2004

Thievery Corporation will release their fourth album, The Cosmic Game, on February 22nd. Known for their sleek, world-music-influenced, down-tempo grooves, the electronic duo Rob Garza and Eric Hilton composed the follow-up to 2002’s The Richest Man in Babylon over the past year in their home studio in Washington, D.C.

Thievery’s main objective on The Cosmic Game was to explore their “rock and psychedelic influences,” and they got help from ex-Talking Heads frontman David Byrne (on “The Heart’s Lonely Hunter”), ex-Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Farrell (“Revolution Solution”) and current Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne (“Marching the Hate Machines [Into the Sun]”).

“Growing up, I was always into Jane’s Addiction,” Garza says. “Our tour manager was at a conference, and Perry Farrell kept mentioning Thievery Corporation during his speech, so we thought we’d give him a call. He is a really nice guy — super friendly and open to a lot of suggestions.”

“Marching the Hate Machines,” the album’s opener, was a long time in the making, as Thievery and Coyne first planned to do a track while at an Icelandic festival. “We were backstage all day sharing the same dressing room,” Coyne says. “I don’t know if they were on drugs or not, but they got in the [Lips’ trademark] animal costumes and we really bonded over that, because it is kind of like working out together: You’re up there sweating, and they’re in the suits and they’re all sweaty, and it’s loud and people are all having fun.” Due to the geographical expanses between the two camps — the Lips’ home base is Oklahoma — the collaboration happened over email.

Currently on a DJ tour of Europe, Garza says Thievery will use the holidays to plot a spring tour.

Source rollingstone.com.

Like a Rolling Stone,” Bob Dylan’s scornful, ironic ode to a spoiled woman’s reversal of fortune, has been designated the greatest rock’n’roll song of all time by Rolling Stone magazine.

The six-minute opening track from his landmark 1965 album “Highway 61 Revisited” broke the barrier of the three-minute hit single and established Dylan as a mainstream pop artist, marking his transformation from folk troubadour to rock sensation.

“No other pop song has so thoroughly challenged and transformed the commercial laws and artistic conventions of its time, for all time,” writes Rolling Stone senior editor David Fricke in an article accompanying the magazine’s list of the top 500 rock songs of all time.

The list, published in a special edition out tomorrow (Nov. 19), was compiled by a panel of recording artists, producers, label executives, critics and songwriters. Among them were singer Art Garfunkel, Motown Records founder Berry Gordy, heavy metal icon Ozzy Osbourne, vocalist Joni Mitchell and even Dylan’s son, Jakob, who fronts rock act the Wallflowers.

Ranked No. 2 on the magazine’s roster of greatest rock songs of all time is the Rolling Stones’ 1965 hit “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” followed by John Lennon’s utopian ballad “Imagine,” Marvin Gaye’s languid soul classic “What’s Going On” and Aretha Franklin’s empowerment anthem “Respect.”

Rounding out the top 10 are “Good Vibrations” from the Beach Boys, Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode,” the Beatles’ “Hey Jude,” Nirvana’s 1991 hit “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and Ray Charles’ seminal soul record “What’d I Say.”

The lion’s share of songs from the list hail from the 1960s, and only a handful were released after 1990. The most recent single to make the list is “Hey Ya!” (2003) from hip-hop duo OutKast at No. 180. Rapper Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” (2002) ranks No. 166.

The highest-charting song on the list from the king of rock’n’roll, Elvis Presley, is his 1956 hit “Hound Dog” at No. 19.

The Beatles, not surprisingly, notch the most songs on the list, with 22 entries. They are trailed by archrivals the Rolling Stones, who tally 13. A dozen of Dylan’s songs make the cut.

In a similar list published in 1989, the magazine named the Stones’ “Satisfaction” as the best single of the past 25 years, with Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” placed at No. 2 — a reversal of the latest ranking.

Last year’s Rolling Stone magazine list of the top 500 rock albums of all time put the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” at No. 1.

Source billboard.com.

The highly anticipated film “Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny” will likely begin shooting in March, group member Kyle Gass tells Billboard.com. Beforehand, Gass and partner Jack Black will hit the studio with the Dust Brothers’ John King to record new songs for the soundtrack, which is expected to double as the next Tenacious D album.

Source billboard.com.

Shock jock Howard Stern made his latest pitch to drum up support for his switch to satellite radio by giving away hundreds of free Sirius Satellite Radio boomboxes Thursday.

Thousands of fans chanting “Howard! Howard!” under the direction of midriff-baring cheerleaders turned out to get the free goods in Manhattan’s Union Square and hear Stern make his case for listeners to pay for radio.

“This will be dominant form of media because there is no government regulation,” said Stern. “It’s the death of the FCC. They have ruined commercial broadcasting — down with the FCC!”

Stern gave away 500 boombox units and thousands of certificates for free radios from a mobile stage adorned with American flags while Ozzy Osborne’s ‘Crazy Train’ and Rage Against the Machine blared from giant side speakers.

