News

Sony Electronics says it will be shipping drives in about two months that accept blank DVDs with two data layers. Philips Electronics will start selling a similar drive in Europe in April, but is not saying when it will be available in the United States.

The write-once discs can store up to 8.5 gigabytes of data, or about 4 hours of DVD-quality movies, twice the capacity of regular blank DVDs. This means capacities for computer-burned DVDs are catching up with prerecorded movie DVDs, many of which are already dual-layer.

The new technology is sure to appeal to those who back up or copy movie DVDs, since they often have to reduce image quality or remove special features to fit a copied movie onto a single-layer disc. With a dual-layer drive, an exact copy on a single disc should be possible.

The two layers of the new discs are accessed from the same side — there is no need to flip the disc over to record to the second layer. Instead, a laser beam shines through the first layer to record on the second.

Sony will sell an internal drive for $230 and an external one for $330. They will be marketed only for Windows PCs, but the external one should work on Macintosh computers with the proper third-party software.

Philips will sell two internal drives with somewhat different features, both for PCs. U.S. prices have not been set.

The drives will be able to burn regular write-once and rewritable DVDs and CDs as well.

The Sony and Philips drives will use somewhat different discs. Sony calls its variant DVD-R DL. The Philips equivalent is DVD+R DL. Both disc types should be readable in standard DVD drives and players.

Sony estimates the blank discs will cost $5 to $6. Philips does not have an estimate yet.

The dual-layer discs will be slower to burn than single-layer discs — the drives will be rated as burning at 2.4 times faster than playback speed, versus eight times for single-layer discs.

A full 8.5 gigabytes will take about 45 minutes to burn.

Source cnn.com.

OutKast’s “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below” won two awards, including R&B/soul or rap album of the year, to lead the winners at the 18th annual Soul Train Music Awards.

The Atlanta duo, who won the Grammy last month for best album of the year, also scored the Michael Jackson Award for best R&B/soul or rap music video for “Hey Ya!” on Saturday.

The awards, named after the long-running television show, honor recording artists in R&B, hip-hop, rap and gospel music. They were held at the International Cultural Center and televised live via syndication.

OutKast was the lone multiple-winner at the ceremony hosted by Alicia Keys and producer/songwriter Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds.

Soul crooner Luther Vandross was the night’s sentimental choice, winning best R&B/soul single, male for his “Dance With My Father.”

Vandross, recovering from a debilitating stroke, continued a victory streak that saw him take home four Grammy Awards and four NAACP Image Awards at ceremonies in the past two months.

The Soul Train Music Awards celebrates artists in R&B, hip-hop, rap and gospel music.

The awards are chosen by a group of radio station professionals, talent managers and performers.

Source CNN.com.

With a lineup already set for the ages, eight more acts were added today to the Bonnaroo Music Festival performers list. Ween, The Jazz Mandolin Project (f. Jon Fishman), Jo Jo and his Mojo Mardi Gras Band, Guster, Patti Smith, The Radiators, The Hackensaw Boys and New Monsoon round out the latest additions, with more acts expected to be added soon.

Tickets still remain for the Tennesee festival set for June 11-13th. See Bonnaroo.com for more info.

Two members of the band Ozomatli and their manager were arrested early on March 18th after a performance spilled out onto the street during a show at the South By Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas.

Near the end of its performance at the Exodus nightclub, the Los Angeles band left the stage and marched through the crowd while beating drums and playing horns. Members of the audience followed behind the musicians, as is common practice at the band’s shows, and the group moved out onto the street.

Once outside, police directed the group to return to the club. A scuffle ensued, witnesses told the Austin American-Statesman, which reported the incident in its online edition. Percussionist Jiro Yamaguchi, bassist Willy Abers and band manager Amy Sue Blackman-Romero were arrested.

Witnesses said police used pepper spray to disperse the crowd.

Blackman-Romero was charged with a city ordinance violation and interference with the duties of a public servant, jail records show. Abers, 30, of Los Angeles, was charged with failure to obey the order of a police officer. Yamaguchi, 36, also of Los Angeles, was charged with assault on a public servant.

The three were taken to the Travis County Jail. A jail spokesperson said that Blackman-Romero and Abers were not in custody last night, but that Yamaguchi remained jailed on $5,000 bond.

“Ozomatli has always been about bringing people together,” the band said in a statement released late this afternoon. “We cannot comment on the specifics of the unfortunate incident… except to say that it will not deter us from our mission to bring joy to our fans through the power of music. We will not be canceling any performances … or altering the way in which we connect with our audience. We have performed all over the world and look forward to continuing to unite people through the universal language of music.”

