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Rachel Yamagata is leaving her home in the Windy City at the right time. The 20-something singer/songwriter has been quietly building critical attention for her two musical releases, the self-evident EP and this year’s Happenstance.
Yet, her appearances outside of Chicago so far have been in support of others, including Damien Rice, Liz Phair, and Gomez.

Yamagata made a splash during her L.A. showcase and signed with RCA in the spring of last year. Her songs are about heartbreak and the awkwardness of relationships (although she swears she’s a happy person in real life), and the ballads are sung with a breathy, sultry voice.

The piano player and sometimes guitarist sang backup and played tambourine five years for Chicago funk outfit Bumpus, but she never felt she had a proper amount of creative input. In the meantime, she attended theatre classes at Northwestern University and built a catalog of her own songs.

With a little luck and the usual hard work, Yamagata could grab some of the attention that’s been afforded other piano playing young women, but comparisons to Fiona Apple and Norah Jones are oversimplified because the three play piano.

Find out for yourself: Yamagata is criss-crossing the U.S. from September through November, from New York City to San Diego. After an intimate show at NYC’s Fez Under Time August 31st, Yamagata hits Philadelphia, Boston, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, San Francisco and Los Angeles, along with other stops, before winding things October 21st. (She visits Chicago September 30th.)

Tom McRae supports most dates.

Source pollstar.com.

Back in June, Aimee Mann played a three-night stand in Brooklyn. On November 2nd, she’ll release the fruits of those performances in the form of the Live at St. Ann’s Warehouse CD and DVD.

“There was a big crane and people bustling around wearing headsets,” Mann says of the filming, “and suddenly I felt like, ‘Oh, this had better be good.’ It was a ninety-degree New York night and the venue didn’t have any air conditioning. There were definitely some long periods where my manager would come up and say, ‘Your face is shiny. We need to powder you.’ And I’d have the indignity of having powder applied to my face in front of people.”

The DVD features interviews and behind-the-scenes footage, as well as performances of two new songs, “Going Through the Motions” and “King of the Jailhouse.” The CD set is abbreviated but also spans Mann’s solo career.

“I try to pick songs that I think people might possibly know, like a couple songs from the Magnolia soundtrack, any song that was released as a single or I played on David Letterman,” Mann says. “It’s hard to put a greatest hits together when you don’t have any hits — you have to aim in a different direction. But there’s songs I know that people request or sometimes there’s songs I feel like playing. My catalog is heavily skewed with super-slow ballads, so there’s a lot of those that made the cut.”

Mann is winding up her summer tour. She finishes Sunday in San Juan Capistrano, California.

Aimee Mann tour dates:

8/27: Petaluma, CA, McNear’s Mystic Theater
8/28: Ventura, CA, Ventura Theater
8/29: San Juan Capistrano, CA, Coach House

Live at St. Ann’s Warehouse CD track listing:

The Moth
Sugar Coated
Driving Sideways
Amateur
Wise Up
Save Me
Stupid Things
Pavlov’s Bell
Long Shot
4th of July
Invisible Ink

Live at St. Ann’s Warehouse DVD track listing:

The Moth
Calling It Quits
Sugar Coated
Going Through the Motions
Humpty Dumpty
Amateur
Wise Up
Save Me
Stupid Thing
Pavlov’s Bell
Long Shot
4th of July
Red Vines
Invisible Ink
King of the Jailhouse
Deathly
Real Bad News

Source rollingstone.com.

Dave Matthews, Trey Anastasio and members of The Dead are telling their fans to “show up” on election day via a series of public service announcements produced by HeadCount, a not-for-profit nonpartisan group run entirely by volunteers.

The campaign, which includes three 30-second commercials as well as radio and Internet-based spots, will appear on TNT, TBS and other networks between now and election day. It can be viewed at www.headcount.org.

HeadCount is affiliated with nearly 30 national touring bands and has registered over 25,000 voters to date. It has a network of over 50 local voter registration teams, and also sent traveling teams on tour with Dave Matthews Band, The Dead and Phish this summer. Both Dave Matthews Band and The Dead made $15,000 contributions to HeadCount to help fund those efforts.

“Having Dave Matthews, Trey Anastasio and The Dead in television commercials and shooting them at Bonnaroo really captures what we’re trying to do as an organization,” said Andy Bernstein, HeadCount’s co-chair and the executive producer of the campaign. “We’re using the enormous power of music to get people to the polls in November.”

The public service announcements were developed by an in-house creative team, and produced in high-definition by Fossil Films in conjunction with Air Seal Land Productions. They were made possible by the generosity of Leo Hindery Jr., Steve Simon, Richard Simonds and Sirius Satellite Radio.

As he prepares for the final Guided By Voices tour, frontman Robert Pollard seems to be doing some housecleaning. Currently open for bidding on Web-auction site eBay are nine rare, autographed GBV/Pollard solo releases listed as “from Bob Pollard’s personal collection.”

