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The Rhythm Devils are re-forming in 2006 for a series of appearances beginning this August. After hosting this year’s Jammy’s in New York City, Mickey & Bill decided to take The Rhythm Devils to the next level.
Although they existed within The Grateful Dead for over three decades, this will mark the first time The Rhythm Devils have appeared as a touring group outside of the Dead. The Rhythm Devils welcomed many special guests at their inagural appearances in New York City that included Mike Gordon, Charlie Musselwhite, Babba Maal, Angelique Kidjo, Steve Kimock, Stephen Perkins, and The Mutaytor.

Hart & Kreutzmann’s remarkable cohesion, synchronicity, and driving power would a be a hallmark of the Grateful Dead’s sound for over thirty years, earning them the nickname The Rhythm Devils. The percussive duo’s sole release was The ‘Apocalypse Now Sessions’ for which they were recruited by director Francis Ford Coppola to bring together the myriad sounds and “colors” for the legendary film. Coppola was in the process of conceptualizing his musical underpinnings of “Apocalypse Now” when he attended a Grateful Dead concert and found the perfect accompaniment for his cinematic vision of the Apocalypse.

Both have kept busy over the years participating in numerous projects from the Grammy winning percussive supergroup Planet Drum which brought Mickey together with Zakir Hussain and many of the world’s best drummers, to the one-off power trio SerialPod in which Kreutzmann collaborated with Trey Anastasio and Mike Gordon of Phish. The Rhythm Devils are brimming with excitement to get back on the road. Mickey Hart says, “The stars are finally aligned to have some of our closest musical friends playing together in one group.”

The Rhythm Devils plan to make high profile appearances at festivals and special events from coast to coast kicking off this August rolling out new material, choice covers, and a few chestnuts from the GD songbook. They will release a handful of tracks from the New York City Rhythm Devils show at The Canal Room. Check out mickeyhart.com for more info expected soon.

August 16 & 17-Burlington, VT-Higher Ground Ballroom

August 18-Alexandria, VA-Birchmere Bandstand

August 19-Mariahville, NY-Gathering of The Vibes

Enigmatic guitarist Buckethead has a 28-date tour lined up that will keep him on the road through late October.

Buckethead’s circus-gone-wrong will hit theatres throughout the Midwest, Northeast and South, starting in Lawrence, Kan., September 13. He’ll play the Vic Theatre in Chicago, B.B. King’s Blues Club in New York City and the Theatre Of Living Arts in Philadelphia before heading south in October.

The main tour looks to wrap with a three-date run through Texas October 13-15, although one more show is scheduled for Anaheim, Calif.’s House of Blues October 29.
Earlier this year, Buckethead toured for several months with longtime collaborators Pinchface on drums and Delray Brewer on bass. This time around, he’ll have a drummer named Rene and bass duties will be handled by That 1 Guy, who was the opening act on a spring East Coast run.

Source pollstar.com.

Calexico has unveiled September tour dates concentrating on the South and Midwest.
After August appearances at New York’s Central Park SummerStage and Lollapalooza in Chicago, the group will head to California for Oakland’s Art & Soul Festival September 3.
They’ll kick off two weeks of solid tour dates in Texas September 16 with an appearance at the Austin City Limits Music Festival. Then it’s on to New Orleans and nearly a dozen more cities, finishing September 30 in Lawrence, Kan.
Calexico is supporting its latest album, Garden Ruin, released in April on Quarterstick Records.
Over the years, the band has grown from a duo to a six-piece, now comprising founding members John Convertino and Joey Burns with Tucson neighbor Jacob Valenzuela, Germans Martin Wenk and Volker Zander, and Paul Niehaus of Lambchop.
Calexico toured extensively with Iron & Wine throughout the latter half of 2005 in support of the two bands’ collaborative album, In The Reins. Earlier this year, Calexico played a number of West Coast shows with The Black Heart Procession, then hit the East with Jason Collett.

Source pollstar.com.

Its easy to get complacent with usernames and passwords, but the popular mp3 indie-blog Stereogum has received a rather jarring wake up call that has the blogosphere all a flutter. The daily read for many music fans (including glide) was apparently hacked due to Stereogum’s rather over-indie admin password of “sufjan.” Of course this could just be extremely jaded hacker humor, but as of late this morning, the site is still down.

A simple message reads:

Hello Scott.

What happened to my site?

Your server has been compromised on a root level and has at least 3-4 different exploits installed.

WTF? By whom? Pitchfork?

Perhaps SUFJAN was a poor password.

How am I gonna post that MP3 of snippets from every song on the new Dylan album? Sounds really promising! Heavy on the R&B swing that made Love And Theft his best album in decades.

