News

Plans for the 17th annual MerleFest are underway. As a matter of fact, the event, which takes over the Wilkes Community College campus in Wilkesboro, N.C., April 29 through May 3, is good to go.
The festival is Doc Watson’s tribute to the music of his late son, Merle, and unites scores of artists from all over the globe. Among the confirmed performers for the 2004 event are the Sam Bush Band, Roseanne Cash, Donna The Buffalo, Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer, Vince Gill, David Grisman Quintet, Hot Tuna, Patty Loveless, Natalie MacMaster, Nickel Creek, Reeltime Travelers, Earl Scruggs with Family & Friends, the Waifs, Gillian Welch and Lucinda Williams. Of course, Doc Watson and Merle’s son Richard Watson will be on hand to play a tune or two. Tickets are already available through merlefest.org and range from $35 for a single-day pass to $175 for a four-day, assigned seat pass.

Source Pollstar.com.

Folk man Nathan Moore and The Slip will be teaming up in late February for the Surprise Me Mr. Davis Tour. Serpentfly – featuring the music of Leslie Helpert will be opening the shows. The eight night run begins February 26th at the Webster Theater in Hartford though March 6th at the Eclipse Theater in Waitsfield, VT.
For more info, visit theslip.com.

Bruce Hornsby’s next studio record is taking shape. Hornsby was in Atlanta recently recording a new track with Elton John. Entitled “Dreamland”, the song is a ballad and will appear on the next studio CD. Bruce commented, “Elton is amazing in that he can wake up in the morning and not even have to warm up his voice. And it’s all there, right away. The rest of us phlegmatic flounderers can only look on in admiration.”
Eric Clapton has also reportedly recorded four tracks for Hornsby’s upcoming release.
Source brucehornsby.com.

New Dates for a mid-winter tour by pedal steel phenom Robert Randolph and the Family Band has been announced. Dates run from Janaury 30th at Constituition Hall in Columbus, OH through February 27th at Northrup Auditorium in Minneapolis, MN.
For a full list of the tour schedule visit robertrandolph.net.

Leftover Salmon are keeping true to their word to the late Mark Vann; the band is continuing to tour relentlessly, playing every type of venue and festival around.
Vann, a founding member in the group who passed away in 2002 after battling skin cancer, made the band promise to keep on trucking. And they have.
The new tour runs from the end of January, starting on the West Coast, through April, covering major cities West of the Mississippi – mainly mountain communities
For complete list of dates click pollstar.com.

Dublin newbies The Thrills have continued to live up to their name. They’re topping many critical best-of lists for 2003 and were nominated for a prestigious Mercury Music Prize for their major label debut, So Much For The City.
Now, they’re giving fans on the other side of the great sea a little taste of their thrilling tunes. A monthlong tour of North American venerable music haunts is on the books, starting January 9. They also have a couple gigs in the U.K. at the beginning of February.
It’s not the first time The Thrills have been Stateside. In addition to a mini-tour last fall, they spent several months camped out in San Diego writing music for their album.
Much of the band’s sunny California pop sounds are owed to that session in SoCal. Hey, they’ve even got a hit single called “Santa Cruz (You’re Not That Far).”
Source Pollstar.com.

A judge has ruled that the bass player for the rock band Meat Puppets, who has been charged with assault, is a flight risk and a danger to others and must remain in custody.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Virginia Mathis also ruled Wednesday that there is enough evidence to try Cris Kirkwood, 43, in connection with a December 26 incident at a Phoenix post office, said Harriet Bernick, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Kirkwood is accused of hitting a federal post office security guard in the head with a baton that the musician took from the guard during a struggle.
According to court documents, the guard then shot Kirkwood in the back. The incident began over a dispute about parking with another customer.
Kirkwood has been charged with one count of assault with a dangerous weapon at a federal facility.
Kirkwood was released from a Phoenix hospital on December 30 and was subsequently arrested.
Kirkwood and his brother Curt fronted the Meat Puppets, who had several hit records in the 1980s and 90s. They were cited as an influence for bands such as Nirvana and earned a gold record in 1994 for “Too High to Die.”
No trial date has been set.
Source CNN.com.

