August 2004

Weezer is more than a month into recording sessions for its long-gestating fifth studio album. After a 10-day break, the band will resume work on the set in hopes of finishing it in time for frontman Rivers Cuomo to start the fall semester at Harvard, which he last attended in 1997.

In yet another new development, producer Rick Rubin, who Cuomo credited with helping him turn a corner in his personal and professional life, has bowed out of the day-to-day work process, according to Weezer’s official Web site. Work behind the boards is being handled by engineer Chad Bramford, who has worked with the band for the past several years in various capacities.

“The sessions with Rick started back in [December 2003] have been shelved in favor of the fresh start that commenced three weeks ago in the current sessions,” the site says. “This was done mainly in response to Rivers regaining his sense of momentum with his songwriting, and not feeling right about continuing with the incomplete recordings from December. In effect, the band is now producing itself, as it did on [the prior albums] ‘Pinkerton’ and ‘Maladroit,’ but this time they have a wise shoulder to lean on if and when need be. So far, it’s working out pretty excellently.”

The site stresses the 12 “songs being recorded now are not ‘brand new,’ they have been worked up since early this year as demos, over the entire spring time, by Rivers. In some cases, they were developed from songs being worked on in ’03, but underwent such changes as to now be totally distinct from their origins. Basically, these 12 songs are ‘new’, but ‘new’ means early and spring 2004 (not last week or whatever). Also, there is the possibility of trying some additional songs if there is time, and such material could be ’04 or ’03 stuff.”

The as-yet-untitled set will be released by the end of the year or early 2005 via Geffen. It will be the follow-up to 2002’s “Maladroit,” which debuted at No. 3 on The Billboard 200.

Source: billboard.com

Kevin Smith is making another convenience store run.

The writer-director of “Dogma,” “Chasing Amy” and “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” told the Associated Press on Friday that he has begun work on a sequel to “Clerks,” his homemade indie classic from 1994.

That $27,000 movie, shot at night in a store where Smith worked, chronicled the adventures of Dante and Randal, two guys who talk about life, death, sex and movies while working at neighboring stores.

The sequel picks up 10 years later.

“It’s about what happens when that lazy, 20-something malaise lasts into your 30s. Those dudes are kind of still mired, not in that same exact situation, but in a place where it’s time to actually grow up and do something more than just sit around and dissect pop culture and talk about sex,” Smith said during an interview at his Hollywood office. “It’s: What happened to these dudes?”

A new 10th anniversary DVD of “Clerks” debuts September 7, and Smith said working on that three-disc set inspired him to write about what became of those characters.

The sequel — titled “The Passion of the Clerks” — is set to begin shooting in January. Miramax Films, which turned the original into a cult-hit after buying it at the Sundance Film Festival, plans to distribute the follow-up.

“It’s funny, it’s very raw, insanely foul-mouthed. In many ways it’s the antithesis of ‘Jersey Girl,”‘ Smith said, referring to his recent PG-13 comedy with Ben Affleck as the widowed father of a little girl.

Smith is also writing the screenplay for a movie version of “The Green Hornet,” but no longer thinks he will direct it. The “Clerks” movie has moved to the top of his to-do list.

He said he called Jeff Anderson, who played the combative video-store worker Randal, and Brian O’Halloran, who was the besieged-by-strangeness convenience store employee Dante, to run the idea by them first.

“Jeff was actually very protective of ‘Clerks,”‘ Smith said. “Jeff was like, ‘Are you sure you want to do this? That movie means a lot to people and do you want to go back?’ I thought about it honestly, and it would seem chicken to not give it a shot just because I’m afraid of (messing) with the first film.”

So far, he said he has gotten only positive responses from the people who have read the script, so he decided to move forward with it. Both O’Halloran and Anderson are signed on, and Jason Mewes, will return as stoner Jay, the “hetero life-mate” of Smith’s stoic Silent Bob.

“I’m sure there will be naysayers who say, ‘Oh my God, it’s an opportunistic grab at a buck,’ but it’s not. We’re doing it for nothing,” Smith said. “We’re going to do it insanely inexpensively. The budget will be somewhere between 250 grand and $5 million.”

The original was shot pre-dawn, and most of the actors worked for free and then went straight to their day-jobs with little or no sleep.

“This time around we’ll afford ourselves the luxury of nice 12-hour days,” Smith said. “And people can get paid.”

Source CNN.com.

Back in June, Aimee Mann played a three-night stand in Brooklyn. On November 2nd, she’ll release the fruits of those performances in the form of the Live at St. Ann’s Warehouse CD and DVD.

“There was a big crane and people bustling around wearing headsets,” Mann says of the filming, “and suddenly I felt like, ‘Oh, this had better be good.’ It was a ninety-degree New York night and the venue didn’t have any air conditioning. There were definitely some long periods where my manager would come up and say, ‘Your face is shiny. We need to powder you.’ And I’d have the indignity of having powder applied to my face in front of people.”

The DVD features interviews and behind-the-scenes footage, as well as performances of two new songs, “Going Through the Motions” and “King of the Jailhouse.” The CD set is abbreviated but also spans Mann’s solo career.

“I try to pick songs that I think people might possibly know, like a couple songs from the Magnolia soundtrack, any song that was released as a single or I played on David Letterman,” Mann says. “It’s hard to put a greatest hits together when you don’t have any hits — you have to aim in a different direction. But there’s songs I know that people request or sometimes there’s songs I feel like playing. My catalog is heavily skewed with super-slow ballads, so there’s a lot of those that made the cut.”

Mann is winding up her summer tour. She finishes Sunday in San Juan Capistrano, California.

Aimee Mann tour dates:

8/27: Petaluma, CA, McNear’s Mystic Theater
8/28: Ventura, CA, Ventura Theater
8/29: San Juan Capistrano, CA, Coach House

Live at St. Ann’s Warehouse CD track listing:

The Moth
Sugar Coated
Driving Sideways
Amateur
Wise Up
Save Me
Stupid Things
Pavlov’s Bell
Long Shot
4th of July
Invisible Ink

Live at St. Ann’s Warehouse DVD track listing:

The Moth
Calling It Quits
Sugar Coated
Going Through the Motions
Humpty Dumpty
Amateur
Wise Up
Save Me
Stupid Thing
Pavlov’s Bell
Long Shot
4th of July
Red Vines
Invisible Ink
King of the Jailhouse
Deathly
Real Bad News

Source rollingstone.com.

Dave Matthews, Trey Anastasio and members of The Dead are telling their fans to “show up” on election day via a series of public service announcements produced by HeadCount, a not-for-profit nonpartisan group run entirely by volunteers.

The campaign, which includes three 30-second commercials as well as radio and Internet-based spots, will appear on TNT, TBS and other networks between now and election day. It can be viewed at www.headcount.org.

HeadCount is affiliated with nearly 30 national touring bands and has registered over 25,000 voters to date. It has a network of over 50 local voter registration teams, and also sent traveling teams on tour with Dave Matthews Band, The Dead and Phish this summer. Both Dave Matthews Band and The Dead made $15,000 contributions to HeadCount to help fund those efforts.

“Having Dave Matthews, Trey Anastasio and The Dead in television commercials and shooting them at Bonnaroo really captures what we’re trying to do as an organization,” said Andy Bernstein, HeadCount’s co-chair and the executive producer of the campaign. “We’re using the enormous power of music to get people to the polls in November.”

The public service announcements were developed by an in-house creative team, and produced in high-definition by Fossil Films in conjunction with Air Seal Land Productions. They were made possible by the generosity of Leo Hindery Jr., Steve Simon, Richard Simonds and Sirius Satellite Radio.