News

For the third time in its career and the second this year, System Of A Down scores the top position on The Billboard 200. “Hypnotize” (American/Columbia) debuts at No. 1 on the album chart with sales of more than 320,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. [Ed Note: This number has been revised from an earlier version of this story.]

Although it was enough to debut in the lead, the first-week total for “Hypnotize” came up shy of the 453,000 copies the rock act’s “Mezmerize” moved in its first week back in May. SOAD previously reached No. 1 with “Toxicity” in 2001.

Source billboard.com.

Guster is eyeing a spring 2006 release date for its next Reprise album, “Ganging Up on the Sun.” Among the tracks tipped for inclusion are “Hang On,” “The Beginning of the End,” “C’mon,” “One Man Wrecking Machine” and an as-yet-unnamed track featuring vocals from a cashier who works at a food shop near where the band recorded in Woodstock, N.Y.

“I definitely think this is our most ambitious album and we were a lot more fearless going into this one musically, lyrically and production-wise,” vocalist/guitarist Ryan Miller tells Billboard.com. “In some ways, these songs are all over the map in texture and sound and tempo and feel but I hope, and think, that there emerges a through line that draws them all together. What that line is, I don’t really know. Melody? Pop sensibility?”

“Each of our albums have progressed logically from the one before,” Miller says. “‘Lost and Gone’ was the last chapter of the ‘bongo drum’ era and ‘Keep It Together’ was us getting our sea legs with new instrumentation and a renewed sense of creativity. With the addition of [multi-instrumentalist] Joe [Pisapia] in the last two years, it felt like we were finally hitting some sort of writing stride.”

“I think we step into the studio every time hoping to make a classic album,” Miller continues. “I certainly can’t say if we achieved that goal this time, but it’s definitely the closest we’ve come.”

Source billboard.com.

The first-ever Burton Progression Parks, developed by Burton and Snow Park Technologies, open at Loon Mountain, NH and Northstar-at-Tahoe Resort, CA in December. Featuring smaller versions of pro-size terrain, the groundbreaking parks provide a comfortable, laid-back environment for riders who want to develop terrain park skills.

The Rolling Stones have dropped a double whammy of concert news, announcing plans to perform at Super Bowl XL as well as a mammoth European summer tour.

The group will perform at halftime during the 40th anniversary of the NFL championship, which will take place at Detroit’s Ford Field February 5. The game, watched by 133 million in the U.S. last year, is being broadcast to more than 225 countries and territories.
The Super Bowl performance will take place in the midst of the band’s ongoing tour of North and South America.

The Stones’ Euro tour will kick off May 27 at Barcelona, Spain’s Olympic Stadium, continuing through Western and Eastern Europe for more than three months. More than 30 concerts are confirmed across nearly 20 countries, finishing in the U.K. at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium August 29.

Source: pollstar

moe. has announced dates for their winter tour. Scheduled to kickoff in late-January at Boston

Black Sabbath and the Sex Pistols lead the 2006 class of inductees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They will be joined by jazz legend Miles Davis, Southern rock mainstays Lynyrd Skynyrd and New York new wave outfit Blondie for the induction, which will be held March 13 at New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

Source: billboard

The long-awaited return of The New Riders of the Purple Sage has fans in a psychedelic head spin. Original members David Nelson (guitar and vocals) and Buddy Cage (pedal Steel) along with Michael Falzarano (guitar, mandolin and vocals), Johnny Markowski (drums and vocals)and Ronnie Penque (bass and vocals) will treat their fans with their 2nd tour since the reformation of the group. Once called the greatest cosmic, psychedelic-country folk rock & roll band in the universe, the new lineup of NRPS will continue to revive its legendary reputation in early December.

Veterans David Nelson and Buddy Cage have put together a smokin’ band to perform its timeless music to fans both old and new. “David and I will be playing our NRPS catalog,” says Buddy Cage who replaced Jerry Garcia on pedal steel in the band’s earliest lineup in 1971. Original bass player Dave Torbert and drummer Spencer Dryden have passed away and are now a part of the ethereal band. They will undoubtedly be smiling down as their music lives on. Co-founder John Dawson cannot lend his considerable talents due to ongoing health problems although he will be there in spirit.

