2004

Phish keyboardist Page McConnell’s band Vida Blue will be the subject of the DVD “Vida Blue and the Spam Allstars — Live at the Fillmore.” Due Nov. 30, the release chronicles a recent show at the San Francisco venue featuring Vida Blue in tandem with the Miami-based six-piece Spam Allstars. The set list includes a cover of Phish’s “Cars Trucks Buses.”

Bonus features include the band’s first meeting with the real Vida Blue, a star pitcher for the Oakland Athletics in the 1970s, as well as footage of McConnell racing stock cars and participating in a demolition derby. Fans who pre-order the DVD through Phish’s official Web site will receive a bonus DVD with additional footage of McConnell behind the wheel at Vermont’s Champlain Valley Fair.

Source billboard.com.

ESPN

The Vote for Change Tour raised more than $15 million to get out the vote for John Kerry. Now artists from the historic shows, including R.E.M., Dave Matthews Band, Pearl Jam and Bonnie Raitt, are looking beyond the election with a new drive to fund renewable-energy programs in states where the bands played.

Led by Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard and his fiancee, Liz Weber (a consultant for environmentally friendly construction projects), the bands have donated more than $80,000 of their own money so far and have announced two contributions: a solar hot-water and electric-power system for the Family Center agencies in Madison, Wisconsin, and a solar-powered hurricane shelter installed at Palm Beach Central High School in Wellington, Florida.

“I started to think about what was important and what I wanted to see happen differently,” says Gossard. “Sometimes that means getting involved in the political process, and sometimes it means moving an issue you care about forward.”

Source rollingstone.com.

A hip colour scheme and fresh logo will be unveiled along with new rails this winter throughout Whistler Blackcomb’s five terrain parks and three pipes.

“This fall we’ve been busy creating new rails and styling the park up with a brand new logo, and colour scheme,” says Stu Osborne, Terrain Parks Supervisor. “We’re moving away from our traditional red over to a unique look of avocado and dark green.”

A brand new logo for Whistler Blackcomb’s Terrain Parks will also be stencilled on all of the rails, completing the extreme makeover. “When it comes to terrain parks change is always good,” says Mike Douglas, professional skier and member of Whistler Blackcomb’s Pro Athlete Team. “A new park logo, colours and signature rails will bring a fresh experience to skiers and riders in the terrain parks.”

After January 27, freestyle enthusiasts with day jobs can look forward to night sessions in the Super Night Pipe. The Super Night Pipe was built in preparation for the Nokia FIS Snowboard World Championships January 15-23, 2005 and once the major event takes place it will be open to the public at Night Moves, the mountains’ night skiing and riding program. The Super Night Pipe will feature impressive World Cup sanctioned specs: 150 metres of effective wall length, and a 5-metre wall height and will be groomed by a new Zaugg Pipe Monster specifically purchased for the maintenance of the Super Night Pipe.

The Whistler Blackcomb Terrain Park Team has an impressive resume, winning 27 Top 3 Park and Pipe Awards since 1996, unmatched by any resort park team in the world. “Each year our team uses its collective expertise to take our terrain parks and pipes to the next level,” says Osborne. “This year, capital expenditures will aid the process. $40,000 will be spent in the Whistler Blackcomb terrain parks to upgrade rails and create new, progressive rail shapes, including several signature rails. A new Zaugg Pipe Shaper on Whistler will increase the introductory pipe’s wall height from 10-feet to 13-feet and three new additional Piston Park Bullies have also been purchased for use on both mountains.”

“We are all about progression,” says Peter Young, Whistler Blackcomb Events Manager. “Many of our guests, especially young people, want to ride the park so we ensure quality hits are built in every level. Guests can learn on a small table-top and work their way up through the sizes to become better riders.”

With two awards each, Modest Mouse and Coheed & Cambria are the top winners of the inaugural mtvU Woodie Awards. C&C, which led with three nominations, picked up the “Soundtrack of My Life Woodie” or best album honor for “In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3” (Columbia) and “road woodie” for best live performance.

The band missed out on the “Streaming Woodie” (most streamed) for the song “A Favor House” to Fallout Boy’s “Grand Theft Autumn/Where Is Your Body?” (Fueled By Ramen). Meanwhile, Modest Mouse took the “Woodie of the Year” or best artist award and the “Silent But Deadly Woodie” (best music video) for “Float On.”

