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A classic Jazz Fest music lineup of Louisiana legends, international stars, and roots-music heroes is set for the landmark 35th New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

The Festival

The original “Star Wars” trilogy, one of the most-requested DVD episodic film franchises, is expected to be released as a four-disc DVD box set September 21.

A global rollout on DVD is expected within days of the domestic release, according to Lucasfilm Ltd. and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

The trilogy, featuring the classic franchise films “Star Wars,” “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi,” will be released on three DVD discs, with a fourth disc likely to hold a newly made documentary about the “Star Wars” franchise and never-before-seen footage, among several other bonus materials, said Jim Ward, Lucasfilm’s VP of marketing and distribution and the DVD trilogy’s executive producer.

“We are currently in the process of restoring and remastering all three titles for the DVD release, so we’re still working on details of the marketing strategy,” Ward said. “But I believe that it is safe to say that it will receive tremendous exposure across all media.”

Source CNN.com.

Mercury U.K. joint managing director Steve Lillywhite has left his role with the label to return to his roots in record production. Lillywhite tells Billboard.biz he will take no time off and will begin producing an album by U2 next week. The as-yet-untitled set is due from Interscope/Island later this year.

“It’s the first time I’ll have gone in to actually start a record with them in 20 years,” says Lillywhite. “I worked on ‘The Joshua Tree,’ ‘Achtung Baby’ and ‘All That You Can’t Leave Behind,’ but this will be the first time I’ve really set up the mikes and done everything for a long time.”

Lillywhite also oversaw the band’s first two albums, 1980’s “Boy” and 1981’s “October.” He adds, “I’ve heard some great songs. The Edge is playing some really great guitar.”

Lillywhite, one of Britain’s top rock producers, has a list of credits that includes the Rolling Stones, Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, Morrissey and the Dave Matthews Band. In 2002, he was brought to Universal U.K. by chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge.

“I’ve had two great years, and I’ve loved a lot of it,” says Lillywhite, “but really I wasn’t that made out for getting up early in the morning. That’s 25 years of producing records. I got more and more of an urge to be in the studio, so Lucian and I had a chat and decided it was best that I return to that.”

Source billboard.com.

G Love & Special Sauce are cooking up a new batch of dates for the spring. Their latest outing kicks off March 4 in Columbia, S.C. They’ll do shows across the southern and eastern United States before wrapping March 21 in Killington, Vt.

G. Love recently did a song with Jack Johnson for the “Thicker Than Water” soundtrack. They performed the song together in December on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” “Late Show with David Letterman,” and “Last Call with Carson Daly” in December.

Last year, 8,000 lucky fans picked up Kickin’ Back, a four-song EP of previously unreleased tracks which was included with the October issue of Surfer magazine. The band’s last proper release was 2002’s The Best Of G. Love & Special Sauce, which culled hits from their five studio albums.

Source pollstar.com.

The 3rd Annual Bonnaroo Festival will be held on June 11 – 13th, 2004 on the same Manchester, TN farm as in previous years. An intial lineup has been announce with other acts expected to be added in the coming weeks.

Tickets go on sale February 21st at 10am through Bonnaroo.com.

Confirmed acts include:

The Dead, Dave Matthews & Friends, Bob Dylan, Trey Anastasio, Willie Nelson, David Byrne, Primus, Wilco, Burning Spear, String Cheese Incident, Ani DiFranco, Gov’t Mule, Los Lobos, Galactic, Yo La Tengo, Femi Kuti, Medeski Martin & Wood, Gomez, Yonder Mountain String Band, Damien Rice, North Mississippi Allstars Hill Country Review, Beth Orton, My Morning Jacket, Gillian Welch, The Del McCoury Band, Taj Mahal, Sam Bush Band, Vida Blue feat. the Spam Allstars, Los Lonely Boys, Grandaddy, Kings of Leon, Soulive, Neko Case, Calexico, Leftover Salmon, Cut Chemist, Chris Robinson, Umphrey’s McGee, Maroon5, The Black Keys, Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, The Bad Plus, Marc Broussard, Donovan Frankenreiter

Wilco

OutKast’s double CD, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below was the big winner, taking home Album of the Year as well as Best Rap Album honors. Below are additional winning highlights:
Dave Matthews – Best Male Rock Vocal Performance:

The First Family of Indie Rock

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Junior Senior, Cursive, Bright Eyes, Basement Jaxx, Thursday, the Rapture, Paul Van Dyk, Stereolab and the Queens Of The Stone Age-affiliated Desert Sessions have joined the lineup for the fifth Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, to be held May 1-2 at the Empire Polo Fied in Indio, Calif. Tickets go on sale Feb. 14; more acts may be added.
As previously reported, the festival will be headlined by Radiohead and the Cure. Other confirmed acts include the reunited Pixies, Kraftwerk, Air, Wilco, the Flaming Lips, Mogwai, Belle & Sebastian, Dizzee Rascal, the Thrills, LCD Soundsystem, Electric Six, Sahara Hotnights, Death Cab For Cutie; Kinky, the (International) Noise Conspiracy, Prefuse 73, T. Raumschmiere, Sidestepper, …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, !!! and Atmosphere.
Among the new confirmations are 2manydjs, the Crystal Method, Adam Freeland, Ash, Muse, Antibalas, the Cooper Temple Clause, Stellastar, the Killers, the Stills, the Sleepy Jackson, Broken Social Scene, the Black Keys, Future Sound Of London, Hieroglyphics, Le Tigre, Moving Units, Erase Errata, Seb Fontaine, Laurent Garnier, Living Legends, Sander Kleinenberg, the Sounds, Howie Day, Peretz (aka Perry Farrell), Mark Farina, 22-20’s, Phantom Planet, Dios, Jem, Q & Not U, the Section Quartet and DJ Icon.
Source billboard.com.

Burning Spear and Sean Paul head up a genre-spanning roster for the 23rd annual Bob Marley Day Festival, set for February 14 and 15. The event will take place at the Long Beach Arena in Southern California, and features an international crafts and food fair, along with ten hours of music each day.
In addition to elder statesman Burning Spear, the Saturday lineup includes Beres Hammond, Wayne Wonder, Julian Marley, Hepcat, Arrested Development, T.O.K., Baby Cham, Soul Majestic featuring Rastan, and Mr. Mutton.
On Sunday, hip-hop/dancehall crossover sensation Sean Paul will have help from Elephant Man, Luciano, Sly & Robbie with the Taxi Connection, Big Youth, Edi Fitzroy, Little John, Peter Metro, Carlton Livingston and more. Tickets for the event are on sale now through Ticketmaster and select Southern California record stores and restaurants. See bobmarleydayfesitval.com for more details.

Public Enemy will release two albums this year. Due in early summer, How Do You Sell Souls to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Souls? is a classic-soul-minded album, while the fall-targeted New Whirl Odor is an “eclectic, typical Public Enemy record,” according to frontman Chuck D.
“They’re two totally different albums,” he continues. “But they come together like a nice double set. I can’t write a record without at least mentioning what’s going on. I delve real deep on the second album, and dig deep into the music on the first one.”
The albums and his current lecture tour titled “Rap, Race, Reality and Technology” will all touch on the current events and issues endemic to an election year. “I think this is a year that art can actually speak,” D says. “But I don’t see enough of it being done. I don’t see enough attention given to rap groups that might do it, like the Coup and Dead Prez. The industry is presenting rappers as one-dimensional, and that doesn’t hold as much water in 2004.”
Source Rollingstone.com.

U.K. rock act the Beta Band will return later this spring with its third album, “Heroes to Zeroes.” Due May 4 via Astralwerks, the 12-track set was self-produced by the group and mixed by Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Beck). “The first single is ‘Assesment’ and the video is going to be the history of human warfare,” vocalist Steve Mason wrote on the band’s official Web site.
In November, Mason said, “all four of us are also working on a DVD to come out around the time of the LP. 12 films, three each, to go with 12 tracks. Some of these tracks may not be from the LP but will be new.” At deadline, it is unclear if the DVD is still being targeted for release in conjunction with the new album. “Heroes to Zeroes” is the follow-up to 2001’s “Hot Shots II.”
Source billboard.com.
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Phish will play three shows at the Thomas and Mack Arena in Las Vegas on April 15, 16 and 17. These dates will be Phish’s only shows before the summer.
A limited number of tickets for all three shows are available directly through PHISH TICKET’s secure online ticketing system at http://phishtickets.rlc.net for a six-day ordering period beginning Friday, February 13, at 12:01 PM EST and ending Wednesday, February 18, at 11:59 AM EST. Tickets go on sale to the public March 6 at 10 am. Full tour information can be found on the Phish web site at http://phish.com/tourdates

Trey Anastasio appears on two tracks of the upcoming Toots and the Maytals album “True Love”. In addition to Anastasio, the album features many special guests, including Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt, Ben Harper, No Doubt, and The Roots. Trey appears on the Toots classic “Sweet and Dandy” and drops a guitar solo into “Still is Still Moving to Me”, a duet with Toots and Willie Nelson. The album appears in stores on April 6.

The ALL GOOD Summer Festival and Campout, traditionally held the weekend before Memorial Day, will celebrate its ninth annual edition Friday, July 9 through Sunday, July 11 at Marvin

Death Cab for Cutie and Ben Kweller are headlining a spring North American tour. The month and a half-long outing kicks off March 24 at Omaha, Neb.’s Sokol Underground. Clubs and theatres across the nation will play host to the two young indie pop acts, with Philadelphia, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco and Seattle all getting double doses. The co-bill runs through May 8, after which Kweller will continue with a string of West Coast dates. Death Cab for Cutie is warming up with a sizable European tour, set to begin February 7 in Oxford, U.K. They’ll hit at least 10 countries on the monthlong jaunt.
Source pollstar.com.