Ozomatli won the 2001 Grammy award for best Latin rock/alternative album for its Interscope set, “Embrace the Chaos.”

Source billboard.com.

John “J.J.” Jackson, who in the 1980s helped usher in the music video era as one of the first MTV on-air personalities died of an apparent heart attack Wednesday. He was 62.

Jackson, a longtime radio station disc jockey, died while driving home from dinner in Los Angeles, friends and colleagues said.

In a statement, MTV said Jackson’s love of music and good humor helped set the tone for the cable music network in its formative years. “He was a big part of the channel’s success and we are sure he is in the music section of heaven, with lots of his friends and heroes,” the network said. “He will be greatly missed.”

Source billboard.com.

House of Blues Concerts launches the 2004 Gorge Concert Series on Saturday, May 29th (Memorial Day Weekend) with the SASQUATCH! Music Festival. The Sasquatch! Festival, now in its third year, presents an eclectic mix of college and critical favorites on two stages featuring everything from Indie Rock and Hip Hop to Singer-Songwriters and circus performers.

Featured artists include: The Roots, The Postal Service, The Shins, Built To Spill, Sleater-Kinney, The New Pornographers, Cat Power, The Long Winters, The Black Keys, Gary Jules, The Decemberists, Preston School Of Industry, Nellie McKay and DJ Cherry Canoe.

Tickets go on sale Saturday, March 20 at noon. For more info visit: hob.com/sasquatch.

Cake is curently recording in its home studio in Sacramento without any outside production help. Lead singer John McCrea says the experience has offered the band more opportunities to experiment with new sounds and not feel pressured to create. “This time we’re actually rolling up our sleeves and doing everything,” McCrea says. “Practically speaking it means that we can go into the studio whenever we feel like it and work, so I think it’s actually a really great unencumbered feeling after all these years of having to book studio time.”

McCrea says that having its own studio has also allowed the band to work more cohesively. “I think the band is becoming more of a band and less of a songwriter with some musicians,” he says. “It’s more a band of musicians that are all really creative and part of the process.”

Earlier this year, Cake took a few breaks from the still-untitled record to perform a few of the eleven new tracks at secret shows around northern California. “People are singing along to certain songs without ever really having heard them before,” McCrea says. “There’s a particularly sort of chorus-worthy song called ‘No Phone’ and people are signing along to that and throwing their cell phones onto the stage.

Other new songs include “Wheels” and “Take It All Away.” Fans can expect Cake’s trademark wit and its eclectic sound on the album which McCrea says is “more connected to traditional songwriting.” “I think this album has nothing to do with the last couple years of music,” he adds. “We’ve always existed outside of larger trends. We’ve never had the luxury of being involved in that.”

Source rollingstone.com.

Audioslave are in Los Angeles working on the follow-up to their 2002, self-titled debut. The hard rock supergroup — former Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell, and Rage Against the Machine vets, guitarist Tom Morello, bassist Tim Commerford and drummer Brad Wilk — began writing new material after last summer’s Lollapalooza tour, but the band is now buckling down in rehearsals and writing “a song a day,” according to guitarist Tom Morello.

Morello says Audioslave have nineteen tracks in the works, but they will continue to compose new material. “The modus operandi is we write ’til the well runs dry and then go in and record,” he says. “You never know . . . the twenty-sixth song might be [Audioslave’s first single] ‘Cochise.'”

Morello is already enthusiastic about the new output. “There’s a breadth and a depth to the music that makes it inspiring to show up at rehearsal every day,” he says. “There’s ferocious, ripping, riff rock & roll and there’s some stuff that sounds like Audioslave meets [U2’s] Joshua Tree. It’s pretty diverse and beautiful. Chris is singing great, Timmy and Brad sound awesome — it’s good times.”

Morello won’t commit to a release date, but he says to ensure quality, the band is in no great hurry. “What we’re gonna do,” he says, “is make sure that this is the greatest record that we could possibly make.”

Source rollingstone.com.

The family that plays together stays together. Texas trio Los Lonely Boys, composed of brothers Henry, Jojo and Ringo Garza, have been gigging steadily since the release of their first album last summer. Their mix of rootsy rock

Current and former members of Guns N’ Roses have filed a lawsuit against Geffen Records in an attempt to block what they call the “unauthorized release” of a pending best-of collection. The “Greatest Hits” set, due March 23, is tipped to feature such favorites as “Welcome to the Jungle,” “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” “Patience” and “Paradise City.”

In an interesting twist, former GNR principals Slash and Duff McKagan have joined lone current original member Axl Rose in filing the lawsuit, which seeks a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against the issuing of “Greatest Hits.”