December Tour:
Wed 7 – Wilberts – Cleveland, OH
Thurs 8 – 123 Pleasant St – Morgantown, WV
Fri 9 – The Pub – Harrisonburg, VA
Sat 10- Station II – Norfolk, VA
Mon 12 – Cary St. Cafe’ – Richmond, VA
Wed 14 – The 8×10 – Baltimore, MD
Thurs 15 – The State Theatre – Falls Church, VA
Fri+Sat 16+17 – Mexicali Blues – Teaneck, NJ

Electric Six has firmed up a tour for February and March, with much of the U.S. and Canada in the disco-garage-punk band’s crosshairs.

The tour begins February 9 in Toronto and spans the length of the continent, finishing in Milwaukee March 25.

Rock Kills Kid will open on all dates, with Fred Durst proteges She Wants Revenge also appearing through March 6 and Nightmare Of You on the tour’s latter half.

Electric Six visited Australia and New Zealand earlier this year, in addition to North America, and is planning to finish a new album before the new tour starts.

The Detroit natives – who “use stage names because we had a stupid idea one night and now we have to live with it” – have been through approximately four guitar players, four bass players, five keyboard players, and three drummers.

The group is currently a five-piece, comprising Dick Valentine, Tait Nucleus, John R. Dequindre, Johnny Na$hinal and The Colonel.

Source pollstar.com.

Rock trio the Secret Machines is eyeing a mid-to-late March release for its second Reprise album, “Ten Silver Drops.” Primarily recorded at Allaire Studios in upstate New York, the eight-track set will be led by the single “Alone, Jealous and Stoned,” which will be commercially released in the United Kingdom in late January.

“We started writing the record last January in preparation for the touring we did last year,” vocalist/bassist Brandon Curtis tells Billboard.com. “Basically, all the material, with the exception of maybe two or three songs, was really finished and completed structurally and lyrically on tour. The feedback from performing in front of an audience was really instructive in how the songs were put together. I’m not sure I’d say I’d do it every time, but it was an interesting thing to do.”

Curtis is particularly excited by “I Want To Know if It’s Still Possible,” which features a guest appearance from the Band’s Garth Hudson. “At first he sat down on the Hammond [organ]. He was playing really beautifully, but I don’t think anybody was thinking it was really working,” Curtis says. “We took a break and he came back and picked up the accordion. We wound up running it through a remodulator and a low-pass filter and really kind of freaking it out.”

“Ten Silver Drops” is the follow-up to 2004’s “Now Here Is Nowhere,” which has sold more than 84,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Curtis admits that while the new songs run to similar lengths as the often-epic material on “Nowhere,” they “are all more focused and a little sharper. It’s funny — it just seems like we can’t write a song shorter than five minutes. Maybe we’re just long-winded and we can’t get to the point,” he says with a laugh.

The artist adds that several new songs, including “A Thousand Seconds” and “All at Once It’s Not Important,” will be a challenge to replicate live, considering their overdub-heavy studio versions. “That’s something we’re dealing with: how do you do all of it? Maybe we won’t or maybe we’ll re-write it,” he says. “We haven’t had a real strong rehearsal session yet where we can start re-examining the new material we haven’t played.”

For now, the only show on Secret Machines’ schedule is a Dec. 1 benefit at New York’s Webster Hall with TV On The Radio and Annie, with proceeds earmarked for the non-profit Mercy Corps. Curtis says the band will return to regular live duty in North America at the beginning of March, followed by a five-week tour of Europe and additional North American shows starting in late April or early May.

Source billboard.com.

Chris Whitley, who skirted the edges of alternative rock in the 1990s while creating his own spectral brand of American music, died November 20th of complications from lung cancer. He was forty-five.

Whitley’s career spanned a wide range of styles, from pop, grunge and jazz to avant-garde noise; over the years he worked with producers Daniel Lanois and Craig Street, Dave Matthews, members of Medeski, Martin and Wood, and DJ Logic. He is best known, however, for carving a personalized, often brooding take on country blues, marked by his mastery of the slide steel guitar and other stringed instruments.

The past five years saw a flurry of projects, including 2001’s experimental Rocket House, recorded for Dave Matthews’ ATO Records.

Source: rollingstone.com.