Saxophonist Cornelius Bumpus, a former member of the Doobie Brothers who has performed with Steely Dan since 1993, died yesterday (Feb. 4) en route to a series of performances in California. He was 58. Bumpus had a heart attack on a commercial flight from New York, said his friend, Rod Harris, an organizer of the Columbia College Jazz Concert Series, where Bumpus was to perform this week.
Bumpus’ wife, Linda, told Harris that her husband was dead when the plane made an emergency landing. “Cornelius was a man of great modesty and simplicity,” she writes on her husband’s official Web site, she says. “His life was music, family, and church. He never liked giving talks or speeches. He always felt more articulate with a horn in his mouth.”
On its site, Steely Dan expressed its “profound sorrow and sympathy to Cornelius’ wife and family.”
Bumpus began his career at age 10, playing alto saxophone in the school band in Santa Cruz, Calif. In 1966, he spent six months performing with Bobby Freeman, and joined Moby Grape in 1977, writing one tune for the “Live Grape” album. Bumpus also recorded two solo albums and toured with his own band.
Since performing with the Doobie Brothers in the early 1980s, Bumpus played with a number of bands, most recently with Steely Dan, which won the album of the year Grammy award for its 2000 release, “Two Against Nature.”
His relations with his former Doobie Brothers bandmates turned contentious in the late 1990s, when they sued him and several other musicians over their use of the band’s name. A federal judge in 1999 ruled against Bumpus and the other musicians, ordering them not to use the name.
Source billboard.com.

Learn

Former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne’s new album, “Grown Backwards,” will also be his debut for Nonesuch Records. Due March 16, the set includes a duet with Rufus Wainwright on “Au found du Temple Saint” from Georges Bizet’s opera “The Pearl Fishers,” plus a collaboration with the Carla Bley Band on “Empire.”
“Grown Backwards” is Byrne’s first studio album since 2001’s “Look Into the Eyeball,” which was issued by Virgin. Last year, Byrne collaborated with members of Mogwai and Belle & Sebastian for “Lead Us Not Into Temptation” (Thrill Jockey), a soundtrack to the film “Young Adam.”
As previously reported, Byrne will join Ray Davies, Bright Eyes, Yo La Tengo, Keb’ Mo’, Nawang Khechog and artistic director Philip Glass at the 14th annual Tibet House benefit concert on Feb. 25 at New York’s Carnegie Hall.
On March 22 in Milan, he will begin an extensive spring European tour. A run of April U.K. dates will feature fellow Luaka Bop artist Jim White.
Source billboard.com.

The new Modest Mouse release, Good News For People Who Love Bad News, already delayed once from an expected September 2003 release, has been pushed back one more agonizing week. New date: Tuesday, April 6th.
The album was produced by Dennis Herring, whose credits include Camper Van Beethoven and Sparklehorse, among others. The new lineup includes the return of founding guitarist Dann Gallucci, whose only prior appearance was on the band’s shelved (but eventually released) K Records debut, Sad Sappy Sucker. And new drummer Benjamin Weikel, who took over following Jeremiah Green’s departure from the band last year, will apparently be sticking around. Good News also features appearances by The Dirty Dozen Brass Band and Tom Peloso of the Hackensaw Boys, as well as a remix of “The Good Times Are Killing Me,” by producer Dave Fridmann and The Flaming Lips. Tracklist:
01 Horn Intro02 World at Large03 Float On04 The Ocean Breathes Salty05 Dig Your Grave06 Bury Me With It07 Dance Hall08 Bukowski09 The Devil’s Work Day10 The View11 Satin In A Coffin12 Eric’s Interlude13 Blame It On The Tetons14 Black Cadillacs15 One Chance16 The Good Times Are Killing Me
The first single, “Float On,” will be released next Tuesday, February 10th via iTunes and other digital services. The single will also be available on a limited-edition seven-inch appearing in finer music stores around February 10th.
Source: Pitchfork

Indie-rock gods The Pixies have officially confirmed they are to reunite for a full tour this year.
The band, who split in 1993, had already been announced as one of the acts at this year’s Coachella festival in California, where they will appear on May 1.
The band are expected to play some warm-up shows in Canada before they appear at the Coachella bash. They will go on to visit Europe, with a host of festival appearances planned – slots at the UK’s V Festival, T In The Park and Glastonbury are strongly rumoured. The band are also thought to have a number of indooor shows pencilled in, including two nights at London Brixton Academy, as well as a support slot on Red Hot Chili Peppers’ summer European tour.
Full tourdates are expected to be announced shortly.
Source: NME.comUnofficial Official Site: FrankBlack.net