News

With the final, rain-soaked Phish fest in Coventry, Vt., now in the books after a lengthy refund reconciliation, longtime band manager John Paluska will dismantle the band’s Burlington, Vt.-based management company, Dionysian Productions.

“Dionysian Productions will be a non-entity as of the end of the year,” Paluska, Phish’s manager for 16 years, tells Billboard. “I’m taking a sabbatical and I don’t know where I’ll re-emerge. It may be in the music business, or it may not be.”

Paluska started managing Phish while he was still in college. “My entire adult life has been consumed with this band,” he says. “It has been an amazing 16 years.”

Phish will maintain a small headquarters in Vermont, headed by longtime Phish archivist Kevin Shapiro. “The rest of us are all splitting off and doing different things,” says Paluska. Dionysian’s staff, including Phish Dry Goods, the band’s merchandising company, numbered more than 25 when the band was on the road.

Jason Colton, a key executive at Dionysian, will continue to work with Phish bassist Mike Gordon as manager; Gordon is recording a second album with Leo Kottke in December and the pair will tour together again.

As previously reported, keyboardist Page McConnell just released a DVD, “Live at the Fillmore,” with his band Vida Blue and the Spam Allstars on Image Entertainment. Drummer Jon Fishman’s side project, Pork Tornado, currently has no tour dates booked.

Sources say band guitarist Trey Anastasio is close to announcing a new management deal with Dave Matthews Band manager Coran Capshaw, but the move could not be immediately confirmed. Anastasio, who owns the most box office clout of any Phish member, will likely tour in 2005. The artist was recently visited in the studio by Gordon and Fishman while he at work on his next project.

The last major effort of Dionysian Productions was orchestrating the mass refunding effort for fans turned away from Coventry. The Aug. 14-15 event sold out and grossed more than $8.8 million, but at least 10,000 people never made it into the grounds due to torrential rains that closed roads in the area.

Each of those ticket holders were fully refunded and also received a limited edition Danny Clinch photo-documentary about Phish. Band members hand-signed every copy.

“That in itself was quite an effort,” says Paluska. “We rented space, and seeing all those books was quite a sight. It took the band a couple of solid days of signing to get it done. I hope people appreciate the gesture, because it was heartfelt. The band put a lot into it, and I think it was somewhat therapeutic.”

On its final tour, Phish stayed true to its history, keeping ticket prices at the normal rate when it likely could have charged devoted fans three times as much.

“It would have been a little late to change our whole strategy,” observes Paluska. “These guys will continue to have careers as musicians, and hopefully Phish fans will follow them in their new careers. So there wasn’t any thinking of ‘this is our last chance to squeeze every penny out before it ends.'”

Source billboard.com.

Kazaa has been branded the world’s biggest “copyright piracy engine” by five record labels which launched a legal case against Sharman Networks, the company behind the internet file-swapping website.

At a hearing before Australia’s Federal Court in Sydney into alleged copyright violations, lawyers for record labels including EMI, Sony BMG and Warner told the court that Kazaa was responsible for three billion music downloads a month and the cornerstone of its popularity was unlicensed sharing of music files.

“The Kazaa system is an engine of copyright piracy to a degree of magnitude never before seen,” Tony Bannon, the labels’ lawyer, said.

The conventional music industry has led a worldwide drive against illegal downloading, aligning its own fate with the defeat of unlicensed sites where music is available for free. Last week, the world

Bob Dylan will appear on 60 Minutes, in his first television interview in 19 years. The music icon sat down with Correspondent Ed Bradley while on tour in Northampton, Mass. His interview will be broadcast on Dec. 5, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

Dylan delves into several subjects in the intense interview, discussing his career, the burden of his fame, his difficult relationship with the press, and the relationship he had with his father.

He has recently written a memoir titled “Chronicles Volume One.” The book’s publisher, Simon & Schuster and CBS News are subsidiaries of Viacom.

Source CBSnews.com.

A totally unofficial, yet highly probable, partial line-up for Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival 2005 is running rampant on the Internet.

Festival organizer Goldenvoice says “nothing has been confirmed” but that’s not going to keep fans from getting excited about who might be coming to Empire Polo Field in Indio, Calif., this spring.

There are plenty of hot acts on the list and a number of surprises, including David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails, and Coldplay.

And it wouldn’t be Coachella without a bevy of buzz bands. The 2005 edition that’s being circulated includes recent Shortlist Prize winner TV On The Radio, as well as Dogs Die In Hot Cars, Death From Above 1979, and Iron and Wine.

