May 10, 2004

Time to get out the hairspray and black eyeliner again. Less than a week after headlining the Coachella festival in the Southern California desert, goth pioneers the Cure have unveiled plans for a full U.S. tour this summer.

The Curiosa Festival 2004 will feature the Cure headlining a bill that also includes three bands plainly influenced by Robert Smith and company: Interpol, the Rapture and Mogwai.
A second stage will also be part of the traveling road show, with Muse, Thursday, Cursive, Melissa Auf Der Maur, Cooper Temple Clause and Head Automatica rotating as performers.

The Cure formed in 1976, and only iconoclastic singer/songwriter Smith remains from the group’s initial lineup. Simon Gallup, who joined the group in 1979, is the only other longstanding member in the current lineup. The group plans to release a new eponymous album on June 29, the band’s first LP since 2000’s Bloodflowers. The first single from the album bears the cheery title “The End of the World.”

The tour kicks off July 24 in the unlikely tropical setting of West Palm Beach, Florida, and ends August 27 in Los Angeles. Venues have yet to be confirmed, and additional dates are still being added.
Dates for the Curiosa Festival 2004, according to a band spokesperson:

* 7/24 – West Palm Beach, FL
* 7/25 – Tampa, FL
* 7/28 – Nashville, TN
* 7/29 – Atlanta, GA
* 7/31 – New York, NY
* 8/1 – Camden, NJ
* 8/3 – Cincinnati, OH
* 8/4 – Cleveland, OH
* 8/7 – Boston, MA
* 8/11 – Detroit, MI
* 8/12 – Chicago, IL
* 8/14 – Dallas, TX
* 8/15 – Houston, TX
* 8/17 – Denver, CO
* 8/18 – Salt Lake City, UT
* 8/27 – Los Angeles, CA

Source VH1.com.

The brainchild of Widespread Panic bassist Dave Schools and Jerry Joseph of the Jackmormons, Stockholm Syndrome will launch a U.S. tour June 29, the same day its debut album, Holy Happy Hour, hits stores.

The group, which also includes guitarist Eric McFadden, keyboardist Danny Dziuk, and drummer Wally Ingram, will reportedly tour until October, although dates are only confirmed through early August.

The group is currently touring Europe, where Schools and Joseph made a preliminary run as an acoustic duo in 2003.

Full dates are available on Pollstar.com

The second Northeast Kingdom Music Festival will be held on Friday and Saturday, August 6th and 7th at the Chilly Ranch in Albany, VT. The festival will provide two days and nights of camping, community, culture, circus acts, poetry, performance, and politics. The lineup includes: Hieroglyphics, Israel Vibration, The Breakestra, Cyro Baptista & Beat the Donkey, Oteil Burbridge & The Peacemakers, Snake Oil Medicine Show and Nero. For a full list of performers and festival details, visit their website.

TVT Records today announced the signing of West Coast rap supergroup 213. The trio of Nate Dogg, Snoop Dogg and Warren G will release its long-awaited debut, “The Hard Way,” on July 20. The artists have a long association that predates Snoop’s breakthrough appearance on Dr. Dre’s classic 1992 album “The Chronic” and have frequently collaborated in the years since.

Snoop Dogg has not released an album since 2002’s “Paid tha Cost To Be Da Boss” (Priority), while Warren G’s most recent solo release was that year’s “Return of the Regulator” (Universal). Nate Dogg released a self-titled album in 2003 via Elektra.

Source billboard.com.

Ladysmith Black Mambazo has been wowing audiences for three decades, with a rigorous worldwide touring schedule and an average of at least an album a year.

This summer, the South African group is kicking off a mammoth tour of North America and Europe in support of its latest effort, Raise Your Spirit Higher: Wenyukela.

The trek is set to launch June 11 in Ketchum, Idaho, at Sun Valley Center. The ten-member vocal group will play a few weeks’ worth of U.S. gigs before heading to Europe in July. They’ll do stints in both North America and Europe throughout the fall and winter, including a five-show run in Hawaii in January.

The group is already booked solid for next spring, with North American dates stretching all the way through April. Joseph Shabalala founded Ladysmith Black Mambazo in 1974, combining Zulu vocal traditions with the hymnal music of the Christian church. The ensemble became well-known in South Africa almost immediately and achieved widespread fame in the mid-’80s after performing on Paul Simon’s album Graceland.

Source pollstar.com.