The lead guitarist for the rock band Rush skirmished with sheriff’s deputies, spat blood on one and was arrested on New Year’s Eve after his son refused to leave the stage at a fancy hotel, authorities said. Deputies said they had to use a stun gun on 50-year-old Alex Zivojinovich – known on stage as Alex Lifeson – for what they described as drunken, violent behavior at the Naples Ritz-Carlton hotel. Zivojinovich was still in Collier County jail early Friday. Also arrested were his son Justin Zivojinovich, 33, and his son’s wife, Michelle Zivojinovich, 30. Justin Zivojinovich said deputies broke his father’s nose.
The son said he went on the stage where the house band was performing so he could sing. “I was singing Happy New Year’s, that’s all I was doing, singing to the whole crowd. That’s all I said,

“The Complete Far Side,” a two-volume, 1,250-page collection of 14 years of the iconic comic panels drawn by artist Gary Larson Was Just Released.
From the first panel on January 1, 1980 — a pair of crabs marveling at the odd appearance of human babies — to the last — a January 1, 1995, double panel in which the cartoonist wakes up to find it was all a dream — the “Far Side” ranks as one of the most popular comics ever.
Syndicated at its peak in 1,900 newspapers and translated into 17 languages according to media reports, “Far Side” was almost a traditional comic strip until Larson convinced his editors of the merits of a panel instead.
“I had a single-image brain; I drew single-image cartoons,” Larson wrote in an introduction in the book.
But summing up those 4,300 cartoons was not as easy as it might seem because once Larson agreed to help compile the retrospective, the process took three years.
“He had been away from it long enough that I guess he felt like it was time he could deal with it,” said Michael Reagan, chief executive of Lionheart Books. Reagan, who is based in Atlanta, worked with Larson to design the collection.
“I think in his mind he always knew he would do what we came to term ‘the legacy book,”‘ Reagan said.
Bound in two volumes (1980-1986 and 1987-1994), the collection features a foreword by comedian Steve Martin, and despite the relatively steep price of $135 (though it can be found for under $100 online), the book made the New York Times best-seller lists and it has garnered rave reviews.
Source CNN.com.

A multimillionaire skin-care maven wants to create a new national park in Maine, but local residents worry that wilderness protection measures will end the lifestyle their families have known for generations.
Roxanne Quimby, co-founder of Burt’s Bees natural care products, wants to buy as much land as she can in northern Maine to piece together a national park where hunting, snowmobiling, and logging would be off limits. “It’s my intention to donate this land to the people of America,” Quimby told the Portland Press Herald.
In November, 53-year-old Quimby bought more than 24,000 acres of forest east of Maine’s Baxter State Park. This land, which sold for $12 million, brings the total of Quimby’s land holdings to 40,000 acres, making her the second largest individual landowner in the state. With the recent sale of 80 percent of Burt’s Bees to an investment firm at a price of $179 million, Quimby is poised to increase her purchasing power. The ultimate goal is a national park that would cover 3.2 million acres of what some consider the most spectacular wilderness east of the Mississippi River.
The proposed national park is supported by a host of high-profile environmentalists

Bluegrass greats Del McCoury and Vassar Clements and progressive act Bela Fleck & the Flecktones are among those confirmed to play the 2004 Suwannee Springfest. Set for March 25-28 in Live Oak, Fla., the event will feature more than two-dozen acts on several stages at the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park.
Produced by Magnolia Music & Events, Suwannee Springfest will also feature Guy Clark, Jim Lauderdale, Tony Rice, Donna The Buffalo, Peter Rowan, Psychograss, Verlon Thompson and the Laura Love Band.
Talent lineup and ticket information has not yet been announced for MagnoliaFest, which is slated for Oct. 21-24 at the same location. Clements, Rowan, Lauderdale and Leftover Salmon are among the artists who performed at the 2003 edition of the event.
Source billboard.com.

The VH1 special about the making of Warren Zevon ‘s final album, “The Wind,” will be released on DVD in March.
The album, which includes a cover of Bob Dylan ‘s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” and the poignant “Keep Me in Your Heart,” was released to critical acclaim shortly before the singer-songwriter’s death in September. Zevon died at age 56 after a yearlong battle with lung cancer.
Jordan Zevon, executive producer of “The Wind,” says the DVD will show things that wouldn’t fit in the VH1 special and will include footage that shows his father’s personality.
“We got together with Artemis (Records) … and I went through all the tapes and tried to pick some extra tracks to put on there,” he told AP Radio in a recent interview.
“They’re all moments that are uncut. They’re not edited together for the sake of time and go from bit to bit. They’re actually just little moments in the making of the record.”
Warren Zevon has been nominated for five Grammy Awards including song of the year for “Keep Me in Your Heart.” The Grammys will be presented Feb. 8 in Los Angeles.
[i[ Source yahoo.com.

