August 2004

In a recent partnership with jazz insurgents Soulive, independent labels Pirate Entertainment and DiscLive, a wholly owned subsidiary of Immediatek (OTCBB: ITEK) teamed up to continue their commitment to deliver live recordings to music fans in ways that have revolutionized the industry’s traditional retail model.

These days Soulive’s raw energy and high spirit rarely finds its way into a venue as small as Tribeca Rock Club. While frenzied fans lined up around the block beginning in the morning’s early hours, coming from as far as Italy to wait in the city’s concrete mid-summer heat, Pirate Entertainment’s and DiscLive’s production teams and engineers worked inside the venue, preparing to record every moment of the band’s live performance and, using state-of-the-art technology, to make the double CD sets available for sale just hours after each show.

Bootsy Collins and Bernie Worrell, Tortoise, Stereolab, Luke Vibert and Money Mark are among the artists contributing new songs to the “Moog” soundtrack, due Sept. 14 from Hollywood Records. The film of the same name chronicles the life of Moog synthesizer creator Bob Moog, revered as a pioneer in the evolution of electronic music.

“The musicians who play our instruments show us what our instruments are capable of,” Moog says. “This CD covers an amazing range of music — music of the sort that has done so much to shape our contemporary culture. To me, this CD is a tribute to all the musicians who have used Moog instruments to express their musical visions.”

The documentary was directed by Hans Fjellestad and shot in Asheville, N.C., London, New York, San Francisco, London and Tokyo. Among the artists appearing in the film include Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman, DJ Spooky and Mix Master Mike.

“Moog” will arrive Sept. 17 in a limited U.S. theatrical release. It is expected to hit DVD by Christmas via Plexifilm, which previously issued the Wilco documentary “I am Trying To Break Your Heart.”

Here is the “Moog” track list:

“Abomination,” 33
“Variation One,” Stereolab
“Bob’s Funk,” the Moog Cookbook
“Unavailable Memory,” Meat Beat Manifesto
“Beautiful Love,” Tortoise
“Nanobot Highway,” Money Mark
“I am a Spaceman,” Charlie Clouser
“You Moog Me,” Jean-Jacques Perrey and Luke Vibert
“Sqeeble,” Plastiq Phantom
“The Sentinel,” Psilonaut
“When Bernie Speaks,” Bernie Worrell and Bootsy Collins
“Realistic Source,” Bostich
“Endless Horizon (I Love Bob mix),” Electric Skychurch
“Micro Melodies,” the Album Leaf
“You Have Been Selected,” Pete DeVriese
“Mixed Waste 4.2,” Baiyon
“Another Year Away,” Roger O’Donnell

Source bilboard.com.

After Pearl Jam reassembles in early October for its first live shows in nearly a year, the Seattle rock outfit will get busy on its eighth studio album. “I think they’re planning on going back to the studio this winter,” manager Kelly Curtis tells Billboard.com. As for a possible release date, Curtis would only say, “When they’re done, they give it to us and we go.”

The group will play six shows in October as part of the Vote for Change tour, which Curtis helped organize with the managers of Bruce Springsteen, Dave Matthews, R.E.M. and the Dixie Chicks. The trek kicks off Oct. 1 in Pennsylvania and will proceed to eight additional presidential election battleground states.

“We were getting bombarded with requests to play around the election, and I thought I would seek out some advice,” he says of the tour’s genesis. “So I called [Sprinsgteen manager] Jon Landau to see how they were dealing with all the stuff coming in. The more we talked, the more we thought it would be a good idea to get a bunch of managers together and try to get educated.”

“What came out of there was five managers connecting and deciding that we should try to pull off some kind of swing-state tour. Then, it became a logistical nightmare,” he adds with a laugh. Curtis declined to comment on the possibility of additional acts being added to the tour or rumors of an Oct. 10 all-star finale show in Florida.

As for Pearl Jam’s specific concerts with Death Cab For Cutie, on-sale dates are still being finalized. Curtis doesn’t expect the shows to be made available as part of Pearl Jam’s ongoing authorized bootleg series, because “it might be a little shorter set from Pearl Jam [than usual], or a lot of collaboration. But then you’re dealing with other people’s record companies and it gets too complicated.”

Curtis hinted at additional Pearl Jam shows in 2004 but declined to reveal specifics. Asked if the band would unveil some new material at Vote for Change appearances, he said, “I’m sure that will be the case.”

Having left longtime label Epic last year, Pearl Jam crowned its free agent status with the July 27 release of “Live at Benaroya Hall” via its own Ten Club fan organization and a distribution deal with BMG. The set debuted last week at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Internet Album Sales tally and No. 18 on The Billboard 200 thanks to first-week sales of 52,000 copies.

“This was a perfect record to try something new with some different folks,” he says. “Luckily, we don’t have to decide [about potentially signing with a new label] right now. We want to do as much as we can ourselves, and for what we can’t do or don’t want to do, we’ll rely on someone else.”

Source billboard.com.

Though Widespread Panic startled fans late last year by announcing that they were planning to stay off the road in 2004, the band’s members haven’t exactly been idle. Bassist Dave Schools, keyboardist John Hermann and drummer Todd Nance are taking advantage of the band’s yearlong hiatus by releasing a trio of side projects.
Schools kicks off the flurry of Panic activity with the August 17th release of More Talk About Tonight, his second LP as Slang, an electronic-tinged collaborative project with producer Layng Martine. The follow-up to 2000’s The Bellwether Project features guest turns from Vic Chesnutt, DJ Logic, Lori Carson and Eric McFadden.

“The initial impetus for Slang was simply for Layng and me to have a free exchange of musical ideas,” Schools says. “It was a mutual admiration society between the two of us that evolved over time to include a lot of musicians that we wanted to work with. The new CD seems to be a more fully realized and mature work.”

Hermann re-teams with Luther and Cody Dickinson of the North Mississippi All-Stars — for the past eight years, the trio has played occasional shows as the Smiling Assassins — for his third album, Just Ain’t Right,, set for release September 14th. “[It’s] a great opportunity for me to get together with these amazing musicians and lay down all of the songs that have I written on my own over the years, songs that have been living in the closet,” says Hermann. “Whenever I have time off from the road and the others are free, we get together to work on songs and play a few gigs.”

Drummer Todd Nance will release Rhythm Oil in October — his third album with Barbara Cue, a collective of Southern pals that includes John Neff of Drive-By Truckers and that began as “basically a tribute show to NRBQ that just kept on going,” according to Nance.

In other Widespread Panic news, the group will release Jackassolantern on September 28th. The live album features tracks from Panic’s Halloween concerts and includes covers such as Black Sabbath’s “Sweet Leaf,” Nelly’s “Hot in Herre” and the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil.”

Source rollingstone.com.