August 20, 2004

U2 To Drop New Album In November

U2’s as-yet-untitled new studio album will be released Nov. 22 internationally and a day later in North America via Interscope. First single “Vertigo” will hit radio in late September, to be followed by a video. A commercial single is tentatively due for a Nov. 8 international release.

A spokesperson for the band’s U.K.-based Principle Management says the information is “broadly correct” but would not confirm specific details.

Even though a disc featuring album tracks was reported stolen during a photo shoot last month in France, few details have emerged about the set. Among the song titles mentioned in recent comments by band members are “Tough” and “Full Metal Jacket.”

Author/band friend Neil McCormick recently told Ireland’s Hot Press magazine that the album featured “an interesting title, an interesting philosophical idea as a title, and quite a difficult title.”

As first reported here in February, production was handled by Steve Lillywhite, who has worked on such past U2 albums as “The Joshua Tree” and “Achtung Baby.”

The upcoming release will be the follow-up to 2000’s “All That You Can’t Leave Behind,” which has sold more than 4 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. A world tour is expected to launch early next year.

Preceding the album will be the photo book “U2 Show: The Art of Touring,” due Oct. 21 via Riverhead Books. More than 400 rare photographs and illustrations appear in the volume, which chronicles the band’s live performance history.

Source billboard.com.

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New Grateful Dead Box Set Due, Along With More Live Garcia

The bounty of vintage Grateful Dead and posthumous Jerry Garcia releases will continue to overflow this fall. In September, Rhino will release a three-disc live Garcia set and follow it in October with a 12-disc box culling the Dead’s post-Warner Bros. studio albums, rarities and live cuts.

Due Sept. 28, “After Midnight” stems from a Garcia performance at Kean College in Union, N.J., captured on 24-track masters. The nearly three-hour show featured 16 songs, including Bob Dylan’s “Simple Twist Of Fate” and “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” Jimmy Cliff’s “The Harder They Come” and the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby.”

Dead lyricist and frequent Garcia collaborator Robert Hunter was on hand to sing lead vocals on his songs “Tiger Rose” and “Promontory Rider.” Joining Garcia on stage was Ozzie Ahlers (keyboards/vocals), John Kahn (bass) and Johnny De Foncesca (bass).

As previously reported, Jerry Garcia Estate LLC discovered a treasure trove of Garcia tapes when the Dead reorganized its storied tape vault. Two-track concert recordings will emerge via the “Pure Jerry” series, which will be released exclusively online. Further multi-track recordings are expected to emerge via the estate’s relationship with Rhino.

“There’s over 500 live concerts in two-track, and then … several multi-track concerts that haven’t been mined yet,” Christopher Sabec, CEO of the Jerry Garcia Estate LLC recently told Billboard.com. “It’s unbelievably impressive, the number of solo projects that he performed.”

On Oct. 26, Grateful Dead Productions/Rhino will release “Beyond Description (1973-1989),” which will boast remastered and repackaged version of the band’s Arista-era output on its own Grateful Dead Records label. In the vein of the Warner Bros. -era 2001 box “The Golden Road (1965-1973),” this sprawling set captures 161 songs, 65 of them previously unreleased.

The box will boast sonically improved versions of the studio albums “Wake of the Flood” (1973) “The Grateful Dead From the Mars Hotel” (1974), “Blues for Allah” (1975), “Terrapin Station” (1977), “Shakedown Street” (1978), “Go to Heaven” (1980), “In the Dark” (1987) and “Built to Last” (1989). Each title has been expanded to include outtakes, live tracks, alternate versions and rehearsal peroformances.

Additionally, the 1981 live albums “Reckoning” and “Dead Set” have been expanded to two-disc sets that include further material from the original concert dates. The first, from San Francisco’s Warfield Theatre, adds 16 songs, including “Cassidy,” “Ripple” and “Heaven Help the Fool” from the concert, and a studio rehearsal version of “To Lay Me Down.”

“Dead Set” has been expanded with a nine-track bonus disc featuring previously unreleased versions of such Dead staples as “Sugaree,” “Not Fade Away,” “Jack Straw” and “Shakedown Street.”

“Beyond Description” was co-produced by Dead archivist David Lemieux and Rhino’s James Austin. Joe Gastwirt remastered each disc in the set utilizing HDCD technology; he had previously remastered the titles for their initial CD release.

The set will also include a book with essays by Rolling Stone music critic David Fricke, “Grateful Dead Hour” host David Gans and author Blair Jackson. Lemieux and Dead biographer/spokesperson Dennis McNally (“A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead”) contribute liner notes.

Source billboard.com.

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Del McCoury Leads Bluegrass Award Nominations

The Del McCoury Band tops the list of nominees for the 15th annual International Bluegrass Music Awards, set for Oct. 7 at the Kentucky Center in Louisville, Ky. The awards show, hosted by Alison Krauss and Dan Tyminski, is the centerpiece of the International Bluegrass Music Association’s (IBMA) annual World of Bluegrass Trade Show and Fan Fest, which runs Oct. 4-10.

The Del McCoury Band, eight-time winners of the award for entertainer of the year, have 12 nominations this year, including entertainer, vocal group, instrumental group and album of the year for “It’s Just the Night.” McCoury earned an individual nod in the male vocalist category, and other band members received individual nominations on their respective instruments: Rob McCoury, banjo; Mike Bub, bass; Jason Carter, fiddle; and Ronnie McCoury, mandolin.

Krauss & Union Station earned nine nominations, including entertainer of the year, instrumental group, vocal group and female vocalist of the year for Krauss. Blue Highway earned seven nominations. Other multiple nominees include Rhonda Vincent & the Rage, Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder, Mountain Heart and Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver.

This year’s Hall of Honor inductees are Curly Seckler and Bill Vernon. Distinguished Achievement Awards will be presented to Moses “Mo” Asch, Kirk & Becky Brandenberger, Tom T. & Dixie Hall, Jimmie Skinner and Art Stamper.

The winners are voted on by the professional membership of the IBMA. This year marks the last year in Louisville before the IBMA’s World of Bluegrass event moves to Nashville in 2005. The awards will be broadcast to more than 300 U.S. markets and 14 foreign networks.

Source billboard.com.

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