Archive: 2003

Former Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan announced that Zwan, the band he had started two years ago has broken up.
Corgan said his heart was always in the Smashing Pumpkins and admits he was na

A DVD of consisting of rare performance footage will round out a nine-disc Black Sabbath collection due out for the holiday season. The bulk of “Black Box: The Complete Original Black Sabbath (1970-1978)” will consist of remastered versions of the band’s eight original studio albums. The set will be released Nov. 4 via Warner Bros./Rhino.
The DVD boasts live performances of “Iron Man,” “Paranoid” and a cover of “Blue Suede Shoes,” plus a promotional clip for the 1970 album “Black Sabbath.”
All of the albums feature the band’s original lineup: vocalist Ozzy Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Terry “Geezer” Butler and drummer Bill Ward. Each set — “Black Sabbath,” “Paranoid,” “Master of Reality,” “Vol. 4,” “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath,” “Sabotage,” “Technical Ecstasy” and “Never Say Die!” — will be packaged in individual slip cases within the box.
In addition to the albums, the non-album studio track “Evil Woman,” originally released as a single in 1970 prior to the band’s self-titled debut, is also included.
All of the lyrics from each will be included in an 80-page book, which comprises vintage photographs, a group timeline and essays. Also included will be testimonials from the likes of Rob Zombie, Metallica’s James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett and Zakk Wylde, the guitarist in Osbourne’s band.
Source Billboard.com.

Next spring, 34-year-old Scott Rogers will begin a journey down the entire length of the 2,168-mile Appalachian Trail. Like all distance athletes, he will proceed toward his goal one step at a time. What separates Rogers from other hikers, however, is the fact that his steps will be powered by a high-tech prosthetic leg. If Rogers succeeds in the trek from Georgia to Maine, he will be the first through-hiker to complete the journey with an artificial leg. “This is the result of a lifelong dream,” said the Georgia native. “I decided that if I were ever to accomplish this, the time is now while I’m still relatively young.”
Source Outsideonline.com.

Former Beatle George Harrison, Prince, John Mellencamp and Jackson Browne are among the nominees on the 2004 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ballot.
Harrison, who died of cancer in November 2001, is already in the rock hall as a member of the Beatles. Former bandmates John Lennon and Paul McCartney preceded him for their solo work.
Previous nominees back for another try include the Sex Pistols, Black Sabbath, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Gram Parsons and Patti Smith. Other nominees include the Dells, the “5” Royales, Bob Seger, the Stooges, Traffic and ZZ Top.
Ballots were mailed this week to voting members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation.
Artists are eligible to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after at least 25 years have passed since their first record was released. The inductees likely will be announced in December.
Soure Billboard.com.

Three years after the death of founding member Allen Woody, Andy Hess has been named permanent bass player for Gov’t Mule. The new lineup will begin a fall tour Oct. 3 at the Backyard in Austin, Texas.
Hess, who has recorded and toured with John Scofield, the Black Crowes, Joan Osborne and Freedy Johnston, among others, is one of many musicians who has performed with the band since Woody’s passing, touring briefly with the group in 2002.
Gov’t Mule’s “Deep End” projects — which found the band collaborating with a host of legendary bassists — were special, Hess adds, “but I think those guys are also really psyched to have a unit again, to be a group just coming together and playing music, maybe doing some recording — becoming a band again.”
As previously reported, ATO will on Oct. 7 release “The Deepest End” CD and DVD, chronicling a six-hour, all-star Gov’t Mule concert held May 3 at New Orleans’ Saenger Theatre. The group will appear the following evening on “Late Night With Conan O’Brien.”
Source Billboard.com.

The album blues great John Lee Hooker was working on at the time of his death will be released next month. “Face to Face,” which Hooker was completing with his daughter Zakiya, is due Oct. 28 via a previously reported licensing deal between the Hooker estate and Eagle Rock Entertainment. The album features feature guest appearances by Van Morrison, George Thorogood, Elvin Bishop, Warren Haynes, Dickey Betts, Johnny Winter and Jack Casady, among others.
The album is a collection of leftover songs that are in many cases embellished with overdubbed performances from the various guests. The raw tracks, all of which feature Hooker on vocal and guitar, were recorded during the sessions for the Pointblank/Virgin albums he released over the last decade of his life.
Source Billboard.com.