Goldenvoice isn’t saying when the official roster will be announced, but here’s the not-so-secret preview to whet your appetite:

April 30
David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails, Coldplay, PJ Harvey, Interpol, The Faint, Franz Ferdinand, Polyphonic Spree, Boards of Canada, TV On the Radio, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Squarepusher, Clinic, French Kicks, Secret Machines, Phoenix, Beep Beep, Dogs Die In Hot Cars, Death From Above 1979, and The Helio Sequence

May 1
R.E.M., Tears For Fears, Wilco, Bright Eyes, Jimmy Eat World, Mos Def, Badly Drawn Boy, The Streets, Cake, The Shins, Sleater-Kinney, Rilo Kiley, Radio 4, Doves, Iron and Wine, The Arcade Fire, and Moving Units

Source pollstar.com.

Iron & Wine will continue its prolific run of releases early next year with the six-song EP “Woman King.” Due Feb. 22 via Sub Pop, the set was recorded in August in Chicago with producer Brian Deck. The EP finds Iron & Wine mastermind Sam Beam broadening his acoustic-based repertoire with banjo, electric guitar, piano and violin on such tracks as “Jezebel,” “My Lady’s House” and “Gray Stables.”

“Woman King” arrives on the heels of this year’s studio album “Our Endless Numbered Days,” which debuted at No. 6 on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart and No. 7 on the Top Independent Albums tally. It has sold 65,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Beam is primed for further mainstream exposure next month, as three of his songs are set for inclusion on the soundtrack to the film “In Good Company.” Due Jan. 11 via Hollywood, the set features the previously unreleased cut “The Trapeze Swinger” as well as the “Numbered Days” tracks “Sunset Soon Forgotten” and “Naked as We Came.”

Sub Pop labelmates the Shins contribute two previously released tracks to the album, which also boasts songs from Peter Gabriel, Steely Dan, Aretha Franklin and Damien Rice, among others. The film, starring Dennis Quaid, Topher Grace and Scarlett Johansson, opens Jan. 14 in U.S. theaters.

Beam has eight upcoming shows on his schedule with Love As Laughter principal Sam Jayne, beginning Monday (Dec. 6) in Solana Beach, Calif.

Here are Iron & Wine’s tour dates:

Dec. 6: Solana Beach, Calif. (Belly Up Tavern)
Dec. 7: Los Angeles (Avalon)
Dec. 8: San Francisco (Great American Music Hall)
Dec. 9: San Francisco (Slim’s)
Dec. 10: Eugene, Ore. (W.O.W. Hall)
Dec. 11: Portland, Ore. (Meow Meow)
Dec. 12-13: Seattle (Neumo’s)

Source billboard.com.

Franz Ferdinand bassist Bob Hardy has been hospitalised in Japan

We are sad to report that a note posted on the official AGP website indicates that bassist John Hall has passed away after battling cancer for the past year and a half.

Our thoughts are with the Hall family, friends and the entire Addison Groove Project community at this time.

To share memories, stories or comments about John, or to read the note from the band, please visit addisongrooveproject.com

While Tony Iommi has released albums under his own name before, he has never toured outside of Black Sabbath. This should change next year, after the guitarist issues a new album with ex-Deep Purple vocalist/bassist Glenn Hughes.

“Glenn’s a true professional, and he’s very energetic,” says Iommi, who plans to tour with Hughes stateside. “He comes up with stuff instantly.”

Iommi and Hughes both hail from northern England, and they’ve crossed paths many times as members of Sabbath and Purple (most notably at the mammoth 1974 Cal Jam festival). Hughes briefly joined Sabbath in 1986, singing on Seventh Star and fronting the band for a handful of shows before abruptly exiting. A decade later, Iommi and Hughes recorded a collection of songs that were shelved when Iommi reunited with the original Sabbath lineup. This past September, the tracks were finally issued as The 1996 DEP Sessions.

The album’s release rekindled the veteran rockers’ desire to work together, and they — along with ex-John Mellencamp drummer Kenny Aronoff — are currently working on new songs in England. They plan to enter a recording studio around Christmas, and release the new album next year on Sanctuary Records.

Compared to the melodic DEP Sessions, the new material is “more riff-oriented,” explains Iommi. He also promises that, like its impromptu predecessor, the songs will “come together very, very quick.”

