2003

Behind practically Motown song you know, the backing band was the Funk Brothers. The surviving Funk Brothers will celebrate the impending release of the DVD version of “Standing in the Shadows of Motown” by embarking on a short North American tour tonight (April 9) in Boston. The critically acclaimed film about the history of the Funk Brothers — the Motown Records house band that played on hundreds of hits during that label’s heyday — will be released April 22 from Artisan Home Entertainment.
The group will be joined on the tour by special guests Joan Osborne, Maxi Priest, Bootsy Collins, and Darlene Love. In a unique contest, an open call will be held April 21 at Virgin Records’ Los Angeles studios, where interested parties can sing a Motown song on which the Funk Brothers played. Five finalists will be chosen to return two days later to perform their songs for the Funk Brothers and label execs, at which point a winner will be chosen and welcomed on stage later that night at the group’s show at the Wiltern Theater.
The Funk Brothers’ tour dates:
April 9: Boston (Avalon Ballroom)April 11: New York (Hammerstein Ballroom)April 12: Philadelphia (Keswick Theater)April 13: Washington, D.C. (Lisner Auditorium)April 15: Toronto (Massey Hall)April 16: Cleveland (Playhouse Square Center — Palace Theater)April 18: Detroit (Opera House)April 19: Chicago (Riviera Theater)April 20: Minneapolis (the Quest)April 22: Oakland, Calif. (Paramount Theater)
Source Billboard.com.

Beck is currently lining up a summer Sea Change tour for which Dashboard Confessional and Black Keys will serve as opening acts. One of the stops on the trek will be the Field Day Festival in Long Island, NY. Other acts for the festival will be announced shortly. Though Beck is still supporting last year

The Pulitzer Prizes, which honor the year

Yahoo! Inc. is rolling out a charged up search engine Monday in a bid to supplant its business partner, Google, as the most popular place to find things on the Internet. With the revisions, Yahoo believes its search engine will provide more useful information than Google’s and be simpler to use. The rebuilt version will combine Google’s index with Yahoo’s customized services spanning sports, driving directions and weather reports. Toppling Google won’t be easy. In just five years, Google has become synonymous with online searching. Yahoo played a vital role in Google’s rise. After encouraging Google to create its search engine, Yahoo raised the startup’s profile nearly three years ago by licensing Google’s software to run the searches on its popular online portal.
Source CNN.com.

Volumes 17-20 in the ongoing live Phish CD series have been announced and will be released on May 20. These selections were made by bassist Mike Gordon, who after reviewing 20 years worth of personal journals dwindled his favorites down to four.
Live Phish 17 is from 7/15/98 at the Portland Meadows in Portland, OR with a filler disc that includes material from the 7/29/98 show at Riverport Ampitheatre in Maryland Heights, MO
Live Phish 18 is from 5/7/94 at the Bomb Factory in Dallas, TX. It’s commonly referred to as the “Tweezerfest,” due to the spontaneous segues in and out of “Tweezer” during the course of the entire second set. It was only a matter of time before this was released. The filler contains material from 11/22/94 at the Jesse Auditorium in Columbia, MO, a show at the end of their live bluegrass experiments with the Rev. Jeff Mosier.
Live Phish 19 is from 7/12/91 at the Colonial Theatre in Keene, NH. This show was part of the “horn tour” featuring the Giant Country Horns that included at the time: Dave Grippo, Russ Remmington and Carl Gearhard.
Live Phish 20 is from 12/29/94 at the Providence Civic Center in Providence, RI. This show of course featured the epic “David Bowie” that found it