The band claims it was not consulted on the track list, artwork or the remastering of the chosen songs. In a statement released by the group’s management at the Sanctuary Group, Rose expresses concern that “not only will [the] audience be misled into believing that the planned compilation is an authorized release, but that it will hinder the release of the band’s long-awaited new studio album, Chinese Democracy.

Source Billboard.com.

Prince, the late George Harrison, Traffic, ZZ Top, Bob Seger, Jackson Browne, the Dells and Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner were welcomed into the ranks of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last night (March 15) during a gala ceremony at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

The evening wrapped with the traditional all-star jam, this time on Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Rock & Roller” and Mason’s “Feelin’ Alright.” While the Dells crowded around the mic, Kid Rock harmonized with Browne as Richards traded licks with ZZ Top’s Billy F. Gibbons.

Highlights from the event will be broadcast this Sunday by VH1.

Source Billboard.com.

Singer/songwriter/pianist Ben Folds will hit the road next month on a tour of U.S. colleges. At deadline, 14 dates were confirmed for the run, which will kick off April 2 at John Carroll University in Cleveland. More dates are expected.

Folds is currently finishing a new studio album due in late summer or early fall via Epic. The set will be the official follow-up to his 2001 solo debut, “Rockin’ the Suburbs.”

Last year, the artist released the EPs “Speed Graphic” and “Sunny 16,” sold through iTunes, his official Web site and at shows. He also recorded “The Bens” EP with Ben Lee and Ben Kweller, recently released by the independent Attacked By Plastic label.

Here are Folds’ upcoming tour dates:

April 2: Cleveland, Ohio (John Carroll University/Tony DeCarlo Varsity Center)
April 3: Ann Arbor, Mich. (University of Michigan/Hill Auditorium)
April 4: Valparaiso, Ind. (Valparaiso University/Arc)
April 5: Urbana, Ill. (University of Illinois/Foellinger Auditorium)
April 6: East Lansing, Mich. (Michigan State University/MSU Union)
April 8: Tulsa, Okla. (University of Tulsa/Donald W. Reynolds Center)
April 21: Sioux Falls, S.D. (Augustana College/Great Hall)
April 22: Des Moines, Iowa (Drake University/Veterans Memorial Auditorium)
April 23: Decorah, Iowa (Luther College/Center for Faith & Life)
April 29: New Orleans (Southport Hall)
April 30: Davidson, N.C. (Davidson College/Belk Arena)
May 2: Iowa City, Iowa (University of Iowa/Hubbard Park)
May 7: Danville, Ky. (Centre College of Kentucky/Norton Center)
May 8: Salisbury, Md. (Salisbury University/Arthur Perdue Stadium)

Source billboard.com.

Public Enemy frontman Chuck D will co-host a daily show on Air America Radio, a new liberal talk radio network set to launch March 31. The outspoken rapper will join Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” co-creator Lizz Winstead and radio talk veteran Laura Flanders on “Unfiltered,” which will air 9 a.m.-noon ET daily Monday through Friday.

Initially, the Progress Media-owned franchise will be heard on WLIB-AM (1190) New York, WNTD-AM (950) Chicago, KBLA-AM (1580) Los Angeles, and via an as-of-yet unnamed station in San Francisco. The network’s programming will also be heard streaming live on the Web Airamericaradio.com. In addition, Air America Radio is in negotiations with satellite television and radio providers to carry its programming nationally.

A number of high-profile comedians will be heard on the network’s airwaves. Al Franken will host the three-hour “The O’Franken Factor” daily at noon with co-host Katherine Lanpher, which promises “fearless barbs, sketches and interviews.” Janeane Garofalo and political humorist Sam Seder will co-host “The Majority Report” a nightly four-hour block beginning at 8 p.m. and Marc Maron will participate in the morning show “Uprising” (6-9 a.m.) with co-hosts Sue Ellicott and Mark Riley.

Air America’s afternoons will boast “The Randi Rhodes Show” (3-7 p.m.) and will be followed by the one-hour “So What Else Is News?” anchored by Marty Kaplan. Weekends will feature “Champions of Justice,” hosted by environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mike Papatanio, along with yet to be announced original programming and “best of” segments culled from the daily shows.

In other news, Chuck D is also due to take part in the National Hip-Hop Political Convention along with Hip-Hop Summit Action Network co-founder Russell Simmons June 16-19 at Rutgers University in Newark, N.J. The three-day conference will include dialogue between hip-hop and civil-rights leaders, panel discussions on economic empowerment, criminal justice, education and healthcare; and artist performances.

