2003

After Phish wraps up their four-night New Years Eve run in Miami this December, keyboard player Page McConnell will begin a short tour up the East Coast with his side project, Vida Blue. And Phish fans will be pleased to hear that the Jazz Mandolin Project, featuring Jon Fishman on drums, will open all dates except the last date in Vermont.
Sat, Jan 3 / Jackie Gleason Theater of the Performing Arts / Miami Beach, FLSun, Jan 4 / Jannus Landing / St. Petersburg, FLMon, Jan 5 / The Tabernacle / Atlanta, GAWed, Jan 7 / The Orange Peel / Asheville, GAThu, Jan 8 / 9:30 Club / Washington, DCFri, Jan 9 / Electric Factory / Philadelphia, PASat, Jan 10 / Roseland Ballroom / New York, NYMon, Jan 12 / Higher Ground / Winooski, VT
Full ticketing information can be found at phish.com/tourdates

Roots rockers The Jayhawks will be featured on Austin City Limits January 3, 2004 on PBS. This particular performance will also feature Gillian Welch. Other acts to be featured this year on the series

“Concert for George,” the November 2002 celebration of George Harrison’s life and music, will be documented in CD and DVD releases by that name Nov. 18 via Warner Strategic Marketing. Both will be double-disc sets.
The video of the evening

Cash Tribute Lineup Swells John Mellencamp, Dwight Yoakam and George Jones have joined the lineup for the Nov. 10 Johnny Cash Memorial Tribute concert in Nashville. As reported last week, the event at the Ryman Auditorium will also feature Rosanne Cash, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Hank Williams Jr., Sheryl Crow, Jack Clement, Steve Earle and Larry Gatlin.
Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and U2 lead singer Bono have expressed interest in taking part, but have not yet confirmed. According to a spokesperson, the concert will be taped for later broadcast on an outlet yet to be determined.
Source Billboard.com.

Thicker than Water a new Jack Johnson surf documentary will be released on DVD

Coming soon to a Windows PC near you: Apple Computer Inc.’s. popular iTunes online music store, which analysts say will join an already crowded market that could mute its chances of repeating the success of the Macintosh -only version, will soon be available on Windows personal computers.
The computer maker is set to unveil this week the long-promised Windows-compatible version of its online music service. Last week, it sent invitations to reporters for an event on Thursday in San Francisco proclaiming, “The year’s biggest music story is about to get even bigger.”

Yet now, some analysts say that while iTunes for Windows may be just the thing for fans, it may be coming too late for the broader market. There are already similar services for Windows users, such as MusicMatch, already entrenched and another called BuyMusic.com. File-swapping service Napster (news – web sites) has resurrected itself as a pay service, now under a parent company, Roxio Inc. .
Apple unveiled the iTunes service for the 3 percent of the PC market that uses Macintosh computers in April. Incorporated into its popular and easy-to-use iTunes software for managing digitized songs, the interface is simple, and songs cost 99 cents each to download.
The service took off, and the Cupertino, California, company has sold more than 10 million songs in the five months since launching the service, which has more than 200,000 songs for sale.
Source Yahoo.com.

When the music annals of 2003 are compiled, topping many lists will be the wildly successful reunion of original founding Stooges members Iggy Pop, and brothers Ron Asheton (guitar and bass) and Scott Asheton (drums). The reunion is celebrated with four newly recorded tracks on SKULL RING, Iggy

Badly Drawn Boy, a.k.a. British singer-songwriter Damon Gough, will tour the eastern U.S. in November. The three-week run begins with two sets at the Iron Horse in Northampton, Mass., on Nov. 1, and continues through Nov. 18 at Dallas’ Gypsy Tea Room. Along the way, Gough and his stripped-down trio will perform in markets including Washington DC, New York, Cleveland, Chicago and Nashville.
Bady Drawn Boy is working on his fourth album in Manchester, England, with co-producer Andy Votel. His most recent disc was 2002’s “Have You Fed The Fish?” which earned a four-star review from Rolling Stone and a feature in Newsweek. His previous albums are 2000’s Mercury Music Prize-winning “The Hour of Bewilderbeast” and 2002’s soundtrack to the Hugh Grant film “About A Boy.”
BADLY DRAWN BOY 2003 U.S. TOUR DATES
November
1 – Northampton MA – Iron Horse Music Hall
2 – Winooski VT – Higher Ground
3 – Rochester NY – Water Street Music Hall
4 – Albany NY – The Egg
6 – Towson MD – Recher Theatre
7 – Washington DC – 9:30 Club
8 – Brooklyn NY – Northsix
9 – New York NY – Bowery Ballroom
11 – Cleveland Heights OH – The Grog Shop
12 – Chicago IL – Park West
13 – Nashville TN – The Belcourt Theatre
14 – Asheville NC – The Orange Peel*
15 – Athens GA – 40 Watt Club*
17 – Austin TX – The Mercury*
18 – Dallas TX – Gypsy Tea Room*
* with Mathew Ryan

A Princeton graduate student said on Monday that he has figured out a way to defeat new software intended to keep music CDs from being copied on a computer — simply by pressing the Shift-key.
In a paper posted on his Web site late Monday, John Halderman said the MediaMax CD3 software developed by SunnComm Technologies Inc. (OTC BB:STEH.OB – news) could be defeated on computers running the Windows operating system by holding down the Shift key, disabling a Windows feature that automatically launches the encryption software on the disc.
Halderman said the protection could also be disabled by stopping the driver the CD installs when it is first inserted into a computer’s drive.
Computers running Linux (news – web sites) and older versions of the Mac operating system are unable to run the software and are able to copy the disc freely, he said.
The CD in question, Anthony Hamilton’s “Comin’ From Where I’m From,” was released by BMG’s Arista label in late September. Music retailers praised the release, which BMG touted as a breakthrough in the industry’s efforts to prevent music piracy.
Source Yahoo.com.

A year after the death of founding member Jam Master Jay, rap act Run-D.M.C. will be release on October 28th