October 21, 2004

In the early stages of a month-long fall tour supporting its new release, Gov’t Mule has also just announced a two-night New Year’s Eve bash (December 30-31) at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. The first night features special opening guest James “Blood” Ulmer, while the second night is all Gov’t Mule

Air, TV On The Radio, Dizzee Rascal and Nellie McKay are confirmed to perform at the 2004 Shortlist Prize awards ceremony, to be held Nov. 15 at Los Angeles’ Avalon Theatre. The acts are among the 10 finalists for the prize, which also include Franz Ferdinand, the Killers, Ghostface Killah, Loretta Lynn, the Streets and Wilco.

In addition, Razor & Tie will on Nov. 2 release “MTV2 Presents: Shortlist 2004 Nominees,” a compilation featuring all 10 finalists plus cuts from Secret Machines, Ryan Adams, Cafe Tacuba, Muse and Jem, who were nominated in the prize’s Long List.

MTV2 will broadcast a special based on the event on Nov. 20. XM Satellite Radio will carry the awards live.

The Shortlist honors critically acclaimed albums that have not yet been certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America for U.S. shipments of 500,000 copies. Nominees and winners are chosen by a panel of Listmakers which this year includes Norah Jones, John Mayer, Jack Black and Jim Jarmusch.

Source billboard.com.

Alison Krauss and Union Station will strike while the iron is still hot with the Nov. 23 release of their next Rounder album, “Lonely Runs Both Ways.” Krauss has reached a new peak in visibility this year, performing at the Grammys and the Oscars and garnering five nominations for the upcoming Country Music Association awards, at which she will also perform with Brad Paisley.

The new 15-track set finds Krauss and guitarist/vocalist Dan Tyminski, dobro player Jerry Douglas, banjo/guitarist/vocalist Ron Block and bassist/vocalist Barry Bales tackling such songs as Del McCoury’s “Rain Please Go Away,” Woodie Guthrie’s “Pastures of Plenty” and Gillian Welch and David Rawlings’ “Wouldn’t Be So Bad.”

Krauss co-wrote “This Sad Song” with Alison Brown, while Block turns in “I Don’t Have To Live This Way” and album closer “A Living Prayer.” The set is rounded out by four tunes penned by Robert Lee Castleman, including opener “Gravity” and first single “Restless.”

“Lonely Runs Both Ways” follows 2002’s “Live,” which debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Bluegrass Albums chart, and the 2001 studio set “New Favorite,” which hit No. 2 on the same tally.

Although a run of December tour dates is not yet confirmed, Krauss and Union Station will perform during release week on NBC’s “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” and the following month on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Here is the track list for “Lonely Runs Both Ways”:

“Gravity”
“Restless”
“Rain Please Go Away”
“Goodbye Is All We Have”
“Unionhouse Branch”
“Wouldn’t Be So Bad”
“Pastures of Plenty”
“Crazy As Me”
“Borderline”
“Poor Old Heart”
“This Sad Song”
“Doesn’t Have To Be This Way”
“I Don’t Have To Live this Way”
“If I Didn’t Know Any Better”
“A Living Prayer”

Source billboard.com.

U.K. rock act Snow Patrol will cap a breakthrough year with the concert DVD “Live 2004: Mums and Dads of the World Be Patient With Your Children.” Due Nov. 23 via Interscope, the 15-track release chronicles a sold-out August show at London’s Somerset House, featuring the smash U.K. singles “Run” and “Chocolate” plus such obscurities as the B-side “Post Punk Progression.”

The package also includes videos for “Run,” “Chocolate,” “Spitting Games” and “How To Be Dead,” as well as band-shot behind-the-scenes footage from its tours of North America, Japan and Ireland.

Snow Patrol crashed into the mainstream this year on the strength of its third album, “Final Straw,” which hit No. 1 on the Oct. 16 edition of Billboard’s Heatseekers chart after 27 weeks and has sold 158,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. In the U.K., the set has been certified double platinum for shipments of 600,000 units.

Also on Nov. 23, “Final Straw” will be reissued in DualDisc format, featuring the regular album on one side and a DVD side boasting three videos, a performance and interview on “Sessions@AOL,” a Surround Sound audio mix and a photo gallery.

As previously reported, the band has approximately 10 new songs written in advance of hitting the studio in February to record its next release. Beforehand, Snow Patrol will embark on an already-sold out U.K. tour, beginning Nov. 22 in Belfast. Frontman Gary Lightbody recently told Billboard.com the group would return to North America to play a handful of radio station-sponsored holiday shows, but none have yet been confirmed.

“It’s a wonderful, blessed life that people in bands lead,” Lightbody said. “We had nine lean years, I suppose, but bands that actually sell records are in a privileged position to sit back and listen to other peoples’ records. When your job is your hobby, it’s amazing.”

Source billboard.com.

Former Squeeze mainstays Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook will reunite for a live acoustic performance Nov. 18 in London. The free show at Borders Books and Music store in Charing Cross Road, London, dovetails with the Nov. 15 U.K. publication of Jim Drury’s “Squeeze: Song by Song,” the first fully authorized story of the long-running English group, of which Difford and Tilbrook were founding members and principal songwriters.

The Borders event will be followed by a Q&A session with both performers. Drury is also the author of “Ian Dury and the Blockheads: Song by Song” and co-author of “The Stranglers: Song by Song” with that band’s Hugh Cornwell.

Tilbrook’s recent second solo album, “Transatlantic Ping Pong,” released on his own Quixotic label in the United Kingdom and on Quixotic via Compass in North America, featured a track co-written with Difford, “Where I Can Be Your Friend.” The song was the first collaboration by the duo, who first met in 1973, since Difford left Squeeze, prompting the band’s demise in the late 1990s.

“We avoided each other for a few years,” Tilbrook told this writer in August about his recent rapprochement with Difford, “and I think we probably needed to do that. Now we’re at a stage where we can work together. What we want from our lives is quite different now, and that’s hard to reconcile, but there’s no need to reconcile it — we can work on the good bits.”

“‘Where I Can Be Your Friend’ is a really sweet lyric addressed, I think, to me — a sort of apology from Chris about the way the band ended up,” he continued. “I didn’t fully appreciate some of the things he was going through at the time. So it was a really sweet thing for him to write. I do love him. Even though sometimes I’d like to punch him.”

Source billboard.com.

According to a news posting on the Ween site, “Due to personal reasons we have decided to postpone the upcoming shows. We are extremely sorry to those of you who purchased tickets and made travel plans, but we will be back and much better for it next year. We fully intend on making up the dates in the same cities and same clubs at a later time when our chi is better aligned or something. Again we are very sorry about this, but it’s necessary right now. Thanks for understanding.”

For more info see chocodog.com