July 29, 2004

Phish will play Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, VA on Monday, August 9, adding one additional show to the August leg of their Summer 2004 tour. It will be one of the final five shows before the band permanently breaks up following the Conventry festival on August 14th and 15th. The band has held Hampton as one of its favorite venues the past nine years, leading to the band’s release of Hampton Come Alive, recorded from Phish’s two night run there in 1998.

A limited number of tickets are available directly through PHISH TICKET-BY-MAIL’s secure online ticketing system at phish,com beginning on Friday, July 30 at 10 AM EST.

Bob Edwards, who recently was removed as host of National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” after nearly a quarter-century, is leaving the network to start a new morning show for distribution on satellite radio.

Edwards’ new program will be distributed through the XM Satellite Radio system, a fee-based, commercial-free digital provider, NPR reported Wednesday.

His departure from NPR — which he joined in 1974, its third year of existence — wasn’t unexpected. On a publicity tour since early May to promote his latest book, “Edward R. Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Journalism,” he said last week that he was considering a number of job offers.

Edwards was host of “Morning Edition” — a daily program offering news, commentary and coverage of arts and sports — from its start in 1979 until April 30, when he was reassigned as an NPR senior correspondent. The change, explained by NPR management as an effort to refresh the broadcast, infuriated many of its listeners, who total 13 million each week.

A phone call seeking comment from Edwards on the new venture was not immediately returned.

Source CNN.com.

Camper Van Beethoven has reunited to record its first studio album in 15 years. A rock opera of sorts, “New Roman Times” is due Oct. 12 via Pitch-A-Tent/Vanguard and features all five original members of the infamous quasi-folk rock band.

Leading the band is guitarist/vocalist David Lowery, who went on to form the commercially successful modern rock act Cracker following CBV’s demise in 1990. Bassist Victor Krummenacher and drummer Chris Pederson formed Monks Of Doom after leaving Camper, while guitarist Greg Lisher joined Swingin’ Utters side project Filthy Thevin’ Bastards.

Violinist Jonathan Segel rounds out the original group, while later-era CBV members guitarist Chris Molla and guitarist/multi-instrumentalist David Immergluck (Counting Crows) are also featured.

“New Roman Times” relays the story of a troubled young Texan. After some instrumental scene-setting, “51 7” describes his tough adolescence and home life, and a desire to prove himself that leads to enlisting in the military and a stint in a war.

In “Might Makes Right,” the character discusses his invading force’s occupation and questions whether or not God is on their side, as he’s been told. Later, “I Am Talking to This Flower” finds the drug-addled former soldier fighting his conscience back at home.

Though obviously reflecting Lowery’s views on current world affairs, the 20-track set is also inspired by the military veterans within the songwriter’s own family, including his father. To ensure accuracy in his tales, he discussed weapons and tactics with soldiers currently serving.

Despite the serious nature of much the subject matter, there is plenty of room for levity, as should be expected from an act whose best-known song is “Take the Skinheads Bowling.”

“This story isn’t really supposed to be about Iraq, Afghanistan or even war,” Lowery says. “It’s actually about the deep gulf between the ‘red’ and the ‘blue’ parts of the country. I made it a sci-fi alternate reality so that I could exaggerate the differences. Plus I could make things lighter and more tongue in cheek.”

Camper Van Beethoven’s last studio album was 1989’s “Key Lime Pie,” its second and final album for Virgin, the future home of Cracker. The album yielded a No. 1 Modern Rock Tracks hit in the band’s cover of Status Quo’s “Pictures of Matchstick Men.”

In 2002, Pitch-A-Tent produced an artifact from the CBV archives with the release of “Tusk,” a complete remake of the classic Fleetwood Mac album of the same name recorded between 1987’s “Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart” and “Key Lime Pie.”

Camper will hit the road beginning Aug. 4 in Boulder, Colo., and has dates on tap through Aug. 27 in Tucson, Ariz.

