2004

With a lineup already set for the ages, eight more acts were added today to the Bonnaroo Music Festival performers list. Ween, The Jazz Mandolin Project (f. Jon Fishman), Jo Jo and his Mojo Mardi Gras Band, Guster, Patti Smith, The Radiators, The Hackensaw Boys and New Monsoon round out the latest additions, with more acts expected to be added soon.

Tickets still remain for the Tennesee festival set for June 11-13th. See Bonnaroo.com for more info.

Two members of the band Ozomatli and their manager were arrested early on March 18th after a performance spilled out onto the street during a show at the South By Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas.

Near the end of its performance at the Exodus nightclub, the Los Angeles band left the stage and marched through the crowd while beating drums and playing horns. Members of the audience followed behind the musicians, as is common practice at the band’s shows, and the group moved out onto the street.

Once outside, police directed the group to return to the club. A scuffle ensued, witnesses told the Austin American-Statesman, which reported the incident in its online edition. Percussionist Jiro Yamaguchi, bassist Willy Abers and band manager Amy Sue Blackman-Romero were arrested.

Witnesses said police used pepper spray to disperse the crowd.

Blackman-Romero was charged with a city ordinance violation and interference with the duties of a public servant, jail records show. Abers, 30, of Los Angeles, was charged with failure to obey the order of a police officer. Yamaguchi, 36, also of Los Angeles, was charged with assault on a public servant.

The three were taken to the Travis County Jail. A jail spokesperson said that Blackman-Romero and Abers were not in custody last night, but that Yamaguchi remained jailed on $5,000 bond.

“Ozomatli has always been about bringing people together,” the band said in a statement released late this afternoon. “We cannot comment on the specifics of the unfortunate incident… except to say that it will not deter us from our mission to bring joy to our fans through the power of music. We will not be canceling any performances … or altering the way in which we connect with our audience. We have performed all over the world and look forward to continuing to unite people through the universal language of music.”

Ozomatli won the 2001 Grammy award for best Latin rock/alternative album for its Interscope set, “Embrace the Chaos.”

Source billboard.com.

John “J.J.” Jackson, who in the 1980s helped usher in the music video era as one of the first MTV on-air personalities died of an apparent heart attack Wednesday. He was 62.

Jackson, a longtime radio station disc jockey, died while driving home from dinner in Los Angeles, friends and colleagues said.

In a statement, MTV said Jackson’s love of music and good humor helped set the tone for the cable music network in its formative years. “He was a big part of the channel’s success and we are sure he is in the music section of heaven, with lots of his friends and heroes,” the network said. “He will be greatly missed.”

Source billboard.com.

House of Blues Concerts launches the 2004 Gorge Concert Series on Saturday, May 29th (Memorial Day Weekend) with the SASQUATCH! Music Festival. The Sasquatch! Festival, now in its third year, presents an eclectic mix of college and critical favorites on two stages featuring everything from Indie Rock and Hip Hop to Singer-Songwriters and circus performers.

Featured artists include: The Roots, The Postal Service, The Shins, Built To Spill, Sleater-Kinney, The New Pornographers, Cat Power, The Long Winters, The Black Keys, Gary Jules, The Decemberists, Preston School Of Industry, Nellie McKay and DJ Cherry Canoe.

Tickets go on sale Saturday, March 20 at noon. For more info visit: hob.com/sasquatch.

Cake is curently recording in its home studio in Sacramento without any outside production help. Lead singer John McCrea says the experience has offered the band more opportunities to experiment with new sounds and not feel pressured to create. “This time we’re actually rolling up our sleeves and doing everything,” McCrea says. “Practically speaking it means that we can go into the studio whenever we feel like it and work, so I think it’s actually a really great unencumbered feeling after all these years of having to book studio time.”

McCrea says that having its own studio has also allowed the band to work more cohesively. “I think the band is becoming more of a band and less of a songwriter with some musicians,” he says. “It’s more a band of musicians that are all really creative and part of the process.”

