December 2003

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 The former features material taken from his books and new, unpublished works.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.

The Who, David Bowie and Stereophonics are confirmed to headline the 2004 edition of the U.K.’s Isle of Wight Festival. Stereophonics will play June 11, followed by the Who on June 12 and Bowie on June 13. Ticket information can be found on the event’s official Web site.
The Who are no strangers to the Isle, having played a legendary 1970 concert there that was immortalized on the live CD/home video “Live at the Isle of Wight.” It is not known if the group — which now features sole surviving members Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey — has further summer gigs on the horizon, but the act will play a previously announced March 29 concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
This will be the third Isle of Wight festival since the event returned in 2002, with a lineup that featured Robert Plant, the Charlatans and Starsailor. This year’s festival was graced by Iggy Pop, Paul Weller and the Darkness, among others.
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.

Rhino/Elektra is celebrating the career of 10,000 Maniacs with a two-disc set compiling the band’s best songs and a slew of rarities. Slated for Jan. 27 release, “Campfire Songs: The Popular, Obscure and Unknown Recordings of 10,000 Maniacs,” spends one disc collecting 17 of the band’s best-loved songs, including “These Are Days,” “Trouble Me,” “What’s the Matter Here?” and its cover of “Because the Night.”
The second disc includes previously unreleased demos (“Noah’s Dove,” “Circle Dream,” “Eden”), alternate versions of some songs (“Circle Dream”) and several covers, including the band’s takes on Cat Stevens’ “Peace Train,” Jackson Browne’s “These Days,” Morrissey’s “Everyday is Like Sunday,” David Bowie’s “Starman” and the Carter Family’s “Wildwood Flower.”
The latter disc also features vocalist Natalie Merchant’s duets with ex-Talking Heads frontman David Byrne on Iris DeMent’s “Let the Mystery Be” and R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe on “To Sir With Love.”
“Peace Train” was included on the original pressing of 1987’s “In My Tribe,” but was removed from later pressings after the media reported that Stevens, now known as Yusef Islam, supported Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s February 1989 proclamation that author Salman Rushdie should be put to death for writing his controversial “The Satanic Versus.” Islam later said that he was misquoted, paving the way for the cover’s return.
Merchant supervised the project and designed its packaging. She includes liner notes, as does guitarist John Lombardo, keyboardist Dennis Drew, bassist Steven Gustafson, drummer Jerome Augustyniak and music critic Anthony DeCurtis.
Source billboard.com.

The Allman Brothers Band will again return to New York’s Beacon Theatre for what has become a nearly annual residency. The 2003 stand comes as the enduring Southern rock act marks its 35th year anniversary. The full list of performance dates is March 18-20, 22-23 and 25-27.
While the Allmans have frequented the uptown New York venue for some 14 years, the band has not played the Beacon every year since 1989. A few years were skipped and in 1995, the band switched to Radio City Music Hall for a six-night stand. The group returned to the Beacon the following year.
Since 1996, the Allmans have played between nine and 18 shows at the Beacon each year. Save for 1994, each gig was in March. In order to give frontman Gregg Allman’s voice a rest, the group usually does no more than three shows without a night off.
Twice the band has documented the fan/band connection that occurs at the Beacon. In 2000, Epic issued the live disc “Peakin’ at the Beacon” and in September the group delivered its “Live at the Beacon Theatre” DVD via Peach/Sanctuary. The latter was culled from two of last year’s 13 nights at the venue.
Slated for a March release in time for the 2004 Beacon stay is a two-disc live set also taken from last year’s residency. The album includes 15 songs also on the DVD, including “Trouble No More,” “Wasted Words” and “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl.”
Recently nominated for the best rock instrumental Grammy for “Instrumental Illness” (from the recently released Peach/Sanctuary set “Hittin the Note,” the band’s first studio effort in almost a decade), the group will get its New York stay underway March 16 with a performance on NBC’s “Late Night With Conan O’Brien.”
Source billboard.com.

Songs by Elton John, Sting, Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder and U2’s Bono are among those nominated for best original song Golden Globe Awards. Danny Elfman’s score for “Big Fish” and Howard Shore’s work on “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” received nominations for best original score.
Organized by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the Golden Globes will be handed out Jan. 25 at Los Angeles’ Beverly Hilton Hotel, and broadcast live on NBC at 8 p.m. ET (tape delayed on the West Coast).
In the best original song category, John and Bernie Taupin’s “The Heart of Every Girl,” from “Mona Lisa Smile,” is among the contenders. Also nominated are Shore, Fran Walsh and Annie Lennox’s “Into the West” (from “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”); Pearl Jam’s “Man of the Hour” (from “Big Fish”); Bono, Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer’s “Time Enough for Tears” (from “In America”) and the Sting-penned, Alison Krauss-performed “You Will Be My Ain True Love” (from “Cold Mountain”).
Other nominees for best original score include Alexandre Desplat for “Girl With a Pearl Earring,” Gabriel Yared for “Cold Mountain” and Hans Zimmer for “The Last Samurai.”
“Cold Mountain” topped all films with eight nominations overall, including a nod in the best dramatic film category. It will vie for the top prize against “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,” “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World,” “Mystic River” and “Seabiscuit.”
Actor/musician Jack Black will contend for the best performance by an actor in a musical or comedy, for his role in “School of Rock.”

Those that had New Years Eve plans to see Jane’s Addiction and Mareilyn Manson at Madison Square Garden might want to make new plans. Rumors started late Wednesday, December 17, that the Jane’s Addiction Marilyn Manson co-headlining tour was going to get the ax. Band representatives at Capitol Records that the tour has indeed been canceled. No reasons were given, although there is speculation that ticket sales were less than enthusiastic. Only a handful of high-profile shows were actually planned however.
Source Pollstar.com.

Members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, System Of A Down, Audioslave and Slipknot will take part in a benefit concert for striking Southern California grocery store workers. Tickets for tonight’s (Dec. 18) show at the Roxy Theater in Hollywood went on sale yesterday via Ticketmaster and are completely sold out.
The bill will feature Chili Peppers bassist Flea, System Of A Down leader Serj Tankian, Audioslave (and ex-Rage Against The Machine) members Tom Morello and Brad Wilk, Slipknot’s Corey Taylor and Phantom Planet. Comedian/actor Janeane Garafalo will also take part, as well as Boots Riley (the Coup) and Lester Chambers.
Morello and Tankian have a history of activism. The duo formed the non-profit political organization Axis of Justice to energize music fans “around issues of peace, human rights and economic justice,” according to the organization’s Web site
Source billboard.com[/rl].

Irish singer-songwriter Damien Rice has some good news to give fans in North America: The lauded indie singer is coming back for a spring tour next year. It’ll be his biggest outing in the States to date, both in number of shows and in venue size. Rice has had mainly club runs and graduated up to include some theatre engagements.
His tour launches March 23 in Boulder, runs up the West Coast into Canada, then makes its way across the States to wrap at the end of April in St. Louis.The Irishman just finished a U.S. outing around the start of the month, having been playing a loose schedule since September. Somewhere in there, he managed to pick up the prestigious Shortlist Award for his sleepy debut, O. Around the start of 2004, Rice will be playing the U.K. and Europe.
Source and dates visti Pollstar.com.
O was recently selected as one of Glide Magazine’s Top 20 albums of the year, for the full list, click here.