March 2004

Ireland’s most prominent West Coast-obsessed pop-rockers, The Thrills, are visiting the object of their desires once again. They’re raising eyebrows on both sides of the Atlantic with their catchy vocal harmonies and laid-back, country-rock feel, drawing less comparisons to countrymen U2 and Thin L

The band’s travels begin March 27 at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston. They’ll sprint through most every region of the U.S. over the next two months, with several detours to Canada and a May 2 stop at the Coachella Festival in Indio, Calif.

They’ll appear with Phantom Planet on several April dates, and with Spymob in late April and early May. Just two days after finishing up their U.S. jaunt May 29 in Providence, R.I., they’ll head to the Netherlands for the Pinkpop Festival.

The Thrills’ debut album, So Much For The City, was recorded in San Diego and finds the band paying homage to many of their favorite West Coast locales on songs like “Big Sur,” “Santa Cruz (You’re Not That Far)” and “Your Love Is Like Las Vegas.”

Source pollstar.com.

Elvis Costello will write a pair of books to be published by Simon & Schuster. The first will be “a series of intimate narrative chapters taking their cue from the styles, themes and characters found in a number of Costello’s lyrics,” according to the publisher. The as-yet-untitled volume is due in fall 2005.

The second book, a release for which is not yet targeted, will be “a work of comic philosophy.” That tome is already titled: “How to Play the Guitar, Sing Loudly and Impress Girls…or Boys.”

“There are few musicians with the range of Elvis Costello,” Simon & Schuster executive VP/publisher David Rosenthal says. “We’re excited about his unique and eclectic approach to present his life and artistry to the public.”

Source billboard.com.

Sony Electronics says it will be shipping drives in about two months that accept blank DVDs with two data layers. Philips Electronics will start selling a similar drive in Europe in April, but is not saying when it will be available in the United States.

The write-once discs can store up to 8.5 gigabytes of data, or about 4 hours of DVD-quality movies, twice the capacity of regular blank DVDs. This means capacities for computer-burned DVDs are catching up with prerecorded movie DVDs, many of which are already dual-layer.

The new technology is sure to appeal to those who back up or copy movie DVDs, since they often have to reduce image quality or remove special features to fit a copied movie onto a single-layer disc. With a dual-layer drive, an exact copy on a single disc should be possible.

The two layers of the new discs are accessed from the same side — there is no need to flip the disc over to record to the second layer. Instead, a laser beam shines through the first layer to record on the second.

Sony will sell an internal drive for $230 and an external one for $330. They will be marketed only for Windows PCs, but the external one should work on Macintosh computers with the proper third-party software.

Philips will sell two internal drives with somewhat different features, both for PCs. U.S. prices have not been set.

The drives will be able to burn regular write-once and rewritable DVDs and CDs as well.

The Sony and Philips drives will use somewhat different discs. Sony calls its variant DVD-R DL. The Philips equivalent is DVD+R DL. Both disc types should be readable in standard DVD drives and players.

Sony estimates the blank discs will cost $5 to $6. Philips does not have an estimate yet.

The dual-layer discs will be slower to burn than single-layer discs — the drives will be rated as burning at 2.4 times faster than playback speed, versus eight times for single-layer discs.

A full 8.5 gigabytes will take about 45 minutes to burn.

Source cnn.com.

Aretha Franklin was hospitalized over the weekend with an undisclosed ailment and remains hospitalized Monday, her publicist said. The hospital where she was taken was not disclosed. She turns 62 on Thursday.

“No other information on her illness is available at this time,” her publicist, Gwendolyn Quinn, said in a statement.

The Queen of Soul has energized audiences for more than four decades, is best known for her 1960s smash hit “Respect,” but she has had countless other hits, including “Chain of Fools” and “Baby I Love You.”

Franklin has won 16 Grammy awards, including a lifetime achievement award in 1990 and most recently, an award this year for Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance for the single, “Wonderful.”

Source cnn.com.

With a lineup already set for the ages, eight more acts were added today to the Bonnaroo Music Festival performers list. Ween, The Jazz Mandolin Project (f. Jon Fishman), Jo Jo and his Mojo Mardi Gras Band, Guster, Patti Smith, The Radiators, The Hackensaw Boys and New Monsoon round out the latest additions, with more acts expected to be added soon.

Tickets still remain for the Tennesee festival set for June 11-13th. See Bonnaroo.com for more info.