Toying from the past and fine tuning with the present, Gary Jules makes Trading Snakeoil For Wolftickets, an all-around winning work of songwriting and arranging that should not be missed.
Night of Joy is the first of three new live albums to be released by Widespread Panic over the couse of 2004, a year in which the hardworking band is taking their first break in 18 years. This release stars the The Dirty Dozen Brass Brand on horns and rhythm and features some new and old Panic favorites.
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.
Two members of the band Ozomatli and their manager were arrested early on March 18th after a performance spilled out onto the street during a show at the South By Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas.
Near the end of its performance at the Exodus nightclub, the Los Angeles band left the stage and marched through the crowd while beating drums and playing horns. Members of the audience followed behind the musicians, as is common practice at the band’s shows, and the group moved out onto the street.
Once outside, police directed the group to return to the club. A scuffle ensued, witnesses told the Austin American-Statesman, which reported the incident in its online edition. Percussionist Jiro Yamaguchi, bassist Willy Abers and band manager Amy Sue Blackman-Romero were arrested.
Witnesses said police used pepper spray to disperse the crowd.
Blackman-Romero was charged with a city ordinance violation and interference with the duties of a public servant, jail records show. Abers, 30, of Los Angeles, was charged with failure to obey the order of a police officer. Yamaguchi, 36, also of Los Angeles, was charged with assault on a public servant.
The three were taken to the Travis County Jail. A jail spokesperson said that Blackman-Romero and Abers were not in custody last night, but that Yamaguchi remained jailed on $5,000 bond.
“Ozomatli has always been about bringing people together,” the band said in a statement released late this afternoon. “We cannot comment on the specifics of the unfortunate incident… except to say that it will not deter us from our mission to bring joy to our fans through the power of music. We will not be canceling any performances … or altering the way in which we connect with our audience. We have performed all over the world and look forward to continuing to unite people through the universal language of music.”
Ozomatli won the 2001 Grammy award for best Latin rock/alternative album for its Interscope set, “Embrace the Chaos.”
Source billboard.com.
John “J.J.” Jackson, who in the 1980s helped usher in the music video era as one of the first MTV on-air personalities died of an apparent heart attack Wednesday. He was 62.
Jackson, a longtime radio station disc jockey, died while driving home from dinner in Los Angeles, friends and colleagues said.
In a statement, MTV said Jackson’s love of music and good humor helped set the tone for the cable music network in its formative years. “He was a big part of the channel’s success and we are sure he is in the music section of heaven, with lots of his friends and heroes,” the network said. “He will be greatly missed.”
Source billboard.com.
House of Blues Concerts launches the 2004 Gorge Concert Series on Saturday, May 29th (Memorial Day Weekend) with the SASQUATCH! Music Festival. The Sasquatch! Festival, now in its third year, presents an eclectic mix of college and critical favorites on two stages featuring everything from Indie Rock and Hip Hop to Singer-Songwriters and circus performers.
Featured artists include: The Roots, The Postal Service, The Shins, Built To Spill, Sleater-Kinney, The New Pornographers, Cat Power, The Long Winters, The Black Keys, Gary Jules, The Decemberists, Preston School Of Industry, Nellie McKay and DJ Cherry Canoe.
Tickets go on sale Saturday, March 20 at noon. For more info visit: hob.com/sasquatch.
Greendale, Young
Cake is curently recording in its home studio in Sacramento without any outside production help. Lead singer John McCrea says the experience has offered the band more opportunities to experiment with new sounds and not feel pressured to create. “This time we’re actually rolling up our sleeves and doing everything,” McCrea says. “Practically speaking it means that we can go into the studio whenever we feel like it and work, so I think it’s actually a really great unencumbered feeling after all these years of having to book studio time.”
McCrea says that having its own studio has also allowed the band to work more cohesively. “I think the band is becoming more of a band and less of a songwriter with some musicians,” he says. “It’s more a band of musicians that are all really creative and part of the process.”
Earlier this year, Cake took a few breaks from the still-untitled record to perform a few of the eleven new tracks at secret shows around northern California. “People are singing along to certain songs without ever really having heard them before,” McCrea says. “There’s a particularly sort of chorus-worthy song called ‘No Phone’ and people are signing along to that and throwing their cell phones onto the stage.
Other new songs include “Wheels” and “Take It All Away.” Fans can expect Cake’s trademark wit and its eclectic sound on the album which McCrea says is “more connected to traditional songwriting.” “I think this album has nothing to do with the last couple years of music,” he adds. “We’ve always existed outside of larger trends. We’ve never had the luxury of being involved in that.”
Source rollingstone.com.
On the final stop on the the second leg of their Tour de Fromage reunion tour, Primus brought their high energy quirky rock to the nations capital. With political rants expressed in between songs while playing the entire Sailing The Seas of Cheese, album, Les Claypool used the first amendment to his advantage at Constitution Hall.
Audioslave are in Los Angeles working on the follow-up to their 2002, self-titled debut. The hard rock supergroup — former Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell, and Rage Against the Machine vets, guitarist Tom Morello, bassist Tim Commerford and drummer Brad Wilk — began writing new material after last summer’s Lollapalooza tour, but the band is now buckling down in rehearsals and writing “a song a day,” according to guitarist Tom Morello.
Morello says Audioslave have nineteen tracks in the works, but they will continue to compose new material. “The modus operandi is we write ’til the well runs dry and then go in and record,” he says. “You never know . . . the twenty-sixth song might be [Audioslave’s first single] ‘Cochise.'”
Morello is already enthusiastic about the new output. “There’s a breadth and a depth to the music that makes it inspiring to show up at rehearsal every day,” he says. “There’s ferocious, ripping, riff rock & roll and there’s some stuff that sounds like Audioslave meets [U2’s] Joshua Tree. It’s pretty diverse and beautiful. Chris is singing great, Timmy and Brad sound awesome — it’s good times.”
Morello won’t commit to a release date, but he says to ensure quality, the band is in no great hurry. “What we’re gonna do,” he says, “is make sure that this is the greatest record that we could possibly make.”
Source rollingstone.com.