As for Black Sabbath’s long-rumored follow-up to 1978’s aptlytitled Never Say Die, Iommi is holding out hope for regrouping in the studio with Ozzy Osbourne and Co. “I’d like to think that we’ll be doing another album,” he says. “With Sabbath, things just happen. We weren’t supposed to be doing the last Ozzfest, but we did.”

Source rollingstone.cm.

British rock quintet GOMEZ have confirmed a five-city, ten-date tour of the western U.S. in January 2005. The run will feature three performances in San Francisco; two each in the San Diego area, San Francisco and Boulder, CO; and one concluding show in Colorado Springs, CO. See below for a complete list of tour dates.

Gomez, whose 1998 debut BRING IT ON won the U.K.’s prestigious Mercury Music Prize, released their fourth LP SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE through Virgin Records in May. (The band and label have since parted ways.) The group enjoyed a breakthrough year in the U.S. on the strength of the album, which was produced by Tchad Blake (Neil Finn, Soul Coughing, Phish). Gomez performed at the Bonnaroo Music Festival in June and headlined a successful five-week summer tour in July and August. They also appeared on CBS’s The Late Late Show and NBC’s Last Call with Carson Daly.

Rolling Stone said of SPLIT THE DIFFERENCE, “Gomez pour on the punch that makes their live shows such a gas. The fuzz ‘n’ swing in ‘Do One’ proves that Gomez are a better rock band than they’ve been willing to admit.” The New York Times raved, “‘We Don’t Know Where We’re Going’ illustrates its title with a Ping-Pong stereo introduction, amazing on headphones, played on acoustic guitars so rhythmically perfect some listeners will have seizures… If only all stupid rock music could be this intelligent.”

GOMEZ 2005 U.S. TOUR DATES

January
14 – Solana Beach, CA – Belly Up Tavern
15 – Solana Beach, CA – Belly Up Tavern
17 – West Hollywood, CA – House Of Blues
18 – West Hollywood, CA – House Of Blues
20 – San Francisco, CA – The Fillmore
21 – San Francisco, CA – The Fillmore
22 – San Francisco, CA – The Fillmore
24 – Boulder, CO – Fox Theatre
25 – Boulder, CO – Fox Theatre
26 – Colorado Springs, CO – 32 Bleu

Sony Corp unveiled its first MP3-compatible, hard disk Walkman music player on Tuesday in an attempt to recover ground lost to Apple Computer’s iPod.

The world’s biggest consumer electronics maker aims to reclaim the market for portable and personal music devices, which it helped to launch 25 years ago with its first Walkman.

The product will be available in Britain before Christmas at 249 pounds ($462.70) and elsewhere in Europe in early 2005 at 369 euros ($489).

The new hard disk player is the successor of Sony’s first hard disk Walkman, which it introduced this summer but which can play back only music compressed with Sony’s proprietary Atrac software. Atrac is the format Sony uses on its Internet music shop Connect, which opened in Europe this summer.

Putting MP3 playback capability in the new Sony Walkman NW-HD3 means consumers can directly import and export tracks in the MP3 format, which is more popular than Atrac.

Sony Europe President Chris Deering said the new Walkman was important to the success of Connect, whose performance to date he described as “not an entrenched recognizable service.”

Sony has sold 340 million Walkman devices over the past 25 years, including models based on compact disks and on minidisks.

Apple’s iPod, the world’s best-selling hard disk portable music player which works with the most popular music store, iTunes, also allows MP3 playback. At Apple’s online music store, however, consumers can buy only in Apple’s own format.

Mutually exclusive
Consumers who buy songs at iTunes Music Store cannot play these back on a Sony network Walkman, and Connect customers cannot play back songs on an iPod. Microsoft also uses a proprietary compression format on its Internet music store, open only to consumers who own Windows Media-enabled devices.

Sony’s new 20 gigabyte Walkman is 30 pounds more expensive than Apple’s 20 gigabyte product selling for 219 pounds.

But Sony says the device comes in five colors, plays 2.5 times longer on one battery charge than iPod’s 12 hours and can contain 10,000 to 13,000 songs, at least twice as many as an iPod because of Atrac’s better compression technology.

Sony President Kunitake Ando said this summer, at the launch of the new Walkman, that he was determined to take the spotlight in the market for portable music players away from iPod.

“I don’t know if we can take this market back in a year … But this launch is our message that we will work hard to put an end to the dominance by just one company,” Ando said.

Source CNN.com.