Fix your fucking blog dude.

See for yourself: Stereogum

On September 26, Indirecto Records releases OUT LOUDER, the improvisation-fueled album from John Medeski, John Scofield, Billy Martin, & Chris Wood.

This fall, MSMW will embark on their first-ever headlining tour. Look for the collective to perform music from both OUT LOUDER and Scofield’s A GO GO. Medeski Scofield Martin & Wood’s current tour itinerary is as follows:

11/10/06 Washington, DC / 9:30 Club
11/11/06 Philadelphia, PA / Electric Factory
11/12/06 Northampton, MA / Calvin Theatre
11/14/06 Burlington, VT / Higher Ground
11/15/06 Providence, RI / Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel
11/16/06 Boston, MA / Berklee Performance Center

12/03/06 Lawrence, KS / Liberty Hall
12/04/06 Columbia, MO / The Blue Note
12/05/06 St Louis, MO / Mississippi Nights
12/07/06 Minneapolis, MN / First Avenue
12/08/06 Milwaukee, WI / The Eagles Club
12/09/06 Chicago, IL / Vic Theatre
12/10/06 Indianapolis, IN / Vogue Theatre

Medeski Scofield Martin & Wood first recorded together on Scofield’s A GO GO (Verve 1998), a disc that has become a must-have classic. That project united jazz guitarist Scofield with the eclectic improvisational jazz trio Medeski Martin & Wood on material composed by Scofield and interpreted by all four musicians.

OUT LOUDER is the inaugural release for Medeski Martin & Wood’s Indirecto Records label, which is distributed by Sony/Red, and is a genuine four-way collaboration between Medeski Scofield Martin & Wood.

“A Go Go was John’s record and we were essentially sidemen, where OUT LOUDER musically comes from all of us” explains Wood.

Recorded in under a week at Shacklyn, MMW’s fabled downtown Brooklyn studio, OUT LOUDER includes highlights such as the undeniably funky “Little Walter Rides Again,” the free jazz excursions of “Miles Behind,” and the improvisation-rich take on Peter Tosh’s reggae anthem “Legalize It.”

Fresh off a headlining tour with opening acts Juana Molina and Psapp,Jos

After making the rounds at such lofty festivals as Sundance and SXSW, the Beastie Boys’ venture into concert filming will soon drop down to your level, where you can watch it on your couch. Billed as an “authorized bootleg,” Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That! will be legitimately released (complete with Star Wars-style packaging) to DVD retailers everywhere on July 25, courtesy of THINKFilm.

In case you haven’t been following the Beasties’ every move lately, the Awesome footage was culled from 50 fan-held cameras scattered among the audience at the Boys’ October 9, 2004 show at Madison Square Garden. MCA’s anachronistic director persona Nathanial Hornblower then took a year to edit (and thereby bestow authorization on) all the footage from the cameras, making it worthy for film festivals, DVD players, and local cinema screenings.

For more info see: pitchfork

Channel Islands Surfboards

Organist/pianist John Ginty has released his debut record titled

Only eight days after its release, Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke’s solo debut “The Eraser” (XL) was installed today (July 18) as the bookmakers’ joint favorite for the 2006 Nationwide Mercury Prize alongside alternative rock quartet the Arctic Monkeys’ “Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not” (Domino).

The two albums were named as 5/1 favorites by bookmaker chain William Hill when the shortlist for the annual British/Irish album of the year award was announced this morning at London’s Commonwealth Club.

The 12 shortlisted albums were chosen by 12 judges from an entry of more than 200 albums submitted by labels. To qualify, an album had to be recorded by a British or Irish artist and released between July 25, 2005 and July 17, 2006.

This year’s shortlist contains fewer long-shots than in previous years; odds vary from 5/1 to 10/1, according to William Hill. As always, the list includes artists covering a variety of genres, ranging from jazz pianist Zoe Rahman to electropop quintet Hot Chip or the Roy Orbison-styled stylings of U.K. critics’ favorite Richard Hawley.

The winner will be announced in London on Sept. 5, with broadcast coverage being shared between BBC Radio 1, national TV network BBC 2 and digital TV channel BBC 4.

The 12 albums make up a “pretty classic Mercury nominees list,” says HMV U.K. & Ireland head of music Gary Rolfe. “Two nominees that particularly stand out for me as seemingly ticking all the judges’ boxes are Richard Hawley and the Guillemots, so I’d look out for these as potential winners come September.”