As previously reported, the Public Enemy frontman is also backing a venture to create a new cable music channel devoted to hip-hop.

Source billboard.com.

The tour rumor mill is overflowing with buzz for two high-profile acts. A Van Halen reunion with Sammy Hagar is viewed as a virtual certainty, and a tour announcement for Madonna has been anticipated for months.

The Van Halen rumors got rolling last fall when the band signed with Irving Azoff, longtime manager of Hagar, the Eagles, Journey and others. Around the same time, Hagar announced that he was once again on speaking terms with Alex and Eddie Van Halen. He and the brothers hadn’t spoken since parting ways in 1996 after an argument.

The William Morris Agency is reportedly booking North American arenas for a Van Halen excursion this summer. The group’s last outing was in 1998, with former Extreme singer Gary Cherone handling vocal duties. Their last tour with Hagar wrapped in late 1995; the eight-month outing sold well over a million tickets, grossing more than $32 million.

Meanwhile perennial pop superstar Madonna is also said to be planning a tour, possibly beginning in May. Many expected an announcement in February, but the singer has been tight-lipped thus far.
Bagpipe player Calum “Spud” Fraser stated this week that he has been invited to perform on a summer world tour with the Material Girl, and that rehearsals are beginning in New York next month. Other reports have her auditioning dancers in Los Angeles, and rumors are flying of concerts scheduled in Ireland and Israel.

Madonna last toured in 2001, when she grossed more than $74 million with a summer of sold-out shows in North America and Europe.

Source pollstar.com.

Particle is bringing friends along for their Launchpad record release tour. For the first time ever, Buckethead will take his solo show on the road, opening a series of 15 dates for funktronic rock pioneers Particle, beginning March 31 in Milwaukee at The Eagles Ballroom and continuing through April 15 at The Variety Playhouse in Atlanta. The tour will include record release parties at Chicago’s Park West, The Paradise in Boston, New York’s Irving Plaza and The TLA in Philadelphia as well as other clubs and theaters. Bass master Rob Wasserman opens the record release parties in San Francisco and LA, while Fareed Haque Group opens two nights in Denver at Cervantes Ballroom.

See www.particlepeople.com and www.bucketheadland.com for more info.

Phish drummer Jon Fishman will be performing with the Everyone Orchestra on April 29 at the McDonald Theatre in Eugene, Oregon and May 1 at the Aladdin Theatre in Portland, Oregon. The two shows will be evenings of collective improvisation and also feature Kai Eckhardt (Garaj Mahal), Tony Furtado, Jans Ingber (Motet) The Everyone Core-tet, and others, all conducted by Tye North (ex-Leftover Salmon).

Both shows are benefits for The Pangaea Project, a Portland-based leadership development program engaging youth from low-income famlies in creating solutions to social and environmental issues that confront their communities through local and international service-projects that share a common theme.

Full show and ticketing information is available at http://everyoneorchestra.com

Source: Phish.com

“Voting is for old people,” reads the slogan on a recent, briefly notorious T-shirt sold by Urban Outfitters. The shirt may have caused controversy, but it’s hard to argue with the facts: In the last presidential election, a mere 32 percent of adults between the ages of 18 and 24 voted and only 45 percent were even registered, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

To counteract this trend, a number of voter registration groups aimed at young people have emerged. To a list that already includes Rock the Vote, and the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, add ,a href=”http://www.headcount.org”>HeadCount, a new group dedicated to registering a niche group widely perceived as apathetic: the young and dreadlocked devotees of neo-hippie jam bands.

A nonpartisan, entirely volunteer organization, HeadCount aims to register 100,000 young voters at one place they’re likely to be found: the nightclub. “It’s important to make it easy for [fans]; that is why we’re coming to them,” says Marc Brownstein, bassist for the Disco Biscuits, a tirelessly touring band known for merging electronica and psychedelica.

Over the next eight months, HeadCount will travel the country, registering voters at concert halls, festivals, and amphitheaters. On March 16, the organization will hit New York City for the first time, signing up voters at a table at the fourth annual Jammys, a yearly awards show for jam bands that centers on live music rather than statuettes, held at the Theater at Madison Square Garden.

A conversation between two friends, Andy Bernstein, an editor at the Sports Business Journal and Brownstein, started HeadCount rolling. Confident Al Gore would sweep New York, Brownstein skipped the last presidential election. Dismayed over the outcome, Brownstein felt he could influence his cult following to fulfill their civic duty: “It is time for all of us to be counted, whether we are standing up or getting down,” he says.