Here is the “New Roman Times” track list:

“Prelude”
“New Sons of the Golden West”
“51 7”
“White Fluffy Clouds”
“That Gum You Like Is Back in Style”
“Might Makes Might”
“Militia Song”
“R and R Uzbekistan”
“Sons of the New Golden West Reprise”
“New Roman Times”
“The Poppies of Balmorhea”
“Long Plastic Hallway”
“I Am Talking to This Flower”
“Come Out”
“Los Tigres Traficantes”
“I Hate This Part of Texas”
“Hippy Chix (Oath of the CBV)”
“Civil Disobedience”
“Discoteque CVB”
“Hey Brother”

Source billboard.com.

Seeking to define his feelings in troubled times, contemporary blues singer/songwriter has assembled a collection of covers to serve as his next album. Due Sept. 21 via Okeh/Epic, “Peace … Back By Popular Demand” boasts songs made famous by the likes of Bob Dylan, Donny Hathaway, the Youngbloods and Elvis Costello.

“I wanted to this record to be meaningful and relevant to what I was feeling in our own time,” the artist says. “It started out as a collection of protest songs — but it ended up as an album about peace and freedom.”

Recorded in Los Angeles in just a month’s time, the self-produced set opens with a version of Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” and closes with a rendition of John Lennon’s “Imagine.”

Along the way, the artist, whose given name is Kevin Moore, revisits such classics as Costello’s “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace Love and Understanding,” Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Happening, Brother,” Hathaway’s “Someday We’ll All Be Free,” and the Rascals’ “People Got To Be Free.” Tucked amidst the covers is one original, “Talk.”

Keb’ Mo’ plays a host of stringed instruments on the album, including electric and acoustic guitars, dobro and mandolin. Two members of his band, keyboardist Jeff Paris and bassist Reggie McBride, joined him in the studio.

Rounding out the studio team is a collection of storied session players: drummers Stephen Ferrone (Average White Band, Eric Clapton) and Harvey Mason (Herbie Hancock, George Benson), percussionist Paulinho Da Costa (Earth Wind & Fire, Dizzy Gillespie) and guitarist Paul Jackson Jr. (Temptations, Aretha Franklin).

Here is the “Peace… Back By Popular Demand” track list:

“For What It’s Worth”
“Wake Up Everybody”
“People Got to Be Free”
“Talk”
“What’s Happening, Brother”
“The Times They Are A-Changing”
“Get Together”
“Someday We’ll All Be Free”
“(What’s So Funny About) Peace, Love, and Understanding”
“Imagine”
Source billboard.com.

What’s bad for concert promoters may be good for consumers. In a last-ditch attempt to fill seats in a lackluster summer-concert season, venues around the U.S. slashed ticket prices to as little as ten dollars — for superstar acts including Korn, Linkin Park and Snoop Dogg, the Dead, the Cure, Ozzfest and John Mayer. The price cuts were in response to a dismal summer, promoters say, with Lollapalooza, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Marc Anthony canceling tours, Norah Jones downsizing from amphitheaters to smaller venues and even major artists such as Eric Clapton and Jessica Simpson struggling to move tickets.

For one day in mid-July, concert promoter Clear Channel Entertainment dropped prices at Northern California venues to twenty dollars, including parking and fees. The company also put lawn seats at Nashville and San Antonio events on sale for ten dollars. And a ten-dollar food-and-beverage voucher was included for each twenty-five-dollar Van Halen lawn seat in select cities. Promoter House of Blues put twenty-dollar lawn seats on sale for eighty shows in seventeen venues.

“It is a stimulus,” says Alex Hodges, executive vice president of House of Blues Concerts. “If a show has been on sale for five months, you do a discount to give it a renewed sense of urgency.”

Until now, ticket prices have risen steadily for years; this year’s Top Fifty tours, according to concert-industry bible Pollstar, cost an average of $58.71, or thirteen percent higher than 2003’s $51.81. And while revenues for those tours were up eleven percent in June 2004 compared to midyear 2003, ticket sales dipped two percent.

Several promoters, including Dave Marsden of Clear Channel in Boston, have acknowledged that ticket prices are too high. But there are exceptions — the Warped Tour, one of the summer’s few bright spots, charges less than thirty-five dollars. And the Dave Matthews Band keeps prices in the forty-to-sixty-dollar range. “Our ticket prices have always been fair,” says Coran Capshaw, the band’s manager. “We’re not getting involved in any discount programs. I don’t think it’s time to hit the panic button.”

Source rollingstone.com.