Interscope has penciled in a Jan. 27 release for “Unsung: The Best of Helmet (1991-1997),” a 21-track retrospective of the seminal New York hardcore act. Group leader Page Hamilton was involved in the selection of the songs, which include the 1997 Modern Rock Tracks chart hit “Exactly What You Wanted” and such staples as “Unsung,” “Milquetoast” and “Give It.”
“Unsung” also sports the House Of Pain collaboration “Just Another Victim,” from 1993’s “Judgement Night” soundtrack, plus the “Feeling Minnesota” soundtrack contribution “Disagreeable.”
Helmet split in 1999 after five studio albums. And while a published report in August claimed the group was eyeing a reunion, a management spokesperson for Hamilton refuted the claim to Billboard.com. Instead, Hamilton has signed a deal with Interscope for a new project, which includes late period Helmet guitarist Chris Traynor. As previously reported, the pair has also collaborated on tracks intended for Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale’s solo debut.
The group is targeting a May or June release for its Interscope debut, which will be supported by Hamilton’s most extensive set of live dates in some time. “Page is serious about working and returning to the live scene,” the spokesperson says.
Here is the track list for “Unsung”:
“Repetition””FBLA””Bad Mood””Sinatra””In the Meantime””Better””Unsung””Give It”Iron Head””Just Another Victim””Milquetoast””I Know””Rollo””Wilma’s Rainbow””Overrated””Like I Care””Disagreeable””Pure””Renovation””Driving Nowhere””Exactly What You Wanted”
Source billboard.com.

The third annual Bonnaroo Music Festival has been slated for June 11-13 in Manchester, Tenn. Staged by Superfly Productions and A.C. Entertainment, the eclectic jam band-based event will again take place on a 600-acre farm approximately 60 miles southeast of Nashville. An initial artist lineup has not yet been announced.
“Artists and fans have made Bonnaroo a very special event, and we are going to continue to provide the right elements to produce a music experience of the highest quality,” Superfly’s Jonathan Mayers says in a statement.
Held in June, the second edition of Bonnaroo was the second-highest-grossing event of 2003, taking in $11.5 million and drawing a crowd of 80,576. The lineup included the Dead, Neil Young, Widespread Panic, moe., Allman Brothers Band, Flaming Lips, the Roots, Emmylou Harris, Ben Harper and the Polyphonic Spree.
Like the inaugural festival, this year’s event spawned a two-disc CD release as well as a DVD featuring many of the acts that performed across several stages.
Both Manchester Bonnaroo Music Festivals have sold out in advance via online ticket sales that were fueled by word-of-mouth, not traditional advertising. A planned August 2003 Bonnaroo NE event in Riverhead, N.Y., was canceled after local officials refused to grant permits for the Field Day Festival scheduled two months earlier at the same site.
Source billboard.com.

A live chronicle from Joe Jackson’s 2003 tour that reunited him with his original band will be released in March, according to the artist’s official Web site. The as-yet-untitled disc will feature recordings at concerts in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and Anaheim, Calif. The tour came in support of the studio album “Volume IV,” released in March by Restless/Ryko.
Separately, on Jan. 20, Koch will release “Live,” a 14-track concert set recorded in April 2001 in Portland, Ore., and Seattle. The disc was previously exclusively available through Jackson’s site under the title “Two Rainy Nights.” A DVD that features 13 songs captured at the same shows, as well as an interview and excerpts of Jackson’s book, “A Cure for Gravity,” is available from STS Media.
Source billboard.com.

Meat Puppets bass player Cris Kirkwood was shot Friday by a security guard at a post office in downtown Phoenix, according to reports. Kirkwood underwent surgery for an abdominal wound at a local hospital and was listed in critical condition over the weekend.
Witnesses said Kirkwood got into an argument with a woman when they both tried to pull into the same parking spot. When Kirkwood continued to shout obscenities at the woman on the way into the post office, she reported him to the building’s security guard, who asked Kirkwood to leave the premises.
Back in the parking lot, Kirkwood reportedly refused to leave. When the guard took out his baton, Kirkwood grabbed it and struck him in the head. In self-defense, the guard then took out his gun and shot Kirkwood.
One of the most influential acts of the 1980s, the Meat Puppets soared to worldwide prominence during the modern rock revolution thanks to the 1994 album “Too High To Die” and an appearance on Nirvana’s legendary “MTV Unplugged” episode. The group was led by Kirkwood and his guitarist brother Curt.
Cris Kirkwood has reportedly battled substance abuse in the years since, and did not participate in the group’s last album, 2000’s “Golden Lies.”
Source billboard.com.