Earlier this year, Cake took a few breaks from the still-untitled record to perform a few of the eleven new tracks at secret shows around northern California. “People are singing along to certain songs without ever really having heard them before,” McCrea says. “There’s a particularly sort of chorus-worthy song called ‘No Phone’ and people are signing along to that and throwing their cell phones onto the stage.

Other new songs include “Wheels” and “Take It All Away.” Fans can expect Cake’s trademark wit and its eclectic sound on the album which McCrea says is “more connected to traditional songwriting.” “I think this album has nothing to do with the last couple years of music,” he adds. “We’ve always existed outside of larger trends. We’ve never had the luxury of being involved in that.”

Source rollingstone.com.

Audioslave are in Los Angeles working on the follow-up to their 2002, self-titled debut. The hard rock supergroup — former Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell, and Rage Against the Machine vets, guitarist Tom Morello, bassist Tim Commerford and drummer Brad Wilk — began writing new material after last summer’s Lollapalooza tour, but the band is now buckling down in rehearsals and writing “a song a day,” according to guitarist Tom Morello.

Morello says Audioslave have nineteen tracks in the works, but they will continue to compose new material. “The modus operandi is we write ’til the well runs dry and then go in and record,” he says. “You never know . . . the twenty-sixth song might be [Audioslave’s first single] ‘Cochise.'”

Morello is already enthusiastic about the new output. “There’s a breadth and a depth to the music that makes it inspiring to show up at rehearsal every day,” he says. “There’s ferocious, ripping, riff rock & roll and there’s some stuff that sounds like Audioslave meets [U2’s] Joshua Tree. It’s pretty diverse and beautiful. Chris is singing great, Timmy and Brad sound awesome — it’s good times.”

Morello won’t commit to a release date, but he says to ensure quality, the band is in no great hurry. “What we’re gonna do,” he says, “is make sure that this is the greatest record that we could possibly make.”

Source rollingstone.com.

The family that plays together stays together. Texas trio Los Lonely Boys, composed of brothers Henry, Jojo and Ringo Garza, have been gigging steadily since the release of their first album last summer. Their mix of rootsy rock

Public Enemy frontman Chuck D will co-host a daily show on Air America Radio, a new liberal talk radio network set to launch March 31. The outspoken rapper will join Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” co-creator Lizz Winstead and radio talk veteran Laura Flanders on “Unfiltered,” which will air 9 a.m.-noon ET daily Monday through Friday.

Initially, the Progress Media-owned franchise will be heard on WLIB-AM (1190) New York, WNTD-AM (950) Chicago, KBLA-AM (1580) Los Angeles, and via an as-of-yet unnamed station in San Francisco. The network’s programming will also be heard streaming live on the Web Airamericaradio.com. In addition, Air America Radio is in negotiations with satellite television and radio providers to carry its programming nationally.

A number of high-profile comedians will be heard on the network’s airwaves. Al Franken will host the three-hour “The O’Franken Factor” daily at noon with co-host Katherine Lanpher, which promises “fearless barbs, sketches and interviews.” Janeane Garofalo and political humorist Sam Seder will co-host “The Majority Report” a nightly four-hour block beginning at 8 p.m. and Marc Maron will participate in the morning show “Uprising” (6-9 a.m.) with co-hosts Sue Ellicott and Mark Riley.

Air America’s afternoons will boast “The Randi Rhodes Show” (3-7 p.m.) and will be followed by the one-hour “So What Else Is News?” anchored by Marty Kaplan. Weekends will feature “Champions of Justice,” hosted by environmental activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mike Papatanio, along with yet to be announced original programming and “best of” segments culled from the daily shows.

In other news, Chuck D is also due to take part in the National Hip-Hop Political Convention along with Hip-Hop Summit Action Network co-founder Russell Simmons June 16-19 at Rutgers University in Newark, N.J. The three-day conference will include dialogue between hip-hop and civil-rights leaders, panel discussions on economic empowerment, criminal justice, education and healthcare; and artist performances.

As previously reported, the Public Enemy frontman is also backing a venture to create a new cable music channel devoted to hip-hop.

Source billboard.com.