The shortlist, with William Hill odds, is:

Arctic Monkeys, “Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not” (Domino), 5/1
Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan, “Ballad of the Broken Seas” (V2), 10/1
Editors, “The Back Room” (Kitchenware), 6/1
Guillemots, “Through the Windowpane” (Polydor/Universal), 6/1
Richard Hawley, “Coles Corner” (Mute/EMI), 8/1
Hot Chip, “The Warning” (EMI), 8/1
Muse, “Black Holes & Revelations” (Helium 3/Warner), 8/1
Zoe Rahman, “Melting Pot” (Manu), 10/1
Lou Rhodes, “Beloved One” (Infinite Bloom), 10/1
Scritti Politti, “White Bread Black Beer” (Rough Trade), 10/1
Sway, “This Is My Demo” (Dcypha) 8/1
Thom Yorke, “The Eraser” (XL), 5/1

Source billboard.com.

Rare concerts from jazz legends Thelonious Monk, Count Basie, Art Blakey, Chet Baker, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Quincy Jones, Buddy Rich and Louis Armstrong will be released for the first time on DVD Sept. 26 via Reeling in the Years Productions and TDK Recording Media Europe S.A.

The shows were filmed in Europe between 1957-1978 both in TV studios and traditional concert venues, and in many cases, have never been broadcast, even in excerpts. They are being issued under the heading “Jazz Icons,” with distribution by Naxos of America.

Among the highlights of the first batch of titles are a 1958 show with Blakey and a lineup of his Jazz Messengers that only played together for six months, Fitzgerald concerts from 1957 in Belgium and 1963 in Sweden, Monk shows in Norway and Denmark from 1966 and two Jones concerts from 1960, featuring an 18-piece band.

Baker is featured in a 1964 performance for Belgian television and a 1979 performance in Norway, while the 1959 Armstrong show is one of his only known complete filmed performances from this era.

“From an educational standpoint this series is a gift to our culture,” Jones says. “I’m honored to be a featured part of it, but I’m more thrilled just to sit down and watch it with my grandkids.”

Source billboard.com.

Sublime’s self-titled 1996 album, released a few months following the drug-related death of frontman Brad Nowell, will be reissued in a deluxe edition Aug. 15 via Geffen/UME. The double-disc set features what the label describes as Nowell’s intended but unused sequence for the original album, which now begins with an unreleased cover of Bob Marley’s “Trenchtown Rock.”

The album also now includes the original mix of “Doin’ Time,” which was edited just before the original set’s release due to a flap over sampling clearance. That track was just one of four huge rock airplay hits from “Sublime,” joining “Santeria,” “What I Got” and “Wrong Way.”

The second disc of the upcoming release sports eight previously unreleased tracks, including “I Love My Dog,” a tribute both to Nowell’s Dalmation and the Bad Brains staple “I Love I Jah.” An acoustic version of “Zimbabwe,” instrumental runs through “April 29th, 1992” and “Caress Me Down” and Wyclef Jean’s remix of “Doin’ Time” are also included.

Rounding out the album are videos for “What I Got,” “Wrong Way,” “Santeria,” “What I Got (Reprise)” and an unreleased alternate version of the clip for the original mix of “Doin’ Time.”

On Oct. 24, UME will issue a Sublime boxed set, but details have yet to be announced

Source billboard.com.

July 2006 edition

The Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Who will headline the U.S. version of the Virgin Festival, presented by Virgin Mobile and set for Sept. 23 at the Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore.

Also on the bill are the Killers, the Flaming Lips, the Raconteurs, Scissor Sisters, Gnarls Barkley, Keane, Thievery Corporation, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, New Pornographers, Wolfmother, Drive-By Truckers, Kasabian, Brazilian Girls, Tiesto, John Digweed, Carl Cox, 2Many DJs, RJD2 and James Holden.

The festival is produced by Seth Hurwitz, owner of the 9:30 Club in D.C. and president of I.M.P. “I did not want to book every band I could find and put up as many stages as I could and do a smaller version of Coachella or Austin City Limits or these other great festivals,” Hurwitz tells Billboard.com. “My concept was to book the absolute best, most power-packed, quality-versus-quantity lineup I could. I wanted to make this the most prestigious festival to play on for bands.”

Tickets go on sale July 22. Capacity at the Pimlico infield will be 60,000, and general admission tickets are $97.50. A very limited number of VIP tickets will be available.

Source: Billboard

Following its July 3 overseas release via 4AD and a much-hyped leaked version which circled the Internet this spring, TV On The Radio’s second full-length, “Return to Cookie Mountain,” will finally arrive in North America Sept. 12 via Interscope. It’s the band’s first album for the major label after leaving Chicago indie Touch & Go.

To read more visit billboard.com.

