Leftover Salmon are keeping true to their word to the late Mark Vann; the band is continuing to tour relentlessly, playing every type of venue and festival around.
Vann, a founding member in the group who passed away in 2002 after battling skin cancer, made the band promise to keep on trucking. And they have.
The new tour runs from the end of January, starting on the West Coast, through April, covering major cities West of the Mississippi – mainly mountain communities
For complete list of dates click pollstar.com.
Dublin newbies The Thrills have continued to live up to their name. They’re topping many critical best-of lists for 2003 and were nominated for a prestigious Mercury Music Prize for their major label debut, So Much For The City.
Now, they’re giving fans on the other side of the great sea a little taste of their thrilling tunes. A monthlong tour of North American venerable music haunts is on the books, starting January 9. They also have a couple gigs in the U.K. at the beginning of February.
It’s not the first time The Thrills have been Stateside. In addition to a mini-tour last fall, they spent several months camped out in San Diego writing music for their album.
Much of the band’s sunny California pop sounds are owed to that session in SoCal. Hey, they’ve even got a hit single called “Santa Cruz (You’re Not That Far).”
Source Pollstar.com.
The lead guitarist for the rock band Rush skirmished with sheriff’s deputies, spat blood on one and was arrested on New Year’s Eve after his son refused to leave the stage at a fancy hotel, authorities said. Deputies said they had to use a stun gun on 50-year-old Alex Zivojinovich – known on stage as Alex Lifeson – for what they described as drunken, violent behavior at the Naples Ritz-Carlton hotel. Zivojinovich was still in Collier County jail early Friday. Also arrested were his son Justin Zivojinovich, 33, and his son’s wife, Michelle Zivojinovich, 30. Justin Zivojinovich said deputies broke his father’s nose.
The son said he went on the stage where the house band was performing so he could sing. “I was singing Happy New Year’s, that’s all I was doing, singing to the whole crowd. That’s all I said,
A judge has ruled that the bass player for the rock band Meat Puppets, who has been charged with assault, is a flight risk and a danger to others and must remain in custody.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Virginia Mathis also ruled Wednesday that there is enough evidence to try Cris Kirkwood, 43, in connection with a December 26 incident at a Phoenix post office, said Harriet Bernick, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Kirkwood is accused of hitting a federal post office security guard in the head with a baton that the musician took from the guard during a struggle.
According to court documents, the guard then shot Kirkwood in the back. The incident began over a dispute about parking with another customer.
Kirkwood has been charged with one count of assault with a dangerous weapon at a federal facility.
Kirkwood was released from a Phoenix hospital on December 30 and was subsequently arrested.
Kirkwood and his brother Curt fronted the Meat Puppets, who had several hit records in the 1980s and 90s. They were cited as an influence for bands such as Nirvana and earned a gold record in 1994 for “Too High to Die.”
No trial date has been set.
Source CNN.com.
“The Complete Far Side,” a two-volume, 1,250-page collection of 14 years of the iconic comic panels drawn by artist Gary Larson Was Just Released.
From the first panel on January 1, 1980 — a pair of crabs marveling at the odd appearance of human babies — to the last — a January 1, 1995, double panel in which the cartoonist wakes up to find it was all a dream — the “Far Side” ranks as one of the most popular comics ever.
Syndicated at its peak in 1,900 newspapers and translated into 17 languages according to media reports, “Far Side” was almost a traditional comic strip until Larson convinced his editors of the merits of a panel instead.
“I had a single-image brain; I drew single-image cartoons,” Larson wrote in an introduction in the book.
But summing up those 4,300 cartoons was not as easy as it might seem because once Larson agreed to help compile the retrospective, the process took three years.
“He had been away from it long enough that I guess he felt like it was time he could deal with it,” said Michael Reagan, chief executive of Lionheart Books. Reagan, who is based in Atlanta, worked with Larson to design the collection.
“I think in his mind he always knew he would do what we came to term ‘the legacy book,”‘ Reagan said.
Bound in two volumes (1980-1986 and 1987-1994), the collection features a foreword by comedian Steve Martin, and despite the relatively steep price of $135 (though it can be found for under $100 online), the book made the New York Times best-seller lists and it has garnered rave reviews.
Source CNN.com.
