November 2003

Between the release of Preston School of Industry’s 2001 debut and the recording of their upcoming album, Monsoon, frontman Scott Kannberg relocated from the Bay Area to Seattle. But despite the title, Monsoon, slated for a January 20th release, doesn’t sound like it was written underneath Seattle drizzle — the album is chock-full of sunny California melodies. “I moved to a whole new environment up here,” says the former Pavement guitarist. “I’m not used to the rain. Moving away was kind of hard in the beginning. Seattle’s a challenge.”
Wilco joined in for “Get Your Crayons Out.” Plied with BBQ chicken and salmon, beer and diet Coke, they ransacked Kannberg’s basement studio for instrumentation and gave the track the kitchen sink treatment.
“Jeff [Tweedy] did some really amazing guitar parts,” Kannberg says. “It sounds like a jug band or an early Velvet Underground bootleg or something. Glen [Kotche] found some pots and pans in the basement and started playing those. I gave Leroy [Bach] some old Pavement ashtrays that we have, and he used those as percussion instruments. He was really excited about that.”
Upon his return from a six-week tour of Australia, Kannberg plans to dig through the vaults for bonus material slated for a planned expanded, re-mastered version of Pavement’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain targeted for release next year. “I gotta go through all my own archives, all the songs we never put out,” he says. “There’s probably five or six songs that were totally unreleased from around that period, and probably a few demos that we actually did with our old drummer Gary [Young]. I think we can salvage a few of those.”
Source Rollingstone.com.

Scotland’s Beta Band recorded their upcoming album four times before finally getting it right this summer, when they tracked a fifth and final version.
“Our first album [The Beta Band] was written in the studio,” singer Stephen Mason says. “But we were ridiculously prepared for this one.” The as-yet-untitled album, the follow-up to 2001’s Hot Shots II, is due in late March.
“I initially wrote a load of songs, and gave the demos to the band,” Mason says. “They went away and each did a version, so we ended up with four versions of each song. Then we had to condense those four versions down to make another version, and we took that and used it as the starting point for the studio.”
The process was laborious to say the least, but it resulted in twelve songs that are among the most cohesive the band have ever recorded, and a louder, more aggressive sound than previous efforts. “This album is, in some ways, a lot less unusual than the other stuff we’ve done,” Mason says. “Unlike in the past, where we’d record a one-minute song with a fifteen-minute outro, there are no monoliths on this one. Some are much more like pop songs, for us anyway.”
The self-produced album — recorded in Wales during an eight-week stretch this summer — is currently being mixed by Nigel Godrich (Radiohead) and the band. Among the tracks are “Assessment,” which features a brass section. Mason describes it as “guitar-led with quite a large rock tribal rhythm behind it.” Mason likens “Space Beatle” to “a really sad guy alone in a mine, mining for feelings. The only thing he’s got with him is a tiny little hammer and an out of tune electric organ.” But “Simple” is a “classic acoustic guitar song” that is among the most commercial tunes the group has ever recorded.
A pair of DVDs are slated to accompany the album, one a making-of film shot by Scottish comedian Pete Rankin and the other a collection of twelve videos. Mason, drummer Robin Jones, sampler John Maclean and bassist Richard Greentree will each shoot three of the low-budget videos, which will either be set to demo version of songs from the album or culled from the six tracks that didn’t make the final cut.
Source Rollingstone.com.

Fans of veteran modern rock act the Cure will get a late Christmas present on Jan. 27, when Fiction/Elektra/Rhino releases the four-disc boxed set “Join the Dots: B-Sides and Rarities, 1978-2001 (The Fiction Years).” Frontman Robert Smith personally supervised the project, which will feature a 76-page booklet with track-by-track commentary from Smith and bassist Simon Gallup.
The 22-track first disc spans 1978-1987 and includes “Another Journey by Train” (the B-side to “A Forest”) as well as a version of “Lament” which was only available in 1982 on a single inserted in copies of the magazine Flexipop. Disc two is highlighted by “Sugar Girl” (the B-side to “Just Like Heaven”), alternate mixes of “Icing Sugar” and “How Beautiful You Are” and three different versions of the Doors’ “Hello I Love You.”
The third disc, collecting 15 tracks from 1992-1996, sports tunes contributed to soundtracks for “The Crow” (“Burn”) and “Judge Dredd” (“Dredd Song”), “Halo” (the B-side to “Friday I’m in Love”) and covers of Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” and David Bowie’s “Young Americans.”
Disc four rounds up 15 cuts from 1996-2001, such as an acoustic version of “Just Say Yes,” the import-only “Coming Up,” a cover of Depeche Mode’s “World in Your Eyes” and alternate mixes of “Wrong Number,” “This Is a Lie” and “Strange Attraction.”
Source Billboard.com.

Hawaiian singer/songwriter Jack Johnson will headline a benefit concert on Jan. 3 in Oahu, Hawaii. The event will also feature performances by Michael Franti & Spearhead, DJ Logic, Makana and Amy Hanaiali’I & Willie K.
The goal of the concert is to raise funds for the Kokua Hawaii Foundation, which works to preserve Hawaii’s natural environment. Some funds have been earmarked to start school recycling and gardening programs on Oahu, in the hope that similar programs will eventually be implemented throughout the state.
As previously reported, Johnson has two releases on the horizon for Nov. 25 via his Brushfire label. The first is a DVD of the surfing film “Thicker Than Water,” which will be accompanied with a 14-track soundtrack featuring two newly recorded songs.
Johnson is in the midst of a tour of Australia and New Zealand, which hits Christchurch on Friday (Nov. 14).
Source Billboard.com.

The Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution have joined with the Federal City Council to create a National Music Center & Museum in Washington, D.C., Billboard Bulletin reports. According to Mayor Anthony Williams, the center will be a state-of-the-art facility to showcase America’s musical heritage.
The museum will be the core of a mixed-use development project to be built on the former site of the Washington Convention Center in downtown Washington D.C. It will have 55,000 square feet of exhibit space, including two performance halls.
The museum is scheduled for completion in 2008. There are no financing details at present. There are tentative plans for the Sinatra family to donate Frank Sinatra

Following in the footsteps of its history-making opening day last season, Killington opens Nov. 10, at noon for skiing and riding with top to bottom terrain from Killington Peak to the base of the K1 Express Gondola. Since Nov. 7, Killington snowmakers have been stationed at the helm of the most extensive snowmaking system in North America, making snow for opening day. An average of two-to-three foot base depths (deeper in some spots) can be credited to the resort’s access to 600 million gallons of water for snowmaking.
Killington plans to open with eight trails and two lifts across three distinct runs. Skiers and riders may access terrain via the K1 Express Gondola and the Glades Triple Chairlift. Trails include Great Northern, Rime and East Glade.
Killington traditionally sets the pace for early season skiing and riding in eastern North America. Because of its snowmaking capacity, by Thanksgiving, Killington typically has nearly 80 trails open for all ability levels, often two to three times more than the nearest competitor.
In other mountain openings, Copper Mountain in Colorado opened to the general public on November 1st. Mt.Rose-Ski Tahoe was recently blessed with 16 inches of snow and has opened as well. Snowbird in Utah, plans to pen on Saturday, November 14th.
Source skinet.com.