The Who will kick off a fall North American tour Sept. 12 in Philadelphia. Seventeen dates for the outing were announced today by the Who’s Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey via satellite from Berlin. The duo also performed acoustic versions of the new song “Mike Post Theme” and the classic “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”

The group is planning on sprinkling in a handful of special shows, which Townshend said could include complete performances of such rock operas as “Tommy” or “Quadrophenia.” Some dates may also be held in smaller venues.

As previously reported, 40 rarities are in consideration for the tour set list, although Townshend noted, “We may find other ways to do this stuff, like on a webcast.”

The tour will coincide with the release of the Who’s first new album since 1982’s “It’s Hard,” which is tentatively titled “Who 2” and will be released Oct. 23 internationally. In addition to “Mike Post Theme,” the set is expected to feature the song “Man in a Purple Dress,” which Townshend likened to “a Bob Dylan song from the early days.”

“Pete’s music, for me, is still a driving force in my life,” Daltrey said, adding that the new songs have “the Townshend magic.”

After the North American tour wraps in December, the Who will make its first-ever appearance in South American in early 2007, followed by visits to the Far East, Australia and, in late spring, Europe.

Here are the Who’s North American tour dates:

Sept. 12: Philadelphia (Wachovia Center)
Sept. 13: Wantagh, N.Y. (Jones Beach)
Sept. 15: Ottawa, Ontario (Scotiabank Place)
Sept. 16: Boston (TD Banknorth Garden)
Sept. 18: New York (Madison Square Garden)
Sept. 21: Holmdel, N.J. (PNC Bank Arts Center)
Sept. 25: Chicago (United Center)
Sept. 29: Auburn Hills, Mich. (Palace of Auburn Hills)
Sept. 30: London, Ontario (Labatt Centre)
Oct. 3: Winnipeg, Manitoba (MTS Centre)
Oct. 5: Calgary, Alberta (Pengrowrth Saddledome)
Oct. 6: Edmonton, Alberta (Rexall Place)
Oct. 10: Portland, Ore. (Rose Garden)
Oct. 11: Seattle (Key Arena)
Nov. 5: Los Angeles (Hollywood Bowl)
Dec. 4: Toronto (Air Canada Centre)

Source billboard.com.

Singer/songwriter Joseph Arthur will launch his own label, Lonely Astronaut, with the Sept. 19 release of his fifth studio album, “Nuclear Daydream.” The imprint will be distributed Red/Sony. Arthur’s last record, 2004’s acclaimed “Our Shadows Will Remain,” was issued by Vector.

To read more visit billboard.com.

A previously unreleased duet with Johnny Cash is among the special tracks to be found on the Waylon Jennings boxed set “Nashville Rebel,” due Sept. 26 via RLG Nashville/Legacy. “The Greatest Cowboy of Them All” was recorded in 1978, the same year the late Jennings’ duet with Willie Nelson, “Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys,” spent four weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s country chart.

Beyond such hits as “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way,” “Good Hearted Woman,” “I Ain’t Living Long Like This,” “Highwayman” and “Rose in Paradise,” the four-disc collection includes two early period tracks that have never been released in the U.S.: “It’s Sure Been Fun” and “People in Dallas Got Hair.”

“Nashville Rebel” was created in tandem with Jennings’ widow Jessi Colter and their son Shooter Jennings. Liner notes were penned by Patti Smith guitarist Lenny Kaye and country historian Rich Kienzle.

Source billboard.com.

Arts & Crafts has announced the release of The Dears new album, ‘Gang of Losers.’ Set for an October 3, 2006 release, ‘Gang of Losers’ follows up the critically acclaimed album, ‘No Cities Left’, which established The Dears as the most artful, revolutionary pop band hailing from Canada.

‘Gang of Losers,’ the third full-length release from the Montreal sextet, is a classic Dears album in terms of its complex musical and thematic range. However, unlike the previous Dears albums, it replaces the elaborately layered orchestral pop sound with meticulously crafted rock songs stripped to its bare elements.

Even in death, Johnny Cash is still mighty enough to top The Billboard 200. “American V: A Hundred Highways” earns the Man in Black his first No. 1 album since 1969’s “Johnny Cash at San Quentin” with 88,000 copies sold in the United States, according to Nielsen Soundscan.

The American Recordings/Lost Highway effort also crowns the Top Country Albums tally, knocking the Dixie Chicks’ “Taking the Long Way” (Columbia) to No. 2 after seven weeks on top.

Though the top debut is a great posthumous achievement, the Rick Rubin-produced “American V” sold the fewest copies of a No. 1 debut since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking data in 1991. The previous low for a No. 1 debut belonged to Destiny’s Child’s “#1’s” in 2005, which started with 113,000.