2004

Burning Spear and Sean Paul head up a genre-spanning roster for the 23rd annual Bob Marley Day Festival, set for February 14 and 15. The event will take place at the Long Beach Arena in Southern California, and features an international crafts and food fair, along with ten hours of music each day.
In addition to elder statesman Burning Spear, the Saturday lineup includes Beres Hammond, Wayne Wonder, Julian Marley, Hepcat, Arrested Development, T.O.K., Baby Cham, Soul Majestic featuring Rastan, and Mr. Mutton.
On Sunday, hip-hop/dancehall crossover sensation Sean Paul will have help from Elephant Man, Luciano, Sly & Robbie with the Taxi Connection, Big Youth, Edi Fitzroy, Little John, Peter Metro, Carlton Livingston and more. Tickets for the event are on sale now through Ticketmaster and select Southern California record stores and restaurants. See bobmarleydayfesitval.com for more details.

Public Enemy will release two albums this year. Due in early summer, How Do You Sell Souls to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Souls? is a classic-soul-minded album, while the fall-targeted New Whirl Odor is an “eclectic, typical Public Enemy record,” according to frontman Chuck D.
“They’re two totally different albums,” he continues. “But they come together like a nice double set. I can’t write a record without at least mentioning what’s going on. I delve real deep on the second album, and dig deep into the music on the first one.”
The albums and his current lecture tour titled “Rap, Race, Reality and Technology” will all touch on the current events and issues endemic to an election year. “I think this is a year that art can actually speak,” D says. “But I don’t see enough of it being done. I don’t see enough attention given to rap groups that might do it, like the Coup and Dead Prez. The industry is presenting rappers as one-dimensional, and that doesn’t hold as much water in 2004.”
Source Rollingstone.com.

U.K. rock act the Beta Band will return later this spring with its third album, “Heroes to Zeroes.” Due May 4 via Astralwerks, the 12-track set was self-produced by the group and mixed by Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Beck). “The first single is ‘Assesment’ and the video is going to be the history of human warfare,” vocalist Steve Mason wrote on the band’s official Web site.
In November, Mason said, “all four of us are also working on a DVD to come out around the time of the LP. 12 films, three each, to go with 12 tracks. Some of these tracks may not be from the LP but will be new.” At deadline, it is unclear if the DVD is still being targeted for release in conjunction with the new album. “Heroes to Zeroes” is the follow-up to 2001’s “Hot Shots II.”
Source billboard.com.
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Phish will play three shows at the Thomas and Mack Arena in Las Vegas on April 15, 16 and 17. These dates will be Phish’s only shows before the summer.
A limited number of tickets for all three shows are available directly through PHISH TICKET’s secure online ticketing system at http://phishtickets.rlc.net for a six-day ordering period beginning Friday, February 13, at 12:01 PM EST and ending Wednesday, February 18, at 11:59 AM EST. Tickets go on sale to the public March 6 at 10 am. Full tour information can be found on the Phish web site at http://phish.com/tourdates

Trey Anastasio appears on two tracks of the upcoming Toots and the Maytals album “True Love”. In addition to Anastasio, the album features many special guests, including Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt, Ben Harper, No Doubt, and The Roots. Trey appears on the Toots classic “Sweet and Dandy” and drops a guitar solo into “Still is Still Moving to Me”, a duet with Toots and Willie Nelson. The album appears in stores on April 6.

The ALL GOOD Summer Festival and Campout, traditionally held the weekend before Memorial Day, will celebrate its ninth annual edition Friday, July 9 through Sunday, July 11 at Marvin

Death Cab for Cutie and Ben Kweller are headlining a spring North American tour. The month and a half-long outing kicks off March 24 at Omaha, Neb.’s Sokol Underground. Clubs and theatres across the nation will play host to the two young indie pop acts, with Philadelphia, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco and Seattle all getting double doses. The co-bill runs through May 8, after which Kweller will continue with a string of West Coast dates. Death Cab for Cutie is warming up with a sizable European tour, set to begin February 7 in Oxford, U.K. They’ll hit at least 10 countries on the monthlong jaunt.
Source pollstar.com.

Saxophonist Cornelius Bumpus, a former member of the Doobie Brothers who has performed with Steely Dan since 1993, died yesterday (Feb. 4) en route to a series of performances in California. He was 58. Bumpus had a heart attack on a commercial flight from New York, said his friend, Rod Harris, an organizer of the Columbia College Jazz Concert Series, where Bumpus was to perform this week.
Bumpus’ wife, Linda, told Harris that her husband was dead when the plane made an emergency landing. “Cornelius was a man of great modesty and simplicity,” she writes on her husband’s official Web site, she says. “His life was music, family, and church. He never liked giving talks or speeches. He always felt more articulate with a horn in his mouth.”
On its site, Steely Dan expressed its “profound sorrow and sympathy to Cornelius’ wife and family.”
Bumpus began his career at age 10, playing alto saxophone in the school band in Santa Cruz, Calif. In 1966, he spent six months performing with Bobby Freeman, and joined Moby Grape in 1977, writing one tune for the “Live Grape” album. Bumpus also recorded two solo albums and toured with his own band.
Since performing with the Doobie Brothers in the early 1980s, Bumpus played with a number of bands, most recently with Steely Dan, which won the album of the year Grammy award for its 2000 release, “Two Against Nature.”
His relations with his former Doobie Brothers bandmates turned contentious in the late 1990s, when they sued him and several other musicians over their use of the band’s name. A federal judge in 1999 ruled against Bumpus and the other musicians, ordering them not to use the name.
Source billboard.com.

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Former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne’s new album, “Grown Backwards,” will also be his debut for Nonesuch Records. Due March 16, the set includes a duet with Rufus Wainwright on “Au found du Temple Saint” from Georges Bizet’s opera “The Pearl Fishers,” plus a collaboration with the Carla Bley Band on “Empire.”
“Grown Backwards” is Byrne’s first studio album since 2001’s “Look Into the Eyeball,” which was issued by Virgin. Last year, Byrne collaborated with members of Mogwai and Belle & Sebastian for “Lead Us Not Into Temptation” (Thrill Jockey), a soundtrack to the film “Young Adam.”
As previously reported, Byrne will join Ray Davies, Bright Eyes, Yo La Tengo, Keb’ Mo’, Nawang Khechog and artistic director Philip Glass at the 14th annual Tibet House benefit concert on Feb. 25 at New York’s Carnegie Hall.
On March 22 in Milan, he will begin an extensive spring European tour. A run of April U.K. dates will feature fellow Luaka Bop artist Jim White.
Source billboard.com.