Rock the Vote, formed in 1990, is the best-known organization dedicated to registering concertgoers to vote. HeadCount’s mission, on the other hand, is more focused on a particular demographic. Fans of jambands are typically young and intensely passionate about music, but not known for voting. Like the Punk Voter coalition, which has been around since 2000, and Russell Simmons’s Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, which hopes to register 2 million voters, HeadCount wants to take that passion for music and turn it towards politics.

At the moment, the nonprofit organization has 150 volunteers and a board of directors that includes Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead. “If every Deadhead in the state of Florida had voted in the last presidential election, it would have been a very different world today,” says Weir, echoing his earlier, oft quoted sentiment.

The rest of the board reads like a Who’s Who of jamband insiders: Disco Biscuits’s Brownstein and Al Schnier of the band Moe. act as artistic liaisons; Government Mule manager Stefani Scamardo, Nadia Prescher, manager of the String Cheese Incident, and well-placed executives like Dave Margulies of the High Sierra Music Festival and Peter Shapiro, producer of the Jammys, have all signed on. “Young people need ways to show they count and stand for something in this world, and voting can have a subtle, but profound, effect on empowering a person in a bigger-picture sense,” said Margulies.

On the horizon is the creation of 50 regional street teams to register voters at shows of participating bands and major festivals like Bonnaroo, and high-profile tours like the Dead’s. HeadCount also hopes to register voters online at its website.

Though the group is nonpartisan, the musicians hope to register their fans and perhaps change the face of the election. “I’m pretty dismayed, appalled, embarrassed when it comes to our current administration,” says Schnier. But voting itself is the main goal: “Fundamentally rock and roll music is made to stir people up, and if [it] can stir them up in an exodus to vote, it seems kind of noble,” says Matt Owen, a reggae producer.

Young people already look to musicians for fashion trends. Why not a voting trend? As J.F. Stadelmann, an avid Disco Biscuits fan and a registered voter says, “It is a good thing to get kids to think it’s cool to vote.”

http://www.headcount.org

Source: VillageVoice.com

Dave Blood, bassist for beloved Philadelphia rock act the Dead Milkmen, committed suicide March 10, according to a post by his sister Kathy on the band’s official message board. In a subsequent post, Milkmen drummer Dean Clean confirmed the news.

“This morning Dave Blood is no longer with us,” his sister wrote. “David is my brother. Since the breakup of the band David has never really found his niche in life. My brother was a smart, clever and talented person. Inner peace has seemed to elude him for the last many years. Sometime last night David chose to end his life. He left a note that I don’t know all of what it said, he was not elaborate — but he said he just could not stand to go on any longer.”

Posting as Kathy F., Blood’s sister asked fans to pray for his soul and explained that their mother had passed away at the end of January and felt that “maybe David just had had enough.” A memorial service will be held in the Delaware County area of southeastern Pennsylvania at some point in the near future, with details to be announced.

“I want to say that one of the shiniest parts of David’s life was being a Dead Milkman and having that claim to fame,” Blood’s sister concluded. “And the fans who appreciated the talent and time that went into making the band rise above the ordinary — thank you all for making my brother feel and know that he was indeed somebody.”

Source Billboard.com.

SCI

In the months before he shot himself, American rock legend Kurt Cobain was considering quitting his band Nirvana to work with his wife, singer Courtney Love (news), according to a previously unpublished interview.

Nirvana’s tragic frontman said he had a stronger musical affinity with Love’s own band, Hole, than he had found with any other musicians, according to Britain’s “Uncut” magazine, which will publish the interview next Monday ahead of the 10th anniversary of his death.

“I’d like to (collaborate with Love),” he said in the interview eight months before his suicide. “But to tell you the truth, I would rather just quit my band and join Hole.

“When I have played music with them, there’s a level of connection that’s a little bit higher than with anyone else I ever played with,” he added.

Nirvana’s surviving founders, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic (news), have had a turbulent relationship with Cobain’s widow, clashing with her in court over the band’s musical legacy.

Cobain, 27, killed himself with a shotgun in April 1994 in his Seattle home, where he was recovering from a drug and alcohol overdose.

With punk-influenced music and angst-ridden lyrics, Nirvana led the grunge movement that emerged from Seattle to become one of the most powerful forces in 1990s rock.

Cobain said in the interview, originally intended for French television, that he was thinking of moving away from his grunge roots toward acoustic music.

“It might be nice to start playing acoustic guitar and be thought of as a singer and a songwriter, rather than a grunge rocker,” he said. “I could sit down on a chair and play acoustic guitar like Johnny Cash (news) or something, and it won’t be a big joke.”

Source yahoo.com.