Fans shelled out $115.9 million to “come on up for the rising,” making Bruce Springsteen the number one concert draw in North America in 2003.
Springsteen and the E Street Band played 47 concerts, including 13 stadium shows in the New York area alone, making New Jersey’s favorite son one of the biggest money-makers in concert history, second only to The Rolling Stones’ 1994 total of $121.2 million. This year, Mick and the boys pulled in $38.5 million in North America, ranking the original bad boys of rock & roll in the 14th position.
Pollstar editor-in-chief Gary Bongiovanni predicted 2003 will be the fourth record-setting year in a row with around $2.4 billion in concert business, mostly because fans have become accustomed to higher ticket prices for big-name acts. Four acts in Pollstar’s top 10 earners for the year – Celine Dion, the Eagles, Simon & Garfunkel and the Billy Joel-Elton John double bill – charged more than $100 per ticket, on average. Among those raking in the loot: Celine Dion finished second to Springsteen, earning $80.5 million for a one-city, 145-date “tour”: her residency at a Las Vegas casino. “If you’re wondering why Elton John is considering camping there for a while – that’s why,” Bongiovanni said. “You can make a lot of money and you don’t have to travel.” Country had five of the top 20 tours for 2003, with Kenny Chesney’s $35.76 ducats the lowest ticket price of all the tours that placed in the top 20. The Dixie Chicks, despite being dogged by controversy over a remark made about President Bush, had the most lucrative country tour of all time with a $60.5 million total. Other acts in Pollstar’s top 20 for 2003 include Phish, Tim McGraw, Fleetwood Mac, and Pearl Jam.
Source Pollstar.com .

Henry Rollins likes to speak his mind. Next year, he’s saying Shock And Awe My Ass. Yup. Rollins is getting ready to give audiences an insight into his mind as he embarks on another speaking tour. It’s going to be a packed six weeks for the musician-turned-author as Rollins launches the afore-named outing in mid-January.
Right around the time he’ll be in Portland, Maine, Rollins’ “Live At Luna Park” DVD will hit shelves. The DVD features material culled from his two-month stint of weekly speaking performances at the West Hollywood nightclub in March and April of 1999.
And if all that weren’t enough to keep a person busy, the former Black Flag frontman has also just released a new book, “Broken Summers,” and a CD of spoken word, Nights Behind The Tree Line. The former features material taken from his books and new, unpublished works. Speaking of – several more of Rollins’ works are slated for reissue in 2004.
Source and dates visit pollstar.com.

Phish has announced that effective Jan. 1, the group will donate net proceeds from its personal digital download service, LivePhish.com, to the Mockingbird Foundation. The organization was founded by Phish fans to promote music education for children. According to the band, LivePhish.com has generated more than $2 million in sales of live concert material.
“Playing live music has always been a source of indescribable joy for me, and everyday I count my blessings that I’m able to make my living doing something that I so deeply love,” says Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio. “It’s exciting then to think that a person can come to a Phish concert, and know that all the profits from the subsequent downloads of our music will go directly into children’s music programs. The fact that the Mockingbird Foundation was created by Phish fans makes it all the more inspirational to us.”
Source Billboard.com.

Fox is rapping the holidays with an early pickup of a comedy starring Method Man and Redman. Based on an idea by Method Man, the untitled project will star the two rapper/actors as themselves as they move into a big house in a predominantly white New Jersey suburb. The good times are rolling for the twosome, who wreak havoc upon the neighborhood until Method Man’s mom moves in with them and straightens things out.
“It is a very traditional fish-out-of-water story, but Meth and Red really bring a lot of charm and their particular brand of charisma to it and make it very appealing,” Regency TV senior VP if comedy development Erin Simon Berenson said.
Frequent collaborators Method Man and Redman have appeared together in such movies as “How High” and “Scary Movie 3.” The two also are attached to topline an untitled comedy at New Line Cinema described as an urban version of “The Producers” and Miramax’s remake of the South Korean comedy “Jail Breakers.”
Method Man, of Wu-Tang Clan fame, next appears in MGM’s comedy “Soul Plane” and Miramax’s “My Baby’s Mama.”
Source billboard.com.