A new DVD of Bob Marley and the Wailers, The Legend Live, features the last two recorded concerts before the reggae legend

Perhaps the most widely recognized voice in country music, Cash recorded more than 1,500 songs, which appeared on nearly 500 albums. His careerspanned more than four decades with trademark hits like “A Boy NamedSue,” “Folsom Prison Blues, “Ring of Fire” and “I Walk the Line.”
While Cash has long had one of the premiere voices in country music, his success crossed well over onto the pop scene. He had 48 singles onBillboard’s pop charts, rivaling both The Rolling Stones and The BeachBoys.
Source CNN.com.

A decade after a bitter breakup, seminal alternative rock act the Pixies may reunite next year. At deadline, rumors of a tour and a potential new studio album remain unconfirmed. The manger of frontman Frank Black (aka Black Francis) tells Billboard.com, “I have received an offer for the Pixies to perform in April. That said, over the past 10 years, I have received dozens of offers for the Pixies.” A spokesperson for the group’s former label, 4AD, had no comment on potential reunion plans.
The group’s last major tour came while supporting U2 on a number of U.S. dates on the 1992 Zoo TV trek. Goldenvoice Promotions head Paul Tollett tells Billboard.com he has tried to book the Pixies “every year” for the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio, Calif. “I still haven’t made any movement,” he reports. “[I’m] not sure if they are speaking to each other.”
Source Billboard.com.

Who knew: big black holes sing bass. One particularly monstrous black hole has probably been humming B flat for billions of years, but at a pitch no human could hear, let alone sing, astronomers revealed yesterday (Sept. 9).
“The intensity of the sound is comparable to human speech,” said Andrew Fabian of the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge. But the pitch of the sound is about 57 octaves below middle C, roughly the middle of a standard piano keyboard. This is far, far deeper than humans can hear, the researchers said, and they believe it is the deepest note ever detected in the universe.
The sound is emanating from the Perseus Cluster, a giant clump of galaxies some 250 million light-years from Earth. A light-year is about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion km), the distance light travels in a year.
Source Billboard.com.

Rhino Records/Warner Archives has set a Nov. 11 release date for “Once in a Lifetime,” a box set condensing the career of punk/pop iconoclasts Talking Heads. The three-CD, one-DVD set was compiled with the help of all four band members, who have not been on good terms since splitting in 1991.
The CD portion of “Once in a Lifetime” will comprise most of the band’s hits as well as rarities and favorite album cuts. Well-known tracks such as “Psycho Killer,” “Take Me to the River,” “Life During Wartime,” “Once in a Lifetime,” “Burning Down the House,” “And She Was” and “Wild Wild Life” will sit alongside cuts such as “Pulled Up,” “Heaven,” “Slippery People,” “Houses in Motion” and “Sugar on My Tongue.”
Five previously unreleased tracks also find their way onto the audio discs — “In Asking Land” is an outtake from sessions for the group’s 1988 album “Naked” and it joins alternate versions of “Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town,” “New Feeling,” “Cities” and “Drugs.” Also featured is “A Clean Break (live),” a cut taken from the 1982 double-live LP “The Name of This Band is Talking Heads,” which has never been released on CD.
The box’s DVD is an upgrade of the 1988 VHS release “Storytelling Giant,” which features all of the band’s music videos. The disc will also include three videos that weren’t featured on that item’s initial release — “Blind,” “(Nothing But) Flowers” and “Sax and Violins,” a track that originally appeared on the 1991 soundtrack to the Wim Wenders film “Until the End of the World.”
Source Billboard.com.

First time director, Catherine Hardwicke, has created an unrelenting portrait of adolescent culture, being widely herald as the next Kids. Where its predecessor was an inside peek into urban teen life, Thirteen was co-written by 13-year-old Nikki Reed, enabling the film to intimately capture the essence of contemporary struggles young girls must face, as they strive to be independent women still innocently enrolled in Middle School.