Winners, which also include Sum 41, Taking Back Sunday and the Killers, were determined through public online and telephone voting. mtvU GM Stephen Friedman says the Woodies are “the first awards to honor the music college students live their lives to. It is their award to give to the artists they love, and the response has been tremendous.”

An offshoot of MTV, mtvU is a 24-hour network broadcasting to more than 700 U.S. college campuses. A one-hour special honoring the winners will premiere Friday (Nov. 5) on the network and will periodically repeat throughout the following week.

Source billboard.com.

Rock trio Sleater-Kinney has signed with Sub Pop after releasing its past four albums for independent label Kill Rock Stars. The group will begin recording its debut for the Seattle-based label tomorrow (Nov. 4) with producer Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev) in upstate New York, with an eye on a May release.

“We instigated it because we wanted to do something different,” vocalist/guitarist Corin Tucker tells Billboard.com. “We really like the team that’s at Sub Pop now. There are people there who are really enthusiastic and putting out really good music. We’ve done a lot of records with Kill Rock Stars and we really respect them. But we just thought it was time to re-energize our music career.”

“We waited until the time was right for us,” she continues. “In terms of where we are as a band, we really want to take it to the next level. We just feel like we have it in us. It was either the time for us to shut it down or take it to the next level, and we know we’ve got a lot of music still left in us.”

The band’s most recent studio effort, 2002’s “One Beat,” debuted at No. 5 on Billboard’s Top Independent Albums chart and No. 2 on the Heatseekers tally. The set has sold 73,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

“They were wondering why we hadn’t approached them and we kind of felt like goofballs,” says Sub Pop general manager Megan Jasper. “Had we known the situation, we would have spoken to them a lot earlier!”

Tucker says 11 songs are “pretty much done” for the new album. “Some of them are much longer than we’ve ever written before,” she offers. “There’s actually a space jam in between two of the songs.”

The band is hoping Fridmann will provide “an atmospheric touch that is going to match the songs we’ve written. The songs we’ve written are really heavy. We want them to have an organic feel that is simplistic and yet sophisticated at the same time.”

As previously reported, Sleater-Kinney will team with Wilco and the Flaming Lips for a New Year’s Eve concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

Source billboard.com.

Action Figure, an Austin-based creative agency specializing in film production and design has just finished producing the new music video for the Grammy award winning band, The Flaming Lips. The Flaming Lips’ soon to be released single, “Sponge Bob & Patrick Confront the Psychic Wall of Energy”, will be the first single on the soundtrack for Warner Bros.’ “Sponge Bob Square Pants” movie. (Other bands featured on the album will be Wilco, the Shins, Ween, Motorhead and Avril Lavigne). Action Figure worked with the Lips’ longtime film collaborator, Bradley Beesley and the band’s frontman Wayne Coyne, as a directorial duo. The Action Figure team headed production efforts with AF’s Mark Miks as the director of photography, George Sledge as the producer, and Ariel Quintans as editor.

Craig Denham and Ellen Lampl were the local art directors responsible for the design of the appropriately outrageous sets that filled an entire hangar at Austin Studios, this past weekend. A giant pirate ship, a salivating mouth the size of a large truck (in which the band members were filmed costumed as different food items), seven-foot plastic bubbles and tons of pink foam were among the scenes of the shoot. “This project seemed made for us. Getting to stick Mark and his camera inside a giant bubble dunked in foam was a particular thrill, but the best was seeing the lead singer of one of my favorite bands dance around dressed as a hunk of cheese, covered in saliva”, said George Sledge, producer with Action Figure. “As fun as that was, the edit will really be hilarious,” said Matt Hovis, creative director with Action Figure. “Our editor Ariel Quintas is so stoked about this one that he didn’t mind us double booking him for it. Southwest Airlines by day, The Lips by night.”

Action Figure is known for their award-winning film production, identity, and graphic design for clients such as IBM, Vignette, Tivoli and Ballet Austin. Located in a historic building in downtown Austin, Action Figure assists local, regional and national clients with everything from the production of television commercials to logo design, as well as all forms of multimedia and animation graphics.

A making-of video, which will run on Nickelodeon, was shot simultaneously by Ben Steinbauer with Dan Brown as Creative Consultant to the video. The Sponge Bob Square Pants Movie opens in theaters on November 9, and the music video should be released in early December.

For more information visit: http://actionfigure.com/.

Today is election day, please remember to excersie your privilege and right to vote.