“I want them to experience radio the way it should be,” said Stern. “20 years ago I got into radio and it sucked. I went and I made a different kind of radio and now the FCC is dismantling it. It isn’t right. It’s gonna stop. Satellite radio is the future.”

Source CNN.com.

Gregg Allman will take a break from the Allman Brothers Band for a brief run of East Coast tour dates, kicking off Jan. 21 in Jim Thorpe, Pa. Traveling under the “& Friends” banner, the Southern rock veteran has dates scheduled through the end of the month, including a two-night stand in New York.

According to Allman’s official Web site his “friends” band is made up of singer Floyd Miles, bassist Tommy Miller, guitarist Mark McGee, keyboardist Neal Larson, drummer James van de Bogert and a horn section made up of trumpeter Richard Boulger and saxophonists Chris Karlic and Jay Collins.

Allman’s last solo album, “Searching for Simplicity,” appeared in 1997 via the Sony-affiliated 550 Music label.

Here are the Gregg Allman & Friends tour dates:

Jan. 21: Jim Thorpe, Pa. (Penn’s Peak)
Jan. 22: Uncasville, Conn. (Mohegan Sun Casino)
Jan. 23: Sayreville, N.J. (Starland Ballroom)
Jan. 25-26: New York (B.B. King’s Blues Club)
Jan. 28: Niagara Falls, N.Y. (Seneca Niagara Casino)
Jan. 29: Glenside, Pa. (Keswick Theatre)
Jan. 30: Falls Church, Va. (State Theatre)

Source billboard.com.

Rock act Mercury Rev will return next year with a new V2 album, “The Secret Migration.” In an unusual move, the 13-track set will be available Jan. 25 in digital form exclusively via Apple’s iTunes Music Store, but won’t hit traditional retail outlets in North America until late April. In Europe and England, it will be released Jan. 24.

The piano-and-string laden first single “Secret for a Song” is available for paid download via the band’s official Web site, which is also offering ringtones of that track and the new songs “Across Your Ocean” and “Diamonds.”

Produced by longtime collaborator Dave Fridmann, “The Secret Migration” is sure to delight fans of Mercury Rev’s wide screen, psychedelia-tinged rock, offering more of a hopeful outlook than some of the darker material on 2001’s “All Is Dream.” Highlights include the propulsive, shimmering “Vermillion” and the exhilarating “Arise,” dashed with Fridmann’s flair for sonic detail.

Mercury Rev is in the midst of a European tour that includes support slots with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and a handful of headlining dates. As previously reported, the group will also perform at the Shellac-curated All Tomorrow’s Parties in the U.K. on Dec. 4. A seven-date U.K. tour will begin March 5 in Newcastle.

Source billboard.com[url].

Ben Kweller, the Flaming Lips, the Raveonettes, Death Cab for Cutie, Cake and the Dandy Warhols lead the list of bands covering oldies for Stubbs the Zombie: The Soundtrack. Due out March 15th, the compilation provides the audio backdrop for a video game set in 1959 in fictional Punchbowl, Pennsylvania. The game pits wealthy industrialist Andrew Monday against Stubbs the Zombie, after Monday builds his tech-happy “City of the Future” on a burial ground. War between humans and corpses ensues.

The Lips do the Wizard of Oz classic “If I Only Had a Brain”; the Raveonettes cover “My Boyfriend’s Back,” co-written by their producer Richard Gottehrer for Sixties girl group the Angels; and Kweller does “Lollipop,” a Number Two hit for another girl group, the Chordettes, in 1958.

“I thought it would be such a good juxtaposition to be in this happy town in Pennsylvania singing ‘Lollipop’ while you’re a zombie killing people,” Kweller says. “‘Lollipop, lollipop,’ and everything’s good and happy except you’re all going to die.”

Beyond the basic changing of pronouns in the song from he to she, Kweller’s version stayed faithful to the original, with band members competing to sing the song’s more distinctive vocal accents. “We went around the room to see who had the lowest vocal and John [drummer Kent] won, so he did the [bass] ‘doo do do do’ part,” Kweller says. “We went around the room to see who had the best lollipop [popping] sound, and it happened to be the owner of the studio. It’s one of those songs that has such stigma to it that you can’t really remove any of those parts and try to make it your own. It was really fun though . . . I’m really excited to play the game.”

Stubbs the Zombie track listing:

“Lollipop,” Ben Kweller
“My Boyfriend’s Back,” the Raveonettes
“Earth Angel” Death Cab for Cutie
“Everyday,” Rogue Wave
“Strangers in the Night,” Cake
“There Goes My Baby,” the Walkmen
“All I Have To Do Is Dream The Dandy Warhols
“Mr. Sandman,” Oranger
“If I Only Had a Brain,” the Flaming Lips
“Tears on My Pillow,” Clem Snide
“Shakin’ All Over,” Rose Hill Drive
“Lonesome Town,” Milton Mapes
“The Living Dead,” Phantom Planet

Source rollingstone.com.