Through relentless touring over the last couple years and word-of-mouth, Particle has quickly made a name for themselves by exciting audiences with their self-described “space porn” at festivals, clubs and late-night parties around the country. Particle’s first full-length album, Launchpad, effctively captures their energetic live sound in a studio setting.
Lenny Kravitz will return to the spotlight this spring with his seventh studio album, “Baptism.” The set is due May 18 via Virgin and will be preceded by the single “Where Are We Runnin’?,” which will be delivered March 29 to U.S. radio outlets for airplay consideration. “‘Baptism’ marks a musical and spiritual rebirth,” the artist says. “That’s what this album is all about.”
“Baptism” is largely a solitary undertaking for Kravitz, who wrote, produced, arranged and played nearly all of the instruments on the set’s 13 tracks. In his first foray into a hip-hop crossover, the artist teams up with rapper Jay-Z on the track “Storm.” Lionel Richie guests on the track “Destiny.”
Kravitz has tour dates lined up through July, including previously announced appearances on April 30 and May 1 at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. From there, he heads to Europe for Holland’s Pink Pop festival on May 31 and 19 further headlining shows on the continent. The North American portion of the trek will begin in August and run through October.
Source billboard.com.
Uncle Tupelo/Son Volt principal Jay Farrar has begun selling the album “Live in Seattle” for download via his official Web site. The 15-track collection was taped July 24, 2003, at Seattle’s Showbox club and is available in both MP3 and FLAC formats. Downloadable artwork is included in the purchase.
Meanwhile, Farrar’s Transmit Sound label will on June 8 release “Stone, Steel & Bright Lights,” encompassing 19 live tracks from the artist’s 2003 tour. The album will feature two new originals and covers of Neil Young’s “Like a Hurricane” and the early Pink Floyd staple “Lucifer Sam.” A bonus DVD will boast footage from a live show at Slim’s in San Francisco.
Farrar will begin a two-week European tour March 15 in Trondheim, Norway, to be followed by five May dates in Australia and New Zealand. He will be accompanied by the Blood Oranges’ Mark Spencer at all shows.
Source billboard.com.
Apple has a smash hit on its hands with the new iPod mini digital music player. The little cousin of the full-size iPod is virtually sold out after less than two weeks in stores, with nearly 100,000 snapped up.
“I’ve never seen a product line sell like this,” says Jack Wahrman, senior merchandising manager at New York’s J&R Music World. “The iPod is a phenomenon.”
The $249 mini is the business-card-sized market extension of the regular iPod, which, while larger, also easily fits into a pocket.
The bigger iPod starts at $299 with a 15-gigabyte hard drive – enough for 4,000 songs. The mini, which comes in green, pink, silver, blue and gold, is just $50 less. It has less storage room, 4 gigabytes – or about 1,000 songs – leading critics to charge initially that it was overpriced.
“Consumers have a different view on pricing,” says Mike McGuire, an analyst with tech research firm GartnerG2 and a mini owner himself. “When you actually see it and feel it, it’s amazing. It’s the size of a cool little mobile phone and really compelling.”
Bel-Air Camera, near the UCLA campus in Los Angeles, sold its allotment in one day, says sales manager Gregg Burger. “It’s frustrating. Everyone wants to buy it, and we can’t sell it.”
“The demand is incredible,” says Wahrman at J&R, who had 25 of the silver minis left in stock Thursday. Best Buy and Amazon, on their Web sites, said they were sold out. Savvy entrepreneurs were auctioning minis on eBay with starting bids ranging from $299 to $310.
On its Web site, Apple tells shoppers to expect a one- to three-week wait. “We’re asking people to be patient with us,” says Greg Joswiak, Apple marketing vice president.
It’s not a component shortage that’s causing the backlog. “We’re making and shipping them as fast as we can,” Joswiak says. He says teens are taking to the cool colors. And the mini is appealing to athletic fans, who like exercising with an ultralight device.
It took Apple six weeks to sell 120,000 of the original iPod when it came out in 2001. Apple has now sold over 2 million and has a 70.4% share of digital music player revenue, according to market trackers NPD Group.
Being sold out “creates a lot of buzz for Apple,” says NPD analyst Steve Baker. “But they can’t leave retailers hanging for too long.” Competitors Creative Labs and Rio Audio both have similar small MP3 music players selling for $199 and can benefit, Baker says.
Wahrman calls Creative’s MuVo2 “the iPod mini killer.” Like the mini, it also has 4 GB of storage. The Rio Nitrus is 1.5 GB. “I just got in the MuVo2 and sold my entire order the first weekend, all 540 of them,” he says.
Source yahoo.com.