While he is certainly a household name as the bass player for Phish, Mike Gordon’s interests and passions range far beyond just playing the four string with one of the world

Once again, Keller Williams

Most people don’t speak of mountain biking and New York City in the same sentence, but those who know better, realize the big apple is smack in the middle of a geological convergence, with several of earth’s forces providing a variety of riding. With so much terrain to choose from, locals often regale an unfamiliar listener with tales of wrist-shaking downhills, technical body busters, and some of the sweetest single track on the entire east coast; and it’s all within one hour of Times Square.

A rapid fall in temperature, accompanied with sleet and a relentless climb made for a somewhat unsettling scenario, and we quickly found ourselves in the belly of an unforeseen weather front. After another mile of frigidly trekking on, we received some much needed encouragement in the form of smoke coming from a campfire settling over the relaxing terrain, and then briefly, the sleet stopped…or so it seemed.

Conscious hip-hop, combining steady beats and heavy rhythms, with political and social commentary may not be a new phenomenon. But with artists such as The Roots and Talib Kweli gaining momentum to new live audiences outside the hip-hop realm, it

If we learn from times of hardship more so than in times of joy, the founding members of Blues Traveler should be members of Mensa. Enduring a motorcycle crash that almost took the life of frontman John Popper, followed by angioplasty, major industry struggles, and the tragic death of bassist Bobby Sheehan, they were inevitably brought to a fork in the road, where one path went to what could have been, and the other straight ahead to reinvention. Truth be told, they chose the latter.

Phish bassist Mike Gordon has announced his first-ever solo tour, a 9-date run in support of his solo debut Inside In, released last month on Ropeadope Records. Kicking-off October 5 at the Fillmore in San Francisco, the tour will stop at 8 cities, playing theatre and clubs in major markets throughout the United States before concluding on October 16 at New York’s Irving Plaza.
Marking his first outing as bandleader, the tour will feature a seven piece all-star group handpicked by Gordon that is as eclectic in its instrumentation as it is in personnel. Comprised of longtime Phish collaborators James Harvey on keyboards and Gordon Stone on pedal steel and banjo, as well as trombonist Josh Roseman (Dave Holland, Charlie Hunter), guitarist Scott Murawski (Max Creek), tap dancer and vocalist Jeannie Hill, vocalist and flutist Julee Avallone and drummer Doug Belote (Anders Osborne, Tony Furtado), the band will perform songs from Inside In as well as other material from within and without.
Tourdates:
10/5 – The Fillmore – San Francisco, CA10/7 – Fox Theatre – Boulder, CO10/8 – Fox Theatre – Boulder, CO10/10 – Vic Theatre – Chicago, IL10/11 – Bogarts – Cincinnati, OH10/13 – Theatre of Living Arts – Philadelphia, PA10/14 – Toad’s Place – New Haven, CT10/15 – Avalon – Boston, MA10/16 – Irving Plaza – New York, NY
Guitarist Kaki King will support all dates.
Specific ticket sales information for all shows is available from Phish.com

A film chronicling last fall’s star-studded George Harrison tribute at London’s Royal Albert Hall will open Oct. 3 in select U.S. cities. Filmed in high definition and recorded in 5.1 surround sound, “A Concert for George” will be released worldwide on DVD in November, distributed internationally via ArenaPlex LLC.
Legendary guitarist Eric Clapton served as the music director for the event, which featured appearances by Harrison’s surviving Beatles bandmates Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, as well as friends Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, Joe Brown, Anoushka Shankar and Billy Preston. Among the Harrison songs they performed were “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” “I Want To Tell You,” “Inner Light,” “Give Me Love,” “Taxman,” “I Need You” and “For You Blue.”
The event also saw members of Monty Python re-enacting some of Harrison’s favorite skits. Harrison financed and served as an executive producer of the comedy troupe’s second feature film, 1979’s “Life of Brian.”
The theatrical engagement will open in New York, Los Angeles and other select U.S. cities to be determined.
Source Billboard.com.