The lots range from autographed vinyl copies of Guided By Voices albums “Mag Earwhig!” (Matador) and “Isolation Drills” (TVT) to the rarer vinyl collection “Earful O’ Wax” and the out-of-print bootleg “King’s Ransom.” The most expensive item listed is an original vinyl copy of Guided By Voices’ breakthrough album “Propeller,” with hand-glued cover art created by Pollard — asking price starts at $1,000.

As previously reported, GBV plans to break up following a New Year’s Eve concert at Chicago’s Metro. The band’s final album, “Half-Smiles of the Decomposed,” was on August 24th via Matador.

Source billboard.com.

The first in a series of Bob Dylan’s memoirs will be captured in “Chronicles: Volume One,” hitting shelves Oct. 12 via Simon & Schuster. The volume is comprised of “first-person narratives focusing on significant periods in Dylan’s life and career,” according to the publisher.

Simon & Schuster executive VP/publisher David Rosenthal describes “Chronicles: Volume One” as “extraordinary, revealing and surprising. It is a beautifully written, singular achievement.”

The 304-page book will carry a suggested retail price of $24 and feature a rare portrait on its back cover of Dylan from his early days in New York. A hardcover edition is expected in January.

Also arriving in October is Dylan’s “Lyrics: 1962-2001,” an updated version of a compendium first published in 1973 and revised in 1985.

Beyond the books, the 63-year-old music legend will be the subject of the tentatively titled Todd Haynes film “I’m Not There: Suppositions on a Film Concerning Dylan,” due sometime next year, as well as a Martin Scorsese-helmed documentary, provisionally titled “Bob Dylan Anthology Project.”

Dylan is in the midst of a minor-league baseball stadium tour with Willie Nelson that touches base tonight (Aug. 25) on Peoria, Ill.

Source billboard.com.

Blending seven hours of acoustic, bluegrass and progressive folk music, The 5th Annual Grassroots Music & Arts Festival is being held Sunday, August 29 at the legendary Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, MD.

Fans of progressive Americana have particular reason to rejoice, as this year

Pearl Jam, Mudhoney, comedian David Cross, Queensryche, X’s John Doe and producer/multi-instrumentalist Jon Brion are among the acts confirmed to perform at No Vote Left Behind, a festival/political fundraiser to be held Sept. 23-26 at a variety of Seattle venues. The full lineup is still being finalized; tickets go on-sale Sept. 10.

Other early confirmations include Grant Lee Phillips, John Vanderslice, Pansy Division, Delays, Kinski, Robbers On High Street, El Vez, Hedwig and the Angry Inch and members of Nada Surf and the Long Winters. Participating venues include the Showbox, the Crocodile Cafe, Sunset Tavern and Graceland.

A kick-off event will be held Sept. 10 at Neumo’s, featuring Sir Mix-A-Lot, Outtasite and Children Of The Revolution.

Proceeds from No Vote Left Behind will fund donations to the Democratic National Committee, progressive candidates in congressional races and like-minded political action groups.

“There are a lot of other great organizations that are using music to increase voter turn-out and register voters,” says NVLB’s Chris Olson. “We want to use music more directly as a fundraising tool. We really want to be a partisan voice in the music community working for regime change.”

Source billboard.com.

The state of Illinois filed suit against the Dave Matthews Band yesterday (Aug. 24) for allegedly dumping up to 800 pounds of liquid human waste from a bus into the Chicago River, dousing a tour boat filled with passengers.

The lawsuit accuses the band and one of its bus drivers of violating state water pollution and public nuisance laws. It seeks $70,000 in civil penalties.

“Our driver has stated that he was not involved in this incident,” a band spokesperson said in a statement, adding, the band “will continue to be cooperative in this investigation.”

According to the lawsuit, on Aug. 8 a bus leased by the band was heading to a downtown hotel where members were staying. As it crossed the Kinzie Street bridge, the driver allegedly emptied the contents of the septic tank through the bridge’s metal grating into the river below.

More than 100 people on an architecture tour were showered with foul-smelling waste. The attorney general’s office said no one was seriously injured.

“This incident may be unique, but that does not lessen the environmental or public health risks posed by the release of at least 800 pounds of liquid human waste into a busy waterway and onto a crowded tour boat,” Attorney General Lisa Madigan said in a statement.

After the incident, the boat’s captain turned the vessel around and took passengers back to the dock. Everyone received refunds, and the boat was cleaned with disinfectant.

Source billboard.com.

Elektra/Rhino Vinyl has set an Oct. 26 release date for Metallica’s “Vinyl Box.” The set will collect special editions of the veteran hard rock act’s first four studio albums, plus the “Garage Days Re-Revisited” EP and the import-only “Creeping Death” picture disc.

The albums “Kill ‘Em All,” “Ride the Lightning,” “Master of Puppets” and “…And Justice for All” have been expanded to double-vinyl sets on 180-gram audiophile vinyl with new gatefold jackets. “Vinyl Box” will be limited to 5,000 numbered copies and will carry a suggested retail price of $99.98.

Source billboard.com.