempered by the fact that singer-guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney barely left the road all year, a rugged schedule that prompted them to postpone a European tour late last year due to exhaustion.

“We were given opportunities we really couldn’t pass up,” Auerbach says. “But that touring really kicked the shit out of us. I just saw some pictures from Europe and we looked so fucking miserable. So we took a little time off, because we didn’t want to have anything to do with each other.”

Auerbach had started to write some of the songs for Rubber Factory while on tour last year, but the bulk of the new material began to take shape after he and Carney were able to spend a few weeks apart. When the time came to record, the Black Keys had to find a new haven to do so, as Carney’s landlord sold the house he was renting, depriving the duo of the basement that yielded Thickfreakness. Earlier this year, Auerbach and Carney hopped in the car and began to scout new locations. “There’s no shortage of old, empty industrial buildings in Akron,” Auerbach says. They settled on a warehouse that housed a tire manufacturer, a locale that gave the new album its title.

“I guess it’s probably not ideal for a studio,” Auerbach says, “but then, we don’t really know what ideal would be. The first floor of this place is a cavernous room where they stored the tires. The second floor was the lab with the offices. They just put us in the corner by ourselves, where no one could hear us.”

Auerbach promises a bit of evolution from the Black Keys, as on “The Lengths,” a song that he says features a “hypnotic vibe.” “There are a few slower songs, some acoustic guitar, there’s a more atmospheric thing going on,” he says. “And I’m happier with my songwriting. It’s still simplified and raw, but more experimental.”

But Rubber Factory won’t be a shocking departure from the spare racket of their previous two albums. “We still know what we want to do,” Auerbach says, “the same as we did when we were seventeen. I’ve heard enough records with bands changing their format that end up sucking ass to know better. We upgraded our tape player — the tape is now a bit thicker. That’s about the only thing that changed.”

Source rollingstone.com.

David Crosby and Graham Nash will release their first album as a duo in 28 years Aug. 10 via Sanctuary. Recorded earlier this year in Los Angeles, the two-disc, 20-track “Crosby-Nash” was produced by the artists and the father/son team of Russell and Nathaniel Kunkel. Russ Kunkel, who played drums on 1972’s “Crosby & Nash,” also contributes to the new album, as does guitarist Dean Parks, bassist Leland Sklar and Crosby’s son, James Raymond, his bandmate in the group CPR.

Crosby and Nash, who have released three previous albums a duo, will kick off a tour with Stephen Stills as Crosby, Stills & Nash July 1 in Prior Lake, Minn. At some point following that outing’s Sept. 22 close in Woodinville, Wash., they will stage a tour in support of “Crosby-Nash.”

Source billboard.com.

Former Pearl Jam/Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Jack Irons gets a lift from a host of his ex-bandmates on his solo debut, “Attention Dimension,” due in August. Pearl Jam vocalist Eddie Vedder takes the mic on a cover of Pink Floyd’s “Shine On, You Crazy Diamond,” featuring Primus’ Les Claypool on bass. Chili Peppers bassist Flea guests on “Suluhiana” and “Water Song,” the latter boasting Pearl Jam’s Stone Gossard on guitar.

Irons left Pearl Jam for health reasons in early 1998, following the release of the album “Yield” and an Australian tour. “I had to dedicate myself to living a life that would promote healing and a right way of life for me and my family,” he says. “The music on these recordings [is] what was creatively inspired along the way. I could not tour at that point but I still needed to create.”

“Making this music was a way for me to work through all the changes and growing I had to do to become healthy again,” he continues. “This music also helped me reconnect with some old friends and former bandmates, who I am very happy and thankful to say have performed as guest artists.”

Irons is abetted throughout “Attention Dimension” by his Eleven colleague Alain Johannes, who plays an array of instruments on seven tracks. Eleven’s Natasha Shneider offers vocals on “Hearing It Doubled,” while Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament augments the groove on “Dunes.” The cut “Breaking Sea” includes a sample of Spectrasonics’ “Heart of Africa.”

Irons joined Pearl Jam for two songs during an all-star concert last October in Santa Barbara, Calif. It was just the second time he had played with the group since he left.

Here is the track list for “Attention Dimension”:

“Jackie Groove” featuring Alain Johannes
“Suluhiana” featuring Flea, Johannes
“Ocean’s Light”
“Hearing It Doubled” featuring Johannes, Natasha Shneider
“Shine On, You Crazy Diamond” featuring Eddie Vedder, Les Claypool, Johanne, Shneider
“Underwater Circus Music”
“Dunes” featuring Jeff Ament, Johannes
“Come Running” featuring Johannes
“Water Song” featuring Flea, Stone Gossard
“Breaking Sea” featuring Johannes
“Aquaman’s Electric Band” featuring Johannes

Source billboard.com.