By making music out of a bit of everything, with the assistance of loops galore, TV On The Radio meld woozy break beats with cryptic energy that hits hard in the originality department.
Renee Lamoureux and Keith Macpherson, who make up the Canadian pop/rock duo Easily Amused, are passionate musicians. The two have performed nearly 400 shows over the past two years and have kept the bus rolling in 2004. For this, I salute them. For their latest record, Simple Stuff, I have many reservations.
Although all dates are subject to change, The Grateful Dead Almanac has published the summer tour dates for The Dead
When Wilco superfan Ronen Givony downloaded a copy of the band’s fifth album, A Ghost Is Born (not due for release until June 22nd), from the Internet two weeks ago, he felt simultaneously elated and indebted.
The Boston-based Web master of bemydemon.org — a Wilco lyric site that singer Jeff Tweedy has occasionally consulted backstage in moments of forgetfulness — the twenty-five-year-old Givony transcribed the new songs’ lyrics and sent them to Tweedy with an apology for having the album early, a promise to purchase it when it is commercially available and a solicitation for lyric corrections.
After Tweedy complied, Givony dreamed up a unique way of showing his gratitude: the just-launched justafan.org, a site set up specifically for fans who download copies of the new Wilco album and want to show their appreciation by making a donation to the band-selected charity Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres. In less than a day online, with nothing more than word-of-mouth publicity, donations exceeded $1,500.
“If you have a community or a fan base that is vocal and has real enthusiasm for the bands and music they love,” Givony says, “a project like this can really work.”
The fact that the album was in circulation so early surprised no one, including Wilco manager Tony Margherita.
“How do I feel about the record leaking on the Internet?” he says. “Well, that’s a little bit like asking me how I felt about the sun coming up today. It’s an inevitable thing and not something we ever perceive as a problem. We were — to be honest — surprised it took as long as it did [about ten days]. Basically, once the first batch of promotional CDs began circulating at record companies and in the media, we knew it was just a matter of days. It’s just something you plan for and assume at this point.”
Margherita’s matter-of-fact approach to the downloading issue stems in part from the success Wilco had after streaming their previous album, 2002’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, while it was in limbo during Wilco’s well-documented exit from Warner Bros. At last count the album had sold 440,000 copies in the U.S. alone, Wilco’s best-selling release to date.
“The band and I think this idea is great because it just underscores something we believe very strongly: that real music fans are prepared, even anxious, to prove their loyalty and support their favorite artists,” Margherita says. “They want to participate. These people are not the enemy . . . They’re the backbone of what we all do. Plus, we get to support a charity that we think is very important, and I’m certain that a vast majority of the people who are downloading the record are going to want the real thing when it comes out in June.”
Source rollingstone.com.
Tim O’Brien has spent most of his life on the road. Thankfully, when he sets his hand to writing about travel, the result is a wonderful montage that captures both giddy fun and personal costs the road extracts.
Every Thursday night in April, the Sit n’ Bull Pub in Maynard, MA (978-897-4663) (www.sitnbull.com) will feature a show to benefit the Mark Sandman Music Education Fund, which promotes innovative approaches to music education for children in Massachusetts. The fund was created to honor musician Mark Sandman of the band Morphine, who passed away on stage in July 1999. For the shows, 100% of the net profits go to the music programs of the Cambridge education system.
The schedule includes:
April 1st: Treat Her Right, The Coots & The Heygoods
April 8th: Club d’Elf, Bourbon Princess & Blasto
April 15th: Asa Brebner & Family Jewels
April 22nd: Dennis Brennen, One Thin Dime
April 29th: Jimmy Ryan, Twinemen & Orchestra Morphine
for more info see hi-n-dry.com.
The actors who provide the voices for the cartoon characters on the long-running TV show “The Simpsons” have stopped work in a bid to force a settlement of lengthy contract renewal talks, Daily Variety reported in its Thursday edition.
The Hollywood trade paper said the six actors have not shown up for two script readings in the past few weeks, holding up production on the hit satire’s upcoming 16th season.
It quoted insiders as saying each cast member is asking for about $360,000 an episode, or $8 million for a 22-episode season. Each member currently earns $125,000 an episode. The highest-paid star in TV is Ray Romano, who reportedly earns between $1.7 million and $2 million per episode of his Emmy-winning series “Everybody Loves Raymond.”
The three-year contracts for Dan Castellaneta (Homer), Hank Azaria (Moe, Apu, Comic Book Guy), Harry Shearer (Mr. Burns and others), Yeardley Smith (Lisa), Julie Kavner (Marge) and Nancy Cartwright (Bart) expired several months ago, and their representatives have been negotiating new ones to no avail, Daily Variety said.
The last “Simpsons” work dispute was in 1998, at a time when the actors were making $30,000 per episode. The show’s producer, Twentieth Century Fox TV, hired casting directors in five cities to replace most of them before both sides worked out a new deal and resumed production.
Source CNN.com.
Indie country-pop outfit My Morning Jacket has a new round of dates coming up. Beginning May 7 in San Diego, the band will traverse North America through late June. They plan to hit some European festivals this summer before returning to work on their next album.
California singer/songwriter M. Ward will be along for most North American shows, with Andrew Bird and Dr. Dog helping out on assorted dates.
Earlier this year, My Morning Jacket lost guitarist Johnny Quaid and keyboardist Danny Cash when the two decided that touring life didn’t suit them too well. The band has soldiered on, with new recruits Bo Koster (keyboards) and Carl Broemel (guitar) helping out on the road.
The increasingly high-profile group released their third full-length album, It Still Moves, on Dave Matthews’ ATO Records last September. During recording sessions in Shelbyville, Ky., they enlisted the help of the legendary Memphis Horns, who have lent their inimitable talents to recordings by Elvis Presley, Aretha Franklin, B.B. King, and virtually every Stax Records artist of the ’60s and ’70s.
Source pollstar.com.
Leave it up to a 19 year old from London, England to put out one of the very few albums in years to be true to the
Sonic Youth, My Morning Jacket, moe. and On The Speakers are among the bands confirmed to play the Great Bamboozle, to be held June 4-6 at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, N.J. Three-day and single-day tickets can be purchased from the event’s official Web site. Antigone Rising, Railroad Earth, Om Trio, De Sol and the Breakfast will also be on the bill.
From there, Sonic Youth heads Down Under for eight shows in Australia and New Zealand, beginning June 15 in Canberra and wrapping June 26 in Auckland. Dinosaur Jr. principal J Mascis will support.
Sonic Youth is touring in support of its 19th full-length, “Sonic Nurse,” due June 8 via Geffen. The 10-track set is three songs and nearly 15 minutes longer than its 2002 predecessor, “Murray Street,” but revels in a similarly less bombastic sound, with a noticeable classic rock shading. Highlights include the wistful “Unmade Bed,” the uptempo, melodically memorable “Dripping Dream,” the subtle political commentary of “Peace Attack” and the Kim Gordon-sung opener, “Pattern Recognition.”
As previously reported, Sonic Youth is confirmed to appear on this summer’s Lollapalooza tour alongside Morrissey, Modest Mouse, Flaming Lips, String Cheese Incident and the Polyphonic Spree. The group previously headlined the tour in 1995.
Source billboard.com.
